Happy Holidays Corfu Magazine
Articles and Features (published quarterly) about Corfu and its many attractions
Vol. 2, No. 1; September 15, 2006
© 2005-2006 Happy Holidays Corfu
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What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?
(continued from previous page)
As the Overdraft lumbered into the tiny crescent-shaped cove at Agni, K. and I stood on the ship’s prow and surveyed the sublime scenery. Beyond the dock was a sandy beach that gave way immediately to a verdant hillside covered by a carpet of springtime flowers. A single, whitewashed building with a sagging tile roof and green window shutters stood at one end of the beach—the venerable Taverna Nicolas, in business continually since 1901. In front of the building itself, a patio sheltered by a mature grape arbor welcomed guests to a shady repast. Upon the hillside stood a few others buildings, one in particular more dominant than the others—the writers’ former residence.
At the end of the pier, a brown-skinned man with white hair waited to take the Overdraft’s mooring ropes; and as Philbar Cullinain came out of the wheelhouse the man beamed and called out a salutation: “Yasas, my friends! Welcome!”
Cullinain stood on the deck and began tossing the mooring ropes onto the dock. Enthusiastically, he returned the greeting: “Yasou, Dionysus! Tikanis?”
“Poli kala! Poli kala!” The Greek’s smile was bright and broad. Obviously, the two knew one another from past visits. After the ropes were tied off, Philbar jumped from the deck to the pier and embraced his old friend.
I was next off the boat, and I held out my hand first for K., then for Dazey.
“Too long since your last visit, Philly,” said Dionysus. Then he turned to Dazey, whom he also apparently knew well. “How are you, Missus?” he asked as he moved to embrace her.
“I’ve brought new initiates,” Dazey informed him.
“Welcome, welcome,” said Dionysus to K. and to me. “Philly and Dazey are my special friends. So of course their friends are also my friends! Now come sit underneath the vine where it’s cool, and have a drink with me.” Dionysus led them over the pier toward the taverna.
“Yes, a drink! Krassi from Dionysus himself! How can you beat that?” Cullinain said.
“Today we have special wine!” announced Dionysus. “Krassi neo!”
“Any old vintage is good enough for us,” said Cullinain.
“Bottom of the barrel, so to speak,” said Dazey.
“Only the best for my friends!” proclaimed Dionysus.
“You’re too kind,” Cullinain prattled. “Too kind!”
“Oxi, my friend! Only pure nectar! The best wine!”
“Right-o, mate!”
Dionysus settled us at a table overlooking the dock, and then withdrew to bring the promised libation. Philbar faced me and asked, “What do you think, mate?”
“Idyllic place,” I assessed.
Cullinain turned to K. “Everything okay, darling?” he asked.
“Stunning,” she said.
Cullinain took the hint of lingering doubt in her voice to be simple shyness. He put his hand on her bare shoulder as Dionysus arrived with a pitcher brimming with new wine. “Krassi special!” he beamed. “Special wine for special friends!”
The wine was poured and a toast was made. “To Greece!” Philbar proclaimed.
Then food was ordered—many mezes, from kalamari to fried zucchinis; from stuffed grape leaves to feta cheese soaked in olive oil and covered with herbs; from sardines to elephant beans in tomato and cinnamon sauce. The pitcher of wine was refilled again and again by Dionysus.
“Are you familiar with the work of Lawrence Durrell?” Dazey asked me.
“Sorry to say, I’ve not read Durrell. Henry Miller, yes. I’ve read Miller’s book about Greece, Colossus of Maroussi. An extraordinary essay!”
“Oh, you must read Durrell,” she implored. “The Alexandria Quartet is quite eloquent. And, I dare say, quite sexual.”
“As was Miller’s writing.”
“Oh, yes. But not done with Durrell’s eloquence.”
“Being British, as well as a member of the Queen’s English Society, Dazey is understandably biased towards L.D.” said Philbar.
From my seat on the restaurant’s patio, I could see Durrell’s ‘White House’ perched on a low hillside not three hundred meters from where we sat. The place was elegant without being ostentatious. I tried to envision what life might have been like for the two writers-in-residence before the war broke out and foreigners were forced to leave Greece for the sake of their own safety. Considering the presumably enduring, elemental nature of this particular locale, the decades since Durrell and Miller had resided and written and reveled here had probably meant little in the way of change.
Philbar offered his own particular corollary to Dazey’s analysis:
“I rather identify with Durrell’s point of view that ‘English life is really like an autopsy…so, so dreary.’ Fleeing the icy horror of English life, Durrell’s character, Lawrence Lucifer, warms himself in Greece. You know, not far from here is The Shrine of Saint Arsenius. Durrell called it his ‘Place of Predilection.’ There is an inscription there that reads: ‘There are two birth-places: the place where you were really born, and the place of predilection where you really wake up to reality.’ I spent fifty-five years in England, much of that time in the service of HRH. I gave England my youth and my sanity.”
“Your sanity?” I questioned.
“I’ve told you a few details of my past—SAS and all that. And I told you what happened in Laos, too. After I returned to the UK, I had a nervous breakdown. I was locked up in the funny farm nearly two years. When I finally could look into the mirror without crying, they let me out—without so much as a word of thanks, mind you. I walked away from service with a suitcase full of Asian clothing and fifteen pounds sterling in my pocket. And a sense of shame I’ll carry with me to the grave!”
“And English shame is like no other shame,” Dazey added.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said.
“Mind you, the Yanks have managed to screw things up in a place or two!”
“A continuing effort, I’m afraid,” I said.
“We’re all here on Corfu for the same basic reason,” Philbar analysed. “To become invisible.”
“Is that it?” K. intoned.
“You come from Holland...” Philbar acknowledged.
“Yes,” said K.
“A neutral country…”
“In the Netherlands, we are a tolerant society,” said K.
“But, I dare say, the tolerance is a measured one, darling. Take a critical look inside yourself. Examine your deepest motives for doing whatever it is you do. Your motives for coming to Corfu. Tourists come here for sunshine and the seaside. Those who come here as ex-pats come for very different reasons. Do you know what the Greeks say about us? That the best of us has killed his own mother! And they’re right! Not one of the many foreigners living here is clean. Each and every one has a boil on his bottom.”
“That’s quite presumptuous,” said K. in her own defense.
“I’ve faced the monster inside myself,” said Cullinain sanctimoniously, “so I’ve earned the right.”
“I don’t understand that kind of remorse,” said K.
“That’s because you’ve yet to carry your cross to the Mount,” said Dazey.
“Why take up the cross at all?” K. postured.
“It’s not so much that you take up the cross,” said Philbar. “Rather it’s put upon your back.”
“It’s better not to embrace causes,” K. contended.
“Better late than never, that is my philosophy precisely,” said Philbar. “Now I prefer to drink. For obvious reasons.”
“But that doesn’t solve anything. And you’ll only ruin your health.”
“Darling, I’m already a ruin. And I drink not for my destruction but for my survival.”
“It makes no sense,” said K.
“It makes perfect sense. Think about it.”
“If you drink, drink, drink everyday, you’ll never confront your demons.”
“Right-o, darling. I don’t want to confront them. I cannot possibly face them and prevail. Better to anaesthetise the lot.”
“Where is your sense of hope?” she implored.
“Darling, I’m sixty-four years old. I haven’t a penny in my pocket. I have absolutely no responsibilities. And I have virtually no stress. At this point, that’s the best for which I can hope.”
“What about you, Dazey?” K. asked with growing incredulity.
“Not much different really,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Just a different cross to bear,” I interjected.
“That’s right.”
“Then you understand all this fatalism,” K. said to me.
“I think I do.”
“Well, I certainly don’t.”
Philbar laughed ironically. “Perhaps you’re still too young, darling. Give yourself time.”
“I hope I never feel as you say you do,” K. said emphatically.
“Take heart,” said Philbar softly. “It’s not so bad.”
“We’re all right, we’ll muddle through,” said Dazey as she finished off her fifth glass of wine. Her eyes now quite glassy, she seemed to be falling asleep by degrees. Her head began to droop, as her shoulders leaned precariously to the left. In a matter of minutes, Dazey Cullinain lay slumped upon the table, eyes closed and mouth open, spittle on her lower lip, out cold.
Alarmed, K. asked Philbar, “Is she okay?”
“It happens from time to time. She’s okay. She’ll be up in a moment, bright as a bluebird.”
“Narcolepsy?” I conjectured.
“Very observant, mate,” said Philbar.
“What is narcolepsy?” K. wanted to know.
“She falls asleep at odd moments,” I explained. “Sometimes in mid-sentence.”
“That’s right,” said Philbar calmly.
“And she’s all right?” K. asked again.
“She’ll come around any minute,” said Philbar.
“It’s something like epilepsy,” I explained. “Though it’s not well understood.” I turned to Philbar. “Has she seen a physician?” I asked.
“She’s not inclined,” Cullinain explained.
“There’s adequate treatment available,” I informed. “She should really see a neurologist.”
Philbar shook his head. “We’re all right, mate,” he said.
I took the assertion as a polite dismissal, though I was not offended.
True to prediction, Dazey awakened within minutes, barely aware that she’d fallen unconscious. “Right!” she said as if she were responding to some question posed in a conversation already in progress, though nobody really knew to what she was referring. Philbar patted her lovingly on the head. “You had a little rest, Daze. Not to worry. Dionysus is bringing more wine. The afternoon is glorious.”
“More wine?” she enquired, still feeling a bit groggy.
“Krassi neo!” Philbar affirmed.
“Where are we, Phil?” Dazey wanted to know.
“We’re in Agni, darling. We sailed the Overdraft here for a lunch with these fine folks.”
“Oh, right!” she said, regaining her cognitive balance. “Yes, I believe I will have some more wine.”
“That’s the spirit, darling,” said Philbar. And he took the carafe to refill her glass.
Dazey Cullinain had gone below to the aft-cabin for her traditional after-lunch nap and was fast asleep even before Philbar had guided the Overdraft out of the cove at Agni. Once out to open sea, the skipper fixed the throttle at three-and-a-half knots, and then called K. to the wheelhouse. “Ready to take the wheel, darling?” he asked.
“I’ve never steered a ship before,” she said. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
“No worries, darling,” he assured her. With his arm around her bare shoulder, Philbar trained K.’s eye upon a distant beacon and instructed her to point the ship with due care and attention toward the designated focal point. “I’ll check your course in half-an-hour,” he said. Then he went below to the galley to pour himself a brandy, and also one for me.
On deck, the skipper made his way over ropes and rigging to the ship’s prow, where I sat looking out to sea. Cullinain handed me a glass, and then raised his own for a toast. "Cheers, mate!" I raised my glass as well before sipping the brandy.
By this time it was no secret to me that Philbar Cullinain was somewhat prone to clever prattle, but now, in the subtlety of the Ionian twilight—a light that had brought men more strident almost to tears for its beauty—the Englishman remained quiet, introspective. No doubt, Cullinain felt a profound respect and reverence for the sea. All jokes and barbs aside, and the captain was certainly inclined to lamthingy almost any subject or situation, he seemed to enjoy, once at sea, a freedom of spirit denied him on dry land. The Overdraft was his vehicle of solace and reclamation.
I shared the quietude. My own inclination as well had always tended toward introspection, and the calm sea and distant shoreline and shimmering light encouraged a kind of dreamy meditation.
Once he’d emptied his glass, Philbar Cullinain broke the silence. “Normally, I find Yanks to be rather verbose,” he said, “but you’ve not said much about your situation. Mind you, I’m not inclined to pry if you don’t want to talk about it.”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “In some respects, my history is somewhat like your own,” I said.
Cullinain listened attentively.
“I, too, worked for my government—not in the military, but in the private sector as an engineer. I was directly involved, along with a number of other engineers, in the development of the Doppler Rangefinder System. Though at the time none of us understood the eventual application of our work.”
“Guidance systems for missiles,” said Cullinain.
“Precisely.”
“So-called smart bombs. Cruise missiles and Chimney Sweeps and the like.”
“Yes. But, as I said, we didn’t know it at the time. The project was fractioned beyond recognition. Eventually, all the engineers involved began comparing notes. Once that happened, it became obvious. Of course we understood the implications. We understood as no one else understood the ominous power of the weapons we were designing. That brought personal politics and philosophy into the mix. Some of us recoiled. But of course it was too late.”
“The Genie was out of the bottle…”
“So to speak.”
“And your conscience bothered you?”
“Somewhat to my surprise, yes. But I was naive.”
“Governments tend to count on naivety when it comes to their more nefarious intentions.”
“As your own experience has taught you,” I said.
“So you felt co-opted…”
“And trapped,” I added.
“You wanted out…”
“Yes. But there was a guard at the door. Not literally, you understand. But the pressure was intense. Nobody said you couldn’t leave, but it was understood by everybody that we were involved in a very sensitive issue.”
“The devil had you by the balls…”
“So to speak.”
“So you stayed on…”
“Until the night the bombs fell on Baghdad. That was the breaking point for me. All night long I puked into the toilette as CNN narrated the carnage.”
“Your work on display, so to speak.”
“In all its awesome power, for all the world to see. And to fear!”
“A golden opportunity for your president,” commented Cullinain.
“Of course the so-called spin was quite different, wasn’t it?”
“Wars need a righteous cause.”
“And the so-called defense of Kuwait provided one.”
“Of course there was more to the story. We can only speculate about underlying motives.”
“To me, the precise motives were irrelevant. Because I knew what was happening at ground zero. On TV, it looked incredibly clean, surgically precise. F-16 and F-17 pilots, smiling like vampires, took off on their sorties. We were the good guys, we were reassured, and nobody was going to get killed—at least nobody from our side. Back home we saw simulations that looked more like computer arcade games than real war. Think about that for a moment. It washed everybody’s hands, didn’t it? But I understood, as few others could, the real consequences. I knew that many innocent people were dying horrible deaths by an enemy they couldn’t even begin to fathom, an enemy they couldn’t even look in the eye.”
“I understand what it means to reach that breaking point, my friend. Justification is no longer possible.”
“As I said before, I was quite naive. But I was not without conscience. Something drove me to walk away from the madness. I came to Europe without direction. I never intended to stay, but one thing led to another. I fell in love.”
“I had no idea,” Cullinain chuckled.
I took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one before continuing my explanation. “At any rate,” I went on, “I drifted from place to place, not necessarily moving towards anything positive as away from something negative. Eventually, I wound up in Prague selling art.”
“A more benign occupation, I suspect.”
“I was in business there with a very enterprising Columbian woman, but a robbery finished the business.”
“Fate often plays cruel tricks,” said Cullinain.
“I suppose that depends on how you look at it,” I said. “In the end, the demise of our business in Prague is what brought me to Corfu. A twist of fate, and K.’s sudden presence in my life, which was in itself quite unexpected.”
“The gods are playing penny-ante.”
“As always,” I said.
“So, what’s your status now, mate?”
“Personal or political?” I asked.
“I was referring to your political status.”
“Somewhat precarious, I must admit.”
“A man without a vocation, a rebel without a cause…”
“More immediately, a man without a country.”
“Then you’ve not been back to America?”
“Not for ten years,” I said. “And my passport is due to expire soon.”
“Can’t you simply renew it?”
“It’s not that simple. Apparently, I have to touch the soil. Literally, that is.”
“And you have no desire to go back. Even for a short visit.”
“None whatsoever. I’ve broken my connection. That’s my coping mechanism.”
“You’re speaking of course about the guilt.”
“Yes."
“I understand.”
“After ten years in Europe, I have a life here. I’m renewed, so to speak.”
“But not in the eyes of your government…”
“I hope they’ve written me off once and for all.”
“They tend not to forget,” said Cullinain. “Especially considering your former profession.”
“No doubt. But that’s their game, isn’t it?”
“The one you now refuse to play.”
“Right.”
“I understand. It’s the same with me, you know. But achieving political anonymity is not so easy.”
“I may be about to find that out.”
“Concerning your passport?”
“Yes.”
Cullinain stroked his prominent chin in thought. “There are dozens of guys living aboard boats in Gouvia Marina trying to maintain their anonymity. But maybe there’s another way, my friend.”
“Another way?” I was all ears.
“My SAS buddies have certain connections. These guys have a way of getting things done. Of doing the impossible.”
“I’m not sure where you’re leading me,” I said.
“How would you fancy becoming a British subject?” Philbar asked.
I smiled at the prospect. “It might have certain advantages,” I conceded. “But I’m not exactly sure of the etiquette while standing before the Monarch.”
Cullinain smiled. “I can’t make any promises,” he said, “but I’ll talk with some people I know. Mind you, I won’t allude to specifics.”
“Probably a good precaution. I’ve learned not to draw attention to myself.”
“Let me see what I can learn. When does your passport expire?”
“A couple of months out,” I said.
“I see. Not much time then. Let me see what I can do for you. No promises, of course.”
“I appreciate your effort,” I said. “Though I’m not certain I’d accept a falsified document even if it were available.”
“I’m not talking about a falsified passport,” said Cullinain. “I’m talking about the genuine article. Everything legal.” He rubbed his hands together. “As I said, sometimes these guys in SAS, the older guys who have seen it up and down and in and out and every which way, can untie impossible knots, only to pull the strings to their own favor. I’ll put out the word, and then we’ll see what’s possible.”
I nodded my thanks.
“Now I must take a moment to make certain that that dear girl you’ve brought along has kept us on course. No point traveling in circles. Right-o!” He stood up, staggered a moment from a full day of drinking, and then made his way over the deck to the wheelhouse.
The sun had now set and the air had turned cool. As a bit of fog crept over the water’s surface at dusk, and as the beacon by which the novice steered was no longer visible, the captain had decided that he should personally guide the Overdraft into Gouvia Marina. Which was fine with K. She’d had her fill of piloting anyway, so she joined me on the ship’s prow.
And having risen from her nap, Dazey stood beside her husband in the wheelhouse. Studying the couple through the glass of the windscreen, I concluded that her particular sadness, or grief, though not specifically defined, was as obvious as Philbar’s.
Referring to the seascape, K. remarked, “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
“In an unworldly way,” I acknowledged.
“No doubt, Philbar will guide us through the fog,” she said.
"It would seem that Philbar is an extraordinary navigator," I said.
"Yes, it would seem so," she agreed.
* * * * *
