Greek Short Stories
Under the Watchful State…
Too many lives have been lost, in foul weather, starvation, and disease.
Vienna did not fall, the Sultan’s will hollow in the hearts of nearby soldiers: beaten, weathered, and retreating to Ottoman borders. Pass vassals that despised the sight of them. But Nicholas has always been a Greek first, an Ottoman second.
He did not convert to the state religion, Islam.
In the year 1683, following the Christian calendar, he kept his faith close, but his friends closer. Friends from Thessaloniki, a meeting kept secret from the authorities, watching anyone that so much as breathed democracy.
Nicholas’s father spoke to him about democracy and the creation of Hellas. Now, they must accept unity under the Turks, brought together by the Turks, and given stability by the Turks.
Alas, Nicholas’s friends were expecting him, this secret meeting. It will commence once he has survived the appalling campaign back to Ottoman territory, chased by soldiers sworn to the same God Nicholas swears himself to, except, violence begets violence. Ottoman soldiers, some secretly Christian, were cut down like pests, vermin, or mongrels.
Nicholas narrowly escaped a butchering, hearing Turkish and yelling in Greek for the janissaries to find higher ground. No chance. Their bloodcurdling screams still give Nicholas nightmares, sleeping on the cold, rocky ground, with his sweaty hands being a pillow.
He lived when so many did not in this failed campaign. Of a failed siege. The Sultan’s will was a failure of conquest. Now in Thessaloniki, he dresses differently, moving cautiously, scared, and excited. A dangerous combination for a man not in his 30th summer. He comes from a large family, like his newly made friends, yet these friends may have daggers for teeth after tonight.
Something foreign and uncertain haunts his heart and mind, trying to read this Byzantine city like an unclear map. But he finds it.
A cellar door, the cellar meant for vintages. The door appears covered by a plain, worn tarp. Nicholas does not yank the tarp off the door, he instead coughs in a pattern, a code for those inside. Seconds pass while a cat chases a rat past his toes, his shoes in poor condition from the forced march back to safe territory.
Nothing feels predictable anymore. Until it does.
Coughs. In a peculiar pattern. The code unlocks, and Nicholas makes his way inside while the Islamic prayer echoes in the sky.
He greets a large man, thickly browed, and built to haul street carts from one end of this city to the next. He speaks a gruff Greek. Both men need to crouch once they enter this compact, cramped meeting space, filled with wine casks and reeking of fermented grapes. Other friends await them. One short, forty summers at best, and dressed to dispatch the unwanted and unprotected. The other one: tall, lanky, a nose-picker. Searching for gold to fill the Ottoman treasury.
The short one stands up straight, a little big for his breeches. He snorts loudly, horridly. His Greek has a sinister feeling to it, enough to make Nicholas watch his back, where the strong-built man cracks his neck twice. Nicholas understands well what he is being told. The nose-picker continues to pick his nose, distracted by this disgusting activity.
Nicholas has to answer the demanding question, spoken in no uncertain terms.
He only has one shot at this mission. He has been tasked to do the unthinkable. The nose-picker even waits for his response.
He answers. He accepts the request.
He will leave after midnight, beneath distant stars.
Watchful, Waiting…
Sprays of salty sea smack across Nicholas's grim face, his beard with stripes of grey sprayed with damp water.
The sea's spittle. A Greek rite of passage nothing short of venturing across the Aegean Sea, south and further south, to a land of dunes and ancient cliffs, where the naked eye dries out. Water. Everywhere. But where Nicholas goes, water becomes a vital resource. He takes a swig of his spring water, careful to not consume too much.
He knows he needs to be careful. How careful, remains unsure.
The merchant galley flies the Ottoman flag, the state. The apparatus that takes and gives, yet not at the same time. Nicholas had a childhood friend once that shared a traumatic experience. Young boys are taken away by janissaries, and forced into janissaries themselves. Their former identities are then lost.
His childhood friend avoided such a fatal future, now a cobbler, with his eyes either on his shoes or up to heaven.
Nicholas believes in salvation like many others. May it come early.
The galley arrives in Arabia to the sounds of prayer, the loudest sound in this sleepy port town, with traders smoking or watching for the greatest surprise of the day. Which has perhaps never arrived, nor will it.
Not of Nicholas's concern, off the galley with his cowl covering his face. He speaks Greek, he hears Arabic. The air tastes dry and lacks moisture, the sky dark and captivating, stretching in all directions.
He remains in Ottoman territory, though his venture has led to another word-of-mouth meeting.
Sandstorms often happen around these parts, per his eavesdropping. The sailors spoke Greek but could understand Turkish and Arabic. Everyone understands some Turkish if they desire to advance themselves in the Ottoman state. He has no intention of doing so, moving to the next meeting place.
Somewhere behind many buildings no higher than a church like in his hometown. Often the tallest building in towns or villages. His necklace bearing the cross hangs around his neck.
Belief in religion did not save those slaughtered soldiers. It does help with processing such trauma, and in prayer, he can move on, thankfully.
He was told in crude Greek to adjust the barrel by the entrance. He hasn't been followed, nor has drawn attention, so he tilts a barrel by the assumed door onto the ground. Nothing. He searches the ground for any clues. None.
He looks into the barrel. Not one thing is seen. He grits his teeth, sent too far away to come up short now. He adjusts the other barrel against a stack of crates. Once moved, or adjusted, he finds a clue. Not much, but enough where he can exercise his poor Arabic. He goes to the door.
One rap.
Three raps.
A cough.
Code. He then hears a cough. What he hears afterward does not correlate with a question, but instead, a riddle, spoken in Arabic. Enough to twist his language vocabulary into knots and contortions. He frowns. One word he understood. One clue he could use to leverage an entry.
He inhales slowly.
The door unlocks. He answered correctly. He has been given safe passage.
He enters.
Wary of the Watchers…
Nicholas has these moments in between travels of wanting a strong drink.
He satisfies this thirst from what he sees and even receives, but wine and coffee have grown dull, if not ordinary and routine. Cognac, Armagnac, or perhaps a certain brandy. He could leave the Ottoman state, venture west, and risk his family's livelihood even greater. With this desertion, he would betray this shaky trust. It sometimes feels sharply close to betraying him.
That plagues Nicholas worse than any other anxiety about the Ottoman state. His travels carry attention, the wrong kind. Escape and flight would go against his intentions to carry on with the mission. His reality looks grim. He grows grim and unsettled whenever he entertains these thoughts, so he resists.
He docks.
The Levant. Centuries ago, Crusaders fought for any scrap of territory they could gain or retain to satisfy their appetites of conquest and glory. Their appetites. The nail in the coffin to the Byzantines. This civilization was soon conquered by conquering Ottomans. They swept through Southern Europe with enough force to forge European political weaknesses into bold strengths.
Supposedly, Nicholas learned all this from his local priest, a historian and theologian. He learned that history acts like a windmill, a cycle, and to observe a windmill can resemble history. All that has come shall be replaced. All that has not come shall arrive. All will wait, wanting to be discovered years ago.
Years ago. Nicholas remembers his words fondly. The priest educated Nicholas more about the world and everything inside it compared to his parents, busy working and surviving. Now in the Levant, Nicholas, often silent, speaking softly behind closed, wooden doors, presses onwards with his mission.
The code: a riddle. It was spoken to him in Arabic, he has been trying to translate it into Greek. He was able to write it down on parchment with ink, but he kept this parchment close to his chest, rereading it. He repeats the riddle in Arabic, but whether or not those waiting to be met will understand, he cannot determine. Shrouded in doubts, he dispels them. He walks.
To locate this next meeting requires a horse, lies, and coin. All three take him deep into the desert. Deeper and deeper into this sandy abyss. A place so cold and hot to the senses, it must drive them mad. Living in the desert must be the definition of stoicism, a concept his priest explained to him. Under the harshest elements do people evolve into their enlightened selves.
Nicholas had a more obvious example. Poverty. Whether such harshness can evolve a man or woman into enlightenment. What it does to them. The priest fell silent. He told Nicholas that prayer transcends all understanding and suffering.
They will become bones and ash, yet prayer shall sing in the minds of millions, billions.
Nicholas shakes off this old memory of his town's priest. He has arrived at his destination. An unassuming hut in the desert, perhaps a bakery, perhaps a hideout. He dismounts, gives the horse a carrot and some water, and then approaches the door, wooden like many doors he has passed through.
Except this door has a hole for a tiny mirror or glass. Interesting. A little fascination far from home. Under these starry skies and against darkened hearts. He stands before the door, tired from riding, sunburnt across his dirty face, rough in texture, yet he remains alert, ready to speak.
He says the riddle in Arabic, a language that calls to him in some previous life. He hears not an answer, but an unlocked door, allowing him entry.
Once again, he enters.
The Watchful and The Watched…
So close to Thrace, so far from success, but rather, so much closer to Ankara.
Through the Levant, Nicholas has admired and fallen into dismay with himself lately. He has admired his ability to explore such places in an empire, from Greece to Arabia, from Arabia to the Levant, and then upwards to Türkiye, the home of the Ottoman state. A place of breathtaking beauty, but truly, looming dismay. A place that causes Nicholas to pull his hood much greater over his eyes, keeping those eyes dull and plain, not reflective and serious.
That meeting.
If he were to see a completed puzzle, given the pieces, connecting each piece to form a complete picture, this meeting felt yet like another puzzle piece. Yes, the meeting had its tensions, and yes, he has a mission, an ultimate task of risk and reward, but while he travels by horse and cart into cities old as Ancient Rome, he saw how life could be so grandeur, except he shrunk it so greatly to the tip of a quill.
It has thrown him into a quagmire of thought while he shields his face from the generous sunlight, unwilling to embrace the Mediterranean temperatures. Death is never certain of when, but life feels truly endless, a sentence that never ends, commas that multiple, and periods that do not end the story, but adjust it. His story will end, however. Death by confusion and doubt. Not a disease or an accident.
He enters the most dangerous place in the world. The place of history, conquest, and supremacy. The Sultans.
He hears of janissaries and calvary that march towards Europe, the problematic parts of the empire, although others parts could unravel with enough tugging and pulling. This empire that Nicholas imagines will grow sick and infirm, inflicted with rot and decay. Only if it cannot expand into Europe, strike deeper north, strike deeper east, or strike deeper south.
Empires expand until nature prevents them from doing so. The world Nicholas understands, living in an empire as a Greek, which had empires of old. Empires, kingdoms, and monarchies. Rulers, absolute rulers, and divine rulers. The power was removed from the people and vested into one person.
What anyone understands and what makes sense. What keeps things flowing rather than blocked up with debris? What prevents change?
A wind glides across his cloak and clothing. A fine wind, great for a sail at full mast. He inhales, reaching Ankara in tentative hours underneath long and drawn-out days. Once he reaches this city, the final puzzle piece will be deciphered, arranged, and inserted into an execution that makes his years in the Ottoman armies a blur of some past.
He daydreams about Arabic, religion, and how blissfully simple life could be if he never had feelings burning in his heart. In his mind. If he used his mind for good and not evil.
If he was what his priest wanted him to be. If he was a good person.
But people do not appear like light and dark, some glimmer and shadow. People are knots. Twisted, contorted, and interwoven where nothing can unwind them.
He sighs. He might not succeed in this mission. The responsibility with each meeting grows more encumbering and apprehensive. He must rely on Turkish, not Arabic, not Greek. What a wonder being Greek. What adaptability. What consequence and unfolding. Centuries of history and culture that mix with other cultures and civilizations like dyes in fabric. He looks around him, watching the empire remain in order. Order. The purpose of empire is order.
Nicholas smiles thinly. Why empires exist. Order. Civility. Peace. Stability. Splendor. Unite as one, divide as many, never to find old glory.
Nicholas has a feather and no ink. He must coat the feather in ink. Yet where the ink must coat the feather, only he knows, and only he can show it to the right eyes. The agents of the state may not have noticed him thus far.
They will notice him now.
Without Watchful Eyes Anymore…
In the dungeons of a great city that reeks of hopelessness, Nicholas awaits his fate. He, and his conspirators, have been caught, imprisoned, and await fate.
Time crawls with each droplet of water that hits the puddle beneath the metal bar window, the call to prayer echoing through the dungeons while sunlight shines through, reaching stone walls inside this damp, dark place of neglect.
Nicholas knows the end shall arrive, alone in a cell, resting against the cold stone, reflecting on how much simpler life could've been had he not sought fortune in disguise as lies. They caught too much attention in Ankara, someone noticed, and secret policemen were on their trail.
It happened fast, faster the decision to place judgment without a trial, which makes Nicholas smirk.
Justice in an empire as aging and cumbersome as this one wouldn't matter to those judging Nicholas's fate, those who enforce the status quo, and those he sought to overthrow through intrigue and mysterious guile. Through conversations that fell silent in distant dwellings or unknown places, Nicholas listened and acted, tried and failed. He blinks, remembering a simpler life, with a family, a home, and a trade, a locksmith. Something worthy and unimportant, unthreatening, and unassuming to anyone, any janissary, any lording official.
He could've chosen a simpler life, lived by his priest's words and teachings, the rhetoric gained in religion, the exposure to another, and the passages of time that flow generations from him. Someone Greek, someone of his lineage, and somebody who knows the future, born into it. His children, and grandchildren.
He threw it all away for foolishness. He threw away the simple closeness of family and community for vengeful accomplishment. Destroy the system at the inside, even if it would tarnish his reputation back home, and silence him forever. He has been silenced. He rots in a dungeon, waiting for that cell door to open, and the last of life to dwindle.
These men with faces that crumble him, these men that do not resemble his nostalgia. They too fade away into nothingness, as they all will by their devious actions against the state, the Sultan, and the system. They have been cursed by the guards as nightmares to their families and brethren, haunting their kin and community as monsters, disasters that smear good hope with awfulness. They will never be old.
Nicholas sulks in his cell, hearing footsteps and words in a language he knows will be the last he will ever hear. Not Greek, but Turkish, and all he can remember were conversations in Greek: with his priest, with his neighbors, with his fellows in the army. He pictures himself listening to his priest, speaking truths into his mind, yet lies did not scamper from the truths.
They hid, but they remained in Nicholas's mind, energizing him to adventure and wonder, but pulling him deeper and deeper into catastrophe. He would hear the winds pass by his ears, the sun beams upon his face, and the sea sprays that tasted of salt and stone. He smelled the stench of oils on the ships and touched the smoothness of a ship's wooden surface.
He remembers it like it was not long ago.
His cell door opens and the guard orders him to stand, exit, and walk. Nicholas knows to resist means silence sooner rather than later. Eventually, all the conspirators, like himself, will meet darkness and sorrow. These guards view them with contempt, though in their stern eyes, hints of sympathy may exist, wishing they understood better why such a dangerous plan was put forth, but Nicholas knew why while being shuffled off.
He did. He believes, that until the last light enters his eyes and mind, an empire only survives if it changes, and change will come to the Ottoman state, one way or another. Not in his lifetime, or the young guard's lifetime, but perhaps someone else's lifetime, it will come. Change remains the catalyst for daring behavior as Nicholas exhales his freedom away.
His watchfulness and patience have concluded. Into memory and solitude.
Into failure.
