Free Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island by Lawrence Durrell

absolutely motionless. Before him on the blotter lay the great key of the house, which he poked from time to time in a reproachful way. He put his finger to his lips with a conspiratorial air and motioned me to a chair. “They are all here, my dear,” he hissed, “getting ready.” He pointed to the café across the road where the cobbler had gathered his family. They looked more like seconds. They sat on a semicircle of chairs, sipping coffee and arguing in low voices; a number of beards waggled, a number of heads nodded. They looked like a rugger scrum in an American film receiving last-minute instructions from their captain. Soon they would fall upon us like a ton of bricks and gouge us. I began to feel rather alarmed. “Now, whatever happens,” said Sabri in a low voice, tremulous with emotion, “do not surprise. You must never surprise. And you don’t want the house at all, see?”
    I repeated the words like a catechism. “I don’t want the house. I absolutely don’t want the house.” Yet in my mind’s eye I could see those great doors (“God,” Sabri had said, “this is fine wood. From Anatolia. In the old days they floated the great timbers over the water behind boats. This is Anatolian timber—it will last forever”). Yes, I could see those doors under aglossy coat of blue paint.… “I don’t want the house,” I repeated under my breath, feverishly trying to put myself into the appropriate frame of mind.
    “Tell them we are ready,” said Sabri to the shadows and a bare footed youth flitted across the road to where our adversaries had gathered. They hummed like bees, and the cobbler’s wife detached herself from the circle—or tried to, for many a hand clutched at her frock, detaining her for a last-minute consideration which was hissed at her secretively by the family elders. At last she wrenched herself free and walked boldly across the road, entering Sabri’s shrine with a loud “Good morning” spoken very confidently.
    She was a formidable old faggot, with a handsome self-indulgent face, and a big erratic body. She wore the white headdress and dark skirt of the village woman, and her breasts were gathered into the traditional baggy bodice with a drawstring at the waist, which made it look like a loosely furled sail. She stood before us looking very composed as she gave us good morning. Sabri cleared his throat, and picking up the great key very delicately between finger and thumb—as if it were of the utmost fragility—put it down again on the edge of the desk nearest her with the air of a conjurer making his opening dispositions. “We are speaking about your house,” he said softly, in a voice ever so faintly curdled with menace. “Do you know that all the wood is …” he suddenly shouted the last word with such force that I nearly fell off mychair, “rotten!” And picking up the key he banged it down to emphasize the point.
    The woman threw up her head with contempt and taking up the key also banged it down in her turn exclaiming: “It is not.”
    “It is. ” Sabri banged the key.
    “It is not. ” She banged it back.
    “It is. ” A bang.
    “It is not. ” A counter-bang.
    All this was not on a very high intellectual level, and made me rather ill at ease. I also feared that the key itself would be banged out of shape so that finally none of us would be able to get into the house. But these were the opening chords, so to speak, the preliminary statement of theme.
    The woman now took the key and held it up as if she were swearing by it. “The house is a good house,” she cried. Then she put it back on the desk. Sabri took it up thoughtfully, blew into the end of it as if it were a six-shooter, aimed it and peered along it as if along a barrel. Then he put it down and fell into an abstraction. “And suppose we wanted the house,” he said, “which we don’t, what would you ask for it?”
    “Eight hundred pounds.”
    Sabri gave a long and stagy laugh, wiping away