Крис Бекетт - The Holy Machine

‘Well we haven’t got to that stage yet.’ I snapped.

I had no idea at all what to do, other than keep wandering.

‘You shouldn’t travel in those mountains,’ I had been told by more than one well-meaning local, ‘There are bandits there who think nothing of raping women and cutting the throats of men. They will do it to Christians even, let alone atheists like you.’

But I ignored the advice, perhaps even half-hoping that an encounter with the bandits might provide a way out of my dilemma.

‘Well, you can’t earn us any money can you?’ I sneered at Lucy. ‘You’ve gone and destroyed the tools of your trade!’

Lucy said nothing, recognizing a hostile situation type HS-56.

I drove on. I wouldn’t stop until darkness came. Then I would find a room somewhere where Lucy could hide and moon over her books in the darkness.

Lucy sat near the window in a tiny room that had been vacated for us by the owner of the local store in yet another village. She had taken off her dress because it chafed against the raw flesh at the top of her arms and legs. (I don’t think this hurt in exactly the human sense, but sensors embedded in the damaged flesh clamoured constantly to the silicon brain in her chest, and took away information-processing capacity from elsewhere.)

Through the window came faintly the mournful rise and fall of the Orthodox liturgy. It was a day dedicated to the local saint, and most villagers, having crowded round to ogle at Lucy on our arrival, were now in church, where the services continued from morning to night. The storekeeper had left his fourteen-year-old son, Spiro, in charge of the tiny store which doubled as café, restaurant and bar.

I was down there drinking steadily, but already dreading the prospect of returning to Lucy: the stale smell of her suppurating flesh, her dull blank face stooped over some book or gazing into space as it pursued its slow, dull, ponderous thoughts…

There were two shepherds in the store as well as me. They had done their praying earlier in the day. One of them – Petros – was a man in his forties. Andreas, his nephew, was about my age. Both had large moustaches and were lean wiry men with sinews hardened by the daily journey up and down from the village to the stony pastures hidden away in the mountainside above.

I fascinated them. My fair skin and strange accent seemed to them uncanny. I think they would have liked to have poked at me and undressed me just to see how I was made, though not half as much as they would like to have done it to my beautiful wife. (Both had watched her silently under heavy-lidded eyes, undressing her in their minds, imagining a soft and yielding nakedness, and never guessing that under her pretty dress there was nothing but a hard plastic shell, with broken nutrient tubes and a printed manufacturer’s code).

It being impossible to undress Lucy or me, they did the next best thing: they plied me with raki to loosen my tongue, and besieged me with questions:

‘Do you really not believe in Christ?’

‘Do you admit that Constantinople is rightfully Greek?’

‘Which is the greatest country on Earth?’

‘Is not our raki the finest spirit ever made?’

‘Is it true that your women can marry who they please?’

‘Do you not even celebrate Easter?’

‘What do your soldiers think of our brave Greek Army?’

‘You may have many machines and cars, but do you admit that our men are more virile?’

After a while they challenged me to a game of cards, darting each other little triumphant glances as they raked in my drachmas.

‘Accuse us of cheating if you dare!’ said their cruel mocking smiles, but out loud they teased me for my lack of skill:

‘So you City men are not so clever at cards then, eh? For all your wonderful machines!’

I knew they were cheating, but I was too drunk to work out how – or even to fully grasp the rules of the poker-like game which they had taught me. And anyway, I knew better than to challenge them. Both shepherds wore knives at their belts which I sensed they’d be very happy to use, if they could only lure me into a quarrel which would allow them to fight with honour, and without violating their rigid code of hospitality. I pushed away the cards, trying to make a joke about not being quick enough for them.

Spiro, the storekeeper’s son, poured more raki, put a plate of sliced pomegranates in front of us and dropped another log into the crude stove in the centre of the room. It was cold at nights up here.

The two shepherds pulled at the glistening red seeds with gnarled fingers.

‘Your wife is very beautiful,’ remarked the younger shepherd, Andreas, with an odd sideways look.

The boy Spiro paused with the raki bottle in his hand, listening. He had a wide pale face, with a flat nose and eyes that stared outwards in opposite directions, so that it was hard to tell what he was really seeing.

‘She certainly is,’ said Petros, and he slapped me heartily on the knee. ‘I just hope you know how to appreciate her, my City friend. I hope you are man enough with those soft white hands of yours. Or does she need a real Greek man to show her what love is all about?’

He roared with laughter at this, slapping my thigh repeatedly and watching my face with hard, yellow, raki-soaked eyes to ensure that I did not stint myself with the laughing. He had me either way: if I laughed at an insult, that would be amusing confirmation of my lack of manhood. But if I failed to laugh at the jokes my hosts so hospitably made, that would be a slight to their honour.

So I laughed

Andreas and Spiro both grinned.

From the wall glared down the angry eyes of Archbishop Christophilos.

‘I have heard,’ said Andreas, ‘that in your City, the women are shared in common between the men. Is that not so?’

Again Petros burst out laughing, again he slapped my thigh and leaned into my face breathing garlic and meat and raki.

‘Well then, share her with Andreas and I, my friend. She’ll be satisfied, I guarantee. And if she wants more, well, I’m sure that young Spiro here would be glad to oblige. He is ugly, I grant you, but all of his family are hung like horses.’

Spiro grinned.

Clumsily attempting levity, I thanked them for their solicitude to my wife, but said that the stories they had heard were untrue and that Illyrian men were every bit as jealous as Greeks.

‘Ah,’ said Petros with a chuckle, ‘but can you fight for your women like us Greek men? Can you fight with your fists? Can you use a knife or a gun? Or have your cars and machines made you soft?’

He pulled out his long sheath knife. Its blade shone, jagged and indented by much honing.

‘Do you know how many throats I have slit with this blade?’ said Petros with a laugh, reaching out and pointing the tip of the blade at my own neck.