Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance (20 page)

A startled look upward as I felt the sudden downdraught (downgale more like) revealed that a helicopter was not only directly above us but about to land on us.

I had little time to attend to helicopters. Gaithuri showed every intention of taking off herself in the direction of Agia Galini on the other side of the bay. In which case she would damn well have to take me with her. I was certainly not going to let go.

Perceiving the commotion he was causing, the pilot sportingly moved ahead and up a bit and succeeded in enveloping me in a minor sandstorm.

Through the murk I could dimly and briefly see the Greek Air Force insignia and also the pilot making unmistakable signals that we should return whence we had come.

It was a superfluous gesture. All I wanted to do was restrain Gaithuri from going there too fast. The helicopter sheered off with some friendly waves from the cockpit and some obvious hilarity and another crisis was over.

It proved to be the last.

Back unwillingly but willy-nilly on the tarmac of the main road I was diverted fortuitously by a barely legible sign pointing its ancient finger along a footpath which said
Phaestos
.

It led me mysteriously through aisles and naves of bamboo and palm and olive to the patterned plinths and patios of the great Minoan ruin.

From there we followed another little-used track to the saddle between the mountains from which I, at last, looked down on the tree-shaded huts and villas and
tavernas
of Matala.

One more hour and I was being greeted in the village square by handshakes and claps on the back and the familiar phrase of welcome after long absence: “
Kalos sas iltharlay”
if I can spell it the way it sounds.

While I was trying to prevent them from slapping Gaithuri on the back as well, Andreas, the proprietor of the Glasshouse Hotel ran up to me with a bottle of Greek champagne in his hands.

“An Englishman and his wife were here two months ago,” he said. “They told me to give you this when you arrived.”

I felt it and told him to put it in the fridge for half an hour. Later it was far from the only toast I drank to unknown benefactors, absent friends and, for all I cared, unknown warriors.

But first, there was Gaithuri to be attended to. The only cause she had for celebration was having the load and saddle taken off her back.

Then I led her, as usual, to a patch of sand where she had a delicious roll. Finally I tethered her to the telephone pole in front of my hut on the hillside where there was a patch of reeds and where the winter rains had produced a fine crop of grass and edible weeds.

I bought a loaf of bread and the largest apple I could find to supplement half a bucket of grain, and tried to explain when I saw the look of surprise and delight in her eye, that this was in lieu of the bottle of champagne in which I regretted she could not join me.

“Your wanderings are over, Gaithuri
mu
,” I found myself saying, and wondering how long it would be before I stopped thinking of her as a talking companion as well as a walking companion.

Suddenly, I recalled a poem by a bloke named T. S.
Eliot:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Gaithuri took a big bite at the apple I held at her lips and reflected gravely as she chewed. Whatever she was thinking she kept to herself.

Since I couldn't take Gaithuri with me when I left Crete the time was bound to come when, in her own interests, I would have to dispose of her.

There had been so many cash offers for her on our way round the island that I didn't anticipate any difficulty in finding a buyer. What I did anticipate was some difficulty in finding a buyer who would please us both.

I would say the common factors required by Gaithuri and me – and there was no need for any prolonged consultation – were an adequate supply of food and water, a minimum of labour and an absence of small boys and girls.

The third requirement may need some explanation. The relations between Greeks and their animals were curious and in many cases would have been disapproved of, especially by the English.

It was strictly a working arrangement and although the Greek farmer may often have seemed to treat his beast of burden harshly he was fully aware that without a sufficient supply of energy-giving food he was not going to have an energetic animal.

Also it would have been very wrong to confuse a Cretan donkey such as Gaithuri with the ones you'd have seen on England's summer beaches. On the whole, master and donkey in Crete understood each other pretty well and got on well enough together.

As far as small boys and girls were concerned they seemed to think that all donkeys – and dogs and cats for that matter – were there to be kicked or to have stones thrown at them.

Gaithuri hated children and this hatred was obviously founded in unhappy experience. She would lay back her ears and snort with rage whenever any child under the age of twelve came anywhere near her.

One of my constant worries on my journey was that Gaithuri would lash out (as indeed she often did) and catch some unwary child on the head.

The fact that Gaithuri ended up very much preferring me to her human compatriots demonstrated that I had introduced some new elements into her life that were clearly appreciated and which revealed perhaps the need for a general improvement in the living conditions of all Cretan donkeys.

It was this which now complicated the matter of her disposal. What most of her fellow donkeys accepted as a normal pattern of existence would now be judged by Gaithuri against a different sort of relationship.

And I didn't think she would like the change.

My job was to find somebody who would treat her more or less in the same way as I had and naturally I thought, at first, of other foreigners, preferably English, who were walking and hitching round Crete. At the same time I couldn't help feeling that Gaithuri had done enough walking for a while and had earned a long period of peaceful, well-fed immobility.

So it was more to test the market than to find an immediate customer that I spelled out in capitals on a
sheet of white cardboard DONKEY FOR SALE SPEAKS ENGLISH, and took Gaithuri for a stroll through the village with the sign prominently displayed.

It was, as an attraction, more successful than I had expected. A quick crowd of young people gathered round us.

“Hi. How many dollars you asking?” a bearded student asked me.

Before I could stop him or shout a warning he had slapped Gaithuri heartily on the rump. The reaction was predictable and immediate. Her ears went flat, her head went down, her back buckled and her hind hooves flashed out all in one simultaneous movement.

The student, an alert young man, saw it coming and received the double impact going away like a boxer rolling with a punch. Fortunately, also, he had turned his back on the donkey.

But he made no further proposition nor did anybody else and that particular form of sales promotion was hastily abandoned.

That night I talked the situation over with my friend Xenophon who kept a
taverna
in the village and who had a small farm on the outskirts.

I soon came to the conclusion that if Xenophon would buy Gaithuri the three requirements would be fulfilled. A kindly man, he would be sure to feed her properly and not overwork her, and there were no small children around his farm who might abuse her. Also, and this was the biggest advantage of all, I would be able to see her every day whenever I was in Matala.

Xenophon was agreeable to taking her but was not keen on paying the price I knew she was worth – chiefly because he was short of cash. But if Xenophon was short
of money he still had a
taverna
.

I sold Gaithuri to him for a plate of moussaka and a carafe of red wine every day I was in Matala.

This suited Xenophon. It suited me too. For I was more anxious to ensure that Gaithuri would be well treated than to exchange her for hard cash.

I led Gaithuri to her new home reflecting sadly that this was probably our last walk together. Reflecting too on the hundreds of miles we had walked together through some of the loveliest scenery in the world over some of the roughest going in the world.

It was astonishing to me that apart from normal wear and tear neither of us had suffered a single disability in circumstances that could have produced a sprained ankle or broken leg at almost any time. In a year of exposure to all the seasons I had not even had a runny nose. Nor had the donkey.

It had been perhaps the happiest and most rewarding year of my life. And it was supposed to be my last year. I had learnt many things, chiefly about myself and, of course, about donkeys.

It was no reflection on Gaithuri to say that when I resumed my odyssey – as I fully intended to do when it stopped raining – it would not be in the company of a donkey. At least, not that year…

It was simply that my feet and legs were showing signs of wear and tear after carrying a burden averaging about 200 pounds around Crete.

So I'd give them a rest for a while and give my arms some exercise. This didn't mean that I was about to walk
round an island on my hands.

I'd decided that a rowing boat would provide good and comfortable opportunities for movement and variety.

Maybe I should have traded Gaithuri in for a boat.

You couldn't turn your back on them for a minute, could you? On my returning to Crete and Matala after an absence of some three months, Xenophon broke the news to me as soon as he had stopped shaking my hand.

“Gaithuri is going to have a baby.”

I gaped at him.

“It's not possible. She's much too old.”

“No, no! You will see for yourself in the morning.”

The bus from Heraklion had dropped me at my destination at sunset and it was rapidly getting too dark to risk clambering up the mountainside above Xenophon's small farmhouse where the donkey was tethered. Also his
taverna
in the village offered an immediate welcome.

In the first light of the new day I was wakened by a noise that was at first strange to ears attuned, during my absence, to more civilised sounds, yet disturbingly familiar.

Suddenly I sat upright in bed. It was Gaithuri. There was no other donkey in all Crete that could fill a bray with such deep and long-drawn-out poignancy and mournfulness – and with no reason that I could ever discover except perhaps despair at the lot of donkeys in general…

I got up immediately and took the half-loaf of bread with which I had provided myself the previous night for just this moment. And headed in the general direction of the bray.

I had dressed myself carefully in clothes which she knew and which would give her a better chance of recognising me – because dammit, I wanted to be
recognised.

So I wore my blue woollen jersey and blue jeans that she had followed through so many hundreds of miles of winter marching and which was probably the last impression she had of me before I left Matala.

There was no knowing, of course, whether it was the chunk of bread in my hand or the blue jersey or even genuine pleasure at seeing me again, but when I was still 100 meters away she jerked her head up from grazing and her ears snapped from horizontal to vertical.

I shouted the familiar greeting to her: “
Hela gaithuraki mu
!” (Here, my little donkey) and her reaction left no doubt of recognition and joy.

She trotted out as far as the rope would allow her and then pranced to and fro in obvious eagerness to get to me. If those snuffles and snorts and miniature braying I could hear didn't mean:
“It's good to see you. Where the hell have you been? Did you bring me a present?”
I knew less about donkey talk and female behaviour than I thought I did.

She nuzzled me briefly and permitted a couple of tickles behind the ears before concentrating her interest on the bread.

I examined her closely. She looked only slightly plumper than usual, but there were other indications, known to vets and any contemporary kindergarten biology class, that she was in an interesting condition. I sought out Xenophon.

There were a number of things I felt I had a right to know.

“Who is the father?” I demanded.

Xenophon gave a Mediterranean shrug and laughed.

“Nobody will ever know. One who came in the
night.”

“Well then, when did it happen?”

“That we will only be able to tell when the small one arrives and we can count back from nine to zero. Maybe another two or three months.”

I suspected his arithmetic but obviously Gaithuri was the only one who could give me the information I was seeking and Gaithuri wasn't talking. For all I knew she might end up with a mule.

All I could do was leave strict instructions with Xenophon that, wherever I was at the time, he would write and let me know when the birth occurred and the sex of the offspring.

In the meantime, though she was no longer strictly my responsibility, I determined to see that her diet was suitably embellished in keeping with the needs of an expectant mother. I hoped she didn't acquire a taste for strawberries and cream and caviar. It looked, in fact, that I would be in a position to supply those extra needs for a good deal longer than I had expected.

By now I had hoped to be in Corfu (which the Greeks call Kerkyra) scanning the harbours and beaches for a rowing boat suitable for my next odyssey.

Unfortunately I broke a wrist in a football match against a Greek team after a foul tackle by a boy of ten and as I knew no way of rowing in a straight line with only one hand I had to await recovery.

The description of odyssey was not inapt for my new venture. Without delving too deeply into the truth or otherwise of the exploits of Homer's hero it would have been true to say that in my selection of an island to row around (I was tired of walking) thoughts of Ulysses had occupied my mind.