Tales Of Crete - Bebe - 16

Tales of Crete, a memoir . . . more or less© by Jack Schimmelman 16 Bebe The monumental occasion had occurred. Jorge reunited with Bebe. Together again for the very first time. As they stood there surveying the other, Carlos swooped in as a delighted bird, hugging, kissing Bebe, welcoming her to paradise and wouldn’t she like to sit down and have lunch with us. Jorge was less inviting. After hearing him speak about his girlfriend for months, I now was regaled with the picture of two people being so uncomfortable with each other I could actually feel icicles grow in the passionate Cretan light. Shivering a bit, I sat down with my friends, Carlos, Margot, Werner and Andrea. Jorge and Bebe went to a corner of the café to resume their introductions to each other. The rest of us spoke while focusing our gaze on those two. Jorge’s existence without Bebe was unmistakable. Faithful did not enter into his lexicon. I am sure Bebe could smell his infidelities. The scent of other women clung to Jorge as the sea to the shore. It just never left him. Margot made the first courageous move to their table. “Come, let’s show Bebe our beach!” So, we all removed ourselves from our table as Jorge and Bebe followed. I was second in line, walking across the sand as Margot led and sang her usual “going to paradise” song, which I never learned as my German was non-existent. Whatever the lyrics, she always smiled while singing them. As we neared the cliffs, Jorge caught up to me and took my arm. For the first time since I had met him, I sensed an edge of panic in his voice. “Joaquin, you have to take care of her for me. I just can’t deal with her right now.” “What do you mean?” “Tonight, invite her to your cave.” I didn’t quite follow. Why would his girlfriend want to come to my grotto? The answer would soon present itself. When we got to the top of the cliffs and looked down upon the second beach, we embarked in our disrobing ritual, taking Bebe by surprise. By the time we were down the cliffs on the beach, Bebe had joined the ritual. That day Jorge and Bebe engaged in a dissonant dance revealing their jealousies, fears and bitterness. They were

accompanied by the cacophony of their history that only they could hear as we watched from a distance. Strains of yelling collided with muted longing. On this very hot, dry day when we baked in Crete’s clear blue air, Jorge and Bebe crashed as sailors had done off the coast of Crete for centuries. Only their cliffs, their rocks were not visible. They had no lighthouse to guide their way. As the sun began its descent, their relationship had also descended and I came to Bebe to ask if there were anything I could do. Jorge had left to go with his current paramour. As I approached her, I could see that paradise had finally morphed into hell. Her face was distorted, her eyes humid from humiliation. She and I talked the rest of the night while the others had their usual celebrations, and without having to ask, Bebe came back to my cave. She put down her things, her backpack, sat cross-legged in a trance, hypnotized by the sea and asked me to paint for her Jorge’s life as I knew it to be on Crete. I remained a friend to Jorge and just tried to comfort Bebe. Finally, this night when the moon was full I invited her to walk west along the cliffs, so we could get a better view of the area in the blue light that caressed and permeated Damnoni. After walking some distance, we found a large flat rock where we both could sit. We perched on a rocky point on this full moon in Aquarius and witnessed the slow unfolding brilliant firmament. Our senses fully engaged until we were on the other side of the veil. I became Bebe’s guide to the stars. She, like me, had grown up in a city, Buenos Aires, and she, like me, was encountering an elemental life for the first time. A moonscape slowly flooded our senses and we bathed in rivers of time. Bebe’s pain subsided. Her heart was once again felt. By her, by me. No longer numb, she sang to me a Spanish lullaby. Rock, sand, water, light danced slow eternal designs. Then, quiet but for the lap of water on sand and a singular gas-lit rowboat drifting across the surface of the Libyan Sea. I told Bebe that I had to sing. Ok, she managed to softly sigh. So, I let out with this great booming, blues voice at the top of my lungs and Bebe fell back laughing so hard that I thought the cliff itself would split in half from her vibration dumping us both into the sea. She managed whatever English she knew and said definitively, “You idiot! What do you think you’re doing?” “I’m just trying to express this beauty I feel.” So, she kissed me. “Now shut up.” (Cállate!) With her kiss I realized the difference between living under an urban cover and in an earthly essence. You cannot improve upon God’s work. You can only be God’s work, along with the rocks, goats, sheep, sea, sky and moon. When you trust totally your true home – the earth

– you must be transformed. You surrender. You become a true inhabitant of your planet. Years later while writing a novel seemingly unrelated to this experience, I would write these words: SUN RISE SHIVER in the center of a transparent rose. The new visitor slowly heats walls of hunger. She yearns and stretches her head shrouded in a red veil, watching. WITHOUT SIGHT Naked, uncloaked, unwashed and unseen. We are bathed in mirrored, majestic pools of love. A simple song plays. WELCOME “Naked, uncloaked, unwashed and unseen.” In this moment, that was me in Crete. I had disappeared into the ether giving birth to myself; becoming the child I had forgotten, forever sculpting the man I had become. Sculpting in every sense of the word – physically, spiritually, emotionally, the senses finally elegant yielding into a cornucopia of silver sparkle. We gingerly made our way through the rocks back to my cave where we slept, eyes spacious to the show that appeared nightly in Crete’s sky, always changing, always brilliant. I was glad Bebe had finally arrived. She sang a beautiful lullaby.