Tales Of Crete -- I'm Fixing A Hole Where The Rain Comes In - 7

Tales of Crete© “I’m Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Comes In1” 7 By Jack Schimmelman

One insanely early, blazing, July morn, Jorge stopped by my cave, shook me, woke me and insisted that I come with him. Of course, I did. He was one excited Argentine. The furnace had just begun to heat the dying evening breeze; the light yawning its way towards mountain and sea. We passed the bad café, the good café (which was just yards apart), the icy shower, people lying on the sand, the rocks, in all positions known to exist and some unknown – all dozing entwined with each other weaving dreams. Songs of the previous night flew lazily out of my heart as Jorge and I walked across the first beach. Then we climbed the first rocky outcrop to get to the second beach, but he didn’t stop there. “Jorge, are you sure you want to go further? “Joaquin, follow me, I have something incredible to show you.” Ok. We scaled the second mountain of rocks and boulders and came to a plateau overlooking the seldom seen third beach. I was exhausted. I was slightly exhilarated looking out towards the horizon where Africa still slept as the golden, fiery circle now fully ruled the morning Crete sky. Jorge was beside himself with joy. We had arrived. “Look! Joaquin, look!” “Look where?!” “Down! Down!” And so I did. I looked down and saw nothing. Or so I thought. All of a sudden, Jorge fell to his knees, put his head in a small hole that was between two giant, stone outcroppings and gave out a massive sound that he envisioned as music. 1

Thank you, Beatles.

Jumping up from all fours, he said, “put your head down there!” “No. I don’t want to.” The curly headed, chubby boy from the Bronx had had enough of Jorge’s orders. “No, seriously, put your head in that hole!” Ok. And when I did . . . “Sing!” A command performance I was asked to give and so I did. I sang into the hole in the rocks to “stop my mind from wandering” as Paul McCartney had written. “Do you hear?” By now, Jorge could hardly remain in his skin. “Hear what?” “The echo!!! Don’t you hear the echo?!” So, I sang again. One tone, two tones, until they multiplied, ricochet from rock to rock to mountain to sky to sea to my bones. Oh my God! An echo you could die from, as my Yiddish mother might have said in the Bronx. “Now do you hear? I’ve been here all night singing into this hole!” Yes, Jorge, I hear. “You mean to say you got me up at the break of dawn, endangered my fragile toes on sharp crevices of these mountainous rocks just to hear this echo?” “Of course.” Then, Jorge pulled me up and again dropped to his knees as if in an Olympic event and started to sing into the hole at the top of his lungs. If your head wasn’t in the stone fissure, the echo was lost. So, we took turns singing into the hole, listening to the glorious reverberations. We did this for perhaps an hour. We were enchanted. How Greek of us. Although at that time I was ignorant of the Echo myth. According to Greek mythology, Echo was a beautiful mountain Nymph who loved to always have the last word. Due to her talkativeness, she was given the task to distract Zeus wife Hera so that Zeus could freely enjoy his love affairs with the other Nymphs. Until one day, Hera discovered Echo’s deceit and she decided to punish the Nymph; the punishment was to take away all of Echo’s words and let her be only able to repeat the last words of the others. (Encarta) 2

Jorge was devoted to sound. He was devoted to nymphs. We hiked back to our café – the “good” café – and had our usual breakfast with our friends who had all wandered in from their respective caves. Carlos, standing on the terrace in his caftan, majestically greeted us by asking where had we been. “Why Carlos, don’t you know? We’ve just been sticking our heads in a hole to hear Crete’s echo,” I said, comforted by my wise tone. Carlos was duly impressed as he drank his coffee. Margot, Werner, Anke less so. They had already discovered the echo but had kept the secret to themselves.

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