"My Beauty Of The Low Lands"

The caves in the cliff at Matala

She was small and beautiful

A youthful bloom seemed to shine

From beneath her sun tanned skin

Her blonde hair like corn silk

Framing her exquisite face

And she was my companion

For the bumpy bus ride

From Matala on the south coast of Crete

Over the mountains to Iráklion

We had talked a time or two

In the taverna society of Matala.

Danced a time or two at the Mermaid Café

Not knowing how famous it would become

From Joni Mitchell’s ‘Carey’.

But she was too beautiful 

For a tired old soldier like me to pursue

And she was always surrounded

By those wanting to share her beauty

Or her body! While the wind 

Carried  the smell of African dust

As we danced in the night.

When she talked to you

She had a habit of stepping closer

Right into one’s personal space

And looking directly up into your eyes

With those eyes so deep blue 

They were almost violet.

And although she was surrounded

By admirers,

For those brief moments of conversation

It was as though we were quite alone in the world.
She had a calm, often serious, beauty
But when she smiled at you
The smile not only lit up her lovely face
It seemed to light up one's life as well.

Now tired from the farewell parties

We shared a seat on the bus.

Her bare arm touching mine

As we talked about our mutual friends

And acquaintances among the freaks

And draft dodgers, deserters and ex-soldiers

That made up the floating population 

Of Matala in those days.

She told me her name was Helena

Which, she said, meant light,

A perfect name for this shining beauty.

Gradually she grew sleepy

Her head nodding until it rested

Upon my delighted shoulder.

I hardly moved for the rest of the journey

For fear of waking her.

I could smell the clean perfume of her hair

Feel the softness of her skin

Where her cheek rested on my arm.

See the beguiling white Vee 

Where her suntan faded

Between her perfect breasts.

My breathing slowed as almost

In a state of meditation I sat there

Loving the trust and closeness,

The warmth and the beauty

Of Lovely Helena  from the Low Countries.

And while the Greeks around us

Fervently crossed themselves 

At every roadside cross and shrine

Commemorating every fatal accident

On that twisty mountain road

I sat there wishing the journey

Would go on forever.

Eventually we rattled down 

From the mountains into Iráklion.

I bought a ticket on the Ferry

With the money I had received

From ‘selling’ my cave on

To it’s next occupant.

That was the way on leaving Matala.

You always ‘sold’ your cave for the price

Of the bus fare over the mountains

And the Ferry ride back to the mainland.

We shared the Ferry ride

Helena and I, across the Aegean Sea to Piraeus

Athens’ seaport, busy bustling and earthy.

We took a room together in a cheap hotel.

It was only when I went to the bathroom

And spied girls standing in the dim doorways

Of their rooms that I realised that

We had taken a room in what served

Piraeus as a Brothel! Complete with

Government Rules and Regulations

Printed behind the doors.

I made sure that I accompanied my

Beautiful friend to and from the bathroom

After that! But we both found it funny,

And perhaps it added a little to our passion,

But none to the tenderness that grew 

Between us that night.

Tenderness like a balm to my old wounds.

It was there I learned she had deliberately

Chosen to travel alone with me,

Away from the competition of her attendants!

She could switch from Dutch to German,

To English to French, easier than I could

Change hats! But she said, “French is the 

Language of Love, mon chéri”

“Rather than the gutteral language of my own country!”

She said she had always collected 

Injured birds and animals,

That was why she wanted to become a 

Veterinary Surgeon.

I asked her, “Is that what I am to you

An injured bird?”

“Mais non, mon chéri, but I have always

Had a way with injuries! To me you are

An injured horse, non? Like the knights

Used to ride!” She didn’t know that

My Chinese Horoscope sign 

Was the Horse.

“Now you must learn to let

Your scars dance, just as we did

At the Mermaid Café!” And we danced

Naked, to a tinny radio in a Brothel

In salty earthy Piraeus.

Next day we took  the lovely wooden tram

Up the line to Athens.

There to go our separate ways.

She to join friends for the overland journey

Across Albania and Yugosolavia to Austria.

I, forbidden that route by my Government,

Unwilling to allow the secrets I still carried

In my head, to venture behind the Iron Curtain,

Was forced to remain in Athens. 

Sleeping on a camp bed on the roof of a Hotel

In the centre of the city.

Waiting for a cheap passage on a *Gastarbeiter bum boat

Carrying poor Greeks across the Ionian Sea

To Brindisi in Italy and thence overland

To a life of servitude in Germany.

We exchanged names and addresses

She writing hers on the flyleaf 

Of my copy of The Lord of the Rings

Still only part read despite six months in the Islands.

And so we parted! She, again surrounded

By admirers, but stepping away once more

Into my personal space for one last kiss,

As her attendants glowered behind her back!

It was a couple of months before I heard

Leonard Cohen sing ‘Sisters of Mercy’

On an LP in a bed-sit in Notting Hill.

And a year or two before I met the man himself.

But ‘Sisters of Mercy’ became

Always our song in my mind!

Lord of the Rings was washed to a pulp

As I hitch-hiked through the Alps

Her name and address dissolving into 

Wet sludge in the bottom of a rucksack pocket.

I did eventually buy another copy

But the name and address of lovely Helena

Was sadly absent from the flyleaf!

I did eventually finish Tolkien’s saga

But every mention of Hobbit Holes

Cast my mind back to when I too

Lived in a Hobbit Hole  on a Cretan cliff face

In the ancient land of the Minotaur. 

And on leaving spent two loving days

With the most beautiful girl in the world!

If I had known then what I know now………(Sigh)

Copyright © Res JFB 15th October 2012

* Gastarbeiter = Guest Worker, in Germany. In those days many poor Greeks took ship to Italy and then overland to Germany to make money as Labourers in Germany’s expanding economy. As a consequence of that, I learned more German in six months in Greece than I did in two years in Germany. The Germans spoke too good English to allow us to mutilate their language  by holding conversations with us in German!