Anywhere And Back Again

Anywhere And Back Again

The blazing sun hurts my eyes. I rest them for a moment by focusing on the short shadows next to these two pairs of shoes, which look almost equally worn-out thanks to the dust coating them. Under the brilliant merciless sky the grey and brown of ruin and bare soil stretch as the magnificent centre of the city: Martyrs' Square.

I've already seen more, flying recklessly close to the ground on my dear spice merchant's carpet. When arriving from the sea, concealed by a Disillusionment Charm, we circled about, catching flashes of refreshing, generous images of boulevards by the water front, reconstructed five-star hotels, and the shaded terraces of some fancy restaurants. That's where tourists and the richest locals gather so as to cling to the belief that another golden era is emerging for this pearl of the Mediterranean.

Here, however, time seems to have stopped. The only sign of life are the pink and purple plastic chairs down towards the far end of the open depressing space.

"Perhaps you'd better go back..."

I'm not sure whether I mean just back to the more prospering and pleasant parts of Beirut, or back to where we've stayed for a while in Crete, or back to his home in Zanzibar - whether I mean he should wait there for me or not. After all, I'm drifting again.

I hope I am. Or am I coming back: exploring new places only in order to take farewells of those people who've surprised me and made me feel something akin to affection again? The people who taught me to accept the gifts of simple pleasures, after what I used to regard as the end of all those lives which mattered?

In any case Omar only nudges my arm, as if unintentionally, while adjusting the rolled-up carpet on his shoulder. Glancing at the grin on his brown bearded face, I realize that he is adjusting himself to the surroundings as well. He looks appropriately dusty and unassuming in his simple robes. Like a businessman from somewhere farther in Arabia or Africa, certainly, but not like the wealthy tramp he is.

I'm wearing Muggle clothes, since in the case of a rather blond and unmistakably European man they look less suspicious. I've agreed to borrow a neat white button-down shirt from him for the occasion of possibly meeting an old friend's family, too.

I insist on only borrowing. And Omar has never actually insisted otherwise. He shares with me only what is an adventure for him.

***

That's why a couple of months ago he asked me to choose where to take him. I wanted to show him the origins of real portraits: the most exquisite magical art, which I can still sense breathing even though the visible movements in the frescos of Knossos have stopped centuries ago. Or perhaps I chose Crete simply because it was the warmest place in Europe I knew.

When the other day it had occurred to me to drop by the Poste Restante in Irakleion and I had been handed a letter from another friend, whom I'd once left behind, Omar was immediately ready to fly me to Lebanon.

"He isn't actually asking me to visit him," I protested vaguely, reaching to stroke the cat who was curled up on the chair next to mine on the otherwise deserted yard. Avoiding his face, I lifted my gaze to the couple of bare electric bulbs hanging on a cord above. They bathed in uncompromising light all the space limited by the whitewashed walls.

I had made a daytrip to the capital of the island on my own, in order to spend on another entrance fee to the restored palace the few hundred drachmas I'd earned by selling a quick landscape sketch to a tourist. I just longed to see the Prince of Lilies and the rest of them in their original settings again. Besides, I've been getting more and more fascinated by the idea that the king himself was the monster, or rather became regularly the monster who was turned into a legend.

Omar was uncharacteristically upset, as it had got dark before I was safely back in the middle of nowhere, at the taverna where he'd remained drinking ouzo in the morning. I reeked of strong tobacco and I had to explain what kind of a driver had given me a lift.

After I'd let him read the letter, he ordered another beer for himself and an orange soda for me. I'd have preferred something to eat, but this had to be one of those days when he enjoyed pretending that we couldn't afford it. I really did not consider it an amusing game, but I could hardly complain, since I was myself as truly broke as always. I was tired and a bit cold, too, and I wished he'd told me where he'd planned we would sleep, instead of making me sit on this yard.

There was some simple beauty within this circle of light, though. Perhaps in order to irritate my human companion a bit, I pulled out my sketchpad and started working on another portrait of a cat.

"Yes, he is. He's inviting you. Describing the chairs!"

The cat jumped down, perhaps not only because of his agitated voice. The keen ears must have heard something else behind the incessant chorus of crickets and the crackly bouzouki ringing from the old cassette player on the windowsill. The lean figure changed its shape and leaped into the darkness, to a world inaccessible to our single dominating sense. As consolation I revelled in my ability to reproduce the visual images. I couldn't help smiling when allowing my left hand to capture in only a few lines each of the enchanting feline postures I'd now got recorded safely in my mind. Perhaps if I had the chance to use watercolours, I could reach the magic of the true movement as well...

"Do you hear me? The bloody chairs!"

The almost pathetic slur in his voice made me lift my head. I still refused to look at him or the letter next to his bottles. But I was bound to see the chair which the cat had left empty. This seemed to be the most common type of a plastic chair in Greece, the most successful challenger to the traditional ones made of wood and straw. A bright orange seat, formed of one piece, with holes to let the rainwater through. It should not have been associated with any specific memories.

But it was. For some reason I caught myself remembering fondly such a chair outside Samir's window above Thessalonica, facing his best luxury: the incredible view. Not least because the chair was similar to the one on which this scrawny boy with an unrelenting smile had found me sitting outside a café, down by the chilling sea on that December afternoon.

"He couldn't know I'd ever pass this way again and get the letter," I said slowly.

"But you did. Does he know about... the cats, the frescos - about the three Animagi?"

"Yes..."

Samir had turned out to be not only a Palestinian refugee, illegally in Greece. And not only a kind young boy who'd seen enough poverty to respond promptly to the neediness of someone obviously without a proper healthy attitude towards surviving another winter. His mother was not only Lebanese but also a witch. And he, having been declared a Squib, had been enthralled when he had happened to see me resort to the most humble trick of wandless magic, lighting a cigarette stub I'd picked from an ashtray. I had mentioned the moon to him before he had ventured to ask for a confirmation for what he had seen - when I had not suspected that he knew anything about magic or werewolves.

"Yes," I repeated, "I eventually told him quite a lot."

"Then he knows that this island means quite a lot to you, and he knows he does, as well."

Omar, too, knows who I am and what I am - ever since Brünnhilde introduced us to each other at the spice market in Dar es Salaam. She did not encourage me to follow her to the humanitarian work in Somalia any longer. Perhaps she realized that the chance to teach at her school for Namibian refugees had been a turning point, and I needed a new companion when seeking a route to another direction, perhaps back, in an evolving spiral.

***

My head is swirling in this heat. I must have faltered in my first steps to cross the square. Omar's leading me by the arm. All right, he wants to accompany me, and it is actually a good way to let Samir see that I didn't come to stay.

The pink chairs, that's what he said in the letter. He has a job at his uncle's café at Martyrs' Square.

He recognizes me first. A young man in a pink shirt strides towards me. The mop of curly black hair is neater than I remember, but the smile doesn't seem to have ever faded for a moment. He embraces me forcefully - and in the process manages to kiss me on my both cheeks. Holding each other's arms, we're about to burst out laughing.

"You're looking good," I say, and I realize that he still looks endearingly young.

He notices my briefcase. "You've still got the same case. You'll let me carry it again, okay?"

"Yes..." I'm not sure if this is the answer to his question yet. "I'm still on the road."

"So this must be your... travelling companion?" he says, snatching the case and extending his other hand politely.

"Yes," I reply, "Omar Shaaban, a merchant of Zanzibar - Samir Al-Zahar...

"A soda vendor of Martyrs' Square," Samir blurts out.

"I'm most pleased to meet you," Omar says in his sweetest voice. "Your marvellous city is rising again from the ashes. How is the business?"

Samir bows and gesticulates towards his café, launching into a reply. "Great, thanks. Anyone who comes here is bound to get thirsty. And tourists actually come to see this historical scene... you know, the free-fire zone... They come even at the hottest hour of the day. Besides, we have a secret weapon to beat our competitor... the Christian Muggle with those hideous purple chairs." He grins and then glances at me warily.

I close my eyes for a second with a minimal nod as the sign of confirmation and reassurance. "Yes, Omar is a wizard." I can't help smiling at Samir's characteristic babbling. Over six years ago I was first incapable of staying focused on his words long enough to understand that he was offering me a meal.

"Yes," he continues now, pulling out chairs for us, "we're able to sell our soda cheaper and colder, as we use cooling charms instead of a generator. I can do it, too, and I don't even need a wand. The way you started teaching me, Remus, how to use my hands... Thanks to you I now have a place in my mother's family."

Before I have a chance to protest against his abundant gratitude, he's disappeared behind the counter. And when returning with three frosty cans and three straws he goes on immediately. "Haytham, my second cousin, over there... he promised to take over for today. And I can take the car. I'll drive you up to the mountains to see my family, to see how beautiful this country can be."

*

"Down here it's too hot in July," Samir says. Before we get into the car he bends to press his palms on each black leather seat in turn. "There's no air-conditioning, so tell me if the breeze gets too strong with all the windows open."

His hands are truly efficient in cooling. The front seat is perfectly comfortable, and when he reaches out to touch my sweating forehead - perhaps just to demonstrate, in an even more tangible way, how much he has learned - I can't help shivering. But there's hardly any breeze at all, as the traffic is creeping along slowly.

"I bet you don't trade in any plain carpets," he says to Omar, adjusting the mirror so as to gain eye-contact.

"No, not in carpets at all. Mainly just spices." Omar speaks in a relaxed, almost lazy manner, leaning back, with his hands crossed behind his neck. "But now I've left my business for others to take care of, as I want to explore the world. This is only my private little vehicle, not for sale. In any case, I don't mind the Muggle way in internal travel. Gives me the chance to meet some local people."

A couple of ragged children rush to the windows and force chewing gum on us.

Samir hands out coins and laughs. "I have too much of this gum!"

I shouldn't be surprised I have no money, but I realize I have no gift for Samir's parents either.

Omar could certainly buy something, and I focus on the side of the road, on the look-out for any promising shops. But we are currently passing quarters where they sell only dusters and brooms in carts among ruin and rubble.

"See these monuments of the civil war?" Samir says, poking me with his elbow. "Oh, there're some on your side, too. Stick your head out and look up!"

The buildings still rise tall from these half-collapsed basements. It's hard to believe that they could remain standing without magic. The façades have been completely blasted off, but on several storeys, inside the cubes still formed by crumbling concrete, life has remained or reappeared as normal as possible. A young man is relaxing on a mattress. Another one is hanging laundry.

*

I'm happy to see that Samir's family has not only a roof over their heads but four solid walls as well. The house is small and humble, though. They probably use enlargement charms for the night. One door seems to lead straight to the kitchen, and another one opens to a space reserved for welcoming guests: with thick carpets and odd pieces of elaborately decorated fake antique furniture. The family gathered here at least this afternoon is so large that we have to sit outside, and there's no porch, either.

That is fine. What would be lovelier than getting together in a large circle on the other side of the driveway, right above a small waterfall, in the shade of leafy oaks? I adjust my chair's rusty metal legs on the uneven ground and ease myself against the multicoloured seat and backrest woven of plastic cords.

Lifting my head, I capture a delicious picture: the ladies - Samir's mother Houda, her sisters and sisters-in-law as well as their daughters - with their cheeks glowing like the peaches in the new bowl. Somehow those faces which are carefully framed by veils appear as the most graceful ones. A young cousin dressed in sea-green silk tosses a fruit to me. I don't think I'll manage to catch it, but it arrives tamely on my palm: velvet-soft and fragrant.

When, at our arrival, Houda responded to our gift with genuine delight in her gaze, her green eyes startled me, so that I almost dropped the bowl, which was still growing in my hands. Omar had, a moment earlier, produced it from his pocket and slipped it into my fist as a tiny piece of gold.

She wears no scarf or witch's hat. Her hair flashes like copper flames when she keeps turning her head, serving tea. She adds the sugar to the glasses, lifting her fingers to ask for confirmation for the number of spoonfuls from any rare guest, then levitates each glass as if she were blowing a kiss.

Some children - four, five, six of them, all bouncing black curls and flaring bright-coloured robes - are running and hopping around the trees, pulling a baby along in a little cart.

The wizards - most of them well-nourished men - arrive in pairs or small groups, come to shake hands, and disappear to return again after changing to comfortable short-sleeved robes. They spread their arms for the children and seem to compete on who has the most tempting lap, the best sweets, the sweetest kisses.

*

Samir's father himself has forced large pieces of the paper-thin bread into my hands and urged me to scoop with it some more of the tabbouleh and fattoush salads, the labneh yoghurt, the chick pea and eggplant purées... It would be hard to say when I've felt more contented than this. Like his son, he's one of the leanest among these men; he looks almost fragile with his greyed hair and moustache. And he sounds reconciled, as if patience had overruled the bitterness and ambition of his youth. When some of the youngest witches start levitating the excess food to the kitchen, he sets one of the water pipes - the narghile, or the shisha, as they call it - close to my chair and offers the hose first to me.

I inhale the apple-scented smoke, and the water bubbles and hums in the glass base. They must all be watching, but I don't need to be good at this. To my surprise I'm about to go on longer than necessary, as my head begins to swirl in a more pleasant way than I can't remember when. "Shukran," I thank him, and this is all I can manage in Arabic during a lively conversation when you are supposed to talk at the same time with someone else so as to ever get the floor.

Houda speaks beautiful French to her sisters when I am near, and even some English to me. I could use Greek to exchange a few private comments with her son, but that would be rude.

I've been afraid they'd ask me about the civil war in my country. But, of course, all that is history, and they only talk about their future: about expanding the business, buying an apartment in a new magical complex by the sea.

*

When the sun is setting beyond the lush valley, I ask Samir to come to the edge of the cliff. The excuse is that he'll show me in which direction we can almost distinguish the lights of Beirut.

"I wish the two of you hadn't decided to keep the visit so brief," he says.

I only nod in agreement. "We'll fly as soon as the moon has set. To have it easier to navigate by the stars. I'd say it'll be in... about three hours."

He stares at me with a question in his eyes.

"It's a waxing crescent, almost a half - like when we first met," I continue, and I agree to add, "Yes, it's been all right. I promised you that there would be people to help me have a shelter, a place to lock myself up in the calming company of an animal. So how are you doing, honestly?"

He looks away like only once on that first day - when he had to let me know he hadn't been able to pay his rent. "Mum and Dad are glad I'm back. But my cousins keep teasing me... They say I should have found a wife in Europe. They still expect a beautiful blond to come and take me up to a rich country, so I could send money down to finance their businesses, too."

"I'm sorry..."

Now his grin has returned and he nudges me with his elbow again. "I can't afford to marry any local girl... but, you know, I don't really care."

"Well, all of us can't marry... But you'll always have family around you - kids, too."

"You must visit us again. And if you should ever feel you have nowhere to go, remember it's not true."

"I will. Thank you."

He turns rather abruptly to take the path back to the yard. I follow him, stumbling on the stones and tree roots, unable to comprehend the falling darkness, since the glow of the sunset and of his smile have settled on my mind to stay.

By the time I return to my chair he's set up a cassette player. I doubt it's the same one as six years ago, but the music certainly is. These wild melancholy melodies once wrapped me up like his blanket did. When I catch his eyes across the circle, I bend to tap on my briefcase under my seat, so as to indicate that I've kept safe the tape he gave me. By now I've learned what this song talks about - the fierce hope of finding the way back home.

After a while an uncle stops the cassette, and in the relative silence I hear Omar's confident voice. "I can get a good deal for you. Not only spices. Some investment, too. Everything you need for a restaurant. For this fine young man to run it. He has a talent - in his hands and in his smile. And I have some contacts."

But the music is soon swelling louder than before - now in the rhythm of tsifteteli. The uncle is pushing aside the table, then marching towards me. "'Ela!" he shouts, using one of the few Greek words he still knows properly when it's thirty years since the time he studied in Athens. He's beckoning to me to come and dance. "Prépei na to kséreis to tsiftetéli!"

"It's my fault he insists you must know the dance." Samir is following him, looking apologetic - and hopeful?

"Oh no, I haven't danced since the... end of our war." Now I've blurted it out.

The best thing I can do is... to do it now. I stand up; I'll let Samir and his uncle teach me.

I was never good at something like this. But like my favourite songs when I was young, this music can carry me - at least for a few steps.

And this is real Greek tsifteteli. The lyrics are in this language which the two of us know better than anyone else here. Yes, let's give Uncle Badr a chance to shine. Now we've squatted down to clap the rhythm for his dance, and singing along, singing loud - together, the two of us.

***

It is, of course, a blessing that Omar turns out to have money whenever he feels like spending some. Soon after returning to Crete we rent a scooter and I teach him to ride it. This is a lot easier than riding the flying motorbike. I don't hesitate to mention it to him, and he adjusts his chin on my shoulder, as he sits behind me, with his arms wrapped around my waist.

We run out of petrol and have to push the scooter uphill, when we're looking for a way to reach a secluded little beach. He finds it exciting not to resort to any magic.

"These are the best things ever happening on the road," he says.

I have to admit I've now enjoyed this for quite a while. Sharing all this - when there isn't much to share - is certainly better than wandering with no money for shelter or food all on my own.

Now the scooter's hidden in the thicket. Tomorrow we'll return downhill to a village, and he'll turn out to have some money for petrol, after all, and for some breakfast, too, or at least for lunch, if I'm lucky. But now we wash ourselves in the sea, wrap ourselves in the hot sand, and wait for the sunset to announce the time for keeping each other warm.

The thrill of sleeping under the blanket of stars is still new to him.

But I want a chance to paint, or teach. Or perhaps it's just that I'm getting too old and tired to keep doing this. I simply want a soft and warm place to lay my body down each night.

*

Sitting behind him in the breeze, I catch myself turning my head to gaze longingly at the white walls of houses, any of which he could rent or buy, if he cared to.

"I'm thinking of going back to Paris next," I shout against the wind.

He almost ignores a dangerous curve when turning his face towards mine. "You have another friend still waiting...?"

"I don't know. But I used to study art there, you know. So perhaps now I could try to settle there, to do something - some kind of work."

Up behind another mountain village we find the path to a magical settlement. There are these tiny communities of wizards hidden all over the island, so it is not an incredible coincidence that the spot I happened to choose before the rise of the full moon in October 1986 for chaining myself to a tree was too close to such a village. Fortunately only a kind old witch found me after the moonset. She took me this way and tapped with her wand on this pair of boulders of stone so as to turn them into a gate to enter her village. Since she kept me inside her cottage while tending to my wounds for a few days, I doubt anyone here would recognize me now.

In any case we have just a brief stop at the village square, and I stay by the scooter when Omar goes into an ouzeri for some drinks to take with us. The old wizards sitting by the entrance eye me suspiciously over their moustaches and the handles of their canes. But it's only because they welcome exclusively tourists who have owled, booking rooms in their inns. They are hospitable to decent guests, but it would be hard for any foreign wizard to get to live and work here.

Omar returns with a wide grin and an armful of treasures. "Look, the local version of cauldron cakes: filled with feta cheese and olives."

Yes, I remember the kind witch used to bake those, too. I'm not as literally starving as I was then, but I can't wait to find a quiet spot for a picnic outside the village. Omar can certainly make a decent tourist, if he wants to, and he can return here after I've left for Paris. That was actually the reason I wanted to show this place to him, while of course I wish I dared draw attention to myself by asking about Kira Noni, the midwife of the village, as I remember she introduced herself. We passed by her cottage and it looked deserted, so I'm afraid she's died while it's taken me almost seven years to come and consider thanking her again.

Omar is about to lift his leg over the seat behind me. But there's still something else he wants to show.

"They seem to subscribe to all the foreign wizarding magazines and newspapers, too. I got the British one for you."

He knows well how I love reading so much that I pick newspapers from trash bins. When I still avoided any chances for company, like during my first stay in Crete and when arriving in Thessalonica, I also preferred staring at Greek texts which I hardly understood at all yet. That seemed to be the best way to keep all significant and painful thoughts at bay. But now I glance eagerly at the familiar font of The Daily Prophet and read... Escape from Azkaban.

I stumble down from the seat. Perhaps I just lose my balance and fall towards him, but I end up snatching the paper from his hand and folding it against my chest. "Can you steer, please?" I manage to gasp.

*

The ride further uphill is hardly so speedy that it should make this water stream from my eyes. He's not turning to brush his beard against my cheek now, but he must feel me trembling. I could as well let go of his waist. On the steep slope I'd fall backwards, clutching this image of a ghost. But for some reason I know I mustn't fall over the cliff. The way back will be different, and I must hurry.

*

These mountains have been scorched by the July sun. We've found a graceless spot for our picnic among some sharp stones and thorny bush.

I'm lying on my stomach, with my face pressed against the spice scents in his carpet. I've let him read the article aloud to me. I don't want to see the words. I don't want to see the photograph, not yet.

I sit up and reach for my briefcase. It takes me a while to fumble the knots of the string open, since I feel compelled to squeeze my eyes shut. When I reach out my hand, he offers me the folded Prophet, and I store it safely under my few books and only robes.

"I must go back."

He knows I'm serious whenever I say something like this. I'm not finished with the strings, and he slips into the case the plastic bag with the cakes I've been unable to eat now. "If you're sure... I'll fly you there."

"Thank you." How else could I get there fast enough? "But I'll have to stay there, and you mustn't. I'm sorry..." I hope he understands that there is no home where I could take him, and it's no fun at all to be homeless in England.

"If you really feel you must..."

Yes, and there's no need to figure out why. I'm surprisingly calm, perhaps because the spiral has been taking me back. "But you must promise to leave England immediately. Flying carpets are illegal there... On your way back here you can visit Paris on my behalf, too. You'll like it; you'll like Jean, if you find him."

"If you're sure you must go looking for... or is he... Sirius Black - is he looking for you?"

"I'm not... sure, no. But I'm going now."

He pulls out his ebony wand and conceals first the scooter, which will wait for him here, then the carpet and the two of us. When we soar above the sparkling sea I let him hold me one last time against the piercing air of reborn reality.

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