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Nonfiction

Bitter Lemons

By César Antonio Molina
Translated from Spanish by Francisco Macías
In this meandering story, César Antonio Molina describes a young professor’s very own Odyssey through the islands of Greece.

Everything went well until we got to Corfu.  It’s not that things started to go wrong there, but that this may have been an omen that our happiness had already been drawn out far too long.  I was a new professor.  Upon completing my first course as a lecturer, I bought myself a car: a white Fiat 127.   My goal was to travel through Greece that summer, traversing those historic and literary places of which I had dreamed since my childhood.  I was neither financially nor physically able to do this alone; and all the promises made to accompany me had fallen through.     

Time was short; and it occurred to me to post a flyer in the department area. Two female students confirmed their interest with a phone call.  I had had them in my course, but that relationship had ended.  I set out with Maite and Victoria, from whom I was separated by only a few years.  At first, it felt odd to travel with girls who I had maintained a certain degree of professional distance from; but their good nature and humor brought us closer very soon.  We all drove; we all liked the monuments and ruins, and the camaraderie, and shared responsibility served to alleviate the heat and exhaustion.  We had made our way across the south of France and then Italy; and we were already on the Brindisi-to-Corfu ferry to later cross onto the mainland.  I announced our arrival at the port; and upon seeing the buildings that welcomed us there, I couldn’t discern a difference from one country to another.  Pompous Mussolinian constructions gave way to buildings and plazas, imported from the ancient French and English metropolises, in the historic center of the capital. It was dawn; we had the whole day ahead of us; and we decided to find a more rustic, almost military place, like a seaman’s barrack, removed from the hustle and bustle of the city.  The road signs took us to the northwest of the island. We were on the coastside road.  We passed through Alykes, Kontokali, and the majestic Venetian shipyards of Gouvia, then Kommeno, Daphnila, and, finally, Dassia, which had an immense beach nearly fifteen kilometers long.  Some orchards reached down to the whitest sands.  There, in the Ionian Sea, we were able to take our first Greek bath.  I lay down under the shade of some olive trees; and when I woke up, I saw Victoria still floating on the water and Maite, who returned from who knows where, gesticulating with an elderly woman all dressed in black.  I had found lodging in that very spot.  It was an old stable, which was now coarsely renovated.  It had three bunks, a dining table, and a small oven, all in one open space.   Outside were the water closet and a washbasin that served as both a bath and shower without hot water.  The price was reasonable, and the small barrack seemed a suitable place to gain new strength for the assault on the Greek mainland.  The landlady’s house and grove were very close, and the woman would gather fresh fruit and vegetables for us.  All was perfect, even in the intimate chastity that we practiced.  Time passed slowly and I allowed myself to get lost in the “why?” of earthly things, while they became brackish women, iodized and with aquatic eyes, with seaweed hair that was tousled by a couple of nets that were hanging from the ceiling like bridal veils.  From our encampment we went up to the north of the island, to Kassiopi, where Tiberius built another one of his mansions, and we also headed down toward the south.  At Gastouri was the Achilleion, a palace built by Sisi, the melancholic empress, in honor of Thetis and Achilles—a neoclassical building, with beautiful gardens headed by the statues of the triumphant hero, fatally wounded in the heel.  At Korkyra we spent many afternoons in the terraces of the Spianada Square of the archway, which reminded us of the Rue de Rivoli of Paris.  While they frugally toured the narrow streets replete with eye-catching shop windows, I visited the pediment of Medusa, she who mortally enthralled.  Her demented smile, her bulging eyes, the curly snakes of her hair and her waist, her immense mouth from which a wide and bifurcated tongue must have stuck out, like that of a snake, they petrified me.  I felt well in the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa found the wayward Ulysses; but the days proposed for the last stop had passed. I spoke of an imminent departure that never happened.  At the dawn of every daybreak, I was hidden by them in the dense down of their pubis.  I came to understand that I was sweetly anchored when I confirmed that both young women had suspended their depilatory practices and that their bodies ran freely under their dainty clothes.  I gazed upon them as they slept, homely and enigmatic; and the hour to leave escaped me.  The bedroom became covered with scattered objects; the clothes were stirred in disarray.  I enjoyed being one more object.  I didn’t brush off the dust that began to cover them.  Everything remained in place, where it was, in the same manner and arrangement. I was entangled in their clothes, and I didn’t feel the nostalgia of my domestic order.  In that place I could not even manage to put myself in order.  I remained enveloped by all those forms that were scattered by the clouds across that firmament and also within my heart.

The car was perfectly prepared to continue the trip and my suitcase ready.  Yet I inspected an old bicycle, oiled its chain, and set out at dawn, slowly, to walk along the shoreline. I managed to reach Ipsos—a sandlot covered with pebbles—and climbed Mount Pantokrator, the highest mountain of the island, surrounded by forests and overlooking the bay.  On this morning stroll I came across the ferries that arrived from Italy or those that set out en route to Patras.  At the end of the sandlot that was Dassia, along a curve from which you could no longer see the spot we’d set out from, there was a beverage stand that served drinks all night as if it were a bustling nightclub.  Upon one of its walls was its name:  “La tortuga ecuestre” [The Equestrian Turtle].  A bit earlier, at a safe distance from that playful outdoor locale, I watched as a couple of large trucks took their place.  They carried the lighting equipment and props for a film shoot.  I stopped in my tracks and looked for a good perspective from which I could get distracted by the work of others.  Little by little, from the depths of those great stomachs, emerged the spotlights, cranes, rails, and cameras, along with the cables and other objects that were unknown to me.  At the end, due to the familiarity that shared time grants us, I found out what these objects were from one of the laborers who prepared the footage of a film whose outdoor scenes were set on the island.  To ensure my solitude, I shared nothing with my captors.  I decided to return the next day and offer my services to the crew, even if for free.  I woke up at first light and left them in their slumber, abandoning them in their undressed geography.  Sometimes I would lie back on the cot and gaze upon them until they woke, not to get lost in desire but to keep watch over their dreams.  Maite’s hair was denser than Victoria’s, but the latter’s took root in more abyssal zones.

When I arrived at the set preparation was already underway.  By now those first few tractors had been hitched to other trailers to shelter some of the actors and the director himself.  My voluntary help served to haul the heavy loads and to better prepare everything.  But my research on the information sheet for the film did not progress much.  I was able to deduce from the comments made that it was a peplum [sword-and-sandal], and this brought on a very special surge of excitement, to find myself in Greece and to attend the filming of a cinematographic genre so dear to me.  As the day progressed, that strange landscape of scattered objects became covered with actors in period costumes.  I understood immediately, based on their attire, that they were not Romans but Greeks; and this first requirement came to be confirmed by the slate blackboard where the following title was written in Italian:  I rostri di Helena [The Rostra of Helen].   Had I not developed a sort of friendship with the technicians and agreed to lend a helping hand, I would have returned to my restless and contemplative state, for I discovered how boring, slow, and tedious it is to make a film.  The end of the work day was resolved with nothing but a few minutes of suitable celluloid.  On the sixth day of being engaged in these matters, awaiting my friends’ latest promises to leave, I arrived at the film shoot, as always, at the break of dawn.  Concerns and expectations were higher, because that day would not involve extras or supporting actors but the main protagonists.  Everything seemed ready and, even then, three hours had to pass in order for the action to resume.   I was seated in the shadow of a giraffe sipping a soft drink, when I heard the door to one of those mobile dressing rooms. Out came Helen who, to my surprise, was none other than the actress Rossana Podestà, who had already played the same role, some ten years ago, in Robert Wise’s film Helen of Troy.  In the scene, three actors—two men and a woman—were portraying the historical characters, surrounded by a small army corps, in the middle of the beach.  One of the men tried to pierce the woman with a sword, while the other warrior prevented it.  Among the three, a dialogue of threats and accusations developed that ended with the forgiveness of the protagonist.  Several scenes were reshot not because of errors or flaws in diction or gestures, but because the actor who played the threatening role did it with such violence; so much so that he exceeded the demands of the director’s instructions.  During lunch I learned that the dispute would re-enact Agamemnon’s quarrel with his brother Menelaus, in which he tries to prevent the latter from killing his treacherous wife. And that extreme violence, exacerbated by incessant repetition, stemmed from the disputes maintained by the protagonist couple, who had recently split up in real life.  The interiors of this Italo-Franco-German coproduction had already been shot in the Cineccità studios in Rome.  The film attempted to recreate what might have happened to this woman “rich in men,” after the fall and burning of Troy.  For that purpose, the screenwriter and director, Duccio de Martino, borrowed from three different stories, told by Euripides, Hesiod, and Virgil in antiquity.  The first scene, reminiscent of The Trojan Women, depicted a tragic woman, suicidal, making sacrifices in order to wash away the guilt that had provoked such a disgraceful series of events.  However, Hesiod exonerated her of any responsibility given that she had never been in Troy and her recollection was nothing but a false, supplanted, image.   As for Virgil, in the Æneid, he made Venus stay Aeneas’s sword from piercing her as punishment for her treason to the Trojans and the delivery of her defenseless brother-in-law, Deiphobus, to the fierce vengeance of Menelaus. They had chosen Corfu to film the outdoor scenes due to its proximity, isolation, the economy, and variety of the scenery.  Rossana spent most of her time alone, since no one wanted to take a side one way or another, with respect to the private quarrel. At the end of the day, that mythical Helen climbed into her sports car and disappeared en route to the hotel.

When I returned to our lodging and told Maite and Victoria about my little adventure, they showed a certain amount of jealousy and announced—after weeks of delay—their willingness to leave the island and resume our interrupted journey. I refused and told them—a white lie—of my commitment to the production to work until the end of filming, in a couple of weeks.  My real intention was to see, face to face, that new Helen of flesh and bone and, above all, to touch her hands.  In Helen of Troy, Rossana Podestà played the role of a faithful woman in love; Jacques Sernas portrayed Paris.  When he dies at the hands of Menelaus, in the midst of the burning and pillaging of the city, after the entry of Ulysses’s wooden horse, she holds him; and her white tunic and her hands end up covered in blood.  In the following scene, the last one, Helen is on a ship headed back for Greece.  Menelaus still sees her blood-stained clothes and grasps her wrists to look at her hands.  Then, with great ire, he orders her to change and to wash up.  And she, staring with hate, answers:  “Never!”

The exterior shots changed to places not far from that first location.   I kept watch for the moment of our encounter.  Because of my position of constant watchfulness, I could see how Steve Reeves, leaving the company of Stanley Baker and Cedric Hardwicke, made his way toward Rossana when she retired from the set to her dressing room trailer.  He stopped her and they exchanged a few words.  She rejected him; and he grabbed her in a furious manner and threw her to the floor. I sprang to her aid and received a hard blow to the head, inflicted with the same Achaean helmet he held in his hands.  For a few minutes, I lost consciousness.  When I came to, my whole face was soaked in blood and the gash opened in my brow was still bleeding.  Next to me was Rossana, or who knows, Helen, with her peplum and her hands stained with my blood, trying to contain the violent hemorrhage.

Maite and Victoria welcomed me like abandoned lovers, a role I had never played.  We spoke of our departure—we had been there for nearly two months; and, again, it was impossible for us to come to an agreement.  They insisted on spending September there, too.  But my time was running out, and I felt I should no longer continue the trip to the Greek mainland, but return to Madrid for September exams.   I loaded my Fiat 127, and on the next day, when I turned the ignition, I saw that it didn’t work.  For several days, I was subjected to their ruses that were, indeed, pleasant and witty. On September 14, the date of my birthday, I took them to celebrate at “La tortuga ecuestre.”  They drank and danced to exhaustion while I feigned the same.  I struggled to make them return and they fell exhausted on their cots.  I saw them for the last time, undressed and unwary.  Then, for some unknown reason, I took a safety razor from one of their toiletry kits, and gingerly shaved the down from their pelvises; and I saved each of them in a book of its own, as with dry leaves.

From the stern of the ferry that was heading for Brindisi, I saw the shadow of the hills over the fields of wheat, the vineyards, the olive trees, the orange trees, and the bitter lemon trees of the island.

“Limones amargos,”  from Fuga del amor (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 2005), pp. 32–39. © César Antonio Molina. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Francisco Macias. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

Everything went well until we got to Corfu.  It’s not that things started to go wrong there, but that this may have been an omen that our happiness had already been drawn out far too long.  I was a new professor.  Upon completing my first course as a lecturer, I bought myself a car: a white Fiat 127.   My goal was to travel through Greece that summer, traversing those historic and literary places of which I had dreamed since my childhood.  I was neither financially nor physically able to do this alone; and all the promises made to accompany me had fallen through.     

Time was short; and it occurred to me to post a flyer in the department area. Two female students confirmed their interest with a phone call.  I had had them in my course, but that relationship had ended.  I set out with Maite and Victoria, from whom I was separated by only a few years.  At first, it felt odd to travel with girls who I had maintained a certain degree of professional distance from; but their good nature and humor brought us closer very soon.  We all drove; we all liked the monuments and ruins, and the camaraderie, and shared responsibility served to alleviate the heat and exhaustion.  We had made our way across the south of France and then Italy; and we were already on the Brindisi-to-Corfu ferry to later cross onto the mainland.  I announced our arrival at the port; and upon seeing the buildings that welcomed us there, I couldn’t discern a difference from one country to another.  Pompous Mussolinian constructions gave way to buildings and plazas, imported from the ancient French and English metropolises, in the historic center of the capital. It was dawn; we had the whole day ahead of us; and we decided to find a more rustic, almost military place, like a seaman’s barrack, removed from the hustle and bustle of the city.  The road signs took us to the northwest of the island. We were on the coastside road.  We passed through Alykes, Kontokali, and the majestic Venetian shipyards of Gouvia, then Kommeno, Daphnila, and, finally, Dassia, which had an immense beach nearly fifteen kilometers long.  Some orchards reached down to the whitest sands.  There, in the Ionian Sea, we were able to take our first Greek bath.  I lay down under the shade of some olive trees; and when I woke up, I saw Victoria still floating on the water and Maite, who returned from who knows where, gesticulating with an elderly woman all dressed in black.  I had found lodging in that very spot.  It was an old stable, which was now coarsely renovated.  It had three bunks, a dining table, and a small oven, all in one open space.   Outside were the water closet and a washbasin that served as both a bath and shower without hot water.  The price was reasonable, and the small barrack seemed a suitable place to gain new strength for the assault on the Greek mainland.  The landlady’s house and grove were very close, and the woman would gather fresh fruit and vegetables for us.  All was perfect, even in the intimate chastity that we practiced.  Time passed slowly and I allowed myself to get lost in the “why?” of earthly things, while they became brackish women, iodized and with aquatic eyes, with seaweed hair that was tousled by a couple of nets that were hanging from the ceiling like bridal veils.  From our encampment we went up to the north of the island, to Kassiopi, where Tiberius built another one of his mansions, and we also headed down toward the south.  At Gastouri was the Achilleion, a palace built by Sisi, the melancholic empress, in honor of Thetis and Achilles—a neoclassical building, with beautiful gardens headed by the statues of the triumphant hero, fatally wounded in the heel.  At Korkyra we spent many afternoons in the terraces of the Spianada Square of the archway, which reminded us of the Rue de Rivoli of Paris.  While they frugally toured the narrow streets replete with eye-catching shop windows, I visited the pediment of Medusa, she who mortally enthralled.  Her demented smile, her bulging eyes, the curly snakes of her hair and her waist, her immense mouth from which a wide and bifurcated tongue must have stuck out, like that of a snake, they petrified me.  I felt well in the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa found the wayward Ulysses; but the days proposed for the last stop had passed. I spoke of an imminent departure that never happened.  At the dawn of every daybreak, I was hidden by them in the dense down of their pubis.  I came to understand that I was sweetly anchored when I confirmed that both young women had suspended their depilatory practices and that their bodies ran freely under their dainty clothes.  I gazed upon them as they slept, homely and enigmatic; and the hour to leave escaped me.  The bedroom became covered with scattered objects; the clothes were stirred in disarray.  I enjoyed being one more object.  I didn’t brush off the dust that began to cover them.  Everything remained in place, where it was, in the same manner and arrangement. I was entangled in their clothes, and I didn’t feel the nostalgia of my domestic order.  In that place I could not even manage to put myself in order.  I remained enveloped by all those forms that were scattered by the clouds across that firmament and also within my heart.

The car was perfectly prepared to continue the trip and my suitcase ready.  Yet I inspected an old bicycle, oiled its chain, and set out at dawn, slowly, to walk along the shoreline. I managed to reach Ipsos—a sandlot covered with pebbles—and climbed Mount Pantokrator, the highest mountain of the island, surrounded by forests and overlooking the bay.  On this morning stroll I came across the ferries that arrived from Italy or those that set out en route to Patras.  At the end of the sandlot that was Dassia, along a curve from which you could no longer see the spot we’d set out from, there was a beverage stand that served drinks all night as if it were a bustling nightclub.  Upon one of its walls was its name:  “La tortuga ecuestre” [The Equestrian Turtle].  A bit earlier, at a safe distance from that playful outdoor locale, I watched as a couple of large trucks took their place.  They carried the lighting equipment and props for a film shoot.  I stopped in my tracks and looked for a good perspective from which I could get distracted by the work of others.  Little by little, from the depths of those great stomachs, emerged the spotlights, cranes, rails, and cameras, along with the cables and other objects that were unknown to me.  At the end, due to the familiarity that shared time grants us, I found out what these objects were from one of the laborers who prepared the footage of a film whose outdoor scenes were set on the island.  To ensure my solitude, I shared nothing with my captors.  I decided to return the next day and offer my services to the crew, even if for free.  I woke up at first light and left them in their slumber, abandoning them in their undressed geography.  Sometimes I would lie back on the cot and gaze upon them until they woke, not to get lost in desire but to keep watch over their dreams.  Maite’s hair was denser than Victoria’s, but the latter’s took root in more abyssal zones.

When I arrived at the set preparation was already underway.  By now those first few tractors had been hitched to other trailers to shelter some of the actors and the director himself.  My voluntary help served to haul the heavy loads and to better prepare everything.  But my research on the information sheet for the film did not progress much.  I was able to deduce from the comments made that it was a peplum [sword-and-sandal], and this brought on a very special surge of excitement, to find myself in Greece and to attend the filming of a cinematographic genre so dear to me.  As the day progressed, that strange landscape of scattered objects became covered with actors in period costumes.  I understood immediately, based on their attire, that they were not Romans but Greeks; and this first requirement came to be confirmed by the slate blackboard where the following title was written in Italian:  I rostri di Helena [The Rostra of Helen].   Had I not developed a sort of friendship with the technicians and agreed to lend a helping hand, I would have returned to my restless and contemplative state, for I discovered how boring, slow, and tedious it is to make a film.  The end of the work day was resolved with nothing but a few minutes of suitable celluloid.  On the sixth day of being engaged in these matters, awaiting my friends’ latest promises to leave, I arrived at the film shoot, as always, at the break of dawn.  Concerns and expectations were higher, because that day would not involve extras or supporting actors but the main protagonists.  Everything seemed ready and, even then, three hours had to pass in order for the action to resume.   I was seated in the shadow of a giraffe sipping a soft drink, when I heard the door to one of those mobile dressing rooms. Out came Helen who, to my surprise, was none other than the actress Rossana Podestà, who had already played the same role, some ten years ago, in Robert Wise’s film Helen of Troy.  In the scene, three actors—two men and a woman—were portraying the historical characters, surrounded by a small army corps, in the middle of the beach.  One of the men tried to pierce the woman with a sword, while the other warrior prevented it.  Among the three, a dialogue of threats and accusations developed that ended with the forgiveness of the protagonist.  Several scenes were reshot not because of errors or flaws in diction or gestures, but because the actor who played the threatening role did it with such violence; so much so that he exceeded the demands of the director’s instructions.  During lunch I learned that the dispute would re-enact Agamemnon’s quarrel with his brother Menelaus, in which he tries to prevent the latter from killing his treacherous wife. And that extreme violence, exacerbated by incessant repetition, stemmed from the disputes maintained by the protagonist couple, who had recently split up in real life.  The interiors of this Italo-Franco-German coproduction had already been shot in the Cineccità studios in Rome.  The film attempted to recreate what might have happened to this woman “rich in men,” after the fall and burning of Troy.  For that purpose, the screenwriter and director, Duccio de Martino, borrowed from three different stories, told by Euripides, Hesiod, and Virgil in antiquity.  The first scene, reminiscent of The Trojan Women, depicted a tragic woman, suicidal, making sacrifices in order to wash away the guilt that had provoked such a disgraceful series of events.  However, Hesiod exonerated her of any responsibility given that she had never been in Troy and her recollection was nothing but a false, supplanted, image.   As for Virgil, in the Æneid, he made Venus stay Aeneas’s sword from piercing her as punishment for her treason to the Trojans and the delivery of her defenseless brother-in-law, Deiphobus, to the fierce vengeance of Menelaus. They had chosen Corfu to film the outdoor scenes due to its proximity, isolation, the economy, and variety of the scenery.  Rossana spent most of her time alone, since no one wanted to take a side one way or another, with respect to the private quarrel. At the end of the day, that mythical Helen climbed into her sports car and disappeared en route to the hotel.

When I returned to our lodging and told Maite and Victoria about my little adventure, they showed a certain amount of jealousy and announced—after weeks of delay—their willingness to leave the island and resume our interrupted journey. I refused and told them—a white lie—of my commitment to the production to work until the end of filming, in a couple of weeks.  My real intention was to see, face to face, that new Helen of flesh and bone and, above all, to touch her hands.  In Helen of Troy, Rossana Podestà played the role of a faithful woman in love; Jacques Sernas portrayed Paris.  When he dies at the hands of Menelaus, in the midst of the burning and pillaging of the city, after the entry of Ulysses’s wooden horse, she holds him; and her white tunic and her hands end up covered in blood.  In the following scene, the last one, Helen is on a ship headed back for Greece.  Menelaus still sees her blood-stained clothes and grasps her wrists to look at her hands.  Then, with great ire, he orders her to change and to wash up.  And she, staring with hate, answers:  “Never!”

The exterior shots changed to places not far from that first location.   I kept watch for the moment of our encounter.  Because of my position of constant watchfulness, I could see how Steve Reeves, leaving the company of Stanley Baker and Cedric Hardwicke, made his way toward Rossana when she retired from the set to her dressing room trailer.  He stopped her and they exchanged a few words.  She rejected him; and he grabbed her in a furious manner and threw her to the floor. I sprang to her aid and received a hard blow to the head, inflicted with the same Achaean helmet he held in his hands.  For a few minutes, I lost consciousness.  When I came to, my whole face was soaked in blood and the gash opened in my brow was still bleeding.  Next to me was Rossana, or who knows, Helen, with her peplum and her hands stained with my blood, trying to contain the violent hemorrhage.

Maite and Victoria welcomed me like abandoned lovers, a role I had never played.  We spoke of our departure—we had been there for nearly two months; and, again, it was impossible for us to come to an agreement.  They insisted on spending September there, too.  But my time was running out, and I felt I should no longer continue the trip to the Greek mainland, but return to Madrid for September exams.   I loaded my Fiat 127, and on the next day, when I turned the ignition, I saw that it didn’t work.  For several days, I was subjected to their ruses that were, indeed, pleasant and witty. On September 14, the date of my birthday, I took them to celebrate at “La tortuga ecuestre.”  They drank and danced to exhaustion while I feigned the same.  I struggled to make them return and they fell exhausted on their cots.  I saw them for the last time, undressed and unwary.  Then, for some unknown reason, I took a safety razor from one of their toiletry kits, and gingerly shaved the down from their pelvises; and I saved each of them in a book of its own, as with dry leaves.

From the stern of the ferry that was heading for Brindisi, I saw the shadow of the hills over the fields of wheat, the vineyards, the olive trees, the orange trees, and the bitter lemon trees of the island.

“Limones amargos,”  from Fuga del amor (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 2005), pp. 32–39. © César Antonio Molina. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Francisco Macias. All rights reserved.

Limones amargos

Todo fue bien hasta que llegamos a Corfú. No es que empezaran allí a ir mal las cosas, sino que la felicidad ya se prolongaba demasiado. Era un profesor novato. Al terminar mi primer curso de enseñante me compré un coche: un 127 blanco. Mi intención era viajar ese verano por Grecia recorriendo aquellos lugares históricos y literarios con los que había soñado desde la infancia. Ni económica ni físicamente podía hacerlo solo y todas las promesas de compañía que me fueron hechas se vinieron abajo. El tiempo apremiaba y se me ocurrió poner un anuncio en el recinto de la Facultad. Una llamada me confirmó el interés de dos alumnas. Lo habían sido mías y aquel curso no tenía nada pendiente con ellas. Con Maite y con Victoria, con quienes apenas me separaban unos pocos años de diferencia, emprendí pues la marcha. Al principio se me hizo raro viajar con unas chicas con las que había mantenido cierto grado de distancia profesional, pero su buen carácter y su humor nos acercaron muy pronto. Todos conducíamos, a todos nos gustaban los monumentos y ruinas, la camaradería y el servicio mutuo aminoraban el calor y el cansancio. Atravesamos el sur de Francia, y luego Italia, y ya íbamos en el ferry de Brindisi a Corfú para luego pasar al continente. Avisé de la llegada al puerto, y a la vista de los edificios que allí nos recibían no noté diferencia en el cambio de país. Construcciones pomposas musolinianas daban paso a edificios y plazas importadas de las antiguas metrópolis francesa e inglesa, en el centro histórico de la capital. Era de madrugada, teníamos todo el día por delante y decidimos buscar un lugar más rústico y marino alejado del bullicio de la ciudad. Las señales de tráfico nos llevaron al noroeste de la isla. Íbamos por la carretera de la costa. Pasamos por Alikes, Kondokali y las majestuosas ruinas de las antiguas atarazanas venecianas de Gouvia; luego Komeno, Dafnila y, finalmente, Dassia que tenía una playa inmensa de casi quince kilómetros. Algunos huertos bajaban a las arenas blanquísimas. Allí, en el mar Jónico, pudimos darnos nuestro primer baño helénico. Yo me eché a la sombra de unos olivos, y al despertar vi a Victoria todavía flotando sobre las aguas, y a Maite que regresaba, no sé de dónde, gesticulando con una señora de edad, toda vestida de negro. Había encontrado, allí mismo, un alojamiento. Era una antigua cuadra ahora toscamente reformada. Tenía tres camastros, una mesa de comedor y un pequeño hornillo, todo en un mismo espacio diáfano. Fuera estaban el w.c. y un pilón que servía como baño y ducha sin agua caliente. El precio era asequible y nos pareció bien este pequeño cuartel donde tomar nuevas fuerzas para el asalto a la Grecia continental. La casa y los huertos de la dueña se encontraban muy próximos, y la mujer nos surtía de frutas y verduras. Todo era perfecto, hasta en la íntima castidad que practicábamos. El tiempo pasaba lento y yo me dejaba perder en el porqué de las cosas terrenas, mientras ellas se iban convirtiendo en mujeres salobres, enyodadas y de ojos acuáticos, de cabelleras de alga que repasaban unas redes colgadas de los techos como velos nupciales. Desde nuestro campamento subimos hasta el norte de la isla, a Kassiopi, donde Tiberio construyó otra de sus mansiones; y también bajamos hacia el sur. En Gastouri se encontraba el Achilleion, la quinta edificada por Sissí, la emperatriz melancólica, en honor de Tetis y de Aquiles. Una construcción neoclásica, con bellísimos jardines presididos por las estatuas del héroe triunfante y herido de muerte en el talón. En Kerkyra pasábamos muchas tardes en las terrazas de la plaza de la Arcada, que nos recordaba la de la Rue Rivoli de París. Mientras ellas recorrían parsimoniosamente las estrechas calles repletas de escaparates llamativos, yo visitaba el frontispicio de Medusa, la que embelesaba mortalmente. Su sonrisa demente, sus ojos saltones, las ensortijadas serpientes de sus cabellos y de su cintura, su boca inmensa de la que debió salir una lengua ancha y bífida como la de una víbora, me petrificaban. Me sentía bien en la isla de los feacios, donde Nausicaa encontró perdido a Ulises, pero los días propuestos para la parada habían pasado y yo las avisaba de una partida inminente que no llegaba nunca a producirse. Así, al alba de cada amanecer, me escondían entre la maleza de sus pubis. Comprendí que me hallaba dulcemente anclado, cuando comprobé que ambas muchachas habían abandonado la depilación y su cuerpo corría libre bajo frágiles ropas. Las contemplaba durmiendo, domésticas y enigmáticas, y se me iba la hora de marcharme. La habitación se cubría de objetos esparcidos, las ropas se mezclaban en desorden. Me gustaba ser un objeto más. No sacudía el polvo que los iba cubriendo. Todos se quedaban donde estaban, en la misma forma y disposición. Sus ropas me ensimismaban y no sentía nostalgia de mi orden doméstico. En aquel lugar ni siquiera lograba poner en disposición mi propio ser. Quedaba envuelto por todas esas formas que esparcían las nubes por el firmamento, y también dentro de mi corazón.

El coche se encontraba perfectamente preparado para seguir el viaje, y mi maleta dispuesta. Sin embargo revisaba una vieja bicicleta, aceitaba su cadena y salía de madrugada, lentamente, a recorrer la línea de la playa. A veces lograba alcanzar Ypsos, un arenal más pequeño cubierto de guijarros, y subía al monte Pantokratos, el más alto de la isla, rodeado de bosques y dominando la bahía. En este paseo matutino me cruzaba con los ferrys que llegaban de Italia o los que partían en dirección a Patrás. Al final del arenal de Dassia, en una curva donde ya no se divisaba el punto de partida, había un casetón de bebidas que servía por la noche como bulliciosa discoteca. En uno de sus muros se leía su nombre: “La tortuga ecuestre.” Pero, un poco antes, a distancia prudente de este local lúdico al aire libre, observé cómo tomaban posición un par de grandes camiones. Llevaban la luminotecnia y el atrezzo para rodajes de cine. Detuve mi marcha y busqué una buena perspectiva para distraerme con el trabajo de los otros. Poco a poco, del interior de aquellos grandes estómagos, emergían los focos, grúas, rieles y cámaras, los cables y otros objetos que no conocía. Al final, debido a la confianza que nos otorga el tiempo transcurrido, me enteré por uno de los obreros que preparaban el rodaje de una película cuyos exteriores se habían localizado en la isla. Para asegurar mi soledad, nada comenté a mis carceleras. Decidí regresar al día siguiente y ofrecer mis servicios, aunque fueran gratuitos. Me levanté a las primeras luces y las dejé dormidas, abandonadas en su desnuda geografía. A veces me reclinaba en el camastro y las contemplaba hasta el despertar, no para perderme en el deseo, sino para cuidar de sus sueños. El vello de Maite era más fértil que el vello de Victoria, pero el de ésta enraizaba en zonas más abismales.

Llegué al plató cuando ya habían comenzado las labores de preparación. Ahora a los camiones iniciales se habían unido otras roulottes para albergar a algunos de los actores y al propio director. Mi ayuda voluntaria sirvió para acarrear bultos pesados y disponer mejor todo. Pero mis pesquisas relacionadas con la ficha del film no progresaron mucho. Dilucidé de los comentarios que era un péplum y me causó una emoción muy especial encontrarme en Grecia y asistir al rodaje de un género cinematográfico tan querido por mí. A medida que el día avanzaba aquel extraño paisaje de objetos dispersos se fue cubriendo de actores vestidos de época. Comprendí de inmediato, por la indumentaria, que no eran romanos, sino griegos, y este primer requerimiento me fue confirmando por la pizarra de la claqueta, donde figuraba escrito, en italiano, el título siguiente: I rostri di Helena. Si no fuera porque había entablado alguna amistad entre los técnicos y aceptado el compromiso de echarles una mano, hubiera regresado a mi inquieto estado contemplativo, pues descubrí lo aburrido, lo lento y lo tedioso que es el realizar una película. El final de la jornada laboral se resolvía apenas con unos pocos minutos de celuloide válido. Al sexto día de estar ocupado en estos menesteres, pendiente de las últimas promesas de partida de mis amigas, llegué al rodaje como siempre a la hora del alba. La preocupación y expectación eran mayores, porque ese día ya no intervenían extras ni actores secundarios, sino los protagonistas principales. Todo parecía preparado y, aún así, tuvieron que transcurrir tres horas para que la acción se reiniciara. Yo estaba sentado a la sombra de una jirafa tomándome un refresco, cuando oí que se abría la puerta de uno de aquellos móviles camerinos y aparecía Helena que, para mi asombro, no era otra que la actriz Rossana Podestà, que ya había interpretado ese mismo papel, unos diez años antes, en el filme de Robert Wise Helena de Troya. La escena que se rodaba consistía en la interpretación de tres personajes, dos hombres y una mujer, rodeados por un pequeño cuerpo de ejército, en medio de la playa. Uno de ellos trataba de atravesarla con la espada, mientras el otro guerrero lo impedía. Entre los tres se entablaba un diálogo de amenazas y reproches que finalizaban con el perdón de la protagonista. Se hicieron varias tomas no por error o fallo en la dicción o en los gestos, sino porque el que agarraba amenazador a la actriz lo hacía con tal violencia que sobrepasaba las exigencias de la dirección de actores. Durante la comida me enteré de que la disputa repetía la de Agamenón con su hermano Menelao para evitar que éste matase a su traidora mujer. Y aquella extrema violencia, castigada con la incesante repetición, provenía de las disputas que mantenía la pareja protagonista, recientemente separados en la vida real. Los interiores de esta coproducción italo-franco-alemana ya se habían rodado en los estudios romanos de Cineccità. El argumento del filme trataba de reconstruir lo que le pudo pasar a esta mujer “rica en hombres”, después de la caída y el incendio de Troya. Para ello su guionista y director, Duccio de Martino, se basaba en tres historias diferentes, contadas en la antigüedad por Eurípides, Hesíodo y Virgilio. El primero, en Las troyanas, dibujaba a una mujer trágica, suicida, inmolándose para lavar la culpa que había provocado tan grandes desgracias. Sin embargo, Hesíodo la eximía de responsabilidad, dado que jamás había estado en Troya, sino una falsa imagen suplantadora. En cuanto a Virgilio, en la Eneida, hacía que Venus evitase que la espada de Eneas la traspasara en castigo a su traición a los troyanos y la entrega de su indefenso cuñado, Deífobo, a la venganza feroz de Menelao.

Habían elegido Corfú para grabar las tomas exteriores debido a la cercanía, el aislamiento, la economía y la variedad de los paisajes. Rossana pasaba gran parte del tiempo sola, pues nadie quería optar, en la disputa personal, por uno o por otro. Una vez terminada la jornada, aquella Helena mítica se subía a su coche deportivo y desaparecía camino del hotel.

Cuando regresé a nuestro alojamiento y conté a Maite y Victoria mi pequeña aventura, mostraron ciertos celos y me anunciaron –después de semanas de dilación- su disposición a marcharse de la isla y continuar nuestro viaje interrumpido. Entonces me negué y les comuniqué –una mentira piadosa- el compromiso adquirido con la empresa productora de la película para trabajar hasta el final de las sesiones, en un par de semanas. Mi verdadera intención era ver, cara a cara, a aquella nueva Helena de carne y hueso pero, sobre todo, tocar sus manos. En Helena de Troya, Rossana Podestà hacía el papel de una mujer enamorada y fiel, lo mismo que el que representaba a París, Jacques Sernas. Cuando él muere a manos de Menelao, en medio del incendio y saqueo de la ciudad, tras la entrada del caballo de madera de Ulises, ella lo abraza y su blanda túnica y sus manos quedan llenas de sangre. En la escena siguiente, la última,  Helena va en un navío de regreso a Grecia. Menelao todavía ve manchadas sus ropas y le aprieta las muñecas para mirarle las manos. Entonces, con gran enfado, lo ordena que se las cambie y que se lave. Y ella, mirándolo con odio, le contesta: ¡Jamás!

Las tomas de exteriores fueron cambiando a lugares no muy distantes de aquel primer emplazamiento. Yo acechaba el momento del encuentro. Debido a mi posición de alerta permanente, pude ver cómo Steve Reeves, abandonando la compañía de Stanley Baker y de Cedric Hardwicke, iba hacia Rossana cuando se retiraba del set a su camerino móvil. La paró e intercambiaron unas palabras. Ella lo rechazó y él la agarró de manera furibunda hasta arrojarla al suelo. Entonces salí en su ayuda y recibí un fuerte golpe en la cabeza propinado con el mismo yelmo aqueo que él llevaba en sus manos. Durante unos instantes perdí el conocimiento. Al despertarme tenía todo el rostro empapado de sangre y la brecha abierta en la ceja seguía manando. Junto a mí estaba Rossana, o quién sabe si Helena, con su péplum y sus manos manchadas con mi linfa, tratando de contener la violenta hemorragia.

Maite y Victoria me recibieron como amantes despechadas, un rol que nunca me habían asignado. Volvimos a hablar de la partida –llevábamos allí casi dos meses- y de nuevo fue imposible ponernos de acuerdo. Insistían en pasar también septiembre. Pero mi tiempo se acababa y yo debía, ya no seguir a la Grecia continental, sino volver a Madrid para realizar los exámenes de septiembre. Cargué mi 127 y al día siguiente, al encenderlo, vi que no funcionaba. Durante varios días fui objeto de sus tretas, en verdad, placenteras e ingeniosas. El catorce de septiembre, la fecha de mi cumpleaños, las llevé a festejarlo a “La tortuga ecuestre”. Bebieron y bailaron agotadoramente mientras yo fingía hacer lo mismo. Me costó hacerlas regresar, y cayeron rendidas en sus camastros. Las miré por última vez, desnudas y confiadas. Entonces, no sé por qué, de uno de sus neceseres cogí una maquinilla de afeitar, rasuré con cuidado el vello de sus pubis, y lo guardé en sendos libros, como las hojas secas.

Desde la popa del ferry que iba hacia Brindisi vi la sombra de las colinas sobre los campos de trigo, las vides, los olivos, los naranjos y limoneros amargos de las islas.

 

 

                            

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