Am erikan and anyone with dark skin. They are pale, anemic
boys with crew cuts; slight and tall and banal; filled with foul
language that they fire at the natives instead o f using guns. The
words were dirty when they said them; mean words. I didn’t
believe any words were dirty until I heard the white boys say
cunt. They live on the Amerikan bases and they keep
everything Amerikan as if they aren’t here but there. They
have Amerikan radio and newspapers and food wrapped in
plastic and frozen food and dishwashers and refrigerators and
ranch-type houses for officers and trailers and supermarkets
with Amerikan brands o f everything. The wives and children
never go o ff the bases; afraid o f the darkies, afraid o f food
without plastic wrap, they don’t see the ancient island, only
Amerikan concrete and fences. The Amerikan military is
always here; the bases are always manned and the culturally
impoverished wives and children are always on them; and it is
just convenient to let the Vietnam boys rest here for now, the
white ones. The wives and the children are in the ranch-type
houses and the trailers. They are in Greece, on the island o f
Crete, a place touched by whatever gods there ever were,
anyone can see that, in fact Zeus rests here, one mountain is his
profile, it is Crete, a place o f sublime beauty and ancient
heritage, unique in the world, older than anything they can
imagine including their own God; but the wives and the
children never see it because it is not Amerikan, not the
suburbs, not pale white. The women never leave the bases.
The men come o ff to drink ouzo and to say dirty words to the
Greeks and to call them dirty names and laugh. Every other
word is nigger or cunt or fucking and they pick fights. I know
about the bases because an Amerikan doctor took me to one
where he lived in a ranch-type house with an Amerikan
kitchen with Formica cabinets and General Electric appliances.
The Greeks barely have kitchens. On Crete the people in the
mountains, mostly peasants, use bunsen burners to cook their
food. A huge family will have one bunsen burner. Everything
goes into one pot and it cooks on the one bunsen burner for ten
hours or twelve hours until late night when everyone eats. -
They have olive oil from the olive trees that grow everywhere
and vegetables and fruit and small animals they kill and milk
from goats. The fam ily will sit at a w ood table in the dark with
one oil lamp or candle giving light but the natural light on
Crete doesn’t go aw ay when it becomes night. There is no
electricity in the mountains but the dark is luminous and you
can see perfectly in it as if God is holding a candle above your
head. In the city people use bunsen burners too. When
Pappous makes a feast he takes some eggs from his chickens
and some olive oil and some potatoes bought from the market
for a few drachma and he makes an omelet over a bunsen
burner. It takes a long time, first for the oil to get really hot,
then to fry the potatoes, and the eggs cook slow ly; he invites
me and it is an afternoon’s feast. If people are rich they have
kitchens but the kitchens have nothing in them except running
cold water in a stone sink. The sink is a basin cut out o f a
counter made o f stone, as i f a piece o f hard rock was hauled in
from the mountains. It’s solid stone from top to bottom.
There are no w ood cabinets or shelves, just solid stone. I f there
is running hot water you are in the house o f a millionaire. I f
you are ju st in a rich house, the people heat the water up in a
kettle or pot. In the same w ay, there m ay be a bathtub
somewhere but the woman has to heat up kettle after kettle to
fill it. She will wash clothes and sheets and towels by hand in
the bathtub with the water she has cooked the same w ay the
peasant woman will wash clothes against rocks. There is no
refrigerator ever anywhere and no General Electric but there
m ay be two bunsen burners instead o f one. Y ou get food every
day at open markets in the streets and that is the only time
women get to go out; only married women. The Am erikans
never go anywhere without refrigerators and frozen food and
packaged food; I don’t know how they can stay in Vietnam.
The Am erikan doctor said he was writing a novel about the
Vietnam War like Norman M ailer’s The Naked and the Dead.
He had a crew cut. He had a Deep South accent. He was blond
and very tanned. He had square shoulders and a square jaw .
Military, not civilian. White socks, slacks, a casual shirt. N ot
young. N ot a boy. O ver thirty. Beefy. He is married and has
three children but his wife and children are away he says. He
sought me out and tried to talk to me about the War and
politics and writing; he began by invoking Mailer. It would
have been different if he had said Hem ingway. He was a
Hem ingway kind o f guy. But Mailer was busy being hip and
against the Vietnam War and taking drugs so it didn’t make
much sense to me; I know Hem ingway had leftist politics in
the Spanish Civil War but, really, Mailer was being very loud
against Vietnam and I couldn’t see someone who was happily
military appreciating it much, no matter how good The Naked
and the Dead was, if it was, which I m yself didn’t see. It was my
least favorite o f his books. I said I missed Amerikan coffee so
he took me to his ranch-type house for some. I meant
percolated coffee but he made Nescafe. The Greeks make
Nescafe too but they just use tap water; he boiled the water.
He made me a martini. I have never had one. It sits on the
Formica. It’s pretty but it looks like oily ethyl alcohol to me. I
never sit down. I ask him about his novel but he doesn’t have
anything to say except that it is against the War. I ask to read it
but it isn’t in the house. He asks me all these questions about
how I feel and what I think. I’m perplexed and I’m trying to
figure it out, standing right there; he’s talking and my brain is
pulling in circles, questions; I’m asking m yself if he wants to
fuck or what and what’s wrong with this picture? Is it being in
a ranch-type house on an island o f peasants? Is it Formica on an
ancient island o f stone and sand? Is it the missing wife and
children and how ill at ease he is in this house where he says he
lives and w hy aren’t there any photographs o f the wife and
children? Why is it so empty, so not lived in, with everything
in place and no mess, no piles, no letters or notes or pens or old-