In desperate search of solitude
The Cypriot culture is a very sociable one, and a great deal of that social life is spent talking. Your average native can spend literally hours sitting around drinking coffee, tea or wine, nibbling meze and talking, talking, talking. You could start off on a Saturday morning at one relative’s house for a late breakfast, talk until one, whereupon you head off for the lunch you’ve been invited to by another relative at the breakfast. This meal will consume at least three hours and involve several courses, and by the end of this feast (always with plenty of talking), depending on how large the family is, at least one invitation to dinner or a coffee after dinner will have come in via mobile.
You may have time to pop home for an hour’s nap or, if you’ve already started nodding off over the Commanderia, your lunch hosts may offer one of their bedrooms for that purpose, but be forewarned: this is often a ruse to get you to stay for dinner and possibly even overnight – to continue talking. After dinner, there may be some card-playing (merely an excuse for talking) and, of course, more drinking and non-stop talking. When people run out of new things to say they will share stories that have been shared many times before, but no one ever says, “Oh, you told us that already,” as they would in less polite countries to the west.
Most television shows in Cyprus, if they are not about sports, consist of a group of people sitting around talking. You can change stations to watch an entire Grade B movie and come back to the first show and the same people will still be talking.
I don’t mean to complain about the wonderful hospitality here, but westerners, for one reason or another, sometimes do want to be alone, and quiet. Americans, in particular, are used to being independent, doing things on their own that a Cypriot would never attempt (such as going to the supermarket or getting a haircut) without phoning up at least three other people for company. And there are certain things, such as studying or writing that require the absence of people – especially people talking.
Not long ago, I needed several hours of solitude and silence to finish a writing project. My commiserating wife, appreciative of the fact that I was usually a good sport and went along to most family functions, suggested we spend the weekend at a monastery. She knew somebody who knew somebody at Kykkos and after a phone call we were on our way.
The long winding journey to get there through swaying scenery was the perfect method for ratcheting down the psyche and attaining the proper zen state in which I find it best to write immortal prose. Upon arrival, we parked the car and found our quarters: a spacious though simple, if not Spartan, room that consisted of two twin beds (with protective icon above), an armoire, a desk and two cane chairs. I plugged the laptop into the only powerpoint, locked tight the wooden shutters that communicated to the outside world and, bidding a see-you-later to my wife (off for a synod with the monkish connection), put fingers to keyboard.
No sooner had I finished the first timeless sentence than a fleet of tour busses pulled up outside my window to deposit a gross of German tourists, all barking orders at each other and marching up and down the road to take photos and criticise the architecture. The diesel behemoths, of course, kept their bone-rattling engines running at high idle, presumably to keep the schnapps in the onboard fridges chilled.
I knew there was a cafeteria nearby, so I packed up the gear and, still in a relatively copasetic state, made my way there. The tables were all empty, except for a visiting delegation of Romanian monks, half of whom were loudly commenting on the Gunsmoke episode playing on the overhanging TV while the rest shouted into mobile phones at spiritual souls apparently halfway across the planet. Remembering that I had packed my industrial earplugs, I returned to my cell just as the busses were loading back up and moving on. O joy, I thought, settling once again at the desk as a motorcycle club on a charity run roared into the just-vacated parking area. The blood pressure rising, I waited patiently for peace and quiet to return, and after a few moments it did.
For a full half hour I worked like a Balzac until a shouting match in Greek began outside the shutters that reminded me of a drunken melee at a football match. Two men vociferated at the top of their lungs for the better part of an hour, while I sat, head in hands asking the gods for strength. Finally, I snapped, and flinging open the shutters shouted in my best gutter Greek, “Skas?!” (SHUT UP!)
Standing before me, their bearded mouths hanging open in astonishment, their tall black hats in disarray from my blast of unholy anger, were two Kykkos monks. [email protected]
