August Is The Cruellest Month

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

“August is the cruellest month, breeding/Fires out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and despair, stirring/Dry leaves with frantic winds.” T. S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”

ANDROS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—9/2/2013—

August is the cruellest month, breeding
Fires out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and despair, stirring
Dry leaves with frantic winds.
Winter kept us frozen, shivering
By the heater, waiting for
The head tax on our bills.
Summer relieved our little life, sending us to the island
For succor and sweet evenings above the Aegean.
We splashed in the sunlight, swam in the sea,
And drank wine, played tavli, and talked for hours.

—by Diana Farr Louis, after T. S. Eliot

In Greece, we have a saying, “After August, winter; after March summer.” As we well know, April can be the cruellest month because it is often colder and wetter than March, breaking promises of spring and then—here at least—launching a May so hot and dry that the long-awaited darling buds shrivel before we’ve had a chance to savor them.

But August is crueller still. Though it offers much. Green and black figs top the list, the latter called royal (Vasiliká) they are so succulent, though both are fit for kings. And I do feel like a monarch as I inspect our trees—all three of them—for booty every morning. This summer, they produced so many, I mashed some of them into fig bread, obedient to a friend’s edict that no fig should be allowed to die a natural death.

Blackberries and feral grapes are ripe on the abandoned plot next door, though I have to brave a wilderness of spiky thistles to reach them and never return without purple fingers and bloody arms. And our tomatoes, replanted in pots after we discovered them sprouting in our (not very orthodox) compost pit, give us such strong bursts of flavor that anything bought, even from local farmers, tastes insipid.

The month brings friends, as well, refugees from suffocating heat and sadness in Athens. We sift them from the crowds that gush from the boats, sighing with impatience at the gridlock we encounter on Gavrio’s, the port’s, single shopping street and in its only “supermarket.” But we try to minimize sorties for food and wine, and confine our outings to the (delicious) beaches in our corner of the island.

Their visits bring respite from our household tasks, a holiday at last from painting walls, shutters, and doors; from the arduous ten-day business of changing water tanks (think buckets and ominous spurts of black water when we ran the pump too long); from chopping endless kilos of tomatoes for chutneys and tomato paste.

We are five people and the pooch, and all but Zinnia help with the cooking, sous-chefing, and washing up. Many hands make light work and scrumptious pastas, rabbit stew, gazpachos, hamburgers, and yogurt/peach combos, not to mention the daily bowl of Greek salad enhanced with capers plus purslane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_oleracea) and basil snipped from our pots. In the evenings, we play tavli—backgammon—punctuated by banter and moans at each throw of the dice. We also try to engage in discussions that do not involve politics, taxes, work or the lack of it, or the near future, which pundits and Cassandras are forecasting to be bleak as the demands of the Troika* meet the panicked incompetence of our government and the fury of us shattered Greeks. The small print says that one-third of our population has fallen below the poverty line. Another third fear they will join them.

We do not always succeed but, mostly, we keep the outside world at bay.

Until the evening of August 17^th, the busiest Saturday of the summer. The outside world had sailed in on the last boat in the form of two friends from Boston. They called on their arrival and we made arrangements for lunch the next day. Two hours later, they called again from a taverna on the port.

“We don’t know where your house is, but we hope you’re all right. There’s a fire outside Gavrio, maybe two hours away. Everyone down here’s excited, talking on their cell phones. It looks pretty bad.”

“Thanks for telling us, Maria,” I said. “We’re 10 kilometers west of Gavrio. We hope you’ll be all right!”

Coming back to the inner terrace where we were just finishing supper, I noticed a red glow in the sky to the east. Only three years ago we had watched a deeper red wax and wane behind the slope above us. Nothing’s left to burn there but perhaps the fire was closer than we thought.

As we set out to investigate, memories kept surfacing, of other summers, other fires. Of not being able to reach the port, of seeing hillsides turn to cinder in a twinkling of our eye, of friends’ houses threatened and their gardens singed. Of thinking of the countless animals and birds sacrificed to the greedy flames. And of the ugly aftermath, a horrible stain on the landscape, that takes years to heal, even partially.

That night, the flames gobbled a big swathe of the valley behind Gavrio, sparing the town but veering up the hill towards another village and scorching white houses. We watched, fascinated, unable to tear ourselves away from the macabre spectacle.

The next morning, when I went to collect our friends from the outside world, the damage seemed less grave than it had in the dark. The firefighters had managed to stamp it out by 3 a.m. But already rumors were circulating in the hotel that three charred tires had been found near the oil press where the fire started, confirming suspicions of arson.

Last year, a madman was arrested for setting five or six fires in that area. His lawyer had him released on grounds of insanity. Was this his work or that of another? Alas, there is no shortage of pyromaniacs on this island, in this country. Yesterday, I learned that another fire broke out the following weekend, in addition to the two before the 17^th.

We managed to have a delightful swim and a four-hour lunch with our Boston friends. The tales of the outside world they brought with them, even the Republican-Democrat impasse, seemed innocuous compared with our own internal problems.

Yet as I write, another, far greater fire is blazing in distant California, lapping at Yosemite and threatening to cut off San Francisco’s water and electrical supplies. Next year, the papers will be full of the centenary of the Guns of August, 1914. But we will be full of dread, wondering what the inevitable fires of August will destroy this time.

Can there be any doubt that August is the cruellest month?

RECIPE 

Fig Bread

So you don’t go away feeling too depressed, here is a recipe that celebrates the gifts of August. Although I normally don’t eat a fig I haven’t actually picked, this Fig Bread, which is more like a fruit cake, will be delicious even with store-bought figs. Do try to use fresh figs; dried will probably be good too, but more wintry and more stodgy. Soak them in wine first, if that’s all you can find.

3 eggs, beaten

1—1½ cup brown sugar

2 cups ripe figs, washed and mashed

¾ cup vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

3 cups flour, sifted with . . .

2 tsp baking soda,

1 tsp salt, and

½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup buttermilk or yogurt or kefir

1 cup chopped walnuts or a mix of walnuts and almonds

Beat the sugar and eggs together well. Mash the figs with the oil. Combine the figs with the egg/sugar mix. Gradually add the sifted flour, and stir thoroughly. Stir in the buttermilk and then fold in the nuts. Pour the thick batter into a big cake pan or use two medium loaf pans, as I do. Bake for about one hour in an oven preheated to 375°F/180°C. The bread will turn a dark luscious brown and is ready when a sharp knife inserted into it comes out clean.

*”Troika,” our name for the joint chiefs of the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank, who hold our purse strings here in Greece.

Note: For the full text of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland,” with which this column opens, go to http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/18993 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land.