Listening in Silence

He led us to the house, introduced us to his brother, George, who was deaf and dumb, and prepared us for our trip around the village where my friend’s father had lived until forty years ago. George had a round, rutty face adorned by a bushy moustache, and wore a leather vest. Out of context, one would expect to see him starting the weekly brawl at the local biker bar. To tell you the truth, he frightened me a bit. He had calloused, almost swollen hands, and breathed very loudly. No one in the family had learned sign language, so he built his own type of communication with flails, points, and grunts. After I grew accustomed to the occasional moan, however, I noticed that he was more skilled and able than any of us hearing folk could ever hope to be. He herded the sheep and goats, he cleaned the stables, he kept everything in the house in working condition, and he even cooked most of the family’s meals.

Mr. Kouros’ two cousins, Demetrius and George, had begun to intrigue me. I almost completely forgot about the toils of the car ride. The whines of Yianni and the sound of the straining engine were replaced with the chirps of the crickets, and Demetrius’ laughter. They had no television, no telephone, and no verbal communication among themselves. Still, these brothers were the most hardworking, appreciative and content people I had met in a very long time, and after the reunion with their distant relatives, they were also the happiest.

Demetrius first led us to the monastery on top of a mountain where the Virgin Mother apparently stopped a boulder from crashing into the village below. He went there every day to pay his respects to the elderly nuns that resided there, and to find his peace. On our exhausting trip up the stairs (What is it with Greece and inconceivably long flights of stairs?) we were shown the boulder that rested miraculously on the tip of the ledge. It was about the height of two basketball hoops, and about a door’s width. Physics may never explain how it stood vertically on its tip, and not on its side. If you looked closely, and with a very open mind, you could see the shape of a giant hand imprinted into the side of the rock where it would have tumbled over the edge. However, if you ask me, the hand looked more like a man’s hand than the Virgin Mother’s. Perhaps they had their Saints confused.

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