THOMAS AGRAFIOTIS
The mystery of the
semi-carved figure A detective story
1 The mystery of the semi-carved figure was initially brought to light thirty years ago - in what is seen as the “dirty” year of our Lord, 1989, and for others a year of political unrest. Of course, no one paid attention to it beyond the limits of the city in which it had appeared. And I don’t think it would have surfaced at all, had I not decided to break my silence, thirty years later, mostly to get to some of the perpetrators, but also to put an end to the monotony in my life. The hero of this story is Iakovos, mostly known by his artistic nickname “Yakovakis.” By that time, Yakovakis had reached the age of ninety-nine, just a breath away from a full century, a living icon of our country’s history, both in terms of historical facts - as he had participated in a series of military events - and in terms of art, expressed through his numerous and elaborate little creatures.
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2 Yakovakis was not merely an integral personality and an artist in the full sense of the word, but also a model Christian. He didn’t limit his faith to lighting the odd candle or making the sign of the cross each time he passed by his parish church during the short route between his humble home and his studio, which also served as a meeting point for artists. On the contrary, he constantly engaged in various charities and acts of actual love towards his colleagues and friends. He didn’t have a family of his own but had many spiritual children as well as brothers. His younger sister, long-time widowed, was the one who helped him and prepared his little “hovel,” keeping it as decent as possible. His only treasures were his sister, his art, his tools and an artistic secret, which he hid from everyone for years.
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3 All those years, at first without having realised it himself, Yakovakis had hidden an artistic secret in his old-fashioned, wooden chest. And unfortunately, I was the one to blame for opening his eyes to it and for letting others in on it - people who should not have known. Theoretically, they were all close to him, people above suspicion, innocent by all appearances or seemingly honest. However, in reality, almost all of them were people that wanted to pluck the chick, eat its innards and leave only the bones. In this case, the chick was wooden. In other words, it was his wooden chest. The chest contained all sorts of tools the artist needed for his art and each had its own special value. But one of them was more than valuable...
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4 Of course, the concept of “value” is somewhat relative when one deals with art. The value of a work is usually subjective. There are obviously objective criteria, such as age, rarity or the manufacturer’s identity, but to a great extent, the artwork’s value is defined by the potential buyer’s desire to acquire it. This desire may be governed by immeasurable and subjective emotions. Other than the artefact’s utility, sentimental value can raise the overall value of the amount offered. Based on all the above mentioned indicatively, we can approximately determine the value of items belonging to Yakovakis-whether precious or not. However, an additional secret greatly raised their value. It was a secret Yakovakis himself kept hidden in the secret bottom of his small wooden treasure chest...
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5 The mystery of the semi-carved figure stopped being a secret when Yakovakis revealed it to me on a cold winter night. From that moment on, the secret transformed into a complex and multi-faceted mystery. Until that day, nobody knew about that semi-carved figure, other than the artist himself, his sister and some old classmates and friends, already deceased, for Yakovakis’s old age had moved past his generation’s limits. His living friends, his last-remaining disciple and his colleagues were much younger. However, Yakovakis got along fine with people who were thirty, forty even fifty years younger than himself. His close circle of friends was mainly composed of seven individuals: six men and a woman.
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6 Yakovakis’s best friend was a colleague of his, aged but still younger than him. He lived in a village, neither too close nor too far from the city where our hero worked and lived. He often visited him, bringing goods from his yard in the village. Eggs, oranges, sometimes even a hen from his hen house. He did make some profit out of all this, as Yakovakis never let him leave empty-handed. He repaid him with the secrets of his art. His colleague, named Iordanis, was probably the only artist of his generation that was both Yakovakis’s colleague and friend. Deep inside, he may have been jealous of Yakovakis because he had never managed to make a name for himself such as that of his century-old friend.
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7 The second member of Yakovakis’s close circle was Apollo. Apollo was not a simple folklore artist like Yakovakis, Iordanis and all the other heroes of the old folk theater. He was a university professor in the region who specialised in folk arts and folk theater. They had been in each other’s company for years, and Apollo wanted to one day write his friend’s biography. However, his efforts always faltered because of lack of money; to edit a book of decent size and quality required funding of a significant amount, which he never felt he could receive. Both the state’s lack of interest toward traditional folk arts, as well as Yakovakis himself were to blame for the above, as he was too humble and modest to push for the publication of a book about himself.
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8 The third link of the narrow, seven-member circle of the century-old Yakovakis was his last-remaining, younger and most important disciple, known as “Liakos.� Liakos was a student who, while he benefited from Yakovakis, returned those benefits to his master. He had been devoted to him for years and loved him the way a son loves his father. Though they were not blood relatives, they shared a deep spiritual affinity; a good disciple is the worthy spiritual child of his master. And it is certain that Liakos, deservedly, believed that if we owe our existence to our parents, we owe our well-being to our teachers. In short, Yakovakis and Liakos never let jealousy or the usual artistic rivalries come between them. On the contrary, they helped each other throughout all in the dire circumstances they faced during their lives.
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9 Yerasimos was a hearty pensioner and the publisher of the biannual newspaper in his village of origin. An islander himself, he was married to a high school teacher passionate about folk theater and the study of folk culture. She was a literature teacher at the high school right across from Yakovakis’s studio. Meetings with the artist always started as a simple chat and ended in long conversations, immersed in wine, until the break of dawn. Yakovakis was the initiator, though this was not good for his old age. Their meeting point was an old inn at the square, next to the school of Yerasimos’s wife. More often than not, Yakovakis’s sister had to drag him out of there drunk as a skunk while scolding his partners in crime, the equally drunken couple...
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10 The two remaining members of Yakovakis’s close circle of friends called themselves “the Egyptians.” They were Greeks originally from Alexandria in Egypt and were referred to as Egyptians due to their origins. Not only did they perform their folk art but they focused on collecting artistic material. Unlike most artists, they weren’t simple collectors who merely collected representative tools of their art. They were frantic hunters of scarce and rare collectible pieces of an art that was considered by many to be fading away. The Egyptians were also referred to as Dioskouroi, as their behaviour resembled that of Castor and Pollux. They weren’t twins - they had a sister named Helen - but they were known for their courage, honesty, generosity, kindness and virtue. They led their lives and acted as one...
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11 Yakovakis’s close circle of friends was surrounded by a wider circle of other friends or distant relatives who did not have frequent contact with him. For example, I was also one of his other friends, but I was under the impression that he never considered me to be, at least up until that time, very close to him. Though he did surround me with love and great affection whenever we met. Besides his sister, he’d also had a brother, long since dead. However, he was not connected to him at all as he had immigrated to America, and his traces had been completely lost. The only thing I knew about him was that he had been the family’s black sheep. People actually said that he had died in a settling of scores, having left no family behind.
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12 In the beginning, the secret of the semi-carved figure was very well kept. Yakovakis recounted the story to me, leaving me literally speechless. It wasn’t simply an old and rare figure - like those one would call scarce. It was more than that. It was a special figure for its kind, and in this sense, one could say it was one of a kind. No other had been like it and no other would ever be created in the same philosophy or taste, nor, more importantly, for the same reason that had led to its creation. As a result, its story was, is and will forever be unique, raising its historical, aesthetic and commercial value. Its value grew greater still, at least for me, as Yakovakis had not revealed the story to anyone else, or so I initially thought taking pride in the fact...
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13 “I will show you something you’ve never seen before,” he said in a low tone, the merest hint of a smile on his lips, with his familiar trembling voice. His look was lively behind his thick spectacles with their characteristic, outdated, thick frame I wondered what it could be, hovering for a bit with a dose of both cowardice and respect as I faced the old and seemingly weakly man, whose century-old, weary body carried the pride, the dignity, the heart and soul of a young lad. “You are the first person alive to see it. Those who saw it have long left this world for a better place. Even when they saw it, though, they hadn’t realised its value, maybe because they were people of a different era. Now that generations have grown apart, the value of what you will see will seem much more significant.”
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14 What could that highly significant item be that Yakovakis was so proud to show to me? Could it be an early tiny creation of his made of tin? Or old cardboard, like those that bear the smell of the passing of time and humidity? Could it be made of leather? Maybe it came from a distant Asian country or even a neighboring one, like Egypt or the old city of Ottoman Anatolia. Whatever my thoughts, I was certain that this revelation would bear the aged and ruthless signs of time, or at least the scars of the abuse, the hectic moves and the misfortune of tools during shows or transfer. In short, I did not expect to see something special, though my friend, in his lively yet derisive style, strove in vain to hint at the exact opposite.
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15 Before cutting to the chase, Yakovakis stood there for approximately two minutes, like a priest ready to enter the Holy of Holies to perform the sacraments, or like an artist, pausing before the curtain and calming himself for a few moments prior to the rite that is his show. He stood like a man about to make a decision at a turning point in his life who stops for a bit before passing once and for all from theory to practice, without even thinking of any possible regrets. Simply, experiencing the last convulsions before death, before the end of an unknown situation, cold as ice, about to emerge from the ice and become known to at least one person. “Do you remember “Barbalias”? An award-winning song, sung ten or fifteen years ago, I reckon. Remember how we used to call it “Yakovas” again and again?”
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16 In the beginning of the 1970s and as the seven years of junta rule was coming to its end, “Barbalias” was a popular song, zeibekstyle, that had received an award at the 1973 Thessaloniki Festival. It spoke of a, dignified, old man, at the end of his life, who led the life of a youngster - notwithstanding the problems of his generation and his personal life. Performer Dimitris Kontolazos, lyrics Dimitris Karastathis, music Petros Zervas. I used to sing the chorus of the song to Yakovakis, only at two points I would replace the name “Barbalias” with “Yakova,” cutting the “-kis” at the end of his name or barely uttering it: There’s no end in sight for you Yakova(k), death hasn’t marked you, When tired from all the work, in the depths of age, You are the one, brave Yakova(k), he wants to drink and dance with.
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17 He quickly wrapped up an item he had picked up from his wooden chest. His movements were quick, so quick that one could not relate them to a hundred-year-old man, but more to those of a teenager. He wrapped it in very old baking sheets, worn by time and inconsistently stacked together, which had been hiding in a corner of his workshop since the times he’d carved figures and padded them with baking sheets that he later drew on. Could it be that a figure was hidden amongst the baking sheets? This would be the most natural and reasonable answer, as the chest contained nothing else figures of a legendary era together with a legendary cloth, now silent, forcing the shadows to also fall silent within the stillness of the closed chest. “Take this package and open it only when you get home. You will be surprised...�
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18 The night was humid and dark. The moon hid behind threatening clouds that appeared ready to attack uninvited guests of the night who erroneously roamed the streets. I, on the other hand, did have a purpose. I was returning home with the precious and mysterious parcel Yakovakis had entrusted me, as if entrusting me with his own life. What could be hiding in the package? The question whirled in my head, causing me to forget the dangers of the night and focus on the bizarre and “soulless� visitor I would need to host in my house. However, my guest was far from lifeless. All of Yakovakis’s tools, like the one he entrusted me with from his chest are lifeless, and this one seemed to be too. But on the contrary, they do have life.
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19 They are made of materials like plastic, leather or cardboard, at times even wood, and in former times, tin. Daring craftsmen would also use other materials. They are called puppets by those who love to generalise; statuettes by lovers of ancient thought; creatures by the older generation; and figures by those who want to be precise. Their roots in ancient religions, they reverberate animism and idols with souls, inviting the divine to penetrate them and call the people to worship them. Understanding the soul of children, they are reminiscent of young children’s tendency to give life to their toys, believing that their little dolls talk and move. Combining religious enforcement with childlike innocence, they bring forth sentiments of awe, fear or terror, which may be caused by an object under very specific psychological conditions. The lightning that then started raging around me made Yakovakis’s parcel very threatening indeed...
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20 The lightning and instant flashes in the middle of the night created, enormous, terrifying shadows that which were born and died in the very same moment. Notwithstanding their instantaneous appearances, they magnified the terror that reared its head in the depths of my soul. I wondered from where this fear was born. Could the sky be to blame? Its current-bearing children touched the earth, creating scorching, electric hearths. Or could it be the passing shadows that remained alive only for fractions of a second, but pierced my skin like electricity, causing my blood to freeze? Maybe this fear was derived directly through Yakovakis’s parcel, which, though seemingly innocent, seemed eager to take in the energy of both the darkness and the light to be brought to life once again, as the tools of shadows always do. I could feel it was alive...
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