SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM MY BOOKS

 

ALL MATERIAL EXHIBITED HERE IS COPYRIGHTED BY H.D. GREAVES

 

 

MANDRAGORA

A Ribald and Irreverent Tale from The Italian Renaissance

PROLOGUE

Illuminating What Is Vulgarly Called Human Nature,

Death Begins This Comedy.

     On an undeniably fair midsummer’s morning  Alessandro Stradella, Dante DeLoreto and Giuseppe Guidi, three daring instigators of iniquitous adventures, were hanged; indeed, undeniably hanged by a cheerfully smiling hangman, who would (as soon as God’s infinite mercy allowed), cheerfully declare them to be undeniably dead.

     Their heinous crimes? Only one. Lechery. They had together conspired to deceive by seduction an unattractive widow, and, after vigorously ploughing her parched and ancient furrow, had contrived to relieve her of her house and lands, which were as considerable as the lady’s charms were meagre.

     Unfortunately for the conniving cavaliers, the widow—after thoroughly enjoying their rakish delights—overheard their palaver, every duplicitous word. That fateful moment in their fraudulent lives led them through a labyrinth of bleak excitement (theirs), and sulphurous outrage (the widow’s), culminating altogether—and so disagreeably for the trio!—in those cheerfully knotted ropes snuggled around their hapless necks.

     In spite of many cheerful hangings for many cheerless crimes, necks, hapless or otherwise, stretched for lechery were not common. Regrettably, this cannot be said of lechery itself, for ever since evil was created at the beginning of the world lechery has been an all too common sin (as you and I, being virtuous, know very well).

     Perhaps this is why common lechery is all too commonly winked at, as it was winked at in the great Republic of Florence, that grand city-state whose government usually had more urgent and important matters to contend with than personal misconduct, however epic its presentation by irate and ugly old ladies.

     But this business of Stradella, DeLoreto, and Guidi, and their unwise wooing of the wealthy widow happened to fall during a prolonged and boring political lull, always a dangerous time for lechers. Thus did the indecently amoral widow harvest her revenge, a revenge sanctified under the holy name of Justice and its much respected, time-honoured, and viciously Draconian law.

     Fondly remembered as the highlight of the otherwise dreary summer of 1518, the gala event drew—as such gala events always do—the obligatory city officials and the usual crowd of clamorous Florentines, all greedily awaiting the Moment of Truth.

     Also present was Friar Timoteo, the condemned trio’s confessor priest. This old Capuchin, well known in closed circles as a venal monstrosity, was a relentless virtuoso of sin. (This crushing statement made against one of Holy Mother Church’s ordained curiosities is true, as his outrageous indiscretions, which I shall relate to you as occasion demands, will prove.)

     Also in attendance and clinging like a diseased weed to this outstanding example of the clergy was yet another superb specimen of humanity’s dregs: a leprous wart by the name of Ligurio. An intimate friend of the good Friar, this gentleman, unlike his fellow Florentines, cared not a scintilla about the Moment of Truth, but greatly about the condemned.

     Now you and I, we who so graciously entertain a delicate sensibility, should not assume that Ligurio’s tender concern touched on anything so worthy of Heaven as tearful compassion. To put it bluntly, Ligurio waited to acquire the bodies, preferably by stealth.

     As a consequence of this clandestine behaviour, he never knew when he would be cutting them down. If the crowd was easily satiated and drifted quickly away, he was blessed with still fresh, still plump, warm bodies. If, as was more often the case (the times being what times commonly are), there was an excessive amount of gloating, usually over some exceptionally loathsome creature, he was forced to wait and so end up with cold and considerably less appetizing cadavers. In either case, whether delectably pliable flesh or rigor mortis, Ligurio was not particular.

     Neither was the crowd particular: whether one neck, two, or three, satisfaction was always guaranteed. Even so, to fill in the jolly suspense-filled interval before the breath-taking finale, the mob must be entertained, a need taken care of by nothing less than the divine art of music. As any frivolous Florentine might whisper into your ear, “A hanging without music is as boring as a Borgia banquet without at least one goblet tainted with poisoned wine.”

     Enhancing the gaiety of this gala, a ragged band of musicians had gathered directly beneath the fatal scaffolding, always a favourite spot with itinerant musicians for picking up any loose change. Composed of six lutenists and an old fellow who doubled on crumhorn and serpent, they played light airs and sang gaily though not well.

     Their carefree requiem was delivered from total banality by a fine young drummer whose skill and fair features attracted the attention of a lesser Medici—a mere cretin of that distinguished family—who ordered him to beat the death tattoo.

     Feeling much imposed upon, the young drummer had no choice but to do as commanded, though it must shamefully be told that his handsome face hid a weak constitution: he promptly fainted when the trapdoors opened and the lecherous trio of Stradella, DeLoreto, and Guidi dropped into the flaming vault of Eternity.

                                           

 

OF BLISS AND GRANTED WISHES

A True Story Told as a Novel

 

PREFACE

 

     I am not going to pretend that this story is entirely true because, like so many true stories, parts of it are reconstructions from recollections and so are liable to error. Much of the story, however, comes from Sophie’s diary, which is  entirely true.

     The diary of Sophie Elise Foster was not a silly little book secured with a cheap brass lock. She used yellow legal pads, hundreds of them. Only a few of those pads, those willed to me by Sophie, remain. What she did with the rest I have no idea. I suspect that she quietly destroyed them, deeming them unnecessary.

     Whatever her reasons, they are gone, irretrievably lost, and I am left only with fragments. Consequently, this is a tale told in fragments, with blank spaces in the narrative. Yet such spaces and their mysteries surround all lives, especially as we age, and this story is quite definitely about aging.

     It is also a story about a life-long romance between two thoroughly functional individuals (versus the ever-popular dysfunctional variety), who, in extreme old age, found themselves facing overwhelming difficulties. How they solved those difficulties with a most unusual arrangement is also entirely true, as is what happened to Sam.               

 

 

POONKY DOODLES

A Novel of Growth and Survival

 

CHAPTER ONE (partial)

 

Trinidad

 

"I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born."

Henry David Thoreau

 

. . . . . That Christmas Day of oh-so-long-ago was warm and humid, and there was a shower late that afternoon. After the rain, Port-of-Spain’s streets shone wet, and that unique combination of evaporating rainwater on asphalt formed a sweet-scented licoriced mist that danced as sunlight torched it.

 

Pairs of green parrots flew from nests high in mango trees, exchanging hoarse screams as they encountered other parrots in the sultry air. Yellow and brown kiskadees, perching daintily on dripping electric wires, responded with their distinctive high-pitched Qu’est-ce que dit? Qu’est-ce que dit?

 

Newly born and nursing, I was not aware of these beautiful natural events, but Archie (whom I called Dada as soon as I could talk) made sure that he told me about them. “I want you to remember your birthday, my darling Poonky Doodles, and how wonderful it was.”

 

But not for my mother.

 

“You were a difficult birth,” she told me often, all too often, “painful and extended,” and she used the same words, like a litany, when telling friends, family, neighbours, anyone.In particular, she had a smothering need to impress upon me the pain she endured for my sake. “You have no idea how I suffered to bring you into this world. I put up with horrible pain and discomfort for months. I was in labour for over twelve hours with you.”

 

Was I supposed to feel guilty for her pain by being constantly reminded of it? I did not understand why I was the cause of her agony in the long months before I emerged into the world.

 

Can any child possibly comprehend his mother’s labour pains? What had I to do with those? I did not feel guilty, though her words confused me, leaving me numb. I was the “difficult birth” attended by “a big blue-black nigger who was a genius, a great doctor, and on Christmas Day—Christmas Day!—a time when your Mummy should have been celebrating with friends instead of going through that disgusting labour with you. You see, I have to love you and you have to love me. You caused me so much pain.”

 

As repetition breeds its own truth, had I any reason to doubt her sincerity?