The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (22 page)

T
he room was dark, lit only by the trembling shadows cast by the television. The game-show host offered insincere condolences to his contestant, and with the onset of the signature music, the credits rolled. Beneath the rain on the roof tiles and the spattering of water leaking from the gutter, the street door opened quietly. The audience was still applauding, and as the game-show host, waving, smiling, bid Irini a very good night, an unheard figure crossed the kitchen and stood for a moment, watching her. Next, said the announcer, would come the news, followed by the weather for farmers.

“Irini.”

His voice was altered, hoarse, and low, but she knew it; still, she was so badly startled her heart began to race. She turned to him. He made a ghastly apparition. His rain-soaked clothes clung to his limbs like leeches; his face was luminous in its pallor, and the blue phosphorescence of the television lit only its bones, so its cavities were black as the grim sockets of a skull.

Andreas
…

It was the strange half-light, and the shock of being surprised that created the illusion; but for a moment, she believed it was his spirit who stood before her.

He’s drowned himself
, she thought.
Now he’s come to take me with him
.

But the smell this ghostly Andreas brought with him was familiar. It was of fish, and stale tobacco—and the sour, acrid stink of vomit.

“Is that you, Andreas?” she asked. She was unsure. “Turn on the light, for God’s sake.”

The figure reached out with a slow hand and pressed the switch. In better light, his face was gray. To warm himself, he held his arms hugged to his body, but still he shivered, swaying slightly, as though still moving with the rhythm of his boat at sea. Passing her, he went unsteadily into the bedroom, where he dropped onto the bed and lay with his hands clutched on his stomach. There were spots of fever on his cheeks. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose against the pain of his aching head.

He put out his hand to her, and she took it in her own. His hand was icy, mottled purple.

“Irini,” he said, “I need something to warm me. I feel cold inside.”

She squeezed his hand; unlacing his boots, she pulled them from his feet.

“Take off those wet things,” she said, and from the chest of drawers she handed him clean clothes. In the bathroom she found only one aspirin in the bottle. She made chamomile tea, and carried it to him on a tray with water and the single aspirin.

She plumped up the pillows at his back, and helped him sit to take the aspirin, and sip his tea.

“I had to come home,” he said. “I was too ill to stay away.” She recognized his words for what they were—apology—and felt the prick of self-reproach.

“How long have you been ill?” she asked.

“Two days. I ate some…”

He pressed the tea cup on her and hauled himself from the bed. Leaning on the wall for support, covering his mouth, he stumbled to the bathroom, and shut himself inside.

When he returned to the bed, his face was damp with sweat. He lay back on the pillows; his breathing was fast, and shallow. When she offered him the tea, he shook his head. He closed his eyes.

“You’d better get Mother,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.”

She leaned over him and put her lips to his hot forehead.

“I’ll be straight back,” she said.

T
he rain had stopped, though water still dripped from the branches of the eucalyptus trees, and runnels ran in new channels they had cut in the stony dirt of the verges. By torchlight, the surface of the road glistened. The night was fresh with stirring greenery; in the gardens, snails were creeping out to feast. Except for the distant barking of a dog, the village was silent; in many houses, the windows were already dark.

But at her mother-in-law’s, the lights still blazed. At the table, four men sat, each frowning at a hand of cards. At the center of the table was a pile of money, notes and coins, and an ashtray full of ground-out butts. By Vassilis’s elbow was a tumbler of Metaxa; by his feet, the bottle was almost empty. Before the other men were glasses of retsina; scattered on the tablecloth were the hard half-shells
of roasted pistachios. The men glanced towards her, but none spoke. Vassilis’s color was high, and on his upper lip were tiny beads of sweat. He slammed a card down on the table: the ten of clubs. One of his opponents, slyly smiling, slid another banknote into the pile.

Silent in the corner sat Angeliki. The rose-pink cardigan she pulled around her shoulders was stained with drops of oil; her hands were busy with a piece of lace. The work was fine, white and delicate.

She left her chair to greet Irini.

“Welcome, welcome,” she said. “Sit, sit.” Anxiously, she looked around for a chair for Irini. The men occupied them all. “Sit here,” she said, “sit in my chair. I don’t mind standing. I’ve been sitting all day.”

“Andreas is sick,” said Irini. “He’s asking for you. I’ve come to fetch you to our house.”

“Mercy!” said Angeliki. She crossed herself. “I’ll come. Of course I’ll come. Do you hear this, Vassilis? Andreas is sick. He’s asking for me. I’m going down to see what wants doing.”

Deftly, Vassilis folded his cards into a stack and held them against his chest.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked.

“Oh,” said Angeliki, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think you’d better find out what’s wrong with him, before you go running down there? Irini, what’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” said Irini. “He’s got a bad headache. His stomach’s bad. I think it’s something he’s eaten.”

“He’s poisoned, then! Good Lord above! Or maybe it’s cold, cold in the stomach. It could be that. Has he been out in this rain?”

“Get your coat, woman,” said Vassilis, “and go, instead of standing here prattling. You’re always prattling. Sotiris, lay one down.” He spread his cards back into a fan.

Angeliki was animated by the crisis, and by a rare sense of being wanted. Her face shone with purpose. In the street, she led the way, light-footed.

“Have you lemons in the house?” she asked. “And alcohol? We’ll be needing both. If you don’t have them, run up to Panayiotis’s, and buy some. Get plenty of lemons; lemon juice is the thing for stomachs. I’ll walk down and sit with that poor boy. And Irini—don’t be dawdling and gossiping on the way.”

I
rini went quickly through the dark streets. The sinister yowling of unseen cats echoed down the alleys; by the builder’s yard, a sleek rat scuttled into hiding. At the grocer’s, the door was open onto the pathway, spreading yellow light onto the pools of rainwater which had formed in the hollows of the pavement stones. Beside a chiller cabinet low on stock (dry-ended half-rolls of mortadella and salami, an uncut wheel of hard cheese, a block of paper-wrapped feta), Panayiotis sat on a high stool. He was a miserly man: unappetizing as the cold meats were, he wouldn’t spoil his customers with fresh until these were sold. The back of the shop (where he kept the cleaning
products and the paper goods—soap powder, bleach and napkins) was in darkness; if Irini went that far, he’d stand, and switch the light on for her, and switch it off as soon as she had made her choice. He glanced at her, and, wishing her good evening, turned the page of the cheap paperback he was reading; its cover showed a Stetsoned cowboy in black silhouette against a sunset, and the author’s name: Zane Grey. Amongst the canned carrots and the bottled garden peas, a small transistor radio crackled commentary on a soccer game.

Irini chose six lemons from the crate behind the door, and laid them on the scales; behind the boxes of at-home hair-dye, she found a bottle of medicinal alcohol and a packet of aspirin.

Panayiotis placed a chewing-gum wrapper inside his book to mark the page, and, slipping from his stool, took a pencil from behind his hairy ear. On a paper bag, he totted up her bill. Irini had no money. He sighed, and took an exercise book from beneath the counter; he riffled through the scribblings and the lists until he found her name. She watched as he carefully wrote the date, and the total she now owed; he must be watched, as he was prone to adding on a little extra.

She wished him good night. Panayiotis took up the paperback Western, and began to read.

The way home was deserted, the silence of night disturbed only by the trickling of water in the drains and gutters, and by her own footfall. The village was left behind. A rising wind was thinning out the clouds, and for a moment, the brilliance of the full moon’s luminescence
lit the valley, casting strange, crouching shadows from the thorny shrubs and cacti.

She was almost home—around the bend, the house would have been within sight—when she heard the sound of an engine behind her. She didn’t look back, but stepped onto the muddy verge, out of its way. She waited for it to pass, watching the verges bloom in its headlamps, like green light spilled in the darkness.

But the vehicle didn’t pass. It slowed, and pulled up alongside her, and the driver leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.

It was him.

She gazed at him, at his face half-hidden and beautiful in the shadows, and felt his eyes on her face. Her hands trembled; her heart beat too fast. The gods were, at last, being kind, and the moment she had longed for (for so very, very long) was here; but now, at the instant of commitment, she hesitated. She looked along the road, afraid of being seen, but there was no one. The time was here, and it was tempting, delicious, irresistible; it was shameful, and immoral, and betraying.

She had the bag of lemons in her hand, her anchor to the mundane.

She placed it in the footwell of the passenger seat, and climbed into the truck.

She pulled the door to, and closed them in together. At last, they were alone.

He reached over and gently squeezed her hand, as if he had shared her fantasies. She felt herself touched by divinity, and looked down at her hand, surprised to see
it unchanged. Neither of them spoke; after all this time of waiting, what words could be spoken that would not debase the moment?

When he kissed her, she knew dreams do come true. She had grown hot so many times imagining this kiss, and now his lips were pressed on hers and his tongue was in her mouth.
I have died
, she thought,
and this is heaven
. She wanted to absorb him, take him into her, touch every part of him. She stroked and pulled at his hair, ran her hands over his muscled back and shoulders. She pulled his shirt up over his back and stroked his naked skin. Their breath was deep and fast; they nibbled, licked, sucked at what bare flesh they could find. He bit her neck; she pulled his hand up to her face, and sucked his fingers. His hands were on her thighs, and then between them, parting them; she spread them gladly. He pushed up the clothing from her breasts, and put his mouth to her hard nipples, then came back to her face, bit her lips and kissed her as if their lips would never again be separated. The gods were kind; their lips could not be separated, ever again, as they lost themselves in bliss.

Did seconds pass, or minutes? Neither could have said. For them, the world was burning, and suddenly the sky was lit by fire, transforming the scene of their consummation into white heat; their love was making its own white light, the better to see, and know, each other.

No. The light flooding the cab was from the headlights of a car pulled up behind them. The driver leaned on his horn.

“Shit,” he said. She straightened her clothes and
smoothed her hair; he slammed the truck into gear and pulled off the road. The car eased past them, the dragon’s eyes of its red tail-lights fading into the night.

“I’d better go,” she said. He sighed.

As she opened the door, he said, “We’ll work something out.” He grasped her hand, and pressed it onto the hot hardness of his erection.

She used the same hand to pick up the bag of lemons. When he passed her on the road, she kissed the air he drove through.

Andreas had shut himself away in the bathroom; Angeliki was at the sink, rinsing a bowl with bleach. The house smelled both sanitary and sour, of Andreas’s sickness.

Nothing mattered. He loved her, he wanted her, he burned for her, and the thrill, the ecstasy, the memory of his touch would carry her through anything—even the nursing of poor Andreas.