The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (27 page)

“And in what ways do you fine gentlemen uphold the honor of this family when it comes to screwing around?”

My father looked at me coldly. Then, there was a bark of laughter from Takis by the window. My father spun around in his chair.

“You,” he yelled, “get out! Get out of this house until I say you can come back in it!”

Takis pulled himself out of his chair, indifferent and smiling, and slunk out the door. My father had handled him badly. He would be on his way, even now, to his friends to pass on this juicy tidbit of gossip.

Uncle Louis hadn’t finished.

“When I saw you with that woman,” he said, “I was not alone. Anna was with me.”

No more needed to be said. Anna, his wife. My wife’s cousin.

I was suddenly more frightened than embarrassed or angry, afraid of what would happen if word reached Elpida’s ears. I
was afraid of the tears and the scenes, of the long, wakeful nights with my wife sobbing beside me. I was afraid of the dressing-down from my father-in-law, and the sulky silence of my mother-in-law. I was afraid of the whispers as I passed people in the street. I was afraid of the loss of standing, and of losing face, and of having nowhere to run.

“Has she said anything?” I asked.

“Not yet,” said my father.

So I didn’t hesitate.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

My father had it all planned, had his words—so melodramatic—all thought out.

“Swear,” he said, “on the life of your daughter, and on the blood of Christ, that you will not go near that woman again, and we will protect you.”

So I swore. It was the easy thing, and an act of pure cowardice. Pappa Philippas moved his attention away from his whisky glass long enough to hold out his hand and I kissed the ring on his finger to seal the oath. They had got me, and nailed me down, in under three minutes.

I
n those early hours of discovery, my feelings for Irini simply evaporated. I was grateful to be free of them, and of that dreadful lust. Fear is a great antidote to lust. I believed I would easily forget her, and she me. We had, after all, been playing only a harmless game. At that moment, I never wanted to set eyes on her again.
But as I left my mother’s, as I walked to the truck on legs that felt like water, someone called out to me. It was Aunt Sofia.

“Theo! Theo, wait!” she called. I was impatient with her. I wanted to speak to no one; I was hoping the earth would open up, and swallow me.

“What is it, Aunt?” I asked. She was clutching at my arm, and looking into my face.

“Theo, listen to me,” she said. “You must listen. Think about what you’ve done, what they’ve made you do.”

My pride made me stick up for myself.

“I’ve done nothing I didn’t choose to do,” I answered.

“Theo, look at me,” she said. “It’s too late for me now. But you can learn from my mistake. Some things are worth fighting for, son. If you love this woman, don’t let them make you give her up. Stand up for yourself. Take her away from here. Just go, Theo. Step into the ring, son, and fight for her.”

I looked at her. I heard her words, I suppose, but not what she was saying. And then I said a terrible thing. Here’s where the lying started in earnest. I patted her on the shoulder and I said, “Don’t worry yourself, Aunt. The woman is nothing to me.”

I thought then she was going to cry. So I turned her gently around, and said, “Go back inside, Aunt, before you catch your death of cold.”

I
t didn’t matter, in the end, what we had decided, or what protection I had been promised as we sat, men of the world, around that table. Word was already out. Too many people knew too much. Takis had been talking, naturally, but the blame may not lie exclusively at his door. Any one of them—my father, my uncles, the priest—might have found the weight of such a gem of gossip too heavy a burden and felt the need to unload it, in confidence, and not to be repeated, to some acquaintance. And Anna, Louis’s wife, was likely to have spread the word on their side of the family, in the guise of a selfless act of duty.

It started the next morning. Men I barely knew to wish “good morning” approached me in the street, and, like conspirators, took
me by the arm and whispered, “Is it true, friend, you’ve been with Andreas the Fish’s wife? What was she like?”

I’d push them away and laugh. I told them all the same thing: much as I’d like it to be true, it wasn’t. If they believed me (and some did), they’d look disappointed and walk away. If they didn’t believe me, they’d wink and slap me on the back, call me a randy dog. In their eyes, I’d joined the ranks of the real men, the screw-arounds who used women as they were meant to be used, the serial philanderers who dared, the insatiable adulterers with too much lead in their pencils for one woman to handle.

My life became a misery to me. I wanted to run away from it, but I had nowhere to go. Every time I had to walk in the house, or my mother-in-law’s house, I felt sick with dread that the news might have penetrated the citadel, that the real horror and trouble was about to start. I was unable to behave naturally because I couldn’t remember what natural, unworried, unguilty behavior was. If Elpida didn’t smile at me when I walked in, I would probe and probe to find out why, irritating and annoying her. She became suspicious. As she pointed out, until recently I was totally indifferent as to whether she was smiling or not. I tried, unsubtly, to dissuade her from going out—to her relations, even to church. The churches were the most dangerous places of all. All those wagging tongues, gathered together there in one place. She went, against my wishes, and I paced the house until she returned, asking myself what the chances were that all those sharp, malicious women would be able to resist telling Elpida what they’d heard. Any one of them might have told her, one or two out of misguided friendship, the rest out of spite.

I wouldn’t have the TV on; it masked the noise from the street, voices and footsteps of anyone approaching the house. I
wanted to intercept any visitors, steer away any bearers of bad news, shoot any messengers. I took up residence in the kitchen, on guard at the kitchen table. It drove Elpida mad. I was in her way as she tried to work. But it was the only time I could relax slightly, the only time I was in control. I could see her, and I could see the door.

I hadn’t slept properly for weeks, but where before lust for Irini and pleasurable plotting of sexual liaisons had kept me awake, now it was nightmarish fantasies of confrontation and crisis. Yet when I did sleep, it was often of Irini that I dreamed, but the dreams were no longer a pleasure. I was always hunting for her; I knew where she was and was on my way to her, but I always woke before I found her, and I woke feeling empty. I worked, but couldn’t concentrate, making too many stupid mistakes until my father shouted at me to pull myself together or go home. I wouldn’t go home, not in working hours. I drove up the mountains and hid there, knowing if anyone saw me they’d assume I’d planned a rendezvous, which could only make matters worse. I went into a church once, St. Lefteris’s, lit candles and prayed with all my heart for an easy way out of the mess. Is that what I got?

I ate little, smoked too much, veered from manic good humor to foul temper and melancholy
.

Elpida quickly drew the only logical conclusion. She went one day in tears to her mother, and told her I had found another woman
.

I
t seemed to happen in a single day that Theo changed towards me. To everybody else, it was a day like any other; to me, it marked the first hours of a long and bitter end. He walked by me on the street, and there was no hello, no smile or backward glance. He turned his face from me—he turned away!—and passed me by, with no acknowledgement, as if I were a stranger. And I felt a little lurch of fear, and tears pricked my eyes, and I was cross with him; but I forgave him—it didn’t take me long—by finding ways to justify his rudeness. I told myself that he was being prudent; the eyes and ears of spies were everywhere.

And then, one morning I was waiting in the post office, and as I stood in line, he came in too. I didn’t need to look; I knew his voice as he called out to the postmaster. I knew his voice, because it brought deep blushes to my cheeks, and put a tremble in my fingers
.

The queue was long; the new girl they had hired was inefficient, taking too long with every customer, even for the buying of a single stamp. Theo was impatient, and he shouted to the postmaster from the back of the queue. I remember his voice, and I remember his words; I’ve heard no more words from his mouth, since
.

He shouted, “Stellios, give me back that envelope my wife dropped off this morning. She forgot to put the check in it.”

And the postmaster broke off from weighing parcels, picked up a stack of stamped mail, and riffled through the envelopes, until he found the one that Theo’s wife had brought.

He held it out for Theo
.

And Theo, pushing his way forward to the counter, trod on my foot
.

He didn’t seem to notice—not me, nor that he’d hurt me. He offered no “excuse me,” or “I’m sorry,” which would have been good manners, even if I’d been a stranger
.

And I began to realize that strangers were what he wanted us to be
.

Outside, he was there, with friends. He had the envelope still in his hand; he was listening to a joke, and when the punch-line came, I heard him laugh much louder than the others
.

It didn’t hurt, so much, that he didn’t say hello; it wouldn’t have been so bad if he only hadn’t looked in my direction. But what he did was far, far worse; he saw me there, and turned his back on me
.

D
ays passed, and his remoteness persisted. She, at first, was desperate for contact, for some small sign that he still cared. More time passed, and she would have been grateful for a sign that he knew she existed; to him, it seemed, she had become invisible, and irrelevant. With no word of explanation, without a smile for friendship’s sake or the simplest of goodbyes, he had left her.

She could not let him go so easily. She searched for
him in all the places she had been sure to find him, but he was gone. Hour after hour, she waited and watched at the window, but he never passed. In her distress, she became reckless; she walked by his house, brushed her hand against his truck, peered through its window to see again the setting of their magic. It was nothing but ordinary—just the cab of a truck. A blue glass charm against the evil eye hung from the rear-view mirror; an empty carton of strawberry-flavored milk lay on the floor. Of the man she had believed in love with her, she found no trace.

As she walked home, a vehicle slowed behind her. Her heart leapt, believing it was him, but the car which pulled alongside her was gray, and the man behind the wheel was Zafiridis. His hopes were high; he’d heard the whispers of her immorality, and what she’d given one, she’d surely give him too.

“Get in,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride. I’m going past your house.”

His breath was sugary with peppermints, but at the gums, his teeth were thick with plaque.

“I prefer to walk,” she said. “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble. Get in.”

His eyes ran over her body; they scanned her legs, and came to rest on her breasts.

“No,” she said. “I prefer to walk.”

He watched her go, enjoying how her hips moved, then turned the car and headed back the way he’d come. Her refusal was, to him, quite understandable; with her new reputation, she couldn’t afford to be seen with any man. But he could tell by her expression that she wanted
him; his timing had been off, nothing more. She wanted romance, and some gentle handling; and the time for romance was the night, when he could come and go, and no one would ever know they’d been together.

I
t was the hardest thing I ever had to do. At first, I thought it was going to be easy, because I was afraid of discovery and disgrace. I was looking after Number One, trying to believe it had all been a game and I was coming out of it unscathed. If only she doesn’t make trouble, I thought. If only she doesn’t make things difficult
.