The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (8 page)

On a plastic chair beneath the oak tree, Grandpa’s great friend Nikolas sat alone. He clutched a small bouquet of flowers picked from the orchards—white-petaled marguerites, wild orchids, yellow poppies—their stems wrapped around with a crumpled paper bag. The poppies had lost their freshness and were wilting. Theo went to shake Nikolas’s hand, but the old man in his loss seemed not to know him.

From the doorway, Aunt Sofia beckoned, pale in widow’s black faded with too many launderings. Below the
uneven hem of her home-sewn skirt, the pale-green lace of her nylon slip showed bright against the once-black serge. They had given her a tray to collect the glasses the whisky-drinkers were done with. As he approached her, she grasped his forearm.

“Theo,” she said, urgently, “they’re nearly finished. They’re nearly ready.”

As she spoke, they heard the final words—
Eternal be thy memory, dear brother
—and a chorus of light coughing as the women, released from head-bowed prayer and pious attitudes, cleared their throats of candle smoke and incense.

“Collect the glasses quickly, then, Aunt,” he said. He turned his back on her and, making his way amongst the men, he placed his hand on the shoulders of the four who were to help bear the coffin.

“Time,” he murmured. “It’s time.”

Smiling, always smiling, Aunt Sofia moved amongst the men, offering them the service of her tin tray, until the tray was heavy with empty glasses; and, because the slack, under-used muscles of her thin, aged arms complained, she, afraid of the mess, the rumpus there’d be if she let it fall, balanced it on a chair where no one sat.

The women filed out into the street. Aunt Maria’s eyes fell on Aunt Sofia, pink-cheeked, hand on her delicate heart, resting. Aunt Maria’s fat jowls wobbled. She marched across to where Aunt Sofia stood, and snatched up the tray. A glass fell; as it shattered, all the mourners turned to stare at Maria, at the shards strewn across the lane.

Aunt Maria’s face turned red.

“I was afraid that would happen,” said Aunt Sofia, timorously. “That tray’s very heavy, isn’t it, Maria?”

“Look what you’ve done!” hissed Maria. “Look at the mess! Go and get a broom and get this cleaned up!”

Aunt Maria laid the tray down on its chair. The pallbearers ground out their cigarettes and went into the house; the undertaker, carrying a hammer and a small Nescafé tin rattling with nails, followed them.

Uncle Janis brushed the tears from his cheeks. Michaelis was flushed with whisky, and the sting of the bitter wind. The focus of his eyes drifted, to Theo, to the men and women gathered at the doorway.

“Are they ready for us?” asked Uncle Janis.

“Yes, Uncle. It’s time.”

His uncle clapped him on the back.

“You’re a good boy, Theo,” he said. “Your grandpa’s favorite.”

“He’s everyone’s favorite,” said Takis. At the foot of the orchard wall, the thistles were high, and dense; he pitched his empty bottle there, and it fell silently amongst them, unbroken and hidden. “Our own Saint Thodoris.”

Michaelis moved to cuff his ear, but the alcohol made him slow, and Takis bent out of range.

“How dare you?” Michaelis’s words were slurred; their endings ran into their beginnings so none of them were clear. “How dare you take that name in vain on such a day?”

“Leave him, Mikey,” said Uncle Janis. “He doesn’t mean it.”

Cousin Lukas had a reputation: he always spoke the truth.

“He means it,” he said. “He’s jealous.”

“Jealous!” scoffed Takis. “Why should I be jealous of him?”

They gave him no answer. Heads lowered, they walked together to the house.

In the parlor, the first nail in the coffin lid was hammered home.

T
he church of St. Thanassis glowed with the light of candles; the flames drew long shadows from the unlit corners, and made skulls of the carved faces of the long-dead saints. They laid the coffin on the cloth-draped trestle table, and at the lectern, Pappa Philippas turned the page of the calf-bound book.
Truly all things are vanity, life is but a shadow and a dream, and vainly do humans trouble themselves, as the Scripture says: when we have gained the world, then we shall dwell in the grave, where kings and beggars are the same; therefore, O Christ God, give rest to those who have passed over, as you love mankind
.

S
ix years ago, Theo had been married in this church. He remembered his wedding day as if it had happened to someone else, someone he had known well but had lost touch with and could picture only vaguely. He could replay pieces of the day like a home movie, cutting from scene to scene without continuity. A good day, his best
day, a glorious warm day of early summer. He remembered his brother stumbling into the bedroom they had shared in the small hours before the wedding, Takis stinking of cigarettes and beer, giving Theo sex tips before falling asleep in his clothes. He remembered sitting with his mother at the kitchen table, very early in the morning; he had watched the sun rise. She had made his coffee exactly how he liked it, not too sweet, and had placed his cigarettes and lighter in a clean ashtray before him. He remembered the hiss of the gas in the little stove his mother used only for coffee, and the dropping note of the coffee’s singing in the pot as it came to a boil. He remembered an emotion he was unable to put a name to—regret, perhaps—and had held her hand, and said his thanks, and his mother had begun to weep. He remembered the dish of sea urchins Uncle Janis had brought him at lunch to bring power to his loins, and how all his relatives had crowded around to watch him eat them, ensuring the male prowess of the family would not be compromised. He remembered how loud the bouzoukis had sounded in the small house as they picked out the old songs, the old men’s favorites, and how the old men had sung along, raunchy songs of lust, sad songs of love gone wrong, romantic songs of port-bound sailors far from home longing for the smile of mother. He remembered his first sight of Elpida in her wedding dress, what a princess she was, so beautiful, wonderful in white, smiling shyly on her father’s arm. At that moment he had fallen in love with her, for that day at least, so when the time came to make their vows, he had been able to believe in the words he was saying. He remembered that
after the ceremony, when he and Elpida were two minutes married, tied together forever by the silk ribbons of their orange-blossom crowns, as the congregation pelted them with sugared almonds, a nut caught him right in the eye; it had hurt so much he had wanted to cry, but knew that to do so, to cry on one’s wedding day, could bring only the worst of bad luck. He remembered dancing for his bride in his shirt sleeves, hot from cheap Metaxa and red wine, with his friends crouched in a circle at his feet, clapping the rhythm for him. He had danced with her; he had danced with every woman in the place. He remembered the plates of food put before him—soft-boiled octopus, grilled lamb, roast chicken, olives marinated in herbs and salted fish, fried courgettes with garlic sauce, a rich stew of aubergines, tiny sea snails in their shells—and how he had eaten nothing, because he had felt his life was beginning at last; he had no time to waste eating.

And he remembered being, finally, alone and naked with Elpida. She had wanted to please him, but had no clear idea of what was expected of her. When she had seen the size of his member, she had been afraid, and penetration had been difficult, and very painful for her. She had cried, afraid that she had failed him and that he would send her back to her mother’s house in disgrace; embarrassed and unhappy, they had fallen asleep, two strangers left alone to make the best of it.

She was standing here, next to him, and when he glanced at her she gave him a little smile. But his face remained somber. He had seen his brother smile at her, from across the nave, and he had seen the way she dropped
her eyes, and lifted them, and returned his smile, with a warmth she did not seem to feel for him.

W
hen the service was over and Grandpa had been carried up to the cemetery and laid in the ground, the men left the women to it. The women fussed and cried, worriting about oil for the candle glass, bickering about whose flowers would be shown to best advantage where. Grandma, hysterical, lay down in the dirt and declared she would never leave the graveside, never.

The neighbors wandered home. Theo walked slowly with his father and Uncle Janis down to the
kafenion
in the village, old Nikolas and a few others with them. Not Takis: no one had seen Takis since they had left the church. They said little; they were all miserable. Michaelis called for whisky; the waiter brought a bottle.

They drank in silence for a while, but when the whisky began to blur the edges of their sadness, they started to tell stories about Grandpa, of the way he had been, and the things he had done.

“The old fool and his teeth,” said Uncle Janis. “I’ll never forget that day. When his teeth got so bad they just had to come out, he let that idiot Thassis persuade him he knew how to fix them. Down he went to the beach, made a driftwood fire and gathered all the sea snails he could find. He heated the snail shells in the fire until they were hot and then he bit down on the shells with the bad parts of his teeth to burn the rottenness out.”

In chorus, they laughed the refrain, “The old fool!”

“Aye, the old fool! His mouth was ruined! Sore and blistered for days. But he was too proud, or too scared, to go to Kos to see a dentist, so that was that. Pained him ever after, didn’t they? Spent his last years eating wet bread and paps. Bit of fish, sometimes. What did he used to say, Mikey? ‘Nothing that a bit of clove oil won’t cure.’ The old fool.”

There was silence. Above the bar, a caged canary sang. Michaelis picked up the whiskey bottle and splashed spirit into all their glasses.

“A toast to him! A toast to the old fool, wherever he is!”

On into the evening they drank, until they had drunk themselves through cheerfulness and maudlin again. Theo’s head began to ache, and he wanted to leave; and yet, reluctant to go home, he stayed. Through the open doorway, he watched a woman make her way down the street. Her hair was long, and full; he watched her until she turned the corner, out of sight. On and on they sat, keeping company, sharing memories, until they heard the roll of thunder overhead, and it began to rain.

It
’s still raining; it’s pissing down. We’re sitting in the house. We’ve been sitting in the house for three days. Nothing changes. The years all start the same and end the same. This one limped around to another winter just like last winter. Next winter will be no different. These old stone houses are cold as death. The cold gets inside you, under your skin, chills your bones until they ache with it. We wrap ourselves in our
coats, wear them all day, inside and out. We can’t change our clothes; it’s too cold to undress, and our clean clothes are damp, stinking and rotten with the mildew. There’s nowhere dry enough to air them. Where the bedroom walls back onto the water cistern they’re crawling with fusty gray mold. We all cough from damp-filled lungs. The rain runs in like it owns the place. It comes under the doors; it comes around the window-frames. The carpets are all rolled up in the middle of the room. There are wet towels everywhere, soaking up the water, adding to the damp. Every hour or so, Elpida fetches a bucket and wrings out the towels. Her hands are red from the work, chapped and cracked, split between the fingers. Without the carpets, the wind whistles up through the cracks in the floorboards, rattling the glass in the china cabinet.

In the mornings we put up with the cold; I lie on the sofa with the blankets from the bed piled on top of me, watch TV, smoke. Elpida cooks, winter food. Boiled cauliflower. Lentils. Chick-peas. Fried eggs. Stuffed cabbage. Oranges. I dream of meat, a thick beef stew, maybe roast lamb. But when it rains, we don’t work; when we don’t work regularly, there’s no money for meat. When she’s not cooking, Elpida makes work for herself, cleaning everything she can think of: the light fittings, the chair legs and, between cloudbursts, the street outside. She runs to the baker’s for bread. Me, where can I run to?

In the afternoons, when Panayitsa comes home from school, we go to Elpida’s mother’s. The TV’s always on but no one ever watches it because someone’s always babbling on about nothing: how the woman next door let her kids go out in the rain and how she never sweeps the street in front of their house; whether the women are going to the festival at St. Katerina’s tomorrow; will the ferry bring fresh vegetables. I smoke a lot, drink a lot of
sage tea. Sometimes, Elpida switches on the electric fire (but only one of the two bars) and we all pull up a chair and huddle around it—me, Elpida, mother-and father-in-law, Panayitsa and Elpida’s grandmother, the mad, miserable old crone. My mother-in-law doesn’t understand anything about electricity except that it’s expensive. She unplugs the fridge at night to save money. If there’s a break in the rain, her father goes out in the yard, burns some sticks in a brazier and brings in the hot ashes, so before long we can’t see each other for smoke. Eventually, if we wait patiently, night comes. We go home, Elpida and Panayitsa go to bed, together, for warmth. I lie on the sofa under my blankets, freezing in the dark, smoking, and I wait.

If I went out, where would I go? The boredom makes me die inside; nothing to do, nothing, nothing to do.

Yesterday my mate Short George was passing, so I chewed the fat with him for a while. He and Tall George are going to Kos for a few days for a change of scene. I used to go with them, before I was married. We used to have some good times: go to a nightclub, drink in the bars, ride all over the island on our motorbikes. Have a change from home-cooking. Go to the cinema, look at the shops, maybe buy some new clothes. Find some girls, sometimes.