The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (9 page)

I’m a married man now, a serious man with a family. That life is over for me. What could I do?

I just wished him a good journey.

B
ecause the house was neither here nor there—not at the quieter port, where the smallest boats came and went, nor at the village heart, where the streets were lively with wives and rowdy children—it was called the Half-way House. Along the lane a few souls passed: old men, bound to routine, ambling to valley allotments, to water gardens already soaked by overnight rain; occasionally a car, truck, taxi or lorry; on weekdays, at eleven, the postman, precarious on his scooter. And, once an hour, bald-tired and rattling, the twelve-seater bus.

In summer, when the heat was overwhelming and no cooling wind blew off the mountains until the late hours of siesta, it was a good house, shaded by the overhanging eucalyptus on the road, the back yard given shelter by the olive grove and one vigorous vine which gave no grapes. But in winter, it was a trial. Wind drove the rain under the badly fitted door and around the unsealed window-frames; water pooled on the marble floor and on the tiled sills. She piled the sills with towels, which must be wrung out and then dried, somehow; she mopped the floor, repeatedly. But the water, once in the house,
carried damp into the walls, where it couldn’t be mopped, or soaked up by towels; soaked up instead by stone and plaster, it festered there, revealing itself eventually as foul, black mold. It climbed the walls, and crept across the ceilings; the spores spread like infection into their clothes, the laundered bed linen, the carpets and the rugs she’d made by hand. And the damp made it always cold, and dank; on sunny days, they sat outside for warmth. No house—no home—should be like that. But their landlord was in Athens, and never came here; more importantly, the rent was very low. It would have to do, he said, for now. If they were thrifty, before too long they’d build a dream house of their own.

A
ndreas hawked the cream of his catch on the mainland: the spiny-backed German fish, two good-sized snapper, peachy pink, the slender, silver bream and the ugly John Dory, the clawless local lobsters which had crawled into his traps, the urchins and the oysters he had gathered. Some of what he made, he spent on necessities—fresh stocks of ice, loaves of fresh-baked bread. He prepared his nets and lines to make his final casts, and, when all was in order, he set sail in the direction of home.

The ocean was his element almost as it was the fishes’. Under power, he steered the boat to rock over the gentle swell, or head-on to meet the rising giants, the wakes of ships and ferries. Where there was land—islands or islets, he knew them all—he ran her in close, to take advantage of their shelter; where there was no land, without
reference to his compass his course was straight, as if the ruts between the waves were roads that he knew well. When it was time to halt, he remembered where the rocks would hold his anchor, and where it would drag useless across the sand, and let him drift; he remembered where he’d had success, the tiny coves and inlets where the catches had been good, and there he set his nets.

And he knew his quarry. He knew the habits of each species: the times they liked to feed, the weather that they favored, the depth that they would swim. He knew which bait would be their downfall: a sugar-coated slice of shrimp, a luminous, squid-shaped lure, a crumb of bread or ham. It was, to him, a contest, which the smartest of them won. When the fish stole the bait, and got away with it, he cursed them. But, often enough, there was that weight on the line, that vibrating and tugging which told him he might win, if he was fast enough, and hauled in the fish thrashing and frantic, before it shook itself free.

He pulled them in and held the jerking, slippery, panting creatures to force the hooks back through their bony lips. His callused hands absorbed their slimy oils; the big fish bled, and spattered him with blood through gasping gills. This sharing of their fluids was, he believed, crucial to his skill. And every day he fished, he ate of them—raw urchins from the shell, sardines grilled on a fire, a tin of mackerel—and the acids of his stomach broke down their bones and skin and melded them with his. This way, he said, he shared their essence, and made their secrets his.

His life was with those sea-bred creatures. He shared
their spirit, and their gift of silence. In another life, he’d choose to be a merman.

O
n Saturday, early in the morning, while she still lay in the warmth of the bed, Andreas came home. A key rattled in the lock, the door opened and quietly closed (she left the bed; the room was cold; she pulled on socks and slippers). A chair scraped across the kitchen floor, his striking lighter rasped, he coughed (she found her robe; bobbing before the mirror, she smoothed her bed-wrecked hair). As the smoke of his cigarette reached the ceiling, she was at his side, holding his hand, smiling at his smile.

He kissed her lightly, with salt-dried lips; his long-unshaven whiskers scratched her cheek. He looked a wild man, windswept, sunburned, filthy. His eyes, so swollen and pouched from broken sleep they were only slits, were sore and red. And body, breath, clothes, he stank: sweat, oil, onions, piss. And fish.

“Hello, wife,” he said, still smiling.

“Welcome home,” she smiled back. “I’m glad you’re here.”

She made him tea, and fried him eggs, and as he ate, he told in brief the tale of his travels—where he had sailed, what he had caught, the ones that got away—and as he spoke, the stink rose off him like a miasma.

When he had eaten, he fetched the wooden barrow from beneath the vine. They walked together, companionably, in silence, down towards the sea, passing the verges where he used to gather her posies of shy, mauve
cyclamen and bright, white marguerites. But he didn’t think of posies, not today.

At the jetty, he tied the boat in close, and loaded up the barrow. The polystyrene boxes dribbled clouded, scale-filled meltwater; within the boxes, the last of his catch—whitebait, bony sardines, petrol-blue garfish, long and thin as tubes, and gray mullet (which would go cheap; the people didn’t like it)—lay blank-eyed on chips of ice, discolored and matte from their dissolving.

In the tiny cabin, she gathered up the blankets and the pillow from the plastic-covered mattress where he slept, and spread them on the wooden engine-casing to dry. The boat rocked gently with the movement of the sea; it swilled the bilge water beneath the deck like claret in a goblet, releasing its bouquet: spilt diesel, fish guts. She picked up his one plate—its rim held a clear imprint of his dirty thumb—his cup and bowl, the knives and fork and spoon, the empty water bottles and the beer cans, the tin of corned beef he hadn’t eaten, the remnants of a stale loaf, the peel of an apple.

She used to ask him, sometimes, to take her with him; she viewed his life romantically, as one of exploration.

But he, knowing the truth, objected.

“It’s man’s work,” he said. “You’d find it too uncomfortable.” (And women at sea were bad luck. They talked too much, and felt the cold. They were nervous when the sea was rough, and prone to sickness.)

Now she understood the facts, and straightened out the mess and never asked. His life away from her was squalor, and survival.

“I’ll be home for lunch,” he said, and he trundled the barrow off along the seafront, calling to the women as he went, “Fish! Fresh fish!”

Irini watched him go. The women appeared in the doorways, brandishing their purses, flirting with him for first pick and extra weight. She saw him smiling, shyly, pleased. He pulled off his woolen cap and ran his hand over his baldness; but when one of the women, laughing, reached out and touched the smoothness of his head, the jealousy she sometimes used to feel just wasn’t there.

Around the bay, on the terrace of the café, the four chairs at Nikos’s table stood forlornly empty.

Irini headed home alone.

She was pleased to have an occupation. She made him
pasticcio
, fat, hollow pasta baked with rich meat sauce and cheese. He spooned in his food like a man starving, ripping lumps of bread from the loaf, wiping clean the plate. Beneath the table, one of his gifts to her—an octopus—slithered in a bucket, waiting to be beaten to a soapy pulp on the courtyard stones. His second gift—a leopard-spotted moray eel—lay on a platter, stiffly coiled, in the refrigerator, the hook still through its upper lip, a length of bright-blue nylon line attached.

“I had to cut the bastard loose,” he said, “before it took a finger.” He feared these snake-like fish: a year before, when one had sunk its teeth into his palm it had not let go until he smashed its skull with a spanner. Turning septic, the painful wound had stopped him working for ten days.
On the back of his hand, the scars remained, small dents in a jaw-shaped, curving ridge.

His gifts were meant to please her, and she tried to be pleased, but there was gutting, and beheading, and skinning, and beating, and boiling, and frying to be done, before she could enjoy them. Money for new shoes, she would have kissed him for.

He pushed his empty plate away, and pulled a roll of banknotes from his pocket. He counted them onto the table. He had done well.

“Pass me the tin, wife,” he said.

She took down the biscuit tin from its place upon the shelf. Giving her ten thousand drachma, he forced the roll into the tin, already stuffed with notes.

“You haven’t taken any while I’ve been gone?” he asked, and she lied. No.

“Because,” he said, “it won’t be long before we’ve enough to buy the land. And then we’re halfway there.”

He hadn’t given her enough. He never did. He didn’t know the price of meat, or milk, or oranges. It didn’t matter. The tin was always there, when more was needed.

Andreas pulled the crust from a small piece of bread and, lifting the birdcage from its hook, carried it outside. He hung it beneath the vine where the sun was warmest, and, taking a crumb between thumb and finger, offered it through the bars to the silent lark.

“Come on, Milo,” he coaxed. “A treat for you, a song for me.”

Cautiously, the bird watched him; then, hopping along the perch, it picked the bread from his fingers.

“Good lad,” he said. “That’s my boy.” The bird took another crumb, and another. As Andreas walked back inside the house, the bird lifted its head and began to sing.

N
either pleasure, nor distaste, but disinclination: she felt the inconvenience of undressing, at this time of day, and anticipated the discomfort of nakedness, in the damp chill of their bedroom. But the duty was hers, as much as preparing his food or ironing his clothes; it was a common enough bargain, her compliance for his money.

He did his best; he tried to make himself a temptation, lying ready but casual on the bed, his erection pushing up, ridiculous, beneath the towel around his waist. The bathroom had restored him to domestic humanity: his beard was gone, his nails were scrubbed, his hair was slick and flat, and all around him hung the sweet scent of soap and his cologne.

She found a smile, and put it on; she wore it as she stripped herself of clothing. He opened his arms, and she went to him, pressing against his clammy skin. He pulled the blankets over them, and pressed his mouth on hers, pushing his tongue between her teeth.

“Wife,” he said, releasing her. He was smiling in his pleasure, in his gratification-to-come; it was the same smile she had seen an hour before, when she had served him with his pasta. He whisked away his towel, and, fumbling with himself, pushed into her. She winced. He grasped her breasts—his hands were cold—and began
to pump. While his pumping was slow, and grinding, she watched the wall; as his pumping gathered pace, she matched him with the movement of her hips, to hurry him along. He took his time, but she was determined, and, before he had intended, gasping, his face screwed up in a chimp-like grimace, he was done.

When he opened his eyes, her smile was there, and getting warmer. He put his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her close.

“Wife,” he said. “My wife.” He ran a hand across her naked belly; his palm was rough, like sharkskin. “I’m feeling lucky today. I have a feeling today could be our day. I came across a little bed of oysters while I was gone—only half a dozen youngsters—and I kept them for myself. Oysters do a man good; there’s nothing better to boost vitality. So I’ve been thinking…”

His words were lost in yawning.