Nicolai's Daughters (5 page)

The back door opened and Katarina and Zak walked in. They went immediately to him and kissed him on the cheek. “It is good you came back to us, Nicky,” Katarina said. “We have prayed for you and Alexia. Christina told us what a smart daughter you have.”

“And this is why I couldn't take her out of school.” He swallowed hard and ran his tongue over his lips. If he bit at his lip or the inside of his mouth or if his fingers started tapping, they would know he was nervous and maybe not telling them the truth. They were his sisters. They could always read him.

A singsong greeting came through the front door. Christina and Katarina looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Maria sashayed in, looking around the room to catch every eye. “The baby of the family is here.” She stood back from him when she hugged him as if any contact would wrinkle her dress. She tapped his back and released him, stepped away to get a better look at him, but he knew she wanted him to notice her. She hadn't changed from the little girl he'd known. Whenever she got a new outfit, she'd stand in front of him, a giggle in her eyes, moving side to side and ask, “Do you notice anything different?”

“You look great, Maria,” he said.

Maria's high heels clicked against the floor as she sauntered from her mother to her sisters and Solon and Zak, air-kissing each cheek. Christina and Katarina watched her. Christina commented on Maria's expensive tastes.

“She thinks she's better than us,” Katarina added.

“Younger,” Maria replied and flicked her hair off her shoulder. She laughed and Christina and Katarina shrugged as if this was what they'd come to expect.

The sisters helped their mother arrange the table. The men talked about their crops and Nicolai listened. The static on the radio continued. He turned it off.

“But we need music, Nicolai,” Maria said.

Their father came in the door. The talking stopped.

Christina said, “Hello, Papa. How are you?”

“What do you think? I've been working all day.” He threw his work gloves on the stool beside the door.

“Have a shower,” their mother said. “We're almost ready.”

As he walked past, he flipped on the radio and glared at his family. “I want to listen to the news.”

When they sat down, chairs scraped against one another, knees bumped and elbows touched. His father stood at the opposite end of the table, gripping the back of the chair with his hands. Christina passed along serving platters of lamb and beef. Once everyone had filled their plates, she removed those dishes and brought others: roasted zucchini, buttered rice and sautéed eggplant.

“Sit down,” his father said. “Solon and Zak have already started.”

Christina and her mother put the last dishes on the table and sat down, one on either side of Nicolai like sentinels. His father took his seat at the head of the table. “Now we can eat.” He nodded at Solon and Zak.

“How is America?” Maria asked.

“Fine.” He balled his fists in his lap to stop himself from drumming his fingers.

“You came home to think about things, after Sara, God rest her soul.” Maria swallowed a mouthful of rice and patted her mouth with the napkin. “Yes?”

“We're happy you're back,” Christina said. She shifted her weight slightly as if kicking at something. “Don't worry about talking about this now.”

“What?” Maria asked.

“How are we supposed to explain your return to our friends and neighbours?” his father asked between mouthfuls of meat.

A knife scratched against a plate and everyone turned towards Solon. He met their gaze, then looked back at his plate and put his knife down.

“What is there to explain?” Nicolai asked.

“This is a shame for us,” his father said.

Nicolai's fork slipped out of his hand and fell on the floor.

Christina jumped up. “I will get you another one.” Her chair knocked against his and he pushed back to let her get out.

“You go to America. You marry someone not of your own blood. You marry outside your church. You have a child.”

“We don't have to discuss this now, Papa,” Christina said. She placed the fork to the left of Nicolai's plate and squeezed around him and into her chair.

“At least we've never mentioned your marriage and the child to our neighbours,” his father said. He put a large piece of meat in his mouth. “You know I don't like lamb. Why did you make it?”

“Nicky loves lamb, don't you remember?” Christina said.

“And I made your beef, too,” his mother said. “So we please everyone.”

“You didn't tell anyone about my life in Canada?” Nicolai stared at his father.

His mother pulled her chair back, Christina and Katarina stopped eating and Maria shrugged and picked at the zucchini on her plate. Solon's and Zak's eyes were fixed on their plates.

“Your daughter is not of Greek blood. You didn't marry in a church. The child is not legitimate.”

“And you wonder why I didn't bring her?” Nicolai said. He pushed his chair back.

“
Ella
,” Nicolai's mother said. “Nicky doesn't have to worry about anything now. There is plenty of time ahead of him.” She patted Nicolai's shoulder and smiled. “Eat now, Nicky. Don't worry.”

Nicolai picked up his fork and resumed eating, sneaking glances at his father. What made the man so angry? When Nicolai was a boy, his mother used to tell him it was because of what had happened during the war. “After Kalavryta he tried to get away, but we met and fell in love, so he stayed.”

“But that was a long time ago,” he'd said.

“Nicky, some things are not so easy to forget.”

Nicolai knew about Kalavryta. But his father had been just a boy: couldn't he get over whatever it was that happened?

Nicolai's father forked a slice of zucchini. He swallowed without chewing and bit at a hunk of bread. His arm lay heavy on the table, circling his plate as if he expected someone to snatch it away.

His father met Nicolai's gaze.

Nicolai turned towards his mother. “Do you know if Achilles is still here?”

2010

Alexia walked out of the airport towards the parking lot, flanked by Christina and Solon, their arms locked in hers. The rest of the family followed, trying to keep up.

She felt vaguely like a prisoner being pushed and prodded into the streets of a foreign country under the control of strangers, not because of anything she'd done, but because her father couldn't keep his pants zipped. Two aunts nodded in her direction while whispering to each other, hands over their mouths. She could imagine their questions. What was she doing here? Why now? Why didn't she come before, when her father was alive? It's not my fault, she wanted to say. “That's finished for me,” her father would say whenever she reminded him of his promise to take her to Greece.

Alexia picked up her pace, tried to wiggle out of her aunt and uncle's grip. Two younger cousins kicked a soccer ball in front of her. She tried to avoid it and accidentally stepped on the back of her cousin's shoe. He stumbled forward, his sock a shock of white against the grimy pavement, his crumpled shoe trapped under her foot.

“Walk a little faster,” Christina said to one of the boys. “And put the ball away. This is not a place to play.”

One of the boys turned. Solon let Alexia's arm fall. He raised his hand and shook it. The boy nodded as if he'd understood without anything being said. He apologized, slipped into his shoe and picked up his ball, then ran ahead with his cousin. Her relatives had taken her chrysanthemums and her bag. She stuck her hand into her pocket.

Christina leaned into Alexia. She wanted to know if Granville Island was still beautiful. “Such a clean place, no?” She pinched her nose, scrunched up her face. “Nothing smells. And everything you want, they have.”

“
Ella,
why you need clean?” Solon shouted. “We are strong because we eat everything, from anywhere. We no sick, never.” With his free hand, he thumped his chest. His cough was loud and sudden. It stopped after he spat a bit of phlegm. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“But if you see it,” Christina implored, nodding to Alexia for support, “you like.”

“I like nothing. My home is only thing.”

“He afraid of airplane.” Christina shrugged. “It is true.”

“No.” Solon raised his chin as if to dismiss her.

“He think if he leave home, bad things happen. I tell him they happen here, too.”

“Did leaving help your brother?” Solon asked. “Tell me.”

“Solon think if he never leave Greece, he live forever. Death finds us any place.”

Solon turned to face Christina. Alexia and Christina stopped. The rest of the family gathered in close around them. “What you know about what I think?” He threw his prayer-clasped hands at Christina.

She shook her head, her mouth opened in a weak smile. “Your uncle is very hard man to live with.”

He nodded as though he'd scored a point, linked his arm inside Alexia's again and the three began to walk. One aunt clucked.

Alexia peered down on her uncle's slicked-back hair. Shuttered through his thin strands was a pale patch of skin at his crown. Nicolai used to cover his bald spot by combing his hair back and tying it into a ponytail that hung just under the collar of his shirt. Long hair, wrinkled linen suits, no tie and leather loafers sometimes with, but more often without socks. His style, as he called it, never changed.

When she was a teenager, Alexia's friends used to say, “Your dad is so hot. And the way he dresses is so cool.”

“You're crazy,” she'd tell them. “At least your dad looks like a dad is supposed to.”

“You mean old,” they'd say.

“His age.”

“Like her father,” one of Alexia's aunts said now. She understood a few Greek words she'd heard her father use when he forgot the right English word.

“
Ne.
” She overheard two others agree. “Tall and skinny.”

“Only in looks?” another aunt asked.

Alexia looked over her shoulder and the aunts smiled, went back to rapidly swallowed Greek. Their chatter competed with the noises rising around them: the babble of strangers, the screech of a policeman's whistle, the blare of car horns from the queue of impatient drivers and the persistent growl of departing airplanes. They walked through the smog as if through yellowed curtains. Alexia coughed. Her eyes felt itchy, her head ached. None of the others seemed troubled by air they could see. They laughed and talked, their voices raised above the racket.

“I get to sit by the window,” one of the cousins said as they approached the van.

Her brother, one of the three Yannises, nudged her and their mother, Maria, slapped the back of his head and glared at him. Alexia caught a smirk on his sister's face.

“
Po po po,
that boy has mischief,” Katarina said.

Her father used to use the same expression. When she heard him say it the first time, Alexia had asked him what it meant. “It's just an expression, nonsense words kind of like
tsk-tsk
, something like that, but they are not really words, nothing I can translate.”

“He can't sit still,” Maria said.

“He is a young man now,” Katarina said. “He does not need to act like a child.”

“What do you know about children?” Maria said. Her hands were on her hips. She looked up at the sky and muttered a prayer as she crossed herself three times. Unlike the others, who wore shades of black or navy suits, Maria wore an elegant floral print dress cinched tight at the waist. In her shiny black stiletto heels, she loomed over the others. A couple of the older women stood back from the family, shook their heads and whispered to each other, their critical eyes fixed on Maria.

“Someone always finds a reason to fight,” Christina said. “Ignore.”

Alexia nodded as if she understood. All their antics are hard to ignore, she thought, standing aside from the commotion. She wanted to look at a map, see where Diakofto was, and figure out how much time it would take to get there. Her bag was hanging from her aunt's shoulder. Alexia reached for it and her aunt shook her head. “It is too heavy for a little one like you.”

The others began discussing seating arrangements.

“Why did you rent the van?” Alexia asked, interrupting the discussion. “Separate cars might have been easier.”

“In America you do this, yes,” Christina said. “Everyone goes in a different way. Sometimes, our way is more fun, sometimes no. But we take good with all the bad.”

“I will sit beside our guest,” Maria said. “I am much younger than Katarina. I would have more to say to our guest.” She wrapped an arm inside Alexia's.

“I speak better English,” Katarina said.

“I will sit in the back,” Yannis said. “When are we going to have lunch?”

“Yes, when will we eat?” another cousin asked.

“Never, if we do not get out of this parking lot,” Katarina said. “You will see when we see.”

Christina, sweat on her brow and hands on both hips, translated the discussion where she could. The conversation got louder and harder to follow as one person talked over another. Alexia stared at the thin line of mountains in the distance, barely noticeable above the smog. Her eyes stung. She was sure she could taste the smog too. She imagined this was what diesel fuel must taste like.

After several minutes, Christina said,
Ella,
and Alexia's relatives took this as a sign to clamber into the van. Alexia gazed at the cramped space and the vacant spot left for her beside Katarina.

“We are used to being on top of each other,” Christina said. “You get used, too.”

“I never did,” Maria said.

“You special,” Katarina said. “You told us all the time.”

The rest laughed and Maria feigned a smile.

Alexia crammed herself into the van beside Katarina. Three sat abreast in the back seat, another three in the middle row and now there were three of them in the row behind the front seat. Christina sat in the driver's seat. She'd won the argument with Solon over who would drive. Sweat around her neck had dried into a white line. She pulled out a large hanky from her purse and wiped her face, neck and hands and placed it under her leg.

Solon set Alexia's bag on her lap. “No room in back,” he muttered and closed the door. He jumped into the passenger seat. The heavy bag wrinkled her pants and lay against her chest. She smelled her own sweat and the sickly scent of chrysanthemums, even though they'd been stowed into the back with the picnic supplies.

Katarina and Zak were tall like Alexia but fleshier. Their tanned faces and necks furrowed deeply like deflated rubber every time they smiled. Alexia squeezed closer to the window. Katarina's hip lay against her. Alexia slipped closer to the door, but when she moved, her aunt followed. Katarina's hand clutched Zak's hand. How nice for them, Alexia thought. They have each other to hold onto.

She felt their eyes examining her. She suspected that they wanted to ask her something so she turned and said, “Have you been to Canada?”

“We no so adventurous like you or your father,” Katarina replied. “He always talk when he was young about seeing the world. He like travel. We.” She pointed to herself and Zak. “No.” They both shook their heads.

Zak opened his mouth and closed it again. Katarina smiled, patted his thigh. “We don't practise English. We forget the correct word.”

“You speak it very well.” Alexia said.

“Your
pappou.
He think it important. God rest his soul.”

“Grandfather in Greek,” someone in the back row said.

“Yes, I know a few words.”

“Your father should teach you more,” the voice in the back said. “Important to understand your language. Yes or no?”

The others agreed in unison
. “Ne.”

“I blame Nicolai for this. No teach you your language,” Maria said.

“He thought it was more important to belong. We lived in Canada.” Alexia repeated her father's argument, even though she'd never agreed with him. She asked to go to Greek school when she was a child, but he wouldn't allow it. She never understood why, but he was adamant. Was he embarrassed by where he came from?

“Yes, in America they do not want people different. They melt you in pot so everyone same like everyone.”

“I'm from Canada.”

“There is a difference?” A male voice from the back seat asked. The van sped forward as if Christina had suddenly jammed her foot on the gas pedal. The engine lurched in protest. The squealing whistle of the wind remained steady.

Alexia turned. Yannis, Maria's oldest son, met her gaze above the rim of his glasses. His pimple-sprinkled forehead gathered up tight as if to challenge her.

Alexia turned to face the front, shifting her bag slightly. She became more aware of the smell of so many bodies stuffed into this claustrophobic space and how it mixed with Maria's pungent perfume and the chrysanthemums. Where were they going?

“America, Canada, they are all the same,” Yannis said. “They are capitalist countries where no one cares about anyone. Only money. You are no better than the Germans who are now trying to suck our blood, ruin our country.”

What a jerk, Alexia thought. I should put him in his place, tell him that we are not all the same, we have programs to help those who need it. But what the hell is the point? He's a kid. She wondered if she was like that at his age.

“
Ella,
he reads too much
,”
Christina said. “Enough of this. Poor Alexia is tired.”

“You are lawyer. You like it?” Katarina asked.

Alexia glanced over at Katarina, unsure for a moment what she'd asked. “Um, not always.” She shrugged.

“Why no?” Katarina leaned in closer.

“I like the order, but it feels like I've been doing it for a long time.”

“You only have thirty-two years,” she said. “What do you know about time?”

Maria said, “This is life. You no supposed to like what you do. You work to live no to enjoy.” She laughed at herself and the others laughed, too.

“There are people who are passionate about what they do.”

“Yes, we passionate about our food, our family, life, but work is work. This is Greece. We understand what is important.”

Christina glanced at the aunts and the cousin in the back row through her rear-view mirror, bit her bottom lip and shook her head so it was barely noticeable. That look was the same one Alexia's father used to give her when she was a child and they were out for dinner or visiting friends. It was his signal to her that she was misbehaving and should settle down. The last time it happened, she'd just finished telling him she was leaving her first job for a start-up firm.

“How come you quit the people who gave you your first chance?”

“This is a better opportunity.”

“How do you know these new people will even make a go of it? There are many lawyers out there, some washing dishes because they can't find the kind of job you just threw away.” And then he'd given her that look. His head tilted, one side of his lower lip gnawed away by his upper teeth, his eyes fixed on her. There was only the slightest hint that he'd actually shaken his head. He liked to do it this way so if she pushed him on it, he could deny his disapproval.

“I'm not ten anymore,” she'd said. “That won't work.”

Alexia had left him sitting at his kitchen table, staring out the window, tapping the saucer in front of him with his teaspoon in that nervous way of his. Alexia often wondered if it was the actual beat that calmed him or if he just liked to make noise.

The relatives slipped back into Greek again and Alexia tuned them out. Her younger cousins played a game of slapping hands. They squealed each time with surprise. The family talked louder.

Out Alexia's window, the parched landscape was occasionally dotted with a splash of red or pale pink where someone had planted a bush that looked like a rhododendron. Alexia wondered how the shrubs survived in this heat. Clumps of new houses and building cranes spread over the hills. The highway was brand new, divided and multi-lane. She hadn't imagined so much development, particularly after reading about the financial crisis here, but then she wasn't sure what she expected. Trucks whizzed by, one after the other.