by Sara Alexi
A Self-Effacing Man
Sara Alexi
oneiro
PUBLISHED BY:
Oneiro Press
A Self-Effacing Man
Book Nineteen of the Greek Village Series
Copyright © 2016 by Sara Alexi
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Also by Sara Alexi
Chapter 1
It is her and yet it is not her. Her hands clutch a single white lily, her hair is woven with petals, her white blouse can hardly be seen for blossoms and in such a setting she should look beautiful.
Cosmo fixes his gaze on her mouth. He has never seen it closed for so long, her tongue so still. Such a terrible silence, her lips sewn together. His chest lifts as he draws in enough air to ease the stinging behind his eyes.
‘Silipitiria’ Mitsos leans over Cosmo’s shoulder and whispers his condolences.
It does not feel real to Cosmo, more like a performance in a television drama, and he has the sensation of being outside himself, hovering above the scene, looking down on another Cosmo. The scene before him swims in unspilt tears and he has to make an effort to focus again, to bring back the harsh edges of reality. Then it is all a blur once more, and he forces his thoughts, his emotions, back under his command until his tears are stifled again.
‘Zoi se esena.’ Stella, Mitsos’s wife, adds her own sympathies, and the two quietly step up to the waxen-faced woman lying in his mama’s place and cross themselves three times, finishing with a thumbnail to the lips before shuffling away to the front row of wooden chairs in the gloom. Vasso, who runs the kiosk in the square, is already seated and she acknowledges Mitsos and Stella with a nod. She was the first to arrive to pay her respects to the woman she knew as Florentia. Behind Vasso is Marina, who runs the corner shop in the square, crossing herself earnestly when the priest’s cantations reach certain points. She is with her son, Petta, and his wife, Irini. Beside them is Theo. It is strange to see Theo out of the kafenio where he makes coffee all day long at the top of the square, a commanding place for anyone to sit – as long as he is male. Theo crosses himself too, but hesitantly, and not at the same time as Marina. He is not a regular churchgoer.
The church is so full it could be the Easter service, but instead of happy faces there are slack cheek muscles, downward-curling mouths and watering eyes. Cosmo gazes, almost unseeing, over the sea of faces he has known all his life.
Alongside the people he sees every day are some who are slightly less well known to him: Kyria Sophia, who lives next to Marina and sometimes used to help out in the shop before Marina’s son and wife moved in with her, is here, and so is Sakis the musician, who has taken a seat next to her. On the end of the row, by himself, is Babis the lawyer – the ‘lawyer for the people’ – as he likes to be known. Cosmo cannot help but wonder why he is here: neither he nor his mama knew him. On the next row is the very familiar sight of Poppy, who sells everything and anything out of her tiny one-room emporium opposite the back of their house. His house now, he corrects himself. He bites his lip.
He looks again at the woman who is his mama, who is not his mama. Her skin looks like it is made from church candles – not the brown beeswax ones, but the transparent white ones – and she appears to be sweating, not in droplets through her pores, but with an all-over sheen. To the mouth that will never open again the undertakers have applied lipstick. When did she ever wear lipstick? A snort of mirth escapes him before he can control himself.
With a squeeze of his shoulder, Thanasis returns to his seat next to Cosmo. The church warden has put out six chairs, three either side of the coffin, which is end on to the ornate iconostasis with its renditions of the saints and angels in bright colours, edged in gold. These seats are reserved for family, but there is only Cosmo who can rightfully claim one, and he is relieved that Thanasis has sat next to him, releasing him from his isolation.
‘So they went over the top with the flowers anyway,’ Thanasis mutters, waving his hand at the columns that are decorated with vast swathes of lilies. ‘Have they told you what they are charging yet?’
The psaltis drones, his tuneless song rising to the rafters. Cosmo can just see him standing behind a display of flowers. He wears jeans and a T-shirt as if he does not expect to be seen. His mouth moves and the plaintive call is dramatically echoed around the small church, but his face is vacant.
The priest, centre stage, answers with his own lament. His hair is neatly tied back, his beard combed and his cassock covered with a gold-edged white habit that drops to his waist. His eyes drift around the church, unfocused; his lips move but the sounds coming out of them seem disconnected from him. He looks down, picks at a mark on his tunic, then lifts the fabric to inspect it. Satisfied, he drops the garment, all the while continuing with his monosyllabic wail. An edge of irritation begins to build inside Cosmo, but it snuffs out before it has gained any hold. Theirs is just a job like any other; why should they care?
He is not going to look at her again. It is not her anyway. He shifts in his seat, eager for the ordeal to be over. Thanasis’s hand squeezes his shoulder again and Cosmo tries to concentrate, take his mind anywhere except to where it is unwillingly drawn. He has never understood the words of any of the services, although he has been to them all, fifty-five times. Fifty-five Ascensions, fifty-five Pentecosts, and fifty-five of everything else, sitting next to his mama, and last Sunday was his - he painstakingly does the maths, blocking from his mind any other thoughts or emotions for a good two minutes -two thousand, eight hundred and sixtieth Sunday service by her side. But the ecclesiastical Greek of the ceremonies has always been unintelligible to him, and he has sat blankly through every one of the performances he has witnessed ever since he can remember. If it had not been for his mama nudging him to cross himself, to stand, to sit, as she mouthed along with the service as if joining in with a pop song, he would have slept through every one of them. Or not gone at all, given the choice.
He looks at her unmoving face again, an empty shell. She is no longer there, and he has choices now.
The priest is on the move. The censer swings back and forth, releasing incense-permeated smoke that twists and coils up towards the ceiling. A shaft of sunlight from the open doors highlights the plumes as they disperse towards the heavens.
Cosmo breathes in deeply, enjoying the heady scent. He can identify frankincense and myrrh, but also, perhaps, cedar? She burns cedar and myrrh on a Sunday, at home, he thinks to himself, and then corrects himself – burnt, not burns. The priest makes his way down the central aisle of the church, spreading clouds of incense from the censer, which he swings, jangling it on its chain. For Cosmo, the smell is synonymous with a day of rest and one of her good dinners, but today the familiar scent gives him no comfort. He should have brought a handkerchief. He did not expect to experience these waves of emotion, this lifting in his lungs, a tightening across his chest, a panic in his heart, a stinging behind his eyes. His lips tremble and Thanasis shoves a pristine white hanky into his hands, and even though Cosmo feels he might be swamped by these unfamiliar emotions, a part of him calmly wonders why Thanasis has a hanky and where in his little cottage he could possibly keep such an item clean. Thanasis’s life is all dusty donkeys and manure.
Then the service is over and the congregation stands as the men from the funeral parlour heave the coffin onto their shoulders. Cosmo is carried along with the throng, out of the church doors and into the hot sunshine where people shake his hand and pat his shoulder and whisper words of kindness and sympathy again and again. Most of the men light up, and there is a low murmur of relieved conversati
on.
‘She could have been carried by one person,’ Cosmo tells Thanasis as they watch the men load the coffin in the car. ‘She was so thin, never ate.’
‘Ah, but she could cook,’ Thanasis replies, and a new wave of panic flutters in Cosmo’s chest. Who will cook for him now? Who will mend his shirts and keep house? A wife would have softened that blow, but oh no, there was never one good enough for her son. The one or two girls he brought home when he was younger were not made to feel at ease, and now he is too old and she is dead and he is alone. She didn’t think of that, did she? She kept him to herself to chide and deride, and to ensure there was someone to look after her in her old age, but now who will look after him?
And what of the orange orchards? She didn’t share the running of them with him either, so now that is also a problem.
He follows the car as it starts off towards the cemetery, inching past Marina’s shop, a slow right turn into the square.
Take the job of postman, she said. The pension is good, and how hard can it be to deliver a few letters around the village? Huh! What did she know!
‘Don’t you fuss over how the orchards are run,’ she used to say. Well, there is no avoiding that fuss now, is there, because who is there to teach him the ways of the farm in her absence? Who else is there to deal with the workers and organise the harvest and the buyers when that time comes? She didn’t ever think how that would be for him, did she!
‘Eh, Cosmo, come, we’d better keep up until we get to the cemetery, so there is someone to greet her.’ Thanasis takes hold of his elbow and leads him a little faster behind the car.
Stella and Mitsos walk arm in arm by his side, supportive, but clinging to each other. He is older than her by a good few years, and it is Stella who will find herself alone. But she will manage – she can manage anything. Irini holds Petta’s hand. Those two are about the same age. Which one of them will be left to face their old age all alone? At least they have a son, and he will never desert them.
Why could he not have had a normal life, Cosmo wonders? Why would she not let him have a normal life? Did she not realise that he would have loved her all the more for it?
‘Ela, Cosmo, we are here.’ Thanasis guides him through the cemetery gates.
Chapter 2
There are two ouzo bottles, but as he reaches towards them they merge into one.
‘Thanasi, where d’you go? Thanasi?’ Cosmo lifts his head and looks around the kitchen. The washed pots, neatly stacked on the plate rack above the sink, come into focus and recede again. Then a bumpy line above the rack sharpens and straightens, to become the lace-draped shelf of canisters for the sugar, coffee, flour and goodness knows what else. There is the crocheted filigree she made herself many years ago, sitting outside the back door on her wooden kitchen chair, talking to Poppy in the half-light of evening. It was white and fine when his mama first pinned it to the front of that shelf; over the years it has become grey, and now it hangs stiffly, catching the dust. He turns his head to one side. The shelf was always just too high for her to reach without the little stool she kept behind the door. He frowns. Why in all the years since his baba died has he never, until this moment, thought to put up a lower shelf?
‘Sorry, Mama,’ he mutters, and a series of sobs jerk at his body.
‘Thanasi!’ he calls again.
The dishcloth by the stained and cracked marble sink is folded into a triangle, as always, just as she left it. He wants to grab it, mess it up, throw it to the floor, but, right now, his weight is too great and his legs will not do his bidding. She always folded it into a triangle. Why?
‘Why would you do that?’ he asks the ceiling and then adds, over his shoulder, ‘Thanasi? Where are you? Did you hear the priest, reciting his meaningless words over her grave? Philomena, he called her. Philomena! He didn’t even know her name was Florentia!’
He grabs for the ouzo bottle, which seems to come alive in his grip. It leaves the table and takes his hand upwards, directionless, passing through the air with no clear destination. Then he remembers to bend his elbow and the bottle comes more or less under his control, and the rim approaches his mouth. Lips pursed, he waits. Contact. His teeth jangle with the impact and the clear liquid burns a track down his throat. He sets the bottle down with a thud and wipes his mouth, chin and neck on the back of his hand.
‘Thanasi?’ he calls again, and he tries to stand.
The table rocks as he steadies himself against it. The kitchen is empty; there is no Thanasis. And then he recalls and waves a finger in front of his face.
‘Donkey feeding.’ He looks out of the window into the dark of the night. ‘So take a seat again, my friend.’ He invites himself to sit and turns to reassure himself that the chair is still there. His left foot tucks behind his right, his weight falls forward, his instinct sends out a hand and he grabs the chair, pushing it over with his weight, and he and the chair sprawl on the floor. His sack, which was hung over the back of the chair, falls with him and the letters he collected from the post office in Saros the day before yesterday, in a time when she was still alive, scatter across the floor, skidding across the rough painted surface.
‘Gamoto!’ Cosmo curses and tries to roll over onto all fours, which takes more effort than he expected and he huffs and puffs with the exertion. He puts his hand down for support, but his palm lands on a letter, which slides along the floor under his weight and then suddenly shoots away, taking his hand with it. His ribs take the brunt of the impact, and his chin catches on a chair leg.
‘Gamo tin Panagia …’ His profanity increases, and he lies still for a moment so his breathing can return to normal. His face has come to rest on a selection of letters, the corner of one of them digging into his cheek. He reaches to remove it and eyes the offending missive.
He eyes widen, his mouth opens.
‘Please no!’ he gasps. ‘No, no, not now.’ And tears spring to his eyes, and all the sorrow and sadness he has done so well to hold back since the shock of the old woman’s death rushes to discharge itself, merging with a host of new emotions. Lying on his back, the letter clutched to his chest with both hands, his knees contracting upward, he wails at the top of his voice.
‘You take one but you cannot take both!’ he shouts at the rafters. ‘You hear me, God?’ Then he rolls onto his side, curls into the foetal position and lets himself cry and cry until, eventually, he falls asleep.
The cold of the dawn wakes him, seeping into his bones from the painted concrete floor. That, and a banging headache. The first thing to come into focus is the cuff of his shirt, which has frayed at the edge and needs to be carefully trimmed and sewn over. He will ask his mama to do that today. He blinks. But why is he wearing his best shirt? He looks around him. And why is he lying on the kitchen floor? His head hammers from the inside.
Images of the lowering coffin suck the breath from his chest but no tears come. In their place is a sense of panic. Who will mend his clothes now, darn his socks, cook his food, keep the house, deal with the logistics of the orange orchards? Who did she hire to do the jobs around the farm?
‘Too much,’ he says out loud, and he closes his eyes again and curls up as small as he can. He feels the coolness of paper in his hands, which are pressed against his chest. He uncurls enough to see what it is.
The sight of the handwriting brings a new horror, a fresh twist of the knife in his heart.
‘No.’ The word hisses out like a curse. Grabbing the upturned chair leg and then the edge of the table, he manages to stand, the letter still in his hand. The room spins; he feels sick. He closes his eyes and everything steadies. With the chair set upright again, he sits heavily.
When was the last of these letters? They used to come every six months or so but the last one, when did that come? Two years ago, three, more? And for how long after reading that last letter did the feeling of awkwardness last between him and Maria? Four months? Probably more like six. He would not be able to stand that now, not now his mother
is gone. Now it should go the other way; the distance should close.
He turns the letter over. Only the very end of the flap is stuck down and with the slightest flick it would come open. He could read what is written and maybe that would help him to deal with it. But is there even a need to look? There will be the faded, lined paper, torn from a school notebook, yellowed with age, and with a stain in the top left-hand corner, just like all the others since the first of these letters, over twenty years ago now. The content, the words themselves, will just be a variation of all the others and no good will come of it.
He looks at her name, in all-too-familiar writing on the front, her address below. Whatever is written will do her no good and will only cause her pain.
He could burn it! Just make it disappear. But that would be dishonest. He is the postman, his job is to deliver the post, this one just like all the rest. What if it says something different from the others written by the same hand?
He turns it over again. He could open it – just take a little look, not read it all through. Just get the tone. If it is the same, then he could burn it and save himself and her the angst.
His fingers hover over the point, his nail against its edge. Just a flick of his finger would do it.
‘No.’ Cosmo defiantly puts the envelope down on the table and snatches his hands away as if the very paper has scalded him, each hand tucked under the opposite armpit. ‘You are the postman, you deliver letters, that is your job.’
He looks at the letter hard, her name scrawled like spiders’ legs.
‘This is so unfair. Why now?’ he wails to no one.
He picks the envelope up again and turns it over. It is hardly sealed at all.