A Self Effacing Man

by Sara Alexi

  But she was not consistent and that always bothered him. When was she ever frugal with the air conditioning? She would leave the television on all day from morning till night – and sometimes refuse to turn it off even then, saying the background noise soothed her. His last electricity bill was shockingly small compared to when she was alive.

  Cosmo examines the result of his efforts. The cuff is not much better than it was, and the shirt is worn at the elbows too, and at the collar. I will buy a new one, he decides. I will buy two!

  Chapter 13

  The following day, in a shop in Saros he has never been to before, Cosmo looks at himself in the mirror and grins. With the shirt and trousers he is trying on, his clean-shaven face and his newly slender frame, he hardly recognises himself. He is not in the habit of looking in mirrors and, until now, if his reflection ever caught his eye in a shop window, it would reveal a short, hairy-faced man, scruffy and unkempt, with his stomach stuck out like a six-year-old’s, his back arched to compensate for the weight. None of these traits is evident now, not one. He is no taller than he was, of course, but he doesn’t appear so short because he is no longer so stout.

  ‘They suit you.’ The girl is looking at his new clothes in the mirror. He pulls himself up to his full height. If he gets a haircut as well, the villagers will not be able to recognise him.

  ‘Can I wear them now?’

  ‘Of course. I will take off the tag and wrap your old clothes.’

  ‘If you would be so kind, could you just slip my old clothes into the bin? I think they have had their day.’

  ‘Sure. This new look suits you much better. Those are a little old-fashioned.’ She pushes his old clothes, which look like a pile of rags in this shiny environment, to one side on the counter, quickly removes the tags that dangle from his neck and waist and tells him that there is a sale on and everything is twenty per cent cheaper than marked.

  ‘And I will give you a good price as well.’ She discounts the clothes some more.

  Why on earth has he not done this years ago? His mama so impressed upon him how expensive clothes were that he never thought to buy any. Then, once every few years, she would go into town and bring him back something from the laiki – the street market … Not even from a shop, so how cheap would that have been?

  ‘I think I’ll take the other shirt too.’ Cosmo hands her the first shirt he tried on. She wraps this, and puts it in a bag with a rope handle. He walks out with a smile and just a small swagger.

  As he passes a barbershop, he falters and then tells himself he has no choice. There is no mama with her scissors now to cut his hair and the ends are well below his collar.

  Haircuts were always such an ordeal, to be avoided for as long as possible and endured when the inevitable time arrived. Her scissors were invariably a hazard, and Cosmo can remember being made to sit, from a young age, on a stool in the kitchen – stock-still for fear of the scissors that flashed and clicked angrily away around his ears. His baba underwent the same treatment, and he never questioned it; it was just the way haircuts were administered.

  Once she did indeed snip a piece out of his baba’s earlobe – and how it had bled! There was no sympathy. A dishcloth was shoved in his hand so he could stem the flow of blood, and she started work on the other side.

  Of course, the whole procedure was not reciprocal. Mama went to the hairdresser in Saros every month or so. She would complain when the prices went up but no one ever suggested that he or his baba cut her hair.

  He clenches his teeth at the memory. No matter how hard he tried, he could not keep his head still enough, and she would yank it back to the correct position, tutting and snorting with impatience.

  Afterwards, with his neck and shoulders itching, his baba would ruffle his newly shaved hair and give him a conspiratorial nod, but only when she wasn’t looking.

  Of course, in his teens he tried to let his hair grow as long as possible, but eventually he gave in, as different sections seemed to grow at different rates and he had to put up with her complaining that he was reflecting badly on her with his scruffy look. To this last his baba agreed, and finally it was easier just to do as she said.

  The barbershop is an alien place – all mirrors and chrome. He hasn’t completely made the decision when someone with a neat haircut comes out, swinging the door wide, and another man in a white shirt, comb in hand, greets Cosmo with such warmth it feels rude to walk away. The man chats about politics and football, and gives him a haircut that makes him look ten years younger in less than ten minutes.

  ‘That’s a good exchange,’ Cosmo quips, but the barber doesn’t seem to understand.

  In all, it is a very pleasant experience, with no one squawking at him to sit still, sit up, turn his head, lean forward or obey any of the other hundred commands his mama issued as she hacked away at his scalp. The cut hair is brushed from his neck and from under his chin to stop it making its way down his shirt and itching for days. The barber wishes him ‘go to the good’ and hopes he will see him again soon.

  ‘I mean, how do you mistake an earlobe for hair?’ he says as he hops onto his motorbike. It is refreshingly cool around his ears on the ride back to the village.

  Eager to show everyone his new look, he decides to have an early lunch at Stella’s.

  ‘Hello, sir, are you new around here, how can I help you?’ Mitsos quips as he walks in. Stella looks up from behind the counter where she is cutting chips.

  ‘Oh my, look at you,’ she says, leaving the chips and coming around the counter to look him up and down. ‘Are you going to a wedding?’

  ‘No, just thought it was time.’

  ‘You’ll be turning a few heads in the village walking around like that. I noticed you’d lost a few kilos but …’ She whistles.

  ‘He’ll be looking for a wife now his mama’s gone.’ Mitsos winks at him. His words carry a certain weight – after all, he married Stella very late in life, and they make Cosmo think – just for a second, before he dismisses the idea. Mitsos has charm, and it is different.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Cosmo, and a woman would be very proud to have a man like you,’ Stella says. Cosmo is surprised at her teasing but when he looks at her face there is no trace of humour there. She seems serious.

  ‘You think?’ Cosmo looks down at himself, at his new clothes, trying to see what they see.

  ‘Yes.’ Stella is firm and Mitsos nods. He takes three glasses and puts some coffee and sugar in each.

  ‘It’s a nice thought,’ Cosmo says quietly, and he leans towards Stella as Mitsos uses the electric mixer to make the drinks. ‘But,’ Cosmo whispers, close to her ear. ‘I know I am a bit slow.’

  She leans towards him and whispers back, ‘Slow, fast – what does this have to do with you being a decent human?’

  ‘No, at school – they made fun of me because I was slow.’ He glances at Mitsos, but he is absorbed in his noisy job.

  ‘We are all slow in some directions and fast in others,’ says Stella. He frowns. ‘You might be slow at maths or whatever, but you are observant of people, and quick to understand their emotions.’

  Cosmo pulls away from her slightly so he can focus on her face. Her dark, shoulder-length hair glistens in the streak of sunlight coming through the door and she smells of freshly cut potatoes. Her neat features are composed, and she looks sincere.

  ‘And slow to know your own good points.’ Now she laughs and pulls away, leaning towards Mitsos, who has finished making the coffees.

  Mitsos turns the chicken on the grill and the three go outside and sit around a table, their chairs pushed back, legs outstretched.

  ‘So, how are the oranges?’ says Mitsos. Stella turns her head, following a sound of bells, which are dully clanking, and she listens as the noise gets louder; presently the staccato castanet of a hundred hoofs drums on the road as a herd of goats enter the village and begin their dash up the main street. Cosmo has heard the sound so many times he does not bother to turn. Across the roa
d, in the square, Vasso comes out of her kiosk to push her magazine rack under the awning in preparation for the onslaught. Cosmo watches her drag empty beer crates from the back of the kiosk and place them at intervals around her domain to dissuade the animals.

  ‘Whose goats are these?’ Stella says. Cosmo now turns his head and then shifts his chair so he can watch the flood of animals coming up the road. When the lead goat sees them it falters, alert, and only moves again as those behind push it forward. Many of them have bells around their necks, each striking a different note, and the music they make is a free, happy sound that makes Cosmo wish he was up in the hills, free of civilisation, alone with nature. Judging by the look on Mitsos’s face, it has a similar effect on him.

  ‘I think they belong to Nicolaos, the Australian,’ he says.

  ‘I had a letter addressed to him the other day as “Nicolaos the Australian”,’ Cosmo says, and they all chuckle. ‘There is “Nicolaos the Australian”, “Nicolaos the Canadian” and another Nicolaos who is simply known as “Sugar”, because he is diabetic.’

  The first goats leave a space around the eatery tables, but as more and more come the distance decreases until the animals are bumping into table legs and a chair is knocked over. Behind the herd run two dogs, and way behind the dogs, walking at a very steady pace, is Nicolaos himself. Across the road, Vasso is waving at the herd with a folded newspaper and shouting at them to move away.

  ‘Kalimera.’ Nicolaos stops by the eatery, wiping his brow with the back of his forearm. He rests both hands on top of his crook and looks at each of them in turn, his gaze lingering on Cosmo.

  ‘How are they?’ Mitsos asks, nodding in the direction of the herd, which has turned up the road that runs along the top of the square, still followed by the dogs. The clanking and clonking of the bells quietens, and Vasso pulls her magazine rack back out from under her awning.

  ‘All fine. Business good?’

  ‘Etsi ketsi – so-so,’ says Stella. ‘You want a glass of water?’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Nicolaos. ‘Business will pick up when we lose this heat. Then the whole village will be rushing to you for a hot meal.’

  ‘True enough, we cannot complain,’ Mitsos replies, and, with this, Nicolaos drinks deeply from the glass Stella has brought him. Then he releases his crook, lifts it with one hand and slides it across his shoulders, one wrist hooked over each end so his hands dangle as he strides away.

  ‘I don’t think he recognised you,’ Stella says and starts to giggle.

  ‘That’s a point – he didn’t speak to you at all. I also wondered why he stopped … He wanted to see who you were!’ Mitsos says.

  ‘Nah, don’t be silly. I deliver his letters at least once a month. Not that he is ever in,’ Cosmo says.

  ‘Seriously, he had no idea who you were!’ Stella is giggling and has had to put her frappe down to avoid spilling it. She wipes the front of her floral-print dress with her hand.

  Cosmo rather likes this idea. He is a new man – hopefully a new and improved man. Quite out of the blue, this makes him think of Maria. Maybe she will see him differently too? Naturally, her letters, which are still sitting on the shelf in his kitchen, also come to mind. They annoy him. Who is this anonymous letter writer anyway, and why should he have precedence over Cosmo in telling Maria his feelings?

  Then another thought comes to him and he wonders why he has never had it before: he could try to find out who this anonymous letter writer is. If this man wants to woo Maria, then he should get on with it, and if not he should back off, give someone else a chance. Of course, it is not really Cosmo’s place to interfere, but it is for Maria’s sake too. If whoever it is turns out to be a good man – well, then, so be it, he will deliver the letters and stand aside. But if he is not a good man, if he is just toying and playing, writing when he is drunk or when his mama or someone has scolded him, then to hell with him – burn the letters and confess his own love to Maria.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Stella pats him on the back, and he holds his frappe tightly. The wanderings of his mind have taken his breath from him.

  He revises his last thought immediately. He will send no man to hell, even if it is just a saying. But maybe the letters could meet with an accident? Accidents do happen. But if the anonymous lover is a better man than he, Cosmo, is, then Maria deserves that, and he could mastermind a way to get them together. Yes, that is a plan.

  The idea seems both empowering and terrifying.

  ‘You all right? You’re all red.’ Stella’s hand is still on his back.

  ‘Fine, just went down the wrong way.’ He feels exposed with these thoughts rushing through his mind, in such close proximity to his friends. He sips the last of his frappe, offers to pay. Stella pulls a face and Mitsos smiles.

  ‘Well, I’d better get on,’ Cosmo says vaguely, and he stands to walk off in his usual way – flat-footed, slouching, stomach out. But the stiffness of his new clothes pulls at him, and he stands taller. His first stride is longer and slower than usual, his stomach held in and his head erect. It feels good. It also feels good to be away where he can think more clearly. He needs one of the letters in his hand to know what to do next.

  Back at home, he shuts the door with a bit more of a bang than he intended. He takes one of the letters and sits in his mama’s chair, with its age-worn arms, at the end of the kitchen table. He expects inspiration to come, that his new clothes will have an effect on his thinking, but after half an hour of staring at the handwriting he is no closer to knowing what to do and he slopes off to bed, a grey cloud fogging his mind, convincing him that no matter what clothes he wears or how much time passes his life is never going to change.

  Chapter 14

  The Christmas decorations displayed on Marina’s counter appear to be the same ones she had last year – and the year before that, no doubt – and they serve to remind Cosmo that the days have become months and he has still not worked out how he will find out who has written the letters.

  ‘Do you want a snowman?’ Marina says.

  It has been a long, hard day for Cosmo. After his rounds, he had to mend the back fence again. Grigoris, who was working on his own fence in the next orchard, told him that the gypsies cut holes in the fences so they can harvest a crate or two of oranges whenever they choose, a couple from each orchard, and sell them cheap to the stallholders at the laiki. That was his mama’s way of thinking too, to blame the gypsies, but the fences are old, and there’s bound to be a place where they are weakest. Surely it could be age, or a dog, just as easily? But Grigoris clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes when Cosmo suggested this.

  It took Cosmo a couple of hours to pull the fence together and weave new wire to hold it. It was more strenuous work than he expected and he is tired now.

  ‘A snowman – when do we ever have snow?’ he asks, with a frown of surprise.

  ‘Ach,’ Marina says, ‘they were sent by some company in Athens. A promotion.’ She picks up one of the snowmen and peers at it for a moment, then puts it down again on the counter.

  ‘I’ll stick to the traditional New Year festivities, thank you, Marina,’ he says.

  She looks at the snowman’s cartoon-like face and smiles before putting it down.

  ‘A small bottle of Plomari, please.’ Cosmo takes out his money, thanks Marina kindly and feels very pleased to be going home. A nip of ouzo and then maybe he will be recovered enough to go for some supper at Stella’s. No, a meze will do at the kafenio. Or perhaps Stella’s would be nice … He will decide after his ouzo.

  At home, he flops onto a kitchen chair and, with a sigh, he stands again to get a glass. He has moved all the canisters from the shelf and given them to Poppy, who was very pleased with them. She said they were from the fifties, possibly Italian. Cosmo could easily believe they were that old, if not more. They had been there ever since he could remember and he was glad to see the back of them. The coffee is still kept on the shelf, but in the foil packet now, and the rest of the she
lf he uses for glasses and cups. But he might eventually pare them down; after all, he only uses one at a time and it is simple enough to rinse them. Behind the glasses, propped against the wall, are the letters to Maria. Once every few days he takes the time to think how he can find the writer.

  He scowls at the envelope, and at the wall, which is still the same putrid light green. The sight of the letters depresses him. ‘Come on, apply yourself,’ he mutters, and he tosses the letters on the table, then cracks open the ouzo bottle and pours himself a good measure.

  ‘Just do it, just think about it until something comes to mind … Stella says I am good at people – well, the writer is a person, so think, think!’ He knocks back the first glass in one and pours another, wincing at the burn in his throat but enjoying the sensation of his muscles relaxing.

  He traces the coffee mark on the first envelope and the lines where it has become creased in his pocket. The coffee spots look like eyes, the crease a smile.

  The observation provokes a light laugh, and it lifts his spirits.

  ‘So you are alive, are you? Well, I am good with people so what do I know about you, eh?’

  He examines the handwritten address again.

  ‘Nothing,’ he answers himself, but then his eyes widen and he rubs his chin and laughs again. ‘But I know who it is not! Yes, that is how to start.’ He jumps up and takes paper and pen from his satchel and sits again.

  ‘People you are not …’ He speaks as he writes. ‘Grigoris,’ he begins, and then adds to himself, ‘Because he cannot write – and nor can old Stamatis.’

  He goes on writing, adding to the list of names until he has included all the men in the village he has had to read letters to, or who have asked him for help in composing a reply. He mouths the names under his breath as he writes.

  When he has finished, he scans the list, which contains a good twenty-three names. Names of people he is unofficially responsible for, in a way, and who rely on him to help conduct their affairs, both formal and private.