A Self Effacing Man

by Sara Alexi

  He can still recall his baba dragging the table from by the back door to the middle of the narrow lane that ran behind their house and in front of Poppy’s shop.

  ‘No point in being squashed up,’ his baba had said.

  Poppy, who was sitting outside her emporium knitting as usual, pointed out that it wasn’t as if anyone ever drove down the road anyway.

  ‘Cosmo, bring Poppy’s table too,’ his baba said, a hand briefly ruffling Cosmo’s hair. What a feeling that was – it brought a grin as wide as his cheeks would stretch, and even though he knew he was not big enough or strong enough to manhandle the folding table from behind Poppy’s shop door, he went with the intention of doing it by himself anyway. How he struggled, careful not to put a corner or a leg into the glass door in his efforts, until his baba joined him and with a single arm lifted the table free of its confines and then left Cosmo to do the rest. It was heavy but he managed.

  Both tables were piled high with dishes cooked by his mama and Poppy, and Baba had to bring out the glass-topped table from the best room, and his mama fussed that it would get broken. No harm came to the table, of course, and after her third glass of wine she declared it was very useful, and for a few years this was the model for their New Year street party.

  It was probably the only day of the year that his mama allowed herself to drink, and what a difference it made. Her face would relax, her eyes would shine, her tongue would uncurl, and consequently her words became softer. In response, Baba would exhale, his shoulders would drop, he would put his feet up (but not on the glass table – that would have been a step too far) and they would banter, back and forth, and Poppy would stay silent and look from one to the other and smile, and it was possible to see why his parents had married each other in the first place. Whilst everyone was in this mood, even Cosmo was allowed a glass or two of wine, Poppy discreetly topping it up again and again until he would laugh along with his parents even if he had no idea what the joke was.

  In all, it was the nicest day of the year. He felt as if they were family. They were together, and he was included, as were passers-by, of whom there were many at one time. Villagers, farming friends of Baba, on their way to relatives’ houses were never allowed to go on their way without at least a drink. Women his mama knew took a detour to wish them all well.

  Although, some of his mama’s friends didn’t stop. Even though their husbands were polite and ready to laugh as they talked to his baba, the men’s hands remained in their pockets, jiggling keys and coins, indicating their wish to move on. Cosmo found these moments fascinating – the men in these couples dominating without having to say a word, the women obliging – and such a contrast to his own family; it would set him wondering whether he would be the dominant one if (or rather, back then when he still had hope, when) he found a wife? Or would he end up spending as much time as his baba did in amongst the orange trees from dawn till dusk? At that age, even that seemed romantic, one of the mysteries of adulthood.

  New Year was only one day in the calendar but how he would have liked the rest of the year to be that way too. Not even name days or birthdays could compare.

  There was a time when even friends from the kafenio would drop by: Mitsos, and Damianos, before he moved to America. Theo always passed by, every year, right up to the time he went to Athens and came back in love. Now, on the rare occasions his kafenio is closed, he is never seen. Every precious moment out of the kafenio is spent with his Tassia in their olive groves.

  Mitsos doesn’t come any more either, not since he married Stella. Baba’s farmer friends long ago stopped using this street to get to where they need to go and his mama’s friends dwindled in number over the years. Last year, and the year before – in fact, for a good ten years at least – it has been just his mama, himself and Poppy. But it has still been pleasant enough. Joy was not something Mama seemed to be naturally imbued with, although Poppy – thank goodness for Poppy – made an effort to keep her smiling.

  But there is no Mama this year, and Poppy informed him a few days ago, looking slightly embarrassed, that she was off to visit relatives. She would be taking a taxi to Saros and a train from there, and would he go in and water the plants whilst she was away?

  They won’t need watering yet. Tomorrow will do, but he has nothing else to do today, and with the kafenio closed he decides he will find out where all the plants are and locate the watering can so that when they do need watering it will be a simple and quick job.

  The large iron key has a piece of red string tied around the shaft. To distinguish it, Poppy said. But the size and weight of it alone means it could not be mistaken. The smell of mothballs, old women and gossip greet him as he opens the door to her emporium. He has not been inside very often, despite living just across the street. Last New Year he went in to get the extra table, and then returned it a couple of days later, but he cannot remember ever stopping to look around.

  As he does so now, his first impression is that the shop is smaller than he thought. The room is stuffed with things he cannot imagine anyone wanting. Racks of cheesecloth blouses yellowing along the creases, boxes of vests and T-shirts in a variety of colours. Who in the village is going to buy them? There are deflated beach balls in yellowing plastic packets, mop heads for a type of mop he has never seen, with faded labels. A box of knitting needles of assorted size, length and colour, some with round heads, others flat, some with points either end, and not a pair amongst them. Clothes, bedspreads and, he sees on inspection, curtains are piled on the floor, leaving just a narrow path down the middle of the shop. An old-fashioned diving suit dominates the space just in front of the counter and off to the left. It is complete with a spherical copper helmet, a circular window at the front, and the air tanks, which are on the floor next to it. He touches it gingerly, worried it might fall over. He has an urge to try it on, but as he moves to examine it from the side he stumbles over a pair of roller skates. He is tempted to put them on too but they are obviously much too small for him.

  The counter, in the dark depths of the shop, is wooden, very dark and polished on a regular basis, with a glass top. The front of it houses drawers stuffed with long gloves, pieces of lace, a mess of jewellery, and a collection of worn leather belts, their chrome, peeling buckles facing front. On top of the counter is a box, inside which are cards for every occasion. The label on the box reads Stack vertically. Somewhat overwhelmed by the mountains of paraphernalia, Cosmo scans the room for plants. There are none in evidence; perhaps they are through the door by the makeshift dressing room, which is no more than the back corner of the shop, guarded by two mannequins whose fingers touch, a swathe of material draped over their arms to preserve the customers’ modesty.

  The door creaks and the smell of mothballs is replaced with something that could be tuna. A short corridor leads to a second door that opens into a tiny kitchen. There is a small wooden table, one wooden chair with fancy spindles, and a sink set in the wall. There is no stove and no fridge. On a shelf there is one small pan, one plate, one glass. On the kitchen table is a single-burner gas stove, its umbilical cord reaching to a small gas canister on the floor. The walls have discoloured with age and in some places the lean-to roof, of corrugated plastic, has let water in, streaking the walls. Even at this time of year, and relatively early in the day, the sun glares through the transparent roofing, heating the room to an uncomfortable temperature. The still air smells of age and dishwater. It must be like an oven in the summer. There are no plants here either.

  On the far side of the table a door opens into an enclosed courtyard that is no bigger than the kitchen. The courtyard is a forest of green and in the middle is a single chair.

  ‘So that’s where you sit when your shop is closed,’ says Cosmo, looking around him in wonderment at the mass of greenery. The air is cool and fresh in the courtyard, and the sun’s rays are diffused by the foliage. Insects buzz and hum. He sits on the chair, closes his eyes and drifts for a moment. Yes, it is a very pleasant spa
ce, but somehow he feels uncomfortable, as if he is trespassing, and he makes his way back through the kitchen.

  As he makes his way around the table towards the shop, his eye is caught by three small framed black-and-white photographs, behind the single cup, plate and glass on the shelf, and he stops to examine them. The photos are of someone who could be Poppy playing with three children in front of a very broad-leafed bush and a solid stone wall. The pictures are a series, taken within a few minutes of each other, and are similar apart from subtle differences. In one, the eldest child holds a ball; in the next the ball is on the ground; and in the third a dog has appeared and the children are stroking it. In all three, in the same place, standing watching them, is a straight-backed woman Cosmo does not recognize, in very fine clothes. There is something sad about these pictures, propped up on the shelf at eye level, but Cosmo is not sure what.

  Suddenly the kitchen, and even the courtyard, begin to feel a little claustrophobic. The greenery needs attention; some of the plants are seriously root-bound. In the kitchen, the shelf, at eye level, with one small pan, one cup, one plate, one glass and the photos as the main focus, suddenly conveys a sense of how lonely Poppy must be, sitting here in her own small prison of isolation, looking back at just three pictures of her past.

  She has often complained that her legs are too tired to go very far, and since his mama died it has become apparent that some of the shopping he used to collect was for Poppy. He has taken to doing her shopping once again but he wonders if this might be a disservice after all. Maybe forcing her to go out would give her more social interaction. It is not as if her shop generates much trade – one person every couple of days if she is lucky.

  He gets up, shakes himself a little, tries to hum a happy song as he locates the jug that she uses to water her leafy cell. He’ll come back and water the plants tomorrow. He looks more closely at the three photographs. The woman has to be Poppy; there is something about her that looks familiar, the way she is bent over in one, the angle of her head in another … Now the kitchen walls are closing in again …

  Is that what he will be reduced to? Looking at pictures of his past, unable to go far, stuck in the isolation of decrepitude? Which pictures would he look at anyway? He has none, certainly none of himself. Under his mama’s bed, her wedding album sits in its box, but there are none of them as a family or of him as a child. They were farmers, and cameras had no business in their lives. Their lives were about soil and toil.

  He sighs. The white walls of the kitchen are better than his mama’s green, though. He steps back into the corridor and out into the shop, which now feels spacious by comparison, and even the smell of mothballs is better than the aroma of age and neglect. He steps on a box of slippers, each pair wrapped in cellophane, which crinkles and splits under his weight. He kneels to put them back in the box. They are enormous, too big for anyone Cosmo has ever met, but they will have been cheap, and whoever sold them to her will likely have convinced her that she will have a monopoly, being the only stockist of slippers that size. Cosmo sniggers, but it is not a laughing matter. Someone has ripped her off because she is old and vulnerable and too trusting. He pushes the box out of his path and picks his way more carefully to the door.

  Outside, the air is saturated with the smell of cooking. Every family in the village will be sitting down to a feast. Oregano is dominant, and tomatoes. His stomach rumbles. Stella made a point of saying that she wasn’t open today, and she invited him to her house, as did Marina. No doubt he would have had a good time at either place but he refused, preferring to be at home for this first New Year without his mama. He knows now he was imagining that he could somehow recreate some nostalgic version of past celebrations with Mama and Poppy. Did he really want to recreate it, or did he just want time to think about the good days that have passed, mourn the loss? Not so much the loss of his mama, but of having a family he belonged to, that wanted him. The possibility of him having a family of his own now is too remote to be a consideration, and he can now add to that the fact that he may never even have companionship. Just him and the empty rooms of his house for the rest of his days.

  Stella looked at him long and hard when he explained that he would stay at home, and then went and boxed him up some chicken and chips, suggesting he put the chips under his own grill to heat them up when he was ready to eat.

  ‘That’s if you are really not coming to ours to celebrate?’ She pretended to be ever so slightly offended by his gentle rejection, and he loved her for that.

  The bolt on Poppy’s front door sinks back in place with a turn of the oversized key, and Cosmo returns to his own house, passing the table in the yard that is not laid out for a feast, the chairs leaning against it at an angle to deter the cats.

  Inside, the television presents a false jollity. The voices are high-pitched and grating. Surely the people on the programme would all rather be at home with their families than in the studio with a bunch of relative strangers?

  He does not reheat the chicken and chips, nor even set himself a place at the table. Instead, he peels the cardboard lid off the foil tray and sits and picks at the food with his fingers, his attention drawn to a bald-headed man playing the bouzouki whilst the cameraman zooms in and out and pans across the faces of the guests, trying to make it more interesting. Cosmo half stands for his ouzo bottle, but remembers that he finished it. Just for a second this is a catastrophe and his eyes prick with tears, but his mind, for its own reasons, brings up images of Poppy’s black-and-white photographs and he realises his ouzo is rapidly filling the role that he imagines the black-and-white pictures hold for Poppy. With this thought in his mind, he finds a cup and fills it with water from the tap.

  The chips would definitely benefit from being put under the grill, so he makes the effort to take a look at the stove, working out the dials and knobs, turning this and that until he can feel heat, and then he puts the chips on a wire rack and lays a place for himself at the table.

  ‘You are not going to fall into that trap,’ he tells himself. ‘You give up now and you will have a very long old age.’ He takes a comb from the thin shelf below the mirror by the front door and combs his sleep-tossed hair.

  The smell of burning tells him the chips need attention, but only the edges of one or two have caught. He takes the tray out with a cloth, tips the contents onto his waiting plate and drops the tray again, blowing on his fingers.

  ‘Sauce!’ he says. Stella gave him a little pot of lemon sauce with the chicken. ‘Ever thoughtful,’ he says, and then wonders what Maria is doing today. What has she done at New Year since her own mama died? Is she sitting alone like him? And what of Thanasis? And how many others like them around the village? At least Maria can cook, and won’t be eating the remains of yesterday’s supper.

  He turns the knob on the television to try to locate another channel, then lifts the aerial, swings his arm about, finds the right position, and hangs the aerial from the bare bulb.

  It is a nineteen-sixties Finos film, starring actors who are so familiar they could be members of his family. The plot is thin but he enjoys the farce. He sits to eat, gets lost in the film and has the most enjoyable afternoon, which ends with a snooze with his feet up on the table and his head hanging back.

  In the evening he feels more refreshed and, just for the exercise and a change of scenery, he decides to go for a walk. At the square, he discovers Theo has opened his doors and half the men of the village have crowded into the kafenio, desperate after a day stuck indoors with wives and relatives, and to a man they are complaining about the chaos at home, the things they have been asked to do, the nagging they have endured. Some complain about the cooking, others about the money they have lost at the card table, and one about the poor quality of the fireworks he spent a tidy sum on.

  The atmosphere is familiar and safe, and Cosmo takes one of the few empty seats, at Petta’s table. Thanasis does not appear to be there, and he wonders again how his friend spends New Year, and berat
es himself for never having thought to ask.

  ‘Hronia Pola,’ Petta greets him.

  ‘Hronia Pola.’

  ‘I am so full.’ Petta rubs at his stomach. Cosmo’s growls emptily in response; the remains of the chicken and chips digested as he slept.

  ‘Be with you in a minute,’ Theo says as he hurries past with a tray held high. His crown of hair bobs as he hastens his step. ‘Ouzo?’ he asks on his return.

  ‘Just a coffee,’ Cosmo says, and Theo is gone.

  The evening passes like any other. He orders a beer after his coffee because beer is served with a plate of meze – olives, bread and cheese – and his stomach is rumbling. Petta tells him all about the boat he is making with his baba. As he relates the details, a little melancholy tries to settle around Cosmo’s heart. Petta’s words create images, offer a brief glimpse into what he never had with his own real baba, but he does not allow the feeling to settle. It is a new year after all, and he finds that somewhere in the course of the day he has made some decisions. He is not sure when they were formulated, but they are there, lurking at the back of his mind. As Petta continues to describe the finer points of the vessel he is constructing, Cosmo lists his decisions in his head:

  A) I will not feel sorry for myself.

  B) I will not use ouzo to stop myself feeling whatever it is I am feeling.

  C) I will stop making excuses and putting off the things I am scared to do.

  The new year seems to have brought him some clear thinking.

  Petta is now explaining about the glass fibre that he was sanding yesterday and about how itchy it left his arms, and Cosmo decides to call it a night.

  Besides, there is something he wants to do.

  ‘It sounds interesting, Petta,’ he says. ‘Perhaps I will come and have a look.’ He stands, stretches, finds a few coins in his pocket, leaves them on the table, and walks out into the starlit night with a wave in Theo’s direction.