A Self Effacing Man

by Sara Alexi

  Cosmo goes to the till on his way out, to pay. ‘That was good, thank you, Stella.’

  Mitsos wanders with them into the grill room, Cosmo’s empty plate in his hand. Once the bill is paid, Cosmo leaves, but behind him he hears Stella say, ‘Such a change in that man,’ and Mitsos replies with something too quiet for Cosmo to hear that makes Stella giggle.

  Chapter 19

  Thanasis rides pillion and side-saddle on Cosmo’s bike, and as they pull up outside his low, crumbling cottage minutes later, he slips off almost before they have stopped.

  ‘All the beasts well?’ Cosmo asks, listening to the start of a donkey’s wobbling welcome. The in-breath is a sound that is so alien it is hard to believe it comes from a domesticated animal, a squeak like the sound of metal against metal that needs oiling; the out-breath is like a primitive horn, and no sooner has it started than it’s curtailed again by the metallic in-breath, and then the horn – an in-breath – the horn … Ever more rapid until it becomes nothing but a series of grunts and then trails off into silence.

  Thanasis has already gone around to the front of his house, which faces the orange trees. By the time Cosmo has put his bike on its stand and followed him round, Thanasis is pumping away and water is running along the maze of pipes to the trough in the yard. One or two of the animals drink thirstily; another hangs its head over the fence, where Thanasis joins it to fondle its ears. He talks quietly to the animal.

  ‘I was told that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.’ Cosmo sits on an upturned orange crate. Over the years, Cosmo has seated himself in this compacted mud yard, half shaded by the overhanging branches, on a wooden crate, a stack of tyres, an olive oil drum, a bale of straw. Today there is a green plastic crate that has cracked down one side, and Cosmo sits with care. If the crack opens as he rests his weight, when he stands the release of pressure will make the crack close and nip his skin.

  ‘I am not talking to myself. I am talking to Artemis here,’ Thanasis replies, scratching behind the animal’s long fluffy ears. After a few seconds, he looks at Cosmo blankly.

  ‘Now, what was it that I was meant to be doing?’

  Cosmo grins and opens his mouth to speak.

  ‘Oh yes, the buyer’s number.’ Thanasis tickles Artemis’s nose and heads for his front door.

  ‘I swear if your cottage was any bigger you would have these beasts in the house with you,’ Cosmo calls after him. Artemis looks over too, as if waiting for Thanasis to re-emerge.

  Cosmo has only been in the house a few times. He recalls that the two rooms are very small; the rafters were exposed and the flagged floor was very dusty. There is an old fireplace in the first room, and a cracked marble sink set into the wall under the window. He imagines that the kitchen table will still be covered with pots and pans, all used, and in amongst the mess on the table, no doubt there will be a single-burner gas stove, the rubber tube trailing over the table’s edge to a gas bottle on the floor. By the table there was also a fridge, if he remembers rightly – yes, he looked idly inside only to find it was being used to store feed for the donkeys, and was not cold.

  ‘Keeps the mice out,’ Thanasis informed him at the time.

  There was a high-backed wooden chair by the fireplace, and a dark wooden chest of drawers against the far wall that looked very old. Its surface gave the impression that at one time it was polished, but dust had gathered and the piece now looked sadly out of place. Thanasis told Cosmo it was his mama’s and the subject of his family was both opened and closed with that one comment. Cosmo did not go into the second room, but he could see the end of an old brass bed and huge bundles of sheets or clothes or something, both on the bed and piled on the floor.

  Thanasis finally reappears, holding up a slip of paper.

  ‘Do you have a pen and paper?’ he says. ‘I would like to keep a copy.’

  ‘Er, no.’ Cosmo does not have his satchel with him. This is twice he has needed his pen and notebook, and he wonders if he should start putting them in his breast pocket before he leaves the house in the morning. He scowls at the thought. The only man he knows who does this is Babis the lawyer, who has still not completed his probate.

  Thanasis has gone back inside to find a pen and paper of his own, and he returns with an exercise book and an old but surprisingly fancy-looking pen – black with a band of gold around the top.

  ‘It was my baba’s,’ Thanasis explains, sitting heavily on an orange crate and opening the book on one knee. It is an old book, of the sort they used at school, with yellowed pages.

  Thanasis concentrates on writing first the man’s name and then the number. ‘If you are anything like me,’ he says, ‘you will lose this paper, find it again, and then wonder what it is, so I will put my name on it too, and then you will know what it is about.’

  Cosmo stares through the fence at the donkeys. He frowns; something about the scene does not look right.

  ‘I thought you had five donkeys now, since you adopted that grey one last week?’ he says, tucking the piece of paper that Thanasis hands him, carefully folded, into his top pocket. ‘Was she really just left by the gate?’

  ‘Yes, can you believe it?’ Thanasis is suddenly animated, and springs to his feet, eager to show off his beasts. But his steps falter. He looks around the enclosure, yanks the gate open and runs into the pen.

  ‘Coco?’ His voice is frantic. Cosmo jumps up from his seat, expecting to see a donkey ill – lying on the ground, maybe. Instead, he sees Thanasis running into the barn and out again, around the fig tree and back and finally up to his back fence. Cosmo can see from this distance that it has been cut, just like the fence in his orchard and those next door.

  Thanasis has gone, through the gaping hole and down the track. Cosmo looks left and right, wondering what he can do, and steps towards the enclosure, but then Thanasis is back.

  ‘Gamoto! Malakes!’ he swears harshly. ‘They have Coco.’

  His face suddenly looks drawn and old, and Cosmo thinks his friend’s eyes are misting over. His energy is gone and the man has the air of someone defeated.

  Cosmo is going to ask who ‘they’ are, but he suspects that it is the same ‘they’ who cut his fence into his orange grove.

  ‘They tried this a few months ago,’ Thanasis says. ‘I found the fence half cut, as if they were coming back to finish the job.’ His eyes are definitely misted over, a shiny streak running down his cheek.

  ‘Do you think we disturbed them?’ Cosmo says. It seems odd that just one donkey was taken. But Thanasis does not answer. Artemis nudges the old man in the back with her soft nose and Thanasis’s hand automatically fondles her ear before he slumps to a sitting position on a log.

  First the oranges and now donkeys. Cosmo opens his mouth to blurt out all he knows, but then closes it again as he looks at his friend who, for all the world, does not look like he could take in one more piece of information. His head rests on Artemis’s nose and his eyes are blank, as if he sees nothing. It will not help Thanasis unless the thieves are caught and then – well, maybe they can get the donkey back. Cosmo’s determination gathers inside him like a steel knot. He must get going to Saros to tell the police of the registration numbers. But looking at his friend in his sadness, he finds he cannot leave. Maybe telling him what he knows will help?

  ‘Ah my friend, life is cruel,’ Cosmo begins. ‘I imagine they are the same thieves that threatened the oranges.’

  ‘Probably,’ Thanasis mutters, but the word is an automatic response. He sits slumped, no longer responding to Artemis’s nudging.

  ‘Can I get you anything? You want some water?’ Cosmo feels at a loss. Thanasis does not answer.

  Thanasis sits in silence, Cosmo crouched by him. The hum of bees and the rasping of crickets fill the orange grove. Occasionally, one of the donkeys moves, a step or two, but otherwise there is silence. They continue like this for a time until Thanasis stands without warning.

  ‘Okay, she is gone, what can I do?’
>
  But Cosmo knows it is he who must do something.

  ‘Maybe I can do something. I must run,’ he says. If he gets to the police sooner rather than later, maybe they will catch the men, even find the donkey. It’s a possibility … Although the donkey may have been sold on already, or even stolen to order. That too is possible.

  ‘They probably put her in a truck and drove away. There were no hoof marks,’ Thanasis rambles.

  Cosmo has visions of his mama in her coffin, the lid being slid on outside the church, and then the bearers manoeuvring the box into the back of the hearse. The steady stream of villagers walking behind the car to the graveyard, dark suits, hands crossed in front of them, heads bowed.

  ‘I will do all I can to get Coco back for you.’ Cosmo feels in his pockets. He needs a pen and paper to write down the registration numbers of the trucks.

  ‘Please don’t let the wind or the dew have taken them,’ he mutters, taking out the piece of paper folded in his top pocket. He opens it out to remind himself what it is and tries to concentrate. His eyes narrow to see more clearly – then they widen, and he steps back so fast he kicks over an orange crate.

  ‘Been stung?’ Thanasis asks, his eyes still staring, unseeing. But Cosmo can only stare at the paper, with the name of the orange buyer, and his phone number. Thanasis’s spidery writing is all too familiar, as is the paper, which is lined, with a stain in the top left-hand corner.

  ‘You all right?’ Thanasis says, this time looking up and shading his eyes with his hand.

  But Cosmo is speechless and cannot reply. He is also breathless; he has forgotten how to breathe. Eventually, he takes in air again, a huge lungful, but still he cannot say anything; he just stares first at the sheet and then at Thanasis.

  ‘What?’ Thanasis pats Artemis’s nose – a gentle, kind motion.

  Still Cosmo cannot speak. What would he say? His instinct, strangely, is to run. To get away.

  ‘Gottago,’ he slurs and, notepaper in hand, he turns and makes a dash around the outside of the house, starts up his bike without kicking up the stand and then tries to accomplish this as his machine speeds him off, swerving down the road.

  ‘Nooooooo,’ he hisses in the wind, but does not make another sound until he is inside his own house with the door shut. Only then, in the privacy of his own kitchen, does he allow himself the freedom to react. But how to react? He walks to the sink, back to the door, looks at the slip of paper, at Thanasis’s handwriting, walks to the sink again. He runs the tap to fill a glass, puts it down without drinking, walks to the back door, returns, takes a deep noisy breath, and wipes his hand over his forehead and back over his hair. How on earth is he meant to feel? He takes down the letters and smooths them on the table, puts the paper with the orange buyer’s number next to it. They are a perfect match. The spidery writing, the lined paper, the stain – it is all there.

  ‘Thanasis!’ He says his friend’s name out loud as if he has never heard it before. ‘Of all the people.’

  He marches to the front door, turns round, marches to the back door. What is he supposed to do now?

  After a few more minutes’ pacing, the initial shock has worn off a little and he begins to consider his friend in a way he has never considered him before.

  ‘Is he a good man?’ he asks, one hand on either side of the sink, looking down into the plughole.

  ‘Of course he is a good man.’ He answers himself quickly, but the answer does not sit entirely well. He is a good man for a friend, but is he a good man for Maria? Now that is a different question. Isn’t it?

  ‘What has Thanasis got to offer?’ he asks the briki on the shelf, looking up from the sink, confident that this is a safe question with an easy answer. But he thinks again. What does he have to offer? In a material sense he has a small orange grove and four donkeys – at the moment – and a cottage he could never imagine Maria even entering, let alone living in. Thanasis has no other assets and no money, to Cosmo’s knowledge. He gave all he had to educate his two nephews.

  ‘But Maria has her own house and a small annuity, so perhaps counting Thanasis’s assets is not the right way to phrase the question. Maybe it is more a question of character?’

  There, now he feels confident this will be an easy one to answer in Thanasis’s favour. He hitches up his trousers on his narrowing hips.

  ‘He is wise, or at least he knows things. Well, he should, he has been around long enough.’ He begins to laugh at his joke, then slaps a hand to his mouth. How old is Thanasis anyway? Older than he is himself by a long way – older than Mitsos, even. Surely he isn’t sneaking into his eighties!

  ‘Ha, age! What is that? Nothing in the way of love. No, his character, what does he have to offer in terms of character?’

  Cosmo pushes away from the sink and turns. He is now facing his mama’s cuckoo clock, which has remained unwound and silent since the day she died. He must give it to Poppy. Poppy would love it.

  ‘Stop distracting yourself! Think, man, think.’ But the more he applies himself, the less he can see what Thanasis has to offer Maria.

  Will Thanasis be loyal to her, he asks himself, and he answers, Who knows? Will he be attentive? Who knows? Will he put her before his donkeys? Probably not. Will he offer good conversation? Again, probably not. He likes to play tavli and let Cosmo do the talking. Does Maria even like tavli, and does it matter? Thanasis had an interesting life when he was younger. But then, what does that have to do with now? He cannot entertain Maria for the rest of her days with repeated tales of his youth.

  Cosmo paces once more to the back door, trying desperately to think of what he does or does not have to offer Maria himself. Poppy’s key hangs on the nail there by its red twine. He plucks it off. Now is as a good a time as any to water her plants; after all, in his current state of mind he is not much use for anything else.

  The shop door opens easily and he is glad of the distraction. The mothball smell is comfortingly familiar and nothing to do with either Thanasis or Maria. The smell of tuna is fainter in the house now, and it might be the drains, or stale clothes. In the kitchen all is still. Today, with no one to stir the air, it smells ever so slightly damp. He fills the jug and opens the door to the tiny courtyard that brims with green leaves around the single, comfortable-looking chair. The leaves on some of the plants droop a little, and he waters every pot carefully. If he were to construct a container of some kind to perfectly fit the space, the plants could be replanted into the larger container so the roots would have more room. Maybe he will talk with Poppy about that when she gets back.

  After several trips back and forth to the tap he sits amongst the now-revived plants and looks through to the kitchen, at the shelf with the small pan, the one plate, the one cup, the one glass. Underneath, the pictures of Poppy and the children, with the smartly dressed woman looking on, stare back at him. What is so sad about these pictures? He still cannot work it out.

  He stands and makes his way back to his house, closing and locking the doors carefully.

  With the watering distraction gone, the question still remains – is Thanasis a good man for Maria?

  Chapter 20

  ‘Arrogant,’ he says to his reflection as he combs his hair in the small mirror by his front door. He replaces the comb on the shelf and continues to look himself in the eye. ‘Who am I to decide if Thanasis is right for Maria or not? What if you decide not, and you cause her to miss her soulmate?’

  He shakes his head at his reflection. His kitchen is driving him mad. It is not quite the same green as Stella’s eatery after all, but a decidedly more sickly shade. He goes through to the room his mama kept only for visitors. The air in here is still, the aging furniture squeezed in, so cramped. The plastic flowers in the bowl on the small glass coffee table are thick with dust. Now, this is a good distraction. He goes back to the kitchen, takes a plastic bag from the corner behind the door and returns to wrap up the flowers, carefully, leaving the dust undisturbed. He throws the bag out of
the back door. Someone has left a chair outside Poppy’s. No doubt when she comes back she will put a price tag on it. This gives him an idea, and almost before it has time to settle, his mama’s prized glass-topped table is next to the chair, and the best room feels just a little more spacious.

  He sits in one of the plump seats, but there is no give to the springs; it is most uncomfortable and, being without arms, it offers nowhere to rest his hands.

  The problem of Maria will not leave him be.

  ‘Firstly, you are not meant to know who the letter writer is,’ he reasons. ‘So from that point of view you should not interfere. No one has invited you to get involved.’

  He crosses his arms. ‘But I do know. Fate, circumstances, call it what you like, but whatever it is has brought this knowledge my way. Doesn’t that mean I have a responsibility to use my knowledge wisely? Don’t I?’ He uncrosses his arms.

  A spring is digging into his backside so he moves to another chair. This one has more give but one would not call it comfortable.

  ‘It’s not as if it was my efforts that allowed me to find out who it was. It was chance, not the card. I could just go to Maria and give her the orange man’s number with Thanasis’s handwriting and tell her that Thanasis gave me it and she will say, “What do I want with that, I have no oranges?” But then she will look again and see, and it would come to her and I would not have to say a word. I could walk away and then I would have no choices or decisions to make.’

  Next, he tries the two-seater sofa, which also has no arms, so he cannot lean sideways. He feels very upright, sitting to attention. It is worse than the chair. What sort of chair would he buy if he had the money? Maybe one like Babis has in his office – a big black one that swivels. Or maybe a sofa, like the one Juliet, the English woman in the village, has out on her patio in the summer – a big, squashy thing that he could fall asleep on. But he has what he has and it will have to do. The seat is too uncomfortable, and his legs are restless. He will be better on his feet.