Fire on the Island

by Timothy Jay Smith

  “I don’t disappoint you. Please, I can look again?” He took her phone to do his own scrolling through the pictures, which reinforced his worry about the crown’s challenging design. Then up popped selfies of Athina standing next to the icon on the easel, imitating the Madonna’s inclined pose, in one shot looking cross-eyed to mock her roving eyes; though Ridi, never having seen the Crowned Madonna’s eyes, only thought she was acting goofy. In the last few shots, she’d pulled the priest into view, and the pictures rolled by in a silent movie of her flirting with the collared man. Awkward at first, he soon grew friendlier with the camera, and certainly with the girl. In the last photo, Athina leaned back mimicking the Madonna’s disdainful expression, while the priest, hands prayerfully clasped, looked on adoringly. Ridi’s mood darkened. He had competition for her heart.

  He pointed to the phone. “Is this Father—”

  “Yes,” Athina said, taking back her phone. “He thinks I’m as beautiful as the Madonna.”

  “No, he is wrong,” Ridi said, shaking his head.

  “That’s not exactly nice to say.”

  “You are not as beautiful. You are more beautiful.”

  “No one is ever more beautiful than the Madonna. I think it’s a rule.”

  “Then you break the rule.”

  The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, Ridi, you’re so sweet,” she said, and kissed him, her lips lingering longer on his cheek than a friendly peck.

  “Kissing our only waiter might make him happy, but not necessarily our customers,” Lydia said, coming up behind them. “Especially when they appear to want service.”

  “I go make service,” Ridi said, and scurried away.

  “I wasn’t kissing him,” Athina protested. “I was thanking him for offering to make me a crown.”

  “It looked like a kiss to me.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t serving our customers either. Attentive service brings back repeaters, slow service—”

  “—brings one-timers,” Athina finished her mother’s sentence. “Do you ever think about anything else?”

  “Than how to support my family? No. Why are you flirting with that boy?”

  “I wasn’t flirting. I told you, I was thanking him.”

  “By calling him sweet? Boys assume things when you say things like that to them.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t understand me. You never do!”

  Athina went inside. Lydia followed her, and their argument continued.

  Ridi collected the dishes from the impatient couple’s table. “Do you want something more?”

  “Two coffees,” the woman ordered.

  “Decaffeinated,” the man added.

  Ridi walked off wondering what was dekafeneion coffee.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  FATHER ALEXIS MAY HAVE BEEN God’s servant, but he was a man, too, and as he finished touching up his copy of the Crowned Madonna, his thoughts inevitably drifted back to Athina. She did, in fact, remind him of the Virgin he was painting, and of his mother, too. Both associations felt sinfully tainted. As hard as he tried to steer his thoughts elsewhere, they always returned to the girl. Even prayer, his usual escape from lust, eluded him. The priest was in the grip of man’s oldest irritation: he was horny.

  Adding a last dab of paint, he took a moment to admire his creation. It was his best forgery yet. Indeed, his copy felt as inspired as the original. He had one last thing to do: add dust. He took a wide, dry brush, dipped it into a can where for weeks he’d collected the dirt off the church’s floor, and spread the combination of dust and incense ash on the back of the canvas. He took extra care to work it into the corners, wanting it to look like centuries-old buildup.

  He glanced out the church’s door. No one was approaching and he locked it. This was the moment—the switch—when he was most likely to be caught in his duplicitous business, so he did it in full daylight to establish an atmosphere of non-deception should anyone walk in on him. The locked door could be easily explained away by his forgetfulness to open it that morning.

  He went into the vestry and returned with a stepladder, and used it to lift the Crowned Madonna off its hook. Days earlier, he had reset the original icon in its frame, making it easy to remove by twisting four bent nails. In seconds, he traded the two images. Then he hung his forgery over the altar in the ancient icon’s frame, and carried the unframed original image into the vestry. Without a moment’s pause he inserted it into a gaudy gold frame—another ruse to pass the original off as the copy—and returned to the church to unlock the door.

  Forgery wasn’t a second career that Father Alexis had chosen. It was a necessity of circumstances. In hard times, God’s bill was the first people neglected to pay, and the extra generosity his handsome looks inspired didn’t make up for the dwindling collections. Even his take of fresh eggs and garden vegetables had withered as people tightened their belts. On the other hand, tourists—always willing to plunder another country’s patrimony—constantly asked to buy a church’s icons, prepared to take them right off the wall, and two parishes ago it occurred to Father Alexis to sell copies of them. He started with fast knockoffs, but soon the combination of his talent and inherent perfectionism had him rendering them in identical detail. He gained a deserved reputation for their quality, his prices went up, and then came the unexpected visitor who offered a deal he couldn’t refuse. It was a bargain with the devil that would make it possible to buy an apartment for his distressed mother in half the time. The Crowned Madonna would secure its purchase.

  Finished with his first deceit of the day, the priest went on to his second one: the crack in the bell tower. The village men, returning home from their fields or jobs, fired up chainsaws that tore through the late afternoon, cutting up what they’d taken of Lukas’s beauties. The noise was a perfect cover for his treacherous business. He climbed the tower’s steep steps, breathing hard by the time he reached the top where a great bronze bell filled the square cupola. Each side had a long rectangular window framed in marble, miraculously undamaged in the last strong earthquake when the ancient tower itself had crumbled.

  Father Alexis squeezed around the bell to poke his head out the window to examine his handiwork. He had managed to create a jagged crack running from the window’s corner, but any close examination would reveal it was more cosmetic than structural. To definitively sway the public’s fickle opinion in his favor, he needed to make the damage appear even more extensive. Grasping a short hammer leaning in the corner, every time a chainsaw wailed through another log, he flung his arm out the window and pounded the wall below him, noting with satisfaction how much plaster fell away. He might actually defeat the anti-church sympathizers and be reassigned somewhere other than another miserable village! Inspired, he swung his hammer all the more fiercely and a large chunk fell off. He stuck his head out the window to look, and smiled when he saw it was no flake as Lydia had derided his other evidence. Brushing dust off his robe, he went down to retrieve it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE FRIGID WIND HOWLING DOWN from the distant Black Sea blew tears from the corners of Nick’s eyes as he walked sideways so as not to slip on the steep cobblestones that pitched him onto the wharf. A yellowish light spilling from Vassoula’s Bar was the only illumination anywhere. As Nick drew closer, he heard the familiar rumble of a generator. Afghan Lullaby his troop mates had named it because they all went to sleep hearing it day and night.

  He struggled to pull open the bar’s door against the fierce wind, and once he did, it slammed shut so hard that it propelled him into the room. Everybody glanced up. Vassoula, on a barstool, cell phone to her ear, hitched her skirt to show more leg. A paunchy guy at the bar, a younger guy at the pinball machine, and a couple holding hands across a table, all took him in before the pinballer went back to pounding the machine’s flippers. Takis, behind the bar, flicked black worry beads while selecting music videos. “Kali spera,” he greeted him.

  “Kali spera.” Nick indi
cated the beads. “You worried about something?”

  “Yeah. Smoking a cigarette.”

  “Did you ever try the patch?”

  “I could never get one to light. I’m sorry you missed nightcap hour last night.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Any hour—or two or three—that you wanted. Is that an ouzo, one ice no water?”

  “Sounds like I’m already a regular.”

  “It’s easy to remember. So are you. Sit where you want and I’ll bring it to you.”

  “Is your WiFi working?”

  “Until it crashes, and it will in this weather. The network is ‘Vassoula’ and the password is ‘Greece.’”

  “No special symbols or at least one capital letter?”

  “I’ve tried to tell her.”

  Despite the chilly draft, Nick chose a table with corner windows; he wanted a view of the rolling boats in the harbor. He also had a view into Lydia’s Kitchen and saw her long face, mournful in candlelight, assessing the weather and the night’s prospects. He opened his phone and logged on, and skimmed his news feeds. No breaking news seemed likely to recall him to Athens, though that could change the moment another refugee raft capsizing attached to an especially poignant story.

  Takis brought his ouzo. “Here you go, mate.”

  “Mate?”

  The young man smiled sheepishly. “I guess I must be homesick.”

  They both jumped when the pinballer slammed the sides of his game machine.

  “Knock it off!” the paunchy guy barked in Russian.

  The kid did it again, and the Russian jerked him away by his collar. “I said knock it off!”

  “Hey! Keep it friendly!” Under his breath, Takis added, “Fucking Russian mafia.”

  Nick asked, “How do you know he’s mafia?”

  “What other kind of Russian sails around in a private yacht with a Monaco registration? Let me know when you want something.”

  Takis went back to the bar.

  Nick was left to muse over how big a role the Russian mafia played in almost everything illicit coming into Europe. He logged in to encryption mode and messaged headquarters:

  SUBJ: Birch Runner, yacht, Monaco reg. Request info on captain.

  He pressed ‘send’ and whoosh! it was gone.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  THE RAIN PUMMELED THE WHARF. Lydia’s candles flickered near the drafty windows. Odysseus’s unpredictable sea had certainly been that, she mused, though another disastrous evening had not been amusing. No sooner had the first wave of customers settled in than the wind kicked up, driving most next door to Vassoula’s for an inside table. Though licensed as a bar, she got away with serving fried anchovies and chips—and bad wine, Lydia always added gratuitously, if anyone wanted her opinion. One young couple stiffed her for an expensive fish half-cooked on the grill for an indoor spot at Vassoula’s. She thought to chase after them, but it would have been too humiliating. Instead she shared their abandoned meal with Athina and Ridi.

  When the rain turned torrential, out her window Lydia watched Stavros abandon the small cabin on his boat and burst into Vassoula’s where he snatched a tablecloth off a pile and dried off, muttering a tirade against God and the weather that she could hear next door. The whole place was laughing by the time he finished. From a long plastic bag he pulled out his bouzouki and wiped off the raindrops that had splattered it. He plucked its strings to tune it, and even that had the crowd enthralled, anticipating the melodies to come. Takis brought him an ouzo, which the fisherman raised to the crowd. “Styn eyeia mas!” he cried.

  To our health! they cried back.

  He drained his glass, which prompted some laughs, before launching into a lively repertoire. Soon he had the crowd on its feet stumbling in a line dance. From where she stood, Lydia watched the woman who stiffed her grab the handkerchief from the lead dancer and take her turn snaking the line between the cramped tables.

  A strong gust rattled the window and Lydia stepped back. “Such a big storm and it’s still only October. It’s because of global warming.”

  “It’s almost November,” Athina said, wiping down the grill. “Besides, whenever there’s a storm, you say it’s global warming.”

  “Well, then I must be right.”

  Ridi stuffed the last of the soiled tablecloths into a laundry bag. “How is warming possible when I am colder this year?”

  Lydia shrugged and asked, “Because butterflies flap their wings in Mexico? How should I know? But I do know it’s impossible to keep the restaurant open when three dinners are spoiling for every one I serve.”

  “Then quit buying so much food,” her daughter suggested.

  “I buy the minimum I need to sell to break even. How much less would you like me to buy?”

  “It’s not fair to Ridi, just to announce that you’re closing, like tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t say tomorrow. I said after the contest.”

  “That’s still not the two more weeks you promised him.”

  “She never promised me,” Ridi spoke up, unhappily calculating his lost wages, and worrying how to woo Athina when totally penniless.

  “What’s he supposed to do?” the girl persisted.

  “I suppose whatever he planned to do, except ten days earlier.”

  “How can you be so mean? Especially when he’s making me a crown like Grandma suggested.”

  “I can’t control what I can’t control. January weather in October is something I can’t control. Nor can I fix the economic crisis. Or the refugee crisis. Or my own business crisis because of them.”

  Another blow to the windows made Athina cry out.

  Ridi suggested, “Maybe I sleep here tonight?”

  He had slept there on other stormy nights, rolling up soiled tablecloths for a pillow and pulling others over him for warmth. He lived out a rough dirt road that wasn’t safe on such rain-lashed nights, where he shared a house with other young Albanian men who’d come to Greece for work, only to find themselves as unemployed as the locals. In his first group flat, sometimes he had to wait for a mattress on the floor; but once he got a job, he found a place where he had his own room.

  Lydia wasn’t especially pleased with the idea that the presumed-love-smitten duo would be sleeping under the same roof, albeit a floor apart with no adjoining door. The windows rattled again. “Remember to blow out the candles before you go to sleep,” she relented.

  Athina said, “I’ll stay and help Ridi finish cleaning up.”

  “Everything is done.”

  “Maybe he wants some company.”

  “I’m sure he does, but you’re not it tonight. Now upstairs, and turn off your phone. Your father is already asleep.”

  “What if someone tries to call me?” The girl, pouting, glanced at Ridi before letting the door slam behind her.

  Lydia caught the glance, and that cinched it for her: the young waiter was her daughter’s new secret admirer. He had sent the mysterious message with the beating heart. “Don’t let her break your heart,” she cautioned him.

  “Why she break my heart?”

  “She breaks the hearts of all her admirers.”

  “All her what?”

  “All her boyfriends.”

  “She has boyfriends?”

  “Sometimes two at the same time.”

  “Where she hide them?”

  “You don’t see all the boys who come around?”

  Lydia left him, following her daughter up the side of the building, regretting causing the boy such a crestfallen face, yet knowing she had to do it. She couldn’t let her daughter’s puppy love end with making a bad choice forever. Cute—no, handsome—hardworking, yes, and clever: things she’d want in any son-in-law. But Athina was far too young, too inexperienced to settle for the first decent guy she met. It wouldn’t be giving herself a chance, and besides, it was true: the last thing they needed was another waiter. Albanian or not.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  AFTER THE LIGHTS DIM
MED A second time, Takis lit candles in case the generator went out altogether. Back at his makeshift DJ booth, he switched playlists, trying to keep the place jumping after Stavros had left to sleep on his boat. All evening people had drifted in and out. At some point, Vassoula came in the back door wearing the sexiest widow’s weeds Nick had ever seen: a low-cut, silky tight dress worn short over patterned stockings. She was a repeat visitor to a table of Brits who swore to a man that he’d had his last whiskey for the night, until Vassoula reappeared and everyone ordered another round.

  Finally it was the last whiskey and the Brits stumbled into the night. The young couple, earlier holding hands, took a spin on the private dance floor they had carved out between the bar and some tables. Tipsy, they made it their last dance, and left clutching each other in a united front against the wind. Other than Nick, the only customers left were the pinballer, who had played his game nonstop, and his Russian sugar daddy. Nick had no doubt that was their relationship. The boy was too young, his exchanges with the Russian too familiar, their body language easily translated.

  Vassoula came to his table carrying a generous shot of brandy. Everything about her swayed to the music’s seductive beat. “Hello, Superman,” she said.

  “I’m Nick.”

  “You don’t want to be Superman?”

  “It’s not my line of work.”

  “Should I call you Writer?”

  “That rumor traveled fast.”

  “Not fast for our small village. Where are you from?”

  “Krypton.”

  “I don’t know Krypton. Where is it on the map?”

  “Krypton exploded.”

  “So has my country. What do you write about? This village?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m still deciding.”

  “You sound like a writer.”

  “I do? How?”

  “Someone who is always trying to decide what to write. Do you like brandy?”

  “I shouldn’t mix it with ouzo.”

  “Not Seven Stars?”

  Nick pushed his ouzo glass aside. “Now you’re talking.”