by Sara Alexi
Suddenly there is a wail that rings throughout the town. The relative calm that was beginning to settle is instantly replaced with a feeling of tension. But within minutes it is reported that the wail was that of a young bachelor, and that his cry of distress was over his mama’s four-year-old ashes, which had been in a jar in a little niche in the kitchen wall in the house his papous built. The house and the ashes have become one as the house has just collapsed. Those in the harbour area once again begin to remark that it is a miracle that no one was seriously hurt, and everyone agrees that they have come off very lightly.
Rallou continues to wait and as she does so she cannot reconcile the sunshine and the warmth, the sparkle of the sea and the cloudless sky, with the damage around the harbour.
The buildings have not fared as well as the people and those around her begin to compare the buildings that have shaken to the ground with those that still stand. Then the offers of rooms and beds begin. Those who have been the most fortunate are eager to help those who have not. Dust is still being brushed from clothing, and hair ruffled free of debris. Space to sleep will be found for everyone, it seems; no one will be left without shelter, and promises of help to rebuild follow this. It seems to Rallou that everyone has someone and everyone has someplace to go. No one is to be left without a bed or support. No one except her.
Her heart feels so heavy, and she cannot remember feeling this alone since Mama died. The reality is she could stay with any of her brothers but she just does not want to. She does not want to find herself in a position where she is discussing the whereabouts of Christos, and Vasillis is sure to ask that very question. Tears prick her eyes and she blinks. If she thinks about Christos now she feels that she will fall apart. Better to focus on the question of where she will stay tonight.
There is no choice; she must return to Korifi.
The phone inside Costas Voulgaris’s kafenio rings, and Rallou listens, alert. She pushes inside to see Costas pick up the receiver.
‘Hello, yes, yes, yes, oh yes … Oh, that is good news.’ He nods his head to all those who have gathered around him. Their mountain homes are still standing. People who have homes up in her baba’s village nod at Rallou in recognition and some come up to her to exchange a few words. Costas Voulgaris turns to Rallou and, putting his hand over the phone, says, ‘Your baba is fine. Tolis has been sitting with him for a while but the old man said he has seen worse quakes than this one. Tolis has invited him to the boatyard for some of his wife’s fish soup.’
‘Tell him I am fine. Can I speak to him?’ Rallou asks. Costas nods but turns back to the phone to continue talking.
‘They are fine,’ he says. ‘Yes, all of them. Rallou is here – oh, and Vasillis has just come.’ Costas looks over the heads of the crowd to Vasillis, who is pushing himself to the front.
‘Costas and Yorgos, Grigoris?’ Costas Voulgaris asks, and Vasillis smiles and nods his head. ‘Yes, yes, they are fine too and there are some people here who want to know about their houses.’ There is a general increase in the volume of talking in the bar.
‘What, nothing has fallen at all? Well that’s good to hear.’ Costas is still on the phone ‘The well top? Well, yes, but you can rebuild it … Sure, but someone will go down and pull all that out … Yes, you will. Ha ha!’ Costas laughs at something Tolis has said. The way he chuckles makes him sound like a boy.
‘So glad we have the house up there,’ says a voice by Rallou’s elbow.
‘Where else can we go now the town house is gone?’ These and other comments prompt Rallou’s realisation that there will be several new neighbours for her baba now, at least for a short time, with so many town houses damaged.
‘Can I talk to Baba?’ Vasillis reaches for the phone. ‘Baba? Baba? You there? Ah, there you are, everything all right?’ The throng in the kafenio filters back outside and Rallou presses her ear up to the other side of the phone, nose to nose with Vasillis. She is so relieved that her baba is safe. She has nothing pressing that she wants to say to him; she is just glad she can hear the sound of his voice. Vasillis asks about the house, the chickens, the beehives. It seems nothing has changed. The tremor was a strong one and the treetops oscillated wildly, but he stood in the pasture and watched the birds fly up in alarm and the chickens flap about. Then she hears Tolis Kaloyannis’s voice again, asking to speak to Costas Voulgaris.
‘Toli, is the boatyard safe? Oh, I am glad to hear that … What? No, don’t joke with me. What? … Seriously. You expect me to believe that? You have to be kidding me? No! I don’t believe you!’
The people in the kafenio sense something extraordinary and they hush.
‘But that is not possible.’ Costas looks around his audience. ‘Ah, you are joking with me. Really? Serious? If I believe you then that is a miracle, to be sure, Toli.’ Costas rambles a goodbye and the hushed crowd wait to hear the latest phenomenon.
‘Okay, listen to this!’ Costas says, and steps onto a chair so everyone can see him. ‘Tolis declares that there has been a miracle.’
There is a hush. One or two of the older men and woman cross themselves.
‘He has just told me, and he swears on his mother’s life, that Dolly, Yanni’s dead donkey, has just walked into his boatyard, alive and well!’
‘But why wouldn’t she? With a quake like that they can run for miles,’ Spiros, who owns a modern forty-two foot yacht, says.
‘Ach. You have been away around the Cyclades. You wouldn’t have heard. Dolly fell over the coastal path edge where it has given way,’ Pan answers.
‘But she was seen floating out to sea,’ another voice says, incredulous.
‘Well, Tolis says he should know her – her and Yanni go past them at the end of the month on their way to Korifi, stop every time for a chat and a refill of water,’ Costas Voulgaris answers.
Rallou opens her mouth to explain. But then, how would she explain, what would she explain? That she had looked after the donkey herself for a time because until she knew who the owner was or whether the donkey was well enough to stand she had a fear they might shoot it? That would not go down well, no matter how true it is. Besides, it might sound like she was trying take the donkey for herself. Most people know that she had been pressing her baba to get an animal for years to make him more mobile, and they all know that with the lifestyle on the mountaintops being what it is he could never afford one.
‘Maybe the animal itself is a saint,’someone quips.
‘It’s true, a nicer nature beast would be hard to find, and one so willing to work.’
‘Yanni will be pleased. Where is he?’
‘Off the island, buying a donkey.’
‘Well, if the animal has flown out of the water and into Tolis’s boatyard perhaps he should rename her Pegasus!’ another voice quips.
Raucous laugher fills the kafenio, the tension of the recent event dissolving, the promise arising that life will return to normal, there will be jokes and banter again. Only Hectoras, one of the other donkey men, coughs nervously. Rallou understands. The competition for work is based on how many animals a man has. He has three, the most any man on the island has, so he gets all the work that demands three beasts. His fear is that Yanni will also end up with three. He is anxious to maintain his monopoly.
‘So, your house? It is all right?’ Vasillis breaks into her thoughts. ‘Gone,’ she replies, and quickly forgets that she has missed her chance to say anything about herself in connection with Dolly’s recovery. No matter, let them think it is a miracle. Besides, when Vasillis asks about her house it suddenly occurs to her what is coming next … She tries to think quickly what she will say; she will tell him Christos is fine, of course – but should she tell him that he is on Corfu? Or does she lie and say he is up on the hills? She could be caught out. Better to tell the truth. But then he will ask why Christos is there. What will she say?
‘Well, you and Christos must come and stay with us. Where is he?’ Vasillis looks around and then back at her, his ey
es wide. ‘He is not hurt, is he?’
‘No, he’s fine.’
‘Oh, for a minute there … Where is he?’
What can she say?
Chapter 19
Rallou feels like she has been waiting for hours. She looks up at the clock tower. With the top portion leaning, and iced with dust, the hands are stuck at four twenty-three – the time the quake struck yesterday afternoon. She shields her eyes to judge the sun’s position in the sky. It is still only morning. A gull circles high overhead, its calls only just audible.
At Vasillis’s insistence, she spent the night at his house after all. It was odd to be in her old bed again after all the years that have passed. It was hers before it was passed to Vasillis’s and Eleftheria’s second child, when he became old enough to need a room of his own. Now he is grown and married. Eleftheria made her feel very welcome.
When Vasillis pressed her about Christos in the kafenio the question was deflected by Costas Voulgaris offering more brandy. But it was inevitable that, in the evening, almost as soon as she arrived at their house, Eleftheria asked the same question, and Vasillis, who had been assessing a cracked wall in the next room, came in to hear the answer. Rallou stumbled over her words and made a couple of false starts, and in the end she resorted to an out-and-out lie.
‘His second aunt is very unwell,’ she said, and told them how he had had to make a trip to Corfu. It sounded so false to her.
‘He has an aunt on Corfu?’ Vasillis asked. ‘I know he had second cousins or something up in a small village near Saros, but Corfu?’
‘One of his aunts from the village moved to Corfu.’ Rallou felt sure her flaming cheeks would give her away.
‘Ah, it is a shame he could not wait for you to return from your baba’s,’ Eleftheria said. ‘Then you could have gone together. She must be very sick.’ She crossed herself three times, then smiled. ‘So you will be following him tomorrow? It’s all happening, isn’t it?’
And there she was again, stuck with another question she didn’t know how to answer. The easiest thing was to agree.
‘Yes, yes, of course, that is why I came down from Baba’s.’ But the moment she said it she realised that they could catch her out with this lie. How would she have known to come down? Who would have told her? There is no phone in Korifi, and Yanni was not due up there until the end of the month.
But thankfully Eleftheria’s mind was on other things. ‘I can only serve us fish soup,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I have nothing else prepared.’
‘That will be great! Thanks, Eleftheria,’ Vasillis said, but he was still looking at Rallou.
Eleftheria had not appeared so animated for years. The disaster seemed to have shifted her away from her normal grey outlook; apparently such things can happen. But even with Eleftheria’s new-found enthusiasm the evening proved very long. To add to which, she cooked the soup in the kitchen instead of outside, and everywhere stank of fish. It can’t have been fresh, Rallou concluded.
‘The back kitchen was damaged in the quake and will have to be rebuilt.’ Eleftheria sparkled with energy for the future. ‘But I think we will rebuild it properly and extend it. With units from Athens, and have you seen the worktops you can get now? Unbelievable! No need to put up with smoothed and painted concrete any more!’ Eleftheria’s imagination seemed fired by her thoughts, and there was little Rallou felt she could say in reply. In the end, Vasillis, very gently, reminded Eleftheria that Rallou had lost more than her back kitchen, and perhaps it was not a subject to dwell on in present company. It was very sweet of him but Rallou hadn’t minded; it was better than the silence that followed. It also took her mind off Christos, and steered the conversation away from more questions about him, for that matter. As she made her way to bed, Eleftheria said she would see what she could put together by way of food for her to take with her the next day. Rallou had been within a heartbeat of asking where she was supposed to be going when she remembered her lie. Or was it? Maybe she would have to go now, to back up her words. They were not the only people who were going to be asking.
General sounds of activity woke her very early. The sun streamed in through the shutters – which Rallou noted had recently been painted a very attractive shade of light blue – along with shouts and calls and the sounds of stones being moved. The air was clear and bright and the sky a deep hue, and all the dust from the day before had settled, but here and there little clouds rose again as rubble was shovelled and rocks rearranged. The clearing up and rebuilding process had already begun and every man and donkey was at work with the dawn.
Eleftheria was not up when she left but she thanked Vasillis heartily for her bed and food, and for the few euros he pressed on her to help with her journey, which left her feeling obliged to continue her deception.
Now she is waiting for the boat, all because she is not good at lying. She waits and yawns, after a disturbed night, during which she had visions of houses falling, rebuilding themselves, falling again. Arapitsa barking, Christos laughing and stepping out of the front door and then the house falling again. Christos still laughing as the dust rose around him. The dog trying to catch flying bits of stone as she jumped in the air. The same loop of action played over and over.
The glare of the water on the harbourside is now almost too bright to look at.
The harbour wall, at least, stayed intact. The arm at the end, jutting across the harbour’s mouth, almost enclosing the port, looks unscathed. The port is crammed with sailing yachts and gin palaces, jostling for space, every corner taken; some are two rows deep, one moored to the back of another. There is activity on the decks of several of the vessels, the crews readying for departure. The halyards click against the masts and crews call to each other gently. Rallou watches as one yacht glides silently away from the harbour wall and into the middle of the harbour, people on the neighbouring boats ready to fend off. A single squashed buoy floats near where the ferry boats dock. Beneath the surface, little fish swim about, unaware that anything significant happened yesterday.
Three red-and-white water taxis are moored up in a corner of the harbour that is reserved for working boats, but there is no one on board any of them. Maybe no one will work today. More likely they will all stay at home and shovel dust, repair cracks, rebuild kitchens.
The distance over to the mainland seems so short, and it only takes twenty minutes or so on the high-speed taxi boats. She could call either Costas or Yorgos and they would happily take her there. But they have their own houses and families to think of, and in addition to this she doesn’t want any awkward questions about where she is going or why. But the question remains: why is Christos there? If it is a mistake she needs to go and sort it out. If it is not, if he has left her, that is something she needs to sort out too. Isn’t it?
But what will actually await her in Corfu? What will she find? Will she find him? Perhaps making such a journey is a knee-jerk reaction to the lie she’s told, but if she is not to be exposed for a liar, what else is she supposed to do? Wait and hope he returns? That is not her nature anyway; she is not a passive person. Her falsehood gives her a legitimate reason for going. The island of Corfu, she has heard, has nearly fifty times the population of Orino. The reality is that once she arrives she will not even know where to start looking for him. The whole journey will, most likely, prove futile. But it will be better than staring at the rubble that was her home, fielding her neighbours’ questions, facing her baba and seeing the sadness of her loss reflected in his eyes.
The gull that was so high up drifts downward, its wings outstretched, swooping lower and lower until it lands flat-footed on the other side of the harbour, where Christina from the bakery is putting yesterday’s bread in the bin. The bakery looks untouched by the earthquake. That too is a blessing, the daily staple still being supplied. The amount of stale bread Christina deposits in the bin stops the lid from closing fully and as soon as her back is turned the gull is on it, curling its neck over the side to tear at the plastic
bag squashed within. The rubbish that it pulls out it drops to the ground, and then its razor-sharp bill rips into the bread. It lifts its head, bill to the sky to swallow, and then begins to repeat the process.
‘Shoo!’ Christina hurries out of the bakery, flicking at it with a tea towel. The bird lazily takes to the air and flies to the nearest mast top to wait for her to go back inside.
Rallou yawns. Another hour or two’s sleep would be very welcome, maybe as much to block the world out as to revive her.
The earthquake was such a strong reminder of how things can change, with no warning, in just a few minutes. Last night, she lay with the sheet tucked up under her chin and the scent of an unfamiliar washing powder in her nostrils, looking at the familiar lampshade, the one she stared at waiting for sleep as a schoolchild.
As she lost focus on the lampshade, she wished she felt sleepy. Just as Eleftheria’s cloud of emotional darkness had shifted with the quake, so too had Rallou’s own cloud of pessimism and antagonism towards Christos.
She had certainly had cause to think. She realised that it was extremely unlikely that Christos had gone to Corfu to be with a girl he had known so briefly and whom he had not seen for the best part of thirty years. Also, it was simply impossible to believe that he had remained in touch with her all these years and that Rallou wouldn’t have seen any evidence – a card, a phone call, something. No, it was more likely that he left the island to teach her a lesson, or to frighten her, or for a million other reasons, but not to chase a childhood love. Maybe this girl was a pleasant memory and that was all it took for him to select Corfu over the hundreds of other islands he could have gone to.