by Polis Loizou
The music, it dawned on her, was live. At her back, on a corner of the raised stage where solo acts and Bingo took place, stood a mini grand. At the piano sat a silver-haired gentleman whom she guessed to be German, maybe Swiss. She didn’t recognise the tune he was playing, but his touch on the keys showed ability, experience. She only realised she’d been staring into space when she caught the wave of his hand and the nod of his head.
A Russian. Or worse, someone from home.
Nobody she knew, of that she was certain. He lifted his right hand from the piano to beckon her over, his left one continuing to play. Why not? She moved closer, pulled up the chair nearest to his corner of the stage. He wore beige cargo shorts and some heft around the middle.
‘What song would you like?’ he asked in Greek, accented.
‘I’m not Greek,’ she replied in English.
‘Russian?’
Why not. She would never see this man again. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Ah. I’m German, but I know a little bit.’
‘It’s OK,’ she replied in German. ‘I know a lot.’
‘Wonderful!’
They carried on in his native tongue.
‘What would you like to hear?’
‘What’s this one?’
He cocked his head and smiled as if she was crazy. ‘You don’t know Celine Dion?’ His eyes were a shocking blue, boyishly round.
Darya shrugged.
‘How long have you been in Cyprus?’ he said and laughed. ‘I’m playing this one because everyone loves it.’
She liked his manner. It was good to speak with someone else for a change, someone she didn’t know well enough to have to manage. He drew the song to its end, his short stubby fingers surprising her by tiptoeing beautifully over the keys.
‘You play well,’ she said. ‘Do you do the shows?’
‘No! I don’t even work here. Johnny just lets me play.’ He winked and pointed at the barman, who winked and pointed back.
Darya laughed. Even this man had befriended the barman doctor.
‘Are you on your own?’
She could say anything, anything at all. She felt a rush along her arms as if pulling off the sleeves of a blouse. ‘I’m with my family. They’re all sleeping, but I don’t sleep well.’
‘My children are playing video games,’ he said. ‘Can you believe it? We came out to the middle of the Mediterranean and all they want is their Playstations.’
She shrugged. What would kids find interesting about the sea?
‘Do you play?’ the German asked.
‘Playstation?’
He laughed heartily at that. She looked around to see if anyone was watching.
‘No. The piano.’
She went numb. Her mouth had lost its function, she couldn’t quite close it. The longer the silence went on, the harder it was to break.
‘Aha… So you do.’
That wooden bulk in the corner of the living room, casting shadows against the walls, the floor, her life. All those years in its service. All those long afternoons of her fingers on keys, foot on pedal, again and again and again. The echoes of the notes, the echo of that angry voice. She’d kept her foot pressed on the pedal till the notes stretched and bent and wound to a death. The Professor had been doing the same to her, pressing her down, pressing the life out of her. Deciding what she was to be.
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Many years ago.’
‘Why did you stop?’
She licked her lips and brought the mocktail to them.
‘You don’t forget,’ he said, softly.
‘Don’t you? Shame.’ She tried not to look at him, the middle-aged boy whose hair might be curly if it wasn’t cropped. But then she couldn’t help catching, in the corner of her eye, his hand coming up. He was holding it out for her, and before she could stop herself she took it, and her feet were climbing up to the little stage, and she was lowering herself onto the piano seat. A shock bolted through her. How did this man treat his children?
‘Play me something,’ the German said. ‘Whatever you remember.’
At first, she only stared at the black and white trail before her. Her hands hovered over it, then descended on it, fingers gently alighting on the keys. She stumbled over Rachmaninov, Prelude in C Sharp Minor.
‘Wow!’ He chuckled. ‘No Celine Dion for you.’
A few bars in, her shoulders began to shake. They shook along with his laughter. And something else was shaking up with them, out of her. Something bitter and desperate. Her mouth twitched, her breath rattled in her teeth.
For half a minute she couldn’t speak, and he watched her, equally speechless. Nobody was speaking, nobody in the room.
She gripped the stool, then righted her back, her self. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I’m too tired. It was a pleasure to meet you.’
She stumbled off the stage, forgetting the steps, and left the half-drunk mocktail on the table as she headed out of the lounge, away from the stranger she hoped never to see again.
✽✽✽
Viktar. She hadn’t thought of him in years. During her time as a teacher there’d been numerous schoolboys who’d eyed her with meaning, but none more than Viktar. For someone so young, his spine had been rigid with adult assurance. A prime athlete, groomed for the Olympics. As if the boy hadn’t enough on his shoulders, his father had approached Darya about after-school cymbaly lessons. She’d accepted, though with reservations. She had seen the way Viktar stood in the corridors, palm pinned to the wall above any female head. To her surprise, he’d been well-behaved in the hour of private tuition. His hands brought such tender precision to the kruchki on the strings that it had been hard to imagine the other things he did with them. One day she’d learned why: when he wasn’t gentle enough, his father would beat him with a ruler. She’d asked him to take part in the Poland concert, and his father had relented. When the idea had come to Darya never to return to Belarus, she’d paused to consider taking Viktar with her.
At first, she had been wary of him. Then she’d worried for him. Then she’d forgotten him. Now she worried again. She hoped life treated him as gently as he did the cymbaly.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Orestis.
It was easy to explain your mind being lost in the sea. She nodded, coolly.
A mood had brewed, a cloud in her mind. They descended on Kos in their usual foursome, but Darya kept her distance. She either sped up on her own or lagged behind, pretending to be entranced by bougainvillaea, or cats playing around the old stone walls of the harbour. Whatever the others said, however they said it, made her angry. She found fault with everything.
She’d been to many parts of the world with the ships she cleaned, but never to Greece. From the islands they’d done so far, it didn’t seem different from Cyprus; beaches, promenades, cafés, signs in Greek and English, kiosks with the Coca Cola logo in their signage. She’d never admit it, but she was still unsure of the relations between the countries. Cyprus seemed to flit between idolising and dismissing Greece. Sometimes it was her beloved mother, sometimes a wayward brat that ought to be disciplined. Some people longed for union, others preferred their separation.
She was grateful for the hat. The sun breathed on her bare arms all along the promenade, where cartoonists drew portraits of tourists that bordered on insults. Orestis and Eva had got ahead of her and from this distance, his broad back, strolling through an unknown landscape, looked of a different person. One who was unfiltered, unthinking, natural.
How much he performed for her. How hollow he was. No, not hollow – the opposite. Loaded. So loaded, with all those faces and mannerisms and niceties, Orestis within Orestis within Orestis, a matryoshka doll of different patterns. Individuals in a set, so pretty, so finely made. But inside? Nothing.
That wasn’t fair. After all, he had listened to her.
Every few steps they took, Eva would turn to share her observations with him. White shorts stretching over her backside, she was rad
iant. The shadow fingers of palm fronds passed over her panama. She took out her camera. And now Darya knew how good the photos would be. But she couldn’t imagine the compositions, she lacked that ability. She would have to wait and see, and then she would know. Oh yes, that was it; that was the image, the design, the perfect framing waiting for someone to claim it. Eva stopped Orestis by a tree for a photo. First, one of him alone, then one with the two of them, her arm extended in front of them.
‘Let me take it,’ said Aristos.
‘Leave us, Daddykins! We look stupider this way.’
Darya rolled her eyes. Her babulia’s voice in her ear: ‘You’re acting like a child.’ And she knew it was right, she was wrong. But how can you fix something when you don’t know what’s broken, or how it broke?
Aristos took them to an ancient plane tree in the square. ‘This is where Hippocrates sat. Imagine, all those thoughts… first thought right here.’
She was relieved when they stepped out of the heat and into the shade of a bougainvillaea for an ice-cold drink. Then she got up, not saying a word as she went to the bathroom, only so that she might stand in a cool white space, not speaking, not hearing, not having anyone look at her. Just being.
Breathing.
Being.
✽✽✽
She’d wanted to see the castle ruins, as recommended by the itinerary back in the suite. Orestis would have agreed. They ended up at a beach, fifteen minutes by cab from the harbour town. It was a wide-open space with thatch umbrellas along the front. Eva laughed at a sign banning nudists, took a photo. ‘The stupid ones are for Facebook.’ Then she watched Orestis as he took off his shirt and shorts and ran into the water. Her face fell. What had been anticipated, and now was, was too good, was too much, was too soon. She wasn’t equal to it, and maybe never would be. Darya felt a pang of guilt.
Did Aristos?
Her gorge rose. Whatever the point of this trip was, it wasn’t worth it. All this hidden knowledge, these disguised emotions, it was a poison to the soul. Ink in a glass of water.
‘It’s so bright. Makes you want to sleep,’ said Aristos. And he lay back, pulling his hat further over his forehead and sunglasses, both to block out and give in to the offensive sun. Arms behind his head, towel between his bulk and the sand, he was the king of everything. Zeus.
How could he so easily be? It was making her crazy.
Skevi would do her yoga. Right here, on the beach. She would take herself into her own hands, calm herself. After all, that was the pleasure of it. That’s where the contentment came: to recognise your body’s achievement, its abilities and limitations. To set a goal and make it. To commune with yourself. To push yourself. To know yourself.
She started with some cat-cow stretches and felt their work in her spine. She pushed a little further with the downwards-facing dog pose. And then, with a bend of her knees and slow roll, she stood in the mountain pose. She bent at her waist and let her torso sink towards the sand. As smoothly as she could, she let one leg slide back while the other bent at the knee. She then arched herself as if pinched from the middle, plucked off the earth by an invisible deity. By the time she’d raised her arms to the sun, spread them, and finally joined her hands in prayer, her head was swimming in lightness. She could be something above all this. A spirit, an energy that moved beyond its corporeal confines. Limited to nothing. Not this beach, not this mess, not the house her husband had put her in, not his country, not any country, not names nor identities, not those who would use any of those factors against her. She was a being without borders. She was free.
That familiar click. A few metres away, Eva lowered her camera. For a moment she only stared, then said: ‘Perfect.’ She’d used the feminine, which could mean either Darya or the photograph – whatever she meant by the word itself. Perfect.
Enough. Enough photographs. Darya had come to understand that old fear of them, of the soul being trapped in the frame. What could she do but counter with politeness to mask her sense of doom? Eva would find out about her and Orestis, it was written. Maybe that was Aristos’ plan. He arranged for all of this to force the truth into the light. He’d always resented her, and now he would destroy her. He’d never wanted her to take a lover; it had all been a test. A trap. She would be exposed as a whore, Orestis a pig, and Aristos a martyr.
‘I am going to walk,’ she said in English, catching her breath. ‘You want?’ But she knew, prayed, the girl would refuse.
‘No, you go. I might swim.’
There came those clicks of the camera again, as well as Orestis’ calls, teasing the girl from the water. ‘Come in!’ he was saying, and Eva was yelling back, ‘Stand still so I can take a picture of you. Perfect! Calvin Klein.’ Of course, she wouldn’t join him in the sea. And of course, he could call only to her. Darya told herself not to look back at them, not to see Orestis rising from the sea like a god.
She wandered further along the beach, as far as it would take her. If it circled the entire island, so be it. The ship could depart, with everyone else on board, that was fine by her. Something held her throat. Samota. No, something worse. A noise escaped her mouth, surprising her. A hiccup, of a laugh or a sob – whatever it was, it came with the intent to hurt. There was a sea, dark and full of salt, swirling around inside her. She’d allowed this, this effect on her. She’d allowed too many negative energies to close in, they’d eroded her defences. How stupid she had been, a woman in her forties with the bubblegum heart of a child. She was alone, fighting a battle she couldn’t see, no allies at her side. That frightened white kitten, its claw snagged in the tree. Viktar playing gently, beaten horribly. Her lips quivered, her tears gathered.
The air was full of salt. Ravaging, cleansing. May it fill her completely, as it would a balloon, and may she float away. In and out her breath, in the way that was meant to relax you, in through the nostrils and out through the mouth. She would cut through the brambles and thickets and thorns, finally through to clarity. Only you can help yourself. Only your mind and your body hold your spirit back.
At her feet, the water fanning out to the shore was so clear she could see every pebble, every grain of sand. In the distance were windsurfers, but on land, around her, only the occasional tree. Behind the sea there were hills. She could even make out houses. Those tin signs in the town square earlier, the boat trips to Turkey. These homes, so close she might see figures at the windows, they might not even be Greek.
The wind carried her name with it. A man’s voice.
Aristos.
He walked towards her, bare feet on the wet ground.
In the moment she beheld her husband, her mind turned from sand to glass. Mr Ioannidou. Of course, this was his plan. Of course, this was the point of it all, and she was an idiot not to have realised it. He had led her to want a lover as if it had ever been her choice at all. As if it hadn’t been his will. He would make her unfaithful to make himself a cuckold, a martyr from which she must beg forgiveness. He gave her Orestis, only so that he could take him away. To expose her weakness, make her see and admit her own powerlessness. Because that’s what her husband was: a man who would be God.
‘Where are you going?’ he said, daring to smile. ‘We’ve got to head back.’
‘No,’ she said in Greek.
‘What no? You want to stay?’
She couldn’t answer.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s wrong, my love? You want to stay here?’
He knew. He knew so much more than anyone. The anger, the frustration, his lies, everything made her silent. She knocked his hand away. ‘You make all of this,’ she burst. ‘You make all happen like this. Why?’
‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. His eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses.
With all this light she could see.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why you do this?’
‘Do what?’
‘Me! Orestis! What do you want?’
Her husband spun his
head and hissed. ‘Keep your voice down!’
She wanted to fight him, No! But she knew he was right. ‘What do you want?’ she said again, quieter.
‘What do I want? Are you joking? It’s only what you want. What you want, what Eva wants. Every day, always. Just like with her mother.’
‘No,’ she said, already weakening. She would never win against him. Nobody did.
‘Yes.’
‘Why you bring Orestis here?’
‘Eva wanted him to come. She invited him. What was I supposed to do, say no? Why would I? For God’s sake, Darya, use your brain.’
‘Then why Eva comes?’
‘She’s my daughter. You’re my wife.’
‘And Orestis? He is your son?’
Aristos scowled. ‘He’s a young man, Darya. He and my daughter have known each other since they were children. If they want to be together, we can’t force them not to be. We’ll find you someone else.’
He made to touch her again, but she slapped his arm away. For a long moment, there was only the sound of the water at their feet.
‘You’re being ungrateful,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? I take you out of the hotel, I give you a beautiful house, a maid, even another damned man to satisfy you. Only so you can spit in my face. I’m a perfect idiot.’
She turned her face to the sea. Nobody ever won.
‘You want to go? A? You want to go off on your own, no more money and security, no family, nothing?’
No family. It didn’t matter how little she’d said of them, he’d figured it out. He knew from her silence that she’d done wrong. And now he pulled it out like a gun. She did her best to look directly at him, but the sun flicked at her eyes.
‘You make everything,’ she said. She could hear her voice, that strained whine. Brambles and thorns. She hated herself. He saw her as a child, jealous and crying for a toy. And he was better than her. Bigger, more powerful next to her mortal self.
‘Come,’ he said, extending his hand.