The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  The crisis her flight would cause Penelope, her guardian while Papa was away, was worth the punishment that would follow when she returned long before he received the news in Constantinople. For her aunt would spend the first few hours of her absence in a tizzy, consulting neighbourhood women whom she’d dragged out of bed, trying to come up with a plan that would absolve her of blame. Next she would order a gendarme to track down and imprison poor Morfinis. Only then would she compose her message to Papa, as full of anger as remorse. If the lights were on when she returned, the iron gate ajar, Kivelli might just keepwalking. Why not? She could teach piano and singing in Rome or Paris, and go to l’Opéra whenever she pleased. She would send Constantine picture postcards with exotic stamps for his collection. This way Papa would also know she was alive and well. She might even try to find Colette, to tell her all about Smyrna and her great escape so she could write about her in one of her books. How could she help but become the toast of Paris society then? Such plans, such possibilities!

  These were the thoughts spinning drunken webs in her head as she put on her blue hat trimmed with little plums, opened the door that led to the back stairs — the emergency exit — and came out in the garden. Like a burglar she stuck close to the walls to avoid being spotted by her closest neighbour, a widowed teacher with a permanent case of insomnia who spent long nights staring wistfully at the stars. The streets were not as dark as she’d hoped, for a full moon flushed out all but the darkest nooks. She squinted at it from under her brim and told it to turn its face from her, promising she would be home soon, but it was implacable. It followed her through the streets, shining on her alone and announcing her entrance into a life of secrets and vice for anyone who was watching. Eyes cast down, beaded purse clutched to her breast, she scurried past breathing doorways, growling dogs and mating cats until she reached the Armenian quarter, where no one knew her.

  Lieutenant Lovegrove leaned against a lamppost, casually, comfortably, inviting passersby to admire him in his uniform. The gold buttons lining his chest were as dazzling in the moonlight as they had been in the afternoon sun at the café by the water. She watched him for a few moments before making her presence known. His face lit up when he saw her, and he tipped his hat, offered his arm. Kivelli smiled nervously as she took it and tried to stop herself from giggling, though the situation suddenly seemed immensely funny. Unable to contain her laughter, it echoed through the quiet Armenian streets like the ghost of a mad clown. The officer looked perplexed and asked if anything was wrong, and Kivelli blushed and apologized for her bad manners. But the laughter transported her from the recent past (her getaway) into the immediate future (the cinema), where black and white images flickered across her face and music from the orchestra flooded her ears.

  It would be a lie to say that the light though insistent grip of the officer’s hand on hers completely distracted her from the film: Kivelli’s eyes followed every movement of Julio and Marguerite’s tango in a smoke-filled cantina, and she vowed to learn the steps before the next ball. But there wasn’t a moment while she watched that she was unaware of his touch. Through her gloves she could feel the warmth of his skin, the blood pulsing beneath it. When Julio kissed Marguerite, Kivelli’s upper lip trembled, but she did not dare turn towards her escort for fear she would be undone.

  After they left the Ciné Pathé, she declined a moonlit walk along the Quai — she was not that brazen — but lingered under a lamppost, enrapt as the officer spoke about himself and his home and the first time he saw her. She promised to meet him again without establishing when or how this might be arranged. He squeezed her hand as the town clock struck twelve, and she ran off holding on to her hat. At the last moment, she turned to wave and blow him a kiss before disappearing into the twisted side streets that brought her back to her garden, where palm fronds and gardenias slept, and an unknown fate awaited her — fist to hip.

  Her wish to see the young officer again was as strong as her desire to commit him to her imagination, where she could dress him up in costumes from the movies — a sheik, a cowboy, the king of the jungle — or undress him slowly, one gold button at a time until she could lay a naked hand on the warm flesh beneath. Kivelli did see him again on the Quai, but in the company of Aunt Penelope, who became prickly when he nodded and her niece’s face turned pink as a May rosebud. She demanded to know why Kivelli was familiar to foreigners, since in her mind to be recognized was to be compromised. In an insolent tone Kivelli reminded her aunt that she attended all the important balls with Papa. “Do you think I spend my time there dancing with a broom?” Though her aunt was a shrewd opponent, she could not disprove anything, nor could she guess what Kivelli had already done. Penelope had not grown up in Smyrna but in a neighbouring village, where the matchmaker’s best efforts had failed to accommodate her. Too skinny and sharptongued, they said. If she had ever dreamt of love, she’d forgotten about it by morning. There were no immediate plans for another great escape, but that night Kivelli slipped the note about the bookseller under her aunt’s door. She laughed under the bedclothes when she heard Penelope shriek then trip up the stairs. Her aunt rattled the crystal knob and banged her fists raw upon the solid wood bedroom door, which Kivelli did not open until morning.

  The next rendezvous with the officer was aborted due to the unexpected return of Papa with yet another prospective son-inlaw. She had concluded that her father picked these men more for himself than for her, like lingerie chosen by a French lover. Kivelli was not as daring with her father in command, but she could barely disguise her disappointment, not even bothering to play the delightful hostess, feigning dizziness shortly after their arrival and retiring to her room until the man left. These visits were not a complete waste of time, however; it is here that she learned the basics of arousing desire, and that indifference is often a more potent tonic than charm. She sent her suitors away without any hope, yet hope they did; whereas the young officer, who she might or might not love, waited for her by the lamppost, wringing his hands instead of holding hers, and practising his proposal — not of marriage but of something more pressing and delicious. Perhaps these were just her secrets, her female fancies while she was trapped behind the white lace curtains of the second floor balcony, and men did not have such ideas. She would not find out, at least not from that officer, who she never saw again except when she closed her eyes.

  7

  PIRAEUS, 1923

  Because of your heartlessness

  I wander your neighbourhood

  Getting drunk and wasted every night

  You're driving me crazy

  I can't stand it — stop it Have pity and turn on your light

  Spiros Mavromihalis was not bad looking — some might have even called him handsome in a ratlike way. He was of medium height, neither fat nor thin, with a full head of hair and a curled moustache under his pointed nose. It was his small, black eyes, however, that made him unattractive — the hunger in them, the malice. The way he looked at Kivelli repulsed her, and she recoiled from his swampy breath when he spoke, boasting of his exploits and prowess by insulting others.

  Because he was the bandleader at Barba Yannis’s and Kivelli was his singer, Spiros felt he had rights even the scaliest mangha wouldn’t presume. He regularly walked into the taverna’s storeroom when she was changing, or crying, or staring at herself in Barba Yannis’s shaving mirror, trying to recognize who she was becoming. Her protests did nothing to curb his arrogance, and if he knew how to apologize, he did not deem it necessary. As her nights at the taverna accumulated and her popularity increased, he became even bolder, more possessive. He wanted everyone to think she already belonged to him, like his suit and his bouzouki. Whether she liked it or not, it was in Kivelli’s best interest to tolerate his dogged pursuit, his presumptuousness, his passes. He had as much power over her as Papa once had, and he’d kick her out like a cat in the rain if she misbehaved. Then she’d be forced to go back to Kyria Effie’s, where her debt was not yet fully pa
id and there was only one way left to settle it.

  Between sets one night, Spiros cornered her in the storeroom and shoved his tongue into her mouth. Kivelli bit down on it, then screamed at him to get out, but when he pressed up against her, a warm and sticky sensation momentarily quelled her hatred and revulsion. She slapped his face and he slapped her back. After he left, she touched the welts rising on her cheek with something approaching affection. She did not bother to cover them with powder before taking her place next to him on the platform.

  The men in the audience seemed agitated, hostile, and the room was charged with a prickly restlessness she hadn’t felt before. Spiros was stoned, more full of himself than usual, and as Kivelli sang and clapped, he called her a cunt then slipped his hand up her skirt, which elicited vulgar cheers and encouragements from the audience. Mortified, she bolted towards the door, stumbling over outstretched legs, crashing into the closely packed tables, knocking over narghiles. The men cursed her, and a few grabbed at her arms and legs, trying to pull her onto their laps. The moment she stepped off the stage, she was just another woman who had spurned them. No one, not even Barba Yannis, was going to take her side.

  Spiros ran out after her and pinned her against a wall, close enough to the taverna to be caught but hidden by shadow. His tongue invaded her mouth, his hands pawed her breasts and buttocks, setting off small furious explosions in her brain, between her legs. But instead of struggling, Kivelli clung to him, poisoned, dying, and barely felt it when he slid inside her. When he was done, he called her a filthy Turk, pushed her away and stalked back inside. With quaking hands she adjusted her clothing. Her skirt was soiled and two abalone buttons were missing from her blouse, lost forever in the darkness and dirt.

  Catcalls and leering grins accosted her as she entered the taverna and made her way to the storeroom, where she wiped off the warm blood trickling down her thighs with a rag. She then took her seat on the platform as if nothing had happened, and sang to Spiros’s accomplices for the rest of the night.

  At closing time he expected to go back to her room. Kivelli laughed in his face: “Do you think I love you now because I let you put your bird in me?” She hated him, even more than before. Spiros’s eyes widened as if a vein were about to rupture in his head. The hand he raised to slap her trembled, and Kivelli caught it by the wrist before it flew into her face. They were interrupted by Mitsos the accordion player, and she managed to slip away while Spiros was browbeating the little man for grandstanding during a number that was supposed to highlight his virtuosity on the bouzouki. She assumed that a combination of indolence and fickleness would keep him away. He might proposition Kiki instead, or get his mother out of bed to cook for him, or follow the manghes to their caves in Keratsini, where they went to get stoned, make plans and amuse themselves.

  But Spiros followed her home like an abandoned dog. “If you don’t open up I’m going to start smashing everything, windows, doors, everything,” he howled, waking the wives of fisherman, and wives bereft of husbands, and the children of both, as well as Margarita, who went outside waving her biggest frying pan. “Back to the mountains with you, mangha,” she yelled, then promised the neighbours she’d throw Kivelli out in the morning like the parts of a chicken that couldn’t be eaten, no matter how they were cooked. From her darkened room Kivelli watched the spectacle, neither moved by Spiros’s ugly serenade, nor too concerned about her landlady’s wrath, which would be easily appeased with a few extra coins in the morning.

  AT THE TAVERNA THE NEXT night, Kivelli sat with a few customers, sidled up to Barba Yannis and did her best to avoid Spiros. He looked in a fouler mood than usual, as if he were enveloped by black clouds crackling with lightning — the kind that split trees or picked off one swimmer far out in the sea. Wherever she went, Spiros’s eyes followed, his nostrils and lips flaring like those of a dog ready to attack. He pounced the moment she stepped into the storeroom.

  “Didn’t you hear me last night,” he demanded, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth and stippling her face as he closed in on her.

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied airily in an attempt to keep the fear out of her voice. She took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped her cheeks, then gave him a coy smile and blew him a kiss.

  “Goddamn cold-hearted bitch. It’s my fault for being so kind to you.”

  This did not mean that he’d given up, but he did change his tactics, and after much haranguing, blackmail and shameless begging, Kivelli let him come home with her a few nights later, and many nights after that. In a way, her submission made things easier. Now that it had begun, it would have to end. Something to look forward to. There was also a wayward thrill in sneaking him past Margarita and Aspasia, in letting him stare as she undressed, grope and bite her and call her a Turkish whore. But she never permitted him to sleep beside her, despite his pleas, rages and threats to send her back to Kyria Effie’s. This no longer struck Kivelli as the ultimate consequence. Their arrangement didn’t seem that different, and at least the madam would soon be paid off. Spiros, on the other hand, seemed as permanent as the Virgin Mary in Aspasia’s room: the whole house could collapse and she’d still be nailed to the wall, just as Spiros had fastened himself to Kivelli’s body.

  This was her life now and he was part of it. She watched it from outside, like a silent picture at the Ciné Pathé, even when Spiros was in her bed, inside her, lost in his convulsions. Sometimes she spied from behind curtains or through holes in the wall like the poor men at Kyria Effie’s who could not afford a girl for themselves. She watched with shock and shame and fascination and hoped the poor woman lifting her hips up off the mattress, heaving her chest and digging her fingernails into the brute’s naked back, gave birth to that demon churning inside her belly, pushing its way out between her legs. Kivelli hoped it got out before he had a chance to ram it back in. Because that’s what Spiros was doing: ramming her hatred back inside of her. He needed it to stay there because if it escaped, he knew there would be nothing left between them.

  It would be a lie, however, to say that the physical act gave her no pleasure. There was a deadly spark between them, and though Kivelli felt no tenderness for Spiros, she was hooked on the strong feelings he brought out in her. They were addictive as war; she wanted to conquer and vanquish him as much as he did her. There was also a measure of power in accepting his advances. She could respond, then withhold, and make him crazy in a manner that only women not in love could do to men who desired them.

  Kivelli’s teasing turned Spiros into even more of a tyrant, a rabid dog growling and threatening any man who approached her, even the customers who filled their plates. The taverna’s regulars began to ridicule him behind his back. Black Spiros became Pitsiriki — little squirt — the kind of kid who polishes his marbles and shows them off, but won’t let anyone else play with them. This only made the men more determined to steal them from right under his pointed nose. Sakis the Sweet-Talker showered Kivelli with flowers as she sang. Marinos the Moustache bought her drinks when she was done. And Kostas the Knife offered to escort her home every night.

  Spiros burned with jealousy, and instead of tiring of her as the weeks passed, he tightened his grip, afraid she would try to run away. In this he was not wrong. From the moment Kivelli surrendered, let him take her up against the wall, where anyone could walk by, where everyone could hear them, she began rehearsing her exit. It would not be as simple as throwing over some flowerbearing mangha with love in his eyes. She would have to leave the taverna and the neighbourhood, disappear completely. Or find a more powerful man to protect her — a bigger bandleader with better songs. Someone Spiros was intimidated by. Someone who owed him nothing.

  8

  You’d better calm down, show-off

  ’Cause I’m going to smash you

  I’ll pull out my pistol, show-off

  And I’m going to blast you

  A real mangha was someone who cou
ld hold his own in the company of the top dealers, not only in Drapetsona, but throughout Piraeus and even in the darker quarters of Athens. Spiros liked to think of himself as one of the boys, though he’d never gone through the initiation of challenging a leader — a king of the crooked narrows — nor would he have the nerve. A less conceited man would have understood there was no way to forego this step, to simply be invited into the circle, no matter how well his songs tickled the cauliflower ears of stoned men. Music was necessary to their high, the piercing trills of the bouzouki essential to the process of intoxication. The manghes appreciated Spiros’s skill as a musician, and for the service of being entertained, they filled up his narghile and let him call them by their secret names. But a song could never replace action.

  The hideout of Manolis the Cucumber and his gang was a hillside cave near Keratsini. Half a dozen tough guys, already stoned enough for trouble, shared the finest hashish from Bursa with two sailors who’d asked the right questions when their ship docked in Piraeus, and with a carnival strong man who had arms the size of small pigs. Spiros was there too, a squeaker among these men of the streets, of the world, with nothing but his bouzouki to save him.