The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  AS SHE STOOD ON THE Quai, the marvellous Quai with its buildings made of marble and its seaside cafés where music was played and glances exchanged, all she could hear were screams, and her watering eyes could not believe what they saw. “People were jumping into the sea, one after the other, like a school of seals diving off a rock. They were trying to save themselves from the heat, from the advancing wall of smoke, and from bayonets that poked holes into their flesh.” They were also trying to escape the reek of death. Dead bodies bobbed before them in the water, burned along with the buildings in the city behind them, and stood upright amongst them, held up by the crush, unable to fall, their eyes shocked open, their features rigid and frightened. This was their disguise, the reason they blended in so easily with the living. Who could tell, after all, from which gaping mouth the howls emerged?

  “The jumpers swam towards the warships that cluttered the horizon. There were at least twenty-five of them, so small in the distance that they looked like children’s toys.” Kivelli raised a hand and waved vigourously, as if she expected someone on board to recognize her, to pick her out of the wretched mob, to rescue her from the wailing of women and children, the murmur of adamant prayers and the shrieks of those who had suddenly burst into flames as if lit from within. “These ships had sent for me before, had welcomed me with flowers and wine and flattery. They had to come for me now, because I could not go to them.”

  Besides the obstacle course of dead bodies, the hunger for survival was making the swimmers adversarial. They were drowning each other in order to take the lead, to get to the retreating ships first, to be saved, and the sea frothed like a wild animal from their exertions. “I had always been a strong swimmer — I often won the impromptu races on the girl’s side of the beach at The Point — and moved as effortlessly through the water as on the dance floor. But I was revolted by the dead bodies I would have to push through before beginning to fight with the living for the right to survive. I considered walking on water, stepping from corpse to corpse until I reached the closest ship. But even if this were possible, word had spread that the ships were not taking anyone.”

  Those tough enough to survive the return trip to the Quai, who weren’t drowned or picked off by gunfire, had scorch marks on their faces, on their shoulders, on their arms and backs. They claimed that as they tried to snail up the hull, British sailors in spotless uniforms threw bucketsful of boiling water onto them. Others showed off cuts and bruises from quant poles that shoved them back into the sea. They also told of music. Midway between the Quai and the ships, the cries blended in with waltzes and operas. The foreigners were drinking tea and dancing while Smyrna burned. “I could not imagine them so cruel. Hadn’t handsome officers from France and America smiled at me in the Café Loukas and asked me to dance at the balls held on their ships? Hadn’t the British given Smyrna back to us like a precious necklace that had been lost in a river bed and then found and returned with great fanfare?” Kivelli decided that they were not dancing but only trying to mask the infernal cries in order to carry out their orders without guilt. Though she didn’t know the reason, she’d heard that no Greek was to be given passage on these great, empty vessels. She hummed the aria from Pagliacci to cover the keening all around, which was so constant and unvaried that it had found a sickening rhythm, becoming a threnody of hopelessness.

  “I was not, however, entirely without hope.” Through the tangled grapevine along the waterfront, Kivelli heard that the French carrier, Trouville, was taking on anyone who spoke French. With some heretofore-unknown force, she shoved through the walls of flesh towards the French embarkation point. She’d stopped looking for her father, brother and aunt, and was undaunted by the occasional plushness her heels sunk into or the slick, warm puddles through which she slipped. “I moved up and down, up and down, trying to keep my balance because to trip was to die. My only concern now was to get off of the Quai without touching the water.” When she reached the motorboat flying the French flag, she lined up behind others who had not been licked by soot or death, not even tapped by its dusty finger. “They were so elegant and lovely in their feathered hats and tailored suits, as if they had just left the Jardin des Fleurs and were now waiting in front of the Ciné Pathé. They chattered excitedly about the invasion as a troop of soldiers in multicoloured, clownish costumes rode in brandishing olive branches and swords above their heads and crying out, ‘fear not, fear not!’” The foreigners applauded as if they were watching a matinee and their favourite actor had appeared on the screen for the first time. When they noticed Kivelli, she assumed their contemptuous stares were because she was an imposter, not because she was drenched in sweat and covered in blood and soot from head to toe. “One of them called me Cendrillon and laughed. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself in my white chiffon dress, fetching and desired, and if someone had handed me a mirror, I would have spit in its face and then cried.” But crying at this stage might be fatal; even when a little girl was bayoneted like a candy apple and carried high above their heads, Kivelli had to remain unmoved.

  When her turn came, she stated in her best French that she was a French national and that her papers had been lost in the fire. “I added that I had an aunt in Paris living on rue Jacob, a street I’d read about in a novel, though I had no idea if it was real. The consul looked me in the eye, asked my name, age and marital status, then filled out a form with Protégé Français printed in bold letters at the top. But just as he was about to hand me my laisser passer and let me onto the almost full boat, a soldier pushed me aside and a family of four, waving real French passports, were let on board. The consul was the last to get on, taking what would have been my place and also the precious form. He told me to wait right there, for another boatload would be taken to the ship shortly. But they never came back for me.” As Kivelli watched the Trouville sail away, her thoughts wandered to Colette. What would the writer make of this moment? How might she describe it? What would she sell to escape?

  Kivelli was not sure how long she stood there, one day or four. She’d lost track of time. Smoke shrouded the sky and the fire turned it a permanent, burnt orange, confusing the difference between noon and midnight. That the sun might continue to rise was inconceivable. She spoke to no one as she awaited her fate. There was hardly any point. It was as if her tongue had been tied and then yanked out at the root and, like everyone else, only sounds emerged from her mouth: now desperate, now enraged, now piteous as those of a sparrowling whose wings were being ripped out by a seagull.

  IN PREPARATION FOR THE MASSACRE, the people gathered at the edge of the world abandoned whatever weighed them down or would impede their flight. They discarded the necessary and the frivolous, the practical and the sentimental. The Quai was littered with bundles and satchels and suitcases and trunks, with the sick who were carried this far but couldn’t be carried any farther. They lay among those who’d fallen and were unable to get back up. Kivelli had no possessions, but like a snake began to shed those things that threatened her survival. “First I threw away my vanity, for it mattered not one bit that I was once pretty and coveted. Now it was a liability and I wished for the first time in my life to be overlooked entirely, to be judged ugly and graceless, as I came to understand that there were fates far worse than death. Along the periphery of the crowd, young pretty girls were being stripped and violated, carried away like Easter lambs, or invaded with swords while their mothers watched. The shrieks of horror, of pain, only made these mountain men in their carnival costumes bolder, their laughter louder, their antics more brutal. But any horror or sympathy I might have felt was shunted aside by relief. By the water’s edge I was safe from marauders, who would need machetes to clear a path through the jungle of bodies.”

  Next she tossed away her compassion. It was now every old man, woman, mother, child for him or herself as the pitiless foreign ships looked on, their crews limiting themselves to taking photographs and filming the catastrophe. “Every one of those ragged strangers, from the smalles
t boy to the oldest woman leaning all her weight against my back, would sacrifice me for one more day on this merciless earth. Even if it meant spending it right where they stood, more dead than alive, soiling themselves from fear and the inability to move.” Kivelli took a small step to the left, and the old woman behind her fell down dead at her feet. Someone else moved forward and rolled the corpse into the water.

  “Finally, I rid myself of love. My desire to sail away on one of the retreating ships, to escape the heat of the fire that was melting my clothes, my hair, my skin, had long ago surpassed my need to find my family. I stopped craning my neck in hopes of spotting them in the crowd, and I plugged my ears with rags to block out the unbearable cries. If they were calling out my name, I would not hear it. In any case, they had each other while I stood there alone, with no one to comfort me or hold my hand, and the only feeling I could muster towards them was resentment. How dare Papa leave me to face the end of the world by myself?”

  Instead, she searched for Lieutenant Lovegrove, for the firmness of his jaw, the softness of his lips and the glint of his gold buttons. “I willed him to appear on a motor boat flying an American flag that would deliver me to a ship sailing to New York, where I’d be received like a prodigal daughter returning home after all hope had died.” As she awaited his arrival in this quarter of Smyrna where no one knew her, Kivelli was being roasted alive. She hovered a toe over the edge of the Quai, skimmed the bloody surface of the water with her once white shoe, now black and misshapen as a grandmother’s slipper, but pulled it back as the old woman’s body floated past her, face up.

  During those final hours she became the most and the least human she could be. Giddy with wilfulness, with hunger, with fear as the day faded, erasing the ships, turning them into shadows under the dread-orange sky. When a searchlight slid over the length of the Quai, like everyone else she raised both hands above her head, trying to capture the crews’ attention. “My only concern as I stood rooted to the spot in my mangled shoes was that the men on the retreating ships would have a hard time seeing me in the dark, or that I would not see them wave back.”

  IN THE END, KIVELLI WAS not saved through courage or will, but as a consequence of her inability to decide between life and death. Benumbed, she left it to chance, which decided to spare her from the outrages that proceeded ceaselessly around her. The crowd shifted forward, pushing towards the water as the fire reached the first line of buildings on the Quai, the grand theatres, the lovely cafés, the banks, the post offices and even the Grand Hotel. From where Kivelli stood, she could not see that those in the back, closest to the flames, were being prodded with bayonets and swords into the burning streets of the city, though she could smell their flesh cooking — an acrid, greasy smell. Without knowing what it was, her stomach churned, and had there been anything in it, she would have vomited. Those at the back pushed harder, and a ripple of motion rolled through the crowd, gaining strength as it travelled. By the time it reached Kivelli, it was invincible as a tidal wave.

  “I was thrown into the sea and I landed on a corpse floating face down in the fetid water. With whatever strength I had left, I struck out towards the ships. Not that I had any hope of being let on board, but I had to get away from the bodies, which had accumulated and were also drifting out to sea, bumping up against the retreating ships. I closed my eyes and used my arms to clear a path before me, feeling my way through the floating obstacles, but my corset hindered my movement and my skirt tangled between my legs.” With every stroke she felt heavier, sleepier, the opposite of the weightlessness that water is supposed to bring. She did not blame it on her clothing, the cinch of the corset, the undertow of her skirt, but imagined the smoke she’d inhaled had solidified into a black mass of hatred inside her body. With no compass but the increasing coolness of the water, she kept pushing forward. Others shot past her, and she felt the agitation of the water, the occasional kick or swipe of an arm, but did not open her eyes. Even if she wished to, she didn’t have the strength. “I was swimming in a dream, and when I began to sink, I could not wake myself up.”

  Kivelli rolled onto her back, masquerading as a drowned person with her eyes salted shut. It was a relief to stop struggling, to give up, and she was infused with a feeling of peace and well-being. The sounds around her faded and were replaced with the silence of the middle of the night. She began to let go of life, to let it escape out of her mouth into the smoke-muted sky. “Images appeared behind my eyelids: piano lessons at home and my instructor’s long thin fingers, walks along the Quai arm in arm with Papa, Constantine’s birth and the dreadful harmony of his first scream and our mother’s last. I could see Mama’s face now, not peaceful but worried. Other images were odd, impossible, not from my life at all: strangers sitting in our dining room, men speaking languages I didn’t understand to Aunt Penelope, who lifted her skirts and showed them her hairless sex. Then I saw Lieutenant Lovegrove with his sly eyes and confident grin. He leaned over my face, his lips pursed for a kiss.” As he moved in closer, Kivelli opened her mouth to receive him. But as his breath slid down her throat, she began to cough up smoke, seaweed, fish and pounds of salt.

  “I was no longer in the water but in a small motorboat flying the American flag. A sailor leaned over my face, smiling and asking me in English if I was all right. He wrapped me in a blanket and carried me onto a ship.” Kivelli did not ask his name or where she was being taken, and she never saw him again. She was not happy to be alive and leaving Smyrna on the pestilent ship. All she felt was embarrassment. She’d fallen into the water and was caught like a half-dead fish in a net.

  WHEN IT WAS CLEAR KIVELLI had run out of words and tears, Kyra Xanthi stood up and opened the door a crack to allow the young woman’s misery to escape. She said if that type of anguish were allowed to stay, it would invade everything in the room like dampness and cover the walls with mould. A ray of sunlight illuminated the dust particles floating in the air, swirling and diving as the old woman’s breath displaced them when she spoke. “Now let’s find out what the future holds for you and your lovely shoes,” she said, spreading her faded red cards out on the table.

  25

  My sweet little flirt , my playful doll

  You’re driving me mad, I’m in your thrall

  One glance, my light, and I will fall

  One kiss and my heart will be cured of all

  On the taxi ride over to the Bella Vista, the driver recognized Kivelli from Barba Yannis’s and refused to accept her money as long as she promised never to leave Piraeus for Athens. “They eat up all our best girls in Athens, and then they forget where they came from.” Despite her best efforts, Kivelli clearly hadn’t forgotten anything. Telling Kyra Xanthi her sorry tale had done nothing to dislodge the hardened ball of grief behind her ribcage. It had only become more difficult to ignore and made her even more wary of stepping into the Smyrniot’s territory, which was, no doubt, filled with happy ghosts pretending they hadn’t died. Let the cabby believe she was from Piraeus; it was preferable to haunting the Bella Vista every night. Kivelli didn’t promise anything, though she assured him she had no intention of making any drastic moves. This was the truth, at least at the moment, and the free ride was a stroke of luck; she could save her money for the return trip, which was ultimately the greater need. Her time at the club would surely be subsidized by the Smyrniot and whoever else might be there acting as if he owned the world. If it hadn’t been so far away, she might have walked to the club, though Kyra Xanthi’s shoes pinched her toes, forcing her to count every step and resent it. They were made for sitting with crossed ankles and being driven from place to place, not for traipsing over dust-covered roads to a graveyard.

  No one knew when Barba Yannis was going to get out of jail; this was as much a mystery as why he was actually put in jail. He himself had done nothing, but these were strange times, and you had to be careful about the company you kept. Sakis entered her thoughts momentarily — what he was doing in Thessaloniki, and with wh
om — but she dismissed him almost as quickly as he’d appeared. Kivelli liked Sakis well enough, but there was no point wasting her thoughts on him when he wasn’t around. He was doing just fine, she was certain, because that was his way. She searched herself for jealousy but couldn’t find any. Not that she expected to, though it sometimes hid in a pocket like a forgotten coin that was now ready to be spent spontaneously on something frivolous.

  The taxi stopped at the corner of a busy intersection, in front of a pale yellow and white neoclassical building. “Here we are, Miss Kivelli,” the driver said as she stared out the window at the people milling about the entrance. There was a group of well-dressed men who seemed too fresh-faced and clean-cut to be manghes, though they copied the look with their well-cut dark suits and rakish hats. Two musicians, one holding a clarinet and the other a toumbeleki, were standing around, talking and smoking — probably on a break. She remembered the clarinet player from the picnic, Kosmas and his toumbeleki from the recording session. They looked right at her but showed no sign of recognition. Couples were going inside, the men holding the tall, dark wood doors for their lady companions, who embodied the type of elegance Kivelli believed had been left behind in the ruins across the water. If they were prostitutes, they lived in some sort of Sultan’s paradise compared to the Piraeus girls. There was nothing tawdry or desperate about the way they dressed or held themselves. They might not have been prostitutes at all, but consorts or even wives. This was surely the type of place where husbands brought their wives.

  The club was right next to a cinema. How much more pleasant it would be to slip into its darkness than to face the Smyrniot and whatever he expected of her behind the carved wooden doors. Kivelli hadn’t sent any sort of reply to his invitation and could easily pretend that she’d never received it. Sliding it under a door was hardly foolproof, and who knew what fool he’d employed to deliver it. The cabby came around to her side and helped her out. His thick-skinned hand was rough against hers, but warm and friendly, so she let him hold it for a few seconds longer than was necessary or appropriate. She didn’t mind; it was the least she could give him for the free ride.