The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  The moment she stepped onto the stage, a smattering of applause sounded from various tables, and the anger and bitterness in her chest was replaced with warmth. The music began and Marianthi’s words slithered out of her mouth like charmed snakes, wrapping themselves around waists and necks, slinking down women’s dresses. By the time Kivelli arrived at the final couplet, they had squeezed, tickled and teased everyone in the room to their feet. Except for Diamantis, who remained seated, though he was clapping enthusiastically and yelling “Bravo!” and “Encore!” with all the rest. As much as she wanted to continue, to sing at this station where she might never stop again, she couldn’t stay for a second song, nor was she asked to. So she nodded at the Smyrniot, blew a kiss to the audience and went back to her table. Diamantis jumped out of his seat and held out her chair, then tipped his hat. Kivelli looked at his dark wavy hair and imagined running her fingers through it, yanking it gently but firmly.

  “I must have been completely out of my head not to have remembered that. You will forgive me, I hope.” His eyes, wide and excited, penetrated Kivelli’s, and his smile was making her tremble. Or maybe it was just relief to be finished and the rush of nerves that always followed. If he’d asked her why her hands were shaking, why the wine in her glass was a miniature storm, that’s what she would have said. The orchestra started up again, but people at the closest tables were still congratulating her. Someone sent over another carafe of wine and a plate heaped with pastries — high, light and rich as a wedding cake. Kivelli ran her little finger through the cream and tasted it, then risked smiling back at Diamantis. It didn’t hurt at all, and it dissolved the last knot of tension in her belly. For the first time since she’d walked through the doors, she breathed deeply and freely. She smiled again, with more certainty, but resisted leaning in to kiss his mouth, or lightly run her fingernails down his cheek, or take a long and deep whiff of his neck. He reached towards the plate of pastries, but she pulled it away. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Mr. Skarlatos, then we’ll discuss forgiveness and whether you can taste any of my pastries.” Her heart was pounding, her hands and feet were freezing, tingling at their edges. She felt so alive that a gunshot through the chest might not kill her, and the Smyrniot’s ill humour could not even leave a scratch. She finally sat down, to keep herself from floating up through the cloud of smoke and into the constellation of glass moons. Still grinning, Diamantis watched her take a huge bite out of the top pastry.

  “I’ll save my appetite,” he said, “if you save me a bite.”

  The orchestra struck up again, and they sat in silence, listening. Kivelli knew all the words to the old Smyrnean songs, and although she resisted singing along, she’d stopped wondering about the tribulations of the absent singers and was already picturing herself permanently in their place. Wasn’t that why the Smyrniot had summoned her? It certainly wasn’t because they were friends.

  When Diamantis’s name was called, the applause was louder and more excited than it had been for her. How was it that all these people in Athens knew him but to her he was just the madman from the square? She’d never heard any of the boys at Barba Yannis’s talking about him. Nor had she seen him in any of the other clubs she frequented, passing her empty nights watching the musicians play, their fingers plucking the strings of the baglama and bouzouki, their rough palms slapping the skin of the toumbeleki. Kivelli loved hearing men spit out lyrics like polished stones, which the audience collected and carried home in their pockets. She put them in her mouth and sucked off the salt until her lips and eyes burned. It was much safer to sing than to be sung to. When she sang, she was inside the song, embodied by it, and it could not wound her. When she listened, she was at its mercy, she became its devastation.

  Diamantis, sitting centre stage and improvising on another man’s bouzouki, having his way with it, was devastating. Each note pierced through her like a long, thin needle, and euphoria and bitterness poured out of the puncture wounds in equal measure, blending into something more potent than either. She brought her hands to her face and realized she was crying, but she was also laughing and singing along with him, to him, and he was looking back at her, or at least that’s how it seemed. The manghes at Barba Yannis’s always thought she was singing exclusively to them too. But then Diamantis winked at her. In response, Kivelli blew him a kiss and tossed the flowers that were on the table at his feet, their wet stems spattering dark spots on his perfect grey trousers. If she’d had a little more wine, she might have danced, though the song Diamantis sang was meant for a man to get lost in. It wouldn’t have mattered at Barba Yannis’s or anywhere else in Piraeus. Here she settled for moving her feet under the table, clapping her hands above her head.

  After he had taken his bows and picked up the flowers he’d been showered with, he walked towards her. He offered her the bouquet, and she took a bite out of a pastry and placed the other half in his mouth before he could say a word. His mouth opened readily, accepting it as naturally as her mouth might have swallowed his tongue if he had bent down to proffer it. They clinked wine glasses, emptying the carafe quickly and ordering another.

  By the time the Smyrniot came back with his proposals, neither Kivelli nor Diamantis was interested in anything other than the way out the door and back to Piraeus. “Can you come back here on Thursday,” the Smyrniot asked Kivelli, sounding prickly, though not more so than usual. A full week she would be happy to turn into a year if she could spend it with Diamantis, but she knew enough to say, “Yes sir, most certainly. I’ll be back with bells on my toes and gold on my tongue. I’ll spit gold at everyone’s feet.”

  On the ride home, in a cab driven by no one she knew, Kivelli forgot to tell Diamantis that he shouldn’t plan on spending the whole night. Instead, they sang songs they both knew. Sometimes he took the female role and she the male, much to the amusement of the driver, who would tell the story of his two giddy passengers over and over, without knowing who they were or who they might one day be. He took the long way back and charged them full fare, though they were too drunk on wine and song and the salt smell of the Piraeus port and each other to care.

  Outside Margarita’s house Diamantis lit a cigarette and asked Kivelli if she was certain she wanted him to come up. She placed a hand over his mouth, held a finger to her lips and eased open the front door. Aspasia was sound asleep on the divan, and Margarita’s snores echoed through the hallway. Taking Diamantis’s hand, she led him to her room, knowing that once they stepped through the door, all would be lost. She accepted this outcome in the same way she accepted all the things that had happened to her since her arrival in Piraeus. Inevitable, and unstoppable as fire. If she’d had a moment, she might have thought of old Xanthi, or Marianthi, or the ashes that flew out the window bearing Diamantis’s name after the first time they met. But once the door shut behind them, her mind surrendered to her body as it surrendered to him.

  26

  After the first night Diamantis spent in her bed, Kivelli could not imagine a time when his face and voice did not exist in her mind. Before running into him at the Bella Vista, watching him on stage as he conquered the crowd, she had nearly perfected her methods of disposal. There’d been enough men in her life since she’d arrived in Piraeus, bringing her fresh fish or silk stockings or bottles of wine. She tried to be clear with them from the outset, to leave no loose threads from which to hang themselves. Whether it was Stavros or Dimitris or Memetis, he’d been invited into her bed because he was handsome, or she liked the way he danced, or because he had made her laugh when she sat at his table between sets — nothing more. She also indicated that he would have to hit the road after they were done. It had nothing to do with the quality of the performance, the smoothness or roughness of his hands. She sent her favourites away as readily as those who pleased her less. Most of her Piraeus suitors had no problem with this condition, welcomed it like a strange miracle, though the incidence of narcolepsy after their exertions was high. She was often forced to shake Stavros
or Dimitris or Memetis awake, hand him his shoes and watch as he stumbled, bewildered, down the street.

  With Diamantis, it never occurred to her to lay down the law on that first night. The moment his fingertips brushed her knuckles, she forgot about everything that existed outside the back seat of the taxi. After they’d made love, she fell asleep, without a word, without a doubt, as if she’d swallowed a sweet and gentle potion. Kivelli wasn’t certain whether his presence calmed her so that the nightmares stopped, the past temporarily receding into its dark closet, or whether she raved like a lunatic all night long and he was too much of a gentleman to say anything about it in the morning.

  What he knew of her past had to do with where she came from and under what conditions. This was general knowledge, the story of her people and their pitiful end. There was no point in showing him the dead twin she carried on her back. It was possible, of course, that Diamantis put his ear to hers in the middle of the night and listened to her like the ocean, or that she put her lips to his ear to confess her worst secrets and fears.

  What she learned of his past revolved around his life in Piraeus, the capers he’d pulled to prove himself worthy, and the reverence he had for the old man who taught him to play the bouzouki, who left him the instrument when he died. It was the same bouzouki Diamantis played to this day, and he was more faithful to it than he was to anyone and anything else. He also regaled her with the strange and wonderful things the manghes did when no one was watching, without sparing the horrible. It was from Diamantis that she first heard the tale of the Cucumber’s favourite woman, Rubini — pretty as a freshly picked peach, but with the temper of a Fury. One night after a particularly violent argument, she took off while he was sound asleep and installed herself in a brothel on the outskirts of Athens — somewhere she hoped no one would think to look for her. But the Cucumber had his ways, and when he learned of her whereabouts, he gathered a group of buddies, loaded his Colt .45 and hijacked a taxi. “Made the poor sop drive all the way to the countryside at gunpoint. The place was down a dirt road, hidden by trees, and when they finally found it, the Cucumber asked the cabbie to keep track of the time, then to calculate what the whole ride would cost him, including the return trip to Piraeus.”

  “He was going to pay the fare?” Kivelli asked, riveted.

  “He would do something for the cabbie, as long as he waited for him to come back. The Cucumber is a man of honour.” She nodded and waved her hand for Diamantis to continue.

  “His plan was to smoke her out, so he torched the back steps, and Rubini and the rest of the whores came running out the front, naked, coughing and screaming.”

  Diamantis imitated the voices of all the characters, mimicking their facial expressions and gestures. The story brought a flush to his cheeks, and his eyes radiated laughter. Kivelli didn’t find it particularly funny, but she couldn’t help but smile at the way he told it, and forgave him for making a joke out of fire. When he realized his gaffe, he apologized quietly and gravely.

  Naturally, the cabbie had sped off by the time they got back, and when the cops caught up with the Cucumber and his crew, they were carrying poor, half-crazed Rubini down the road towards town, hoisted above their heads like an Easter lamb. Having finally understood the extent of his love for her, Rubini visited the Cucumber in prison every Sunday, but he refused to see her; he’d made his point. Diamantis had written a nasty little song about the whole affair that warned men of the dangers of getting involved with pretty, brainless women. The Cucumber loved it, said he was happy to let other men learn from his mistakes.

  Another time Diamantis imitated an old mangha who had been stabbed in the backside with a fork, careening around the room like a drunk, howling like a dog. Kivelli laughed so hard she couldn’t catch her breath, and Diamantis had to throw cold water in her face to calm her, which she found even funnier. “You would make a great actor,” she said, but he shook his head and frowned. He had no desire to entertain. The antics of clowns and snake charmers and mesmerizers did not interest him; they made him feel ashamed for them.

  “They try to fool and humiliate the people who come to see them, or to come out on top by humiliating themselves. It disgusts me.”

  There were no tricks up Diamantis’s sleeve. He was simply the instrument upon which Piraeus played its life. Getting up on stage, performing for the public, was just an extension of the singing he did up in the caves at Keratsini, or late at night by the waterfront, or in his mother’s kitchen when some of his friends dropped by for a chat and a bite. It had nothing to do with make-believe or pretending to be something he was not. When he picked up his bouzouki in a crowded room, he gave the men his stories, which were the same as theirs because they’d all grown up on the same streets, shared the same women and jail cells, got stoned on the same hashish. There was no separation between them, and he felt as satisfied sitting in the audience and listening to someone else tell those same tales in his own way.

  Diamantis made Kivelli happy, so happy she often forgot to be frightened or wary or sad. The thought of him could put a smile on her face. She pictured him sitting in the metal tub in her room like Poseidon on his throne. She admired his shoulders and chest as she poured water over his head and worked her fingers through his hair, which curled when it was wet, then down his torso and underwater into the dark place between his thighs. Once, she climbed in and sat on top of him without removing her nightgown but lifting it above her waist, the slow, rhythmic waves of their small sea lapping over the sides. She’d also caught herself singing cheerful little songs from her girlhood while completing some mundane task. This change of humour was attributed to his deep brown eyes and the weight of his cheek against her breast in the morning. Her days were less dismal, the relentlessness of the rising sun less heartbreaking when Diamantis was lying beside her.

  Yet in those first moments of consciousness, as rays of light streaked through the shutters, tickling her eyelids, caressing his face, she could not completely forget that this happiness might be temporary, thus could not be fully trusted. Everything could change, without warning or mercy. The world could end, and she might be left on her own once more to watch the sun set on its ruins. Kivelli did not dare allow herself to consider the future — neither one that included him, nor one where he disappeared from the face of the earth. As if it had been tacitly agreed upon the first night, Diamantis too refrained from making any plans that might never be fulfilled and would haunt them like the ghost of a child who had died in its mother’s belly. She did not trouble Diamantis with these grim thoughts, rising from the past and staining the present, afraid they would counteract her charm and make her ugly to him. But after he left, she opened the window and reluctantly cleared away any lingering traces of him, of their night together. Kivelli was determined to keep forgetting — the time long past, yesterday’s news and this morning’s dream. Even Diamantis if it was required.

  27

  The following Thursday, two hours before Kivelli was to set out for the Bella Vista, there was a soft knock on her door. Not ready to give up the luxurious embrace of half sleep, she tried to ignore it, but a louder knock followed, and then she heard her name whispered with some urgency. She put on her robe and, dragging her feet, went to see who was interrupting her rest. “Oh, it’s you,” she muttered, neither pleased nor angry. Marianthi had a huge smile pasted on her face, as if she were waiting for her picture to be taken, and she stepped into the room without being invited — just as she had the first time and every time since.

  “Aren’t you even a little happy to see me?” she asked, a little wounded. “I’ve come to escort you to the Bella Vista, treat you to a taxi ride. Surprise!” She planted a sticky red kiss on Kivelli’s cheek.

  “That’s very nice of you, Marianthi, but I haven’t even begun to think about getting ready.” She sat down on her bed, rubbed her face with her hands.

  “I can wait,” she replied, making herself as small as she could by backing into a corner and cro
ssing her arms. “I wouldn’t get in your way at all …”

  “I love you, Marianthi, but you would be in the way. Why don’t you just meet me there later tonight? I’ll find my way; I always do.” There was a bowl of fruit on the nightstand, and she grabbed a plum, biting through the deep purple skin, grimacing at its sharp flavour. She offered one to Marianthi, who shook her head, then approached the bed and sat next to Kivelli, ankles crossed, feet swinging back and forth.

  “But I thought it would be so much more fun if we walked in together.” Though she was trying to sound light and spontaneous, there was a trace of whininess underneath. It was the tone women used on men to get what they wanted; Kivelli was completely immune to it. “And shame on you for letting me hear about it on the streets.”

  Marianthi had found out about her friend’s debut at the Bella Vista by chance, from the disdained Elpiniki, who she’d bumped into at the dressmaker’s. “‘I heard a little Smyrnean burnt down the house last week and is coming back for more tonight. Where does your husband find them?’” She mimicked Elpiniki’s pompous schoolmarm voice, exaggerating her innuendo. “Indeed, where does he find them,” she spat, and picked a plum from the fruit bowl, sinking her teeth into its firm flesh. The women sat silently for a moment, sour looks on their faces, as much at the thought of the Smyrniot as from the acidity of the unripened plums. “I didn’t have to spend too much time wondering who exactly the new girl might be.”