The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  You can tell Diamantis whatever you please about me, laugh at my expense or reveal that the words that come out of the mouth he has kissed a thousand times are mine. Half of what he loves about you was created by me. That’s why I kissed you in the hammam. To thank the lips that turned my words into spells, and to taste Diamantis, even second-hand, to take some of him back.

  Those songs are yours now, Kivelli, as if you’d written them yourself and I was an anonymous member of your adoring audience. There will be no more words exchanged between us. We both knew that when you rejected the last song I sent you. It was based on a dream, so vivid I could not convince myself in the morning that it wasn’t real. I never expected you to sing it, but I wanted you to understand how well I know you and how much of what you are now was created by me. It’s not always necessary to be a witness when you have an imagination and a few facts. You should be careful, Kivelli. There is no privacy in Greece, especially when you’ve lost the habit of discretion, like those poor wretches you lived with in the Attikon Theatre. What else have you lost, my dear? Your independence? Your solitude? Your ability to forget? I could almost convince myself that I did you more harm than good that fine afternoon in the square. Then I might feel a tiny bit of satisfaction.

  If anyone asks, tell them I’ve run away to America. You don’t believe it? I’ll send you a postcard with a kiss for Diamantis, but no return address to send one back. You can show it to the Smyrniot so that he knows I’m alive and well and still a threat. How I’d like to be hiding behind a curtain when you deliver it, to see the look on his miserable face. But it’s better that I am on a ship to New York. There is nothing but pain left for me in Piraeus, calling out to me in your voice from open windows and doors of shops and tavernas everywhere I go. Every day of the journey, I will throw one of your records over the railing and watch it drown. This, I hope, will give me some relief.

  Should you ever change your mind, or miss me enough to come looking for me, know that my door will be open and I will help you in any way I can. It would be foolish to deny that I love you. That would hurt more than my feelings of dejection. But finding that door will be your labour this time. Maybe Kyra Xanthi can help. She’s good at locating lost things.

  Marianthi

  The letter stunned Kivelli, trapped her between sadness and incredulity. One moment she considered the whole thing a ploy — a trick akin to staging your own death to see what people would say about you at your wake — and expected Marianthi to jump out from behind the rack of dresses, wearing one perhaps, and pointing an accusing finger. There was no date on the letter to indicate when it was written, and the Smyrniot’s demeanour had been no different than usual, so either he had not been home for a few days, or Marianthi had not gone anywhere. The next moment she was certain it was true, and her body was wracked with sobs she couldn’t release for fear she would be heard. She took off the fancy silver dress and put on the plain white cotton one Aspasia had made. She sat down again, waiting for the Bella Vista to clear out, sucking her finger until the bleeding stopped. The club was the last place on earth she wanted to be. She missed Marianthi terribly, whether she was gone or not, and regretted her inability to be a better friend, to share her enthusiasms like a true sister. Who, after all, had loved her more or had been as kind to her in Piraeus? But if Marianthi had indeed eloped with herself, things would be easier for everyone, especially for her. Kivelli never understood how she’d been able to bear all the lies, the frustration, and had probably not been sympathetic enough of her friend’s plight. If only she’d read the letter before the night began, she could have asked Kyra Xanthi what she knew, what she saw in her palm, and what to do next. After reading it a second time, she still wasn’t certain what to believe, so she slipped the letter into her purse and unlocked the door.

  The club’s main room was empty except for a few waiters cleaning up and the Smyrniot, who was sitting at the bar, staring into his drink, one hand clutching a half-empty bottle of whisky. Kivelli’s heels echoed in the music-less room and made it impossible to sneak past him, though part of her could not resist approaching him to see what he knew, if anything, or what she could detect. She remembered Manos’s songs, tucked in her purse, and decided to use them as her excuse.

  “Manos left these for you, Panayotis.” She slapped the sheets of paper onto the bar in front of him, but there was no reaction. The Smyrniot didn’t even look up.

  “Any good?” he muttered, and took a drink. Kivelli shrugged, picked up the top sheet and began to read a few lines out loud.

  I threw out a cat

  with eyes of blue

  At night when I was asleep

  She stuck her nails in deep

  “Enough, enough,” the Smyrniot groaned, rubbing his temples as if something had exploded inside them. “This record business will be the end of me.” He grabbed the paper from her hand, crumpled it up and threw it on the floor.

  “He’ll probably make some trouble for you if you don’t take at least one …” Kivelli began, unable to resist goading him.

  “They all make trouble for me one way or another. If he decides to shoot me, all my troubles will be over.” What she had mistaken for the Smyrniot’s usual sullenness had a different quality tonight. His eyes were rimmed red and watery, his face on the verge of collapse. She might have tried to comfort him but wasn’t sure how to put an arm around a crab without getting a finger snipped off. So they sat in their customary silence until he spoke again.

  “Have you seen my wife lately?” The words emerged with difficulty, as if he were coughing up rocks. The Smyrniot cleared his throat, then emptied his glass and poured himself another drink without offering her one. That Kivelli hadn’t seen Marianthi was separate from where she might be; that answer would come to light in its own time. But she could see from the lines etched across his forehead and the trembling at the edges of his mouth that he was not finished. He didn’t look up from his drink. “I think she’s left me.”

  It felt as if she’d been struck in the back of the head, and Kivelli propped her elbows on the bar, resting her forehead in her hands until she regained her bearings. “What makes you think that?” she asked in the same tone she might offer a guest a glass of water.

  “Do you know where she is, Kivelli?” He was looking at her now, his eyes pleading and full of regret, and she felt something for him that she never thought possible: sympathy. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him anything. Because if she started, where would she stop?

  “I knew she wasn’t happy. But I haven’t seen her in weeks.” And with that, Kivelli left him to drown his sorrows at the bar. His sadness surprised her as surely as it would have Marianthi. Maybe her departure would force him to find his words again, to express his gloom and guilt, though it was doubtful that such a song, even if she heard it, would lure his wife back. As for Kivelli, although she’d become used to losing people, suddenly, irrevocably, she couldn’t ignore the hollow silence in her belly that Marianthi’s words had filled for so long.

  At the hotel she fell asleep immediately and deeply, as if she’d been awake for a week. Diamantis was not in her bed in the morning, nor did he come by in the afternoon. This was not unusual, and would not normally cause her to worry. But as she sat alone in the room, tossing pebbles out the window, it occurred to her that Diamantis might have disappeared along with Marianthi. Not as her lover, but as a figment of her friend’s imagination.

  35

  Diamantis did not show his face for the next few days, not at the Bella Vista, not at the Hotel Xenos. No one had seen him at Argiropoulos’s or any of his usual haunts — at least that’s what they claimed. On the third day of his disappearance, when Kivelli was at her wits end, she dropped in on Kyra Xanthi. Over coffee she shared her problem with the fortune-teller, who concluded that she was looking in the wrong places. “Think about how it is when you’ve misplaced your gloves, and you look everywhere but the glove drawer. Why wouldn’t they be exactly where they’re
supposed to be?” Kivelli screwed up her face, perplexed.

  “I haven’t misplaced him, Kyra Xanthi. He’s vanished.”

  “Think harder, my girl. Where is a son’s most natural place? I know you’re avoiding it, but that is where you will find what you are seeking.” She took away the coffee cups without reading them. “And what about Marianthi?”

  Kivelli’s stomach cramped. “You know where she is?” At least one glove might be found.

  Xanthi shook her head and raised her hands in resignation. “My powers don’t extend over seas. If you want to find her, you’ll have to board a ship and employ the help of a local. But your Diamantis is much easier. Now sing me an old song for my troubles, then go find him.”

  KYRIA EUGENIA LIVED IN A tidy little house, fifteen minutes walking distance from Kyra Xanthi’s. Diamantis’s mother was considered a living saint by the manghes of Drapetsona because she had sheltered all manner of pimps, thieves and murderers in her time without a word of judgment or reprimand. If a friend of Diamantis’s needed to hide out for a few days, he knew whose door to knock on. There was always a bed and a hot meal, and her forgiveness meant more than a priest’s absolution. But that “saintly woman” disapproved loudly and vehemently of the female company Diamantis kept — especially of Kivelli, who she’d heard about through the neighbourhood gossips. She’d brought up three sons on her own, and had assembled a matrimonial lineup of pink-cheeked virgins who went to church dances instead of nightclubs. Any one of them would make a good little wife for her Diamantis, and would serve her hand and foot when she got too old to cut her own toenails. She’d managed to find such specimens for Diamantis’s older brothers without too much trouble, but her youngest son was resistant.

  Kivelli had never set foot in Kyria Eugenia’s house and did not expect to be invited to her table any time soon. Diamantis insisted that some things were better kept separate — oil and fire, mothers and lovers. But now desperation had led Kivelli to the only person who could enlighten her as to his whereabouts, but who was also the least likely to do so. She stood before the closed door for a long time before she found the courage to knock. When she finally did, it was only because she felt she had nothing more to lose. Kyria Eugenia came to the door and asked who she was, though her searing look belied her ignorance. Kivelli did not smile obsequiously or apologize for her unannounced visit, nor did she tell the white-haired dowager why she was there. It was perhaps this defiance that convinced Diamantis’s mother to let her in without questions, out of curiosity and a certain pride. A woman who had fed murderers skordalia on New Year’s Day had nothing to fear from the tart her son was trifling with, no matter how wild-eyed or brazen.

  “Sit in here,” she said in an aggravated whisper, pushing Kivelli into a parlour filled with immaculate, red velvet furniture. “And don’t make any noise. My son is sleeping.” She flashed a triumphant smile, then toddled off to the kitchen. Kivelli’s heart was still racing, but she was relieved. Now that she knew where he was, she could just leave and wait for him to come back to her when he was ready. But what would his mother say to him if she ran out? That she’d stolen something or insulted her, and then that would be the end of it. Though he rarely spoke of her, Kivelli knew Diamantis was blindly devoted to his mother in the way only a late-born son could be to the woman who had given him her whole life.

  Kyria Eugenia returned with two glasses of water and two small dishes of apricot spoon sweets on a silver tray. It was the proper thing to do for a guest, welcomed or not. She sat on the opposite side of the room and watched Kivelli silently, her eyes cold and disapproving. There was nothing of Diamantis in this plump, taciturn woman with the grape-sized birthmark on her cheek, who was continuously smoothing out the white doily on her armrest. It was what she did instead of standing up and leaving the room, or lurching forward and slapping Kivelli’s face. In such situations, it was better to strike first.

  “What is it you need to say to me?” Kivelli’s question was abrupt, and she could tell the old woman was caught off guard. But Diamantis’s mother swallowed whatever she might have spat back and glued her mouth shut with a spoonful of sticky apricots. “You don’t like me very much,” Kivelli continued, and gave her a half-smile knowing that, as much as she’d like to, she could neither accept nor deny this. Direct confrontation was not the way the Kyria Eugenias of the world aired their disapproval, preferring to disseminate it through gossip that took the responsibility away from them personally and made it the neighbourhood’s verdict. Though Kivelli could well imagine what calumny she’d already spread, there was no one to pass on this information to her in Athens.

  It took Kyria Eugenia a little while to answer, to gather the nerve and the words she needed to defend herself, and to clear her palate of the gummy sweet. But she did not back away from the challenge, this widow who’d lived in Piraeus all her life and raised her sons while her husband was out making trouble, carousing with women who were much like Kivelli. “You have some nerve coming here, Miss,” she said in a flat tone. “I know your kind and the bad influence you have on decent men. Turn their heads, empty their pockets and lead them astray from their families.” Her hand had stopped smoothing the doily, but she was now tapping her spoon against her water glass as if she were summoning a servant to remove Kivelli from her presence. It wasn’t a particularly loud noise, but it was piercing.

  “What sort of influence could I possibly have on a man like Diamantis?” Kivelli laughed, both out of nervousness and the absurdity of her statement. Could she be a worse influence on her little boy than the gangsters and murderers Kyria Eugenia welcomed like sons? She did not say this out loud but could feel her dander rising. “I’m only a woman,” she said, and met his mother’s accusing gaze. “And a refugee.” This was not meant to garner sympathy but to state a fact. Piraeus was Kyria Eugenia’s turf, where Kivelli was powerless, resented and scorned — not only by her grudging hostess but by most Greeks, who called her kind “Turkish seeds” while lamenting the loss of their Anatolian dream. How could they mourn Smyrna yet despise its people? Kivelli tried to keep her voice steady and soft, but was having trouble containing her anger. And she was no longer sure of its target. Kyria Eugenia? Diamantis? All of Greece? Fate? “If I have any real influence on your son, I’ve yet to see it. He comes and goes as he pleases, and I never demand explanations. I accept him as he is and will never ask him to change his ways for me. On the day he decides to take a little wife to please you, I’m sure I’ll have no say, no matter how much I love him.”

  Kyria Eugenia’s flat tone was now punctured by sharp disdain. “You sit here in my house and talk to me of love for my son with no shame, when I know you go from man to man, encouraging their worst habits instead of settling them down. And then you distract them from nice girls who could make good husbands out of them.” She clutched at her heart and fanned her face as if she were overcome by emotion and ready to faint. With closed eyes she mumbled prayers to the Virgin Mary.

  Kivelli looked around the room for the first time and noticed a small shrine in a far corner. It was set on a table covered in a white lace cloth, and the centrepiece was a portrait of Kyria Eugenia’s departed husband, Pavlos Skarlatos: fishmonger, loan shark and friend of the Cucumber’s. In him she saw Diamantis — the strong chin, the satisfied gaze. He’d been a real lady’s-man-about-town, and the manghes still spoke of him with affection and respect. His youngest son, however, never said a word about him. Kyria Eugenia hadn’t been able to change her husband and was, in part, responsible for who both he and her son had become. But in her mind, their faults lay in women like Kivelli.

  “You’re angry at me,” she began, but did not dare complete the sentence out loud, “… for reminding you of your failures.” There was nothing to be gained by insulting Diamantis’s mother; that wasn’t why she’d come to her door. Instead, Kivelli appealed to her female compassion. “You are angry at me for my weakness, because even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have the power to chang
e your son — not for my benefit, not for yours. He is a man of his own devices. And I am neither that presumptuous, nor do I have any plans or goals. I live for the day and hope to survive to see another. That is all I brought with me from Smyrna.”

  The words hung in the air between them like a sour note, long enough for Kivelli to realize they were not completely true. She now wished for Diamantis to be everything that Marianthi had imagined: the perfect gentleman who could sing sweetly and was looking for a wife. And she knew all at once it would never be her. She brought her hands to her face so the old woman wouldn’t be able to enjoy her despair or take credit for it. Kyria Eugenia did not offer a comforting word or move from her seat as tears spilled through Kivelli’s fingers and streamed over her wrists and into her sleeves. She didn’t want pity, but it shocked her that Kyria Eugenia had none at all. Through her stifled sobs and the blood pounding in her ears and chest, she heard Diamantis’s sleepy voice.

  “What have we here?” Kivelli spread her fingers to look at him. He was still in his pyjamas, his hair dishevelled like a little boy’s, and he looked like he’d had a rough night. She could tell by the fierceness in his eyes that this surprise did not please him, though he did his best to remain cool. “I thought I heard laughter,” he yawned, then drank his mother’s water. Kivelli quickly dried her face with her hands, then spooned some of the sickeningly sweet apricot into her mouth so she wouldn’t be forced to lie.