by Sara Alexi
By the time he is stepping over the wall in the almond grove he notices he is tired all over. The owl hoots. Mitsos looks for it. It is sitting on the same branch outside his house. It swivels its head and looks back at him, blinking.
‘I thought I had done right leaving him in jail, Mr Owl,’ Mitsos calls up to him. ‘To give Marina a break …’ But that Sunday Marina could hardly hold her head up in church for the looks and the whispers, and Mitsos knew he had made the wrong choice.
‘But, in truth, Mr Owl, I did not do it for that reason.’ Mitsos turns to the house, his head hanging low, and says to himself, ‘I held the power. I, personally, wanted to punish him.’ He is muttering now. ‘My wish for revenge brought misery on Marina.’
The back door is standing open and, in the dark, there is a cat prowling for scraps in the kitchen. It panics when it sees Mitsos and runs into a chair leg, then goes in the wrong direction. Mitsos turns on the light and stands still. The cat freezes for a second and takes its bearings before shooting outside past Mitsos’ legs. It has scratched a hole in the rubbish bag and bits of tissue and some very old potato peel have been pulled out onto the kitchen floor. Mitsos sighs. He kicks the mess out of the door. He will deal with it, if the wind has not taken it away, in the morning.
He pours himself an ouzo and reaches for a cigarette and then, with a tut, he remembers he still hasn’t any. He thinks for a moment and vaguely recalls an image of a different brand of cigarettes he had bought once when his own was not available, but which he had found unpleasant and had thrown in a drawer somewhere. It was not a kitchen drawer, he is certain, as he uses these regularly; and the drawers in the bedrooms are all full of clothes. He ambles through to the room at the front of the house. His mother had arranged it as a room in which to receive guests. For a while after her death he would sit in there and smoke and look down over the village. But it does not enjoy the last rays of the evening sun and there is no cheer in the room, just grey padded seats with faded pointless cushions. She kept it immaculate but no one ever came to visit. He pulls the whole drawer out from the dresser and takes it into the kitchen where there is still light.
There is a pair of scissors he has been looking for; he puts them to one side. A pack of cards. A small ball of twine. Some Sellotape that looks like it has melted to itself. Mitsos throws this towards the bin, but it misses and rolls away under the kitchen sink. The mice can have it. His mother’s prayer book. Some papers. He takes the papers out. They are newspaper clippings. He turns them over and there is a picture of the pink boat. Mitsos gasps. There are more clippings, and Mitsos reads again about the scam which made him finally give up on Manolis.
Chapter 13
‘They are your own brothers.’ The air smelt salty.
‘If they didn’t want to lose they shouldn't gamble.’
‘What difference does it make if you own your family’s boat outright? Use it all day and give them a fish and they would be happy. But you’re not planning to fish all day, are you?’ The image of Manolis as a full-time fisherman would not settle in Mitsos’ mind. He looked her over; she was a tidy little boat.
‘I am not going to be out in it at all.’
‘Then what?’
‘Will you join me this time?’
‘If it is legal.’ Marina was heavy with child. Mitsos wanted to help, if he could.
‘Yes, it’s legal. That’s what gave me the idea. We would be outside the law; they couldn’t touch us.’
Mitsos looked down at the boards on the pier beneath his feet and shook his head. For himself he wanted no part in it. But for Marina … ‘If it is legal and it stays legal I will help.’
‘Right, let’s take my boat to town then.’ Manolis emphasised the ‘my’ as he jumped on board and started the engine, the diesel growl drowning the cries of the gulls, as he waited for Mitsos to release the mooring lines. Mitsos watched the swells, and when the boat rose to meet the level of the pier he hopped on board, shaking his head, still not convinced.
The sea was so clear that Mitsos could see the bottom in the harbour, ropes and anchors half buried in the sand, small fishing nibbling around them, quivering seaweed hanging like ribbons. He coiled the ropes flat on deck and stood at the prow. The wind generated by the boat’s motion blew his thin shirt and rough working trousers against him, flapping behind. The sea and the sky merged into one, just a thin white line indicating the edge of the earth. Mitsos looked seaward so there was no land in his sights. Across the water was Crete, further still Egypt and Libya, places he had never seen, and probably never would, but he could dream.
They motored out into the bay.
Movement in the water. Mitsos looked down into the sea. Dolphins accompanied them, turning on their sides, looking up at him, making eye contact, before darting in the bow-wave, streaks of grey in strips of blue, edged in a froth of white. There were moments when life was perfect, usually when he least expected them.
They reached the town harbour too soon; the dolphins veered off and went their way. He felt curiously sad to see them go.
Manolis cruised round the harbour and then pulled in alongside a long ugly boat twice their length.
‘She doesn’t look very seaworthy,’ Mitsos remarked by way of conversation. He wondered why they hadn’t docked against the harbour wall itself, where there was plenty of space. He raised his hand to point to a better spot, but Manolis replied, ‘She looks perfect.’
Mitsos, realising by this curious answer that the boat had something to do with why they were here, looked her over more critically. One glance was enough to convince himself that he wasn't going to sail her and risk his life, whatever the plan!
‘Manolis, she will sink!’ he exclaimed.
But Manolis was laughing with his own secrets and sounded the boat’s loud, rude air horn.
A rough-looking man came up on deck on the big ugly boat, and Manolis climbed on board and shook hands with him. They walked up to the bows and talked quietly. Mitsos walked to the stern, his instincts telling him to not get involved. He whiled away the minutes looking at the reflections on the water, thinking of Egypt and the Middle East, Paris and London, mystical places. He became lost in his thoughts, the sun warming him, his muscles relaxing.
‘Done!’ Mitsos felt a slap on the back, and he tensed and turned. The rough-looking man was now on board Manolis’ boat, starting the engine. Manolis unhitched the rope tethering him and the man took off laughing, the sea churning in curls behind his newly acquired vessel.
‘What have you done?’ Mitsos felt ever so slightly sick. He already knew the answer to this question, but it seemed so improbable, so ludicrous.
‘I am now the proud owner of this money-making machine.’ Manolis spread out his arms to encompass the big ugly vessel. ‘I swapped it for the family boat and he gave me a little bit of cash on top as I played hard to get.’
‘You played hard to get? More like you’ve been had.’ Mitsos was appalled and felt a sweat break out down his back.
‘Which is why you will always be just a farmer.’ Manolis turned his back on Mitsos and went to start the engine.
‘You’re going to sail her?’ Mitsos felt he was in a state of shock and tried to calm himself.
‘Just to the village.’ Manolis grinned.
‘I’ll walk.’
At that Manolis tutted his annoyance and Mitsos began the journey back to the village on foot. He had not gone more than a few hundred metres when an old man with a straw-laden donkey joined him from a field and walked with him. They chatted about this and that; the old man shared his flask of water with Mitsos and the time passed quickly. He was back in the village in time to see Manolis round the harbour wall, the big boat chugging like an old man.
‘So you’re alive, then?’ Mitsos said as Manolis shut the engine down to idle.
‘Damn thing wouldn’t start.’
Mitsos said nothing.
‘Hop on now. We are not going to moor her here. I want a bit of privacy
for what we need to do – I don't need the villagers scoffing and mocking. We'll just go down there and put her by the old pier.’ Mitsos felt a misgiving which must have shown on his face as Manolis added, ‘If we sink on the way you can swim that far!’
Mitsos jumped on board with reluctant limbs and the two of them took her to a more private mooring.
‘Right, let’s gut her.’ Manolis was childlike in his eagerness.
‘Are you not going to take her out of the water and seal her properly and make her watertight?’ Mitsos had done this many a year on his family’s small rowing boat, the first job to be done when overhauling a boat.
‘Yeah. I'll borrow the tractor tonight but I want to get started. Come on.’ And with that Manolis dipped his head below deck and began to throw everything that was moveable out onto the pier.
‘Hang on, that’s a perfectly good net …’
‘Who needs nets?’
‘And that’s a sound bit of board …’
‘We do not want boards.’
And so it went on, Mitsos trying to salvage useful items, Manolis intent on gutting the boat completely. The pier began to be overloaded and bits and pieces fell off, some into the water, others sliding over the far side into the bamboo which was growing in abundance.
By dusk Mitsos had had enough and said he was going for something to eat, and why didn't Manolis accompany him on the walk to the village as Marina would surely have his supper ready. He mopped his brow with a large hanky and eased his back straight. The sun shone relentlessly during the day; it was not the weather for all this activity. Manolis said he would go back into town to eat.
‘I’ll let Marina know, then, shall I?’
‘Do as you like,’ Manolis replied, not looking at him but wiping his hands on an old towel he had found inside.
Mitsos intended to go into Marina's and tell her what had happened but he simply could not bear to bring her such news. She would find out soon enough. As he approached her door along the dusty street he slowed his pace and then walked with a soft step, but as he passed her door it opened.
‘I saw you coming. I was looking through the back window.’ Marina was not smiling, but there was an air of hope about her. Mitsos shrank from being the one to extinguish it.
‘Hi, Marina. Manolis wanted to let you know that he will be going into town to eat – business, I guess.’
‘Oh.’ But the hope was still there. It was not Manolis she hoped for so much as good news, perhaps, as to what was happening that would affect her life. She seemed to be unsure of what to say next. ‘I have cooked pastichio for him.’
‘Well, it is a dish he can eat cold.’
Marina looked up the street; the sun’s heat was keeping people indoors. ‘You want some, seeing as it’s cooked?’
‘Well, I …’ But he could not finish his sentence; too many emotions strove for dominance. In his mind this offer showed her kindness, which in turned kindled his love. The thought of eating alongside her without Manolis present put him in Manolis’ shoes, the man at the head of the table, and this somehow kindled his passion. The passion brought feelings of guilt and the guilt glued his mouth shut. Marina turned into the kitchen leaving the door open and, with hands wrapped in towels, took the dish out of the oven. Mitsos could smell the hot butter and his stomach rumbled. Marina was putting a portion onto a plate, one of those acts done without much thought.
‘You can either eat it here, or standing on the step.’ Now she smiled as she turned her head and saw he was still in the doorway.
Mitsos went in.
Over the course of dinner Mitsos revealed, in bite-sized pieces, the events of the day. Marina put her fork down every now and again and slowly went white, eating less and less. Mitsos, to make the whole affair sound better than he thought it was, tried to put a positive light on it. He said the vessel had potential, that he thought Manolis had got a good deal, if you wanted to make such a deal, and that he felt this idea, whatever it was, might be different from the others and that she must remain hopeful. In short, he tried to sound enthusiastic.
Marina listened silently until he had finished eating. As he took the last mouthful, and put down his folk, she said slowly, as if with much thought:
‘It sounds like you encouraged him.’
‘No, oh no.’ Mitsos realised he must have overdone his enthusiasm and now tried to put the right level of reticence in his voice without belying that he thought the whole situation a disaster.
‘You think being there when he swapped the boats and agreeing to help him is not encouraging him?’ Mitsos could not return her penetrating stare and he dropped his head. He knew he was in an inexcusable position, but also knew there was nothing he could have done.
‘Did you not think of me and this child I am carrying?’ Her tone of voice was rising, and Mitsos found that as the emotion in her voice increased the pressure in his head pushed out thoughts and words would not come. He scrabbled in his mind to describe to her what happened. How to explain the positive slant, and the foreboding, but in a way that would not make her worry the more. He wanted to explain why he was so involved with this project. But how, without divulging his guilty, love-ignited, secret pledge to her? The pastichio sat heavily in his stomach. His hand covered his mouth as he suppressed a burp.
‘Marina, I did think of you and the child. He is going to do his mad schemes anyway, with or without me. You know he will.’
‘So you chose it would be with you, which just encourages him. I thought you had changed when you refused to go in with him over the mopeds. I thought maybe you even cared.’ Mitsos could see tears forming on the lower rims of her eyes but he backed away as the volume of her voice rose.
‘I am not encouraging him, I am just being there to make sure he doesn't get into trouble.’ Mitsos could hear the tone of his own voice, defensive, pleading, but loud. He could hear how shallow his words might sound, but he could not begin to tell her how much he cared.
‘You did not stop him.’ She was all but shouting. Mitsos could see she was so emotional, so angry she didn't know how to contain it or where to release it. She was on the point of losing control or breaking down into floods of tears. She lashed out, ‘You two have been playing these games, these stupid schemes all your life, before I was ever around. What a fool I was to believe it would change now just because I am pregnant. I am an idiot to think you might help me. I talked to you, I trusted you.’ She stood up suddenly. ‘Get out. You and him, you are the same.’ She paused, thinking for a second. He waited wide-eyed, mesmerised, until she added, ‘At least Manolis is honest in his contempt for me, but you, you pretend to be nice and friendly but all the time you are no different.’
Mitsos stood. He felt cornered, he felt a switch had been played on him. ‘I was not there when he tricked his brothers out of the boat. Were you?’ Mitsos’ voice sounded harsh; he swallowed several times and there was a pause, a silence.
Marina’s breathing slowed. ‘Yes,’ she said. The tears still had not fallen but she relented, and her voice dropped. She put a hand on Mitsos’ forearm, inviting him to stay, and then turned, hand on belly, and sat down again, her new load making the unpractised descent awkward.
‘He invited his brothers round for dinner.’ She pointed to the chair Mitsos had been sitting on, as an invitation to sit back down. ‘I did my best to cook well, served them in the courtyard. After dinner, out came the whisky so I took myself off to the kitchen to wash up and generally stay out of the way.’ Mitsos hadn’t sat down; he still felt hurt. Marina continued anyway, recalling how Manolis played the generous host and invented toast after toast, until out slipped his cards, and before the brothers knew where they were they were involved in a riotous game, first betting for cigarettes, then this and that old bit of family furniture that they each had inherited, then on to betting for olive trees one by one until whole orchards had changed hands. Finally, everything was put into a pot and the deal was the sole ownership of the family fishing boat whi
ch, at that time, they took turns to use. If you have a fishing boat you always eat, you are never hungry: it was a heavy bet.
‘But I could see from where I was standing, drying up the dishes, that Manolis was cheating. I was appalled to see him use sleight of hand, as well as a lot of whisky, against his own family.’ Her face was like stone, tears gone, a hardness around her eyes.
Her hardness scared Mitsos. He was still standing by the door she had suggested he leave by. He was not really listening to her account, but was hanging on to the accusation she had flung at him that still pierced his heart. He still felt he needed to protect himself, to let her know how much she had hurt him. He had tried so hard for her, and she attacked him for it. It was not fair.
‘So you saw he was cheating and you did not stop him. You did not tell his brothers and yet you accuse me of encouraging him because I am there when he makes a deal he has already set up?’ Mitsos’ voice is quiet. Part of him feels the need to say these words but another part of him does not want to hurt her.
Marina's mouth falls open. ‘I just told you of this terrible thing Manolis has done to his own brothers and you use it as ammunition against me to make yourself look better?’ Her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide, and colour flushed her cheeks. ‘That is the last time I confide in you, Kirie Mitso.’ She used the formal address and stood, crossing the room to open the door for him to leave.
No sooner had he left than Mitsos was wishing away the things he had said. He had always been terrible with words when emotions became heightened. He walked, his stomach heavy with food, his heart heavy with remorse. His logic disappeared, the thread of the argument became tangled in his mind, words would evade him and a feeling of injustice would escape him in sentences he would later regret. He had defended himself, and the cost was his delicate relationship with Marina.