by Sara Alexi
Five years after the beginning of the Love Boat episode Marina had another daughter. He does not want to even think how she was conceived. He pulls the grass from his mouth and throws it away. ‘My hatred for Manolis only grew in his absence, and it was nearly eight years before our paths crossed again.’ The baby’s waving hands and happy gurgles indicate that he is not listening. Mitsos falls silent again, and he breathes deeply to steady himself and wipes away a tear. He sniffs loudly and clears his throat. ‘But with what happened next I could never call myself good again. I deserved nothing. That’s why I live up here alone, sit at the back of the kafenio.’ He sighs through his nose. ‘That’s why I have such a problem with these envelopes that keep arriving and what to do about them. It would feel more right just to give them away.’
A butterfly lands on the baby’s foot. He wiggles his toes and it flies in jerky movements up and away. Mitsos rolls back off his arm to lie in the grass, which is still surprisingly green for the time of year with its continuous heat. The almond trees thin out near the wall and Mitsos is dappled in sunlight, a light breeze keeping the pair of them cool.
‘Shall I tell you? Shall I tell you how I lost my arm? You are young enough to have no prejudices. You tell me, am I guilty or am I not?’ He picks another grass before he speaks
‘Manolis came to the house one day …’
‘What are you doing here?’ Mitsos’ back door had been wide open. He closed it a little when he saw who it was and leaned against the frame.
‘Come on, Mitsos, it has been years since we have even seen each other. You've been farming, I've been farming, we are old men now and I thought perhaps we could just do a little fishing together.’
‘We are not old men, we are forty-three and I have no desire to go fishing with you or anything else.’ Mitsos stepped back from the door and began to close it.
‘Marina has asked you to eat with us tonight. Will you come?’
‘I seriously doubt she has asked me.’ Mitsos paused.
‘Well, don't come then. I'll tell her you didn't want to.’ Manolis smiled his cheeky grin and turned to walk away. He clearly expected Mitsos to stop him but he didn't. He closed the door instead.
Mitsos debated whether to go or not. If he had been asked by Marina then it was an olive branch, a sign of peace. If he didn't go it would be a serious rebuff. He decided to go, and if she looked surprised he would leave saying he'd been misinformed.
Knocking on their door felt more than a little strange. A pretty dark-haired girl answered the door. This must be Eleni, with whom Marina was pregnant when Manolis had the Love Boat. She was tall for eight. She walked back inside, clearly expecting Mitsos to follow her into the kitchen.
The place had not changed. There were still Marina’s parents, gilt-framed, on the wall, still only the bare essentials, a table and chairs, an oven, a fridge.
Marina sat in a chair with a blonde child of no more than three on her knee. The child was holding her knee and crying; Marina was kissing the little grazed area.
‘Thank you for inviting me to eat with you.’ Mitsos waited for confirmation but received none.
‘Sit down, man.’ Manolis seemed in a good humour. There were four wooden chairs around the table and a cheap rug that covered only part of the concrete floor, which had been painted white some time ago. The paint had worn off in paths to the sink and the door and to a lesser degree to the window, the dusty concrete eroding beneath.
‘May I?’ Mitsos asked Marina, who looked at an empty chair but said nothing. Mitsos sat in the hard chair and waited.
‘Isn't it time those kids were in bed?’ Manolis said, his words rushing out a little too quickly. He slowed his words at the end to make it sound more casual.
Marina put the little girl on her feet and the older girl took her by her hand and led her out of the room. Marina stood up to follow them.
‘Stay, if you'd like,’ Manolis said to her back. But it was not a question. She promised the girls she would be with them in a minute and came back into the room.
Mitsos crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. He folded his arms across his chest but let them slip into his lap.
‘Are you hungry?’ Marina's first words. There was no life in her voice.
Manolis pulled his chair to the table and indicated for Mitsos to do the same.
Marina took a cloth from a hook in the stone wall and used it to pull a deep dish out of the oven. The relatively modern oven looked out of context in such an old-fashioned room. She put the dish on the table and brought bread and feta and beetroot with a garlic sauce, which she placed next to the hot dish. Manolis helped himself and passed the serving spoon to Mitsos, who offered it to Marina, but she would not serve herself until his plate was full and he was eating.
Manolis offered a few pleasantries but Mitsos could not think what to reply. Marina said nothing. When they had finished eating Manolis pushed his chair back and pointed to the ouzo bottle on the mantelpiece, and Marina stood up to fetch it.
‘Here's the thing,’ Manolis said. Marina put two glasses on the table and he filled them. ‘The oranges didn't do too well this year.’ He re-corked the bottle. ‘Well, actually it is not that they didn't do so well so much as the man we sold them to has not paid us and the oranges are gone.’ Marina cast a look of grim disdain at him but said nothing.
‘What about the olives?’ Mitsos asked.
‘I admit I was not on top of the olives this year and they have not done as well as I would have expected.’ Marina cleared her throat. Manolis glanced at her fleetingly before continuing. ‘So I thought I would try to do a little fishing until next year, just to tide us over.’
Mitsos looked at Marina but she refused to look back. ‘What has this got to do with me?’
‘Well, there's the thing. Since our little business venture with the boat bar I have no boat and there is no one else in the village who will lend me one.’
‘What do you mean “our business venture”? It was yours, and yours alone.’ Mitsos tried to keep himself calm but felt this emotions being hooked in.
‘Will you not help us, Mitsos?’ Marina’s voice was like silk across a harp to Mitsos. He turned to look at her. Her eyes were liquid, her pupils dilated.
‘Of course I will help you, Marina.’
‘Right, so it’s agreed then. We will meet tomorrow at dawn and go fishing.’ Manolis clinked his glass against Mitsos’, a boy again. The sunlight from the window behind the sink lit his face, bright one side against dark the other.
Mitsos takes a break from the story-telling. ‘You see, my little friend, how keen I was to help, how eager to make Marina's life better, how easily I was led? You see that kindness was my downfall?’ The baby begins to cry, and Mitsos realises time has passed and the poor little mite is probably hungry. He stands slowly, shakes his legs into action, brushes off some leaves and picks up the car seat. Adonis has left the bag by the back door. The car seat sits on the table as Mitsos warms the milk. Then he chuckles as he manoeuvres his nephew into the crook of his bent leg. He sits in the high-backed chair by the unlit fireplace facing the open kitchen window. The baby’s little fingers come up and wrap around his own big rough hand as he offers the bottle. He bends over and kisses the child’s hair with a tender lingering kiss.
The baby drinks deeply and his bright eyes look up at Mitsos.
‘As I left that night Marina walked me to the door. I said goodnight and I assured her we would do well with the fishing. She said – and here is something that has haunted me ever since, and I could not swear it even happened – she said, very quietly, that the only good outcome would be if I drowned the bastard.’ Mitsos sighs and looks out of the window, his hand holding the bottle steady. ‘I say I could not swear to it as I had had two ouzos and I had never heard Marina use bad language before, so no sooner did I think I had heard it than I doubted myself. Maybe it was what I had wanted to hear, who knows? Time has made the memory more and more fuzzy; that, and I have
replayed the scene until it is no longer real.’
Mitsos looks around the room and sees the appointment card for his meeting with his lawyer in town later that afternoon. He watches his nephew enjoying the milk, the baby’s eyes reflecting rapture, not even trying to focus now.
‘Anyway, we did go fishing, and we did ok, but Manolis wanted more, as always, so he came up with one of his ideas. Are you ready for this, my little man? He no longer wanted to trail a line, nor did he want to use a net. No, he came up with a revolutionary way of killing lots of fish in one go and all we had to do was scoop them up. I will tell you …’
‘It makes perfect sense. I don't know why the practice is not more widespread,’ Manolis said hopefully as they walked back from the day’s fishing with only two fish.
‘It must be illegal for some reason. Anyway, it sounds dangerous to me. I will trail a line, I will use a net but I'll not do this, Manolis.’
‘Marina will be disappointed.’
‘That's your problem, not mine. She's your wife.’ Mitsos tried to keep his tone level.
‘Ah, but that's not how you want it to be, is it?’ Manolis laughed.
‘What's that meant to mean?’
‘You think I don't know how you have been envying me my wife all these years, pretending to be my friend to get near her? I am not a fool, Mitsos, you are doing this to please her. Well, if you want to please her then …’
‘Go to hell.’ Mitsos could feel his temper rising, his muscles shivering in response.
‘Yes, I probably will, and you'll be right by my side and you'll be no closer to her then either, unless a little infidelity drags her down with you.’ Manolis laughed.
Mitsos lunged at him with all his strength, his fists flying, his eyes glassy with temper. Manolis landed on his back in the dust of the lane, Mitsos on top of him. Manolis brought his knee up sharply and Mitsos rolled off him doubled over, his hand to his groin. Manolis stood up chuckling.
‘I am going to kill you one of these days you son of a ….’ But it was not Mitsos’ habit to swear and the sentence was left unfinished.
‘Come on.’ Manolis offered his hand to help Mitsos up but he refused it. ‘If you were going to kill me you would have done it long ago.’
Somehow the knee to the groin and the obvious winning of the fight constituted a silent agreement that they were going to do it Manolis' way. Mitsos was hauled to his feet and the two of them went to Manolis’ storage barn on the corner of the square.
Mitsos had been in there many times before. The place contained barrels of wine and crates of whisky, carpets and fishing tackle, and random items Manolis had won in card games: leather jackets, watches, a pair of cowboy boots, a pair of lamps. It was an Aladdin’s cave.
Manolis opened a bottle of ouzo and sat down on one of the rickety chairs.
‘Ha, we have had some times, Mitsos. Do you know what I heard the other day?’ Mitsos was still standing so Manolis pushed a chair back for him and moved the glass of ouzo he had poured nearer his side of the table. ‘You remember that trainee Papas we had some fun with? Well, he's done very well for himself, got a taller hat and coloured robes, I hear. But do you know how he came by his rise in the church? This is funny.’ He stopped to laugh a little. ‘He did not stop believing that the water into wine was a miracle of God and that the change back again was an equal miracle. It was this steadfast belief, when all around him were ridiculing him that made the archdeacon notice his solidity and commend him for it. Apparently the archdeacon said that if all the church could have such faith in the face of such adversity, the world would be a better place, and then he promoted him.’
Mitsos sat down; his legs felt shaky.
‘So we did the guy a favour. We are heroes,’ Manolis concluded.
‘Not exactly heroes.’ But this happy outcome for the priest relieved a little of Mitsos’ guilt, and he smiled, and took a drink of ouzo.
‘Also – and this one is even better – you know Katerina and Aris the tractor mender, who have just had their tenth kid, do you know how they met?’
Mitsos was still thinking about the positive effect of their teasing of the Papas. It made him feel lighter.
‘Hey, I said do you know how that loving couple met? They met when they were eight. They met when they returned each other’s donkeys the day after our all-night mischief. We played cupid without even knowing it. Heroes again!’
Mitsos’ eyes widened and he looked Manolis square in the face.
‘No word of a lie, I swear. You can ask them.’
‘Manoli, they are the same age, they were at school together…’ But Mitsos did not really mind Manolis’ creativity with the truth. He expected nothing more. And maybe the day of the donkeys had made Aris and Katerina notice one another – who knows? Manolis swallowed the remains of his drink and poured more. He offered a cigarette and before long they were chatting like schoolboys, their common history bringing them together. But when Mitsos smiled it no longer quite reached his eyes, nor did it lighten his heart. When he laughed it was not from his belly, it was from a tight throat with an edge of nervousness.
Manolis showed him things in his barn and told of how they came to be his: a little card game here, in return for a job, or some information there. He had hats piled high from a tourist shop that went out of business; the loan of Manolis' truck to remove the remains of the stock had been paid for in goods. He had boxes of pans that he had taken from a gypsy in return for letting him off when he caught him stealing oranges from the neighbour’s tree. The goods were varied and they were acquired by every possible means, but nothing, according to Manolis, was stolen, not in a straightforward way anyway.
‘Ah, here we go.’ Manolis was behind a ceiling-high pile of boxes, scratching about in the dark, the single bulb offering little light into the far corners, and the doors and windows blocked up with boxes, tools, goods and rubbish. He had unearthed some small boxes. He lifted the first one and passed it to Mitsos. It felt cool to the touch as it had been sitting on a compacted earth floor, and it was also heavy so he put it down on the table. Manolis passed two more and then straightened up.
The cardboard boxes were not closed and Mitsos flicked one open. There was a loose paper package inside. Manolis took one out and unwrapped some red sticks, the length of his hand: dynamite.
‘Now, where would you be getting those from?’ Mitsos asked. He folded his arms across his chest and exhaled.
‘The guys up at the marble quarry were very partial to the three cup shuffle. They ran out of money so they bet dynamite.’ Manolis laughed, nasally. ‘Come on, there is no time like the present.’ He took a wide rubber band off a hook in the wall and bundled together some of the dynamite. Mitsos was up and out of the door before him, trying to make some distance between him and the dynamite, wishing he had been more firm, said no more clearly. He did not like the idea, not one little bit.
The two of them strode out into the afternoon, the heat a slap in the face. The whitewashed village basked in the summer sun. The kafenio, usually full of old men and farmers taking a break from work and wives, was empty; the chemist and bakery that also flanked the town square, closed. The area in front of the church was devoid of shirtless boys playing barefoot ball. The school on the edge of town had finished for the day. The sun was past its highest and people were asleep during the afternoon’s heavy heat. All was quiet. Not even a dog barked.
‘Shall we do this when it is cooler?’ Mitsos asked.
‘Nah, come on, we will be selling to the tavernas as soon as they open if we go now. Imagine how pleased Marina will be.’ He grinned and winked. Mitsos glared at him and strode ahead. Manolis made no attempt to catch up until he could see the sea and then he broke into a trot to draw level with Mitsos, the dynamite in his two hands clutched against his side.
‘Hey!’ Mitsos turned at Manolis' call. ‘English rugby,’ and Manolis threw the dynamite to Mitsos. In a mind-opening flash Mitsos saw his potential death and shock wave
s ran through his whole body. Legs sprang, arms extended, fingers spread, his whole being tensed to catch the bundle. With a huge sigh he hugged the dynamite bundle safely against his chest. He could not bring himself to believe that Manolis had just risked their lives over such a petty thrill. Mitsos felt his anger rising over Manolis’ irresponsibility. This was the second time Manolis had nearly killed him.
‘Come on, English rugby.’ Manolis grinned and held out his hands for a return pass. Mitsos’ muscles reverberated with his anger; his mind seethed with Manolis’ lack of responsibility, playing with peoples’ lives, hurting people through lack of thought, or worse, from considered forethought. He felt dizzy with his emotions; there was no place for the weight of them to go, he felt like he might explode.
Manolis, still grinning, beckoned Mitsos to return the throw. ‘Come on!’ There was such derision in his voice, years of scathing, and in that blind moment Mitsos threw the dynamite at Manolis as if by doing so all the emotions would follow and he would be free of them. As the bundle left his hands time rolled and elongated. Mitsos saw where he had thrown the dynamite and where Manolis’ hands were, and it was clear Manolis would not make the catch. Manolis took his eyes from the airborne bundle and for a fleeting second he looked to Mitsos, his eyes those of a ten year old boy with love for his friend. Mitsos pushed off his back foot and dived for the dynamite, but Manolis lunged forward with his whole body. The dynamite finished its arc and began its descent. Manolis had missed the catch; the dynamite was only feet from the floor and its inevitable impact. Mitsos reached down towards it with his left hand, his head only feet from Manolis', whose eyes were on him, and Manolis smiled, a kind smile, allowing his body to fall in unison with the dynamite, the two hitting the ground almost at the same moment, one on top of the other.