The Feasting Virgin

by Georgia Kolias

  Gus saw Callie looking to him for reassurance, and he held his breath, looking from one woman to the other. He felt like a liar as he smiled at Callie, and gave her an okay sign with his fingers, and then a wink.

  Mrs. Horiatis bounced Manny up and down in the air and sang a tune that Gus remembered from his childhood. “Pie lagos na pye nero, mes tou Manoli to lemo!” and she tickled his throat, pretending to be the little rabbit drinking water from his neck. Manny giggled, and this encouraged her to sing it again. Mrs. Horiatis sat down with Manny on her lap and sang, bringing back long forgotten memories for Gus and creating new ones with Manny.

  Gus watched Callie move to the stove, where she stirred ground coffee and sugar into water boiled in a small briki pot until the foamy coffee rose to the top. She poured it expertly from high above as Xeni had taught her, into the small demitasse cups, and brought them to the table on a tray the way any good Greek wife would do. Noticing the beauty of Callie’s long creamy neck and the ardent joy beaming from his mother’s eyes, Gus allowed himself to exhale. Perhaps it would be all right after all. Perhaps he would find a way to merge his two worlds, reconcile his two women, his lover and his mother. Perhaps.

  Callie placed the cup with the large bubble in front of Mrs. Horiatis and said, “Look, you have the mati, the eye. It’s good luck!”

  Mrs. Horiatis squeezed Manny tight to her breasts and said, “Yes, I do.”

  Time Capsule

  Gus’s mother arrived late last night, and Callie has been so atwitter waiting for this day. It makes me want to puke. “Oh, I hope she’ll like me. Oh, I hope dinner will be okay. Oh, I can’t believe that she is finally coming.” It’s obvious that she must not care about me at all if she’s trying this hard to please Gus and his mother. Little does she know that she is about to go through a test that will make the SATs, GREs, and labor all look easy. She is going to attempt to please a Greek mother-in-law, trying to prove that she is a worthy replacement. It would be hilarious except that it’s so pathetic. She doesn’t know what she’s up against. Every detail of her being will be evaluated and found unworthy.

  First her appearance: her fiery red hair and cool blue eyes will be compared to the devil. She is tall and thin, so no fat comments at least. And luckily Callie isn’t taller than Gus, so her mother-in-law can’t compare them to Sonny and Cher. Of course, she’ll be wearing something the mother-in-law, her pethera, will consider immodest, so oh well. Hopefully she’ll wear a bra. And hopefully she won’t pull out her round breast and nurse the baby in front of the old woman. He loves to nuzzle up to her and suckle away until he sleeps. He has found the most peaceful place on Earth, but it will raise the old woman’s hackles to see the baby nursing past three months.

  Then her personality: that’s where we really get into trouble. Sure, she’s caring, sweet, funny, and gentle. She has a way of making people feel safe . . . and there is some kind of magic that stirs the air when she walks into a room. But it won’t matter. Gus’s mother won’t see that.

  Callie will totally blow it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain to her how to be deferential and anticipatory of pethera’s needs. Always offer before she asks. Always anticipate and supply what she needs before she even realizes what is missing. This is a concept that she doesn’t understand. “But I’m not a psychic! How can I know what she needs before she does?” You study her every move. If she moves toward a chair, you put a table next to it for her coffee. If she fans herself, offer to take her coat or open a window. If she looks around the room with her eyes going from corner to corner, point out the embroidery you worked on for your dowry. “But I don’t have a dowry! This is America! It’s the twentieth century!”

  Sometimes I forget. Greek-Americans live in a time capsule, following the customs in place when their parents left the homeland thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. We live in our own frozen version of Greece. When our parents stepped on a boat or plane to come to America, they took a snapshot of the cultural laws at the time and used it as a map to raise their children in the new land. That’s why so many of us first- or second-generation Greeks are so messed up. We’ve lived in two time zones, two dimensions of space simultaneously. We grew up in a Greek village called America.

  “This is confusing!” she cries out. Yeah, tell me about it.

  Then there’s the woman’s assets: who says that dowries are out of style? Doesn’t everyone evaluate what other people have? Someone with a house is a better catch than someone living in a trailer, right? I would love to live in a little house in the wine country with rows and rows of grapevines lining the land all around me. In September the air would fill with the smell of ripe grapes begging to be picked, a fragrant aroma that would set me thinking about biting into juicy, plump grapes, their juice squirting into my mouth as their skin pops between my teeth. But Callie doesn’t have land or a house. All she has is Manny. Though he’s the most precious possession of all—his sweet baby spirit a gift from God and the universe. He is more valuable than land or money. He carries her blood, Callie’s blood, but also the pethera’s blood. And in the end, that rich intermingled fluid is the only thing that will save her. She may bumble and snort. She may forget to notice the small things and demur. But the Greek blood in the veins of that baby might buy her a few years of tolerance from the old woman.

  But perhaps not a lifetime’s worth. It makes me sad to think about Callie being barely tolerated for a lifetime. She should be cherished. She’ll try so hard and will never be good enough. Will she ever get tired of it? Would she ever walk away? I wonder what her dream life would look like and how she would get there if she could. For a moment, I imagine her as part of my wine country dream life, the two of us walking together between rows of grapevines hanging with sweet fruit. Is it wrong that I am helping her try to succeed in a life that will only bring her misery? Too many questions. It’s all confusing, confusing. I’m confused. One step at a time. This is what she wants. She wants Gus and to impress pethera. And I’m supposed to help her.

  The first step is dinner. She has to make every dish she has learned until now for the trapezi. The table must be laden with delicious food until it can barely take the strain, to properly honor and welcome her guest. Tiropitakia: golden, puffy filo triangles filled with melted feta cheese. Dolmathakia: grape leaves filled with rice, ground meat, and herbs. Horyiatiki salata: the juices of soft ripe tomatoes, green pepper, cucumber, and red onion all breaking down in a bath of olive oil, oregano and salt. Psomi: freshly baked bread to dip into the pulpy salad juices. Pastitsio: layers of buttered pasta, ground beef perfumed with cinnamon, more slithery pasta, and topped with a thick blanket of creamy béchamel sauce spiked with shredded mizithra cheese, white pepper, and nutmeg. Kota me patates: a whole chicken marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and oregano and roasted until crisp in a pan lined with tender and tangy potatoes. Small plates of salty feta cheese, puckery olives, anchovies bathed in vinegar and oil, and mild green peppers fried until their skins burst and the meat becomes tender. Bira kai crasi: Frigid cold bottles of beer and homemade wine.

  But the most important course of all is the plump, delicious, tender, juicy baby. He must be bathed in a warm tub of water, his arms and legs slathered with creamy lather. Rinsed clean and rubbed dry. His skin made tender with oil. His ringlets combed through and twisted. His toes kissed. His tummy tickled. His cheeks caressed. He must see himself reflected in teary eyes overflowing with love and hunger. Dressed in soft clothes and innocence. Of all the delights at the table, the one most coveted and adored will be the baby. A very small person that is bursting all of our hearts. But will he be enough to guarantee Mrs. Horiatis’s acceptance of Callie?

  A Captured Spring

  The dinner table is nearly groaning under the weight of the feast that Callie and I have prepared. We worked all day while Gus and his mother went about town enjoying the sights with Manny in tow. We are sweaty and hot from the peeling, the boiling, the frying, the baking, the stirring, the
constant motion that we’ve been in, dancing in sync around the small kitchen. Every surface is covered with a platter of prepared food. The sun is setting and spreading pretty pink and gray hues throughout the horizon. Gus and Mrs. Horiatis have still not returned, and the house is finally quiet and still. No activity, no more tasks. We collapse on the couch together, wearing our aprons and exhausted expressions.

  “Oh my God! I’m so tired! If she doesn’t like this meal, I’ll kill myself,” Callie groans.

  “If she doesn’t like this meal, I’ll kill her!” I smile. “And then I’ll stuff and roast her on a spit.”

  “Eww . . . gross!” Callie throws a pillow at me.

  “What’s really gross is that I’m helping you try so hard to please Gus’s mother.” The words feel heavy with truth. “I mean, you already gave her a grandchild. What else does she want?”

  “Speaking of the baby, I am so engorged. I haven’t nursed Manny since noon. What time is it now? Five? I think I’m going to explode.” Callie grabs handfuls of her breasts and rubs them, trying to alleviate the pressure.

  I want to turn away but am fixated on Callie’s efforts to get comfortable, and I suddenly wonder what it would have been like to nurse my baby. Just the thought of it triggers that familiar stabbing pain in my heart.

  “I’m sorry,” Callie says. “That must make you feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I forget how to act in proper company.”

  “Uh . . . no, I don’t mind. Go ahead.” I pause. “What else can you do to relieve the pressure?”

  “Well. I could go pump, but I’d rather wait and nurse. I much prefer the natural way. Besides, I’m so exhausted. I don’t want to do one more thing that involves a food-preparation device.” Callie laughs, then looking dreamy, “Mmm . . . maybe a warm bath would help.”

  “My feet hurt.” I stare down at my feet in my sensible brown lace-up shoes. “They’re pounding.”

  Callie grabs my foot and starts to untie the laces. “Here, let me rub them.”

  “Oh no. That’s okay. You don’t want to do that.” I pull my foot away.

  “Of course I do. You worked hard to help me so that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. The least I can do is rub your feet!”

  “They probably smell.”

  “That’s okay. I won’t inhale.” Callie laughs as she pulls my feet up onto her lap and unties my laces and pulls off my socks. My shoes land on the ground with a thunk, thunk. I notice my heart rate speeding up. I feel exposed with my bare feet up on Callie’s lap.

  “Come on, loosen up. I’m pretty good at this,” Callie says in a soothing low voice. Callie’s shirt has come unbuttoned, and I can see her pink satin bra. She starts rubbing my aching arches with firm strokes.

  “I thought that all nursing bras were ugly. Just plain white.”

  “Do you like this one?” Callie opens her shirt and shows me the satiny bra. It perfectly cups the soft curves of her breasts. “I bought it at a specialty shop. It was so expensive! But I like to feel pretty. So I decided I was worth it.”

  “Yeah. I think it was worth it.” I am in a zone, getting lightheaded, my breath becoming shallow. Callie rubs my toes, one by one. Her hands are so strong. I feel myself melting little by little until I finally start to relax and close my eyes.

  “You know what would be really great?” Callie asks.

  “What?” I mumble, already feeling great.

  “A warm bath. We have a double Jacuzzi bathtub upstairs. It came with the house. Doesn’t that sound great?”

  “Okay. You go take a bath and I’ll clean up in the kitchen.”

  “No, silly. I mean, we could both go up and take a bath. It’s a double tub. Big enough for two. Like a hot tub.”

  “Doesn’t that seem kind of unusual? Taking a bath together?” I pull myself upright, removing my feet from Callie’s lap. Callie grabs them back.

  “Well, it depends on your point of view, I suppose.” Callie smiles at me in a way that make her eyes sparkle.

  “I’m not sure what my point of view is. I’ve never done anything like that before.” I fiddle with the buttons on my dress.

  “I’ll tell you what. If you don’t want to get in the bath, you can just talk to me while I take a bath. How’s that? The water would feel so good. Come on. Let’s do it before they get back! We still have about forty-five minutes or so.”

  Callie grabs a bottle of wine and two glasses and leads me up the stairs where I reluctantly follow her into the master bedroom. She steps out to run the water in the tub in the adjoining bathroom. I have never been in the master bedroom before. I notice the aubergine comforter on the king-size bed, fluffy pillows, and the soft glow from the brushed silver bedside lamps. There is an antique dressing table with lotions and makeup on it, and a frosted white bottle with a gardenia etched into it. “I love gardenias. They smell so heavy. Like a fruit so ready that it will drop off the tree if you don’t save it and devour it at the perfect moment.”

  Callie reenters the room. She has taken off her clothes and is standing there in her blue silk robe. “You surprise me sometimes, Xeni. You’re so passionate about food . . . but . . . why don’t you have a lover?”

  I turn my back to Callie. “I think I should go.”

  “No. No. Stay. We’ll listen to some music and relax. Have a glass of wine. No more questions.” Callie pours two glasses.

  “Don’t you think they’ll be back soon? Maybe we should be doing something useful.”

  “Relax, honey. It’s just us.” Callie hands me the glass of wine. “Soon they’ll be back and I’ll be doing a tap dance to get Mrs. Horiatis to like me, and you’ll be garnering compliments on your cooking. Let’s just take a minute to celebrate our hard work . . . and our friendship.”

  I am confused. It seems unusual to drink wine with Callie in her bedroom while the bathtub is filling with warm water. But at the same time, deep down I want to be here. If I were brave, I’d take off my clothes and get into the bathtub. But I’m not brave.

  “Do you ever feel confused?” I ask Callie.

  “All the time. Especially lately.” Callie looks into my eyes and reaches out for my hand. She leads me toward the bath. She has lit candles, and the bubbling water is sprinkled with dried flowers that are blooming as they suck in the hydration. The petals unfold like a slow motion film: a captured spring is unfurling in the tub. I gasp at the scene, the motion of life, the thirst of the colorful flowers thrusting themselves into being after a long drought.

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Yes.” Callie drops her robe and enters the bath. The petals cling to her pale white skin, and with her red hair and blue eyes she looks like an astonishing flower herself.

  The sight of Callie in the bath is startling, so exposed and yet so open, her breasts full of life-giving milk. She is mesmerizing. I stand in exactly the same position for an entire minute while Callie smiles shyly at me, holding her hand out toward me. I want to run, but my feet are firmly rooted in place. I feel like a potted plant that has never gotten enough water. Thirsty and brown around the edges. There is Callie, like a beautiful flower that got plenty of sun, and water, and nutrients. And here I am in a pot that is too small.

  “Get in,” Callie says simply, but her eyes convey a million emotions I’ve never seen before.

  I am choking, thirsty, cramped. I untie my apron and let it drop. I lift my hands and unbutton my dress, opening it to reveal my heart beneath. I am embarrassed by my plain white bra. I feel like a daisy, while Callie is a stargazer. Biting my lip, I shyly unhook the bra and let Callie be the first person to ever see my breasts.

  I hear Callie deeply inhale and say, “You’re beautiful.”

  I hear her say the words but I can’t believe them. My body is a vessel for God. He is supposed to bring me a baby, and now somehow I am standing naked in front of another woman getting ready to . . . to what? I shake my head.

  “What’s happening? How did I get here? I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing this.�
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  Callie repeats, “You’re beautiful.”

  I grab my clothes from the floor and hold them up against my bare breasts. “Look, let’s pretend this didn’t happen. I’m confused. I don’t know why I did that.”

  “Xeni . . . nothing happened. It’s okay.”

  “But if I got into that tub with you, what would happen? I took off my clothes. That happened!” I close my eyes and start to silently mouth the words, Dear God, please forgive me for my behavior. I don’t know what I was doing. I was hypnotized by the flowers, and this woman makes me feel things I don’t understand.

  “Xeni, it’s okay.” Callie rises from the water. Flower petals cling to her skin, and water drips down her exposed body. Her hair lies in wet ringlets against her full breasts. “It’s okay.” Her eyes are welling with tears. “I’m sorry I upset you. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  Her tears stop my praying. I don’t want to hurt Callie, either. I don’t like to see her cry. I want her to be happy and appreciated and loved. I want to comfort her, even more than I want to comfort myself. I step toward the tub. I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of the flowers. Callie is standing in the tub, the water bubbling around her legs, her skin illuminated from within, glowing with some ethereal quality I can’t quite name. I slowly drop my clothes to the floor and step into the bathtub to get closer to her.

  “Please, don’t cry,” I whisper.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I act like such an idiot sometimes. I’m so confused. Please don’t hate me,” Callie whispers back.

  I pick a flower from Callie’s skin. “Do you know what this is?”

  “A flower?”

  “It is a flower that dried up and thought it was dead. It thought it was dead until it found itself near you, and then suddenly it started to bloom and grow in ways it never thought it could.”