The Taint of Midas

by Anne Zouroudi

  He grabbed his phone and dialled the restaurant number; but as the phone rang out, he cut the call, and dropped the phone back on the bed.

  ‘Malaka,’ he said hopelessly. ‘What would she want with you, malaka?’

  Music rang out again from the stadium, a song he knew of love, anger and passion, and the crowd began to sing, thousands of voices sharing the emotion. Pandelis left his bed, and closed the window to shut them out. Lying down once more, he turned out the light, and closed his eyes to try and sleep away the lonely night.

  Ten

  Outside the Hotel Sparta, the departing tourists dragged their bags and cases to the waiting bus. The bus was old, its exhaust system was illegal; engine running, it pumped smoke and hot fumes over the dry-mouthed, queasy passengers as they boarded. Last night had been a night for making memories – drinking, eating, dancing into the small hours – but the memories, this morning, were blurred behind red eyes, nausea and headaches, behind the stale garlic from the last dishes of tzatziki and the lingering aniseed taste of too much ouzo.

  From the kafenion next door to his shop, Sostis the barber watched the foreigners climb the steep steps into the bus. He pitied them; he pitied them their grim and cheerless journey, and their return to the damp, dour climate of their homeland. His own plan for the day was the same as almost all others: one dozen customers, close the shop, and fish. His Greek coffee was sweet and reviving, and he had chosen this morning a sticky pastry scattered with toasted almonds and filled with creamy marzipan.

  The street ran downhill to the promenade, where the masts of chartered yachts rocked gently in the swell. A ferry bound for the islands steered between the high walls at the harbour mouth. A plane passed low overhead, the linked coloured rings of Olympic Airlines on its white fuselage. Like men condemned, the departing tourists gazed up at the plane.

  Sostis raised his cup to them.

  ‘Kalo taxidi,’ he said aloud. ‘Don’t worry, my friends. In twelve months’ time, you’ll pass this way again.’

  Inside his shop, the phone rang. He glanced at his watch: 8:35. He took a bite of his pastry, savouring its sweetness and the light crunch of the almonds; but the ringing phone persisted, intruding on his pleasure. So, leaving his coffee half-drunk and his pastry unfinished, he went inside the shop to take the call.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that you, barber?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Are you free?’

  Sostis thought of his coffee and pastry.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘No, make it ten. Just to be sure.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  There was no goodbye, no pleasantries. On his way back to his table, he switched on the air conditioning and turned over the sign in the shop doorway so that it read, from the street, Open. He took his seat in the kafenion, and gave his full attention to his breakfast. If Aris Paliakis arrived promptly, he would simply have to wait.

  ‘Cappuccino,’ said the fat man, ‘and a panino with ham, cheese and tomato. No mustard.’

  The café was chic and Continental, furnished with soft chairs in modern prints and low, smoked-glass tables, all occupied by breakfasting Greeks, and tourists. The gritty-voiced singer on the music system sang in Italian; behind the counter, huge chrome machines hissed and steamed as the scowling woman wrote down his order.

  ‘Cappuccino,’ she said with disapproval. ‘Panino. I’ll bring it out.’

  She ran a hand through her limp hair, then turned to one of the machines and, pulling out a scoop with a deft twist of her hand, knocked out the wet coffee grounds.

  The fat man watched her slop milk into a metal jug.

  ‘How interesting to find an Italian café on this coast,’ he said. ‘Are you Italian by birth?’

  ‘Italian?’ She banged the milk jug on to the counter. ‘You insult me, kyrie. I was born not ten kilometres from here. My family were shepherds; my family have always been shepherds. It was a good life, peaceful. Now you see me here making collo-cappuccinos and panini. Sit. I’ll bring it out.’

  ‘Forgive me. I meant no offence.’

  ‘This . . .’ She wafted a hand at the chrome machinery, at the coloured boxes of biscotti and the Italian wines and liqueurs on the shelves, at the freezer filled with gelati – peppermint-green, delicate pink, the yellow of butter – where flies hovered by the wafer cones. ‘This is all my son’s idea. But do you see my son here? No. My son is sleeping after staying up too late, here till 4 a.m. drinking with his customers. So I am here. Pay someone, I say. It’s not a mother’s job to be making Italian coffee, serving Italian food.’

  ‘But this place is charming,’ said the fat man. Beyond the café’s boundary was a harbour view, where the crews of rich men’s cruisers prepared to sail. ‘Your son has vision.’

  ‘My son has debts. For authenticity, everything, he says, must be imported. Even the ice-cream. Buy Greek ice-cream, I say, who’ll know the difference? But he knows best. So there’ll be two more seasons at least, till he breaks even.’

  ‘The business looks very successful.’

  ‘If successful means never a moment to sit. You sit. I’ll bring it out.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ he said. ‘By the way, I’m told you have a regular customer here. One Kylis Paliakis.’

  Before she turned back to the machinery, she jerked a thumb towards a table close to the sea, where three men sat together, laughing.

  ‘On the right,’ she said. ‘Now there’s a man of leisure, if you like.’

  The tables to both left and right of Kylis Paliakis were occupied. On one side, a Scandinavian family sat with beach bags and blonde children; on the other were two Greek women of a certain age, dressed in much younger women’s clothes. One of the women talked into a phone; the other, chewing gum, looked around in boredom.

  Smiling, the fat man approached their table and spoke to the woman chewing gum.

  ‘Kali mera, koritsi,’ he said. At the compliment implied in the word koritsi – young lady – she looked up sharply. The fat man smiled on, watching her assess him – too old, too fat, but nonetheless a man – until she, still chewing, gave a small smile. ‘I was wondering if you would let me buy you coffee.’

  The woman on the phone was watching, listening. As the fat man, receiving no rebuff, moved to take a seat, she spoke into her phone.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ she said, and, lips tight in jealous disapproval, snapped the phone shut. ‘We’re just leaving,’ she said to the fat man. From a pink handbag, she counted out the exact change for their bill, and stood. ‘My sister and I don’t accept drinks from strangers. Eleni, let’s go.’

  The fat man winked, and made a face at Eleni which meant, Let her go, you stay.

  But her sister saw it.

  ‘Hurry, Eleni,’ she said. ‘We’ve business to attend to.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  With reluctance, Eleni rose from her seat.

  ‘It seems I must go,’ she said. Her shoulders rose in a small shrug of resignation.

  ‘Another time, perhaps,’ said the fat man.

  ‘Another time.’ She smiled more openly, her face showing a remnant of past prettiness. As she followed her hurrying sister along the harbour-front, Eleni turned her head in hope the fat man was watching.

  But the fat man’s true interest lay elsewhere. Already in her vacated seat, his holdall at his feet, he laid this morning’s local paper on the table, put on his sunglasses and, seeming to be gazing at the view, observed Kylis Paliakis from behind dark lenses.

  Kylis was several days unshaven, his hair had grown out of its cut, his shirt and shorts were rumpled as if picked up off a floor. Slumped indolently in his chair, he had too much weight on his belly, too much flesh around his neck. But Kylis Paliakis had been, no doubt, handsome in youth. His looks were not all gone; but he looked a man who’d be unkind, to a certain kind of woman.

  He laughed, and, as if responding to a prompt,
one of his companions joined in the laughter. But Kylis’s laugh was loud, intruding on the quiet conversations at other tables, and his second companion – whose curling beard gave him the appearance of an artist, or musician – frowned disapproval. Kylis said a few more words, and two of the three laughed again.

  ‘Cappuccino,’ said the woman, placing a foaming cup in front of the fat man. Coffee had overflowed into the saucer. ‘Panino.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the fat man; but she was busy with the Scandinavians, removing their empty plates, tutting at a spilled pool of fresh orange juice.

  As the fat man lifted his cup, coffee dripped from its base on to his shoes. He frowned, then sipped at the milky froth, took a bite of his sandwich and unfolded his newspaper. A black-and-white photograph covered the front page: a collapsed building, a man on a stretcher being rushed to an ambulance, and in the foreground a shouting policeman, his arm pointing to something out of shot. The headline was a single word – Catastrophe! – with a subheading: 10 injured, 2 serious, in site disaster.

  The fat man turned to the report on page two, then held up the paper as he began, seemingly, to read.

  The laughter at Kylis’s table became silence.

  Beside his coffee cup, Kylis had a small glass of Metaxa. He picked up the glass, drank the liquor in one swallow, and slammed it back down on the table.

  ‘Page one,’ he said. ‘Father’s famous.’

  His bearded companion asked, ‘What’s the news from the hospital?’

  ‘One of them’s lost his legs,’ said Kylis. ‘The other’s still unconscious. And Father’s raging. We’ve no insurance. I’ve told him to get Mama’s priest to start praying for their deliverance. If either of the bastards dies, it’s going to get expensive.’

  He laughed, but this time neither of his companions joined him.

  ‘Even for you, that’s cold,’ said the bearded man.

  Abruptly, Kylis stopped laughing. He looked the bearded man straight in the eye.

  ‘Not cold,’ he said, ‘pragmatic. They screwed the job up. You give them a chance, a straightforward job, and they do nothing right. Now it’s us who’ll pay the price for their incompetence.’

  ‘You gave them a chance because they’re cheap,’ said the bearded man. ‘No training, no licences, no safety procedures, no inspections. Don’t tell us your father didn’t know that when he hired them.’

  Kylis turned away his face, and ran his tongue around his mouth as if preparing to spit. Instead, he swallowed.

  ‘You’re prejudiced,’ he said. ‘You’re prejudiced against Albanians, Russians, whatever the hell they are.’

  ‘I’m not prejudiced against anyone who pays their taxes. And I pay my taxes, so why shouldn’t they? But they’re as happy to cut corners as your father, and now it’s all gone wrong, they’ll expect their hospital treatment for free. Though of course they can’t pay anyway, poor bastards, because your father pays them nothing in the first place. So who’ll pay?’ Angrily, he stabbed his finger into his own chest. ‘I will. Me, the taxpayer. I’ll foot the bill. Your father’s got what he deserved, and I truly hope, my friend, they throw the book at him. And the least you can do is to get off your arse and go and pay your respects, ask how they are. Take flowers. Or fruit. For God’s sake, Kylis. This is a serious matter!’

  Kylis picked up his empty glass and stared into the bottom.

  ‘I’m not going to the hospital,’ he said. ‘Those people never wash. I might catch something.’

  The bearded man shook his head.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I talk to you.’ Standing abruptly, he picked up his cigarettes, tossed ten euros on to the table, then nodded at the third man. ‘Takis, kali mera.’

  As he walked away, Kylis called after him.

  ‘Prick! Malaka!’ He held up his glass, and called to the woman behind the counter. ‘Toula! Another Metaxa!’

  In objection, Takis raised his hand; the hand trembled, as if affected by some palsy.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Kylis,’ he said. ‘It’s 9 o’clock in the morning. Go home, get some sleep.’

  Angrily, Kylis turned to him.

  ‘And who the fuck are you?’ he asked. ‘The morality police? Toula, forget it! I’m leaving.’

  Standing, he was unsteady on his feet. Staring for a moment at the bearded man’s money, he fumbled in his pockets and drew out a fifty, dropping it over the ten-euro note.

  ‘Wait for your change,’ suggested his companion.

  But Kylis was already walking away.

  ‘Keep it,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Cocksucker.’

  The fat man lowered his newspaper. He watched as Kylis crossed the street, stopping the traffic by ignoring it. He climbed into a white transit van, and without signalling pulled out in front of an approaching bus, making an obscene gesture in response to the bus driver’s horn blast. In the rear window was a sticker: a red-and-blue V, the logo of Valvoline motor oil.

  Toula approached the table Kylis had left. With shaking hand, his companion held out the large banknote.

  ‘He throwing his father’s money around again?’ she asked.

  ‘You’d better credit it to his account.’

  She gave a bitter laugh.

  ‘His account’s already in credit,’ she said. ‘He’s in credit for coffee and brandy for the rest of his life. His credit’s what’s keeping this business afloat!’

  As the fat man finished his coffee, he read the report of the accident with care, then folded the newspaper and laid it down. From the open sea, a hydrofoil was coming into port, its wash rocking the vessels moored at the harbour wall.

  The fat man bent down to his holdall, unzipped it and, fumbling inside, pulled out a bottle of shoe-whitener. Removing the plastic cap, he stretched out his left foot and dabbed whitener on two spots where coffee had stained the canvas. He inspected his right foot and, finding a scuff mark on the rubber toe, blotted it out. Satisfied, he replaced the bottle cap, and zipped the whitener back into the holdall.

  From the counter, Toula watched him curiously. The fat man approached her with money in his hand.

  ‘You’re admiring my winged sandals, as I call them,’ he said. ‘It’s a life’s work, almost, taking care of them. I’ll pay my bill, if I may. And if you’ve a moment, I’ll try some of your Italian ice-cream. Is that, by any chance, pistachio?’

  The ice-cream was excellent, well flavoured and sweet, but in the morning’s warmth it melted quickly. Heading into town, the fat man chose the path along the harbour-front, where the palm trees gave some shade; and, being in no hurry, he took a leisurely pace, licking ice-cream dribbles off his wafer cone as he walked.

  Aris Paliakis was late.

  Sostis sat on outside the café, enjoying at first the warmth of the early-morning sun; then, when the heat grew too strong, he called for the waiter to roll out the canvas canopy.

  He was considering a second pastry when Paliakis turned the corner, heading up the street from the harbour. In white trousers and a holiday-maker’s Hawaiian shirt, he held his phone to his ear; he walked quickly, frowning, scattering the pigeons pecking for crumbs in the gutter and around the municipal bins.

  Sostis called goodbye to the waiter and went into his shop. Behind the washbasins, the towels were neatly folded on the shelf; the floor was swept clean of cut hair and still damp with mopping. By the cash desk, a glass dish held breath-freshening cachous scented with violets and rose water; the bottles of toilet water – lemon, sandalwood, eau de Cologne – had been refilled and dusted.

  Taking comb and scissors from the sterilising solution, Sostis dried them on a hand-towel and laid them on the shelf before the mirror. A selection of men’s magazines – Four Wheels, Drive, raunchy-covered Klik – was stacked beside the empty chairs; now Sostis added two of this morning’s national newspapers – the left-leaning Eleftherotypia, the right-wing Kathimerini.

  The shop bell rang, and Aris Paliakis stepped in from the st
reet, turning off his phone and slipping it into his pocket. In invitation, Sostis spread his hands over the back of the black leatherette barber’s chair.

  ‘Kali mera,’ he said. ‘How are you today, Mr Paliakis?’

  He knew the answer he would get; but with Sostis, the habit of good manners was ingrained.

  ‘Don’t kali mera me, barber,’ said Paliakis. He slipped into the chair, glowering at both his own mirrored reflection and at Sostis’s. His shirt was bright with pattern and colour: emerald-green parrots, orange hibiscus flowers on a background of poster-paint blue. As he sat back in his seat, his feet barely touched the floor. ‘I pay you to cut my hair, not to bore me with idle chat.’

  Sostis threw a plastic cape over both customer and chair, and tied the cape’s ribbons in a bow. Taking a soft towel from the shelf, he tucked it firmly into the cape; goaded, perhaps, by rudeness, his tucking was a little rougher than it needed to be. Without either of them noticing, he caught the delicate chain that hung around Paliakis’s neck. The chain was broken; both the chain and the object it held slipped down inside Paliakis’s gaudy shirt.

  Sostis faced Paliakis in the mirror.

  ‘The usual?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course the usual, man!’

  Paliakis closed his eyes, but the muscles of his jaw did not relax. Sostis dipped the bristles of the shaving brush into the soap, and applied a thick lather to Paliakis’s face; as he worked the brush into the skin, Paliakis’s grip on the chair arms seemed to grow tighter. When cheeks to collar-line were covered with soap, Sostis opened a cut-throat razor and sharpened it on the strop. Cutting swathes across Paliakis’s face, he shaved the skin clean, wiping foam and short whiskers on the towel at Paliakis’s neck; then, whisking away the towel and wringing out a flannel soaked in warm water, he wiped Paliakis’s face. Choosing the sandalwood, he splashed cologne into the palm of his hands, and patted it gently on to Paliakis’s clean-shaven cheeks.