There were hours when I was filled with his absence. His absence was something different from him, but it was also like him. It stood by me those moments when I was sitting at Ruth’s table and kept me company on my afternoon winter walks. I loved his absence.
It’s just that everything was so unknown, hidden by a curtain of rain. It was only possible to guess at what lay beyond. Finally when Aniksi Avenue overflowed with water and became a stream, then there was finally something certain, the steady sound of water running.
•
And although the winter days passed in a haze, my memory of them is now very clear. And damp, like the earth that hasn’t yet had time to dry.
Infanta saw the first poppy. Then the meadows were full of them. Daisies also sprang up, especially along the fences. Everywhere there was the smell of chamomile. The kid goats were acting crazy. They would bend down their heads and run to one side for a bit, then arch their bodies and run to the other. Bending and twisting, their stomachs and their legs going in all different directions, they would leap in the air once, twice, and then stop abruptly, their eyes transfixed, as if they had suddenly heard something, and then they’d go back to their leaping again.
Sometimes I would play with them, and without meaning to I’d also stop and stare into the distance trying to hear a sound. Something wasn’t enough in life, and something was too much, overflowing.
“You’d like to live two lives,” Maria once told me. “Your face gives you away.”
“Not just two, but thousands, Maria, or one which could be a thousand.”
In spring everyone acts crazy like the kid goats.
So Infanta ran toward me to show me the first poppy. But as she ran the poppy faded and its petals fell off, and the only thing that was left in her hand was the stem and its black center.
“See, you can’t pick poppies. It serves you right.”
She turned away as if angry. Deep down, though, it was to hide her sadness; perhaps she was thinking that it wasn’t possible to do such a bold thing, like picking a poppy. I went and put my hand on her shoulder.
“You forget,” I said, “how you killed a poisonous snake here in the lavender.”
“That was easy,” she answered. “All you have to do is lift up a stick and hit its head, holding your breath.”
“Everything is easy,” I then said.
She seemed to think about this a bit.
“Perhaps. But someone has to make me feel that it’s easy.”
And it was as if someone else’s voice was speaking from inside me when I began quickly, “Yes, and to make you feel it before you have time to think. Something like lightning, right, Infanta? Something which you see first and only later realize was lightning.”
“Yes, like lightning,” she whispered.
Then we thought of Nikitas.
He came back to Kifissia after exams. He was skinnier than last year and paler. Perhaps he had also grown a bit taller.
He had done well in his first year. Even though it was his father’s idea that he go to the Polytechnic, now he liked it. He never missed a class, studied systematically, patiently. He would make a good engineer. He didn’t write poems anymore, not one the whole winter. His last was “The Shipwreck,” which he had read to them in the pavilion one day near the end of summer when it was threatening to rain. He still remembers Infanta’s trembling fingers when she spread her needlework of peacocks on her knees and their strange stillness when she began to embroider. Her hands were like doll hands when she embroidered, the ones that wind up and then make the same motion again and again. The memory tortured him.
He also thought that her friendship was not enough for him. He wanted to take her and squeeze her in his arms, to squeeze her hard and to kiss her. That’s what he wanted. And that head of hers that she carried so high . . . He must break her, make her lower it. Yes, he wanted to see her head bent and her hair loose, hanging helplessly on both sides of her face. He would then take it and braid it for her carefully. His heart melted thinking of this. Ah, he would act differently this summer. Not like when he got nervous because she touched him, and spoke brusquely to her, disappearing then for days. He would behave like Emilios did with Eleni, and all the other boys who went to the woods with their girls. Slowly, of course, so as not to shock her, not like lightning. First he would have to change the tone of their friendship. He wouldn’t take Vicky down to go for a ride as usual, but he would send her a note saying that he would like to see her alone, how he would be waiting impatiently at such and such an hour at the deserted well where they often used to stop to quench their thirst and water the horses.
It was afternoon and the sun was setting when Infanta got the note.
Romeo seemed to fly the next morning. She squeezed her knees against his belly and left the reins loose. Her hair blew freely. She was drunk. When she rode life was all hers. She could conquer anything. She felt the beating pulse of the animal beneath her and something inside her leapt.
“Bravo, Romeo! Run, Romeo!”
Desire. And her look would get lost in the distance, insistent, as if it could pierce a darkness that didn’t exist. Life is worth living when you can conquer it, when you conquer it without fear, freely, like now, in a gallop. The wind hit her in the face. She wanted to arrive a little before he did and wait for him. She would lie in the thyme.
But he was already there, sitting on the ledge of the well, bent over. Behind him his blue shirt billowed in the wind. He had folded his hands and was staring at the ground. His posture suggested an immense solitude. He did not hear the horse’s hooves. This irritated her a bit.
“Nikitas!” she cried.
And he was surprised that her voice was so harsh.
Something had already separated them. They started to talk about their usual topics. Except they decided he would no longer come and fetch her from the house. They would meet here secretly instead. She would have something to hide, he too.
“Do you want it this way?” he asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
He looked at her. She averted her eyes. It is difficult to keep the free feeling you have when you are galloping. She grew silent.
“Why?” Nikitas asked again.
“I don’t know. There isn’t a reason.”
Her voice was cold now, and his look sad. Oh, if only she could wrap her hands around Nikitas’s neck and say, “Nikitas, I don’t want you to have that sad look. I never want to see that sad look again.”
“There’s no reason,” she continued. “What are you trying to say? I don’t understand.”
And Katerina, who had said it was all so simple . . .
Sometimes when she was with Nikitas she would go over and caress Romeo. Her hand would pet his ears, his mouth, then his eyes, gently. And when Romeo neighed, she would lean on him, touching his nose to hers, sinking her eyes into his.
Nikitas would get annoyed.
“You certainly love that horse,” he would say bitterly.
“He helps me to overcome things,” she would answer, laughing.
“Overcome what?”
“Overcome life, the trees, the distance, I don’t know. When I run with him I can overcome anything.” She laughed.
She told him about the day when, against her will, Romeo had started to gallop up the mountain and how nothing could stop him.
“That’s why I love him,” she said.
And when Maria saw her racing across the meadow, alone and free, she would say in a loud, preoccupied voice which sounded strange to her own ears, “How could anyone be so pure as Infanta?”
She sighed. Maria was expecting her second child. She was already beginning to feel heavy. Little Yannis had started to talk and crawl. She couldn’t call him “my koukouki” anymore. She’d save that for the new baby. She was looking forward to another child, especially the nursing.
As for me, thousands of things consumed me: David’s homecoming, the heroes of the books I was re
ading, and Mother, who although seemingly calm for a while, her only concern the jam of the season, would then suddenly lock herself up in the living room in front of her desk, for one or two days straight, and then leave for hours on end.
I must say that before June 21st, which was for me the most amazing day of my life, a lot of things happened. First David came back. My heart almost burst when I found out. I jumped down the stairs two at a time and then ran back up them. I didn’t know what to do. I changed my dress, combed my hair, started to speak, to shout, but couldn’t. For one moment, though, I guess I did—a scream rose up from inside me so strong, both Mother and Rodia came running up to see what had happened to me.
“What’s going on? . . . What’s going on?” they cried when they saw me standing in front of the mirror with my new dress on, shocked by my own voice.
“What’s going on? Nothing,” I answered calmly. “I was just testing my vocal chords.”
Mother threw me a stern look, and Rodia left, murmuring how it would do me good to remember every once in a while the story of the boy who cried wolf.
David had returned. For a moment I was so absorbed with looking into the mirror that I forgot who I was, who David was, and my face went misty. My lips turned white. I wanted to see him, to see him at once. I went down the stairs again, I ran past the garden and out onto the plain. It was morning and a Sunday. I didn’t notice that it was a beautiful day, but I felt the sun on my shoulders and the top of my head and I smelled the thyme. I heard the bells of the church. The second service had just begun.
Everyone knew that at this hour Mrs. Parigori was leaning out the window of her house in her nightgown and robe watching people go by. Ah, I’d prefer that David hadn’t returned just so that she wouldn’t see him again. It was ridiculous to lean out a window and look at people, not to mention indiscreet. After all they weren’t actors, just people passing by after church.
One day I will be straight with David. Choose one or the other: me or her. I might even say it today, and perhaps since I’ll be seeing him first he’ll choose me.
But who should be the first person I saw at David’s? Mrs. Parigori. I was confused. She should be leaning out her window. I was so confused that I saw her double, leaning out her window and standing in front of me under the electric light smiling, leaning on the little organ.
“Why Katerina, what’s this?” she said, and pretending not to take any more notice of me, she went to get something from her bag.
I stayed, staring at the deer antlers. I counted the various branches. Then I went over to her.
“I came to see David,” I said.
“He just got in last night,” she responded. “Quite suddenly. I happened to be here. The three of us had dinner together. It was very pleasant.”
At that moment I heard David coming down the stairs. I felt extremely calm and appeared even more so. He smiled when he saw me and squeezed my hand. It was an extremely warm greeting.
“Why so early, Laura?” he said, turning toward Mrs. Parigori.
He now called her Laura.
“I didn’t sleep well and woke at dawn. And then there are those church bells. Besides I promised Ruth I would come over and help unpack your bags.”
“Ah, thank you,” David said then, “but I don’t want you tiring yourself out.”
And saying that, he fidgeted nervously, searching for his lighter, and then ran over to light the cigarette she had just brought to her lips. She had lifted her head toward him, imploring him with her eyes to light it.
“Have a nice day,” I said then, looking at them sharply and leaving.
At the end of Aniksi Avenue just before Elia Avenue groups of people had gathered and were talking. This is what I heard when I passed. “Playing marbles this morning,” they said, “one of Kapatos’s sons and the Kouvelis boy fought, and Kouvelis shot the other dead.”
I started to run to Mother Kapatos’s house. I was out of breath. Michalis, the tall boy who wore a cape over his shoulders and walked around all day grazing their three goats and the sheep, was dead. I had come upon him many a time sitting on a rock watching the clouds, whistling, or singing a tune.
From a distance I could see the boat and the pile of old metal scraps. The door was open and the house was deserted. Only Yangoulas, lying in a corner with his snout between his front paws, opened one eye halfway and looked at me. They had probably all gone off to see the place where it had happened.
The next day I didn’t dare go again. After a week, when I finally ran into Mrs. Kapatos, she told me in a thoughtful, submissive tone that perhaps someone in the family had to die so the rest could live.
“We’ll get a lot of insurance money,” she explained.
I thought then of a shipwreck, when the boat fills with water and the weight is too much and someone has to jump overboard into the sea, and also of a song about a ship short of food where the lot fell to the youngest—it was his first trip at sea—and they ate him to save the others.
II. NEW FACES
ONE DAY I heard a cicada singing. Just for a moment. Then it started up again, its voice getting stronger and stronger. Now its song is so continuous it sounds the same as complete silence.
It was really hot on that 21st of June. David and I were climbing up Aniksi Avenue, walking toward Kifissia. He had kissed me twice since he had returned, once in the olive grove and the other time in the woods. He buried his hand in my long, curly hair and mussed it up as if he were caressing me to sleep. I liked it, and he seemed to like it too, even though he was distracted. When he took his hand away for a moment I don’t know what came over me but I screamed. He put his hand down abruptly and looked at me in surprise.
When we arrived in Kifissia, David went into the stationery store to buy something and I stood outside looking in the store window. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw Mother, who, after hurriedly crossing the main street without even glancing at the people who were sitting at the pastry shop, began climbing Othonos Street, her step young and sprightly. On either side of the road water was running in the irrigation ditches and her dress swirled this way and that, keeping time with her stride.
I had never seen her so absorbed. She looked straight ahead. Her hair shone, drawn tightly together in a bun. Her skin, too, seemed stretched across her brow.
I saw her climbing, getting farther and farther away; my heart beat faster. David wouldn’t come out of the store. He always took a long time when he shopped, especially at stationery stores. He’d test the weight of the paper a hundred times, passing it from one hand to the other, and he’d check the pens carefully to make sure they didn’t have bent or rusted nibs.
Mother had arrived at the top of Othonos Street and was about to turn right. I started to walk, almost running, my heart beating. She turned right and then disappeared. Which road did she take? I chose one, guessing. My heart was really beating. And there she was in front of me on the road with the poplars that goes to Kefalari. I slowed down my step and kept stopping behind the poplars. If she turned her head she would see me. But she didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything. Only just before turning, she stopped and looked carefully around, quickening her pace. I hid for a minute at the corner. The road was open here. I couldn’t follow her. But before I had time to think what I should do, I saw her stop in front of an iron gate on the left and, opening the latch as if well acquainted with it, go in. She didn’t ring a bell or call for anybody to open the door.
I sat on the sidewalk. The sun was burning. It must be almost midday. A thousand thoughts were whirling around in my head, the one stranger than the next.
Three quarters of an hour or more must have passed with me sitting there, when I saw her lift the latch again and come out, taking the road home a little more slowly now. I didn’t have time to run ahead—she would have seen me—nor to turn off onto another road. I clung to the poplar like a cicada to a pine tree, taking tiny steps to the right so I would be at the other side of the tree by the t
ime Mother passed. She passed right in front of me. I could hear her breath. I was holding mine. It was a good thing no car came by, because if she had stepped any farther to the left we would have been face to face.
I sat down again on the sidewalk for about a quarter of an hour. And when at last I walked back to Kifissia I found Mother, Mr. Louzis, and David sitting together at the pastry shop. David threw me an angry look, though he said very courteously, “What will you have?”
Mother and David were drinking lemonade and Mr. Louzis, ouzo.
“A cherry soda,” I said. “Phew! I’m so hot.”
“Where were you?” Mother asked, turning toward me.
I looked her in the eyes.
“Oh, I had a wonderful walk, high above the cemetery.”
She looked slightly confused.
“What business did you have up there?”
Her voice shook a bit.
“Katerina, you are a dreamer,” Mr. Louzis added out of the blue.
I’m sure I blushed. But I managed to say with a smile full of dignity, “Why do you say that, Mr. Louzis?” He began to laugh.
“I was remembering one night with a full moon . . . Ha, ha, ha! A night with a full moon down on the meadow, ha, ha, ha! But of course the moon was to blame. . . . . Because when there’s a full moon . . .”
He couldn’t go on; he was choking from laughter. His face had turned bright red, and he looked like he was going to burst.
David started to talk about the influence of the moon on animals and people. He gave various examples.
“Perhaps you were going to talk about that,” he said, turning calmly and politely to Mr. Louzis.
“You, my friend, are interested in scientific explanations. I only know that when there’s a full moon the wise go mad and the mad get madder.”
It was as if the sound of “full moon” pleased him. He said it louder and clearer, pausing after “full” and prolonging the “oo” in “moon.” He had begun to laugh again, and people from the surrounding tables turned to look at us.
Three Summers Page 19