Ekaterini

by Marija Knezevic

  ‘Mama, is this ever going to end? For God’s sake! What do you need so many fans for? And what are you going to do with them all in Belgrade?’

  It didn’t occur to Ekaterini to answer, and she calmly picked up another one. It amused her that her daughter didn’t understand this either, but it was even better that there really was no explanation. When you’re in the mood, you’re in the mood. Fans are pure whim and caprice, the ultimate in beauty, and Ekaterini took great pleasure in them.

  ‘What’s she got into her head now?’ Lucija kept asking herself; it was a question which had made her thoroughly and consistently frantic all her life long, not just this moment at the fair.

  ‘You’re never going to pack it in, are you?’ Lucija snarled.

  ‘Why pack?’ Ekaterini replied nonchalantly as she smiled at every passer-by, careful not to miss a single face.

  ‘I guess you know we’ll be going back to Belgrade soon?’

  ‘Slowly, daughter, there’s still time.’

  Luka and Panagiotis were browsing at a stall laden with tools. They tittered as they came up with an idea. Ekaterini managed to keep an eye on them although she was busy animating the passers-by. Lucija didn’t see when Luka came up to his motherin-law and offered her a fan:

  ‘Madam, my modest contribution to your collection.’

  Panagiotis only knew a few words of Serbian, but he was an excellent judge of characters and situations, and now he was choking with laughter. Lucija went mad at Luka, but her voice was weak and failing, overcome with the exhaustion of a lonely battler, who was now also competing against the bouzouki. Ekaterini gracefully accepted the gift and thanked her son-in-law, whom she hadn’t spoken to in the ten years prior to the bombardment, and walked on with measured step and a constant smile on her face. A seller of icons, crucifixes, rosaries and all manner of religious knick-knacks came up to her, introduced himself courteously and kissed her hand.

  ‘Madam, I’m a retired police officer. As soon as I see a face I know what kind of person I’m dealing with. Having seen you several times now, please allow me say a few words. In all sincerity, of course.’

  ‘Yes?’ Ekaterini stopped waving her fans for a moment and weighed up how much interest she should devote to this gentleman.

  ‘I used to think I knew a lot about people, but I was wrong. Life is full of twists and turns, as if it wanted to disprove that we could ever get to know other people. But in one thing I’ve never been mistaken – a woman is only beautiful if she laughs beautifully! There, that’s what I wanted to say to you. Goodbye and all the best.’

  Ekaterini thanked him in the manner of a Thessaloniki lady and walked on, managing to maintain a steady step. The icon and crucifix seller long followed her with his gaze and sincerely marvelled at her. Panagiotis and Luka were simply choking with laughter. Lucija no longer doubted that she’d die at that fair.

  * * *

  On the way from Thessaloniki to Kavala, in the hills covered with pines and firs, somewhere between two famous geysers which might erupt again at any minute, a most beautiful Byzantine building of modest proportions is nestled amidst the landscape of green and rust-red earth. Shaped like a catacomb and made of stone, with lines more bent than straight, well proportioned like the naturally beautiful young women of old, the church of St Marina rests tranquilly in a spot which seems to have been made just for it. Drivers don’t notice it in their hurry, and especially not the tourists rushing to the sea, for they still have fifty kilometres to go from here, past the two dormant geysers and their lakes. Ekaterini noticed the church back during the first ride in the car, and every time Panagiotis asked ‘Aunty, would you like to go for a drive somewhere?’ she used the opportunity to visit it. I didn’t find out about her trips there until after she and Lucija had returned to Belgrade in order to protect the flat from thieves.

  When I caught sight of St Marina’s, I asked Panagiotis to stop. He bit his lip and struggled to hold back the tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. He was inconceivable without laughter and song. I couldn’t have imagined it was to do with the church; I thought perhaps he was feeling unwell.

  ‘This church, you know... this church.’

  ‘St Marina’s, right? It’s so beautiful!’

  ‘Your grandmother asked me to bring her here. Constantly. I got the feeling she was saying goodbye to us all and getting to know some other world – right here.’

  ‘Really?’ What saddened him gladdened me. Yet another bond I’d discovered.

  ‘That last day, too.’

  ‘Which day?’

  ‘When I drove them to the bus station in Thessaloniki. She asked me to stop here again. She went in by herself and was in there for a long time. Your mother was worried they’d miss the bus and made me to go in and get her. I stood at the door and watched her. She was holding an icon lamp she bought at the little shop there. And a small icon. There was... I don’t know what to call it... something beautiful or even divine in that picture – her, the lamp and the icon. God forgive me, but aunty Ekaterini looked like an icon,’ Panagiotis cried, man how he cried.

  ‘Did she leave for Belgrade straight after the church visit?’

  ‘Yes, but before that she asked the priest for a flowerpot. I was listening but didn’t understand. He knew what she wanted and, without a word, went out to the little house. See? That’s where he lives. She waited for him in the churchyard. Soon he came back with a flowerpot and a spoon. She didn’t say anything, but he scooped up some soil and filled the flowerpot. She thanked him and kissed his hand. Then I realised what it was about and cried as I took her back to the car. She handed the flowerpot to Lucija and said: “I want you to sprinkle this earth over my grave – Greek earth.” Kaimeni tia, poor aunty!’

  Panagiotis wiped away his tears, sat down on the bench and lit a cigarette. The moment was brimming with stories familiar and unfamiliar. Life stories full of both laughter and tears, all in good measure. Where secrets live in harmony with common knowledge. Like the calm of this church beside the much-travelled road.

  * * *

  Ekaterini and I said goodbye to each other in the Gardenia ice-cream parlour in Asprovalta, a small town which had been raised to the status of a city just that year. Aspro in Greek means white. That crossed my mind as I was seeing her off back to Belgrade, as if it was just another trip and another bon voyage, one of our many. We both knew we wouldn’t be seeing each other again. It was a dignified scene decked with agreeable, everyday details – an iced Nescafé and a tiropita on the table for Ekaterini, both her hands busy with fans, the usual teeming streets, and outside the sun shining.

  ‘It’s time to say goodbye, my child,’ she said with astonishing calm. ‘We won’t see each other again, and I’d like to thank you for everything, especially for this. I know you understand what it means to live in a foreign country. And what it means to be in one’s own country. I love you and just wish that one thing always follows you in life – agapi, agapi!’

  I kissed her with pride that we had both succeeded – there in Gardenia ice-cream parlour, and many times before, and now when I light the icon lamp from St Marina’s every Sunday – in defending not so much the dignity as the beauty of the moment. We had protected that moment in its glory, uniqueness and eternal memory from the invasion of pathos which swooped down on our nomadic lives in various formations, sometimes even with the best intentions. That bond remained and was ours alone, although we barred no one from treading the same path, that one path which we both travelled despite the unpredictable myriad of geographies in the debris of each individual life.

  The Shell

  Visiting her grave is like going for a walk for me. They say Lešće Cemetery is a real ‘fresh-air spa’. Sure enough, I always come back from the cemetery feeling refreshed, in a mood such as only intoxication with oxygen can bring. Mostly I go with my friends who look after stray dogs. With the wonderful dogs frolicking around us, we climb the little hill where the remains of
those whose heads are facing south lie. Several people get irate at us for coming to the cemetery with dogs. We laugh. I remember how Ekaterini used to laugh when we’d walk our dog, Charlie, and people would abuse and berate us as if they had no other problems in their lives than dogs. Again with pride, I remember that human stupidity never annoyed her but just made her laugh. How much love there is in laughter, I thought.

  In the concrete of the grave slab, at the very spot from where you can imagine a straight line to Paralia, I see a shell: small but regular in shape and fully open like a fan; probably a freshwater mussel from the banks of the Danube or Sava. A coincidence? It’s nicer to think of life as a series of coincidences, I think, as I walk home with my friends, with a wide and grateful smile. We chat, and I can talk about absolutely anything and at the same time hear the flutter of fans, without missing a single word of Greek, Serbian, English or Spanish – always intelligible and wondrously beautiful.

  The translator

  Will Firth was born in 1965 in Newcastle, Australia. He studied German and Slavic languages in Canberra, Zagreb and Moscow. Since 1991 he has been living in Berlin, Germany, where he works as a freelance translator of literature and the humanities. He translates from Russian, Macedonian, and all variants of Serbo-Croat. His website is www.willfirth.de.

  Ekaterini comes to you from Istros Books: a boutique publisher of quality literature in translation from South East

  Europe. If you have enjoyed this book, then perhaps you would like the others in our series. Best Balkan Books 2013 Subscribe to all 4 books directly

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