by Lena Manta
“Don’t make me angrier by taking me for a fool! My daughter followed you to the barn tonight, and when she came back, anyone could tell from a mile away that she’d been kissed. What right did you have to lay a hand on her? I gave you my trust!”
“Whatever you say, you’re right. But I swear to you that I tried. I love your daughter, I loved her from the first moment I saw her, and that’s why I tried for so long never to be alone with her. But today . . .”
“Today when she followed you, you didn’t pass up the opportunity!”
“Please don’t say that! You know I’m a decent man. If you must criticize me for something, let it be that I was a coward and I didn’t confess my feelings before tonight. But I want to marry Aspasia. I love her.”
“And from what I understand, she loves you.”
“That’s what she said. I’m not rich, certainly—I’m not like your other sons-in-law, but I’ll try to make a good life for her and make sure she doesn’t want for anything.”
“The wealth of my sons-in-law never mattered to me. The only thing I wanted was to have my children near me. But from what I understand not even Aspasia will stay.”
“I won’t lie to you—we’ll be leaving. We may even leave Larissa. My boss, Kyrios Alekos, wants to open another branch of his business in Kalamata and he’s asked me to run it. The money will be better.”
Silence fell upon the room.
Stavros knelt down in front of Theodora. “Will you give me your permission to marry your daughter?” he asked with deep soulfulness in his eyes. Theodora could not ignore his plea.
“I’ll allow it,” she answered, but she knew that once again the decision had already been made without her.
Theodora was much more certain of the wisdom of this match than she’d been with her other daughters. She had lived with Stavros. She knew him, and she knew how much he loved Aspasia. She had only one concern, which she revealed to her mother when she told her the news.
“Who have you come about this time?” Julia wanted to know as soon as she saw her daughter approach.
“And how do you know I’m coming about a wedding?” Theodora asked.
“I’ve learned to tell from your face! Who are you marrying off this time?”
“Aspasia.”
“Well, it was high time! And who’s the lucky man?”
Theodora sat and told her mother everything. Julia already knew about Stavros, more or less, having heard about his stays with them now and then.
“I figured he had his eye on someone, but I didn’t know who,” Julia said, then looked directly at her daughter. “Come on, tell me the rest now!”
“What rest? I told you everything. Aspasia is marrying Stavros.”
“So why do you look so worried? From what I understand, the young man may not be as rich as Apostolos or as educated as Fokas, but he’s a good fellow, a hard worker and respectable.”
“I’m not worried about the bridegroom. It’s the bride that worries me.”
“But you told me she’s absolutely crazy about him?”
“Now, yes. But for how long? I know my daughter. I’m afraid of her love of singing—it could get in the way.”
“You’re worrying about ridiculous things. Now that she’s fallen in love, Aspasia won’t be the same. Anyway, when she has children, she’ll stop thinking about singing. She’ll have other things on her mind.
“I hope you’re right.”
Mother and daughter stood facing one another while Stavros waited in the car. The wedding was over and they were ready to leave. By now, Theodora knew the scene by heart. She was living it for a third time. Once again, she’d watch her daughter leave a trail of dust behind her.
Theodora looked at her Aspasia. “So, that was it. You’re leaving now,” she said.
“Yes, it’s time to say good-bye,” whispered Aspasia sadly. “It seems hard to me.”
“I’ve gotten used to it by now,” her mother answered.
“It seems like a dream to me that I’m leaving. I’ll miss you.”
“You won’t miss us, Aspasia. We’ll miss you, yes. But you’re starting a new life with the man you love, and you’ll have other things to think about. Just don’t forget your home.”
“The house by the river,” Aspasia said, as if she were speaking to herself.
“Yes. Remember all you’ve learned in this house and make sure you bring it to your new home. Stavros is a good boy, so respect your marriage!”
“Why would you say that to me? You know how much I love him!”
“I know. But I also know your restless spirit, your sharp mind, and your passion for singing. You have to calm all those things, my daughter, and be satisfied with what your husband’s love offers you. And if the trials are very strong, remember that here, in this corner of the earth, is the river. Dive into it to purify yourself again!”
“Like the swimmer of Siloam we learned about in religious classes?” Aspasia tried to joke about it, but her mother’s look made her serious again.
“I want you to remember what I said, my child. And I’ll ask the Virgin to give you light and strength.”
They hugged each other tightly.
A few minutes later the familiar dust filled Theodora’s eyes and tears blurred her vision. She turned around and looked at the river. Anger suddenly overcame her as she felt it was making fun of her. She ran at full speed to the bank and furiously began throwing stones into the water. Every stone raised a little jet, and a thousand circles disturbed the calm surface. Panting, Theodora continued until she was quite out of breath. Tears poured from her eyes. For once, the peace and quiet drove her crazy. She wanted to scream but stopped herself. What did she want? Her children tied to her apron strings? They fell in love, they found what suited them, and they left. Had God signed a contract with her that they would always be beside her? She dried her eyes, stood up, and began walking toward her house. As she got closer, it seemed to her that even the house looked sad, in spite of the two chestnut trees that embraced it with their comforting branches. She, on the other hand, was growing old with no one at her side.
Theodora turned her gaze toward the sky. “Where are you, I wonder, Gerasimos?” she said. “Do you see me from up there? Do you understand what a mistake you made when you chose to leave? Do you think that it would matter, at this moment, if you had a missing leg? I need you beside me; I need your laughter to make me smile. You were wrong, Gerasimos. Wrong and selfish.”
As soon as she’d uttered these words she felt ashamed. A little while later she began digging furiously in the already well-turned soil of her garden.
Theodora’s mind couldn’t comprehend that her father didn’t exist anymore. Her heart froze just as her body did when she saw him motionless in his bed. He’d just left suddenly, without warning.
She wondered at herself when she realized that despite the numbness in her brain, her body continued to function normally. She helped her mother dress her father’s body; she prepared the house for however many would come to sit through the night. A tiny glimmer of thought reminded her to send a telegram to Anna with the news. She wanted to send the same message to her daughters but her mother forbade it.
“But he was their grandfather!” Theodora protested.
“So let them remember him alive. First of all, our Aspasia is a newlywed. Do you want to bring her here for a funeral? Melissanthi is probably away on some trip and Julia wrote to you last week that she’s sick. Do you want her to get worse? Leave your girls in peace. As for your sister, I doubt if she’ll come. She left us behind years ago—do you think she really cares about us now?”
But for once her mother was wrong. Shortly before the funeral Anna turned up and everyone was amazed. However, her appearance had nothing to do with her father’s death—the telegram hadn’t reached her. It was all a coincidence, the sort that fate loves to arrange.
After so many years, Anna had decided to surprise her family with a visit. Little did she know that
her father had already arranged his own surprise, and a macabre one at that. The shock was tremendous for everyone. Theodora and her mother were traumatized when they saw Anna in her expensive fur coat, her face carefully made up and her hair dyed blond. Anna greeted them with a smile that quickly faded when she saw the house full of weeping mourners. Everyone froze for a few moments, then resumed their crying, although now they were crying both tears of joy and tears of mourning.
Theodora watched her sister all evening and couldn’t believe that this mature, well-dressed woman was the same sister she’d played with, cried with, and followed into a dozen scrapes that had driven their parents to the limits of despair. Anna herself cried inconsolably because she hadn’t arrived in time to see her father alive. She wondered how fate could be so cunning and cruel. The trip she had dreamed of making for years, the surprise she had planned for months, had ended in a fiasco.
Polyxeni and Magdalini were the ones most affected by their aunt’s arrival. They only recognized her from photographs and the stories that their grandmother Julia had told them about her. Polyxeni stroked the fur coat that Anna had left on a chair. She’d never touched anything so soft and beautiful. She looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then rested her cheek on the fur, breathing in her aunt’s faint perfume. When she caught her mother looking angrily toward her, she quickly moved away and went to sit where she could privately observe her aunt at leisure.
“She’s a lady,” Polyxeni said to herself, and she didn’t let the new arrival out of her sight. She tried to commit to memory her aunt’s every movement, even her posture.
Magdalini hadn’t paid so much attention to her aunt’s arrival, but she also admired her. She tried to connect the lady she saw with the girl she’d seen in pictures, with her tight braids and knees scratched from running.
It was an hour before dawn when Theodora went out into the yard to get some air. She sat on the bottom step and looked at the sky, which had lost a little of the wildness of night. Here and there the blackness above her was turning gray, a sign that in a little while the sun would perform its daily miracle and paint the dome of the sky blue. She sensed that she wasn’t alone and turned to see her sister sitting beside her.
“If I remember right, this is where our mother made us sit to have a snack,” Anna said nostalgically.
“Yes, you’re right,” Theodora answered flatly. She hadn’t forgiven her sister for staying away so long.
“Do you hold it against me for not coming back all these years?” Anna asked, as if she had understood.
“I can’t say I resent you, but there were times when I was angry with you. Why, Anna? Why didn’t you come to see us before now?”
“It wasn’t easy, Theodora. Sometimes I missed you so much that I’d say, ‘Tomorrow I’ll get on an airplane and go see them. I can’t bear it anymore.’ But the next day, I’d get pulled back into my usual routine, and the next airplane would leave without me.”
“I understand. There are rivers and tides everywhere, I suppose, real and otherwise. Their business is to carry along anyone who’s too weak to resist them . . .”
“I always found out what was going on in your lives,” Anna said.
“We didn’t know what was happening with you, though. What were you doing all those years? How is your husband?”
“He’s fine. We wear ourselves out managing our lives, Theodora. From a distance, America may seem like the land of opportunity and wealth, but to earn that wealth you have to work hard, to suffer, to sacrifice your life.”
“Why didn’t you have children?”
“At first it was because we both had to work and I had no one to help me. Later, when we tried, it just didn’t happen. But you more than made up for what I couldn’t do. Five daughters!”
“I still have two of them with me. The others married and left, just like you!”
They stopped speaking. The sky took on the colors of dawn, and the day looked as if it would be a cheerful one for everyone except them. Later, they accompanied their father to his last resting place, along with their mother, who sobbed with grief for the man who’d been beside her most of her life. Theodora insisted that Anna and their mother stay at her house, which was bigger and more comfortable.
Anna was enchanted by the beauty of the landscape. She was fascinated by the river, and the absence of creature comforts didn’t bother her at all. She adapted easily to the rhythms of the village as if she’d never left. This almost disappointed Polyxeni, but what really hurt her was the fondness her aunt showed for Magdalini. The two of them would disappear for hours while Anna rediscovered the place she grew up in and saw all the changes that the passage of time had brought.
Magdalini would listen with fascination as Anna described her life in America. She never tired of hearing about the big roads, the cities, and the way of life that seemed surreal compared to life in the village. When she heard about the universities, and the women who studied without any obstacles and worked in beautiful offices or shops, she nearly lost her mind. The girl became almost depressed until Anna had an idea.
“If that’s a joke, it’s in bad taste!” Theodora said angrily to her sister.
“But why? If you really think about it, it’s perfectly logical.”
“What are you saying, Anna? That I should give you my child for you to take the devil knows where and for me not to see her again? And for what reason? To study? What’s Magdalini going to do at a university?”
“The girl wants to get an education!”
“She’s educated enough! What’s she going to do with more education? Where will she need it?”
“Now you’re not making sense and you know it. Magdalini has a good mind. Why shouldn’t she use it?”
“Because I don’t want her to leave.”
“Now you’re being selfish. Are you going to think about what’s good for the child or for yourself?”
“Who told you that one precludes the other? My daughter can be happy here too.”
“How? If she marries a farmer or a shepherd?”
“What’s wrong with a farmer or a shepherd?”
“Nothing if that’s what she wants. But Magdalini wants to leave.”
“You’ve stirred up her mind!”
“Theodora, I understand how you feel, but you’re not thinking clearly. No one can persuade anyone else to leave unless they really want to. And you’ve always known that your daughters had that desire! Look at the older ones. As soon as they found someone who’d take them far away, they married and left. But Magdalini doesn’t want to marry. She wants to study. You have no right to stop her.”
“And you don’t have the right to steal my child away from me! You’re taking her because God didn’t give you children of your own.”
“You shouldn’t have said that.”
“Well, I did. And I won’t take it back. Magdalini is my child and I won’t let her follow you!”
Theodora found herself by the river again, having slammed the door behind her as she left her sister alone in the house. She sat on the bank, thinking. Why had she been cursed with losing her daughters one by one? Why had fate decided to leave her all alone in her old age, without the sweet presence of her children and grandchildren? As she began to cry, the image of the river became distorted to the point where its waters and her tears became one.
The sound of footsteps made her spring to her feet. She expected to see her sister standing there, prepared to confront her. Instead, she saw the black-clad figure of her mother, and judging from her expression, she knew.
“Be careful what you say,” Theodora warned her.
Julia looked at her daughter intently, then sat down on a nearby rock. She signaled for her to sit beside her, and Theodora obeyed.
“You know your sister is right,” she began calmly. “This will be good for the child. It’s what she’s meant to do.”
“Anna shouldn’t have interfered,” Theodora cut in, still angry.
�
��Anna did you no harm. Inside, you know it. But you’re angry that your children are leaving, so you won’t admit it.”
“Yes, but if Anna . . .”
“If Anna hadn’t come back, if she hadn’t spoken to the child about America, Magdalini would have found another way to leave. Don’t fool yourself. Anyway, we parents must never think about ourselves, but about what’s good for our children.”
“And what’s good for my Magdalini?”
“For her to study like she wants to, and . . .”
“And . . . ? Why did you stop, Mother?”
“Because you never did want to hear the voice of reason. I told you ages ago to remarry so you wouldn’t be alone. I brought you the wealthiest doctors, but you—”
“We’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about my child. What good will come of her going to America? What does she have to gain other than the chance to study?”
“Are you serious? Your sister and brother-in-law have no children, but they have a fortune! Who are they going to leave it to? Your Magdalini.”
“Really, I don’t believe you! Where is your brain? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking rationally. And you should too.”
“That’s not rational, it’s cold calculation!”
“Call it what you like, the truth doesn’t change.”
“So, you’re telling me I have to turn my heart into stone because Anna has money? My daughter’s not for sale.”
Julia stroked her daughter’s hair, which had begun to turn gray. “Listen to me, my daughter,” she continued in a voice that had become tender. “Magdalini isn’t a little girl anymore, so you can’t stop her. All you can do is to pray that she’ll be strong and happy. Give her your blessing so she won’t leave with a heavy heart and prepare to comfort the other one.”
“Who? Are you talking about Polyxeni?”
“With that one you’re really in trouble! She’s worse than the others. She’s crazy for fame and fortune. When she finds out that Anna is taking Magdalini to America, while she has to stay in the village, you’re in for some storms! Big storms! Mark my words.”