by Lena Manta
Still, she’d never mentioned it to Apostolos, just as he had never brought it up to her. Even when she overheard unkind remarks on the topic from friends in their circle, she kept silent. In her heart she really wanted a child. But she’d concluded that Apostolos must have some problem and that discussing it would only embarrass him. Perhaps it was his age. Lately she’d been thinking a lot about her husband’s age. She’d begun to notice the differences between him and other, younger men, but she knew she didn’t have any right to complain. She was grateful that cards provided her with an especially happy distraction.
As Melissanthi continued to indulge her new hobby, she was gone from the house quite a few evenings each week. For Apostolos, this made life simpler. He’d come home early from the factory, eat something light, and sit in front of the fire with an interesting book. He no longer found himself permanently on the alert to avoid his wife. Lately he’d managed to restrict their sexual intercourse to once every ten days, and he was completely happy with this routine, since it didn’t tire him out and improved his performance. In between, he enjoyed some respite and took handfuls of pills, always in secret, as Melissanthi had no idea as to the state of his health.
Eventually, what every card player is afraid of began: bad luck. Melissanthi started to lose—a lot. The more money she lost, the angrier she became, and the more nervously—and dangerously—she played. But the result was always the same: she came home without a penny in her pocket. She kept drawing money from her account until the bank manager informed Apostolos, who became furious. Melissanthi had overdone it. By this point she’d lost large sums, and Apostolos began to suspect that she’d turned to playing in the clubs, where they were certainly systematically cheating her. So he decided to intervene. That night he waited up for her.
When Melissanthi came home at dawn and found her husband sitting in the living room, she went to pieces.
“What are you doing up at this hour? Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked him in surprise.
“I was waiting for you,” he said calmly. “How did the game go?”
“I’m still waiting for my luck to turn,” Melissanthi explained, but something inside warned her that her husband was angry.
“It’s useless waiting for your luck to turn. Where you go, they’re making a fool of you!” Apostolos had raised his voice.
“What do you mean?” Melissanthi shot back angrily.
“While you were playing with women of our circle, you still had some hope of changing your luck. But at the club you’ve started frequenting, they’re robbing you.”
“Do you really think I’m so stupid? That they could actually fool me?”
“Those vultures could steal from anyone. It’s not a question of cleverness, but it’s certainly ridiculous to lose your money just like that. You’re losing a lot, Melissanthi. You’re always at some club, you’ve forgotten your mathematics, and the situation is getting worse by the day. You know that you’ve spent all the money I put in the bank for you? It was a lot of money, Melissanthi. Other people work all their lives and still they can’t make one-tenth of what you’ve wasted at the tables.”
“So what do you want me to do? I understand everything you’re saying, but try to understand that I had bad luck.”
“That’s the classic argument of the card player. Melissanthi, listen to what I’m telling you. You won’t ever win. They all think like that and they all end up deeper and deeper in debt! I’ve seen people destroyed by their passion for cards.”
“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t disregarded and destroyed my passion for you!” Melissanthi shouted furiously.
Apostolos was thunderstruck. “What did you say?” he asked in a voice that came out like a whisper.
“What you heard!” Melissanthi went on. “Or do you think I don’t understand what’s going on? Don’t underestimate my intelligence, Apostolos. In the beginning it suited you that I learned to play cards. We played for hours instead of spending our time in bed like we did before. Later, when I started playing with the others and I was out until late, it was even better for you. Isn’t that true? At least, when I played, I didn’t ask you to make love! Why, Apostolos? Why didn’t we stay the way we started out? What changed?” The girl’s eyes filled with tears.
“You can’t understand, Melissanthi . . . You can’t . . .” he muttered flatly.
“Nor can you! And now that I’ve found something that gives me a little happiness again, you want to deprive me of that too!”
Apostolos stood up. “I’m sorry that you see it like that,” he murmured. “I do whatever I can to make you happy. Since the beginning of our marriage, that’s what I’ve done. If you can’t understand that life isn’t only about sex and can’t be lived in bed, you’re more immature than I thought. Regardless, I can’t allow you to leave us penniless. So from now on, you’ll find in your account only as much as I think is necessary for you not to harm me financially. If you choose to spend it at the card table, you’ll have to do without the luxuries you’ve grown accustomed to.”
Apostolos gave this entire speech without taking a breath. Then he said good night and went up to their room, leaving Melissanthi alone, shaken by waves of impotent rage. She grabbed a vase and hurled it at the wall.
The very next day, Melissanthi realized that her husband wasn’t joking. In her bank account she found only enough to cover three or, with care, four evenings of cards. She had to find more money, however she could. Apostolos had already taken all of her jewelry and locked it in a safe, purportedly because he was afraid of a robbery. In reality he had no desire to see so much gold and so many precious stones being sold off to bet on the cards. Melissanthi was furious but she didn’t dare say a word. She would have to find another way to get cash.
It never occurred to her that she was stealing from her husband. The way she saw it, it was his fault that she was penniless, just as it was his fault that she’d been so lonely and never had a child. Melissanthi would unstitch the seams in his pockets, just enough for a gold coin to fall through. Then she’d take one or two, or sometimes three. He’d notice that they were missing, but seeing the torn pocket, he blamed himself for not taking better care of his clothes. On the other hand, he congratulated himself when he saw that his wife’s bank account wasn’t depleting so quickly now.
He proudly announced his success to Christos the next time he saw him, but his friend only shook his head as if he wasn’t persuaded.
“What? Do you doubt that I’ve managed to rein my wife in and stop her from running to the clubs?” Apostolos asked.
“You may have managed it, but in my experience, card players aren’t easily stopped by that sort of thing. But there’s something else that bothers me. I really wonder why it didn’t cross your mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Melissanthi threw it in your face that the cards are a substitute for the sex she’s been deprived of.”
“But what can I do? The doctor . . .”
“The doctor was right to tell you to slow down. The problem is that you’re not being honest with your wife! If Melissanthi knew that you had a heart problem, she wouldn’t think of pressuring you. And she’d feel neglectful whenever she turns to the cards.”
“Yes, but she’ll see me as an old man.”
“She knows she didn’t marry a young man. You’re forty-something and that’s middle aged. She’s aware of that.”
“The next thing I know, you’ll be calling me an old geezer!” Apostolos protested.
“My friend, you’re not an old geezer but either your age or your heart problem will eventually make you unsuitable for a girl as young as Melissanthi.”
“Where exactly are you going with this?”
“I’m trying to make you understand that if it’s not the cards, it’ll be something else that Melissanthi turns to to fill her life, and that something might hurt you even more than the card playing.”
“You mean she’ll cheat on me. No, s
he won’t. It’s not like I neglect her. We go out often, I take her to the theater, to the movies. Last year we went to London and . . . on the other subject, it may not be every day, but when it happens, I put all I have into it.”
“That ‘when it happens’ is the problem. True, once a day may not have been a rhythm anyone could have kept up forever, but to go from every day to once every two weeks, if that . . . it’s a big step down.”
Melissanthi secretly continued her visits to the club, always careful of the hours she spent playing. When Apostolos returned home each night, she was usually already there. As for the money, she limited her bets. That, combined with her changing luck and the gold coins she took from her husband’s unstitched pockets, helped her mitigate withdrawals from her bank account. For good measure, she also joined the ladies’ card game from time to time, but they didn’t satisfy her anymore, even though she always won.
That Sunday morning, Apostolos knew he’d had thirty gold lira in his pockets. He had counted them the previous night, before he’d hung his jacket on a chair in their bedroom and gone to bed. Melissanthi had gone to the club that night while Apostolos was at a business dinner and was now down to her last penny again. Without thinking, and with her mind caught up in her need for money, she took four whole lira from her husband’s previously unstitched pockets.
When her husband woke up, he put on his bathrobe to go downstairs to drink coffee, but then remembered the liras and took them out of his jacket. He counted them, mostly out of habit, and realized that four were missing. He saw the small hole in the seam of his pocket, but couldn’t find the missing coins anywhere on the bedroom carpet. Since he’d gone nowhere before bed the night before, it didn’t take him long to realize that he’d fallen victim not only to his wife’s stealing, but to her broader deception. The whole time he had thought Melissanthi was confining her card playing to her afternoon games with the women. Now he understood why her bank account balance hadn’t fallen to zero that very first week. The lady had discovered another bank, a more secure one.
The blood that rushed to his head made him breathe faster. He was furious. He would have liked to go downstairs and give her a beating for deceiving him for so long, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good. Nor, of course, could he go on playing the fool.
“What plans do you have for the afternoon?” he casually asked her a little later as they were drinking their coffee.
“Nothing special,” she answered, leafing through a magazine. “Since you’re leaving, I thought I’d go and see Mrs. Stathopoulos.”
“Cards?”
“Just a little game to pass the time. Maybe you don’t want me to go?” she asked innocently. Apostolos ground his teeth with anger but managed to smile.
“Why don’t you go? Bela is an old friend—I sometimes play golf with her husband. It’s a nice house and you’ll have fun. Don’t overdo it.”
“Of course I won’t. You see how well I’m doing now?” Melissanthi said, unaware that she’d been discovered. “I don’t go to the club anymore, only to people’s houses, and not every day.”
“I see that, and I see you don’t withdraw a lot of money from the bank. I’m very happy about it. Bravo!”
Without any shame, Melissanthi smiled sweetly as she accepted her husband’s congratulations, then looked down at her magazine again. She was sure that tonight she’d hit a winning streak. The four lira she had in her pocket gave her more confidence. Tonight she’d win back everything she’d lost in the last months.
Later that day, Melissanthi stepped through the door of the club and almost ran up the stairs. She dashed into the card room, but as soon as she reached her table, the smile froze on her face. In her usual seat was Apostolos, grinning back at her. As soon as she saw him she realized she’d been caught. The smile disappeared from his lips and his eyes shot daggers at her. When he stood up to approach her, Melissanthi was afraid for the first time in her life. She almost stepped backward, but her husband stretched out his hand, took hers, kissed it with gallant politeness, and then made her sit beside him while he continued his game uninterrupted.
Melissanthi thought she would faint. Surely everyone could hear her heart beating so hard it was about to break. Very quickly she realized that something wasn’t going right in the game. Apostolos had an inscrutable expression on his face. He was playing as she’d never seen him play before, with intense concentration, and opposite him her usual opponent, who always won, whatever she did, looked as if he were sitting on hot coals.
She was confused when she heard her husband speak to the man in that calm tone she knew so well, and which didn’t herald anything good: “You have three choices, sir. Either we continue, regardless of the fact that I recognize your marks on the cards; we change packs and play honestly; or we give up the game. Choose!”
The other man threw down his cards irritably and jumped up. Apostolos collected the chips in front of him quite calmly, took his wife gently but firmly by the hand, and headed for the cashier. Melissanthi was still on the verge of fainting and her state got worse when she heard Apostolos speak again.
“I’m sure all of you understand that I could have called the police, but I’m not a do-gooder who wants to save the rest of you. It’s enough for me that you will not accept my wife here again. I imagine I make myself understood.”
“Certainly, Mr. Fatouras,” his erstwhile opponent managed to whisper, and Apostolos smiled sarcastically.
They went out silently into the street. More roughly than she’d ever known him to, Apostolos pushed her into the car and drove them home. Inside she was boiling with anger, but she didn’t dare say anything so long as her husband was at the wheel driving madly like the wind. When they went into the living room, she burst out uncontrollably.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did tonight!” she shouted. “You humiliated me! How dare you?”
“You dare to say that to me after you’ve been stealing from me for months? I trusted you, and right under my nose you stole lira from my pockets that supposedly had holes in them.”
Realizing that Apostolos had found out her game, Melissanthi froze in her place.
“You don’t have anything to say?” he went on. “Did you think you could go on making a fool of me indefinitely without being caught? How could you have told me so many lies all this time? How could you steal from your own husband?”
Melissanthi couldn’t get a word out. For the first time she understood what she’d done and she was overwhelmed with shame. Her actions rose up in front of her in their true dimensions, and they didn’t warrant any excuse.
“And to think I’d warned you that they’d cheat you in there,” Apostolos added. “Did you pay any attention? Did you think that after a few months in a club they’d turned you into an expert? Do you realize how much you’ve been made a fool of?”
As long as Melissanthi stayed silent, he grew angrier and angrier. He approached her and grabbed her by the arm.
“Have you nothing to say?” he shouted and shook her roughly.
Her hair, loose as he always liked, hung over her face. Her breasts protruded provocatively from the evening dress she wore, and her lips were half-open. Her breath, which came out short and fast, scorched his face. He threw her to the carpet and fell on her furiously. For a second Melissanthi was shocked, then she responded. Her body hungrily accepted his rough caresses and hard kisses and reciprocated with the same intensity. She tore at his clothes and couldn’t restrain her cries of joy as she welcomed her man, the man she had met so long ago, not the old man whose kisses and embrace had been reduced to a lukewarm drizzle, incapable of quenching her body that burned with desire.
Their climax left them breathless. Melissanthi looked at him and realized how much she’d missed this side of Apostolos. She was ready to begin again, but the endless months that had passed with sex in installments frightened her. Naked as she was, she got up and walked to the bedroom, then got straight into the bath. She was startled
when she realized Apostolos intended to join her, and she could hardly believe her luck when he grabbed her again under the hot water.
If this whole episode had managed to awaken her husband’s former sexual appetite, Melissanthi was content. After that evening, Apostolos became the lover that she’d once worshipped. For his part, he was surprised himself that his body was responding again to the charms of his wife, while his heart didn’t demonstrate any disturbing symptoms. Even the doctor admitted that he didn’t understand what was going on. Apostolos let himself go back to living the sex life he’d previously had with his eager wife. He cut his work hours, coming home early each day, and they spent their evenings together like they used to. On the weekends the two of them went on trips to the country. On one of these they even decided to buy a country house in Lagonisi.
Melissanthi was so crazy about the little villa that Apostolos bought it for her without a second thought. It was in a deserted spot, a long way from the sea, but with a wonderful view of the water, and it had big verandahs so that even from far away, they could admire the endless blue. Apostolos was impatient for it to be ready, dreaming of the weekends they would spend there, protected by the isolation of the house, making love all day. The bad days behind them seemed almost unreal.
As suddenly as they’d begun, however, so they returned. Apostolos’s months-long burst of sexual enthusiasm turned out to be his swan song. His heart condition got worse and his doctor told him unequivocally that he’d have to be very careful if he wanted to live. Melissanthi, still completely ignorant of her husband’s condition, didn’t know what to think when he began making ridiculous excuses to avoid her, even changing rooms to leave her all alone in their enormous bed. Whatever efforts she made to attract him were in vain.
The house in Lagonisi was abandoned until Melissanthi began to go there alone and spend endless hours walking by the sea or reading on the big verandah. She learned to drive and acquired a car for her trips. During her time alone, she racked her brains trying to understand what had made her relationship with her husband turn colder than ever before. Certainly he was polite to her, but he rarely visited the room that had become only hers, and when he did, it was as if he did so out of duty, without any intensity. Finally, she began to find excuses to avoid him herself. One time it was a headache, one time her period. She was hurt when she realized that Apostolos seemed relieved that he wasn’t obliged to come near her, but eventually she was indifferent. It was as if her body, which had longed for love as if it were oxygen, had frozen. All her desires froze with it.