The House by the River

by Lena Manta

  Melissanthi closed herself off from everything, and only when she found her husband offering her a pretty bracelet for her birthday did she realize she was thirty years old. Panicked, she asked herself how the years had tricked her, passing by without her being aware of them. She felt her loneliness weighing her down more than ever. For the first time, after so long, images from the past came into her mind, and she wondered how her family was.

  She had regular news from her mother. She had learned about her sisters’ marriages and Polyxeni’s shocking decision to secretly leave the village. But she avoided regular communication. Her letters were almost telegraphic and she was careful only to refer to the good things in her life, emphasizing how happy she was. As she looked at the sea, her memory cast her back to her village, and her old self was awakened. She became the young girl again with the heavy braid down her back who climbed like the family goats on the mountainside and looked out over the sea, just like she did now. Except that then she longed to leave for a life she thought was ideal. Now, after all these years had passed, she realized that in the end it wasn’t.

  A light wind was blowing, lifting her hair, and she breathed deeply the smell that came straight from her past. The sea faded before her eyes and the river appeared with its green reflections. Her house: the house by the river. There was no point asking why her life had gone so badly. What had her mother said? “Life is like the river that flows in front of us. It carries you easily with it and pulls you wherever it’s going. And a river doesn’t come back. If it takes you away, you can’t come back . . .”

  That’s what had happened. The river had pulled her away. She was a little ashamed of herself. She had married a man who’d offered her everything and now couldn’t offer her anything more. She’d behaved like a spoiled child. Perhaps if they’d had a child. At least then there’d be something to fill her life. But after so many years, she must give up the idea. And yet, she rebelled against this. Every woman has the right to motherhood, she thought. Her own childhood home, always full of her and her sisters’ voices and teasing, came back into her mind. How happy her mother seemed when she looked at them, even when they quarreled about some chore they were trying to avoid or for some other silly reason. How sweetly she smiled when she held one of her children in her arms. But Melissanthi herself had never felt like that. Apostolos had given her everything, but he had deprived her of the most important thing. He’d bought a beautiful doll for himself and showered it with gifts and jewelry; he’d used it for as long as he could, then left it all alone.

  For the first time Melissanthi felt as if old age was like an illness you could catch, and she was afraid that she would soon look like an old woman, faded and full of bitterness because of the empty life ahead of her. She was thirty years old and living alone in a huge house with a man who grew older every day and was incapable of giving her what her body and soul longed for: sex and a child. What if she were to leave? She quickly banished the thought. Where would she go? Certainly not back to the village. Whatever her mother had said, Melissanthi knew she wouldn’t be able to bear even a week there, not after the life she’d got used to. So there was no way out.

  Angelos Flerianos was what his name suggested: an angel. At thirty-two he’d become very much in demand in the smart circles of Athens, not just for his immaculate good looks, but for his impressive manners. His courtesies were carefully expressed so that they didn’t seem like simple flattery. All in all he was the perfect candidate for a husband for many young ladies, and as a lover for many of their mothers. He had just returned from abroad where he’d completed his studies, and everyone was saying that in addition to his good looks, he was very clever. He had studied civil engineering and had worked for some years in Italy. His love for his country and for his parents, who had insisted on his returning home, were the two basic reasons why he’d arrived in the salons of Athens.

  The ship owner Seremetis’s party celebrating Greece’s Carnival season was the social event of the year, especially since he invited half of Athens. That night Melissanthi decided to dress up as the queen of Egypt. Attired in a suitable costume that outlined her slim silhouette, with her hair hidden under a dark wig and with striking makeup like Cleopatra, she was unrecognizable and dazzling. Apostolos hardly seemed like her companion, even standing beside her, dressed as Mark Antony.

  “They used to be a striking couple,” one of the partygoers observed. “But Apostolos looks like her father now!”

  “It’s a pity, the way he ended up,” said another.

  “I’ve heard he has a problem with his heart,” said a third person.

  “Ah, that explains why he’s gone downhill so fast!” added her companion.

  Similar comments were repeated in various clusters of people that night, although the couple had no idea. Melissanthi chatted with Christos’s wife, Nitsa, a tired forty-five-year-old who’d had the unfortunate idea of dressing as a revolutionary, while Apostolos chatted with Christos, who was dressed as a priest, a costume that really suited him. Melissanthi smiled politely at the woman, who was making her dizzy talking about a problem she’d had with her kidney, while she silently cursed the fact that they’d accepted Seremetis’s invitation. Lately she was more and more bored at parties, where they mixed only with people of Apostolos’s age. The young couples avoided them, and she didn’t blame them—the young men had very little to say to her husband, and what’s more they liked to dance for hours and have a good time. Apostolos avoided even dancing now. He complained that his feet hurt, that he didn’t like the modern dances, that the loud music irritated him, and that he preferred to sit chatting in one of the drawing rooms. Beside him, Melissanthi usually kept time with her feet and looked on nostalgically at the other couples as they spun around the floor.

  Angelos was bored with Seremetis’s party, as well, although he was too polite to show it. He had accepted this invitation, like the previous ones, only after his mother had insisted. He had to admit that she was right to push him: he’d already begun to get work building villas for many of the people whom he’d met at these tedious affairs. Now he found himself dressed as a Roman centurion in a robe that suffocated him, beside an elderly woman, the wife of some industrialist who had entrusted him with the plans for a single-story house in Kifissia. Angelos would have loved to escape from the woman’s endless chatter but he couldn’t see a way out, so he just smiled politely, answering her questions with feigned interest, while his gaze wandered freely around the room.

  His eyes opened wide in surprise when they fell on perhaps the most beautiful woman in the crowd, and from that moment he couldn’t stop staring at her. She was sitting next to a woman dressed as a revolutionary and appeared to be following everything she said. But, precisely because he was in the same situation, he could see that the beautiful woman was bored. She was slowly sipping her drink and Angelos shivered at the sight of her lips resting on the glass. His heart raced as he felt uncontrollable desire to approach her, to hear her voice, to meet her eyes. He noticed the two older men who made up the group. One of them must surely be her father.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Davaris,” he said, interrupting the flow of the old woman’s conversation. “Do you know who that woman is dressed as Cleopatra? I feel as if I know her, but right now I don’t remember where from.”

  Mrs. Davaris looked where Angelos was pointing and her face lit up. “But of course! Certainly I know. It’s Melissanthi Fatouras, the wife of Apostolos Fatouras, the tobacco merchant. He’s sitting next to her, dressed as Antony. But where do you know them from, Angelos, my boy?”

  “I don’t know her. I made a mistake. I took her for a girl I studied with in Italy. With these costumes, you know, it’s easy to get mixed up.”

  “I said the same myself,” murmured Mrs. Davaris, and she continued her chatter where she had left off, leaving Angelos to his thoughts.

  So, she’s the wife of the man I took to be her father. Now Angelos looked at her with renewed interest. This creat
ure was unbelievably beautiful. It was as if unseen strings were pulling him toward her.

  Melissanthi felt as if it wouldn’t take much for her to start crying from hopelessness. If she had to listen for another moment to the mishaps of Nitsa’s kidneys, she would become hysterical. She desperately looked around her like someone drowning in the middle of the ocean, but there was no help in sight.

  “Excuse me . . .”

  A polite voice was addressing her husband. A Roman centurion—or perhaps it was an ancient god. Someone sculpted with so much beauty couldn’t be earthly. Apostolos turned to the young man who now saluted him in Roman fashion and smiled.

  “Hail Caesar!” he said to Apostolos and Apostolos returned his greeting.

  “Hail, valiant fellow!” he answered.

  The young man introduced himself. “I’m Angelos Flerianos.”

  “Flerianos?” Apostolos repeated. “Are you related to Kostas Flerianos, the lawyer?”

  “He’s my father, Mr. . . .”

  “Fatouras, Apostolos Fatouras.”

  Introductions followed all around. Only for a moment did Angelos seem to lose his composure, when he held Melissanthi’s hand in his. Her white fingers seemed to him like precious porcelain and when he placed a formal kiss on the back of her hand, he felt as if he was paying homage to something ethereal. Her perfume enveloped him like a silk cloak, and he breathed it in deeply. Her eyes, which were looking at him with interest, seemed to him like shining stones that had the power to stop his heart but at the same time to give him life. He forced himself to take part in some formal and meaningless conversation before he dared to ask the question that had been burning on his lips.

  “Mark Antony, could I dare to take your Cleopatra for just one dance?” he asked Apostolos.

  Melissanthi held her breath and was surprised when she heard her husband reply cheerfully: “Young man, I give you permission, on the condition that you protect her, if necessary, with your life!”

  “I swear to you,” Angelos answered in the same tone, and offered his arm to Melissanthi, who felt her legs trembling.

  She followed him onto the floor. The orchestra played a splendid tango and Angelos took her in his arms with such formality that no one could have imagined that his whole body had caught fire from her touch. They whirled to the sounds of the musicians but Melissanthi didn’t dare raise her eyes to look at him. She was afraid of herself and of the shiver that ran down her back. Angelos held his body at the prescribed distance from hers, but the hand that rested on her back seemed to be made of molten iron. It scorched her, making her burn all over. Her cheeks, she realized, were bright red, but inside herself she begged the music not to end.

  And Angelos didn’t feel anything less. Her perfume clung to him, driving him crazy; it made him feel as he’d never felt before. He wanted to squeeze her in his arms and take her somewhere where he could have her to himself, where he could find out everything about her, every secret thought, every hidden desire. He wanted them to be far away in a paradise made especially for them, where her body would grant him eternal life and at the same time torment him.

  As soon as the dance was finished, he blew her a formal kiss and led her back to her husband. He politely said good night to them both, although he couldn’t fully conceal the love that burned in his eyes for this woman who had come so unexpectedly into his life. He got into his car, unsure of where he was going, and drove almost blindly, as he kept seeing her image in front of him and the small space around him had filled with her perfume. When he got home a short time later, he lay down on his bed, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and let himself relive, minute by minute, their dance. Without a second thought he decided that she would be his—otherwise he would literally go mad.

  Melissanthi couldn’t wait to leave the party, and blessed her husband when he announced he was tired and took her home. She lay down naked on the bed, her body burning all over, and replayed in her mind, minute by minute, the dance. She felt as if, without exchanging even one word, she and Angelos had said everything. She knew that it was one of those rare instances when two people meet their other half and no words are needed to explain it. She’d spent so many months trying to persuade herself that love was in the past for her, but it had taken only a moment to turn everything upside down. A single dance had shown her that she’d fallen into a state of numbness incompatible with her age and her sexual desires. She had no inhibitions; no inner alarm sounded, because her whole being had been shaken by the appearance of Angelos and the feelings he aroused in her. She would face the consequences of this desire, whatever they cost. She knew from the first moment that it wouldn’t be forever and that it would have to happen with the utmost secrecy and discretion. She owed her husband that much—and more. She knew that she shouldn’t abandon him or deceive him like this, but her body and heart didn’t recognize any obligation. Angelos would be hers; otherwise she’d go mad.

  Neither of them had said anything about their next meeting. They hadn’t planned it, but, as if they had, Angelos and Melissanthi set out on the same day, at the same moment, for the same destination: Lagonisi. The day after the dance, Melissanthi told Apostolos that she needed to get away for a little while and would spend two or three days at their country house. Her husband wasn’t surprised. He knew that his wife especially loved that house and he smiled when he saw her loading books from his library into her luggage.

  “Apart from all those books,” he said, “take some warm clothes with you. It’s very cold.”

  “I don’t expect to go out of the house much,” Melissanthi answered.

  “Why don’t you take Daphne with you to look after you?” he suggested.

  “I can do without her,” Melissanthi was quick to answer. “I’m going there to relax. If I’ve got Daphne asking me every hour what I want to eat or polishing the silverware, it’ll get on my nerves.”

  It was true that she didn’t want anyone with her, and she rarely brought along one of the girls who worked in the house. She preferred to look after everything herself. She could be a housewife for a few days, even though she’d almost forgotten what that entails, just as she’d forgotten what it was like to be a woman.

  The day after the dance Angelos got into his car without knowing where he wanted to go. He didn’t understand how he’d ended up in Lagonisi. He’d never visited the area. But he found himself walking on the shore, throwing stones in the sea, with the leaden sky above his head and a frozen wind in his face.

  As soon as Melissanthi arrived at the house, she dropped off everything, then got back in her car and drove toward the beach, despite the fact that it looked like rain. When she saw Angelos coming toward her on the sand, throwing stones into the sea, she froze on the spot, certain that he hadn’t yet sensed her presence.

  Angelos stopped suddenly in front of the vision that played out before him. It had to be a vision, because it couldn’t possibly be her. He stood there, gazing. Without the heavy makeup she wore as Cleopatra, and with her long hair blowing in the wind like silk ribbons around her lovely face, she looked even more magical.

  As their eyes met—his as blue as the sea and hers the color of wine and honey—the young couple felt drunk with enchantment. A hazy smile lit up her ethereal face, a smile only for him, and he felt his heart stop at the sight. His hands, sure and firm, grabbed ahold hers, which had automatically reached out to meet him.

  “If this is a dream, I’d rather not wake up,” he told her simply and Melissanthi smiled.

  “Two people can’t see the same dream at the same time!” she answered. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was suffocating in my house,” he said. “I went out to get some air and I don’t know how, but I found myself here. You?”

  “I have a house here. I came for a few days,” she answered, shivering at the coincidence. All the fates were on their side.

  “And Mr. Fatouras? Didn’t he come with you?”

  “He couldn’t leave his work.” />
  She stopped speaking and they looked at each other as they both silently asked themselves why they were wasting time talking pleasantries. Then, like kindred spirits, they began walking side by side on the deserted beach.

  “I want to know everything about you,” Angelos declared.

  In a low voice, Melissanthi began telling him about her life. She didn’t hide anything from him or deny any responsibility for mistakes she’d made. She was honest about the motives that had led her to marry Apostolos, and didn’t cast any more blame on him for the state of their marriage than was appropriate.

  “Do you love him?” Angelos asked, as soon as she’d finished.

  Before answering, Melissanthi stopped and looked at him. “If you’re asking me if I’d leave him, I have to tell you that I’m grateful to Apostolos for all that he’s given me, and I’ll never abandon him, whatever happens, whatever the cost is to me,” she answered.

  “I understand, even if that wasn’t the purpose of my question.”

  “I don’t love him anymore—at least not in the way that a woman should love the man she married. I feel for him, though, and I will never hurt him.”

  “You’re an honorable person, Melissanthi, and I admire that.”

  “I wouldn’t say that what I’m doing now is honorable, nor what I’ve been feeling about you since I met you yesterday. You and I know where it will lead.”