The Nifi

by Linda Fagioli-Katsiotas

  And she smiled.

  CHAPTER 14

  Tomas had ordered his younger brother to send Nikos back from Athens. There was a farm that needed to be worked and so Chevi would have her oldest child home in Margariti again. With no other choice, Nikos returned but he would never be able to reconcile with the fact that the man who had abandoned them for two years, a person he saw as an irresponsible nitwit, was able to make such a sweeping decision that others adhered to. That fact, coupled with the increase in the boy’s height, created a steely stubbornness between them, like two rams with locked horns. And Chevi watched helplessly as her son spent a few months in Margariti and then returned alone to Athens—a boy of fourteen. He would take the bus back once in a while and give her some money that he had earned from working at odd jobs and then he would disappear, presumably back to Athens.

  In fact, Nikos would leave Margariti and head to the neighboring villages near the sea with some spending money he had left for himself. At fourteen, he had reached the physical height and build that he would carry to adulthood and that fact aided him in his search for fun as he and the friends he met along the way spent time entertaining the young female tourists, drinking and dancing in the discos at night, camping on the beach, and hanging around the cafenios in the daytime until the money was gone—except for the price of a bus ticket to Athens. It was on that directionless path that Nikos spent his young years, until mandatory military service at the age of nineteen.

  During Nikos’ frequent absences, Tomas focused his fury on his wife, his daughters and his younger son. But the other children shared their older brother’s anger and argued with their father often. After losing her chance for school in Athens, Vaso had talked to Eftihia of ways they could get into nursing school. As their departure from the Parga school approached, they looked into possibilities for applying to a nursing program. But they learned that they would need their father’s permission and Tomas was not going to give up his daughters, not to school, not to marriage.

  Vaso was able to get a job in the purse maker's shop in Margariti, but when she heard of the factory jobs in Plateria, just a short bus ride away, she applied for herself and her sisters. Anastasia would soon finish in the Parga school and at the age of sixteen begin cleaning hotels, but Eftihia would join Vaso on the twenty minute bus ride each morning when their applications were accepted to the factory, and they would help their mother with the household expenses bringing some financial relief that Tomas would also enjoy—much the way the pot is watered with the flower.

  In 1981, Vaso would hear of a factory job in Filiates, an hour bus ride from Margariti. She would apply for herself and her sisters.

  “Filiates?!” Tomas was livid, "I won’t let you go!”

  “We’re not asking you,” Vaso remained calm.

  “I won’t allow it. If I have to tie you up and beat you. . .”

  He had never hit his daughters and Vaso knew he was clutching in desperation to any threat that might intimidate them into staying, but they found strength in their three-ness.

  “If you touch us, I will go to the police and have you arrested,”

  Tomas was silenced. Defeated.

  The three sisters would move to Filiates and live in an apartment together and each would fall in love and marry. None would ever come back to live in the village. But when the police officer in the black car came to Margariti, they were all still attending school in Parga.

  The black car rumbled to a stop at the end of the driveway and Chevi came slowly down the stone steps, holding the stone wall of the house for support, hardly able to breathe. Her imagination conjured up horror at the sight of the police officer walking up the dirt path to the house. There had been no word from Nikos since the letter six months before. She made it to the bottom step as the stranger walked into the courtyard.

  “Is this the home of Nikolaos Katsiotas?” he asked without a proper greeting, his stern brow set in a scowl as he looked around the yard.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am here to serve a subpoena on behalf of Olympic Shipping.”

  He loomed over the small woman and extended his hand.

  “What do you want?” She kept her hands at her side.

  “I want to speak to Nikolaos.”

  “He’s not here.”

  The stranger pulled some papers from a folder. “This paper shows that Olympic Shipping is suing . . .” He hesitated, pulled some glasses from his shirt pocket and held the paper up. “Nikolaos Katsiotas to recover the fine they paid to, uh . . . the U.S. office of immigration when he abandoned his post as third engineer on the Olympic Freedom, on February 20, 1978, in Brooklyn, New York.”

  “Huh?” Chevi’s quizzical look broke the business-like demeanor of the stranger just as Miti walked up the dirt path—the black car having produced much conjecture among the neighbors.

  “Chevi! Good morning.” His smile further thawed the business exterior of the police officer and the two men talked amiably for a while. Then the stranger turned and left Miti holding the paper that had been presented to Chevi.

  Miti explained the situation to Chevi. Then he looked at the paper and whistled.

  “Whew, they want two thousand dollars from him. If he tries to come back, they’ll probably stop him at the airport.” Two thousand dollars which translated to seven hundred thousand drachmas may as well have been a million. It was more money than any of them had, but Chevi knew that her son was in America, a place where gold coins laid in the street and one only needed to bend down to retrieve them.

  This was the longest she had been separated from her son. It was a common occurrence for the mothers of Margariti to have their sons live and work in Germany, and then see them on holidays or summers, but America . . . would she ever see him again?

  Chevi put her hand to her heart. She felt pain deep within, a pain that brought longing, a pain that narrowed her throat, making it hard to swallow. Why hadn't he contacted anyone?

  "I want to call him," she said.

  She knew Miti had a phone in his house.

  "Do you know the number?" Miti asked.

  “It’s in New York. We’ll call New York . . . the post office. Surely they’ll know where he is, or they’ll give him a message when they see him.”

  Miti thought to explain it to her, but then said, “What did his letter tell you. Was there no phone number? We need a number, Chevi”

  She shook her head slowly, “he’s with Tomas’ cousins. They are in New York. That’s all I know.”

  “Go get the letter. Let me look at it.” Miti knew that Chevi would not have been able to read it, so maybe Tomas had missed something.

  Chevi produced the letter from her apron pocket and Miti read its short contents.

  “Hmm . . . no phone number, but he is working at a restaurant.”

  Chevi nodded. She knew that information. What she didn't know was that on the February afternoon that the police officer had mentioned, her son had stood with his shipmate, Spyros, watching from the deck as the ship glided gracefully into Hudson Bay, approaching the Brooklyn harbor. Ahead, the Manhattan skyline jutted up from the water’s surface like blocks of glistening golden in the setting sunlight and to the left, a massive Statue of Liberty stood silhouetted against the violet horizon. And Spyros, the adrenaline shooting into his bloodstream and clogging the pathways to the part of his brain that plans ahead, decided at that moment that he would stay there—in New York—and that he would dock with the Olympic Freedom for the last time before embarking on the road to his fortune in America! But he lacked the courage to do it alone or to discuss his idea with his friend, Nikos.

  The two young men were among the thousands of young Greeks of that era who became seamen in order to make a viable living. The avenues for village boys such as themselves were few, and the shipping industry offered the healthy able-bodied ones an escape from the monotony of the village, while at the same time providing a much needed income for their families. There was also
the underlying expectation of seeing the world, when mostly they would only see the world of harbors and ports. But it was an exit and they used it as their first step in escaping the poverty of the village.

  Upon their arrival in New York, the men had been at sea for two months straight. Nikos would get his shore pass from the immigration officer who would come on board after they docked and would deem him to be low risk for jumping ship. He would get his spending money for the nightclub, from the second captain. At the end of his service with that company, it would be deducted from his pay, an amount that would be calculated based on the contract he had signed and the sum left after half was sent home to Margariti each month.

  When he had returned from his first experience at sea, a few years before, he had changed the automatic pay deductions, which had been his entire pay—every penny of it sent home to Margariti each month. He wished there were a way to get it to his mother, directly, but like all else in her world, it had to pass through Tomas first. He could read and write so he knew what to do with letters from the postmaster. Nikos had gone sixteen month without shore leave, without any pay for himself, eating only the food provided and buying the occasion carton of cigarettes. He had his entire pay sent to his mother. But in that fourteen months Chevi had seen none of it! Never even knew it had been sent and Nikos had returned to his home to see it in the same squalor he had left. And if his father had been grateful for that sudden monthly windfall, he had never expressed it.

  So on his following trip, he had taken his full pay, no deductions to be sent home. He would return to Margariti with a lump sum and hand it to his mother. But that ship’s route between South America and Europe had brought him to so many beautiful ports where he had enjoyed the nightlife and culture of each—so much so, that when it came time to return to Margariti, he had nothing to bring his mother. He spent a week in the village, acutely aware that flat-broke was how his father had returned from Germany, and then he boarded the bus to Athens. Destination: the port of Piraeus. It was a place that offered consistency, where one could reliably find a new ship and even get an advance on one’s pay. That is where he signed away his freedom for nine months with a new contract on a new ship.

  So with those two failed attempts at trying to get some money to Chevi, he decided to send half his pay back to Margariti and he hoped some would make it to his mother. And it did—in small drips, but it was enough for her to pay for bread and items at the market.

  Nikos stood with his friend on the deck, surveying the New York skyline. Spyros stood silently as The Olympic Freedom slid toward the port under the watchful eyes of Lady Liberty. Then he turned and looked at Nikos.

  “Let’s get a shore pass.”

  A few hours later he was nudging Nikos toward the bow.

  “Hurry up, I want to get to the club before midnight.”

  They had their dollars as they descended down the gangplank in Brooklyn, New York on that February night in 1978. The icy air hit their faces as the two men hailed a cab.

  Greek seamen knew they could find a little piece of home in every seaport, tucked close to shore. They were always expected by the Greek restaurateurs, bouzouki nightclub owners, Greek food shops, and welcoming women. Nikos had been to ports in the U.S. several times but this was his first stop in New York.

  “Where to?” The taxi driver turned to the two men and though none of the three quite understood the other’s broken English, they knew the routine and Spyros needed only to say the name of the Greek nightclub where they would spend the hours drinking Chivas Regal and listening to bouzouki.

  Around two in the morning, they headed back into the unfamiliar cold to return to the ship. As they approached the harbor, Spyros slowed his pace.

  “Listen Nikos,” He looked at his friend sheepishly, “the ship is gone.”

  Nikos stopped walking. “The ship leaves at five. What are you talking about?”

  “No,” Spyros looked down at the sidewalk, kicked a few pebbles with his foot, and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “It left at one. The captain changed the time.” His words were turned to frosty wisps of air as he spoke.

  “What?” Standing in the frozen grayness of the streetlights, within the fog of too much scotch, Nikos wasn’t quite sure what his friend was saying.

  “Man, what are you talking about? We missed it? Okay then.” He fished in his wallet for the number to call the ship as he looked around for a telephone booth. “I’ll call. It’s okay.”

  The men needed only to call the ship and airline tickets would be waiting for them at the nearest airport to bring them to the next port, which on that night would have been somewhere in Texas. It sometimes happened that ships were missed.

  “No wait.” Spyros put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I have a cousin here. We can stay with him. I have his address.”

  “Stay? Here?” Nikos looked toward the docks. He could see flashes of the black water reflecting the night sky from between the port buildings.

  The sea.

  It promised timelessness—without beginning or end. Though the navigators change as the centuries pass, the sea stays constant, always there. Reliable. Something Nikos yearned for. As a sailor, his movement was dictated by his vessel, its body submerged in those waters of time. He could walk from stern to bow, but the destination was set by the compass whose direction was well defined—the metal tip pointing to its course with precision—reliability.

  But if one should move that metal tip ever so slightly, only a micro-millimeter to the right or left, the direction would change. And it would not be a significant change over the first few meters, but it would become monumental over time as the angle of trajectory widened with every movement forward. And as time passed with the rolling of each wave, the distance from the original intended destination would be immense—impossible to breach in the time allotted for the journey.

  Spyros sensed his friend’s uncertainly and repeated, “We'll go to my cousin's. He has a house. We can stay with him.” And before Nikos could answer, he felt his friend’s hand on his shoulder, “It’s America, Nikos . . . New York!” And no further explanation was necessary.

  So Nikos decided to stay and see America. And with that decision, the direction of his journey changed ever so slightly.

  Spyros took his cousin’s address from his wallet. The men showed it to some stray patrons leaving the Greek nightclubs and armed with that new direction they headed to the train.

  It was in a place called Astoria, Queens which looked much like Brooklyn. The train took them into the sky above the roads. There were many signs written in Greek; Greek flags hung from storefronts and apartment balconies. The train doors opened and closed at different corners on the elevated track, and the passengers were speaking Greek. As the two young men climbed the stairs to a second floor apartment, the familiar smells of oregano and rosemary wafted from the dark corners of the hallway.

  This was America?

  Spyros’ cousin, eyes swollen with sleep, opened the door to his house and the two young men walked into a small studio apartment, the mattress of an unmade bed inches from the doorway. There was a small closet-sized galley kitchen with dishes piled in the sink and boxes of food piled on the small square surface of a counter. A door next to the waist-tall refrigerator was pulled opened and a woman emerged from the bathroom. Spyros’ cousin introduced his girlfriend. She did not speak Greek.

  “Do you know anyone in New York?” the cousin asked Nikos. It was not an invitation to stay.

  Nikos remembered a phone number his father had given him, a cousin—but they had never met. He pulled it from his wallet. The cousin took the paper, turned to his girlfriend and said a few words. She gave him a few coins and he disappeared out the door, returning a few minutes later with news for Nikos.

  “Someone is coming to get you. Here, have a seat.” Then he turned to his girlfriend and rattled off more words of which Nikos only understood, “coffee.”

  A small table was pulled t
o the bed and the three sat awkwardly together on the edge of the mattress as the girlfriend tinkered in the kitchen a few inches away.

  After some time, there was a knock on the door and the cousin greeted the someone who was there to bring Nikos to his cousin. Spyros quickly wrote his own cousin’s address on a small scrap of paper torn from a napkin and his family’s phone number in Greece, on the island of Corfu. His smile was tired.

  “Contact me as soon as you can,” he said, “we’ll go out to bouzouki.” Then he kissed Nikos on both cheeks.

  The two men never saw each other again.

  Nikos left with the person who had come for him. He was brought to an apartment close by and told that his cousin was coming to get him but it would take a little time.

  Inside the apartment, he was heartily greeted by a group of Greek men playing cards, a pile of dollars in the middle of the table, their heads clouded by smoke. One of the players had a fat cigar hanging between his lips. He looked up at the young Greek and laughed.

  “You’re in America boy!” He pointed to the money. “Here you can have all the money you want! Women? . . . You want women? You can have all of those you want too!” He let out another long hearty laugh and the others joined him. And Nikos decided he would stay a little while and see what it was all about.

  His cousin finally arrived, Cousin Nikos—they had the same name—and Cousin Nikos drove him away from the city. The buildings grew smaller in the square mirror on the side of the car as they drove at a high speed on an empty highway toward the light that was just beginning to turn the sky a subdued pink.

  And the direction of the compass needle was reset.

  His cousin lived in a big house in a town called, Hicksville. His wife greeted Nikos warmly and a small boy peeked shyly from behind her. Nikos slept until midday and then his cousin brought him to his restaurant—a diner, thirty minutes away.