The Messenger of Athens

by Anne Zouroudi

  He had been a bastard, but not from the first day; from the eighth. Day eight of their marriage, early in the morning. Cigarettes and ashtray on the table. Coffee on the stove. It was her mother’s doing, her mother’s parsimony. Economia. ‘Use half a spoon of coffee in the pot, Elpida,’ she had said. ‘Then the packet will last twice as long.’ He had told her for a week to make the coffee stronger. She had resisted, because that was what her mother had told her to do. She served his coffee. He tasted it, and replaced the cup in its saucer. Then, slowly standing, he had pulled on his jacket, calmly lit a cigarette, put his cigarettes in his pocket and, with the back of his hand, swiped everything, all the new wedding-day gift china laid for breakfast, off the table to the floor. She remembered the crash of china shattered, the fast drip of coffee from table to floor, the bang of the door as he slammed it behind him. She had been terrified he would never come back. She had wept as she cleared up the mess, and cried all morning before Eleni found her.

  But when she told her the story, her mother had laughed.

  ‘Kori mou,’ she had said, ‘all men are like that. Your duty is to do things his way. Take care, or he’ll be running home to his mother, and think of your shame then.’

  The meals she had prepared for his lunch and dinner that day had congealed and been scraped into the chicken scraps hours before he came home. He wouldn’t speak to her because there was nothing to eat. She had made him an omelette – he had sat at the table and watched her do it – and when she put it in front of him, he had stood up and, smiling, slipped it into the trash.

  Now, consciousness was pricking. She felt cheated, conned, because she had kept her half of a deal which was bringing her no return. She had made a bad bargain. He was remote, preoccupied, disinterested. Uncaring.

  Eleni took a pair of Theo’s trousers from the basket.

  ‘Getting married is something women do,’ she said. ‘They’ve always done it.’

  ‘But why have they?’ asked Elpida. ‘The men don’t love us. They don’t think much of us at all.’

  He didn’t love her. As she spoke the words, she knew them to be true.

  Her mother laughed.

  ‘No, sweetheart,’ she said, ‘they don’t love us. Marriage isn’t about love, or romance. Marriage is about security, and family, and having someone to provide for you. But mostly, it’s about children. That’s why women marry. Because then our men give us the greatest gift any woman can have, kori mou. They give us our babies. That’s where we get our love from, sweetheart, and our respect – from them. Nothing else matters. Women will put up with anything, for the sake of the children.’

  Thirteen

  Andreas had gone without saying when he would return. There had been no kiss goodbye, or fond waving from the quayside, just a door quietly closed and footsteps fading in the road outside. On her pillow, he left a note. I am giving you time to think, it read. I love you. Your husband, Andreas. As if she wouldn’t remember who he was.

  Twelve days slipped by. At first, his absence made her glad; it freed her to obsess, and indulge in her compulsions. But the days were long, and lonely, and the night noises – the scrabbling of vermin, the sighing of old timbers, the whisperings and rustlings in leaves and grass – affected her in a way they never had before.

  Then, it began to rain. It rained heavily, and constantly, throughout the night; when morning came, the rain persisted, falling steadily from heavy clouds so low they hid the mountain peaks. The day was melancholy, tedious, and cold; she went nowhere, spoke to no one. Evening came early, and still the rain was falling. Irini made hot soup, and as she spooned thin noodles from the bowl, she thought of Andreas, and wondered where he was.

  The room was dark, lit only by the trembling shadows cast by the television. The game-show host offered insincere condolences to his contestant, and with the onset of the signature music, the captions rolled. Beneath the rain on the roof tiles and the spattering of water leaking from the gutter, the street door opened quietly. The audience was still applauding, and as the game-show host, waving, smiling, bid Irini a very good night, an unheard figure crossed the kitchen and stood for a moment, watching her. Next, said the announcer, would come the news, followed by the weather for farmers.

  ‘Irini.’

  His voice was altered, hoarse, and low, but she knew it; still, she was so badly startled her heart began to race. She turned to him. He made a ghastly apparition. His rain-soaked clothes clung to his limbs like leeches; his face was luminous in its pallor, and the blue phosphorescence of the television lit only its bones, so its cavities were black as the grim sockets of a skull.

  Andreas . . .

  It was the strange half-light, and the shock of being surprised that created the illusion; but for a moment, she believed it was his spirit who stood before her.

  He’s drowned himself, she thought. Now he’s come to take me with him.

  But the smell this ghostly Andreas brought with him was familiar. It was of fish, and stale tobacco – and the sour, acrid stink of vomit.

  ‘Is that you, Andreas?’ she asked. She was unsure. ‘Turn on the light, for God’s sake.’

  The figure reached out with a slow hand and pressed the switch. In better light, his face was grey. To warm himself, he held his arms hugged to his body, but still he shivered, swaying slightly, as though still moving with the rhythm of his boat at sea. Passing her, he went unsteadily into the bedroom, where he dropped on to the bed and lay with his hands clutched on his stomach. There were spots of fever on his cheeks. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose against the pain of his aching head.

  He put out his hand to her, and she took it in her own. His hand was icy, mottled purple.

  ‘Irini,’ he said, ‘I need something to warm me. I feel cold inside.’

  She squeezed his hand; unlacing his boots, she pulled them from his feet.

  ‘Take off those wet things,’ she said, and from the chest of drawers she handed him clean clothes. In the bathroom she found only one aspirin in the bottle. She made camomile tea, and carried it to him on a tray with water and the single aspirin.

  She plumped up the pillows at his back, and helped him sit to take the aspirin, and sip his tea.

  ‘I had to come home,’ he said. ‘I was too ill to stay away.’ She recognised his words for what they were – apology – and felt the prick of self-reproach.

  ‘How long have you been ill?’ she asked.

  ‘Two days. I ate some . . .’

  He pressed the tea cup on her and hauled himself from the bed. Leaning on the wall for support, covering his mouth, he stumbled to the bathroom, and shut himself inside.

  When he returned to the bed, his face was damp with sweat. He lay back on the pillows; his breathing was fast, and shallow. When she offered him the tea, he shook his head. He closed his eyes.

  ‘You’d better get Mother,’ he said. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  She leaned over him and put her lips to his hot forehead.

  ‘I’ll be straight back,’ she said.

  The rain had stopped, though water still dripped from the branches of the eucalyptus trees, and runnels ran in new channels they had cut in the stony dirt of the verges. By torchlight, the surface of the road glistened. The night was fresh with stirring greenery; in the gardens, snails were creeping out to feast. Except for the distant barking of a dog, the village was silent; in many houses, the windows were already dark.

  But at her mother-in-law’s, the lights still blazed. At the table, four men sat, each frowning at a hand of cards. At the centre of the table was a pile of money, notes and coins, and an ashtray full of ground-out butts. By Vassilis’s elbow was a tumbler of Metaxa; by his feet, the bottle was almost empty. Before the other men were glasses of retsina; scattered on the tablecloth were the hard half-shells of roasted pistachios. The men glanced towards her, but none spoke. Vassilis’s colour was high, and on his upper lip were tiny beads of sweat. He slammed a card down on the table: t
he ten of clubs. One of his opponents, slyly smiling, slid another banknote into the pile.

  Silent in the corner sat Angeliki. The rose-pink cardigan she pulled around her shoulders was stained with drops of oil; her hands were busy with a piece of lace. The work was fine, white and delicate.

  She left her chair to greet Irini.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ she said. ‘Sit, sit.’ Anxiously, she looked around for a chair for Irini. The men occupied them all. ‘Sit here,’ she said, ‘sit in my chair. I don’t mind standing. I’ve been sitting all day.’

  ‘Andreas is sick,’ said Irini. ‘He’s asking for you. I’ve come to fetch you to our house.’

  ‘Mercy!’ said Angeliki. She crossed herself. ‘I’ll come. Of course I’ll come. Do you hear this, Vassilis? Andreas is sick. He’s asking for me. I’m going down to see what wants doing.’

  Deftly, Vassilis folded his cards into a stack and held them against his chest.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh,’ said Angeliki, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better find out what’s wrong with him, before you go running down there? Irini, what’s wrong with him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Irini. ‘He’s got a bad headache. His stomach’s bad. I think it’s something he’s eaten.’

  ‘He’s poisoned, then! Good Lord above! Or maybe it’s cold, cold in the stomach. It could be that. Has he been out in this rain?’

  ‘Get your coat, woman,’ said Vassilis, ‘and go, instead of standing here prattling. You’re always prattling. Sotiris, lay one down.’ He spread his cards back into a fan.

  Angeliki was animated by the crisis, and by a rare sense of being wanted. Her face shone with purpose. In the street, she led the way, light-footed.

  ‘Have you lemons in the house?’ she asked. ‘And alcohol? We’ll be needing both. If you don’t have them, run up to Panayiotis’s, and buy some. Get plenty of lemons; lemon juice is the thing for stomachs. I’ll walk down and sit with that poor boy. And Irini – don’t be dawdling and gossiping on the way.’

  Irini went quickly through the dark streets. The sinister yowling of unseen cats echoed down the alleys; by the builder’s yard, a sleek rat scuttled into hiding. At the grocer’s, the door was open on to the pathway, spreading yellow light on to the pools of rainwater which had formed in the hollows of the pavement stones. Beside a chiller cabinet low on stock (dry-ended half-rolls of mortadella and salami, an uncut wheel of hard cheese, a block of paper-wrapped feta), Panayiotis sat on a high stool. He was a miserly man: unappetising as the cold meats were, he wouldn’t spoil his customers with fresh until these were sold. The back of the shop (where he kept the cleaning products and the paper goods – soap powder, bleach and napkins) was in darkness; if Irini went that far, he’d stand, and switch the light on for her, and switch it off as soon as she had made her choice. He glanced at her, and, wishing her good evening, turned the page of the cheap paperback he was reading; its cover showed a stetsoned cowboy in black silhouette against a sunset, and the author’s name: Zane Grey. Amongst the canned carrots and the bottled garden peas, a small transistor radio crackled commentary on a soccer game.

  Irini chose six lemons from the crate behind the door, and laid them on the scales; behind the boxes of at-home hair-dye, she found a bottle of medicinal alcohol and a packet of aspirin.

  Panayiotis placed a chewing-gum wrapper inside his book to mark the page, and, slipping from his stool, took a pencil from behind his hairy ear. On a paper bag, he totted up her bill. Irini had no money. He sighed, and took an exercise book from beneath the counter; he riffled through the scribblings and the lists until he found her name. She watched as he carefully wrote the date, and the total she now owed; he must be watched, as he was prone to adding on a little extra.

  She wished him good night. Panayiotis took up the paperback Western, and began to read.

  The way home was deserted, the silence of night disturbed only by the trickling of water in the drains and gutters, and by her own footfall. The village was left behind. A rising wind was thinning out the clouds, and for a moment, the brilliance of the full moon’s luminescence lit the valley, casting strange, crouching shadows from the thorny shrubs and cacti.

  She was almost home – around the bend, the house would have been within sight – when she heard the sound of an engine behind her. She didn’t look back, but stepped on to the muddy verge, out of its way. She waited for it to pass, watching the verges bloom in its headlamps, like green light spilled in the darkness.

  But the vehicle didn’t pass. It slowed, and pulled up alongside her, and the driver leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.

  It was him.

  She gazed at him, at his face half-hidden and beautiful in the shadows, and felt his eyes on her face. Her hands trembled; her heart beat too fast. The gods were, at last, being kind, and the moment she had longed for (for so very, very long) was here; but now, at the instant of commitment, she hesitated. She looked along the road, afraid of being seen, but there was no one. The time was here, and it was tempting, delicious, irresistible; it was shameful, and immoral, and betraying.

  She had the bag of lemons in her hand, her anchor to the mundane.

  She placed it in the footwell of the passenger seat, and climbed into the truck.

  She pulled the door to, and closed them in together. At last, they were alone.

  He reached over and gently squeezed her hand, as if he had shared her fantasies. She felt herself touched by divinity, and looked down at her hand, surprised to see it unchanged. Neither of them spoke; after all this time of waiting, what words could be spoken that would not debase the moment?

  When he kissed her, she knew dreams do come true. She had grown hot so many times imagining this kiss, and now his lips were pressed on hers and his tongue was in her mouth. I have died, she thought, and this is heaven. She wanted to absorb him, take him into her, touch every part of him. She stroked and pulled at his hair, ran her hands over his muscled back and shoulders. She pulled his shirt up over his back and stroked his naked skin. Their breath was deep and fast; they nibbled, licked, sucked at what bare flesh they could find. He bit her neck; she pulled his hand up to her face, and sucked his fingers. His hands were on her thighs, and then between them, parting them; she spread them gladly. He pushed up the clothing from her breasts, and put his mouth to her hard nipples, then came back to her face, bit her lips and kissed her as if their lips would never again be separated. The gods were kind; their lips could not be separated, ever again, as they lost themselves in bliss.

  Did seconds pass, or minutes? They lost themselves in bliss, and neither could have said. For them, the world was burning, and suddenly the sky was lit by fire, transforming the scene of their consummation into white heat; their love was making its own white light, the better to see, and know, each other.

  No. The light flooding the cab was from the headlights of a car pulled up behind them. The driver leaned on his horn.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. She straightened her clothes and smoothed her hair; he slammed the truck into gear and pulled off the road. The car eased past them, the dragon’s eyes of its red taillights fading into the night.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. He sighed.

  As she opened the door, he said, ‘We’ll work something out.’ He grasped her hand, and pressed it on to the hot hardness of his erection.

  She used the same hand to pick up the bag of lemons. When he passed her on the road, she kissed the air he drove through.

  Andreas had shut himself away in the bathroom; Angeliki was at the sink, rinsing a bowl with bleach. The house smelled both sanitary and sour, of Andreas’s sickness.

  Nothing mattered. He loved her, He wanted her, He burned for her, and the thrill, the ecstasy, the memory of his touch would carry her through anything – even the nursing of poor Andreas.

  Fourteen

  The bus was very late, and the wait at the quayside w
as long. The short bench beneath the wooden bus-shelter was already occupied, by a serene young girl who nursed a sleeping baby boy on her breast. Beside her sat a scowling youth with one arm bandaged and cradled in a muslin sling; his face was raw with weeping grazes.

  The fat man seated himself on the steps of a stone staircase leading down into the water and watched the fish swim at his feet. A shoal of tiny, glittering fry moved as an entity, a tumbling ball shape-shifting like a cell seen through a microscope. The fledgling fish moved fast, but synchronously; they darted here, there, here, and there were no stragglers, no dissenters, no breakers from the pack, swimming together because their lives depended on it. It was a mindset, thought the fat man, adopted by far too many people: safety in conformity, running always with the herd. He thought of Nikos, and his view that everyone should settle in life for what they’d been given; then he was troubled about the old man, and wondered if he was well. He had promised Nikos another visit, before he left this place; he would go today, if the main business of his day left time.

  By the time the bus arrived, a small crowd of passengers had gathered. They ushered the serene girl before them, to take her choice of seats; as she climbed aboard, her dreaming baby boy made little sucking movements with his lips, like kisses blown towards his doting mother.

  A woman with a paper bag of pharmacy medicines spoke to the driver.

  ‘You’re late, George,’ she said. She didn’t care (nothing was pressing), and the driver offered her no reason, but silently took the coins she held out to him.

  The fat man squeezed into his preferred seat at the driver’s back. The scowling youth was last to board; he offered George a note to pay his fare.