Meanwhile there have been developments in the neighborhood. Last week they brought some of those big blue bins from the municipality for recycling and put one on each corner and sent around flyers and some special bags for us to collect our papers and cans. Progress. On Thursday night when we were sitting at Satanas’s the admiral came and asked if we’d heard what happened to that guy Sofronis who lives next to the school.
What happened, said Vayios. Did he die?
He’s lost it, the poor guy, said the admiral. Last night my son was coming home from work and found him trying to climb into the recycling bin. He caught him just in time. What are you doing, barba-Tasos, he says. Are you crazy? You’re trying to get into the trash? And the guy turns around and you know what he says? Let me be, Stefanos, he says. Just let me be. A man who lets his wife die like that is fit for the trash. They can pick me up and recycle me and maybe I’ll come out a better man. Just listen to that. Listen to the things that happen out there in the world. My son could barely hold him back. And then he sat on the street corner and laughed to himself like a crazy person. Things are not going well around here. I’ve said it before. Things are not going well.
I remember his wife, said Michalis. She struggled with the hospitals and doctors for a while. Cancer, right, admiral? I’m pretty sure.
The admiral ordered a half kilo of ribs and some tsipouro for the table. He started to say something about Sofronis and his wife but saw that no one was interested. No one spoke. Outside a wind had picked up and we could hear the windowpanes creaking and the wind whistling through the cracks. It was almost eleven. Satanas had turned off the TV and was standing behind the bar watching us.
Tomorrow I’m going to go see my kid at the clinic, Iraklis said. They said we should take him out for the day now that it’s the weekend. They say it’ll do him good. Keep him from going nuts. But his mother is scared and doesn’t want to come. She doesn’t want me to go either. She’s scared. So I don’t know what to do.
How old is he? Asked Vayios.
Twenty. Going on twenty-one.
Take him to a Russian. He doesn’t need a family outing. He needs a woman. That’s the only way to keep him from going nuts in the state he’s in.
As for my kid, they’re going to lay him off at the end of the month, the admiral said. He found out yesterday. But I’d already warned him. Take care, I told him. Take care not to lose your faith. Don’t do them the favor and lose your faith. You have to believe. There may be no god but you have to believe. Your belief is god. That’s what I told him. But the whole thing’s hit him pretty hard. Last night I got up out of bed and found him smoking on the balcony. I didn’t know what to do, him leaning over the railing like that. It made my blood run cold. I sat in the dark and watched and I was so scared.
Iraklis put out his cigarette and got up.
I’m going, he said. I have an early morning tomorrow.
As he left his foot caught on a chair and it fell to the floor. He didn’t even look back.
The admiral tipped his glass back and emptied it then filled it again. His hands were shaking. He looked out the window at Iraklis who had bent over next to a car trying to light a cigarette out of the wind. He took a sip then bowed his head and shut his eyes and started to speak with his eyes closed.
I still believe, he said. I really do. Recently I’ve been lying in bed at night making up stories. Like I’ve discovered some magic potion that makes me invisible and I steal money from the banks and distribute it to everyone. Or that I buy a big estate high up over the sea and build a house that would make you stare. Villa Constantina. That’s what I call it. And I build five or six more little houses out of stone and I give one to everyone and we all live there together a happy life. My daughter takes charge of the garden and the trees and the flowers. I make my son the foreman. He’s the foreman together with Iraklis’s kid and Mao. I give them each a solid wage and a nice car and they’re real happy. Mao’s mother and older sister are in charge of the kitchen. They go out shopping and decide what to cook stuff like that. And the other sister the younger one plays music for us at night while we’re eating and having a good time. Sure. I’ve thought of everything. Down to the smallest detail. And I’ve built all kinds of things on the estate. A huge room out of stone on the ground floor with big windows all around. And inside there’s a swimming pool one of those heated ones. So you can swim even in winter and look out the window and see it raining and snowing. Beautiful things. Just beautiful. There’s this other building as tall as a castle and it has glass all around too. That’s where we have our parties. The floor is all parquet and I’ve put a table in there that goes all the way from one side to the other and seats thirty or forty people easy. There’s a fireplace and a dance floor. And the best stereo system but of course we don’t even need it since we’ll have live music from Thomai. And then there’s a special computer that splits the ceiling in two when I touch it and all the glass on the sides comes down. That’s a trick for summer so we don’t get too hot even though I’ve also put in the best air conditioner there is. On summer nights we gather up there and eat and drink as much as we want and dance until the sun comes up. And I’m sitting there in a corner watching you all having a great time and I’m so happy even though there’s something burning me up inside. Because you guys don’t know. You think I won millions in the lottery or something. That’s what I told you. You don’t know that I’ve found this magic potion that makes me invisible and I’ve been robbing banks without ever getting caught. And you also don’t know that every time I drink that potion I lose a year off my life. That’s the deal. Every time I drink the potion my life gets another year shorter. But you don’t know anything about that. I don’t ever let you find out. And we clink glasses and you make toasts to me, may the admiral live a thousand years. And I watch you from my corner and I’m so happy. I look at the kids having fun and I’m happy. I look around at all the things I built and I say, things are just fine. And when the party ends and you all go to sleep I get up and go down to the beach and sit all by myself and stare at the sea for hours. And I feel a sadness like you wouldn’t believe because I’ve drunk a lot of that potion and I don’t have much time left. And I think how in the end what I did is pretty cowardly. But I don’t regret it. No. Because I’ve seen your faces and I know. I know that sometimes good doesn’t walk the same road as truth. And I know that good is sometimes more important than true. I know.
He stopped talking but didn’t open his eyes. His cheeks were yellow. Vayios looked at us and pursed his lips and shook his head. He pushed the admiral’s glass to the far edge of the table and gestured to Satanas, who came out from behind the bar and picked up the chair Iraklis had knocked over and then came over to us. He tore at a rib with his teeth.
What’s going to happen with you assholes here every night, he said. Don’t you guys have homes?
The admiral raised his head and looked at him. He blinked his eyes like a frightened animal.
Bring us another half kilo. And whatever the guys are drinking. And something else to snack on.
Satanas tossed the bone on the table and sniffed and leaned heavily on the admiral’s chair.
What sort of snack would the gentlemen care for? He asked. We’ve got shrimp testicles stuffed with wild rice and crocodile saganaki with four kinds of cheese. Or perhaps you’d prefer something sweet? I prepared a special ice cream today with kangaroo milk and syrup from wild berries.
He looked at us and then at the admiral who had bowed his head again. He grabbed the admiral under the armpits and abruptly lifted him out of the chair.
Take him home, he said to Vayios. Get going. Get lost. Beat it already.
At the door he called to us and we turned around.
And listen. You’ll have to invite me sometime to that estate for one of those parties, okay? I want to swim in that pool, too. Here’s to you, Pavlakos, invisible bank robber. I’m expecting an invitation, you hear? Look at these guys. Just look at these gu
ys, wanting villas and pools. He’s a real number, that one. You all are.
• • •
Yesterday morning we found Mao’s cat hanging from the mulberry tree in front of his house. They’d tied her up by her hind legs and thrown salt in her eyes. She was covered in blood. She’d clawed out her own eyes. By the time we found her the blood had dried on the sidewalk and flies had eaten half her head. The place stank.
We all stood around in a circle and looked without speaking. Only the deafmute tried to say something with his hands but no one was paying attention so he left.
Michalis untied the cat from the branch and wrapped her in newspaper and went to throw her in the field behind the church of Osia Xeni.
When the crowd dispersed Michalis’s mother brought a bucket and mop and started scrubbing the blood off the sidewalk. She kept murmuring to herself and wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.
Poor Mao, she said. What did those awful people do to you. My strong young man. Poor Mao.
And a Kinder Egg For the Kid
HUNGER WOKE HIM. He’d had a pain in his belly all night. He had his son with him, too. His son was sleeping beside him in the bed with his mouth open and his fingers gripping the edge of the blanket as if he had fallen asleep afraid that someone might try to take the blanket away. He turned over slowly and propped himself on his elbow and looked down at his son. The kid looked nothing like him. Nothing at all. For starters, the boy was blond. Not blond blond but still blond. And he was very beautiful, with a narrow face and eyes the color of the sky when a north wind is blowing. He had a little mole under his right eye. In the dark the blond fuzz by his ear shone as if all night someone had been stroking him right there with fingers covered in gold dust. The kid was so beautiful that it hurt his heart to look at him. And yet he couldn’t get his fill of looking, he looked and forgot his hunger. When he grows up. When he grows up he’ll look at me and ask why I had to be his father why he had to grow up in a place like this and sleep in a bed like this. Why. Why.
He closed his eyes. That pain again. He felt a movement in his belly as if there were something alive in there.
Dad?
The kid was awake and looking at him with blurry eyes.
Dad we have to eat something. Our stomachs are growling.
The kid lifted his head off the pillow and something white glistened at the corner of his mouth. Milk. Only it wasn’t milk. It was dried spit.
Go back to sleep. It’s still early. He stroked the kid’s hair, forced a smile. I’m going out now. Are you listening? I don’t want you to be scared. I’m going out now for a little while. And when you wake up the table will be set and we’ll eat and eat until Easter Monday. Okay? High five.
The kid closed his eyes and licked his lips and said I’m hungry and squeezed his eyes tightly shut and didn’t say anything else.
• • •
Sir, the girl said. Would you put the crown on our Jesus’s head?
• • •
He’d been walking since noon and now it was evening and he was still walking. Nikaia Neapoli Korydallos Nikaia Neapoli Korydallos – tracing circles like a caged animal like that wolf he’d seen once when he was a kid running around and around in its cage at the zoo and that night he’d stayed up crying thinking of that wolf that was just skin and bones with its dirty matted fur running around in its cage with a crazed look in its eyes. And he’d asked his father who said the wolf was running because wolves are born to run and if you shut a wolf up in a cage it’s as bad as killing it. And he’d asked his father if he could do something, if he could unlock the cage and let the wolf out and his father looked him in the eye for a long time – it was the only time he remembered his father giving him that kind of look – and then started to say something but in the end he didn’t.
He’d cried for many nights over that wolf. Many nights and plenty of afternoons too.
Thursday before Easter and a poisoned wind was blowing, the trees thrashed in the wind as if some huge invisible hand were shaking them. He walked and his mind was on the kid who must have woken up hours ago and would be sitting at the kitchen table with his hands folded together dreaming with open eyes of a table spread with food. He was walking to kill time, until ten when he was going to meet his daughter at the port. She was headed down from Thessaloniki to take the boat to Rhodes to spend Easter with her mother. He hadn’t seen his daughter in two years and tonight he would be seeing her and was planning on asking her for money. Fifty euros. Fifty euros would be plenty. Pasta a little cheese bread milk. Beer. A bottle of ketchup which the kid liked. And a chocolate egg, one of those Kinder ones – a treat for Easter. Fifty euros would be plenty. He thought about how his daughter would look at him when he asked her for money and what she would say to him and what she would say to her mother when she got to Rhodes. I can’t believe it, mom. He asked me for fifty euros he said he doesn’t have any money at all says they don’t have money for food.
He walked and felt his face reddening with shame and felt the hunger and the shame gnawing at his guts like starving rats.
Fifty euros, he said – and a woman passing beside him looked at him in fear.
Fifty euros would be plenty.
With fifty euros we’ll have a fine Easter.
• • •
Sir, the girl said. Would you put the crown on our Jesus’s head?
• • •
Eighty-five people lost their jobs when the Roter factory in Renti closed. Women and men. Young people and old people and contract laborers from the Greek Manpower Employment Organization. At first he ran around like everyone else – to government ministries, political parties, protests, demonstrations. Slogans, banners, raised fists, voices hoarse from shouting. Rage, fear, anxiety. The worst were the words, the rumors, the lies. First they raised your hopes and then they cut the legs out from under you, beat you, destroyed you. That was the worst. The words, the lies. At some point he got tired and lost hope and started to look for other work. Then people heard they were going to be transferred to the surrounding municipalities for part-time employment. And he was happy and hopeful again and told the kid not to worry, everything was going to be fine, have faith in your father. Weeks passed. And then he found out that the positions had already been assigned.
The positions have been assigned, they told him. The municipalities had been parceled out by party. The communists got Kokkinia, New Democracy got Korydallos and Keratsini, the right-wingers went all over. Everyone landed somewhere. Except for him and five or six others who hadn’t known. Who didn’t get there in time. Who weren’t red or green or blue. It all happened quietly, simply, beautifully. And he never heard a thing.
He and five or six others.
They sold us down the river, the others said. Don’t you get it, you fool? Our co-workers. Our comrades-in-arms. They sold us out.
That all happened in February. On the last Sunday of Carnival there was a big party in the federation offices. Everyone brought food from home and sweets and wine and beer. Three or four brought bouzoukia and guitars so there would be singing and dancing. They hung banners on the walls. Our struggle is bearing fruit. Never swerve from the road of class struggle. Strength in unity, victory in struggle, solidarity as our shield. Those were the kinds of banners they’d hung on the walls. He went right when it started and sat at a distance from the others and drank. He watched them eating pickles and hard-boiled eggs, cheese pies and spinach pies. They ate off of aluminum foil, drank wine out of Coke and Sprite bottles. They clinked plastic cups and laughed and clapped and danced the zeibekiko. He watched them with hatred and jealousy. He watched them without wanting to. As if he were a dead man who had been allowed to return for a brief while to the land of the living, to walk invisible among the living until he was pulled back again into death – a terrible punishment.
Later on, when he’d drunk a lot and his fear had faded, he got to his feet and started speaking loudly. He said things he’d been wanting to say for a w
hile – for months, even years. He said things he’d thought about many times and other things he’d never thought until that instant. There were moments when he felt as if the voice that was speaking weren’t his, as if the person speaking weren’t him. At first they watched him with curiosity. Then they looked at him with pity. Some laughed. Others kept eating. Some pushed back their chairs and walked out. There were moments when his voice faded and his eyes burned and a knot rose in his throat. There were moments when he imagined himself sitting on the other side of the room and listening and shaking his head with pity. In the end someone shouted at him to shut up and get lost – throw out the apolitical bullies, the guy shouted, throw out the provocateurs. Someone grabbed him by the arm and told him to sit down. Get a hold of yourself and sit down. Now. He sat. And then he jumped back up to his feet and rushed forward and took tables chairs cups people with him as he fell and as he fell time stopped inside him and he seemed to be falling very slowly from the sky and could see the pattern on the floor as if it were the whole earth which from that height was so beautiful – mountains, fields, streams – that his heart swelled from all that beauty and he laughed and shouted with joy.
And then someone hit him hard on the head and he tumbled once and for all to the floor.
• • •
Sir, the girl said. Would you put the crown on our Jesus’s head?
• • •
At the corner of Kondyli and Ephesus he stopped in front of the Anemone sweet shop and looked in the window at the huge chocolate eggs and chocolate bunny rabbits and tsourekia covered in dark chocolate and slivered almonds. His heart was trembling even more than his legs. He stood in front of the window and looked at the tsourekia and his mouth filled with saliva. As soon as he got the fifty euros from his daughter he could take something else off of the list – the cheese, for instance – and get a chocolate-covered tsoureki instead. The kid would be so happy, he was crazy about chocolate. Though even he was shaking now as he gazed longingly at the sweets glistening in the light of the shop window and they looked so fresh so delicious so airy and wonderful. The things that make a person happy, he thought. A tsoureki covered in chocolate.
Something Will Happen, You'll See Page 5