Something Will Happen, You'll See

by Christos Ikonomou

  Sorry to bother you, I say. I won’t be long.

  I start cleaning taking my time in no hurry at all. Of course what is there to clean in there really. I keep on glancing over to see what they’re up to trying to think of something to say. I think about asking if she’s okay what the doctors said how long they’re going to keep them in the hospital if they’re going to operate stuff like that. I want to ask if it was her idea for them to stick their hands together what kind of glue she used what the guards and prison officials did when they found out. Like if they hit her or yelled at her. There are so many things I want to ask. But I’m afraid the guard might hear us talking and kick me out. Besides I figure they might not be in the mood to talk. She’s having a pretty rough time as it is the last thing she needs is some cleaning lady she doesn’t even know peppering her with questions.

  As I’m mopping I hear the young man murmur something. The girl bends down and strokes his forehead and hair. Then she turns and asks in a whisper if I have any cigarettes. Of course, I whisper back, and pull out my pack. She takes one and lights it and puts it in the kid’s mouth. I gesture to her to keep the whole pack. Take it, I say, I’ve got another downstairs. I ask her if they need anything else. If she wants me to call a nurse or bring them some water or something from the canteen. I tell her I’ve brought stuffed tomatoes from home and feta and bread but I don’t know if the guard will let me give it to them.

  We’re fine, she says with a smile and blushes even more. Thank you so much. We’re fine. Thank you.

  And then a strange thing happens. There we are talking in whispers and gestures and she suddenly holds out her hand to me. I don’t know why I hesitate. I don’t know why but I hesitate to take her hand. It’s true. I stand there like an idiot holding my mop and staring at the hand she’s stretched out in my direction. It’s a tiny hand, like a drop of water. White and thin.

  The girl smiles but in a kind of crooked way. Like when you get an injection at the dentist’s office that makes your mouth all numb and swollen. Then she leans towards me and –

  Don’t worry, she whispers. There’s no glue on this one.

  • • •

  The sunlight has faded even more now. Through the balcony door Niki sees the streetlights coming on with a cautious flutter. The cars passing by in the street have their lights on now. The room grows darker, filling with a strange darkness that seems almost alive.

  That’s all, Niki says. Then I went downstairs and worked until three and came home. I wanted to tell you about it last night but last night you weren’t in such great shape, as I’m sure you remember. Do you? Do you remember anything about last night? Falling asleep at the kitchen table? With your cigarette still burning? You almost lit yourself on fire.

  Aris says something but his voice is swallowed up by the sheet.

  What did you say? I can’t hear you. Come on out from under there already.

  Her hands are sweaty. She wipes them on the sheet and looks at her palms. Then at her fingers. For the first time she notices how yellow they are. She’s been smoking too much recently. Her fingers seem smaller, too. It must be her imagination but she’s terrified by even the thought that her body has started to fall apart, to shrink. In the past she would have laughed at the idea. She would have told Aris: look at this, my fingers are shrinking. I’ve actually been working my fingers to the bone. And they would have laughed. They would have put their hands together to see how much bigger his fingers were than hers. Then Aris would grab them one by one and tugged on them to make them longer. They would laugh and laugh. But now Niki is afraid. There are so many small tiny things that frighten her. And then there’s that pain in her chest. As if something in there is broken. As if something in there broke or got knocked out of place. She can feel some hard thing hanging in her chest like a broken spring. She observes the lines carved into her palms. Too many to count. Straight and crooked and curved. Some like barbed wire others like uprooted trees. Still others cross one another and fade away, or stop suddenly like a road that dead-ends into nothingness.

  You should have called the stations.

  Aris has pulled the sheet down from over his head and is looking at her. White as a ghost, lips dry, eyes bloodshot. His hair sticking up on one side like the plume on the helmet of an ancient warrior emerging from a bloody battle.

  About what?

  You should have called the stations, Aris says and turns his face away. They’d kill for that kind of news. You know, human interest stories. They would have gone nuts. You should have called and told them to come to the hospital and then asked to be paid for giving them the scoop. They would have given you something for sure. Even a little would have helped in our situation. Better than nothing.

  He rubs his eyes then slips his hands under his head. He stares up at the darkening ceiling.

  Niki can’t see his hands.

  She gets up out of the bed and goes over to the balcony door. Now the sky is a dark violet color. She sees a few stars flicker and the lights of an airplane slowly disappear. The banner is still hanging from the chimney of the electric plant but tonight there are no floodlights or striking workers. The strike was deemed illegal, they said on TV. Tonight things are calm again. All that’s left is the banner hanging from the chimney, a long, narrow white banner with red letters which if you saw it from a distance, from the sea, would look like a huge gauze bandage spotted with blood.

  You should have called the stations, Aris says. Now it’s too late.

  Niki looks at her palms and brings that image once more to mind. The girl in the hospital. How she leaned forward with one hand stuck to the young man’s and the other extended toward Niki. The thin white hand Niki was afraid to touch. She wanted to do something for that girl. Something, anything. But now there was no point. She’ll learn to live with that. Compromise. All of life is one big compromise. We’re all born of compromise, Niki thinks, out of that great silent yes that our parents say when they choose to bring us into this world. Which means that we all carry a kind of compromise inside us, in our blood. That’s why all revolutions are destined to fail. Then she thinks how she shouldn’t waste time thinking about things like that. She should think instead about where she’s going to find the money that they need and about the bank and the house and Aris who is still lying under the sheet – unspeaking unmoving defeated. She thinks that if things go wrong, if they don’t find some way, she’ll take some superglue and stick one of her hands to Aris’s and the other to the wall. That’s what she’ll do. Then let them come and try to kick her and Aris out of the house. This isn’t America. They can come if they want. She and Aris will be waiting.

  She might even call the stations.

  In the distance she sees a boat steaming off with all its lights on. A woman walks by in the street pushing a baby in a stroller. Two men stand talking on the sidewalk. One is smoking and the other is carrying a fishing pole and a blue plastic bag.

  And then she doesn’t want to see anything or think anything anymore. She closes her eyes and leans on the glass of the balcony door and with her eyes closed listens to the darkness of the house spreading itself around her and listens to the heartless hum of cars down below in the street.

  The Things They Carried

  FIVE MEN had lit a fire outside the Social Security offices in Nikaia in the middle of a January night. They were retirees, former office workers or manual laborers, unshaven and down at the heels. They’d started gathering there at three in the morning so they’d be the first to see the doctors before the crowds came and the line stretched all the way to the sidewalk. They didn’t know one another and didn’t bother to introduce themselves – they had other things on their minds. Besides, their names didn’t matter. What mattered was the order, that the order of the line be strictly maintained. Which is why each man thought of himself and the others as numbers in a list that would keep growing as the night advanced.

  They were five men but also five numbers.

  That w
as one of the things they had on their minds.

  • • •

  They had lit a fire on the sidewalk in front of the steps.

  Winter, bitter cold, a night that seemed to stretch on forever. It had rained early that evening and now the damp had turned to frost that sparkled like silver dust on all the parked cars. At first they paced up and down on the sidewalk to get warm, watching silently, with a kind of awe, as their breath rose into the darkness like smoke signals. Then the first man to have arrived, number one, who had cataracts and was almost blind in his right eye, had an idea. They could light a fire with some wooden pallets and cardboard boxes that were piled next to a dumpster on the street. The others agreed right away because they were all very cold. One of them remembered that on his way there he’d seen a bunch of barrels outside of a building site on the next street over. He suggested they bring a barrel over and light the fire in it. They agreed to that, too, because they needed some way to keep the fire going until morning – that was another thing they had on their minds.

  Two of the men went to get the barrel, revolving it heavily over the sidewalk, and set it in front of the steps of the Social Security building. Then number three, a heavy-set man in his seventies with a polyp on his intestines, broke up one of the pallets and stacked the planks in the barrel. Beneath the planks he’d already put some little branches he pulled off the mulberry tree on the corner. They lit the fire with a newspaper. It wasn’t easy because the wood was damp. But when the fire finally got going, they ripped up two cardboard boxes and tossed the pieces on top of the wood. Then they all gathered around the barrel and stretched out their hands and watched silently as the flames leapt before their eyes. All except for number two, who had brought a small folding stool from home because he suffered from sciatica and couldn’t stand for very long. He opened the stool and sat down with his legs crossed and looking absentmindedly at the fire murmured in a husky voice like a chant:

  In Nios where they sent me

  I saw churches and windmills

  and was welcomed

  by a flock of fleas

  The drivers on Petros Rallis Street kept slowing down to look at them. But numbers one through five didn’t care. They were very cold and knew that without a fire they wouldn’t last the night out there on the sidewalk. They didn’t care what people thought, they had other things on their minds. They were tired and sick. They were old. They had other things on their minds.

  • • •

  Number three tore up a box and threw the pieces into the fire. He stirred it with a thick branch then looked at the guy sitting on the stool.

  You like it, huh? he asked.

  What do you mean?

  For other people to work while you sit there scratching your balls.

  I told you guys, I’ve got a problem with my back. Didn’t you hear?

  We’ve all got something. That’s why we’re out here tonight. Get up and help, you old shit.

  Don’t talk to me like that, said the man on the stool. Tough guy. Who do you think you are, ordering us around?

  I know how your kind is, said number three. Lazy bums who like to have a good time. I’ve met plenty of you in my day. You just cover your own ass, and everyone else can go fuck themselves for all you care.

  Come on, that’s enough, broke in the man who’d arrived last, number five. He was the youngest, around sixty. He wore thick glasses and his teeth looked like a broken fence, crooked and with large gaps in between. He spoke with a lisp, too. Come on, stop, he said. We’ve got enough going on tonight, the last thing we need is a fight.

  Gap-mouthed fool, number three shot back, and went to get another cardboard box.

  Number two got up off his stool then sat back down and crossed his legs the other way. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out hard. His hands were shaking. He took his Social Security booklet out of a plastic bag and started flipping through it noisily. He muttered something to himself. Now his legs were shaking too. Then he closed the booklet and leaned over and pointed to number three who had bent down next to the dumpster and asked the others in a whisper:

  Is that guy crazy?

  No one spoke. They didn’t even turn to look. They kept their hands stretched out in front of them and stared at the flames wondering whether there was enough wood and cardboard for the fire, if they would manage to keep the fire going until morning.

  • • •

  They carried their Social Security booklets and identity cards. They carried packs of tissues and keys and coins and a few bills – some in wallets, some loose in their pockets. Each carried a bottle of water, pills and capsules for his various ailments. Number five, who’d had rheumatism for years, carried a large brown envelope of x-rays. Almost all of them carried lighters or matches and extra cigarettes to help them stay awake. Two or three carried bus passes, or tickets for the trolley or metro. Number four, who was 68 years old but had thick grey hair and a thin grey mustache, carried stones in his kidneys and a small black comb in his coat pocket. Number three carried a pair of prescription glasses that he never wore in public because he was embarrassed. Four of the five carried cell phones. Number two, who had brought his folding stool from home, carried in his wallet a photograph of his son who had died the previous month in a car accident in Halkidona. Number one, who was almost blind in his right eye, carried a booklet enumerating the miracles and visions of Saint Efraim the Martyr. He read two or three pages a day, with difficulty, to gather strength or hope or to distract himself from his troubles.

  They all carried years of hard work on their backs. They carried deprivations and dreams that hadn’t come true. They carried the weight of the time they had spent with their wives and children. They carried compromises they had accepted, vows they had broken. They carried betrayals they had committed and others that had been committed against them. Deep inside each carried fear and stress and worry about illness and time, which came each day like a conscientious gardener to trim off a bit of their lives.

  They were poor people, with debt to the banks and unpaid bills.

  One of them owed money to a loan shark.

  Two or three of them carried lottery tickets, scratch-offs and quick picks.

  All of them carried secrets, hidden sins and things they rarely – or never – showed to anyone else.

  Number one, who had glaucoma, carried a bracelet made from elephant hair that a woman had given him many years ago at the airport as she was leaving for South Africa.

  Number two carried the dog tag his son wore around his neck while a conscript in the army.

  Number three had carried a Kershaw knife ever since the night he’d seen two addicts beating an old man for his money down under the pedestrian bridge.

  Number four carried a keychain with the keys to his family house on Aegina which he’d been forced to sell for practically nothing.

  The one who’d arrived last, number five, carried the coin he’d found in the New Year’s pie five or six years ago. It was the only time in his life he’d gotten the coin in his slice and for a while he carried it around for good luck. At some point the pocket of his winter coat got a hole and the coin fell into the lining and he never went to the trouble of fishing it out. By now he’d forgotten it altogether.

  • • •

  They carried lots of old songs, images and memories from their childhood. They carried a nostalgia for the things of the past, a nostalgia that became more and more bitter with the passing of time, and instead of filling them with joy now only made them feel older and less capable.

  They carried the smells of their homes. The stale smoke from the coffee houses they frequented. The dirty air of Nikaia. The scent of bitter orange trees blooming around Easter. Sometimes they felt as if they carried the whole city inside them, avenues and streets named after forgotten homelands or the honored dead and narrow alleyways where refugee houses sat hunched in the shadow of six- or seven-story apartment buildings. Sometimes they felt as if they carried city squares wi
th broken benches, churches and graveyards and old outdoor cinemas that had been turned into supermarkets or nightclubs.

  They carried so many images and voices, of the living and of the dead.

  All of them, some more than others, carried a deep hatred of politicians and doctors and the civil servants who worked at the Social Security office – for anyone they could blame for the fact that they were out here tonight like bums on the sidewalk in the freezing cold far from their homes.

  Two or three carried a deep hatred of themselves, for being so small and insignificant.

  One carried his hatred of god who had proven himself to be even harsher and more unjust than people.

  They carried the weight of their weakness, the weight of time, of the sicknesses that ate at their bodies.

  Above all they carried a silent fear and a secret longing for the day that was dawning and all the days that would dawn after that.

  • • •

  Every so often someone brought a cardboard box or broke a pallet and threw the pieces into the fire. Drivers slowed to look at them as they passed. Some shook their heads, others honked, either in greeting or with derision. Most of the people in the cars were young, couples or groups of men probably headed home after a night out.

  The one on the stool, number two, carried a bottle of tsipouro in a plastic bag from the Galaxy Supermarket. He opened it, took a swig and held it in his mouth before swallowing. The previous week he’d sworn on his son’s bones that he would never drink again. Of course he knew the oath was no good since he’d been drunk when he gave it. But now, as the tsipouro flowed through him, burning all the way down, he felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise and something cold touching his back. He shuddered.