Takis is drinking tsipouro and staring at the advertisement in the square which keeps getting lit up for an instant by the headlights of cars coming down Kondyli and then is plunged into darkness again. He drinks some tsipouro and takes a bite of herring and talks about the old times when thousands of wild poppies used to grow here in spring and the women would gather the seeds from the poppies and knead them into bread and rusks and the boys would pick the poppies and close one hand around the big red flowers and slap it hard with the other so the poppies would burst and the petals would fly out with a paf! and their hands would turn red as if they had killed some living thing with a heart and blood and on Good Thursday the girls would gather poppies for the bier because everyone knows a poppy sprouted from the ground in front of the cross at Golgotha and it was Christ’s blood dripping from above that gave the poppy its red – that’s what Takis says clapping his hands to show me the sound it used to make when the kids popped the petals and then he talks about the war and the occupation and the famine and how many people died here of hunger during the occupation women and children and old people.
Like right there across the street, he says. Back then there was a well in the square and one night a girl fell in and died, dizzy from hunger or desperation, who knows. They say if you passed by at night you could hear her crying in the well and shouting for help. But now there’s nothing to fear. Now that they’ve put asphalt over everything the roads and the squares those days are over the dead with the dead and the living with the living. Later on in ’42 they had food lines here and a little girl came one day dressed in boy’s clothing with a charcoal mustache on her face, she’d drawn herself a little mustache and people saw it and wondered. And when they asked about it she told them her mother had died of hunger and her grandmother too and all the girls in her family had died of hunger and that’s why she’d dressed as a boy, you see, in order to trick death – he’ll think I’m a boy she said and he’ll let me live. For god’s sake, that’s what she said. Just a little girl no more than seven or eight. You see what I mean? She’d drawn herself a tiny little mustache out of charcoal. And put on boy’s clothes. To trick death.
Then Takis falls silent and looks out the window again at the sign on the square that says Immortal Cabinets Out of Aluminum and Galvanized Steel 100% Guaranteed 14 Maditou Street Across from MICROLAND and he takes a sip of his tsipouro and swallows slowly and doesn’t say anything for a while. But I feel a strange agitation. I feel like I’m hearing everything not with my ears but with my heart. The sounds hit me in the chest. Takis’s voice and the hum of cars coming down Kondyli and the wind whistling through cracks around the windowpanes. I feel like my heart can hear the slow burn of our cigarettes and the click clack of the zippo and the hushed roar of the gas lamp on the table. Tonight I’m strangely agitated and I’m hearing everything not with my ears but with my heart. And I wonder if it’s a bad sign, if maybe I’ve started to lose my mind and it worries me because everyone knows – rich and poor – that to get by in times like these your heart has to be even deafer than your ears. Everyone says it, rich people and poor people alike.
Takis wipes his hands then takes out his tobacco and rolls a cigarette with one hand on his knee and lights it and looks outside.
Immortal cabinets, he says. What do you make of that?
An empty bus comes barreling down Kondyli. The sign appears for a moment, then falls into darkness.
She was seven or eight, Takis says and blows the smoke to the side. A little girl, see. She didn’t want to die, so she tried to trick death.
• • •
It’s a Saturday night but the place is empty. Outside it’s pitch black, just a few cars in the streets and even fewer people. The light from the gas lamp forms a hazy pale blue halo around the table and around Takis and me and fills the walls with strange shadows.
We look outside.
An old lady with a flashlight goes by. Then a girl on a bicycle. A bony pregnant dog, her belly dragging on the pavement.
It makes me afraid to see the world so dark, as if it were wartime or an occupation as if something terrible has happened. Then, for an instant, the fear becomes a kind of quietness when I think how outside it’s dark and cold but I’m inside where it’s warm, I’m protected, with light and food and tsipouro, and with Takis talking and talking and talking and that seems to me like the biggest comfort of all – a voice in the half-dark, a calm familiar voice, the voice of my friend, husky and sad.
I want to ask how he knows all this. How he knows what happened here in the old days, about the wells and refugees and food lines and sour cherries and poppies. How he knows that there was once a little girl who dressed as a boy and drew a charcoal mustache on her face to trick death. I want to ask how he knows all this, since he’s an islander, from Amorgos, and only came to live here when he met Lena. How do you know all that, I want to ask. Is it true or are you maybe just spinning yarns? But I don’t ask, I don’t say a thing, I just stare out at the dark street and that strange sign in the square and I stare at the pale blue halo from the gas lamp and the shadows trembling on the walls, unrecognizable shadows that don’t look like ours but like the shadows of dead people, ghosts that in tonight’s darkness dared to come back up into the world and sneak in here, into the Existence Ouzeri on the corner of American Ladies and Bythinia Streets across from a tiny drop of a triangle they call Peace Square, and sit down to hear what the living have to say for themselves these days to see what they’re eating and drinking. To take comfort. Or maybe to find out if the living still remember them or if they’ve been forgotten entirely.
Takis lights a cigarette and the click clack of the zippo hits me hard in the chest. He twirls his cigarette on the lip of the ashtray, takes a sip of his drink and looks out again at the sign in the square.
The other day, he says, this guy Vayios came in, a truck driver and a real character. He had a German guy with him, his sister’s husband who didn’t look German at all, a tiny little guy small and crooked. His name was Christian or Christen or something like that. He was an electrician in a construction company and last year or the year before he took a real bad fall at some building site and got hurt. For a whole year he was in and out of hospitals he’d broken every bone in his body. But he seemed like a good guy real friendly and was in a mood to treat. The place was packed and they sat down and struck up a conversation with some of the others and the German wanted to know how we’re getting by these days and the others told him friend, you’ve never seen poverty like this before, the rich making the poor work themselves to the bone so they won’t fall into poverty themselves – that’s the fine kind of conversation they struck up and if one of the younger guys hadn’t spoken some English it would’ve been tough since because the German didn’t speak Greek and even with the young guy translating I’m not sure you could really call it communication. At any rate at some point the conversation turned to those old times during the war and the occupation and everyone had a story to tell and they almost drove the guy nuts. The Germans this and the Germans that and all the people those animals killed during the occupation and this that and the other thing until at some point things started to heat up and I went over and said come on guys leave the man alone you’re ganging up on him and that’s no way to be. And Vayios says that’s right you cowards talking a big talk about resistance – and then he turns to me and says hey Takis bring some tsipouro for my brother-in-law so he can see what it’s like, all they drink where he’s from is beer and schnapps or schnoops whatever the fuck it’s called. So I bring over some tsipouro so he’ll see the kind of fire it lights in your gut. And I fill his glass and Vayios says to water it down a little because he’s never had it before and who knows what might happen so I go to toss a few ice cubes into his glass but the German guy says nein nein so we say cheers and clink glasses and the poor guy tips it all back at once without even taking a breath. And he freezes in place and starts to swell up and turn bright red and his eyes are full
of tears and he jumps to his feet and starts limping between the tables and shouting ai ai ai limping up and down as fast as he can as if we’d lit him on fire pointing at the tsipouro and barking ai ai ai and we’re all staring at him with no idea what to do and then he pulls a comb out of his back pocket and starts combing his hair frantically like a madman, you see he thought all the hair on his head was sticking straight up from the fire in his gut so now he’s pacing all around pointing at the tsipouro and combing his hair and yelling ai ai ai. I can’t tell you what a scene it was. Such a scene, I can’t even describe it. Everyone in the place was screaming with laughter rolling around on the floor even Vayios was laughing so what could the poor German guy do except say all his haften houften and comb his hair until he was practically bald, you should have been there to see how hard we laughed that night. And he did too. I hadn’t laughed like that in years.
He stops talking and stubs out his cigarette then immediately starts rolling another. In the light of the lamp his fingers look blue. Strange fingers for a person who works as much as he does – narrow and smooth with a blueish tinge. On the ring finger of his right hand the two platinum wedding bands shine in the blue light of the lamp, like two links of a broken chain.
He lights the cigarette and tilts his head back to exhale and then continues:
At some point one guy who’s a little drunk stands up and turns on the cassette player and moves the tables aside and starts to dance. When the German sees him he stands up too and bows to us all and takes off his shoes and joins the other guy with a dance of his own. If you can call it dancing when the poor guy’s just taking these tiny slow steps like a migrant crossing a minefield. I mean he was barely moving his legs. And the others start clapping and shouting opa opa and tossing balled-up paper napkins at him. So Vayios jumps to his feet and says cut it out you jerks don’t you dare make fun of my brother-in-law the guy has so many pins in him he’s like a Playmobil toy. Cut it out guys I mean it. And he goes over to try and pull the German back to his seat but the poor guy has no idea what’s happening. He’s got his eyes closed and his arms stretched out and he’s moving in slow circles with his shoes off like he’s in seventh heaven. You should have been there to see. How that broken man danced. What did he know about bouzoukis and aman amans? If Vayios hadn’t been there to put a stop to it he might have danced a tsifteteli. It’ll go down in the history of this place, that German guy dancing. And when they finally left Vayios had to carry him out because he was too drunk to walk. We all went to the door to watch them leave. Vayios a beast two meters tall carrying his brother-in-law in his arms like a little kid. And him looking at us and smiling and waving and talking in his language. You should have seen him. How he danced. Sweating and trying so hard to move his arms and legs. Like a little kid just learning how to control his body. It had been years since I’d seen a man so, how can I say it. At peace. That’s it. At peace. I’d forgotten what it’s like. The next day Vayios came back to get his brother-in-law’s shoes. Things had gotten so crazy he’d forgotten them here.
Takis remembers what happened that night and starts laughing again laughing loudly and happily and in the dim artificial light of the lamp I see his mouth take on an odd shape and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes look like prints left by small birds on wet earth, so many tiny wrinkles, like carved lines, like the prints of birds that took fright at something and rose up into the air.
I fill our glasses, we drink.
We look outside.
Our faces shine in the window like fingerprints from some enormous hand. Unrecognizable faces, the faces of people who aren’t us.
Immortal cabinets.
There that still is, Takis says and blinks. Then he raises a hand to his hair and starts to smooth it with quick sudden movements as if something awful just passed through his mind or in front of his eyes as he stares out at the darkened sign in the square.
Did you know there are cabinets that never die? Everything dies except not cabinets anymore. The world is changing. Who knows if one day. You never know. Of course you’ll say who’s going to live long enough to see it happen. But I think about it. It’s been forty-nine days, you know? And I think of the kids. The older one is obsessed with computer games. Day and night at the computer. When’s he going to live when’s he going to fall in love? Sure, it’s technology, progress, I know. But I look at him and all I can think of is the past. I look at my son and instead of looking ahead I turn back to the past. And I feel a kind of shame as if nostalgia has become some kind of crime. And I keep dreaming of the past. I dream of how it would be if things had happened some other way. But that’s a kind of madness, isn’t it? You’re supposed to dream about the future, not the past, aren’t I right? But I can’t. I can’t anymore, I’m telling you, I can’t. Forty-nine days. And then there’s work. Day and night I see people crushed by their jobs. People who are tired and scared. As if it’s no longer possible to work without being afraid. And I tell myself. I tell myself I don’t want to be like that I want to fight it and not let it bring me down. But how long can you stand it. And the more time passes and the more I move forward the more my heart and mind return to the things of the past. And I think about how one day all three of us will be gone, me and my heart and my mind, too. One day I’ll lose my heart and my mind and then what’ll happen. I don’t know what’ll happen. One day. Just like that.
Outside the darkness grows, the streets are empty, the windows moan in the wind.
He pushes his chair back and lights another cigarette. His face is lit for a moment by the flame of his lighter and then sinks back into darkness.
We look outside.
Immortal cabinets, Takis says and his voice seems to darken, too.
The light from the lamp is dimmer now, and there are no more shadows on the wall. In here, too, the darkness is spreading.
Immortal cabinets, he says.
Immortal cabinets.
Foreign. Exotic.
AT NIGHT HE TALKS a lot to Lena. Vassilis. At night Vassilis talks a lot to Lena. Some things he says to put her to sleep and others he says to keep her awake. He doesn’t talk about the past, about the house that was lost or the job that was lost or the life that was lost. He talks about other things. Things far from them, foreign, exotic. The tallest buildings in the world and where they’re located. Which cities will be the largest in the world in the year 2050. What kinds of animals are native to Australia. The names of volcanoes in Alaska and Indonesia. Those are the kinds of things Vassilis tells Lena at night. Foreign. Exotic.
In the beginning, when they first moved to Nikaia, he would read her fairytales. Lots of fairytales, whole collections of them. From Crete, Thessaly, Epirus, Asia Minor. All kinds of fairytales. Goblins and trolls. The man in the moon. The tree of snakes. Misokolakis the half-made man. Dakris the man born of tears. The plane tree and the forty dragons. The boy raised by bears. Alimonos and the golden branches. The man made of wheat – his favorite. Fairytales from China, India, and South America, too. All kinds of fairytales. Two or three each night all night. All the fairytales he hadn’t read as a child he read to Lena on those nights. The stories helped them both. It helped them forgot their troubles for a while. Night can be a torture in troubled times. During the day things are clear, you know what to be afraid of. Work, bills, phone calls from the bank about overdue payments. But night is different. Night gets into your head. Even memories are frightening at night. They creep through the sheets like snakes. That’s how memories come in the small hours. And so they turned to fairytales. Vassilis read, Lena listened. Two or three fairytales each night all night until daylight came, until the balcony door shone with the gray light of day.
Later on they agreed to stop.
It’s not fair, Lena said. You always fall asleep before me.
• • •
On average we dream 1,460 dreams per year.
Each dream lasts an average of two to three seconds.
It’s impossible for human bei
ngs to lick their own elbows.
The human body contains enough iron to make a small nail.
The length of your thumb is equal to the length of your nose.
A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s.
At an international conference on longevity in Melbourne, Australian professor of alternative medicine Mark Cohen announced that the rabbits he and his team pet every day at the lab live sixty percent longer than the rabbits they don’t pet.
Someone in the audience asked if the rabbits were real or Playboy bunnies.
November. Tonight it turned cold and a wind picked up. Vassilis slips a hand under the covers and touches Lena’s chest and rests his other hand against his own chest and tries to count their heartbeats. He counts the beats and counts the streetlights on the road across the way that he can see through the balcony door. It’s a road that slopes uphill full of curves which at night seems to vanish into the sky. Vassilis doesn’t know where that road goes. Sky Street – that’s what he calls it. Sky Street. He keeps saying they should go there one evening in the car to see where it starts and where it ends and count the yellow streetlights from up close but Lena says no. She doesn’t care what road it is or what it’s called or where it starts or where it ends. She doesn’t care about anything in Nikaia. We’re just passing through here, she tells Vassilis. We’re strangers here, passing through. Besides, it’s not much of a view, she says. No mountains or trees or sea. It’s all apartment buildings and utility poles. Not much of a view. I pity the people who live here. But for us it’s fine. We’re just passing through. Isn’t that right? Tell me, I need to hear it. Tell me we’re just passing through.
Something Will Happen, You'll See Page 11