Something Will Happen, You'll See

by Christos Ikonomou

  He slowly pulls his hand away from Lena’s chest and slowly sits up and looks outside. Two eucalyptus trees on the street below, branches joining and parting as the wind blows. Eucalyptus trees. Not native to this place but they still put down roots. Every night he looks at the trees and counts the lights on the street that seems to vanish into the sky. And every night he loses track but he never gives up. That’s how Vassilis spends his nights. Counting lights, looking at trees, talking to Lena – to put her to sleep or to keep her awake. And in the morning at work the others see that he’s white as a sheet from lack of sleep and they laugh.

  What’s up, Bill? Were you screwing Snow White again last night?

  Lena lifts her head and looks at him.

  Are you counting streetlights again? she asks. I don’t like that street, I told you. The way it ends so abruptly. We’re never going there, understand? Never.

  • • •

  Strange how things sometimes turn out. You grow up and experience things and read books and get to know people and places and arrive at an age that you used to believe in, and in the end it seems that everything in life is a matter of luck, that your life and everyone’s life is a small inside-out universe through which everything moves blindly and without purpose, a universe without a god, without rules, without purpose – chaos. And then something happens to shake that belief and you start to wonder whether you might have made a mistake, if there might in fact be something that gives meaning to the chaos, if there might be some secret thread that ties everything in your life together, a secret thread that ties your life to the lives of others. And you get scared. You get scared because while it might be truly frightening to live in chaos it’s twice as frightening to know that you live not in chaos but in a world with laws and rules that you yourself will never learn, that you’re incapable of learning—no matter how hard you try, you’ll never find that thin secret thread, never grasp it, never find the thing that has both beginning and end.

  When the house burned down Lena was twelve weeks pregnant.

  No one ever knew if the stars were to blame for what happened, if it was the solar eclipse in June or Pluto which had been ascending since April. Lena’s sister had won three hundred thousand euros in the lotto and decided to give up the bookstore and live her life, travel to improbable places – Alaska, Kenya, Peru. She’d always believed that there are two ways for a person to learn about herself and the world: by reading and by traveling. Books and travel. After twenty years of books now she had the opportunity to travel wherever she wanted, to get to know people, places, smells, tastes. Wasn’t it incredible? She was crazy with joy. She was almost ready to believe that there is a god after all even if she would never admit it to anyone but them – her friends would make fun of her for sure. They would get mad at her, the way they did once when she said that if we call god a human creation then whoever turns against god is turning against people, too – which must mean that atheists are all misanthropes? She’d only told her sister and Vassilis. There might be a god after all, she said. She told them she wanted them to take over the bookstore and move into her house which was next to the bookstore and look after it too. They wouldn’t have to pay a cent, not even the bills.

  It’s a win-win deal, she said. You’ll have a free house and I’ll have free caretakers. So no ifs ands or buts. That’s how it’s going to be.

  She grabbed Lena’s hand and squeezed it in hers. Her mouth was trembling. She had tears in her eyes.

  You guys know how to run the store, she said. And if you need anything you can always call. We’ll talk every day on the phone, okay?

  It was evening, near the end of May. They were sitting in the kitchen. Vassilis had made coffee for the women and was drinking cognac out of a snifter. It was getting dark but they didn’t turn on any lights. Lena was toying with the beads of her necklace and looking at Vassilis.

  I don’t know, Vassilis said. It’s all pretty sudden. I mean, it seems like a lot of responsibility. We’re not cut out to be bosses. Or caretakers.

  Oh, come on, said Lena’s sister. Over here. Look at me. Here. I’m handing over the best bookstore in Chania and I have no doubt you’ll turn it into the best bookstore in all of Crete. I’m sure of it.

  She leaned over and stroked Lena’s belly.

  You have to consider the future, she said. It’s not just the two of you anymore.

  Then she opened her purse and pulled out three little boxes and opened them and showed Lena and Vassilis the three platinum crosses she’d bought – one for each of them. And for my godchild I’ll get a cross with diamonds on it, she said and stroked Lena’s belly again.

  She held out a hand to each of them.

  Everything’s going to be fine, she said. I’m sure you’ll manage. Have faith. That’s the most important thing. People who don’t believe in anything are just as unhappy as those who are searching for something to believe in. Faith isn’t a road. Faith is the end of the road. Or maybe it’s a road with no beginning or end. At any rate, I for one am very optimistic. Agreed?

  Okay, Lena said.

  If I won the lottery I’d be optimistic too, Vassilis wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut.

  He emptied his glass and then wiped his hand on his shirt and took his sister-in-law’s outstretched hand.

  • • •

  When the house burned down Lena was twelve weeks pregnant.

  It was the last weekend of July. Her sister had just gotten back to Athens from Mexico and was leaving again on Monday for some godforsaken place – Nepal or India or somewhere like that. Utterly insane. She wanted to buy Lena a ticket to come see her in Athens. They had to see one another, she’d missed Lena so much. And she had so many things to tell her, incredible things that she’d seen and heard in Peru and Mexico. She wanted to tell her all about the Mayans and Incas and Aztecs, the Yucatan peninsula, about the sun of Mazatlan that turns an indescribable green when it sets.

  I’ve heard that, said Vassilis. The sun is green over there. The horses, too.

  So, what do you think? Lena asked. Should I go?

  Go. And make sure to talk straight with her. Ask where all this is leading. You and I are stuck here running someone else’s store and living in someone else’s house. Great, so she won a bunch of money and wants to play Phileas Fogg. But what about us? Our whole lives are on hold. Who knows, she might get some crazy idea in her head in the next place she goes and hand all her money over to the children of Calcutta and then disappear into the jungle to feed elephants. I have no idea. How long is this whole story going to last. I can’t sleep at night. It’s all I can think about.

  Why? I mean, what were we before? Lena said. Weren’t our lives on hold before?

  She opened the fridge and poured a glass of water and set the bottle on the table. On the television they were saying the heat wave would last until Monday. Forty or even forty-one degrees. It was even worse at night, it never cooled off. She came and sat on Vassilis’s lap and pressed his head against her chest. Her breasts were fuller these days and her face was puffy and glistened as if she were sweating all the time. In the mornings she felt dizzy and she was always complaining that she was tired. There were days when she didn’t get to the bookstore until afternoon and didn’t really help much at all. She just sat at the register and read baby books.

  It’s not like we’re strangers, Lena said. She’s my sister. It’s not just anyone’s store and house. What’s gotten into you?

  But they’re not ours, either. They’re not a stranger’s but they’re not ours, either. The uncertainty is driving me nuts.

  He took a cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth without lighting it. For the past month or so Lena hadn’t let him smoke in the house. She was trying to get him to quit. And drinking, too. Things were different now, she said. The days are over when you could play Billy the Kid. You’re going to be a father soon, she said and laughed. You’re going to be Kyrios Vassilis. And then Kyr Vassilis. And then barba-Vassili
s. And I’ll be Aunt Lena.

  And she laughed.

  He toyed with the cigarette in his fingers then laid it down on the table. Lena drank her glass of water one mouthful at a time. She held it in her mouth until it got warm and then swallowed slowly. The way he was looking at her sideways, and the way her neck was bent, her face seemed unrecognizable to him. Distorted. He closed his eyes.

  It’s not fair, he said.

  What?

  The whole thing. Three hundred thousand. Three hundred thousand. I can’t wrap my head around it. And she never said, hey, guys, here’s a couple grand for you to go and spend however you like. All she gave us were those stupid crosses. As if we’re Mau Mau or something. That’s one nice sister you’ve got. You should be proud.

  Lena stood up from his lap and sat on a different chair. She looked at the bottle of water sweating on the table.

  Pity the man with no nails who expects others to scratch his back, she said. That’s what my mother used to say.

  Then she said she was scared to fly with the baby. She’d talked to her doctor and he said it was fine. But she was still scared.

  Go, Vassilis said. Go and talk to her. Explain how things are over here. Tell her that something has to give.

  I’ll go. But I’m scared.

  All of a sudden her upper arm was covered in tiny little bumps. She set her glass on the table and started to rub her skin.

  I’m fine, she said. It’s okay. It’s gone now.

  Then they fell silent. They stared at the sweating bottle of water on the table. A drop rolled down from the neck of the bottle. Then another. And another.

  • • •

  An entire weekend. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d had the house to himself for an entire weekend. Years and years. In the morning he drove Lena to the airport and on the way home he started quaking all over with nostalgia. Nostalgia for the years before he was married, when he drank alone, walked alone for hours from Pahiana to Souda and back again. Alone. With other worries, or no worries at all. Alone.

  He opened the bookstore and before noon had talked to Lena on the phone once or twice and emptied an entire bottle of tsikoudia. Then he went next door to the house and kept drinking and put on music and started to dance in the darkened living room and as he danced and sweated and drank he remembered the years when music was his only friend, the years when music gave him strength and made him feel invincible. He remembered the years when he dreamed of becoming a singer, a rock star, giving concerts and interviews. New Idols, that’s what his band would be called.

  From Nietzche’s Zarathustra and it meant something but he’d forgotten what.

  Soon he got tired and dizzy and he lay down on the floor to catch his breath. In life you don’t get what you deserve but what you demand, is what the self-help books say. And there, in the darkness, looking at the things around him that weren’t his, smelling the strange smell of the house, it occurred to him that he’d never demanded anything in his life. And he realized that now, even if he wanted to, it was far too late to demand anything at all.

  He remembered something that had happened the previous October when they were still living in their old place. It was Sunday evening, outside it was rainy and windy. He was lying on the sofa and listening to the rain and feeling the spot on his chest where the doctor had shaved off a patch of his hair. The doctor had shaved him and put on some doodad with suction cups that was supposed to monitor his heart rate. On Wednesday he’d fainted at the store just like that for no reason. Lena took him straight to a cardiologist. Blood pressure meter, cardiograph, echocardiogram. The guy poked and prodded for an hour. Are you experiencing any kind of stress, he asked and Vassilis said no but it wasn’t true. They were out of money again – Lena’s sister had some kind of debts and wouldn’t be able to pay them until the end of the month. And they were down to their last hundred euros.

  Cut back on coffee and cigarettes and alcohol, the doctor told him. And salt. And start walking. And make an appointment to come back for a stress test. I don’t see anything serious but the older we get, the more the old ticker needs looking after.

  The cardiologist charged seventy euros. Fifty for the office visit and twenty for the machine.

  He was still listening to the rain and rubbing his chest where the doctor had shaved him when Lena bent over him and kissed him on the ear. Wake up, she said. Get up, I have a surprise for you. She took his hand and put her other hand over his eyes and pulled him into the kitchen. For a moment – who knows why – he thought that he would open his eyes and see a pile of money spread out on the kitchen counter. When he opened his eyes he saw a plate of cookies.

  Ta-da! Lena cried and laughed and clapped her hands. What do you think? You’re going to love them. You’ve never tasted cookies like this before, believe me. Don’t try them yet, I’m going to make some hot cocoa first. Your little Lena sure can cook sometimes, these are real gourmet treats.

  She made the hot cocoa and lit some candles and put 16 Horsepower on the stereo and opened the balcony door. They sat on the sofa and ate cookies made with grape must and drank cocoa listening to music, watching the rain and smelling the wet earth. The cookies were crunchy, with sesame and cinnamon.

  There’s nothing I’m afraid of right now, said Lena. She looked him in the eye. I’m not worried about work or money. Nothing. I’m not even afraid of illness. Really. I don’t know why, I just have this faith inside. I believe in Christ. I believe in us. There’s nothing else I need. Nothing.

  He started to say something but she stopped him.

  Shut up, she said, and take me to bed.

  • • •

  It was nighttime when Lena called. What’s wrong, she asked. Why do you sound like that? He told her he’d been sleeping and she woke him up. He told her he was going back to bed and they’d talk in the morning. Then he went into the kitchen and turned on the oven to heat up his dinner. Lena had made goat with potatoes. He ate straight out of the pan like an animal, with his hands. He was hungry. He ate half the pan and drank another bottle of tsikoudia – his third that day. When he opened the fridge to take out the bottle he looked at the empty shelves and the frozen white light coming out of the fridge. The cold hit his face. He felt as if he had opened the door of some strange foreign world that was ready to suck him up. He closed the door of the fridge and held it shut with both hands.

  Then he left the house.

  He went down Kidonia Street and crossed over into the square and then out onto Halidon Street and headed down to the port. He turned right onto a sidestreet and ducked into a bar called Labyrinth. He hadn’t been there in years. The bartender was different. The music was different. The people were different – now it was full of queers in shorts with gel in their hair. He looked at the women. They all looked pregnant. Fat and pale and sweaty. He felt like throwing up. He ran back outside. He bought cigarettes and more tsikoudia from a minimarket on the corner and headed on foot for Souda Bay. His boots slapped heavily against the pavement. He wore boots year round, winter and summer, had ever since he was in school. He liked the smell of the leather, the sound the heels made, the feeling of security on his feet. He felt as if he were wearing armor. He hated normal shoes, thought it shameful for a man to let his socks show. Though recently Lena had been pressuring him to wear sneakers in summer. You’re going to mess up your feet if you don’t let them breathe, she said.

  Outside the schools in Koumbes he tripped over a broken sidewalk tile and almost fell. His right boot got scratched. He bent over and rubbed it with his hands, stroking the stiff black leather.

  No, he said. No way. As long as I live I’ll always wear boots. End of story.

  And he was glad he’d finally found something to demand.

  • • •

  When the house burned down Lena was twelve weeks pregnant.

  He didn’t see anything or hear anything either. But he could smell the burn from the next street over. And when he turned the c
orner he saw a crowd gathered outside the house. Someone ran toward him shouting his name and grabbed him by the shoulders. He saw the door of the house which had been busted open, and the blackened walls, the street full of water. The window of the bookstore was in ruins. They made him sit down on the steps of the house across the street and brought him water. Everyone was talking at once. A fire. The oven was on. The fire department. We were looking for you. That’s what he remembers. And he remembers an old woman splashing his face with water and rubbing his cheeks hard, and his forehead and neck and crying and saying oh that poor unlucky girl.

  The same words, again and again.

  Oh that poor unlucky girl. That poor unlucky girl. That poor unlucky girl.

  • • •

  Talking to Lena so she’ll fall asleep or so she’ll stay awake. It depends. But talking. All night every night. Until his voice in the dark of the bedroom starts to sound like it’s not his voice but just a sound in the night, a sound that belongs to the night. All night every night. In the morning he steals time from work and searches the internet or flips through American almanacs in search of evidence and facts and numbers. He prepares himself as best he can for the night because at night he has to talk to Lena – he can’t let her down, can’t let her go hungry. Because Lena is hungry. And the night is hungry. And Vassilis feeds them both with useless things, with trivia – facts, evidence, numbers – because if he doesn’t feed them they’ll eat him instead. So each night he talks and talks and talks until his mouth goes dry and each day he hopes for just a single night when he can go to sleep quietly, to fall asleep just once without talking without dreams without worries.