Don’t sit here, he would finally say. This is no place for a girl to be sitting by herself. Go home and turn on the television. It’s a good thing, television. It’s like medicine. It really is. The best medicine. Really.
• • •
It was getting dark. A ship came into the port and turned itself around and docked with its stern facing the pier. It was empty, no passengers or cars either. When the ramp came down a sailor came out and grabbed the rope and pulled it over to the painted bollard. For a minute he froze in place, bent over, looked at the yellow smiley face, then laughed, shook his head and laughed again and looked around but didn’t see anything so he threw the rope around the bollard and went back to work.
I waited. A breeze had picked up and in the half darkness I could hear another rope slapping against the empty flagpole on the stern of the ship. I could pick out that sound in an instant from among thousands of other sounds. There’s no other sound like it, so lonely and melancholy, an unending sigh, an empty flagpole longing for its flag. I’d never told Aris about it, because I knew he wouldn’t believe me and also because he’d think nothing of running out to buy me a pair of ear protectors like the ones the guys wear who work the jackhammers, the ones with the spongy cushions that rest softly over your ears and make your ears all hot and he’d give them to me and say:
For the port. For you to wear when it’s windy so you don’t have to hear how sad the flagpole is. Aren’t they nice? Try them on. Aren’t they nice?
• • •
Now the wind was blowing hard. A hot harsh wind that stuck to you like old sins. I saw the girl get up off the bench and go over to the bollard. She kneeled and pulled the cans of spray paint back out of her pocket – or it might have been just one can, I don’t know, I couldn’t see very well. She did something to the bollard and then got up and stood there motionless and looked for a while at the dark sea and put her hands in her pockets and wrapped herself in her coat and left almost at a run with her head down. She went out through the gate, crossed the street and disappeared. When I went over to the bollard I saw that she’d changed something in the painted face. The smile. There was no smile anymore, she’d erased it. She’d erased the smiling red lips and in their place had put a black line that curled downward, a thick black line like a wound or scar. She’d erased the smile from the happy face and now the happy face was sad and afraid. At first I didn’t get it. Why had she done it? That smiley face had been a kind of comfort. To sit all alone at the port at night and see a smiley face on a bollard was a kind of comfort – why would she want to ruin it? But later on, when I sat down on the bench, I looked again and understood. I saw the rope squeezing the neck of the fake person like a noose and choking it. That’s why she’d erased the smile and made the happy face sad. Because it was choking. Because it had a thick rope around its neck and it couldn’t breathe.
I took off my special goggles and rubbed my eyes and looked again.
It’s an awful thing to have a noose around your neck. Even for a painting, for a fake person, it’s an awful thing. Really.
• • •
By now it was night. Off in the distance, outside the port, the lights of the ships anchored out at sea flickered in long irregular lines like the beads of a broken necklace whose pieces had scattered in the dark. I couldn’t see them from where I was sitting but I knew that’s how they were. Little shiny beads scattered in the dark – and you stretched out a hand and thought you could touch them, but that necklace had broken once and for all, no one could put it back together again. I sat down on my bench. At last. I sat there like a person who’s just come home exhausted from work – legs straight out eyes closed arms stretched to either side. I ran my hand over the peeling wood, which was warm and scratchy. I smelled my hand. It smelled like salt and sun and fuel oil.
Then I got up and went to the edge of the dock and kneeled in front of the bollard and touched the metal and the sad face that was painted on it. It was wild to the touch, wild and warm. I stood up and grabbed the thick wet rope with both hands. I grabbed the noose that was choking the painting’s neck. I grabbed it with both hands, with all my strength, and tried to pull it off of the bollard.
I grappled with the rope and sang that same song, “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay,” the same one I sing every night, and I said to myself that tonight I might just manage to get the whistle right, Otis Redding’s whistle, just once. It wasn’t easy but I’d give it my best. And I’d loosen the noose. I’d loosen the noose and take the rope off the bollard so that painted fake person could breathe. Man or woman it didn’t matter.
I struggled with the rope, gave it all the strength I had, told myself I had to succeed. I wished Aris were there to see what I was doing and tell me whether it was a good thing, whether it was a kind of medicine, to take ropes off bollards and loosen nooses from the necks of painted people. I wished he could tell me if that too was medicine for people like us, for poor people.
The noose was awkward and the rope kept slipping, chafing my hands until they bled.
But I wouldn’t stop, I gave it my all, I tugged at the rope with all my strength.
Please, I said. Please help me.
I struggled to take off that noose. I gave it all my strength.
It was July. Saturday was dawning. The sea breathed small choppy waves.
The Union of Bodies
HOW MUCH.
Four hundred.
How much?
Are you deaf? Four hundred. One hundred times four. At the end of the month.
You said eight hundred. You said you’d ask for a whole month’s wages.
I said, past tense.
And you accepted four.
That asshole doesn’t listen to anyone. And I begged him. Anyway. Four hundred is fine. I’m going over there now. We’ll talk in the morning.
Did you try giving him a blow job?
Effie.
You should be ashamed. You call yourself a man? If you were a whore he’d give you more. I don’t want to ever see you again, you hear? Don’t you dare show your face around here because I’ll call the cops. I’m sick of you, you pathetic fool. You’re small change. It’s over, we’re through. Hear me? We’re through. Just listen to him, four hundred. That’s a euro per hour. You pathetic idiot. Loser. You’ll always be someone’s bitch.
• • •
The receiver is black and heavy in his hand. He hangs up and leaves the phone booth and crosses the street to get back in the Nissan. Four hundred euros. He rolls down the window and straightens the mirror and looks at himself. Four hundred euros.
He looks at himself in the mirror. He has black circles under his eyes and the whites of his eyes are full of tiny red threads. His mouth tastes like something died in there. He hasn’t eaten or slept since yesterday. He smooths his hair back and runs a hand over the top of his head and can feel the shards of glass. Little pieces of glass under the skin. It’s got to be glass. In May he crashed the car into a low wall around a field. Early in the morning on the fourteenth of May. He was going a hundred kilometers an hour and went straight through a wall down in Aspra Homata on Beloyannis Street. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and his head hit the windshield and the airbag even opened. He wasn’t hurt, just a few scratches. But the Nissan was totaled. At the dealership they wanted ten thousand to fix it. Ten thousand euros. As much as he’d paid for it new. He felt like grabbing the bastard by the throat and strangling him. In the end he found a mechanic in Keratsini who got it back into some kind of shape for two thousand. Effie loaned him half. He still owes her for it.
And the Nissan drives like a boat these days. Every time he gets in he’s worried it might not start.
He doesn’t remember hitting the wall. He only remembers getting out of the car and checking to make sure nothing was broken and then walking to Effie’s house and the whole way feeling his head and finding little pieces of glass. From Kokkinia to Agia Sophia by foot, who knows how he managed that. He remembers Effie
opening the door and screaming and making him lie down in the bedroom. She wanted to call an ambulance but he wouldn’t let her. She sat there all night by his side and talked to him. He can’t remember what she said. He only remembers swearing that he’d never drink again. And ever since then whenever he breaks his oath he’s afraid. Which means he’s afraid when he drinks and afraid when he doesn’t drink, too. Fear.
He grabs his cell phone off the dashboard and puts it in the glove compartment. The battery is dead again. For ages he’s been saying he needs to get a charger for the car but he always forgets. And today the battery ran out of juice and he ran out of money. Again.
He holds his hands up in front of him so they’re facing one another and stretches out his thumbs. They’re trembling slightly. He holds his breath then slowly lets it out and lets his fingers relax and watches as they approach one another slowly and hesitantly until they’re tangled together like lovers’ bodies – his fingers coming together like lovers, like people touching in search of shelter from some terrible disaster.
He sits like that for a while with his thumbs together and thinks of all the things he needs to do, and of the nights he’ll spend with Effie. Then he turns the key in the ignition and releases the emergency brake and sticks his head out the window. Somewhere someone is cooking and the air smells like french fries. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and sighs.
Four hundred euros. Four hundred. At the end of the month.
And it’s still only the third of August.
• • •
Its name is Leben. A Belgian sheepdog with bloodthirsty eyes and jet black fur that shines even at night. He’s only seen the dog three times and all three times it lunged at him, then walked off and stared at him with its mouth half open and its long pink tongue hanging out. It watched him and laughed. Fucking dog. From a distance it looked like a bear.
And Alamanos laughed too.
Don’t be scared, man, he said. It’s just until he gets used to you. Look at you, shitting yourself with fear.
Alamanos asked him to come by the house last week so he could give him instructions and show him where things were. There isn’t another house like it in all of Schisto. People pass by and marvel. The house itself sits on five hundred square meters and has another two thousand of yard. A pool and grass and strange trees and hidden lights in the garden. A covered patio with a built-in grill and wood-fired oven. And the whole thing enclosed in a high stone wall with cement on top where they’ve stuck pointy pieces of sharp green glass that glitter in the sunlight so that from a distance it looks like an enormous grey dragon sunning itself on the top of the wall and looking out with a thousand shiny eyes.
It’s stupid, that dragon, said Alamanos. The wife’s idea. She saw it on television. You know how women are. Whatever bright idea gets stuck in their cunt.
He showed him how the alarm worked, how to turn on the lights in the house and in the garden, how to water the grass and how the lawn mower worked. He showed him which keys opened which doors and explained what to do with the dog. How and when to feed it, how often to walk it. They would be gone for all of August – ten days abroad, in Tunisia or Morocco, and the rest touring the islands on their yacht – and Alamanos needed someone he trusted to look after the house and the dog. And he said he would do it. Not just for the money but also to get on Alamanos’s good side. Times are tough. Things at work aren’t going well at all. A bagmaker. That’s his job. He puts newspapers and magazines and flyers in plastic bags. But things have been getting messy since spring. There’s no cash to speak of. Everyone’s been working on credit. Alamanos has been fighting with the customers and the customers are leaving and orders are dropping like flies – and Alamanos is firing people, too. The Poles and the Russians were the first to go but starting in September there’ll be others, too. For sure. So he’s afraid of losing his job. He hates his job and hates having to lie about what he does. A bagmaker. When he was little and people asked him what he was going to be when he grew up he never knew what to say. But it never occurred to him, he never could have imagined that one day he’d have a job like that. Most people don’t even know there is such a job. Bagmaker. They don’t even know what it means. That’s why when people ask what he does he just says he works in the private sector. And if they insist – the way Effie did when they first met – he says he operates packaging machines. Or works at a graphic arts firm. Bagmaker. Because if you really think about it even that’s a lie. He doesn’t make bags. He puts things in bags. Newspapers magazines promotional flyers. So he’s not a bagmaker, he’s something else. He just doesn’t know what.
But he still doesn’t want to lose his job. So when Alamanos mentioned the house, he offered immediately. It’s good to be on good terms with the boss. It’s good for your boss to trust you and be indebted to you in some way. It’s a great opportunity. A man doesn’t entrust his house and his property to a nobody. An operator of packaging machines. He’s written a whole scenario in his head. All of August off from work. A huge house all to himself. Free booze. In the mornings he’ll swim in the pool and lie out in the sun and put on music and drink colorful cocktails. In the afternoons he’ll walk the dog and water the lawn and flowerpots and then lie down again by the swimming pool and wait for Effie. Glamour. Hollywood. No one would believe him if he told them. And as soon as Effie gets off work she’ll come straight there and they’ll swim in the pool and then cook dinner and drink wine and do lots of other things, too – all night every night. Every night they’ll stand naked across from one another and let their bodies go free and their bodies will approach one another slowly and hesitantly and slowly and hesitantly come together. Their bodies will rest on one another and their eyes will be closed and they’ll smell one another and feel that strange thing. That heat that emanates from a body that’s free of clothes. The sweetness and dizziness and desire born of the union of bodies. That’s what he wants more than anything. The union of bodies. That’s the gift he’ll give to Effie, along with all the rest. And he doesn’t care that it’s only temporary, that it’ll all be over in a month. He doesn’t care that this life will end in a month. Because what someone once said – that the meaning of life is that it ends – is the only thing worth knowing, for however long you’re fated to live. That and nothing else.
The meaning of life is that it ends.
And at the end of the month he’ll get four hundred euros for his trouble.
Though he isn’t actually so sure about that.
• • •
And then there’s the dog.
Look after Leben like you would your own eyes, Alamanos said the last time he had him come to the house. Like your eyes. You hear?
They were sitting by the pool drinking whiskey on ice. The dog stood between his owner’s legs and stared at him the whole time. Black eyes jet black blacker than you would believe. And whenever he reached out a hand to pick up his glass or light a cigarette, the dog threw its ears back and growled as if it were a toy – as if it were a mechanical dog and some gear inside it had broken.
The wife will write it all down for you, Alamanos said. About his food and walks and shit and everything. And the vet’s phone number in case something happens, knock wood that it doesn’t. So don’t drop the ball on this one. You hear? I don’t have two kids and a dog, I have three kids. Got it? Like your eyes. If anything happens to him. Got it? That’s all I have to say. Like your eyes.
He stared at the dog, which was staring at him. He could hear Alamanos talking but his mind was somewhere else.
At some point the conversation came around to money and he thinks he said something to Alamanos about money. He thinks Alamanos said he would pay him but he isn’t sure. Three or four hundred euros. He thinks that’s what he said it but he isn’t sure. He can’t remember very well. He was still reeling from all the talk and the dog’s growling and the booze and the evening heat and the lights reflecting off the water of the pool that gave the water a peculiar color, an ex
otic color that made him feel even more a stranger in that house, that life. He may have said it but he isn’t sure. But if he didn’t say it then, he’s sure to at the end of the month. Alamanos is sure to give him something. For sure. Four hundred euros. Maybe not that much but something.
But he didn’t tell Effie any of that.
• • •
It’s almost eight when he gets to the house. He parks and turns off the engine and looks at the view from up there. Korydallos Neapoli Maniatika. You can see as far as the port and the sea and the islands. He looks at the view and thinks of Effie – of the nights he’ll spend with Effie. August. Another whole month. The meaning of August is that it ends.
Then he brings his hands close to one another and stretches out his thumbs. He holds his breath then lets it out slowly and lets his fingers relax and watches as they approach one another slowly and hesitantly and –
And then he hears the barking.
The dog has wedged its head between the bars of the front gate and is tossing its head and barking like mad.
Leben! Leben!
He gets out of the car and walks across the street and over to the gate, terrified.
Leben, hey guy. It’s me, Leben. It’s fine, it’s just me. Lebenako. Down. Down, calm down.
The dog backs up a few steps and stands there stock still. It stands there and stares at him with its head cocked to one side. Black eyes, shiny white teeth. A tongue red as blood. Its fur blacker than ever. It does a circle around itself, then another, and then it stands there without moving at all. Then suddenly it lunges forward and crashes into the gate again. It’s shaking all over, biting the bars of the gate, barking loud enough for three dogs.
Something Will Happen, You'll See Page 14