He didn’t understand and she didn’t explain, but what she meant was that she didn’t have to be or do anything. She didn’t need to take care of things, look after him. His wife took care of his everyday demands, leaving Alexia the best part of him, the no-hassle part. This perfect situation didn’t last. She changed firms and the relationship fizzled. She focused on work. It was the one thing she could count on. Whatever she put into it, she got much more out of it. Clients raved about her work, told their friends about her, and the firm continued to promote her until she became a partner. That gave her control and security. She couldn’t say the same thing about her relationships.
Besides, no one was interested in the real her. They only saw the image she’d created for herself: independent, driven, focused, a workaholic. And she wasn’t in the market anyway. Her father told her she worked too hard, never raised her eyes from her laptop long enough to notice a man. “No time for that,” she’d said to him.
“We’re going to stop for lunch at a beach near Loutraki. You hungry, no?”
“A little,” Alexia said. “Not really. More tired than anything.”
Christina’s jaw twitched. Alexia realized she’d disappointed her. These people were trying to engage her, she thought, make her feel like she belonged, and she’d been holding herself back as though she was better than them. They hadn’t done anything wrong. She told herself she would try harder, be warmer. Or at least as warm and friendly as she could be. She smiled at Katarina.
Solon rolled down his window and Alexia thought an oven door had opened in her face. Her hair blew across her eyes. The breeze drowned out the conversations in the seats behind her, but she heard Christina and Solon squabble. The others quieted down and didn’t interfere.
“Yati, paidi mou?” Christina shouted. One hand was on the steering wheel, the other pointed at Solon as if to scold. “We have the air conditioning!” She slapped his arm.
“My neck is sick with the artificial air,” Solon replied. He pointed to his neck. His index finger, stained yellow, his hand rough, calloused.
“Thank God you, Alexia, are like your father,” she said, and turned briefly to look at her. “Too pretty to settle for one man. Your thia have no choice. I had to take Solon.”
“Watch what you’re doing,” Solon said.
Christina had a good sense of humour. Nicolai did too. His voice was always raised and he had a smile behind his hazel eyes just like Christina did now. He liked to get close to people when he talked. His clients saw beyond his boyish grins, his jokes. Every new project became the most rewarding challenge of his career and yet when he decided to retire at sixty-four and sell his business, he walked away from it and told Alexia he wouldn’t miss it. “I’ve worked hard for long enough.” His face had grown thinner and his grey whiskers made him look pale. Still, she didn’t think to ask him if there was anything wrong. She should have noticed he was sick, confronted him.
“Besides, I can spend time with you, paidi mou, and my friends.”
He had friends, she had business associates.
The breeze tugged at Alexia’s shirt. She held her hair back to keep it off her face. More trucks passed. Christina kept one hand on the steering wheel and tuned the radio with the other. A song she recognized came on and she sang along with the melancholy singer, matching his drones. Solon held his hands over his ears and muttered to himself. Releasing her hold on her hair, Alexia raked her fingers through it. Under her fingernails, a sandy residue remained.
They arrived in Loutraki an hour or so later and Christina shifted into a lower gear, revved the engine as if she was about to take a run at something and drove up over a steep curb and onto the beach. Like nails against a chalkboard, the undercarriage grated until the van bottomed out with a loud bang. Alexia jumped, but everyone else clapped and congratulated Christina. Alexia saw the sign in Greek and below it, in English. No Parking on Beach. She pointed it out and Maria responded, “They make the rules so we break them. This is how we do everything.”
“We make our own right,” Yannis in the back seat said. “Like Socrates and Aristotle.”
What a know-it-all twerp, Alexia thought. He’ll learn soon enough.
“University teaches them strange things these days.” Christina said. The aunts and uncles agreed and that was the end of it.
Nicolai had been as fond of breaking the rules as she was of sticking to them. She paid parking tickets as soon as she got them, but he never bothered. “They don’t really expect us to pay those crooks,” he used to say after he received the umpteenth letter from a collection agency. She was different from him in all the most important ways. She never accepted social invitations from clients or colleagues. “There could be a conflict of interest,” she’d said. “Why would I put myself in that situation?” He allowed his suppliers to wine and dine him. “We’re friends. Where’s the conflict?” He liked carefree young women and was never faithful to any of them. She liked older married men, but never more than one at a time.
“It’s March, paidi mou. Water too cold,” Christina said when Solon suggested they all go in for a swim. She shrugged her jacket off her shoulders and left it in the van, then slipped out of her shoes and into heavy, old-fashioned sandals.
Solon put his hands together in prayer and looked up at the sky. “At least she makes one concession. She took off her winter jacket. Incredible.” He pointed his entwined fingers even higher. “I have to thank God that he took away a little of her stubbornness today. This no happen often.”
Alexia left her bag on the floor and tried to leave her purse in the van beside it, but Christina shook her head and gave Alexia that look again so she slung the purse over her shoulder and picked up one of the smaller boxes.
“This is man’s work,” Solon said and took the box.
Alexia followed along behind them. Even though they were parked on the beach and could have easily had their picnic close to the van, they were in search, Christina said, “of the perfect spot for your come-back-home lunch.” Sand filled Alexia’s sneakers and rubbed between her toes. She slowed down, got further behind and yet she could still hear the family’s chatter. The Gulf of Corinth gurgled quietly onto the shore. Even here, far outside Athens, the smog coloured the air sulphur yellow.
Alexia turned on her cell phone to retrieve her messages. Christina heard the phone’s chime. She turned.
“Tired, no?”
“Work never stops,” Alexia replied.
“Fresh air and good food will fix,” she said. “You will sleep tonight.”
Alexia checked the cell phone. Three messages. “I need to return some calls.”
“First eat,” Christina said. “Calls wait. No?”
“Well, yes, it could.” She turned off the phone and dropped it in her purse.
The women layered the shore with multicoloured blankets arranged in a circle. Around the edges, they poked holes in the sand and erected umbrellas that advertised Mythos beer and Metaxas, the brandy Nicolai used to drink. Casseroles of vine leaves, moussaka, and ribs were taken out of the baskets, boxes and coolers, along with several bowls of Greek salad and Tupperware containers of feta cheese, olives and various dips. Five loaves of bread were lifted out of plastic bags and placed in the middle of each blanket on a cardboard cutting board made from the flaps of the boxes that held their supplies.
“Moussaka by Katarina,” Christina said. Katarina stood up and curtsied. Part of Katarina’s three-quarter-length skirt had lodged itself in her buttocks. She picked at the lost material with one hand, waved with the other and said she hoped everyone would enjoy her dish. “Kalos Orisate!” She turned and before she plopped down she smiled at Alexia, who looked away.
“Kalos Sas Vricame,” the others replied.
Each matriarch presented her signature dish while her family and the rest of the clan looked on and clapped. Alexia ripped at the loaf of bread closest to her. When she realized what she was doing, she glanced around to see if anyone had noti
ced. Christina handed Alexia a plate and told her to start because she was the guest. Alexia took just a spoonful of everything in front of her.
“No wonder she skinny,” someone said. They all laughed.
“No is natural,” Christina said.
“Being thin is not a crime,” Maria said.
“Having a little meat is good. Think of people who starve in this world. We have to be grateful we have so much.”
Katarina agreed.
“Not for me,” Maria said.
“You different,” another aunt said.
“Who wants to be same?” Maria said.
“That is what I am trying to say,” Yannis interjected.
“See the ideas you put in the head of children?”
“I am almost a man.”
“You go to university,” Christina said. “This does not make you a man.”
Plates and forks clanged. The others spoke over each other.
“Ideas are not bad,” Maria said.
Alexia had had many of the same discussions with her father, whenever she watched what she ate, bought organic food, drank soy milk rather than cow’s milk or switched to gluten-free breads.
“Food is food. It’s all good for you. You’ve just bought into the ads,” he’d say.
“I feel better when I’m careful,” Alexia responded.
“Ella, paidi mou,” he said. “You don’t believe everything you read.”
“You mean you ad guys lie to make a buck.”
“Families are this way,” Maria said, the food in her mouth muffling her voice.
“We take good with bad,” Christina said and avoided Maria’s eyes.
“Not all families wild like yours, Maria,” Katarina said.
“At least we are alive,” Maria said. “Have a pulse.”
Everyone began to talk at once. Alexia remembered how she used to get excited and talk with her mouth full. As she’d gotten older, she’d hated the way her father talked with his mouth full, bits of food spewing out with the words. It was raw and undignified. I’d never let anyone see that much of me, she thought. As she sat watching these people, her father’s family, she remembered how, when she got older, it became her turn to chide her father for talking with his mouth full.
One night, he’d been helping her with her homework, as he did whether she wanted him to or not. “Your paper doesn’t support its conclusion,” Nicolai said. Alexia was in high school, she knew full well what she was doing. She didn’t need his help. He shrugged and smiled out of one side of his mouth as if he’d won a point. A bit of spinach from their dinner of spanikopita was stuck in his teeth.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Alexia said. She hoped to finish dinner before they got into it. She really wanted this to be the time he didn’t tell her what he thought. Just let the paper be, or better yet, tell me how great it is and leave it at that.
“I’m sick and tired of the problems with the natives you write about in your paper, paidi mou. When do they take responsibility? Why is it always someone else’s fault? And why do the rest of us have to take care of these people?”
Alexia stood up, took the plates away and washed them. He continued arguing. When she turned around, she saw he had her paper in front of him, an oily stain colouring one corner. He was scratching notes on her pages with his ballpoint pen. She listened as he went over his comments because she knew if she didn’t, she’d be up all night.
“But I’m making that point on the next page. Don’t you see?” Alexia said, though when it got even later, she stopped challenging him too. Instead, she let him ramble on and ignored most of it, submitting the paper the way she wanted it. That was the last time she showed him her homework. She got an A and never mentioned it.
“Ella,” Christina said. “Kids are kids. No? We were young once. We old and sometimes we forget.”
They quieted down as if pondering what she’d said and later hummed agreement. Alexia’s younger cousins finished eating and kicked a soccer ball around. The men lay down to nap and the women cleaned up. Alexia picked up a few plates to help.
“You will have plenty of time to ruin your hands when you have husband,” Christina said, gently slapped Alexia’s hands and took the plates from her.
“If you are lucky, you won’t find one,” Katarina said. “Too much work.” They laughed and flung rolled-up napkins at each other.
Alexia lay back on a blanket and listened to their chatter and laughter as they filled garbage bags and stuffed their empty containers back into their baskets, boxes and coolers. She’d never really understood she was part of such a big family even though her father talked about them, and when he received letters from Christina he’d give Alexia updates. She used to hear his translations of those letters and imagine what these people were like. Tall like Nicolai, funny and loud. Different. In her mind, they were exotic, and when she was a kid, Alexia missed them without ever knowing who they were. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t met them then. Not having a family made her more self-sufficient. Perhaps all the noise would have scared her or repulsed her in some way. Or maybe she would have rejected them altogether.
He told me Greece was a paradise, she thought, but never bothered to take me. The first time he called, a month after he left, I didn’t recognize his voice. Someone had taken my sad, unable-to-get-out-of-bed dad and turned him into a cheerful, happy one I didn’t know. I accused him of not being my father, cried and threw the phone. What an idiot. Mavis tried to make things better. “You have to be a good girl,” she said, “while he’s away.” That’s all I’ve ever been. I knew if I didn’t behave, he wasn’t going to come back.
Alexia watched her aunts finish packing the containers. Their world was so different than hers. It didn’t matter. She was here to do a job. That’s why she was here. Nothing more. She rummaged through her purse for her cell.
5
1986
Nicolai ran towards the swing, waving his arms. Her little hands clutched the chains, her knuckles white. The man gave the swing another push. She rocked even higher.
“That’s high enough, Alexia.” He meant to shout, but his voice came out a cracked whisper. Could she hear him? She tried to smile, wanting to please.
She tilted her head and met his eyes. Her smile disappeared.
“Hey, you. Stop that.” He yanked the man’s arm.
The stranger turned.
Nicolai recognized his hazel eyes, his own lopsided smirk.
The man stared at Nicolai, daring him to do something, anything. The other Nicolai pushed Alexia again, his hands hard against her back.
“It’s going too high, Daddy.”
“It’s okay, you know what you’re doing,” both men said in one voice.
“No,” she said and let go.
“Alexia!” he screamed, grasping for her. His hands fell to the side of the bed.
He bolted awake. His eyes darted around the room. He heard the groan of pipes and a flush down the hall. He lay back into the sag of his boyhood bed, staring at the ceiling, willing the dream out of his head. A spider lowered itself from the beam, bobbed along a thin line caught in the shimmer of the early morning sun. Nicolai rolled over, pushed himself to the edge of the mattress, then sank back into the middle. He pulled the covers over his head. Alexia was with Stuart and Mavis. She was safe.
He heard a door slam. The radio in the kitchen came on, the male announcer’s tone loud and insistent. Nicolai understood every word and none of it was English. It was his native tongue, the language he spoke with his parents, his sisters. Greek. He was back to where he’d started, in the home he thought he’d never return to.
There was a crash. The radio must have been knocked over. A whispered mutter. Then static. The announcer’s persistent voice replaced by a cheerful tune that echoed off the walls, a clear sign that his father was gone for the day. Above the clatter of dishes and the rush of water in the sink was his mother’s voice. What did she have to sing about? He
walked down the hall to the bathroom and turned up the hot water.
“Ah, Nicky, did you sleep well?” she asked as he came into the kitchen.
“Yes, okay.” He sat at the table and his mother poured him coffee. A bowl of cling peaches, another filled with yogurt and a small plate with two soft-boiled eggs was placed in front of him. Thick slices of his mother’s warm bread sat in a basket.
“You have to eat, build your strength.” She hovered beside him.
He picked at the fruit, sipped the coffee and reminded himself he had to call Alexia. His mother turned towards the counter to knead another ball of dough. “Wasn’t Maria’s skirt short? What did you think of Solon? He will make a good husband. Did you see how little meat and vegetables Katarina took? And she didn’t finish that.”
Midmorning he went with his mother to the market. He carried her bags as they walked from one stall to another. She laced her arm in his. “You remember Nicolai, don’t you?” she asked the friends she met. “He’s a successful businessman in America now, but he didn’t forget his family. Yes, he’s here for a visit.”
“Ah, even the owl thinks her baby is the most beautiful,” the tomato seller said. She put her hand on Nicolai’s shoulder and leaned into him. “Your mother is proud of you. She talks about you all the time.”
They had lunch in the café across from the railroad station. The wood floor was as faded and cracked as it had always been; the metal chairs and uneven tables still had bits of napkin stuffed under the legs to keep them level. “I never go out for lunch,” his mother said, “except if one of your sisters comes.” She waved at people she recognized, pointed at Nicolai and mouthed, “My son.”
Nicolai picked at his calamari, his gaze on his plate.
Someone slapped him on the back. He dropped his fork.
“You’re here,” the man said. “It has been too long.”
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