There was nothing for him in Aigio. He turned around and drove back to Diakofto. He needed time to think. What would he do next? He passed his favourite café, but when he saw some of the men he’d gotten to know in the last few weeks sitting outside, smoking and gossiping, he knew he didn’t want to stop.
At the next corner, a man flagged him down. Nicolai slammed on his brakes. The seat belt tightened, cinching him against the back of the seat.
Achilles jumped into the car.
Before Achilles could close the door, Nicolai drove on.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You want a ride or not?”
“I’m headed home. I don’t know why I go to that taverna. Those farmers don’t have a clue about what I’m trying to do for this town. They are not like you. You are a man of the world, someone who understands what the boardwalk development could bring.” Achilles slapped him on the shoulder, turned on the radio.
Nicolai took the next left. Achilles said he had a cousin in Athens who had committed to partnering with him on the development.
Nicolai turned up the radio.
Achilles raised his voice. “He knows what an opportunity looks like.”
Nicolai turned the volume up again.
Achilles clicked the radio off. “What’s with you?”
He lurched to a stop in front of Achilles’s house.
Nicolai stared into his side mirror at the narrow, deserted road behind him. Achilles turned to face him.
“Why are your clothes in the back seat?”
“I’ve got to get going.”
Achilles gripped Nicolai’s shoulder. “Did the old man kick you out?”
“It wasn’t exactly the best place for me.”
Achilles got out of the car, closed the door and leaned in the window. “So now what?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“If I didn’t live with my parents, you could stay with me,” Achilles said. “But I don’t think they’d approve. You know how people talk.”
“I said, I’ll think of something.”
“You will.” Achilles tapped the roof of the car. He slipped into the house without glancing back.
Nicolai drove to the stretch of beach where he used to meet Dimitria. He checked his watch. She wasn’t there, though she usually was at this time of the morning. A woman and her two children tossed a ball around. He parked the car and watched them. Thank God he hadn’t brought Alexia to Greece. She didn’t need to see his father’s rage, all this family drama. At least he’d saved her that much. She was probably having dinner with Mavis and Stuart right now, her homework done, maybe getting ready to watch TV.
He checked his rear-view mirror and his side mirrors. Dimitria had always been here before. He could talk to her. She’d encouraged him to do more of it. He couldn’t. And now that he needed someone to talk to, he’d pissed her off. She might never speak to him again. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it, except that day in Kalavryta she’d become like the old woman in the museum, like all the rest of the small-minded villagers. He didn’t want to hear any of their gossip. There are some things that people should keep to themselves. It made life easier for everybody. She was supposed to be a friend. She said she didn’t like secrets either, she just wanted to help. Maybe. He checked his mirrors again.
The woman and her children were walking back towards their car. If only he could find Dimitria. She’d help him sort out what to do next.
He drove to the bakery and picked up a sandwich and some water. He returned to that spot on the beach and ate, then walked up and down the beach. He waited in his car, listening to music and dozing off. His head drooped and yanked him awake. The sun made the car into an oven, leaving the sky hazy. He rubbed his eyes. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to show. He turned the key in the ignition and drove back to Aigio.
He found a motel on the beach that rented rooms by the week. It had a double bed that sagged in the middle with an ugly floral bedspread, a kitchen with a hot plate, a bar fridge and a spartan bathroom. He didn’t need much. There was a postcard view of the ocean out the stamp-sized window. This would be home for now. The room smelled of disinfectant, but at least it was his. He wouldn’t have to wait for his father to leave the house before he got up in the morning or look at his mother and think about what she’d done.
He got up each day with a plan to go out and explore, get some exercise and call Alexia. Instead, he went to the café a few blocks away, bought a coffee and read the four newspapers he picked up at the stand across the street. This took most of the morning. Lunch and a long walk through the shops ate up the rest of the day. When he finally connected with Alexia days later she asked him how his work was going.
“It’s not easy right now.” Sitting at the kitchen table in the motel room, he tugged at the cord and wondered how far it might stretch. He leaned his elbow on the table, holding the phone. Her voice sounded so close, it was as if she was just outside the door.
“Things get better,” she said. “You told me that.”
“How is school?” He jerked at the cord harder than he intended.
She didn’t say anything. Had he pulled the thing out of the wall? “Are you still there, paidi mou?”
She cleared her throat. “You must be working too hard, Daddy. It’s summer now. I’m going to camp for ten days. Auntie Mavis signed me up. You won’t be able to call me.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t close at all, he thought. She was far away and had already started with things, left him behind. That was what he’d wanted. Wasn’t it?
“Um, you’re busy anyway, right? I mean, I don’t have to go. I could stay home. We could talk on the phone. Or maybe you’re almost done. When are you coming home?”
Even now, after all he’d done to her, she was worried about him. “The camp sounds like fun. Go. Don’t worry about anything. How about if I talk to Mavis now?”
“Okay, see you soon, Daddy.”
She was so eager to please him.
He heard the knock of the phone being put down, the muffled voices. She hadn’t heard him say it, but the word slipped out anyway. “Maybe.”
Mavis reassured him that Alexia had brought home an excellent report card and was excited about the camp. They’d picked it out together. “She misses you.”
“I’m still sorting through stuff.”
“She never complains.” There it was. Mavis’s friendly and accepting tone, as if it was perfectly natural for a father to abandon his little girl. Goddamn you, Mavis. Get mad at me. Tell me I’m a shit. You know it and I know it. Let’s not pretend. Next time, I’ll call Stuart. He’d tell me the truth. I’m a shit.
“I’m so glad you’re not alone with all this,” Mavis said. “Being with family helps.”
“It’s supposed to.”
He told Mavis he’d call again, gave her his number if she needed to reach him.
After she had hung up, he kept the phone against his ear, listening to the hum. It became a nagging beep and then, a recorded message ordered him to hang up. He smacked his temple with the phone and punched the wall. He was no better than his father. He shook his head. How could he be like him? He wasn’t. He rubbed his hand. His knuckles were scraped and dotted with tiny pinpricks of blood where skin had torn away.
He hung up the phone, dropped onto the bed, curled up against the pillow and wrapped himself in the bedspread. Sara.
She gave him an exasperated look. She was trying to explain, but he refused to see her point. “You’re not being rational,” he said. “Stop being so emotional.”
“I feel it. Why don’t you?” She turned away as if she’d heard enough. “I can’t talk to you.”
“I’ll do better,” he said and woke up. Against his cheek, his pillow was wet. The room was dark, and the light through his window was fading. “Don’t know if I know how to do any better.”
Nicolai wiped his face against the bedspread, got up and brushed his teeth. The mint flavour masked
the foul taste in his mouth. He pressed the wrinkles out of his shirt and pants with a damp face cloth, then wiped his armpits with the same cloth. He threw it into the sink and left his room. He had to get out of here, go for a walk, find a quiet café. Get a drink. Eat. Get away.
He peered through the front window of the candle-lit café. Two men sat at a table by the cash register and smoked. One was reading the paper and the other was picking at his plate between drags on his cigarette. A bell clanged as Nicolai entered. The man in a waiter’s uniform jumped up, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray. He welcomed Nicolai with a wide-toothed grin, slipped one arm into Nicolai’s and swept his hand across the room. “The best seat in the house for you, my friend. You have your pick.”
Nicolai chose a table at the back near the kitchen.
“Good choice, my friend. Close to the kitchen. Please come with me and you can choose what you want yourself.”
The other man butted his cigarette, put on a hair net and followed.
In the kitchen, the men raised one lid, then another. Nicolai leaned in to smell each pot. Garlic, rosemary, oregano. The place smelled like his mother’s kitchen. Why wouldn’t they just let him order from a lousy menu?
They opened the oven, lifted the tin foil from the pans of moussaka and pasticcio. Nicolai pointed at the pasticcio. “Come see the rest,” the cook said.
“I can see.” Soup spilled down the sides of one of the large pots on the stove, the walls were stained with red and brown spots, and the floor felt slippery under his feet. His mother’s kitchen was clean all the time. She’d insisted on it. “We’re not pigs,” his mother would say whenever he tracked dirt into the kitchen. Stop thinking about her, Nicolai told himself. It doesn’t solve a thing. Stop thinking. Period.
Nicolai returned to his table and found a full jug of white wine. A glass had been poured for him. The waiter grinned.
He ate half the pasticcio and sat back to sip the wine. Despite the many business trips he’d taken for clients, he’d never gotten used to eating alone. “Take a book,” Sara had said, but he’d forget her advice until he was sitting at a table, the only one in the place sitting alone.
The bell clanged over the door. Dimitria and Achilles walked in. Damn it. I don’t need any company tonight, he thought. There had to be a back door, another way out of this place. Maybe through the kitchen. He stood, then thought better of it and sat down. Maybe they’d leave. Achilles liked places that were fancy, had more noise and people he could charm.
Achilles pulled the chair out for Dimitria and when she sat down, he kissed the back of her neck. She slouched forward, pointed to the chair across from her.
Great! A perfect view. He tapped his fingers against his wine glass. He heard the faint sound and stopped. He held the glass with both hands.
Achilles stroked Dimitria’s cheek, then pulled in closer and kissed her. She turned her head. His lips met her cheek.
Nicolai bit at the skin around his thumb.
Dimitria turned towards the window.
“What’s wrong?” Achilles said. “We’re alone.”
“You know I don’t like to do this in front of other people,” she said.
Achilles looked around the café. “But there is no one here.”
Thank God, he was sitting close to the kitchen. He could see the entire place, but no one could see him, hidden behind a jut in the wall.
As though he’d been summoned, the waiter stood at their table. “Would you like to see what we have tonight, my friend?”
Nicolai threw some money on the table, started to get up.
“Tonight, you choose for us,” Achilles said.
Nicolai sat down, took a sip of wine. He could outwait them.
Achilles stroked Dimitria’s face, then her hand. She smiled without looking at him and picked up her glass, forcing his hand to drop. Nicolai caught most of the conversation. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. Achilles talked about the boardwalk. Wasn’t she tired of all that? he wondered. Dimitria sipped wine, didn’t say much. When their salad, moussaka and fish came, she thanked the waiter. “More wine,” Achilles said. “My lady needs more.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Achilles held his hand up when the waiter asked whether he should bring anything else. “We’re very good,” he said.
Dimitria’s smile was timid, but it was different than the ones she gave Nicolai. When she smiled at him, her eyes came alive, her face softened, relaxed. There was no shyness.
“And where is the money going to come from?” she asked.
“These are just details.” Achilles shrugged. “The dream makes things happen.”
“To start with, yes, but then you need money.” She wiped her mouth with the napkin, then the corner of her cheek where Achilles left a peck.
“You worry too much.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
“I have some money I can lend you, but it is not enough.”
“A start is all I need, my love, and of course, someone who believes in me.”
Nicolai pushed his chair back. It squealed against the floor. He waited for Achilles to shout hello, come over and slap him on the back.
They continued talking as if they hadn’t noticed.
In the kitchen, the cook told him the back door had been jammed shut years ago.
He wasn’t going to stick around until Achilles and Dimitria left. He walked past them, staring straight ahead. They wouldn’t notice. Lovers only had eyes for each another.
“And where did you come from?” Achilles asked as Nicolai passed their table.
Dimitria dropped Achilles’s hand, picked up her napkin. She folded it into an impossibly small square and put it back on her lap. She didn’t look at him.
“What a surprise,” Nicolai said.
“For us, too,” Dimitria said. As she stood up, her napkin fell. She bent to pick it up.
“My love. What is the matter?” Achilles said. “Join us, Nicolai. Please.”
“Yes, please do,” Dimitria said. Her olive skin turned pink, her lips pressed shut.
“I don’t want to impose.”
“We have plenty of time.” Achilles hugged Dimitria. “Don’t we, my love?”
She shrugged out of Achilles’s embrace and took Nicolai’s hand. “Please stay.”
Nicolai thought: she seems to be pleading. “Okay,” he said. She smiled then, just like the time he told her she had a ton of talent.
They pulled up a chair for him. Sitting between them meant that while he listened or talked to Achilles, he had his back to Dimitria.
Achilles ordered more wine. He picked at the moussaka, pushing bits of eggplant and potatoes into a small mound as if building a sand castle. He didn’t take a bite of any of it. “We’ve just been talking about business.”
“Yes,” Dimitria said. “That’s all.”
Her perfume lingered. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it was the same one she’d worn the last time he’d seen her. He adjusted his chair to face her. Their legs touched. He moved his away. Or had she moved hers first? He looked into her eyes and wondered why he hadn’t noticed the copper speck in her pupils before tonight. Well, why would he? He was a married man. Yes, she was dead, but Sara would always be his wife.
“What happened to your hand?” Dimitria said.
Nicolai looked down at his knuckle. “A little accident. It’s nothing.” He adjusted his chair, turned to face Achilles.
“…people walking, eating, partying on our waterfront,” Achilles was saying.
“It could be good.” Nicolai nodded.
When they stepped out of the café, the rain was coming down like a steady stream of pebbles. Achilles ran to his moped, grabbed the plastic sheet he had secured on the back and covered the seat. Nicolai and Dimitria waited under the large awning in front of the café, watching Achilles. I should say something to her, Nicolai thought. But what? I disappoint all the women in my life.
“I c
an give you a ride to Diakofto if you want,” Nicolai said, finally. “Achilles could pick up the moped tomorrow.”
“You know him,” she said. “He’s stubborn.”
Achilles ran back. He flicked water from his hair and shirt, spraying Nicolai and Dimitria. “Maybe we can wait it out,” Achilles said. The plastic sheet he’d placed on his moped flipped up in the wind and blew across the parking lot. They watched it tear in two. The bits were caught in the gust and flew in different directions. No one gave chase.
“I could give you a ride,” Nicolai said over the growling rain.
“We had some plans for tonight, didn’t we, my love?” Achilles put his arm around Dimitria’s waist. Her back stiffened.
“If you’re going home anyway,” Dimitria said, “I think it would be good.”
“I live here now.”
“What?” She turned.
Nicolai shrugged.
“His father threw him out.”
She put her hand on Nicolai’s shoulder. Lightning exploded and lit her face. There it was again. The copper flicker in her eyes.
In the car, Achilles sat in the back and Dimitria in the front. The rain turned to hail. Nicolai’s hands gripped the steering wheel. Achilles poked his head between the two front seats. He commented about the unpredictable weather. His damp hair and clothes smelled of sour cologne. Nicolai kept his eyes on the asphalt, lit up with hailstones.
When they finally entered Diakofto, Achilles sat back. In the rear-view mirror, Nicolai caught a glimpse of Achilles crossing himself. “You might as well drop me off.”
“Good driving,” Dimitria said.
He nodded, but didn’t look at her.
“Make sure you take my love home safely,” Achilles said. He held Nicolai’s shoulder firmly, then touched Dimitria’s face. “This wasn’t exactly what we had planned.”
The rain stopped and she suggested they go to the beach. “It’s still early.”
The light at the front door of her house was on when he drove by. The living room was dark except for the blue light of a television. “Your mother is up.”
Nicolai's Daughters Page 20