In the Shade of the Monkey Puzzle Tree

by Sara Alexi

  ‘There.’ She stabs her fingers at the first sheet. ‘Can you not read the price? It is in your contract.’ Theo puts his hand out to pick up the sheet, but she slams the palm of her hand down on it to stop him from removing the paper as she continues to write. Theo is beginning to find her rudeness too aggressive, but he leans over to read and is pleasantly surprised by the moderate sum. He sits back and relaxes. She might be a bit odd but at that price, if the room is even half-decent, he will take it. He needs somewhere to stay tonight and reminds himself that he is in no position to be choosy.

  The heat is becoming unbearable.

  ‘Is all this writing really necessary?’ Theo asks. ‘If I am to be in your house, wouldn’t it be better to start with a feeling of trust?’

  Her look is enough to wither the very idea. She continues to scribe. Somewhere, a clock ticks, but not in this room. This room has only a few pieces of furniture, each too big for the space, and the result is not that of a pleasant living space, more a museum, crammed in, claustrophobic.

  Between the end of the bed and the dressing table, at right angles to it, are stacks of boxes around the standard lamp. Material peeps from one which is half open as if someone has rifled through the contents. On the other side of the dressing table, behind his chair, is a rack hung with clothes. The smell of mothballs dominates. A sleeve of a fur coat ruffles his mop of hair at the back if he moves.

  ‘Right. Sign here,’ she demands.

  ‘Whilst I appreciate that you will take me as a tenant, I wonder if I might see the room first?’ Theo speaks kindly.

  ‘I hope you are not going to be a difficult tenant.’ She glares at him, her sharp features intensifying her words.

  Theo stands. If she is not going to show him the room, there is nothing more to be done here, even if the rent is reasonable, and even if it means he must spend a night in the park.

  ‘Help me up, then!’ she hisses. Theo lunges to her aid. Her arms are as fragile as chicken bones; he tries not to grip them too firmly. His own Yiayia grew thin in her last years, paper skin over protruding bones, her frailty making her grumpy. Confusion took over, especially about people, and she mistook the living for the dead, talking to both. She thought his baba was her brother who died in the war, and so his baba became terse and officious with her. She thought his mama was a German soldier come to steal the food, as she always had a plate in her hands, so Dimitra stayed away, sent Theo around with the home-cooked food. But Yiayia always knew who Theo was. He would look forward to the times he popped in with a meal. She would tell him stories of her childhood, the old days, the better ways.

  Soon after the onset of her illness, he was called up for his military service in Corinth, and not long after that, his baba wrote to inform him of Yiayia’s passing. He stared at the ceiling, lying in his bunk that night, his heart heavy because he could not be by her bedside to hold her hand as she left, to whisper his words of love and comfort, let her know she was not alone and that she would be missed. He would have given anything to be with her in the moments of her departure so her final feeling would be one of love.

  ‘I won’t break.’ The old landlady snaps, but she is on her feet and Theo lets go. He remains alert, ready to catch her if she falls.

  She makes her way to the door. Theo hopes his room will not be directly opposite hers. She may be alone and vulnerable, but he is in Athens to live his own life. He does not want to end up at her every beck and call. For that, he can stay at home with his baba.

  But she walks past the doors on this floor and begins a slow descent. Even better, he will not be on the same floor at all. This could work out well.

  Theo peers into the shadows as he follows her down the staircase, eager to know which of the doors on the ground floor will be his, but she walks straight to the front door and out onto the steps.

  ‘Shut the door then,’ she snaps. Theo rolls his eyes behind her back, but he cannot take her too seriously. Old age must be hard, especially if you are a woman alone.

  With one hand against the building, she walks to the corner, Theo following. Out in the light, he can see that the woman’s dress is very faded and many of the beads are missing, leaving pale bald patches. She turns the corner round the side of the house and they pass two more windows at head height and two that are half-submerged below pavement level, with iron grates to stop people falling down the cutaways made to let the light in. There is another balcony above, with more fine stone-carved brackets. At the end of the building, between this property and next door, is a painted cast-iron gate. Taking a key from around her neck, she struggles as it gets caught in her feathers and she mutters to herself as she tugs it free. The gate opens, she takes another key, which also becomes caught. Theo’s hand raises to help instinctively, but he decides it will probably not be welcome at this stage in their relationship and puts it back in his pocket.

  ‘Ah ha!’ she announces triumphantly. There are two doors almost side by side into the building here, with no carving or ornamentation like the front door. Instead, they are plain and not very tall. Theo can’t but help think that they must lead into the grand house’s storage rooms. If so, it will probably be damp and most certainly too low to stand up straight. Much as he needs somewhere to stay, he is glad he has not signed anything.

  The first door swings open and two steps take them down into a good-sized room. The woman struggles with the shutters, and Theo offers to help. She leaves him to do it. When the shutters open, he witnesses a pair of legs striding past on the pavement above. He turns away and coughs; the legs were a woman’s, her skirt not long enough to preserve her modesty from this angle.

  ‘Bathroom,’ he hears the landlady say from a doorway in the corner. He follows the sound of her voice down a short corridor. A door to the left opens to a bathroom, the ceiling of which slopes, suggesting that it is fitted into the space under some stairs of the main house. It smells of damp, and there are black spots in the corner. The woman has already gone through to a second room.

  ‘Kitchen,’ she says. The room is large, and in it is a double bed and a very ornate wardrobe with fine wooden carving and delicate wood inlay. There is no damp here. The kitchen area consists of a concrete shelf with a sink at one end and a two-burner stove with a gas bottle at the foot of the bed.

  She struggles with the shutters in here, too. Theo helps. Light floods in, filtered through a layer of dust on the glass. Two rooms to call his own. The floors are tiled with old-fashioned tiles which make floral designs, a border around the edge. He loves them, and as if it is a sign, they are the same as were in his yiayia’s house.

  ‘Right, sign here and give me the deposit.’ Until that moment, Theo has not noticed, folded tightly in her fist, she has brought her hand-written contract with her. She pulls it straight. Theo signs and then looks at the amount she has asked for.

  ‘But this is four weeks’ rent, I thought you said two weeks in advance,’ he argues. The image of his yiayia fades and is replaced by the man in the white dressing gown.

  ‘You need to listen. I said two weeks, in advance, and for damages. So another two weeks for damages. Which is refundable,’ she croaks.

  Theo is beginning to no longer be amused by her, and his kefi is wearing thin.

  ‘I’ll give you two weeks in advance for damages,’ he says.

  ‘You looked like you were going to be trouble.’ She holds the door open for him to leave.

  Theo struggles. On the one hand, he feels she is taking advantage of him, but he also considers that nothing in the paper even came close to matching her price, and he really does need somewhere to stay. Two weeks in advance somewhere else would be the same as the four weeks in advance that she is asking here, and the idea of going through the whole process of looking at another place to stay is just too much.

  ‘Fine.’ He takes out his wad of money and peels off the amount she has requested. Her eyes watch the roll as he replaces the majority of it and she hesitates to take the share she is o
ffered.

  ‘I need a deposit for electricity,’ she says, her words rushed, her eyes on his pocket.

  ‘Is it on a separate meter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I will get it put in my name.’

  ‘But until then, you must pay.’

  Theo does his best to remain patient. He takes his money out again and peels off a note of low value. She waits with her hand open, but he does not offer any more.

  ‘Your key.’ Her voice is sulky. She drops the keys to the gate and the door on the concrete shelf and turns to leave.

  ‘The contract?’ Theo holds out his hand.

  ‘I will write you out a copy. Come with me.’ She begins her slow walk back to her own home. But the thought of sitting in her stuffy, mothball room, watching her slowly scribble her nonsense on bits of scrap paper is more than Theo can face.

  ‘You write it out. I’ll pick it up later,’ he says, and she shrugs as if it is of no consequence and closes the gate behind her.

  ‘Keep this locked.’ She taps the metal gate.

  Chapter 5

  Age 40 Years, 5 Months, 8 - 12 Days

  Theo pauses with one foot in his new dwelling, one outside. The sound of her beads rattling softens as she goes round the corner, and he pictures her opening her creaking front door and mounting her wide, dusty staircase, shuffling and moaning and griping to herself, her white knuckles as she grips the handrail.

  Each step slower, the half-light growing misty. Her feet shuffling inch by inch to her room, the door creaking open, hand on the table supporting her weight until her thin frame regains its indented slot on the bed. And there she will sit, her movements ever slower until she becomes still, poised with a pen in her hand, her lips pursed, frozen, her eyes unblinking, the whole of her being turned onto a pillar of stone, grey and unyielding. Lit by the glow of the two bar fire until the unpaid bill clicks the heating and lighting off and cobwebs become spun from her thin fingers to the wall.

  Cats will find their way in and curl up next to her lifeless shape on the softness of her bed, others will clean out her kitchen, pulling bones and dead mice across her hall carpets, breeding and becoming many, filling her room with their soft, furry, purring, bodies. One on her lap, one on her feet, one lying along her outstretched arm, rubbing its jaw along the pen she is holding. Another on her shoulders, a living fur stole.

  Theo thinks he imagines the meow but looking down, he sees the cat is there.

  ‘The witch has gone to her bedroom,’ he tells it and with a deep breath, he turns and steps into his own rooms.

  ‘My own rooms,’ he says out loud to the cat, who has run in to sniff around. ‘My own rooms,’ he repeats. ‘A sofa here, an armchair there, a table in the middle.’ He steps into the short corridor and looks into the bathroom. The toilet faces him under the sloping roof, which is ready to hit his head if he sits upright on it. He will get a cloth to the corners, wipe off the mould. The showerhead is on a hook to the right, no cubicle. There is a drain in the middle of the tiled floor. He must remember to take his toilet paper out when he showers, but on the up side, every time he showers, the bathroom gets cleaned. Stepping back out, he makes a mental note to keep the door open, give it a chance to air.

  The shutters have swung closed in the kitchen-come-bedroom and it is dark. He opens them again and finds a bent nail in the frame has been fashioned to keep them open, and with a twist, it is back in a position to do the job. The mattress on the bed is firm and reasonably clean. The cat jumps up and nuzzles his outstretched arm. In the wardrobe, to his surprise and delight, are sheets. A box of mothballs in a corner fills the air with their distinctive aroma.

  Stroking the cat that has curled up on the bed, he lies next to it, staring up at the cracked ceiling, absorbing his success. He will explore the neighbourhood in a minute, find some food, and a bottle of local wine to celebrate.

  When he wakes the next morning, he has no idea where he is. Instead of his familiar bedroom, there is a ceiling full of cracks, a wardrobe he does not recognise. Then it all flows back.

  Standing, he stretches. The cat is on the concrete bench, eating the remains of last night’s celebratory meal: feta, fresh bread, and yoghurt. It has knocked over the half-full bottle of cheap wine, an expanding puddle of red across the shelf, dripping slowly to the floor, running between the tiles.

  ‘Pshhh, off, bad cat.’ Theo taps the animal’s rump. It stops eating, looks up and purrs. ‘No, off.’ He lifts it to the ground.

  It feels early, but early is good. He can be the first to apply for jobs. Putting his house keys around his own neck, he closes and locks the door behind him. The cat appears indignant at being shut out but as Theo locks the gate, it squeezes between the bars and runs off, up across the road and into a shop.

  He returns to the kiosk where he bought the newspaper the day before. The man inside says hello and Theo is relieved to have a word or two with him about the approaching summer and the difficulty of walking on the pavements with the abundance of cars parked on all the streets and the trees planted in the middle. He is glad of the conversation. In the village, he is in one conversation or another from morning till night. The silence of his own tongue feels unnatural and he continues talking until a new customer becomes impatient to be served, twitching for a cigarette.

  His stomach flutters as he approaches the kafeneio, only to have it sink. The girl is nowhere to be seen. One other table is occupied, but the men sitting there are locked in huddled conversation, shoulders hunched, inviting no interruption. He puts up with the gritty coffee made by the man who also has a mole on his jawline, but further up than the girl’s, near his ear. He serves Theo without making eye contact and rejects his opening for conversation, a clear indication he is not the owner, just a worker, with no investment in the business.

  Theo opens the newspaper and runs his finger down the list of today’s jobs and, borrowing a pen from the counter, circles those that are possibilities. He cannot quite finish the coffee, and he returns to the kiosk to make some calls.

  The next two days begin to form a routine of almost continuous coffees, the ends of his fingers turning black with printer’s ink as he scans through paper after paper. To his delight, the girl is in the kafeneio quite often, and she chats to him while he looks for jobs. He raises the courage to ask her name. Ananastia, or Tasia for short. It is without doubt the nicest name in the world.

  ‘There’s one, try that. It’s not far from here.’ Her delicate finger pointing to an advert he has not yet reached in his systematic approach. She sets the coffee down, her face so close as she leans over.

  ‘Oh look, there’s a job for a seamstress,’ she says.

  Theo looks at her quizzically.

  ‘No, I am not saying for you to be a seamstress, it’s just that was my mama’s work, back home, before …’ Her words trail off as she continues her scan down the list of jobs. Her hair smells fresh, sweet.

  ‘There, night watchman, oh no, that’s miles from here, although the trolley goes that far.’

  ‘What made your family leave Kefalonia?’ Theo lays down the paper.

  She sucks in a breath and straightens again, looks at Theo as if trying to weigh his intentions, and then pulls out a chair.

  ‘The earthquake of ‘53. I was only little.’ She indicates how little, holding out the flat of her hand at knee height. ‘I think it is my earliest memory. Mama died. My baba got me out …’ Theo has heard all about the earthquake on her island, which reduced nearly every house to rubble and dust. He can imagine her, a small child watching pictures fall from the mantelpiece, plates and glasses smashing on the floor. Putting her hands to her ears as the neighbours scream and the earth rumbles. Her baba rushing in to rescue her, grabbing her so tightly round her waist, lifting her, running. His arm clutching too tightly for her to breathe. Her little hands pushing against his chest to try to escape, to get some air, but his grip grows tighter. And then, so suddenly, he lets go, and she is alone out
on the street as he runs back inside. The glass in the windows breaking, the wooden frames groaning as they twist and snap, cracks appearing where solid walls once stood.

  Maybe she ran after him, grabbed his trousers, tried to stop him going back in, then stood crying among the rubble until a neighbour picked her up and held her tight.

  Everything around her in the street, all the houses grumbling and grating, stone on stone and dust rising where tiles and beams fall, the noise deafening.

  Her house beginning to collapse, the front face peeling away, and those huddled in the street run backwards as it crumbles and the rooms are exposed. The kitchen table and chairs, a tea-towel handing on the back of the kitchen door, the chimney with the kettle still hanging over the fireplace, the flames still rising. Upstairs, her bed, unmade amidst the dust, for the world to see, like a doll’s house. And from the doll’s house, a ghost emerges, his hair white with dust, his skin and his clothes white with dust and in his arms he carries a bundle of rags that includes her mama’s white dress, which has a stake of wood strangely deforming it so she looks like she has folded wings on her back and the little girl knows before she is told that Mama is with the angels.

  Theo takes a serviette from the metal holder pushed to one side on the table and offers it to Tasia, his hand coming to rest over hers. She looks him in the eye and takes the serviette but slowly draws her hand away.

  ‘So we came to Athens,’ she says briskly, the tears gone. ‘Baba knew welding, so we went to the docks in Piraeus.’

  ‘So Pireaus is home?’ Theo asks gently.

  ‘No! I hated it.’

  He is not surprised. Piraeus has an unshakable reputation of rough dock workers, dirty streets, dark little bars. The place is full of mangas in their black suits and black hats, with their dressed-up women in red. No place for a child.

  She puts her elbows on the table, supports her chin with her hands, and looks out the window. ‘Besides, Baba got in some sort of trouble in Pireaus. The land where the house once stood in Kefalonia was sold to help sort things out, and we moved into Athens proper, where he ran his first kafeneio.’