Random Acts of Heroic Love

by Danny Scheinmann

  ‘I don’t trust them.’

  Celeste sighed in resignation and walked out.

  The morticians set about washing and disinfecting Eleni’s body. Leo watched aghast as they inserted plugs in her mouth, ears, nose, anus and vagina to prevent excretion of the embalming chemicals. Their every touch felt like an infringement of the intimacy Leo had once shared with Eleni. He bit his tongue and turned away, his eyes bruised by the horror of it. When next he looked they had made an incision in her stomach and were removing her viscera. These soft organs they soaked in a formaldehyde bath before replacing them in her body and sewing up the cut. Then they pulled out a large syringe and Leo gripped his seat as they injected chemicals into an artery in her left arm. At the same time they cut open a corresponding vein and, as the chemicals were pumped in, Eleni’s blood and body fluids leaked away down the drains on the table. When formaldehyde began to flow out of the vein, the job was done. The agents of decomposition no longer had anything to feed upon. Leo had watched this act of clinical rape in determined silence and when he saw that it was finally over he got up, staggered to the door and threw up on the pavement outside.

  A blue Rolls-Royce pulled up in front of him. It was the Greek Consul.

  7

  ON ARRIVING IN EACH COUNTRY LEO AND ELENI WOULD register with their respective embassies for security reasons. But when they had arrived in Ecuador, Eleni had not been able to locate the Greek embassy, it was not listed in any directory and none of the hotels they stayed in knew of its existence. Indeed none of the hotels they stayed in could remember a Greek ever having checked-in within living memory. Clearly the Greeks and the Ecuadoreans did not do much business. Greece was the lost nation, and it became Eleni’s mission to educate Ecuador in all things Greek. With a resurgent national pride she would tell all and sundry about the gods, the Parthenon and democracy. People had heard of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. But what had happened in the intervening two thousand years between Aristotle and Eleni was anyone’s guess.

  Eventually Eleni had tracked down a woman called Maria Clemencia de Leon who handled Greek affairs. She was a wealthy, upper-class Ecuadorean in her fifties whose only contact with Greece seemed to be that she had been there on holiday. She had no Greek blood and could not speak a single word of the language, though her English was excellent. She worked full-time as a lawyer in downtown Quito, and looked after Greece from her luxurious home, where her retinue of servants and secretaries would answer the phone in her absence. For Maria Clemencia de Leon being Greek consul was not a job but a society fashion accessory; she wore her diplomatic status like a Gucci handbag, and it allowed her to attend important dinners and shake well-perfumed hands. But her shiny, easy-to-wear, low-maintenance, diplomatic handbag was about to lose its appeal, for that very morning Maria Clemencia de Leon was halfway through a facial when one of her minions disturbed her with the tragic news that the only Greek in Ecuador had died. This would entail, to her horror, some work.

  Leo was still heaving on the pavement as the chauffeur, decked in uniform and hat, emerged from behind the wheel of the blue Rolls-Royce and in one well-rehearsed flowing movement spiralled back and flipped open the rear door. He held out a gloved hand and four gold- and diamond-soaked manicured fingers appeared on top. A left shoe in white patent leather landed on the pavement. Leo looked up momentarily; under the opened door he caught sight of tan-coloured satin tights and the edge of a grey linen skirt cut just below the knee. A right foot joined the left, the calf muscles locked together and stiffened, the chauffeur gave a delicate pull on the fingers and Maria Clemencia de Leon appeared from the car; suit creaseless, rumple-free, fitted to the slightest contour of her body, matching handbag hung over padded shoulder. Hair bunned up in twists and curls, pulled back from the forehead so tightly that a less well-fed woman would have bled. Face veneered like a newly varnished oak table, knotty and lined but shiny smooth. Eyes lashed, browed and shadowed like a Van Gogh flower. The Greek consul was as incongruous as caviar on a peasant’s plate.

  Leo was clutching his stomach forlornly, he had not changed his underpants for three days, nor washed for two. He was sweaty and stubbled and his jeans were stained with dry blood. He stank like a camel trader. Maria Clemencia de Leon did not so much as turn a pore towards him, but carefully side-stepped the pool of vomit, glided past him with all the disdain of a lifetime’s indifference to poverty, and held out her hand to Celeste, who was rushing to Leo’s aid. ‘We spoke on the phone, I am the Greek consul, Maria Clemencia de Leon.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, this is Leo,’ Celeste said, pointing to the urchin who was now wiping his mouth on his sleeve in front of her.

  The consul turned to him, glued a fake sympathetic smile to her lips and said in a near faultless American English, ‘Pleased to meet you, I am the Greek consul, Maria Clemencia de Leon.’ She seemed to enjoy saying that, but this time she did not offer her hand. ‘I was so sorry to hear about Eleni, my secretary says she was very sweet. May I offer you my condolences?’

  ‘Thank you,’ gasped Leo.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine now, thanks – it was a bit sordid in there.’

  ‘Oh I see. I am here to help you arrange whatever you need. I will put my driver at your service for a couple of days. We have many things to sort out. But it’s late and I was going to invite you back to my apartment for something to eat . . . though perhaps you’re not so hungry,’ she said, eyeing the splattered contents of Leo’s stomach on the pavement.

  ‘No, I am, I haven’t eaten all day. What about Eleni?’

  The consul’s smile evaporated and she paused, not quite knowing what to say, then added rather uncomfortably, ‘I think it would be better if she stayed here.’

  Leo laughed, ‘I wasn’t asking you to invite her round for tea. I meant that she is still in the amphitheatre.’

  Celeste tried to hide a smile. Maria Clemencia grimaced. ‘Well, you’re just going to have to let them sort it out. It’s perfectly nice here.’ She began to talk about funeral arrangements but Celeste started to snigger uncontrollably, which in turn set Leo off, and for the next couple of minutes they both hovered on the edge of hysteria, not knowing why they were laughing, only that they needed to for the sake of their sanity. Maria Clemencia de Leon was appalled by their vulgarity. She shuddered at the thought of Leo dirtying her car seats and soiling her sofa. The boy would leave a trail of fluid behind him like a slimy gastropod. She would have to disinfect everything he touched. Worse than this she would have to pollute herself with his company unless somehow she could wriggle out of her consular duties. Indeed why should she help Leo at all? He was a British citizen and not her responsibility. All she would have to do was pay for Eleni to be embalmed and flown back to Greece and then claim it back on Eleni’s travel insurance. She should have let Leo sort himself out. But it was too late now.

  There was no choice but to leave Eleni at the morgue. Leo had to persuade himself that there was nothing of Eleni left in her body.

  ‘I’ll see you at the hotel later,’ Celeste said hugging him tightly and she disappeared into the night, leaving Leo in the reluctant hands of Maria Clemencia de Leon.

  No sooner had they set off, than she instructed the chauffeur to open the rear windows in the Rolls-Royce.

  ‘Are you sure, señora?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps you would like me to put up the air conditioning?’

  ‘No, open the windows.’

  The chauffeur obliged but was ill at ease. They never travelled with the windows open for fear of theft, especially after dark. The car attracted enough attention as it was, but now he was frightened to stop at traffic lights in case someone should stick a knife in and snatch a ring and maybe even a finger with it. But Maria Clemencia seemed happier to risk her life than to suffer the stench of this stale Englishman.

  They were driving at terrifying speed through the town. Swerving on to the other side of the road to pass standing traffic and flying through red lights
. At one point a policeman gave chase on a motorbike but when he saw the diplomatic number plates he pulled up sharply. Leo asked the driver to slow down, but he paid no attention. He only took orders from the lady. She told Leo not to worry, but he began to swear at her, begging her to stop the car. ‘We’re almost there,’ she said. Then, before she knew it, he had burst into tears. She was dealing with an emotionally disturbed child, a delinquent. Leo began to scream, he had his head in his hands, ‘Oh my God, it was my fault, it was my fault.’

  Maria Clemencia did not understand what he was talking about, but she could see his attention had shifted away from the road and that he was lost inside himself.

  A cavern in Leo’s memory had begun to fill and was sending shock waves through his psyche. He remembered them waiting at the bus station sitting on their bags. They had just missed a bus and were waiting for the next one, the ill-fated one. They were nervous, travellers in South America are always twitchy at bus stations. Leo and Eleni had heard stories of people being robbed while they were carrying their packs on their backs, by thieves who slashed open rucksacks and let the contents tumble into a bag. Within seconds the bag would have switched hands and disappeared in the crowd. They had met a man who had accepted a sweet from an old lady at a bus station and woken up two days later in the main square of Cali in Colombia wearing only his underpants and socks. Fortunately he had hidden a hundred-dollar bill in one of his socks. Some travellers lined their rucksacks with chicken wire and put mouse-traps in their pockets. Leo had sewn secret pockets into all his trousers. He carried his credit cards by his ankles and wore a hidden money belt inside his pants.

  Quito bus station was humming with traders. Eleni was thirsty, but she refused to buy the home-made drinks which the traders sold in plastic bags with a straw, because there was no guarantee that the water was clean. She marched off to find a shop and returned a couple of minutes later with two bottles of water. When eventually the bus arrived they were first in the queue. Eleni got on first and headed towards the middle of the bus as usual.

  The image of Eleni walking to the centre of the bus, walking to safety, is on constant replay in Leo’s mind. What happens next is too painful to bear. ‘Let’s sit at the front,’ he says. ‘We’re not going far and this bag is so big and heavy that if the bus fills up I’ll never be able to get it off.’ It was only foreigners who carried their packs with them on buses. Everyone else put them on the roof. He dumps his rucksack on the nearest seat. Eleni turns round obediently and bounces back down the bus. There isn’t enough room for her to sit right next to Leo because of his pack so she parks herself on the front seat over the aisle, the seat reserved for death.

  ‘Let’s sit at the front.’

  He had killed her with those five words. Leo had guided her to the most dangerous place on the bus. And why? For the sake of a heavy bag. And now it seemed everything had led inexorably to that moment. The choice to climb Cotopaxi on that day, the breakfast of the gods followed by the languorous coffee, the missed bus and Eleni walking towards her survival at the centre of the bus.

  ‘Let’s sit at the front.’

  She hadn’t argued with him, she trusted his judgement, she would have put her life in his hands willingly, because whose hands could be safer, more loving than his? Her only thought was for him, she felt sorry for him, he always carried the heavier bag. Leo freeze-framed the moment when she turned back. There was pity and love in her dark eyes. She was so alive at that moment that she sparkled, it was impossible to relate her sprung step and zest to the crumpled corpse she had become. It had not occurred to her, as it now did to Leo, that he was planning to carry that bag up a mountain and yet here he was moaning about walking down the bus with it. Had she pointed out that irony and laughed at him he would surely have followed her. He would even have abandoned the climb if she had insisted. Perhaps, deep down, that’s what he had really wanted but he had been too proud to admit his fear. He had a reputation for stubbornness but she knew how to get round him.

  On one occasion they were climbing a lesser mountain near Ottovalo in the north. They had planned to eat lunch at the summit. On at least three occasions they had gained the top only to find that it was a false summit and there were still rolls of hills ahead of them. They had continued way past lunch, Leo obstinately refusing to stop until they had made it. Eventually she had got so irritated and hungry that she had just sat down on the hill and said, ‘I’m eating here.’

  ‘But we’re only a few metres from the top,’ he had protested.

  ‘How do you know? We could be miles away.’

  Leo had not complained, he had been glad of the excuse to stop. They had spent an hour there dozing and canoodling. When they set off again they had climbed for only another minute before finding themselves at the peak with a stunning 360-degree view.

  ‘You were right,’ Eleni had laughed.

  But this time he had been wrong and he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

  8

  THE GREEK CONSUL LIVED ON A PRIVATE ROAD IN THE diplomatic quarter of Quito. Her ‘apartment’, as she called it, was situated in an old colonial building with a courtyard at its centre. Throughout Ecuador these buildings had a crumbling beauty to them, but in the diplomatic quarter they had been magnificently restored to their former grandeur. They were framed by orange trees and palms, and topped with the flags of various countries.

  Leo was slumped in an antique, green velvet, Castilian sofa in the reception room. He had slipped into a listless torpor since the flashback. He had nothing to say to Maria Clemencia de Leon, he desperately wanted to talk to someone but couldn’t unburden himself to a stranger. She had sat in silence with him for a few minutes, and when she could tolerate his morose presence no longer she had got up sharply and left the room saying: ‘I have some business to tend to, I’ll let you know when dinner is served.’

  After twenty minutes she returned and asked him to join her in the dining room.

  ‘Can I call my mum and dad?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, after dinner.’

  ‘No, now,’ he said.

  ‘But it will be three in the morning in England.’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll mind.’

  She was clearly irritated with him. He had sat there for half an hour saying nothing, and now just as dinner was ready he wanted to make a phone call. She should have sent him down the road to the British embassy and washed her hands of him there and then, but now she felt obliged to see the wretched business through. She pointed to the telephone and walked out.

  When finally he came into the dining room his dinner was cold. Maria Clemencia had finished and she was clicking her heels impatiently on the parquet floor. As he hacked at his cold steak and greedily shovelled in the congealed pepper sauce, Maria Clemencia took him through the travel arrangements.

  ‘On Wednesday Eleni flies to Frankfurt on a Lufthansa cargo plane, there she will be transferred on to another plane to Athens and from there to Kithos. She arrives at two o’clock local time on Thursday the eighth of April. You will leave on Tuesday . . .’

  ‘No, wait, I want to be on the same plane,’ Leo interrupted.

  ‘That’s not possible. They won’t carry this kind of freight on an international passenger plane.’

  ‘She is not fucking freight,’ Leo shouted.

  ‘Well, she’s not exactly luggage either! It’s not about Eleni, Leo, it’s something to do with hermetically sealed containers, drugs, bombs, South America . . . the usual thing. But the rules are different for internal flights in Greece, so you can fly with her from Athens to Kithos.’

  ‘Well, in that case I’ll take a flight after her. I’m not leaving her here alone, then at least I can make sure she is on the plane and that . . .’

  ‘Leo, I’ve already looked into all of this,’ Maria Clemencia snapped impatiently. ‘Please trust me! If you leave on Thursday you will miss the funeral on Friday. Don’t worry, Celeste and I will take care of everyth
ing here.’

  Leo fell silent. Once again he had to resign himself to leaving his sweetheart in the hands of people he barely knew. He cursed himself for failing to look after her properly.

  It was midnight when Maria Clemencia’s chauffeur dropped him off at Celeste’s hotel. All the guests were gathered around Celeste in the bar. She was explaining what had happened. Leo could feel the sombre atmosphere as soon as he entered. Where was the loud music and chatter? He shuffled past the bar; they fell silent, stared at him and felt their appetite for adventure waning. Leo’s ravaged face seemed to carry all their nightmares. He stopped. He felt like he was expected to speak but he didn’t know what to say. He was now the leading player in an unfolding Greek tragedy and the chorus looked on. None of them knew what to say, either. There was an uncomfortable standoff; after an awful silence Celeste said, ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No thanks, if I start now I’ll never stop.’

  That was enough to uncork the others and they muttered their condolences, one echoing the next. He nodded his appreciation and disappeared up the stairs, a sad and lonely shadow of himself.

  Eleni’s clothes were hanging in the open wardrobe and her sandals were waiting for her small feet next to the bed. A few black-and-white postcards, mainly portraits of sun-beaten Indians, lay scattered on the table. On the windowsill was a collection of oddly coloured stones that she had picked up on their walks and the tiny carved male Inca head that he had given her in the market at Latacunga. He picked it up, felt its marble coolness in his hands and slipped it into his pocket to join the female head he still carried. Then he went to the wardrobe and pulled out her favourite top; a short-sleeved pale blue cotton shirt with flowers embroidered around the neckline. He brought it to his nostrils and breathed in deeply, and for a moment there she was, with her arms wrapped around his neck, kissing him. She was pressed against him, the rich scent of her hair filling his lungs, he was running his fingers over the small of her back, stroking the invisible patch of fine baby hair that only grew at the very base of her spine. The world was Eleni. The world was sweet. When the vision began to fade he went over to her rucksack, found her perfume and sprayed it on the shirt, just so he could prolong her presence a few seconds longer. He pulled open a drawer and threw her underwear and socks on the bed and sprayed them all. He took the fleece from her rucksack and sprayed that too. The room was dense with musk and flowers, but she was gone. Leo collapsed on the bed and began to laugh through his tears, ‘You didn’t much like that perfume, did you?’ Someone had bought her some Anaïs Anaïs once as a present. She only wore it because she couldn’t afford to buy anything else. Everyone assumed she loved it and it became an easy gift to buy for her. She didn’t have the heart to tell anyone that it wasn’t her favourite. Besides, Leo liked it and that was all that mattered.