“I’d like to speak to the doctor in charge,” Stelios said.
“Oh, he only stops by twice a week and this isn’t his day. He has other clinics to see to. Next week on Tuesday, you could see him then.”
She was leading us up to what must have once been a grand staircase, saying that the owners of the property where Takis had been found thought he’d drowned in their fishpond, but when they pulled him out he was sputtering. Covered with scratches and insect bites, he wouldn’t say who he was except that he was Karagiozis, King of the Puppets. Once he’d arrived and had been purged, he’d “loosened up,” as Nurse Papadakis said, and he’d given her our phone number.
“Now he’s better,” she said. “Can hold an ordinary conversation, if he wants to. But that’s the way with some of them. They’re perfectly ordinary until suddenly they aren’t.” That didn’t seem much of a diagnosis to me. But Takis’s behavior confirmed what Sergeant Whitfield had said about Takis wandering naked in other people’s gardens. I didn’t understand it and didn’t know what, if anything, could be done about it.
The nurse led us up another, narrower flight of stairs, telling us that she’d put Takis in a locked room to keep him from wandering. She unlocked a door and on a cot against the far wall was Takis, covered by a blanket. “I’ll leave you with him,” she said. “If you’re taking him home today, please remember there’s a fee for his stay here.”
I went to Takis and shook his shoulder gently. He woke up and stared at me with a flat, expressionless gaze, which slowly turned to terror. He pulled me to him and said, “That woman with the rubber tubes, keep her away from me.”
“We’re taking you home,” I said.
“What happened, Takis?” Stelios asked.
But Takis started to wave his hand in front of his face, as if brushing away cobwebs. I rubbed his feet, which were red and swollen. He was naked under the blanket and I asked if there was anything he could wear for the trip home. He didn’t know where he’d left his clothes, he said. Stelios went to see if we could borrow something from Nurse Papadakis.
“Can you walk?” I asked, helping him to his feet, which were obviously sore. But he managed to hobble around the room while leaning on me. He said he was sorry to be so much trouble.
“It was the wind. It told me to run.” I asked how he’d come to Kifissia, but he wasn’t sure, maybe someone had given him a ride. There’d been a man in a truck, he thought, who’d taken him into a pine grove somewhere, but the breeze in the pine boughs also told him to run. He came to a garden wall, climbed over it and slept under bushes. In the morning he was hungry and was trying to catch goldfish in the pond when he became dizzy and fell in. That was all he remembered except for Nurse Papadakis and her terrible tube.
“Do you know what she does with it? Where she puts it?”
Stelios came back with a pile of old clothes. “Horrible woman,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe what she charged me.”
When we had Takis dressed, we helped him walk to the only tram that was still running from the suburb to central Athens. At home, Yannoula asked no questions but gathered Takis into her arms and took him to the bathroom to treat his scratches and bites.
“What if he does this again?” Stelios asked me in the library. “We can’t keep track of him every hour of the day.”
“But most of the time he’s all right. It’s just when he gets so jealous of you or when the subject of what happened that night comes up.”
“He gets in between us, Aliki. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I do. I’ll look after him better.”
“But it’ll happen again. Sooner or later you’ll have to make a decision about him.” He ran his hand down the spine of a book, pulled it partway out, then shook his head and pushed it back.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You can’t look after him all his life,” Stelios said, pulling me to him. “You might have, well, someone else to look after.”
Was he talking about himself? I didn’t think Stelios needed looking after. He usually seemed so confident. Had it come to a choice between him and Takis?
“Can’t we be a family?” I said. “We are a family.”
“Don’t you want a family of your own one day?”
“You mean if we ever get to lead a normal life, whatever that is? I don’t know. Besides, I’m too young to worry about that. So are you.”
“Try looking in the mirror, Aliki. There’s more to you than you know.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. And then I was. The heat rose in my face and I remembered how Chrysoula had been so upset that day I took Stelios up into the hills above the village and we were alone there. Now there was only Yannoula to supervise us, but she was so easily distracted and generally unconcerned about where Stelios and I went and what we did. It frightened me a little. Or maybe I was frightened of myself, the way I kept noticing the dark shadow of a beard on Stelios’s face and the strength in his arm when he took mine as we crossed a busy avenue. I would feel almost feverish suddenly, as if I was melting. I’d pull away, fanning my face with my hand. He hadn’t kissed me since that night at the front door, but I felt as if it had happened only minutes before.
“Remember how before the war people married,” he said, “and had children and went to school or work? It was just life. Now it seems almost a dream beyond reach. But it won’t always be that way. Neither of us has family now so we can make our own decisions about these matters.”
What matters? He was getting way ahead of me. Or was he? He seemed to be assuming we’d marry one day and have children. The thought flowed over me and I felt its warmth, as if he’d just wrapped me in the softest blanket on a winter night.
“Do you mean . . . ?” I asked.
“Yes.”
We walked into each other’s arms and stayed there without speaking for what seemed a long time. And then we were laughing and talking and being altogether silly whenever his mouth wasn’t on mine. But that wasn’t often.
“Just look at us,” I said, standing back finally.
“Just look.” He turned me around to face a mirror above his bureau, where I saw two disheveled people wearing decidedly foolish grins. We looked and looked until I saw his grin start to fade.
“And that’s why,” he said in a more serious tone, “as I’ve said, that sooner or later you’ll have to decide about Takis.”
I understood, but that was too far off for me to grasp. I just wasn’t going to think about it then.
How to keep Takis inside, that was the question, I reminded Stelios. In the days that followed, Yannoula began making sure Takis never left a room without her knowing it. He didn’t seem to remember what she’d said to upset him before he ran off. She referred to it as just one of his spells and now that she knew what brought them on, she was certain she could prevent them. Takis had reverted to a little boy again, holding her hand and asking her to tell him stories. He ignored Stelios as much as possible. He clearly sensed the new bond between Stelios and me but was trying not to show it.
Our lives changed quickly after Theo phoned Stelios from Crete to say that we should come at once. He had a new kafeneion with room for our screen and there was plenty of business because “there’s no stopping these Cretans from having a good time even when the sky is falling.” There was still guerrilla activity around the island and sometimes even in the cities, he told Stelios, but it would be safe for us. He owed us money from our last disastrous performance in Pangrati, which had ended in gunfire. So he’d reimburse us our fares there and give us six percent of each evening’s café take in addition to the proceeds from ticket sales.
“What an offer!” Stelios said when he’d put down the phone in the parlor. “And I’ve got some ideas for new plays. I want to put us, all of us, in as characters, along with Karagiozis . . .”
“I’m too ol
d,” Yannoula said. “I can’t go dragging myself around from place to place, warbling like an old hen.” She sat down on the red sofa and considered for a moment. “But I’ve heard that Cretans are wonderful people, with the souls of artistes.”
Stelios insisted that she come. Traveling on our own without an adult might attract attention. There was also the question of Takis. He said he didn’t want anything to do with shadow puppets anymore. Stelios said he could sell the tickets.
“Why would I want to?” Takis asked.
“You need to contribute if you’re going to stay with us.”
“Who says I want to stay with you?”
“You can’t remain here alone. Someone has to look after you.”
“Yannoula and I can stay here together. Can’t we, Yannoula?”
Yannoula looked uncertain. She shifted on the sofa, crossed her legs and then uncrossed them. It was one thing to be protective of Takis when we were all around, she was probably thinking. But the prospect of taking sole responsibility for him might be something else entirely, especially after he’d run away and ended up in that awful clinic. There was no question in my mind that we all needed to stay together and Crete would be a new beginning.
“Look, Takis,” I said, “if you stay here, you could end up in that clinic again. Or some other place like that. Do you want that?”
“You’re threatening me. That’s not nice.”
I felt a flash of anger and thought, oh, all right, do what you want. I’m not your mother. Then I saw Chrysoula’s face in my mind and kept my mouth closed.
“Now see here, Takis,” Stelios said with barely controlled irritation, “I can’t let you stay here in the house by yourself. You’re too young and the situation outside is still too unstable. So if you stay, where will you go and what will you do for money? You wouldn’t survive on the streets. You really don’t have a choice but to come with us.” He paused and sighed, then said in a kinder tone, “And it might be a chance for you and me to get along a little better.” I was surprised to hear Stelios say this but grateful to him. He walked to the stairs and started up them. Over his shoulder he said, “Think about it, Takis. But not for long because we need to get organized.”
Takis had turned pale and looked as if he might start to cry. I felt for him, though I knew Stelios was right and admired him for being so direct.
“We should take care of each other,” I said, trying to smooth things out a bit. “Like a family. Stelios, when are we supposed to leave?”
“As soon as possible,” he called back from partway up the stairs. “Theo is already scheduling performances for later this week.”
“Then, Takis, you’ll need a suitcase. Stelios, are you packing the puppets? I’ll break down the stage into the valises.” Yannoula and Takis looked at me, surprised at my tone. But there was much to be done, plans to be made. “Yannoula, you’ll come, all right?” I said. “And Takis?”
He didn’t say anything. But he suddenly ran to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up, “If I come, you can’t tell me what to do, Stelios. I won’t take it from you. Only from Aliki.”
Stelios stopped on the landing and shouted back, “Fine with me! What makes you think I care what you do anyway?”
Yannoula stood up, saying, “Oh, stop it, both of you.” But she too went to the bottom of the stairs and said, “Stelios, I’ve been thinking—what about your father? What if he comes back and finds no one here?”
We were all probably wondering the same thing: how likely was it that he’d be back? The truth about the camps was beginning to be known then, especially Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of the Greeks had been sent. It was the first still-functioning camp to be liberated by the Soviets and news of what had taken place there had begun to appear in the papers. At first it was difficult to believe the accounts; they must have been exaggerations, people said. Then the photographs started to appear. Stelios and I had seen some on a newsstand on one of our walks. All the color had drained from his face.
While Yannoula and I started packing, Stelios went to see his father’s cousin, the one who’d traded rice and oil for Sophia’s jewelry. What they said to each other, Stelios never told us. He was gone most of the day and when he returned, he went to his room and didn’t come downstairs until the next morning. He didn’t speak about it, and he didn’t answer Yannoula’s question. But before we left for Piraeus to catch the night ship to Crete the next day, Stelios put an envelope addressed to his father on the hall table. He didn’t say what he’d written.
Takis never actually agreed to come, but he’d packed the clothes Yannoula found for him in Stelios’s childhood trunk and was ready when the time to go arrived. I wasn’t happy about the position he’d maneuvered me into, a kind of go-between with him and Stelios. But either it would work out or it wouldn’t, I thought. At least we’d all stayed together and were on our way again.
Neither Takis nor I had ever been on the sea before and the dipping and bowing of the ship that cold mid-February evening of 1945 made us queasy. But the salty sea wind slapped our faces and revived us. Stelios had given me one of his mother’s warm wool coats and he’d taken an old tweed jacket that belonged to his father, buttoning it all the way up against the wind. Yannoula wrapped Takis and herself in a brown blanket so that Takis said, brightening, “We look like a great big package.”
Earlier that day, a fine red dust had blown up out of Africa and across the sea. Though this happened regularly in summer, it wasn’t usual at that time of year. It gave the water a reddish cast and Stelios said maybe that was what was meant in The Iliad by the words wine-dark sea. He’d brought his copy with him and inside its cover he kept our tickets and Theo’s address in Heraklion, where we were to dock the next morning. Takis wanted to know what the book was.
“Oh, read him something, Stelios,” I said, trying to build a little bridge between them. “It’s a wonderful book, Takis.”
“Hmm, let me think what you might like, Takis,” Stelios said in a tone of forced goodwill as he thumbed the pages. “Ah, here, let’s try this. It’s a battle scene.”
. . . and Patroclus
came up and stabbed him on the right side of his jaw
and drove the spear through his teeth. Then, gripping the spear shaft,
he pivoted back and lifted him over the rail
like a fisherman who sits on a jutting boulder
and hauls a tremendous fish out of the sea
at the end of his line, caught on the bright bronze hook:
just so did Patroclus haul him up out of his chariot,
mouth gaping around the spear point, and tossed him down
on his face, and he lay there flopping until life left him.
It was nothing like what he’d read before and I thought it was horrible. Yannoula said, “Really, Stelios, is that something to read to a child?”
But Takis let out a low whistle and said, “That’s so gory. I love it. Read some more.”
Stelios looked up at Takis’s face lit with enthusiasm and snapped the book shut, saying, “It’s getting too dark to read.”
CASSETTE 3 Side 2
“All this furniture,” said one of the women in the parlor of Zephyra’s house. “What use is it now?”
“Why is it here when she’s not?” asked another.
It’s the old custom that after a death, possessions of the deceased not claimed by family or friends must be destroyed. For how is it that a person’s belongings have a right to last longer than she does? To look at a kitchen chair when its owner is in her grave is to despise the chair.
So where to begin? First we ran upstairs, lungs heaving, joints popping, and entered the bedroom of Zephyra’s long-gone son. She always kept his room as it had been—photos of sports heroes torn from magazines, a backgammon board on a table, a suit of clothes laid out on the bed. We threw the table and game board o
ut the window. They seemed to hang in the air a second or two before smashing to the ground. How good it was to see this, as if they’d been waiting for this final splintering. We moved on—the old wooden chairs, the rickety bureau of thornwood—they too exploded on the hard ground, a single drawer of the bureau sailing into the road in front of the house. The mattress was another matter. It took all of us to heave the musty thing off the bed and out the window. It landed on top of the pile with a burst of straw ticking.
On to the other bedroom. In a small glass case on the wall were the dried wreaths from the wedding of Zephyra and Kostas next to their wedding photograph. They looked as somber as if they’d just been given death sentences. Maybe that’s what marriage was for them—who knows what goes on between two people beneath a single roof? They probably wouldn’t have chosen each other of their own accord. But choices were few then for families with little to bring to a match. Sometimes actual love follows a marriage contract; sometimes not. I remembered Chrysoula saying you couldn’t always marry the one you loved. You had to learn to love the one you married.
Here was the bed where Zephyra died, where I’d last seen her before Aphrodite released her from the hold those goats had on her soul. Taking the bed apart was too much for us so we climbed onto it and jumped up and down, shrieking and hooting for the sheer joy of it, until the bed collapsed. Then we carried the mattress, headboard, endboard and wooden slats to the window, where we tipped them out piece by piece, starting a new pile on that side of the house. When we turned back to the room, we saw an old suitcase that had been under the bed. It was locked and badly disintegrated but heavy enough to contain something. Carrying it downstairs to the kitchen, we forced the lock with a knife. Inside was a red velvet box with a framed photograph of Zephyra’s malicious mother. She had that same low brow I remembered, and dark eyes beneath it. What had become of her? I asked. I hadn’t seen her since that day in the cemetery just before Stelios, Takis and I left the village.
“She was run out of the village as a collaborator,” one said. “She and the schoolmaster. Others too.”
My Last Lament Page 15