by Sara Alexi
He knows what Sophia would do. She did it for him. She stood up for what she believed in without a thought for herself. No fear.
Before he even realizes he has made a decision, he is marching back down the track to the road, to Babis’ door. With each step, his breaths come deeper, his movements more certain. He does not knock; he shoves hard with his shoulder.
Babis is sitting on the sofa, Spiros is still standing, but each with a beer in their hand.
‘You asked me a question,’ Yanni starts. ‘You asked me how I want to be seen. That was the wrong question, The question is “who do I want to be”.’
Babis stands and picks up a beer, opens it, and holds it out to Yanni. ‘Couldn’t agree more, my cousin.’ But Yanni is prepared for a fight and hardly hears him.
‘I cannot be the man who stands by and … sorry, what did you say?’
‘Exactly, my friend. I have thought it over and decided you are right.’ Babis tires of holding out the opened beer and turns to offer it to Spiros, but Spiros raises the one in his hand, so Babis puts it on top of the television. Yanni looks from Babis to Spiros and back again.
‘You’ve changed your mind quickly. What about your fear of the mayor and his friend the judge?’
‘The judge …’ Spiros begins.
‘Yanni,’ Babis says quickly, taking his attention, ‘it is every man’s duty to think of the people around him and the village he comes from. What a small sacrifice my career will be for the good of the people. Where would all these villagers go if this terrible scam were to bear fruit? It is my duty as a fellow villager, as man amongst men, as a lawyer for the people that we stop this plan right now.’
Yanni frowns and looks back to Spiros, who is shifting his weight from foot to foot, decidedly unsettled about something. Babis stands and steps between Spiros and Yanni. ‘When a man is right, he is right. There is no arguing with that.’ Babis lifts his beer to salute him.
‘What am I not being told?’ Yanni asks.
‘Oh look Spiro, a cartoon,’ Babis says and Spiros, with a turn of his head, becomes absorbed by the television. ‘Be happy that I have seen that you are right, Yanni. Not afraid of being right, are you?’ Babis asks. He should say something, but what should he say? Babis agrees with him. They will go to the mayor, so how come he doesn’t feel settled?
‘Come on then,’ Yanni says at last.
‘What, now?’ Babis looks back to the television where the match has started again.
‘I have a donkey to buy tomorrow and a nun to visit the day after and then I plan to go home, so yes, now.’ Yanni picks the coats off the floor and hangs them up again.
Babis takes a last look at the screen. ‘They are losing anyway.’
‘Spiros, you want to come?’ Yanni asks. Spiros takes a last sip of beer and puts the can down on an empty crisp bag.
‘Oh yes. We need Spiros.’ Babis laughs, but the sound is hollow and neither reaches his eyes nor his throat. ‘And we can get something to eat and have a little drink on the way.’ He pulls the door shut. ‘Or not,’ he mutters, looking at Yanni’s face, ‘if you are not hungry.’
Babis insists on calling a taxi, and the truck is left abandoned in the square. The road to Saros almost feels familiar now to Yanni, but as they pull into the town’s main square everything seems a little too big, the buildings large and made of cut stone, their doors too tall and ornate and there are many people, all who seem to be rushing.
‘His office is on the first floor.’ Babis presses the button to call the lift. Yanni walks past him and begins to climb the stairs, Spiros in tow. Babis hesitates and then runs up behind them.
To the left of a pair of ceiling-height double doors on the first floor is a brass plaque that reads Mayor. To the right of the doors is a neatly ordered desk and an empty chair, no secretary in attendance. Stuck to the double doors with sellotape is a piece of lined paper with a torn edge upon which is written, ‘Back tomorrow’.
‘Excuse me,’ Yanni asks a man with several files under his arm waiting for the lift. ‘Do you know where the mayor is?’
‘Same place as most people.’ He takes out an oversized handkerchief and mops his bald head and then the back of his neck. He is wearing a suit. ‘Up at the convent, for the open day.’ The lift arrives and he pulls the concertina doors closed behind him.
‘Thirsty work, this,’ Babis says.
‘We’ll go there then,’ Yanni states.
‘Where?’ Babis asks, a glint of hope in his eyes.
‘The convent.’ Yanni is already at the top of the steps. Babis’ smile fades.
Babis sits in the front and chats away to the driver. The road to Saros is now etched onto Yanni’s mind and the green of the trees and the watering systems under them, in the shade, is no longer a marvel to him. This time, he looks around the taxi itself, at the cluster of icons hung on the rear-view mirror competing with those stuck onto the dashboard. Saints to protect the journey, to give wealth, to give friendship, to protect his family. There is also a picture of a baby on the flipped-down sun visor, the corner of which lifts and drops in the breeze of the air conditioning. Despite the air conditioning, it’s hot inside the taxi, and a plasticky smell permeates. The orange groves give way to houses and they drive straight through the village square and out past fruit trees again. The road begins to wind up a hill and the cultivated land becomes scrub. Ahead, a high wall and a gathering of many cars, two buses, and a couple of donkeys suggest they have arrived.
The arched wooden doors set into the wall are open. Three steps take them into a great marble-flagged courtyard with a church in the centre. Around the edge of the open space, windows set into the walls suggest cells and corridors and the living area that must be behind them. There is a bustle of people and the few benches dotted here and there are crammed with women in ironed blouses, pleated skirts, and shoes that look like they have never been worn. None of these women seem relaxed. The men loitering around them lean on their crooks and look beyond the walls to the hills. Children run round in their frills and white, young mamas trying to calm them. Today, both nuns and villagers alike will celebrate the saint’s day that the nunnery is dedicated to.
A nun approaches them. Yanni swallows. He looks around and sees more nuns, coming in and out of a room opposite the church doors.
‘Welcome,’ the nun approaching them says as she glides past them, now addressing a priest in his long black robes and pillar box hat who came in behind them.
She could be here. She must be here! Yanni looks from face to face of the nuns, but they are too far away. He begins to walk toward the doorway that is the centre of all movement. Babis is crossing himself as he follows, Spiros behind him.
‘Yes, good idea, He is bound to be in there,’ Babis says, but Yanni is looking more intently from nun to nun the nearer they get.
‘Sorry boys, this sitting is full. If you wait, they won’t be long,’ a wrinkled face wrapped in a black apostolnik informs them. Yanni looks at her blankly. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘There is plenty of food for everyone.’
‘Do you know Sister Sophia?’ The words just come out, followed by the fear of the answer he will receive.
‘You know, I think I saw her in there.’ She points to the doors with all the commotion.
The stone room is hot, hotter than outside. Trestle tables fill the space, each seating eight or ten people, everyone talking and everyone eating, the nuns staggering between with plates laden with food, smiling as they go.
‘I can’t see him,’ Babis says.
‘Who?’ Yanni asks. There is a nun whose movements suggest she is not so old serving at an end table, but he cannot see her face.
‘The mayor.’ Babis sound incredulous. ‘Yeia sou Stella. Mitsos,’ he calls. For a second, Yanni’s attention is taken as Stella calls back.
‘Yeia Yanni, Babis.’
She is sitting next to Mitsos, who is next to Theo from the kafeneio. Theo has a woman beside him whom Yanni has not seen
before, and he is holding her hand. Vasso sits opposite and next to her is the woman in the navy skirt, only today she wears a dress, also in navy. Next to her, a woman with blonde hair who does not look Greek. But Yanni’s eyes only touch on her, as they are drawn back to the woman in the navy dress and he tries to swallow but his need for breath comes first and he starts to choke. She looks up at the sound and their eyes meet.
Chapter 16
At the end of the hall, a plate smashes and the nun young enough to still have energy in her limbs bends to pick up the pieces.
The room is oppressively hot and the small windows do not let in much light. There is a haze in the room, a mix of dust and smoke from the wood burning stove in the kitchen. Yanni cannot understand the appeal of sitting and eating in such a stifling atmosphere.
‘Come on.’ Babis is growing impatient. ‘If we get this done, we can sit and eat, too.’ Spiros has a hand on his stomach as he watches plate after plate being brought out from the kitchen, steaming and aromatic—tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. Yanni, bending backwards slightly, still can’t see her face even as she stands; the side of her headscarf has dropped forward. Another nun, older, stouter, who is helping her to pick up the pieces, gets in his line of sight. He leans the other way. A man at another table stands to shuffle his chair in, momentarily blocking the view of both nuns.
Above the joyful chatter of the throng, the scraping of wooden chairs on the stone floor, and the clatter of knives and forks against plates Yanni hears a voice in his ear.
‘Would you gentlemen mind waiting for the next sitting outside,’ a middle-aged nun requests, with a rather stern expression on her face. She seems fazed by the number of people in the room. ‘It’s getting a little difficult to move in here.’ She presses up against Yanni, muttering her apologies, as another nun pushes past her with a jug and glasses. Yanni only glances at the nun talking, and the one who pushes past for a second, but when he looks back to where the plate pieces were being cleared up, the younger nun is gone. He scans the room; she is nowhere to be seen. Looking from corner to table, he scans each of the nuns who are serving and those hovering, eager to be of service around the tables. In his search, he makes eye contact with the woman in the navy dress again, who now has a sadness in her eyes. She holds his gaze for a fraction of a second and then breaks the connection by looking down at her food. She is not eating. Her food sits untouched, her hands in her lap. Without thought, one of Yanni’s feet lifts to take him to her.
‘Yes, I’m hungry,’ Spiros says and Babis pulls on Yanni’s sleeve, breaks his trance, and with a determined tug, they leave the room together, Yanni’s legs moving mechanically. As he walks, he looks behind him; it is Spiros who leads. His hand is over his breast pocket, over the book given to him by Sophia. His mind’s eye creates pictures of the woman in the navy dress but his thoughts are focusing, sharpening on getting him home, leaving this madness behind. The whole emotional situation is too much. It would be simpler to be alone the rest of his life, on the top of the ridge. Alone with his goats and away from these things that torment.
‘There he is,’ Babis announces.
The smell of incense wafts out of the chapel before Yanni’s attention is grabbed by the shimmer of the thousand lit candles reflecting on the gold surrounds of the icons. Next to the manoulia, glittering with its tiers of prayer candles, stands a big man in a dark suit, his chest puffed out as he talks to a priest. The holy man only appears the taller of the two due to his black pillar-box hat. There is an insincerity in the suited man’s voice and he does not look the priest in the eye as he talks. Instead, he gazes far away at the ideas and aspirations he vocalizes. He has his arm around the priest’s shoulder. The mayor speaks loudly and laughs strongly. Next to him is a slim man also in a suit, but his is a pale grey, of thinner material. This man’s eyebrows are formed as if he is permanently surprised and there are smile lines around his eyes. His arms dangle by his side. In one hand, he holds a candle as if ready to be lit, to say a prayer. It gives the impression that the thin man came in to kiss an icon and the two of them being there together is a coincidence, although they are standing close enough together to suggest they know one another.
The priest shakes the big man’s hand and departs.
‘That him?’ Yanni asks. Babis nods but seems to hesitate. Yanni’s mouth sets hard as he jerks his head, encouraging Babis to make a move. Babis stands rooted. Yanni gives him a last hard stare and turns to go to the man himself, which creates a reaction in Babis.
‘Leave it to me.’ Babis puts a restraining arm across Yanni’s chest as he steps forward. ‘But we cannot talk of such things here in God’s house.’ Yanni opens his mouth to say something as the big man notices them and steps towards them.
‘Ah, the new lawyer,’ he says loudly but as he does so, his focus flicks across to Spiros, his eyes darkening, his smile wiped away for a second and his bottom lip twisted. He recovers quickly.
‘Lawyers.’ Spiros adds the plural. It is Yanni’s turn to glance at Spiros, but the mayor speaks.
‘Might be needing you, my friend. What’s your name again?’ His voice fills the domed room, echoing off the gold leafed frescos. The faces of saints look down on them, smoke from the hundreds of flickering candle swirling upwards.
For a second, Yanni watches Babis falter, a smile on his lips at the thought of being needed by the mayor, perhaps? Yanni steps closer to him. Spiros comes around his other side, in between Babis and the thin man in the light suit who smiles broadly at him.
‘I think we need to talk.’ Babis regains control of his smile, his brows knot, but his resolve seems shaken. Yanni steps even closer, so his shoulder touches Babis’.
‘Any time, my boy, any time. My door is always open to you, and like I said, I might be needing you to help me with a little project.’ He leans towards Babis to say more quietly, ‘Could be very interesting work. Interesting in many ways perhaps.’ He straightens and resumes his booming baritone. ‘Gerasimos was going to look at it for me but his mama has taken ill, you know. He has been called back to Thessaloniki.’ He laughs from his stomach, spittle coming white in the corner of his mouth. It seems inappropriate after talking about a sick woman.
‘That’s the very thing I, or rather we,’ Babis looks at Yanni and Spiros, one either side of him, ‘wish to talk about.’ Yanni can see Babis is ever so slightly trembling. He puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes it briefly to let him know he is there, to give him some confidence.
‘Good, good.’ The mayor eyes Spiros again, who has been distracted by the gold leafed icon painting on the templon. He looks from one to the next, his mouth open slightly.
‘Perhaps not so good,’ Babis regains the mayor’s attention, ‘but I do not wish to say all your sins here in the sight of God.’ Saying this seems to harden his resolve. In any case, he stops trembling. ‘Sufficient to say I have enough evidence for you to need to say your prayers tonight. We can meet tomorrow.’ Babis’ own chest puffs out with these words.
The colour drains from the mayor’s face and it takes on a waxy sheen. There is a pause and no one seems to know what to say or do next.
‘How are you, nephew?’ the thin man, who Yanni had completely forgotten about, says kindly to Spiros.
‘Oh Yanni,’ Babis is suddenly animated, ‘you haven’t met the new judge of Saros, have you?’ Babis introduces the thin man, who holds out his hand to Yanni.
‘You are this man’s uncle?’ The mayor’s voice is not so loud now as he addresses the judge. His forehead is speckled with beads of perspiration, each drop reflecting icons and candles, giving the effect that he is almost on fire.
‘Is something amiss, my boy?’ the judge says and puts an arm around Spiros, declaring an affiliation to him.
‘I think I need a glass of water.’ The mayor pushes past them out into the courtyard.
‘He knows we know,’ Babis says, an edge of triumph from his voice. ‘We will see him tomorrow!’
‘It a
ll sounds very intriguing,’ the new judge says, his words light, calm. ‘I suppose I will get the hang of everything eventually. Oh, look, there’s your aunt, Spiros. I’d better go to her. I said I would only be a minute.’ With this, he quickly lights his candle, plants it in a sand tray that is illuminated by a hundred others, crosses himself, and strides outside to a woman who is beckoning him to hurry. By the surge of people going in through the doors opposite, it’s clear the second sitting has been called.
‘So, there we go. There is no turning back now,’ Babis says. ‘You happy now?’ There is a smugness in his voice and energy in his limbs, one hand rubbing his stomach, perhaps in anticipation of food he might now be able to go and eat.
Yanni’s face is like stone, and Babis takes a step back, a puzzled look on his face. ‘What is it, Yanni? I thought you would be pleased …’ Without warning, Yanni’s fist drives towards Babi’s face. Spiros leaps between them and the blow glances off his shoulder, sending Yanni reeling into the chairs that line the side of the little church. Spiros recovers first and puts his hands out to help Yanni up, brushing him down as he stands.
‘What the …’ Babis holds back the expletive and crosses himself for his thoughts. ‘Now what’s wrong with you?’ He holds his arms out towards Yanni in submission and takes a couple of steps to put himself behind the manoulia, adding distance and solidity between them. Spiros is standing with arms open, first facing one of them then the other, clearly confused by the situation.
‘When exactly did you know the judge was Spiro’s uncle?’ Yanni spits as he speaks.
‘I told him when you went for a walk,’ Spiros is quick to say, turning to Yanni. ‘He was badmouthing the referee on the television and saying everyone who is in a position to judge judges badly, so I got cross and told him my uncle was the new judge, which he seemed to like and he gave me a beer.’ The words rush out.
‘So that speech of yours that you gave me when I came back from my little walk, how did it go? “It is every man’s duty, blah blah blah. What a small sacrifice my career will be blah blah, as a lawyer for the people and so on”. All those flowery phrases that you met me with when I came back were because you knew Spiro’s uncle was the judge.’ Yanni clenches his fists.