shops, electrical appliance stores, travel agencies and were bidding farewell to classical dance with a souvenir on the living room shelf. A ballerina doing the splits, her delicate neck upright, her painted eyes trained on what her hands held aloft, a wedding bonbon wrapped in tulle.
Dora, a relationship nowadays consisting of a phone call every New Year, had married a doctor in Nikosia and alongside the mandatory photograph, Cypriot glamour, dedication and some news, Yannos and I will be doing lab analyses of Cypriot urine, she’d sent the airy-fairy thing, one single bonbon tightly wrapped in gauze on the wire stem of a mini purple rose. That gave Viv the idea, the engaged sylphs were all notified and within six months she had sold out the two hundred pieces she had ordered, her shop a regular marriage outfitter’s.
One evening, just before she closed and having had enough of hearing about eternal vows, church decorations and furniture, she passed off the last piece to Harry Margaritis, he was marrying two friends and the girl, of mature age, was still entranced with ballet, she even planned to perform one last time for a live audience, a wedding dance choreographed by herself.
The best man, with a sizeable zit on his neck, admired unstintingly, shopped without bargaining, helped Viv pull down the shutters, they were heading in the same direction and in the course of about two hundred meters he found time for the essentials, divorced, no children, thirty-nine years old, accountant in a big firm that installed air conditioning units. Viv went back home one hour later than usual, having downed two whiskies and having admitted to the best man her difficulties and her loneliness.
The affair, a welcome oiling up of her rusted body, it was that rust that precipitated the involvement, started in May and ended with the first winter cold, end of November.
Only Harry himself favored the approach he had taken to
get close to Linus. Why call your dog Buddy, you should call him Bobek, was his first mistake. He spoke to Linus exclusively about the Panathinaikos soccer team, waxing nostalgic about the unsurpassable Bobek and the line of legendary trainers from Puskas on to “Jaws” Gmoch, on to Bonev, go, Rocha, go, and there were replays of the goals of Zajec and Saravakos and frequent gifts, a poster of Warzycha, a green soccer top, a white and green mug for his milk.
No poster ever decorated the wall above the child’s bed, sports tops and mugs received scant attention, the kid remained coldly indifferent to the team colors and to soccer worship in general, he resisted the accountant’s attempts to score and kept the goalposts of his world unassailable.
Soon, his mother’s lover was at the end of his tether, it didn’t cross his mind to look for another point of engagement, he was probably having second thoughts about the whole thing, anyway, a sour orphan makes a love affair trying, not to mention he couldn’t enjoy his whiskey, served by Viv in a teacup to camouflage the consumption of alcohol.
Some nights at the house he had sat listening, from the room of eleven-year-old Linus, came a voice repeating rhythmically zdoop-gup, doop-kraf, this for such a long time that Harry would prompt Viv to have a listen as well, but what on earth’s your son on about, he would ask, chastising her indirectly.
- Encourage him to take you seriously, she tried suggesting a different way to him, encourage me, too, to take you seriously, she implied, though she never said so out loud, the physical connection was wearing thin, moving in together kept being postponed, Harry’s chapter was on its way to foreclosure.
It hardly matters who finished it, if it was Viv or Harry, the thing is that the night Viv closed up shop to walk back to the apartment alone and with no detours, she was shivering and enjoying it, she found the array of naked trees reassuring, she
could look at them without them sizing her up, could mutter without getting comments back, touch them and the trees wouldn’t get goose bumps, she could lean against the trunks without them running away.
It took her a long time to give herself to another man, another two years went by, she made a couple of one night mistakes, until she hit on something bigger that lasted for nearly a year.
She fell for Eftichis Athanasopoulos not as a lover but as a human being, this was a phase in her life when she deliberated about reconsidering her values, her faithful service by the till and the victories measured in bills had no real exchange value, she could see that her home was being eaten up by sadness and her kid driven mad with it, whenever she tried to talk to him or turn up the radio, he threw the old “be quiet” back at her and locked himself up in his room, to him a refuge, to her, forbidden territory. She was in dire need of support, of a volunteer, a good Samaritan of some denomination.
Eftichis Athanasopoulos, in partnership with his two brothers in a company importing frozen vegetables, had taken on the sector of distribution to supermarkets and he first noticed Viv when she called out to him that his station wagon, parked in peak traffic, was blocking the street, already, behind her car, a mayhem of honking and swearing was erupting.
They exchanged the essential glance, wordlessly he left her a paper carton full of frozen mushrooms and corn, the firm Green Garden, the address, the phone numbers were printed on every bag and when she used up the last one, she called, looked for him and found him, thanked him and made him confess how much he had anticipated her getting in touch and how much he had liked the miniature ballerina that adorned her windshield. How is it, then, that there are five Holy Mary’s dancing about in yours, she thought of asking, she had counted them that first instant, during the altercation. She refrained from putting the question to him and a good thing that was.
Within six months he proposed, after having already told and shown her enough to have him under her thumb for a lifetime. Unremittingly tender, gullible to a fault, with an otherworldly integrity, the sucker of Green Garden.
Viv had met his sly sister and sly brother at a dinner fit for the Holy Inquisition, she hadn’t liked them and they hadn’t liked her, not because she was a widow with an almost grown son, then thirteen, but because she could see a bit further than what they were comfortable with. The two siblings had barely picked at their pasta, and the intensity of their curiosity was already replaced by the intensity of fault-finding.
The kindhearted Eftichis was paying no mind, he had long known he was different from his sister and brother, he wanted neither to be like them nor to part with them, a share was enough, and out of the four people in the middle-class restaurant, he was the one beaming, with his arm protectively over Viv, not letting her out of his sight, sticking up for her with comments of endorsement about the prudence of her only son, a homebody, with a dog for his pal and keeping right away from bad company, no small thing that, he addressed his brother and more so, his sister, who had the body type of female gorilla.
Why, such brotherliness, such generosity of spirit in the face of their sourness, such kindliness, such exemplariness! Should she perhaps be suspicious of the all holy one?
That evening, alongside the blissful Eftichis and the two stiff-necked vultures, Viv realized that innocence can disturb and honesty can terrorize because some people might get weak knees right at the critical moment when they are supposed to slaughter the lamb. She was those people. There were times when she was overpowered by Eftichis’s guileless face, this was no creature you could harm without guilt. So she’d best leave him to his joy, to the gypsy violins, sold on them since he was twenty, no other music touched him, he was only moved musi-
cally by the violin strings of the virtuosos in the genre, saccharine sweet to Viv, increasingly more intolerable and maybe a fair explanation for the inexhaustible mildness of the prospective bridegroom. He would be listening with eyes closed and would soften up, mellow out, turn saintly. She, of course, didn’t love him, she found him useful.
At home, Linus, even more withdrawn, stared at her sharply from head to toe, meaning, I know fully well what’s going on.
She decided not to put them both through the ordeal, her body had had its dose of lovemaking and masculine proximity
and her ears, exempting the syrupy gypsy tunes, had enjoyed the tickle of courtship, so she might as well return with renewed forbearance to her unblemished life, widowhood, child, shop, tax office. She made herself scarce, very gradually and gently she put Eftichis on ice and he, with a mind to her household, filled up her freezer with lima beans and brussels sprouts, as garnish to her son’s pork chops, full of vitamin C for a growing kid, he had said, and had thanked her on top of everything, ever faithful to the vice of superiority.
The men of your life, all with happy names, Fotis, Harry, Eftichis, 3 the Bridegrooms of Happiness, was the final pronouncement of Highbrow, as they were enjoying the movie of that title on TV, she could still crack jokes, collect boyfriends and have sex here and there, she had no child to drag along.
Vivian Koleva foresaw what was inescapably coming, her routine that would grow mangy, her loneliness that would thrive like a jungle, the waves that would creak against the rocks of her mind, she knew about those things and, in the end, she did prefer to go through them alone and with dignity. Up until then, especially in front of her son, she had never shed a tear, had never allowed herself to lose it big time, her anger’s gunpowder was by and large unspent.
! The names signify, respectively, “light,” “gracious,” “blissful.”
She would go on, strong, proud, hardworking.
She didn’t want to try out another affair and she did let Linus know that none of them were important. By 1997 it was all a moot point, where to draw courage, how to rise above herself, if ever she had, how to steal time from the days and nights of work and who wouldn’t run a mile as soon as they found out about her son.
Scraping the bottom and the sides of the jar with the teaspoon to get the last of the tahini, on that night of turning fifty, she also put under lock and key all reminiscing about the men who entered and exited her life, while touching her cheeks, her breasts and her bottom, upstanding at one time, now about to collapse, and counting with her palm the folds of her stomach, as many as those of an accordion.
Still, she could listen to the last of the underground explosions, her neglected body, running on empty for years, was asking again tonight, was asking in vain. And since the hours were in no hurry, the night still in place, here was the familiar, the three-minute acidic monologue that set her head on fire.
Why couldn’t I have the life of so many others, who look into the eyes of the same partner for years on end, who go driving out to Evia for an ouzo to help them bear up, who are the first to turn up and help friends moving house, who illegally put on the roofing to an unauthorized room with a large group of family and friends, who give blood to strangers and their kidney to a relative, who play pranks and make jokes at work just so they get a laugh out of their coworkers?
She knew that she had no part in such a movie, she never did imagine it when she was young, had never looked for it once she was older. Some folks, one fine morning, suddenly brace up and decide to turn their life from drama to comedy, to have fun, to spread their wings smiling and go out, into the fresh air.
That wasn’t her. She didn’t have what it took. She was
aware, fully aware, and there was no place for waxing lyrical about life’s hardships. No song will be killing us softly, she neighed at herself, there’ll be no memories lighting the corners of our minds.
The terms were succinctly spelled out and nonnegotiable. There was to be no picture of Linus in Viv’s home. No running shoes forgotten in some corner, no sports jacket on a hanger, no laundry drying on the balcony with items from a young man’s wardrobe. Attention to be paid to shelves and random surfaces where a magazine might have been left to do with basketball or racing cars or anything of the sort.
His room needs to appear like a guest room for relatives, his mother-in-law from the village or Xenia, a pair of fluffy slippers might be parked in the corner, an icon of the Virgin Mary might do well on the wall.
Every trace of Linus needed to be erased from the apartment, the little girls didn’t even know they had a cousin and, as they liked digging into things and exploring, they might unearth some piece of evidence or other and start with the questions, note their awkwardness and realize there was something fishy going on.
For the two days they’d all be spending together, Viv was prohibited from mentioning her son’s existence, taking phone calls from the lawyer, she was not supposed to take her sister aside for whispers and sobs, above all, she was supposed to be pleasant.
That was what Xenia’s husband had decreed, they were coming for a family holiday to Greece, two days in Athens for the aunt and the Acropolis, two days in the Peloponnese for Grandma and ancient Olympia and then Zakynthos for swimming and the loggerhead turtles.
To start with, there was no more a room of Linus. Viv, then in a small two-bedroom downtown that had been stripped, anyway, of her sons possessions, did the last of his laundry, sent it off on the next visiting day and then searched again every corner, cupboard, drawer and shelf and all she came up with were the Donald Duck mug, the Batman eggcup, those she exiled for the crucial days up in the loft, a bead against the evil eye with a blue bow and the amber sunstone, neutral and unthreatening though they were, she shoved in her bag all the same.
She emptied the living room of her work things, piled them up in boxes on the balcony, in the loft and under the double bed. That’s where the couple would sleep, the girls she would put on the living room couch and she’d spend the day in a fold- up bed in the hall, she measured it, it just fitted, it’d be all right for just the two nights.
On the day she was expecting them, she made pasticcio, Xenia’s favorite, bought cornflakes, fruit and sweets and set out on the purple velvet pillow of the carved chair two blue velvet queens she had ordered made, not to sell but as gifts for her Canadian nieces to play with and, if they so pleased, they could shred the dolls to bits.
She wanted to hold her sister’s little daughters in her arms, to kiss silken braids, to ruffle frilly dresses, girls are nice, Xenia was luckier as a mother, despite the fact that her husband stayed away for twenty days right after the birth of their second daughter, he had wanted a son and there was none forthcoming.
At the airport she waited for them trembling.
It was the fate of Sotiropoulos, now deceased, to live the elopement of his second daughter with the hated America, even if her luck set her down in a doctor’s arms.
Xenia had married Spilios in ’93, four years before the bomb went off. Her second marriage. The first, a hasty deci-
sion, to a colleague, a professor of English, had lasted two years. She had taken him and left him willingly because she wanted kids but the only thing he could get up was his mind, she had confessed to Viv, sobbing.
Spilios Alifraggis was a darling, hot-blooded, tall, handsome, generous, humorous, rich and an orthopedist, in other words, the family’s opportunity to at last boast a doctor, even if it was halfway around the world, she had playfully needled her older sister, pinching her bottom, after she’d first introduced him to her, then waxing lyrical about his gray temples “like in the movies," those were the words with which she skirted around the age difference, he was fourteen years her senior.
The darling, generous humorist etc. had been orphaned as a child. He had been taken up by a childless uncle, who took him along to Canada, put him through school. It was there he had specialized and done his postgraduate studies, had found a job straight away, first at the university hospital in Ottawa, then in Toronto, where he quickly established himself and, with his uncle’s support, was soon showcased as a distinguished member of the Greek community, with a rich record of professional and social activities, a member on the board of a dozen organizations. All that was missing was a marriage and a son to name after the beneficent uncle, Diagoras, so as to make sure he was sole heir to the colossal property, a glut of real estate properties along central thoroughfares, it’d be a crying shame for the Church to gobble them up.
They met with Xenia duri
ng a short vacation on the island of Kalymnos, they roomed next to each other in the picturesque hotel, adjacent balconies in the gold-red sunset, him leafing through medical journals, her reading English poetry, darkness falling, the two switching their light on simultaneously, looking at each other.
Now, with the two daughters, levity was out of order. And what happened with Linus had radically transformed the hus-
band, or showed him up for what he was, Xenia was nowadays getting thunderbolt-glances and their kiddies were getting preached at in a fashion that made no sense whatsoever for preschoolers.
On second thought, it might also be fated and inescapable for an event of such magnitude to shake up the people who are closest, to uproot their attitudes and way of life from their foundations, a man of medical science turning into a bully and a stalwart, professional woman allowing herself to be beaten.
Only once did Viv make it to the evergreen Toronto, summer of 2001, Spilios had broken his legs in a car accident, two months in the hospital, in his wing, Xenia needed help and she demanded, sobbingly, her sister, after she swore to him there’d be no talking in front of the children, there was no cousin as far as they were concerned, nor would she blurt anything out in phone calls with his colleagues and clients, plus she wouldn’t take her sister visiting or to church, it wouldn’t do to bump into someone apprised of the events, and then have to run for cover.
Their house was made up of the two paternal homes together, the wife’s wooden rack for the china, wooden chest and woven rugs from the Peloponnese, the husband’s island dresser, island sofa and island mirror from the Dodecanese.
Xenia pretended she was happy, her life full, she taught Greek, translated, published clever articles on current affairs which were popular, was the heart and soul of the amateur thespians and cultural activities, went skiing and sleigh-riding with her children, bore with panache the legendary cold of the Canadian winter.
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