nightfall open automatically, via a photosensitive cell, to release the chemical gas which spreads out and hypnotizes and traps in the fork escapees from their mommas regime, words that shook up all the squished, transparent little bags with his brains and in the corridors of his mind and on the very last phrase, fucking lethal bitches with the toxic heels and panties, though he was still, no facial move, locked jaw and tightened lips, his tongue bit itself to shreds all of its own, the blood filled his mouth, he swallowed it, it quenched his thirst, it strengthened and aligned him with the words that lifted him up and out and away from himself.
As a warm-up, he made crude passes at a couple who were unaccompanied, he cornered one who sneered at him, go jump, you jerk, you and your stupid hat, and that one he took care of in the bushes. Unfortunately for her, she drew his eye because she shone with joy, her high spirits pierced the dark, her flower-patterned dress made her look like a shimmying plant and Linus was veritably affronted by such visible happiness, the variously happy people made him fume, he growled, the hell with everyone except for those who are desperate, and he went after her.
The day after next, the newspapers wrote about the beast, about the nineteen-year-old’s bravery in reporting her mishap and about her courage in noticing several details. So, then, they knew about a tall young man with a strange dark hat who had gagged his victim with his sports shoe and, in the course of the act, was growling something that sounded like dupp-dupp. They didn’t know and they weren’t going to find out, the reporters, the policemen and the victim, the mother, godmother, or anyone else, that an hour previously, the young man had tied a chain to a robust tree branch, had circled it around his neck, had kicked at the four double bricks which he had stolen that same night from a construction site in the suburbs and which he had been carrying in his backpack to use to stand
on, but at the critical moment instead of hearing his neck cracking, he heard the crack of the branch that sent him sprawling to the ground, alive and a failure.
/ /
Junk, is what he said to his mother when she asked how come he got into a housekeeping mood. She’d come in on him emptying the contents of drawers and shelves on the floor of his room and ripping out pictures and postcards stuck with tape to the inside of his wardrobe.
All mixed in together in two large plastic bags, he stuffed old comic books, faded and at one time hallowed T-shirts with spaceships and pirate ships, shapeless socks, videotapes, expired markers, broken triangles and rulers, a kids snorkel- ing mask, two anti-flea collars, four plastic bones and three of Buddy’s old name tags, last year’s flip-flops and last year’s sports shoes.
- Why not throw out the poster, too? Viv suggested, Linus didn’t answer and he didn’t take down the shiny poster, yellowed and torn at the edges, with the dog breeds and Buddy’s breed circled with red marker and red sequins stuck all around, from the remaining ballerinas, four in number.
- Throw the fur cap, too, or the moths will get it. Why save it, who wears things like that anymore? He heard his mother’s voice from the kitchen.
I do, he thought to himself.
He grabbed the bags and went out. It wasn’t the clothes and the magazines he urgently wanted to get rid of but the shoes, not that anyone would find them or that they had teeth- marks on them or that they were special, it was just an ordinary pair of everyday plasticized white shoes and the size wasn’t a 14 or 15 so that the strange girl might remember a big foot, he took a 10, the most common size for a man’s shoe.
The shoes inside the house made him fearful, all day Thursday and all day Friday his thoughts and his eye kept being attracted to them, they were a challenge.
He took to the streets and started emptying the stuff in out- of-the-way rubbish bins, a little at a time, he threw out the shoes at a distance of several kilometers, the left one off Omonia Square, wrapped in one plastic bag, the right one two suburbs away, wrapped in the other.
It would be nine when he got home, Viv was watching the news with her feet in a tub of water, from time to time she complained about calluses, phlebitis, swollen ankles, Tve turned out a prima ballerina of sorts myself, she had told him some months ago, dancing the daily grind till I drop.
Tonight, she only came out with the absolute essentials, how come he was in so early, how come he doesn’t get a haircut in this heat or, at least, pull his hair back with a rubber band, and that the green beans and feta cheese were on the kitchen table and next to them was money to go on Saturday morning and buy a new pair of running shoes, proper ones.
Linus didn’t touch the money, for three days it lay on the edge of the tablecloth while he went about in his winter boots and, as he had cut off all communication with his mother, Viv, having had enough of his silence, and of her attempts to break or interpret it, she acted of her own accord, in the interests of practicality, and on Tuesday evening she brought home two pairs of new sports shoes, one red and white and one white and blue, with black soles and black laces, and she emptied the lot, along with the receipt, on his bed for him to find when he came back, at God knew what time.
Past midnight she heard the key, then his footsteps toward the kitchen, the opening of the fridge, the glugging of water, he must have emptied that bottle and now he’s not going to fill it up and put it back in its place.
In a bit the noises transferred to the bathroom, a two-minute
torrent, then shifted.to the living room, the TV was switched on, a quick zapping, it was off in three minutes.
Linus knew that each night his mother kept her ears pricked to catch his familiar, well rehearsed motions and Viv knew that he intentionally made a little extra noise to facilitate her tracking his course through the house.
Steps now heading to his room, the rustling of papers and then dead quiet.
In about five minutes he appeared before her in his boxer shorts, barefoot, holding in his arms the four new shoes.
- Don’t they fit? she asked, lifting the sheet to her chin, then went on, don’t just stand there like a midwife presenting quadruplets.
Linus looked at her full in the face, saw her hand turn over the opened book on her belly, her toes fidget nervously under the white sheet, went back to her eyes and stayed there, as if wanting to transmit a signal that couldn’t be put into words.
Viv waited and waited, don’t they fit you, she asked again, he nodded, an incomprehensible nod, is there something the matter? You must be wanting some money, that’s what she surmised, that’s what she said to him, her son was standing graceless and speechless, rooted to the spot next to her bed, except she didn’t have the patience to look for a way to loosen his tongue, he was too grown-up now for her to undertake such obligations, she didn’t much care for his look either, his red eyes, the hanging lower lip, the Adam’s apple roving in his throat, and she didn’t much like the time of night, questions at nighttime have a way of turning unpleasant, so she sent him off with an, I’m in the middle of my book now.
Linus let the shoes drop to the floor and disappeared in his room, the key to his door was heard turning twice.
There wouldn’t be any reading and then going to sleep for him. Like yesterday and the previous night and six nights before that, the frightened eyes would jump out from all over
the place, would instantaneously multiply in the room, would sail along the walls and the ceiling, would swarm into an army and walk straight at him, would attach themselves tightly around the circumference of his head, their moisture clinging to the hairs on his neck, his cheeks, his mouth and, from there, the irises would eject rounds of hundreds of black lightning rods to disintegrate and scorch everything.
He wasn’t afraid of getting caught, he wasn’t afraid that Buddy’s chain, which he hadn’t thrown away, would again become a noose, he was afraid that by the time they caught him, the shoes would have made him march again.
And the first time that the words and the shoes picked him up and teleported him towards evil, when, instead of turning him into Stallone and Jackie Cha
n, they had drained all his power, it had happened at his home, with the power supply cut off.
He picked up the left boot from the floor, the left was the shoe he’d used that night in the small park, and he shoved the front part of it in his mouth. Within seconds, his body started shaking, his arms flew out and pummeled the sheets, his legs gathered up and stretched out spasmodically again.
His ears were filled with muffled sounds of “don’t" and “don’t” and moans and alongside them, confused phrases piled up, stammers, random syllables that puffed out and swirled in the darkness of the room, golden mane, in your panties, coupons with the hammer and sickle, the zit, the cheeks of the calf head, how cute, and in order not to miss out on the words and their meanings, he bent his ear to the sizzling whispers in order to latch onto the ribbons of the phrases, to clear up to whom each voice belonged and what they were saying, to get the threads in order, weave them thickly into a long, sturdy rope which he would then wind twice around his neck.
You’ve got me living inside your panties after all, he’d heard this phrase at age seven, his father had said it to Viv one night,
after they'd put him to sleep in a hurry, they’d practically pushed him into his room and shoved him under his coverlet, because it was their day to fight, they’d made the relevant preparations early, had sat wordless around the kitchen table, no bread had been cut, the glasses stood empty, the food cold, he smoked three cigarettes in between mouthfuls, she cleaned the plates before they had finished, they were all choked up, they would have to let things out any minute now, but not before they’d ushered the kid out.
The kid, to be sure, had half opened his door, he heard things, he didn’t retain much of what was said out loud except for his father’s sad, broken voice saying that thing about the panties. The panties that grew in size, they grew as big as a burlap bag in his grandfather’s storeroom, a doghouse for an oversized dog, a lion cage in the circus. The panties which, sometimes white, sometimes black, on their laundry rack, pretended to be an innocuous little chit, but, it seemed, at nights swelled up and became an enormous sack that could swallow up a full-grown man, his poor father.
Years later, he must have been eleven, while thumbing through an album with Russian landscapes, his mother found inside dozens of coupons from the Communist Party’s fundraisers and, nostalgic for the good old times when she had the deceased ready at her disposal to chastise, she rang out, as loud as a church bell, I was right to suspect he was too embarrassed to ask people for money and was paying for these himself, a truckload of money, he singlehandedly made the Party rich, the silly fool.
Right there and then, Linus came up with the unforgettable phrase about her panties, hoping for an explanation and conveying the message that when he grew up himself, he wasn’t going to let her lord it over him.
- Best you remember other things, was her first, abrupt response, though after a while, half in regret and half in con-
fusion, she afforded the eleven-year-old a synopsis of her defense speech, unhurriedly, taking up half his evening.
- I left medical school because I got pregnant with you, we were looking for ways to make a living, your father had been sold short by his boss and I’d no time to wait until when, where or how he would open a business of his own, with my belly out to here I found three reasonable little shops, one with underwear and nighties, one with pet accessories and the one I eventually went for, which he didn’t like, he only contributed his savings halfheartedly. I didn’t like it either, didn’t give a damn about ballet, but it was the right decision, for our means. We didn’t get rich and we didn’t go without either, plus I’m saving for you to study when the time comes, anything you fancy, whether doctor, architect or astronaut. You see, because of my forethought, you will be able to do what you choose. He, poor soul, wasn’t. I do think of him. He loved strong woods. Handmade window shutters. He was born for carpentry. Only he crafted the window of his own soul crooked and ended up a lost cause. It wasn’t my choice to make decisions on behalf of others, life forced me.
Next day, life would force her to bring home the soccer-loving jackass.
On that distant night the kid understood a fair bit, because it all dovetailed right in with his fathers’ friends, two bearded Cretans, another bald guy, another fat guy, faint memories from increasingly more scarce visits, until his pack, as Viv called them, was defeated and no longer had easy access to the home, they showed up en masse for the last time on his father’s name day, one week after Easter, many happy returns, friend, stay strong, comrade, a good year to all, why, Linus, how tall you’ve grown, one whiskey each, dried nuts and out the door in half an hour.
Another three appearances, at the funeral, at the forty day memorial service and at the one for the one year, and since
then, a phone call and a toy car by post each November for the
V
orphans name day and birthday until eleven, then nothing, his mother must have kept them at bay.
For a young child, Linus had a great predilection for memorizing sad events, his mothers mouth helped, which insisted, when on the phone to her sister, or having coffee with that slut his godmother, or with her clients, on recapitulating every trial and tribulation and doing it in words that were bitter and sour, she really did much prefer them.
All these details leapt out again from that now very distant evening. For this one here, the one at hand, inside the buzzing room, the phrase with the panties was more than sufficient, almost emblematic.
And next to it, the mane.
A pointed church and a black belfry with a golden areola, the postcard Margarita sent from Germany and at the back, in red ink, Leipzig, July 17, 1994, and nothing more, you blondhaired chicken-brain, with a golden comb on your silly head, he had wanted to tell her at the time, except it was a farewell card.
The last date in her room had been crowned by failure, he was kissing her for half an hour, even after she’d had enough of smooching, the appetizer before the main course, she had called it, impatient for what was next, on that particular weekend when her parents and younger sisters would be off to Corinth visiting relatives, she had dreamt of a feast that would last till dawn. So she had made Linus put his hand first in her bra and then in her panties, the pink transparent ones that scared him half to death, she had pressured him to take them off her, he was worried that the lace would snap on his fingers, panties are sly, in the end she took them off herself and stood before him, bare-assed and impeccable, milky white thighs and blond bush.
Linus didn’t really want to make love, not just with her but
with anyone, he didn’t feel desire and that scared him. That night it was the same all over again, he apologized a dozen times to his fellow student about the throat ache, the bellyache, the upset stomach, he left bowing low and while roaming the streets as if he were homeless, he was still apologizing to her prepped body, her pert breasts, the navel bud and the golden hairs he’d scarcely touched.
He was in trouble because in movies, normal ones not porn that made you want to throw up, and in random readings he was fixated on images or descriptions of a male arm resting over a female shoulder, on two hands tightly held, on a cheek gliding on long hair, on a kiss which there was no doubt both wanted very much because it was a great thing on its own right and not because it would propel them onto the bed at top speed. Moaning was all right, and so were the bare-assed bodies and all the rest of it, but no matter how original they were, what with all their minutely worked out lustfulness, Linus only felt that prickling in the heart with what were called tender embraces.
This particular saccharine description, stolen from a magazine, was top secret, locked away inside his head. To the rest of the world he pretended to be cool, even threw out a cynical comment every now and then.
Margarita, Sylvia and a couple more had no time to waste, not for movies or wordless strolling at night, they were on a schedule, down to the minute, school, private classes, English, German, home study
and, in between, either a hamburger or a screw with a chalking up of aptitude, a cataloguing of experiences, rating and ordering by number.
Some girls, spoiled by their beauty, turn bitchy if you don’t fuck them, Linus couldn’t get it through his head that the girls in question got horny, he himself didn’t, to him bodies weren’t important.
- A zit, you have a zit on the back of your neck, Rhoda had
whispered in his ear, renaming him on the spot, you curly- haired, white-blond little horse of Patisia, tickling him with a lock of her hair, as you can see I went and had my hair dyed in your color and, playacting the godmother all along, putting around his neck and twirling the amber piece of shit she'd bought him from Poland, put it on for me to see, just for a minute, for good luck, and like a tarantula, kept sliding her hands along his bare back, pressing her fingers along his sides, sneaking her palms into his armpits, putting them at the front and pulling at his chest hairs with her lips stuck initially on his shoulders, each one in turn, then descending to his waist, each kiss twenty inches long.
This was the time of making up between mother and godmother after six months of curtailed diplomatic relations, because Viv had had enough of Rhoda lording it over her and one beautiful Sunday morning she’d let it rip, stop sucking on our lives, go to someone else’s, stop acting so high and mighty, you, too, get your bribes under the table when you can afford to, what do you know about the troubles of a difficult son, you barely have time left to have a child of your own and then you’ll know what is what and, to top it all off, what business have you with the under twenties, stop hitting on your trainees, get it on with someone your age and unmarried, your years are starting to show, words which cost her the ripping out of the door handle and of the entire door as Rhoda slammed it on her way out, just as she slammed out her answer, Viv, you think you know me but you don’t.
The alibi for the reconnection was Linus, Rhoda had taken up an obligation towards him, she said when she sailed in without warning at past midnight, with a state-of-the-art computer, a jacket, a huge box of Belgian candy, a collection of English dog food cans and a few one-liners, sentimental but also direct hits to her friend, laid out on the couch with ankles the size of tin drums, Vivika, it’s beyond me to not forgive you, it’s simply
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