- Vivika, at first he swept me off my feet with his lovemaking, battle ready morning and night, not like the one before who was forever blaming the political situation, was driven to anxiety attacks by the illnesses of his beloved prime minister, was wrecked by the backstabbing within the Socialist Party.
Later on, the things Xenia divulged about her husband’s sexual practices took a dramatic turn, he bounded on the bed, he stood up rotating like a helicopter that’s lost its propeller, about to crash to the ground and go up in flames, or he fell on her like a tractor and excavated her insides till she was turned inside out while, after her second birth with the known outcome, he crashed into the house like a truck with faulty brakes and fell in a swoon on the bed as if in a ditch.
- Does he drink? Viv had asked.
He didn’t drink.
- Does he beat on the babies?
He didn’t beat them.
- Has he made peace with having daughters instead of sons?
He was reconciled with the situation, he loved the girls, they were, perforce, his life’s guiding principle but, according to Xenia, having had his peace and quiet till the age of forty- five, he needed a period of grace to adapt.
It was probably better that the beast declined Viv’s request, Linus, beast number two, wouldn’t see eye to eye with him for
even a week, Canada would end up in tatters, in any case, she had inquired into that possibility as well, had given it a shot, had done her duty. So much for Canada.
Now how was she to pass the rest of the bloody evening?
Again the TV with Everything you wanted to know about sex ? Again on the balcony drinking by herself a lemonade or a beer? Again polishing the pewter Giselles and the tin Presleys? Again waiting for her son and revving for a stylish argument or, better still, a grand confrontation?
She wasn’t feeling hungry but, standing still in the kitchen, in front of the small window, she started thinking of pumpkin recipes, not because she was fond of that winter vegetable or of cooking, that’s just what happened to come to mind, the trick of multicoloredness, spending some restful time among the crates with vivid colors, bright yellow pumpkin, bright red tomatoes, bright green spinach, it’s a proven fact that no food is gray.
She decided to do some laundry, went to the bathroom, emptied out the basket, picked out the dark ones, there were more of those, mother and son were predisposed toward the deathly colors, no flower children those two.
Turning shirts and T-shirts inside out, on the inside of the collar of Linus’s black T-shirt of yesterday, she found three tiny spots of blood. Her son wasn’t hirsute, had no need to be shaving his neck, she thought mosquitoes must have got him and then he must have scratched. She went to his room in search of more dirty laundry, she first plugged in the mosquito zapper with a fresh tablet on it, she gathered a dirty pair of jeans from the chair, turned those inside out as well, emptied the pockets, small lighter and bus tickets, a melted piece of candy, a wafer wrapping, four blue tops from water bottles. Her palm filled with refuse. She made to go but didn’t. She went down on all fours, peeked under the bed, sometimes she found there stray socks and crumpled underwear. She lifted the bedsheet, there
you go, two empty cartons of chocolate milk, more rubbish, looked further in and her eye caught the weights, she would see them in the balcony basket whenever she raised or lowered the tent or mopped outside, always under Linus’s specific order, don’t mess with my stuff.
She pulled them out, they’d been washed, another season, or half of one, of exercise and bodybuilding aspirations, ha! ha!, she thought, pushing them back to their place and then noticed, right behind them, his sports shoes, even better hidden than the eight-ounce weights. She tried to reach them with her hand, failed, then reached and dragged them out with her foot.
On part of the length of the right shoe were stuck bits and pieces of some dry weed, some kind of a bush-leaf and two wheat fronds.
On the left shoe there was no shoelace.
Just then she heard the key in the apartment door, leapt to her feet, barely had time to lower and smooth out the bed- sheet, her son didn’t like her to look through his things and spy on his kingdom.
Holding his jeans, she bumped into him at the hallway. He had a silly brown handkerchief wrapped around his neck, evidently bought today, he had never ever worn anything so dumb.
He noticed her puzzled look and she his, eyes like caves.
- Are you going to lock yourself in the bathroom or should I go put some washing on? she said to him in lieu of good evening.
For half an hour she listened to the water run, endless quantities of it, so she knocked on the door, just do the body for now, will you, leave your soul for later.
Waiting for an answer, any kind of an answer, she looked down, Linus had left his Gestapo boots and his socks outside the bathroom door. She stood gazing at them deep in thought till his lordship came out, she squeezed past him, stuffed the jeans in the machine as well and pressed the buttons.
In a bit they were sitting wordlessly in front of the TV, he with a Greek salad, she with an untouched peach, she was looking at him as if he were a time bomb and every two minutes checked her watch. For one whole hour she and her son competed in who was going to stress the other out most. An intense word-fight gives you a headache, a prolonged silence intimidates.
They so studiously avoided looking at each other or speaking that the evening became leaden, virtually terrifying, as if they were about to do each other harm.
Linus caved in first, left the tray on the table, had only had two slices of tomato. He ran to his room and locked himself in as if fleeing from someone with murderous intent.
Viv turned up the volume, again the winter serials, again the news broadcast, she mechanically watched it all again. She couldn’t find something to think about, to plan, to remember, her mind, used to digging things up and keeping busy, was searching for any old subject but, rather than leaving it unfettered to bring her bad tidings, she might as well dictate herself its nightly program.
It’s July and we haven’t been to the sea once, neither of us, she thought, and immediately amended, “us” is used for couples, the party in question was neither me nor my son, the fruit of my loins.
So, then, not even one swim, wet bathing suits, reddened shoulders, dry salt, seashells and sea breeze, splashing and revelry, this and that and right there was her subject for the night, the wondrous children’s questions, summer at the village, fifteen years ago now.
This is a great big water, her boy astounded and a little intimidated, refusing to wade into the endless sea for Fotis to teach him how to swim, after trying everything, Viv bodily carried him into the water and delivered him to his father’s arms.
The world above is empty, another of his verdicts about the
sky, which had no houses, grew no grass, presented no movement of people and cars. The silence is very great, bigger than a mountain, his hesitant comment some nights when the grown-ups, scattered in the yard and at a distance from one another spoke neither to him nor among themselves, each bent to the plate with their slice of watermelon.
The sea’s gone, a phrase that told of his relief when, at last, they were on their way back to Athens.
Willfully affixed to the village years, she protracted her stay there for quite some time, garnering images from her own childhood as well and, for the first time, she realized that she went through them tightly clutching in her palm a small unripe lemon.
She’d picked out a bushy lemon tree, she drew lots or she chose the companion lemon with eenie meenie miney mo, cut it and, until it got too scratched, rotted away or turned watery, she went about in the yard and along the dirt roads, to the grocer’s, to funerals, to school, always clutching the lemon in her small hand.
Often in class she stuck her head in her schoolbag and in a whisper informed her little green mascot, the teacher has three drops of piss on his crotch, Eleni just farted and accused Petroula, I purposefully
broke the priest’s umbrella, I secretly dug up the priest’s wife’s two climbing ivies, they won’t suspect me, they think I’m so proper and quiet. At home, she lifted her blouse over her head, stuck her hands in, scratched with her nails the green peel and inhaled the fragrance.
Other times, she made her coat or the blanket or the curtain into a tent, carved eyes-nose-mouth on the lemon and, hidden from the grown-ups, the two of them exchanged long conspiratorial looks.
There were times when the lemon in her palm was enough to make her feel that she lacked for nothing.
My childhood was three hundred lemons or thereabouts,
she summed things up, my dowry of sourness for a lifetime, she surmised, subject closed and the night still held out, copious.
Seashores and pebbles, piss and climbing ivy, priests’ wives and lemons, what else was there, for heaven’s sake, that she could summon to keep at bay the missing shoelace from her son’s sports shoe?
J. JU 7 > f
She was sitting in the driver’s seat but her hands weren’t touching the wheel. Viv Koleva was driving the car with her breath, going at medium speed along a road that cut a dry flat- land in two.
Caravans of clouds were catching up with her, drafts of air were pushing her along, freezer-freighters overtook her, trucks with hay, semis loaded with apples, Datsuns with potatoes, busloads of people with special needs, motorcycles with helmet-wearing leather-clad drivers and schools of birds, long and narrow like arrows that whooshed and pierced the horizon straight ahead.
Suddenly, the car turned to dust and she was at the entrance of an unknown city, at night, with no lights.
The houses without bells, with no doors or windows, tightly packed, small and white, like candy in its box. She walked the narrow streets for hours, in a great hurry, anxious and out of breath because she had at all costs to be somewhere at a specific time, except she didn’t remember where that was supposed to be. To the wake of someone dead? And who was that? To a name day? Whose? At a store opening? Which belonged to whom? At a play? But where?
Meanwhile, in her palms had sprung a bouquet of white roses, except this gift was of no help in remembering her destination because it fitted most every occasion. Whom could she ask about funerals, parties, premieres or other city events?
The streets were bustling, though empty of people, not a soul anywhere, only snatches of talk, dry coughing and the dragging and shuffling of shoes that belonged to no bodies, walking empty, with their shoelaces properly done up.
She woke up with her mind short-circuited and herpes on her lip. She dragged herself to the bathroom and heaved down on the toilet seat hating the day in advance, it wasn’t quite daytime yet.
It’s decided, the battle of life is won by those with inspiration. Everything requires inspiration, practicing a profession, balancing your bank account, whether large or small, making a relationship work, setting up a home, raising a child, rounding off the past, orchestrating friendships, weekends, Easter, every single phone call, how you’ll make it through your day with integrity, how to have a nice nap.
She wasn’t one of those.
Others taking it easy and Viv on the daily grind and in the vise of the Tax Department.
Others reserving a touch of mercy for the defense of this or that thing from their childhood years and she beating things to a pulp.
Others conceding to reminisce, for instance, over some fervent nights with an Ionian islander at a student flat downtown, she keeping her distance.
Others receiving succor through heavenly embraces, she making do with mediocrity.
Others celebrating children that were state-of-the-art, Viv getting near heart attacks over her one and only dismal son.
The same scenario, over and over, since she trained her sights on trouble the way others train theirs on a jeep or a yacht.
She put the laundry out to dry, got dressed, left without eating.
At the shop, later, she had five coffees. The shitty thing on
her lip tripled in size, it burned and smarted. From nine till two, the only two clients who came in the store to buy gifts for their young nieces at the country didn’t find Viv’s service of the usual standard, herpes is an alarm bell that your immunity is down, the first and eldest gently chastised, the second one, sour-faced, messed up all the thingamabobs on the shelves, turned the store upside down and, having whiled away her morning, left with a ballerina on a key chain, cheapest item in the store.
The noon paper was bought but left folded on the table, next to the cheese pie also bought but left to grow cold, untouched in its paper bag, while Viv watched in a daze the few midday passersby, a short, proud big-assed woman strutting like a partridge, a poor black carrying two bundles, his head hung in the heat like a lamb’s head on the spit roast, two baby girls watching in awe an old man winding his old-fashioned watch, children are mostly amazed with the past, as far as the future goes, they have no questions.
The afternoon was highlighted by a flamboyant fag who bought a heart-shaped pillow silk-screened with two ballerinas, by two kids, bosom pals obsessed with wind-up Michael Jacksons doing the moonwalk and where could they find such a thing, and by a call from Rhoda, another three-day cultural retreat, the Nile, river boats, Crocodile City, oasis of Fayum, the savanna of Antinoos and an Egyptian lover breaking his own records in bed, night after night.
How is the devil’s lamb, how’s my godson? she asked in the end, she had brought him posters and videotapes with camels, piranhas and serpents, we have in our hands neither communist nor artist, it remains to be seen if his body’s central circuitry is wired like his father’s who did make you swoon, Viv sweetheart, that much he did do. Of course, Rhoda was well apprised that Linus was over his childhood whim of exploring jungles and living in the tropics but anything to do with Africa
is just the thing, especially for wild young men’s summers, that was how she put it.
After Rhoda’s bye-bye, girlfriend, talk to you again soon, Viv didn’t replace the receiver, she called the gym, she’d found the number in her old agenda earlier, should I call or should I not, she kept changing her mind, eventually she did, just before closing shop. Kolevas hadn’t been in two years and if he hadn’t been satisfied then, new pieces of equipment had been brought in and there were special offers on membership programs plus a brand new handpicked trainer, a Bulgarian, expert in building godlike bodies.
On her way home Viv brought three kilos of giant broad beans, she didn’t cook those even in wintertime, went to the kitchen and emptied them in a large tub of water, as if she intended feeding a platoon after a day’s march on snowy mountains.
Her son wasn’t there but his boots were, the sports shoes were missing from under the bed.
She took out two steaks to thaw for him, she boiled him some corn, herself, she made do with an eggplant from the day before yesterday which she ate standing up, with no bread and no Parnassus feta cheese.
She brought in the dry laundry and set up the iron in front of the TV but didn’t turn it on, she deliberated, she could afford to miss the news, besides, what news, it was the middle of the summer, boats delayed in their departure and how much hotels cost on the islands.
Placing the ironed clothes in the cupboards, she counted Linus’s blue boxer shorts, five in royal blue, the color appropriate for encasing his family jewels, five, she’d bought half a dozen and she was sure her son wasn’t wearing the sixth, he only ever bathed at night and she had given him a change yesterday with khaki boxers and a sleeveless top.
She searched the bottom of the wardrobe, caps, scarves and
gloves. She turned the laundry basket upside down, there were only whites, dishcloths, towels, her bras, his white socks with bits of dried weed. She loaded the washing machine, emptied the toilet bin, went to gather the kitchen refuse too, stale pieces of bread, peels, fruit pips, milk and fruit juice cartons.
The metal tip of the lace stuck out of a can of Coke, she pulled it and the whole of the b
lack shoelace came out, with the fronds stuck to it.
Why had Linus shoved it inside the can, he who was so untidy, always leaving a trail of rubbish in his wake? She wasn’t going to ask him. And she wasn’t going to use it to tie the overflowing bag of rubbish with.
She saved the lace in her pocket, took the rubbish out to the street, and there was the prodigal son in the flesh, with his hankie, wearing his running shoe with brand new snow-white laces in them, they came up in the elevator together.
While he washed, she fried his steaks, turned on the TV, skipped the nightly news, found a spy movie, set the stage of a normal evening at home.
While he ate, distant and subdued, Viv avoided looking at him, she feigned being absorbed in the movie, at every explosion and shootout she even jumped in her seat exclaiming, God Almighty, and, will you look at that. Her thoughts, nevertheless, were on the ominous night before last, and on that ominous night before last, her son, probably without a girlfriend, certainly with no friends, had been out till dawn.
How could she even be thinking of something like that? Imagining atrocities about her own son, the very one who, as a child, was upset because the grown-ups beat up on olive trees with long sticks, pinched the poor sheep’s teaties hard and didn’t give the piggies proper food but their leftovers.
She reached and stroked his hair, he let her. She then walked her fingers gently through the hankie and touched a hint of a scab, at the front of his neck.
- What are you doing? Let me be, Linus bent abruptly in the opposite direction, where his mother’s cloying fingers couldn’t reach him.
- Your nodes seem a bit swollen, you’re thin as a rake, she said and left the medical at that, rising urgently to carry his tray to the kitchen. On her way, she sneaked a peek into the bathroom, at his dirty clothes, the khaki boxers were there all right. The thing on his neck could be a hickey from some love-crazed widow or wife who saw her chance, gathered him in her boudoir, tore up his blue boxers, sucked him dry and then sent him on his way.
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