- What then? What is going on?
- You pretend not to know, but you know everything, you don’t miss a single thing, these were Linus’s last words, spoken slowly, word by word, before he got up and left.
What else could she possibly do with that child? How to get on his good side, how to talk some sense into him? Should she buy him a piano, which they say is good for a child? Should she get him a large, comprehensive encyclopedia, the Britannica or the Papyre-Larousse ? Send him for a holiday to Amsterdam? Enroll him as a student in Bologna? Take him for manual labor to some kibbutz?
She hadn’t been able so far and it seemed like she never would be a good actress like most moms, who give their all for the family performance to succeed and the audience of the house to be happy.
She remembered several of them from the years of kindergarten and primary school, chatting as they stood, patient and smiling, next to walls with every manner of insect and livestock in monstrous enlargement, cicadas as large as chickens, chickens as big as goats and goats like panthers. And she remembered five or ten from high school, those ones also relaxed and self-assured, satisfied with the carrot cakes, the parks and the weekends in mountainous Corinthia.
She snuck her right hand into the left sleeve of the chemise, moved it upward, touched the lace, you, she said, you and your two accomplices, the blue shirt and the shapka, will be responsible for what happens from now on.
The rest of Wednesday went by with difficulty. She got rid of one Travolta, two Zorbas and five small Degas prints, collected eleven thousand altogether, and then, with shutters closed, she sat jotting on a sheet of paper questions and answers from the hard quiz which kept her hostage.
At nine in the evening back in the Mitsubishi, again the reckless itineraries virtually scraping against paralytic buildings and bellicose streetlights from the far-flung sea suburbs back to the center and up to the northern ones of Chalandri and Aghia Paraskevi. At around eleven a stop somewhere in the north, in a dark spot where stood the right telephone booth for what she had in mind.
Second anonymous call. This time she stated she was almost a rape victim. She would not go to the police in person, absolutely not, she hadn’t even told her husband, he muttered over her going alone to the cinema, didn’t like it himself, wouldn’t take her.
In short, five days ago, leaving at 12:30 A.M. from the
Amaryllis, she had stopped at an all-night liquor store and bought two bottles for her husband, a vodka and a rum. On her way up to her house corner of Trikalon and Chlois St., where there were some open fields with pines, in Aghia Paraskevi, someone jumped her from behind, put his arms around her and one palm over her mouth, gagging her, and pushed her into the pines. The only thing she remembered clearly was getting him a good one on the shins with the heavy liquor store bag and making her getaway. I was scared because Tve heard about the maniac still out and about, she finished her report with remarkable speed and with her eye on her watch.
What attracted her to the police and made her set up scenarios was the hope of finding something out that would place her son out of the picture, being told by the cops that, according to latest evidence, the rapist had a big prominent scar or a missing ear or that they’d just caught him in the act, a pumped up Russian boxer who confessed to everything and the blue shirt was in his size and his shoes match as does his shapka and that’s the end of that.
- Aghia Paraskevi was the last thing we needed, the officer allowed himself the liberty, made a comment about women’s risky night walks, and weighing up the event with the bottles, had the presence of mind to ask, so, then, he might have a bruise on his knee or his shin?
- He might.
- Should we then be looking at men’s shins?
- Do you have him?
- We have Russians and Poles and Romanians all of whom have alibis and bring as witnesses truckloads of fellow nationals whom you wouldn’t want to meet alone in a dark alley.
The cop told her she had a duty to go and try and identify the attacker, Viv wouldn’t hear of it, she was afraid of her husband, he proposed that she talked to a female colleague of his, a psychologist at that, some of the victims end up severely trau-
matized, a step away from being admitted, and who can blame them, since, as the fellow is having his sport with them, he stops them from yelling during the rape by stuffing his shoe in their mouth, one of those ones worn by basketball players.
The conversation was going on for far too long and Viv put down the receiver so they wouldn’t locate her. She reached the Mitsubishi with large strides and turned on the engine. She didn’t know where to go. She didn’t want to go back home. It was her turn to stay out one whole night.
Her son’s previous shoes, the sports shoes Linus had thrown out, traveled with her for six hours around Attica, in her mouth, unhinging her jaws, in her mind, trespassing in every thought, dragging her into the dark forest, into the pitch-black tunnel with the keening of the unfortunate girls.
For the sea. That’s what she wrote to him on the paper, the letters orderly, peaceful, and the distance between words correct, the marker pale blue. She left it on his pillow, next to the presents she’d bought him, the black bathers with the red stripe on the side, the sunscreen, the thongs, the beach mat and finally, as a kind of self-evident signature, the two self-evident bills, all of them in a straight line on the light summer blanket.
Before setting out the display she’d changed his bedding, the bed was a mess, on the sheets again a hodgepodge of crumbs, ashes and leftovers of sweets.
All this in the afternoon, Linus was out, Viv alone in the house.
She searched everywhere in case he’d left her a note, where have you been, Mother, where did you spend the night, are you all right? Nothing.
He hadn’t tried to call her, nor had he been by the shop.
Despite her emotional and physical exhaustion from wandering all through the night, Viv was at her post and she even collected a little money, hair ribbons, a hair netting, three mini posters, the dough was handy, not even misery is free.
She took an ice cream out of the freezer, went to her room, lay down, ate it and slept, a deep sleep, no resemblance to the afternoon siesta it should have been.
It was ten past five when the bell rang, Viv opened her eyes, grabbed hold of the sheets and lay low like a wild animal sensing danger.
Who can it be? They’ve come already? Did they track him down? Did some acquaintance point him out, who’d seen something by accident? Should she open the door? Should she play possum? What if they smash their way in? Should she treat them to something? Should she cover up for him? Should she provide him with an alibi for the night in question, the young man had a fever or colic pains and hadn’t moved from his spot? Is there a mother who doesn’t cover up for her child, no matter what?
- Viv? Vivian? Viv, baby? Rhoda’s voice. After the third ring, she was banging on the door with her palm, she could make out the sound of her large ring.
She opened the door and got an earful. If you weren’t in the bathtub why did it take you so long to open up, and, you sly fox, sleeping out and not sharing the good news so we might get a bit of pleasure out of it, a telephone call wouldn’t do things justice so I came over to get it live from the horse’s mouth.
The best woman called the house over and over the previous night. Viv’s cell phone was off.
At something to two, her godson had picked up, he’d just walked in, had no idea where his mother was, he sounded fuzzy-brained, never the chatty type as was well known.
Saying all this and other things besides, a reprimand for the missing curtain, a reprimand for the dust on the windows, she
dropped off the promised Egyptian souvenirs, the piranhas and whatnot, went to the kitchen and put on a coffee, filled two mugs, sat Viv down for a quick chat before the sourpuss returned to the Tutu and the Highbrow to her coterie of refined acquaintances.
Nothing came out of it. Not, at long last, a love interest, no
t a night with live bouzouki at one of the spots by the sea, a fiesta at someone’s house somewhere, in celebration of the name day of a Paraskevi or a Pandelis.
The sudden visit wasn’t like past get-togethers over erotic or political impasses of the kind that don’t actually arrive at a conclusion, don’t solve any problems, nor do they cause any hurt, they just sit two people down in the living room until the coffeepot is empty and the ashtray full of cigarette butts, so that, afterwards, the hostess has to air the space and that is all there is to it, no miracles and no dramas.
Of the visit’s thirty minutes, twenty were eaten up by silence.
Rhoda backed up, put on the hand brake, desisted from her interrogation, realized she was not welcome under the current circumstances, hermetically private and ill-omened, something again to do with the devil’s spawn, her godson.
She gave a short soliloquy about her affairs, her dear old mum who was well advanced on the way to senile depression and she had to look after her, caressed Viv’s shoulder and got up saying, whenever you’re up to it, give me a call to go out to a restaurant or a movie, cheer up a bit.
At the last moment, as she was letting herself out, she issued her statement of support, we’re all in the same boat, you know, if you think that I’m happy as a lark myself, the answer is, no, not by a long shot.
Out she went, in he came, ten minutes apart.
Mother and son exchanged the same look they’d been giving each other over the past few days, they’d both been well schooled in it.
- Linus, Viv asked hesitantly, almost breathlessly, if someone asks me where you go at nights, where you were on the night of July 13, what must I say?
No response on his part, only the quiet and methodical retreat again into his warren. She waited for a bit outside his door in case he said anything, even about the bathing costume and the sea, nothing, nothing whatsoever.
Time for the Tutu, a business is a business, it does not open and close according to its owner’s moods, she went, she sold, she came back.
Her son was still holed in, but declared himself present in his own way, the squeaking of his chair and his desk drawer that shut noisily.
He didn’t answer when she called out, shall I order some pizza, nor when she tried with, how about souvlaki?
Now, past ten, there was no light in the crack under his door, yet the son wasn’t asleep, some whispers were audible that gave the evening an added dimension.
Oh, he has visitors, oh, he’s got some girl in, how I wish, whoever it may be, single or married, smart or dumb, wise or a fool, Greek or foreign, white or black.
Walking on tiptoe, Viv approached the Berlin Wall-door, like a spy, in case she could make out one or two of the words that had been in such short supply in this home, something along the lines of, come, my love, let’s hug some more, and she overheard one whole phrase: Buddy, out of the way, the shovels are attacking, dirt’s about to heap.
- Are you all right? she called out. Is there something wrong?
He didn’t open his door, he let her walk around some more like a blind woman on tiptoe by his door, before announcing to her with much ado:
- All you care about is that night. Well, for your information, there’s plenty more, there’s a whole bunch.
Viv Koleva grabbed her bag and went out, she was afraid of staying with him, afraid of what terrible things might be uttered or done.
Now, she didn’t want to hear his confession, he was perfectly capable of coming out with ten unconscionable crimes.
Would she take him in her arms to console him, to say bygones are bygones, but things would be better from now on? Would she suggest that he flee on the spot, on a night flight abroad? Should she join him herself, wandering through the insignificant townships of insignificant countries till their traces were lost? Would she finally slap him? And what if Linus strangled her using the length of his foulard?
What is better? A plain rapist and murderer or a matricide as well?
Her heart was beating loudly and irregularly, volleys that unhinged her limbs from their position, her hands gaping, her feet quaking, her head revolving out of sync and ending up facing backwards, in case her son was following her.
An empty mind, a small little mind, yes indeed, without suspicions, without indications and proofs, that is what she needed for a carefree evening stroll, like the others who slowly ambled and paused in front of storefronts or traffic lights with a soda at hand.
She was encircled by the signs of an ordinary evening, ordinary people in an ordinary neighborhood.
If only she could change there and then the traffic signs, the street names, the store signs, the plants in the flower beds, the children’s voices, the newspaper titles at the kiosks, the stations of the TV and the radio that could be heard near and far, the business of people, if only her suburb of Patissia could be radically changed, if reality could be gotten out of the way.
She wished she was in Germany with the thousands of rail tracks, as if each man had a train to himself, like Rhoda’s dad used to say, so she could get on a train all of her own, trailing
boxcars, overtaking cities, passing through industrial complexes, leaving landscapes behind.
She went round and round the same old ground without reprieve. Her footsteps didn’t obey her, didn’t take pity on her, brought her before accomplished facts, in front of a tavern where groups of people were feasting and telling jokes, behind a couple being all lovey-dovey, next to a group of women her age, all of them coiffed and perfumed, enjoying the outing.
Eventually, they led her to the corner of Thiras and Drosopoulou streets, in front of the police station.
She looked in surprise at the guard post in the entrance with the lit sign, froze in place for a few minutes, turned about, walked away. She covered several more kilometres, five and ten times around the same city blocks.
Every time, on approaching the building of the police, she turned back or crossed the street. When she realized that the guard had noticed her, the same woman visitor over and over again, Viv Koleva went up the steps and asked to see the officer on duty.
Now her heart was beating like a window shutter in the northerly, her innards were draughty, her blood was freezing like a mud hole in the mountains at wintertime. She felt her feet hit turbulence and dip, her knees shortened by three inches, her soles sinking in the floor of the police station.
She dragged herself to the office she was led to, standard furnishings, standard face. Holding the receiver the officer, you are not in a hurry? he asked good-humoredly, he gestured to a seat and went on with his spiel, who knows to whom, a woman at any event, philosophizing according to his profession and the time of night.
- Every city with thirty, with one hundred thousand residents, with half a million or one million, let alone the countless and diverse crowds of Athens, gathers to itself angels as it gathers every manner and type of being, sinners and demons
included. A city with five million people needs both unhappiness and transgression. There is a wisdom behind the robberies and the murders, it makes householders be careful, lock up, watch out for the wanted, scrutinize the newcomers. Otherwise, what use would the patrol cars be, the lockups, the sleuths, the tear gas, the Port Police, the Vice Squad, the Drugs Squad, the lawyers, the courts and the decorations for honorable conduct? And, dear lady, where would your channels and newspapers be without deviants, defaulters, white slave merchants, murderers, rapists and pedophiles?
He was keeping notes, he said, after he retired he’d write a log of events and meditations, he considered it his duty.
He finished his call pleased and replenished, he had a lot of night ahead of him as well as the pale, despondent lady sitting quietly across from him with her right hand stuck into her left sleeve.
- A break-in or a disturbance of the common peace by the neighbors? he hazarded a guess, with a friendly, reassuring smile.
Vivian Koleva could not find the appropriate words.
-
I’ve lost my ID, she muttered eventually. I’ve come to have a new one issued.
-At 3 a.m.?
The officer was now looking at her dumbfounded, even though, in his line of work, nothing should really strike him as strange, his doorstep was often visited, particularly after dark, by the drunk and the deranged, the loners and the worse for the wear, the night’s sorrowful denizens.
- You’ll need to come again tomorrow in the daytime, he suggested, treated her to a glass of water and saw her out himself, bid her goodnight and watched her go down Thiras St., to the right.
He saw her again before him two hours later in her nightie and a shirt thrown across her shoulders.
She was holding a bag.
He again motioned her to the chair across from his desk.
- What is your name?
- Korleva.
This was her first illegal “r” ever.
He did not resist, did not ask them anything, did not delay them. He followed them like a dog wagging its tail because it was now the time for its walk, at eight o’clock in the morning.
Viv was out, she’d left for the store at seven thirty, it had been arranged, she did not want to witness the scene.
Just in case, she had given the police a key.
We opened noiselessly, they told her the details afterwards, though she hadn’t asked, two had stayed in the hallway outside, two were under the balcony, three went in the apartment, went with every precaution to his room and found the door unlocked with him in bed, on his back with eyes open, fully awake, if he had slept at all, he was in his jeans and boots.
- You need to come with us to the station for a short chat. There is something we need to discuss. If nothing comes of it, you’ll be free in a few hours to go where you please, that’s how the one in charge spoke to him.
Linus got up like an obedient child, put on a T-shirt that sat folded on the dresser and stood before them, ready.
My child doesn’t have a gun, he’s not one of those bullies with the pistols and the Kalashnikovs, he detests guns, I took him to an antiwar rally when he was younger and, as for his dad, he used to lead right at the front in peace marches, Viv had pointed out to the policemen and had made sure on her way to work to take along in a big bag all the kitchen knives, the sewing scissors and Fotis’s tools, hammers and screwdrivers.
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