Back to Delphi

by Ioanna Karystiani

  affected him, he had lost another ten pounds, and he’d had a petit mal as well, that autistic delirium with the zdoops. Grandma sent best regards and a knitted talisman against the evil eye, she came to Athens very rarely, had asked to see him, if only the once, he kept refusing.

  The Canadians’ arrival in 2003 was not mentioned as his aunt Xenia did not receive her husband’s consent to visit him. Their little ones, Meg and Stavroula, didn’t even know they had a cousin, but a time would come when they’d find out everything, Time is the wisest of all, for it discloses all things , this one by Thales, next to Yukaris, Viv also memorized things of that sort.

  After the screeching of the media had died down, Aunt Kiki had also made an appearance, Fotis’s unknown sister. She called the lawyer four times, asking to reestablish the connection. What she had in mind was half an hour with Viv, straight out. After much deliberation Viv consented, thinking that if something happened to her, there could at least be a third party on standby, those two old letters she’d found in Linus’s room now took on a new meaning, maybe the old guilt could turn out for the good. She knew from Fotis about her and her husband, they were in with the Socialist Party since 1981, whenever it was to their interest they brought up the persecuted communist dad, when it wasn’t, they played dead. Sole purpose of the meeting was the paying up of the sum of one hundred thousand drachmas, just the once, they would patch the hole in their conscience and things would be fine.

  The present-day Kiki bore no relation to the old heartrending letters. Viv heard her offer, listened patiently to the old compassionate cliches about the martyrdom and the social outcry, discovered how her own children had studied, married and now had settled lives in London, she learned, without asking, about the other sister, Melpo, in Texas somewhere for a

  number of years, also cut off, followed by news about places and people she hadn’t the slightest interest in, not a word about any piece of property in Corfu, if such existed, she paid for the coffees and got rid of her with an “and now you can get lost, you and your money.” Fine indeed was the offspring left behind by her heroic in-laws, their lives bedraggled from one place of exile to the next.

  She said not a word to Linus, there was no reason to.

  She did tell him about his godmother. Rhoda, who would put in a hurried call from Serres at Christmas and Easter, had sent a wedding invitation, after having erotically sucked dry a few legions of penniless and increasingly younger men, she would tie the knot with a car dealer, adding a new surname to her own and making up into the deal for her losses at the stockmarket of twenty-five million.

  - Have you sent her the two hundred thousand back? Linus’s question. She had indeed, in the new currency, six hundred euros, alongside her wedding gift, two silver picture frames and a cut-and-dried wish, may you be happy and prosper, and that was the end of the relationship of two women who for years had been vying over which of the two was the smarter.

  She also told him about the Cretan brothers, they’d had her over for a meal in the yard of their house, a two-story in the western suburbs, one on each floor. They had invited others too, after some trouble she did remember them one by one, then fierce and all fired up about the revolution, now unstrung balalaikas, disillusioned and embittered, one of them, from up north, an unrepentant romantic, proud, moneyless and therefore divorced, his wife had split. The missus of the younger brother gave her two kinds of sweet cheese pastries for Linus, the prison administration did not allow them.

  Once every so often, there was the milk pie by the same bearer always, the prison guards had tasted it and so had the

  other inmates, the latter a whole chapter unto themselves. Viv learned about the beings of Korydallos, sometimes from the relatives waiting long hours under the awning and fighting over the yellow priority tickets, gypsies with armfuls of babies and sad Pakistanis, sometimes from Yukaris or from the papers and the TV channels who remembered them whenever they came out onto the rooftop and burnt a mattress or two, rarely from Linus.

  The most noteworthy thing, to her, was the hangings in the cells. How come her son hadn’t made even a single suicide attempt? Shouldn’t he have at least tried it, though he would have, of course, been found on time and the blood flow staunched from the cut veins? Something of the sort would offer his mother a bit of relief. But it seemed that Linus had great endurance when it came to unhappiness, he had no intention of saving himself, inimitable. She watched him head in a straight line for baldness and a hump.

  Viv Koleva would leave the prison compound and start on her itineraries, faithful to the ad, keep walking , to stock up on eyedrops, ointments, yogurts and not forget the frankincense and the votive breads, drop in on a main hospital or two to see clients whose time had come to be hospitalized, go and check the bank account, send a bit of money to her mother, pay the money due for the bones at the charnel house, change the Fiat’s oils.

  If it was summertime, all the streets flowing like rivers to the sea, her gaze stabbed the mothers who were parading their half-naked nubile daughters as if expecting to get a good price.

  If it was winter, the winds swooping wildly down and the cold cutting up her back, a saw on dead wood, there were other things to take note of, little children wrapped in thick coats in their fathers’ arms.

  In December’s scenery, with the gold-and-red lanterns and the tiny lights on the bare trees, the lead role belonged unequiv-

  ocally to the families, the whole town became an album with shiny postcards.

  The Christmas trees stood near the windows so they could be seen from the outside, I saw all of you, one hundred, two hundred, I see you, and here’s one more, Viv was thinking as she drove or walked alone in the streets at dusk or at night, scanning the ornaments and colored lights that blinked along the windows framing the Athens of the festive living rooms where friends and relatives came and went, well-wished and laughed, jostled children on their knee, put the old folks at the head of the table, surrendered themselves to the few days of release that reigned at that time of year, imposing a truce on all conflicts, a necessary respite until the vacuum cleaner sucks up the glitter and everything goes back to normal.

  Usually every Christmas and New Year’s Eve, after putting her old folks to sleep, she drifted under the awning of one of those taverns specializing in egg-and-lemon stew of lamb’s intestines, watched the patrons inside, solitary like herself, and after some looking, made up her mind, walked in and celebrated bent over a plate of lamb stew and a glass of wine.

  As was expected, she’d get the come-on from one of the single males present, Albanian cruising with the eyes, days like these, in a place like this, a woman on her own was probably looking for it.

  Whether she was looking for it or wasn’t, Viv Koleva went back home unaccompanied and the occasion, a year going out, a year coming in, invited her to sit and think of her son’s holidays, again in prison, his life in the prison cell, her life in the successive cells of her apartments.

  At the beginning of 2000 and in the middle of 2005 she’d changed neighborhoods, she kept stumbling on curious folk, possibly ready to blow her cover, she couldn’t stand their attitude and she had run away with her cardboard boxes.

  Always and everywhere same old, same old. Black seeds of peony that drive away nightmares, the black hellebore or Christmas rose, a plant against sadness according to the now deceased sage from Thessaly and where could she get these, to keep at bay, even artificially, even for a while, all the things that riddled her.

  Nothing refined or delicate in her life, everything rough. And plenty of it. In her head a commotion. For there to be space for so much, it shouldn’t be the size of other people’s heads, a football, it should be one huge monolith as big as the rock of the Acropolis.

  This was the rock that contributed to the idea with the antiquities.

  During visiting hour, playacting the positive thinker, she tormented her son with proposals that might distract him from his predicament, with questionnaires
about the protection of the arctic environment, with the biographies and lifeworks of philosophers from newspaper inserts, with treatises about Islam, so that he would be understanding towards his Muslim fellow inmates or with one hundred stamps, Linus, here’s the beginning of your collection.

  He, unfazed, had no wish to give in to any distraction, there was nothing worth diverting him from the truth.

  Twice he had dressed her down, asking her not to set foot there again bringing training programs, his mind was fully occupied anyway.

  - With what?

  - With negating all pleas of innocence.

  - Be more clear.

  - I’ve no intention to.

  Nevertheless, Viv Koleva did not give up. Apart from the son in jail for life, she, too, needed a goal. It was defined for her after much agonizing on nights full of delirium and a nerve pain in her neck, by the documentary on National Channel 3,

  besotted archaeologists, decrepit Indian workers and a magical atmosphere of excavations in the places of the Incas.

  That’s it, she decided, her own country would stand her in good stead with the multitudes of antique goodies.

  White marbles make the world go round.

  - We’ll stand here first to catch our breath, to turn our gaze backwards and mentally enjoy the sight of the first ten votive offerings along the Sacred Way, a total of about one hundred bronze statues, elsewhere water sprouts at the base of the Iampia peak, the best of all waters , according to Pindar, and then there was the monument of the fleet commanders, and there was this, that and the other, a glut of masterpieces, always with the helpful booklet at hand. Antinoos, the Charioteer, the Castalia Spring, the Rock of Sibyl, Leto’s Stone, all the ancient lures going to waste, the fish wasn’t taking the bait.

  Friday’s guided tour in the midst of May’s conflagration didn’t have the anticipated result, Linus remained unmoved. His mother couldn’t believe such impassivity, nothing getting through to him, his not reaching out for the chance after all those years in the dungeon where, besides, he was due again Monday night.

  When even foreigners from the far reaches, Indians, Brazilians and what looked like Tartars, had been assailed by the ancient pulse and were roaming around bedazzled by the powerful vibration.

  Viv Koleva, however, did not lose courage, with time those impressions might work in her son’s head and two months later, or six, a year at the outside, Linus could see the light and ask her for, say, essays on the still undeciphered 242 symbols on the disc of Phaestos or even to organize a five-day expedition to Vergina, Alexander the Great was back in vogue,

  Hollywood films, protest marches, Bucephalus was charging into Scopje, the hierophants of war were to be seen riding roughshod on all the TV channels.

  She had another three days at her disposal and she meant to persist, it’s not as if there was a plan B.

  All these years she’d busted her ass examining the pros and cons of the sciences, arts and hobbies, Linus was not going to evolve into a mathematical mind, do decent paintings, give himself over to a passion for stamps, antiquities, specifically those surrounding them, which, on top of everything, washed of the miasma of spilt blood, had finally won the most points.

  Not that she meant for him to make his name as an archaeologist, she’d be satisfied with making a dent, a small uplift, seeing him be less of a vegetable, that would be a welcome minimal gain of her mission.

  Saturday morning at the small dining hall of Amphictyonia.

  Thoughts about mentioning that in the seventh century BC, the confederacy of Amphictyonia transferred its home base from Anthili, a small town near Thermopylae, to Delphi, which it proclaimed an independent city. She might add that delegations were present from the ancient Hellenic tribes, the Achaeans, Aenians, Ionians, Dolops, Dorians, Maleans and a host of others, who escaped her just at the moment, and, certainly, saying all this sweetly and civilly, like a prize student, without yesterday’s hysterics, dear Lord, thinking about it now, she was a runaway one-woman comedy skit.

  Meanwhile, she was counting his bites of food and his swallows of drink, she would hate for the two-yolked eggs and the freshly squeezed juice to go to waste, part of her plan was to return him to his cell perked up.

  To their left, three fifty-five-year-old German women were

  picking up their strength, the little hump of fat at the back of their necks, Viv had it as well, to their right a rosy-cheeked Englishman was picking up his, bent closely over a poached egg, his glasses needed changing, so did hers, her presbyopia had gotten worse. She hadn’t been to the ophthalmologist for three years and to the gynecologist for over ten.

  - While you finish, I’ll tell you about the dream I had, she began, she didn’t know what on earth to say so that their silence wouldn’t be noticed. She buttered his slice of bread and started describing, she was in Alonaki but it seemed to her mighty changed, the church dome was smaller, the belfry shorter, the houses were more distant one from the other, the graves had spread outside the cemetery fence, the mountains had retreated and the whole area was in motion, expanding and shrinking, the square, the plane tree, the coffee shop, the kiosk, the school and all the rest, in an irregular to and fro, blowing up and deflating.

  Linus’s response:

  - Didn’t you finally ask Yukaris about that thing?

  He pushed away the half-eaten and the uneaten and lit a cigarette.

  -1 asked him.

  Her reply was late in coming, it was clear she wanted to avoid discussing that particular subject.

  - Didn’t you find out?

  -1 did.

  - You haven’t told me.

  -1 haven’t.

  - Tell me now. The truth.

  In his voice there was imperiousness combined with pleading.

  His mother complied, bending her head and speaking in as low a voice as she could.

  - One’s married, she has two little kids. It’s the second one I’m talking about.

  - The other one?

  - Not in a good frame of mind. She’s in and out of clinics.

  She lit up a cigarette as well and, determining it would be

  worse to give the news in installments, she went for the rest in one fell swoop, the father of the third one had a heart attack at forty-nine, off to meet his dead only daughter.

  That was that, she’d said it. She only kept undisclosed that some nights, and without fail on the eve of St. Kyriaki’s name day, the trial takes place again in her dreams, with herself in the role of Koula’s mother, breaking through the circle, leaping like a lioness at the stand and strangling the rapist and killer of her girl.

  After that, it was nigh impossible to keep dragging him by the ear to the statues, she saw him turn yellow, get up and go staggering up to his room.

  Was it right of me to tell him? And why does Linus have to find out from his mother? Why couldn’t he ask Yukaris himself, all this time? Couldn’t he, at all events, imagine the consequences by himself? Why, what did he expect? And how did any of that fit in with this godforsaken outing?

  Still, she did feel sorry for him, felt sorry for herself and, in the name of justice, felt sorry once more for the other folks, the unlucky girls and their people.

  Where was all this heading to? She thought that, seeing they’d started, they might as well make a clean sweep of it, he was hiding things, she was hiding things, here at Delphi was their chance.

  If their tongues loosened, if the unspoken things were said, if the poison inside of them fizzed out, she might even win her bet with the ancients, the gloriousness of the place was intact for three thousand years, everybody was stymied with shock and awe before beauty, before History, Linus ought not be the exception to the rule.

  Transfixed, Viv Koleva noticed neither the foreigners who bade her a good morning, gathered their maps and video cam-

  eras and left, nor Sabine who tidied up the tables and settled with a book in the nearby living room, her husband was there, too, on the couch for the morni
ng talk shows.

  She was lost in her smoking and her thoughts.

  Would Linus come down? Should she go and knock on his door? Instigate an all-out conversation in his room? Or did he maybe need some time on his own to digest the news? Was she, perhaps, afraid of him? But, as a bottom line, wasn’t there every reason to be?

  She would wait for him here, and play it by ear.

  She turned her chair to face the TV.

  Frau Sabine and Mr. Thanassis were commenting not on what the guest speakers on TV, ministers and parliamentarians, spoke about, the Sarkozy-Royal battle for votes or the local political hurly-burly, but the knots in their ties, one guy’s was like a meatball, another’s like a horse’s bridle, a third’s like a hankie with the wafer from the Sunday Eucharist, the Socialist Party members were all spick-and-span, the New Democrats dressed like country bumpkins and the lefties like goons.

  Sabine called out to the only remaining customer in the small hall, Mrs. Xenia, I know what I’m talking about, in Cologne I worked in men’s retail.

  Viv was envious of both the couple and their light conversation, I wish I, too, was concerned with tie knots, she thought, she smiled politely, picked up her eternally frozen feet and went out into the yard for the morning sun, which she needed.

  Off to one side, two Albanian handymen were shoveling sand and cement into a pile, putting together a mix for widening the paving. Very shy the both of them, very thin, very pale, probably recent arrivals, a new addition to the migrant labor force. Their committed shoveling the only sound in the laid-back Saturday morning, the time was barely something past nine.

  The day pure blue, May already, the winter gone. From now on, a stretch of sunny daybreaks, the festival of blue skies

  would keep up till September and would meet with great success, the sun’s clients would be most pleased, the unmitigated light would clear out their eyes, the breeze would clear their lungs, the holidays in the islands and ancestral villages would clear out their heads and rest their bodies. Viv and Linus were among the summer’s few exceptions, him especially.