by Lena Manta
OTHER TITLES BY LENA MANTA
Waltz with Twelve Gods
Theano, the She-wolf of Constantinople
The House by the River
The Other Side of the Coin
Love Like Rain
The Last Cigarette
It Can’t Be, It’ll Get Better (stories)
Without Applause
As Long as the Soul Can Bear It
They Call Me Data
A Coffee Cooked in the Embers
As Much as I Wanted to Give (stories)
The Revenge of the Angels
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Lena Manta
Translation copyright © 2019 by Gail Holst-Warhaft
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as Γράμμα από χρυσό by Ψυχόγιος in Greece in 2017. Translated from Greek by Gail Holst-Warhaft. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2019.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542042765
ISBN-10: 1542042763
Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
CHAPTER 1
Kypseli, 2016
Bend so that you don’t break . . . Where did I hear that? It’s a Taoist saying, I think. And yet there are moments when I think it was written for me. But how can I not break? How many times has my life been like a boat without a tiller? A boat without oars, rotten, with the planks of its hull creaking, threatening to break in two with every voyage? On the verge of finding myself alone in a stormy, pitch-black sea that’s ready to swallow me up? There have been times when I was certain that I’d already fallen overboard, my body frozen, my limbs heavy, with something dragging me down to the fathomless depths. Other times, though, I floated on the foam. I took a deep breath and swam to the nearest welcoming shore, where the sun was shining and the wind carried sweet smells like the breath of love.
Only now do I know where I am. Like a pilot who is disoriented and doesn’t know if what’s on the horizon is land or sea. So how can I steer this vessel of my life? In what direction should I turn? High up to avoid the sea, or low down so I don’t come too close to the sun and get burned? I look around me. Abandonment and darkness. A ruined house, strewn with old termite-eaten furniture. And yet these old chairs and sofa breathe. I can hear them, feel them. They want to speak to me, but I don’t know their language. The only thing I really know is that they are a piece of my inheritance, a page of my history. And if I want to balance myself somewhere between earth and sky, I must read this history. Before that, though, I must discover it, like an explorer, like an archeologist whose duty is to bring to light whatever the earthquake buried in the bowels of the earth. And there is enough to suggest that what happened here is lost in decades of memories, and that it doesn’t only concern my family . . . Like two packs of cards that a croupier shuffles with consummate skill. The queens and kings got mixed up, the aces got swapped with the tens, and the jokers are lurking in wait, chameleons who deluded and deceived for decades. But now the cards are in my hands. Crazily, unexpectedly, without warning . . . but right on time. I remember being struck by the lawyer’s strange expression when he called me into his office.
“Mrs. Karapanos, you won’t believe what it took to find you!” he said.
“The fact is, I never stay long in one place,” I answered. “I have no reason to. Wherever I find work, I stop, but not for long.”
The man didn’t lose any time explaining the situation. He’d wasted enough on my inquiry. Afterward, I stared at him. I’m sure that my expression was more amusing than his when he informed me that I was the heir to a significant fortune, and also this house. Who? I, who, for as long as I could remember, had not been anchored anywhere, had acquired nothing of my own, and was convinced that there was no person on the planet with the same blood as mine . . . other than my mother, whom I had lost when I was young. And from then on, I’d lost the privilege of being called a person.
A strange noise now interrupted these thoughts and memories. I turned, rather nervously, in the dim room. I’d thought I was alone in this mausoleum of a house. I went to open the other dilapidated shutter, even though there was a possibility it might hit some passerby in the head. However, the shutters were stronger than they appeared. When I finally got it open, the spring sun poured freely into the place and performed its miracle. The light revealed a different reality and restored me to my senses after I’d been sitting for so long in the semidarkness. The situation suddenly wasn’t so terrible. The furniture was all covered in huge white sheets. There was a lot of dust, and spiders had moved in, but with a thorough cleaning, I could live here. At least until I decided what to do. And the uninhabited house was certainly preferable to the gloomy hotel room in downtown Athens where I had spent the last few days.
I moved on and opened another window, letting in another flood of light. I found myself in the sitting room. The layout of the house was strange—I’d noticed that from the moment I arrived. It was a small villa, squeezed between the tall apartment buildings of Kypseli. Once, it must have been painted dark red, with white trim around the windows and doors. The front doorstep was made of white marble, as was the stairway that led to the main floor. The living room had a slim, semicircular vestibule with a small balcony. I stood there now. It consisted of little more than a small extension from the building with three long, narrow windows, one beside the other. Sturdy masonry framed both sides of the semicircle, and beyond that were two doors that led to corresponding balconies that were a little wider. A passageway with a closed glass door separated me from the dining room. I was in no hurry to explore the rest of the house. First, I had to find what had made the noise. The thought that it might be a mouse made my hair stand on end—they disgust me more than anything else—but a black cat allayed my fears. With a single bound, it landed on the couch and introduced itself with a meow. The two living creatures in the house sized each other up, the cat’s eyes green, mine the color of melted gold, justifying my name. My mother called me Chrysafenia. Only recently did I learn that it wasn’t some whim of hers, but my grandmother’s name. No one ever called me that after her death. Everyone knows me as Fenia.
The cat decided it liked me. It jumped down off the couch to rub itself on my legs and wound its tail around my shin. I picked it up, and it made itself comfortable in my arms. Its fur shone in the sun like black velvet, and my fingers sunk into its fur. I remembered being a child in Germany—and suddenly recalled a little dog trying to comfort me after my mother died. What kind of brute could get angry with a dog and kil
l it? The same kind that could hurt a child . . .
“I’ll call you Tiger,” I announced to the cat, who looked at me as if it approved. “Now let’s go and see the other rooms. We have a lot of work to do here.”
Tiger settled into my arms, making it clear he had no desire to explore the house on foot. I rewarded him with a long caress. I needed the warmth of his touch as I got to know the house that was now mine. I crossed the large room and opened the glass doors that led into the dining room. A long table covered in a white sheet was surrounded by six chairs. On my left was a large window that I hurried to open. Clouds of dust appeared in the sunbeams. A large buffet stood on the opposite side of the room with a mirror hanging above it. Smaller pieces of furniture and ornaments seemed to beg to be unveiled. I ignored them and continued on into the kitchen. There, spiders and dust had settled on the empty cupboards. It was easy to see that the refrigerator and electric stove were only good for the scrap heap. I returned to the dining room.
“Well, it looks like we’ll be eating takeout tonight!” I whispered to my cat, who appeared to approve of this decision too.
I returned to the hall, where I faced two closed doors and a stairway that I expected to lead to the bedrooms.
The first door I opened was the bathroom. It cried out for a plumber to perform miracles, but aside from the dust, it was cleaner than the rest of the house. The smell was really unpleasant. I put on a brave face and flushed the toilet. According to the lawyer, the house had not been lived in for twelve years.
“Mrs. Karapanos, the last occupant of the house was your grandfather,” he’d said, “Pericles Sekeris. Your grandmother died in an accident in 1973, together with her son—your uncle, Stelios. Your grandfather was cared for by a housekeeper in his last days.”
“And how did I become the heir? Isn’t there anyone else?”
“Apart from your mother and Stelios, your grandparents had two other children: Hecuba and Fotini. But in his will, he left everything to you.”
It seemed that my grandfather had regretted the way he’d treated my mother. And before he died, he left my mother and her daughter—me—whatever fortune was left. The games life plays. But why had he been so angry with her? What had my grandfather seen in the man my mother chose that made him cut her off? Not that he was wrong. My dear mother, your choice was a mistake—that brute wasn’t for you. How could you have had a child with him? To be honest, there are moments when I fear I’ve inherited something from him too.
The last door on that floor hid a pleasant surprise: a small, attractive office. Again I hurried to open the windows, which looked out on the street. Sun rushed in to illuminate the best-preserved room in the house. Here too everything was covered, but it was cleaner, which made me wonder if my grandfather had spent his final years in that room and simply closed off the rest. Opposite the windows was a bookcase with a small, elegant desk in front of it. Under the window were a sofa and an armchair. I pulled the covers off. The upholstery was the color of a ripe, sweet apple. I dared to sit down. The sofa was soft and inviting. Tiger slipped out of my arms and made himself comfortable on the armchair.
“Yes, Tiger, this is where we’ll sleep tonight,” I said.
He meowed. He was right: now that we had decided where we’d sleep, it was time to attend to what we’d eat. My stomach was complaining.
My first evening with Tiger in our new house was spent eating pizza by the light of the candles that I’d had the forethought to buy, seeing that we had no electricity. In addition, I bought milk, coffee, sugar, and some cookies for the morning, and of course, food for my housemate. I had never done that before. For the first time in many years, I slept calmly, without any fear, not fretting about every noise—and an old house is noisy.
In the morning I woke with the weight of Tiger on my feet, and I sensed that he would be my protector. For whatever reason, this cat behaved more like a faithful dog—something I noticed over the days that followed. Independent by nature, he was also faithful and obedient. When I had to go out for a while, he waited for me to come home and did everything he could to demonstrate the joy he felt at my return. His gaze was wonderfully eloquent, and very quickly, it felt as if we’d spent a whole lifetime together.
As for everything else, I didn’t know where to begin. With the lawyer’s help, I had wrapped up all the legal matters. Everything was paid for, and the mythical sum of a hundred and fifty thousand euros had appeared in my bank account. It was childish of me perhaps, but that first morning, drinking my coffee in the small office, I double-checked the little bankbook to make sure that I really didn’t have to search for work again. The night before, I’d gone up to the second floor. What I found there was in an even worse state of neglect, but even in the evening light, the elegance of the rooms was obvious. There were five bedrooms on the upper floor, and it was clear that many years had passed since anyone had crossed their thresholds. The largest had a double bed—it must have been Grandfather and Grandmother’s. The others were smaller and must have belonged to the children: Stelios and the girls of the family. What had the lawyer said their names were? Ah, yes: Hecuba and Fotini. I felt a bit like a burglar as I walked around the empty rooms—guilty, as if I had no right to be there. Tiger, who was rubbing himself on my legs, brought me to my senses. It was mine, this house! Legally. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Just before it got dark, I went down into the basement. There, to the left and right of the stairs, were two more bedrooms. There was also a bathroom and a rudimentary kitchen.
“Tiger, we’re the owners of a behemoth!” I informed him while sitting on the sofa, pizza balanced on my knees.
The cat blinked at me and resumed washing himself. I observed how he passed his small pink tongue over his fur until it shone.
“You sure clean up quick,” I told him irritably. “We’ll see how long it takes me to get this dump back into shape.”
The first step was obvious. I might never have had a decent place before, but I knew a visit to the supermarket was required so that I could stock the house with basic necessities. Seeing how at sea I was, the lawyer had arranged for the electricity to be reconnected, and it was supposed to come on today. I left my cat in peace and, having made sure there was enough money in my wallet, set out on foot for the store.
It was easy to find my way. My house was behind Kypseli Square—according to the lawyer, the suburb had once been one of the most distinguished in Athens. The development of the area had begun in 1930, and together with Kolonaki, it had been settled by the most upper-class Athenians. During the 1950s and ’60s, a large number of apartment buildings were erected. My family must have bought the house after the Second World War. I was amazed when he told me that my roots were in Constantinople, where the Ververis family I’m descended from moved before 1950. All my life I’d thought I was like wild grass with short roots, and now I found out my roots were as strong as a big tree’s. A strange new feeling, and one I would have trouble assimilating.
I passed one apartment building after another, and I couldn’t help wondering why my grandparents didn’t give up their house when the value of land soared in Athens, trade it in for apartments, instead of remaining in the little villa dwarfed by the monsters all around it. I was anxious to learn more about my family, about my house, but I told myself to be patient. For once in my life, I had to consider priorities.
I came out of the supermarket certain I’d never make it back home in one piece. I was annoyed with myself for overlooking the obvious problem: how to carry everything I had bought. The detergent bottles were cutting my hands, the broom and mop threatened to poke my eyes out, the bucket kept getting tangled in my legs, and I had to stop every few feet to gasp for air.
Just as I was about to abandon everything on the pavement, I sensed a presence beside me. I turned and found myself looking into two dark, almost black eyes. In front of me stood a young man whose clothes had seen better days, as had he himself. He couldn’t have been much more than
twenty-five, and I knew right away that he was one of the thousands of refugees who ended up in our country if they weren’t drowned in the Aegean by smugglers. Those people were fleeing for their lives, and criminals were making money off them.
“What do you want?” I asked, though he certainly couldn’t answer me in a language that was strange to him.
The young man tried to tell me something, but hopelessness has a language of its own. I saw despair, hunger, even resignation in his eyes. He approached me, perhaps the same way he’d swum toward a life raft thrown into the icy sea. With gestures, he and I managed to arrive at something of an understanding. He took the extra bags from my hands and seemed anxious to follow. I don’t know if I was foolish or paranoid, but something in his look reminded me of myself.
I found myself walking toward my house with quick steps. I almost laughed. In less than forty-eight hours, I had taken into my protection not only a black cat but also another person. We went into the house together, and the young man looked around him with concern.
“Don’t look at it like that!” I said as if he could understand. “We’ll fix it up like new.”
Tiger approached cautiously and smelled my Syrian friend without enthusiasm. He wasn’t wrong. The man was in a terrible state. I made sure that the electricity company had done its magic and wondered if the hot water heater could possibly work after so many years.
After a lot of trouble, I found out his name: Karim. There was no way he could pronounce mine. He ended up calling me “madam,” which was easier for him. Where we really got into trouble was when I tried to send him to have a bath and gave him a shirt of mine to wear. At first he was surprised, then he got angry, saying something to me loudly in his language while I tried to explain in mine. Tiger got angry too and meowed loudly—the Tower of Babel was threatening to crush us. Again the gestures came into service, along with some mangled English. Finally, Karim came out of the bathroom so clean and fragrant that Tiger consented to reexamine and finally to accept him.