by Alex A King
Who knows? Maybe they'll put her in a temporary pasture, where she'll stay, bored and useless, until the detective wipes a damp sponge over her name. But even then, when life returns to a new sort of normal, she'll be a remember-when? until it's her turn to take a permanent, underground leave of absence.
Okay, so she'll be a remember-when? after she's dead, too. But death has a way of keeping a person too busy to care.
The sun greets her on the other side of the door with a slap. It's the school bully, striking out at her because she's in black—and who wears black in summer? Freak.
Not much she can do except live through it. It's not like she can shoot Helios out of the sky. He's had his own problems in the past, what with his son stealing his chariot and crashing it into the earth and setting the whole place on fire. So if he's harsh … Eh, who wouldn't be?
The putt-putt of a moped follows her up the street. Already, she knows it by heart. Sure enough, it's Leo with his grandfather perched on back.
They stop beside her.
"Oh my God," she says. "You brought your grandfather."
"Why does she say it like that?" Socrates Karas looks at his grandson. "What is wrong with me, eh?"
Leo's grinning. He pats his grandfather on the shoulder. "It's the statue, old man."
"It's the statue," Kiki agrees. Because he'd be at least fifty-percent less strange without the thing. The remainder of the strangeness is self-made.
"Poor Laki. And after all he does for you." The old man winks at her.
She gives Leo the envelope. "I looked. Sorry."
"Don't be."
He traps her gaze. She can't look away, though her heart is demanding she turn and run. It's not so bad defying her internal organs; her eyes like him, and her head likes him, too. He's a good man. Too bad he's leaving. They might have been something.
"Goodbye, Kiki Andreou. Good luck."
She offers her hand. He takes that hand, and with it, a piece of her heart.
"Goodbye, Leo Karas. Good luck and Godspeed."
60
Leo
He has to reach, but Papou slaps him around the ear.
"A woman looks at you like that, you kiss her."
"Maybe I didn't want to kiss her."
"Why not? Are you a pousti or just a vlakas? She is beautiful and also allegedly dangerous. What is more attractive than beauty and danger? Nothing!"
"I've kissed a lot of women," Leo says. "And they liked it. And most of the time, after they liked it, I forgot them. But something tells me Kiki Andreou isn't a woman you kiss and forget."
"That is wonderful! Every man needs one woman he can't forget."
"Not when she's thousands of miles away."
"Especially then," his grandfather says, waving Laki for emphasis. "That way she cannot cause trouble."
* * *
Kiki won't get out of his head.
It's starting to feel like he's spent half his life saying goodbye to Greece in a rearview mirror. First time he didn't care so much. Nothing but adventures ahead. And Agria was a small place that looked even smaller in retrospect.
But this time when he turns in his seat at the back of the bus to look, his world is filled with the place.
And Kiki as he remembers her.
In that black sundress.
In those short shorts and that top with the barely-there straps.
Naked, leaping out of bed that night with Soula.
He wants to throw her down on the floor and fuck her until his name is the only word she remembers.
Jesus, Karas. Take a chill pill. She's one woman in a world filled with women.
But he's been around a lot, and he's never met a Kiki until now.
He almost wishes he could stay and find out what she looks like on her knees.
But fate has other plans for Leo Karas. It's the bus for him, or a lifetime of regret. Maybe he can say hello again to Kiki someday, but when it comes to his mom, he's only got one shot at saying goodbye.
61
Kiki
There's a sudden void in her world, and Kiki means to shovel something into it.
'Something' being Vivi's paperwork.
"Where are you going now?"
Margarita is a spider and this yard is her web. And Kiki, in this cruel documentary, is the fly.
"To see Vivi—remember?"
Her mother makes a dissatisfied noise as she sweeps. "Better if you stay at home."
And do what—rot? "Yia sou, Mama." She trots toward the gate, but suddenly Mama is in front of her with her broom.
Like God, Mama is everywhere.
"Stop right there. If you have to go out, fetch water first."
Big, fake groan. She doesn't really mind staggering home with two giant water bottles, each of them shifting and sloshing their load. But it's fun to gripe the way she did when she was a girl.
Mama has the uncanny knack of poking her inner twelve-year-old.
It's nearing midday, and the sun is ramping up for the big shine. The walk to the water fountain is a light one. The maroon bottles bump against her legs, but it's no hardship.
Not too many nights ago, she and Soula sparred with the Romani near this very water fountain. It's little more than a faucet trapped in marble—not really a fountain at all—on the edge of a tiny triangle of trees. The shade they provide is negligible, but it's better than a punch in the teeth. Kiki waits her turn; ahead of her are a pair of boys, somewhere between six and nine.
When they see her, their eyes go wide and wild. Their elbows smash together, each of them frantically pointing her out to the other. Then the little one steps forward with a question.
"Hey lady, is it true you killed someone?"
Laugh or cry? Cry or laugh?
Laugh. They're kids and they're cute. "Not even a little bit true."
Their small shoulders slump.
"That's too bad," the bigger boy says. "We were going to ask you what it's like."
"To kill someone?"
It's a wonder their heads don't fall off, the way they nod.
Kids. She can't even be mad; curiosity goes with the territory.
"Well, I don't know what it's like. But I bet it's awful."
"Why?"
"Because it's forever," she says. "When somebody dies, they never come back. There's no magic rewind button. So by the time you realize you did something very wrong, it's too late."
"Zombies come back."
The older boy pokes the little one. "Zombies aren't real."
"Hey lady, are zombies real?"
"I hope not. Because they're kind of ugly. I bet they smell horrible, too."
"Like rotten meat? The kind with maggots?"
"Exactly like that."
They drift away from the faucet, so she shoves the first bottle into place, turns the water on.
"Hey lady?"
"Yes?"
"We're friends now, which means you can't kill us, okay?"
"I promise," she swears.
Then they're gone.
When the bottles are full, she hurries home, head up.
Facing the world.
62
Leo
A man can do a lot of thinking in five hours. His mind can travel a lot of roads.
His cock's been hard a dozen times between Agria and Athens. The trigger is always Kiki.
But she's not the only thing on his mind.
Leo's been making plans. First, the Ministry of National Defense. Then he's going to hole up in a hotel for the night, or however long it takes for the Ministry to stamp his papers and hand over his passport.
Then the airport.
Maybe he'll go out after he checks in, find a decent bar where the drinks are cold and the women are sociable. Rinse the memory of Kiki away.
Thing is, Leo knows he can come back. Back to Agria and Kiki. Coming back isn't the problem.
It's the why of the whole thing stopping him.
If he comes back it's because Mom's dead.
His head won't go there. If he makes plans to come back he's making plans for her death.
Leo is a man who plans for life.
63
Helena
In the bed beside her, the enemy sleeps.
How can he?
Maybe it is because he does not know the things she knows.
That must be it. The alternative is unthinkable.
Helena eases out of the bed. This summer, she has mastered the art of stealth. She moves through life without touching anything—including people. She finds if she feigns normality, then nobody will see her. Strangeness is what draws attention. If you want to be invisible, be a sheep, moving from pasture to pasture, along with all the other sheep.
Quietly, quietly, down the hall, into the kitchen.
"Where are you going?"
Stavros has caught her once again. Every night, the same thing.
Always clever, her son.
"Nowhere."
In the dark kitchen his outline is still. "Somewhere, I think."
"It's not important."
"Then why go?"
Helena wraps the black robe around herself. Never a big woman to begin with, she is diminishing. The tie on the robe and the looseness of the cotton tell her so.
"One day you will have children, then you will know."
"Dead men don't make children, Mama."
She crosses the kitchen in two steps, slaps his face so hard he falls on the floor.
"Don't you say that," she says, her voice a husky whisper. "Don't you ever say that again."
"Why not? It's true."
"Just because something is true, does not mean we should believe it!"
Then she's alone in the kitchen, heart beating her throat with its fists, skin frozen yet covered in a light sheen of sweat.
Stavros is gone, back to bed with the red tattoo of her hand on his face.
Helena opens the front door. The night grabs her; they have plans.
* * *
The streetlight keeps her secret; it's too dim to speak up. And wrapped in black, who would see her anyway? She is a shadow.
The three-layered Andreou house sits in darkness. The doors are unlocked, she knows. The windows, too. Cool night air gently blows the heat away.
Air conditioning is not for the Greek people, only the largest of their city shops and office buildings. Everyone else is used to the heat. What else have they known? All their lives they and the heat have lived side by side. Spend your days and nights in refrigerated air and you will wilt in the outside world. That false spring makes a person weak.
Helena eases though the gate soundlessly. A million times she's pushed and pulled the metal frame, so she knows how to hold its tongue.
Through the yard, clinging closely to its sides, then up the concrete steps to the second floor. There is a small, open stairwell here, and Kiki has made it beautiful with flowers.
Yes, the door with its decorative glass arch is unlocked. With splayed fingers she presses her hand to the wood. But it is only a touch, not a suggestion. The door stays shut.
Kiki is behind this door, in her room, sleeping.
And somewhere out there is the one who killed Stavros.
Helena remembers that now. The knowledge comes and goes as it pleases. From one minute to the next, she does not know which is truth and which is a lie. But in this moment she is certain he is dead, and that Kiki would never have killed him. That will change again, soon.
But for now she sits in the stairwell, wrapped in her black, cotton robe. There she waits, a faithful hound, watching over her dead son's fiancée. They did not love each other, but she loves them both.
For this moment.
What a disaster she is.
* * *
"Why do you go?"
Helena says, "I don't know."
"I think to help her. To protect her, maybe?"
"From what? Who is she that she needs protection?"
"It's just a thought."
A ridiculous thought.
Dr Triantafillou uncrosses her legs, swings them the other way. Normally the woman is perfection, but today there's a tightness around her eyes.
"How is your daughter?"
The psychologist smiles. "Beautiful. She is a beautiful monster."
"Are you eating properly?"
Now the younger woman laughs. "Yes, I'm eating fine. When I have time. There is not always time.
"Mothers. We take such terrible care of ourselves."
"How is your appetite, Helena?"
"What appetite?"
"You've lost weight."
"I have lost more than weight, yes?"
"Would you like to talk about what you've lost?"
Helena shakes her head. Her hands stay knotted in her lap. "It is unhealthy to dwell on what is lost."
"It's unhealthy to live in that place, yes. But sometimes you must speak about it to put it in its correct place, so that you can move on."
"When you lose a child, you never move on. You stay there forever with them, so they are never alone."
"So they're not alone, or so that you are not alone?"
Her nails bite into the thick skins of her palms. "What is the difference?"
64
Leo
Athens. Now there's a city that's seen a lot of churn. Athenians have been to war a lot—with themselves and others.
The glorious city sits in a bowl and brews its city-made smog. Above it all, the Parthenon hunkers on the Acropolis.
Acropolis is just the Greek way of saying "edge of the city." Which it was—once. Today, Athens is a mishmash of architectural styles, classical and modern, Greek and foreign.
The building Leo needs is concrete, cut in a severe rectangle. Very sixties. The Public Enquiries office is filled with statues—behind the counters and in orange plastic rows in the waiting area. Leo isn't a man who does interior decorating, but if ennui was a color, this dull green on the walls would be it. This is where hope falls on its own sword. He takes a number, sits and becomes one of them, until the red number on the screen matches the number the machine spat into his hand.
Bag slung over his shoulder, packet of papers in hand, he goes to the designated counter. It's standing room only on his side.
On the side of the counter with the chair, there's a coat hanger wearing a horseshoe mustache. He doesn't look like a man who knows happy. He barks his greeting, holds out his hand. The plaque sitting askew on the counter says his name is Yiannis Papadopoulos.
Leo hands Yiannis Papadopoulos the stack. Mustache guy flips through them, facial expression never breaking bored.
"You are on leave?"
"Until tomorrow."
"Okay. Leave these with me and we will contact you."
"When?"
"Eh …" He looks up at the wall. Nothing there but a portrait of the current Prime Minister and his buddy, the Greek President. "Six weeks. Maybe four. Maybe eight."
"Maybe today?"
"Ha-ha-ha!" Yiannis Papadopoulos rolls his chair backward. "Hey," he says to his cohorts, "this man thinks we can process his paperwork today." Lots of laughter. Best joke they've ever heard. He rolls back into place. "No." Deadpan.
"I have to get back to the states immediately."
"Immediately, in your case, is nine weeks."
"You said maybe four."
"That was before I realized you are a comedian. For comedians it is at least nine weeks."
Leo leans forward, both palms flat on the counter. For the other guy this is business, but for him it's as personal as personal gets. "My mother is dying. I have to be there."
"Do you have proof?"
He's losing patience—fast. "There." He singles out the faxed pages from Mom's doctors. Yiannis plucks it off the pile.
"This?"
"Yes, that."
The man dangles them between his fingertips. "I don't know what this is. What I know is that it is not Greek. It could say anything. For all I know, it
is your grandmother's shopping list. You are not the first foreigner to deny your obligations."
Leo wants to hurt the man—with fists and fire.
"I had no problem with staying until I found out my mother is dying!"
"Do not shout. We are having a nice conversation, yes? So why shout?"
The tectonic plates in Leo's jaw shift and grind. "Just tell me: What do I have to get home tomorrow?"
"Can you swim?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then that is what you must do. You cannot leave Greece legally until we have processed this. In the meantime, report for duty tomorrow, or they will be coming for you."
65
Kiki
What was it? One day? Two? Not long, but now there is a gap in her world.
Kiki wonders if Leo made it to Athens safely, if he took his papers to the Ministry of National Defense, if they rained stamps of forgiveness on those papers.
With luck he is on his way home, where his family needs him to be.
To miss him is to be selfish.
Isn't it?
* * *
"You like him."
Two sisters in the dark, side by side on Soula's couch, feet on the coffee table. In the background, Anna Vissi is singing that 80s song about midnight.
"Of course I like him. He's a good guy."
"That is not what I meant."
"I know. Just let me pretend it was, okay?"
"Okay." Soula nudges her sister's leg with her shoe. "It doesn't have to be like this. You don't have to stay in mourning. Why don't you take that honeymoon, maybe meet a Frenchman and fall temporarily in love?"
"I don't want temporary."
"Relationships are all temporary. Even relationships with family. Someone dies, and—kaput! What is that if it is not temporary?"