Nights of Rain and Stars

by Maeve Binchy

  She was not relishing the thought of the ferry trip with Vonni as a companion. She wished too that she hadn’t told it all to Elsa last night. Elsa had been less than supportive.

  Fiona wished mightily that she could turn the clock back. Why had she asked Elsa to help her raise the money? To lend her a thousand Euro just for a few days until Barbara could send it to her from Dublin.

  “Lend you money to get him out to finish off your face?” Elsa had scoffed.

  “That was different,” Fiona began. “He was in shock, I told him the news all wrong, you see.”

  Elsa had lifted Fiona’s hair. “The discoloration and the bruises are still there,” she said softly. “Nobody on earth, Fiona, is going to lend you money to get that guy out of a place where he should be permanently.”

  Fiona must have looked desolate because Elsa became contrite immediately. “Look, I’m as bad as Vonni, lecturing you. I know it’s hard, I know this. But I’ll tell you what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to stand outside myself to look at things, my own situation I mean, objectively. Look in on it rather than be a part of it. That might help you too.”

  Fiona had shaken her head. “I don’t think it would do anything except make me see from the outside poor Shane, who loves me and who tried to contact me, languishing in a Greek prison. That’s all I can see, Elsa, Shane thinking I’ve abandoned him. And it isn’t helping me at all.”

  Elsa looked at her with the kind of look you might give to a picture of a starving orphan in an advertisement for Famine Relief. It was a look of pity, concern, and bewilderment that such things were allowed to happen in the world.

  When Vonni and Fiona met at the harbor, Vonni had bought the tickets. Two day returns. Fiona opened her mouth to say that she would not be coming back today. But closed it again.

  “You’ve brought a big bag with you,” Vonni said, surprised.

  “Well, you never know.” Fiona was vague.

  The ferry pulled out of the harbor and Fiona looked back at Aghia Anna. So much had happened since she came here such a short time ago.

  Vonni had gone downstairs to where they were serving coffee and drinks. Suppose she suddenly went back on the drink. Here on this boat. It could happen. Andreas had told David that Vonni was very low and for the first time in years had actually mentioned the possibility of drinking. Please, God, may it not happen when they were out on the high seas.

  To her relief, she saw Vonni returning with a coffee and a sticky-looking cake. “Loukoumades,” she explained. “They’re honey fritters with cinnamon. They’ll give you great energy for the day.”

  Fiona looked at her gratefully. The woman was making every attempt at an apology. Fiona knew she must be gracious. “You have been kindness itself,” she said, patting Vonni’s hand.

  To her surprise she saw tears in Vonni’s eyes.

  And they sat companionably and ate their honey cakes.

  “Georgi?”

  “Andreas! I was just thinking of you. Come in, come in.”

  The chief of police pulled up a chair for his brother. “Georgi, something has happened.”

  “A good thing or a bad thing?” Georgi asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, you must know.”

  “No, I don’t know. There was a message on the answering machine in English. It was from the store where Adonis works. They said that as soon as I saw him I was to ask him to telephone about the keys to a storeroom which none of them could find. It was a complicated message, but it was as if they thought . . . as if they believed he might be . . .” Georgi grasped his brother’s hand.

  “Do you think that means he might be coming home?” Georgi asked, almost afraid to get the words out.

  “It might mean that, Georgi, it might,” said Andreas, his face alive with hope.

  In the newsroom, Elsa’s friend Hannah saw Dieter sitting alone and went up to him. Normally people didn’t approach the great Dieter unless it was very important indeed. But she judged that this was fairly urgent.

  Hannah had just gotten an e-mail. Very short and to the point.

  I feel very safe and peaceful in this small town. It’s a good place to make decisions. But everything moves slowly here including my brain. If Dieter does ask about me, can you please say that I’m not playing games. I am thinking things through and will be in touch. He probably won’t ask you but I wanted to be prepared.

  Love, Elsa

  Hannah laid it on Dieter’s desk. “I know you didn’t exactly ask . . . ,” she said hesitantly.

  “But I am very pleased to read this. Thank you, Hannah.”

  He had remembered her name, which was unusual for Dieter.

  Vonni pointed out the places the ferry passed: this was an island where there had once been a leper colony; that was a place which had suffered in an earthquake; this was a place where they had a festival in the springtime; that was a headland where a whole village left overnight and went to Canada. No one knew what made them leave.

  “Weren’t you lucky that you came to this land, Vonni? You love it so much.”

  “Lucky?” Vonnie said. “I sometimes wonder about luck.”

  “What do you wonder about it?”

  “I don’t think there’s any such thing really. Look at all the people hoping for luck, buying lottery tickets, all the thousands going to Las Vegas, the millions reading their horoscopes, people hunting for four-leaf clovers or not walking under ladders. It’s all fairly pointless, isn’t it?”

  “But people need to have some hope,” Fiona said.

  “Sure they do, but we make our own luck, we make decisions which turn out well or badly, there isn’t anything outside us that works, like a black cat crossing our path or being born under the sign of Scorpio.”

  “Or a prayer to Saint Jude?” Fiona suggested with a smile.

  “You’re surely too young to have heard of Saint Jude!” Vonni said.

  “My Gran relied on him entirely to find her spectacles, for her numbers to come up at bingo, for her horrible little yapping Jack Russell terrier to get over his fits. Anything at all, Saint Jude was called on. And he always obliged.”

  “Always?” Vonni was skeptical.

  “Well, maybe not in the case of her eldest granddaughter! Gran had Saint Jude on standby to find me a nice rich doctor to marry. That one didn’t take.” She grinned proudly, as if single-handedly she had defeated Saint Jude, the famed patron saint of hopeless cases, and thwarted his plans by sticking resolutely to Shane.

  “Are you looking forward to seeing him?” Vonni asked.

  “I can’t wait. I hope he won’t be angry that it took me so long.” The sense of accusation and outrage was still there in her voice.

  “I told you I’ll explain, I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know you will, Vonni, thank you . . . it’s just . . . you know . . .” Fiona was twisting her hands awkwardly, trying to explain something.

  “Tell me,” Vonni encouraged her.

  “Well, you’ve met Shane, he can be a bit difficult you know, say things that sound much more aggressive than they are. It’s just the way he reacts. I wouldn’t want you to think . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Fiona, I won’t think anything,” said Vonni through gritted teeth.

  “Elsa! I’m delighted to see you!” Thomas called.

  “Well, you must be the only person on this island who is,” Elsa said.

  “You can’t mean that. I was going to rent a row boat and go out for a couple of hours; would you trust me enough to come with me?”

  “I’d love it; will we go now?”

  “Sure. David’s not coming to the café, his father is ill, Vonni was right about that, anyway. He’s going to arrange a ticket home.”

  “Poor David,” Elsa was sympathetic. “And Fiona’s gone to Athens with Vonni, she left this morning, very angry with me, because I wouldn’t lend her money to bail that Shane out of prison.”

  “So we’re on our own,�
�� Thomas said.

  “I’d love a farewell boat journey. I’ll help with the rowing if you like.”

  “No, lie back and enjoy it. A farewell journey. You are going back to Germany, then?”

  “Oh yes, I don’t know exactly what day, but I am going.”

  “Is he very pleased—Dieter?”

  “He doesn’t know yet,” she said simply.

  Thomas was surprised. “Why haven’t you told him?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, there are a few things I haven’t sorted out in my mind,” Elsa said.

  “I see,” said Thomas, in the voice of one who didn’t.

  “And you, Thomas, when will you go back?”

  “It depends a bit,” he said.

  “On what?”

  “On whether I really believe Bill wants me there.” He spoke simply.

  “Of course he does, that’s obvious,” Elsa said.

  “How is it so obvious to you?” he wondered.

  “Because my father left us when I was young. I would have given anything to have had a phone call saying that he was on the way home to live near our street and I could see him every day. That would have been the best thing that could have happened. But it never did.”

  Thomas looked at her astounded. She made it seem so simple, so easy. He put his arm around her shoulder and headed down to where they hired out the brightly colored boats.

  In the crowded harbor of Piraeus, Fiona followed, lugging her heavy bag with her, as Vonni led the way to the electrico and bought the tickets.

  “It’s a fine place on its own apart altogether from being beside Athens,” Vonni explained. “Full of marvelous little fish restaurants, and there’s a great big bronze statue of Apollo, but we’ve no time for any of that now.”

  “Do you know, I’m a bit afraid of seeing him again,” Fiona said as they got on the Metro for Athens.

  “But he loves you, he’ll be delighted to see you, won’t he?” Vonni said doubtfully.

  “Yes, yes, of course. It’s just that we don’t know how much the bail will be, and really I’m not sure how I’m going to get it when we do know. It’s not the kind of thing that they’re going to help me with from Dublin. I might have to tell them back home that it’s for something else.”

  Vonni said nothing.

  “But of course he’ll be very pleased to see a friendly face.”

  “You’re not really afraid, nervous of seeing him, are you?” Vonni asked.

  “Well, I think you’re always a bit nervous of someone you love,” Fiona said. “It sort of goes with the territory, doesn’t it?”

  Georgi had phoned ahead to let them know that Vonni and Fiona were on their way. He had given a thumbnail sketch of who they were. The policeman at the Athens station listened to him until he finished.

  “Well, if this foolish girl can somehow raise the bail and get him out of our sight, there will be nobody more pleased than us,” he said grimly. “We’d nearly give her the money ourselves to be rid of him.”

  As they went into the police station, Fiona paused to take out her compact and comb. Vonni watched, stricken, as the girl applied makeup to the bruise on her forehead and tidied her hair to disguise it still further. She put on some lipstick and sprayed cologne on her wrists and behind her ears. She smiled at her own reflection to give herself confidence.

  “I’m ready now,” she said to Vonni in a shaky voice.

  They only told Shane ten minutes before the visit that Fiona was on her way.

  “Has she got the money?” he asked.

  “What money?” Dimitri, the young policeman, asked.

  “The money you bloodsuckers want, to give me back my human liberties!” Shane shouted, kicking at the side of his cell.

  “Do you want a clean shirt to wear for her visit?” Dimitri was impassive.

  “You want it all to look good and squeaky clean—no, I don’t want a bloody fresh shirt, I want her to see things as they are.”

  “They’ll be here very shortly.” The policeman was curt.

  “They?”

  “She has another woman from Aghia Anna with her.”

  “Another lame duck, that’s just typical of Fiona, she takes her time getting here and then she drags someone else in on the act.”

  As he closed and locked the door, Dimitri reflected on the nature of love. He himself was engaged to be married. He was a solid, reliable person, and sometimes he worried that he might be too dull for his glamorous-looking fiancée. They often said that girls always liked a whiff of danger. That old policeman in Aghia Anna had said that the young woman who was coming to see Shane was a nurse, a gentle soul, an attractive girl. Heigh ho, as they said. He must not make generalizations.

  “How old are you, Andreas?”

  “I am sixty-eight years old,” Andreas said.

  “My father is sixty-six, he is dying,” David said.

  “Oh, David, I am so very sad to hear that, really so very sad.”

  “Thank you, Andreas my friend. I know that is the truth.”

  “You will go home to be with him?”

  “Yes, I will, of course I will.”

  “And he is going to be so pleased to have you there. Believe me.”

  “Yes, Andreas.”

  “Can I advise you on something? Be very kind to him. I know you were all upset when Vonni tried to give you advice.” Andreas sounded hesitant.

  “Yes, I was annoyed, but it turned out that she was right. I tried to find her and tell her, but she’s not here.”

  “No, she went to Athens today, but she will be home tonight.”

  “Suppose you were ill, Andreas, what would you like your son to say to you?”

  “I think I would like him to tell me that I had been a reasonable father to him,” Andreas said.

  “I’ll say that when I get home,” David said.

  “He will be happy to hear that, David,” said Andreas.

  They led Vonni and Fiona to the holding cell to see Shane. Dimitri opened the door. “Your friends are here,” he said tersely.

  “Shane!” Fiona cried.

  “You took your time,” he said.

  “I didn’t know where you were until yesterday,” she said, moving toward him.

  “Huh,” Shane said, not responding to her arms held out to him.

  “I was responsible for all that, I did not pass on the fact that you had been in touch,” Vonni said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Shane asked.

  “I’m Vonni, from Ireland originally, but I’ve lived in Aghia Anna for over thirty years.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I came with Fiona to help her get to see you.”

  “Okay, thank you, can you piss off now and leave me with my girlfriend?” he asked with darkened brow.

  “Up to you, Fiona,” Vonni said pleasantly.

  “Not up to her actually. Up to me,” Shane said.

  “Perhaps you could wait for me . . . a bit outside, Vonni,” Fiona begged.

  “I’ll be there when you need me, Fiona,” Vonni said and left.

  Dimitri was waiting outside the door.

  “Dhen pirazi,” she said to him.

  “What?” he said, alarmed.

  “I’ve lived here for years,” she said in his own language. “I am married to a Greek, I have a Greek son older than you are, I was saying dhen pirazi. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters, that fool of a girl is going to forgive that horrific boy everything.”

  “Perhaps women like that kind of man.” Dimitri had misery written all over his face.

  “Don’t believe it. They do not love or even like people like that. For a time they might think it’s love. But it passes; women can be foolish but they are not idiots. Fiona will soon realize what a horror that boy in your cell is. It’s only a question of when.”

  Dimitri seemed pleased with her confidence in this matter.

  “Who is that old bat you brought with you?” Shane asked.

&nb
sp; “She was very kind.”

  “Sure,” he scoffed.

  Fiona moved toward him to kiss him, to hold him to her, but he didn’t seem to be interested. “Shane, it’s so great to see you,” Fiona said.

  “Did you bring the money?” he asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “The money. To get me out,” he said.

  “But Shane, I don’t have any money. You know that.” Fiona’s eyes were enormous. Why was he not reaching out to hold her?

  “Tell me you didn’t turn up here finally with nothing to say?” he asked.

  “I have plenty to say, Shane.”

  “Say it then.”

  Fiona wondered why they were not embracing, but she knew she must keep talking. She didn’t know whether to tell him the good news or the bad news first. “Well, Shane, the good news is that I heard from Barbara, there are lovely apartments very near the hospital and we could easily get one and go back there.”

  He looked at her, uncomprehending.

  Fiona spoke quickly. “But the sad news is that we lost our baby. It was awful but it happened. Dr. Leros said that there are no problems as soon as we want to try again.”

  “What?”

  “I know you’re upset, Shane, I was too, desperately, but Dr. Leros said—”

  “Fiona, shut up talking rubbish, about Dr. this and Dr. that. Do you have the money or do you not?”

  “Sorry, Shane, what are you saying?”

  “Have you the money to get me out?”

  “Of course I don’t have the money, Shane, you know that. I came to see you to talk about it, to tell you that I love you and it will all be all right.”

  “How will it all be all right?”

  “Shane, I’ll borrow it and we’ll get this flat back in Dublin and we’ll pay the money back.”

  “Oh, Fiona, stop twittering on for Christ’s sake. Where are we going to get the bail?” He still hadn’t touched her, held her, or talked about their dead baby.

  “Shane, aren’t you sad about the baby?”