A Life In A Moment (2 page)

«We
are okay.»

I
am, but I wouldn’t bet you are,
I
thought. I took back my ID and went in search of another book,
despite knowing that registering a new one would be even more
time-consuming, since he had to record both its title and the
borrower’s name.

First,
I walked past the
Classic Literature
section, bypassed the
Historical Novels
,
and stopped before the
Recent Editions
.

Leafing
through the only book that caught my eye, I heard a voice whispering
to me.

«Can
I help you?»

«Ellie!»
I exclaimed. «What are you doing here?»

«Well,
since I laze about all day until school term begins, I thought I’d
drop by to get a book», she answered under her breath.

I
glimpsed the title of the book in her hands.
In
Sky’s Embrace
. The author’s
name was unfamiliar to me. «Have you heard any good reviews
about it?»

«No,
but I like the title.»

«Hmm,
don’t set great store by nice titles. They use them as a lure
to entrap you. The same holds for good-looking covers.»

«So,
I’m in a trap?»

«Most
probably.»

On the one
hand, she was smiling and on the other, she was looking at the book,
wondering what she should do. In the end, she decided to keep it.
«That spares me the trouble of putting it back on the shelf. I
don’t even remember where it was.»

«OK
then. But, just to know, once you’ve met the man in charge
here, you’ll regret not putting it back.»

«Why’s
that?»

I spoke no
more and led her to the bespectacled man.

After
filling in her card, she handed it to him along with the book. He
raised his eyes, dragged them all the way to Ellie, moved his hand —
which had been hanging aloft — grabbed the lending registry,
opened it, leafed through it page by page till he found the correct
one, opened the drawer, took up his pen and began writing. He then
put the pen back in the drawer, shut it, took the book —
extending his hand to Ellie — and tortured me once again by
staring at me with his big, fly-like eyes.

«Are
you going to borrow another book?» he asked me.

«No,
I’ve been invited to dinner tonight and I don’t want to
miss it», I replied, certain he wouldn’t fathom my irony.

«You
can keep the book for a fortnight.»

«Yes,
I know. Some other time. Thank you», I responded and ran
towards the exit with Ellie.

As soon as
we got out the building, we collapsed in stitches. We agreed to
borrow books on a regular basis, though we wouldn’t read them,
simply to revel in that man’s one-act play.

We
strolled around town talking, as we followed the route leading to its
greatest attractions. We discussed many topics: her life before
moving to town, her previous school, and the friends she had left
behind, Thanos, Michalis, the family that was raising me, the house
by the sea and so many other things that I couldn’t retain them
in my memory. After all, while she was speaking, I was engrossed more
in her beauty rather than her words.

I
may have been wet behind the ears — most of my experiences
being limited to various authors’ artful descriptions —
but I could see there was
something
between us. A special kind of chemistry, which was undeniably mutual.

«I’m
having such a great time with you», I suddenly heard myself
saying.

She didn’t
say anything in return. She simply embraced me.

I wondered
if the moment was powerful enough for a kiss. I weighed up the
situation, but finally hesitated. My fiery thought reduced to ashes
in my mind, like a cigarette dying in a hiss of water.

Our
embrace didn’t last long. After all,
all
beautiful moments should last only for a moment, so their spark may
not exhaust itself
, as Ellie would
later tell me.

After
parting, we sat on a bench overlooking the sea. Though we were side
by side, silence divided us.

«You
haven’t talked to me about your parents. Where are they?»
she asked hesitantly. Seeing the clouds forming over my face, she
rushed to open up a patch of sunshine. «
If
you want to tell me, of course...»

I gave her
an acquiescent look.

«Well,
I don’t have anything specific to tell you. Your guess is as
good as mine.»

«What
do you mean?»

She knew
what I meant; she was putting on an act. She would confess as much
later on. She had asked Natalia the same question. However, the
answer she had received — about the secret that only Aunt
Urania knew — had seemed so unbelievable that she resolved to
ask me as well.

«Do
you miss them?»

«Miss
them? Not really... I don’t know if you can miss two people you
never met. What I miss is the truth about what became of them. If I
knew they were alive, I would look for them. If I knew they were
dead, I would light a candle. Yet, my aunt won’t tell me a
single thing.»

«And
the only thing you have from them is the house by the sea?»

«And
a bank account where my aunt deposits money into each month. It’s
for my future, she says.»

«Why
don’t you go and live in that house?»

«On
my own? I can’t. Not until I finish school. But when I turn
eighteen, I’ll definitely do it. I’ve set my heart on
it», I said, brooking no other comments.

We were
still seated on the bench, looking at the ships. There must have been
twenty of them moored in port that day. Dozens of dockers and boats
went to and fro, anchors dipped in and out, and seagulls squawked as
if they were overseeing the whole operation.

«I
wonder how many voyages those ships have made...,» she said.

I nodded
my head to show I shared the same thought. «It’s crossed
my mind to become a captain. You go on many voyages, you get to
explore other civilisations, you meet people who have strange and
amazing stories to tell... Unless Karkavitsas was wrong in his
descriptions of the seafaring life.»

That was
always my fear, that perhaps books would lead me astray, teaching me
about a life that didn’t match reality.

«And
I could be working in a consulate in a distant port, where you would
come to have your passport sealed. And, after you sailed away, I
would count the weeks till your ship sailed into view again.»

The
attraction I’d felt before was still there, in flesh and bone.
I could see it before my eyes, like a chemical reaction causing
combustion in a test tube.

We came
closer to each other and I felt her wild heartbeat. Or was it mine?
Or could it be that our hearts had fused and now beat as one? It
didn’t take us long to touch each other’s lips and taste
our first kiss, a taste that left me drunk.

Again, we
didn’t allow the spark exhaust itself. We looked at each other,
silent and embarrassed.

«I
just remembered an extract from an Oscar Wilde poem:

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword.»

Ellie
knitted her eyebrows and smiled. «You’re calling us
cowards?»

No. It
wasn’t that. I didn’t know what had come over me, but
when I would repeat one of those lines a few years later, I would see
it. It was something like a premonition rising to the surface too
early.

4

Natalia
was the first and only person to learn about what happened that day;
and she was elated to see us together.

A few days
later, we gathered all together at the house by the sea. Ellie and I
were a couple, yet we tried — somehow successfully — to
hide it from Michalis and Thanos, while allowing the former to flaunt
his prowess before Ellie.

Thanos had
brought his brand new camera. It was his father’s gift to him;
he wanted his son to stay focused.

«Come
on, everybody. Say
cheese
!»
he said and stood up.

He placed
his camera on the table, pushed some buttons and joined us. The click
would soon immortalise Thanos’ funny grimace, Natalia’s
laughter at him, Michalis looking at Ellie, who was looking at me,
while I was the only one looking direct into the lens.

When I saw
the photo in print, some years later, I would be struck by the irony
it was tinged with...

5

Three
years passed. We had grown up, like fruit that had ripened and was
ready to fall from the tree of life. Yet, we didn’t quite fall;
we held on for dear life. Only in this way would we manage to be the
pick of the bunch.

All of us
had finished school, except Natalia, who was in her last year. Thanos
had decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. He had begun
attending courses at a private college, while in the evenings he
spent time in the photographic lab, putting theory into practice.
Going back on his promises, Michalis stayed in Greece and went to our
town’s Polytechnic School to study Mechanical Engineering.

Ellie had
been admitted to the School of Philosophy, as she’d always
wanted. We were still going steady, much to our surprise. We still
had a great time after three years. However, the relationship hadn’t
been consummated, as Ellie was too scared to make the next move; yet,
I knew this was soon to come.

As for me,
the two things I had jotted down for my future plans were to move to
the house by the sea and open up a bookshop. That’s what I had
set my heart on. This way, I would turn my money to good account, as
well as reinvest the knowledge I had acquired through reading books.
Of course, I hadn’t made any effort to find a place to rent or
go through the rigmarole of bureaucracy. I was still expecting my
coming-of-age, four days before Christmas.

One
morning, in early December, my aunt summoned me to the kitchen. «Can
you fetch the ornaments from the storeroom? Your uncle’s nipped
out to get a Christmas tree.»

I eagerly
took the keys, ascended the stairs, unlocked the door and found
myself before my aunt’s great sin. A room cluttered with dozens
of boxes, useless objects, decrepit old things, sheets of paper
scattered all over the place — all gathering dust, one-finger
thick.

Hmm, I
should have asked her where they are.

I made my
way through the clutter, trying to find a clue leading to the right
box. On the verge of giving up, I stood at the door and looked at the
shelves again. Something caught my eye.

It was a
small box made of dark, polished wood. Unlike the rest of the items
in the room, this was not covered in dust. Curious about its
contents, I opened it without a second thought. Inside it, I found
four photos and a chequebook.

I examined
the photos. In the first one, there were two young women. I would
have sworn one of them was Aunt Urania in her youth, but I couldn’t
recognise the other one. In the second photo was the unfamiliar woman
again, dressed in a wedding gown, while a red-haired man in a black
suit stood beside her. In the third photo, the previous couple
featured with a baby seated on the man’s lap. In the last one,
I saw the little family again, but this time with a different baby —
cradled on the woman’s lap this time — and a young boy
standing next to the man.

I somehow
sensed those people were familiar to me, though I had never seen
them. An uncanny thought crossed my mind, while a second one was
deeply ingrained.

I grabbed
the box and ran towards the kitchen. At the very sight of it, my
aunt’s look changed.

«Who
are these people, Aunt?» I asked her sternly.

She was
about to speak, but I butted in:

«They’re
my parents, right?»

She was
dismayed by the look on my face. She had never before seen me so
disgruntled; I hadn’t been myself, either. I didn’t wait
for an answer. Probably because I already knew. With no apparent
reason, I ran away with the box in my hands. I wanted to be at the
house by the sea, in the twinkling of an eye if I could, to hide the
tears that were trickling down my cheeks.

On my way
out, I bumped into Ellie. Her initial smile faded away at the sight
of my teary eyes. I didn’t even speak to her; I just looked at
her and walked towards my bike, while she was calling out my name. I
didn’t want her to see my tears.

A few
minutes later, pedalling as hard as I could, despite the freezing
cold that cut me to the marrow, I reached my shelter. I ran up to the
attic and lay on the bed. With each minute, I felt better. I opened
up the box and looked at the fourth photo again — the one
depicting the family that were so familiar to me.

My own
family.

I focused
on the younger child. It was me in my mother’s embrace. Even
now I can recollect the strange feeling I felt staring at that photo.
Next to me stood a tall red-haired boy. I never once thought I could
have siblings. On my left was my father. A fierce-looking ginger man,
standing next to my mother — a beautiful woman with long, black
hair.

How
pretty she is,
I thought, but my
thought stuck on the verb.

Is?
Was?

I took a
look at the chequebook. Opening it, I turned to the last page. I was
amazed at the vast amount that had been deposited. There was far more
money than I needed to set up a bookshop. Where did my aunt get all
this money from every month?