Intimate Distance (6 page)

It's summer in the village. Still, up high on this balcony, crisp winds gust in all directions, rustling the leaves, and sweet purple grapes fall to the ground. An ancient landscape spread out before me – all those adjoining terraces, the peasant's measure of wealth; olive groves, tobacco plantations, rows of vine. How many pieces were you given when your father died? Pieces are what they call fields, vegetable patches, orchards; the meagre wealth of three olive trees that haven't yet borne fruit. I heard these discussions over dinner last night, matter-of-fact. How many pieces does your husband have? Did the new wife bring any pieces to the marriage? They still ask these questions. These concerns haven't ceased to be important. I sigh. There's blue over everything in the early light. Fir, walnut, stream, rock, fern. It spreads a film over my thoughts, stilling them.

WE ARRIVED YESTERDAY.
A rainy evening with glimmers of sun, reflections on a pond. At the outskirts of the village we pass jerry-built shrines, squat white houses for icons. I look out the bus window and hear other passengers muttering to themselves, old women making the sign of the cross, pointing out the sights to each other. This is Saint Peter's house. This is the house of Saint Irini, the wise and compassionate one. Shrines erected not to the dead as one would imagine, but in gratitude for those who escaped death on the roads. All those hairpin bends. Each shrine holds a votive candle, a dirty glass with its solitary wick floating in olive oil. The spirits of evil are kept at bay in this fashion on either side of the village, mapping out the spiritual boundaries of light and dark.

The bus connections are delayed as usual in these parts and we stumble late into a gathering of people, assembled in the kitchen of the eldest aunt. Aunt Pandelina, called by her husband's name since she was married. Both her former names vanished in the marriage contract, subsumed into his body. Now she is Pandelina, she who belongs to Pandeli.

‘Health to you, aunt,' I say.

It's a formal greeting, repeated so often it's lost all trace of its original meaning. I kiss the little woman's powdery skin and am held by her at arm's length to be studied, summed up. This is an old woman whose memory of the four-hundred-year Turkish occupation is still knife sharp, painful. Pandelina's eyes hold mine, challenging me to look down. I don't, but struggle subtly to wriggle free of the strong grip, the clawed hands with their dirty fingernails.

‘Aunt,' I ask, regretting my question already, ‘what's your real name? The name you were born with?'

Pandelina doesn't answer the question. She speaks as though reciting a lesson.

‘My name is long forgotten, my girl, and well should it be so. That is the way things are.'

She presses her breasts hard against me, holding in a final test. There's no softness in her flesh, no give. The others in the small room, cramped, unknown faces, look on, waiting for something. Pandelina turns away as if appeased, but only for the moment. She kisses Zoi on tiptoe and squeezes his waist with a practised gesture.

‘Well, Zoi, young man. How is your dear mother?'

She doesn't wait for his answer. The ritual has been performed.

She turns her attention to the others at the table, standing, uneasy, waiting to eat. Food growing cold on plates. Forced smiles, appraisal. Not much time before bed, these old people are used to waking early. It's still light outside, yet for them it's already too late. Hurried greetings. I can't remember all the names or attach them to faces.

The only one I'm not introduced to is a woman, at first glance much younger than the others, who sits on a chair by the door, her face obscured by her kerchief. After everyone is served Pandelina hands her a plate that she balances on her lap as she eats, ruminating as she chews. She looks out at the view and sighs now and then, voluptuously, as if alone.

‘Who's she?' I whisper in Zoi's ear.

‘That's Alcmene.' He's interrupted and looks away. Pandelina heaps another three slices of pie on his plate.

‘How is your mother? Well, Zoi? How is she, tell me?' All those tiny women look up into his face, exclaiming: ‘You're the spitting image of your mother, Zoi.'

He grimaces and they laugh.

‘And how is your brother? Still breaking all the girls' hearts?'

Zoi looks across at me before answering. He takes a long slow bite of his pie. I flush, pick up my glass and use its smooth side to cool my cheeks.

‘Still working as a barman,' Zoi replies between mouthfuls. ‘Bit of a shame he's so lazy. Has it too good at home.'

We gulp down cold food, hastily made – marrow pie with goat's cheese, pastry hand rolled by Pandelina, hunched on all fours by the fire. She laid out a piece of matting on the floor that very afternoon, as she did every week. It's the only part of the floor kept away from the hens, sacred to the making of filo.

‘The pastry is fresh,' she assures me. ‘It's the best you'll ever taste.'

There's icy spring water in dirty glasses. Pandelina can't see very well and her crockery suffers for it. Pandeli drinks whisky behind his hand and only eats the soft part of the bread, afraid for his broken teeth.

‘We'll be feasting on marrow for years,' he says, looking up from his food. He grins at me, pointing at my plate still heaped with pie. His wife tells him to be quiet. She apologises for the poorness of the food but in a way that suggests offended pride, challenging, dare you look down at our victuals? I can't finish my portion and she clucks and fusses.

I touch Zoi's arm.

‘That woman you called Alcmene. Why do they serve her last of all?'

Zoi covers his mouth with his hand.

‘She's a bit of an outcast. I'll tell you later.'

I watch Alcmene narrowly. She eats with her fingers, scooping up the pie and opening her mouth only a little, just enough to cram the food in, no more. The other women yawn pointedly, not bothering to cover their mouths.

‘We didn't have time to clean your grandfather's house properly Zoi, although we aired it for three days.'

Pandelina turns to me; I swallow a mouthful with difficulty and attempt a smile.

‘Surely Mara will make it comfortable very soon. Won't she, eh?'

They all smile back, looking askance at my belly. Instinctively I cover it with both hands. Pandelina sees the gesture and leans toward Zoi, her breath coming into his face.

‘When's the wedding to be? What are you waiting for, eh? Twins?'

Pandeli appreciatively pats my hand as it rests on my belly. He has thick smoke-blackened fingers.

‘Don't you worry about my crone of a wife. There's plenty of time for weddings yet.'

He nods sagely at nothing in particular and kisses me on the forehead as he shuffles off to bed. Pandelina rises from her chair, signalling the end of the gathering. Zoi catches my eye.

‘May we – Aunty – Mara is, ah, accustomed to having a wash at the end of the day. Is there any hot water?'

Pandelina laughs as though to rid herself of a bitter taste. She leads me by the hand out the back door. In the chill of the woodshed she heats a huge pot of water, makes up the fire, hauling in dry twigs and charred branches of pear-wood from a tree burnt down in last summer's fires. There's a twisted pipe leading out of the roof, repaired in places, patched with odd bits of tin. I have no doubt Pandelina did it herself with the tools heaped on the kitchen floor.

‘Really,' I venture, ‘if it's so much trouble I don't think we should – '

‘It's done now; it's done.'

Pandelina sweats and heaves, bent over double. Zoi tries to help but she pushes him away.

‘What do you know of this work, boy? Look at your hands. You've never touched an axe in your life.'

She has incredible strength for her age. Soon the fire is lit, a huge pyramid of flaming wood and curling leaves, filaments of blue and red at the edges of the heat. She picks up the cauldron with difficulty, letting Zoi help her place it on a tripod above the fire. Then she leaves us there, shouting over her shoulder as she bangs the door shut.

‘Don't be too long, I want to lock up. You never know, these days, Turks and Albanians and the like roaming around the countryside, desperate for money – we'll all be murdered in our beds.'

I flinch at the mention of Turks. Zoi pours water over me in long silver rivulets. It runs in a warm rush down my body as I stand on the stone floor. Bells tinkle like stars as goats return home, unaided. Fat brown hens cluck wildly as they peck in long grass, and kittens smelling of hay and wood-smoke shy away from the rooster. The door creaks in the pressure of the wind and a brood of hens flows into the shed. It's their evening roost and they arrange themselves comfortably up in the rafters, clucking against each other with small flurries of affection. Some make throaty noises at my feet, russet creatures on thin twisted legs.

I turn my back on Zoi as he washes my hair, lowering my head to make it easier. He loops the coil over his left hand and lathers my head with soap, combing suds through the long strands with his fingers, rinsing it quickly with the rapidly cooling water. He puts the pot down with an outbreath and rubs the cake of soap up and down my back, with rapid strokes, then slower, lingering over my thighs. He rinses me again and I close my eyes against the force of the stream. Then he turns me around to face him, leans down and tips a little olive oil from a jar into his palm.

‘No, Zoi, I don't like it.'

‘Come on, it's good for your skin.'

He's play-acting, putting on his foolish voice.

‘Extra-virgin, cold-pressed from my grandfather's groves.'

He's authoritative through his laughter: pulls the hair back from my face and rubs the sweet green oil onto my chest and ribs and breasts, until they're full with large nipples that betray me. I keep my head lowered, not looking at him, mutely suffering his attentions, shivering in the cold. Denying my slow arousal. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then decides against it.

WE'RE INSTALLED WITH
candles and an armful of sheets in the ancestral home. It hasn't been lived in since Zoi's grandfather's death five years ago. On our way we pass the café on the main road where the bus left us earlier: the café glows with light at the end of the day, its silent ragged men playing cards and drinking. We're tempted to go inside, spend a few hours in the warmth of strangers instead of in the dark cold house, but neither of us admits it. So we close the heavy door of the house behind us, shutting out the old men.

I hold a candle out in front, afraid of hot wax, while Zoi drags our luggage over the doorstep, leaving a deep trail through the dust. There's dust on chairs stacked in one corner, dust on the iron-grey shutters, in wing-like sheaths from the ceiling. There's a fireplace with a tiny heap of ash in it.

I start to cry. I sit with a thud on the floor, hold my head in both hands, wipe tears, streams of mascara run down my cheeks, glowing unnaturally in the light of the candle. I wait for Zoi to notice, to come and comfort me. But he doesn't. He's roaming around the house with his own candle like a trail of fire through the gloom, opening cupboards and inspecting behind each door.

So I get up from where I sit and light all the candles the women have given me; stub-ends found in kitchen pantries, moulded pink children's lambathes left over from Easter Sunday services, beeswax tapers like rolls of honey. I put them on the mantle, on the table, on every windowsill. Sniffing and sobbing in great gulps as I light matches, only to have them blow out or drop or burn my fingers. Zoi says nothing, standing in the middle of the room, hands dangling by his sides. He isn't even aware of my distress, mentally traversing the narrow paths of the village with his grandfather. His fingers are curled tight in a little fist within the palm of the older man. He was a little boy when he first came to this house and his grandfather hides in the corners, away from my pools of light.

12

I WANT TO
establish order in the grandfather's house. Rhythm, security, some small sense of permanence. The floors are swept and mopped, windows washed, the brass fixtures on the shutters polished. I beat rugs on the railing of the terrace, woven rugs slippery and shiny with grime, always threatening to fall down into the chasm between the mountains. Curtains are washed and put up to dry, smelling of lemon and olive oil soap. Then I sit in the disorder of my cleaning, tired in the middle of the day, reading Ritsos.

Zoi comes through the door carrying a covered bowl.

‘Hey, Pandelina gave us some currant rice she made this morning.'

I get up, using his leg to help me onto my feet, take the bowl from him, peeking under the white cloth and sniffing at the food. I put it into the kitchen and begin working again, starting now on my backpack, unravelling my clothes.

‘I'm going to help old Pandeli bring the sheep home,' Zoi says. ‘Do you want anything?'

‘See if there's any fresh yoghurt. I feel like something sour.'

When he's gone, I turn to his suitcase; take out his clothes, unfolding creased shirts and refolding underpants again before placing them in the cupboard. I linger over his toiletries, carefully arranging his shaving brush and soap and razors on the bathroom sill. Unscrew the top of his aftershave bottle and inhale its scent. Cinnamon and orange peel. I start to fold his jeans, thrown hastily over a chair last night, and my hand brushes over his wallet in the back pocket. I sit on the edge of the bed with it in my lap then pick it up, caress it, bring it to my nose and smell the rich leather. It's soft, worn, moulded by all those years being carried in his trousers. I decide to open it, look inside.

What could be the harm? All I'll find are some dirty drachma notes; wads of out-of-date bus tickets and credit cards. Nothing shattering. There's an old photograph of me displayed behind the tatty plastic screen. It's a passport shot, the one I gave him when we first met; the only one I had of myself. Only my head and shoulders, a glimpse of what I was wearing; one of those silk shirts you could get for a couple of dollars at the markets. Chinese. Coffee-coloured. A string of cheap turquoise beads around my neck. The girl in the photograph stares ahead at her future self, solemn, lips slightly parted, less than a year ago. I like the photograph; it shows exactly how fresh I was when it was taken. A moment in time, stillness caught, captured.