The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (5 page)

Last Easter, they had argued here. The root of their argument was the same as always: the promises he’d made before they married, he now chose to forget. He’d said they’d go away, and see the world; now, all the plans she talked about he ridiculed. It was his laughter that had made her angry.

Outside the boatyard workshop, she stroked the red-leaded ribs of a half-built
caique
. Shut away from the cold, the men were working, within; there were heavy blows, from a hammer, and the whine of a circular saw, slicing hull planks.

The men were working, so there would be fire. And behind the workshop, the brazier was stoked high with
offcuts of fresh pinewood; its sap-sweet smoke billowed blue in the lee of the wind. She offered her palms to the flames, closing her eyes against the smoke, sniffing at the clean fumes of hot tar rising from a black, battered bucket at the brazier’s feet.

The whine of the saw became silent; the latch of the workshop door rattled.

She didn’t want to talk to them. They’d know Andreas was away. The older one, the one with rotten teeth, had a peculiar sense of humor; and the short one, the one with the missing fingers, would proposition her.

Me and you
, he’d murmur.
No one will know; I’m not the kind to talk. We’ll have a good time. Just tell me when to come
.

She lowered her hands from the brazier, and went on.

T
he house at the road’s end was tall and once grand. Jutting out into the water, its broad terrace was worked from stones taken from the sea. On the lintel was fixed a painted sign:
CAFÉ NIKOS
. To the back of the terrace, as far as possible from the water, stood a single table, and four chairs; at the table, wrapped warm in heavy clothing, face hidden by the peak of a sheepskin cap, sat an elderly man.

She approached him carefully; he might be sleeping. She stood at his side, and watched the slow rise of his breathing. She waited, then placed a hand on his shoulder.

He pushed up the peak of his cap, like the slow opening of an eye.

“Uncle Nikos,” she said. “
Kali mera
.”

The old man sniffed, and wiped rheum from his nose.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said. “If you want to sleep, I’ll leave you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Only a fool would sleep out here, in this cold. Bloody wind. It gets right in my bones. Sit, sit, Irinaki. I’ve been watching you. I watched you all along the road.”

“What have you done with all the tables?”

“I stacked them around the back, out of the storm’s way. I’ll fetch them out again.” He placed his hands on the arms of his chair, as if he might get up. A muscle tensed in his face, a wince. His hands relaxed. “By and by,” he said. “It’s still blowing. I’m too old to be hooking furniture out of the sea.”

“I was looking for Andreas. He hasn’t come.”

The old man cast his gaze across the far sweep of the sea like a wise old salt, like a weather-hardened seadog or a time-served seaman. He was none of these, but he liked to play the part.

“No,” he said, “not today. The weather’s set now. Three, four days. He’ll not be back before Saturday.”

Unhappily, she sighed.

“All winter, the sea keeps us prisoner,” she said. “No way in, no way out.”

He patted her knee. “Sit a while. I’ll make us some coffee. I’ll put something in it to keep out the cold.”

“Not for me,” she said. “Andreas doesn’t like me to drink.”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “who will tell him? When the cat’s away, my dear, the mouse can do exactly as it pleases.”

He hauled himself from his chair and walked heavily, with the carefulness of the suffering old, into the flagstoned kitchen.

He was not in business for the money, but for the company. He called his house a café, put chairs and tables on his terrace, and served drinks to anyone who sat down with him; but on days when he had no appetite for gossip or brewing coffee, and on days when he thought the calamari fishing might be good, the café was closed.

He blamed the
calamari
more and more, when customers found the kitchen door locked and the house silent. But in his heart, he knew his time was growing short. At night, the pains in his stomach too often wrecked his sleep, sabotaging his ability to battle through the day. These too were days when he “went fishing,” shut away in the bedroom at the back of the house, blinds drawn, with a jug of water to drink and a pot to piss in, dozing, dreaming, remembering. Some days, he believed he’d never again leave that bed. On better days, he swigged chalky antacids directly from the bottle, and thanked God for some relief. But there was blood in his stools, and his appetite was all but gone. He was a frightened man: afraid to see a doctor, afraid of dying alone in the night, more afraid to show need, and fear.

He spooned coffee from the jar, and took the brandy bottle from the shelf. But the brandy was not his vice; it was from the medicinal-blue bottle of Milk of Magnesia
that he surreptitiously unscrewed the cap, and, turning his back to the terrace, drank like a man addicted.

She put her hands around the coffee cup to warm them, but the coffee, cooled by milk and brandy, had no heat. He had added too much alcohol; it flamed her cheeks red, and set her stomach on fire. It worked its magic quickly. Soon, the bleakness of the outlook mattered less.

He took a cigarette from the packet and struck a light from a box of matches, cupping it against the wind. His hands shook, and the swelling of his joints made him clumsy, but he had had many years of practice. He drew in smoke.

“So,” he said, wiping his nose with a finger. “Have you spoken to your mother?”

“The phone’s still out of order. I went to the company office to tell them. Twice. They said they’d come. But they haven’t been.”

“Because they’re idle.” He flicked ash onto the wet stone terrace. “Go again. Make a nuisance of yourself.”

“It won’t make any difference. They won’t come for me. They won’t work for foreigners. Andreas can go, when he comes home.” She looked towards the headland and the cloudbanks which hid the mainland. “If the weather were clear, we might see our village from here. I can see it, sometimes.”

He dropped his cigarette butt into a puddle by his chair, watching the paper change from white to gray as it absorbed water. Her eyes were wet. He believed it was the wind, stinging them.

“You’re deluded,” he said. “Our village is fifteen miles up the coast.” She crushed his cigarette butt with her foot. “You should phone your mother. She’ll worry, if you don’t. Use a public phone. If they’re working.”

“She worries less, now I’m off her hands.”

“She misses you. Like you miss Andreas.”

“With him gone, there’s nothing for me to do.”

“Some women,” he said, “would be glad to have the freedom of an absent husband. No meals to cook. No shirts to wash. Time to walk, and talk to me.”

“When you came here, Uncle, why did you stay?”

“Plain and simple. I fell in love with your aunt. And with this place. Look at that.” He swept his arm across the breadth of the bay. “All this beauty. And listen.” The waves were breaking on the jetty; across the bay, the canvas of the yacht’s loosened sail snapped in the wind. “Silence. No traffic. No crowds. Peace, and quiet. The secret of a happy life. What more could you want?”

“Life,” she said. “Excitement.”

“Excitement is vastly overrated,” he said. “Take it from me.”

“A change of scene, then. Athens. Australia.”

With a gesture, he dismissed both.

“Forget all that,” he said. “Put it out of your mind. He married someone else. Your life is here, now. Andreas isn’t the travelling kind.”

“He told me he was. He told me he’d take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

“Men say all kinds of things, when they’re in love. Your life is here now.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You travelled everywhere. Saw the world.”

“I travelled for my work.” Venezuela, Costa Rica, Brazil. “It was hard being away.”

The women, all those beautiful, willing women. It was hard to come back.

He took another cigarette from the pack. She stood, and took their coffee cups inside the house while he recalled. At night, he had played poker in smoky, run-down bars where the rum was cheap and red-lipped whores played salsa on the jukebox. And whether the cards were with him or against him, whether he was lucky or not, he always kept enough bills in his shirt pocket to take a girl back to his room. They’d go all night, those Latin girls, they’d lick and suck and ride until the sun was rising and all he wanted was to sleep. They didn’t fake it, like all Greek whores who were only in it for the money. Greek girls were too inhibited; they had too much religion. Those Latinas just loved to fuck. One, he’d stuck with for a while—Flora, with that tiny waist and those massive hips, just begging for it. And the night he had to leave her, she brought her sister too, to make it memorable. Memorable! They’d tied him to the bed and made him watch the two of them together, unbuttoning each other’s blouse, kissing each other’s tits, playing with each other’s fannies—sisters, for the love of Christ!—until he was begging them to come to him. And they left him tied up and rode him all night, taking turns to slide onto him, taking their time to get what they wanted, until he was so sore he begged for them to stop. Next morning, his parts
were so swollen he could hardly walk; he had to take a taxi to the train station. And the driver had known the girls he was talking about, had slapped him on the back, laughing commiserations at his discomfort, and told him it was good he was leaving town, that no man alive could take two nights with those two.

He could feel a pleasant swelling in his trousers; if she hadn’t been here, he might have gone to bed, given it a pull and tried to make something of it. But she was here, and sitting next to him again. The memory could be conjured back, when she had gone.

“It was hard to be away,” he said. “It’s the sacrifice some men make, to feed their families.”

“Maybe marriage isn’t for everyone,” she said. “Maybe not everyone’s made to stay in one place. I know what you think, Uncle. You think I carry a torch for Thomas. Mother thinks the same. But it wasn’t him; I wasn’t in love with him. He was gone too long. But all those postcards—the cities, and the beaches, and the outback—all those places he’s seen, all the things he’s done, I want to go there too. Maybe not for a lifetime, but I want to see it all for myself. You think no one should have dreams. Andreas is the same. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been, if I hadn’t married Andreas.”

“What’s the point in wondering that?” he asked. “You shouldn’t think that way. We take the road we take. Then we make the best of it. There’s no gain in wondering where the path not taken would have led. Anyway. All women marry. When that first baby comes along, you’ll see I was right. A woman’s joy in life is in her family.”

“Babies tie you to the house forever,” she said.

“You’ll be surprised,” he said. “You’ll find there’s nowhere else you want to be.”

She nibbled at the tip of a fingernail. There seemed nothing else to say: the price of oranges, the prime minister’s mistress, the postman’s sudden death had been exhausted between them, days ago. But she, having nowhere to go, was not inclined to leave; and he, having no other company, wanted her to stay.

And so she said, “Shall I tell you what I dreamed last night? You can tell me what it means.”

In anticipation, he leaned forward in his chair and steepled the tips of his fingers. He had invented himself a reputation as a student of dreams, as an interpreter of their meanings and warnings. It was, he claimed, a skill he had learned on his travels. But his talent was not in the reading of dreams; it was in persuading the credulous of his ability to do so. He possessed no special knowledge, outside the reading of popular texts of psychology and the handed-down interpretations of old women: a dream of fish was bad luck, a dream of crabs meant a difficult courtship, a dream of lizards meant an enemy’s knife in the back. His self-promotion as seer fed his voyeurism, and his appetite for gossip; by this means, his harvest of all the island’s troubles was always fresh. But over time his vicarious habit, his close attention to the nocturnal adventures of his neighbors, his long experience of life and his knowledge of what became of his dreamers had given him a certain insight. Twice, he had understood that the dreamers had foretold their own approaching
deaths. He had kept silence; time had proved him right. And he knew the symbols of betrayal and infidelity: kisses and thieves, abandonment and foreboding. His observations were rarely direct. Not everyone wants to hear the truth. But he might, sometimes, pour a little poison in an ear as he refilled a glass of ouzo, or drop a dark hint as he removed an ashtray. A word to the wise is sufficient. The willfully blind could choose to remain so.

“I dreamed,” she began, “that I was sitting in a wonderfully comfortable armchair. It was the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat in. It was as if it was made for me; I felt happy sitting there.” She shifted on her wooden, cane-bottomed chair. “You know, Uncle, these chairs are not very comfortable. They’re too hard to sit on for long. You should buy some new ones.”

“But that,” he cried, pointing a triumphant finger towards the sky, “is my masterstroke! Over the years, I have given this a lot of thought, a
lot
of thought.” He banged a fist on the rain-spattered table. “Think! Consider, my dear, the people who live here, the people who visit my makeshift café. They are, by nature, amongst the laziest people in the world. They are not like other people, not even like other Greeks, and certainly not like other nationalities, Germans, say, or Japanese. Here, they sit for hours and hours over a single cup of coffee, telling you how hard they’ve been working and how tired they are. When it rains, they won’t go to work; even the children don’t go to school if it’s raining. To do a job which would occupy a German for ten minutes would take one of these people a day and a half.