A Self Effacing Man

by Sara Alexi

  Cosmo coughed then and was about to take a sip of coffee to free his throat when Maria spoke again.

  ‘Read on, read on.’ Her voice was quite sharp.

  ‘In fact, I cannot help but feel that you would not like life in Athens. It is fast-paced and the women here are so very polished.’ Cosmo did not dare to look at Maria at this point, and his cheeks were on fire. He forced himself to go on.

  ‘I think it would be a merciful thing for you if you never had a reason to come to Athens, so opposed to your nature do I think you would find the place. In fact, I am sure, if you were ever to come here, it would only end in unhappiness for you, being so far from your little village and your farming family.’

  Cosmo looked up now, to see Maria’s face crumple. Little sobs began to escape her, and he was not sure of the best thing to do, so he did what was easiest: he read on.

  ‘I want you to know that it is not because of the rumour that you offered no dowry, although I was somewhat surprised at that. After all, it is not as if your family’s land is small. But I will not talk of that.’

  The sobbing became more audible but Maria was doing her best to hold everything inside. Cosmo forced out each word in turn.

  ‘So I thank you for your kind friendship. I wish you well in your future life as I know you will wish me in mine.’

  And the letter ended very formally indeed.

  He carefully folded the letter back along its creases and was lifting his head to offer Maria his commiserations and to give her any sort of comfort he could when he heard a door bang and looked up to find the kitchen empty.

  He waited a good half an hour to reassure himself that she was not coming back to the room and then he very quietly let himself out.

  Her door was not opened to allow him to read any letters for some time, and in that time she changed. When he finally saw her face to face long enough to see what had become of her, he found a hardness that had never been there before, and in her voice a sharpness and in her words a cynicism. After that, she was very critical of the papas in the church house opposite her own home and she was very short with the boys who played football in front of the church. In fact, anyone who came into her firing line became a target for her now-angry nature, and this only increased with time and doubled after her baba’s death. After a while, she was seldom seen outside the boundaries of her own yard.

  Eventually the door was opened to Cosmo. First, just so she could take the letters. Then, nearly a year later, he was allowed in, and over some considerable time coffee became part of the process of reading her mail to her again. She slowly allowed their conversations to grow more personal but it never became the friendship it had once been. After all, it was he who had brought the news and witnessed her humiliation and her grief. He was her permanent reminder.

  Also, too few letters came that needed reading to allow him to make any consistent impression on her, and there were seldom any really positive, joy-filled letters to give him the chance to make up for the damage he had done as the reader of her rejection letter.

  Then came the first of these futile love letters. Had the timing been intended to do harm to his relationship with Maria, it could not have been more perfect.

  The first letter had been very bold, and for a moment he wondered, maybe even hoped, if it might be the cure Maria needed.

  He can still recall how it started. Now your other suitor is out of the way I can confess my love, it had begun, or something like that, and he had looked at her with hope. But how wrong he had been to think this might be what Maria needed. The poor girl had physically recoiled. He faltered and wondered if he should continue, but surely she would have told him to stop if that had been her wish.

  How had it gone on? Something like But if it is meant to be then you will see me and know. He read to the end and then she asked him twice who it was from. He replied twice that it was not signed, but his words brought no smile to her lips: only a frown to her brow.

  Then she said, ‘I think you’d better leave now.’ Her voice was cold and hard and he stood and walked out. Her door remained shut to his knock for some considerable time after that.

  In time, she did start to open the door to him again and he did start to read her letters, and she made coffee and offered biscuits. But at the rate he saw things progressing it would be years before the pain retreated enough for them to become closer, and he was right. It has been years, nearly thirty of them. Two steps forward, then a love letter turns up and it’s one step back. A less patient man would have given up. Age might have taken away much of her physical beauty and she might have a reputation for being bad-tempered, sharp and aloof, but she is still long of limb and graceful and she is still his Maria. He understands. It is only recently, in the last year maybe, that he could honestly say that they are at least comfortable with each other again.

  But now, to shake all that up, to rock this so carefully moored boat, there is one of these damned anonymous, pointless love letters again.

  Chapter 10

  As he steps out of the front door, the heat of the summer reminds Cosmo of the bread oven in the yard to the side of the house: of peering in, as a young boy, to see if the loaf had risen. The oranges are hard and green, and still very small. Cosmo feels a little disappointed that they are no bigger, but he is relieved to see that they are the same as everyone else’s.

  It is only August and he has called someone out to service the fans already, and he feels just a little smug. He has not waited, as so many farmers do, until he actually needs the fan to work to queue up with all the other farmers for the same service – from the same man!

  How many times has he sat in the kafenio and heard that refrain!

  ‘Ach, but the man said he could not come until next Tuesday. What if there is a frost before then?’ – from one man.

  ‘No frost is forecast’ – from his neighbour.

  ‘Forecasts! Who trusts them?’

  ‘Count yourself lucky. He told me next Thursday. It sounds like you are part of my problem, friend.’

  ‘Yes, and I wonder who is part of mine.’ And the first farmer would look around at his friends in accusation. It is good-hearted banter on the whole, but they all know there is a slice of truth in it. Well, Cosmo has made sure he will miss all that.

  His mama had three fans strategically positioned around the orchards. Huge things they are, ten metres tall and with blades wider than Cosmo’s outstretched arms. They won’t be used until January or maybe even February, when the frosts come, but he will be ready. The fans’ job is to blow the warmer air from ten metres up down into the trees, raising the temperature just enough to stop the oranges – which by that time will be heavy and fat – from freezing and falling off the trees.

  It turns out he was wise to get them serviced. The mechanic calls down to say that there is a fault with the last of the fans.

  ‘You want me to fix it while I am up here? I couldn’t put it in with the service fee, I’m afraid, and the price will depend on how long I am up here …’

  Cosmo shades his eyes from the sun and peers up at the man.

  ‘Unless of course you want to fix it yourself?’ the mechanic calls down. ‘It’s not tricky, so long as you are okay with heights.’ He laughs.

  Cosmo frowns. He called the man out to service the fan, and he has found a problem. So why is he now saying it is not part of the service? Is this normal? The serviceman that the other farmers use recently retired, apparently. This man, Michalis, isn’t from the village; maybe he’s from Saros, or the next cluster of houses. Cosmo has seen him a few times in Theo’s kafenio and he knows it does not take long to hear of a man’s reputation there. Maybe Michalis has heard of his unwarranted reputation for being lazy and is exaggerating the scope of the job to earn a few more euros?

  Well, if Cosmo proves that label wrong enough times, perhaps it will change. Michalis’s can be one voice to the contrary at least. Besides, it will save him a euro or two. Yes, he will do it himself. />
  ‘Oh no, no, no. I will do it.’ Cosmo injects a chuckle into his reply. ‘Don’t bother yourself, my friend.’

  ‘Are you sure? I think it just needs the brushes replacing.’ The serviceman’s toes shift on the metal ladder that runs up one side of the pylon on which the fan is mounted. One of his arms is hooked through the top rung, leaving both hands free to deal with the mechanics.

  ‘No problem,’ Cosmo shouts up, ‘if it is just the brushes, whatever they do. It sounds easy enough. He watches as the man climbs down.

  From the bottom of the metal column it looks a long way to the top, but the ladder is like any other. In his hand he grips the replacement brushes. Cosmo ordered them yesterday, and the man in Athens put them on the bus, and he picked them up from the bus station in Saros this morning when he went for the mail.

  He starts to climb with energy, and as soon as he is above the trees he looks down at his orchard, laid out around him, a carpet of green, as if he could step off and walk out across it. He feels tempted to do this and then terrified that he has had this thought. He pushes himself upwards. He will be fine if he keeps three points of contact at all times: two hands, one foot; two feet, one hand.

  As he climbs, his grip becomes tighter and tighter. He feels high up now, but he knows he is only twice the height of an orange tree and he forces himself on. Above him, the ladder is twisted. It is still welded tight to the shaft but there is a kink in the metal and this makes him wonder how safe it is. Then he starts to see the rust, in corners where the rungs meet the uprights, and his breath leaves him and his heart thuds in his ears and before he knows what he is doing he is on the ground again.

  ‘Are you a man or a boy?’ he berates himself, catching his breath, and he steps back to put the height of the fan tower in perspective. It really isn’t very high. ‘As a boy you would have climbed it without a thought.’ And with this, he tells himself to ignore the dangers and to see it as an adventure.

  This approach makes the ascent no easier, and it is an hour later before Cosmo is finally hanging from the top of the fan pole, having conquered his fear, and fighting to get the cover off the motor in the relentless August sun. He is wondering if not getting the man to do the job for him was wise. Sweat is running in his eyes, making it impossible to see, and with one arm through a ladder rung and his other hand holding a spanner that he has locked on to a bolt, he needs a third hand to wipe his brow.

  ‘Gamoto!’ He swears and pauses to take a breath. He can see the extent of his orchard from up here, and the one next to it and the one beyond that, all the way across the plain to the foot of the mountains that rise majestically on all sides in a horseshoe ending at Saros and the sea. Towards Saros, the trees thin out, and then, from this vantage point, the town itself can be seen: a patchwork of terracotta roofs at the head of the wide sparkling bay. His own village sits on a finger of blue that has crept inland. The cluster of houses he calls home is a smaller patchwork than that of Saros, with a pimple of a hill next to it topped with pine trees. He has never seen it from this position before.

  A noise below draws his attention, and there in his own orchard he can see the Pakistani man – Hardeep – whom he hired from the village square this morning. He seems like a good man but possibly a slow worker.

  The tiny figure lifts his tsapa and sinks it into the hard earth, and again; it rises and falls, rises and falls as he digs a channel around each tree so the water can pool and soak into the roots. Cosmo could have done that job too, but he does not have the time to do all the work himself – not as long as he has his postal job too.

  But he was right to fix the fan himself. The man would have been up here for hours, and it would have cost more than he can afford. He turns his attention back to the job. If he could take the whole motor off and lower it down to the ground it would be much easier to work on. Also, he would not need to worry about dropping the nuts and bolts, or the fiddly springs that are meant to hold the brushes in place.

  It soon becomes clear that the only way he can take the motor down is by first removing the heavy fan blades. These can be secured to the top rung of the ladder and left hanging there whilst he works on the motor.

  ‘So far, so good,’ Cosmo murmurs under his breath, as he climbs back up for the third time, with a rope to secure the blades. The engine comes away more easily than he expected, but it is also a good deal heavier than he anticipated. It would be useful to have a bag to put it in, so that he can sling it over his shoulder and take it down that way. Or another rope, and then he could lower it down. But he has neither, and he is tired of climbing the ladder, and so, with the motor tucked under one arm, he begins a careful descent. His feet falter on the slim metal rungs, his knuckles white with the tightness of his grip. It is slow progress and he breathes a heavy sigh of relief when his feet touch the freshly strimmed ground.

  Hardeep has stopped for a rest, and who can blame him, really? He has been digging for hours in this heat. Consulting his watch, Cosmo is surprised to see the day has flown by and it is past time for his worker to leave. No wonder he seemed to be working slowly; his day was in fact done half an hour ago.

  ‘Er, Hardeep.’ Cosmo fumbles in his trouser pocket for his curl of euros, takes them out and peels off the agreed couple of notes.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Hardeep asks, and then he turns with a flowing movement of his arm to indicate all he has done today, to demonstrate his worth as a worker. When Cosmo takes stock from the ground, and considering how long it took him to strim the same area himself, he nods, and raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, tomorrow.’ Hardeep grins widely and his features relax. Cosmo is reminded of Maria all those years back, when the opening lines of Nektarios’s letter brought such a pleasant change in her countenance, before the rejection. He is glad that Hardeep’s happiness is not about to be spoilt; in fact, seeing the effect his offer of further work has had on the man motivates Cosmo to take an extra euro from his pocket.

  ‘Get yourself a beer,’ he says, and Hardeep actually bows. Not deeply, but there is a definite incline of his head, deeper than a nod, and Cosmo feels a heat in his neck rising into his cheeks and he turns away rather abruptly.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Hardeep calls after him in a voice that is light and joyful.

  On his drive home, Cosmo wonders about Hardeep and the other illegal workers in the village. There used to be more – Russians, Bulgarians, Romanians; many have gone since the economic crisis started. Now there are only one or two Pakistanis left. Why have they stayed? Can they not go home? Where is Pakistan, anyway?

  He pulls up his bike and goes into the house, dumps the fan motor on the table and continues to his mama’s room. When he was a child, his baba kept an atlas on top of the wardrobe. His fingers grope in the dust for the edge of the book. The bedroom feels lifeless and smells fusty. He mustn’t leave it too long before he clears it out.

  Turning the old pages on the kitchen table, he delights in the coloured blocks that represent the countries, just as he did as a boy. Greece is pink; the village is so small it is not mentioned by name and the distance between Saros and Athens is less than the width of a little finger.

  There are Bulgaria and Romania to the north, and there is the edge of Russia, but where is Pakistan? He has never wondered before, despite having delivered letters from there. The Pakistanis do not have permanent addresses in the village and he leaves their letters with Marina, in the shop.

  ‘Pakistan, Pak-i-stan.’ His finger trails further and further away from Greece, past Turkey, and Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan … And then, ‘Ha, there you are. So far!’

  He takes his finger away and assesses the distance. ‘Halfway to China!’ He whistles through his teeth. No wonder they are still here. How can they afford to go home? It’s not as if they can walk back!

  Where do they live, he wonders – Ali, Mahmout and Hardeep, and the others whose names he cannot remember. Hardeep has proved himself to be a hard worker, and it seems right that he shou
ld have his letters, few though they are, delivered to his home like any other man. He must ask tomorrow if there is an address. He snaps the atlas shut, and a puff of dust hovers over the table.

  Chapter 11

  The yard at the rear of Thanasis’s little cottage is unpaved, the mud compacted hard and baked in the sun. Thanasis is examining the hoof of one of his donkeys, and he sets it gently down as Cosmo comes round the corner. The animal flicks its tail at the flies, but it doesn’t open its eyes.

  ‘Ah, what have you there?’ Thanasis says, eyeing the motor under Cosmo’s arm. He pulls on the halter, leading the animal back into the enclosure with the other donkeys, which stand in the shade of a huge walnut tree, eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep.

  ‘It’s the motor from one of my fans. I need to change the brushes, apparently.’

  ‘You’re early with this job, aren’t you?’ Thanasis remarks, and he sweeps the leaves off a rough wooden bench under the orange trees and drags it to the centre of the yard.

  ‘Not going to get caught out when everyone wants the serviceman,’ Cosmo says.

  ‘Ah, wise, very wise. Hang on, I’ll get my tools.’

  Thanasis stoops to enter the low door to his little cottage. It is one of the oldest cottages in the village, or rather just outside the village. The back of it runs parallel to the road that leads out to the next cluster of houses, and its front faces the orange orchards. Two windows are set into the plaster on one side of the door, and the whitewash is so thick in places that it has peeled off in sheets, the pieces of white settled like dandruff on the ground. The handmade terracotta tiles on the roof are covered in lichen and they sag in a graceful curve. It doesn’t look like a place someone would actually live. And the gate to enter it! It is a cat’s cradle of wire and bits of wood, cobbled together out of found objects. For Cosmo the gate is typical of Thanasis: functional, unconventional and innovative. At one point, Thanasis found an old Beware of the Dog sign, which he has wired to his makeshift gate, but to Cosmo’s knowledge there has never been a dog.