by Holly Greene
“If it rains, we’ll go inside,” he told her. “I just wanted you to show you the view.”
Joanna tried to decode the menu but couldn’t read a word.
“Just tell me what you want, and I’ll tell her,” Nick offered.
“But I don’t know what I want. I can’t read it. I don’t know what they have.”
“They have a little bit of everything.”
“Anything you’d recommend?” she asked. “What’s the best thing they have here?”
“I don’t know. Just let me know what you prefer. They have lots of good stuff.”
Nick was quickly becoming the antithesis of Peter, who would have jumped at the opportunity to tell Joanna what she wanted, whereas Nick made no move to assume such a thing.
He took out a cigarette and lit up.
“I just want a really big salad, I think. Nothing extravagant. Can you tell them to make me their best salad?”
He nodded. “Of course. No country makes better salads than Greece.”
He took her menu from her and leaned back into his chair and crossed his legs, enjoying his cigarette. He quickly got lost in his thoughts as he gazed at the storm clouds on the horizon. There was something so easygoing about him.
Joanna wished she could talk to him in his native tongue, hear how his mind would naturally express itself.
“Tell me something about my father,” she asked, trying to pull him back from wherever he was. “Tell me a funny story, or about why you liked him so much. Something to illustrate why you’d be so willing to arrange for his estranged daughter to come all the way from the US and spend the day with her. How did you know him? The hotel seems a little far from the town. Did he make his way there often?”
“You’re father was always involved in town affairs. He wasn’t a hermit,” Nick replied.
“But how did you come to know him? How did the two of you meet?”
He stretched and looked at Joanna. There was warmth in his deep brown eyes.
“My father manned and operated a fishing boat. Every week he’d go out to sea and come back with fresh, delicious fish to sell at the market. It was normal for him to be gone for a few days at a time. He never caught too much. Just enough to feed us and sell to the restaurants. One day he went out and got caught in a freak storm. We never saw him again. Your father supported my family until we were able to get our feet on the ground again, and it was your father who said I should go to school. I was going to become a fisherman like my father. I’ll never forget what he said to me. It was on a Sunday. On Sundays we would walk through the hills to go to church on the northern side of the island. It was a ritual that he got me into. There are numerous closer churches, but he liked the walk and invited me to go along with him. After church one day, it was about to rain as it is now, and we had stopped to catch our breath and observe the sea. He said to me, ‘Nick. It is noble for the son to take up the trade of the father, and there is no such thing as a petty job. If it puts food on the table, then it is a noble job. But I have known no father who would have his son walk in his footsteps simply to repeat his story. All fathers want their children to have their own story. You are not meant to be a fisherman, Nick.’”
“How did you take that?” Joanna asked, rapt. “Was it what you wanted to hear?”
He looked away into the distance. “Yes and no. I was still upset over the loss of my father, and was angry at the gods for having taken him away from me. I think that’s why your father would take me on walks. I had a tendency to sit inside and read all day. He knew the walks were good for my anger. On that same walk, he told me he would help me go to school, and said I could go anywhere I wanted. That he would pay for it. I can still remember how my mother wept with joy when I told her. Naturally I went to the University of Athens. I wanted the city life, but was too afraid to go too far. I studied international politics and philosophy. When I came back, full of book knowledge and anecdotes of eccentric professors, he listened to all of my stories and everything I had learned. When I was finished, he looked at me and asked, ‘Where do you want to go next?’ He had already changed my life and given me countless wonderful experiences. I was already set to get a good office job somewhere and climb the corporate ladder. ‘Where do you want go next?’ he asked again. I was flabbergasted. I said I might want to study law. He looked at me and said, ‘Nai, I think you should, but the best are in London. You’re going to need an umbrella. It’s a cold, gray place there.’ And he sent me to London just like that to study law.”
“Did he know you before all of that?” Joanna asked.
“He knew of me. He made a point to know me. He went out of his way to help me when my father died.”
The waitress came out then and Nick ordered for them, as well as some wine, and she came back with a full bottle and two glasses.
“The wonderful thing about my story, Miss Joanna,” Nick said once the waitress had gone back inside, “is that it’s not unique. Your father did the same for many other children on this island.”
“How many?” she asked, amazed.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Considering how large his funeral was, I’d say it was a lot.”
He poured them some wine and put out his cigarette before continuing. “Now you know why the hotel is in the state it is. He spent all the profits on us as if we were his children. He knew his hotel needed work, but he cared more about people than he did of it.”
“So you’re saying he left me something that was an afterthought to him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I would say it like that.”
“What do you think are in the letters?” Joanna asked, her thought segueing to all of the other things she didn't know about her elusive father.
“Something interesting for sure. There is a history there that none of us know about. I think you’re going to find out what happened between Georges and your mother, Joanna. I think you’re going to find out why you didn’t grow up in Skiathos.”
11
Later, Nick dropped her off at the hotel and walked her in.
“Where do you live?” she asked. “Do you have far to go?”
“A houseboat. I’m just a few minutes away from here.”
“So some of your father is still in you then,” she said and smiled.
“Yes, but I leave it to others to do the catching. Goodnight, Miss Joanna.” He waved goodbye and left. Joanna had expected him to kiss her on the cheeks, but he didn’t. Had she done something?
Chris saw the exchange, though pretended she was watching TV on a small portable television.
She looked at Joanna’s perplexed face and shook her head.
“Kissing on the cheeks is a sign of familiarity here. It’s something that a brother and a sister, or a father and a daughter would do without a second thought. To kiss both cheeks is like saying ‘I’m comfortable with you. You are a good friend.’”
“So you’re saying that—”
“Nick doesn’t want to be your friend, Miss Joanna. He wants something more.”
Joanna didn’t know what to say. Chris waved her on and said, “Go and get some sleep now. Think about it tomorrow.”
Peter called Joanna back after she had changed and brushed her teeth for the night. She considered not answering, but did to tell him about the hotel she was now the proud owner of.
“Ooh, never mind what it’s like on the inside, if the views are as good as you say they are, sell it. Whoever buys it is probably just going to bulldoze it down and start over anyway. They’ll pay you for the land, and you can use that as a bargaining chip. Land’s a huge commodity in the Greek Islands apparently. Your big chain hotels are always looking for mom and pop places to buy so they can swoop in and run it like it’s supposed to. They’ll make millions more because they’ll put in what tourists actually want.”
“Uh-huh,” Joanna mumbled, thinking that a generic tourist hotel would be awful in a place like this.
“I can help you out. We’
ve got a lot of international connections at the company. We’ll get you the money you deserve. We’ll dance with investors. You’re probably going to become a millionaire overnight. We’ll be able to have our wedding wherever you want.”
“That sounds … good I think. But I’m going to need a little more time here first.”
“Time?”
“There are some things I need to deal with, some letters belonging to my father. Probably other things as well. The letters are between him and my mom. Seems this whole thing was more than just a one night stand.”
“Oh, well, clean his room out and then sell. I don’t get what that has to do with anything.”
“I’m just… I’m just not so sure I want to tear it down just yet. This place was built by my grandfather, and he passed it down to my father, who passed it down to me.”
“A father you never spoke to passed it down to you Joanna,” Peter pointed out. “You’re not obligated to preserve anything for him. He did nothing for you.”
Joanna remembered the story Nick told to her about what her father told him.
“I have known no father who would have his son walk in his footsteps simply to repeat his story. All fathers want their children to have their own story.”
Still, her mind wasn’t there. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not after having been there for less than a day.
“There’s a story, Peter. I have to know it. If I walk away now I may never know it.”
Peter was quiet. She could tell he was measuring his words. Crafting a way to try and get her to commit to selling. He was a good salesman, but he wasn’t good enough to sell her on this. He knew it, and she knew it.
He exhaled. “Do what you have to do, Joanna. Just don’t get lost in some dream that never existed.”
12
“Good morning,” Chris greeted warmly the next day, as Joanna came down the stairs. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” she replied. “Actually don’t think I’ve ever slept so deeply in my life.”
“We get that a lot,” Chris chuckled. “Not just from tourists. Skiathons who stay in this hotel say that too. I don’t know why that is. Something in the stones this place was built upon, I guess.”
Joanna went and poured herself some hot coffee from a pot across from the clerk’s desk, and noticed Nick already outside reading the paper in the back alongside the dated, chipping swimming pool. She considered running back upstairs as she hadn’t put any makeup on yet, but decided to go out and tell him good morning. He didn’t seem the type to care that she wasn’t wearing eyeliner and blush.
He saw her and beamed.
“Kaliméra, Joanna,” he said, folding up his paper.
She cocked her head in confusion.
“Good morning,” he translated with a smile. “Your Greek language instruction starts today.”
“Really now? Why is that?”
“Because I have a good feeling that you are going to fall in love with this island, and be ready for the challenge of renovating. It’s early yet. Not even seven, and yet you are up and drinking coffee. It’s a good sign for us who would have you stay.”
“Hey, slow down, buddy - I’ve always been a morning person.”
He shrugged. “You see they are getting ready for the wedding reception over there. Just behind you?” he said, pointing to some people putting out tables and arranging chairs. A young couple, freshly married, will celebrate their marriage this evening overlooking the Aegean Sea on the most beautiful place on the island. It’s going to be quite romantic. And the rain has passed so it’s even better. You will accompany me to the church, yes?”
Joanna was a little taken aback. She recalled that Nick had mentioned during that first call that as the future owner of the hotel she should oversee the wedding celebrations, but she hadn’t expected an invitation to the church.
“What time is the ceremony?”
“I think around five.” Then he took out a key from his pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“That’s your father’s room key. He lived in an inconsequential room that no hotel guest coming here would write home about. Room 111. I will come and get you for lunch at noon. Is this OK? Chris left the letters where we found them in a leather satchel hanging in his closet.”
Joanna took the key from him and stared at it - wondering if would be the key to her past - or her future.
Room 111 was down a dark, quiet hallway, across from a loud ice machine that constantly hummed and vibrated. How did her father put up with that noise? If Joanna had to live next to it she’d go crazy.
She put the key in the lock and opened the door, terrified she’d see George’s ghost standing there and waiting for her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but what she saw unnerved her even more than a ghost.
A bed.
A wardrobe.
A closet.
A desk.
A bathroom.
And that was it.
Positively, unilaterally underwhelming.
She hadn’t expected to find the studio of a genius or think he was the twenty-first century equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci or anything. But there were no personal touches anywhere. No sign of character or illumination into who George Herod was.
He lived in a hotel, and his room was as lifeless and as neutral as any other.
She sat down on the bed and saw that on the desk was a hotplate he had apparently used to cook on with a kettle behind it. Coffee or tea? She stood up and looked around but didn’t see anything indicating either. Tea perhaps, since there was coffee freely available in the lobby?
There wasn’t even a particular smell in the room, odd for an older bachelor’s room. He had left behind no aftershave, no cologne, no manly soap preference.
The whole room was still. Flat. Like a monk’s.
She walked to the closet and saw the leather satchel Nick had mentioned hanging on a hook. She unhooked it, and emptied its contents onto the bed. It was nothing but letters. She scattered them briefly, and saw for herself that every single one of them was from her mom.
“Oh Mom,” Joanna sighed. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you let yourself be happy?”
She found the first letter. Someone had taken the time to actually number and date them. Nick or Chris? They hadn’t given her any sense that they had lingered over the letters - or read them even. Plus the writing looked like it was done by a shaky hand.
Joanna opened the first letter. It was dated 1982, almost four years before she was born.
13
George,
I don’t know how else to say this. I’m going back and forth between smiling so much my cheeks hurt, to fighting tears that you’re not next to me right now.
I’ve been home for two hours. I’m tired, hungry and I should really go to sleep, but I’m not going to. I’m going to write and tell you one more time how much you changed my life. I don’t know how long it takes for mail to get to Greece from New York, but I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?
Before I left, you asked me to tell you what my favorite thing we did was. I couldn’t tell you at the time I was so busy fighting my tears and trying to be a ‘strong woman.’
Now, after daydreaming about you for eleven hours on an airplane, I have to say it was the walks you took me on through the foothills to get to Moni Evaggelistrias. Such a beautiful church. But it wasn’t the church I enjoyed. It was just being with you. Hearing you tell stories of your family as we idly walked, pointing out to me what plants were medicinal and which were poisonous, and just… being in silence together. Is that strange? I’ve never been so comfortable with someone before that I didn’t feel a need to fill the silence with chatter. I’m a New Yorker: silence is a strange concept to us. It’s like a word we got from another culture but don’t actually understand what it truly means.
I meant what I said: I will come back. Time is the only thing keeping me from you right now and I will weather it. But I feel a b
it like Persephone banished back to hell, only my punishment is far worse. If only my time in New York were but a season….
Please know that I will come back.
Utterly, completely, passionately yours.
Ruth
Joanna folded the letter delicately and put it back in its envelope. There were little bubbles on the ink where it looked like someone had cried over it. Were they her mother’s tears upon writing it? Or her father’s? At that point Joanna was seconds away from adding her own.
She didn’t know if she had another in her, but the envelope labeled number 2 was right in front of her.
Why had he numbered them? How often had he read them? Would he spend his evenings recanting the romance he had had with her mother? Letter by letter? Were men even capable of being that romantic?
Maybe Grecian men, but certainly not any others that she had ever met.
Delicately, she pulled out the second letter.
It too was from 1982:
George,
I got your letter today. I was so nervous when I got your reply because I couldn’t remember what I had said to you in my first letter. It takes so long for mail to get between us. It’s too much. I was terrified that I said something to make you not want to talk to me anymore. But then I read what you said, and saw that you, too, felt the same way that I did— and still do!
I smiled, I laughed, I cried while reading it, but I mostly smiled. Beamed with joy. My heart feels so light and giddy, knowing that you feel the same way I do. I’ve never felt this way before. To the rest of the world I’m an old 39 year old woman… in my heart I’m a schoolgirl again. I blame you. Bless you for doing this to me.
I’ll be able to take another vacation in a few months. Just five months. Sounds absurd, but knowing there’s a light at the end of the tunnel makes it easier.
