Widows

by Ariel Dorfman

  “Sarakis,” Alexis said, as if that explained everything. “That woman Sarakis is going to claim Grandpa’s body. She says it’s the body of her brother Theodoro. The captain’s going to give him to her and she’s going to rebury him.”

  “That whore?” Grandma turned her body toward Alexis without moving her feet which were planted in the same place like two tense trembling roots, while she stretched her whole body toward him, her arms in the air. “That whore’s going to claim my husband’s body? She dares to use Theodoro? Her own brother? Theodoro who hated them, who cursed them in front of everyone as traitors, who’d kick them if he came back, kick them, her and her slut of a daughter and the orderly too. They’re going to use our friend Theodoro for that? To take my husband away from me? That whore?”

  “Yes,” said Alexis. “That one.”

  Grandma bent to pick up the mortar and then sat down again on the bench, her shoulders were weighing her down. “Now what will we do?” she whispered, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice, speaking almost to herself, her arms broken branches hanging down. “The captain will do it, the captain will give my Michael to that witch. He’s going to give him to her. If only Theodoro were here. Theodoro would kick her into line right in the street, her and that whore Cecilia and that orderly fag. Like when they were young, with Michael. Nobody could stop those two. Theodoro would know what to do. If we could ask him, he’d know what to do.”

  “Our friend Theodoro isn’t coming back, Grandma,” said Alexis. “It’s two years since they took him, and if they’re using him for that, it’s because they know he’s never coming back.”

  “Never?” Grandma asked. “Theodoro’s never coming back? But then what will we do? What on earth can we do?”

  I felt Mama letting my hands go all of a sudden and I wanted to hold hers just a little longer but they’d already gone.

  “Never?” Alexandra said hoarsely, addressing Grandma or maybe no one. “He’s never going to come back?”

  Then for the second time that day Fidelia uttered the words we were all waiting for, we saw her adolescent frame step forward.

  “Alexis,” I said to my brother, quietly, like someone setting a table, almost indifferent. “Alexis, what’ll we do?”

  With two vigorous strides, Alexis stepped out to the center of the patio, next to his mother and grandmother, who looked at him like they’d never seen him before. None of us could believe that he had once cried like Serguei was crying now, yesterday he and Fidelia sleeping in the same bed where the baby was now, calling to us for attention.

  Suddenly, over the cries from the house for some hand of some grown, comforting mother, Yanina not moving as was her duty, over those cries Alexis spoke, stressing every word so we’d hear.

  “Either he belongs to us all or he belongs to nobody. All the women have to claim him for burial, all the families.”

  “And then?”

  Who asked that? Me, us, Grandma, Alexandra, who asked?

  “And then,” Alexis answered carefully, with Dimitriou’s voice now, it was Papa’s own tough and tender and pregnant voice, “and then we’ll see.”

  chapter three

  v

  “Next,” said the judge. “I hope I get a good lunch after all this torture.”

  “Longa takes pride in its roast lamb with mint,” the captain said cheerfully. “And we’ve put a few little bottles of white wine on ice to help you forget your troubles.”

  “That lamb will have to be awfully good, and the nap afterward nice and deep, Captain, to make up for this. A fifteen-hour trip from Alabakis—I’ve been through worse, of course, but ten of these women, Captain, ten, just this morning, when one is enough to drive you crazy.”

  “Console yourself with the thought there are only twenty-seven more.”

  “Or better yet,” added the lieutenant, “that we have to deal with them every day of the year, twenty-four hours a day, while you can devote yourself to more useful and entertaining matters.”

  “And you haven’t even had to face old Sofia.”

  “Now at least we know why all these guys are missing”—it was the lieutenant again—“with such impossible hags to put up with …”

  “All right, all right, I give up,” said the judge. “You’re heroes, you deserve medals. The next one, bring on the next one.”

  “It’s Katherina Theogonafis,” announced the orderly from the doorway, and the judge’s clerk checked the name on his list as the woman made her appearance.

  “Good morning,” said the judge. “You may be seated.”

  Katherina Theogonafis arranged herself on the edge of the chair and nervously eyed the four men seated behind the captain’s desk.

  “Clerk, kindly inform us, in brief, of the nature of the request.”

  “That’s not necessary, Your Honor, I already know what I want and so do you, same as the captain and the lieutenant.”

  “It’s a matter of legal procedure, woman,” the captain said. “Better keep quiet and answer only when you’re spoken to.”

  She didn’t reply.

  Rising, the clerk began to read the petition in question, wherein Mrs. Katherina Theogonafis affirmed her right and her obligation to bury her deceased husband, the former mayor Mr. Andrei Theogonafis, who had been found dead on Monday, June 8, as she was doing her washing alongside other women, dead of undetermined although accidental causes, added the clerk in a bored flat tone, and that she had drawn up this petition in light of the fact that the nation’s army had taken charge of the body, burying it in some unknown location. For these reasons, she would be most pleased to be granted permission to fulfill her duties as wife and mother of the children of the deceased, giving him a funeral as he deserved. She was accompanied by the proper official documents, a document of baptism, a certificate of marriage by the church, and the baptism documents of the six children begotten by her and Mr. Andrei Theogonafis.

  “Very well,” said the judge. “Now we all know what you want. Now perhaps you could answer a couple of insignificant questions. Let’s say there are still some doubts about this whole affair, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Let’s see. When did you know that the man who appeared that Monday, June 8, was your husband?”

  “Sir?”

  “The judge is asking you,” explained the lieutenant, biting off each word, “if you knew it was your husband right away, that morning when he was found by the river.”

  “Yes, sir. I suspected it immediately.”

  “You suspected it?” The judge removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. “It was just a suspicion?”

  “It’s the first thing one thinks, sir, when one has a husband far away, sir. With your permission, one’s thoughts grow dark and as soon as you hear of some mishap, well, you imagine that it has to do with the loved one.”

  “So that’s why you thought immediately that this was the former mayor, Mr. Andrei Theogonafis, your husband?”

  “Yes, sir. Something leaped in my heart and I said to myself, That’s him, they killed him. Don’t you see, we were all affected by the case of Karoulos Mylonas, who we’d found in the river a while before. So we always went down to the river to do our washing a little early and we all thought perhaps we’d find some relative. Don’t you see how many we’re missing? Life is very hard for the smaller children like this, sir.”

  “But you didn’t identify him immediately?”

  “Yes, sir, immediately.”

  The lieutenant made a gesture with his hand to the judge. “That’s a lie. You told me, in the presence of the regiment’s doctor and four soldiers and several other witnesses, that you had not the slightest idea as to the dead man’s identity. And now you inform us that you identified him. Withholding information from the authorities, madam, is a crime in our penal code. Did you know that?”

  “I identified him, but I wasn’t going to tell you, Lieutenant, sir. Who knows what would have been done t
o me if I told you?”

  “What would have been done to you? What would have been done to you?” groaned the captain. “He would have been given to you for burial, Mrs. Theogonafis, that’s what the lieutenant would have done, and you would have saved us all these problems now.”

  The woman calmly folded her hands. “That’s what you say now, Captain, sir. But then things were different. Why did Captain Gheorghakis deny Sofia Angelos the right to bury her own father, may he rest in peace, and now she’s been allowed to do it?”

  “Please, gentlemen. We shouldn’t let ourselves get worked up. We’re here to investigate the circumstances surrounding a petition by this woman and thirty-six others concerning a dead man called for the time being N. N. Let’s proceed. How did you know, madam, that this was your husband?”

  “I knew it as soon as we pulled him out of the water, sir, may God forgive me. As we were bringing him ashore and I touched him, well, sir, one knows these things, after twenty-nine years of marriage. Last May it would have been thirty, poor soul, one isn’t going to make mistakes about something like that.”

  “And you didn’t think you were committing a very grave sin and an eternal transgression, letting your husband be taken away and buried in some common grave, while you did nothing?”

  “Yes, sir, I felt I was condemning myself, sir. That’s why I’ve brought up this petition that the clerk has there, to correct the error, because I couldn’t get any sleep that night and I know that if I don’t give him a proper burial I’ll have to regret it forever and my children will blame me and his mother would too if she were alive.”

  “And what did you think when the girl Fidelia said that the body was that of her grandfather Michael?”

  “What did I think, do you want to know?”

  “Yes, what did you think when that girl claimed for her family the body which you believe to be that of your own husband?”

  “I thought Sofia had made a mistake. She hadn’t yet come to see the corpse, so how was she going to know if it was Michael?”

  “Exactly,” shouted the captain. “That’s exactly what I said. She had come straight here, as soon as she knew of the body, isn’t that right, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s how it was.”

  “And I also thought,” Katherina went on, “that a family couldn’t accumulate two dead men, I mean it was too much bad luck for Sofia to be faced with her husband’s body just a few weeks after she’d found her father. That’s what I said to my daughter that same afternoon, that maybe Sofia was trying to swear that that man, my husband, was hers, so as to get what she really wanted.”

  “And what was that, can you tell me?”

  “To bury her father, sir. And she did, she managed to do just that, just as I said to my daughters and daughters-in-law, that’s what happened. Less than two days went by before she’d accomplished what she’d set out to. Now the old man is resting in his own grave. It was then that I understood that I couldn’t wait any longer, that I had to obey God’s command, and I drew up that petition.”

  “And it never occurred to you to do it sooner?”

  “I’m not a man, sir, I have no way of knowing what one does in situations like this.”

  “And what do you think, my good madam, of the fact that along with you thirty-six other women have presented similar petitions concerning their sons, husbands, uncles, fathers, brothers, and brothers-in-law?”

  “I don’t think anything, sir.”

  “Doesn’t it seem to you a bit suspicious?”

  “Why should it seem suspicious, sir?”

  The captain slammed his fist on the desk. “Don’t answer questions with questions, you old fox. We know your tricks. Answer when you’re asked. How long do you think we can put up with this lack of respect for authority.”

  “Captain, I am a woman. I would expect that an officer of the nation’s army wouldn’t use violent methods and foul language against a woman. I’m merely exercising my rights. When I married, I swore to be faithful to my husband until death do us part. They’ve murdered my husband, who was mayor of this village, and I don’t want anything more for the moment than to give him a funeral worthy of the life he offered me and my children and of the heights of service he rendered to the community.”

  “Your husband was a scoundrel,” said the lieutenant, suddenly angry. “Did you know that? He was a criminal, an unscrupulous man, a traitor to his country.”

  “My husband isn’t present, sir, to answer that accusation. If he were here, alive, he would answer like a man. I know he wouldn’t want me to answer for him, he always asked me to remain calm and conduct myself like the woman I am, his woman, a man who knew how to read and write, respected by all, including his adversaries. I’m proud to have shared my life with Andrei Theogonafis.”

  “Enough speeches, enough speeches,” ordered the captain. “Answer the question, ma’am. Don’t you think it’s strange that thirty-seven families should coincidentally present in three days’ time petitions soliciting the burial of the same dead man who, a week before, had been claimed by only one, a woman who hadn’t even seen the body? I suppose this seems absolutely normal to you?”

  “The times we’re living in aren’t normal, sir. Or do you find it normal that I have no man in my house, that two of my sons have been shot, that my daughters have no one to marry, that my husband comes floating down the river after having been arrested in the capital some two years ago when he made an attempt to track down Theodoro Sarakis?”

  “And the other women? What should I tell the other women?”

  “That’s your business, sir. I didn’t study to be a judge in order to know what you should tell them.”

  “Mrs. Theogonafis, you realize that if I grant the request of one of you, the rest are going to be left without a relative to bury. Do you realize the injustice I’d be committing?”

  “Sir, I’m glad you are so concerned with justice. That gives us a lot of hope. Because you yourself have the file on my husband, his disappearance, and now you can close the case.”

  “I advise you, madam,” said the judge, going pale, “that my judgment was confirmed by the Court of Appeals. Your husband was not taken prisoner in my jurisdiction. That I can assure you.”

  “Another question,” said the captain impatiently. “Before you conceived and then delivered this request, didn’t Sofia Angelos come to see you?”

  “Sofia Angelos did not come to see me, no, sir.”

  “Some member of her family, then?”

  “Yes, sir. Her daughter-in-law Yanina came to see me.”

  “And what did you talk about?”

  “About the dead man, sir.”

  “Yanina came to suggest that you should present this petition. Admit it, we have proof. Admit that Yanina came to make that suggestion, that all this is nothing more than a contrivance.”

  She blinked her eyes rapidly and rose in her seat. “Yanina was worried, sir, because she thought her mother-in-law had made a mistake, that that man could not be Michael Angelos and that that mistake could be serious for all of us, sir. She’s sick over the fate of her husband Serguei, that’s what was the matter with her. She never suggested anything to me. It was only after I confided that I, in my heart of hearts, was sure that the man we had found in the river was my own husband, Andrei, it wasn’t till then that she said the only way to clear up this matter was by way of the judiciary, sir.”

  “And why didn’t you come to see the captain?” asked the lieutenant.

  “Because the captain had already declared that the body belonged to no one. It was impossible to change his opinion. With your permission, Lieutenant, but you know military men are like that. Look at Captain Gheorghakis, under whom you yourself served, sir.”

  “And it doesn’t seem strange to you,” the lieutenant continued, “that this same Yanina has spoken with seven other claimants, and that one Alexandra has spoken with eight more, and that one Cristina, daughter of Sofia, with several others, and
one Hilda, and one Rosa, and so on and so forth, the thing never stops. Does it really seem to you the most natural thing that they’ve set out to convince all the neighboring families of the necessity of this action? Do you think they would be able to have done something like this without the consent, more like the active collaboration, of this trouble-making woman?”

  “I’m going to tell you, sir, that it doesn’t seem to me we’re here to discuss Sofia Angelos’s activities. I haven’t the slightest idea of what is happening at her house. She’s a good woman, a bit stubborn and willful, but those are virtues in times like these, a good woman who’s been courteous to me all my life. What interests us is to straighten out the problem of my husband, sir.”

  “So you’re truly convinced that that man was your husband? Before God, you’re convinced?”

  “If it’s not true, Captain, sir, give him back to me alive, or tell me what prison he’s in so I can go visit him and take him some food and clothes. Or give me his body so we can honor him as a husband and father and citizen. But don’t ask me to fail again in my sacred duty and not bury him when he’s right in front of my eyes, when he’s in my hands.”

  “And if your husband appeared in that doorway,” demanded the captain, his tone intensifying, “if I clapped my hands like this”—and he clapped loudly—“and he appeared right now in that doorway, what would you say to me?”

  For the first time during the exchange, she hesitated, and something broke in her voice, in her bearing.

  “I’d say thank you, Captain, if you give him back to me alive.”

  The door swung open and the orderly stepped in.

  “Captain?”

  “Your Honor, what do you say?”

  “Next,” said the judge. “I hope lunch is worth all this.”

  chapter four

  vi

  By the time dessert came, they were already on familiar terms.