Good Will Come From the Sea

by Christos Ikonomou

  Artemis comes over carrying the little lamps in one hand and the life preserver with the message welcoming mermaids in the other. She stands and looks at Stavros, her head cocked to one side.

  Yes, Artemis, don’t worry. It’s fine. I didn’t forget.

  He pulls the corkscrew out of his back pocket and hands it to her and she twists it into the cork, then puts the bottle between thighs blackened by ash and tugs until the cork comes out with a plop. She sniffs the wine, then takes a long swig and hands the bottle to Stavros.

  How is it?

  Nice. Smoky.

  They light cigarettes and drink the wine standing up, there beside a restaurant destroyed by fire, staring silently out to sea, listening to the sea, smelling the sea, not talking. In the distance the other islands look white in the sunlight, like reflections, mirages of islands that once were but no longer are.

  Can you cut a bit off the string? she asks.

  Why?

  Can you? I have an idea.

  Another idea?

  About ten centimeters. Or a bit longer.

  He pulls the switchblade from his boot and folds the string over and cuts where Artemis tells him to.

  Cut off another piece.

  What’s going on?

  Just cut it. You’ll see. Great. Now tie the string to the kite. And straighten the tail.

  Artemis.

  Tie it tightly, so it doesn’t fall off. And make sure the tail doesn’t get tangled.

  Come on, Artemis, you must be joking. You really want us to fly a kite? They’ll think we’re –

  Okay, I’ll hold it and you run. Got it? Hold on, just a sec. Do you have gloves?

  I don’t need gloves.

  Just put on the gloves. Otherwise the string will cut your hands. You remember what happened during Carnival.

  No, I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember anything.

  Fine. Then put on the gloves without remembering.

  Artemis grabs the kite by either side and slowly walks backward, careful not to step on the tail. She goes about thirty meters off and stops. The wind is stronger now, and as she lifts her hands into the air the kite shudders, then rights itself, like a living creature that’s been held hostage for a long time and is struggling to break free.

  Ready?

  No.

  On three. One, two, three. Go! Run! Run!

  Looking backward, running forward, Stavros grips the string in his gloved hands, tightly, jerking it now and again to make the kite take off, though for now it keeps rising and falling, as if it were about to crash into the earth – Stavros looks backward and runs forward, hearing Artemis cheer him on, and now the kite rises higher, balancing in the air, dancing and twirling, a captive creature longing to be free, longing for the string to break, to escape for good, once and for all, forever. Then he stops running and looks up, breathing hard, sweating, and sees the kite hovering high above his head, a small trembling sign, colorfully dissonant against the blinding blue of the sky.

  Artemis comes over, holding the lanterns, the pieces of string, and the orange life preserver. The sweat has become one with the smudges on her face and she looks like a woman who’s been crying black tears. But she’s laughing. She’s laughing, sweaty and out of breath, her eyes like two blue planets, twin planets made of water, looking out from a distance of millions of miles into space.

  See? You see? I was right. See how high it went?

  Stavros takes the glove off his right hand and gives it to her to wear. They hold the string together, free hands raised to keep the sunlight from blinding them, feeling the kite pull at every sudden gust of wind up high, which is the only sign that the kite is still tied to the string, because they can’t even see it anymore, it’s blended into the sky, nowhere to be seen.

  Find a rock, Artemis says. A big one.

  Another idea?

  You’ll see. Come on, it has to be big.

  He carries a rock over and wraps the kite string around it several times. Artemis kneels down and ties one of the pieces of string to the life preserver. Then she stands back up and tells him to lower the kite string very slowly, until it’s about ten meters off the ground.

  Can you tell me what you’re trying to do?

  Be patient. Bring it down carefully. Gently, so nothing breaks.

  Stavros grabs the string from where it’s tied to the rock and starts to pull it down, walking forward until he reaches the curve in the road.

  Now what?

  Wait. I’m coming.

  Artemis comes over and ties the string with the life preserver to the string of the kite. She tells Stavros to walk a little further. She follows him, and when he stops, she ties the second length of string in the middle, affixes it tightly to the kite string, and then ties one of the little lanterns to each end.

  Okay. Now let it go. Slowly. Be careful.

  It can’t bear the weight.

  Let it go, I’m telling you.

  And I’m telling you it’s too much. The kite will come crashing down. It’ll drop down like a bullet. You’ll see.

  Nothing’s going to happen. Let it go.

  Fine. You’ll see. Just don’t go yelling at me afterwards. Don’t take it out on me. I warned you.

  Stavros closes his eyes, slowly lets the kite go from his hand, and when he opens his eyes again he sees the life preserver and lanterns jolting suddenly into the air, twisting for a moment and then hanging almost motionless, high up, ten or fifteen meters above the earth, as if suspended from nothing at all, as if they had started falling from the sky and then for some mysterious, magical reason, suddenly stopped falling and stayed there hovering in nothingness.

  He waits. He holds his breath. With his hands above his head to block out the sun, he waits to see the string loosen and billow out wide, and then to see the kite falling, twisting with dizzying speed from up high and crashing into the earth like a bird that’s been shot.

  He waits. He waits with squinted eyes, holding his breath, listening to his heart beat as it had earlier, back at home, when he eyeballed the distance between the crawl space and the floor, or like today and yesterday, when he walked through the charred remains, or like the day before yesterday, when he watched helplessly as flames devoured the restaurant, or the day he spent packing their suitcases for the island, or the afternoon when he’d shoved the things from his office into plastic bags, or that night in December when, kneeling on the pavement, he saw and heard the most terrible thing a person can see and hear, a crippled, kneeling person in love.

  Why are we doing this now? he asks. What does it mean? Why were you so intent on us flying a kite now, in the middle of July?

  I don’t know, Artemis said. Maybe because we’ve never done it before. And because it’s something that’s ours.

  They watch as the lanterns and the life preserver spin gently in the air and then Artemis puts her arm around his shoulder and pulls him to her forcefully, like a man.

  See? Nothing happened. Now let’s go and sit on the rocks. We’ve still got another bottle.

  * * *

  The string was invisible in the blinding sunlight. The lanterns and life preserver seemed to be floating in midair, dangling from nothingness over nothingness. Every so often the wind died down, and the lanterns would bump against one another, jingling in a strange, almost comforting way in the deserted landscape. Then someone passed by in a pickup truck and saw the lanterns and life preserver way up high, and slowed down and stuck his head out the window and looked at them, his mouth hanging open. He drove a little further and then stopped. He put the truck in reverse and came back and stared up at the sky, scratching his jaw. He looked around and when he saw Artemis and Stavros he seemed to realize something was going on, but he didn’t know what. Then he stepped on the gas and drove off, honking the horn several times.

&nbs
p; Later others passed by. They all stopped to take it in: two lanterns and a life preserver twirling in midair, dangling from nothingness over nothingness. An old woman made the sign of the cross. A kid on a motorbike took out his cell phone and snapped a few photos.

  Artemis laughed. She curled up in Stavros’s arms and kissed him. Her lips were red from the wine but didn’t taste like anything burnt.

  What are we going to do? he asked her.

  Want to stay here? We can watch the moon rise. I think it’s a full moon tonight.

  I meant what are we going to do about this, Stavros said, pointing behind them. What are we going to do? We’re ruined. All that money down the drain. What are we going to do now? How will we live? And what about the German? How can –

  She put her fingers to his lips, which were also red with wine, and rubbed them hard.

  We’ll make a new start, she said.

  Don’t talk to me like that, OK? Don’t talk to me like we’re in some Hollywood movie. Everything’s going to be fine and think positive and all that bullshit.

  We’ll make a new start, she said. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll figure out how. We have no choice.

  We already made our start. And now it’s ash. Turn around and look. Look what happened to your new start. It’s ash now. Just look. Look.

  Artemis ran her fingers through his hair, stroked his ears, pinched his jaw.

  The beginning is never behind us, she said. The beginning is always ahead.

  Oh, great, now you’re trotting out the Coelho-Bucay-Yalom shit. That’s just great.

  The beginning is always ahead. Say it.

  Leave me alone, okay?

  Say it. The beginning is always ahead.

  I’m not saying anything.

  Say it.

  No.

  Say it, please. Why won’t you? Don’t you love me anymore?

  She looked him in the eyes. The liquid in hers had started to tremble.

  Fine, don’t get all bent out of shape. I’ll say it.

  Say it.

  I said it on the inside.

  Say it out loud. I want to hear it.

  The beginning is always ahead, fuck all those fucking rats, fuck them.

  His eyes burned. He rubbed them with his thumbs, looked out at the sea, and then turned to Artemis.

  The beginning is always ahead, he said.

  She leaned over and kissed him. Her lips were swollen, black with dried wine. Her tongue slipped slowly into his mouth, curled, stretched, then pulled back out again. She wrapped her arms around his head, sank her fingers into his hair, and pulled, hard.

  I’ve never betrayed you, she said. Never. Remember that.

  She shoved herself between his legs and with a sudden movement pulled up his shirt and started to kiss his chest. She squeezed his nipples, licked them, bit them, sank her nails into his back. Laughing, she pulled at a hair that had stuck to her lips and then bent down lower, licked his belly, stuck her tongue in his belly button, loosened his belt. Looking straight into his eyes, she took him in her hands and then in her mouth, licked him all over from the base to the head, then climbed onto him, pulled her panties aside and put him inside her, squeezing tightly, moaning, her head on his shoulder. Stavros looked down at the part weaving through her hair like a thin little adder and then closed his eyes and wondered, yet again, for the thousandth time, how many nipples she had licked, how many belts she had loosened, how many other men she had ridden like this. He stayed almost entirely still while Artemis bucked on top of him, and when she pulled herself off, his sperm leapt like a tiny white snake onto her belly.

  But I betrayed you, he almost said – only yet again, he held his tongue.

  * * *

  He looked at her parted lips, which were still trembling, then wiped his own and took a swig of wine to wash the bitter taste from his mouth. Night was falling. The sea had begun to fill with shadows, the shadows of invisible things. Two crows flew cawing over their heads and disappeared in the direction of the sunset. The wind had died down, but every so often they could hear the jingling of the lanterns hanging from the string of the kite. The air here didn’t smell burnt anymore. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. They smelled like saltwater and Artemis and something else.

  They’re circles, he said.

  Artemis looked at him, holding a swig of wine in her mouth, then swallowed and passed the bottle back to him.

  What did you say?

  Rainbows. They’re not curved, they’re circles.

  Really? How can that be?

  I don’t know. I don’t remember. Something about the sun and the horizon.

  She took his hands in hers, then leaned to the side and snuggled into his embrace, looking out at the sea.

  So what we’re seeing is half the circle, she said.

  Yes.

  And the other half? Do you think we’ll ever see it?

  I don’t know. Maybe.

  That’s nice. That’s a nice thought.

  She closed her eyes and when she opened them again she turned to look at the lanterns and life preserver, which now, in the violet light of dusk, looked more magical than ever. All sorts of things passed through her mind, but she didn’t cry.

  I’m hurting so much, she said, looking straight ahead, as if she were talking to the sea.

  I know, said Stavros.

  Most of all because I don’t hate this country. I can’t. It’s like my mother, that’s what I sometimes think. I could never really communicate with her, we couldn’t talk for more than five minutes without fighting, and at times she scared me or drove me crazy, but I couldn’t ever hate her. I can’t hate this country. Even if I wanted to, I never could. Never. There’s no way.

  Stavros lowered his eyes and looked at the part in her hair. He hesitated for a moment and then reached out a finger and traced the straight line, his finger on her skin, which was warm and sweaty.

  She raised her head and looked at him, smiling, then suddenly jolted upright in his arms and started clapping.

  So, I just had an idea.

  And you can unhave it again just as fast. I’m not going anywhere, or cutting anything, or carrying anything. You’ve had enough ideas for one day.

  Listen, we’ll make it a kind of tradition. We’ll come here on this day each July and fly a kite. What do you think? It’s a good idea, right? We’ll tell the others in the neighborhood, too, and we’ll all come here and fly kites. And each one of us will tie something to the string and let it hang in the air, like we did with the lanterns and life preserver. And we’ll all sit together with our food and our wine and look up at the sky for hours. And then we’ll cut the strings and let the kites and the objects leave, let the wind take them, let them disappear. What do you think? Won’t it be nice?

  Stavros took out two cigarettes, lit them both and handed her one. They smoked, listening to the waves, smelling the salt spray, looking at the lights from the other islands in the distance, the lights on the ships passing by on the open sea, the lights of the fishing boats casting out nets or pulling them up again, so many lights flickering in the half dark.

  We’ll turn it into a tradition, Artemis said. If we have to live here, we need to come up with some new traditions, our own traditions. That’s what we have to do.

  He looked at her and started to speak, then stopped. He licked his thumb and rubbed at a sooty fingerprint on her forehead. From the direction of the restaurant, behind them, they heard a loud sound like something tumbling to the ground. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising like needles pulled by an enormous magnet, but didn’t turn around to look.

  He reached out a hand and pointed at the lanterns.

  Do you want to –

  Yes, Artemis said. Do you?

  They stood up and walked over to the rock that was a
nchoring the string. For a while they watched the two lanterns and life preserver twisting in the air and then Stavros kneeled down and pulled the switchblade out of his boot.

  I wish we could do that, Artemis said. I wish we could tie ourselves to a string and get up that high and look down on the world from up there. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t it be nice?

  I don’t know. It depends. Would they cut our string afterward or not?

  She mussed his hair, laughing, then kneeled beside him and together they held the string.

  Ready?

  Artemis looked at his hands, his lips, his eyes, blurry and red, the whites of the eyes shot through with tiny bloody threads. For a moment it seemed – she was certain – that she could hear his eyelids blinking, the blood rushing through his veins.

  You know, she said, there’s no secret to any of it. Life needs to live. That’s all. There’s no secret.

  Stavros folded the string just above the rock and sliced it with a sudden movement. The string slipped through his hands and flew up high. They stood and watched, arm in arm, as the lanterns and life preserver soared slowly to the west, toward the setting sun, until all three disappeared from sight, just as the kite had hours earlier.

  On that side of the island the wind rarely blew from the east. It might never have blown like that before, and might never again. They talked about it for a while, later, when they were sitting once more on the rocks, and agreed they didn’t care at all. They didn’t give a damn. It didn’t bother them one bit.

  Because that night the wind was blowing from the east, for sure.

  When the north wind blows on this island, it tears down everything in its path. But we’ve never seen anything like what happened today. The school bus set off from town to go and pick up the kids from Antilalos and the other villages, and on the straightaway we call the Doors, the wind knocked it right off the road and it fell on the rocks. All the way down, over the cliff. Can you believe it? Nothing like it ever happened before. Luckily the driver survived, but just imagine if the kids had been in there.