The Art of Becoming Homeless

by Sara Alexi

  ‘I cannot leave her.’ He breathes. On Suzi’s bare saddle hangs the little shovel to collect her droppings and the sack to hold it.

  He feverishly yanks the shovel free. Footholds. He could make a series going down. He cannot leave her to go for help.

  ‘You still OK?’ he calls down.

  ‘Yes. Thirsty.’ Michelle’s voice seems tired.

  Dino thrusts the shovel into the loose bank, flings the soil off into the sea, scoops the dust out with his hands. He will not desert her to be told later she has gone. That cannot happen again. He must stay, stop anything from happening to her. The bank disintegrates with every shovelful he takes. The footholds become dusty slides.

  The clonk of a goat bell above him tenses his muscles.

  He had just gone off with his friend and the goats. Three hours later, his world had changed forever.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ he calls down, but not loud enough for her to hear.

  The distant put-put of a fishing boat makes his heart beat faster.

  Yes! From the sea, maybe they can reach her.

  ‘Hey. Ela do!’ He calls out across the water with all the power of his lungs. He puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles as loudly and as shrilly as he can, and raises his hands above his head. He stoops, picks up the torn blanket from the floor and waves with gusto.

  ‘Dino.’ Her voice sounds tremorous.

  ‘Yes, Michelle, it will be OK. The boat will come, and you can climb down.’

  ‘I think the bush is coming away,’ she squeals. There’s a sound of breaking twigs.

  ‘Michelle?’ Dino stops waving and stares down at the bushes that hide her from his sight.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s shifted down a bit, but the rock under my foot is still holding.’ There is a quiver in her voice.

  ‘Michelle, could you climb down if the boat came?’

  He can hear the rustle of dried leaves, a small movement below.

  ‘No, the ground will just crumble. I’ll fall.’

  Dino feels cold. She cannot climb up, and she cannot climb down.

  ‘How far is the sea? Could you jump?’

  ‘Twenty feet maybe, but there are rocks.’

  Dino shivers.

  ‘I am really thirsty,’ she adds.

  ‘Shall I try to drop the water bottle down to you?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t catch it …’

  Dolly’s eyes had looked so scared, like she knew she was going to die. Just close her eyes for a moment, gain some strength.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Dino whistles at the fisherman again and waves the half-blanket. The fisherman waves back.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Dino jumps up and down; he can see the fisherman smile. ‘No, you idiot, I need your help,’ he says to himself. ‘Ela, voeithia, help, help!’ he screams.

  ‘What’s happening?’ A voice behind him brings a wave of hope. A man with a shepherd’s crook slows to a halt at the bottom of the steep incline on the inland side of the path, heels digging in the dirt, leaning back to slow his descent. His dog takes easy steps beside him.

  ‘Oh! Please, do you have a phone?’ Dino grabs the man by the arm, assuring himself that he is real, that he will not leave.

  ‘No, what is it, my friend? You seem upset.’

  ‘She’s down there, hanging on. Quick!’

  The shepherd looks over the edge, but all there is to see are bushes.

  ‘Dino, I am really thirsty.’

  The man jumps at the sound of the sleepy voice.

  ‘Panayia, is she stuck?’ The shepherd expletes.

  ‘I cannot leave her; you must go, run to the nearest house, call someone. If she falls, she will die.’ Dino’s chest heaves with the words, and his eyes sting. The shepherd takes a firm grip on his crook and runs, his dog jumping and yelping around his ankles in the excitement.

  The fisherman has moved closer to the shore. He is looking, scanning, trying to see why one man is running and the other clearly in panic.

  ‘What is it?’ he calls, standing up in his little wooden vessel, shifting his weight from foot to foot to keep his balance.

  ‘Hey, she is stuck. Can you see her?’ Dino calls.

  The fisherman shakes his head.

  ‘Do you have a radio?’

  The man calls that he does not have a radio, or a phone, but the boat yard is just minutes away. He throttles up and powers off.

  Dino watches him go. He looks down the path. The shepherd is still running, just a dot far away. Dino can do no more.

  ‘Michelle. The fisherman has gone for help. Can you hang on?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Dino hears a break of humour in her voice, but his face will not smile.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am sorry. It is my fault.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replies, a little more energy in her voice.

  ‘I put you in danger. I saw the road was crumbling, narrower, I should have stopped us going any further.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Dino.’

  ‘I should have taken better care of you, watched out for you, protected you.’

  ‘Protected me! Ha, I’m not an endangered species.’

  ‘It is still my fault.’

  ‘Dino.’ He can hear her shift position. She grunts. ‘That’s better. Dino? Just shut up. You are not my guardian.’

  ‘Don’t die, Michelle.’

  ‘What? I’m not going to die.’ Her laugh sounds dry.

  There is silence. He doesn’t know what to say. He should keep talking, but the words will not come.

  ‘Dino, I’ve been around a lot longer than you, I’m neither going to die, nor are you responsible. I’ll just cling on here until help comes.’ She says it with kindness in her voice.

  Dino still cannot find his voice to reply.

  ‘Dino?’

  ‘I won’t leave you.’ Dino’s chest feels like it will burst, his breath in short gasps, eyes wide. The last time he saw his mother’s face, she had been smiling.

  ‘Go.’ She had smiled. ‘Go with your friend Zahari and the goats.’ She had ruffled his hair and kissed the top of his head. He had smiled and looked into her eyes—such kind eyes. The eyes that looked into his soul every morning, looked into his heart after school. To be separated so abruptly, and to be given no time to mourn. From having a mother to no mother is harsh enough, but his father made it into something much worse than having no mother. The anguish, the guilt, the fear that what his father said could be true. And the anger. Anger at his father for the words he spoke, anger at his mother for leaving him. But no soft place in which to mourn.

  ‘I am coming.’ The words explode from deep in his chest. He throws himself on his stomach and slides off the path down the sandy bank towards the sea, grabbing at grasses and roots as he goes, the speed building.

  Chapter 5

  The dust clogs his nose and he screws up his eyes. His t-shirt scrapes up to his armpits as he falls, his bare chest tearing against rocks and twigs.

  Someone calls his name.

  ‘Mama,’ he shouts and digs his fingers deep into the loose soil. His pace slows. He grabs a root, a branch, a bush stem. His toes kick into the bank and he brings his fall to a grinding stop.

  ‘What the …?’ Michelle exclaims.

  He shakes the dust from his hair and opens his eyes. Michelle is less than a metre away, down to his right. The bank is slightly less steep here. Below, the loose earth turns to rocks that jut from the soil before a sheer drop to the sea. Michelle is balanced on one of these rocks, the last stable place. Dino reaches down and across with his foot. His hands scutters over the soil, scared to let go, eager to find a better hold, roots to cling to. He pulls himself across, so both feet are on the ledge, and finds his balance.

  Breathing heavily, snorting out the debris, he dare not let go to wipe his nose or eyes.

  The soil and dust stop falling. The pebbles cease splashing into the sea. The
scene becomes still, the air clears. He has a good hold of a bush stem and a root. Gingerly he eases his head in Michelle’s direction and raises his eyes. She is motionless, her mouth agape, her eyes wide.

  ‘I am not leaving you.’ His eyebrows arch in the middle. He is a little surprised that she is not expressing her pleasure at seeing him, not even a smile.

  Dino is flat against the bank on his stomach, Michelle flat on her back, their faces a foot apart, sharing the same rock to stand on.

  ‘I am not going to die,’ Michelle says, her voice firm.

  ‘I am not going to let you.’ His neck cranes and he kisses her fingers, dusty and grass stained, clinging to a tuft of roots just centimetres from his mouth.

  They lie eye-to-eye, silent for a moment, then a seagull screeches overhead.

  ‘I don’t suppose you brought the water, did you?’ Michelle asks. He blinks. He has lashes so thick it almost looks as if his eyes are outlined in kohl. Michelle considers this an odd observation considering their predicament.

  Dino presses into the earth, hesitantly lets go of a root and slowly reaches down to feel his back pocket. ‘It’s fallen out.’

  Michelle doesn’t answer.

  ‘Just a thought—if people come to rescue us, how will they know where we are now you are here with me?’

  The colour drains from his face. His square bottom lip bows as he sucks it in and chews on it. Michelle cannot imagine what possessed him to follow her down the bank. How did he expect to rescue her? If she is not able to climb up or down, does he think he can, and even if he can, how does that help?

  ‘I don’t think we can climb down from here,’ he states.

  Michelle sees no point in answering.

  Dino looks up, reaches for a short trunk of one of the sparse bushes that is slightly higher, and pulls. Michelle watches, the orange of his t-shirt torn, his underarm close to her face, the hairs fine, wet but not matted, his ribs visible through his thin skin and three long muscles following the line of his ribs. He begins to shift his weight; the muscles swell and then relax again as he releases his grip.

  ‘OK, so you could pull yourself higher up on that branch, I can provide support for your feet until you get your foot on the root over there.’ He points.

  ‘I’ve hurt my shoulder. There is no way I can put any weight on it.’

  Dino frowns, then turns to look out to sea.

  ‘What is it?’ Michelle asks. She is hidden by the bushes. She cannot see or be seen.

  Dino twists his head and shoulders round to get a better view.

  ‘It’s the fisherman. I think I heard voices above, too.’

  ‘Hey, the radio at the shipyard wasn’t working. Is it best I go to the port for the port police? Or can you reach the rope?’

  Dino looks up but can see only leaves. He calls back in Greek, ‘Who’s up there?’

  ‘They have a donkey. It could be Flessas. Hey, yes you, who are you?’ shouts the fisherman from below.

  ‘It’s Yanni and Flessas the goat herder.’ The voices come from up above on the path. Dino recognises the monosyllabic tones of the man whose donkeys they hired.

  ‘Hey,’ Dino calls up.

  ‘Whereabouts are you?’ Yanni calls down.

  Dino takes hold of the stumpy bush trunk above him and performs a one-handed chin up. He gets a glimpse of the top of two men’s heads high above him before he lowers himself back down. The leaves shimmer, pinpointing the location.

  ‘Here you go,’ Yanni calls. There is a disturbance in the branches, and the bushes above them quiver. ‘Got it?’

  ‘Got what?’ Dino shouts.

  The leaves above them rustle again. A twig snaps, then a moment’s silence before the leaves are disturbed again.

  ‘Can you see it?’

  Dino tries to move to his left to see around the bush. He glimpses something red and follows the line, a rope, with a rock on the end. The rope lies over some bushes, the rock pulling it taut. It is too far away to reach.

  ‘Try again,’ he calls. The rock is hauled up, bouncing on the rocky terrain as it ascends, and then whips into the air above the bushes. ‘Try a heavier rock,’ Dino suggests.

  Nothing happens.

  Dino turns to Michelle and smiles.

  Michelle wonders at him. Is he enjoying himself? He seems much more certain on the cliff face than she feels. She hasn’t once thought she might die, though it has crossed her mind that she might be stuck for a few hours perhaps, waiting for a helicopter to air-lift them off. But after the initial slide, she was never in real danger. These sorts of situations are so often publicised. Airlifts are commonplace, aren’t they? She tightens her grip. It’s no big deal. She inhales deep into her lungs to calm her breathing.

  ‘You all right?’ Dino asks. ‘You are breathing heavily.’

  ‘Yes, fine. Just feeling a bit dizzy.’

  The leaves rustle again and there is a sound of rock hitting rock. Dino looks to his left. He can see the rope. He traces it down, the heavy rock on the end pulling it through the twigs of the bush. Delicately he lets go with his left hand and reaches for the line. He stretches to the point where he is about to topple, but the rope is out of reach. He inches along the rock he is standing on.

  ‘Careful,’ Michelle breathes.

  Dino balances on one foot and stretches as far as he can, the rope teasing the ends of his fingers. He pauses, his limbs sagging.

  ‘What now?’ Michelle asks.

  Her pupils have dilated; her voice sounds calm, but Dino senses she is scared. He thinks for a moment and then unbuckles his belt. His trousers slide onto his hips.

  Turning back to the rope, he uses the belt’s buckle to extend his reach. His supporting leg shakes with the effort, and he exhales and sucks in air noisily.

  ‘Ha!’ he shouts as his belt falls, bouncing off the rocks below them, splashing into the sea. ‘Got it!’ He hears Michelle breath again.

  The makeshift stretcher cuts into her hips.

  ‘I can walk. Let me.’

  ‘Lady, be still,’ the donkey man says. He is strong and solid. His hands near her head are thick-skinned but fine-boned.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Dino soothes. ‘I’ll go and get a handcart.’

  ‘I am not going in a handcart,’ Michelle cries, but he is gone.

  ‘Stay awake.’ Dino nudges her. The handcart is bumpy and uncomfortable compared to the stretcher. They pass the stumpy clock tower. Whatever happens, she must catch that boat tomorrow at one-thirty. Perhaps coming to the island had been foolish, considering the overall situation at work.

  ‘Juliet, he was amazing. He took the rock off the rope, which I know sounds like nothing, but if you could have seen where we were balanced you would be amazed. He passed the rope to me, to tie around myself, but I couldn’t, my shoulder was so painful.’

  ‘Have they x-rayed it yet?’ Juliet asks.

  Michelle tucks the hospital phone between her good shoulder and chin, and pours a glass of water. Her rucksack with phone, guidebook, and toothbrush are somewhere at the bottom of the sea, or floating off to Crete. Thankfully her passport and purse are safely in a money belt.

  ‘Yes, I’m waiting for the results. Dino is in the room next door, apparently. They have been cleaning up his chest, full of tiny stones scraped under the skin. It sounds horrible.’

  ‘So Dino tied it for you?’

  ‘Yes. Which was also not as easy as it sounds. We could either stand too far apart so he couldn’t reach me or so close we could hardly move, depending on which rocks we put our feet on. Such a hero.’

  ‘He is a nice guy. One of life’s sweethearts,’ Juliet agrees.

  The closeness of him had felt safe, the life in his eyes reassuring, his breath on her skin comforting. He had his own particular smell, earthy and young. His arm around her as he tied the rope was commanding, sure, older than his years. But then he had to let go.

  ‘The next bit was scary, after I was tied to the rope. He called to the don
key man, who got the animal to pull me up. I was not sure the rope would hold, and then I was even more worried about the branches of the bush spiking me, but they did it slowly. The really embarrassing part was, by the time I had got to the top and caught my breath, Dino had already climbed up, without any help. Goodness knows how. He was caked with dust and soil. His hair and eyebrows were white. The fisherman was cheering and clapped and shouted, “Bravo!” It all became a bit comical at the end ….’

  ‘I’m just glad you’re safe,’ Juliet says.

  ‘Anyway, listen, I didn’t want to worry you with this call. I could have told you all about it when I come, but I have a problem. The donkey man,’ Michelle drops her voice. ‘You should have seen his face when he realised what had happened. I think he thought Dolly had run off, at first.’ Michelle pauses, holds the phone between chin and shoulder and reaches for a tissue from the box on the bedside locker. ‘When we told him what had happened, his back straightened up; he just stood, so erect and still, his eyes not focused on anything. He was like that for so long I wondered if he had fallen into shock. Then he turned slowly, went to his other donkey and put his arms around her neck, whispering to her. I swear I saw him wipe his eyes, but he tried to hide it. He was devastated.’

  ‘I imagine he was. It’s his whole living.’ Juliet’s voice is calm.

  ‘It was more than that ….’ Michelle swallows and pats under her eyes with the tissue.

  ‘I’m just glad you’re OK. Will they keep you in?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I feel fine apart from the shoulder.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Apparently there are only four rooms in this tiny hospital—a staff room and three beds. They can’t really afford to keep me in.’ Dropping the scrunched up tissue on the bedcovers, she takes a drink of water. ‘But Juliet, what should I do about the donkey man? How much is a donkey? Do I need to compensate him?’