The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  Barba Yannis was standing in front of the band’s platform, surrounded by a group of grim-faced men. In the light Kivelli saw that their suits were just cheap imitations of what the real manghes wore, but in the press of bodies this had gone unnoticed. A few of the imposters were holding glass decanters from the fancy narghiles Barba Yannis had purchased since business had been so good. Without the stem, tube and bowl, they looked like pretty vases awaiting flowers. Another cop was examining a bouzouki, shaking it, knocking on its body, peering into its soundhole for bullets and hashish. Its owner, Mimis, was nowhere in sight, and Kivelli cringed when the cop smashed the instrument against the floor and ground the polished wood into splinters with his heels.

  More cops, these in uniform, began streaming through the door like ants. They fired questions at the regulars, who sat still and sullen as stone, staring at each other or at the ceiling, irritated, resigned and impatient for the disruption to be over with, for whatever was going to happen at the will of these uniforms to happen. That’s how real manghes behaved, not like those slops running away with their tails between their legs.

  Kivelli moved through the room slowly, feeling as invisible, irrelevant and anxious as on her first night there. Old Nontas, in his fisherman’s cap and striped baggy trousers, was sitting at a table by himself, his narghile still lit. “What happened?” she mouthed, and Old Nontas waved his hand in a way that meant, “everything, don’t ask, long story, why bother,” then took a long sip of the narghile and coughed and laughed at the same time.

  Was it the cough or the laughter or the twist of smoke tickling their nostrils that turned the cops’ attention to Old Nontas’s table? One moment the ants were filing in and Barba Yannis was emptying his pockets while pretending nothing was wrong and that everyone in the room was his friend. Now the taverna keeper’s hands were behind his back and Old Nontas and Kivelli were surrounded. One of the cops grabbed her arm and shoved her towards the exit. “Scram, pussycat,” he barked, but she did not budge, mesmerized by the look on Old Nontas’s face.

  “Fuck it,” the fisherman muttered, and took another long drag, then grinned like a genie about to vanish. His smile told Kivelli that nothing good was going to come from this situation. The next moves happened all at once. Even when she tried to slow them down in her head later on, to order the sequence, she still wasn’t sure who’d acted first and what had led to what. Did Old Nontas’s knife come out before the cop swung at the coals and the hashish with his club, the narghile’s clay bowl exploding from the impact? Did the blade slash the cop’s knuckles before or after the shot rang out? The same cop, another? They were indistinguishable in their uniforms. Kivelli didn’t hear Old Nontas cry out when the bullet hit him in the throat, though she felt the soft thump of his body falling to the floor. Then there was the rattle of chains being wound around Barba Yannis’s wrists, and the dragging of feet as the stonestill manghes became flesh again and were led through the front door. They were flanked by the imposters, every second or third one carrying a blue, green or red flower vase home to his wife or mother.

  In the storeroom Kivelli put on her new coat and hat, tucking in loose strands of her hair as she stared at herself in the mirror. Ash from the exploding narghile powdered her cheek like stardust from skyrockets that once blossomed above Smyrna’s harbour. The grey specks disappeared into her skin when she rubbed them with her fingers, but traces of sadness and agitation lingered in her eyes. They had little to do with Old Nontas, who was no one to her. She had seen worse things before she’d landed in Piraeus: girls’ breasts sliced like oranges, boys’ naked bodies swinging from hooks in butcher shops. Things that would make all those cops, all those manghes fall to their knees and bawl like babies.

  She was not, however, unaffected by the turn of events, and if sleep had been a remote possibility that night, it was now gone for good. There would be manghes by the docks and at other tavernas in other neighbourhoods, but she wasn’t in the mood for company. She began walking towards Athens and the Hotel Xenos in what she hoped was the right direction, unafraid and resolved as Old Nontas with his genie smile. She now understood. It was an acknowledgement of inevitable change, and defiance in the face of it.

  13

  We know how to love in my hometown

  How to live it up even when we are down

  Have pity, stop asking, don’t drive me insane

  You don’t care were I’m from, don’t ask me again

  The Hotel Xenos was small and dingy, with blackened bricks and a hand-painted sign above its smudged glass door. It was the type of place where guests preferred to slip in and out unnoticed — nothing like the Grand Hotel on Smyrna’s Quai where dignitaries from Europe and the Americas were received with all the pomp and luxury money could buy. The lobby was dark, the door locked, and no one came when Kivelli knocked on the glass. Her legs ached from the long walk to the city, so she settled on the stoop to wait for the front desk clerk, or the Smyrniot, or whoever might need to escape under the cover of night. It wasn’t until she sat down that the weight of the events at Barba Yannis’s descended upon her.

  Kivelli closed her eyes and drifted off to the Grand Hotel’s rooftop terrace, which looked over Smyrna’s harbour. Her gown was made of burgundy velvet, and she nibbled on mussels fried in butter, red caviar and jambon. Papa was there too, smiling like Old Nontas, and Lieutenant Lovegrove was dancing the tango with her cousin Amalia, the keeper of her most illicit secrets. Then the music changed to the aria from Pagliacci, and Kivelli was suddenly alone in the water, swimming along a pathway of silver moonlight towards ships silhouetted in an infinite distance.

  She was brought back to the stoop by the sounds of a violin and an oud seducing the sparrows and pigeons in the early morning light. Someone was standing over her, blocking the sun. The Smyrniot wasted no time on pleasantries. “You’re here,” was the extent of his welcome. “Come with me.”

  The lobby was still dark, the front desk unmanned, though Kivelli heard voices coming down the elevator shaft. She was glad there was no one around who might mistake the Smyrniot for her lover. Discontent emanated from his pores, and his demeanour was unsympathetic as Charon’s. They didn’t speak as they waited for the lift to descend within its iron cage, and once inside the Smyrniot’s remoteness was such that she might have been alone, even though they were standing close enough to taste each other’s breath. The lift’s cables creaked and groaned all the way up, and the cabin shuddered as if it were disgusted. Any questions Kivelli had expired on her tongue.

  “How long will this take?” she finally asked, but only after they’d stepped out onto the top floor and were walking down a dim corridor with identical wooden doors.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have somewhere more important to be this morning?” He didn’t disguise his sarcasm.

  Kivelli was tempted to lie, but since she was temporarily out of a job, she swallowed her pride. Kyria Effie’s brothel had led to the taverna, Spiros to Sakis, and the Smyrniot’s timing couldn’t be denied, even if he was nothing more than a conduit. “I have all day if necessary,” she said jauntily and tried smiling, but couldn’t manage it. Not that it mattered. The Smyrniot wasn’t looking at her, but fiddling with a ring of large iron keys.

  “Well I don’t have all day,” he said testily, then let himself into the last room at the end of the corridor. Kivelli stayed in the hallway for a few breaths. When she finally crossed the threshold, she remained by the door.

  There was no bed in the room or any other regular hotel furniture. A narrow table in the centre held two phonographs with long funnels pointing in different directions, connected to each other by tangled rubber tubing. A few wooden chairs were clustered in a corner, and an array of stringed instruments was lined up against a wall like convicts. Empty glasses and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts were scattered about on the floor, and five empty wine bottles stood in a row, upturned, as if they were doing tricks. The air was redolent with sweat, stale cig
arette smoke and soured wine. Where were the musicians Kivelli had heard earlier? Surely they were the Smyrniot’s men, responsible for this mess.

  The Smyrniot darted around, opening windows, setting chairs near the funnels. He picked up a mandolin and strummed it, then laid it gently on the table next to the phonographs. He pushed the ashtrays out of the way with his foot, then reached around Kivelli and slammed the door shut. “This is just a test, so don’t expect anything to come of it.”

  “I expect to sing your song,” she said calmly, and stepped aside so he could hang his hat and coat on the back of the door. There was nowhere for her hat and coat, so she kept them on. “Isn’t that why you invited me here?”

  “My wife invited you,” he snapped. “Don’t ever assume any of this was my idea. I don’t think there’s anything I can do with you.” He picked up the mandolin again and began to tune it with his back to her.

  Tension pulsed behind Kivelli’s eyes and in her throat as the battle between her pride and need escalated. She dug her fingernails into her palms and swallowed the jagged words that might have put the peevish little man in his place. How, she wondered, had he written such wonderful songs?

  “I heard some music earlier this morning,” she tried, wishing the ghostly musicians would fly in through the window and carry her away. “Violin and outi playing a tsifteteli.”

  “Probably next door. The top two floors are either recording studios or quarters for visiting musicians,” he replied, checking his pocket watch.

  “And the first floor?”

  “Reserved for prostitutes.” He threw her a damning glance, then turned his back to her again.

  It was a look to which she had become accustomed. She’d seen in Margarita’s eyes, and in the faces of countless others since her lot had been decided by fire and blood. Despite their shared loss, mainland Greeks spat insults at her and treated all refugees like an infestation. “Do you know where I come from?” she began, but was stopped by a flood of images that made her eyes water and inflamed her cheeks: Papa in tails at opera. Elegant ladies playing bezique and sipping lemonade from flower-garnished glasses at the Jardin des Fleurs. Hundreds of bodies floating in the smoke-eclipsed Smyrna harbour.

  “I don’t care where you came from,” he hissed, “or where you’re going, or what your story is. My business is making records, and if it were up to me …” It was shocking to feel such contempt from a compatriot, not only towards her, but towards their murdered city. Perhaps he wasn’t from Smyrna at all, but a pretender from some neighbouring village. His insolence reawakened her haughty and wilful character.

  “If it were up to you, I wouldn’t be here,” she replied in a tone once reserved for doormen and postal clerks. “But since I am, I expect you to be cordial. I’ve asked for nothing, and I haven’t done anything to merit …”

  There was a knock on the door, and a pudgy, happy-looking young man carrying a flat drum under his arm let himself in. He shook the Smyrniot’s hand, then tipped his bowler and gave Kivelli a flirty grin.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said in a suggestive tone.

  “We haven’t even begun,” the Smyrniot replied, having either missed the innuendo or refusing to dignify it. He waved his hand carelessly, as if swatting a fly. “This is Marianthi’s friend, Kivelli.”

  “I’m Kosmas.” He banged a little rhythm on his toumbeleki, then walked over and kissed her hand. “Have we met before, Miss Kivelli?”

  “She sings at Barba Yannis’s,” the Smyrniot answered abruptly, as if an excuse were necessary.

  Kosmas made a surprised face. “So Kyria Marianthi has been playing the manghissa in Drapetsona while you’re hard at work here?” he teased.

  One of the mandolin strings broke, and the Smyrniot cursed it while glaring at Kosmas. “Where in the devil is Nikos? I have to be at my office by noon.” The toumbeleki player shrugged and took the sheet of paper the Smyrniot held out towards him. Instead of reading it, he rolled it into a tube and used it as a drumstick.

  “And Kivelli has better things to do too. Isn’t that right, Miss?” he added, replacing the string with as much irritation as he’d broken it.

  Kosmas sat by one of the phonographs and smoothed the curled sheet against his drum. “I heard from some guys that there was a big fassaria at the taverna last night. Were you there, Miss Kivelli?” “There’s always something that ends up being nothing, so I don’t pay much attention,” she said, making an effort to sound unconcerned. She was loath to bring up Old Nontas’s smile or the chains around Barba Yannis’s wrists, especially in front of the Smyrniot. “Well, I heard Barba Yannis is finished. They tossed him in Syngrou and threw away the key.” It sounded like most of the songs she sang, but it was hard to believe. This was not the first time Barba Yannis had slept behind bars, and probably wouldn’t be the last. Within a day or two, if not sooner, everything would be back to normal. Though that wasn’t always how the songs ended. “We’ll see,” Kivelli replied, and went to the window. On a ledge across the alleyway, two pigeons were fighting. Or perhaps they were making love.

  “Let’s get started,” ordered the Smyrniot, and directed her to stand by one of the funnels. “This is just a test, so we can live without Nikos.” His foot knocked over one of the empty wine bottles, and it rolled across the floor to where Kivelli stood. She resisted the urge to kick it back. She looked at Kosmas, but he was busy studying the sheet of paper, nodding at markings and symbols she couldn’t decipher.

  “Nikos is probably sleeping off his hangover,” he offered absent-mindedly. “He’ll get here eventually.”

  “I said we don’t need him,” the Smyrniot bristled. “So let’s get this over with.”

  When the Smyrniot wasn’t looking, Kosmas made a wry face and rolled his eyes. This helped put Kivelli at ease, though she too was anxious to get the whole thing over with and go back to Piraeus. Maybe there would be some more news about Barba Yannis that would help her plan the rest of her life. “I’m ready,” she offered, but the Smyrniot ignored her.

  “You don’t know this one,” he said to Kosmas, “so we’ll do it a few times before we record.” The Smyrniot began to play and this time Kivelli jumped in immediately.

  I am the girl, that goodtime girl who all the manghes crave

  But my heart swells for only one, I’ll take my secret to the grave

  When the toumbeleki player heard the lyrics, he cracked up. “You’re getting romantic on me, Panayotis,” he called out. “And tell me, what the hell do you know about manghes?”

  The Smyrniot stopped playing in the middle of the chorus. “Shut up,” he growled, but looked genuinely flustered. “From the top, and keep your opinions to yourself. That’s not what you’re paid for.” Kosmas apologized and joined in on the second try, changing the spirit of the song with a rhythm that was both playful and sensuous.

  They ran through it five or six times, and after each try the Smyrniot gave criticisms and made suggestions. He looked like he might even be enjoying himself a little, or was at least less resentful. By the time he placed the wax blank on the turntable, positioned the stylus on the outer edge and recorded the final version, Kivelli could hear it was almost perfect. “That’s enough for today,” he snapped when they were done, trying to recapture some of the ill humour that had been pulled out of him by the song.

  “That was fantastic,” Kosmas gushed. “Bravo Kivellitsa, where have you been all my life!” He picked up the rhythm from the song again and improvised happily for a few minutes. “You should come by the Bella Vista sometime, we always have guest singers …”

  “It was just a test,” the Smyrniot repeated in case Kivelli hadn’t heard him the first fifteen times. He had nothing to worry about. Even if Barba Yannis was indeed finished, which she doubted, this was not the road she’d follow. Both the Smyrniot and his wife made her uncomfortable, and Marianthi’s zeal didn’t make up for her husband’s contempt. Kivelli was no longer in the desperate straits she’d
been in when she’d first landed in Piraeus — she had a place to live, a profession and a few coins saved for emergencies. She would find her way.

  “I have to go now,” she announced, standing as straight and tall as she could manage. “Pleasure to meet you, Kosmas.”

  “That was really top notch,” he beamed. Kivelli gave a theatrical curtsy, and Kosmas grabbed her hand and kissed it again. The Smyrniot, who was carefully placing the wax disc in a case, gave her a half-hearted wave that was as much a dismissal. She left without returning it or uttering another word.

  In the lobby she ran into the man she assumed was the missing Nikos. He had a panicked look in his bloodshot eyes and was embracing his oud like a woman he couldn’t bear to leave. Kivelli might have warned him about the Smyrniot’s ill humour, but he was probably well acquainted with it, so she let the juddering elevator deliver him to his fate.

  IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON BY THE time the tram brought Kivelli back to Drapetsona. The main square was clear as a desert after a windstorm. There were no men idling, smoking or carousing, and there was hardly even a cat on the prowl or a bird in a tree. The desolation frightened her more than the men ever had. She wove carefully around the empty tables, afraid that she too might fall through a hole in the ground and end up in flame-engulfed Smyrna. Her eyes scanned the surrounding shops for anyone who could tell her what had happened and whether she should run for her life towards the water. Then she spotted Sakis peeking out of Rovertakis’s kafenion. She gave him a jubilant wave, but he ducked inside as if someone were pointing a gun at him. Kivelli looked over her shoulder; there was no one there. She dashed towards the shop, and Sakis pulled her through the door.