The Goodtime Girl

by Tess Fragoulis

  “How can you bear it?” Kivelli asked, still riffling through the songs.

  “You won’t tell anyone,” Marianthi said anxiously, grabbing the sheets of pink paper and turning them face down onto the table.

  “I’ll take it to my grave,” she assured, kissing her fingers and placing them over her heart. “But if I sang from behind a dark curtain while someone else stood on stage, shaking her hips and moving her lips, I’d want to kill her every time the men applauded.” Marianthi folded the papers in half again and rested her hands upon them. “It has its benefits,” she replied in an overly cheerful tone. “I can imagine whatever I want, say whatever I feel, even though I’m a woman, and everyone listens. You sing all night long and get the applause, but you’re singing what men think and see, even when the song is about a woman’s life. And no one cares who wrote the words anyway; it’s always about the music and the singer.”

  This was all true, but as practical as she was trying to sound, there was a tinge of resentment in her voice. After the songs were tucked back in the drawer amidst wooden spoons and knives, she tied a faded pink apron over her fancy dress and began to clear the table. “If the manghes knew how the Smyrniot really felt about them, they’d like him a lot less. He avoids tavernas because the smell of hashish gives him a headache, and he says he’d rather hear the sound of a cat being strangled than hang around lowlifes who expect favours.” She gave a short, mirthless laugh, as if the irony of the situation was striking her for the first time.

  “What about you?” Kivelli asked gently. “What’s your desire?” Marianthi sighed deeply, her features burdened with indecision.

  “I have no real desires. The songs are just a game, a more interesting pastime than gossip or needlepoint. My house is already full of needlepoint.” She swept her hand towards framed canvases of mountain vistas, poppies and strolling ladies with parasols. “How much more do I need?”

  Kivelli wasn’t convinced, but didn’t push further. Sharing her secret was a gesture of friendship, a pact, and though she did not fully understand it, she felt privileged to be let in. She would neither question nor betray Marianthi. The flowers, the pastries and the lace doily she’d brought were formalities. Loyalty and respect were the only gifts worth anything, and the only ones Kivelli could offer her in return.

  18

  The following Saturday, Kivelli set out to visit Barba Yannis in jail, a loaf of fresh bread and the liquorice candies he liked so much tucked in her bag. But the surly guard at the front gate would not let her in to see her old boss, even when she tried to pass herself off as his sister. “He’s already had his share of sisters,” the guard informed her in a sarcastic tone, scratching his beard and ogling her in her sailor’s dress. Barba Yannis had been popular enough with the ladies, so it was more than likely one or two had stopped by with condolences. He might have even had a few legitimate sisters for all Kivelli knew; the men at the taverna seldom spoke of their families. Since nothing was going to be gained by arguing with the guard, she left the food and a note with him, though she doubted Barba Yannis would get either. For a moment she felt sorry for the happy taverna keeper who, as far as she knew, had never harmed anyone. But life went on, despite other people’s troubles.

  Kivelli’s second night of singing at Kyria Effie’s was much like the first. A few more men stopped in, but they weren’t big spenders so the tips were meagre. What they lacked in funds, however, they made up for in enthusiasm. The neighbourhood had remained quiet and a little sad since the grand exodus of the manghes, and it did everyone good to shake off their sorrows. She sang her heart out for herself and the girls and the old goats who had yet to go upstairs or had already returned — some very quickly, Narella noted — as calm and satisfied as if they’d eaten a favourite meal cooked by their mama.

  Halfway through a song she’d sung a hundred times before, the last person she ever expected to see at Kyria Effie’s walked into the parlour. Kivelli couldn’t have been more shocked had Spiros risen from the grave to accompany her on his hawked bouzouki. If she hadn’t known the words so well, she would have no doubt choked on them. Before her stood Marianthi, wearing a corseted dress made of pink satin with black bows attached to the cleavage, sleeves and hips as if a flock of black butterflies had mistaken her for a flower. She looked like an extra in an operetta, and distinctly out of place in the rundown house. As Kivelli’s mouth produced the lyrics by rote, she wondered how the Smyrniot’s wife had gotten there. She couldn’t have walked, since even standing in those pink satin slippers seemed to be a challenge, and Marianthi leaned against the doorframe as if it were a lamppost. A taxi probably let her off in the square, but how had she found Kyria Effie’s without incriminating herself? Kivelli hadn’t given her directions, nor seen her in the days that followed their last visit. The Smyrniot’s wife might have been drawn into Barba Yannis’s by chance, but this little excursion involved some investigation and preparation. Surely that carnival costume wasn’t already hanging in her wardrobe.

  Marianthi smiled bashfully and waved, and Kivelli nodded in acknowledgement, trying to concentrate on the song. Without a full orchestra it was easier to hear mistakes, and the girls knew all the lyrics so well that she’d never hear the end of it if she skipped a line or jumped ahead. All of Kivelli’s questions would be answered when she took a break, since Marianthi did most things in her life in order to tell stories about them later. If this hadn’t been the case, she might have been happy as the Smyrniot’s little wife. A few of the girls seemed to recognize her from her one visit to the taverna and fussed over her like a long lost friend.

  From her armchair, Kyria Effie assessed the possibilities.

  Narella beckoned Marianthi to sit with her and offered her a glass of wine. They toasted Kivelli, then huddled into each other and fell into a deep and private conversation. Who knows how long it would have gone on had a man not tapped Narella on the shoulder and led her upstairs. Left on her own, Marianthi sat primly on the edge of the divan, her ankles crossed, her back straight, applauding with her fingertips and taking ladylike sips of wine. After a few songs, however, she joined the other girls in shouting out requests, and when she did, Kivelli granted her wish. A great jubilance erupted amongst the girls when they heard the first lines of “The Goodtime Girl,” which made Marianthi clap her hands and laugh out loud, especially when Sophia the Cappadocian began to dance. A few girls joined in on the chorus, but for all her beaming and clapping, Marianthi stayed in her seat and mouthed the lyrics without making a sound. It was one thing to write about a goodtime girl and dress the part, quite another to behave like one inside a brothel. Nonetheless, she seemed content and jumped to her feet to applaud when the song was done, then ran over to hug Kivelli.

  “How did you find me?” Kivelli whispered in her ear.

  “I have my ways,” she replied coyly, then stepped back. “Do you like my new dress?” She posed and turned like a girl before a shop mirror.

  “Very pretty,” Kyria Effie answered, looking Marianthi over and running her fingers over the pink fabric. “The young lady is a friend of yours, Kivelli?”

  “I invited her to hear me sing,” she lied, feeling suddenly protective. With her eyes she told the madam to forget it.

  Undeterred, Kyria Effie directed her next question to Marianthi. “Might you be interested in saying hello to that gentleman in the corner, Miss — what did you say your name was?” Her voice was syrupy, cunning.

  “Carmen,” Kivelli answered quickly. There was no need for Kyria Effie to know Marianthi’s name. She would make sure they never crossed paths again.

  “Miss Carmen, then. You have an admirer who thinks you are very, very sweet.” Both women looked over at the “gentleman,” who was very, very old and was wearing a brown suit that was both ugly and too big for him. When he smiled, they saw his front teeth were missing. Kivelli laughed, but Marianthi blushed, shook her head and turned away from his eager gaze. “Just thought I’d ask,” Kyria Effie said, a
s if it did not matter to her one way or another. She then signalled his second choice, Sophia, who he followed upstairs.

  “You should be flattered,” Kivelli teased. “The belly dancer is the most popular girl around here these days. Something about what she can do with her hips.”

  “He wasn’t my type,” Marianthi replied in all seriousness. “If he’d been young and handsome — a real mangha …” She closed her eyes and sighed, her breath laced with a hint of melancholy.

  Only then did it occur to Kivelli that Marianthi had probably never had a lover other than her husband. She was a woman full of passions that the Smyrniot, no doubt, was unable to satisfy other than putting her words to music. Even that he did begrudgingly, pretending not to get any satisfaction out of it himself, and never letting her enjoy their collaboration fully. She’d come to Kyria Effie’s behind his back to feel some excitement and appreciation; he might as well have dropped her off himself. Still, Kivelli was not convinced she was ready to leave her imaginary world of romance and intrigue for the squalid one on the second floor.

  “Would you really go upstairs with a handsome mangha? Take off your pink dress and corset while he watched and played with himself over the wash basin?” She ran her finger up the smooth satin bodice, flicked the black velvet bow between her breasts.

  Marianthi lowered her eyes. “No, I guess not. But I wish I had the nerve. With me it’s always better in my head.” She looked sad, like she’d given up something special and disappointed her friend at the same time. Kivelli put an arm around her.

  “Don’t worry. It’s like that for most of the girls here. If they didn’t imagine they were having a good time, they’d fall into the blackest hole. Since they don’t have a choice, they pretend.” They left the parlour and went outside where the air was as fresh as if it had just rained, though the ground was dry and there was not a cloud in the sky. “How were you planning on getting home, Marianthi?”

  “By taxi?” She looked in both directions, but the streets were silent and deserted. A black cat walking by hissed at them before scampering into an alley.

  Kivelli shook her head and clicked her tongue. “You won’t find one at this hour, my dear, not these days. I’d walk you to the bridge, but if I don’t stay until the last man is gone, I won’t get paid.”

  “Are you crazy?” Marianthi replied in a gay tone that belied the gravity of the matter. “Who can walk in these shoes?” She held on to Kivelli’s arm for support and took off the satin slippers, shrinking by half a head, then adjusted her corset as if it too were pinching her. “Couldn’t Kyria Effie rent me one of her rooms? I’d pay her as if that old man was in there with me.” She now sounded perfectly sincere. The madam would certainly jump at the offer, but it seemed indecent to leave Marianthi there, even for a night.

  “That old fafouti in the brown baggy trousers might just find you,” Kivelli said to dissuade her. “And won’t the Smyrniot miss you?”

  Marianthi let out a bored breath. “I doubt it. He hasn’t even peeked into my bedroom in six months. And if he did tonight, I’d find some excuse. What could he do to me that I couldn’t do back to him?”

  If he were a mangha, he could kill her, but luckily he wasn’t. Better she stay away from manghes and Piraeus men altogether. “It’s settled then. You’ll stay with me tonight.” Kivelli felt a little tremor in her chest as the words left her lips. In the distance, someone set off a skyrocket. Or perhaps it was a flare from a sinking ship.

  Marianthi’s face brightened immediately. “Are you sure? I don’t want to impose. And what about Margarita?”

  “Margarita sleeps like a mule. She’ll never know as long as we’re very quiet.” It was the same thing she told male visitors; she didn’t suppose a woman would be any more of a problem to sneak in and out of the house. Her bigger fear was that Marianthi would talk all night, telling endless stories, trying to pry some out of Kivelli while she was tired and vulnerable. Who knew what she might reveal in her sleep? The men came and went, but Marianthi would still be there in the morning. Perhaps it would be easier to send her to Margarita’s and stay over at Kyria Effie’s herself, though she couldn’t really afford to have any accounts opened up again. She would just have to take her chances with the Smyrniot’s wife. Kivelli was keeping her secret, and Marianthi would have to return the favour. “But you have to promise me one thing.”

  “Anything, Kivelli, anything you want.”

  “If you hear strange things in the middle of the night, you will share them with no one. Not even with me. I don’t want to know. Do you understand?”

  Marianthi looked perplexed, but nodded.

  “If I scream or talk in my sleep, don’t wake me and don’t tell me what I said in the morning. If you do, we’ll never speak again.”

  “I’ll cover my ears and bite my tongue,” she replied, her hand over her heart. Kivelli looked at her long and hard, and when Marianthi didn’t flinch or avert her eyes, she considered the matter closed and they went inside again.

  Narella was back in the parlour and Marianthi joined her on the divan. They were both from villages on the outskirts of Smyrna, so when their whispering and giggling resumed, Kivelli imagined they were trading the reminiscences and opinions in which she refused to indulge. Or Narella might have been telling Marianthi dirty little stories about what had transpired upstairs, and about her affair with Crazy Manos. That girl couldn’t keep anything to herself; she revealed her intimacies to anyone who would listen. Marianthi, always hungry for details, hung onto her every word. What a perfect pair they made. Had Narella not been a prostitute, she certainly could have been Marianthi’s little sister.

  When both women looked up at Kivelli at the same time, however, she understood that they were trading what they knew of her, trying to expand each other’s horizons. Narella might tell Marianthi they’d been shipmates on the journey from Smyrna to Piraeus, and neighbours in the Attikon Theatre afterwards, though Kivelli had no memory of this and refused to discuss either place. Marianthi would surely relate how she’d stumbled into Barba Yannis’s, or some other story she’d created in her head and was now trying on for size. Like the dress. Like Kivelli’s life. It didn’t matter as long as she knew where to stop.

  When Narella was tapped for another trip upstairs, she gave Marianthi a peck on the cheek, then blew a kiss before making a final, dramatic exit. The room was now empty except for the two women and Kyria Effie, who had fallen asleep in her armchair, the empty decanter of peach liqueur resting on her knees. Groggy and docile, she did not argue about the night’s tally and paid Kivelli what she asked, then drifted off again, snoring as steadily as the motor of a small fishing boat.

  THE PRE-DAWN SKY WAS CLEAR and a few forlorn birds called tentatively for their mates across the empty square. Marianthi stumbled along in her precipitous shoes, holding onto Kivelli’s hand like a frightened child, saying nothing. Once inside, she found her voice again, and had to be shushed more than once as her volume rose with the pace of her story. “I took a taxi to the square and dropped in on an old friend, Kyra Xanthi, the fortune-teller — do you know her?” Kivelli shrugged. “Well she knows you, and she knows Kyria Effie too — says they were girls together.” Marianthi sat on the edge of the bed and unbuckled her shoes, then kicked them off. “She told me where the house was — walked me there herself.”

  “So the fortune-teller’s an old prostitute?”

  “No, she used to be a nun, up north, in the mountains.”

  “The nun and the prostitute — I guess there have been more unlikely matches.”

  Marianthi reclined on the bed, trying to make herself comfortable in her shiny pink dress. If she slept in it, she would surely suffocate by morning. Kivelli draped her olive nightdress over her like a blanket. “Put this on,” she said.

  Marianthi fingered the coarse fabric and brought it to her face. “Smells nice. Like you.” Sitting up again, she undid the little hooks along the sides of the dress, then expertly unbuttoned the
pearls down the back with a hairpin. Kivelli turned away to afford her some privacy and heard the dress slither to the floor and Marianthi step out of it. “You can look now,” she called.

  The large nightdress fit her like a sheath; her breasts seemed capable splitting its seams. Marianthi watched as Kivelli pulled off her red dress and draped it over the chair. She then quickly slid between the sheets in her underclothes and moved to the edge of the mattress, turning onto her side. Aspasia’s bed was not made for two, unless one was lying atop the other. Marianthi pressed up behind her, and Kivelli could feel the warmth of her friend’s body through the thin cotton, her damp breath on the back of her neck. A watery strand of moonlight washed over their bodies, which might have been romantic under different circumstances.

  “This is just like when I was a girl in Aivali,” Marianthi whispered, “and I shared a bed with my sister.” She slipped her arm over Kivelli’s waist, wedged her knees in like a puzzle piece. “We always tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep with a man.”

  Kivelli’s heart pounded against her ribcage as she tried to gird herself against the other woman’s familiarity. “You know, Marianthi, I’ve never slept with a man. They’ve been in my bed, but if I let one stay the night it would be because I was in love.” Marianthi said nothing to this moon-drenched revelation, not out of disbelief but because she had already fallen asleep. Her breath was soft and even, and she released a contented sigh when she exhaled. Kivelli envied her comfort, her ability to surrender. She too was tired but restless, and the arm around her felt heavy and confining as iron chains. Desperate as she was to move, to change position, she didn’t want to wake Marianthi. There was no point in both of them being deprived of sleep. The room was getting brighter in increments, and Kivelli could hear voices from the laneway as the neighbourhood began its day. Downstairs, Margarita had woken up on the wrong side of the bed and was already berating Aspasia, calling her lazy and worthless. A ship pulling into port announced its arrival with three long blasts of its horn. None of this made an impression on Marianthi, though her grip around Kivelli’s waist loosened.