“You’re taller than I thought you’d be,” she said.
“I don’t think I’m finished growing,” I said proudly.
She continued with her examination. I’d never given much thought to hygiene until that night, letting my mother’s reminders and occasional insults guide me. I’d be much more careful after this.
Her hands didn’t stop at my face, probing my neck. Giggling, she took a step back, placing her hands on my shoulders. “What?” I asked, self-conscious.
“You’re grimacing,” she said. “I can tell you didn’t like that. But now I know what you look like. You look nice.”
Too uncomfortable to reply, my body reacting to her touch, she resumed her examination, sliding her hands down my shoulders, feeling my chest. I closed my eyes, the sensation wonderful, stimulating. I tensed up when she reached my waist and thankfully, she stopped.
“How do I look to you?” she asked, holding her arms out at her side. Turning around in a circle, I looked at her carefully. “You can touch me it you want.”
“You look nice, too,” I answered quickly, ignoring her invitation, the fear I’d lose control aided by Rose’s frowning face shimmering in a mirage in front of me. “But how can you really tell how I look with your hands?”
“I guess I can’t really. But I like certain features in a face and you seem to have them. You have a clear complexion, a nice big nose and a full mouth. I don’t like thin lips,” she said, moving closer. Then, in a sultry voice, “Would you kiss me?”
I gave out a nervous cackle, worrying about my breath. I’d brush my teeth before I visited her next time. “No, I don’t think so. Not yet.”
Now if it had been Paul there with her, he’d have pushed her to the ground and done all sorts of things to her, his words when he talked about girls. But I wasn’t ready to kiss her. I’d never kissed.
“I’m so disappointed,” she said, pouting, running her hands down her body seductively. “I thought you’d jump at the chance to kiss me.”
“We should probably get to know each other first,” I said, looking away, barely able to abstain.
I felt ridiculous, it was something I’d heard my aunt say once, whispering to my mother. She’d wished she’d gotten to know Peter better before they jumped into bed. “And I’d better think about getting home.”
“You just got here,” she said.
“Remember, I wasn’t coming back until Monday so this is a special.”
“It’s not that special if you’re not even going to kiss me,” she whined.
I thought, oh when the heck, and leaned forward, planting one on her cheek. It was a kiss I’d give my yiayia, but it seemed to be enough for Penelope.
“Aw, thank you,” she said, smiling. “I guess it is about that time.”
“How am I going to get over the fence? I need to get up to that limb.”
“If you stand on my back can you reach?”
“I’ll hurt you,” I said, taken aback.
“No you won’t,” she said. “It’s like playing leap frog. Let me get down on my hands and knees and you see if you can reach standing on me.”
I agreed reluctantly, and although I felt like I was too heavy for her, I was able to quickly grab the wrought iron across the top of the wall to pull myself up. The drop on the other side was a little further, but I hung on the wall for a bit so it wasn’t too hard.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Are you going to walk with me?”
It was easier for us to chat with the fences separating us. During the mile walk back was the first time I talked about myself. I caught myself saying childish things an adolescent would say but she didn’t seem to mind. I could be myself with her. We talked in depth about her blindness, and I decided it made no difference to me.
“I was worried about my eyes,” she finally said. “Worried it would be a turn off. Guys on the mainland don’t like blind girls.”
“A turn off?” I asked, not sure of the meaning of the phrase.
“You know, they don’t want to know me because I can’t see.”
I wondered how she knew that. “You seem to get around pretty well for not being able to see,” I replied, my feeble attempt at validating her. “Did you ever see?”
“I did,” she said, “but I don’t remember much. My father’s face is clearly etched in my brain. And the color yellow. I remember my grandmother wearing a yellow linen dress on Easter Sunday. Oops, that slipped out. Never use the words Easter Sunday when you’re speaking to anyone on the mainland.
“I even remember the texture of it, smooth and supple; she’d washed and ironed it many times. It shown in the sun like gold.
“When I think about it now, everything in my head is in black and white. I see black, white and grey. But then there’s that yellow dress. Yellow has sort of taken over my memory. Everything I see is contaminated by the color yellow.”
We reached the place where I’d leave for home. “I guess this is it,” I said, mystified about what she’d said. “I won’t be able to come back tomorrow, but I’ll see you the next day.”
“Okay. But I won’t pretend I’m happy about that. Goodbye,” she said, thankfully not dragging out the goodbyes.
The trip home was filled with what ifs; what if I’d kissed her, what if she’d taken her clothes off, what if…I got home and stashed the ladder under my bed quickly before going to sleep.
The next morning began peacefully. Stephanie and Peter took the baby and left the house for the day, invited to a picnic one block over. I liked being alone with my family.
My grandmother got out a deck of cards. “Come on, my little lamb,” she said in Greek. “Humor your old yiayia and play pinochle.”
“I’d rather play chess,” I said. “You always win at pinochle.”
“Okay, chess it is. I can crochet while you stare at the board.”
But while I was supposed to be concentrating on the next play, thoughts of Penelope drifted into my head. I could almost smell her, a vinegary smell, not unpleasant, but what I would thereafter identify as being woman. The effort needed to move the chess pieces drained away and was replaced by a new distraction; desire for Penelope.
“Where are you?” Yiayia asked, concerned. “Steve to planet earth.”
“Sorry,” I said, trying to pull it together. “Do you mind if we take a break?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “I might lay down myself.”
My mother was outside somewhere, so I took advantage of the privacy and went back to my room. Now that I had the energy to entertain fantasies, I wanted to think of Penelope and see what it led to.
By Monday morning, my goal was to get as close as I could to Penelope, to let her take the lead as she’d wanted to the other night until I allowed my little boy to take over. After one that morning, slowly opening the screen, I carefully pulled the ladder out from under my bed. Only one mishap; the end of the ladder hit the metal leg of my bedframe and a small ding rang out. I cringed, waiting for the resonation to stop, expecting my mother to barge in at any second. As still as a statute, I waited. Silence permeated the house and I was free to slide the ladder out of the window to the ground, me following with one leg and then the other. I closed the screen and laid the ladder on the ground before sneaking off.
It took less than an hour to reach the fence at Tiresias. I’d brought a small backpack this time to hold my sweatshirt and a bottle of water, took it off my back and laid it at the base of the tree. Penelope hadn’t arrived yet. I’d never reached the spot without her waiting and it felt strange and lonely. Within minutes, I heard male voices, and grabbing my backpack, swung behind the tree, hopeful the voices were from the other side of the fence. I wasn’t prepared to fight. Penelope’s admission that she’d been rejected by other mainland boys sneaked in my head.
“Steve,” a masculine voice called. “We’re friends of Penelope’s.”
Hesitating
, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run; unless they had a gun, they wouldn’t be able to get at me. But if Penelope sent them, she might have a message for me. My heart sunk with the realization I might not see her.
Stepping out from behind the tree, I expected a flashlight in the face. But I was greeted with darkness. I tried to make out faces, but it was too dark, the moon waning.
“Steve, Penelope sent us to lead you to an opening she found in the fence. Are you ready to follow us?”
A group of five men, maybe older teens, were huddled on the other side of the fence. It didn’t make any sense; she showed me the opening that weekend. But I wasn’t going to admit to them that I’d already been with her.
“Okay,” I said, leery but desperate. She wouldn’t lead me to harm, I was certain. I picked up my backpack and started to walk along the electric fence.
Observing the men, they moved as a unit in a huddle. It was strange, but I thought maybe from having lived in confinement like they did they were insecure about dealing with an outsider. I tried to be aware of the electric fence as I walked along, keeping a safe distance.
After ten minutes or maybe more, I was unable to see my watch, the men stopped. I watched them looking around on the ground, one of them squatting down and feeling around, then crawling to a large boxed in area. “This is it,” he called out. “This is the transformer for the electric fence. What does it look like on your side of the mesh?”
“What should I be looking for?” I asked, knowing this was not the same place I was able to get over the fence.
Murmuring, and then laughter, the man who I supposed was the leader spoke up. “We don’t know. Can you touch the fence beyond this point?”
The thought of purposely myself a shock was not appealing. “I’ll throw some water on it,” I said.
“Water won’t do anything,” another man said. “If it did, the whole thing would short out when it rains.”
Right. I debated touching the fence to see if it was electrified versus seeing Penelope. I reached out and touched it with the tip of my finger and the charge hit immediately, electricity running up the underpart of my arm to my neck, throwing me backwards.
“Oops! I guess it’s still activated. Too bad,” someone yelled. Laughter rang out from the group when I cried out in pain.
“Can’t you shut it off?” I asked, anger at my own stupidity transferring to the group.
“Why? So you can see Penelope?” another voice called. “Good luck, pencil neck.”
Another outburst of angry laughter was followed by a stretch of whispering. “I guess you don’t get to see her tonight,” the leader yelled. “Get going, before you get hurt.”
“Who’s going to hurt me?” I yelled back. “You’re stuck inside.”
“We’ll tell,” one of the boys in the group said. “It’s illegal to come here.”
“Why?” I cried. “Tell me why I can’t come here. What’s so special about Tiresias?”
“Ha! We don’t call it that anymore, for one thing. It just shows how ignorant the outsiders are.”
“What’s it called then?”
“We call it Eremos,” the older man said. “Paradise.”
I knew Eremos didn’t mean Paradise. In Greek, it meant lonely.
“Paradise isn’t prison,” I shrieked. “Eremos means lonely. You don’t know what you’re missing out here.”
“We know what it’s like,” he replied. “And it’s better inside.”
“Why are you there in the first place?” I knew the answer. Like with like. I was terribly close to crying and did all I was able to choke it back.
“You don’t know,” someone said skeptical. I couldn’t tell who was talking. “You’re telling us you don’t know why we’re here.”
“I don’t know!” I screamed.
It was too late, I started to cry. I did all I could to hide it, sure they’d torment me. But they didn’t seem to notice, too wrapped up in their own superiority.
It was clear I wasn’t going to see Penelope, a chance I’d never see her again. I pulled my backpack on and turned to leave. They didn’t acknowledge that I was leaving until I had reached my tree.
“Hey, are you still there?” the leader yelled.
“He’s gone,” someone else called out, the murmuring of disappointment reaching me. They’d probably hoped to torment me more, but I’d had enough and quietly snuck away.
Once I was away from the fence, I ran back home, intermittently crying and angry, aware the sun was just at the horizon in the east. I’d been out longer than I meant to be. Reaching the house, I saw right away that I’d been caught. The ladder wasn’t laying in the grass along side the house, and the window had been shut.
“Great,” I moaned, prickles of fear of my mother traveling up the back of my neck.
The only alternative was to go in through the front door. I’d have to knock if it was locked. There was no point in hiding now because I was already screwed. Walking around to the front, I smelled my dad’s cigar. Thank God it was him and not my mother.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, too scared and too wise to smile, or even smirk.
“You’ve got yourself in a jam with your mother,” he said softly.
“Oh. I thought maybe you were the one…”
“Nope, it was Rose. And she’s pissed. Just be contrite, son. You might still be in a shit load of trouble with The Council.”
“No one saw me,” I said.
“Just because you weren’t stopped doesn’t mean you weren’t seen,” he replied. “Go on in.”
I trudged up the stairs to the front door, pausing to listen as Rose gave my grandmother an earful. “Maybe he should stay in Greek school,” she shouted.
“Sis, you’ll wake the baby,” Stephanie pleaded. “It’s bad enough you have all of us up this early.”
I’d learn that after discovering I wasn’t in my bed, my mother had gone door to door in the house and down into the basement looking for me. Peter discovered the open window and ladder on its side.
“I’m home,” I said, walking into the kitchen. “Sorry I worried you.”
My mother grabbed me by the shoulder, looking me in the eye. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she asked. “I thought I made that clear. We aren’t to question or to seek answers, ever. Sit down and tell me where you’ve been. I just pray it’s not where I think it was.”
Thinking quickly, if she didn’t know where I’d gone, I certainly wasn’t going to admit it. Relieved, I decided to tell a lie. “Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wanted an adventure, that’s all. I climbed out the window just to see if I could. It’s dark and creepy outside and I got lonely.”
“Steven, there are cameras all over town,” my grandmother said. “Hidden cameras, not just the infrared you see on the street corners.”
I didn’t know what to say in response. If anyone saw me, I knew this confrontation wasn’t going to be the end of my punishment, but I couldn’t think that far in advance.
“I dodged the cameras,” I replied, feebly.
“We’ll see about that,” Rose said, putting a plate of eggs on the table. “Go call your father. He’s going to miss his bus if he doesn’t get moving.”
I went back out to the porch. “Dad, your breakfast is ready,” I said.
“Is the trial over?” he whispered.
“I hope so,” I said, frowning. My dad didn’t like any kind of conflict, either.
He put his cigar butt in the ashtray and stood up, stretching. “I keep hoping this will be the day they fire me,” he said. “What kind of responsible man hopes for a thing like that?”
Putting his arm around my shoulder, I wasn’t sure what my father was thinking. “What else would you do?” I asked.
He took my chin in his fingers and looked into my eyes. “Anything but drive a bus,” he said. He pulled me back before we walked through the door.
“Do
you know what I did before the revolution?” he whispered.
Shaking my head, I didn’t have a clue. As far as I knew, my dad always drove the bus.
“You know my father, your papou, owned a textile company,” he said proudly. “I’d started working for him when I was your age, long before the revolution. My mother worked right along side him. We sold the finest woven fabrics made into commercial table clothes. At one time, we employed over one hundred seamstresses.”
“What happened to it?”
“After the revolution, no one needed fine table linens. It was considered a frivolity. Except for the places which served the politicians, like the one Paul Antoni manages, there weren’t many fine restaurants or hotels, the businesses which bought the bulk of our products. Then the textile mills went out of business so we couldn’t get the fabric even if we could use it.”
“Where do our clothes come from then?” I asked, looking down at my jeans.
“Everything comes from The Council. The Council gives us what we need. Steve, I’m going to get in a shitload of trouble for talking to you like this. You’re supposed to learn about it in school at age thirteen. Age thirteen is the magic age! It’s the age of enlightenment. They’ll teach you what they want you to know.”
I remembered someone else had said the same thing to me a few days before. “If all the mills went out of business, where does The Council get fabric then?” I asked, stuck on that one fact.
“You’re really going to get us in hot water. Everything we wear now is used, old, secondhand. You’ll see more and more people wearing uniforms.” I thought of the clothes Penelope and the other islanders wore. “Before the revolution, almost everything we wore and used around the house came from China.”
“What’s China?”
“Oh, Lord,” my dad moaned. “It’s a country we never have to worry about again, but before you were born, it was a big problem. Now it’s owned by the Eastern Union, just like we’re part of the Coalition.”
Memory of the Color Yellow Page 6
