Black Butterflies

by Sara Alexi

  The candle has burnt away by the time Marina’s sobbing stops. Maria is still holding her. She moves to free herself and Maria lets go.

  Marina sits for a moment to gather herself.

  ‘I was here from the week after they found out I was pregnant until the month after his birth. They hid me here so they would not lose the chance of marrying me to Manolis.’

  ‘I remember. Your aunt told me.’

  ‘I had another son by Manolis just a year later. But it pained me to see him. My heart would break for my first-born. So my mother tried to raise him. He was sickly from the first.’

  ‘It happens. Did he die?’

  ‘Yes, but I could not mourn his loss without mourning the loss of my first love, and that was forbidden, so I did not mourn at all. I just blamed myself.’

  ‘Your life has been harsh enough without you adding to it with self-blame, my dear.’

  Marina laughs dryly. There is a pause. The church waits.

  ‘So why are you here now?’ The question hangs in the incense-filled air.

  ‘My daughter told me she has a lover from here.’ Marina feels the enormity of what could have been.

  ‘Ah, so you need to know if it is your son. Yes, that would be very difficult. I take it she does not know of your first-born?’

  ‘But I have found out it is not him. It is someone else.’

  ‘And your son? I think perhaps you have not found him yet. Your crying days would be over, I think, if you found him.’

  ‘There are so few of the right age that still live here. I have ruled some of them out, but mostly I was ruling them out as my daughter’s lover rather than considering the possibility of them being my son.’

  ‘Yes, I can see why that would take precedence. And now?’

  ‘And now I need to know. If he knows, he will probably hate me for abandoning him. If he doesn’t know, I don’t know what I will do.’ Marina lights another candle. ‘I don’t even know how to find him.’

  ‘I do.’

  Chapter 19

  Marina feels her legs give. She flushes hotly and fans herself with her hand. ‘I need some air.’

  Marina and Maria leave arm in arm and sit on the stone plinth outside the church door. A donkey is tied up nearby and it shifts its weight, hooves scraping against the flags. The wood and leather saddle creaks. The passage feels hot despite the whitewashed walls casting shade.

  ‘Does he know?’ Marina asks.

  ‘There was never a time he didn’t know.’

  Marina can feel her heart racing. ‘Does he hate me?’

  ‘How could he hate you? He doesn’t know you,’ Maria says slowly with a smile.

  ‘Would he want to meet me?’ Her mouth has gone dry. She stands with the intention of going to the three-windowed shop and getting some water. Maria stands beside her. Her phone rings and she fumbles to answer it.

  ‘Yes, all right, dear. Bye.’ She pockets the phone. ‘It seems I am wanted at home.’ She starts to walk towards the main path where the shop displays its goods.

  ‘Do you …’ Marina can hardly force herself to ask the question. It could be Costas, the millionaire waiter. It could be Socrates, the nervous Papas. It is not Panos. He said he looks like his mum. It is not Yanni the donkey man since his grandmother was helping with his birth the same day Marina had her son, which is why she did not attend as midwife and Maria was called upon.

  God forbid it could be Aris Kranidiotis, the jewellery man, although it is possible. It is also possible that it is the boatyard man but Marina has the impression he is like his brother, so it seems unlikely. And then there is Alexandros Mavromatis, whom she did not manage to track down before finding out the truth about Eleni’s lover.

  The thought of Eleni distracts her. They still haven’t talked to resolve their issues, but Marina feels differently about her now, more relaxed. But for Eleni’s sake she must heal the rift.

  ‘Do I what?’ Maria asks, bringing Marina out of her thoughts.

  ‘Oh! Yes. Do you …’ Marina swallows again. ‘Do you know who he is, or where he lives?’

  ‘Oh yes. Alexandros. Aleko for short. He lives there on the corner.’ Maria points down the steps towards Zoe’s house. There are three doorways at that wide crossroads. Marina’s head is swimming from the knowledge of his name. She rolls the full name on her tongue as if she has never said it before, Alexandros, and then clicks out several ‘Alekos’ and giggles. Her broad smile betrays her delight, but her eyes reflect her nervousness. Maria’s phone rings again and she takes her time to answer. She is curt and pops the phone back in her skirt pocket.

  ‘I must go, Marina. It has been such a pleasure to see you again. Do let me know how things turn out.’ At this moment a middle-aged woman bustles around the corner in a housecoat.

  ‘Mother, come on. We are waiting for you.’ The housecoated woman addresses Maria. She nods politely at Marina as she takes her mother by the arm, talking away at her about wandering off and staying out too long.

  Marina looks down to the crossroads. Her eyes water, her cheeks flush. She frowns, smiles, and frowns again.

  ‘What’s the worst that could happen, Marina, old girl?’ she asks herself. ‘Well, he could reject me, he could shout at me for abandoning him all those years ago, he could ignore me.’ She shivers. Her mouth is dry. She goes into the shop to buy a small bottle of water and then realises that she has left her bag in the church. She hurries back to collect it, and lights another candle, briefly asking all the gods and saints for strength and a good outcome.

  She walks slowly to the top of the steps by the apartment where he was born all those thirty-five years ago. The sight of the door to the apartment holds no emotion for her now. She has greater things to deal with, bigger fears. She looks down to the crossed paths at the square at the bottom of the steps. A massive eucalyptus shades half the area. There’s a bench and cats are lazing, trying to cool on the stone flags. The whitewash on the left-hand wall has become grey with time. It looks dark in the shadow of the tree.

  Marina considers that she has to go down there anyway to check into Zoe’s on the opposite corner. The near left-hand corner is Irini’s house, so Alexandros’, Alekos’, house must be the one on the right with the greying wall and the bench outside. The door in the wall looks shabby, its paint peeling. A bougainvillea is growing over the wall from the inside. Purple flowers add colour to the sun-whitened scene. The house behind the wall is hidden by the branches of the eucalyptus. Marina begins her descent.

  Despite the aid of gravity, the steep steps feel harder to go down now than they had felt the time when she was going up them and had fallen and hit her head. That seems like a lifetime ago, and yet how long was it? A couple of weeks? Backwards and forwards across the water, mainland to island, up and down in her car, coast to coast, the stress of Eleni all mixed in. Marina has lost count of what day it is. The peeling door looks so tightly shut.

  Each step down brings tears. Each step brings a nervous smile of hope. Her knees are weak. Her new shoes are dusty and they are not as comfortable as her old shoes. Will she recognise him? Will Zoe have room still? Will he be tall? Is Costas managing the shop all right? Will Eleni ever forgive her for keeping her brother a secret? Will Artemis? Will he call her Mum or Marina? She runs out of distracting questions as she draws near to the bottom of the steps.

  Three, two, one, she is there. The crossing of paths, the square on the edge of the short path to Zoe’s, the open area at the bottom of the steps where her son lives.

  Marina’s hands are trembling and her legs are like jelly. Her big bag feels too heavy all of a sudden. She sits on the bench by the tightly closed grey peeling door.

  She cannot do it. She cannot knock on this stranger’s door and say, ‘Hello, I am your mum.’ Abandoning him was wrong. How could he forgive her? How will he understand she had no choice? How could he hear the screams she made when they took him, all those years ago? He could never know the hopelessness she felt in losin
g him, the chasm in her life. The blame she heaped on herself over the years. The love she felt for his father. The passion she has for him even though she has never known him.

  She must book in at Zoe’s. There is no rush to knock on the door. She has waited thirty-five years. An hour, a day, a week longer will not make any difference now.

  A movement catches her attention. There is someone walking towards her, coming up from the harbour. For a moment she envisages it could be him, her long-lost son. But as he moves out of direct glaring sunlight into the shadows she recognises the size and demeanour of the dancing captain.

  Marina dries her eyes and puts her hanky away in her bag. As he draws near, he waves.

  ‘Well, hello, my friend.’ He is grinning.

  ‘Well, hello, right back at you. How are you? Did they patch you up all right?’

  ‘Ah! A bruise and a bandage and I am as good as new.’ He sits on the bench next to her.

  ‘The boat looks unharmed.’

  He snorts. ‘Yes, unharmed and untouchable.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘My friend who lent me the boat, the job for the summer, has asked me kindly not to use it again. He cannot afford to lose it. He is now thinking of coming home, so I may have no home as well.’

  ‘Oh, that is very bad news. But the boat was unharmed. Was the incident your fault?’

  ‘Well, this is what I say to him. The engine, she cuts. The anchor will not bite. So I tie her to a rock. The weather is good, a little windy perhaps. Then I roll up my sleeves and I take a look at the engine.’ He rubs his bruised arm and lifts his shirt off his bandaged shoulder.

  ‘I cannot find the problem with the engine. I try and try until the battery she goes flat. The VHF radio runs on battery. So what to do? The wind has picked up and I feel the boat and me are no longer safe. So I call Irini on my mobile but the signal is weak. So I try the port police and they hear enough to come for me.’

  ‘Well, that all sounds very sensible. So what is your friend’s problem?’

  ‘I should have gone around Ship Rock, not between it and the shore. So I say to my friend I will go around next time, but now he is worried. He will not let go of the idea that I will wreck his boat. But it is his boat, and it is his living, so I understand his thinking. I am grateful for the time I have had. It is just tough on Irini.’ His voice is low and quiet.

  ‘On both of you. What will you do?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he says briskly, as if he hasn’t a care in the world. ‘Let’s talk about you. How are you, my friend?’

  ‘Etsi-ketsi, as they say, so-so.’

  ‘Only so-so? A wonderful woman like you should be having a marvellous time, always.’

  Marina smiles but she cannot hide her nervousness, which makes her tremble and her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Oh my, you have tears in your eyes. My lovely friend, tell me what concerns you?’

  Marina feels she needs a friend. Besides, he may know Alexandros. He might know the best way for her to let him know she is here.

  ‘It is difficult, sometimes.’

  ‘Life is difficult all the time. If it was not we would forget we were alive. Like when we are happy, we only realise afterwards that we were happy. We miss it when it is happening. So if we were happy all the time we would miss our lives.’ He speaks with a light tone, his mouth twisting into a smile, trying to cheer her up.

  ‘What nonsense.’ Marina is smiling.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  ‘Well, this bit of my life could be happy or unhappy, depending on the result.’

  ‘Ah, well, there is your problem.’ He smiles again.

  ‘Where is my problem?’

  ‘In wanting a particular result. If you just wanted the event and the result didn’t matter, then happy or unhappy would not come into it.’

  ‘Now I know you are talking nonsense.’ Marina decides to play him at his own game. ‘Everything we do is in the pursuit of happiness. You rang the port police because being rescued would bring you greater happiness than you dying. You were there on the water in the first place was to earn a wage, which buys you food for your stomach, which makes you happier than being hungry. We all do exactly what we want to do at any given time in the pursuit of our individual happiness. Unless we are forced by others to do otherwise.’

  ‘So there you go!’

  ‘Where do I go?’

  ‘You have answered your own problem. It sounds like, regardless if the outcome is happy or sad, whatever this event is that is in your life will happen anyway. If it is happening because you want it to happen, you are doing what you want to do in pursuit of your own happiness. So by making it happen you will be happy whether the outcome is happy or unhappy.’

  ‘Utter and absolute nonsense.’ But Marina is not sure if she follows him or not. Maybe he has made a valid point and she has missed it.

  ‘So come, tell me, what is the problem, and no riddles?’ He is no longer smiling.

  ‘OK.’ Marina feels lifted by his chatter. She feels the problem is not insurmountable now. She feels supported. She will face it. ‘Many years ago I lost track of someone very dear to me. I did not want to lose him, it pained me very much, but I was young and many decisions were made for me. The loss of this person has caused me much pain and sadness in my life. Now I have found out where he is so I wish to take the goat by the horns and meet him, face to face. If I am rejected then so be it, but I am hoping that is not how it will be.’

  ‘Ah, a matter of the heart. Hearts are tricky things. Sometimes when we get what we think we want, that too can be painful.’

  ‘At last you speak a true word.’ There is a slight breeze and the eucalyptus leaves rustle and one or two lightly shower upon them, spinning silver and blue-green as they fall. ‘I am sitting here trying to decide the best way to approach this person. Whether to just knock on his door and say “Hello, it’s me”, or whether that would be too much of a shock. Maybe it would be better to get someone to tell him I am here and arrange a meeting, and then he can come if he wants to or not if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Hmm. That would be a very kind and thoughtful way to meet him. But if he does not come you have deprived yourself of the sight of him, and he has been deprived of the sight of you, which may alter his nerve. It might give him courage, perhaps, if he sees you.’

  ‘But to just knock on his door and say who I am?’

  ‘Will he not recognise you?’

  ‘I cannot think how to bring the subject up gently.’

  Marina falls silent and they sit side by side. The sun is beginning to set and there is a pink glow to the hills, the houses and the whitewashed walls. The cats stretch in the cooling air. Someone plays the bouzouki, a slow haunting melody.

  Marina wonders if she should knock on the door at all. Her visit to the island has brought her friends. Her life is richer for having visited. Maybe she should be content with that. But the same old gnawing hollowness opens in her chest at the thought of walking away, and silent tears begin their well-worn course down her cheeks. The same feeling as a hundred times before.

  Her chin jerks back and she blinks hard. This is the feeling that keeps her distant from Eleni and Artemis. This is the feeling she does anything to avoid. If she allowed herself to love Eleni and Artemis with all her heart, as she loved her son, and she lost them too, this would be the pain that remains. Marina is appalled that somewhere along her life she has made the decision to not love her children fully for fear of the pain that losing them might bring.

  Marina’s life falls into clear focus. In her fear of losing them she has driven them away. The love they needed was not to be found at home. Artemis went to America chasing love and is now on her second marriage. Eleni, more sensitive than Artemis, hardened her heart and left for Piraeus at the earliest opportunity to join the port police. In her own words, ‘To be part of something, to belong.’ Both chose paths that took them away from her and toward a place of being needed, a place of belonging. Mar
ina sits, stunned by her revelation. The outcome of her self-protective actions has brought her nothing but loneliness and misery. But worse than that, far worse than that, she has been a bad mother.

  With no warning – Petta in the middle of stretching his legs forward and leaning back, his hands interlocked behind his head, Marina still sitting upright – she melts into series of deep soul-wrenching sobs. Petta sits up and smiles, as if mistaking her movement and noise for chuckles. But in an instant his smile is lost and his face is in consternation. He releases his interlocked hands and wraps them around Marina.

  ‘Oh my, oh my. My dear friend. Believe me, it will never be as bad as you imagine.’ Keeping one arm around her shoulders he begins to search for his hanky to offer her. Marina leans forward to take hers from the bag. They find them simultaneously.

  The breeze stops. The leaves hang suspended. Marina ceases sobbing and stares. Petta abruptly quiets his cooing talk and blinks several times.

  In their grasp, between the two of them, are four black butterflies. Two on each hanky. Marina’s lips drop apart. She looks in his eyes to recognise him. He scans her face, his mouth opening and closing as if to form words that will not come. He then begins a smile.

  ‘This person you have not seen …’ His words are coming out shaky and cracked.

  Marina can feel a smile building. ‘Yes?’ It does not sound like her own voice.

  ‘You would not, by chance, have last seen him thirty-five years ago?’

  Marina can make no noise leave her throat, so she just nods.

  ‘Would he have been very, very young when you left him?’ His voice has broken into a quiet high pitch, suppressing tears.

  Marina nods again.

  His bottom lip is all aquiver and his tears now spill over the rims of his eyes. His age drops away as he becomes a boy again, and without another word he lowers his head and leans into Marina’s chest. She wraps both arms around his head and tentatively kisses his hair. He smells lovely, of shampoo and sea. She kisses his hair again and leans her cheek against the top of his head. She feels complete. They remain still, lost in time, making up the years until the sun sets.