Lily and the Lost Boy

by Paula Fox

  “How did he get up without his crutches?” asked Lily.

  “What you think! Juliana’s mother go out and help him up. She get to know him very, very well.”

  “But she knew him before, didn’t she?”

  “All his life, since he was a baby. But not this way. She did not know how stubborn—like a donkey—he is. He told her he’s going to sit in front of her house for a year—until she say okay.”

  “Why didn’t they want Juliana to marry him?”

  “Stupid!” exclaimed Mr. Kalligas, looking down toward the water. “But she give in. I will introduce you. You will see! Grigoris is handsome, my God! Like a god! But his poor legs …” Abruptly, he stopped talking, and his face grew stern as he peered down at the quay.

  “Look at that boy! With Christos on that machine! I tell him and tell him not to do that. I must speak to Costa,” he said.

  Lily, looking in the same direction, saw, as she expected, Christos riding the handlebars of a bicycle Jack was turning in ever-narrowing circles. Mr. Kalligas left, walking with his quick, neat steps toward the museum. How could Costa prevent Christos from chasing after Jack?

  The Coreys had a light supper—Mr. Kalligas had told them there would be wonderful things to eat at the fair—and went to pick up the Haslevs and Mr. Kalligas. They all walked down to the quay and piled into two taxis.

  On the long muddy climb up the mountain they passed a roadside shrine that Lily had gone into one afternoon when she was roaming around by herself, when Paul was off somewhere with Jack.

  Inside it she had found a small altar in front of which stood a rickety table crowded with thin, honey-colored candles in tin holders. From the walls and the altar hung tiny silver replicas of legs and arms and eyes. Mr. Corey, when she described them to him, explained to her that people who were blind or who had diseased limbs left the replicas there in the hope of miraculous cures. Was it possible that among them hung two little silver legs left by Grigoris? She thought not. From what Mr. Kalligas had told her, Grigoris sounded as though he didn’t need miracles.

  The road leveled out along a high ridge above the coastal valley far below, and beneath the starry sky the waters of the Aegean glowed like banked embers.

  If it had not been for the stars, they could hardly have made out the streets and houses of Panagia. It was so dark—dark as the world had once been, Lily thought, until the coming of electricity. But after they had left the taxis and begun to walk, she observed a yellow glow that, as they drew closer to the village center, she saw was made up of lanterns suspended by cords above long oilcloth-covered tables. There was a burst of noise, of laughter and talking. Groups of people moved about the cobbled streets dressed in their best clothes, some carrying babies, others, surrounded by small, excited children.

  A powerful smell of rosemary-scented lamb, grilled on open fires, hung over the village like a cloud. Lily saw dishes of pickled octopus, stuffed vine leaves called dolmades, pans of moussaka, dishes of cucumber and yogurt, and tryopitakia, pastries filled with cheese. Everywhere reposed large platters of peaches and melons and pears.

  They drifted through the thronged streets, parting only to meet again before a table of rugs and blankets woven by the village women, or one sagging with the weight of brass pots and pans hammered out by the men, and they would frequently run into Mr. Kalligas who knew everybody and wanted to introduce them to everybody.

  Lily could hear the bubbling rush of a stream that tumbled down the mountain and sped through the village in a narrow channel. The cries and talk of the fairgoers would rise and fall. In a brief lull Lily heard the whirr of cicadas like tiny motors inside the velvet dark that lay at the edges of the village, biding its time, she thought, until it overtook it like a besieging army.

  They all met up with each other in the village square, and Lily saw Dimitrious there, playing his bouzouki. A circle of men were dancing, snapping their fingers in the air. Gradually they dropped away until there was only Jim Hemmings in his black leather jacket, his blue eyes like periwinkles, piercing in the amber light of the many lanterns strung around the square. People clapped and cried out as he stamped and circled and leaped—electricity jumping through the dark, Lily thought. He paused in front of a table where a handsome young man sat, a pair of crutches leaning against an empty chair. Then, his arms raised high, he began to pirouette, clapping. A dark-haired, rather plain young woman was sitting beside the young man, and with them were four older people.

  “That’s Grigoris,” Mr. Kalligas said to her, poking her arm.

  Mr. Hemmings danced in place, his eyes always on Grigoris. Was he honoring him? Lily wondered. Or was he showing him what it is to have strong, healthy legs?

  Far on the other side of the square, near the entrance to a small hotel, Lily saw Paul standing with Jack, his arm around the taller boy’s shoulders. Like everyone else’s, their eyes were glued on Mr. Hemmings, who suddenly seized a glass of wine from Grigoris’ table and downed it without ceasing to dance. Then he swiftly knelt at Grigoris’ feet. The bouzouki music ceased abruptly. Grigoris grabbed up one of his crutches and tapped Mr. Hemmings on his back as though knighting him.

  The crowd melted away until the square was empty except for a few people sitting at tables. Mr. Kalligas took the Coreys and the Haslevs to meet Grigoris. Jack and Paul, Lily saw, were no longer in front of the hotel.

  Grigoris turned to Lily and smiled and shook her hand. His betrothed smiled too, revealing a small gold tooth that flashed like a golden needle. Were they enjoying themselves? he asked. And did they like Thasos? He had a strong, calm voice. It was easy to imagine him sitting stubbornly on a road for seven days, for a year if that was what it took to win his bride. Lily guessed that the older woman sitting next to him with a puzzled expression on her face must be the bride’s mother, still surprised that Grigoris had made her give in to him.

  Mr. Hemmings, who had ducked briefly into a small taverna next to the hotel, reappeared, waving two bottles of wine, and Grigoris asked everyone to sit down and talk a while and take a glass of retsina. The Coreys and the Haslevs both said it was time they left for Limena. Mr. Kalligas told them he would find a way home; he wanted to visit with Grigoris for a while.

  “Here! Do stay,” Jim Hemmings said to Mr. Corey. “Don’t go running off in the night when the party is just starting!” His words were slurred. As he sat down, he knocked over a chair next to him. He kicked at it and laughed foolishly.

  “Thanks. I have work to do and must get up early. And the children must get to bed,” Mr. Corey said.

  “Oh yes, the children … and professors and their work,” Mr. Hemmings muttered. Then, as though they had already left, he turned to Grigoris and took one of his hands in his own. Looking at his face for a moment, Lily saw it soften. It was surprising to think Mr. Hemmings might really like someone.

  On their way back to the taxis they paused at a table laden with food. Behind it stood the man who had sold Mr. Haslev his worktable, and they greeted each other like old friends. He urged them all to try the sweets his wife had made only that morning.

  “Where is Paul?” asked Mrs. Corey suddenly as Lily downed a piece of honey cake.

  “Somewhere around,” Mr. Corey said. “He’ll turn up.”

  “You better go look for him, Gil,” said Mrs. Corey in an uneasy voice. “Lily! You look so sleepy!”

  “It’s because I’m stuffed,” Lily replied.

  Mr. Corey had taken only a few steps back toward the village center when Paul and Jack appeared, their faces two pale ovals in the dim light.

  “Can Jack come home with us?” Paul asked his father.

  “I don’t know if there’d be room in the taxi,” Mr. Corey said. But Mrs. Corey said quickly, “We can manage. Lily will sit on my lap.”

  It was an uncomfortable ride down the mountain for Lily. Each time they went over a bump, she bounced up and her head hit the roof. I’ll have a flat head, she told herself, all because of Jack.

&nb
sp; The taxis let them off at the quay. Compared to Panagia, Limena seemed as lit up as a big town. As they walked toward home, Jack and Paul ran ahead until they disappeared from view. Mr. Haslev, carrying the sleeping Christine, began to whistle.

  It was a lonely, sweet tune. They passed Mr. Xenophon’s, and Lily saw the dim glow of a lamp on a table like a distant campfire, illuminating the faces of several men drinking coffee and brandy.

  “That’s so beautiful,” Mrs. Corey said when Mr. Haslev had ceased whistling. “Is it a Danish folk song?”

  Mr. Haslev laughed. “No, no. It’s a song by Sidney Bechet, the great American saxophonist. It’s called Petit Fleur.”

  Lily lay in her bed, her eyes heavy with sleepiness as she looked out her window to the sky. She tried to hum Petit Fleur. It was like a little silver bird flashing in the woods; it vanished when you tried to fix it with your eyes.

  She believed that if she could memorize it, every time she sang it she would be able to bring back the mysterious feeling of the fair, the glowing campfires of Panagia and of Mr. Xenophon’s table of friends, the black mountain forest between them, the bursting energy of people like a small intense light in the dark.

  Her mother came into her room, holding the tiny flashlight she always kept by the side of her bed in case the electricity failed.

  “It was amazing up there, wasn’t it?” she asked Lily, tucking the quilt around her.

  “Yes, it was amazing.”

  “Will you remember it all, Lily, when we’re back home?”

  “I’ll always remember,” Lily responded, waking up a bit. “I just wish I could get that tune Mr. Haslev whistled.” She hesitated, then asked, “Why did he have to come home with us? He was already home in Panagia.”

  Her mother didn’t answer for a moment. Then she spoke carefully the way, Lily knew, grown-ups do when they don’t wish to speak directly about a thing.

  “I believe Jack didn’t want to stay with his father—”

  “—because he was drunk,” Lily stated.

  The flashlight went out.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Corey said.

  EIGHT

  Lily and her mother were standing next to the wisteria, looking out at the path, which had undergone a striking change. For days the village masons had been working on it. Now there was a long flight of new broad stone steps leading all the way up the hill to the theater, where that night a company of the Greek National Theater was to give a performance of Iphigenia in Aulis, written by Euripides more than two thousand years ago.

  But the transformation of the path had an awful consequence for Stella’s ancient relative. She was crouched on the ground in front of her house, weeping. Stella knelt beside her, trying to comfort her.

  “Why can’t she crawl across the steps just the way she did over the little stones?” Lily asked, so distressed she was clutching her mother’s skirt just as she remembered doing when she was little. “It’s only about six feet. That hasn’t changed.”

  “But it was her entire world,” said Mrs. Corey. “You know she’s nearly blind. The path to the water tap was a journey for her, but she knew every inch of it.”

  Stella rocked the old woman in her arms. Lily tried to imagine herself on the edge of a deep chasm where there had once been a bridge. For a second she was sure she felt the dread that must be gripping the woman.

  “Why is it you can really imagine how it is to be someone else, then you forget—all in a second?” Lily wondered.

  “It’s a kind of gift,” her mother said. “It comes and goes.”

  Stella was lifting up her great-great-grandmother and slowly pulling her toward the tap. When they reached it, Stella turned on the water. The old woman reached out a hand, felt the thin stream of water, and a smile appeared on her faded lips. She extended one foot, then the other, to wash them, Stella murmuring to her all the while. When she had finished, she started the crawl back across the steps. Mrs. Corey and Lily stood there, watching, until the two women disappeared into their yard.

  “Only one week and a half before we go,” Lily said.

  “Ten days,” said Mrs. Corey. “And in two weeks we’ll be home. The leaves will have started to turn.”

  “It won’t be like going to a play at home,” Mr. Corey said to Lily. “It’s more like going to church.”

  The Coreys, except for Paul, were drinking coffee in their kitchen with the Haslevs. Mr. Kalligas had found a baby-sitter for Christine, a young cousin of his, probably the only person in Limena who would not see the play. Paul and Jack had been hired for the evening by Mr. Xenophon to sell lemon and orange drinks to the audience before the play began.

  “We shall go in a procession—in the ancient way,” said Mr. Haslev. They had all been aware of the people streaming past the Coreys’ gate for the last half hour. They were unusually quiet. As the Coreys and Haslevs joined them, they found themselves on a step behind Mr. and Mrs. Kalligas. Mr. Kalligas whispered to Lily, “The play begin at sundown when the parliamentary member arrives. But, you will see, he will be late.”

  Lily had once seen the deputy who represented Thasos at Athens, driving to the ferry in his big black car. He was a short old man with a head of beautiful white hair. He lived outside of Limena in a big house near the village olive press.

  When they stepped onto the apron of the stage, most of the marble benches that rose up the side of the hill were filled. Lily sat down next to her mother on a bench from which she could glimpse the roof of their house. She rested her hand on the warm, twisted trunk of an ilex tree. The sun was slowly sinking, leaving behind it a great rose blush on the horizon. Jack and Paul moved about on the stage, shouting up at people as they brandished small bottles of fruit-flavored soda. Far out on the water the fleet had begun the night’s fishing. The boats looked like fireflies. Among the audience Lily saw the familiar faces of the butcher; the grocer, Mr. Xenophon; the owners of the shops and restaurants, which would be closed during the performance; the baker; the cobbler; even Odysseus, the sailor.

  People suddenly murmured and shifted about in their seats. The deputy and his wife arrived, and the deputy bowed and waved to the crowd as they walked importantly and slowly to the bench that had been reserved for them down near the stage. As soon as he sat, Lily heard the slow, steady beat of a drum. But suddenly the two tall spotlights on either side of the stage blinked and went out. People responded with subdued merriment, clapping softly and laughing. In a minute or two the lights flickered and came on. The drum, which had stopped when the lights went out, began again, louder now and faster. And when the beats were coming so fast that it sounded like one booming echo, they suddenly ceased utterly; and as though he’d sprung out of the earth, Agamemnon stood in the center of the stage.

  The commander of the Greek armies, whose ships lay becalmed in the gulf of Aulis, looked enormous. His breastplate glittered. Lily saw he was wearing a mask. He began to speak. Though Lily could not understand classical Greek, every note of his voice sent shivers up her spine.

  Mr. Corey had told her the story of the play. A hare, an animal loved by the goddess Artemis, had been slain with all its young by the Greeks. To appease the goddess and ensure a safe voyage to Troy for his ships, Agamemnon was told he must sacrifice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia.

  The lights of the fishing fleet had vanished. The audience seemed to hold its breath as the tragedy of Iphigenia marched like the beat of the drum toward its end. Masked women in long costumes of gray cloth recited the final words, which Mr. Corey had read to Lily in English that afternoon. She recalled only the last lines:

  Beloved light

  Farewell!

  There was no applause at first, and then it thundered out, filling the bowl of the theater. People rose and made their way along the edge of the stage. The actors had disappeared behind two huge rocks. Lily wondered if they would look smaller in ordinary clothes.

  The Haslevs stopped at the Coreys’ for a visit. Lily brought a kitchen chair to the balcony to sit w
ith them. Her mind was dazed with images of the play; she hardly listened to the conversation among the adults until her mother wondered aloud where Paul had gone.

  “I saw him with his friend sitting on the wooden crates of soda near the steps. They went away before the play ended,” said Mrs. Haslev.

  “They had to take the crates back to Xenophon’s store, probably,” said Mr. Corey.

  It was not Paul who appeared at the entrance to the balcony a few minutes later, but Mr. Kalligas. He stood, mute, in the light from the hall. One by one the Haslevs and the Coreys turned to him, smiling.

  “I have a bad thing to tell you,” he said.

  “What?” Mrs. Corey cried out. “What is it?”

  “Not your son,” Mr. Kalligas said. “Not the son of the dancer. It is Christos. He fall from the bicycle.”

  Mrs. Haslev groaned. “He’s hurt?” she asked.

  “He is dead,” Mr. Kalligas said almost inaudibly.

  Her mother rose and clutched Lily to her, holding her hands against Lily’s ears as though to stop her hearing what she had already heard. Lily pulled at her mother’s wrists until her hands fell away. There was the sound of running feet in the hall. Everyone was standing, looking past Mr. Kalligas. Paul stood there. He looked up at his father and began to sob. They leaned forward staring at him, listening so intently that his sobs could have been words, telling them what had happened.

  He brushed at his face with a fist, gave a shuddering sigh, and began to speak in a forlorn voice, like someone who knows there can be no comfort against the misery he feels. “We went down to the bicycles. Some of the kids met us. The bicycle man wasn’t there—”

  “Everyone was at the theater,” Mr. Kalligas interrupted sternly.

  “—And we rode around the quay for a while,” Paul went on. He stared at Lily and repeated what he’d said as if in that way he might postpone what he must tell them.