Signs of a Struggle

by Tony Kaplan

  15

  The sea shimmers, indifferent to my travails. I finish the feta salad I’d ordered half-heartedly - Agapi can sense there is something wrong but has the decency not to ask – and I drain the double vodka and tonic I’d felt I needed. The alcohol only intensified my gloom. Lucy's e-mail is on repeat in my brain. "I am going away. Do not wait for me." I can’t very well stay at her place now.

  On my way back to her place to collect my things, I spot Yianni. I ask if he knows of anyone with a room in Agia Anna. “No problem,” he says, taking me by the arm, “We have room upstairs. Very nice. From there you see the mountains, the fields, the olive trees. Is nize,” he says. “Cheap. Ten euros only.” He is enthusiastic for me to stay and insists I view the room immediately. He shouts something at Soulla, she shrugs in her long-suffering way, smiles and leads me upstairs to the room, which is dark and cool, until she opens the shutters and light floods in. There is a double bed, with a bedside table, on which stands a jug and glasses, a wash basin and roughly constructed shelving. Soulla unlatches the French doors, which open onto a small balcony. The view to the mountains is interrupted by haphazard electricity and telephone wires, strung on blanched wooden poles.

  On the balcony next to mine, a teenage girl in denim shorts, with gypsy black hair draped untidily over her face, her feet up on the railings, is painting her toenails. This must be Kat, their daughter. Soulla says something in a peremptory tone, the girl, snarls in frustration and goes inside in a huff. She is not pleased to have visitors. I shall have to make friends with her later. Soulla shakes her head. “What you can do?” she says, echoing the cries of mothers of teenage girls the world over. I remember Irini at that age – her and my mother, each absolutely convinced by their own irrefutable logic, which led them, like straight lines on a curved surface, to opposite extremes, implacably opposed and absolutely furious with the other’s stupidity.

  I take the room, offer Soulla the ten euros, which she waves away (“Later, later you give”) and go off to get my stuff from Lucy’s house. The old lady across the road from Lucy’s place is at her front gate. When she sees me going in to Lucy’s, she calls to me, and engages me in a lengthy one-sided conversation. “Milate Anglica?” I ask her, “Do you speak English?” She doesn’t. She sighs. There is something she wants to tell me and tries to get this across by simplifying her sentence, then repeating it. But I don’t understand. She puts her hands over her ears, grimaces and then wags her gnarled finger at me censoriously. “Dhen kataleveno,” I tell her, “I don’t understand”. She sighs again, her eyes moving sideways, thinking of what else she might do. But then she gives up, pats my arm, turns and shuffles back up the path to her front door, muttering to herself. It strikes me that perhaps the old lady is Lucy’s landlady and is wanting her rent. Well, I think with what is reprehensible but gratifying spite, this is no longer my problem.

  I pack up my laptop and go back to my new abode, open the door and windows for air, lie naked on the bed and fall into a deep and troubled sleep.

  ****

  I am mending a paperback book whose pages have come unbound. The sticky tape I am using is getting twisted and stuck to itself. I apply glue, but the glue is now stuck to my fingers and my fingers are sticking to the paper. My mother is somewhere behind me out of my sight, saying, “Must you try to fix everything, Tom? Stop it now - it’s not necessary. Just leave it.” (The last in an exasperated tone.) I feel like giving up, but the book is now considerably worse than when I started my repairs, I can’t just give up, but my fingers are stuck to each other and the pages, a scream of frustration is building in my chest…

  I wake up. The feeling of frustration dulls but doesn’t leave me. I get up, splash my face at the wash basin and decide I must get out – go for a walk to clear my head – I don’t have the energy for a swim… but maybe if I did swim, it would revive me. I hedge my bets and take my swimming trunks and a towel with me just in case, and head out to the beach.

  The sun is just above the horizon. I decide to make for the cove over the hill – where the wind blows, I have been told. The road out the village on the far side follows the ridge. There is a steep path to the beach. The sea on this side heaves strongly, waves crash to their demise on the white sand and unfurl in spumes of froth up the beach. Today there is no wind. The sun is red and full over the sea.

  I see on the shoreline, a mother (I assume it’s the mother) watching over a small child, who is running into the foam, then retreating hurriedly as the next wave crashes down. The woman turns, grinning at the child’s adventure. Her copper curls and her full figure are unmistakable. Agapi.

  I stroll down the beach, with an uncertain sense of expectation. Agapi sees me and waves. The child stops to inspect me from a distance, then she hugs Agapi’s leg and hides.

  “Hello,” I say when I’m within earshot, “Kalispera.” Agapi smiles but doesn’t reply. The little girl peaks out at me, frowning, curious. “Hello,” I say to her in a child-friendly voice and bend towards her, to make myself more her height. “Who is this monkey?” I ask.

  Agapi smiles proudly. “She is my daughter, Eleni.” She says something to the child and the child whispers, “Geia sou,” and then hardly audibly, “Hero polee.”

  I chuckle at the child’s shyness. She is a beautiful child, with her mother’s emerald eyes and the crimped bronze hair. Agapi prises the little girl’s hand off her skirt and says something in a humorous tone. The girl runs off and then, looking to see if we are watching her, races into the onrushing foam with a determined look. The water eddies around her, she turns and stomps back effortfully against the rip of the retreating sea. She gets herself free and glares at us victoriously.

  The water has turned golden in the setting sun. There are rainbows where the foam has atomised and scintillated. As the waves rear up, a deep blue, the blue of Indian ink, rises from the depths, and as the wave unburdens itself, tangerine and salmon pinks are released, and here and there, pale blue and silver, like dancing fish.

  Eleni takes her mother’s hand and says something emphatically. Agapi tucks her skirt into her panties, with a look to me which is not the embarrassment I would expect from an English girl, but one which challenges me to laugh at her, which knows I will be enchanted by the innocence of her gesture. She holds her daughter’s hand tight, screaming, they both race into the wave’s afterlife.

  They come out, laughing together and Agapi folds Eleni into a towel, holding her in her arms, she turns to watch the sun sinking into the ocean. We watch in silence as the sun drowns slowly. Above it, a fierce orange melds into yellow. A faint green hue is discernible before it shades into gradients of blue, darkening towards the apex of the sky. The orange turns pink and mauve as we watch.

  “I must go back to work soon,” she says. “First I will feed my daughter. There,” she points to the ridge at the far end of the beach. “That is my house.”

  “Your husband is at home?” I ask.

  She hesitates. “He is dead. My mother is there. She looks after my child when I am work.” She looks far out to sea. “My husband had his own boat. He was fisherman. I am married when I am sixteen. He died when I am carrying Eleni. He did not come back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s nothing. I was too young to marry,” she says. She doesn’t want me to be sad on her account. She did not mean me to feel responsible for her adversity. But I see a great sadness in her eyes. She hugs the child in her arms for comfort. I feel a lurch of tenderness for her.

  “I must go,” she says. “I will see you later? At the restaurant?”

  “Yes,” I say, my voice husky and almost inaudible. “Yes... nai," I say, more firmly, "I will come later”. She smiles serenely, beatific in the gathering twilight.

  16

  For a while I watch Agapi ambling down the beach, her daughter skipping along the outskirts of the waves. The little girl had given me an endearing smile when I’d said good night. I turn and wander back to the v
illage. Over the ridge, on the other side of the bay, the night gently darkens the sky, a blush of mauve on the horizon, bruising before blackening, as the stars come out. The air is cooling. Autumn is coming.

  I have told Agapi I will come to the Seaview for dinner, but I could have done with a light meal at Yianni’s and an early night. I am feeling melancholic, the fantasies I’d elaborated about a life with Lucy are disarticulating themselves in the glare of my new reality, her cold rejection of me tarnishing the mirror in which I take stock of myself, my usual irony now tinged with contempt. Perhaps I am tired.

  I convince myself that I should work. Not only is this expedient, but also it will be a distraction. I must check the articles I downloaded on the environmental impact of tourism on the Greek coastline, in case I check out the Poseidon for myself. That rusty sediment along the coast did not look healthy. Also, I should be prepared and knowledgeable should Lucy return, so I could pitch a collaboration, rather than giving the impression I am stealing her story, if that is her gripe. Okay, a quick meal at the Seaview, just so as that I don’t let Agapi down (as if she’d mind! – I am so presumptuous). Then back to my room. It is not warm enough tonight to warrant staying outside anyway.

  As it happens, when I get to the Seaview later, Agapi is busy with a party of Norwegian tourists, excited young men, so young they must be just out of school. They have just arrived in Agia Anna – I have not seen them before - and they are loud and demanding, unlike the usual Scandinavians. I suspect they are rich kids celebrating the new freedoms of their nascent adulthood. They are drunk already. They make lewd remarks to Agapi in accented English – the lingua franca, if that is not a contradiction. (Why is it called lingua franca when most of the time the lingua is English?) Agapi smiles benignly and does not rise to their excited chatter.

  Xanthe, who evidently has been roped into the family enterprise, serves me and is pleasant, but I am not in the mood for chatting. When my reply to her jaunty enquiry about my day is a cursory (“Fine”), Xanthe looks puzzled and mildly affronted, but she leaves me alone with my mussel soup. (Do they get mussels on the island or are these imported for the tourists? I think to ask Xanthe, but I don’t want to get bogged down in conversation, so let it go.) I finish my soup, pay the bill, leave a tip and get up to go. Then I think, do I leave a tip for the owner’s daughter? Is this an insult? What is the etiquette? I almost take the tip back, but think better of it and leave.

  Back in my room, I open my laptop, find the articles I downloaded and start reading. Next door, Katerina’s radio is tuned to a station playing the latest pop hits. The sound is thin and distracting. Occasionally I hear Katerina singing along. I recognise Eminem, James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Oasis… interspersed with rapid-fire Greek, delivered with that universally recognisable radio dj intonation. Fucking irritating. I look at my watch and am surprised to find it is only nine thirty. I can’t very well ask her to turn the volume down. Christ, I’m getting old! I try to read, but only gets bits of what I’m reading.

  The first article I read is on the scandal of re-zoning - redefining which land is deserving of protection and which is open to development - with money changing hands, in some district in the Peloponnese. The second is a vox pop with locals in a fishing village on what turns out to be Mythos’s neighbouring island on the colonisation of their waters by what are referred to as “rabbit fish” – “They are foreign – they are eating all our fish. We have nothing to eat. The rabbit fish is not good to eat.” Nothing on algal growth – I must remember to google this tomorrow when I get online.

  Then there is an article on the social effects of tourism in rural communities – the younger generation, who invariably speak some English – it is taught in schools – are, accordingly, in the frontline of tourism and benefit disproportionally from jobs in the service industries (especially from tips) and are no longer deferential to their parents’ generation. There is, in some places, according to the researcher, “an inversion of the family power hierarchy”, which will have long term implications for traditional structures and the place of the Greek Orthodox Church in rural society. The Orthodox Church has been the cohesive force in these communities for centuries – 85% of Greeks identify themselves as Orthodox. But the young are now more tuned into the global culture and consumerism, and are turning away from the church. (An article relating “the dilution of superstition and ritual by American cultural imperialism” is cited. Should be a fun read!)

  Segue to the music from Katerina’s room. Madonna. American cultural imperialism. I am not going to get anything written tonight. I close my computer, turn off the light and fall asleep.

  17

  The next morning, from the vantage point of what has become already my “usual” table at To Meltemi, Yianni’s place, I notice next door on the balcony of The Seaview, Antonis is breakfasting, and engaging in an enthusiastic exchange with Agapi. Xanthe is nowhere to be seen. I don’t expect that she does the early shift. Just as well - she would not be impressed by Agapi flirting with the Inspector from Athens. Agapi laughs at something Antonis says. They chat so effortlessly in Greek. He has an unfair advantage, I catch myself thinking.

  Then I chide myself. Why do I slip so easily into possessiveness of Agapi? I still feel an allegiance to Lucy – my possessiveness of Agapi feels like the slithering tendrils of treachery – but isn’t my pursuit of Lucy over? Can I still be harbouring a hope of getting it together with Lucy? Don’t be a fool, I tell myself irritably - move on. So I let myself – I compel myself – to regard Agapi with a discerning interest. What I notice is that compared with Lucy’s brazen beauty, Agapi’s beauty holds itself more easily. It is more contained in the tilt of her head, the shy curve of her belly. Agapi is more… yielding, more dependable. It must be said, she is more in my league. I don’t feel in awe of her, I don’t feel intimidated. She puts me at ease. Is it because she is a mother already? Am I looking for mothering? Is it because she is Greek? Could this be my hidden Greek soul looking for its mate? Or is this my unconscious doing its skulduggery to make Lucy jealous, even if this is, for now, only in my mind?

  But I do need to check in with Antonis about my story, so I go over to the Seaview as soon as I’ve had my coffee, eggs and toast. Antonis is pleased to see me. He is in a good mood. I don’t know him well enough, but I suspect he is often in a good mood. He has, what my mother would have called, a “sunny disposition”.

  “My friend!” he exclaims, opening his arms in a gesture of welcomes. “Come sit. Have coffee. I have news.” He tells me that they have checked the paperwork at the Town Hall and Garidis was right – although the contract was signed in 1969, construction of the bridge was only started after the company changed hands. The new owner – Hektor Papademos. He and the Chief have arranged to have “a friendly chat” with Mr Papademos he says, evidently proud of his mastery of English police terminology. Do I want to come with?

  “We must go to Agia Sofia this morning early also because I must put on the next aeroplane to Athens this” - he shows me a plastic tube – “a tissue sample, from the inside cheek, from Michalis, for DNA analysis to see if the body in the bridge is his father. It must go straight away, so it doesn’t spoil.” He looks serious but satisfied.

  Agapi comes with his bill. “Ah,” Antonis says, his face opening into a dazzling smile, “I have asked the lovely waitress, Agapi, if she would like to come with me for lunch al fresco tomorrow on the beach – it is Saint’s Day – and she has said she would. Isn’t that wonderful?” he asks me, not taking his eyes off Agapi.

  Agapi smiles back at him, then she turns to me. “You can come too, if you like,” she says sweetly. I catch the discombobulation of Antonis’s features, as he wonders in an instant whether to oppose this and risk being seen as churlish and small-minded, undoing the good work he has done to make himself attractive to the young lady of his fancy. Or to grin and bear it. Which is what he settles for, grinning fixedly, determined not to let himself down. I am his friend aft
er all. He is hoping, nevertheless, that I decline her invitation. I should. But I don’t. She wants me to be there – otherwise why did she invite me? She didn’t have to? It was cheeky of her. She must want me there for a reason. Safety in numbers? A chaperone? I affirm. “Sure,” I say, “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  She turns and swaggers off. I turn quickly to Antonis as soon as she is out of earshot. “Don’t worry, mate,” I assure him, “I won’t get in your way. I could even help your cause,” I tell him.

  He looks relieved. “Bless you,” he says earnestly, “This girl, I like.”

  ****

  The driver arrives in a silver Merc. All the other taxi-drivers drive white Mercs. This must be for VIPs. We get taken into Agia Sofia, where we meet the amiable Chief of Police (“Please, you call me Panagiotis”). The Chief asks if I’ve heard from Lucy. I tell him about the e-mail. He shares my disappointment, then shrugs with his women-what–you-can-do? shrug. We drive to the edge of town, where there are congregations of flat warehouses, fenced off into plots. We drive in the gates of one site which seems to specialise in building materials. Bricks, timber, heavy moving equipment. “Altreus Construction”, a sign says in English (or American?) and below it in Cyrillic script, a bold font for the title, and a less emphatic one for the small print down to the bottom. We drive up to a door at the far end of the building. The door is reinforced with flattened steel. We go in.

  There is a long counter, with shelves behind it, stacked with nails, bolts, brushes and industrial-sized tins of paint. A man is busy doing inventory with a clipboard. The Chief addresses him curtly. The man straightens and is flustered – he didn’t mean to give offense. The Chief is not interested. He asks to see the Boss. Antonis translated the man saying that the Boss is at the Poseidon. Panagiotis revises his request. “Hektor… Hektor Papademos,” he says menacingly. He does not like to be corrected. The man smirks and goes down a short corridor to an office at the back. He opens a door, asks someone something, then comes back and still smirking, leads us to the office of Hektor Papademos.