The House by the River

by Lena Manta

  Melissanthi and Apostolos married right away. The wedding was held in the village, and none of Apostolos’s friends or associates from Athens were invited. Christos, naturally, served as best man, and before anyone could quite comprehend it, Melissanthi had her little suitcase in hand and was ready to leave. Apostolos would take her first to Thessaloniki to shop, then to Athens.

  Standing in the middle of the kitchen, the newlywed said good-bye to her sisters and mother.

  “So,” she began uncomfortably. “The time has come . . .”

  “Will you ever come back?” asked the youngest, Magdalini, with tears in her eyes.

  “Look, it’s not like I’m going to America,” Melissanthi said, trying to smile, but she was visibly moved. “I may even come back at Easter.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Polyxeni rejoined, and her tone was sharp. “You were crazy about leaving the village. Why would you want to come back? Who knows? You may go on a trip abroad at Easter.”

  An embarrassing pause followed, but Theodora broke the silence.

  “Stop all this silly talk and kiss your sister,” she said. “Wish her happiness in her new life!”

  The girls hurried to do as their mother told them, and Melissanthi coolly accepted their kisses and wishes. Then the sisters left, and mother and daughter were alone.

  The girl turned to her mother. “They made me angry,” she whispered.

  “They’ll miss you, that’s all it is.”

  “Polyxeni seemed to be angry with me.”

  “She’s like you. She wants to leave, too—maybe even more than you do. Anyway . . . it’s not the time to talk about that. Good-bye, Melissanthi, and good luck!”

  “Do you hold it against me, Mother?”

  “No mother holds anything against her child. You wanted to leave and you managed it. I’ll tell you what I told your sister when she left: this house will always be here, waiting for you. If you suffer wounds in your new life, only this house can heal you. Right now you want to run away and never want to look back. But that might change someday. And if it does, your home will always be here.”

  Theodora embraced her daughter and kissed her, and as she watched her get into the car with her new husband, she silently made the sign of the cross. Just as it had been when Julia left, Theodora’s last image of her daughter was a cloud of dust trailing behind the car that took her away.

  Life returned to its usual routine, and Theodora busied herself with work. She only felt the absence of her two daughters at mealtimes, when she saw their empty seats at the table. She’d wonder what they were doing in their new lives. Neither of them seemed inclined to make regular contact, although now and then a card or a short letter would arrive. But the promises they contained, of imminent visits, remained just that—promises and nothing more. Theodora looked at her three remaining daughters and asked herself what lay ahead for them. Each one was different from the others; the only thing they had in common was their desire to live far from their village.

  No one knew where Aspasia—who was as beautiful as her mother—had inherited her love and talent for singing. When her daughter was little, Theodora admired her voice, but now she worried. Clearly, the girl had a passion for performing and was dying to try her luck at it professionally. Theodora knew an artist’s life could be difficult, and she feared Aspasia would struggle to survive.

  Polyxeni, on the other hand, seemed only obsessed with herself. Her beauty was more refined than that of the others, her features more delicate, and she was so full of herself that it irritated her mother and elicited comments in the village. A lot of people called Polyxeni stuck up, and Theodora didn’t think they were wrong. She’d repeatedly caught her daughter staring in the mirror, reciting poetry affectedly. She’d scold her for this, but Polyxeni simply ignored her mother’s disapproval. Instead, she looked at her almost with an air of superiority and left the room with her head held high.

  As for Theodora’s youngest daughter, she seemed calmer than the other two, but was quite studious. In fact, her mother was afraid to ever take a book from her hand. At school, Magdalini’s grades were excellent, and her teachers said that she must continue her education. Yet Theodora rejected the idea, because she knew that to continue her studies, her daughter would have to move by herself to some large town, and she just couldn’t accept that.

  More and more often, Theodora escaped to the river, where she allowed her thoughts to flow freely. Every now and then she climbed up high on some slope and looked out toward the sea spreading endlessly in front of her. She wondered what must be on the other side of the horizon. Apart from the time when she married Gerasimos, she’d never left her village hidden in the trees below Mount Olympus, where black clouds rolled in low each winter and deafening thunder rattled your insides.

  When Theodora was very small, whenever the thunder struck, she’d turn her gaze to the wild summit of the mountain, in anticipation of something more to come. She never exactly knew what she was waiting for. It was the same now—something was coming, but she didn’t know what.

  Stavros Mantekas cursed under his breath again. He had to admit that he was lost. As the heavy truck groaned, he wondered whether its old tired motor would abandon him in the wilderness. He stopped on a flat stretch and turned the engine off. He must find someone to give him directions, but what sort of crazy person would be wandering about in this wilderness? He lit a cigarette and sat down on a rock. It occurred to him that he must be very tired. Otherwise, how could he explain the voice he heard singing as clearly and beautifully as if it had come from the sky? He looked around him. The voice was coming from somewhere nearby and seemed to be getting closer.

  When Aspasia saw the young man sitting on a rock, she abruptly stopped singing. He was looking at her as if he was in a daze. She gave him an annoyed glance for intruding on her private moment. This little flat place was hers; it’s where she’d come to sing in peace whenever she could get away. What did this young man want? Why had he turned up in front of her?

  Stavros stood up, and before he could say a word, he silently noted that this girl with the heavenly voice was very beautiful.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I must have frightened you.”

  “Yes,” Aspasia replied. “I didn’t expect to find anyone in this deserted place.”

  “So I wasn’t wrong to think I was lost.”

  “You’re lost?”

  “Yes, I have to deliver an order to some store, and I’ve never been in this area.”

  “Which store is your order for?”

  “The owner’s name is Pandelis Karavassilis.”

  “Ah! He has a grocery store in our village.”

  “And where is that village?”

  “As soon as you make a turn, you’re there!”

  “Really? From a distance, it doesn’t look like anyone lives in this area.”

  “All the villages here were built like that. It was probably for safety from the Turks. Just when you think there’s not a soul around, a whole village leaps out before your eyes.”

  “And do you live there?”

  “Since I was born, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Excuse me. My name is Stavros Mantekas.”

  “My name is Aspasia.”

  “A lovely name, and a lovely voice you have, miss.”

  “Thank you. Will you stay in our village?”

  “I’ll have to. It’ll be dark very soon. I got lost here in the daylight. There’s no way I could find my way at night.”

  “And where will you stay?”

  “I’ll sleep in my truck. I often do that.”

  “It gets really cold at night around here.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have any choice. It’s night, it’ll pass.”

  Theodora’s mouth fell open when she saw her daughter enter the house with a young man. Aspasia quickly explained Stavros’s story and announced to her mother that they’d feed him and let him stay until the morning. Then he’d take his truck back to Larissa.


  Stavros turned out to be very good company. He was a pleasant man with a polite manner and very talkative. Originally from Edessa, he lived with his family in Larissa. He had finished school, but not without some trouble because he didn’t like learning. He’d become a professional driver to help support his mother, whose husband had died when Stavros was only ten. Now that he was twenty-eight, he managed to make enough from his work to get by easily and not have any debts.

  As Stavros spoke, Theodora watched her daughters. As usual, Magdalini was distracted. She just wanted to finish dinner and lose herself again in some book. Polyxeni was also uninterested in their guest’s stories. She clearly looked down at this young man for his humble origins and his even humbler work. Sometimes Theodora wondered where her daughter’s attitude came from. She always sat at the table with her back quite straight, ate with small bites, and spread her napkin on her knees. At first they’d all laughed at this last gesture, but Polyxeni shot back that only ignorant people tied their napkins around their necks.

  When Theodora turned her gaze toward Aspasia, she saw her looking at Stavros with interest. The girl laughed at his stories about his work, and her eyes were shining. If she hadn’t already lost her heart, it was only a matter of time.

  Theodora made up a bed for Stavros in the kitchen and he thanked her a thousand times for saving him from spending the night in his dilapidated truck. She herself wouldn’t sleep tonight—not with an unknown man in her house. She made her daughters lock the doors to their rooms and did the same herself, but she couldn’t stop listening for any suspicious noise. At midnight, she tiptoed into the kitchen, where she found Stavros sound asleep. She went back to her room and stood in front of the window. The sky was clear and the moon cast its full light on the earth. In spite of herself, Theodora sighed. If Stavros were to come back to the village, it would be bad news for her. She looked at the moon again and asked why fate demanded that she live alone. Why couldn’t her daughters choose to marry village lads?

  The moon had no answer for her. It wasn’t responsible for people’s fate. All it could do was look at them from high above and witness their most secret moments, to hear their sighs and see their tears. It didn’t even make its own light, so how could it help?

  Stavros got up before dawn. Theodora found him in the courtyard checking the engine of his enormous truck and brought some coffee to him. She sat beside him while he lit a cigarette.

  “Are you leaving right away?” she asked.

  “I have to,” he answered. “My boss will probably shout at me because I didn’t come back last night. I want to thank you, Kyria Theodora, for your hospitality. I don’t know if anyone else would have done that in your position. You fed me and let me sleep in your house even though I’m a stranger.”

  “We’re all people, Stavros. We must help each other when we can.”

  Stavros looked around him. “I like it here. It’s so quiet.”

  “Tell that to my daughters, who all want to leave.”

  “Nobody appreciates what they have. Here, the air is different than it is in Larissa. It’s more pleasant.”

  “That air is swelling my daughters’ brains!”

  Stavros laughed heartily and stood up. “However much I’d like to stay, I must leave. I have a long road ahead of me.”

  “If your travels bring you to our village again, you know you’ll be welcome at my house!” Theodora said, then wondered to herself why she’d blurted out the invitation.

  “Thank you. Next time, if I come, I’ll try to leave enough time to fix the stair to the verandah. The wood has rotted and I nearly killed myself this morning when I was coming down!” he answered, smiling, then extended his hand. “Please tell the girls good-bye for me when they wake up.”

  Theodora watched him leave, knowing deep inside that very soon Stavros Mantekas would return to their village and her house.

  The step was fixed, the roof was mended, and the old kitchen table was sanded and painted again thanks to Stavros. Theodora wondered exactly how he managed to arrange a route through their village nearly every ten days. But she knew that when someone really wants something, everything is possible. In the end, Stavros became a virtual member of the household; everyone got used to him and if he was occasionally late in arriving, their faces clouded over, especially Aspasia’s. Theodora knew her daughter was in love, although she couldn’t tell if the feeling was reciprocated. Stavros was polite to Aspasia, as he was to everyone in the family, but he never indicated any desire to be alone with Aspasia.

  Soon after Christmas that year Stavros came to visit again. This time, he got caught in a snowstorm that prevented him from leaving. So he went on foot to Mr. Karavassilis’s grocery store, where he telephoned his boss, who, however much he yelled, couldn’t argue with the weather. Stavros settled himself in the house by the river, and Theodora remembered what it was like to have a man around to help her. He brought in the wood and fed and watered the animals so none of them had to go out in the cold. In the evenings they’d all gather around the fire and Magdalini would read aloud from one of her books. Or they’d listen to Stavros’s stories, which were very entertaining.

  After ten days, the roads reopened and Stavros was ready to leave again. The previous evening he’d gone to feed the animals as usual. But this time, Aspasia secretly followed him. For some time now she’d felt her heart beating for him. She longed to catch his eye, and every time he left without showing the slightest hint of interest, she was all the more disappointed. That evening, though, she’d made up her mind to clarify the situation.

  When Stavros felt the freezing air rush into the barn behind him, he turned to see who was there. He froze in surprise when he saw Aspasia.

  “Aspasia! What on earth are you doing here at this hour and in this cold?” he asked.

  Aspasia approached him before she answered. “I came to see if you needed help,” she whispered, as she looked at him with unmistakable longing in her eyes. Stavros stepped back, placing a pile of hay between them.

  “As you see, I’m managing well,” he answered, his voice betraying his sudden discomfort. “Go inside, you’ll catch a cold.”

  Aspasia walked around the hay and looked him in the eyes. Stavros took a deep breath and moved away. Even the animals could sense his anxiety. Aspasia approached him again and grasped the pitchfork in his hand to stop him from moving away.

  Stavros pulled the fork from her and threw it to the other end of the barn, leaving Aspasia stunned by his violence.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked him. “What did I do to make you angry?”

  Stavros grasped her hard by the arm and shook her roughly. “Why did you come, Aspasia? What business do you have alone with me? Don’t you understand anything yet?”

  “What is it I should understand?” The girl was completely at a loss. “I just wanted to be alone with you for a little while—for us to talk.”

  “To talk?” Stavros seemed beside himself. “Do you realize how hard it’s been for me to be around you? How do you expect me to keep ahold of myself while we’re alone? What do you think I am? I’m a man and . . .”

  He didn’t continue. He had trouble breathing. Finally, he pressed his lips to hers in total surrender. As a sweet sense of dizziness flooded her, Aspasia finally understood that Stavros hadn’t been avoiding her because he was uninterested. Rather, he’d been trying all this time to control his feelings. Happily, she curled her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with the same intensity.

  As Stavros’s caresses became more daring, Aspasia clung more tightly to him. When her legs wouldn’t support her anymore, they found themselves rolling in the hay while he covered her with his body. As his hands traveled all over her, she felt herself vibrate like a musical instrument and groaned with delight. Then, suddenly, she found herself alone on the hay. Stavros had leapt up and was now punching a wooden beam with his fists. Aspasia sat up and looked at him in surprise.

  “S
tavros, what’s the matter?” she asked.

  He turned angrily toward her again. “You ask what’s the matter after what just happened?” he shouted. “Your mother welcomed me into her house and I betrayed her! Any longer and we would have . . . in her own home! That’s why we shouldn’t have been alone together. That’s why I’ve struggled for so long against this.”

  Aspasia understood and calmed down. The next moment she got up and came close to him.

  Stavros looked her in the eyes. “I love you,” he said.

  A smile lit up the girl’s face. “Now I know. And I love you. That’s why I came here tonight, to tell you and find out how you felt. I’ve been asking myself for so long and you never . . .”

  “I respected you and your mother, and now I feel very bad. How can I look her in the eye?”

  “You’re going to have to find a way. Because she would never give me to someone who’s afraid to look another person in the eye, even his mother-in-law!”

  “Mother-in-law?”

  “She’ll be your mother-in-law when we marry.”

  “Do you mean—you’ll marry me?”

  “If you ask me to!”

  Stavros held her tightly and Aspasia pressed her lips to his again, but then he stopped her. “No more! Resistance has its limits and I went beyond them today. I’ll speak to your mother tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I don’t want to deceive her for another moment. I respect her tremendously. Go back to the house now, and after dinner I’ll ask her if the two of us can talk privately.”

  Aspasia went back to the house with her heart beating loudly and her body humming from her first acquaintance with sexual delight. That night they ate in silence, as everyone was immersed in their thoughts. After the girls got up from the table and said good night, Stavros stayed behind to smoke. Theodora looked at him angrily.

  “I thought you were an honorable man!” she said sharply.

  He looked at her with guilt written all over his face but surprise in his eyes. “Me?” he whispered.