by Lena Manta
Aspasia threw herself into her work. The club was due to open in a week’s time to meet the demand of the island’s rapidly expanding tourist industry, and the rehearsals were exhausting. From the first moment she first saw him perform, the “star” of the club made an impression on her. Christos was a little older than Aspasia and the most handsome man she had ever seen. He had already begun to make a name for himself in Athens and was preparing to release his first record in the fall. All the other singers wanted to sing with him; to them, he was their ticket beyond anonymity. But Aspasia was indifferent to all that. The only thing that moved her were his eyes, which were the color of the sea. Whenever they rested on her, she’d become tongue-tied, like an inexperienced young girl.
It was Christos himself who suggested they sing a duet, something that automatically made the other girls dislike her, although she didn’t care. She liked this man. The blood flowed faster in her veins when she was near him, making her feel like a woman again. For his part, Christos was intrigued by the beautiful singer. Approaching her midthirties, Aspasia was more striking than ever. She may not have realized it, but her behavior, which showed quite clearly that she was ready for anything and everything, made her even more desirable. Christos had a permanent relationship in Athens with a woman named Myrsini, but he knew from experience that summer jobs were more enjoyable when you added in a love affair. The other singers didn’t interest him; he knew they saw him only as a way to Athens, and he didn’t want to risk his relationship with Myrsini, who, apart from being young and beautiful, was also very rich.
Aspasia was a different case, though. She couldn’t care less about the nightclubs of Athens. It was quite clear that what interested her was his bed; her eyes told him that plainly. But Christos hadn’t calculated the imponderable factor: that his love of Aspasia would make him lose his mind. Never in his life had he met a woman who was a living volcano, as incredible and daring as any man could be. Nothing concerned her except being in his arms. Her erotic games were extraordinary and made all his fantasies seem like adolescent daydreams.
She was dynamite on stage too. The customers of the club were soon crazy about her. When she performed, they couldn’t take their eyes off her, which pleased the club’s owner. Aspasia had paid off as a real moneymaker.
Aspasia had come to understand the duality she possessed. As she saw it, there were two women inside of her. One was the housewife from Kalamata, the mother of two girls. The other was a woman completely devoted to satisfying her own body, which seemed to be insatiable, and to feeding her hungry soul. Whenever she left her home, she left the housewife behind, and the other woman awoke inside her.
While on Crete, Aspasia slept very little. In the mornings she would wander around Chania and the surrounding countryside. In the evenings she would set the club alight with her high spirits. And in the intervals between her shows, she was always in Christos’s arms.
Myrsini’s visit to Chania was unexpected and very annoying. She would stay for five days, and during that interval Aspasia couldn’t see Christos at all—he had made that clear to her. But after the second day he himself realized that the narcotic called Aspasia was much stronger than he thought. He missed her terribly. Myrsini, who never left his side, stifled him with her presence and when he and Aspasia went up on stage to sing together, it nearly caught fire from the glances they exchanged. By the third night Christos felt ill. As Myrsini slept beside him, his body burned at the thought of Aspasia. He couldn’t contain himself. So he snuck out and went to her house. He knew that Aspasia always slept with her balcony doors open, so he carefully climbed up to her room, where he found her sleeping half-naked because of the heat. He undressed and lay down silently beside her. At first she was startled, but as soon as she realized who the man in her bed was, she laughed happily.
They were lucky. Myrsini hadn’t noticed Christos’s absence. When she woke the next morning and found him sitting on the balcony drinking coffee, she thought he had simply woken up early. She never imagined that he was trying to recover from the unbelievable night he’d spent with Aspasia.
Shortly before the summer was over, Christos asked Aspasia to follow him to Athens.
“Listen to me for a little while without interrupting,” she said. “I won’t come to Athens. We’ve never spoken about our lives. Of course I know about Myrsini because she came here, but you don’t know anything about me.”
“I know as much as I need to know, Aspasia, and it’s enough to know that I can’t lose you.”
“I asked you not to interrupt me,” she scolded him tenderly. “Christos, things aren’t so simple. Back in Kalamata there’s a man waiting for me—my husband!”
“You’re married?” Christos’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“I have two daughters too.”
“So what are you doing here in Crete? Are you two separated?”
“No, and I’m not about to be. I met Stavros when I was still almost a child. I didn’t know then that singing was more important to me than marriage, so this is where life led me: In the winter I change back into a wife and mother, but in summer . . .”
When Aspasia arrived back home again the girls greeted her warmly. During the months of separation, they’d put aside their objections to her trip. Stavros, however, had changed; that was quite obvious. His greeting was formal and slightly cold, and when Aspasia realized later that evening that he now slept in the room that had belonged to his mother, she was surprised.
“Are you going to sleep here?” she asked as she stood in the doorway of her mother-in-law’s old room.
“I’ve slept here since you left,” he answered.
“Yes, but now I’m back.”
“For how long? It’s just a matter of time before you leave again, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, but what does it matter? I’m here now and I missed you.”
Stavros gave her a hard look and began to undress in front of her, then lay down and covered himself with the blanket.
“And I missed you—in the beginning,” he said. “But then I got used to it. I don’t want to go back to how I was, Aspasia.”
“And how were you?”
“Sick with you. As if I was drugged, dependent on your body and your love. I can’t go through that again. After the death of my mother I thought that the two of us had found our way back to each other, but then you cured me of that illusion when you told me about Crete. I realized then that there was no possibility for us anymore.”
Aspasia was at a total loss. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What are you saying, Stavros? I’m your wife, don’t you remember?”
“Of course I do. But you left without caring how any of us felt and now you come back and you’re claiming what? My presence in your bed?”
“Naturally.”
“Can’t you manage without that, Aspasia?” he asked, and the sarcasm in his voice stung her. “Why are you surprised? Do you think I don’t know that when you go away it’s not only for the love of singing, but because other people also enjoy your company in bed? And do you know what’s worse? That you enjoy them even more. I don’t know what sort of perversion you have hidden in you but I don’t want to share it. I refuse to sleep with a woman who has just gotten out of another man’s bed!”
Aspasia had to support herself on a chair so as not to fall. She couldn’t take in what she was hearing. She looked at her husband, shaken.
“You didn’t expect such a reception, of course,” he said unkindly, smugly.
“No,” she whispered. “And I can’t say you’re wrong. It’s true, Stavros, but you don’t understand me.”
“And I don’t want to. Just as you don’t want to understand what you’re doing. One day you’ll recover. I don’t know what it’ll take to make that happen, but I hope it doesn’t break you at the same time. You can do as you like from now on, so long as you don’t drag my name and the girls’ through the mud. I could ask for a divorce, but the children ar
en’t to blame for anything. So we’ll remain husband and wife, just as a formality, and we’ll behave like a loving couple in front of others and the children. And you . . . do your dirty business discreetly a long way from here, as you have until now, and never ask me to come to your bed again. It’s just too crowded in there! Good night, Aspasia.” And with those words Stavros rolled over and turned out the light.
With her head hung in shame, Aspasia slowly left the room and dragged herself to her bed, where she lay down, still in her clothes. She felt as if she’d been beaten. Everything that Stavros had said was true and the truth hurt. But even more painful was the fact that she couldn’t regret anything, nor could she promise to change.
Everything happened as her husband had described. From that day on, he was quite affectionate to her in front of the children, but when they were gone, he didn’t speak to her. If she touched him even by accident, he stiffened and pulled away with a dark look. On many evenings he would come home very late or not at all, with the excuse of some work in Tripoli or elsewhere, but she knew he was out partying.
One night when he came home very drunk, Aspasia reminded him sharply that he had insisted they be discreet. They argued and for the first time Stavros raised his hand and slapped her. Then he threw her on his bed. Aspasia had never felt cheap, but she did now. As soon as he took his hands off her she left, crying, with her clothes torn and her body covered in bruises. The next day she hoped he would apologize, but Stavros only appeared at her door, his expression dripping poison.
“If you were expecting me to say sorry for last night, you have another thing coming!” he lashed out. “You got what a woman like you deserves. And however often it happens, it’ll happen like that. If you liked last night’s performance, I’m always at your service. From what I understand, you only like it like that.”
When he left the room, Aspasia felt so dirty that she ran and stood under the hot water, but it didn’t help. She came out of the bathroom feeling worse. She sat in front of the mirror and looked at herself. She couldn’t blame anyone but herself for the destruction of her marriage. She had wounded her husband and distanced herself from her children, who had grown up in her absence. Singing had become her whole life—a life that suited immoral women, cheap women. How had she allowed herself to be dragged away like that?
The river came into her mind again. She had become a branch on the current, just as her mother had feared. After so many years, Aspasia finally wanted to go home, but she couldn’t. She knew she wouldn’t have the courage to look her mother in the eye. In spite of her longing, she had cut all ties and burned the bridges of return.
The next summer it was Patras. Aspasia went without thinking about it, but this time everything was different. She was always perfect in her work, but she seemed to be punishing herself. She drank a lot and in the morning she couldn’t remember who she’d slept with. She felt like an object without any feelings, but she continued her behavior with an unhealthy persistence, without caring how much she was humiliating herself.
However much Aspasia drank, she couldn’t forget that her oldest daughter had given her an ultimatum just before she left. When Stella had found out that her mother planned to go away again, as she’d done in previous summers, she exploded.
“That’s enough!” she had shouted. “Every summer for years now you’ve disappeared. Don’t you think you’d better stop this stuff at some point?”
Aspasia looked at her, unable to accept that this angry creature in front of her was the daughter she’d always favored. Her heart felt heavy with sadness.
“Why are you speaking to me like that?” she asked. “It’s only for a little while. Most of the rest of the year, I’m here with you; you know that!”
“Yes, but a mother’s job isn’t something you do in your spare time. You can’t be gone for four months and spend the rest of the time here. We need you all year. And Dad—don’t you see how hurt he is every time you leave?”
“But it’s my work,” muttered Aspasia. Even to her own ears, this seemed a feeble excuse.
“Don’t give me that! You’re a singer in bouzouki clubs. It’s not like you’re world-famous. To be honest I don’t think the evenings would suffer much if you didn’t appear, and you don’t do it for the money.”
“Stella, you’re still young, and you don’t understand.”
“But it’s because I’m young that I want my mother. And Theodora is very young and you pay no attention to her.”
“Now you’re wrong. When I’m here, aren’t we together all the time? Don’t we read and play and don’t I do what you want?”
“You said it yourself! When you’re here! In summer, when you’re not here, we’re all by ourselves. It’s not enough!”
“What are you asking me, child?”
“Not to go away again. I understand that you have no choice this time; you’ve already signed a contract. But I want it to be the last! Put an end to all this!”
Stella had left, crying, and Aspasia felt as if she would collapse. The last thing she expected was this attack. All summer long, as she drifted between the stage, the drinking, and the meaningless beds, she couldn’t forget her daughter’s look. The margins were shrinking. This summer would be the last one like this. Life as she had been leading it would have to come to an end.
Two months later, when Stavros called to tell her in an unsteady voice that Stella was in the hospital, Aspasia raced back to Kalamata like a madwoman. When she got there, she found Stavros on the point of collapse. He had refused to share all the details with her until now, but the doctors were quite clear: it was cancer. The girl only had a short time left.
The shock was terrible. None of the doctors they saw could explain where such a terrible thing had come from. There is no explanation for this disease, they all said. And nobody gave them the slightest hope. The enemy was especially aggressive—it was a form that spread rapidly. Unable to accept what was happening to his child, Stavros arranged for them to all leave for London, convinced that there, Stella might get better care.
They arrived in the foggy city in a daze, but wasted no time; every minute lost might prove fatal. The English doctors operated on her and bombarded her with radiation. They did everything they could, but Stella seemed to be slipping through their hands like sand. In the months they spent there, Stavros and Aspasia watched their daughter fade into her bed while Theodora wouldn’t leave her sister’s side. She spent the whole day holding Stella’s almost transparent hand in hers and murmuring loving words.
Aspasia became a shadow of herself. Her eyes swimming with agony, she looked at the emaciated face of her daughter and tried to give her strength through her gaze. She wanted to scream, to order the sickness away from her child, to beg God to take her instead. All the while, her lips remained frozen in a reassuring smile so Stella wouldn’t be afraid. For hours Aspasia spoke to her, even telling her the stories she hadn’t told her as a child; she’d sing to her until she lost her voice and Theodora took her place.
Stavros spent hours in silence, staring at his daughter’s chest, which rose and fell with difficulty. He counted her breaths by the second, the minute, and the hour. As long as his child breathed there was hope. The doctors wondered how Stella continued to live. She hardly communicated with the world around her, breathed with difficulty, and needed tremendous effort to say just two words, and only to her mother. Afterward she would sink back into the bed, exhausted.
One night Stella opened her eyes and saw her mother looking at her. She smiled weakly.
“What do you want, my child?” Aspasia whispered.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I can’t sleep. I look at you and I can never have enough,” Aspasia said, her voice breaking.
“We never had enough time, the two of us,” murmured Stella, and with a great effort, she stroked her mother’s cheek.
“Don’t talk and tire yourself, my darling.” Aspasia felt the tears burning her eyes.
“No my darling! It’s too early. You have your whole life in front of you. Hold on, Stella! You’ll get better.”
“No, Mama, I won’t get better . . . I know now. I want to leave but I don’t want to leave you. That’s why I’m holding on. It’s the first time I’ve felt you were mine, only mine . . . and I don’t want to lose you. I also don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I’m trying to stay, but I feel so tired.”
Stella’s eyes closed again. Aspasia broke out into a silent weeping that shook her whole body. When her husband’s hands gently touched her shoulders, it frightened her. Stavros had heard the whole conversation. Aspasia leaned against him and continued to cry.
In the morning, Stella’s condition had become even worse. Her breaths came out with a whistling sound that was frightening. Stavros led Theodora away from her sister’s bedside. She was crying and didn’t want to leave, but Stavros insisted that she go for a walk in the care of a woman he’d met in the hospital.
Then Stavros turned to his wife. “The time has come, Aspasia,” he said, but she shook her head. “Yes,” Stavros insisted. “You and I both heard what the child said last night. As long as you’re beside her she won’t die. She’s holding on so as not to hurt you. It is a shame, though, because she’s suffering herself. Let her rest now.”
“How can you ask me such a thing?” Aspasia demanded, crying. “She’s so young. It’s a crime! We shouldn’t lose our child, Stavros! If she’s still living because of me, that’s fine. Maybe my presence will give her the strength to fight and win.”
“If there was the slightest hope, do you think I’d be talking to you like this? Don’t you see her? Don’t you hear what the doctors say? Enough, Aspasia! Let her go—she’s suffering, don’t you understand? It’s not God’s will for her to survive.”
