The Messenger of Athens

by Anne Zouroudi

  He glanced at Zafiridis’s right hand, and confirmed what he had noticed before: the third finger bore no gold ring.

  ‘She doesn’t like to travel, when the weather’s bad,’ said Zafiridis.

  ‘You’ll be missing her,’ said Nikos. ‘And tell me, have you sampled any of our local delicacies yet?’

  There was a note of mischief in his voice. The policeman looked at him with frosted eyes.

  ‘You’ll find our oysters very good,’ said Nikos. ‘I’ll tell Andreas to bring you some, when he returns.’

  ‘In that profession, he’ll be away a good deal of the time, your friend,’ said Zafiridis. ‘Your niece must get quite lonely.’

  ‘She has me. We keep each other company.’

  ‘Forgive me, Nikos, but an uncle is not the same as a husband.’

  ‘Your concern for my niece’s well-being is touching, Chief. Are you afraid she may be molested on the way home? Or perhaps your interest is more . . . personal?’

  Lizardis cleared his throat, loudly. The Chief’s thin mouth bent, like a rod, into a smile with no warmth.

  ‘Just doing my job, Nikos,’ he said. ‘It’s my job to protect people.’

  ‘Well,’ said Nikos, baring his teeth in his own cold smile, ‘don’t plan on offering your kind of protection to my niece. You would insult me. In any case, she’s a respectable girl, and not corruptible by you.’

  The Chief of Police laughed. ‘What a low opinion you have of me, Nikos. And what a high opinion of women. You and I both know that in here’ – he tapped himself with a finger where his heart should be – ‘in here, they’re all whores. All open to the right offer. And now, how about making us some coffee?’

  At the house, Irini was alone. The day slipped slowly by, and into early decline. The lark which Andreas kept for the sweetness of its song seemed listless in its tiny, bamboo cage. Irini filled the pot from which it fed with fine seed, and waggled her fingers through the bars to stir the bird to eat; but the lark turned its head away, and remained unmoving on its perch.

  She sat down at the window and watched a spider weave its web beneath the sill, then watched the struggling of a moth that blundered into it. She knocked moss from the outhouse roof, and swept the scattered geranium leaves from the courtyard steps. She picked and tied a bunch of sage, and brewed hot tea from some of it; but the tea swam with drowned mites, and she threw the sage away. She thought of Andreas, and whether he was keeping dry; she thought about Nikos, and whether he was staying warm.

  As evening fell, beneath the small domestic sounds – the chink of a cup cleared away, the bright applause of a TV game show, the drip of water in the sink – the silence gathered strength. The silence, day by day, was growing louder, and the day was almost here when she would understand the paradox: that this silence was not silence, but the swelling sound of emptiness.

  Three

  Each time she leaves, my wife calls out to me – ‘I’m going now, Theo’ – as if I want to know. She’ll take her time, but still forget my cigarettes, or something, so later on she’ll have to go again, and she’ll complain, and ask me to drive her down in the truck. And I’ll say, The walk will do you good, and she will want to say, Well, you go then, but won’t quite dare. And I’ll watch her from the window as she descends the path, and she’ll slyly pull that put-on face to let me know she’s suffering, for me.

  She finds it hard, she says, living here. It’s hard for everyone, I say.

  But you won’t see it.

  Like memory, rose-pink and dangerous, imagination distorts truth – so you, the traveller, conjure what you dreamed you’d see. Here’s your village: a cluster of white-washed houses, all alight with dazzling geraniums, nestling together on the majestic hillside, looking down on a blue, shimmering sea.

  No. Live here, and learn. Truth, and consequences. Here’s my village, high on the hill, exposed to the elements, whatever they bring. To thwart the marauders of centuries ago, its siting was perfect – but time’s moved on, and the road’s still so difficult, each coming and going is a journey. Its warren of pretty, cobbled streets that draws you to explore – Where does this go? This way, or that? – makes weary walking for old legs and women weighed down by heavy bags of shopping. And quaint, close-packed houses put your neighbours in your face – better keep your nose clean – and the cracks and crannies of old, stone walls make homes for every kind of vermin. At night, we fall asleep to the scuttlings of beetles and the scrabblings of rats.

  Thodoris Hatzistratis – Theo – had been born on this island, and here he was likely to die. His father, and his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father – all had been born here, and, with the instinct of small-time farmers, all married island girls and bred their blood line pure, like livestock. All would be buried, one after the other, in the same cemetery plot; all would occupy it for the Orthodox-prescribed time – seven years, or ten – and then their bones, picked clean by the creatures who manage our decay, would be disinterred, and laid in the crowded ossuary, stacked tibia on fibula with their fathers, and mothers, and sisters, and wives: as close in death as in life.

  To know the place of his grave from early childhood has an effect on a man. To place flowers on the ground where he himself will one day lie makes him fatalistic, pessimistic. Ambition and ideas for life atrophy – after all, what is the point? Life’s point, on this island, was always clearly visible, up there on the hillside. Eyes raised from chores or play took in the high, white cemetery walls, where for every one of them the family tomb was waiting for their corpse. All knew exactly where life was leading them; all the eating, drinking, fornicating, worrying, working, wishing it were different, wishing there were more, were only steps on that narrow road. They were all travelling together, towards the cemetery gates.

  Some years had passed since great-grandfather had been disinterred. Today, Grandpa was to take his place.

  Grandpa lay, rigid and cold, in his pine coffin on the parlour table. The coffin, one of the undertaker’s standard sizes, was too long for him; it overran the table ends, and the mourners, coming and going, cracked the door on its foot. Every chair in the house had been carried into the parlour, backed up to the walls beneath the gilded icons; red-eyed from crying and from lack of sleep, the women sat where they had sat all night, lighting long, brown candles, snuffing them as they burned low, watching that the Devil didn’t come to steal Grandpa’s soul.

  To see him lying there made Theo’s heart ache.

  He bent to kiss the old man’s forehead. The skin to which he touched his lips was dry, and jaundiced like the skin of corn-fed chickens. The lines of Grandpa’s face had dissolved, and his wrinkles – deep enough, in life, to hold a matchstick – had all gone: his complexion had reverted to a youth’s. The women had made him respectable, much more so than he ever was in his late years; they had shaved him, and scrubbed and clipped his nails, and put him in his suit, his wedding suit (he owned no other, but age had shrunk his frame, and his arthritic hands were covered by the jacket sleeves almost to the fingertips). He wore a white shirt, bought this morning for this occasion; they had pressed out its pinned-in creases – the sweet smell of ironing starch mingled with the candle smoke – and its collar, buttoned tight, hung loose around his neck.

  Around his nostrils, a fat fly crawled.

  The women – his mother and Aunt Maria, Aunt Anna and poor Aunt Sofia – watched him in silence. Elpida, Theo’s wife, yawned. He’d asked her not to wear that skirt; it didn’t cover her knees. Theo pushed by her to where his grandmother sat at Grandpa’s side. He squeezed his grandmother’s hands, touched his face lightly to hers, left and right; the wetness of her tears was cold on his cheeks.

  ‘Theo,’ she whispered. ‘Theo mou, agapi mou.’ He was unsure whether she meant him, or Grandpa. He had been baptised with his grandfather’s name; he was the living memorial now to Grandpa’s time on earth.

  ‘May his memory be eternal,’ he said. ‘He’s with the saints no
w, Grandma.’

  There were voices from the street. Aunt Sofia lifted the curtain of hand-crocheted net and peered through the window at her back.

  ‘The priest’s here,’ she said.

  The women began to wail.

  In the kitchen, Pappa Philippas was preparing the tools of his trade. He was a tall, stooping man, gaunt-faced with pale eyes set in hollow, shadowed sockets. The children were afraid of him; if he caught them in misdemeanours, he pinched them with his bony fingers. He had never married; he had been disappointed in love. As he had aged, his disappointment had overgrown him, like ivy.

  ‘Condolences to you, Theo,’ said the priest. His voice was slow, and morbid. ‘Your grandfather was a good man.’

  He laid an ornate incense burner on the stove-top, and beside it matches, a cylinder of charcoal and a tiny box of incense. Theo unscrewed the top from a bottle of Scotch and held up the bottle to the priest.

  ‘Drink, Father?’

  ‘Just a small one, Theo. I don’t like to drink whilst I’m on duty.’

  On a tin tray covered in an embroidered cloth, the women had laid out rows of mis-matched glass tumblers, brought from other homes, borrowed from the neighbours. Theo poured a finger of liquor for them both. Pappa Philippas struck a match and put the flame to the charcoal until it fizzed bright sparks, then placed the charcoal in the burner. Choosing a piece of opaque, ivory-coloured incense from the tiny box, he laid it carefully on the hot charcoal and lowered the lid of the burner. Heavy, rose-scented smoke billowed through filigree holes.

  Pappa Philippas drank down his whisky, and, gathering up the jangling chains of the burner, gave a practice swing. He closed his eyes for a moment, whispering a few words in rehearsal – Holy God, Holy Strength, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us – then, opening the door into the parlour, he began the mournful chant of the Service for All the Dead.

  The men had gathered outside. They smoked, sipped whisky, found nothing to say. Theo’s father, Michaelis, leaned with Uncle Janis against the house wall, arms around each other’s shoulders, the stubble of mourning already on their faces. Uncle Janis was weeping; his father’s eyes were bloodshot. Theo’s brother, Takis, stood with Cousin Lukas. Out of respect, Lukas had washed his hands; the grime still on his forearms formed a sleeve above his wrists. Takis had slicked his hair back like a pimp. He swigged on a bottle of German lager and winked at Theo. O God of spirits and all flesh, who trampled down death and crushed the Devil, giving life to your world; O Lord, give rest to the soul of your servant Thodoris, who has fallen asleep, in a place of light, a place of green pasture, a place of refreshment, whence pain, grief and sighing have fled away. The wind was from the north, and bitter, and the sky threatened rain; through the closed, curtained window of the parlour, the priest’s voice droned on.

  On a plastic chair beneath the oak tree, Grandpa’s great friend Nikolas sat alone. He clutched a small bouquet of flowers picked from the orchards – white-petalled marguerites, wild orchids, yellow poppies – their stems wrapped round with a crumpled paper bag. The poppies had lost their freshness and were wilting. Theo went to shake Nikolas’s hand, but the old man in his loss seemed not to know him.

  From the doorway, Aunt Sofia beckoned, pale in widow’s black faded with too many launderings. Below the uneven hem of her home-sewn skirt, the pale-green lace of her nylon slip showed bright against the once-black serge. They had given her a tray to collect the glasses the whisky-drinkers were done with. As he approached her, she grasped his forearm.

  ‘Theo,’ she said, urgently, ‘they’re nearly finished. They’re nearly ready.’

  As she spoke, they heard the final words – Eternal be thy memory, dear brother – and a chorus of light coughing as the women, released from head-bowed prayer and pious attitudes, cleared their throats of candle smoke and incense.

  ‘Collect the glasses quickly, then, Aunt,’ he said. He turned his back on her and, making his way amongst the men, he placed his hand on the shoulders of the four who were to help bear the coffin.

  ‘Time,’ he murmured. ‘It’s time.’

  Smiling, always smiling, Aunt Sofia moved amongst the men, offering them the service of her tin tray, until the tray was heavy with empty glasses; and, because the slack, under-used muscles of her thin, aged arms complained, she, afraid of the mess, the rumpus there’d be if she let it fall, balanced it on a chair where no one sat.

  The women filed out into the street. Aunt Maria’s eyes fell on Aunt Sofia, pink-cheeked, hand on her delicate heart, resting. Aunt Maria’s fat jowls wobbled. She marched across to where Aunt Sofia stood, and snatched up the tray. A glass fell; as it shattered, all the mourners turned to stare at Maria, at the shards strewn across the lane.

  Aunt Maria’s face turned red.

  ‘I was afraid that would happen,’ said Aunt Sofia, timorously. ‘That tray’s very heavy, isn’t it, Maria?’

  ‘Look what you’ve done!’ hissed Maria. ‘Look at the mess! Go and get a broom and get this cleaned up!’

  Aunt Maria laid the tray down on its chair. The pallbearers ground out their cigarettes and went into the house; the undertaker, carrying a hammer and a small Nescafé tin rattling with nails, followed them.

  Uncle Janis brushed the tears from his cheeks. Michaelis was flushed with whisky, and the sting of the bitter wind. The focus of his eyes drifted, to Theo, to the men and women gathered at the doorway.

  ‘Are they ready for us?’ asked Uncle Janis.

  ‘Yes, Uncle. It’s time.’

  His uncle clapped him on the back.

  ‘You’re a good boy, Theo,’ he said. ‘Your grandpa’s favourite.’

  ‘He’s everyone’s favourite,’ said Takis. At the foot of the orchard wall, the thistles were high, and dense; he pitched his empty bottle there, and it fell silently amongst them, unbroken and hidden. ‘Our own Saint Thodoris.’

  Michaelis moved to cuff his ear, but the alcohol made him slow, and Takis bent out of range.

  ‘How dare you?’ Michaelis’s words were slurred; their endings ran into their beginnings so none of them were clear. ‘How dare you take that name in vain on such a day?’

  ‘Leave him, Mikey,’ said Uncle Janis. ‘He doesn’t mean it.’

  Cousin Lukas had a reputation: he always spoke the truth.

  ‘He means it,’ he said. ‘He’s jealous.’

  ‘Jealous!’ scoffed Takis. ‘Why should I be jealous of him?’

  They gave him no answer. Heads lowered, they walked together to the house.

  In the parlour, the first nail in the coffin lid was hammered home.

  The church of St Thanassis glowed with the light of candles; the flames drew long shadows from the unlit corners, and made skulls of the carved faces of the long-dead saints. They laid the coffin on the cloth-draped trestle table, and at the lectern, Pappa Philippas turned the page of the calf-bound book. Truly all things are vanity, life is but a shadow and a dream, and vainly do humans trouble themselves, as the Scripture says: when we have gained the world, then we shall dwell in the grave, where kings and beggars are the same; therefore, O Christ God, give rest to those who have passed over, as you love mankind.

  Six years ago, Theo had been married in this church. He remembered his wedding day as if it had happened to someone else, someone he had known well but had lost touch with and could picture only vaguely. He could replay pieces of the day like a home movie, cutting from scene to scene without continuity. A good day, his best day, a glorious warm day of early summer. He remembered his brother stumbling into the bedroom they had shared in the small hours before the wedding, Takis stinking of cigarettes and beer, giving Theo sex tips before falling asleep in his clothes. He remembered sitting with his mother at the kitchen table, very early in the morning; he had watched the sun rise. She had made his coffee exactly how he liked it, not too sweet, and had placed his cigarettes and lighter in a clean ashtray before him. He remembered the hiss of the gas in the little stove his mother used only for coffee,
and the dropping note of the coffee’s singing in the pot as it came to a boil. He remembered an emotion he was unable to put a name to – regret, perhaps – and had held her hand, and said his thanks, and his mother had begun to weep. He remembered the dish of sea urchins Uncle Janis had brought him at lunch to bring power to his loins, and how all his relatives had crowded round to watch him eat them, ensuring the male prowess of the family would not be compromised. He remembered how loud the bouzoukis had sounded in the small house as they picked out the old songs, the old men’s favourites, and how the old men had sung along, raunchy songs of lust, sad songs of love gone wrong, romantic songs of port-bound sailors far from home longing for the smile of mother. He remembered his first sight of Elpida in her wedding dress, what a princess she was, so beautiful, wonderful in white, smiling shyly on her father’s arm. At that moment he had fallen in love with her, for that day at least, so when the time came to make their vows, he had been able to believe in the words he was saying. He remembered that after the ceremony, when he and Elpida were two minutes married, tied together for ever by the silk ribbons of their orange-blossom crowns, as the congregation pelted them with sugared almonds, a nut caught him right in the eye; it had hurt so much he had wanted to cry, but knew that to do so, to cry on one’s wedding day, could bring only the worst of bad luck. He remembered dancing for his bride in his shirt sleeves, hot from cheap Metaxa and red wine, with his friends crouched in a circle at his feet, clapping the rhythm for him. He had danced with her; he had danced with every woman in the place. He remembered the plates of food put before him – soft-boiled octopus, grilled lamb, roast chicken, olives marinated in herbs and salted fish, fried courgettes with garlic sauce, a rich stew of aubergines, tiny sea snails in their shells – and how he had eaten nothing, because he had felt his life was beginning at last; he had no time to waste eating.