The Messenger of Athens

by Anne Zouroudi

  When he opened his eyes, her smile was there, and getting warmer. He put his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her close.

  ‘Wife,’ he said. ‘My wife.’ He ran a hand across her naked belly; his palm was rough, like sharkskin. ‘I’m feeling lucky today. I have a feeling today could be our day. I came across a little bed of oysters whilst I was gone – only half a dozen youngsters – and I kept them for myself. Oysters do a man good; there’s nothing better to boost vitality. So I’ve been thinking . . .’

  His words were lost in yawning.

  ‘You need to sleep,’ she said. Soothingly, she stroked his head.

  ‘I only sleep when I’m with you,’ he said. A minute passed and he was gone, tipped into sleep and softly snoring.

  For a while, she held him close; the heat of sex had warmed the bed, and she was comfortable. In the hollow of his collarbone, his skin was glossed with sweat; from beneath the arm thrown back on the pillow, like a wolf through the forest his true scent came stealing, negating soap and cologne in maleness and musk. It was pleasant to her, and, dog-like, she sniffed it. But beneath the musk, something else was there: ever-present, unmistakable – the reek of fish.

  She slipped from the bed and carried her clothes to the bathroom, washing away the sticky remains of his secretions before she dressed. Quietly, she lifted a silver-embellished icon of St Elizabeth – elderly and pregnant – from its place on the wall above the television. Listening for the sounds of Andreas’s sleeping, she unfastened the clips securing picture and frame, and removed its back. Sealed in their foil packets behind the cardboard icon, the small, white pills hidden there rattled treacherously. From a packet part-empty, she pressed a tablet from behind its seal.

  She thought of Andreas all alone on some rocky beach, eating oysters to enhance his potency, and knew the magic of the oysters was no match for the opposing chemistry of the tiny pill she held. She hesitated, as she hesitated every day; she considered her uncle’s words, and doubted his assertion that a baby was the key to peace of mind.

  She hated to deceive Andreas; it was unkind, and made her a dissembler she had no wish to be. It was her heart that made her do it; her heart clung hard to dreams of possibilities which could never become realities if her freedom was lost.

  She swallowed the pill, and stealthily replaced the icon and its secrets on the wall. The shadows in the room moved as clouds passed across the sun, and St Elizabeth’s face was changed; but whether she was smiling more, or frowning, Irini couldn’t say.

  Towards four o’clock, the sun was already going down, drawing the light from the valley, and from the room. She sat a while in the shadows, fighting the beginnings of an uneasy restlessness, and a need for action; but the hands of the clock had all but stopped moving, and there was no activity she could think of to speed them on towards the time when she might sleep. She made more tea, and sat with it at the window, watching, as the afternoon dragged itself into evening, unable to think of anything to do which would hasten its end, or put her out of its misery.

  Andreas stayed at home for a week. The catch had been good; the fish was all sold; he had money in his pocket: no need to put to sea. For two days, he slept, leaving the bed only to sit at the table, and eat, until the redness left his eyes and the disorientation of sleeplessness cleared from his head.

  Then each day, they visited his mother’s house, and talked about the weather and the price of fish and livestock. They put on stout shoes, and hiked the rocky mountain path to Profitis Ilias to gather oranges for marmalade. They visited the harbour chandler’s, and drank coffee in the kafenion where the old men chewed the fat. They walked down to Nikos’s, and sat with him for an hour or two as he spun them all the gossip he had heard.

  But after seven days, Andreas was nibbled by the same restless boredom that in his absence gnawed at Irini. It was time for him to go.

  He began his preparations. He sent Irini to buy tinned meat and fish, fruit and coffee; he sat on the quayside, sewing up the rock-snagged holes in his nets.

  But before he could leave, foul weather set in.

  Winter was in its last days; the almond trees were already fluffed and pink with blossom. The extreme nature of the storm-force winds was unexpected. The sea exploded over the harbour walls and overran the harbour, flooding shops and houses with dirty saltwater. Screaming winds toppled power lines, and the power-station employees refused to go out to resurrect them. The electricity supply became intermittent, then deteriorated almost to non-existent. The phones were out, and no phone-company employee would leave home to investigate. All shipping was forbidden to leave port; with no boats in and no boats out, soon there was no fresh produce to be had. In the grocers’ shops, women scavenged the emptying shelves for tinned milk and pasta, which they boiled up on gas stoves and served slathered with margarine and a scraping of hard cheese. The wind shook the houses so mortar dust dropped on every surface, falling into the food as it was cooking, seasoning the food with grit as it stood on the table. Sleep was difficult; the old houses creaked and groaned, their doors and windows rattled and banged in the wind, and the wakeful lay listening for the crash of falling tiles, the crack and snap of falling trees.

  Andreas anchored the boat well offshore and brought home the antiquated oil lamps from the cabin. For warmth, he fetched the brazier from the outhouse and lit it with last summer’s charcoal. Then, he slept. He slept in his clothes; taking off only his boots, he wrapped himself in blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon and dozed and snored in the dismal bedroom.

  On and on he slept. At the roadside, the eucalyptus trees, tattered bark peeling white like sunburned skin, creaking and groaning, withstood the wind; Irini sat at the window, sometimes hearing the clock of St Thanassis toll the daylight hours as the furious wind drew breath, and waited for the storm to pass.

  Five

  The fat man walked away from the kafenion, in the direction of the Seagull Hotel. As late morning drifted into the torpor of winter siesta, the seller of fruit and vegetables was sealing up his cartons of unsold produce, hauling the boxes of oranges and under-ripe tomatoes into a stone-floored storeroom already stacked with nets of brittle-skinned onions and stiff paper sacks of potatoes. The blue-painted shutters of the chandler’s shop were closed; the door of the pharmacy, firmly shut, was secured with a rusting padlock.

  He passed the door of his hotel, and, rounding a bend in the harbourside road, found himself in a square paved with cobbles, bounded on three sides by tall, narrow buildings. With doorways built for barrows, and wagons, the buildings’ past use as warehouses was clear; but all were now derelict, with rafters rotting beneath missing roof-tiles and cracks in the walls wide enough to take a man’s fist. Behind a grimy window, almost obscured by heavy drapes of cobwebs, a ‘For Sale’ sign sagged against the casement, discoloured and water-stained with the damp of years.

  At a corner of the square was a kiosk, a small hut bright with advertisements for soft drinks and cigarettes, its doorway hung with cards of plastic cigarette lighters and racks of tourist maps, its shelves packed with chocolate bars, camera film and chewing gum, and, discreetly displayed behind the till, packets of Italian condoms. On a shelf at the front of the kiosk was a telephone, metered for public use; behind the narrow counter a teenage girl, pretty but determinedly unsmiling, sat cross-legged on a high stool, the phone receiver pressed between her shoulder and her ear.

  As the fat man approached she said one word into the receiver.

  ‘Wait.’

  The fat man smiled at her, and asked for a pack of his brand of cigarettes.

  The girl regarded him for a moment, as if contemplating refusing him service. She sighed, laid the receiver on the counter, then picked it up again and spoke into it.

  ‘Just a minute.

  ‘We don’t stock that brand,’ she said to the fat man.

  ‘You would be surprised,’ he said, ‘how many tobacconists say that to me. And often they find, if they look carefully, that the
y do have a pack or two, after all. So I would be much obliged, my dear young lady, if you would humour me, and check.’

  Again she sighed, and, turning her back on the fat man, began a desultory search amongst the stocks of cigarettes. At the very back of the highest shelf, concealed behind the popular brands, the unfamiliar name was there, copper-plated across the age-discoloured paper wrapping which bound the packs together. The girl blew dust from the wrapping and ripped it open, slapping a box of his cigarettes on to the counter, where the platinum-haired starlet on the lid smiled her coy and easy smile.

  ‘And two boxes of matches,’ said the fat man, himself still smiling.

  She laid them on top of his cigarettes.

  ‘And I think I might take one of those maps. If you would be so kind.’

  She reached up, and slid one of the thin documents from the display rack. She placed it on the counter beside the cigarettes and matches, and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  Reaching inside his jacket, he took out a wallet of soft calfskin and chose a high-denomination note. He handed it to the girl.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any less.’

  She pressed four buttons on the till, and when the drawer popped open, lifted the coin box and hid the note he had given her beneath it. She released a pile of thousand-drachma notes from a spring clip, and counted out several; she scrabbled amongst the coins, and put a small pile of bronze on top of the notes.

  She picked up the phone receiver.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, smiling, ‘if you might have such a thing as almond chocolate? With whole nuts, rather than chopped.’

  She glared at him, and laid down the receiver. She found a bar of pink-wrapped chocolate prettily decorated with almond blossom, and placed it before him. He handed her back one of the notes she had given him.

  ‘Could you change this for me?’ he asked. ‘I like to make sure I keep plenty of change on me. For tips.’

  She pressed two buttons on the till, and the drawer sprang open. She replaced the note he had given her within the stack, and scrabbled again amongst the coins. She placed a larger pile of bronze on the counter.

  He scooped up the coins and dropped them into the pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ he said.

  She picked up the receiver.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘Kalé? Are you there?’

  It was clear she was hearing only the monotone of a line disconnected. Smiling, the fat man wished her good day.

  By the kiosk was a litter bin. The fat man slid open first one matchbox, then the other, tipping the matches from both tinkling into the bin. He slipped the empty boxes into his jacket pocket.

  Opening up the map, he might, he found, have saved his money. The map was simple as a pirates’ treasure map – land surrounded by water and a single road, snaking up from the harbour where he now stood, up the mountainside to the upper village. Here the road divided, one branch running down to the hamlet of St Savas, the second winding through the foothills to the monastery of St Vassilis at the island’s far tip. Beyond these settlements, through the higher mountains, broken lines denoted dirt tracks and footpaths, the only access to outlying smallholdings and isolated chapels. At the foot of the map were a few lines of information – the island’s dimensions, and its highest point – and a list of every church, chapel and deserted monastery to be found there. One hundred and thirty-two, noted the fat man, almost every one dedicated to a different saint or martyr. And below the places of worship, a paragraph – a sentence – boldly titled ‘Getting About’.

  ‘There is a regular bus service from the main port to the small port of St Savas,’ he read.

  And there, he decided, was as good a place as any to begin.

  The bus – a minibus, with rust-riddled wheel arches and tyres with no tread – was already waiting at the bus stop. The driver, a man with a doleful, sagging face, leaned on the sill of his open window. The stubble of his unshaven cheeks was grey beyond his years, and as he watched the fat man’s approach, no interest showed in his bagged and bloodshot eyes.

  On the rearmost seats, two women whispered to each other like conspirators, hugging bags of warm bread loaves to their breasts.

  The fat man stood at the driver’s window. Close up, the stink of last night’s Scotch was strong on the driver’s breath.

  ‘Good afternoon, friend,’ said the fat man. ‘Is this the bus for St Savas?’

  The driver bent his head. Yes.

  ‘What time do you leave?’

  ‘From the port, every hour, on the hour. From St Savas, every hour, on the half-hour. No buses between two and four.’ He recited the simple timetable like a chant.

  The fat man climbed into the bus and squeezed himself with some difficulty into the seat behind the driver. He filled, quite easily, two-thirds of a seat made for two; on the unoccupied portion he placed his holdall.

  He tapped the driver on the shoulder.

  ‘How much to the end of the line?’

  ‘One hundred drachma.’ The fat man produced a coin from the change in his pocket, and handed it to the driver.

  An elderly man with a parcel of whitebait wrapped in newspaper hauled himself, panting, into the seat across the aisle from the fat man. He lay the parcel on his knee; the fluids from the fish – from scales, fins, bowels, bones – were already soaking through their wrapping, darkening patches of the fabric of his trousers.

  ‘Good day, all, good day,’ he said, turning to see who else was on the bus. ‘Now then, George,’ he addressed the driver, ‘I’ve nearly killed myself running to catch you, and you’re still sitting here as if we’ve all the time in the world. Fire her up, man, and let’s be on our way.’

  ‘Another two minutes yet, by the clock,’ said George, and he, the old man, the two women and the fat man craned their heads towards the clock tower at the end of the harbour.

  ‘He’s right, Vassilis,’ said one of the women. ‘Two minutes yet.’

  ‘Well, bugger me,’ said the old man. ‘I needn’t have killed myself after all.’

  ‘That’s what you get here,’ said the driver, morosely, not taking his eyes from the clock. ‘Those that’re early want you to leave the rest behind. Those that’re late blame you for not waiting beyond your time. There’s no winning with these people.’

  The fat man smiled, politely, sympathetically, but, unsure whether it was he whom the driver addressed, said nothing. So the three men sat a while in silence; behind them, the women whispered secrets which would soon be known to all.

  Across the water rang the lonely, hollow note of the first afternoon hour.

  The driver started his engine, and the bus moved slowly along the harbour front and laboured up the steep, switchback road which wound across the island to St Savas’s bay.

  High above the port, the fat man looked down through his window on to the rain-dulled blues of the harbour waters. Above the road, a line of cylindrical windmills crowned the rocky ridge like the crest on the head of a lizard, the weathered stone of their walls a chameleon match for the rough mountain slopes. But, unused for decades, the mills were falling into ruins; their canvas sails were long stripped from their frames, the once-conical roofs were all open to the sky.

  Beyond the mills, the road began to descend. The driver took the blind bend at speed; the fat man closed his eyes, feeling the twists in the steep lane in the lifting of his stomach. The lane levelled; the driver braked, and brought the bus to a halt.

  The fat man opened his eyes.

  The bus stood in a stone-paved square; amongst the houses which lined it were a tiny general store, and a small hotel where a winter of dead leaves lay on the patio. Outside the store, the grocer’s wife paused in the picking-over of a box of aubergines, and watched the passengers descend, as if she were expecting someone.

  Hugging their bread loaves, the women paid the driver in small coins and climbed down from the bus.

  ‘Is this St Savas
?’ the fat man asked the driver.

  ‘No, no, not yet,’ answered the old man, fumbling in his trouser pocket. ‘This is the village. Stay where you are, sir, stay where you are. St Savas is a little way yet.’

  ‘Well,’ the driver snapped at the old man, ‘are you coming with us, then, or are you getting off?’

  ‘I’m just looking for my fare,’ said the old man. He looked into the palm of his hand at what his fumbling had produced, and chose three twenty-drachma coins for the driver. Handing them over, he stood and tucked his sodden parcel beneath his arm. The lap of his trousers was dark where the fish-reeking water had soaked them.

  ‘Keep the change,’ he called, as the bus pulled away.

  ‘Silly old fool,’ muttered the driver.

  They wove through the narrowest of lanes, between houses so close an outstretched hand would touch them as they passed, to the head of a wide, shallow valley, where the lane once more became a rural road. Rattling downhill, the fat man looked out on the tatters of an agricultural heritage: groves of squat, silvered olive trees, their crops all unharvested; the wheat terraces, brilliant with ungrazed meadow-grass and thistles; the collapsed boundary walls of small vineyards where the vines were no more. They passed beneath a line of shivering eucalyptus trees, and by the Half-way House, and soon they reached the sea again, where the driver turned right, and halted. He switched off the engine and leaned tiredly on the sill of his window, as if the fat man were not there. The cooling engine ticked and popped; tiny waves tumbled the sharp grey stones of the roadside shingle.

  ‘Thank you, friend,’ said the fat man, climbing out of the bus and slamming the door.

  But the driver did not answer.

  The fat man took the curving path which followed the line of the sea. At the boatyard, chickens scratched amongst the upturned boats and discarded paint cans; a smoking brazier held the ash of a recent fire. The fat man paused to inspect the joints and plane-work on the newly assembled ribs of a rowing boat, and poked, frowning, at a half-finished fibreglass repair on the hull of a two-man speedboat. Overhead, a white gull wheeled. Picking a strand of drying seaweed from the sole of his left shoe, he walked on until he arrived at a tall house at the path’s end. On the door lintel was fixed a painted sign, with writing so badly cracked and faded it could not be read. At the back of a terrace patchworked with stones taken from the sea stood a single table, and four chairs; at the table sat a man wrapped warm in heavy clothing, his face hidden by the peak of a sheepskin cap.