The House on Paradise Street

by Sofka Zinovieff

  When I got up, Dora dusted me off, and we sat on a wall to smoke. By the time we had dragged ourselves back the way we came, the funeral reception was long gone. I wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway. “Like the fly in the milk”, I’d have been – an old witch with dirt on her clothes and pollen in her hair. I only saw myself once we reached Dora’s house and I looked a fright. Somewhere along the way back from the grave, a grey cat streaked past into the undergrowth, but I thought nothing of it. When we arrived at the taxi, however, the driver admitted that Misha had escaped. He said, “It was making a terrible racket, so I took a look inside and before I could do anything he’d leaped out of the window and run off into the cemetery. I spent ages looking for him, but there was no sign of the bloody animal.”

  Dora left me sitting on the back seat and went off to take a look. She was always someone who could catch birds in mid-air, as they say, but she returned empty-handed. She said, “We’ll come back later with some food. But now we need to go home.”

  7

  The solemn rhythm

  MAUD

  On the morning of the funeral, I woke with a jolt, crying out in fear. Bright daylight was coming in through the shutters. I had been awake much of the night and gone to sleep after 4am. My first thought was that I had overslept and missed the whole thing, but in fact, it was still before eight. Three more hours. Tig was lying next to me, breathing softly, her hair spread in dark tentacles across the pillow, one arm flung behind her head.

  I moved along the corridor to the bathroom like a sleepwalker, slower and less balanced than usual. I assumed that this was some kind of hangover from Orestes’ offering the night before, but like the bitter taste in my mouth and the aching heart, this clumsiness was to become a feature of the next days and even weeks, as I dropped things, bumped into furniture and stumbled over non-existent obstacles. Just as a shock can make the familiar take on a different aspect, so can it set the body off-kilter. I had a shower, drank coffee and got dressed, finding that, for the first time, I disliked wearing black – funeral black was not the same as chic black or arty black. “Nikitas’ widow.” The words went around in my head as I pictured my role in what I knew was a piece of theatre. It felt too soon and I wondered whether I would be able to play my part, or whether it was too much to do.

  Nikitas’ death was still very raw and unprocessed for all this formality and ritual.

  At 9.30 Alexandra came upstairs, having already corralled Chryssa and Orestes. They were all dressed in black too: Alexandra in a fitted suit, Chryssa in a thick woollen coat, and Orestes in black jeans and an unfamiliarly formal jacket, which I immediately realised Alexandra had pressed on him from what remained of Spiros’ wardrobe. We were an odd little family: two old women, a foreigner, an anarchist student and a child-woman. As we passed through the front door, Chryssa passed me a large, green jug.

  “Break it,” she said, and I saw Tig looking at me, questioning what was going on.

  “It’s custom.” I lifted the vessel, feeling a small chip in its lip with my thumb, and smashed it hard onto the stone steps. The jagged fragments were left there (Alexandra must have resisted a deeply instilled female instinct to clear up the mess) and we turned to walk up Paradise Street. I pictured us as a sad flock of crows, the older ones in front, plodding in dull solidarity. We were all quiet, numb, unable to share feelings that were too large and overwhelming to be tamed into conversation. Tig took Orestes’ arm at the back, watching as some of the local shopkeepers came up: “Condolences. Life to you.”

  At the cemetery, we went to a small chapel-like room where Nikitas’ coffin had already been placed by Kyrios Katsaridis and his dark-suited men. Propped up against the wall outside were several dozen wreaths made from white carnations. They were attached to tall sticks and draped with banners printed with the donor’s name and a short message. Several wished Kaló Taxídi – Have a good journey. They reminded me of equipment for a protest. Nikitas would have appreciated the thought, as there were few public gatherings he liked as much as marches; he would often be seen at the front of a roaring sea of people, waving his banner in support of that month’s injustice. We walked past them slowly, reading the words: there were wreaths from friends, colleagues in the media, a disconcerting number of well-known politicians and a few local businesses.

  The open coffin rested on trestles in the middle of the room. I looked away rather than focus on the fixed white face. It was both strange and horrifically familiar, surrounded by a blur of flowers, white lace and polished wood. The air was heavy with lilies, sweet as fresh manure. There was incense too. Nausea arrived in a warm wave as my body tried to rebel. I put my arm around Tig, holding her tight, not wanting to imagine what she was going through. I asked if she would like to step up close.

  “Not yet.” She was looking away, her eyes too large, her skin almost green-white. We both shot glances across at Nikitas, as though looking at him full on would be too much; a look can turn a person to stone, to a pillar of salt, or like Orpheus, make you lose your beloved to the underworld for ever. We sat down on the chairs around the edge of the room, with the old women on the opposite side from Tig, Orestes and me. Chryssa was keening, talking to Nikitas, telling him how much she cared for him, how wrong it was that he should go before her, how he was like a son to her. Her speech took on a droning, musical quality, without becoming a song, and sometimes she got up and went over to the coffin, stroking Nikitas’ hair. I wished I knew how to be like that, how to acquire the courage to navigate the storm of bereavement and face death with poetry. Alexandra sat without moving. She had the stoicism of the old in the face of a familiar enemy; death is no longer the unbelievably distant adversary of youth. I was grateful for her solid reliability, when everything else seemed treacherous and shifting.

  Gradually, people started arriving for the funeral. Some milled about outside, talking, smoking, examining the wreaths, while others came in to say something to us or a last word to Nikitas. Nikos the poet, his old friend and koumbáros, was distraught. He clutched onto the edge of the coffin and cried like a child, berating Nikitas for leaving him. I didn’t doubt that his feelings were genuine, though I remembered him flirting with the television reporter on the day of the accident. When, finally, the white-gloved, black-suited pall-bearers arrived, the scene became a kaleidoscope of images and sensations, dominated by emotion. Father Apostolos, Alexandra’s friendly priest, led the way, with the coffin held high behind him, and we followed into the dark, hot chapel. Father Apostolos said the words as they had to be said, and the gestures were made – “the solemn rhythm of all their movements”, Cavafy wrote. This unchanging ritual is carried out over and again, with words like spells, making order out of the chaos of death. Only the name of the deceased is inserted to the fixed form, as if individuality is almost irrelevant within the never-ending cycle.

  It all happened quickly, in a dizzy blur: the walk to the open grave, the deep cuts of dry, stony ground; the throng of people squeezing in close to see the coffin lid being removed for a last look, and the banging of nails as it was closed. The priest chanted, “You shall sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean. You shall wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” After that, the red earth: “You are dust, and to dust you will return.” There’s no escaping that fact, whatever language you say it in.

  Once it was done, we pulled away like old-fashioned deep-sea divers with lead-weighted boots trudging through water, back along the paths to the bleak reception room. It looked like a school canteen; lines of wooden tables, laid with small cups of Greek coffee, glasses of brandy and bowls of sweet aniseed rusks. Aunt Alexandra took charge, putting me in first place in the row of chairs for the chief mourners. Tig was next, pulling the sleeves of her black jersey down over her hands, angrily wiping tears. Orestes sat hunched, as though he was too tall for the chair, awkward and out of place. Alexandra busied about, graciously not taking a seat. She put her hand on my shoulder several times and I knew she was not letting
herself get upset. There had been about 200 people she thought, something that gratified her. “Impressive,” she said later. Nobody stayed long. Having downed the drinks, they filed past us, shaking hands, kissing, murmuring over and over, “Condolences, condolences.”

  Phivos came, though I’d asked him not to when he rang. He had told me for so long that I should leave Nikitas – the last thing I needed was to confront his renewed attentions. He put his arms around me and I embraced him, taking in how youthful he still looked, twenty years after we were first friends, when all the females in the class got steamed up over his explanations of Greek verbs, declensions and cases. He was wearing a dark suit, something I was surprised to see he owned. He whispered in my ear, “Maud, you’ll be OK. You’ll see.”

  When everyone had gone, we emerged in silence, drained and exhausted. Orestes had his arm around Tig’s shoulders. Across the way, I noticed the staff café where Nikitas and I had gone the day we met, almost exactly twenty years ago. The beginning and the end.

  * * *

  After the funeral the periods of numbness evaporated and my body hurt all over. The tears that had only come sporadically began to flow, then continued in such quantities that my clothes became soggy and my eyes swelled into slits. Sometimes the sadness was replaced by fury and I raged at what fate had brought and at what Nikitas had done. The autopsy had come back indicating that he had been drunk. Hardly unexpected. There was no evidence of another vehicle, however, and with no reason to suspect suicide, the crash was deemed an accident. They seemed to think he had not died immediately, but were unable to tell whether he would have been conscious. I didn’t tell anyone else that detail, but it haunted me, creating nightmares where I saw Nikitas injured, bleeding to death in the middle of the night, with nobody to help him. Afterwards, I would sit on the edge of the bed, dark misery clinging to me like tar. How could this have happened? Was there a reason? Why hadn’t he told me? I wondered how I would get closer to the truth, but I also feared knowing

  The next day was “the Third Day”, when the first memorial is held by the grave, three days after a death. I told Alexandra that I had a migraine and could not come, but Tig joined in the preparations, making kólyva in our kitchen with Chryssa; boiling up wheat, mixing it with ground almonds, sugar and pomegranate seeds. Food for the dead, to be eaten by the living at the graveside. Its ingredients (all seeds and sweetness) evoke love, fertility and nourishment in the bitter face of death and decay – soul food made in Greece since ancient times. When it was ready and moulded on a tray, Tig brought it to show me – a large round mound, covered with white icing sugar and a silver plastic cross. They had placed silvery sugared almonds, slightly skewed, to form Nikitas’ initials: Ν.Π. Outside the window, hundreds or even thousands of brown birds – starlings perhaps – were diving and swooping in the sky above the house, their manic chirping like magnified electronic beeps. They circled up over Ardittos hill, then back again, their white droppings splattering down on the roof tops and cars, leaving splotches for days to come.

  While the family and a smaller group of friends and relations gathered again at Nikitas’ grave, I did what my grandmother, Lucy, had done in times of trouble, and took to my bed. I had adopted it as a favourite tactic for coping with difficulties. From an early age, I’d taken advantage of its curative properties and Lucy would let me take the day off school without demur. Frequently, she would lie with me, remaining in her dressing gown, joined by Julian, her Jack Russell, and we would sprawl in or on her bed, reading, eating snacks and chatting. We also listened to music: Verdi’s operas were a favourite (she adored Maria Callas and favoured a similarly dramatic style of eye make-up on good days). If we were particularly melancholic, we played recordings of my parents’ viol music – “vile viols”, as Desmond remarked. Sometimes I still did that and would put on a CD of grinding baroque strings to match my gloom.

  Over the next days, Tig went back to school and there were gestures towards creating a new kind of normality, but I stayed in my room, close to my bed. It was as though I was ill and my body was forcing me to accept its demands. Chryssa came to visit me at regular intervals, bringing soup or camomile tea, sitting with me while I drank it. She spoke slowly, almost hypnotically, not expecting an answer, talking about small, peaceful subjects, calling me her “sweet Mondy”.

  “I gathered this camomile in the village last spring. I always liked picking it – it was my job when I was a girl. I’d gather it from the fields, clean it, lay it out to dry. And it smelled so good. I used to enjoy all those jobs – putting the olives in brine, preparing passatémpo – salted pumpkin seeds – for the winter, making the cheese. I was the best at looking after the animals too. It was a beautiful life.” She mumbled on and I half-listened to the descriptions of ceilings hung with quinces, pomegranates and melons, giving off their sweet aromas of home. It was almost as though she was singing to me as she used to with Tig – songs that droned in gentle rhythms like the sea on the shore.

  Tig often came to join me too during those days, snuggling up as she did when she was little. The presence of her body was comforting to me and I could tell that she relaxed next to me, suddenly falling asleep, even during the day. “Sleep took her,” as they say in Greek, as though it was someone abducting you, whether or not you desired it. At night, she stayed with me and woke with nightmares, calling out and grasping hold of me. I found her jerked upright, moaning, covered in sweat, and tried to soothe her, to explain where she was, until she came to. When I questioned her, she said she was trying to escape, that she had been trapped, locked up – the same sensations as when she was little and had night-frights. I gave her a glass of water and stroked her until she lay down and her breathing slowed as she relaxed back into sleep. I lay there thinking about Tig’s Greek inheritance, worried that she was like a lightning conductor for the tensions running through the family, down the generations to the youngest and most tender. How were these unspeakable and unexpressed burdens passed on?

  * * *

  About a week after the funeral I got up on a day of sparkling November sun. Tig wanted to go to see where the accident had happened and I agreed that she could take the day off school and we would go there together. Nikos had lent me his car for a few weeks while he was away in Paris, and we set off in his battered jeep that was littered with the evidence of bachelor life – newspapers, empty bottles, cigarette packets, a woman’s scarf. The police had told me the exact location of the crash, and we drove along the coast road, past empty beach-clubs and gaudy open-air night-spots all closed up for winter. The palm trees had lost their frivolous demeanour and drooped with blackened fronds infested by African beetles that arrived with a special order for the Olympic Games a few years earlier. As we passed Glyfada and Voula, heading towards the open blue of the Saronic Gulf, I could see the dirty yellow haze that lurked over Athens retreating in the rear view mirror. At Vouliagmeni, with its roadside eucalyptus trees, stately but scarred from repeated crashes, we left the last of the city behind and the road snaked above a series of inlets, the Limanakia – Little Harbours – popular with boy racers at weekends.

  As instructed, I turned off onto a short slip road, recognisable by a shrine shaped like a dolls’ house-sized island church, complete with whitewashed walls and blue domes. Apparently Nikitas was not the only person who had died near here, as these “little churches” are usually placed by grieving relatives to mark the spot. This one looked fairly recent and a flame flickered from its oil lamp, nestling by a bottle of Jif. A postal van was parked close-by, its radio playing bouzouki hits at full volume. The driver sipped coffee from a polystyrene cup, and blew cigarette smoke out of the window as he gazed at the mauve silhouette of coastline leading down to Sounion.

  Tig and I walked over to the edge, where a precipitous incline of rocks and undergrowth led down to a bay that had not been visible from the road. Flat, pale rocks sloped into a sea of glittering peacock blue and gulls squawked overhead. There was a steep footpa
th and we made our way down gingerly, trying not to slip. The recent rains had produced the flash of autumnal growth that is almost like a miniature version of spring, without the melodramatic excesses of the real thing. Fresh grass and white spears of sea squill emerged from soil still baked solid from the summer and fuchsia-pink cyclamen sprouted from rocks. Butterflies and dragonflies flitted around as though it was May not November. The policeman had said to look for a large pine tree and we found it about 150 metres down. Its trunk had a new cut in it and looking back up, we could see skid marks and disturbed ground leading from the slip road down the hill. This was obviously the place. Some partridges the same colour as the earth swept up into the air, trilling like skidding bikes. Tig sat down, picking at some grass and not catching my eye.

  “Maybe this tree was the last thing he saw.”

  I hadn’t told her that her father was apparently still alive after the crash. I hoped he had not been conscious; it would be a lonely place at night.

  We sat without talking, warmed by the sun, inhaling the tang of sage and pine sap. The place reminded me of trips Nikitas and I used to make in the early years. He’d take the day off and we’d drive out somewhere down the coast with a picnic or end up eating a plate of fried anchovies in a beach taverna after a long swim. The water was his element.

  “Shall we go for a swim?” I felt almost as surprised at my suggestion as Tig looked, but she followed me down until we reached the smooth expanses of grey marble that gave straight onto deep, clear water. The area was hidden from the road and I took off my clothes and dived in. The shock of the cold water was matched by incongruous elation as I felt the sun on my wet face and salt on my lips. I felt something close to liberation, even joy, in spite of all that had happened; contradictory opposites existing together, as they do even more frequently in Greece than elsewhere. I turned to see Tig jumping in, dressed in black pants and bra. She shrieked, twisting like a dolphin, diving deep, streaking back to the surface, thrashing out a few strokes of butterfly, then floating, eyes closed and hair spread on the surface.