In the Shade of the Monkey Puzzle Tree

by Sara Alexi

  Chapter 7

  40 years, 5 months, 14 days.

  The bank gives way to a more gentle incline. A maze of tracks is worn into the scrubland hill where plants fight to survive and bushes grow stunted. To Theo’s right, some way away, a man walks his dog. The sun peeks out from a break in the clouds. Theo climbs until he reaches the plateau’s top, where the greenery is more even. Here, he is level with the Acropolis, but more importantly, from here, he can see the sea at Piraeus. To his right, in the direction of his village, the sprawl of city houses gives way to fields in the distance. The village is beginning to feel a long way away now.

  He sinks onto the dry grass.

  ‘What am I doing?’ he asks himself. ‘Five days of nothing but rejections and disappointment.’ Tasia also seems a long way away. He pulls out his wad of cash, which has dwindled to a few notes and coins. He mutters some deep evil words about the old lady that he dare not even say fully out loud.

  Sighing and putting away the remains of Baba’s money, he rests his arms on his bent knees, his spine curled, looking out to sea. He becomes aware of something soft but ticklish on the side of his nose. With a quick movement, he wipes it away and then stares at his hand. The smear of a wet tear. He can’t remember crying since locking himself in his room in his pirate outfit. He cried then, long and hard. Cried that Manolis wanted to hurt him. He cried because people would do something so unkind to each other, cried because no one complimented him on his costume, cried because his baba laughed at him, cried because no one seemed to care that he was upset, that his tears seemed endless.

  Those tears brought resolve. After an hour or so of believing that the black hole of embarrassment, ridicule, and sadness might swallow him up, he realised that the only person crying, upset, or even still thinking about the incident was him. No one else cared. It was a huge, sudden, and very deep lesson. He rose from that bed not a boy but a man, or so he felt. He made a resolve that crying was purposeless, and that if something was wrong, he should fix it. If someone hurt you, crying and moaning did nothing to stop it. At worst, it encouraged them to do it again and at best, they ridiculed you for being soft. Crying made you an easy, willing victim.

  He stood up tall and declared to himself he would never be the victim again.

  And he has kept that promise to himself. He never cried; instead, he only took action after thinking things through. He was sure he was autonomous—until now. Creeping in on him like a secret he already knew, the thought pushes its way to the front and declares him still a victim. Isn’t that why he is here, lost in this huge city? Hasn’t his baba made him the victim of each turn of his mood, every day, from the first day Theo worked alongside him in the kafeneio?

  What has he done? He has taken without complaint every mood and bad word his baba came out with, with the occasional gripe and a procession of fantasies, year after year, until finally he ran away five days ago. That’s the truth, isn’t it? Coming to Athens to make his own mark. Aren’t those just words, an excuse for running away? If he had stayed and stood up to his baba, the relationship could have shifted, he could have stayed, talked seriously to him, used a mediator—Mama or Stathis. If he had stayed, perhaps he could have changed things so he would no longer be a victim. But here in Athens? Here he is also the victim, no longer around the people he knows or in the place he loves.

  ‘Damn you!’ Theo shouts up to the clearing clouds, the sun brilliant on his eyes.

  Everyone in the village will be going about their daily work. Mitsos up in his olive groves, Manolis planning his latest scam. Marina with her beautiful little girl and her new-born, getting by as best they can. Cosmo putting off having to deliver the letters, Vasso sitting patiently in her kiosk. That young Gypsy girl, pretty thing, Stella, popping down to the kiosk to buy things for her Mama. Thanasis with his crazy idea to breed donkeys for a living. Maria tending her flower tubs and watching the children play in front of the church—another young, good looking woman. The whole village going about its daily routine and no one noticing him gone. He is in his Athenian equivalent of a bedroom, crying.

  He stands.

  But to go home now will be to admit defeat, like a stray with its tail between its legs. Also, there is the question of the money he took, and the more he thinks about that, the more wrong it seems. He should have asked for a wage and saved. Or agreed with his baba, if it was possible, to take the money in lieu of the wages which he has never received. But to just take it like that, well, that is stealing. He cannot return without it. Because then, not only will he be a victim, but also a thief. A thief who threatens old ladies.

  He sits back down on the dried grass. The sun is lowering itself to the horizon, an orange glow along the jagged buildings to his left. That’s why he has never lost his temper. He instinctively knew it was not a good idea. He always thought it was to avoid hurting someone, but he didn’t realise that someone would be him. Threatening an old lady, the behaviour of a coward.

  He has never felt so alone.

  His chin sinks to his chest. He refuses his body the pleasure of crying, the judders held tight, his breath controlled, his eyes tight shut. But the tears squeeze their way out and run down either side of his nose before falling, one by one, being sucked into the dry earth.

  He holds himself still until the emotions subside and he is exhausted. Lying back, he tries to think of nice things. The time, over twenty years ago now, when Iro sat next to him in church and their hands touched, her eyes met his. There was no mistaking her signals, nor her charm. But what was he supposed to do to proceed? He decided that if she really liked him, she would make happen whatever happens to begin their courting. But whatever he expected didn’t happen and he took no action himself, despite his yearnings. Then she was spotted walking with Panayoti, a friend, and one of the few who didn’t laugh at his pirate costume that day. Panayoti told him later that he had no intentions towards Iro, but they had been seen walking together and the village presumed they were engaged and Panayoti made no effort to deny it.

  That’s all it would have taken. For him, Theo, to have walked with her. Then it would be him with the grown children, a wife in his bed, a woman to comfort him.

  He tries to think of something else nice. Melyna with her amazingly long, dark hair. The quiet conversation they had that time before the village panigyri, her breath almost in his ear, her breast against his arm as she leaned in to whisper. The content of the conversation long forgotten, but the sensations it provoked still fresh. Why did he not ask her to dance later that night when the party was in full swing? Walk her home? One word, and she would have been his.

  And here he is, doing it all over again with Tasia. But now it feels too late, he has lost his rooms, his money is all but gone. Even if he does something now, he has nothing to offer her. Stupid, just stupid.

  The tears roll down his temples into the grass. He does nothing to stop the sobs that come in alien spasms. He just lets go and cries until his energy is gone and he is asleep, alone, on the grass, on the side of a hill, in Athens.

  He awakes shivering in the middle of the night. Too cold to stay still, he gets up and wanders, heading down the hill seeking warmth. The brilliance of the stars overhead is dimmed by the glow of the city, the chill sapping Theo’s interest in them. The open space changes to give way to houses and shops. His legs take him onwards, one street like the next until he comes across a patsadiko, with its dim glow behind misted windows promising warmth. A tired man with a drooping moustache stands behind the counter smoking. Theo relishes the cheapest offering on the menu, a rich soup of offal and pig’s trotters – patsas. He eats hungrily and when it is gone, he sits watching the three other people in the place eat their own soup, his consciousness drifting until he finally falls asleep with his head on the table next to his bowl.

  The sun’s brilliance through the shop’s large windows awakens him and he can sense a change: summer is on its way. Leaving coins on the table, he steps into the morning near the bas
e of the hill where he slept; he must have walked in circles. Birds singing and the insects rasping in the grassy bank lure him to the summit once again. Looking down over the city, he stretches and enjoys the morning’s warmth and the sounds. The city is already awake, the drone of traffic already a steady hum.

  Rubbing his face with the palms of his hands, he feels sticky and grubby from sleeping in his clothes. He looks about him and, as the hill is empty of people, he takes off his shirt and holds it to the breeze to air before laying it on the ground. He stretches again and runs his fingers through his hairy chest and down his hairless arms. The clouds have gone and the sky is an endless blue, the horizon above the sea only distinguishable by a thin white line, the city buildings already hazy with heat, softening the edges. He runs both hands through his hair, shaking out the compressions, allowing it to bounce back.

  ‘Alright, Theo, what are you going to do?’ The night before would have brought a different answer, but the sun promises all the miracles of the summer. It brings an excitement. In the village, it is the excitement at the thought of the lazy days after all the tilling and planting has been done and the orange and olive farmers wait for the fruit to grow and ripen. In Saros town, the excitement is a thrill of expectancy—will there be tourists to grow rich from this year? In Athens, no doubt everyone looks forward to August when shops and businesses will close with the heat and so many Athenians return to their villages to catch up with loved ones and see how their real homes are faring.

  For Theo, he has woken with kefi for no specific reason. The crying seems to have washed away some pain, but mostly he clearly sees the situation now and he can make a real choice. He can stay in Athens because he genuinely wants to be here, not because he is running away. Or he can return to the village, put his baba straight, and start afresh. The choice is his. A new wave of liberation brings energy to his limbs.

  But first, and this feels very important, he will earn the money to repay what he took, clear his conscience.

  ‘Right, think logically. What can I do? I can work in a kafeneio, or a café, or even in a bar. Maybe I could be a waiter; it’s not much different.’ He smiles at this thought, pictures himself in a white shirt and black bow tie, a clean tea-towel over his arm, bowing to portly ladies in tiaras and long dresses.

  Their daughters shyly follow behind, adorned in pearls and lace. One of them is Tasia, who casts him a coy glance, getting tipsy on the champagne he is serving, looking more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. The chandeliers sparkle above them and someone, somewhere plays the piano. The room shimmers with other graceful ladies all dressed in finery, fanning themselves in the heat. Their husbands are huddled in groups talking business, ignoring the spouses as Theo is beckoned from one group of women to the next. They flutter their eyelids and accept the drinks he proffers from a tray that never empties. The men give him the nod of a job well done as he passes them, one man stopping him to discreetly press a tip—the equivalent of a week’s wages—into his palm.

  ‘Theo, be logical.’ He refocuses. ‘Get the job and then get the place to stay. Give yourself …’ He takes out his money again to count it for the hundredth time. ‘Two days to get a job. After that, all you have is the bus fare home. Right. Let’s looks for signs in windows!’ He pockets the money, slaps his hands together, looks out at Athens laid before him, and chooses a spot to head towards. One place is probably pretty much like another.

  He passes the kafeneio which has felt so safe whilst he has been here. He waves. Tasia is behind the counter, and she smiles. But his resolve is not to waste money on coffees. It’s a hard decision because it is not the coffee that lures him. After a night sleeping rough, he feels grubby and unkempt. He does not want her to see him like this; he will return as the master of his situation. He walks on, passing first one and then another tree in the middle of the pavement, but his heart insists he retrace his steps and adds a bounce to his walk. The door of the kafeneio is open. He runs his hand through his hair, pulls out a small twig.

  ‘Hello.’ She smiles. She closes her book.

  ‘What are you reading?’ His stomach churns like he is hungry but he couldn’t eat a thing.

  ‘Nothing, just my silly dream.’ She fills the briki with water.

  ‘No coffee, thank you. I just popped in to say I am going to be busy these next couple of days, looking in earnest for a job and then I may or may not move back to my village, depending on the outcome.’ It feels important, telling her his plans. It also, somehow, makes it feel as if she could be a part of his future. The thought surprises him, but also fills him with a sense of peace.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. Theo looks twice—there is a possibility that he just heard disappointment in her voice, but he cannot be sure.

  ‘I just wanted to know …’ Theo hesitates and she smiles to encourage him. ‘If I can call on you when I am more set up?’ He smiles in return. That wasn’t so hard. He wonders why he waited until now to ask.

  ‘Oh,’ she repeats, but not disappointed. There can be no mistaking the colour in her cheeks. ‘The kafeneio’s always open.’

  Theo wonders if she is misunderstanding on purpose. He feels a heat rising in his own cheeks. She looks down at her book. Theo reads the title upside-down—Pruning Olives to Increase the Yield.

  ‘No, I mean ...’ Theo stammers.

  ‘Oh, yes. I see. Alright.’

  Theo looks in her face. She blushes again and laughs her beautiful laugh, looking back at the book’s cover, unable to meet his eye.

  ‘Wish me luck, then.’ Theo braces himself to leave, his insides quivering with excitement and joy. He will return and court her, officially. Even as he pictures the years passing, her hair growing white and her skin wrinkling she remains beautiful.

  ‘Well, good luck, Theo.’ She stretches out his name, as if she is savouring the two syllables, or is it his imagination? ‘Come back soon and tell me how you are doing.’ This is added on more quietly.

  ‘Thank you. I will,’ he has no doubts at all that he will return for her. ‘Yes, thank you,’ he says again more briskly and is about to turn when she holds out her hand to shake. Theo does not hesitate. Her skin is even softer than the memory of Iro’s that time in church. He does not want to let go.

  ‘Tasia, have you no work to do?’ Her baba comes in through the front door, frowning at Theo, who lets go, slowly. He smiles at the old man and leaves the shop, his mass of hair bouncing with each step, a big grin across his face.

  He heads in the direction he chose earlier, looking back once or twice. The kafeneio seemed like home away from home, and he was just getting to know Andreas in the kiosk. There is something unsettling about touching peoples’ lives with the uncertainty of whether he will even see them tomorrow, but Tasia will not be one of the people who passes in and out of his life, he makes himself a promise. Walking at a good pace, but not fast enough to make him sweat in the sun’s growing heat, he heads forward with purpose. Only stopping to ask people he passes where there are bars. There are bars everywhere, they tell him, each person full of their own energy, the sun cheering them all. The summer buzz has truly started.

  But as he passes these small bars, none of them have help wanted signs in the window. He is told there is a whole line of new bars down by the sea. Workers are wanted there, he is assured, by an old lady who insists she needs no help with her shopping bags.

  He walks for a while before he even smells the salt air. Then he sees a poster pinned to a telegraph pole. A new bar about to open, an artist’s impression of how it will look when it is finished. It looks like a park near the beach, the sea in the distance. Little bridges to cross from one bar area to another, each an island of decking above the sandy scrubland which sprouts long, green grass as tall as a bar stool in between. The whole enclosed by a high wooden fence down to the sea, palm trees, adding more lush green, soaring above. Bar staff wanted, it says.

  Theo looks about for trees that high to pinpoint the bar. There are none. He
walks towards the sea and finds the high wooden wall of the poster. Unlatching the gate, he lets himself in, ready for the magical world to hit him.

  The scrubland is completely untamed, the decking islands only just keeping themselves from being lost in the sand. The bars, as yet, have no palm-leaf thatching, the skeletal structures sticking like bones from the desolate area. There are two men sawing wood, and not a single palm tree. Another man sits in one of the unfinished bars reading a newspaper held between both hands.

  ‘Hello. I have come about the bar job.’

  ‘Jobs,’ the man corrects without looking up. His shirt is white, his hair neat. He looks wealthy. Theo wipes his hand against his leg and holds it out to shake. The man flicks the corner of the newspaper straight with a jerk of both hands, ignoring Theo’s proffered greeting. ‘How old are you?’ he asks, not looking up from his reading.

  Theo is surprised at the question and momentarily wonders if he should be older or younger. Is he looking for reliability or energy?

  ‘Forty,’ he replies honestly.

  The man puts his paper down to scrutinise him. ‘Hm, you look younger,’ he says, but it is not clear if this is a good thing.

  Theo decides to play it both ways.

  ‘I have the qualities of both—the energy of the young and the responsibility of the mature.’ He smiles, his hair ruffling in the sea breeze. He puts a hand up to shield his eyes. The sun is in his face and he cannot see the man’s features where he sits in the shade. Sand hisses across the decking in swirls, creating new patterns.

  ‘I think you are too old. The young people do not want to be served by their babas, and it is the young who spend money. Sorry.’ His raises his newspaper, implying the conversation is over.