When the Cypress Whispers

by Yvette Manessis Corporon

  “Ah, everyone is hungry today. I’ll get some more pita.” Yia-yia lifted the empty platter from the table and shuffled back into the kitchen.

  “To Yia-yia,” Popi exclaimed, her words beginning to slur.

  “To Thea Evangelia,” Yianni shouted.

  “Yes, to Yia-yia,” Daphne concurred, surprised that there was actually something that she and Yianni agreed on.

  “There is no one like Thea Evangelia,” Yianni said, shaking his head from side to side. “And there never will be another like her,” he added as he drained his beer, his fourth of the afternoon.

  “Daphne,” Popi said as she lifted her glass to her lips. “Daphne, I never asked you this. Why did you name Evie after Yia-yia, and not your own mother? Angeliki is a beautiful name. And that’s our tradition, to name children after their grandmothers, not great-grandmothers. Just like you are named for your father’s mother, Daphne.”

  Yianni looked at Daphne, waiting for her to reply.

  “I don’t know. I thought about it. But I guess I wanted to honor Yia-yia somehow. To let her know how much she means to me. She was like a second mother to me.” Daphne shivered as she thought of her mother, killed so senselessly, taken from them too soon, just as Evie had begun to toddle her first steps.

  “There are many ways to honor someone,” Yianni said as he refilled his beer glass. “And I for one don’t see the great honor in naming a child after someone who is kept separated from this child. One who dreams night and day that she may one day finally meet her. That to me is not honor—that is torture.”

  “Excuse me?” Daphne spun to face him.

  Popi sat up straighter in her seat, ready for the fireworks that were sure to ensue.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Daphne demanded.

  “It means you might be wiser to think of some other ways to honor your yia-yia, as you call it.” Yianni shrugged.

  “You don’t know anything about us, about me.” Daphne could feel the rage simmering to the surface. She felt as red as the tomatoes hanging on the vines and as hot as the Greek coffee Yia-yia was brewing on the stove. This man knew nothing about her, nothing about Yia-yia. How dare he presume to know their story, their history? How dare he presume to have any grasp of the depth of emotion Daphne felt for her yia-yia?

  “I know more than you think, Daphne,” Yianni replied. “You think naming a child after an old woman is an honor. What good is that honor when the same old woman sits alone day after day and night after night, praying that she might one day be lucky enough to meet this child which carries her name? What good is a name to an old woman who sings songs of lament morning and night and cries that child’s name, all the time knowing her voice is too far away to be heard by the two little ears she longs to caress and kiss?”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” Daphne hissed. “What the hell do you know?”

  “But I do know,” Yianni replied, unfazed by her anger. “I know things that you don’t, Daphne. I see things you can’t see. I know how she misses you. How alone she feels. I know how many times I come to visit her, and I find her staring into the fire, crying. How she pores over the photos you send. I’ve come here silently at night to check on her, and I’ve watched and seen how she sits alone and talks to your photos, whispers your favorite stories into the photos, praying you might somehow still be able to hear them.”

  “Stop it.” Daphne jumped from her seat, knocking over the rickety wooden chair. “What is it with you? Haven’t we had enough myths for one day?”

  “Me?” Yianni shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve done nothing but speak the truth. Whether you like it or not, it is the truth. I see it, Daphne. I know. I may like to tease about how ignorant you Americans can be, but don’t sit here pretending to be blind as well.”

  With one shaky hand, Daphne grabbed the table to steady herself. “You don’t know anything,” she growled as she looked him dead in the eyes, expecting to once again be confronted by his cold, callous gaze. But when her eyes found his, Daphne was shocked to catch a fleeting glimpse of what might pass for compassion.

  “I take care of her,” she insisted. “I send money. I work from early morning to late at night every single day just so I can take care of Evie and Yia-yia. There’s been no one to help me, no one. I’ve done it all alone, supported us all. You have no right to say those things.” Daphne turned her back on Yianni just as she felt her eyes well up. She would be damned if he was going to see her cry.

  “What good is your money, Daphne?” he continued, his voice just a bit softer now. “Do you think your yia-yia cares about your money? Do you think that money keeps her company at night when she is lonely? When she is afraid? Do you think it buys her comfort? Speaks to her when she is starved for company?”

  Daphne couldn’t listen anymore. Her head was spinning, as if instead of one small glass of Mythos, she had kept pace with Yianni and Popi. She began to walk toward the house.

  “I told her once that my boat was giving me trouble, and that I could not afford a new engine. She took me by the hand and brought me into the house. Your yia-yia pulled a box filled with dollars from under her bed and told me to take what I needed, that she had no use for it. I took nothing. She keeps it all in that box. That’s where your money goes. See what good it does there.” He grabbed his fisherman’s cap from the back of the chair, placed it on his head, and stomped toward the gate. “Yia sou, Thea Evangelia. I have to go. Thank you for lunch.”

  The gate slammed shut behind Yianni just as Yia-yia emerged from the kitchen with a tray carrying more pita.

  “Popi, where is everyone? What happened?” Yia-yia asked as she placed the tray on the wooden table.

  “I have no idea,” Popi replied, shaking her head from side to side, draining her glass of the last few drops of beer.

  Daphne opened the door to the small house and walked inside. She closed the door behind her and steadied herself against the door frame, her legs shaking and uncertain. She lifted her head and looked out across the room. It was a tiny home, just two small bedrooms and a sparsely furnished living room. The pounding inside her temples was so strong that it blurred her vision.

  There was nothing in the room but an old, uncomfortable green sofa and a table with four chairs whose red satin seats were covered in plastic slipcovers—to protect from the guests who never come, Daphne thought, sighing.

  Behind the table, up against the wall, was a long glass cabinet covered in family photos. There was a black-and-white photo of Daphne’s parents on their wedding day; Mama’s hair teased, sprayed, and curled elaborately. There was a faded black-and-white photo of Papou from his days in the Greek navy, handsome in his pressed uniform and squat mustache. Next to Papou was a rare photo of Yia-yia as a young mother, standing at the port, holding Mama’s tiny hand, a stern expression on her face, as was the standard back then—no one of that generation ever smiled for photographs. The rest of the photos were all of Daphne—Daphne at her christening, Daphne taking her first steps out on the patio under the olive tree, Daphne looking awkward and buck-toothed in her third-grade school portrait, Daphne and Alex kissing on their wedding day, Daphne looking far more ethnic with her familial Greek nose still intact, Daphne and Evie blowing kisses to Yia-yia from their Manhattan apartment, and Daphne in her chef’s whites waving to Yia-yia from the kitchen at Koukla. It was Daphne’s entire life played out in cheaply framed, dusty photos.

  She felt a bit steadier now, away from the burning afternoon sun and the burning vitriol of Yianni’s accusations. When she was certain she could stand on her own, without holding the wall for support, Daphne walked toward Yia-yia’s bedroom. She knew what she would find, but she had to see it for herself.

  The bed creaked as she sat down, her hands beside her body fingering the crochet bedspread and dipping in and out of the weblike pattern. After a few moments, she leaned forward and reached down under the bed, her hands finding and grasping it almost instantly. Daphne lifted the box on to
her lap. She placed her hands on top of the dusty shoe box, her chipped fingernails tapping the lid for a few seconds before she lifted the top off the box and looked inside.

  There they were, just like Yianni said they would be. There in the box were stacks of dollars, piles of green bills, thousands of dollars—all of the money Daphne had been sending Yia-yia for the past several years.

  Daphne stared into the box and looked down on the result of all those hours spent away from home, away from Evie, away from Yia-yia. She put her hands in the box and lifted out the result of all those hours spent on her feet, fighting with suppliers, arguing with her staff, and crying from bone-aching exhaustion. She fanned out the bills, the result of the awards, accolades, and full reservation book that she had fought so hard to earn.

  There it all was, all stuffed in a shoe box shoved under Yia-yia’s bed. And it was all meaningless.

  Eleven

  MANHATTAN

  JANUARY 1998

  Daphne wrapped the crochet scarf once more around her neck as she exited the Eighth Street subway station near New York University. She burrowed her face deeper into the scratchy wool and braced herself against the biting wind that whipped up Broadway. Another icy gust slammed against her body as a wind-induced tear rolled down her face.

  Damn it. She buried her face even deeper in the brown material. There was no escaping it. Even the brand-new scarf that Yia-yia had made, which had just arrived yesterday from Greece, was already infused with the scent of diner grease.

  Damn damn damn.

  Daphne shivered uncontrollably, even under the arsenal of layers that Mama made sure she put on before she walked out into the single-digit cold. As her muscles vibrated and twitched, Daphne felt as if she were lying on one of those ridiculous twenty-five-cent massage beds that Baba became obsessed with a few years back during their big family getaway to Niagara Falls.

  It had always been a dream of Baba’s to see the legendary falls in person. After all, he had seen them on a Seven Wonders of the World list, right there alongside the Parthenon. As much as she knew her father wanted to see the falls for himself, Daphne was shocked when her parents actually left Theo Spiro in charge of the diner, packed up the Buick, and headed north for a two-day getaway. Baba never left the diner, never.

  But as impressed as Baba was with the ferocious beauty of the falls, it seemed he was even more taken with the vibrating beds at the Howard Johnson’s. Daphne had fed quarter after quarter into the tiny slot and watched as Baba smiled peacefully, his enormous belly shaking and jiggling like the giant bowls of cream-colored tapioca Mama served every Sunday. Daphne knew that for Baba, this twenty-five-cent indulgence was the epitome of luxury and success. For him, a man accustomed to standing on his feet behind a hot grill, flipping burgers for sixteen hours a day, a pulsating bed in a $69.99-a-night motel room decorated in a palate of Nathan’s mustard yellow meant he had indeed made it, that he was finally living the American dream.

  Daphne reached the lecture hall a good thirty minutes before the start of class. She hated getting here so early, but since the train from Yonkers to Manhattan ran only twice an hour, Daphne often found herself sitting alone in lecture halls, waiting. Some of the other commuter students often met for coffee and cigarettes in the cafeteria across the street, but Daphne hated their gossipy small talk and crude flirtations. She preferred to just sit alone and wait.

  Grateful to be out of the cold, she began the process, unpeeling layer after layer. First, the bulky black down coat came off. Then she removed the yellow cardigan, followed by a brown cotton sweater, and finally the diner-scented scarf. There was no way Daphne could fit it all on the back of her small lecture-hall chair; she had to pile everything on the floor next to her aisle seat. She detested doing this, but with no place else to stash her winter wardrobe, she had no choice. Nothing screamed commuter student like a pile of warm winter clothes and an entire day’s worth of books lugged around in a backpack.

  Daphne knew she wasn’t like many of the students who lived on campus in a haze of bong hits, dorm parties, and guilt-free sexual exploration. But sometimes, sitting alone in a lecture hall, she liked to pretend that she was. Maybe it was really possible? Maybe she could be mistaken for a tousle-haired co-ed who had just raced out of her boyfriend’s bed and sprinted across the street to make it to class in time. Daphne relished her daydreams of being like the other students. But then, inevitably, her eyes would once again fall on the telltale pile of clothes and books beside her. She was again reminded that instead of an intoxicating mixture of incense, patchouli, and morning sex, Daphne’s signature scent was diner grease.

  Daphne would never forget that day in her History of Theater class. It wasn’t the bone-chilling temperatures that made the day memorable. It was him. It was Alex.

  She had seen him around campus a few times, but she never really thought much about him other than a fleeting notice of his all-American good looks. But that day, when Alex stood up in their theater class to give his oral presentation, Daphne realized that appearances could be very deceiving. This was not the one-dimensional privileged American boy “who only wants one thing from a nice Greek girl like you” that her mother had so fiercely warned her about. The moment he began to speak, Daphne knew there was so much more behind those cornflower blue eyes than football, keg parties, and the latest sorority girl conquest.

  Daphne would never forget how his voice cracked and his hands shook as he stood in front of the class, holding his paper. His shirt was worn and wrinkled, and his khakis were creased in all the wrong places.

  “In my opinion, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus contains one of the greatest, if not the greatest, passage in theatrical history,” Alex began. He paused for a moment and looked around the classroom, then lifted the paper slightly closer to his face and once again began to speak. But as he began to read the passage, Daphne noticed that his hands had stopped shaking, and his voice took on a steady calm.

  Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

  And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

  Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

  Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!—

  Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

  Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips,

  And all is dross that is not Helena.

  I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

  Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack’d

  And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

  And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;

  Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

  And then return to Helen for a kiss.

  Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air

  Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;

  Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

  When he appear’d to hapless Semele:

  More lovely than the monarch of the sky

  In wanton Arethusa’s azur’d arms:

  And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

  As he finished the passage, Alex once again looked up from his paper. He planted a slight, crooked smile on his face as he scanned the room for some sort of encouragement or reaction from his fellow students, but all he met was bloodshot blank stares—until he glanced at the girl with the pile of books and clothing beside her. Daphne locked eyes with the disheveled American boy and shyly but knowingly smiled back.

  “Very well chosen, young man,” the professor remarked. “Now, tell me what this all means to you.”

  “To me, this passage is art,” Alex began. He stared into the paper, which he clenched with both hands. “For me, true art evokes emotion. Love, hatred, joy, passion, compassion, sadness. Whatever form it takes on, art makes you feel something. It makes you know that you’re alive.”

  Alex stopped to take a breath. He looked up from his paper and made eye contact with Daphne once again. She squirmed just a little in her seat and felt a knot form in her stomach.

&
nbsp; “This passage makes me think of the power and possibility that exists between two people,” Alex continued. “It makes me think of what it might be like to love someone so deeply and completely that you would go to war for her, risk the lives of your friends for her—as Paris did for Helen. If art evokes emotion, then this passage haunts me. I feel haunted by it, by the possibility that a mere kiss can make the angels sing and make a person immortal . . . that the gates of heaven can be opened by a kiss.”

  On the surface, it made no sense. This was a class assignment, homework, nothing more. But despite the immigrant’s cardinal rule, “Keep to your own kind,” as Daphne watched Alex give his five-minute presentation, she knew that everything had changed.

  “Thank you, Alex. Well done.” The professor dismissed Alex with a nod of his head.

  Alex gathered his papers and prepared to return to his seat, starting up the stairs that led to the multitude of empty chairs in the cavernous lecture hall. Daphne forced herself to look away, to stare instead at the mosaic pattern of the lecture hall carpet. It hurt too much to watch him, to know that boys like him were not meant for girls like her. But then her solitary contemplation was interrupted by a whisper from above.

  “Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

  She knew it was him before she even glanced up. As Daphne stared up at him, he didn’t wait for an answer. They both knew he didn’t have to. With his long, muscular legs and frayed-at-the-hem khakis, he climbed over the pile of Daphne’s clothes and slid into the seat beside her—and into her life.

  “Hi, I’m Alex,” he said as he extended his hand. Her long lashes fluttered before her big black-olive eyes locked in on his once more.

  They went for coffee after the lecture, both uncharacteristically cutting classes for the rest of the day. The entire afternoon was spent walking and talking and holding hands under the coffee shop table; just their fingertips touching at first, but by sunset, he cradled her hand in his. By nightfall she knew it was time to go, that Mama and Baba would worry if she were late. He asked her to stay, to come back to his room. She wanted nothing more than to do just that, to nestle against his chest, to smell him and feel his heart beating against hers. But Daphne said no.