When the Cypress Whispers

by Yvette Manessis Corporon

  They walked hand-in-hand to the subway, neither one complaining about the bitter cold or even seeming to notice it. There, at the entrance to the Eighth Street subway station, he lifted her chin with his fingers and kissed her for the first time.

  When she finally opened her eyes, she found his, electric blue and staring back. From that moment on, Daphne loved staring into those eyes.

  She missed those eyes.

  Twelve

  Thankful Evie had finally fallen asleep easily, Daphne grabbed her white cardigan from the back of one of the plastic-covered chairs. She held tight, wringing the soft material around and around with her hands as she stepped out into the breezy moonlit night.

  “Ella, Daphne mou. Katse etho. Sit here,” Yia-yia said as she patted the chair beside her, the dark spots and bulging veins of her hands illuminated by the golden glow of the fire.

  Daphne joined Yia-yia in their usual spots by the outdoor oven. Neither spoke at first. They sat side by side and watched as the flames jumped from the burning logs, sending white-hot embers floating and tumbling into the evening breeze like the circus acrobats Daphne perpetually promised to take Evie to see, but had never quite found the time for.

  “Are you cold, Daphne mou?” Yia-yia asked as she reached out to grab her own shawl, which hung on the back of her chair, and draped the fringed black fabric around her hunched shoulders.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Do you want something to eat, Daphne mou?”

  “No, Yia-yia, I’m not hungry.”

  “You didn’t eat very much at dinner. I told you, you need to put on some weight. You don’t want to look like a skeleton in that gown, now do you?” Yia-yia teased.

  Daphne didn’t even have the ability to fake a smile. She just kept looking into the fire, mesmerized by the smoldering embers. She felt drained.

  In the few hours since their heated conversation, Daphne had played the scene over and over again in her head, her temples throbbing. But eventually something odd struck Daphne, something she’d never expected. At first she didn’t realize it, but once she’d caught a glimmer, there was no escaping it. As hateful as Daphne thought Yianni’s words were, she couldn’t help but feel that she had caught a glimpse of concern under the heap of insults he had piled on her. No matter how misguided his accusations were, there was an underlying theme to them. There was no question; this fisherman seemed to care deeply for Yia-yia. Even though Daphne wanted to despise him, to hate him, to make him suffer for causing such chaos in the short time she had known him, she felt conflicted. How could she hate someone who loved and cared for Yia-yia so deeply?

  Daphne turned and looked at her grandmother. Each line, each wrinkle and dark spot, on the old woman’s face was awash in the soft amber light of the fire. Reaching out her hand, Daphne lifted Yia-yia’s hand to her mouth. She kissed Yia-yia’s rough knuckles before holding the old woman’s hand against her own cheek.

  Does she really think I’ve abandoned her? Does she really think I’m not there for her? Daphne felt her eyes well up again. She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to stave off the tears that were certain to come again. Yia-yia studied her granddaughter’s face for a moment as Daphne held her hand so tenderly. They both had so much they wanted to say, but for a little while longer, neither said a word. Finally, Daphne spoke.

  “Yia-yia.”

  “Ne, Daphne mou?”

  “Yia-yia. Are you lonely here?” The words spilled out of Daphne’s mouth like the guts of a sacrificed lamb.

  “Daphne, what do you mean?”

  “Are you lonely here? I know it’s been a while since I’ve visited, and with Mama and Baba gone . . .”

  Yia-yia lifted her hand from Daphne’s lap. With both hands now free, she raised them to straighten her scarf, untying and then retying the knot under her chin.

  “I need to know,” Daphne pleaded. “I know it’s been a long time since I came to see you. But I was trying so hard to take care of everything. To make sure Evie and I, and you, would be all right.”

  “We are all right, koukla mou. We’ll always be all right.”

  “I hate the thought of you here, by yourself, with so little, when we have so much back in New York.”

  “I am not alone. I am never alone. As long as I am here, in my home, surrounded by the sea, the wind, and the trees, I will always be surrounded by those who love me.”

  “But you are alone, Yia-yia. We’ve all gone. Isn’t that why Mama and Baba left here, to make a better life for us all? It worked, Yia-yia. We finally have everything they hoped for us. I can finally give you and Evie the things Mama and Baba could only dream about giving me.”

  “What do you think Evie needs, Daphne? She’s a little girl. Little girls need their imaginations and their mothers, nothing else. She needs your time. She needs you to whisper secrets with. She needs you to tell her stories, to kiss good night.”

  Daphne winced at the words. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been home early enough to tuck Evie into her bed back home in New York. It had been weeks, months even.

  Yia-yia looked away from Daphne for a moment. When she turned back, Daphne could see the fire’s reflection in her grandmother’s eyes.

  “Nothing can replace a mother’s love, Daphne. Nothing can replace a mother’s time. Your own mother always knew that, even as she struggled to give you a new life.” Yia-yia watched as Daphne squirmed in her seat, but it didn’t deter the old woman from finishing what she had to say. “Did you see her tonight when she sat in your lap, purring like a small kitten? It’s because you didn’t push her away this time.”

  “I don’t push my daughter away,” Daphne protested, struggling not to raise her voice.

  “Tonight when Evie sat in your lap, you didn’t run off to take care of something else more important. You were still. Finally, you were still long enough for Evie to catch you, to hold you, and to feel you hold her back. For that sweet moment, Evie felt like she was the most important thing in your life. And for that moment, that child was happy.”

  Daphne felt the tingle in her eyes once more. Damn it. She had not seen Yia-yia in years, yet it was still true; Yia-yia could read Daphne with one glance.

  “Daphne mou.” Yia-yia spoke again. “I see how you go through the motions, but the life has gone out of you. Whittled away like your modern new nose. Beautiful, yes, but where is the character, the very thing that makes you different, special—alive? You’ve forgotten how to live, and even more so, you’ve forgotten why to live.”

  Daphne gazed into the fire. “Yia-yia . . . ,” she said, speaking directly into the flames, “didn’t you ever wish your life had turned out differently? How if you could change one moment, everything would have turned out so different . . .” The sound of her voice trailed off, “So much better . . .”

  “Daphne mou,” Yia-yia replied, “this is my life. No matter who is with me, who has been taken away from me or gone away in search of a better life, this is my life, the only one I have. This is the life that was written for me in countless coffee cups, decided for me in the heavens before I was born and then whispered about on the breeze as my mother gave birth to me, her screams mixing with the cypress whispers as I emerged from her womb. A person cannot change what has been whispered about, Daphne. A person cannot change her fate. And this is mine—just as you have yours.”

  There was nothing more for Daphne to say. She just sat there next to Yia-yia, watching as the last smoldering log collapsed on the ever-growing pile of ashes.

  Thirteen

  At five a.m., Daphne had enough. She had been staring at the cracks in the ceiling and reliving the fireside conversation with Yia-yia again and again in her mind. How was it possible that a woman who had never been educated, was technically illiterate, had never set foot outside Greece, and rarely even left her home had managed to read Daphne more thoroughly and precisely than the expensive therapist Daphne visited once a week back home?

  Daphne thought that she had
become a master of reinventing herself—successful entrepreneur, fiancée of a wealthy bank executive. It was what she wanted, what she thought would make her happy again. On paper, she was living the life so many others dreamed of and envied. But now, at one glance from Yia-yia, the cracks in her carefully cultivated foundation were beginning to show.

  Daphne swung her legs over the side of the bed, careful not to awaken the irritable old bedsprings or Evie. She slipped her cardigan over her long white nightgown and crept across the room, reaching over to the bureau and grabbing her cell phone from the corner, where it sat blinking with the pulsating red reminder of unheard messages.

  As soon as she opened the door, Daphne felt soothed by the island’s early-morning symphony; the clear serenade of crickets, the rustling of the trees in the predawn air, and the distant rhythmic crash of the tide as it continued its predawn call to the fisherman. As she closed the door behind her, Daphne also closed her eyes and listened for a moment, knowing that the first rooster call would soon welcome daybreak.

  The air was cooler than she had anticipated, so Daphne snatched Yia-yia’s fringed woolen shawl from the back of the chair where Yia-yia had left it before going to bed. Stepping gingerly in her bare feet to avoid the many cracks and crevices of the pavement, Daphne shuffled across the patio and dialed Stephen’s number on her cell phone. It was 11:00 p.m. in New York. She knew she would likely wake him; he often went to bed early and was up before dawn to get a jump on the overseas markets. But Daphne dialed anyway; she needed to hear his voice.

  “Hello,” he answered after five long rings.

  “Hi. Did I wake you?” she asked, knowing full well that she had.

  “Daphne? No, honey, its okay. I’m glad you called.” Stephen let out a long, loud yawn into the phone. “I’ve been trying to reach you. I left you a message on your cell phone earlier today. We really need to do something about the phone situation there. The phone lines were down all day, and your cell phone service seems spotty at best. Can’t you get the phone company out there to take a look, maybe replace those antiquated lines or something? I hate not being able to get hold of you, especially after you told me there’s no police on this island of yours. Not exactly comforting knowing that, Daphne.”

  “We’re fine. We’ve never had police stationed on the island. There’s never been a need. But we finally have a doctor living here. That’s progress.” She laughed, knowing how utterly provincial this must sound to Stephen.

  “Very funny, Daphne. Just look into the phone thing, please. For me.”

  “Oh, Stephen.” Daphne tried her best to muffle her laugh. “Things don’t work that way here. It would take weeks, months even, to get those guys out here.” She gathered the fabric of her nightgown under her legs and sat on the stone wall. Shortly, with the sunrise’s first light, she would have a perfect view of the beach and the port.

  Daphne knew her answer would not sit well with Stephen, a man accustomed to making things happen. But life on this island was regulated by different rules and had a very different rhythm from that on the island of Manhattan. Everything here took longer. This was a place decades behind the rest of the world and even years behind the mainland of Corfu, a mere seven miles away. But to Daphne, that was the beauty of the island.

  “Well, see what you can do anyway.”

  “Yes, I’ll see what I can do.” Daphne knew full well that for Stephen, “fixing it” meant paying someone to make the problem go away.

  “Oh, hey, Stephen. What was the mystery message, anyway?” she asked.

  “I wrapped things up at work and managed to book an earlier flight. I get in to Corfu at two p.m. on Tuesday. I can’t wait to see you. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too. And that’s great news!” Daphne shouted as she jumped up from the wall, momentarily forgetting that it wasn’t quite six in the morning yet, and that most of the island was still asleep.

  “My family is still coming next week, but I wanted to get in as soon as I could. I can’t stand being away from you this long. I want to help you, to make sure everything is just as you dreamed it would be. I want you to be happy.”

  “It will be. I know it will.” She took a deep breath, allowing the dawn’s mist to fill her lungs. “I’ll see you at the airport. I love you,” Daphne said as she hung up the phone. She put it down on the wall as she looked out toward the beach below.

  Stephen was coming on Tuesday. It really was happening. They really were going to get married. There was still so much left to do, but for some reason, Daphne wasn’t at all stressed out by her massive to-do list the way she had been back at home. Maybe it was the clean sea air, or maybe it was the comfort of having Yia-yia so close by, or maybe it was the fact that perfection was not a requirement here, the way it was back at home. Here, imperfection was expected, celebrated. As much as Daphne wanted everything about the wedding to be just right, she didn’t feel nearly as uptight about everything as she had just a few days before. I’ll stop by and see Thea Nitsa later this morning to work out all the final details, she thought, taking a deep breath and stretching her arms out above her head. A loud yawn escaped her mouth, and she felt her eyelids flutter with the weight of her restless night.

  She stretched, looking out to where the sea meets the sky, and watched as the first hint of light poked through the darkness, highlighting the sea’s surface with broad metallic brushstrokes. Where she stood on the patio, just under the largest olive tree on the property, she knew she would have the best view of the awakening port and beach below. That was the thing about Yia-yia’s modest little house. Many of the other homes on the island were larger and far more modern, with their new appliances, perfect terra-cotta roofs, and colorful new exteriors, but none of them could boast a perfect, unobstructed view of the port like the one from Yia-yia’s terrace. Yia-yia had always joked that for a poor woman, she owned a priceless view. As Daphne stood under the olive tree, predawn shadows turning into a colorful sunlit landscape before her eyes, she realized Yia-yia was right.

  As the first light began to infiltrate the darkness, Daphne looked down on what seemed like a scene from a Hollywood zombie movie. There below, on every crudely paved road and dirt path that led to the port, the sun revealed the silhouettes of fishermen embarking on their morning ritual. Some were old, their bodies hunched over from years of hard living, hauling their heavy nets morning and night. Others, still young, strong, and upright, virtually sprinted toward the port. A few of the men walked with reams of nets slung over their shoulders, no doubt having spent the better part of their evening crouched over the thick twine, mending them by the fire as they smoked cigarettes and drank licorice-scented ouzo while their wives prepared dinner. Young or old, tired or energized, each of the men made his way toward the port in the dim light, preparing to climb aboard his fishing boat and wondering what that morning’s nets might reveal.

  Daphne was so busy watching the fishermen below that she didn’t hear Yia-yia, who had made her way outside to begin the day’s chores.

  “Ella, Daphne mou,” Yia-yia called from the other side of the patio. “Koukla mou, I didn’t expect you to be up so early.”

  “Neither did I, Yia-yia, but I couldn’t sleep.” Daphne turned her back on the port and walked toward Yia-yia, who was already dressed and bent over the outdoor stove, lighting the first fire of the day.

  “Ah, wedding nerves.” Yia-yia chuckled as she piled several slim twigs under a large log. Reaching over to the pile of old yellowed newspapers that she kept in a basket beside the fire, she shoved them into the pile as well, struck a long wooden match along the worn black strip of a matchbox, and leaned in to set the kindling ablaze.

  “Yes, I guess it is wedding nerves.” Daphne smiled at Yia-yia as she removed the black shawl from her own shoulders and wrapped it around Yia-yia. The old woman’s lined face exploded into a broad, thankful smile.

  “Yia-yia—” Daphne watched her grandmother reach for the small copper briki, sugar, coffee, and bottl
ed water.

  “Ne, Daphne mou.” Yia-yia scooped out a spoonful of dark coffee grounds and stirred them into the small, shiny pot.

  “Yia-yia, how do you know Yianni? How is it that I don’t remember him at all? I know everyone on this island.”

  “Ne, koukla. There are not many of us left. Of course you know everyone here. But Yianni, ah, Yianni . . .” Yia-yia sighed as she gazed into the fire. “No, Daphne mou. You didn’t know his family. But I did. I knew his yia-yia and his mama.” Yia-yia added just a little sugar to the briki and stirred before placing it on a metal cooking grate over the open flame.

  “But why didn’t I ever meet them?” Daphne asked, bringing her knees to her chest under the gauzelike material of her nightgown, her red toenails dangling over the edge of her chair.

  “Ah, Daphne mou, Yianni’s family left here a long time ago. Yianni grew up in Athena, not here. That’s why you don’t remember him.” Yia-yia snatched the bubbling coffee from the briki just as the boiling foam rose to the top of the pot and threatened to spill over the sides.

  “Yianni never set foot on the island until a few years ago. He didn’t spend his childhood here, like you did. But he loves this place as much as you do. As much as any of us.” Yia-yia poured the thick coffee into two demitasse cups and handed one to Daphne.

  “He’s an educated man, Daphne, not a fisherman by birth like the other men on the island. He went to the best schools, went to college . . . just like you. But the island called to him.”

  Daphne lifted her cup to her lips and watched as Yia-yia held hers, the small cup cradled in her hands, warming her bent fingers.

  “He came and found me that very first day. As soon as he set foot on the island, this was the first place he came. His yia-yia had told him stories about us, how we were wonderful friends a long, long time ago. He walked in through the gate that first day, and we sat down together and I made him kafe and we drank it together, just as we are doing now. When he was finished, I asked him for his cup. I looked inside, and I saw the heavy black sorrow that weighed him down. But then I turned the cup and saw his heart. It was pure and clean—unlike the hearts of so many men whose cups I have gazed into.