by Kahn, Denise
“Who?”
“The poet. Nareg Garabedian.”
“The one who liked my nightshirt…yes, he was a very decent man.”
“And quite the writer. You should read some of his poetry. He was brilliant.”
“Damn war. What a waste. When this is all over I swear I will get the business back on its feet and we will print his poetry. The proceeds will go to his family and to his memory.”
“I hope his family will be alright.”
“We will do what we can for them.” Valentina looked at her husband. She knew they could hardly do for themselves, but she also knew Nico was sincere.
That night the Malandros family, and Rebeka, gathered in the living room. They said a prayer for Nareg.
“Mother,” Valentina said, “would you accompany me on the piano? I would like to dedicate a song to him.”
“Of course,” she said, never hesitating. Sela went and sat at the piano.
“Before I sing I would like to read a piece of one of his poems, in his honor. Nareg said that he had written it with the vase next to him.” They listened silently. Valentina read the words:
…The earth is a palette of colors
People are a symphony of colors
Peace is a rainbow of everyone’s colors…
Valentina closed her eyes, delicately opened her mouth and pushed out the first note of Gounod’s Ave Maria. Sela accompanied her. Nico looked at his wife, always marveling at her beauty and her talent, more in love with her every day.
The vase was present on the piano and as Valentina finished she gently caressed it. Sela kept playing; the family listened, lost in their thoughts and grief.
The knock on the door brought them out of their reverie. Nico opened it. Standing there was the German musician in his uniform. Nico forced himself not to lunge at the man and strangle him. Instead, thinking of Rebeka he shouted: “Valentina, its Sela’s German musician friend. Valentina jumped up from her chair and gave quick orders: “Mother, keep playing. Melina, go around the neighborhood and tell everybody you find to bring a chair. Tell them there is a concert right now, right here. Hurry!” Melina ran off. Valentina cursed out loud. “Damn it, we weren’t paying attention.” She turned to Rebeka. “When you see a neighbor coming in with a chair, grab it and have them sit on the couch in front of the piano. You take the chair to the back, sit down and don’t move. Understood?” Rebeka nodded.
The soldier went to Sela and greeted her with the usual heel clicking. She didn’t stop playing, she just looked at him and finally she said: “So, we are to play together, are we?”
“It would be my honor,” he said, opening his violin case.
“Can you play?”
“Not as often as I like,” he answered quickly, understanding her play on words.
“That’s not what I asked,” Sela answered back just as quickly. She had liked his answer.
“I was the first violin of the Dresden orchestra.”
“There may be hope for you yet, maybe you can play.” Sela hadn’t stopped playing or looking at him. He smiled sweetly at the older lady.
One by one neighbors trickled in. Rebeka did as she was told and sat in the back of the living room. In ten minutes the house was packed with people. It wasn’t every day that the great Sela Vidalis played for them and invited them to her home for a concert.
The room was completely silent, even with what seemed like the entire neighborhood in attendance. Rebeka was in the back, well hidden by the crowd. She was shaking. Melina sat next to her, an arm around her shoulder.
“What would you like to play, Madame?” Heinrich Pommer said.
“Do you have a cigarette?” Sela asked.
“Of course,” he answered, caught a little off guard.
Valentina grinned. Her mother was one of a kind. At that moment she reminded her of a cat cornering a mouse, but with finesse and not violence. Pommer opened a cigarette case and offered it to her. Sela continued to play with one hand and put the cigarette in her mouth. He closed the case and lit her cigarette. She inhaled and watched him.
“Does Little Brahms always smoke?” Rebeka whispered to Melina.
“There’s one practically dangling from her lips all the time. Ever since my grandfather died,” Melina answered.
“What would you like to play?” Heinrich asked again.
“Whatever you wish. You start, I’ll follow.” He raised an eyebrow. Is she really that good? He wondered. Sela was amusing herself with her little German mouse. Nico was enjoying his mother-in-law.
“With pleasure.” Pommer put his violin to his neck. He pulled the bow affectionately. Sela smiled knowingly and immediately followed him into Beethoven’s ninth. Heinrich lost himself in his playing, Sela with him the entire time. Not a note was off. The audience noticed the man’s transformation. He was no longer a German enemy, or a soldier, or an occupier—rather, he was an impassioned musician. They were actually magical and the little audience was hypnotized. Even Rebeka forgot her fears. They played for two hours, everything from Chopin to Rimsky-Korsakov, Bizet to Schubert and even Strauss. Sela could have gone on for hours; playing the piano was still her passion and her relaxation. She seemed to never get tired. Heinrich felt the same way, but he knew he had to be elsewhere. It had to come to an end and he regretted it. He kissed Sela’s hand. “I thank you, Maestro,” he said to her. She nodded. Heinrich turned and looked at Valentina. His eyes spoke for him. Words were not needed. He was truly grateful. She understood him and remembered gentle Nareg and quoted him: “The earth is a palette of colors, people are a symphony of colors, and peace is a rainbow of everyone’s colors.”
“I shall remember your words, Madame Malandros. I, too, wish for this world of color. I am a musician, not a soldier. I am an artist, not a warrior.”
“I respect you, Herr Pommer. You are a wonderful musician. I wish we could have met under different circumstances, and I am sure that we all wish for peace of music,” Valentina answered. The German man, always gallant, clicked his heels and kissed her hand. “I do not know if I will have the pleasure of seeing you again. I am being sent away in a few days.”
“I wish you all the best. Be safe.”
“God be with you and your family. Thank you again for your hospitality.”
Valentina watched him leave. She had not lied. It would have been a pleasure meeting him during a time of peace. The neighbors slowly left and the Malandros’ thanked them for their quick response. They in turn thanked them for the lovely, albeit impromptu, concert.
Sela was still playing, indifferent to the commotion around her. She played until everyone left and then still continued for herself. Her hands seemed to softly float over the keys, her arms an extension of the piano, her passion for music an extension of her soul. She knew that Melina and Rebeka were in their room trying to sleep and played Brahms’ lullaby, knowing that the young girls had a troublesome evening. They always fell asleep when they heard the melody. She also knew of the Little Brahms/Mozart nickname they had lovingly given her and smiled. She would never let them or her family down. Sela looked at the photographs around the vase on top of the piano. Her life’s history stared at her through the frames, from the different concerts at prestigious theaters, with prominent and famous people, to the ones with her family—her favorites. They smiled at her: Valentina as a baby with Simeon and Ali; little Melina with her parents; Simeon, her adoring doting father in Alexandria lifting her high over his head with those big arms; Sela as a child on her birthday sitting next to Uncle Fitzi at the piano, always with his Irish or Scottish ‘medicine’ at his side, looking at each other, their fingers stretched across the keys; Ali and his family; Valentina as a teenager performing at her first concert with the shadow of Carla Corelli in the wings; Valentina and Nico at the Château de la Cocorgnoc the first time they had met; and Ivan and herself standing in front of the Crillon in Paris at the Place de la Concorde. She stared at Ivan’s eyes. They seemed to speak to her as she remember
ed that right after the photographer had taken the picture Ivan held her in his arms and made her tremble with his passionate embrace. They had kissed for so long that at some point she realized Ivan had kept her from falling. Anyone looking at them would have thought they were dancing a tango and were frozen on the last movement. She thought of how beautiful a lover he had been and could almost feel his kisses and caresses on her skin, the way his fingers explored every inch of her body and the way she in turn had responded to his touch. Sela had had many lovers since Ivan. She chose nothing but the best and enjoyed her men very much, but no one would ever be able to match the magnificence of the oneness of their passion and the sublimity of their love for each other.
Valentina walked up to the piano and caressed the vase. As she touched it she felt a slight tremor pass through her fingers. Since she was a child she knew the vase had a special energy, a uniqueness that always soothed her. She knew that the Chinese See-Fu had made it with great love for his daughter. She believed that there was some sort of higher power imbedded in the creation, perhaps a spiritual entity, but most of all, that it had a soul of its own and was somehow imbued with music.
“I could have used your help, you know,” Sela said to her daughter.
“You did just fine, Mother.”
“Of course we did just fine. That’s not what I meant. What I’m saying is, it would have been a marvelous concert if you sang with us.”
“Yes, I could have jumped in, and I would have enjoyed myself and practiced as well, but it just didn’t feel or seem right. Anyway, you two were brilliant. Besides, I was too preoccupied with Rebeka and Nico.”
“Nico? What’s up with him?”
“Well, he wasn’t too thrilled that a German soldier was in the house.”
“Ah, that wasn’t a soldier, that was a musician and a pretty fine one at that.” Valentina smiled, remembering what Heinrich had said. “You could have told him so, Mother.”
“I did. We spoke the same language.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t say one single word to him all night.”
“I most certainly did—in the universal language of music—we communicated perfectly.”
“You are absolutely right, and I love you very much.” Valentina embraced her mother, and for the first time in hours Sela took her hands off the piano. She held the younger woman and beamed. Somewhere inside her lovely daughter Ivan’s heart lived on.
♫
CHAPTER 26
The war in Greece had been raging for two years. Melina was now seventeen years old and following the women of her family, became a natural beauty in her own right. Although they were barely surviving on minimal food rations, they were still together. Many of the antiques had been sold, but the vase still stood majestically on the piano, which Sela, a constant cigarette dangling from her mouth, played night and day. The music kept them calm, entertained and strong, and most of all together.
They were gathered around the kitchen table eating some raisins, Melina and Rebeka on their one chair, Sela not saying very much and Valentina trying to figure out how to feed the family their next meal. Nico, usually the one entertaining them with jokes and laughter, was unusually quiet. He had grown a little older. War did that to people. The misery, stress and the constant fear gnawed at their souls and tried to break their spirit. But the Malandros family held firm. They were survivors. Still handsome with rugged good looks and some graying at the temples, Nico was distinguished and always would be. He looked at his family and sighed. They were so thin, he thought. They were starving, they were broke and he couldn’t provide for them. He felt impotent, useless. He was enraged. He had let them down. He had to do something about the situation, not only for his family, but also for his country. Tomorrow he would go see an old friend.
The next day Nico walked into Stavros Koulouris’ office. The Prime Minister stood and immediately embraced him. “It is so good to see you, Nico, how are you?”
“I am as well as one can be, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you.”
Stavros Koulouris, once the Minister of Education who had given his house in Plaka to Nico, was now the Prime Minister of Greece. “Come, sit and tell me what brings you here.”
“As you know they closed down my business.”
“Yes, those bastards, I heard.”
“Mr. Prime Minister, I cannot just stand by and do nothing. I have to help my country, I have to fight. There must be something I can do to help end this war, or at least help alleviate the misery.”
“But Nico, you are not twenty anymore, leave the fighting to the younger men.”
“I don’t mean on the front line. I have other specialties…”
The older man looked at Nico. He leaned forward, curiosity in his eyes. “Go on, tell me more.”
“I trained with the Americans during the First war, my specialty was covert operations…”
That afternoon, after Koulouris had made a few calls, prominent politicians and military generals had rushed to his office. The room was buzzing as the men conversed and laid out their plan over brandy.
“Nico,” Koulouris said, “this is just what we needed. It has been a long time since I felt hope and when you walked into my office today you were like a breath of fresh air. You once saved my life, and now you are saving our country.”
“Mr. Prime Minister, you give me too much credit. The mission hasn’t even started and if we fail the consequences will be catastrophic for Greece,” Nico said, feeling the perspiration creeping down his spine.
The Prime Minister embraced Nico and whispered: “I have faith in you, Pericles, my old friend.”
“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister,” Nico said smiling, remembering the knife that had stabbed the book instead of his body. The old Minister hadn’t forgotten. The two men looked at each other with hope. “I have but one favor to ask.”
“What is it, Nico?”
“I need to know that my family will be well provided for, when I’m gone and… even more so if I don’t come back.”
“That is not a problem, I give you my word.” The men shook hands and Nico left the office.
Nico walked into his house with a bouquet of violets he picked up from a street vendor. “Poulakimou, my little bird, I’m home!” Nico announced. Valentina came out and was greeted by a handful of violets.
“Oh, Nico, how do you do this? You always seem to find lovely flowers for me.”
“Ah, but none are as beautiful as you.” He swiftly grabbed her and passionately kissed her. Valentina responded with the same passion and fervor that never waned through the years.
“My, you are in a good mood today, what’s up?” Valentina knew her man so well.
“Oh, nothing, my love, I just would like to make this a special night. Maybe have a little concert or something. Sela playing the piano, and my two girls singing. I would love that, if you’re up to it, of course.”
“I think that would be a lovely idea, and we could use the practice. But I don’t perform for free,” Valentina said slyly. “I demand payment.”
Nico smiled. “If I were still a wealthy man I would bring you French Champagne, caviar and blinis, and cover the house with exotic flowers and hundreds of chocolate hearts from Switzerland.” He looked at Valentina. She was smiling, amused and loving the devotion. She thought that her man was just as romantic and adorable as the day they met. “But… all I have to offer you,” Nico continued, sighing dramatically, “is my heart, and I would gladly cut it out of my body and hand it to you.”
Valentina laughed. “No, no, silly, I don’t want a Mayan sacrifice, besides, I already have your heart,” she said, her arms still around his neck. “You’ll just have to come up with something else.”
“Well, then, the only thing I have left is my body, and you can have that too.”
“Now, you’re talking,” Valentina said and passionately kissed him.
Nico woke up very early the next morning and felt Valentina’s hand on his chest. He took her hand an
d delicately kissed her fingers and then ran his lips over hers and smiled as he remembered the glorious love making of the previous night. He carefully slipped out of bed, not wanting to wake her. He quickly dressed and went to Melina’s room. The two girls were asleep and Nico leaned over and kissed them both. He then went to Sela’s room but she wasn’t there. “Good bye, little Mozart, wherever you are,” he whispered, “please know that I have loved you even more than my own mother. I could not have asked, or even dreamed of, having such a wonderful family and it is thanks to you. I love you.”
“I’m flattered, and I love you too,” Sela said. Nico jumped back, startled. The Matriarch was standing right behind him. “Just what are you up to, Nicolaki, little Nico?”
Nico put his finger to his lips. “Shh, don’t wake anybody up.” Sela just looked at him. He knew he could not escape from this very wise woman. “Alright, I have to leave for a while and I didn’t want anybody to know. It’s safer that way. I just wanted to say goodbye to you.” He hugged the older woman and she held him tight and whispered in his ear: “You are like a son to me. You are a great man and my great friend. I thank you for being a wonderful husband to my Valentina and a father everyone would be envious to have. Believe me, I know something about good fathers. Try not to leave the girls alone too long. It is hell on a wife waiting for her husband during a war. Take care of yourself and don’t get killed, or I’ll come after you myself. The girls will be waiting for your return.”
“I must be the luckiest Greek man alive!”
“Oh?”
“Sela, do you know many mother-in-laws as divine as the one I have?”
Sela caressed his face. “Now go do what you have to do and come back safe. If you need a place to hide, go to Alexandria and find Doctor Ali. He’ll take care of you until you can get back. Oh, and I didn’t see you and don’t know anything.” Sela winked at him. Nico kissed her on the cheek and left. She was still riveting and enchanting, Nico thought, and now, in her sixties, Sela was still elegant and attractive and her personality never ceased to captivate and fascinate.
