The Gold Letter

by Lena Manta

  “Well, I haven’t gone soft in the head yet! I know what I heard. She’ll speak to Vassilis, and that’s that! At long last, a Kouyoumdzis will marry a Kantardzis.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it, Mama. And Vassilis? Will he accept it?”

  “Listen to me, Vassilis won’t say no. He won’t do to his child what was done to him.”

  “Yes, but there’s still the matter of Pericles. You see, I couldn’t hold my tongue back when I met him, and he knows—”

  “Goodness, my sweet, you too! Should such things be said to our husbands?” Smaragda complained. “What did I tell you all these years? Your husband should know you from the neck down!”

  Behind the closed door, Hecuba grew pale as she listened to the two women. Her head swam with scenarios of destruction. She turned around and raced to Smaragda’s bedroom. She almost howled with joy when she found the keys that she knew would unlock her sister’s secret apartment. She put them in her pocket and snuck out of the house, heading for the locksmith on the next corner. He made the duplicates, and she returned without anyone knowing she’d gone. She’d prepared a plan, but she needed help. Luck was on her side, though. When Smaragda came home, she was full of anxiety. When her parents lay down to rest after the midday meal, Hecuba eavesdropped on her sister’s telephone conversation.

  “Hi Simos . . . Yes . . . Did you speak to your father? Ah. And what did your grandmother say? Yes, so that means everything is going well. When will you talk to your father, and when will he come? My father won’t let me set foot outside the house without a . . . bodyguard. No! Luckily, it’s not my sister. I can’t even bear to look at her anymore. But Simos, I must see you and talk to you . . . I don’t know how, but I’ll manage. I’ll fall at Kali’s feet if I have to. She’s a good woman. She’ll understand. Not today. Not tomorrow either. The day after . . . I heard my parents are going to visit someone, and I’ll find an opportunity. I’ll leave with Kali so the traitor won’t realize. OK . . . yes, I have the keys. I’ll go in and wait for you, but don’t be late because I won’t have much time. The day after tomorrow, then. At six. And I love you too . . . if you only knew how much!”

  Smaragda hung up the phone, taking every precaution, and Hecuba hid in the shadows again, but now she was smiling. She knew exactly what to do. They would all pay.

  Vassilis looked at his mother in shock.

  “What did you say, Mama?” His glance moved from her to his son, who was following the conversation as if it didn’t concern him.

  “You heard me,” Roza said sharply. “Simos loves Smaragda, Chrysafenia’s daughter. And he wants to marry her. Imagine, one woman finds him, and it has to be her. But will he stay a bachelor? There’s no harm, so let it be her.”

  “Are you trying to make me crazy? How did such a thing happen?”

  “Does it take much? They’re young, they met, they fell in love.”

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” He turned to his son now.

  “Well, seeing as you two are doing the talking, what can I say?” Simos joked, but his smile faded when he saw his father’s expression. He became suddenly serious. “Yes, Father, it’s like Grandma says. I love Smaragda, and I want to marry her. Also, it’s become necessary that I marry her, if you understand.” He saw his father raise his eyebrows.

  “You’ve violated her, you mean. And her parents?”

  “They know. The next move must be ours.”

  Simos feared some kind of explosion, but Vassilis, completely calm, lit a cigarette. “Simos, my son, will you leave us alone?”

  “But what do you say? Can I marry Smaragda?”

  “Simos, do what your father tells you, dear,” his grandmother concurred, and the young man hung his head and left.

  Mother and son stood opposite each other as if in hand-to-hand combat. Except that their fight had begun many years earlier. Now the time had come for them to end it.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything, Mama?” said Vassilis.

  “What more do you expect me to say?” the woman replied calmly.

  “Something like what you told me back then. Where is the mother who raged against me marrying Chrysafenia? What changed now so you have no objections to her daughter?”

  “I went to Smaragda, my son. Not the young one, her grandmother. We spoke, and I told her I was sorry for what I did. I think the time has come for me to say the same to you. Whatever happens, this story has to come to an end. You can’t quarrel with fate, my son. Tell me now, do you have any objection to the girl?”

  “But how can I see Chrysafenia after so many years?”

  “You were very young then. It’s not the same now. Look at me, Vassilis, my boy. You two didn’t get together, but your children are another story. It’s destiny.”

  The family had gathered at the house in Kypseli that evening when Fate revealed what she had written. Chrysafenia and Pericles had returned earlier and discovered that Hecuba was missing, as well as Smaragda and Kali. Another premonition swept over Chrysafenia, who, on the spur of the moment, invited her parents to come for supper. Even on the telephone, her mother could tell that something was wrong. She and her husband arrived a short time later.

  “Where are the children?” she asked her daughter, who shook her head and glanced meaningfully at her husband.

  Pericles was smoking in front of the fire with a dark look on his face. Again, Stelios and Fotini had caught a whiff of dynamite and disappeared into their rooms, staying there even when their grandmother and grandfather arrived.

  “Something’s going to happen. I have an awful feeling,” Chrysafenia whispered to her mother.

  “Enough of that, you,” her mother scolded her in the same low voice. “They’ll be here any minute, and you’ll clear this right up.”

  “But where are they now, can you tell me? They can’t stand each other, yet now they’ve both gone for a walk with Kali?”

  They fell silent as Pericles threw them an angry glance, but in a few moments the front door opened noisily, and Smaragda charged into the room with Kali panting behind her. The girl’s eyes were filled with tears, her expression angry.

  “So, everyone’s here?” she shrieked, on the verge of hysteria. “That’s better, I guess, so I don’t have to repeat myself. It’s over! I don’t want to see Simos ever again. The engagement is off!”

  Pericles jumped up and approached his daughter. “What did you say?” he hissed between his teeth.

  “It’s over. What else can I tell you? I don’t love him anymore!”

  “It’s a little late for that,” he growled. “When you went off with him to that apartment like a prostitute, you said something else and did something else. Now you’ll marry him, and you’ll be glad about it.”

  “I don’t want him!” the girl howled, and fresh tears ran down her scarlet cheeks.

  Chrysafenia rushed to her daughter. “What happened, girl? It can’t be, out of the blue—”

  “I don’t want him!” Smaragda howled again and buried herself in her mother’s arms.

  “Kali, where were you? What happened?” asked Chrysafenia.

  “I don’t know, madam, I swear!” answered the woman, white with agitation.

  “Stop the hugging, woman, or you’ll all be in trouble here,” Pericles shouted. He approached his daughter and shook her until she looked at him. “Where were you tonight? With him? What did he say to you? Tell me!”

  A loud slap underlined his words and brought Fotis to his feet. He pulled Pericles off the battlefield to rebuke him.

  “Son-in-law, what’s all this? I never expected you to raise a hand to your daughter.”

  “Please, Father, this is my house, and this concerns my honor. And I won’t allow my daughter to tarnish it. I have a name and a position in society!”

  The older couple exchanged a glance. In one way, their son-in-law was right, and maybe their presence had made things worse.

  “Fotis, perhaps we’d better be going,” Smaragda said d
ecisively. “The child and her parents can talk.”

  Despite the pleading look their daughter gave them, they left with their hearts full of agony and their heads besieged by unanswered questions. But behind them, the tension mounted.

  “I demand an explanation!” Pericles shouted.

  “I have nothing more to tell you,” Smaragda insisted. “I don’t want Simos, and I won’t marry him.”

  “But why?” her mother intervened. “You loved him and he loved you. What happened to change that so suddenly? Smaragda, dear, you must tell us. We’re your parents. You owe us an explanation.”

  “Leave me in peace!” howled the girl. “I won’t give you an explanation.”

  Chrysafenia’s breath caught when she heard her daughter’s words. A new slap threw Smaragda to the ground, but instead of withdrawing, she became wilder.

  “Whatever you do to me, I won’t change my mind. I won’t marry him! I don’t want him!” she cried out, trembling.

  “So, you should have acted like a decent girl. I won’t stand being made a fool of!”

  “We don’t live in the Middle Ages, Father—you can’t hit me because I’m not a virgin. It’s my life, and I can do what I want.”

  “Out of my house!” Pericles shouted and managed to hit her again.

  “Pericles!” Chrysafenia shouted. “What are you saying to your child?” She tried to calm him. “Please, let’s all calm down and talk again tomorrow,” she pleaded, coming between them.

  Pericles pushed her roughly, furious now, his eyes bloodshot with anger.

  “Get out of my way, woman, and I’ll kill my daughter tonight!”

  He lurched at Smaragda again, who waited, ready for new blows. Her eyes burned, and her lips were split from his punches. She felt her father’s hands pushing her toward the front door.

  “Out!” he shouted again. “Go away from my house! On the street—that’s where you belong! I don’t want to ever see you or hear you again! For me, you died tonight!”

  “I’d have left in any case. I can’t stand you anymore!” she shouted at him, then turned, opened the door, and ran out.

  Behind her, Chrysafenia collapsed. She found herself kneeling on the floor and weeping.

  “What have you done?” she wailed. “Where will she go? What will she do all alone, the poor thing?”

  “It doesn’t concern me,” Pericles shouted at her, still furious. “Good riddance to her, the slut. And I forbid you to let her back in when she returns. Didn’t you hear what she said to me? How she spoke to her father? Like some—I will find out what happened tonight.” He remembered Kali, who was still standing petrified at the entrance to the room.

  “Come here, you, and tell me this minute where you went!” he shouted and grabbed her by the arm. “Tell me, because otherwise, you’ll find yourself on the street too!”

  “I don’t know, sir!” she began in tears. “She asked me to go with her just down the street. She fell at my feet, and I felt sorry for her. We went to a house. I waited at the entrance because she wouldn’t let me come in, and she said she wouldn’t be long. She wasn’t gone even fifteen minutes, and when she came out she was unrecognizable. She was crying and hitting herself. Behind her was a young man, very upset too, and he began pleading with her to listen to him. He told her something I couldn’t make sense of. He swore he didn’t understand what had happened. He told her he loved her. He loved only her—that’s what he said. Smaragda hit him and told him she never wanted to see him again, and that he was welcome to the slut he had chosen. After that, we left. She turned around and told him that if he loved her even a little, he should carry that secret to his grave.”

  “What secret?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. I asked her many times, but I couldn’t get a word out of her.”

  “Useless! Get out of my house!” Pericles roared, and pushed her away. He turned with the same fury to his wife. “I’ll kill him. He found another girl!”

  “But you turned our child out of the house. And she wasn’t at fault. Did you hear?”

  “You heard the way she spoke to me!”

  “What will we do, Pericles?” came her question, full of despair.

  “I don’t change my mind. A girl who is so cheap as to hide away in an apartment with the first boy who comes along can’t be my daughter. And to speak to me that way!”

  “Pericles, you may have gone mad, but I’m not following you into this craziness. My child, whatever she does, is my child forever!”

  “You have other children.”

  “How dare you. You threw a seventeen-year-old out because she’d been made a fool of by a bum. Instead of confronting him, demanding he do his duty, you blame her.”

  “Listen to yourself! Our daughter herself said she wouldn’t marry him. How should I make a demand, and from whom?”

  “This is no time to talk. Our daughter is walking around all alone in the streets. I’m going to find her, Pericles. You do whatever you want!”

  “I forbid you!”

  “Did you hear what I said? Do what you want.”

  Chrysafenia took her coat and disappeared into the darkness to search for her daughter.

  The night seemed endless for all of them.

  Smaragda felt as if she had been running for an eternity. She didn’t even hear the car coming, its brakes screeching madly, nor did she see the driver, who swerved and collided with a tree to avoid hitting the girl who was walking in the middle of the road. The sound of crumpling metal brought her to her senses, and she looked around as if waking from a trance. The car door opened, and the driver climbed out of the vehicle.

  “Have you gone crazy, girl?” he shouted as he approached. “You may want to kill yourself, but don’t drag me down with you!” Under the pale streetlight, he recognized her. “Smaragda!” he cried.

  She squinted at him, racking her brain. She knew him from somewhere, but in her present state, her memory betrayed her.

  “I’m Renos, Persa’s cousin! What happened to you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said so softly that the man could hardly hear her. “Did you get hurt?”

  “No. Fortunately, I wasn’t speeding; otherwise one of us would have been killed! What happened that you’re walking around in the dark as if you were lost?”

  Suddenly, her head was on a Ferris wheel at Luna Park, and everything around her was spinning. She fainted at his feet.

  “Holy Virgin, what’s going on tonight?” he murmured and lifted her in his arms.

  He looked around to find a place to put her down, but there was nowhere. He took her to the car and put her in the driver’s seat. He tried to bring her around, patting her lightly on the face. The girl opened her eyes, trying to remember the last few minutes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “I’ll take you to the hospital. You need to see a doctor.”

  “No,” said the girl. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Then I’ll take you home.”

  “I can’t go there. My father kicked me out.”

  Renos was silent for a moment while he took this in. Fate had thrown into his hands the formerly uppity Miss Sekeris. He’d met her many times at his cousin Persa’s house. The relationship was a distant one, but he’d managed to penetrate Persa’s fashionable circle. Smaragda had made a big impression on him, but she paid him no attention. Every time he’d tried to approach her, she had pointedly ignored him. When he learned more about her background, he thought that, if she had responded to his flirtation, perhaps he could have married her. With a dowry like hers, his problems would certainly be solved. But Smaragda always treated him like an annoying admirer. And now she had fallen right into his arms. Unexpected luck.

  He leaned over her and saw she was crying silently. He stroked her hair tenderly.

  “Come,” he said, as if he were talking to a child. “Don’t be like that—there’s a solution for everything.”

  “You don’t know what you’r
e talking about,” she whispered through her sobs.

  “Does a fight with your father mean the end of the world?” he asked, but the sobs that came as an answer were louder than before. “OK, OK, don’t cry anymore. I’m here. I’ll take you with me, and tomorrow we’ll go together to your parents.”

  “No! I’m not going back there!” she declared passionately. She looked at him pleadingly. “If you could put me up just for tonight. Until I can figure out what to do next . . .”

  Fortunately, the damage to the car was minor enough that it didn’t prevent him from driving off, carrying his precious cargo.

  As soon as Smaragda had left, Simos went back up to the apartment in a fury. He found Hecuba coolly getting dressed. She looked at him indifferently.

  “What did you do?” he shouted at her. “Why?”

  “I’m not obliged to answer you,” she answered, putting on her jacket.

  He grabbed her by the arm and shook her with all his strength. “We’re going to your house! Together. And you’ll explain your little game to your sister!”

  Unperturbed, she broke away from his hands and smoothed her hair.

  “Not a chance,” she sneered. “And if you dare say something, I’ll say you dragged me to your apartment and raped me. Imagine what will happen!”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you’re not worthy of her.”

  “What are you saying? I love her.”

  “And she hates you now because she thinks you were deceiving her. I won, and I advise you to disappear because, if she’s spoken to our father, you’ll be in big trouble! Pericles Sekeris is not the most coolheaded man in the world. He’ll destroy you!”

  “And aren’t you afraid you’ll pay for it too?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything. Whatever happens, you can’t marry Smaragda now, and that’s worth any punishment!”

  “You’re sick!” The man shuddered.

  She didn’t grant him an answer. An ironic smile was the last thing he remembered of her before she left with her head high. He remained alone, and his fury abated, dissolving into hopelessness. He felt the walls caving in, the room getting smaller, leaving him no air to breathe. He realized that what Hecuba had said was right. Nothing would be the same now. Smaragda believed that he had duped her and her sister as well. Her parents would think he was warped indeed to have been involved with the two sisters. Whatever he said, nobody would believe him.