by Lena Manta
CHAPTER 18
Kypseli, 2016
I stared at the parked car as panic came over me. The phantom of my imagination, because there was no way it could be true, had now gotten out of the car and was looking back at me. Trembling, I closed the window. I stood in the dark, measuring the time with breaths, until I heard the doorbell. I couldn’t move. Another ring at the door, more demanding now. He knew I was inside, awake. Tiger, curious about the night visitor, appeared at the top of the stairs, meowing loudly. Like an automaton I pressed the buzzer that opened the door and stood beside my cat, sure that my dream would finally dissolve and the visitor would turn out to be somebody else. He took the stairs two at a time, dispelled the illusion. No more darkness, no shadows.
“Yannos . . .” I dared to look him in the eyes.
It was as if not a day had passed: the same dark features, the same graying hair, the same bearing.
“I was worried I’d have to break down the door!” he grumbled.
I didn’t know what to say to him; my brain felt empty.
“May I come in?” he asked, and not a trace of light appeared on his darkened face.
Without speaking, I stood aside, and he entered the hall. I showed him the way to the office, and in a moment, we were standing again, facing each other, without speaking. Tiger sat still, watching us. After a while, he lost his patience and rubbed against my legs meowing, wanting assurance that I was all right.
I realized how ridiculous the scene was and gave a dry cough to clear my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly. “I didn’t expect to see you here. How did you know where I lived? And why aren’t you in Germany? Where is Ino?”
“An interesting change,” he observed quietly. “From complete silence, we’ve progressed to an outburst of questions. Let’s leave Ino out of it for now. As for me, I’m here because I tore up the world trying to find you. If it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck, I’d still be searching in Germany. When you disappeared, I didn’t imagine you would be heading to Greece.”
“I didn’t disappear,” I responded angrily. “I wrote to you—”
“Right! That long letter in which you explained the ‘reasons,’ after six wonderful months of discovering how much we meant to each other, you had to leave forever.”
“What else do you want me to say?” I wondered.
“Something that makes sense, maybe? Maybe you should have told me you don’t love me, that our time living together meant nothing to you.”
“I couldn’t have written lies,” I admitted and lowered my eyes. “I thought—”
“You thought I needed to know your father raped you and that after he died you worked as a prostitute? You thought I’d think you weren’t worthy of me, and when I started talking to you about my dreams, you got afraid and left?”
“More or less,” I whispered.
“Didn’t you realize you were destroying me? Didn’t it pass through your mind that there was another point of view, that after so many years of living with you, I’d fallen in love with the real Fenia? You left me a letter filled with the story of a wounded child who developed into a woman deprived of love, but that wasn’t you. I am crazy about a woman who gave love, affection, tenderness, and passion with no bounds. I love a woman who stood beside me through all the difficult times and became my friend, my lover, and a mother to my child, together. That’s the woman I fell in love with, and I can’t imagine life without her. Does this woman exist, Fenia, or did I imagine her?”
Again, I had no breath to answer with. The truth was, after that magnificent night in the living room, there was no room for evasions. We were madly in love, and we acted on it intensely. We even learned not to feel guilty. We’d cry for Savina in each other’s arms, and the next moment, make love like two crazy people. Ino found nothing strange in our behavior; she only laughed happily, and sometimes a shy “Mama” escaped her when she asked me for something.
And later, Yannos began to speak of the future and his dreams for us. In my head, I pictured terrible scenes from the past pursuing me. Suddenly, that young girl Renos managed to twist and nearly destroy threatened to suffocate me. All at once, the prostitute who sold herself to any man for the right price grabbed me by the neck. Then it was the Fenia with a bottle of alcohol who slept on the streets until she was like a rag, another piece of garbage. What right did this woman have to dream about a beautiful, calm life beside a respectable man and a child who thought of her as a mother? Fear turned into terror and then panic. I wrote to Yannos, telling him my life story, and said I was leaving, believing that he wouldn’t ever want to see me again.
But he was in front of me now, furious. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me, snapping me out of my memories.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Fenia! Does the woman I love exist? Nothing else interests me. I never asked about your past!”
“It was different when I was just a housekeeper and nanny.”
“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “I took you into my house, and I trusted you. And you earned that trust every day. You became part of our family, and when my wife got sick, you couldn’t have looked after her with more love or devotion even if you had been her sister. If I could trust and care for the woman I found covered in blood on my doorstep, why should the past matter now when I love her so much? You had no right to do that to me,” he finished, shouting. “I didn’t deserve it. And now I want an answer. Tell me! Are you the woman I love?”
He shook me again, and the tears rolled down my face until he pulled me to him. There was no room for tears anymore, and it was I who pressed my lips to his. My taste, my breath, my sense of smell and feeling all returned. I clung to him to recover the strength I had felt leaving me more each day.
The next morning, we nearly gave Karim a stroke. He came into the office and found us asleep in each other’s arms, half-naked on the little couch.
“I’m sorry, madam,” my Syrian friend yelped. He ran out, closing the door behind him.
Yannos looked at me in surprise. “What was that?”
“That was Karim,” I answered and began getting dressed.
“And what’s he doing here?”
“He lives here, with me. Yannos, there are a lot of questions, and last night neither of us had the patience for them.”
“Yes, you’re right. We need time,” he said and looked hard into my eyes. “Do we have it?”
“We’ll see. It doesn’t only depend on me.”
“Wrong!” he responded forcefully. “It does. My intentions were and are quite clear. From the day you left, I’ve searched, and now I’ve finally found you.”
“Yannos, I want to make a few things clear before we say anything else.”
“Please. I’ve been waiting.”
“So first and foremost, I want you to know I love you, and it’s the first time in my life that has happened to me. You know now what I’ve lived through, and you can understand what I mean. I’m at an age when I didn’t think I’d ever feel what I’ve felt with you.”
“You say that like it’s a problem—”
“Let me speak. I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you, but because I was scared of what I was carrying inside. I came to Greece without expecting anything, just wanting to forget and to stop hurting; then everything got turned upside down. A lot of things have happened that you don’t know about—and I’ll tell you about them, but I don’t plan to return to Germany. Everything there hurts me. Even the language grates on my nerves. Besides, I have a lot of things to put in order before I could devote myself to you. There are some accounts still open with my past, and if I don’t close them—”
“You keep talking, and you don’t let me tell you—” he complained.
“And nor will I let you—not yet—not before you learn, before you understand—”
“Stop!” he ordered. “Why is it so important to you for me to understand? Nothing about your past concerns me, only your present and your future, a
nd I want to be a part of those.”
“Yes, it is important. Because everything that’s happened since I came to Greece has given me back my self-respect and revived my spirit. I’m not what I thought I was.”
“Then I’ll listen to you. And then we’ll talk about us.”
“Thank you. Do you have time? Where’s Ino?”
“She’s with me in Greece, as is a woman who’s looking after her. She knows we’re coming to find you, and she can’t wait to see you.”
“I can’t see her, Yannos. Not yet.”
“I know—your old accounts.”
“Yes.”
“Before we immerse ourselves in your ledgers, whatever they are, do I deserve a coffee?” he asked, a little smile on his lips.
I led him by the hand to the kitchen. I had to explain things to poor Karim too.
My friend was making me breakfast, and from his nervous movements, I could tell how upset he was. As soon as he saw us, he began speaking, but he was so mixed up that half of it was in his own language, and we didn’t understand a word. I went up to him, took the spoon he was holding, and smiled.
“Calm down, Karim,” I said. “You did nothing wrong.”
“Madam, I am ashamed. Didn’t know. And now madam angry. I am so sorry, so sorry,” he said in English.
I put an arm around his shoulders, and he fell silent in surprise.
“Madam?” he asked. “Not angry? Not send away?”
“No, Karim,” I said to him, smiling. “Come and meet Mr. Yannos.”
The two men faced each other to be introduced.
“Yannos, Karim is a refugee from Syria and the first friend I made when I came to Greece. He lost his parents and nearly all his family in the bombings, and he’s come, like thousands of others, to save himself. Despite the fact that he could be my son, he looks after me as if I were his child. Karim, this is Yannos Pantazis. He’s the man I love.”
Yannos’s face lit up with a broad smile, and he grasped Karim’s hand warmly. Karim’s face also lit up. As soon as we sat down at the table, he began to prepare and offer us endless delicacies for breakfast.
Yannos leaned over to me. “Does he feed you like this every day?”
“Almost. He thinks I must eat well and get strong, and it’s the way he shows his love. Today he’s happy, so—”
“Yes, but I can’t eat any more,” he complained softly so as not to offend the young man, who was searching the refrigerator for something else to put on the table.
I smiled. If Ino had been sitting in the empty chair next to me, my happiness would have been complete, but I had to take care of a lot of things before I could have the life I had always dreamed of. I stroked Yannos’s cheek to make sure he was really there and then turned to Karim.
“Enough, my dear. There’s always lunchtime. This isn’t our last meal.”
Karim smiled sheepishly. “Then, madam, I go do work,” he announced and disappeared with a small bow.
A few minutes later, I heard him in the little office opening the window, a sign that the cleaning would begin there.
“And now, the two of us,” Yannos said, and his expression told me what he wanted: the truth.
It took me nearly two hours to tell him briefly all that had happened since my return to Greece—the inheritance, my meeting with Melpo, and everything I’d learned about a family I’d never known. The coffee Karim had made was gone, but I made a pot without interrupting my narrative. Yannos didn’t miss a word, his face revealing surprise or distress at every turn. The further I progressed, the more his eyebrows drew together until the revelation of my true father made his mouth open in surprise.
“Now you know everything,” I said, and like an epilogue, I showed him the gold letter around my neck.
“So that’s it,” he said, and touched it in awe.
“Yes, a letter made of gold. It carries a lot of tears.”
“Unbelievable. It’s completely surreal what fate sometimes contrives for people!” he said and took my hand.
“I was just a tiny grain of wheat under the grindstone of destiny, Yannos. Even my aunt Hecuba was only the instrument of a fate that for some peculiar reason didn’t want any descendant of the Kantardzis family to join the Kouyoumdzis family.”
“Except that you yourself are the result of that union, Fenia.”
“Exactly. Maybe that’s why fate made me pay for it.”
“And now? Whose turn is it?”
“You’re the man I love. And now I don’t feel unworthy of you. I’m descended from a respectable family. I have roots too, Yannos.”
“So what you’re telling me is that, in some way, you’ve been redeemed in your own eyes.”
“Yes. And not in some way. In every way. I’m not alone now—I have a family, and some part of it loves me. I want them in my life. I lived all those years thinking that I was cursed, without roots and with a monster for a father. Now I have aunts and, more importantly, cousins. My father loved my mother, and I want to meet him. I don’t know if he’ll accept that I’m his daughter, but I have a duty to tell him and vindicate my mother’s memory.”
“And then?”
“Then you and I must find some common path to walk because, as I told you, I don’t want to set foot in Germany. Maybe it sounds bad, but not even for you would I return there. I have the feeling that that country is responsible for all the terrible things in my life.”
“At the moment, most Greeks think the same,” he observed, smiling, and he stood up.
I looked at him curiously as I too stood up. He took me in his arms and kissed me tenderly.
“So, my golden girl,” he began, “like you, I have a lot of things to think about and do. And we have a week to get it all done!”
“What do you mean?” I asked and felt suddenly lost.
“I’m going back to my daughter, who’s waiting for me. I’ll show her around Athens, and I’m sure she’ll adore it. I want her to know the city where her parents grew up. I give you seven whole days to solve all your problems. To think about what you want to do in the future—apart from marrying me, of course; that’s a foregone conclusion.”
“What? What did you say?” I whispered. Fortunately, he was holding me, or I would have collapsed.
“Fenia, I didn’t turn the world upside down looking for you so that we could spend a night together. I want your days, your nights, and your years—you, yourself, for life. Finish what you have to do and come and find me. I’ll be waiting for you with Ino. We’re staying at the Astir Palace at Vouliagmeni.”
He left so suddenly that I staggered. I leaned against the table and heard him saying a cheerful good-bye to Karim.
Melpo and Paschalis had exactly the same expression when I told them what had happened, looking as if they’d met someone from another planet. Even when I concluded with a grin, they stayed still.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked impatiently. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
Melpo finally recovered and jumped up to hug me.
“You crazy girl!” she said, pretending to scold me. “And you didn’t tell me anything all this time? You let me believe that your whole life had passed in agony, and you didn’t mention the most important thing: love?”
“So now,” Paschalis asked, “what will you do?”
We all sat down.
“I have a lot to think about,” I admitted. “I’m not alone anymore. Apart from you, there’s also Karim. I’m responsible for him, and he can’t hide in this house for the rest of his life.”
“I think I can help with that,” Paschalis said, and we both turned to look at him in surprise.
“What do you mean?” his wife asked.
“I didn’t want to say anything until I figured out whether there was a way. Some old acquaintances owe me favors. Karim has the right to apply for asylum in our country, and that way, his residency will become legal.”
“Paschalis,” I gasped. “How can I thank you?”
/> “Don’t thank me yet. Today or tomorrow I’m expecting a telephone call. Then I’ll go to the fellow on the committee that reviews such applications, of which, you understand, there are thousands. The truth is I’ve never asked for this sort of favor in my life, and I feel a bit awkward, but good luck to the boy! He looked after you, and I know you care for him.”
I sat on the edge of Paschalis’s armchair and hugged him affectionately. In the end, my first impression—that he was just like Saint Nicholas—had been right.
“And now we come to the other subject,” he continued, and I leaned back to look at his eyes, jolly behind the little glasses.
“Yes, and that is something I must handle by myself,” I said simply, and he hugged me again approvingly.
I didn’t sleep a wink the night before the most important visit I would make in my life. Yet by morning I was rested and strong. I bathed and did my hair the way the hairdresser, whom I now visited regularly, had taught me. I chose the prettiest dress of the ones I’d bought but not worn yet. It was light green with fine stripes. It made me feel pretty when I put it on. I made myself up carefully and slipped on my only piece of jewelry, the gold letter. I ignored Karim’s pleas that I eat something and left the house as if I’d been hypnotized. I had called a taxi so as not to search in vain in the Athens summer heat, and in a few minutes, I was at Syntagma. A light breeze was blowing. I looked at my watch. It said eight thirty, still very early. I found myself opposite the Public, and the smell of their coffee encouraged me to sit down. A final moment of peace, a recuperation of my energy, and a strong coffee. That was what I needed before I walked down Ermou Street to meet the cause of my coming into the world. I found a table and ordered, then lit a cigarette as I waited. Others followed until only the foam of my iced espresso remained in the glass. I looked at my watch: half past nine.
An inexplicable coolheadedness held my feet and my heart steady as I stood, a minute later, outside the Kouyoumdzis jewelry store. This time, the shutters were up and the windows shone. I stood for a moment and persuaded myself I was admiring them, while in reality I was peering secretly into the interior of the shop. It was long and narrow, and on the walls were display cases, also full of jewelry. At the back I could see a desk and a man sitting behind it. I pushed the door open and entered the cool shop. Simos Kouyoumdzis was drinking his coffee, and he got up to welcome me. I had a few seconds to observe him before he approached. Tall, erect, with pure white hair and a face that scarcely showed his age. I observed that the corners of his well-shaped lips turned slightly down, a sign that my father had forgotten to smile for years. I took him in briefly, above all his lips, and that dimple in his chin; I’d always wondered where I’d inherited that from. He satisfied my curiosity.
