by Alex A King
"There's no story," Leo tells her. "Kiki was a year or two behind me in school."
"There is a story." Kiki ignores him. "He was in my bedroom the other night with Soula."
Vivi holds up her hand. "Forget I asked. The good news is that I'm not completely Greek yet, otherwise I'd be begging for more."
Leo grabs a chair. Sits. Grins at Kiki. She's doing a great job of pretending to be busy with the pile of papers in front of her. The dog leans against him. Leo rubs his head; you don't say no to a dog.
"So how's it going?" he asks her.
"Wonderful," Kiki says, not looking up. "A Romani woman attacked me last night. We fought."
"So I heard."
"I'm sure you did. Just out of curiosity, where?"
"Kyria Dora's daughter, Effie."
"Effie." Over at the counter, Vivi laughs. "Of course. My cousin is real sweetheart. I thought about selling her on eBay, but you can't sell family."
Leo looks back at Kiki. "Did you win?"
"You know, I'm not sure. I ended it."
"Then you won."
"It's good to win something," she says, glancing up for a moment.
"What was it about?"
"The fight? Who knows?" Kiki says it absently, like she's already moved on.
Leo leans back in the chair, crosses his arms. "Men get into fights over nothing. Over a look. Over a word. But women? You don't get into fights about nothing. There's always a reason."
"Sexist," Vivi says, but she's smiling.
He laughs. "Almost always a reason."
"Better," she tells him.
Kiki's shaking her head. "If there was a reason, she never said."
"Doesn't mean there wasn't one."
Vivi gets busy with the coffee maker. It's the real deal, not a briki. "So how can I help you?"
That. For a moment he almost forgot. "Long story short, I have to get home. The Greek army wants me to complete my national service, so they took my passport. The US Embassy won't replace it. The Hellenic Ministry of National Defense might help, but only if I submit all this." He dumps the packet on the table. It lands with a thud. "The problem is, I don't understand a word of it."
Vivi says, "Why not finish your service? Why the hurry to go home?"
Both women are looking at him with interest, waiting to see if he's going to toss some shallow excuse out there. And why would they think any different? They don't know him.
"Ugh, sorry," Vivi says. "Greece is making me nosier every day. Forget I asked."
"It's okay. It's a family thing," he tells them. "A now or never thing."
Not a blip in the man code. He could elaborate, but why? He's here for the paperwork, not the sympathy. Sympathy won't get him home.
Vivi nods like she knows. "How do you take your coffee?"
"White. Two sugars."
"Greek paperwork is a pain in the ass," she continues. "And it sounds like we're in the same babelboat: spoken Greek is fine. Written, not so much." She gestures toward Kiki. "Kiki's saving my bacon. If you ask nicely, she might save yours."
Leo shakes his head. The Andreou woman has enough problems, including a broken heart. Last thing she needs is a plateful of his.
"I appreciate the recommendation," he says. "But she looks busy."
The coffee comes, and it's incredible. Best coffee he's had in weeks. Then Vivi sits a cookie jar in front of him.
"Chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. No powdered sugar or syrup in sight."
"You're engaged? Lucky man."
She laughs, pats him on the shoulder. "My daughter made them, and she's only sixteen. What do you think, Kiki?"
"I'm not busy enough," Kiki murmurs. She looks up at him from the nest of papers stacked on the table. "I can do it."
He eats a cookie. Perfect ratio of chips to dough.
There's something in her eyes. A thread of desperation.
He gets it. Yeah, he really gets it.
"Let's do it," he says.
43
Helena
That policeman comes. The one who—
"Detective Lemonis?"
The detective stands at her gate, watches her sweep leaves from one side of the concrete yard to the other. She finds it relaxing to sweep, while the gardenias pour perfume into the air. She should invite him in, serve him coffee in a tiny cup, sweets on a tiny plate, but she can't seem to stop sweeping.
No matter. Doesn't look like he expects hospitality.
"Kyria Bouto, good morning."
Swish, swish. "Is there a problem?"
He shakes his head. "No problem. I have questions for you."
"Questions? Then ask. I hope I can be useful."
"Your son—Stavros—he was engaged to Kyriaki Andreou. Was there anyone else? Another woman?"
What a question. Her Stavros is a good boy. A faithful boy.
"No, of course not," she tells him. "When he was younger, yes. Boys will be boys and men will be men, eh?"
"Another man, perhaps?"
She laughs. "My Stavros is not a pusti."
The detective nods. "Okay. Do you know the name of his last girlfriend before Kyriaki?"
"Who tells their mother such things? There was a time when he told me everything, but not since he was a little boy. So sad, but that is life and sons." A hiccup in her sweeping. "Why not ask Stavros himself? He can tell you."
His expression does not change. "Ask him?"
"He is inside, reading the newspaper."
"Inside?"
The poor man, he looks confused. It must be the heat. It is morning, but summer is in a merciless mood. And there he is, out in the full sun.
"In the kitchen. I will stay out here, that way he can keep his secrets, eh? Boys do not like to talk about sensitive things in front of their mothers."
She whistles as she sweeps, an old Jenny Vanou song about love and how it finds its way to lost
* * *
"How are you, Kyria Bouto?"
Helena jumps. She didn't expect the detective to be done with Stavros so quickly. Of course, maybe the sweeping made it seem faster.
"Did you get your answers, Detective Lemonis?"
He rubs a hand over his head. His face is that same blank he always wears. A uniform, of sorts.
"I think so," he says. "When do you expect Kyrios Boutos home? I have questions."
Now his face speaks: so many questions.
"Who knows? He comes and goes as he pleases. The way the wind does."
* * *
"What did he say?"
"The detective?"
"No. Him"
"You mean Hades?"
Not a word out of Stavros.
"You do mean Hades." Her bones creak as she settles them on the bed beside her only son. When did they start this—this complaining? Yesterday she was a young woman, today she is her own grandmother. Soon she'll be complaining non-stop about her feet and how they hurt. "He refused to speak to me. He wants more than I have to give."
"What does he want?"
"My boy …"
"Mama."
She sighs, because Hades' demands are too great. "A life for a life."
"People die every day, Mama. Look at me. What am I if not dead?"
"What are you saying?"
"Lives, people, are disposable. If you take one, the world will deliver another to replace it in seconds."
"You cannot ask that of me, Stavros."
"Why not? Who else do I have?"
Helena is a sponge, soaking up her son's poison. He is the doll, yet here she is dancing to a tune only she hears.
Take a life, Mama. Do it for me. It's the only way to bring me back and we both know it. For the right price, Hades is merciful. But you must walk carefully. Take your time—I can wait until you have the right … sacrifice. It's not easy, I know, but nothing worth having comes easy.
No. She can't kill someone.
No? Whose mother are you?
He stands, leaves her sitting on the bed's cold
edge alone. He's done with her, repulsed by her cowardice. Whose mother is she?
A life for a life.
She has only one life to give: her own.
44
Leo
Leo makes a date. Not for love, but for paperwork. Kiki's house after lunch.
"You know where I live—right?"
Is she mocking him? God, he hopes she's mocking him; he likes a woman who can give him hell.
"I don't know. So many women … You know how it is. I'm a busy man."
She laughs. It's a beautiful sight, a beautiful sound. "After lunch. And I'm not responsible for anything my mother or grandmother say."
He remembers the old woman—and her questions. "Is your mother anything like your grandmother?"
"No." It's a wicked smile she gives him. "Mama is a very different kind of worse."
45
Kiki
"I'm not saying anything," Vivi says, contradicting herself.
"When I was a teenager, I shoved my finger up Leo's ass."
Blink, blink. "Oh wow. Okay, consider yourself a prisoner in this house until you tell me everything."
Kiki tells Vivi the Spin the Bottle story. By the time she finishes, Vivi is facedown on the table, crying.
"That's the funniest thing I've ever heard," she wails. Which triggers a fresh torrent of laughter and tears.
Kiki can't help joining in. Laughter—the good kind—has a transmission rate any self-respecting virus would envy. It leaps from person to person, until it hits a sour puss.
"I thought it was his vagina," she says in her own defense.
Vivi's panting and crying on the floor when her daughter walks in.
"Guess what?" Melissa's bright, excited as she looks from woman to woman. "The police station's on fire."
* * *
They take Vivi's car. Her idea.
"I've never been to a fire before. For the record," Vivi says, "I've never felt more Greek than I do right now."
Half the town is watching. Great show. All that fire, licking the building, licking the air. That counter? Mine. That filing cabinet? Mine. Flames and water chase each other up the hall, into the offices. All that hissing, sounds like a hundred cats stuck in a room with a couple of two-year-olds.
Kiki says, "My Virgin Mary!"
Translation: Oh my God, this is my fault! It was that gift. It had to be. It was some kind of incendiary device, and now the police station's on fire. They're going to throw me in jail. If not for murder, then for arson. Argh!
Firefighters are trying to keep everyone in the safe zone, but how can people see if they stand too far back? A handful of old men have worked their way to the front of the crowd. They're barking orders at the firefighters, telling them exactly how they'd put that fire out—if their feet didn't hurt and their children were respectful.
Detective Lemonis is standing off to one side, looking pissed off at the world.
Kiki acts invisible. Which is easy when there's a fire. Unless you're the one burning, no one cares.
"I'm going home, okay?"
"You want a ride?" Vivi asks.
Kiki shakes her head. "Stay, watch. If anything super-exciting happens, call me."
"Hey, Kiki?"
"Yeah?"
Big grin. Huge. "Keep your fingers to yourself."
"I hate you," Kiki says, but she's laughing as she says it.
46
Leo
On time. Leo's good at showing up exactly when he means to.
He lets himself into the jungle, looks side to side for grandmother-shaped trouble. Fifteen years ago he would have stood at the gate and hollered Kiki's name until she showed, but living in the US taught him all about walking up to the door and knocking.
"Who are you?"
Kiki and Soula's mother. Easy to see where the women got their looks. She's put together, too dressed up to be sweeping the yard.
Yeah, he should have taken the time to check for mother-shaped trouble, too.
"Hello, Kyria Andreou." He tells her his name, tells her why he's there.
She looks him up, down, up. "Leonidas Karas, eh? First you have sex with one of my daughters, and now you are back for the other one? Who is next? My mother?"
"At last!" Kiki's grandmother appears through the screen door. "It only took you fifty-five years, but you finally had one good idea."
Kyria Andreou shakes the broom. "Shut up, old woman."
"Leo!
He looks up to see salvation waving at him from her second-floor balcony.
But Kiki's grandmother isn't done with him yet. "Did Kiki tell you she burned down the police station?"
"Enough, Mama," Margarita Andreou says, expression on her face like this is just another day in the madhouse.
"No. I say when it is enough."
Leo butts in. "The police station burned down?"
"Not all the way down," the grandmother says. "Just part way. It is a good thing Greece builds things strong."
"And Kiki burned it down … how?"
"With the bomb, of course. It is a good thing she gave it to them and it was not us who burned."
47
Kiki
If Leo's wearing anything other than a smile, it's hard to tell. That's how big it is.
The smile, not …
(Whatever her grandmother's got, it's catching.)
"Oh God." Kiki closes her eyes. "They told you I burned down the police station, didn't they?"
"They might have."
"I'm going to jail," she says, "so we better get this done fast."
She brings out all the usual suspects: frappe, tiny cakes wrapped in plastic. Onto the dining room table they go. It's good to put something on this table. It looked naked without the wedding gifts. Now it could be any table in any house, one where the people who live there are normal, their lives murder and fire-free.
Leo looks good in her house. He moves easily. He's tall, broad-shouldered, but he's not one of those guys who sucks up all the air. He gives her room to breathe.
"Did you burn it down?"
"Not on purpose, if I did."
"Look on the bright side: they can't toss you in jail if there's no jail."
Leo Karas is an optimist. What she thinks is that if they believe she's to blame for the fire, they'll just find another jail to put her in.
That's how the world works.
"Sit. Eat," she tells him.
"Why do Greeks feed everyone?"
Good question. "You're Greek—don't you know?" Headshake. He's wandering around her living room, touching everything with his eyes. They linger when he gets to the photo of her and Stavros, then bounce away to inspect her books.
"Half-Greek. Tell me," he says lightly.
"It's a cunning trick. If we feed you, give you coffee, then you're more receptive to answering questions."
"So it's like a truth serum?"
She laughs. "How many people answer questions honestly? It's more like a social lubricant."
Back to the photograph of Stavros, with her trapped in his arms. Forever. "What is it like when someone you love dies?"
On the outside, his question is casual, soft. But the comfortable cotton is wrapped around something sharper.
"It's everything you fear—and more."
His back is to her, and she's glad. This way he can't see the lie. Kiki is sorry—so sorry—Stavros is dead, but it was not the worst moment of her life. That will come when, one day, she loses the man she loves. But Stavros never was that man, and never will be.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thanks." She slides into the dining room chair, nods to the papers. "May I?"
"That's why I'm here." He takes the other chair, the one to her left. Good choice. With the blinds open you can see the horizon stitched to the gulf. It's a snippet of the view from the Holy Mother, but it's a beautiful one. But she doesn't have time to enjoy the water, and from the looks of him, neither does Leo.
"Most of this," she says,
leafing through the pages, "is repetition. The same questions, the same information, over and over. I think they do it so they don't have to spend money on photocopies and computers." She looks up into his smile. "Very sensible, the Greek government."
That smile breaks down into laughter. "Thrifty."
Now she's laughing, too, because if there's one thing the Greek government is, it's bad with money. And now the whole world knows it.
"Okay. They're asking for proof to go with your reason for wanting to bail out of your national service. Do you have proof?"
"I can get it. I'll call home later. Do you know where there's a fax machine around here?"
"Fax machine? Can't someone email it to you?"
"If we were talking modern people, yeah, they could. But these are my parents. They've barely got a grip on how their DVD player works. My mother can't even figure out how to schedule a show on DVR. And my brother … he's just a kid. Last thing I want to do is put more on his shoulders."
"It could be worse. We don't even have cable here. And my mother thinks the Internet is a shop that sells porn. Lucky for you, I know where there's a fax machine. When you're ready, I'll take you there."
He rubs his head. His jaw stays hard, but his eyes are warm.
"How do I thank you?"
"Help someone who needs it, when the time comes."
"I can do that," he says.
She doesn't look up at him; she doesn't want to get lost.
"Good."
* * *
By mid afternoon, she knows too much about Leo Karas.
And she knows nothing.
48
Leo
Leo feels like an asshole for letting Kiki do all the work. But what choice does he have? All those years in the US meant he never had a chance to learn the big Greek words adults use.
