by Alex A King
Cancer is a fucking asshole.
Leo wants to shove his hands inside her and rip the spider out, crush it beneath his boot. Then set the mess on fire.
But the doctors have tried that, with a bunch of different treatments most of which he can't pronounce. Nothing worked. Nothing came close.
Mom wants to be cremated, so in a way that spider will burn.
He does what he can, which isn't much. He brings coffee for the thirsty, snacks for the hungry. He sleeps in a chair at the foot of Mom's hospital bed, while Dad sleeps at her flank.
"Don't you have to work, honey?" she says in one of her lucid moments.
"It's Sunday."
She smiles. "Liar."
Is he? He thinks it's only going to be Sunday for him for a long, long time. Sunday. Kyriaki. Kiki. He calls Papou every other day to ask after her.
"I met someone," he tells his mother. "A woman."
"In Greece?"
"In Greece."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Slumming it with my family."
"Leo …"
"I know. You don't need me. But Dad does."
"I wasn't going to say that. I'm glad you're here. It's funny," she says. "In movies, the dying person always has something wise to say. It's like impending death is magic, and even idiots gain insight and wisdom. It's bullshit. I'm dying and I can't give you a lick of advice. Not a single pearl." She looks over at the window, where the sun comes daily to watch her life set. "I loved Greece at first, but it hated me. And in time I came to hate it, too."
"Why?"
"It wanted to dictate how we lived. Not your grandparents—they were good people. But everyone else—the family, the town. Everybody had an opinion. I was a foreigner, so I couldn't possibly know what was best for my own family. It's funny how people so often see foreigners as slightly mentally challenged. It's as if speaking and thinking in a different language is a disability.
"But it's not just Greece, we all do it. That's what I've learned since we left."
Leo says, "They're still the same way. A lot of things have changed there, but not that."
"Nobody likes change, especially in small villages where even the tiniest shift is like an earthquake. It was different for you, Leo. You were born into the place. No matter how long I stayed there I would have been an outsider. But you, no matter how far you travel, you will always be Greek."
"Careful, you might be rebutting your own comment about wisdom."
Her smile is cracked and peeling. "What's she like, this woman you met?"
"Kiki?" He rubs his head absentmindedly, while his mind goes back to Greece. "She's magnificent. She went out of her way for me—about five-hundred miles out of her way—so that I could get home. Who does that for someone they barely know? If I went to war, I'd want her by my side."
"Sounds like you'd be the one at her side." The smile stretches. "You have to go back for her. As soon as I'm gone, you have to go. Don't feel like you have to stay—you'll be staying for nothing."
That nod turns into a shake. "I can't just up and go. Dad and Soc need me. And work needs me, or I'm going to wind up broke." He's still got money, but it won't last forever.
Mom's hand curls around his. "What about you, Leo? What do you need?"
99
Kiki
Evening comes, and with it a strange lack of people to and fro-ing. Kiki doesn't notice, until Yiayia says, "It is like aliens came down in the spaceship and took their people back home."
Mama scoffs, but the needle in her hand doesn't stop jabbing at the Athena's cross-stitched face. "Always with the aliens, Mama."
"What? Do you think we came from monkeys?"
"Monkeys. Aliens," Baba mutters into his newspaper.
Yiayia leans forward, shakes a finger at her son-in-law. "Why are you still reading the newspaper? Have you not finished it by now? If you have read one newspaper you have read them all."
He lifts the paper higher, blocking her out.
"God put us here," Mama says.
"Yes, he put us here. But before that we were in His spaceship."
Round and round.
Kiki cuts in. "You're right, there's almost nobody."
"See," Yiayia gloats. "Nobody."
Footsteps on the street. High heels clicking out a rock-n-roll beat.
Soula.
"It's the plague!" she says quickly. "There is nobody at the paralia except the touristas. Everyone else is sick!"
Mama and Yiayia cross themselves. "What kind of sickness?"
"A stomach thing. Everything coming out both ends."
"Everybody?"
"Not everybody, but many. Half the town—at least."
More crossing of the feverish, frantic kind.
"This is the work of the Turks or the Albanians," Yiayia mutters. She clutches her belly. "I need to go to the bathroom."
Baba stands, moves his chair six feet to the right. Away from Yiayia.
"Never mind. I feel better now that you have moved," she says.
Kiki winces. "I don't think it's the Albanians, the Turks, or the plague." Everyone looks at her. "I think it's me."
"You?" Mama says. "What did you do now, Kiki?"
Kiki shakes her hands at her mother. "You were the one who told me to go to Kyria Dora to remove the evil eye and whatever curses I've been collecting. So I went. When she was done, she turned everything around."
"Panayia mou." Mama closes her eyes. "We will have to move away from here. All my life I have lived in Agria. Our family was one of the first families. And now I will have to leave because my daughter gave everyone diarrhea."
Soula is laughing. "She did not give them anything they didn't ask for."
Mama chooses not to hear her. "They will come with brooms and they will chase us out of town. And we will have no choice but to flee from our home." She gets up. "I will go and pack."
"Sit down, you silly woman," her husband says. "No one is chasing is anywhere. How could they possibly know this is Kiki's doing?"
"They will know," Mama says darkly. "They know everything."
Kiki can't argue with that. Besides, if Kyria Dora knows, everyone knows. "Oh well," she says. "Tough luck."
Everyone gapes at her.
She shrugs, because Soula's right: they brought it on themselves, didn't they? When you're an asshole, sooner or later the world is an asshole right back to you. All Kyria Dora did was speed up the process. Now they're eating the shit souvlaki they grilled by themselves.
Baba laughs. "That is my girl. If they kaka themselves, they deserve what they get. Maybe it will teach them to mind their own business."
Not likely. But it's a nice sentiment.
Kiki grabs her sister's arm. "Come on, Soula, let's go to the paralia. I want to enjoy my handiwork. Maybe we can eat a souvlaki in peace."
* * *
Souvlaki and retsina. Food and wine of the simple gods.
Kiki tosses her second empty bottle in the garbage can and goes in for a third. When she comes back out, Soula is gone.
Which is weird, because even though she's had two bottles of wine, she knows she left her sister right here, on the sidewalk outside the souvlaki shop.
Garbage blows away, not sisters.
"Soula?"
Nothing.
* * *
It's a missing person report, but the two cops are laughing.
"Ha-ha," she says weakly. "Now go do your job."
"You want us to find your sister?"
"Yes."
"And she's been missing how long?"
Kiki glances up at the clock on the wall. "About thirty minutes."
"Thirty whole minutes?"
"Now it's thirty-one."
They go back to their brand new desks, back to their paperwork. Back to their stack of koulouraki cookies.
"Are those homemade?" She nods at the heaped plate.
"My Mama made them." The younger cop looks at her suspiciously. "Why?"
&
nbsp; "No reason."
The wine is turning to vinegar fast in her stomach. Where the hell is Soula? Nobody just vanishes unless they're a magician. And Soula is a lot of things, but a magician is not one of them.
Her heart's in panic mode, leaping around her chest, hands flailing. Blood sloshes in her ears, blocking out ambient noise. Last time someone she knew didn't show up when he was supposed to, he wound up dead, so yeah, she's jumpy. And these blue clowns are sitting there stuffing koulouraki into their mouths.
She leaps over the new counter, snatches up the plate, runs for the door.
Bang. Right into Detective Lemonis.
Koulouraki everywhere.
As soon as she regains her equilibrium, she starts stomping on them, making crumbs.
"Those are my mama's koulouraki," the cop groans.
"Wow," Kiki says, in a very unKiki-like way. "I feel so bad."
"You again?" Detective Lemonis doesn't look thrilled to see her, but he doesn't look surprised, either. Resigned is the word.
"My sister is missing. One minute she was there, then she was gone."
"I'll take you to look, okay?"
"Okay."
Please don't be dead, she prays. God, if you have to take one of us, take me.
* * *
Lemonis drives her back to the place she lost Soula.
"Does your sister look like that?" He nods at the sidewalk, at the woman standing there.
No way.
But it's Soula, all right. She's looking around like she lost something.
Something being Kiki.
"I hear you've been visiting the Romani," Lemonis says. "Why?"
"I have questions and could be they have answers."
"What's the question?"
"How do I get my life back?"
"And you think they know?"
"My Virgin Mary," Kiki says, "it's like you're the dumbest cops in history. Stavros was sleeping with one of them. And maybe that same someone killed him."
"Do not mistake slow for stupid, Despinida Andreou. The police cannot just arrest people when all they have is thin air and town gossip."
"Why not?" she says. "You arrested me at the word of the person who might have killed Stavros."
"Do you think she killed him?"
"I don't know anything. Which is why I want to speak with her."
"Stay away from the Romani," he says. "That woman didn't kill Stavros. And you're interfering with an investigation if you go there."
"Good," she says, unable to hide her bitterness. "At least interference is action."
* * *
Kiki shines their mother's harsh light on her sister. "Where did you go?"
"I saw a friend."
"What friend?"
"My God, Kiki, when did you turn into Mama?"
Kiki shakes her hands at the sky. "You vanished. I was worried."
"You worry too much."
"Somebody has to worry about you."
Soula laughs. "My little Kiki. Everything is fine. Half the town is sick, we have good food and wine in our bellies, and—"
A horn cuts her off. Loud, insistent, with a jeering edge. Soula doesn't turn, but Kiki does. A pickup truck. Romani.
"I've seen that truck before," Kiki says.
Now she's panicking, waiting for the truck to run her over.
Soula turns, gives it the once-over. "How can you tell? They're all the same shit."
"I went to the Romani encampment outside Volos earlier. I remember it from there."
Soula gives her an incredulous look. "You did what?"
"When I borrowed your car, I went over there."
"Why?"
"Because Stavros was sleeping that woman who attacked us."
Her sister grinds to a halt. "Are you sure? I thought maybe it was just Mama and her gossip."
"I don't think so. Even Kostas seemed consider it a possibility."
"Then be careful, sister. The Romani are … difficult. If you expect to get answers, you could be disappointed. And what does it matter who Stavros was sleeping with, eh? You did not love him."
"No, but maybe she did. Which maybe she knows something about his murder."
Soula puts both hands on Kiki's shoulders. "Then be doubly careful. If they know something about his death, then there is no way they'll talk with you. They are not like us. They keep each other's secrets."
100
Kiki
Yesterday the camp buzzed with life. Today it limps.
Kyria Dora is magic.
She finds the man from yesterday where she left him, sitting on the same rickety chair outside the same rickety shack, slapping at the same persistent flies.
He spits on the ground. "You are back."
"I'm back."
"I did not think you would be stupid enough to come."
"Ask around. I'm all kinds of stupid."
"Heh." He nods at the camp. "Most people here are sick today. You might want to leave."
"Oh," she says brightly, "somehow I don't think it's contagious."
"No? Are you a doctor?"
She's done answering his questions. She looks past him, searching out the reason for her being here.
"Where's Drina? Is she sick?"
Spit, spit. "She does not want to speak with you."
"Well," she says. "That's just life, isn't it? We all do things we don't want to do, every single day. I don't want to be here. I'd rather be on the beach, relaxing in the sun with a magazine and a cold drink. But I'm here talking to you when I'd rather be talking to Drina."
"About what?"
"It's a woman thing."
"Pretend I am a woman."
"I think she's in danger."
"In danger?" He slaps his knee. Laughs until he wheezes. "Every Roma in the world is in danger every day, because people do not like us. Greece wants to hammer our Roma edges until we are smooth and Greek. We do not want to be Greek, we are Roma."
Kiki shakes her head slowly. "Look, I don't care if you're Roma or Romani or Greek or Martian. I just want to speak with Drina." She shoves her hands into her pockets, pulls the fabric flaps out. "See, no weapons. No hammer to hammer her edges."
The man spits again. Then he fixates on some distant spot to Kiki's left. All the same, she gets the feeling he's staring into her. At this rate she's going to die of old age.
"What do you want?"
"I told you—"
"No. What do you want? If Drina speaks to you, then what?"
Kiki's tired of this game. It's circular, childish. She's had enough of circles. A straight line is what she wants, one with an arrow at the end, pointing away from Stavros and his death. She wants to move forward from this place, from this time, to a future where there are no black dresses, and where there's gossip, but never about her.
"Closure."
"Closure." He laughs. "Talking to Drina will only open more boxes. There is no closure to be found here." Then he hollers, "Drina!"
There's a small movement in the shack behind him. The door opens, but it whines about doing its job. Out steps the Romani woman. She seems so young, but her eyes are flint. Looks like someone wrapped an old gift in new paper.
Chin up. Arms folded. "I have nothing to say to you."
"Did you know Stavros Boutos?" Kiki asks.
"Of course I knew him." Drina stabs the air with her finger. "Stavros and I, we loved each other."
It's what she expected, more or less. But she figured the love thing was a single lane.
"Stavros loved you?"
"Yes. He did not love you." She says it proudly, like she should be waving a flag.
"I didn't love him either. And I didn't want to marry him."
"Who would not love Stavros? He was a good man."
"He was a good man, but not a faithful one."
"He was faithful to me!"
Poor kid, swallowing Stavros's bullshit. "There were a lot of women."
"After he met me, there was only me. Every night, he wa
s with me."
Maybe it's true—who knows? Not Kiki. She approaches her next question the way one does a wary dog. No way does she want to get bitten.
"Did you kill him?"
"No!" The fire in her eyes adds a half dozen more exclamation points to her answer.
"Do you know who did?"
"If I knew, I would cut their throat and make them pay. At first I thought it was you, but I hear nothing but stories about good things you do for people."
"I definitely didn't do it." Kiki sits on the dirt. A small dust cloud puffs up, then sinks. She's a minor, cross-legged disturbance. "Do you believe in prediction?"
The fire dies. "I am Roma."
Okay, so she'll take that as a yes. "Have you met Stavros's mother?"
A headshake. "No."
Stavros, Stavros, what did you do? "A man told me she would try to strangle you. A man who knows things."
"I would like to see her try!"
"Drina!" the man barks.
"Sorry, Papa."
He shakes a finger at her. "You speak like that, you invite trouble."
But invitation or not, trouble is already here. And it looks exactly like Helena Bouto. Her mother's former best friend is shoving money into a taxi driver's hand. Then she marches toward them, looking like the old gods elected her to mete out vengeance.
"Thea Helena?" Kiki asks. "What are you doing here?"
The woman she's called aunt all her life doesn't look at her. She's too busy glaring at the Romani woman, shooting daggers, knives, and several pairs of non-safety scissors with her eyes.
"I came to see if it was true, if my Stavros was fucking a tsigana. I thought we taught him better." The words shoot out of her mouth like bitter olive pits.
Drina's father doesn't so much stand as he unfolds. Sitting, he's a big man. Standing, he's a smallish giant. He moves his mountain until he's separating his daughter from the woman with the crazy eyes. "And Drina's mother and I thought we had taught her better than to keep company with Greek boys."
