by Maeve Binchy
They couldn’t find Vonni. She was not at home.
“She’ll come to wave us off,” David said.
“She’s very sad these days, she’s lost her sparkle somehow,” Fiona said.
“Maybe she’s very envious that you are going back to Ireland . . . something she was never able to do,” David wondered.
“Yes, but she says herself it turned out all right, her love affair, for quite a time, and she did have a son to show for it, which is more than a lot of people do.”
“But where is he now?” David asked.
“She claims she doesn’t know, but I bet she does,” Fiona said.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he came back? If he met Adonis somewhere out in Chicago and they decided to go back and swing again on the old tree up at the taverna?” David said.
“Ah, David, and they say the Irish are the sentimental ones believing in fairy tales.” Fiona pealed with laughter and patted him on the arm to show she was laughing with him and not at him.
“You’re a dark horse, Elsa, all these plans and you never told me.” Thomas tutted in disapproval as they walked together up the little town.
“I did tell you.”
“But when everyone was there?”
“Well, that’s where we were, with everyone else, when the subject came up.” Elsa was totally unrepentant.
“But I thought you and I had sort of discussed things fairly intimately . . .” He was hesitant.
“We did, and I enjoyed it,” she said.
“Where are you off to now? I was thinking of having a siesta personally.”
Elsa laughed. “And where am I going? I’m going to find Vonni.”
Vonni wasn’t in her henhouse, her craft shop, or at the police station. Elsa decided she would go out the road to the old man who didn’t believe in modern medicine. She might find her there.
The sun was high in the sky and she wore her white cotton sun hat against the heat. The road was dusty. Children came from the tumble-down buildings and saluted her, opening and closing their little fingers. “Ya sas,” they called out to her as she passed by. Elsa wished she had brought some candy, karmeles they called it. But she hadn’t thought that there would be this reception committee.
She remembered the old man’s house and gathered together some sentences in halting Greek to say she was looking for his friend Vonni.
But they weren’t necessary. Vonni was there sitting by the old man’s bed, holding his hand. She didn’t look remotely surprised to see Elsa.
“He’s dying,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Should I go and get the doctor?” Elsa was practical.
“No, he wouldn’t let a doctor cross the door, but I’ll tell him that you are an herbalist and he’ll take what you give him.”
“You can’t do that, Vonni.” Elsa was shocked.
“You’d prefer he die in pain?”
“No, but we can’t play games with someone’s life.”
“He has about six or seven hours left of life, if that. If you want to help, go to Dr. Leros. You remember where he lives from Fiona that time. Tell him the situation here, ask him for morphine.”
“But won’t I need . . .”
“No, you won’t need anything, call into my shop and get some pottery bowls as well. Go quickly now.”
On her way back down the dusty road, an old van came along. Elsa stopped it and said she needed to go to the doctor for medicine. The two men looked at her admiringly and drove her willingly to the doctor’s.
As Vonni had predicted, there was indeed no problem getting the drugs. The men in the van waited until she picked up the bowls and then drove her back.
“That was very speedy,” Vonni said approvingly, and she held the old man’s thin hand and repeated to him over and over, “Dhen ine sovaro, Dhen ine sovaro. It’s not serious, it’s not serious.”
Vonni ground up the morphine tablets, mixed them with honey in her pottery bowl, and spooned them into the old man’s mouth.
“It would be better if we could inject it, more instant relief, but he wouldn’t hear of that.” Vonni was grim.
“How long will it take for him to feel better?”
“Half an hour; it’s really magic, this stuff,” Vonni said.
The old man mumbled something.
“What did he say?”
“He actually said that the herbalist is very beautiful,” Vonni said wryly.
“I wish he hadn’t said that.” Elsa sounded sincere.
“Come on, these are the last things he’s going to look at—your face and mine. Isn’t it good he has yours to concentrate on.”
“Vonni, please.” She had tears in her eyes.
“If you want to help, keep smiling at him, Elsa. He’ll start feeling less pain quite soon.” And indeed his face began to relax, a little; his grip on her hand was less frantic. “Think of him as if he were your father, put love and warmth in your eyes,” Vonni instructed her.
Elsa felt that this wasn’t the time to tell Vonni that she hardly remembered the father who had abandoned her. Instead she looked at this poor old Greek man and thought of him and his strange life, ending with an Irishwoman and a German woman at his deathbed.
“Georgi, it’s Dimitri here in Athens, remember we’ve talked a few times.”
“Of course I remember you! How are you, boy, it’s good to hear you. Getting ready for your wedding?”
“Yes, don’t women go to great fuss about one day? I mean it’s the life afterward that matters, isn’t it?”
“For us, yes, but for them the day itself is very important.”
“You know that Irish dope pusher?”
“Shane? Indeed I do, but the most important thing was that the girl left him. Walked out on him in front of you, didn’t she?”
“That’s right, how did you know?”
“Vonni told us, the woman who was with with her. She said you were quite a hero.”
“Oh, do you know the old woman? What a small place Aghia Anna must be. No, I was nothing like a hero, I’m afraid. But I wanted to tell you he’s written a letter to your brother, to Adonis’s father. It was in English and I can’t really read English but I wondered what it was about.”
“He probably thinks Andreas is a soft touch, but it’s not going to work. Little Fiona is going back to Ireland, Andreas and I are going down to the ferry tonight to say good-bye to her. So whatever he writes to Andreas, it will be too late.”
“Good,” said Dimitri. “And while I’m talking to you, did Adonis ever come back to Aghia Anna? Remember I knew him here in Athens and I’ve been thinking about him today.”
“No, he never did.”
“Making too much money over there, I suppose?”
“Not that I heard, and we would hear if anyone from here did well in the United States. But there you go! Funnily, a day or so ago I thought he might be coming back, but it was a false alarm.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, some garbled message came through from Chicago wanting to know where he had put some set of keys. I thought . . . I hoped he might be on his way here, but alas, no.”
“I suppose we all do what we want to do in the end.” Dimitri sighed.
“You are a philosopher, Dimitri, my boy. And old men go on hoping that the world will become easy and people will remember that life is short and no row worth prolonging.”
The line was forming to get on the last ferry from Aghia Anna. Fiona and David stood in the middle of a crowd of well-wishers. Maria and her children were there, and Eleni from the house where Fiona and Shane had stayed, with her children. Vonni and Elsa both looked tired and anxious but were obviously friends again. Thomas showed up in his ridiculous trousers. He had bought a little book about the island for each of them. And a copy of a photograph of the four of them at their café. He had written “Midday at the Midnight” on the pictures.
Andreas and Georgi arrived with promises of more roast lamb when Fiona and Da
vid came back. Vonni could see that the two who were leaving were becoming quite emotional.
She spoke authoritatively. “Now you can’t leave us all here clinging to this rock in the Mediterranean without knowing what happens when you get home,” she said sternly. “You can write it to me and I’ll come down to the Mesanihta and read it to the others.”
They promised her faithfully that they would indeed write.
“Twenty-four hours after you get back, remember,” Vonni said fiercely. “We want to know what happens.”
“It will be easy to write to you all, we don’t have to tell any lies,” David said.
“Or put on an act,” Fiona agreed.
And just on cue at that moment the ferry hooted aggressively and they went up the gangplank among the people carrying baskets, and some with what looked like bags of washing. A few definitely had hens and geese in boxes punched with airholes.
Fiona and David waved until the boat had left the harbor and turned along the coast and they were out of sight of their friends.
“I feel desperately lonely,” Fiona said.
“Me too. I could have lived there happily forever,” David said.
“Could we? Or were we just fooling ourselves, do you think?” Fiona wondered.
“It’s different for you, Fiona, truly it is, you love your job, you have friends, your family aren’t going to overpower you, suffocate you.”
“I’m not sure quite how they’re going to react. I’m the eldest of the family, I wasn’t much of a good example to my sisters by running off with a certifiable lunatic.”
“But at least you have sisters. I’m an only child. I bear the whole brunt of it. And my father is dying. I have to look at him every day and tell him I’ll be proud to work in his company.”
“Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.” Fiona was hopeful.
“It will be and worse, since I let go the reins, as he calls it. You’re very good to come and help me break the ice.”
“Will they think I’m your girlfriend, a frightening Catholic coming to destroy your tradition?”
“They already do,” he said gloomily.
“Well, it’ll cheer them up enormously when I go off to Ireland the next day,” Fiona said cheerfully. “They’ll be so relieved they’ll gather you to their bosoms.”
“We were never slow on the bosom gathering. That’s part of the problem,” David said. And for some reason they both found this incredibly funny.
Elsa and Thomas watched until the ferry was out of sight. Then they walked slowly back up through the town.
“Where were you this afternoon?” he asked. “I was looking for you, I thought we could take out the boat again.”
“Tomorrow would be lovely,” she said. “That is if you’re free.”
“I’m free.”
“I’m interested that you really are going back to California,” she said.
“And I’m very interested that you’re really not going back to Germany,” he said.
“So let’s make the most of what time we have here,” Elsa said.
“How do you mean exactly?” Thomas inquired.
“I meant by renting a boat tomorrow, having a picnic, another day taking the bus to Kalatriada. I’d love to see that place again when I’m not so stressed. That’s what I meant.”
“There, that’s settled,” he said. And they both smiled conspiratorially. “You didn’t tell me what you were doing all afternoon,” he said, trying to change the subject.
“I was in a small, cluttered house with Vonni, watching an old man die. An old man with no family, no relations, only Vonni and me. I never saw anyone die before.”
“Oh, poor Elsa.” He leaned toward her and stroked her hair. “Poor Elsa.”
“Not poor Elsa. I am young, I have my life ahead; he was old and lonely and frightened, poor old Nikolas. Poor old man.”
“You were kind and good; you did what you could.”
Elsa pulled away from him. “Oh, Thomas, if you could have seen Vonni. She was wonderful. I take back everything I ever said about her. She fed him honey on a spoon and made me hold his hand. She was like a sort of angel.”
They walked together back to her place. “Tomorrow we’ll take out a little blue boat and go to sea,” he said, and as he turned to leave her, she gave him a big hug.
“Andy, is this an okay time to call?”
“Sure, Thomas, for me it’s fine, but I’m afraid Bill and his mother aren’t here. They’ve gone exploring.”
“Exploring?”
“I mean shopping really, they call it exploring. Could you call back in thirty minutes? Better make it forty-five. You know what shopping can turn into. I don’t want to waste your nickel just talking to me.”
“I’m happy to talk to you, Andy, because I want to ask you something.”
“Sure, Thomas, ask what you want.” He could hear the slightly wary note in Andy’s voice.
“I was wondering if I went back a bit sooner than anyone thought—do you think that would be a good idea?”
“ ‘Went back’? Sorry, Thomas I’m not entirely with you. You mean come back here to town?”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.” Thomas felt cold. The guy was going to say that it would be a bad idea. He knew it.
“But you rented your condo for a year, didn’t you, Thomas?”
“Yeah, but I thought I’d buy a bigger place with a yard for Bill to play in.”
“You’re going to try and take Bill back?” Andy’s voice was choked.
“Not to live, of course not, just a place he could visit.” Thomas tried not to sound impatient.
“Oh, I see.”
God, but Andy was slow. It took forever for an idea to sink in and another age for him to answer. “So what do you think, Andy, do you think it would be what Bill would like . . . to have me down the street from him? Or would it confuse him? You’re the guy on the spot. Tell me. I just want to do what’s best.”
Across thousands of miles, Thomas could almost hear the slow smile crossing Andy’s handsome, empty features. “Thomas, that boy would love it, it would be like Santa Claus and all his birthdays coming together.” There was no doubting the utter sincerity of the man.
Thomas could hardly stumble out the words. “I won’t tell him just yet, if that’s okay with you, I’d like to set it up and give him a definite date before I begin talking to him about it. Does that make sense to you, Andy?”
“Sure it does, I’ll say nothing until we hear from you.”
“Thanks for understanding,” Thomas mumbled.
“Understanding? That a man should want to be near his own flesh and blood? What’s to understand?”
Thomas hung up and sat for a long time in the dark. Imagine, everyone believed that Bill was his flesh and blood. Everyone except Shirley. And indeed for all he knew she might believe it too. After all, he had never told her about the doctor’s report. It had been too late to tell her. She might well not know.
Vonni settled herself down in the shed that Thomas called her henhouse. She had seen him talking on the telephone. And earlier she had seen him holding Elsa’s hand. They had so much ahead of them, those two. She sighed with envy. It would be wonderful to have years and years ahead. Time to make decisions, to go places, to learn new things. To fall in love again.
She wondered what they would do. She wondered about Fiona and David taking a late plane tonight to London from Athens. Would their homecomings be stormy, awkward, or emotional? She hoped they would let her know. She had terrorized them about writing to her when they got back.
She remembered the long, hot day and how she had closed the eyes of Nikolas and wiped the honey from his chin before sending for Dr. Leros to pronounce what she knew already. She thought about Georgi up in the police station. Georgi whose wife was never mentioned. She tried to imagine what Magda looked like now and if she cried from those huge dark eyes over Stavros paying attention to another woman. She wondered about Andreas saying that h
e and Vonni should have married long ago. He was quite wrong, of course. But if they had gotten married, she would have made sure Adonis came back. It would have been so very easy. The boy was aching to be asked.
Unlike her own son, who would never come back. The boy who had once sent a message to say that she had stolen his childhood and he never wanted to see her again. In all her confessions and recitals of her story she had never told any of them that. It was too hurtful to say, even to think about.
And as she had done every night for over thirty years she said a prayer for her son, Stavros. Just in case there might be a God out there and the prayer might do some good.
SEVENTEEN
Elsa had the picnic ready when Thomas came by to pick her up the next morning. It was in a basket with a cloth tucked in to cover the food.
“I was wondering . . . ,” Thomas began.
“What were you wondering, dear Thomas?”
“Don’t mock me, I’m a frail, poor creature,” he begged.
“I wasn’t mocking you, I swear.”
“I was wondering, should we row up the coast to Kalatriada, and stay there for the night? That’s what I was wondering.”
“I think you should wonder no more, it’s a great idea.” She began to go back into the villa.
“Where are you going?” He was anxious.
“To get a toothbrush, an extra pair of panties, a clean blouse. Okay?” she asked.
“Very okay.” He had been expecting some kind of resistance.
She was out in thirty seconds. “Will the man with the little boats let us take one away for so long?” she asked.
“I’ve been down there to check, well, in case you said yes, and he said it would be fine.” Thomas looked slightly embarrassed.
“Go on, Thomas, what did he really say?” She laughed at him affectionately.
“He kept talking about you as . . . my sizighos or something.”
“What on earth is that?”
“I looked it up. It’s a partner or a spouse or something like that, I’m afraid.”
“Well, all right, sizighos, let’s hit the high seas,” Elsa said cheerfully.
