Three Summers Page 12

  But ever since she told him of the child she rarely came near him with her whispering. The day came when she didn’t even want him to lie next to her for fear that he might knock her by mistake.

  The truth is, she suffered a lot the first few months of pregnancy; she was dizzy and nauseous. Of course he couldn’t understand. He would forget and light a cigarette in front of her even though she had told him that it bothered her. At such moments it was as if she had lost her mind. She would say things to hurt him. Her eyes had the same hard glare they had that rainy day in the kitchen.

  Then she would calm down, her face and her whole body giving off an air of absolute self-sufficiency that drove Marios crazy. He would say something to get back at her but she wouldn’t hear him. She would look off into the distance, as if unaware. She did it on purpose, though, to irritate him. She was stubborn, cruel perhaps. He wanted to torture her the way she tortured him, so she’d understand. Then he would suddenly remember that she was his wife, that he loved her, that she would soon give birth to his child. His eyes would fill with tears. He would go down on his knees before her, all gentleness, hugging her legs . . .“That dirty cigarette . . . Next time you will just have to beat me.” Her once distant look would slowly light up. She would laugh. And he would join in. “I don’t understand why we fight,” they’d say to each other. “Why . . . what for?” They would think about this for a moment, and then laugh again. Everything would be back to normal.

  The change that the child brought to Maria’s life happened to coincide with Marios’s return to work. In the first few months of their marriage he lived for the moment. He was imprisoned in the present. His studies and the hospital were beyond comprehension, something out of someone else’s life. His dreams for the future were colorless and without meaning. He was like a drunkard who, taken with the pleasures of the moment, sees nothing else. They would wake up late. In the afternoon they’d take a walk and suddenly it would be evening. The days were short like hours and Marios wondered how he ever found time to do all that he had done before. Chaos and nothingness merged with eternity, staying with him like the scent of cyclamen and heather that filled the forest, and like the sound of her voice echoing in the ravine.

  But when Maria heard the call of the child, he heard the call of the outside world. Dusk was coming on and he was looking out the window. Instead of seeing the pine trees bending in the wind, he saw clearly in front of him the hospital beds, the operating room, his father wearing gloves. He saw himself doing his first operation, and a shiver of excitement ran down his spine. He wanted to be there right now. Surely one day he would be famous. He had a sure hand. In Athens the lights would already be on and the cars would be darting to and fro. “Tomorrow I’ll go to the hospital,” he said aloud. She got up to turn on the light. Now he couldn’t even see the pine trees. The night seemed like an eternity, and in the morning he had the impatience of a schoolboy on the first day of school.

  From then on their life took the shape it would have for the rest of their lives. Maria accompanied him to the garden gate. She had just woken up and was not yet dressed. Her nightgown showed below her long robe and her hair was still uncombed. Her eyes had something of the mistiness of dreams, and when Marios bent over to kiss her, a nighttime scent, a womanly scent, drifted up from between her breasts. “I could have waited another week,” he said sadly. “There was no reason it had to be today.”

  He glanced down the road, which went past the woods. He would take that route to get to Aniksi Avenue, where his father was waiting for him. He had called him last night. The cold air seemed to slap the earth, everything underneath making him want to run away. “But now that I’ve made up my mind . . .” he said.

  She stood erect at the gate, watching him as he left. “Go on inside,” he called out, “you’ll catch cold.” She waved to him and turned to go in. It was the first day she had spent alone since the wedding. She felt a sadness and a certain relief. There were so many things that had to be done. When Marios was around she couldn’t do anything. She was so lazy, wandering about, and they woke so late. Now it was only eight. By noon she could accomplish so many things. She could visit her mother to discuss baby clothes. A warmth filled her as if she’d drunk a lot of tea after a walk. She went into the bathroom singing, and threw off her clothes, letting the cold water run over her body. She felt a shiver of anticipation. Unconsciously she pressed down on her tummy, but nothing showed yet. “Ah, it’s nice to be expecting a child,” she said looking at herself in the mirror.

  Only later did she begin to get bigger and feel the child kicking and the weight. Her feet and face swelled up. Then the winter came—hours of housework and sewing by the fire. She tried not to think of the birth, but when she was with other women she couldn’t resist the temptation to ask; she always brought the conversation around to that. She’d pretend to be indifferent, as if she wasn’t afraid. “It’s a pain that defies description,” Mrs. Parigori said. “But you forget it immediately,” added Mother. Aunt Theresa, of course, had nothing to say on the subject.

  Sometimes when she was alone she would get anxious. And if she died? Jokingly, she would say this to Marios. “A strong woman like you! What a thought!” He would laugh. “In any case we’ll have the best doctor, and my father will be there.” But inside he too was a little scared.

  The vomiting and dizziness had passed. Sleeping, though, was becoming more and more difficult. She lay on her back because she was uncomfortable on her side. She couldn’t even curl up her legs. Spread out on her back, her eyes wide open, sleep would creep up on her without her noticing, the sweetness of those first few minutes when dreams lasting a second seem to take up the whole night.

  In a month or so . . . Who says time passes quickly?

  She folded her hands on top of her belly again. She looked at them and then at the garden. The cherry trees, bright red, were heavy with fruit. The sun was high and hot, but there was a breeze, and with it the scent of lemon verbena. It was pleasant.

  At that moment Mrs. Parigori’s umbrella appeared in the distance, and then Mrs. Parigori herself in a pale green dress. She walked with tiny steps, bouncing slightly on her high heels, making untidy, spastic motions because her umbrella kept threatening to fly away. She would try to hold it with both hands, but then her handbag would slip off her shoulder. She stumbled, but she never thought of closing the umbrella. It was also green with four huge roses.

  “Mother!” cried Marios.

  “Ah, yes,” said Maria, who had been watching her approach for two minutes.

  She got up to greet her. Marios had already arrived at the gate.

  “The wind is enough to drive a person mad,” said Laura. “We don’t have such wind on Aniksi Avenue.”

  They climbed up onto the veranda to sit, but there was already too much sun. It was steadily moving up the steps; in no time it would be at their feet. They rose to go inside where it was cool. Meanwhile they sent word that Anna should join them. Soon Yannis arrived with Leda. The two families always ate their Sunday meal together.

  EXCERPTS FROM MRS. PARIGORI’S DIARY:

  May 26th. Today I saw Maria. She’s getting very heavy and her face has swollen up so that her eyes are two small slits. That Maria has the patience of an angel. She never complains and always seems satisfied. Marios, on the other hand, is just like Yannis.

  “I hate dissatisfied women,” Maria said, as she stood up after lunch to close the shutters. She had seen me staring out the window absent-mindedly.

  Her comment didn’t come out of the blue. We had been discussing the subject at the table. Yannis and Marios were saying that dissatisfied women live in their own imaginary world, that is, they’re deluded.

  “So there are no women who are rebelling inside?” I said.

  “Rebelling against what?” asked Yannis.

  “I’m not exactly sure. Against their womanly fate, perhaps. I don’t know, a desire for something else, something impossible, something they don’
t dare do . . .”

  “That’s just cowardice,” said Katerina, but she didn’t manage to finish her sentence before Anna threw her a fierce glance.

  “Dissatisfied women are simply unsuccessful women,” said Maria, her cheeks flushed. And she went on and on about the animals in the forest who enjoy the lightness in their gait, their claws as they attack, their teeth as they devour their prey. She wandered so far from the topic that we all forgot what we had been talking about.

  Marios is lucky. Maria seems to believe in submission. When she folds her hands on top of her belly it is as if she were proud of her weight, as if she wanted it this way. She’s sure to have half a dozen children.

  May 26th. A year earlier. It seems to me that Marios is in love with Anna’s eldest daughter.

  A day doesn’t pass without him going over to visit and then he always seems to come back sad. What’s going on? Could it be she doesn’t love him?

  The same year, a few days later. Marios and Leda had their friends over for a party yesterday. I prepared all sorts of nice things to eat and decorated the yard with Venetian lanterns. This new generation is enough to drive a person crazy. They have such a free way of acting and talking . . .

  I don’t like the way Maria acts with the boys. She takes them all by the arm, laughs provocatively. She was wearing a showy dress that didn’t cover her properly, and when it got dark she disappeared two or three times behind the trees with Stefanos. She mostly danced with him. She didn’t seem to notice Marios. Perhaps it’s better that way. He will forget her.

  One day, one of many, ten years earlier. I must be dreaming. I have been at the Edipsos baths since yesterday, all by myself. I traveled on the same boat as a man with large melancholy eyes and a limp. I could fall in love with such a man.

  Yannis says that the waters of Edipsos will do me good. Ever since I gave birth to Leda I’ve had a little phlebitis; some days my legs are very swollen. Of course I never had thin legs, so now I can just blame it on the phlebitis.

  I got upset when I saw him in the dining room. At first I just saw one of his eyes, hidden amidst numerous unknown faces, and then later, after I had pulled my chair a bit to the right, his whole face. He is very pale and seems very sad.

  Here there are people from different social classes, and all the cliques that are formed here mirror those classes exactly. Successful businessmen and their wives make up the core group. They have yachts and take short jaunts along the coast, and in the afternoons they hire cars and go for excursions in the country. Women who live in the provinces during the year and who meet every summer at Edipsos form another group. They gossip about the first group, feigning contempt, though if one of those ladies happens to talk to them, they can’t hide their joy. These women, however, snub the third group, whose husbands are civil servants or own small businesses in Athens or in the provinces. But their scorn is returned since the only dream of these women is to meet the women of the first group with their yachts and beautiful jewelry. In the first party the men discuss international problems; in the second, Greek politics; and in the third, nothing much. As for the children, they all play together. But where oh where is the Corfu society? There are a few older ladies from good families, but they never talk to anyone, not even to each other. Perhaps they worry who will make the first overture. They enter the dining room with vacant expressions on their faces. I’m afraid theirs is a world that is fast disappearing. For this reason when I saw my old friend Ernestine (the one who collected the most shells, and is married now to one of those big businessmen) and she introduced me to that group: “Mr. So-and-so, Mrs. Parigori etc.,” I brought the conversation around in such a way so that I was able to add “née Montelandi, from Corfu.”

  The first day is almost over and I still haven’t managed to meet him. As soon as the sun set, he took an armchair and went and sat all alone by the sea. When I happened to pass by with Ernestine, he lifted his head and looked at me. I know now he will be in my dreams. I will see him coming over to embrace me—though I’m not at all sure that I’d let him get away with such behavior in reality. I wonder what my children are doing now. My mother promised to stay in Kifissia to look after them. Marios is fifteen years old and I can’t say that he’s disobedient; he already shows a certain aptitude for medicine. Leda, on the other hand, is as mischievous as they come, and she is always trying to climb into the well. I must wire Mother tomorrow to see how they are.

  •

  Laura looked out the window, as if to ask the night why life was so strange. There were times when she had such a bitter taste in her mouth. She leafed through another two or three pages in her diary and closed it. Then she caressed its edges and spine. At Edipsos she had laughed when she had realized that the bellboy she’d taken for a child was really in his forties. She’d noticed that bellboys and jockeys looked like children regardless of their age. It amused her. How pleasant those evenings were at Edipsos: the ship whistling before it emerged from behind the mountain, and then coming to a stop and anchoring just in front; the fishing boats too close to the shore; the sea full of tiny lights . . . Maria had surprised her today. She was a courageous woman. Perhaps she had never had to battle with her dreams. Laura opened her journal to a clean page: “Today I saw Maria. She is getting very heavy.” Then she began leafing through earlier pages. On the days that she wrote she also read, always starting from the end and going backwards.

  Without stopping her reading she leaned over to take off her shoes. Wearing high heels all day long had tired her out.

  II. DAVID, THE ASTRONOMER

  “WHEN it comes to love, you two are both retarded,” Maria told Infanta and me at one point last year. Without answering, Infanta had thrown her a haughty look; she could even keep her cool when Maria was running after her up the circular staircase that led to Aunt Theresa’s room, whistling and singing maliciously “the theory of perfection, tra-la-la, the theory of perfection.” I, on the other hand, would get hurt. I couldn’t bear such insults; and besides, deep down it bothered me that I hadn’t fallen in love. Only sometimes in my dreams—Stefanos, Petros, Emilios, or Nikitas. But when I woke up the feeling would last at the most five minutes and then fade away. “You listen up, Maria,” I shouted and started after her. I caught her quickly because she was laughing, and with teeth clenched I threw her down in the lavender and tickled her mercilessly. She was as weak as a child when she laughed. Only when I had gotten out all my anger and she had apologized did I start to laugh myself and it would turn into a nice day.

  What would Maria have to say about this year?

  All in all I had only spoken with David three times this winter, and none of what I intended ever got said. The first time was when Ruth returned from England and invited us all over for tea. Of course he was forced to notice me since we were sitting opposite each other at the table. He even said, “I think I saw you one afternoon on the road with the berries. Was that you?” “I don’t think so,” I answered. “I often go there, but if it had been me I would remember.” Then the conversation turned to more general matters. Ruth was talking about the growth of the workers’ party in England, stressing how dangerous it was. “The British aren’t to blame,” she added. “It’s the Russians who had the idea in the first place.” And Mrs. Parigori, after a moment of silence, added that the roots of this evil really went back to the French Revolution. Meanwhile Mr. Parigori, Mr. Louzis, and David talked about the same topic, but as they were men they approached it differently. The workers are right. The state should protect them. Then they’d have no cause for complaint.

  For a moment I thought of Amalia, but then my mind was completely taken up with David again. And since I couldn’t look him straight in the face I watched his hands. David had full control of his face; he never changed expressions no matter what he heard or said, but his hands gave him away. Free and spontaneous, they sometimes seemed happy, other times sad, and often indifferent or ironic. For irony one finger would stay in the air while the rest of t
he hand closed; for sadness both hands would settle on the table, one on top of the other, like wounded birds folding their wings. On the whole they had something feminine about them, even uncanny. His fingers were long and thin, very long and thin, the skin tender, smooth and dark, not a hair on them.

  His voice fit perfectly with his hands when he was rushing to say something: shrill, high-pitched, feminine. It had an infinite number of tones for expressing emotion. The whole range danced before one’s eyes the minute he spoke.

  His face on the other hand remained unchanged, one might say expressionless if it weren’t for a glare that sometimes flickered in his eyes. I caught a glimpse of such a glare when I asked him to wind the music box and he refused, saying it would bother the grown-ups. The thought that I was perhaps one of those women destined to a life of unrequited love filled me with a pleasant, bitter melancholy. But when he bid me good night the same glare enveloped me like a sudden gust of warm air.

  The second time I saw him was in Kifissia in the pastry shop. And the irony is that my own desire to see him almost made me miss him.

  Mother had asked me to go buy some pastries for two or three friends of hers who were coming from Athens, but at first I refused. It was the hour when I usually went for my walk to Mr. Louzis’s estate.

  “Let Infanta go,” I cried.