Three Summers Page 13

Mother looked at me sternly.

  “Infanta has a cold,” she said.

  “Let Infanta go,” I said, “why always me?”

  I felt my voice tremble and tears come to my eyes. Thirty times I had gone toward Mr. Louzis’s and not once had I met David but today, today surely I would . . .

  “Every day you go for a walk for your own pleasure, and when I ask you for one little favor . . .”

  Mother’s look was fiery to begin with, but then it cooled down. It was clear she was hurt; she thought my response was out of lack of affection. You could hear the complaint in her voice, but soon she had regained her usual composure.

  “Come back soon. The guests will arrive around five.”

  And as she left, a gesture she made reminded me of a lady from another epoch lifting the train of her long skirt.

  The only thing left for me to do was to take the bicycle, ride quickly to the pastry shop, and then go for my walk. David would be standing in front of the potato field; the afternoon sun would make the old tin of the observatory look like a golden cupola from an oriental tale.

  And then, just as I was giving the order to the waiter, figuring out the bill in my head so that I wouldn’t waste a minute and nervously squeezing the leather wallet in my hand, I saw him in the left-hand corner behind the store window seated in a wicker armchair. He was staring outside absentmindedly, eating an éclair.

  The “fifteen minutes of fantastic feats” they had in the movies that always filled me with suspense and horror—cars spinning in the air and then hanging in trees like hats, motorcycles racing round and round a circular wall and then, after arriving at the top, continuing to circle with the naturalness of a cockroach scuttling across the floor—those fifteen minutes lost their shock value and were nothing in comparison with the sight of David eating an éclair behind the store window of the pastry shop.

  I don’t know how it happened, but he got up and greeted me and I found myself sitting next to him. Without asking me, he called to the waiter, “Nestor, an éclair for the young lady.”

  “I’d prefer a meringue,” I said, but he acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “I’d prefer a meringue,” I repeated when the waiter arrived with the tray. “The meringues aren’t good here,” replied David. “Only the éclairs.” And he motioned to Nestor to leave.

  A vague disgust arose inside me slowly, getting lodged in my throat, making me choke. It was just like when, as a child, I had tried to swallow a whole plum. Why should I have been dying to see him all this time? Perhaps it was just a mad fixation. I watched him to see what impression I was making on him, if he could tell I was nervous. He was bending over slightly, trying to light his pipe. The tobacco must have been moist—it wouldn’t light. His movements revealed his annoyance. At one moment when he had dropped his lighter, he shoved back his chair noisily as if he were angry. And whereas before it was the tobacco that wouldn’t light, now it was the lighter itself. I blushed as if I were to blame for all this. I didn’t know what to say. And to think I’d been dreaming of him for two months. My books, my secret corner, everything at home suddenly seemed like paradise. Then Nestor, in order to please us—all the other tables were empty—turned on the radio as loud as it would go. A jazzed-up version of a Bach piece was playing. “I have to go,” I said, and got up abruptly. “Miss, you forgot your pastries,” cried Nestor, running after me.

  From then on I went to Kifissia for my walks. The oleanders hadn’t bloomed yet. The fallen leaves smelled of cold and rain. The afternoons in the sun were beautiful though.

  But David’s corner behind the store window in the pastry shop was always empty; so, after Ruth invited us over again and David didn’t even come down to greet us, I decided never to go back to Kifissia. That evening, I remember, I went and ripped the velvet dress with the lace collar that I had begged Mother to make me. Maria guessed something was wrong, but she didn’t tease me the way she would have before. She looked at me tenderly, very tenderly. Pregnancy had changed her. She had became sweeter, softer. During Lent we went to David’s. Ruth commented, “Greek Easter is the most beautiful holiday; even better than Christmas in England.” It was then that we realized winter was over.

  And hardly any time had passed before the wind began to carry the scent of violets and lilac. This always left us feeling divided because the lilac reminded us of spring orgies and awoke in us all pagan instincts, whereas the violets steeped us in a mystical pain, reminding us of the true meaning of Christianity. “Don’t forget that it is Spy Wednesday,” Aunt Theresa came out on the terrace to reprimand me. I was laughing and dancing around with a daisy stem because the he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not had come out in my favor. Similarly the phrase “Christ died for us on a cross” became so much a part of us during Holy Week that we kept on chanting it even after Resurrection. Again Aunt Theresa was obliged to come out and yell at us.

  On Holy Thursday we dyed eggs. On Good Friday it was cloudy. On Black Saturday at exactly midnight Father Loukas said the “Come, partake of the light.” The little church glowed. The saints’ faces smiled down on the congregation. “Christ has risen.” We lit each other’s candles. Everyone felt close. “He has risen indeed.”

  David showed up on Easter Sunday when the lamb was roasting. We talked more than usual, and that, together with the wine and the scent of spring, made me forget everything we said. I only know that we laughed a lot and that I burst into tears that evening after he had left because I couldn’t remember a thing we’d said. Even now I grow sad when I think that our only day together is lost without leaving any trace.

  I must make him notice me. History says Alcibiades the statesman cut off his dog’s tail so that the Athenians would notice him. I wouldn’t do that though even if Mavroukos was still alive, first of all because his tail was already very short and then because I loved him too much.

  I keep thinking about Mavroukos because recently I saw the tortoise he almost killed in the garden. He had been intrigued by the head and tail that hung out of the shell, and had started to bite. The tortoise of course retreated, infuriating Mavroukos and causing him to bark furiously. In a paroxysm of anger that sometimes seizes the strong when they realize they are impotent before the weak, he snatched up the shell with his teeth and threw it into the bushes. The tortoise ended up on its back with a crack down the middle, and that’s the mark I noticed today on the tortoise that was plodding across the garden. And to think that Mavroukos is already dead. Certainly that tortoise will be here even after we are gone. They live for over a hundred years. Though to get around the property it takes them a whole year. I guess that’s one hundred rounds a lifetime.

  What if I ran away from home and everyone began looking for me and the whole neighborhood heard about it? David would certainly hear too. Perhaps he would go out looking for me in the forest at night with a lantern: “Katerina! . . . Katerina!” I would be curled up in a corner, wasting away. “Katerina! . . . Katerina!” Suddenly the lantern would light up my face, revealing the intense expression of a martyr, my eyes glowing supernaturally, my skin transparent from hunger. “Katerina, I love you,” he would say. But perhaps by that time I would have grown used to the forest’s solitude and would fancy instead the life of a nun seated by a window looking thoughtfully at a green meadow. “Life in a convent is pleasant,” I would say, and then I would set out on a tour of the world because travel is even better. To places where it snows and people are fair-skinned, or to places where it’s hot and people are dark-skinned. To places I where houses are one story high with small gardens, or to places where there are only skyscrapers. To places where women wear rings in their noses, and even to places where people eat fried frogs and lick their fingers.

  So I would say to David, “You can love me as much as you like; I, however, am off on a tour of the world. I know Ruth’s room quite well, Aunt Theresa’s too; now, if you please, I’d like to try fried frogs.”

  What if I fell ill? They say sick women have a special charm. Before my gl
assy eyes flashes of fever would pass the way lightning breaks through clouds, and my hollow cheeks would have the pallor of a moonlit lily. And then as I drifted in and out of sleep I would hear him whispering, leaning over my forehead, “Katerina, you must get well fast, a life together awaits us.”

  Perhaps the best plan is to make him jealous. I’ll take Petros’s arm and walk back and forth in front of his house. It’s a well-known fact that men need such prodding: if they think a woman is faithful they pay her no heed, but if they think they may lose her . . .

  Petros was surprised when I asked him to go for a walk. I told him at the pavilion when Nikitas and Infanta had gone to the apricot trees.

  “But Margarita is a friend of yours,” he said with a certain irony.

  We all knew they had been going out since the winter—since Lent when Nikitas had thrown a masquerade party. Margarita had dressed up as Spring. She was beautiful, but is there anything more stupid than dressing up as Spring?

  “I don’t see what my friendship to Margarita has to do with it. Anyhow if you don’t want to come, I’ll go alone.”

  “I’ll come and fetch you at six, no, I’ll wait for you in the woods across from Gekas’s,” he whispered hurriedly, because in the meantime Infanta and Nikitas had come back. “At six.”

  “At five-thirty,” I had time to say.

  “Okay, don’t say a word to anyone. Margarita especially mustn’t find out.”

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  The first moments of the walk were sort of difficult. Petros had obviously come with different intentions.

  “Should we go toward Helidonou?” I said at first. And then before he had time to say anything, “No—toward Louzis’s. At this time of day it’s better, more open.”

  Near David’s I stepped on a thorn and I had to sit down. It was then that I noticed that in order to get to the observatory you had to climb an iron staircase, all rusted and funny-looking, and I began to laugh. But my foot was aching. I had stepped on the thorn with all my weight; when Petros leaned over to help me pull it out, he seemed particularly nice.

  “How is Margarita doing?” I asked then.

  “I haven’t seen her for three days.”

  “How come?”

  “She went to Athens to see her aunt.”

  “Will she stay long?”

  “A week or so.” And turning his head in the other direction, “I prefer you to her any day.”

  I found myself in a difficult position. Petros was really a nice boy. I didn’t know what to do. I started to laugh, to pull myself up, though I hadn’t intended to do so until David appeared at the window. My plan had been to take Petros’s arm while David looked on and then stroll away like a pair of lovers.

  We stayed until evening. No one came to the window. Only when it grew totally dark did a light go on in the house.

  But finally on our fourth walk, as we were reading something Petros had written, David appeared standing above us with a smile on his lips, surprising us both.

  “I see you like this place,” he said.

  So he had seen us the other times. The same disgust that I had felt that day at the pastry shop rose in me again, choking me. It would be very satisfying to strangle David, I thought, to see how high his voice would get.

  “Yes, we love it here,” I said. And then immediately afterwards, “Petros especially. The landscape inspires him. Petros is very talented, you know.”

  “What does he do?” David asked with an almost imperceptible irony, and without being invited he chose a rock, brushed off the dirt, and sat down.

  “He’s a writer,” I said.

  “Ah . . .”

  David tried to stretch out his legs, but brought them in again. He couldn’t get comfortable. He looked first at one of us and then at the other, as if we amused him. Facing the sun, his forehead had a pinkish tint, his hair and beard were red, his eyes seemed to sparkle with a gold dust, and his motionless hands had the wonderful transparency of an autumn leaf in the sun. You could make out the smallest veins.

  Then, I don’t know how it happened, but the two of them started talking together without paying any attention to me. The discussion became more and more heated. I looked up at the olive trees and wondered what I was doing there with them. David talked about his work in a way I would never have expected. Not once did I hear the word “star.” For an astronomer this struck me as odd. It was more like geometry theorems. When Petros said something about “the poetry of math,” David laughed. He was a cold man, but he talked of cold things with warmth.

  In the meantime the sun had set and the sky had turned the color of anemones. In Ikaria, Rodia’s island, there once lived a mad woman who planted trees and flowers from morning to night. Whatever she planted immediately took root, and grew with unprecedented success. The woman never did any other kind of work; some neighbor or other was always needing her, even the mayor sought her out when the main square was being built. One day, though, she took her little boy and tried planting him in the sand, thinking she would grow more children this way.

  A strange calm came over me as I gave my hand to David to bid him good night. Petros and I didn’t say much on the way back and as soon as I got home I ran to Rodia and asked her to tell me the story of the mad woman who liked to plant things.

  Rodia was frying potatoes.

  “Leave me to my work,” she said. “I’ll tell you another time.”

  Rodia had always exercised a certain tyranny around the house. Nobody dared cross her. Rodia’s autocratic nature wouldn’t have mattered much if she didn’t also have a mania for asking questions, and if her authoritarian stance wasn’t a cover-up for plain old-fashioned contrariness.

  “Should I do the meat with tomatoes or lemon?” she would ask.

  “Tomatoes,” Mother happened to say.

  “It’s better with lemon, it’s lighter,” she would mutter. “I’ll make it with lemon.”

  Rodia had her views. After she had decided something, no one could change her mind. But in order to decide she first asked a question, heard the other person out, and then with the utmost certainty took the opposite position.

  “My dear Rodia, Rodoula, and Roditsa, I’d like so much to hear that story tonight,” I pleaded again. My voice was sweet as honey and I rubbed myself up against her the way cats rub up against a cook who’s cleaning fish.

  “The oil from the frying pan will spatter and burn you,” she said, pushing me away.

  I had to come up with a better trick.

  “I too would prefer to hear it another time,” I said, and then started to leave. “Only that poor child who ended up crippled . . .”

  “Crippled, my dear? After she’d planted him in the ground like a seed, burying him alive, patting down the earth on top, after . . .”

  Rodia began telling the story, “There once was a mad woman . . .” When she told stories from her island, which were usually about crazy people, her face, and even her soul changed completely. Her eyes took on the lost stare of a sleepwalker, and a smile of pure bliss played on her lips, even when the story was sad. Greek oracles and the ecstasies of India came to mind. Surely Rodia was in touch with the Divine.

  When Mother came into the kitchen, the story was over and the potatoes were burned. She gave us a stern look.

  “I don’t want to see you in the kitchen at this hour again.” And although she was speaking to me, she looked Rodia straight in the eyes.

  III. THE FIRE

  INFANTA also liked Rodia’s stories, though she never admitted it. But then Infanta didn’t even let on when she had a headache. The only signs were her pale lips and the taut skin around her forehead and temples that made her eyes slant like a Chinese princess. On the other hand, if Mother had the slightest headache, the whole house knew about it. She would complain that we didn’t give her enough sympathy, she would close the shutters and lie down on her bed, letting out a moan every once in a while. Yet during the truly difficult times, she was v
ery brave. If she had to have an operation she would go to the hospital smiling, and she seemed very calm the whole period of the divorce, though she must have been suffering. Father had hurt her. He had not been faithful to her. He spent his free time fixing radios rather than taking walks with her. And when he did say he’d come and pick her up, he’d forget and leave her waiting.

  “I’d expect such behavior from a painter, an artist,” Aunt Theresa would say. “But from a banker . . .”

  Aunt Theresa wasn’t remembering the way Father used to play the cello. Father too seemed to have forgotten. He would always bring it to Mesolonghi in the summer and accompany his sister Alkmioni, who played the piano. She died of appendicitis at sixteen.

  Ah, the old house in Mesolonghi was a beautiful house, more beautiful than the Aristotelous house, and Grandmother would sometimes miss it. She consoled herself by wearing her three strings of pearls and visiting her brother, the general, or going to Syndagma Square. There she might meet Mrs. Montelandi and they would sit at the same table. It seems that Mrs. Montelandi viewed Grandmother as one of the few ladies with whom she should associate. She always greeted her first since she knew Grandmother couldn’t see very well. The only thing that bothered her was that though the Montelandi name and Grandmother’s maiden name were equally old and respected, the Montelandis had never served their country in any way. They were simply landowners, while Grandmother’s family had produced great politicians and soldiers. “My brother, the general,” she would say, or “My uncle, the prime minister,” and Mrs. Montelandi would bite her lips, making sure, however, not to smudge her lipstick.

  Mrs. Montelandi said that summer afternoons were the longest, and the most boring. For Grandmother, on the contrary, the hours she spent in Syndagma Square were her most pleasant; only then did she feel she had the right to rest. Grandmother had two children to look after, Miltos and Agisilaos. It didn’t matter that the eldest was forty-eight and the other forty. They were still children. If you didn’t take them something to eat before work, they would go off hungry, and if you left the serving plate in front of them during lunch they would eat until they got sick. She had to take care of their matters of heart as well, to smooth over things, especially when Agisilaos fell in love with married women and caused scandals. It was a good thing he hadn’t married. She had gone through enough with Miltos’s divorce. Anna was such a good woman, and rich . . . but it was her fault too. She was so proud and stubborn. Most men deceive their wives; the only difference was that Miltos did so openly. That’s what Grandmother had told Anna, when advising her. She even talked about her deceased husband who, though an exceptional man, had cheated on her twice. “Miltos too is an exceptional man,” she said. Mother agreed, but still insisted on the divorce. She showed such courage, though she complains and moans over the slightest headache.