Three Summers Page 15

  This year, however, the weather is different. No day is like the next, and the changes in temperature are like none we’ve experienced before. The week of the fire we could barely breathe. There was no wind and it was as if the oxygen had left the earth for another planet. Many people even said that the fire had started by itself from the heat. Now today it’s cold. The wind is blowing. The trees bend down to the ground and you feel like running and never stopping. But our property is too small, and I’m afraid of the meadow. Yesterday when I went out walking there, though it was midday, it got dark all of a sudden. The sky clouded over and hung low. Pendeli, across the way, became an old hag, while the meadow stayed golden, lit up, making you wonder where the sun was coming from.

  Now my sisters and I no longer lie around in the hay talking. We aren’t all in the same place the way we were last year and other years. And when we happen to be together it’s as if there is a new awkwardness, as if we had betrayed one another by doing our own thing.

  Certainly some day the awkwardness will pass, though time will never undo the betrayal. And perhaps when it does pass we will long for the time when we all lay around in the hay and our desires were so fluid and uncertain that they were no longer our own. They became the air we breathed; a thought of Maria’s became mine and mine Infanta’s—a kind of unearthly communion. When one of us sighed it was as if we had all sighed. And when there was a laugh, we all felt its reverberation deep inside, as well as a joyful trembling.

  So I thought that we should all get together to talk. It was necessary since I had something very important to announce. And even though we saw each other every day at every hour I gave each a written note separately: “Tonight, after dinner, I await you at the pavilion. Make sure no one follows you—not even Marios. Don’t tell a soul. We need to talk. Katerina.”

  •

  This is what had happened. Yesterday I had been in my room reading. It was afternoon. The sun was hiding behind the mountain. By the sea it would have been half under the waves and half floating. Mother was playing piano. I couldn’t hear well because the wind kept sweeping away the notes. Mother plays differently when no one is around, as if she is expecting something to happen. How would she react if I went down and gave her a kiss? It would be a way to make up. I’d been rude to her for some time now and she had begun to treat me coldly.

  When I came down the stairs the piano stopped. And from the balcony door I could see that she was no longer at the piano but bent over her desk as if she was reading something.

  The moment I entered, she got up, turned around, grabbed the desk with both hands as if to steady herself and looked me straight in the eye without saying anything.

  I stayed where I was, motionless. If I took a step, said something, everything would be the way it always was. But I couldn’t, nor could she. I could only stare. My eyes wandered down from her face to her hands and got stuck there. Her pale nails contrasted with the dark wood and between her fingers you could just make out a crumpled piece of paper.

  Like a magnet I couldn’t take my eyes off that piece of paper. Besides I wanted Mother to know that I had seen it. So there it was: she and Mr. Louzis exchanged letters. It wasn’t enough that he came over for visits.

  Suddenly she said, “Run upstairs and bring me an aspirin. It’s in the top drawer of my bureau.”

  I threw one last determined look at the paper and scurried off. When I returned Mother was sitting in the armchair in front of the balcony door rubbing her forehead with her palms.

  “Do you have a headache, Mother?”

  “Yes.”

  I was standing there, undecided. I wanted to kiss her, but it was difficult.

  “Do you have a headache, Mother?” I asked again.

  “Yes.”

  Standing behind her I could see the top of her head, the straight, white part separating her black hair in two. It was so smooth it made you want to touch it. Sometimes as a child the softness of her skin would make me shiver, while the perfume she wore back then would get me all mixed up. I would want to cry. She no longer wears perfume, but still . . . Why couldn’t I run up to her and say, “Mama, I don’t want you to have a headache, nor to be sad about anything. As for the letter, it’s your business.” She lowers her head and rubs her forehead, then looks far away, toward the garden. She is thoughtful. I can tell from the line of her neck as I stand behind her and from the curve of her shoulders.

  It is difficult for people to get close to each other. There is a kind of embarrassment, I don’t know . . .

  “Never mind, it’s nothing. You’ll feel better after the aspirin.”

  My voice was cold, icy. It surprised me.

  I walked slowly down to the garden. The idea that the piece of paper was a letter from Mr. Louzis began to dissolve like a white cloud.

  •

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you . . .”

  Infanta and Maria were silent. Perhaps they were distracted and they hadn’t heard a word. As the moon rose, the pavilion became a game of light and shadow.

  “So?”

  “And?”

  I started to get annoyed. Neither of them moved or talked. I got up and paced back and forth in front of them, almost stepping on their feet. On purpose, of course.

  “Like a general on the eve of a great battle,” said Maria giggling. “Tell me, if Mother is in love with Mr. Louzis and Mr. Louzis with Mother, what do you want us to do about it?”

  She let a moment pass and then, emphasizing each word, “Anyway it wouldn’t be bad if they got married. Mr. Louzis is a good man and he’s rich. He would take Mother on wonderful trips . . .”

  The idea that Mother would travel was unbearable. Even if I were to travel, I wanted her at home waiting for me. Maria could be so wrong, and so annoying.

  Then Infanta’s voice was heard, in a monotone, as if she were speaking to herself.

  “She always keeps her desk locked. And one day when she couldn’t find the key she was beside herself . . .”

  “There, you see?” I cried.

  An owl hooted. And another farther away. A bat emerged from a pipe and others followed. They passed in a line in front of the moon and then disappeared.

  “Something even more mysterious was going on,” I said seriously. “The crumpled piece of paper wasn’t a letter from Mr. Louzis.”

  •

  But on the night of the full moon something happened that made me reconsider the whole affair. When Mr. Louzis was leaving, right at the door, while the moon lit up the meadow, I heard him whisper to Mother, “Did you receive what I sent you?”

  And she answered, “Yes, I did . . . You shouldn’t have done that, Mr. Louzis . . .”

  I was confused. A few minutes passed. Mr. Louzis left. The others went in. I stood outside the house before the open meadow. It was silver. The train passed and blew its whistle. I don’t know how it happened, but I started to run and soon found myself behind Mr. Louzis.

  “What did you do to Mother?” I shouted.

  He turned and looked at me. His rosy complexion was pale and his white suit, almost blue. His eyes revealed his great amazement. For a minute. But then they began to sparkle. He was a clever man, everyone knew that. He passed his cane to his left hand and patted me on my shoulder with his right in a friendly way, never losing eye contact with me.

  “What’s up, Katerina?” he said in a cool, calm voice.

  Then he started to laugh, and the farther away he got the louder his laughter grew. He must have arrived home out of breath from laughing.

  •

  I was so concerned with Mother that I forgot about David for a while. When he came over the other day I looked at him blankly. And he had the audacity not only to notice, but to mention it.

  “Usually you look at me differently, Katerina,” he said.

  “I’ve never looked at you differently.”

  As the others had work, we sat alone on the veranda.

  It was very embarrassing; we didn’t
say a word. Once or twice I tried to start a conversation, but David answered with yes or no and the discussion got no further.

  “I’m bored,” I told him.

  “Me too. I’m always bored except when I’m working.”

  And saying this he stretched out his legs and leaned his head back. His beard was shorter than the last time. He must have decided to cut it, but because he doesn’t like sudden changes, he snipped it off little by little. It’s strange to see yourself suddenly changed. It makes you think of death and all sorts of other things.

  “Yes, work . . .” I said. “It’s the only thing that matters.”

  “But you don’t do anything. You’ve finished school, right?”

  “I’m writing a novel,” I said absentmindedly.

  David’s laughter brought me back to earth. I heard myself repeating in a serious tone, “Yes, I am writing a novel.”

  David laughed again. He never laughed heartily like Mr. Louzis. Instead he had a reluctant laugh, reluctant but sharp.

  “And what’s it about?”

  What’s it about, what’s it about? . . . He mustn’t catch me telling lies. Why did I say such a thing? Why on earth? It was like those dreams I had never seen and my trip to Egypt. It was not my fault, though. First I heard the words and then I realized what I’d said. Perhaps there are people who kill first and then realize they have killed.

  “It’s about . . . hmm . . . it’s a story about a letter. No, it’s a story about three girls. Yes, like Maria, Infanta, and myself. Like us, not that it’s about us.”

  “No, yes, the story of a letter, of three girls. You don’t sound very sure, Katerina.”

  “And aren’t you confused sometimes by what you see in the sky?”

  “Nothing is confusing in the sky,” said David. “Each star has its own place and orbit. And everything can be calculated.”

  Silence.

  “You know, I don’t think hanging about with Petros is doing you any good.”

  He was suddenly very serious. I looked at him. He stood straight and tall and brought his hands close together as if he were knitting.

  “I’m saying this for your own sake. I’ve also heard that Petros is superficial. With girls, I mean.”

  A joy rose, flooding me, covering me like a wave. I wanted to get up and run, to climb a tree. David was jealous, it was clear. He was jealous.

  “Ah, Petros is a charming guy,” I said.

  “It’s not enough for a man to have beautiful eyes and a pleasing walk.”

  “But Petros also has a heart of gold. He’s not like the others—how can I explain it? He isn’t bad-tempered the way they are.”

  David smiled a bit, just slightly.

  “I don’t like bad-tempered people either,” he said slowly, rhythmically.

  “How can you say that when you . . .”

  I stopped myself just in time and raised my eyes. David was staring at me.

  “What would you say to a walk?” he said, taking me by the hand.

  I felt a vague fear. Not exactly fear—more like the feeling you have when you are about to take an exam or when you’re going on a trip and you’re waiting for the train at the station.

  “At this hour I don’t go to the woods,” I said. “It gives me the creeps. I’m kind of a nervous type . . .”

  It’s nice going for a walk. You breathe deeply, the wind blows through your hair . . . For a moment my hair seemed to have copper highlights, David said. As for my eyes, he thought it was strange that one was a little darker than the other.

  “I used to be a little cross-eyed,” I said. “That is until the age of two . . .”

  David laughed.

  “Anyhow, Rodia says it’s the sign of a lucky person to have one eye darker than the other.”

  He stopped laughing.

  “All I know,” he said, “is that it suits you.”

  And taking me by the shoulders he turned me toward the sun and looked at me. He had witch’s eyes. I lowered mine.

  “Maybe you’re embarrassed by me?” he said.

  I laughed.

  “Embarrassed by you? Why should I be embarrassed by you?”

  We were walking.

  “Tell me,” I said suddenly, “is it very unethical to open a locked drawer, to look inside a locked drawer that doesn’t belong to you?”

  “The questions you come up with!”

  “Answer me seriously. I’m not joking around.”

  “But it depends.”

  “What do you mean, it depends?”

  “If by opening the drawer you might save a life or something like that . . .”

  “No, I’m not talking about saving lives.”

  “Just curiosity?”

  “Yes, just curiosity.”

  “Then it is very unethical.”

  And after a bit, “What are you worrying about anyway? Is your heroine about to break into a drawer full of terrible secrets?”

  “Yes, that’s it. And you see, she is a curious person, but not unethical.”

  “Well then, she shouldn’t open it.”

  “But if she doesn’t open it, the novel will have to end right there.”

  “Hmm.”

  David was thinking. He had bent down his head and with his smooth hands he was stroking his beard. There was something devilish about him. I wanted to run away.

  Suddenly he said, “So is it a detective story?”

  I started to laugh. I had to sit down I was laughing so hard. David sat down next to me. We were in something like a ditch, and across the way in front of the sun there were three solitary reeds. It looked as if they had been designed to fit in the sun’s circle, and sitting close to them and down low they seemed to surpass Parnitha in height. No, it was not funny. Life was very serious, and very beautiful.

  “When you look into your telescope are you scared?”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know exactly. The sky . . . the grandness of the universe . . . the seriousness of life.”

  “I see things scientifically,” David responded.

  “The blackberry bushes outside your door have bloomed,” I said.

  I knew he wouldn’t have noticed them. Had he seen the reeds then?

  “Look, they’re higher than Parnitha.”

  “That’s because we’re near them, and Parnitha is far away.”

  “Of course that’s why.”

  “And if you lie down they’ll seem even taller. Put your head here.”

  He lay down and I put my head on his chest. We lay like perpendicular roads.

  “Your hair smells good . . .”

  “It is full of static and scares me with its clicking sound when I comb it, especially when the weather changes.”

  I was about to say that my body does the same thing when I take off my clothes at night, especially when the weather changes. But I didn’t. It seemed somehow indecent since I was lying on him.

  “We must go,” I said.

  I saw him standing in front of me, politely offering me his hand. It had grown dark. The wind was blowing. The reeds had become sound. And I wondered as we walked back if David would ever love me. Certainly I would love him for the rest of my life.

  I had a lump in my throat and couldn’t bear the thought that we would part ways soon. Only a tremendous desire to hold his hand for a minute—for a second—to squeeze it in mine and let it drop; because David never put his hand down the way other people did, instead he let it fall; and this habit of his concealed an invisible, tender hopelessness.

  “Shall we go for a walk again some time?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Whenever it happens.”

  We had arrived.

  “At your orders, my lady,” David said, and before I knew what he was doing, he had bent down and kissed my hand, bowing like a knight from olden times.

  In jest, of course.

  That night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I twisted and t
urned in my bed like a worm. Not only because I was thinking of him but also because I got it into my head that if I slept, the wave of sand that used to blind me in my dreams as a child would return. I even saw Miss Gost, alive again, spreading white sheets across the mirrors, warding off the devil. That memory made me want to peek in the mirror in my room—one peek. In the beginning this desire wasn’t strong. I told myself, Better not to look. But then the good sense of that phrase began to torture me. Was it really better not to look? And what would happen if I did, anyway?

  A late, pale moon rose—it was some days after the full moon. I turned my eyes in that direction abruptly. It must be the shadow of the furniture or the clothes hanging . . . It couldn’t be anything else. Miss Gost couldn’t be right. Something stirred, just the wind blowing the clothes. It couldn’t be anything else . . .

  The tension was horrible.

  Finally I reached out my hand, lifted myself up, and turned on the light. The room lit up. I was no longer afraid, and to prove it to myself I jumped out of bed, walked around the room, and went and stood provocatively in front of the mirror. I greeted my own gaze, the eyes I knew so well. And I realized they were to blame. They had something foreign in them, something strange like David’s eyes. And as I stared at my body it was as if David were the one looking at me. “So that’s what they mean when they talk about the devil,” I said. And although I could still see the devil I was no longer afraid. I even had the courage to pull down the nightgown I was wearing on my shoulders so that I could see the line of my neck that always pleased me, the one that was the same as my Polish grandmother’s. I smiled. I had an urge to dance in front of the mirror, so I did. The nightgown had slipped off my shoulders and fallen to the ground. I was stepping on it. I almost lifted it with my foot and tossed it out the window for the fun of it.

  I danced until my cheeks were burning and my eyes shining. Later I curled up in a corner of my bed and began sobbing. It was as satisfying as dancing. I wrapped myself up in the sheet and cried. When I felt a bit better I tried to sleep. I turned off the light, faced the wall, and it was then that I wanted David more than anything. I remembered the afternoon, each word, each of his gestures—and when I reached the scene of separation I would begin all over again. He was jealous of Petros. And Margarita was jealous of Petros. Lately she has been looking at me suspiciously. It wasn’t my fault if Petros preferred me. But it had been a while since he’d come over. I wonder why. “At your order, my lady,” David had said. When he does things like that I want to slap him. Is he thinking about me now? How can you know if others are thinking about you? I must ask someone. I must get advice. Maria is the most appropriate, but in her condition . . . And besides, I must find out tonight.