Three Summers Read online

  “Infanta . . . Infanta,” a voice cries. It’s Aunt Theresa. “Where is Infanta?” she asks anxiously. “Oh . . . somewhere around here.” “What’s the matter?” “Nothing, I just brought her a jacket. She had a cold yesterday.” “I hadn’t noticed.” “Infanta . . . Infanta.” We find her sitting on a bench with Emilios and Nikitas. “What were you talking about?” Aunt Theresa asked. “About horses,” said Nikitas. “Infanta knows all about them.” “Yes, she can even gallop,” I add. “You should come over one day and race with her.” Aunt Theresa gives me an angry look. Infanta smiles. She is so beautiful, my God so beautiful . . . In the waning light with her white dress and her long neck, she looks like a swan. She’s put her hair up. Her neck is almost womanly. She lets her blue jacket hang off her shoulders. With her right palm she touches it distractedly; the material is soft like the fur of a cat. “My, it’s hot,” she says after a bit and tosses it onto the bench. She gets up and goes over to the veranda, leaving Aunt Theresa with the two boys. Why are you so restrained, Infanta, why, when it only makes you unhappy?

  The wine is strong. “An hors d’oeuvre?” We’ve lost all feeling in our legs, and are very content. We sing the Greek song: “Have you seen Anthoula, the fairest of them all?” And on the radio an American woman syncopates the beat, “I saw her late last night . . .” She continues, “boarding a boat . . .” Here she reaches the climax. “Bound for a foreign land.” The woman’s voice cracks. A sob. Heartache here, heartache there. An orange moon appears from behind the mountain and falls on the reeds, the stream is gurgling, the frogs begin their nightly song, an owl gives a shrill hoot landing on the roof. I wish I could take it all in, hold it in my arms or be held in its arms. Something is swelling inside me, getting larger and larger . . . I sigh. “What’s the matter. Katerina? Are you sad?” everyone asks. “No,” I answer. “I’m perfectly happy,” I’d have whispered in Mavroukos’s ear if he were still alive, because he too would often lower his head between his paws in the evenings, and sigh deeply. Inside of him something was surely swelling and overflowing. “It’s time to go,” Aunt Theresa says.

  One always has to leave just when the party’s getting good. “It was wonderful,” we all say to Mrs. Parigori, “wonderful.” “Good night.” “Good night.”

  On the way home we’re all quiet. Finally, when we’re just about there, Maria says, “I didn’t like Eleni’s dress at all.”

  III. FATHER AND MR. LOUZIS

  YESTERDAY we went to see Father. He lives in Athens on Aristotelous Street, with Grandmother and his brother Agisilaos. Their house is neither old nor new. It’s on the first floor, and across the way on one corner there’s a clinic—it’s a maternity clinic and there’s a sign with a blue cross and the word “quiet”—and on the other corner there’s a taverna with a courtyard and a climbing vine that blossoms in the spring. I mention the clinic and the taverna because when I think of my father’s house it’s the mixed-up smell of medicine and wine in the street that I remember, and also the idea of women giving birth as they listen to people singing in the taverna and of people singing as they listen to women screaming.

  I remember one day when Maria, Infanta, and I were looking out the window, we saw a car pull up in front of the clinic and a young couple get out—the girl didn’t look any older than Maria. “It won’t hurt at all, you’ll see,” the guy was telling the girl, and she was smiling, though her forehead was covered in sweat. A few hours later the same car came and picked them up. He helped her in. Her eyes had a deep sadness about them, and her hand seemed to want to touch her belly, to check it, but she kept pulling it away, ashamed. “Must be an abortion,” Maria said, letting out such a screech you’d have thought they’d taken her insides out.

  Father’s house is not very nice. It has a long, graceless corridor with doors that open into the bedrooms. The dining room is dark. And the kitchen is a brownish gray, which no matter how much you scrub never changes color. Every once in a while a cockroach appears and scampers across the black and white tiles. “This week I’ll exterminate them for good,” Grandmother says. “I’ve got a new cure.” And she repeats the threat every now and again.

  But I like my father’s bedroom. It’s strange. It has the normal furniture for a bedroom but instead of clothes, combs, brushes, and other such items, there are tools, wires, ham radios, the hull of a model ship . . . There are also books in French and English full of machines and numbers and algebraic equations: stacks of books that all seemed the same to us. But two are different and are set apart on a small shelf—Robinson Crusoe and The Jungle Book. It seems no matter what we do in our lives we always have these stories with us. Once a week when we would come in from the country for a visit he would read them to us from beginning to end. All three of us would lie on his big bed with half-closed eyes, listening. Now we are older and embarrassed to ask him and he is embarrassed to suggest it. So there are huge silences full of Robinson Crusoe and The Jungle Book as if he were still reading and we were still listening. Those silences make us all very sad.

  “What are you inventing these days, Father?” we ask in order to interrupt the silence.

  “A radio with a system that . . .” He begins to explain how it works. We like to listen to him even if we don’t understand a thing. When he talks about thunderbolts, rain, and other natural phenomena, though, it makes more sense. In fact he’s much easier to understand than our science teacher. It’s because he has his own way of seeing things, a simple, straightforward way, and so his explanations are also like that.

  “What is the rainbow made of?” he asks out of the blue.

  And when we don’t reply, “There you go, you know all that ancient Greek and you don’t know about the rainbow. . .”

  Father has a nine-to-five job. He’s a banker. But he spends all the rest of his time with his machines and his books. It seems that even in the old house when he lived with Mother he did the same thing. It was perhaps the main reason they separated. That, and his unfaithfulness. When I was little I couldn’t understand how someone as pure as my father could ever be unfaithful. Now I understand.

  I can’t remember much about the old house. It was near Lykabetos hill and it had a terrace that looked out on Faliron. Father lived with us and we had a bloodhound named Dick. I also remember two Chinese vases in the two corners of the living room. But nothing else. Maria, however, remembers a lot. Sometimes she tells us stories, and Infanta and I feel sad.

  Almost every week on Sunday we went to the sea with Father. He had an ancient car that looked like a bomb, which we called “Karaïskaki.” Once when we were driving in Athens a street urchin had called it that, after the revolutionary war hero I guess, and it stuck. Father’s car was not just any old car, so it deserved a name. It was brown, gray, or maybe khaki, and its insides were lined with dark red leather, a luxury that contrasted strikingly with the rest of its appearance. It was high above the ground, open-topped, with its motor up in the front, separate from everything else, giving it a dog face. The back resembled the tail of the hoopoe bird and had a little wooden chest inside where we tossed our bathing suits, fishing gear, and whatever else we happened to have with us. All in all, it was a car with personality and a provocative appearance.

  Often our cousins, Andrikos and Ellie, came with us. Andrikos was little, but Ellie was the same age as Infanta. She was a dark-haired, small-boned girl with an ugly nose, but the most beautiful eyes. She had a sweet way of talking, and she talked a lot. We really loved Ellie. We could talk about the most ordinary, everyday things with her without them ever sounding stupid. When they came to our house in the country for holidays we would all sleep in the same room. We’d make solemn promises and wake up in the middle of the night to whisper secret wishes we’d never admitted to each other, and which mostly we made up on the spur of the moment. Or we’d tell each other’s future from the moon: such and such would happen if it was at a slant, such and such if it was straight up and down. We really had a great time togethe
r.

  So Ellie would come on Sundays, and sometimes Uncle Agisilaos, too; that’s when the fun really began. Uncle Agisilaos was like a big kid, loving and irresponsible. He had a way of being unpredictable that was thoroughly charming. You could wait for him in Kifissia and he would be looking for you in Faliron knowing perfectly well that you were in Kifissia. That’s the way he was in everything he did. He had no sense of time, and no sense that there was such a thing as evil in the world. It was as if he lived on a desert island playing with pebbles all day long. Father was also a little like a child playing with pebbles. He too seemed to know nothing about evil. The only difference was that if you were waiting for him in Kifissia, he would be there to meet you.

  Father and Uncle Agisilaos looked alike. They were both rather short with black hair and their eyes were always sparkling with the reflection of the sea. That’s because they’re from Mesolonghi, and they spent their childhood fishing there. Before they set out they would hang a white sheet from the window to see what the weather was like. On the water they talked only about necessities: the fishing line, the bait, the way the fish were biting. And in the late afternoon when the sun had become orange and the sea an orange reclining woman, they ceased talking altogether.

  Not only did Father and Uncle Agisilaos look alike, but they had the same obsessions. For example, they would only put gas in Karaïskaki when the red light came on. For this reason we often ended up in the middle of nowhere late at night out of gas. Once Mother and Grandfather came out searching for us because they were sure we’d been killed on the Sounion Road. Instead they found us whooping it up. We had spent the day at the sea. We were driving along, our skirts pulled over our swimsuits, holding a bucket full of fish, when suddenly the motor turned over once or twice and the car stopped in front of a sandy beach. Father tried to get it to start again but nothing happened. We all got out happily. It was already getting dark, so we lit a fire and grilled the fish and sat around and sang and ate. Uncle Agisilaos thought of fixing coffee. Everything he needed was in the trunk: a gas stove, a pot. There was also an empty gas can. Father took it and stood at the side of the road with the hope that someone would stop and give us gas. Every time a car passed he would raise the can in the air. One or two cars stopped, but they didn’t have any gas. After a long time, when the songs and jokes had reached a high pitch, we saw two headlights in the distance. Father held the can up high. The car stopped and out stepped Mother. She was disheveled and in tears. We grew silent. Only Uncle Agisilaos ate a final fish, tossing it up in the air and catching it in his mouth.

  “What’s going on? What happened to you? Are you all right?” Mother screamed.

  “Just wonderful. We’re making coffee,” was Father’s reply.

  “Miltos, you haven’t changed a bit.”

  Mother strode furiously down to the beach to see for herself if we were all right. Near the fire there was a towel with cheese and bread. Her high heel got stuck in the cheese. Mother bent over and took off her shoe to remove the cheese. At the same moment Uncle Agisilaos began serving coffee as if he were sitting in a living room, offering the first cup to her. Mother looked at the cup and then at Uncle Agisilaos with contempt. In the meantime Maria, Infanta, and I had gotten to our feet and were standing completely still. Mother grabbed us and pushed us toward the car, where Grandfather was waiting. At the last moment I managed to give Father a kiss. He was still standing there with the can in his hand. We all squeezed in next to Grandfather; Mother sat next to the driver. When the car started, Father lifted up the can and said, half to the driver, half to Mother, “Do you by any chance have some gas?” Mother turned to the driver and said, “Let’s go.” Father was left at the side of the road with the can, while Uncle Agisilaos lit a cigarette and enjoyed his coffee.

  Those Sundays will remain with me exactly as I lived them. I can’t forget a single detail. It was then that I got to know the world of the sea. Having grown up with ants, lizards, and frogs, we found the waves shocking. We let the crabs sink their claws into our flesh so that the salt got all mixed up with our blood. When the fish touched our bodies, we could feel how cold they were. And we hoped that we would come upon a whirlpool so that we could experience the sweet taste of death but not actually have to die.

  Maria did the sidestroke, the “ladies’ stroke” as it was called. She would stay in the water for a little and then lie in the sun on her back, becoming more and more relaxed, not speaking loudly or laughing, her face growing sweeter, her gait, childlike, her breasts smaller, her eyes brighter, more transparent. How pure you are on Sundays, Maria . . .

  Infanta had also changed. It was as if she were looking at everything askew. She stupidly laughed at anything and made superfluous gestures. She teased Father and Uncle Agisilaos, and wouldn’t keep still for a minute. Of course it probably made a difference that Aunt Theresa was not around.

  Ellie and I used to swim far out. By the time we got back to the beach our skin would be tight, our breath easy. We would soak up the sun, eat bread and pears, and praise God. Then Uncle Agisilaos would start telling his Mesolonghi stories . . .

  Our place in the country is small, whereas the sea is immense. On Sunday nights I could never sleep.

  On Mondays the routine began all over again. We were completely consumed with the approaching birth of our rabbit’s first litter. We made her a nest in an old fruit packing case, and lined it with hay. She added her own soft fur. We all waited. The rabbit sniffed around, smelling her nest and chewing on a green leaf we gave her to distract her from the pain—we were sure she was in great pain, and would have been disappointed to learn this was not so. When her time came, she took up the appropriate position and gave birth, hardly groaning at all.

  Infanta didn’t pay much attention to all this. She was more concerned with Romeo’s needs: his food, his currying, his exercise. Often at teatime she would devise ways to steal sugar, like putting a lump in her mouth and then running off to give it to Romeo.

  The story of how she acquired that horse is a rather peculiar one. One day, the year before last, I think, we had gone to Mr. Louzis’s estate, the three of us and Mother. We were invited for the first strawberries. Actually we children were not really the point. Mr. Louzis was more interested in Mother. At times his eyes would rest on her shoulders, her hair, and stay there. Mr. Louzis’s estate was grand, and his house the largest and most luxurious in the area. It was even bigger than David’s, which had been closed for four years anyhow, ever since David and Ruth had gone back to England.

  It had rooms with high ceilings and decorated walls, valuable paintings and rare porcelain. In the winter he burned huge logs in his fireplaces and his face became redder with yellowish highlights. He even had a housekeeper who made creamy desserts with pheasant eggs. She was a woman with either white or blond hair and eyes that were blue and angelic, but with a devilish glint. We were scared of her and took great efforts to never be left in a room alone with her. “Miss Katerina, come and see the black rabbit.” I pretended that I was playing with the dog. “And a carnation as big as a chrysanthemum.”

  “What wonderful desserts Mrs. Aphrodite makes!” Mother would say. “Just watch out she doesn’t poison you,” I retorted one evening as we walked home, and everyone broke into laughter.

  So on that particular day Mr. Louzis showed us around the whole property. He had fruit trees of every type, a vegetable garden, and beautiful flowers. In the greenhouse I saw some white flowers that had petals as thick as flesh and a very heavy scent.

  “If you will allow me, I would like to send you a pot of those flowers,” he said to Mother.

  “I would be pleased to receive such a gift,” she replied.

  “The only difficulty is that they need a great deal of attention,” he said. “And heat, a great deal of heat.”

  “I will take good care of them,” Mother replied.

  When we arrived at the stables and pushed open the wooden door, Infanta let out a loud cry, something b
etween an “ah” and an “ooh.” She was staring at a young colt with a cinnamon-colored coat. His head was magnificent, rather small with huge, sweet eyes and a long neck. His body was perfectly shaped, nimble, with sleek legs that he lifted every once in a while as if asking permission to run. Beneath his shiny coat you could imagine his red blood. He was a horse of great force and pride.

  Infanta went up to him, placed her hand on his head just above his nose, and her eyes grew misty. “Watch out,” said the man minding him. “He’s very nervous and sometimes ill-tempered.” Infanta didn’t take her hand away. She rested it there with even greater confidence, and with the other she began to pat his neck. The horse grew restless and began pawing the floor. It was about to turn around when Infanta looked deep into his eyes. The horse calmed down immediately, letting out a soft neigh as if to caress her. Infanta began to cry.