Three Summers Read online

  “Is your goat ‘wanting’?” he interrupted.

  “Wanting what?”

  “The billy goat, what else. I mean is she in heat?” His eyes fastened on hers.

  “I don’t know,” she said without lowering her eyes. “How should I know?”

  Then he became embarrassed. He remembered that he was talking to a girl, and one from the house in the meadow at that, and he blushed.

  “You must be tired,” he said after a bit, and his voice was no longer brusque. “Come in and rest.”

  She tried to leave.

  “We can give you the billy goat . . .” The young man looked up, calculating, counting on his fingers. “In ten days,” he said finally. “It will be a good time.”

  She climbed the step that separated her from the cool room and found herself sitting on a wooden chest covered with a sheepskin. The shutters, made from a single piece of green wood, were shut.

  “In ten days,” she repeated distractedly.

  They were silent, facing each other, she seated, he standing. His presence weighed on her. She felt him there so alive with his dark hands and feet, with his white skin in those places the sun never reached. A golden flame danced inside her. Her knees felt cut off from the rest of her body, as if the fire were coming out of the earth and rising slowly through her body, beginning at her feet and continuing on up. Now the flame had reached her breast. She had difficulty breathing. She wanted to cry for help, but he would think she was crazy. He was so sturdy, like a piece of well-chiseled stone. His nose, his chin, his forehead were composed in straight lines, his shoulders and soul, too. Not a single curve. Whereas her body was all round, with sweet, smooth curves and rises, gentle like the earth itself, longing to partake of the other.

  He was shocked to be standing before such roundness. He wanted to cry. He wanted to fall into her arms and cry and cry . . . as if his soul had been gathering clouds for years and now the time had come for rain.

  At the same moment a bee came in through a chink in the door, a bee as gold as the flame inside her. It buzzed around, withdrew, and then came back and landed on her hair. With a mechanical gesture she tried to whisk it away, but it wouldn’t leave.

  “Ouch!”

  It had stung her on her arm, leaving its stinger in. She leaned over to look at the sore spot, and shivered.

  The young man looked worried. He came over beside her. Then he went out to get some damp earth. With one hand he held her arm tightly and with the other he began rubbing the bite with mud. The skin became red all around, and swollen.

  “It will keep swelling,” Maria said.

  “It’s nothing,” he said to her. But inside he was sorry, deeply sorry to see the skin so sore.

  Their heads came close to each other. Maria’s hair touched his ear. Her cheeks were red, her eyelashes wet.

  “Oh, it hurts,” she said. “And I’m cold.”

  She looked him straight in the eyes. He bent down his head and continued to rub the sore spot patiently. By now a strong and primitive energy was passing between her body and his. Oh to cry, to cry, lying on top of her.

  “I’m cold,” Maria said again.

  The shivers had gotten stronger. Her shoulders were shaking. That one bite had poisoned her whole body. She felt like she was burning up, and then she would get cold, her eyes filling with tears and the shivers wouldn’t go away. He put out his arm and wrapped it around her.

  “I can’t bear to see a person cold,” he said, and his voice was shivering more than Maria’s body. “Even an animal. In the winter with the snow I want to embrace all the shivering animals and warm them with my breath.”

  He stayed there with his arm around her, feeling her body’s spasms, her shoulders shaking. He was holding her tightly. It hurt, but she liked the pain. She turned her eyes toward him, his strong hands enclosing her roundness, which was warm and good like the earth. A goodness he had never known before. And when their bodies became one on top of the sheepskin he began to cry. It was time for the rain. She brought him toward her with all her strength, she wanted to hurt more, more, she wanted this moment to have the beauty of perfection. It seemed to her as if she was suddenly on the top of a mountain with all the world’s beauty spread out before her. She screamed. Then she became calm like the river that flows through the same river bed for centuries.

  •

  Finding herself again on Elia Avenue, she looked at the five parallel roads, chose one, and began to walk peacefully, slowly, without zigzagging from side to side or lifting her eyes from the ground. Maria was thinking, and when she thought she always looked down. The red soil, the ants going back and forth, the anthills, the sticky resin, all helped her think. She looked at them, learned from them, and drew her own conclusions. Everything that was good in their world was good for her too, and if something bad happened, she took note. Of course sometimes things got confused because when one animal ate another, it was bad for the animal that was eaten, but it also meant that other animals and plants were saved. She knew a great deal about their world, how an ant that doesn’t pull its weight is ousted from its community, how the grasshopper brings disaster, how the cicada knows from birth how to sing, and how each of these animals is born, mates, gives birth, dies, becomes one with the earth and is born again from the earth. She even knew about the queen bee and how she had special servants that brought her food so she wouldn’t get tired; and how when the time came for her to marry she would leave the hive and buzz and dart around the air, strong from all the attention and care, behind her an army of drones; how she would fly for two or three days without a break and the drones would drop, exhausted, dead, one by one until only she was left, and then she would build her own hive and become queen. The first part was rest and gathering strength, then looking after the body and attracting the males, then choosing the strongest after destroying all the rest and finally birth, innumerable births. Maria often thought about this process. She found it heroic and beautiful, with a hidden tragic element. Perhaps it was her own fate . . .

  She tried to reflect on what had just happened and why. Her time had come, that was all. The man was a simple coincidence. He had passed over her the way clouds pass over the earth. She had been asking for that pain and agony for a while now, when she lay with her sisters in the yellow hay, or when she heard the frogs sing, or when, lying in bed, she listened for a cry in the night. Odd how recently at night she had been waiting for something tragic to happen, she couldn’t get it out of her mind, she wanted it, just as when she was a child she would call out from a nightmare, and her mother would come to her and shake her, saying, “Wake up! It’s only a dream,” and she would sigh with relief and disappointment. “So,” she would say to Infanta the next morning, “you were strangling me in my sleep last night. Yes, your two hands were around my neck and you kept squeezing and squeezing until . . .” and she would close her eyes luxuriating in the memory.

  Now the sun was exactly overhead; there was no shade on the road. It must be midday. I should hurry, she thought. They will be worried. She had totally forgotten about home. She envisioned the midday meal: Grandfather, Mother, Aunt Theresa, Infanta, Katerina. How could she face them? She wasn’t embarrassed now while she was alone, nor before God. God after all was the bees and the cicadas and the ants. And what she had done, in their world, was not something bad. But the others? The humans? They would guess. Her mother’s eye was so sharp at times it seemed it was measuring the depths of her soul. And Aunt Theresa would have her suspicions. Aunt Theresa didn’t like her at all. She was sure of that. Only Grandfather and Infanta wouldn’t notice. They were always off in their own worlds. As for Katerina, she was curious and saw everything. “You have a strange glow about you, Maria,” she had said to her that morning. “Not exactly you, not your eyes, but your skin . . .”

  Now that glow had overflowed. She could feel it. She was shining all over. She went to look at herself in the stream, but the water was rippling. She waded in and splashed water on
her arms and throat, on her face. Her lips were on fire, and her eyes had an odd heaviness about them. But her body was light. A shiver ran through her every once in a while. “I have never seen skin as soft as yours,” the man had said, “nor skin as hot.”

  Going home, she found Elia Avenue interminable. The steep hill gave one the feeling of martyrdom. Maria recalled the night of suffering that Christ had passed when he begged not to drink the bitter cup. Why did today remind her of that night? Hadn’t she had a joyous experience? She stood proud in the heat, ready to bear all the burdens of the world, her body and soul strong. So why did she keep thinking that from this day on the sacrifices would begin?

  When she pushed open the wooden gate of the house, she felt calm. Rodia started to scream that she should hurry because all the others were seated. From the kitchen there was the smell of roast beef. The first fresh figs of the season were in a bowl. She entered the dining room at ease.

  “What happened to you?” asked Mother, staring at her sternly. “We were worried.”

  “I lay down in the forest and fell asleep.”

  Everyone lifted their head for a second—half a second. Then they all began to eat. She kept her secret to herself. One by one she looked at them, and it seemed to her that each of them had a secret, too. Katerina was perhaps the only one whose secret hadn’t fully ripened yet.

  And when the bowl of figs had been emptied and Grandfather had lit his pipe and a sleepy midafternoon silence had descended on the room Maria said loudly, “I want to get married.”

  Everyone looked at her, this time for longer than a second. Aunt Theresa got up flustered, she took a few steps as if she wanted to get something, a plate, an ashtray, but then she forgot what it was. Infanta turned white. Her mother waited for an explanation. Grandfather didn’t stop smoking. Her youngest sister drew near as if in support and asked her, as if she were the head of the family, “Are you in love with someone?”

  “No,” she said, “but I want to get married.”

  Her voice sounded calm and decided.

  V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  SO THE days slipped by without our noticing. Up until now our memories and expectations were enough. But one day we woke up. No longer could we stand in the sun with our eyes half-closed, letting our skin tan, watching it get darker and darker. Nor was our morning exercise satisfying the way it used to be.

  VI. MARIA’S WEDDING

  SINCE yesterday it’s been about to rain, but the rain won’t come. It clouds over, then the sun comes out, then it clouds over again. That’s how it’s been. A few drops begin to fall but they stay hanging in the air. The trees lean in one direction, then in the other, unable to make up their minds, their roots wanting water, their leaves wanting sun. It grows dark. The sky is heavy, everything is heavy. The animals are afraid. The hens settle on their roosts. The rabbits huddle together and lick themselves. The goats look around uneasily. When Mavroukos was afraid he would tuck his short tail between his legs, his eyes pleading, one tooth showing. He wouldn’t leave my side. Of course, in the place where he is now he has nothing to fear. The gravestone above him stays put; no wind can lift it.

  Thunder. Lightning. We shut our eyes because we can’t bear the brightness. We suddenly feel cold, colder than when it snows in the winter. Silently we stare out the window, not daring to move, holding our breath, about to suffocate. We can’t bear another minute.

  Then the rain comes. We laugh with relief.

  “Welcome,” says Grandfather, “very welcome.”

  What he means is that the rain will be good for the trees.

  “Yes, very,” says Aunt Theresa, as if she were glad for the trees, when it’s really because she wants to wash her hair with rainwater.

  Mother doesn’t say anything. She met Father on a rainy day.

  I’d love to run out into the rain. But I would get wet. So I sit curled up on the couch like a cat, not thinking a thought, just listening to the rain. Something is brewing inside me that I don’t understand. It fills me with joy and agony. I only feel better if I sing or draw many circles one inside the other, or four-leafed clovers.

  “Go, get a book or your embroidery,” says Mother. “I don’t like seeing you sitting there with your arms folded.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t?”

  “I mean, I can’t.”

  She raises her icy eyes. Mother never actually gets angry, she stops herself just before that point, which is worse, it’s as if she’s smothering you. You should beat me, Mother, for my impudence. I get up to ask her for forgiveness but then I get embarrassed and stop. I look at her out of the side of my eye. She looks sad. I go over to the window and tap my fingers on the pane. I play a tune that’s popular these days. My left foot keeps the beat. Her eyes stroke my back; she has already forgiven me. Then I can’t bear it anymore. I run out of the room to cry. The rain is pouring down on me, my hair is sticking to my forehead. Mother can see me from the window, but she doesn’t call me. Time passes, and little by little I feel the sense of relief that comes with tears.

  “Katerina, have you gone crazy?”

  It’s Maria. She comes out of the house in her raincoat and takes me by the hand and pulls me inside. She is very gentle when she is not totally consumed with herself.

  “You’ll catch pneumonia. You’re soaked. Come in and I’ll dry you off.”

  I let her pull me in. She takes off my clothes piece by piece and wraps me in a white bathrobe. Her steady hands pat my body and warm me.

  “Let me be,” I say, “what does it matter to you?”

  And when she looks at me surprised, “What does it matter to you if I get sick? What’s it to you?”

  Perhaps if I got sick Mother would love me more. She would lift up my head and give me water to drink. She would beg me to eat. At night in the dark she would caress my forehead. My room would smell of medicine and flowers. And one evening when I had a really high fever I would say . . .

  “You know, sometimes you are very naughty.” Maria whispers.

  She rubs me more vigorously than before.

  “Maria, who are you going to marry?” I ask her then.

  “What do you care?” she says, and laughs.

  “Of course I care. At night before I go to sleep I think about you and Infanta, Mother and Father, and a little about Aunt Theresa and Grandfather. I ask myself what our lives will be like later, what we will do. After all we’ll have to do something, won’t we, Maria?”

  The rain had stopped. I didn’t notice exactly when. Only the trees were dripping and the drops seemed red, yellow, green in the air, the colors of the rainbow.

  “What are you trying to say, Katerina?”

  “That we shouldn’t let the sun burn our skin and the rain soak us, that . . .”

  “That we should take control of our destiny, not God, eh?”

  I grow quiet. I didn’t mean to say that. I respect God.

  “That we should take charge?” Maria says again and then waits for my answer as if her life depended on it.

  “Often I think of Prometheus and . . .”

  She bursts out laughing, and laughs like I’ve never heard her laugh again.

  “You really are crazy!” she cries. “Maybe it’s Prometheus you want to be. What do you think we are anyway? We’re just ants, you hear?”

  She gets serious for a bit. She wrinkles her eyebrows. An invisible shield protects her body. I feel that she is defending herself. But from what exactly?

  “As for me, I’m not interested in Prometheus and such tales. I want to live like the animals and plants. All the rest is fake.”

  “What rest?” I ask. “I don’t understand. As for Prometheus I only mentioned him because I remembered an essay we had to write for school: ‘How do you view Prometheus?’”

  I stand up and close myself in my shell. I don’t wrinkle my eyebrows but I stretch my neck taller and taller. Maria looks me straig
ht in the eye. She knows I’m lying.

  “You expect great things from life,” she whispers. “Not me. You see, I know that what is really important can be found in the little, everyday things.”

  She closes the door behind her noiselessly. My bathrobe has slipped off my shoulders. I look at my naked body distractedly.

  •

  Toward evening the rain began again. We didn’t expect it, nor did we expect Marios. Nevertheless, there he was. He shook out his raincoat in the kitchen and then appeared in the door of the dining room, where we were all seated around the table waiting for dark. For a moment his silhouette, as he stood there, dominated everything. It had a strange hold on the chairs, the sofa, and even on the painting of a reclining woman dreaming that hung on the opposite wall.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  We greeted him enthusiastically because we all loved Marios. I even went and got a fluffy towel and began rubbing his wet hair.

  “You’re going to hurt him that way,” said Maria, and Infanta turned and looked at her and then looked at me.

  Marios laughed.

  “No, no,” he said, “it’s good for me. Harder, Katerina. That’s it . . .”

  “If he’s a doctor he must be scared of colds.” I explained. Everyone thought that was funny and laughed, and I wished I hadn’t said it.

  “Do you think he’s like you, staying out in the rain?” says Maria.

  I think back on the afternoon. I was such a different person then. My only comfort was solitude. I could have done great things, gone without food or sleep. Now I wanted people around me to keep me warm. I felt safe because with one step I could pull on Aunt Theresa’s skirt, and Rodia was cooking rice and it smelled good. One problem with my plan to take a trip around the world is that Rodia won’t be there to cook.

  “Marios, will you eat with us tonight?” Mother suggests. “Whatever we have.”

  She leans over and tells Maria to prepare a pudding. Maria gets up. In a while Marios also gets up, just to check if the rain has stopped, though everyone can hear clearly that it hasn’t. He opens the door to the balcony and goes down the steps to the garden.