The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (10 page)

“You need to sleep,” she said. Soothingly, she stroked his head.

“I only sleep when I’m with you,” he said. A minute passed and he was gone, tipped into sleep and softly snoring.

For a while, she held him close; the heat of sex had warmed the bed, and she was comfortable. In the hollow of his collarbone, his skin was glossed with sweat; from beneath the arm thrown back on the pillow, like a wolf through the forest his true scent came stealing, negating soap and cologne in maleness and musk. It was pleasant to her, and, dog-like, she sniffed it. But
beneath the musk, something else was there: ever-present, unmistakable—the reek of fish.

She slipped from the bed and carried her clothes to the bathroom, washing away the sticky remains of his secretions before she dressed. Quietly, she lifted a silver-embellished icon of St. Elizabeth—elderly and pregnant—from its place on the wall above the television. Listening for the sounds of Andreas’s sleeping, she unfastened the clips securing picture and frame, and removed its back. Sealed in their foil packets behind the cardboard icon, the small, white pills hidden there rattled treacherously. From a packet part-empty, she pressed a tablet from behind its seal.

She thought of Andreas all alone on some rocky beach, eating oysters to enhance his potency, and knew the magic of the oysters was no match for the opposing chemistry of the tiny pill she held. She hesitated, as she hesitated every day; she considered her uncle’s words, and doubted his assertion that a baby was the key to peace of mind.

She hated to deceive Andreas; it was unkind, and made her a dissembler she had no wish to be. It was her heart that made her do it; her heart clung hard to dreams of possibilities which could never become realities if her freedom was lost.

She swallowed the pill, and stealthily replaced the icon and its secrets on the wall. The shadows in the room moved as clouds passed across the sun, and St. Elizabeth’s face was changed; but whether she was smiling more, or frowning, Irini couldn’t say.

T
owards four o’clock, the sun was already going down, drawing the light from the valley, and from the room. She sat a while in the shadows, fighting the beginnings of an uneasy restlessness, and a need for action; but the hands of the clock had all but stopped moving, and there was no activity she could think of to speed them on towards the time when she might sleep. She made more tea, and sat with it at the window, watching, as the afternoon dragged itself into evening, unable to think of anything to do which would hasten its end, or put her out of its misery.

A
ndreas stayed at home for a week. The catch had been good; the fish was all sold; he had money in his pocket: no need to put to sea. For two days, he slept, leaving the bed only to sit at the table, and eat, until the redness left his eyes and the disorientation of sleeplessness cleared from his head.

Then each day, they visited his mother’s house, and talked about the weather and the price of fish and livestock. They put on stout shoes, and hiked the rocky mountain path to Profitis Ilias to gather oranges for marmalade. They visited the harbor chandler’s, and drank coffee in the
kafenion
where the old men chewed the fat. They walked down to Nikos’s, and sat with him for an hour or two as he spun them all the gossip he had heard.

But after seven days, Andreas was nibbled by the same
restless boredom that in his absence gnawed at Irini. It was time for him to go.

He began his preparations. He sent Irini to buy tinned meat and fish, fruit and coffee; he sat on the quayside, sewing up the rock-snagged holes in his nets.

But before he could leave, foul weather set in.

Winter was in its last days; the almond trees were already fluffed and pink with blossom. The extreme nature of the storm-force winds was unexpected. The sea exploded over the harbor walls and overran the harbor, flooding shops and houses with dirty saltwater. Screaming winds toppled power lines, and the power-station employees refused to go out to resurrect them. The electricity supply became intermittent, then deteriorated almost to non-existent. The phones were out, and no phone-company employee would leave home to investigate. All shipping was forbidden to leave port; with no boats in and no boats out, soon there was no fresh produce to be had. In the grocers’ shops, women scavenged the emptying shelves for tinned milk and pasta, which they boiled up on gas stoves and served slathered with margarine and a scraping of hard cheese. The wind shook the houses so mortar dust dropped on every surface, falling into the food as it was cooking, seasoning the food with grit as it stood on the table. Sleep was difficult; the old houses creaked and groaned, their doors and windows rattled and banged in the wind, and the wakeful lay listening for the crash of falling tiles, the crack and snap of falling trees.

Andreas anchored the boat well offshore and brought home the antiquated oil lamps from the cabin. For
warmth, he fetched the brazier from the outhouse and lit it with last summer’s charcoal. Then, he slept. He slept in his clothes; taking off only his boots, he wrapped himself in blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon and dozed and snored in the dismal bedroom.

On and on he slept. At the roadside, the eucalyptus trees, tattered bark peeling white like sunburned skin, creaking and groaning, withstood the wind; Irini sat at the window, sometimes hearing the clock of St. Thanassis toll the daylight hours as the furious wind drew breath, and waited for the storm to pass.

T
he fat man walked away from the
kafenion
, in the direction of the Seagull Hotel. As late morning drifted into the torpor of winter siesta, the seller of fruit and vegetables was sealing up his cartons of unsold produce, hauling the boxes of oranges and under-ripe tomatoes into a stone-floored storeroom already stacked with nets of brittle-skinned onions and stiff paper sacks of potatoes. The blue-painted shutters of the chandler’s shop were closed; the door of the pharmacy, firmly shut, was secured with a rusting padlock.

He passed the door of his hotel, and, rounding a bend in the harborside road, found himself in a square paved with cobbles, bounded on three sides by tall, narrow buildings. With doorways built for barrows, and wagons, the buildings’ past use as warehouses was clear; but all were now derelict, with rafters rotting beneath missing roof-tiles and cracks in the walls wide enough to take a man’s fist. Behind a grimy window, almost obscured by heavy drapes of cobwebs, a
FOR SALE
sign sagged against the casement, discolored and water-stained with the damp of years.

At a corner of the square was a kiosk, a small hut bright with advertisements for soft drinks and cigarettes, its doorway hung with cards of plastic cigarette lighters and racks of tourist maps, its shelves packed with chocolate bars, camera film and chewing gum, and, discreetly displayed behind the till, packets of Italian condoms. On a shelf at the front of the kiosk was a telephone, metered for public use; behind the narrow counter a teenage girl, pretty but determinedly unsmiling, sat cross-legged on a high stool, the phone receiver pressed between her shoulder and her ear.

As the fat man approached she said one word into the receiver.

“Wait.”

The fat man smiled at her, and asked for a pack of his brand of cigarettes.

The girl regarded him for a moment, as if contemplating refusing him service. She sighed, laid the receiver on the counter, then picked it up again and spoke into it.

“Just a minute.

“We don’t stock that brand,” she said to the fat man.

“You would be surprised,” he said, “how many tobacconists say that to me. And often they find, if they look carefully, that they do have a pack or two, after all. So I would be much obliged, my dear young lady, if you would humor me, and check.”

Again she sighed, and, turning her back on the fat man, began a desultory search amongst the stocks of cigarettes. At the very back of the highest shelf, concealed behind the popular brands, the unfamiliar name was there, copperplated
across the age-discolored paper wrapping which bound the packs together. The girl blew dust from the wrapping and ripped it open, slapping a box of his cigarettes onto the counter, where the platinum-haired starlet on the lid smiled her coy and easy smile.

“And two boxes of matches,” said the fat man, himself still smiling.

She laid them on top of his cigarettes.

“And I think I might take one of those maps. If you would be so kind.”

She reached up, and slid one of the thin documents from the display rack. She placed it on the counter beside the cigarettes and matches, and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

Reaching inside his jacket, he took out a wallet of soft calfskin and chose a high-denomination note. He handed it to the girl.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t have any less.”

She pressed four buttons on the till, and when the drawer popped open, lifted the coin box and hid the note he had given her beneath it. She released a pile of thousand-drachma notes from a spring clip, and counted out several; she scrabbled amongst the coins, and put a small pile of bronze on top of the notes.

She picked up the phone receiver.

“I wonder,” he said, smiling, “if you might have such a thing as almond chocolate? With whole nuts, rather than chopped.”

She glared at him, and laid down the receiver. She found a bar of pink-wrapped chocolate prettily decorated
with almond blossom, and placed it before him. He handed her back one of the notes she had given him.

“Could you change this for me?” he asked. “I like to make sure I keep plenty of change on me. For tips.”

She pressed two buttons on the till, and the drawer sprang open. She replaced the note he had given her within the stack, and scrabbled again amongst the coins. She placed a larger pile of bronze on the counter.

He scooped up the coins and dropped them into the pocket of his jacket.

“Thank you very much,” he said.

She picked up the receiver.

“I’m here,” she said. “
Kalé?
Are you there?”

It was clear she was hearing only the monotone of a line disconnected. Smiling, the fat man wished her good day.

By the kiosk was a litter bin. The fat man slid open first one matchbox, then the other, tipping the matches from both tinkling into the bin. He slipped the empty boxes into his jacket pocket.

Opening up the map, he might, he found, have saved his money. The map was simple as a pirates’ treasure map—land surrounded by water and a single road, snaking up from the harbor where he now stood, up the mountainside to the upper village. Here the road divided, one branch running down to the hamlet of St. Savas, the second winding through the foothills to the monastery of St. Vassilis at the island’s far tip. Beyond these settlements, through the higher mountains, broken lines denoted dirt tracks and footpaths, the only access to outlying smallholdings and isolated chapels. At the foot of the map
were a few lines of information—the island’s dimensions, and its highest point—and a list of every church, chapel and deserted monastery to be found there. One hundred and thirty-two, noted the fat man, almost every one dedicated to a different saint or martyr. And below the places of worship, a paragraph—a sentence—boldly titled “Getting About.”

“There is a regular bus service from the main port to the small port of St. Savas,” he read.

And there, he decided, was as good a place as any to begin.