Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) (9 page)
Read Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) Online
Authors: Sara Alexi
She sits again. The fish is still sitting there undigested, a weight holding her down.
‘I understand.’ Sam makes eye contact. ‘When I tried to become independent, my father treated it like a betrayal,’ he says. ‘The reality is that we accept whatever we are fed because, as children, we have to presume good intentions since the alternative is too frightening to consider. He was so proper, I presumed his way was the way, the only way.’
The sun has done nothing but grow hotter as the day has progressed, but a shiver runs the length of Irini’s spine. She sits with her legs together, her arms clamped to her sides, her hands interlocked on her knees, and her head bowed. The fish blood on the teak decking is dry now, the scales stuck.
‘I was crying one day as a boy,’ Sam offers. The tension in Irini’s locked fingers lessens as he speaks. ‘I can’t remember what for. He would cuff me, you know, like this with the back of his hand.’ Sam demonstrates throwing the back of his hand across open air. ‘The cuffs were a normal part of the day. A hit for not washing up properly, for my shirt hanging out, for not having good manners at the dinner table, for not, oh you understand, for whatever he wanted it to be for.’ Sam feels so close. She does not raise her head but she looks up at him, blinking her wet lashes.
‘This day he saw me crying, I was about five, and I could tell by the look on his face he did not like hearing me cry. Maybe he felt guilty? Maybe he did not like the show of weakness because it reminded him of his own weakness. I do not know.’ Sam stays leaning towards her until the distance between them is only a hand width. ‘He said…’ Sam falters and begins again, ‘He said "Sam…"‘
Irini looks up briefly at his use of the name she has given him, and is surprised to find that it saddens her that he chose not to use his real name.
‘"Sam, I want you to stop crying now," is what he said. "Stop crying immediately." It seemed like a very hard and cruel thing to ask.’ Sam sniffs dryly. ‘There was no concern for why I was crying but only this command to immediately stop, just to please him.’ He looks past her ear, out to the sea beyond. ‘It was so abrupt, uncaring, and I was still spinning, inside my head, trying to understand, make sense of it all when he said, "I want you to laugh." I can remember the feeling of my wide eyes and my mouth hanging open, the air I was breathing cold as I drew it in past my teeth. He always had the windows open and it was winter.’ He gives a short gruff laugh. ‘At the time, I could not understand what he was saying or why he was saying it. "Laugh, laugh now," he commanded and so I tried to laugh. You see, I wanted his love, I wanted to please him and I forced my tears to be laughter.’
They face each other, Irini seeing the reflection of herself in his eyes. ‘I surrendered myself that day, Rini,’ he says. It is the first time he has used her name, and it is soft. ‘I surrendered my sense of self in order to win his approval. Five years old and I was lost.’
She is not sure if he moves or if she does, but her little finger touches the limp flesh of his little finger, his hands clasped together. He does not pull away and she stretches out her little finger without unlocking her hands and delicately strokes his knuckles. It soothes her, comforting the child he was, not the man, in the way she once wished to be comforted. Her shoulders drop slightly and the tension around her mouth relaxes, giving a fullness to her lips.
‘After that, I felt nothing. I just went through the motions; something was broken. He did the same sort of thing again and again, challenging me to surrender, but it was no challenge. I just did as he asked every time.’ He sighs and sits back, breaking contact.
‘He was in the army.’ His voice is brisk again, back in control. ‘He went away on manoeuvres and I was left behind. No mother. She was long gone. Sometimes absent in body but always absent in spirit, eh? Then there was this one manoeuvre.’
The silence that follows is so long, Irini is about to ask if he came back.
‘Then his unit was rumoured to be returning and I was so excited, because a boy never stops needing the love of his father, no matter what.’ He seems to be quoting something he has read again, but there is a sarcastic edge to his voice.
‘I went to where the trucks were rolling in and other children were there too, jumping up and down, thrilled. We were looking into the trucks trying to see our fathers. Mothers were trying to stop their children running up before the trucks stopped. To stop any accidents, it was arranged that they drove into a cordoned-off area where we were not allowed to go. Here, they all disembarked and then walked out toward their families. When I saw my father I ran to him with my arms open, ready to hold him.’ Sam sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and slowly releases it, his whole jaw and neck in tension. ‘He would not embrace me.’
He pauses and lifts each shoulder up in turn as he rolls his head on his shoulders, unknotting his tension. ‘I thought at first it was because he was shy, so I watched all the other children with the fathers embracing and giving kisses as I followed my father to our room. I thought once we were there, in private, he would show me some affection. But even with the door closed, he would not come near me and I felt like I was nothing. I mean, if he would not love me then who would?’ He pauses for breath.
He asks his question as he leans forward again, reducing the distance between them so their fingers touch again. His eyes are red-rimmed, but they are dry.
Sam takes her hand. Irini can see them, on a bare concrete lot in an army camp, nothing to play with and without anything to do until an ugly big boy starts picking on the sensitive child with the green eyes and then everyone is suddenly entertained. Everyone except the boy with the green eyes.
‘I felt like a bubble had closed around me. I was looking out into a world that was not real and I had this thought as he spoke to me, a thought about all the heroes in the films I had watched alone in the house when my father was out. Heroes who, when they got picked on, punched the other person and everyone cheered. Still in my bubble, I can remember thinking that I had never hit anyone and I wondered what it would feel like to be my father, the aggressor.’ He has both her hands now, stroking them, soothing his own words.
‘So I turned on him and I told the boy to stop and he laughed. I thought of my father turning my tears to laughter and it was as if air had been blown into my chest and I felt as if I was going to explode. I never wanted to be like him. I wanted to be the opposite to him, do the opposite. Instead of tears to laughter, I wanted to turn laughter to tears, so I clenched up my fist and I punched him, and as my fist landed, it was my father’s face. I could see it distorting under my fist and as the blood flowed from under my fist, and even more so when I pulled back, I thought, Job done.’
His forehead tips forward and rests against hers. A silent tear drips from the end of her nose, catching the sunlight as it falls.
‘The boy staggered backwards and I walked away, away from him and away from me. I had no place to go, so I went to our accommodation. But as I walked, I was not on the ground; it was as if I was floating. My father opened the door to our unit before I even got there, and for once he was smiling, he looked so happy. He patted my shoulder. He took two beers from the fridge and he gave me one. The window was open, as usual, and I realised he had witnessed the whole thing and he was proud. It was one of the few times I can remember him opening up to me, giving me an honest response. All his stiff upper lip, all that British army reserve, gone, and for a bit, he was just my dad.’ He shakes his head, still forehead to forehead with Irini. The movement is slow and he makes a noise as if sucking his teeth.
Irini does not feel the need to speak. His words soak into her. She feels his pain. She understands. She has lived that unloved life herself.
‘Later, the boy’s father came around along with the boy and they confronted my father with my behaviour. I stayed in my room; I was scared. Whilst the two fathers were talking, and then shouting, the boy excused himself to use the toilet but instead of going into the bathroom, he came down the corridor. He saw me looking out, as I had opened my bedroom door a bit to hear. He marched up to the door and pushed it open. I was trembling, but he had no fear of me. I had just caught him off guard and to prove it, he rabbit punched me in the nose and stomped away. He and his father left almost immediately. My nose was bleeding but I stuffed it with paper and willed it to stop. All I could think was that if my father saw my bleeding nose, he would stop being so proud.’
Irini nods her head. The foreheads come apart and they look up at each other, so very close. His eyes brim with tears; his age and hardness have all peeled away. Green eyes, straight nose, broad brow, and lines by his mouth twitching into dimples even in his sadness. The touch of his lips on hers is a healing balm, all the horrors falling away, washing her clean, back to being children, unspoilt, pure. It is the lightest kiss, like a butterfly landing, splaying its wings and taking to the air again. Then his cheek and ear brush her cheek and he nuzzles into the dip between neck and shoulder like a child.
It’s difficult to tell if he is crying or not, but his body judders slightly now and again. Irini’s face is wet with tears, for the hurt to this boy, for the hurt to her, for all they have endured at the hands of those who were meant to love and protect them.
Irini watches the movement of the sea, the expanse of blues and greens. Thoughts of Petta flit through her mind but what she is doing now, for herself, is more important. Breaking away these unspoken walls is not just for her but for them, their marriage, her son, their closeness. Something in the kiss was a sign, a confirmation that she is safe now and still loveable. It holds no guilt for her; it came from the purest of motives.
The streaks of bright, reflected sun appearing and breaking up on the crest of wavelets are being replaced by slices of dark water, undulating, shifting, changing. Far away, nearer the coast, a seagull soars high in the sky, and higher again, beyond where birds can fly is the trail of a plane long gone.
His voice is muffled as he speaks into her neck.
‘After that, I knew how to be sure of his love, and the result is I am not a good man.’ He pulls away to look in her eyes.
It would be easy to say she knows he is a mercenary but that would reveal her radio contact with the port police, so she says nothing.
‘I tried very hard and I became an excellent bully. I did to the younger boys at boarding school twice what had been done to me. I did things that would scar them for life. I left one boy with a stutter, and the more people I hurt, the more the school wrote to or rang my father about my behaviour, and the prouder he seemed to be until the day I was eighteen and the door was opened and I was asked to leave, first by the school and then by my father.’
‘Where did you go?’ Irini asks, her voice small. Maybe he came to Athens. Maybe he was one of the people she knew on the street. Stranger things have happened.
‘That was the question. Where could I go? If I had ever put my needs before his, he had called me selfish, so I had no idea what my needs were or even what I liked or wanted. To gain love, I had learned to be selfless in my portrayal of the son he wanted, the son that pleased him, but it was not who I was. I have no idea who I am. I was trapped in the person I had created to gain his love. It was the only thing I could do well. So I went where I knew I could be selfless, where every decision would be made for me and the person I had created would have a use. I replaced my father with the army.’
Irini nods. Their hands are still intertwined and they grow sweaty in the sun but neither of them let go; it is their safety line.
‘My life with him, my father, was like living in a room where all the walls kept changing shape and the only window onto the outside world had distorted glass. Even though this was my reality, nothing seemed real. When I was at school, the whole military structure kept the pressure on, but he continued to add his distortions through letters and phone calls. So when I joined the army and both letters and phone calls suddenly stopped, and the walls became straight and the window clear, it was a shock and a liberty. I had found my perfect world, you understand?’ He stops. His eyebrows have raised in the middle.
‘That is how the streets felt for me. It was harsh and unforgiving and cruel, but at least it was constant and the rules were unchanging. I was not at the mercy of one other person and there was no pretence of love,’ Irini agrees, frowning as she remembers.
‘And I was good at it. I was good at taking orders, I took pride in being good at doing things others shied away from. I excelled. So when we were sent to do war games and the boys around me were shocked by the carnage, I just carried on in my own bubble, untouched by anything. It was man against man, army against army. I was promoted.’
‘I can see how that could happen,’ Irini says.
‘It was real but it was not real. And I made a friend, the first and probably last, in my life. We did not speak much but somehow we knew each other. We were sent into a war zone together.’ He begins to tell of their first deployment, a time when it was not man against man, a time when it was them against whoever – or whatever – they came across, and on that very first occasion, it was a small group of civilian houses.
In Irini’s mind, it could be Greece that he is describing, with the barren soil, the dust, the heat, but he is careful not to say where it was. The pictures he draws are very real.
They were dropped outside a cluster of houses, crudely made, wooden-framed. The sound of shells was not so far away. Their job was to clear the area and return as quickly as possible to their platoon. They were advised that if there was anybody in the houses, they would probably give the appearance of being just farmers and their families, but they must clear the houses anyway. Who knows who is who in war? Children can carry bombs and women can hold guns, so clear them all. The shelling became more distant as they reached the edge of the cluster of houses. They were a group of four, so they split into twos, Sam with his friend, and they circled the outside of the houses. The dwellings were two storeys and appeared empty, windows broken, doors swinging open, chickens pecking outside the porches.
Sam heard the shouts of ‘Clear!’ as the other pair emerged from the first building. Gun in hand, he ran into the dwelling nearest to him, through the rooms downstairs, up the stairs, and down and out again. ‘Clear,’ he called. His friend had taken the next house so Sam skipped that one and moved to the one after it. The chickens continued to peck, a skinny dog stood still in the middle of the hamlet, and other than that, nothing stirred. Sam ran in through the broken door, a sweep of the downstairs rooms, furniture still there, even plates on the table as if a family had been about to eat, now sat all but empty, only serving dust. Up the stairs, a toy on the landing, plastic with wheels and a string to pull it by, a room with a blue-striped mattress on a bed and a pile of rags.
He was about to leave when he heard a whimper. Turning, something moved! He raised his gun. Held steady. Nothing to see. He waited for another movement. Camouflaged amongst the pile of rags and bedding, something stirred. He tensed, finger ready. It was a child, no more than three, maybe four, a girl in tattered clothes, big brown eyes. Such big, brown, soulful eyes. His training kicked in and the girl was cleared. She could have been rigged; you mustn’t take the risk. Back down the stairs, he shouted out ‘Clear!’ to his comrade, and he ran, his friend in front of him, the other two in front again, all running down the street out into open countryside.
The force that hit him lifted him from the ground and pushed him back. He could not tell how far; several of his body lengths. The dust obscured all vision. It was a white-out. Crouching, he put his hand over his mouth, muffling his coughing. Sound was a target, too. With his jacket pulled over his nose, he waited for the debris to settle. From nearby came coughing and groans. A crater cut away the ground where the two soldiers ahead of him had been. Nearby was his friend lying on his back, also blown back by the blast. He was so relieved to see him alive, but the place wasn’t safe and they must move quickly.
All senses alert, he crawled across to his friend.
‘Come on; we are exposed.’ He pulled at lapel of his friend’s jacket and looked into his eyes and he noticed for the first time that they were brown. Brown like the girl’s.
There had only been a second of eye contact with the little girl and it was only now that he recognised what he had seen. It was a look of relief, relief that someone had come to rescue her. As he looked into his friend’s eyes now, there was also relief, but a different relief, and it was then that Sam saw that one of his friend’s legs was gone and the foot missing from the other. The arm of his jacket lay some way away with his hand still in it. His friend smiled.
Clutching at him, Sam told him he was fine and his buddy smiled all the more. His last words were, ‘Job done,’ as if his own death was his aim.
It was as if someone had reached down inside of him and ripped out anything that was left of his heart. His friend lay motionless now. There was nothing he could do for him. It was then that it occurred to him that he had not checked that the girl was dead. One of the first things they were taught was to always be sure. Running back to the house he had cleared, he felt the shoulder of his jacket grow wet and realised he had been injured but he ran on, into the house and up the stairs. In one movement, he scooped up the little girl and ran with her in his arms, ran and ran, back to the rendezvous with the platoon and as he arrived, he fell onto his knees in front of the field doctor and begged and begged him to do something to help her.
The doctor and sergeant and all the uniformed man froze in their occupations and they looked at him with unbelieving eyes and open mouths and only then did Sam see the girl clearly. Perfect arms and legs, smooth and tanned, one white patent leather shoe still on with a sock that needed pulling up. Her flower-patterned dress, stained but pretty, her arms hanging loosely, and her neck unblemished. The rug of matted hair that hung over his arm was long and impregnated with dust and what was left of her head.