A Life In A Moment
Read A Life In A Moment Online
Authors: Stefanos Livos
A Life In A Moment
Stefanos Livos
A Life In A Moment
Kindle
Edition
Copyright
201
3
Translated
by Dimitris Thanasoulas
Edited
by Lisa Roberts Carter
Table of contents
No
matter how long this narration may take, in reality it only lasts a
moment...
No secret
can remain hidden for ever. Silently and patiently, it waits in the
dark. It lets you build your life, carefully stacking the bricks one
by one, and then it appears. It deals its blow and everything
crumbles. That's why it remains intact and incorruptible in time,
waiting for its ultimate destiny to be revealed. Just like my family
secret.
I grew up
without parents. I knew nothing as to their whereabouts or what had
become of them. Only one person knew the secret, Aunt Urania. She
brought me up. She was the one who became a mother, just like Uncle
Haralambos, her husband, who became a father, and Natalia, her
daughter, who turned from cousin to sister.
For a good
eighteen years, she managed to hide the secret. It wasn’t that
difficult, after all. What with her mute smile whenever I asked her,
and my wearied resignation at some point, darkness thickened and the
secret drifted away into its depth. Still, there would be a day when
it fulfilled its goal.
During the
first years, her acquiescent eyes and her enigmatic smile always
baffled me, and I yearned for her to open up to me. But she would
just smile and leave. She wouldn’t breathe a word. As I grew
older, I resolved to give up on my truth-hunt. I sat under the tree
of silence, fully aware that in its shade lurked the secret of my
past.
It was
because of that secret I was estranged from the very family that had
raised me. That was my own secret. I would never confess such a thing
to them.
We
lived in the centre of our small town, on the second floor of a
privately owned block of flats. On the first floor was an apartment
my aunt intended for Natalia as her dowry, but until then she rented
it, while the ground floor was host to the family business: a
restaurant called
Horizons
.
It was
small, but as it was one of the oldest and most famous in town, it
was enough for us to make a decent living. Aunt Urania was the cook,
with Uncle Haralambos at the helm. Natalia and I were spared the
trouble of helping in any way. My aunt claimed that the best years of
our lives were still ahead of us, when we could work and be
productive. The truth is she didn’t have much confidence in our
abilities. Resigned to this, I never insisted.
I spent
most of my time reading. Not on school subjects though. I was far
from being a good student. Still, I had read almost the entire body
of classic literature. While the other children played on the
squares, Greek and English writers alike kept company with me —
Papadiamantis, Karkavitsas, Verne, Dickens and Wilde. The only woman
granted admission to our circle was Jane Austen. I would take them
all to the house by the sea, the one I would inherit when I came of
age.
It was the
paternal home of my aunt and my mother; quite remote, situated on the
outskirts of the town. It was two-storey, boasting a wooden attic,
which I used as a reading room in gloomy, wet weather. Through its
window, on my left-hand side, I could see the town in the distance,
while a few miles to my right, I could see the lighthouse —
my companion when night fell. How often we engaged in conversation...
I would ramble on about my own affairs, and, after listening silently
for ten seconds, it would send me three white flashes to signal
agreement.
When
days were warm, I would sit
outside
on the veranda — a spacious one, marble columned, with a
beautiful view of the sea. If you leaned over the railing, you could
see the sea beneath; so close that, if you stretched out your hand,
you could caress the foam of the small waves, which had slowly worn
away the massive rocks the house perched upon. The veranda soon
became my best friend, as it was the only place where I didn’t
feel estranged.
Having
exhausted the classics, I began to replace them with real people;
people my own age, who may not have been around the world in eighty
days, or were totally ignorant of Pip and Dorian Gray, but played
football, hide-and-seek and chase. A few years later, having gained
our parents’ permission to cover the distance on our bicycles,
we would gather on the veranda and talk, play and, at the same time,
grow up.
As we grew
up, I began to realise that the games we played in our childhood
would also be acted out in adulthood, albeit in different ways. So,
in hide-and-seek, we no longer searched for a hideout, but for our
hidden feelings and thoughts. In the game of chase, we wouldn’t
run to evade capture, but to escape our problems and ourselves.
Such were
the games we would later play with Michalis, Thanos and Natalia. The
two boys had grown up together, though I only met them towards the
end of primary school when I changed classes — my desk next to
theirs. Every morning we talked incessantly, hanging our gossip as if
to dry like linen on the line, trying to hide it from the teacher,
who lay in ambush like a wicked laundry thief.
Natalia
was the Jane Austen of the company. A year our junior, she was our
protégé, and, in return for our protection, she would
give us advice about other girls. Natalia was a wild animal only time
could tame, but though she seemed to be a tiger, inside her there was
something of the cat’s wise charm. That’s why her advice
was always right.
It was
Natalia who became my advisor when Ellie arrived in our lives. Only
Thanos had known her before, as their parents were friends. They were
moving to our town thanks to her father’s transfer — as a
bank manager — and, eventually, they would rent the flat on our
first floor.
I was
fifteen, and that was the first time it had ever dawned on me that
nothing in life is random.
She was a
tall, slender girl with long, black, straight hair. Her eyes were
black, too, and the glance emerging from their depth was expressive
and inquisitive. Elegant and charming, she stole my heart from the
word go.
«So,
let’s go see the flat», said my aunt and stood bolt
upright, after she had offered them coffee and biscuits made by
Natalia.
We
all followed her to the first floor. She unlocked and we stepped into
a sunny flat that had nothing to do with the other
filthy
flats in town
, as Ellie’s mother
said. We opened all the windows and cool, fresh air filled the room.
While the
two women were viewing the rooms, Natalia, Ellie and I stood in the
hall, trying to break the ice. Then, no sooner had we uttered a word
when Aunt’s voice interrupted us.
«Natalia,
can you, please, go upstairs to fetch the measuring tape?»
Natalia
looked at us somewhat apologetically and went upstairs.
Ellie eyed
me uncomfortably.
«It’s
measuring time...»
When I
signalled incomprehension, she continued:
«We’ve
got a huge fridge and she wants to make sure it can fit in the
kitchen. She’s already rejected three flats because there
wasn’t enough room.»
I smiled
and, both finding nothing to contribute to the discussion, we stuck
fast in the bitter honey of embarrassment.
«You
know, Thanos has praised everyone here, but he thinks the world of
you. I think he admires you, more than anyone else.»
I smiled
but, once again, I said nothing. There were thousands of things I
could say, but not even one sprang from my mouth. I avoided —
and I still do — thinking what a wet blanket she must have
taken me for.
«Anyway,
even if we don’t rent the flat, I need new friends now that
we’re moving in town, so I guess we’ll be in touch quite
often.»
I didn’t
know if she was expecting an answer, but I didn’t return one.
All she got were a few furtive glances and two awkward smiles. I was
generous, God forbid!
Fortunately,
Natalia didn’t take long to appear. She passed by, measuring
tape in hand, and came back to us two minutes later to announce the
good news.
«If
I’m not mistaken, you’re going to rent the flat.»
«Oh,
it seems there’s room for the fridge», Ellie joked
smilingly.
I
responded to her joke, but Natalia gave us a look of incomprehension,
until I put her in the picture.
We were
all taken aback when the fridge arrived. It was really huge, a closet
equipped with a cooling mechanism. It was a wedding present for her
parents from Ellie’s uncle. It was a sixteen-year-old fridge,
but ran like clockwork. It had become a family member as it
accommodated a whole month’s bulk of bread. They just couldn’t
part with it.
To gauge
its size, each of us in turn climbed inside, with the exception of
Thanos, who was obviously scared, but artfully claimed we were all
too old for such nonsense.
Armed with
the certainty that time affords, I dare now say that I owe the whole
journey of my life to that fridge…
As days
went by, I began to realise I was infatuated with Ellie. It was the
first time I had ever felt this way. I know I was clumsy by nature,
but she was gorgeous and such a delight. Sparks flew everywhere.
When she
met Michalis, I couldn’t help but be jealous. I knew he had a
way with girls. No matter what Dickens had told me about Estella, or
Jane Austen about Elisabeth, I didn’t feel strong enough to
claim Ellie’s castle. Imagining I’d been born a loser, I
gave up from the start.
The first
time we were all together, at the house by the sea, and Michalis
offered to show her around, I sat paralysed, facing her puzzled look.
Jealousy mixed with shame and diluted with drops of cowardliness. No
matter how bitter the mixture became, I swallowed it.
What’s
coming will come, and we’ll meet it when it does
,
I thought. I survived on this one thought alone.
Thankfully,
I would see her quite often, as she came up to our flat and sat in
Natalia’s room for hours on end. While the two friends chatted,
and though I knew she was there, I always pretended to be surprised
to see her. More often than not, they would ask me to stay with them,
which I always did, except for the times when I acted tough,
pretending to be busy. It was then that we got to know each other
better. It was then that I noticed our eyes locked much too often
with each other’s.
One day,
needing to return a book to the library, I found myself at the
counter before the sombre Head Librarian. I had given him the book I
was returning, along with my library card, and he looked over the
lending registry, without uttering a single word.
Observing
him, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. His movements were
slow, a snail’s pace, as though he wanted to fill the empty
time he had to spend in there. He wouldn’t go straight to the
date written on the lending card. He began by minutely checking the
records of the previous fifteen days, moving his finger down one line
a minute, until he reached the correct date. Then, he opened up his
drawer, took out a pen, slowly jotted down what he had to, put the
pen back in the drawer, shut it, cast an eye over what he’d
written — lest he find a terrible mistake — and when he
had ascertained that he’d averted the destruction of the world,
he gave me back the card.
I barely
restrained myself from laughter, when he looked at me through his
thick shortsighted glasses and fluttered his eyes, which were ready
to flee.
