Days Like Today (14 page)

After he’d let him out, Franklin shook his hand. He wished him luck, got back into the car and – waving once, casually – drove away.

Sherman boarded a bus. As soon as it headed out of town he realized that he’d chosen one going in the wrong direction. He stepped down at the first stop.

He’d been deposited a few yards from an ancient filling station where the gasoline tanks had been removed and the service shack was falling to pieces. A toilet, with the seat off, sat in front of the door; somebody had filled it up with dirt. Down the road were two paint-peeled houses and a broken-down tarpaper hen coop.

He started to walk. As he moved along, he tried to figure things out. He’d left, but he hadn’t left. He kept thinking about Irene.
She’s so good with the kids. She understands all that.

He could go back. If he did, he’d have to do it at night. Except – if he went back in the daytime, Franklin wouldn’t be at home. And if he picked the right time, Addie wouldn’t be there either, or the kids.
I was pretty careful, but
even if I forgot some things, he’s in the clear. Unless I tell some
body. Then it’s going to look like it was his idea all along, because
why would I want to shoot a stranger? And I’ve got his check. I
could say the money he gave me was for the killing. And I’d get
away without a jail sentence because
…
they consider me not
right in the head, so it wouldn’t be my fault. I’d say I thought he
was showing me a way I could pay back what he’d done for me.
That’s what I could say. I did kind of think that, too.

He’d seen no more than two cars in all the time he’d been walking. One of the drivers asked if he needed a lift, but Sherman waved and called out, ‘No, thanks.’ The road he was on seemed to be heading back but it wasn’t the same one he’d walked before or been driven over by the farmer who had let him hitch a ride. He’d have to keep going before he knew which direction he should take next.

She liked that house. Maybe she’d come visiting. If I said that
he’d paid me to do it, would he contest it? He’s got a lot to lose. I
don’t have that complication. Tangerines are complicated, apples
are simple. She did eat of the apple and she offered it to him. She
offered it. Because they always do. And if you aren’t quick enough,
they take it away again.

Maybe Franklin would say: ‘I’ll think about it.’

And after he’d thought, maybe he’d come gunning for me. That
would make everything easy from his point of view. If you own a
lot of woodland, you can bury a man anywhere and feel safe.

It would be best to start on Irene.

Maybe she’d just say no. In that case … But she wouldn’t, would she?
She understands all that.
He had his pistol but a shotgun would be better. Suppose he went back at night and got hold of that gun Franklin had? Do it like the last time. They’d say Franklin had shot her and then Inky, Dinky, Pinky and Twinky – one after the other: bam, bam,
bam. And then himself, like Raymond Saddler. Only no dog to worry about.

He was thirsty and he was hungry, but he kept walking.

At some time in the afternoon he came to a crossroad. There were trees bordering the road; everything else was fields. If you’d been standing in the center of one of them, you could imagine that the whole place was one huge field, even bigger than the one where he’d been trapped and destroyed years ago.

He stood where the roads intersected: at the crosspoint. For a long time he wondered which way to go, then he sat down under one of the trees. He fell asleep.

He had a dream about being killed in the war. When he woke up, he was breathing fast. He took the coin out of his pocket, tossed it up and caught it. As he threw and caught and fingered the coin, he whispered, ‘One good turn.’ In a little while it would be too dark to see what side came up, but he could still feel the picture with his thumb. He could keep turning it around, without throwing it. One good turn deserved another.

He had his knife and his revolver. There was the coin to tell him what to do: two sides to every question; and the big field where everything always ended up. He could take his time.

The crickets were chirring in the field. The light was dying from the air. Shadows came in like water on the tide. He hung in twilight, undecided: breathing in and out, and waiting for the long, languid swell of night to carry him into the darkness.

Everybody except the old man was still at breakfast when Stratis came into the room. He’d hoped that most of the family would have eaten already and that he’d be able to pour himself a cup of coffee in peace. Out of the whole bunch (Elvira, Lucian, Lydia, Zenon, Aristides, Theo, Olga, Dimitrios and Nestor), the old man – his great-grandfather – was the only one he could stand at the moment.

If the early spring hadn’t been so wet and gloomy that year, none of the others would be there. They’d be down in the country during the week and up in town only for visits. But April had been cold and rainy. And now that the weather had improved, most of the family was still in town for the week and Stratis had decided to stay at the house for a while too, although he had his own apartment.

Several months earlier, in October, he’d fallen in love with a New England girl named Julia, who was unlike any woman he’d been out with before. She came from a traditional Yankee family and she was as pretty and as blonde as a Christmas angel always neatly dressed in an expensive, preppy style: with her hair brushed back and held in a ribbon or – when she went out in the evenings – worn up. She looked like a nice, decent girl from a good family. That was what she was. She was also – or so he’d thought at the
time – fairly chaste compared to most and certainly more so than could naturally be expected of a girl whose parents didn’t go to church.

His parents went to church. His whole, gigantic family went, except for the old man. And as far as Stratis could see, not one of them believed, although they retained a respect for the institution. He lost even that after Julia said goodbye some time in February, just as he was about to propose. From the moment he’d seen her, even before their first date, he was certain that she was the girl he was going to marry but, because he hadn’t wanted to face the whole, formal family thing and all the questions and hinting that would go on afterwards, he hadn’t asked her home for a meal. He’d assumed that that would come in time.

As soon as they were sleeping together, he knew that the family introduction would be easy. But he didn’t want to share her. They were isolated and perfect together. He was even amused by the fact that she couldn’t get his name right. He once asked her, ‘Why do you keep calling me Stratos? I’m good, but I’m not that good.’

‘Good?’ she said.

‘It means an army. My name is spelled with an i, not an o. And the accent goes on the last syllable: Stratis, like MacNiece.’

But she kept forgetting. It didn’t really irritate him until the night of their big quarrel. Given his cue by some trivial remark, he told her loudly, and with plenty of colorful phrases, that he must have been crazy to think of getting married to her: she had all kinds of faults, a lot more than
he did, and she might as well hear the whole list.

She listened in silence, hurt at first, and then grim. He’d expected her to come back at him with a list of her own. But she didn’t do anything for a long time: she only continued to look at him contemptuously. And at last she said, ‘Never mind, Stratos. I’m sure you’ll find the right girl eventually.’ And she moved past him, over the threshold and down the hallway, without closing the door behind her. He thought that she was going to walk off her anger or go find a friend to complain to. But she didn’t behave in any of the ways he’d imagined. She just went.

He took his dismissal badly. He’d never had to put up with being told no. Everything had always gone smoothly for him.

For months the family teased him about her. Uncle Theo was the worst. At breakfast one day back at the beginning of April, Uncle Theo had said in a loud aside to Aunt Ariana, ‘Oh, poor Stratis, she must have said no in a big way. Look at his face.’

Like many of the men he called uncle, Uncle Theo should have been addressed as ‘Great Uncle’. The house usually contained four generations and, for the moment, a fifth had been added: Cousin Sylvie had come up from the country, bringing her new baby, Melinda. She’d decided to spend the night because nobody wanted to let go of the baby – a placid, good-tempered child who didn’t throw things across the room, scream or make sudden, awkward movements that might cause her to injure herself. Stratis was glad to have the focus of family concern shifted to someone
else. Uncle Theo’s remarks across the table were becoming outrageous.

Now that it was May and nearing the time when the relatives would prepare for their summer habits, the house down in the country had been given its spring cleaning and repainting. The two hundred and three windows had all been cleaned, the French windows leading into the courtyard had been sprayed against termites and seven cracked flagstones on the terrace had been replaced. In the bedrooms elderly great-aunts and uncles, cousins and widowed in-laws supervised the unpacking and packing of winter, spring and summer clothes. As soon as the old man moved out of town, new schedules and their timetables would go into operation. Life would continue, with weekend trips back to the city or – for some – longer vacations. Later still, the house on the beach would also be full, and the boats in use. Not every year was precisely the same; the old man’s moods had to be taken into consideration.

Stratis would be hanging around in town for as long as his grandfather stayed there. And Julia was still around, so he’d heard. He might run into her. He’d also picked up the information that she was going out with some actor who was working between parts as a waiter. Stratis had made a point of taking a look at him from a distance. The guy was a jerk. He even had a ponytail.

‘A ponytail, for God’s sake,’ Stratis said, looking at an ad in the papers.

‘They’re all the rage,’ Aunt Lydia told him. ‘The height of fashion.’

‘Only among phonies.’

‘Oh, no – even the movie stars have them. It’s considered glamorous.’

He wouldn’t waste his breath on an answer to that. Aunt Lydia satisfied her sexual longings – if they could be called that – by poring over magazine pictures of young people of both sexes.

‘Not by me,’ he said.

‘And another style is firmly established among young men – a lot of stubble on the chin and a shaved head like a Victorian convict. And a very expensive Italian suit, often pinstriped. A most peculiar combination. But the middle-aged do find young people’s fashions extraordinary.’

Aunt Lydia could not seriously be thought of as middle-aged. She was old, like all the others. She had simply made up her mind at a certain point that anything from sixty to seventy-five was middle-aged.

‘And waiters are quite chic nowadays,’ she went on. ‘All so young and good-looking. It’s a quick way to earn a living while they’re aspiring to do something else. A lot of artists make money waiting on tables: painters, singers, actors, film directors. Before they’re established, you know.’

He grunted. Uncle Theo said, ‘Don’t take it too hard, my boy.’

Aunt Lydia continued, ‘I suppose you’re right in general, in a big city like this. From the crowds I saw yesterday, you’d think everyone under forty was colorblind and not in possession of a mirror. The young have not yet developed a sense of taste. They try everything out. As they
should. They’re sometimes drawn towards the unsuitable, the cheap, the fake, the pretentious, the sentimental.’

‘Do you mean me?’ he asked.

‘Certainly not. With no disrespect intended, I was referring to the fact that your wayward young lady has chosen to move on to another and less deserving young man. I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m afraid it happens a lot. It always did. In fact, sometimes girls and boys will deliberately seek out the worthless because they aren’t ready to make a commitment – they know that they can break off that kind of thing at a moment’s notice, without any trouble.’

‘Maybe,’ he said, looking away. ‘Who knows?’ Julia had broken it off with him even faster than that: no notice at all, just quits. He stretched out a hand for part of Uncle Zenon’s newspaper.

Uncle Zenon snatched up the section he’d been saving for when he finished with his first choice; he slid it across the table to the other side of his place, where Stratis wouldn’t be able to reach it without getting up.

Stratis didn’t notice. He took what was left and began to read. The others too lapsed into silence, scanning their papers until Uncle Lucian began to talk about a play that was on in town: absolutely disgusting, and unfortunately it was impossible to obtain tickets to it; everyone said that even the scalpers couldn’t get in.

‘And this exhibition of icons looks interesting,’ Aunt Ariana said.

‘Oh, not that old stuff,’ Aunt Lydia told her.

‘They say it’s fascinating:
untypical exhibits, unusual, free
painting style, in contrast to the stereotypical idea of Byzantine
stiffness and
… I’ve got to get some new glasses … wait: here it is.
The most important show of hitherto unknown –
’

‘But it’s just icons,’ Aunt Lydia said. ‘All those dreary saints and Madonnas and so primitive and wooden-looking.’

‘So Greek.’

‘Well, you have to admit that the Italians did it better.’

‘Not better. Different. It says here –’

Uncle Theo chuckled. He found his relatives particularly diverting when they were disagreeing.

Stratis removed his conscious attention from the talk, the room, the place in general. Maybe what Aunt Lydia had really been saying was that when Julia went out with him, she was slumming, just as she was doing now with the guy who had the ponytail.

He got up without excusing himself and left the table. He was heading for the door when he heard the small, muffled thump of the rubber protector on the tip of his great-grandfather’s cane. The sound was coming from around the corner.

Stratis was the only one in the family who wasn’t afraid of the old man, whom he called grandfather, although there was an extra generation between them and – owing to the introduction of divorce and remarriage among some of his relatives – a confusing half generation: the family had one nephew older than his uncle and two aunts younger than their niece. And the whole family: all of them – whether doing well in business or retired on a solid annuity – owed their success to the old man, who thought that every one of
them, except Stratis, was useless; and he occasionally told them so in a way that could be lighthearted, but with a twist. He usually didn’t bother to point it out. It was too obvious. Among the enormous family he belonged to, his was the dominant personality and his control over the others was absolute. Even so, occasionally he’d make a play for sympathy, always with some purpose in mind. ‘I’m an old man,’ he’d say, and then pause. ‘I won’t be here much longer.’ After that, he’d add, ‘Indulge me this time,’ or, ‘Let me have my way about this. It isn’t asking much for someone who has so few years left,’ or, ‘It’s a small thing – what can it matter: such an insignificant request from an old man?’

At least he never went on about his will. Others in the family had done that. One, a great-great-aunt, had changed her will nearly every week for the last five years of her life. During that time she hadn’t paid any bills; when she finally died, the lawyers’ fees as well as the debts were taken from her estate and they were considerable. The other will-fanatic had been a man; his changeableness proceeded not from whim, nor fears of being cheated, nor as an effort to upset his descendants, but as the result of forgetfulness. His preoccupation with his will was frustrating rather than infuriating. As soon as he managed to get himself over to his lawyer’s office, he’d seem confused for a few minutes until they showed him their copy of the will. ‘I just wanted to make sure that you still had it,’ he’d say. Then, to be polite after causing everyone so much trouble, he’d have some minor item altered before he went home. No one considered his vacillations tiresome, as he was so evidently
worried about them himself. Sometimes he’d fly into rages, but just as often he’d cry. He remembered enough to realize what was happening to him. His last year was sad for all the family.

There was nothing sad about Stratis’s grandfather, the old man, Eustratirios. He was a tough old bird who had worked his way up in business until he had several million dollars, four houses, many cars and boats, two light aircraft and three rooms full of Impressionist paintings that were as good as any you could see in the museums, although they didn’t constitute a collection that could be thought large in comparison to those of the big private buyers like the Greek shipping magnates.

He owned a few other pictures, too: three Dutch landscapes and two tiny, dark Guardis, no bigger than framed snapshots; he kept those two on his desk in the country, as if they’d been a couple of family photographs. There was also an American seascape that hung on the wall of the first landing in his house on the Cape; and an icon. The icon was usually in the house in town, where it stayed hidden behind a curtain in back of the chair at his study desk. But since the painting measured only about seven by five inches, he sometimes took it with him in his briefcase if he had to stay anywhere else for the night. His study in the country, and in the house at the beach, had the same construction as the one in town: with a covered place behind the desk. When the window curtains were drawn, the line of material ran from side to side as if made of one piece.

Once, as a child, Stratis had come into his grandfather’s
study when the old man had gone out for a moment. The curtains were open and he’d seen the icon. He’d been amazed to find out that there was anything there at all. He’d always assumed that the curtained space between the two windows was a decoration. He’d never guessed that anything might be behind it other than the wall. To see that a religious painting was hidden there, housed and protected, made him wonder whether there might be some secondary reason for keeping the sacred object where it would remain concealed: perhaps it was much more valuable than it looked. Maybe it was even one of the special Madonnas said to be able to grant wishes and to cure people.

*

As soon as he found out about the icon, Stratis began to speculate about his grandfather’s beliefs. The old man railed against priests and against the idea of God, yet he kept an icon. He seemed to be so attached to it that he wouldn’t be parted from it for more than a day. Most of the time it stayed behind its curtains. Very rarely, on special feast days – at Easter, for example – it was to be seen looking out from the parted drapery, and then one could observe that it was not merely small but distinctly lacking in artistic merit.