Dead Europe (13 page)

He returned to the house and threw them at his wife.

—Dollars, he yelled. I will pay what it costs to feed my wife and my child. You will not go hungry.

Lucia fell on the money.

—And what about the Hebrew?

Michaelis was silent.

—We have a child now, Michaeli, we are risking him as well as ourselves.

—The Germans are losing.

—They have not lost yet.

—We gave our word.

—To a damn Hebrew! Devil take them all!

She banged her fist on the table, lashed her feet out at the empty air. Her fury was monstrous. As if possessed by Satan himself, her mouth and eyes narrowed till they were lost in a hideous mask of pale skin that stretched across her face.

Michaelis shrank back from her and closed his eyes. There was silence and then only the heavy breathing of his wife.

—And what life is there left for the little bastard? She had gone quiet, her eyes now sad and sombre, her voice pleading. His parents will be dead. Have we heard from them? Nothing. She rose, and by the kitchen hearth, she knelt and lifted the dagger. She offered it to her husband, her other hand cradling her belly. We have our own son to protect now.

Michaelis trembled, not at her words, but at the delight and hope in her demon eyes.

—I will not do it. I will not murder the boy. How can I do such a thing? I would condemn my soul.

Lucia's eyes were ablaze with fire.

—It is by protecting that bastard Hebrew that you are condemning your soul. Why do you think I have been barren for so long?

Sitting beside him, she lowered her voice and put her lips close to his ears. He felt the jolt of lust convulse his body.

—Our child is a child of God. The Hebrew belongs to the Devil. Don't you see, Husband? God has given us an opportunity to redeem ourselves for our sin. You must murder that fiend we have been protecting. Her hand had crept to his groin. It is God's will.

He shoved her hand aside, rose, his back turned to her. He was praying.

—Michaelis? Her voice was still a whisper.

His hands trembled but inside he felt calm and peace. Yes, God was a mystery and God was absurd. Was it a crime to protect the Christ Killer? Was it a crime to murder him? Only God himself knows the answer, he said to himself, and if the priests are telling the truth you will know it as well on the Day of Judgment. You made your promise to Jacova here on earth. Here on earth you will not be dishonoured. He turned and looked down at his wife. Her body was upright, she was smiling.

—I have promised to protect the boy. I will not dishonour myself.

—Then I will inform on you. Her frigid smile was steel on her lips. I will go to the Germans, Husband, and I will prostrate myself on the ground before them and confess. I will tell them how you forced me to feed and protect the Hebrew. I will tell them that you beat me if I protested. Her eyes were daring his. How many nights, how many months,
how long have I lived in fear because of this crime you have committed? Do you think I will allow one of those harpies or drunkards from the village to stumble across the Hebrew bastard and run to the Germans to betray us? They're all jealous of me, every single one of them. I will have this child. On my own if I have to.

Michaelis clenched his fist. Whore, you will do as I say. I am your husband.

Lucia's laugh rang through the cottage. Do you think you are a man? You are not a man. You are a fool. You know what the village says of you, what my brothers say of you? That fool, Michaelis Panagis, he didn't have enough sense to stay in America. The fool comes back to famine and war. That faggot, Panagis, we give him the most beautiful woman in Greece and he does not know what to do with her. She spat at his feet. And now you think you can order me to place the life of my unborn child at risk? Who do you think you are? You are not a man. I will be glad to see you hang.

—I am a man. You are the Devil. His clenched fist struck Lucia with such force that she flew from the bed and crumpled on the dirt floor. But she did not cry. As she got to her knees, she was still smiling, a trickle of blood from her bottom lip running down her chin. She licked at it and struggled to her feet.

—You kill me or you kill the Hebrew. What choice will you make, Michaeli?

She offered the dagger to him again. This time he took it and raised it to her throat. She did not shudder; she did not blink. Slowly he lowered the blade. Lucia's smile was warm.

—The crime will be on you. He felt as though he were looking down on his wife, their cottage; it was as if his soul had left his body and it was flying up high into his beloved mountain sky. His hand was still clutching the dagger and he felt its weight; it was ice in his grip, but he was far away from the man who held it. And when the man spoke, he could
hear every word clearly, but the words too were coming from somewhere far away from him.

—The crime will be on you, he repeated, still above her; he was speaking to eternity. God will judge you, not I. She was stroking his cheek, kissing his brow.

—Yes, let his blood be on me. But you will do it?

Michaelis slowly nodded.

—You are a man, Michaeli, you are a man. She was clutching his hands now. Don't you feel relief, Husband, don't you feel happiness?

His soul had descended back to earth. He pushed Lucia away in disgust. But the bitch was right; she knew his mind. He did feel relief. Soon fear would be banished, soon the Hebrew would no longer be his concern. And it was not his fault. It would not be his crime.

—I will do it tonight. Let night fall, and I will do it.

Lucia's eyes were closed and her face was upturned. She was praying. Her smile was satisfaction.

 

A strong will had been God's gift to Michaelis. To escape the derision poured on his family's circumstances, from a young age he would flee the village and spend his days on the summit, watching the sun and earth, tending herds of goats for wealthier farmers. His parents' holdings were sparse: the tiny stone cottage, three goats, a small patch of earth in the valley.

His mother had no dowry, and, worse, she was from far away. Though Maritha now spoke only Greek, though she was the most pious woman in the village when it came to the rites of the Church, everyone persisted in calling her a stranger. And as her child, he too was called names and heard the whispers behind his back. The other boys beat him mercilessly, and he in turn tried to dislike them. But Michaelis did not have the temperament or the cruelty in his character for aloofness. He wanted to laugh and play tricks, he wanted
to tease and pull the hair of the pretty girls. Knowing that his attempts at friendship would always be resisted, he chose instead to be a friend to the goats and mules, descending to the village square only when the demands of religion could not be forsaken. He had been shocked, terrified, the morning his mother had awoken him with a rough blade in her hands to shave his head, and said to him that every morning was now to be spent in the school with the other children.

He had kept his fist tightly clenched over the hard chunk of bread his father had given to him that first morning. The school was a small room at the back of the Teacher's house. Michaelis liked the Teacher. Unlike the other men in the village, Teacher never yelled at him, always stopped to greet him and his family if their paths should meet. The small room was fitted with two long tables. That first day there had been sixteen children crammed together on two pews, facing Teacher, who wore a stiff white shirt and a black bow tie. Not all the children were from the village. There were the Litras twins, Christo and Pano from Serita, which meant that their walk to school would have taken them two hours. There was Maria, Thimia and Kostas Mangis from Frousini. And there were the children who Michaelis knew. It was one of them, Nikos Hondros, who began the fight.

Nikos was older than Michaelis, and his father owned three large plots of land in the most fertile, lush fields in the valley. Nikos was tall and strong and he sat in the pew beside Michaelis. All the boys sat in the second pew; the young girls sat demurely in front of the Teacher in the first pew. The morning had been confusing and difficult. Michaelis was used to roaming the mountains in the morning, following the path of the goats. But Teacher was commanding him to stay still, to listen while he pointed to strange pieces of paper on the wall behind him. Michaelis could not stop fidgeting, could not stop tapping his foot, stretching his arms, yawning. But Teacher had instructed him to stay still, to keep quiet,
and his father had warned him before sending him off to school that morning, that if he heard that Michaelis had not obeyed the Teacher he would be thrashed when he returned home in the afternoon. So even when his bladder began to ache, even when his mind seemed as if it would fall out of his head, so weary was he of concentrating on the wall in front of him, Michaelis tried to remain as still as possible. But he could not help moving: his hands, his feet, his very toes and fingers seemed to take on a life of their own. The Teacher was now irritated.

—Panagi, what's wrong with you?

—I want to piss, sir.

—Then go and piss, my child. Or would you prefer to do it here on the floor in front of us?

The whole class tittered.

Nikos Hondros piped up.

—It's because he's an Albanian, sir. They all piss in their own houses.

Michaelis ignored the laughter and made his way to the back of the school. He heard Teacher punishing Nikos Hondros and he was glad. He squatted over the hole in the ground, pissed into the earth, and smiled as he looked up into the sky. There were birds flying, he could hear shouts from the men and women working in the fields. He did not want to return inside, to be imprisoned again by the walls of the schoolroom. Reluctantly he hitched up his pants, wiped his hand on the grass and went back inside.

His bread was missing. He had kept hold of it all through the morning but had left it on the table when he had gone outside. Teacher was still talking and the children were all quiet. Michaelis looked all around the table, checked the floor, but he could not see the bread anywhere. He heard a smothered giggle.

—Who's taken my bread? he whispered to Nikos.

The older boy shrugged his shoulders, then smiled and opened his mouth. Crumbs lined his tongue; wet chunks of chewed bread filled the gaps between his teeth. Michaelis was outraged.

—You stole it!

His shout was so loud that Teacher jumped, and dropped his ruler.

—Panagis! What the hell is happening?

Michaelis ignored the man. His face flushed, his hands became two coiled balls; he stood and looked down fiercely at Nikos Hondros. Then he dropped his fists onto the older boy's head. The fight was short. Like feral dogs they bit and scratched and tore at each other. Nikos was older and bigger but Michaelis' frenzy was such that he did not feel the blows on his flesh and he was determined to be the victor in the struggle. The older boy was equally determined not to be beaten by his weaker foe and it was only the wild kicking of Teacher that ended the duel. The man was furious. He gave them a couple of extra blows on the head. The other children were laughing and encouraging Nikos. The teacher held the boys apart.

—I'm going to tell each of your fathers to give you the thrashing of your lives.

Michaelis squirmed away from the teacher.

—He stole my bread.

—He's lying, sir. He's just an animal.

The younger boy stopped still. He was enraged by the lie.

—It's true, sir. I was sitting listening to you and he just started hitting me.

Michaelis found a word.

—Thief! he accused Nikos.

Nikos' eyes narrowed.

—Who do you think you are? Your mother's a slut foreigner and your father's an imbecile.

Two things happened. The whole class erupted into
laughter. And the teacher gave Nikos such a blow that the child lost balance and fell to the floor, smashing his head across the pew as he collapsed. The collision made a sickening thud and the class went silent.

No more argument or fighting occurred that morning but in the hushed schoolroom Michaelis heard the whispers circulate.
Poutana. Poutana. Poutana
.
Xeni xeni xeni
. He would quickly look up when the words glided past him but each head was lowered obediently to the desk, the children faithfully copying the strange notations the Teacher was making on the board. But still the word persisted. Throughout the day, Michaelis sat, his face red, his eyes wet, listening to the children call him the son of a whore.

That afternoon he returned to his house and told his mother and father that he was not meant for school. His mother fell to her knees, pleaded with him to reconsider, his father thrashed him then and again during the night and again the next morning, but Michaelis would not change his mind. Finally, his body bleeding from his father's blows, his mind slowly drifting back to consciousness, he made his promise to God. That one day his mother would hold her head up high in the village and that all the children who had mocked him would be made to bow to her. From that day he did not waver in pursuing his promise.

In the same way, in the bowels of night, terrified every time he heard the hungry howls of the wolves on the mountains, certain that the shadows that fell upon him from the trees were the shadowy limbs of demons, he did not falter from following the path to the summit. Summer had long left the village and he could feel the first bitter sting of winter. He pulled his jacket tight around his shoulders and proceeded up the slope. With every step he felt the leather sheath of the dagger slap his thigh. It only made his steps more determined. Determination had been God's gift to him.