Intimate Distance (9 page)

Zeus and Chthonia, looking down. The Earth Goddess smiling. The Sky God with half-closed eyes, indifferent in his appraisal. My mother told me the story when I was very young, I didn't understand. Zeus married the Earth Goddess and wove the whole world as a mantle for her. He spread it over an oak, the world tree. There's beauty and ugliness here, good and bad in this story, haste and grace. He swiftly made her pregnant, as is the old way. She gave birth to the first being, the spherical god. He was only held together by the love principle, by the spirit of Eros. When Eros prevails, the world also is one, but when Neikos the god of discord arrives; the world crumbles, falls apart.

16

SYDNEY, SPRING, 2017

I SIT ON
the front verandah, my mother in bed behind me in the dark room. I can't tell anymore whether she's asleep or awake. She can't move at all now, not even a hand. Her mouth hangs permanently open. She looks dead. I wish she were dead – for both our sakes. Then I feel guilty again for allowing the thought.

From my vantage point I can survey the length of Darlinghurst Road, watch homeless men carousing in the park opposite and women in black drinking lattes across the road, without being seen myself. My bare feet are up on the balustrade; I look across at my mother, crinkling my eyes against the glare of the afternoon. Her eyes are open, and she seems to be looking away, out through the French doors and over the span of rooftops and trees and the greyness of the hospital. She used to tell the story of her youth in a melodic, singsong voice, entering into legend, suspending disbelief. I can appreciate the story, the history; those two strands that will not mingle. I keep them deliberately well apart, while she blurred the edges, freeing herself from truth.

I've just washed her – the homecare nurse didn't come today. Mother's hair is wet and her closed face is full of silence. Dusk settles over the narrow streets, deepening the violet shadows and the smell of wet earth. Tonight I'll leave her alone – with another pang of guilt – and go for a walk to the park with Pan. Zoi hasn't come back yet from his run, which is strange for him. It's already past six. I manoeuvre Pan through our narrow hallway. Have you got your jumper? Your ball? Satisfied he's well prepared, I close and lock the door behind us. My mother upstairs, still staring into the gathering dark.

Pan wants to walk in the gutter but I hold his hand. He points to houses and cars and exclaims at each one, trying to rhyme the words and sing them aloud. He breaks free from me and claps his hands in an ecstasy of his own making, bounces the ball into the road countless times. Finally we reach the far side of the park and I point to the waterlilies in the pond.

‘Look, Pan. Look at the beautiful flowers.'

He runs to the water. There's only one child left, with a toy sailboat, intent on the game. He navigates around the lilies, squinting into the gloom. I sit on the park bench and watch Pan, his little figure almost obscured by the shadows of trees. I sit with my hands in my lap, resting. Allow myself to close my eyes. Just for a second. There are prickles of red and light behind my lids. I exhale, pressing my stomach with one hand. Out, in. I'm slowly relaxing: a balloon letting out air in increments.

Then I feel something behind me. A presence. An alert, inquisitive regard. I don't want to open my eyes, to see who's there. I take another three long breaths, counting them.

‘Pan,' I call out, panicking.

He turns around. I swivel, peering at the bushes behind me. Nothing. I continue to watch Pan. He's fascinated by the boy with the toy sailboat. I feel the presence even stronger, as though I'm being watched from above. Hear a shuffle to my left, don't want to look. Then next to me on the bench, there Zoi is, sweaty and panting, smiling, but not at me. I can only see his profile. He's smiling at his son. His?

‘Come,' he says, almost a whisper. ‘Let's look at the lilies too.'

He turns to me, and smiles with that inclination of the head I remember so well. Pan looks up when we approach holding hands but continues to play with the boy. The lilies are large and smooth, upturned cups holding stamens of gilded powder. Beneath them are orange and black carp, coloured like butterflies, their mouths echoing the openness of the blooms. The lilypads could be big enough to stand on comfortably and one of them cradles a pool of water, partly submerged beneath its weight.

‘Listen,' Zoi says.

I look upwards, hearing birds, shivering ghosts singing themselves to sleep. The significance of his word is in the air, intangible, eluding me. I need more, need to know why I failed.

THE TV IS
on in the corner of the room at Zoi's insistence, turned down low. Pan is asleep. We watch scenes of war in Iran: shelling, bombs, crumbling houses so far away from our reality, here in Sydney together. I feel a brief kick in the stomach at the suffering of others, their anguished mouths and eternal pain. But I turn away. Mine is a compound guilt: pity at their situation and the shame of not really caring enough to do anything. Then, inevitably, I think of Pan, wonder if he's too cold, too hot or crying, and hurry up to the bedroom to check.

He sleeps on his stomach, head turned away from the thread of light where the blind doesn't quite reach the window frame. I tuck in the sheet around him. He snores softly and I touch his head, still covered with fine gold down although he's nearly four. He responds to my touch by whimpering, and I kiss his hand where it peeps out from the sheet, before leaving the door half-open behind me.

In my mother's bedroom, nothing has changed. I stroke her hands, her arms, the tissue-paper skin of her cheeks and neck. She makes no movement, but her eyes are open again. She's not looking at me. I wish I could help her, help her in a way that doesn't mean killing her. In a swift burst of rage, I bring my hand down hard onto the bedside table, hurting myself. The stinging pain makes me feel as if I've changed the amount of suffering she has to bear – however incrementally.

Downstairs, Zoi's eating a mango, immersed in the sticky pleasure of the fruit. I'm aware mangoes are almost impossible to find in Greece, but he's eating it as if he's never seen one before in his life, holding the seed in both hands, dropping it in his lap, fine orange hairs snagged between his teeth. I look away from him to the TV screen.

‘Zoi, I need you to help me do it.'

There's no answer. The mango is halfway to his mouth and his attention is caught by the figure of the Israeli president on the screen. The little man is screaming about justice and responsibility and truth and his eyes are glittering. Behind him, montage-like, come more images of desert and clouds of smoke and the charred remains of Islamic schools. A switch: Arctic sea ice melting more rapidly than before, frozen passages opening for the first time in recorded history, birds and animals dying. Governments have not heeded the warnings of scientists for a decade or more. By 2030, there will be no ice left. I lean over and turn it off.

‘I said I need you to help me. I can't do it by myself.'

‘Didn't I already bring the drugs halfway across the world for you? If someone had questioned me further, if they didn't believe my story – '

He shakes his head.

‘I risked so much and now you want more. That's just like you.'

‘Please, Zoi – I just don't know if I can do it. If you – if you ever loved me, help me do it, before you leave.'

He sighs.

‘I need a drink, Mara, if you're going to be like this.'

I walk to the kitchen, bare feet making no sound on the wooden floorboards, pour him a large whisky and then bend over, elbows resting on the table. Curse myself for attempting to ask for his help, to make him understand what I haven't yet fully worked out. To absolve myself? I stay bent over and the fear of that summer in Greece washes through my body, paralysing me.

I could turn around and go back, hand Zoi his drink, could say next that we all exist, briefly, like moths against a flame, but it wouldn't be entirely true. In truth we don't even feel the moments pass. I could tell Zoi this and he could laugh, swishing the liquid around in his glass to make the ice-chunks rattle and he could tell me not to worry about it and I could turn away tired and angry and confused and regretful and what would be the point?

He comes up behind me, drops a kiss on my ear and I jump. He chuckles, bending over the sink to wash his hands of mango, and turns in a swift movement, flicking some water at me.

‘Zoi,' I say, indulgent, inclining my head at him.

And we pretend to be friends in the quiet breathing of the kitchen. He still hasn't told me if he will help.

17

LITHOHORI, SUMMER, 2012

THE HEAT HAS
finally abated and the family gathers in Pandelina's courtyard to eat hare stew. I saw it hanging in the kitchen this morning, skinned pink, with shot in its thigh. Kiki stands at the head of the table, ladling out meat and onions and potatoes, all in a viscous liquid. She knows not to offer me any but Pandelina is not so discreet.

‘Is there nothing we can tempt you with?'

I get up and hold out my plate to Kiki.

‘I'm going to give my portion to Mimi. Can you give me some now and I'll walk over there?'

‘You can't leave now in the middle of dinner,' Kiki says. ‘We'll give her whatever's left tomorrow.'

‘No, I need to go now. Tomorrow will be too late for her to eat it fresh.'

Pandelina puts her hand on my arm.

‘Even if there are leftovers I'm not giving her any. She can eat her own food from now on.'

I'm aghast.

‘What's she ever done to you?'

‘I'm sick of helping people who don't appreciate it. She's made her own mistakes and she can pay for them. She's not having any of my food.'

I wrench my arm away.

‘Mara,' Zoi warns. ‘Leave it alone now. Sit down. Sit.'

‘Don't laugh at me, Zoi,' I spit out. ‘Don't you dare laugh at me.'

‘Nobody's laughing at you,' he says.

The way he says it, so flat and resigned and distant, makes me stop.

‘I'm going to bed. I'm not hungry.'

‘Mara.' Zoi puts his hand on my arm. ‘Stay here until we're all finished.'

‘Leave her,' Kiki says. ‘She's tired. We all forget how bad it can be in the last months.'

I leave the table without saying goodnight or looking at Zoi. On my way through the dark laneway I bump into his brother.

‘You scared me,' Dimitri says, ‘running through here like that.'

He holds my arm up high as if he's suddenly going to twist it like a naughty boy.

‘Let go of me, Dimi, I need to go to bed.'

‘Hey, what's going on? Are they persecuting you?'

‘No, they're not persecuting me. Glad you think it's so funny. I just lost it in front of everybody.'

‘Again?'

I have to laugh.

‘Come on,' he says, leading me by the hand. ‘Let's go back and face them.'

I hesitate.

‘No, Dimi, I can't. I'll just go back up to the house and try to sleep. Take care of yourself.'

He releases my hand. I watch him go. He let me refuse so easily. In the shadows, I inch slowly closer to the gathering and watch him arrive. Zoi stands up as his brother enters the lighted courtyard. He thrusts his hand out and they clasp each other for an instant. Tight fists, white knuckles. It's in that instant I can see Dimitri register the look on his brother's face, and realise that Zoi knows. Around them there are questions and talk and laughter and Kiki is ladling stew on his plate and his glass is being filled with wine. He finishes in one gulp. Flushing, he turns his head to look at Zoi. He lowers his head further until he's nose to nose and eye to eye with his brother. They could be mistaken for lovers contemplating their first kiss.

18

PANDELINA WAKES US
when it's still dark.

Time to get up. It's already past six and our driver never waits.

She claws at Zoi, who pushes her away. I'm already sitting on the edge of the bed picking sleep out of my eyes. When she's gone, we both put on our clothes with heavy movements. Zoi wets his head from a pitcher on the dresser.

Before we leave the grandfather's house, I notice that I've forgotten to take down my mother's photograph from the wall above the bed. I decide to leave it there, pressing it with my fingers more firmly against the porous stone. I don't know why I do but it feels right that the image of her should remain in the house, standing in slanted sunshine before her own narrow plot of land in Sydney, eyes squinting against the traffic dazzle from the street.

We run across the path to Pandelina's where she's made a hasty breakfast. I can't eat but drink the sage tea Pandelina brews, asking for another cup. We're in a tiny bubble of electric light here; all around us are houses and rooms of darkness where others lie asleep. Then I get up, swaying with weariness.

‘Mimi. I have to see her before we go. I forgot all about her.'

Zoi stands and puts me back in my seat.

‘We don't have time now. We'll write her a note.'

‘No, I have to see her and say goodbye.'

‘We said goodbye last night,' Zoi says, losing patience. ‘At dinner. Don't you remember?'

‘I'll tell her for you, my child,' Pandelina says. ‘Don't worry about it. Come, let's go. It's twenty past.'

She hustles us into the courtyard, thrusting bunches of basil into our hands as goodbye tokens.

‘Take this and smell it on the bus, Mara. It'll stop you from feeling sick.'

We stand at the bus stop clutching our luggage. The café opposite is dark and silent, the first time we've witnessed it so. Seeing it I'm forlorn, it's as if everything is futile now. We don't talk to each other and Pandelina is between us, hands on hips, stoically waiting too. She discourages conversation. Then there's light in the distance, the sound of a vehicle. We crane our necks forward and watch the blinking light become bigger and bigger until finally we realise it isn't the bus but a motorbike coming toward us.