Let Me Explain You (35 page)

“I am not giving you a job. Go wash dishes, if you want to be in the business.”

Marina pushed the saucer toward him. “You men, always thinking there is room for your
phallos
in the profits. Stavro, take it out of the discussion.”

That was it. He picked up her suitcase, put it out the door. It was bad manners to keep a Greek from finishing his coffee, so Stavros picked up the mug, too, and he left it at the doorstep. She watched him lock her out. He was alone again in the darkness of the restaurant, trying to take a breath. He could at least have called her a cab. But he was not going to do favors for anyone who came to his establishment to tell him he was a failure.

He picked up the plate and brought it to his nose. It was commanding him to put its final morsels to his lips, where they melted in seconds. The remaining juices he scooped up with the only thing left on the counter—a citrusy rind—and he sucked it until it was like papers in his mouth.

The next morning, Marina was in his kitchen. She had arrived much earlier than six, with foodstuffs from who knew where, orders lined up from who knew who. Bacon and eggs for the salesmen? Pancakes with berries the size of bumblebees for the steelworkers? Lunch boxes for the truckers, so they could get two for the price of two? Yes, customers were today's special on Marina's menu. More customers than he had ever faced alone. Most of all, the place was clean. All the salt in the crevices, all the thick salty paste coating the burners and the boards and the counters, it had been wiped clean. She had scrubbed it all away, she had kept it out of the cooking—something that in his overworked, alienated state, he had never been able to manage.

“How did you get in?”

“Front door.”

Vlaka
, he knew how she got in—that lock was more a suggestion than a law, as was, apparently, his refusal to hire her. But they were so busy, such a rush, how could he dismiss her? Look at the amount of lunch boxes that were going out. (Lunch boxes? He had never made such a thing.) Look at the amount of people coming to sit in his salt shed, knowing Marina by name, waiting for an empty seat to flash its big welcome smile. One man, a trucker who stopped by on Fridays, said, “This must be why all the foreigners keep their wives in the kitchen.”

“He's not my husband,” Marina said, waving her spatula. “I don't marry ugly men if they aren't American citizens.”

The truckers liked that one.

Stavros was not used to this, someone being commanding and irreverent in his business. He saw that the truckers liked the way Marina pushed around the place, and he privately decided that tomorrow—Marina or no Marina—he would make jokes with the men, too.

Stavros put out menus and glasses of water. To keep from losing business he turned an unfixed cabinet on its side and made it into a third table. He grabbed his keys to buy more eggs, which were always running out by this time, only to find that Marina had three extra cartons in a refrigerator behind the building. (The refrigerator, who knew where that came from.) He took off his
jaketa
. By ten thirty, he realized his waiter/host/busboy wasn't coming in. This employee had never even been two minutes late. Stavros had made sure of it, telling him he'd lose not only this job, but the one at Hero's, too.

“I sent him home. All he was good for was being in the way.”

“But he's my server.”

“Actually, you're your server,” Marina said. “And now, one less mouth to pay.”

By lunch, Stavros told himself. By lunch, she will be gone. But lunch was busier than breakfast, and dinner was busier than lunch. This was because the men who had come at 6:00 a.m. had told their buddies to come at twelve, and those buddies had recommended the evening shift at seven. It wasn't the bite-wait-bite that Stavros was used to. At the end of the night, Stavros opened the till. Six hundred and thirty dollars. Seven times what yesterday was worth. But now there were two of them, and he would have to split the profits. He would never have agreed to fifty percent, but look what she had brought in. A business. He would get her down to twenty percent, plus maybe some days off, his mentorship.

Marina was cleaning grease off of the stovetop. Her hair was wet against her head. “Come have some stew,” she said, “the tomorrow special.”

He sat down with her at the cabinet table. She scooped out a pailful, and he started eating even before she got him a spoon. Neither of them had taken a break all day, not even a white cracker in their mouths.

“Good day,” she said. She was eating with her mouth open, too, she was just as unworried about being polite. This was kitchen, not dining etiquette. This was eating as hungry equals.

He nodded. “Better than average.”

From her pocket, she pulled out a crinkled paper. “Here is a receipt for the food,” she said. “I will take my half of what's left.”

He kept eating. He used his collar to wipe his mouth. “Marina, I wouldn't give my own father fifty percent.”

She kept eating, too. “I wouldn't give that to my father, either.”

“You think I can afford any villager that knocks on my door?”

“I'm no villager.”

The stew kept opening and shutting drawers for him, like he was searching for something and finding it, then looking again, rummaging not with his hands but with his tongue. He figured out, finally, what it was. A blanket his grandmother had made out of rabbit. That was what Marina had added to the stew. The knowledge of that blanket, as if it still existed.

Still, this was about money. He had children. “Two hundred for food leaves two hundred for you, two hundred for me. Why would I open a business just to pay my staff the same amount that I make as boss?”

“Partners, not staff.”

“Staff, not partners.” He pushed away the bowl. But he was too hungry, too eager to pull the blanket back up, and he returned the spoon to his mouth. “I have to start my life, Marina. I have to get going. I can't be kept down fifty percent of the time.”

“This is your life: you are having a life. This counts. And six hundred dollars is a nice shove forward, considering yesterday you pulled in eighty-three dollars.”

How did she know?

Marina leaned in. She took his hands in her own damp ones, something that surprised him, something she would have never done before today, and suddenly their acquaintanceship was more like roots. Suddenly their shared meal was a shared meal.

She said, “I know what kind of problems you're having with the Galaktoboureko. No one else knows, and no one needs to know. But I am telling you, Stavro, we can fix it. Marina does not make promises that go teethless. Marina's words leave marks.”

He closed his mouth. Still, it quivered.

“Six hundred is just day one. Day two, it will be eight hundred. Day seven hundred, it will be eight thousand.”

How was she giving at exactly the same moment that she was taking? How was this, again, the place where he found himself to be with the woman in his life? Still, he nodded. The nod was made of bone, but it was an agreement.

“OK, you get a big chunk of the profit. I will give you that. But the business is mine. The business is always mine.”

Marina sat back. She patted the top of his hand.

Stavros let his spoon sink into the stew and crushed his face into his hands. Always, one step up, one step back. Everyone in his life, letting him keep his arms so that they could turn around and steal the legs. Taking away sons to give him daughters. Taking away even daughters. He could not help it, he began to weep.

Marina was quiet. To keep them from embarrassment, she continued to eat. She said, “You will bring them home, Stavro. It will not be the last thing you do.”

For the first time, he felt he could speak the pressure out loud. “Every month, I think I am one month closer.”

“That's exactly what you are. Because if it's one thing I know about Stavros Stavros Mavrakis, it's that he was born a stubborn Greek who gets what he wants.”

“Stubborn? You calling me stubborn?”

“Like my father and my father's mule and my mule's father.”

Stavros's face slipped, and he laughed behind his hands. “Good thing it takes two stubborn Greeks to run a diner.”

Marina ladled them each another cupful, then said, “No more eating the profits.”

They cleared the table, chopped onions, mopped the floor. At the end of the night—too close to the next morning—she returned the scarf to her neck, as she would every night when work was done. Knotted tight around her neck, it made Marina ten years older. A woman unable to relax, an immigrant with money on her mind.

That made two of them. Here they were, two foreigners and a salt shed, all trying hard to be what they were never, and always, meant to be.

We were told He Will Come Back Tomorrow. Tomorrow We Were Told, He Is Working, Always Working. He Is Coming with Christmas. He Is Making a House for You, Plank by Plank. He Is Cooking
Tyropeta,
and When He Makes Enough to Feed the New York, He Will Come for His
Kouklares
. He Is Helping Your Sick Mother Get Better. He Has Shingles, Very Painful, Very Worried for You and Wanting the Best. Soon,
Koukla,
Soon. He Is Coming after You Finish Your Porridge. He Is Coming When You Stop Crying and Stomping Your Feet. He Will Be Here the Minute You Don't Pee the Bed Anymore. He Is Coming When He Can Come for Good Girls. He Is Coming When You Answer Back with English & Not the Angry Spoons of Greek. He Is Coming When That Star Moves to That Black Space. See Him? He Is on His Way. He Is Just Greetings Away, One English Word Away. He Is Never So Near, He Can Hold the Rain Back with Nothing More than a Shrug. He Is Not Afraid of Nightmares, He Will Conquer Them for You. He Is So Close, You Can Touch His Strange Animal Beard. You Can Hear the Approaching of His Footsteps in Your Own Throat. He Is Coming. He Is Coming. He Is Coming. He Is Coming.

Marina has a story to tell, too.

Marina has her own dream.

Marina comes to work today, every day. Marina misses no work. Work is the moon that hangs the day. The moon is the crescent sickle that hangs the day. The moon tells Marina, Get up, use your fingers and your rosy brain. Even when the wake-up moon is shrouded in coal, Marina gets up. Summoned, chosen. Work helps you understand that a day has just happened to you, that you have been lucky enough. Work, not sun, marks our orbit.

Marina prays before the sun can make its interruptions. When she was younger, the prayer had words to it, but now words are not necessary. The prayer is in the breathing, which she says
Pay attention to, because the prayer keeps each of you between its breaths.
When Marina prays, she thanks for many things, which includes the pig she will kill today. Marina pats the hind of the pig, which sounds like dough being slapped onto a board. Each day, for sixty or more years, a pig's hindquarters have sounded like this to Marina. The quiet is nice, too, for Marina. The moon. Maybe one time it reflected the things missing, and one time reminded her of someone she left behind, someone whose skin feels like cork, but Marina is not a lonely woman these days. Look at all she has built, all the life that she has come by. Even this person she has left behind, the one who could massage the stone out of her chest, even this person would be honored and hold no regrets.

The dream-sky gets clearer, and Marina knows that it is time for
kafe
with Stavros Stavros. She knows that he will come down from his apartment, and that if it is not raining or very cold, and today it is not, they will sit on each side of the picnic table and make lists and ask each other the names of the customers they are continuously forgetting, and Marina will prod Stavros Stavros to tell her what is new with the girls, and he will remain vague because he does not have a head for it, and she will craft her own understanding of their lives from the shavings of detail he gives. Her girls—she's watched with growing pains. She will think of them through his complaints while he makes the
kafe
, the one thing he does for the two of them because it is his kind of prayer, Marina has come to realize. Marina will shake out her apron and tie it to her, and then Stavros will retie it as he walks by, almost without thinking, because her hands, which can fillet a bulb of garlic, have trouble with knots these days.

Stavros Stavros thinks of work the way she thinks of work. Not even when his youngest was born did he take a day off.

Because at their core people are always who they were, Stavros Stavros will tend to the goat, which is standing in the corner of the lot and scraping against a tree. The day will be getting louder, it will be full of crispy promise for the simple fact that it is a day, and then they will talk business and ingredients very close to spoiling, which must be turned into specials.

But, of course, Stavros Stavros does not come.

It is four days, Stavros missing.

Until now, she has only laughed about living until we say goodbye.

Marina boils the
kafe
, cuts two thumbs of cheese, and spoons out a clot of honey. This happens very fast, all at once.

Marina takes the wooden stairs to the apartment. She stands on the top step, which is larger than the others, and which has one flower in a pot. Marina knocks on the glass, which is obscured by a shade. Marina tries the door, which is unlocked. She feels already that it is an empty place, that it is like a carcass rather than an animal; she will not find her boss and partner here. Foolishly, Marina enters calling for Stavros Stavros, and because it is a trembling voice, she does not believe it belongs to her.

The bathroom, it is empty except for a wet towel curled on the floor like a dog. The bedroom, it is unmade, but she can smell cologne on the collars of hanging shirts. The hall is dark. The kitchen—the kitchen. This is Marina's fear, because the kitchen is where Marina was born, and the kitchen is where Marina will die. So Marina feels for the light switch before she looks. Marina turns her face to the particleboard cabinets before she will look at the table or floor. She tries to feel, rather than see. She trusts her peripheral vision to tell her what is to come, what there is left to work through.