Nicolai's Daughters (15 page)

The day Theodora told Elena she was pregnant, Elena squeezed Theodora's arm until it hurt. Theodora pulled away. “Eating a little meat is good for my grandchild. You are going to be a mother. That comes with many responsibilities. I'm sure you will manage. But it won't be easy. A child is not a toy you play with and discard like some people throw away their men.”

Andreas encouraged her to ignore Elena. “She wants the best for us.”

She argued with him at first, but started to put a few pieces of meat on her plate. She hated the texture, but shredded each slice into thin, very fine bits so she could swallow the pieces whole without allowing them to linger in her mouth. When she was alone, she packaged her leftovers, hid them in a brown bag at the back of the fridge and later dropped them off outside the market to the beggar woman who gave her a toothless smile and a sincere embrace.

Theodora released Andreas. “I have to tell you about my day.”

“Let me clean up,” he said. “I'm tired.”

“What's wrong?”

“There's always one thing or another.”

He gave her hand a peck.

Nicky ran his cars into Andreas's foot over and over again, making crashing sounds. “Is there no other place he can play?” Andreas said.

“He's happy you're home,” Theodora said. “That's all.”

Andreas tsked as if he didn't believe her. Holding onto her shoulder to support himself, he took off his shoes and then left her in the kitchen. His gamey odour hung in the air. A few minutes later she heard the familiar whistle and groan of the pipes protesting the demand for hot water.

She'd tossed her high heels into the corner by the door when she came in earlier with Alexia. Theodora liked being in her bare feet when she was in the house, even though Elena called her a
chorikos
whenever she saw her this way. “You are no better than a peasant, my dear
xanthoula
, when your feet are naked. Perhaps you don't know this. I'm so sorry I'm the one who must tell you these things.”

She picked up her shoes again and, this time, put them into the closet, beside Andreas's work shoes. She looked around the small kitchen for anything else she needed to tidy up. Like his mother, Andreas disapproved if things were not put away. “But I like clutter, I like our home to have that lived-in feel,” she said to him whenever he complained.

“That's just an excuse for a messy house.”

“Just because things are hidden away doesn't mean everything is in order.”

Theodora shook her head and reached into the closet to neatly line up her shoes. She didn't like it when she lost control and got angry with him. He'd always been her best friend. But now it seemed that her agitation with him and with Elena grew each day. Again, she thought about the conversation she'd had with her mother-in-law a few hours earlier. One day she'd win her over. Or maybe her son would put her in her place.

Theodora always knew when Andreas had had a bad day. The time he spent cleaning up helped him shed the grime, and sometimes the stress too. She promised herself she would listen to his grievances — perhaps a shipment hadn't come in, or an employee hadn't shown up, or Mrs. Makarios had yet again brought back a few scraps of beef and complained it was too tough even after she'd cooked it for several hours. Whatever it was, she would reassure him, knead his neck and shoulders, then hold him as long as he needed. She'd make sure he was fed and she'd wait her turn to tell him about Alexia. She would put Andreas first. She had made that decision long ago, shortly after one of the last times she saw her mother.

During that visit, Theodora burned the roof of her mouth on the tea she tried to sip slowly. She paced, unable to sit down. “And she has the nerve to call me
xanthoula.”

“She won't be around forever,” her mother said. “He's her son. She loves him.”

“I'm his wife,” Theodora said. “I should come first. George does that with you.”

“Don't put Andreas in the position where he has to choose. It never works.”

Theodora banged her hand on the kitchen counter. “I want to stay home sometimes on a Sunday or visit you.”

“Talk to him.” Her mother sat in her oversized chair and sipped her tea.

“He doesn't listen to what I want. He tells me to get ready so we can be on time as though we're late every Sunday. His mother must have complained to him about it like she does with everything.”

“You've told me yourself how he defends you in front of her. He's a good man. Take care of him, your relationship. You shouldn't let a good man go.”

She turned. Was her mother a little paler than usual? The chair seemed about to swallow her. “My father died. You didn't let him go,” Theodora said, sitting cross-legged at her mother's feet, resting her head on her lap. “This is not your fault.”

“I pressured him.” Her mother took another sip of tea and ran her fingers through Theodora's hair.

“What do you mean?” She looked up into her mother's eyes.

“This is all in the past.” Her mother stared out the window. “There is no point.”

“You've always blamed yourself, Mamma. And I have never understood.”

Her mother had told her that her father had died on the ship he crewed in the Aegean, a few months before they were to be married and six months before Theodora was born. Kids at school whispered that her mother never wore black like other women did who had lost their husbands. “Your father ran away,” they said. She ignored these taunts, believed her mother, even though her mother didn't like to talk about him and gave her only a few details about him, said he'd been away a great deal, and died too young for her to really know him.

When she was a child, Theodora hated him for dying and leaving her alone. George became her friend. She hinted to him, more than once, that he should marry her mother. “I'm the willing one,” George said.

Her mother poured Theodora some more tea and showed her the new outfit she'd bought for her in Athens. She seemed tired, but Theodora was too preoccupied to ask her how the doctor's visit had gone.

Theodora received the call from George early one Saturday morning as she was getting ready to go to the market. He'd found her mother on the kitchen floor, a glass shattered beside her. He knew she was already dead. “I didn't hear her get out of bed,” he said. “I might have helped. Why didn't I hear anything?”

The telephone was pressed hard against her ear. Her hand shook.

Theodora helped George organize the funeral and when that was over and done with she stayed in bed for more than two weeks. What would she do without her mother? What would life be like now?

Elena moved in with them to take care of Nicky. One night, on her way to the bathroom, Theodora overheard Elena and Andreas talking.

“Maybe she should be in a hospital. She needs more care than I can give her. I can help pay for this too. It's not a problem. I will do anything for my son's happiness.”

“She'll be fine soon,” Andreas said.

“I will take care of you and the baby,” Elena said. “Until she gets better. If she gets better.”

She heard her mother's voice again. “You shouldn't let a good man go.”

Shortly afterwards, George told Theodora he was returning to his island.

“I can't live in this place where everything reminds me of her,” he said.

“What about me?”

“You are like my own. I will come whenever you need me.”

Her mother had cousins, but she said they never liked her. “Forget about them,” she told Theodora once. “It can only bring bad feelings.”

Theodora would tolerate Elena, would take care of Andreas and Nicky. They were the only family she had.

Theodora leaned against the kitchen counter; her arms behind her, her hands folded one over the other. She tightened her buttocks as her mother had always told her to do. “Men like something firm to hold onto.” Her thighs twitched and the muscles contracted. She held her legs slightly apart, then wiggled her toes and pressed her weight down onto the floor as though trying to imprint herself on the stone.

“Alexia was nice,” Theodora said, “wasn't she, Nicky?” He lay on his stomach at her feet. Distracted by the tinny sound of smashing metal cars, he seemed not to notice her. “You too?” she said. “Go ahead, ignore your mother. Just like your father.” She bent down and moved his bangs away from his eyes. His forehead felt warm.

She scanned the small kitchen and wondered if this space would ever be what she wanted it to be. After her mother died, she'd talked to Andreas about building an extension so she could hang her mother's drawings. They were wrapped in plastic and sat in the shed.

“We don't have the money for all your fancy plans,” Andreas said. “I'm a butcher. We don't have enough bread to eat, but you still ask for a radish to open our appetites.”

“You talk to me like your mother does.” She threw her chin up defiantly.

“What she says sometimes fits. Make sure your blanket always covers your feet. Remember that old saying?”

“We're not exposed, if that's what you mean. We have the shop. We sell some crops, too. And eggs. Don't forget. We have some money saved.”

He smiled then, and stroked her hair. “You'll always be a dreamer.”

“One day we will have the best house on the street. I'll have a space for my mother's drawings and for my own photographs. Maybe even sell a few.”

“You want people to notice us,” he said. “There's no need to bring the evil eye over our heads or people's tongues to our door.”

“I don't care about these old superstitions.”

“In spite of this, I love you,” he said. “Isn't that enough?” He held her at arm's length, patted her back. “Be humble,” Andreas whispered. “It's better. Safer too.”

She wondered now if her life might have been different if her real father had lived. There was no point in thinking about these things. Even she realized the futility.

Theodora slid open a drawer. She took out the photographs she'd taken, put them on the counter and flipped through the first few. She loved the one of the old man cutting and preparing his fishing line, the stern concentration on his face, sweat on his brow. And the one of the women huddled together in the square, hands around their creased faces listening to gossip, their eyes small, droopy and resigned. Her preoccupations were about having the right light, capturing honest expressions, the smallest detail, and getting it all just so. In her photography she wanted to capture people as they were. It was fine when their anger or disgust wasn't directed at her.

Theodora rubbed her eyes. Late afternoon sunshine seeped through the undersized window above the back door, reflected off the old stove and lit the cramped space as if the electric lights were on. This was her house. Her mother had bought it for her. It was the dowry Elena had insisted her son had to have before she would allow him to marry. This was the kitchen where her new friend from Canada had been only a few hours ago. A hint of Alexia's perfume lingered and reminded Theodora of the brief conversation they had over chilled apricot juice.

“That is a nice perfume,” Theodora said. She kicked off her shoes when she walked in the house and was in her stocking feet. She poured the apricot juice, brought it to the table and sat down beside Alexia.

“It is fresh, like grass after rain.” Theodora sipped her juice and looked over at Nicky, who sat on the floor, his toys spread out around him. He played with a small box.

“I don't know how you stand this heat,” Alexia said. “I miss Vancouver's rain.”

“We get rain too, but not too much. A little in the spring, like now. Mostly in the winter. You smell like that.”

Alexia grinned. “Thanks. I'll remember that the next time I put this stuff on.”

Theodora had tried to apologize and Alexia had reassured her she was teasing. She did that sometimes, she said. “My father liked kidding people too. Blame him.”

“My husband's family is the serious type.”

“Are you like that?” Alexia leaned forward slightly in her chair.

“No. I didn't used to be.” Theodora shrugged. “Maybe now.”

“What were you like? I mean, when you were a child.”

“Happier, I believe. My mother supported all I did and my stepfather was good.”

“So what happened?”

“My mother died. I do not know, I thought things might be different.”

“I think you make your own opportunities.”

“What do you do with a mother-in-law who never thinks you are good enough? I always hear the negative — how do you say in English? — implied even when she says nice things. Perhaps I am seeing things that are not really there.”

Alexia looked away then and Theodora wondered if she had shared too much, had been too eager to push herself onto Alexia. “I am sorry to be saying all these things,” Theodora said. “Usually I am not so talkative. What must you think of me? Here everyone talks.” She gulped hard. “And so it is hard to make friends and tell them what you really think and feel. I feel comfortable with you, maybe because you don't come from here. Greeks have a saying: if you share a confidence, it spreads like olive oil.”

They watched Nicky play. Theodora offered Alexia more juice.

Alexia declined but agreed to meet for lunch the following week.

Nicky had his catcher's mitt on now and was pestering her to throw the ball. She didn't know when he had handed it to her.

“Daydreaming?” Andreas asked when he walked into the kitchen. She hadn't heard the water turn off or his heavy footsteps on the stairs.

“Feeling better?” She tucked her photographs back into the drawer, handed Nicky the ball and turned around to face Andreas.

“I'm clean,” he said.

She kissed his cheek and grabbed some plates to set the table. He smelled of the lye soap he used to scrub his hands. She'd bought him perfumed soaps and hand cream, but after they sat unopened on the bathroom counter for months she used them herself. “I'm not a woman,” he said when she asked him about it. “I want to smell like a man.”