The Clover House (32 page)

“Not at all.” She shakes her head. “It’s progress, Paki. They’ll keep a ferry or two for those who don’t want to pay the toll, but the country’s moving on. Nikos and I plan to be on that bridge the very first day it opens.”

My eyes sting as I hear her say this—the image of the two of them, Forgiving and Contrite, moving on into a shared future. I can’t say anything to her for a while, and she seems to sense this. We watch the boat’s wake curling a blinding white out of the dark-blue water.

Nafpaktos is just a few minutes’ drive down a winding two-lane road along the coast. We arrive after the lunchtime
rush and park on a side street running off the embankment road. We walk back to the almost circular harbor ringed by several tavernas. Their tables look out at the thick stone walls that reach out like protective arms from the jetties on either side. We find a spot by the seawall and order fish and fried potatoes and a salad.

“Should we get wine?” I ask Aliki.

“If you want.”

I order a carafe of white, pretending that this hasn’t become an issue.

We sit looking out at the calm water within the harbor and the white-dotted deep blue of the waves beyond. The Battle of Lepanto was fought here, I know, but I can’t remember against whom. I don’t bother to ask Aliki; I have had too much history for one day. It is a little too cool to be sitting outside, but we wrap our jackets tight around us and make do as the waiter brings us two plates of filleted whole fish and a salad bowl of artichoke hearts in oil and vinegar. The fries smell of olive oil and salt and crunch in our teeth.

“This is nice, Paki,” Aliki says, reaching for her wine. “I wish you were staying longer.”

“I didn’t tell you. I’ve changed my flight after all. I leave on Tuesday.”

“Good! You’ll be here for Clean Monday.”

“That’s not why. I have too much to do on Nestor’s stuff.”

“And,” she says, pointing a fry at me with her fork, “you can put off going home to Jonah.”

I concentrate on my fish, searching for bones. I take a drink of wine.

“Aliki, did you notice anything funny about Sophia today?”

“No, but I was doing stuff with Demetra.”

“She kept getting all serious and saying things must be said.” I intone this last part.

“What else is new.”

“I found this box in Nestor’s house. I think my mother wants it, but she won’t talk about it.”

“What’s in it?”

I tell her about gathering the spilled contents of the upturned box and about my theory that somehow it and Nestor’s will and the photograph of the young man are all connected to my mother’s past. She shakes her head.

“I don’t think it works that way, Paki. People’s lives aren’t that straightforward.”

“This isn’t straightforward. I wish it were.”

“Not straightforward, then. Clear. You’re assuming that these objects have an exact correlation to some event or some message from the past. But think of it. Most of us don’t even have clear lives in the present. How much more confused do our stories get when a few years go by? Or when we hand the stories down? Our mothers’ stories. They’ve been told so many times it’s a wonder they can still hold together. You use something that much, it’s bound to wear thin.”

“You don’t believe our mothers’ stories?”

“Sure I do. Just not as pure fact. They stopped being that a long time ago. Now they’re just good stories. Which is fine.”

“Don’t you want to know?”

“If I thought I really could know, maybe. But I don’t think I can. So what’s the point? I’d rather talk with my mother about what Demetra did today, or about the parade yesterday, or about the liturgy for Forgiveness Sunday.”

“You need to understand, Aliki, that it’s different for me. I don’t have a present with my mother. You know that. All I
have—all I ever had—was her past. My whole life I’ve felt like I was listening for the rules of the game, waiting for her to give me the password to take me back to her childhood. Because that was the only place she ever wanted to be. But I could never hear what I was hoping for. It was as if she was standing at the mouth of a cave, telling her stories from there but keeping me from getting inside. Now there’s this box and she seems to care about it and it seems to mean something important. Maybe if I can figure out what it means, it will make a difference.”

I drink more wine and stare out at the harbor, where a brightly painted fishing boat is making its way in through the arms of the jetties. Aliki sets her fork down and puts her hand on mine.

“I’m sorry, Paki,” she says. “You should do what you think makes sense. Tell me if you need my help.”

I shrug, self-pitying now. “It’s all right. You just have a different point of view.”

I think about the missing drain in the basement of the old house, where this whole trip to Patras seems to have started. Shouldn’t that have been lesson enough that stories aren’t reliable, that memories shift like sand?

I
sit in the living room, pretending to read, while Nikos and Aliki are getting ready for their party. They exchange very few words and fewer glances as they come and go from the bathroom to the bedroom to the hallway mirror. Still, they don’t seem tense. It is instead as if they have returned to a familiar orbit, Nikos revolving around his wife with just enough separation from her to avoid being sucked in.

“You’re staying in?” Aliki asks, but it is a reminder, not a question.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I give her a tired smile. I almost tell her how much I’m enjoying watching the two of them get ready, basking in their quiet contentment.

Nikos is in his tux again, and Aliki has put on a cocktail dress of green satin with an empire waist that makes her look taller. Around her neck is a choker with a large topaz at its center. She sees me looking at it.

“My mother’s,” she says, touching it briefly, as if to make sure it is still there.

“Aliki, the ring I told you about. It’s topaz.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Sophia has a bracelet,” she says. “Topaz.
Yiayiá
gave one to each daughter.” She is animated now. “Of course:
Mamá
had the necklace, Sophia had the bracelet, and Clio had the ring. That’s your mother’s ring, Paki. I bet that’s what she wants and she thinks it will sound greedy to ask for it.”

“So what’s it doing in Nestor’s box?”

“Find out. There’s your assignment.”

I think of all the other things that have ended up in houses other than my mother’s. Has this ring, like those objects, been taken away? Or has it been given?

“See you later, if you’re up,” Aliki says, throwing a garnet wrap around her shoulders.

“You look gorgeous, you know.”

She smiles back at me.

I read for a while once they are gone and then switch to television, surfing through old Carnival footage to a rerun of
Law & Order
dubbed into Greek. But the emotions of the day have exhausted me, and even my thoughts of the three topaz stones scattered among the sisters can’t keep my eyes from closing. I am on my way to bed when the phone rings and I answer it.

“Callie!”

I freeze at the sound of Anna’s voice.

“Where’ve you been all this time?” she says. “Come out with us.” I wait for sarcasm in her tone, but she is cheerful and sincere.

“Where are you?”

I hear music and shouting in the background.

“The Bourbouli. Come meet us in the square. You shouldn’t miss the Bourbouli. The Bourbouli is the best part of Carnival.”

She is drunk. For a moment I envy her, imagining the sweet release of intoxication.

“I can’t,” I tell her. “I’m exhausted.”

“Stelios wants you to come. And Maki and Andreas. We want to show our American friend what Carnival is all about. Here, wait.”

The phone rustles and then Stelios’s voice comes on the line.

“Did you hear that?” he says. “She wants you to come.”

“She has no idea about last night, does she?”

“I told you. It’s all right. She wants you to come.” He lowers his voice. “
I
want you to come.”

“Forget it, Stelios.”

“I’ll make you get off,” he goes on, “right there at the Bourbouli.”

“Fuck you.”

“We could do that too.”

“No,” I say. “Fuck you and don’t call me again.”

I hang up and stand by the phone, bracing myself for another ring. After several minutes, there is still no call, so I go to bed. They will all have gone into the Apollon Theatre now and paired off with people they do not know and whose faces they cannot see.

I’m drifting into sleep when I hear noises coming from the
foyer. Sitting up, I realize that the sound is coming from outside the apartment, and it’s a man’s voice speaking softly while he seems to fumble with the lock.

“Hold on,” I grumble. Nikos must have lost the key, and I’ll be able to get back at him tomorrow about how much he had to drink.

Hoping to stay half asleep, I don’t switch the light on but just open the door and head back to bed. Someone yanks my arm back. I turn, ready to yell at Nikos, but it’s Stelios who is holding me by the upper arm, twisting my skin.

“Stelios, what the fuck?” My voice comes out like a stage whisper.

“Is that a nice way to greet me?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you, Calliope. I couldn’t stay away.”

He’s still holding on to my arm and now grabs my other one, pushing me farther into the apartment. In the light from the street, I can see that he’s moving with the looseness of alcohol, though his gaze is focused, intense.

“So here’s another Notaris property. Let’s have a tour.”

“Stelios, you need to leave.”

He looks around quickly. “You’re alone, aren’t you? Family left you behind?” He pulls me close, pushes my hair off my face. “That’s all right. More room for us.”

“I told you we were done, Stelios.”

“So prudish. This is Carnival, Calliope. Once is never enough.”

He presses his mouth onto mine and reaches under my T-shirt. I don’t have the angle to kick him in the balls, and I know that if I do I’ll have only a minute before he’s up again. I need to get him to the door, where maybe I can thump his nuts and shove him out while he’s groaning on the ground.

I let him feel my body relax and I kiss him back. He pauses, surprised, and renews his efforts. His mouth tastes sour and his stubble scrapes my face. I shuffle us toward the foyer. Let him think I’m headed for a bed. He tugs on my T-shirt. I see an opportunity. I join in, step away from him, and pull the shirt over my head. He comes toward me again, and as he kisses my breasts, I spin around slowly so that his back is toward the door.

“Now you,” I say, and make as if I’m reaching for his belt. And then I swing my knee into his balls. He crumples, whining through clenched teeth. I open the door and start to shove him into the hallway.

“Callie, what on earth are you doing?”

It’s Aliki, and behind her is Nikos, just coming out of the elevator. I am standing topless in the hallway over a drunken man who is clutching his groin. This does not look good.

“Who is this asshole?” Nikos says, grabbing Stelios and heaving him to his feet. “Is this the guy, cousin?”

I nod.

“So you’re the guy.” He throws Stelios up against the wall.

“Easy, man,” Stelios manages.

“Nikos, quiet,” Aliki says. She comes over to me and folds her garnet wrap around me.

“Oh, no, Aliki. There’s no need to be quiet. This—what’s his name?”

“Stelios,” I say. “Stelios Pappamichaïl.”

“This Stelios Pappamichaïl deserves for everyone to know what kind of scum asshole fucker he is.”

Nikos jams Stelios’s head back and sticks his nose into Stelios’s face, Nikos’s round features right up against Stelios’s sharp ones.

“Listen, you fucker. You come near my family again and I
know ten guys who will have a great time beating the crap out of you while the police look the other way. You understand?” He shoves him again. “You understand?”

Stelios nods. Nikos walks away, making a show that Stelios is no longer dangerous, and calls the elevator from its return to the lobby. We wait for what seems like an eternity—an odd-looking group for the neighbor who I’m sure is peeking through the peephole at us. Aliki in her lovely gown, me in her wrap and a thong, Stelios rumpled and sweating, and Nikos hulking but impeccable in his tuxedo. Finally the elevator clanks into place, and I hold the door open while Nikos shoves Stelios in. He leans over and presses the ground-floor button.

“You even try to come back and I will make it so your mother won’t recognize you.”

We watch the elevator descend, then go back into the apartment. Aliki turns on the light and starts to move me toward my room. Nikos picks up my T-shirt from the floor and hands it to me.

“In case you change your mind about the topless thing,” he says, putting on a wistful face.

Aliki asks me if I’m all right and if I want to explain anything. I haven’t taken it all in yet.

“
Make it so your mother won’t recognize you
? Where did he pull that one from?”

“He watches a lot of movies,” Aliki says. We try to laugh.

“I’m so sorry, Aliki.”

“Why are
you
sorry?”

I shake my head. “If Demetra had been here—”

She puts her hand on my arm to silence me. But I can see it in her face. She is thinking the same thing.

“I’m really sorry,” I say again. “I brought this to your home. I made this happen.”

“Calliope, if a man does something to deserve a kick in the balls, it’s not your fault. You had him all taken care of, anyway. You didn’t need Nikos’s help.”

I suppose she’s right. I had already managed to get myself safe before Nikos and Aliki showed up. All I had to do was close and lock the door and maybe call the police to finish the job.

“Will you be all right to sleep?”

“I’ll be fine.”

I lie awake for a very long time, well after the sounds of the apartment settle into stillness. Aliki was wrong. It is my fault. I was just lucky I could keep things from getting worse. I listen to the refrigerator humming, to Nikos snoring, and I wait for my heartbeat to slow down.