The Daughter (24 page)

‘Here, take this switch,’ she says.

‘What for?’

‘Take it, help me,’ she answers. And she leaps forward. But she can’t go on; her knees are about to desert her.

‘Come on, Raraou, you flea-bitten nag,’ the cripple urges her. He wants to help. Go to it! One more turn and we’ll be there.

But Raraou is about ready to black out. She turns to him and says:

‘Give me a hand if I can’t move. Help me. If you see me
stopping
, whip me. With the switch. If you see me falling, whip me.’

And she throws herself forward with a fresh surge of
enthusiasm
. And the cripple flicks the switch through the air,
shouting
Giddyup, giddyup! Raraou’s knees desert her, the cripple brings the switch down on her back shouting with elation, Raraou struggles forward groaning, Whip me, whip me hard!

As the cripple whips her, Raraou forgets to look off to the side at her mother, now the cripple is whipping her and Raraou is pulling more smoothly, if only my public could see me now, she thinks triumphantly. The cripple is shouting, but he eases off with the whip, and starts to sprinkle her with confetti, Raraou wants to take a bow, to say, Thank you, thank you so much, the confetti is sticking in her hair, her mum tries to shake it loose but Raraou shoves her aside, now she is a star, now there is no stopping her, and behind her comes the cripple shouting at the top of his voice, singing her praises, whipping her across the back, pelting her with confetti …

NOW WE'RE THROUGH
the Pearly Gates, said Raraou, when they were safe inside the blockhouse. She helped her mum lie down, used up all their water with nary a second thought, gave the cripple a couple of swallows even. Him, he didn't want to go inside, Leave me here for a while, he told Raraou, I want to get myself some air, have me a good look at the city. So Raraou left him there, just as he desired, didn't even prop him up, Watch out you don't fall was all she said and went off to fetch Mrs Fanny. At the same time she took the jug to fill with water on her way back.

The legless man put on his glasses, a pair of cast-off
sunglasses
he wore when he was in a festive mood, and rested,
gazing
off into the distance towards the capital faraway. He never even realized he was dreaming; he was certain he was awake, participating in his life.

He dreamed he was seated upright in his cart outside the door to their refuge but the sun was not sinking; no, it hung there in the sky motionless, mocking him. He had his jacket on and scorn welled up in his chest, scorn for those people there in the capital, the people and those handouts of theirs, I'm worth more than any of them, he mused, as he scratched his throat, he felt an itching, a soft tickling sliding down inside his collar. He closed his eyes to scratch with greater abandon and once again brought his hand to his neck. The feel of living matter. He opened his eyes and pulled his hand away and looked down: through the opening of his collar an eel came slithering. A shiny grey-green eel, stretching slippery as it slithered down his chest. Now it had reached his stomach. The cripple raises his hand to grab the eel which had almost completely emerged from his shirt, but it has begun to wriggle through the buttons of his fly. On the floor of the cart he sees two more eels
slithering
 
towards his belly. He wants to call for help, turns towards the blockhouse door, and through the door a huge, rusty ship is bearing down on him moving sinuously like an eel, but how could a whole ocean liner fit into their tiny blockhouse? and the ocean liner bears down on him like an invading army, the legless man's only line of retreat is to awaken. He snaps awake.

Scared the hell out of me, can you beat that, he thinks, and calls out to the dummy. How's everything, he calls loudly,
feeling
better? Come on outside and keep me company, he says. Asimina comes out, sits down beside him on a low bench, now he's chattering away contentedly, You'll see, he says, a couple of years from now and all this here empty land will be part of town. More and more people are coming to Athens, no, you can't stand in the way of civilization: just a couple of years – I told you first, don't you forget it – and main street will go right by our front door and there'll be shops and a market and customers, lots of them, and us, we can do our begging and we won't even have to move from beside our doorstep, we won't have to slog hours just for some of their lousy crumbs, no, they'll come right to our door, we'll be living the good life, give them seven, eight years at the outside; you listen to me, I know what I'm talking about.

He chattered on until Raraou came back with Mrs Fanny and the water jug: she also had a thermometer.

‘Heat stroke,' says Mrs Fanny. ‘Fortunately. She's not
feverish
, no fainting spells, just doesn't want to eat. Still, you ought to get her to a doctor.'

She helped them move the cripple inside, and asked Raraou privately, How old is your mum?

‘Thirty-four,' says Raraou.

‘So young! So it's impossible,' she mutters to herself. ‘But take her to the doctor all the same. And if you need me at night, just drop by and call.'

Next day the cripple stayed home while Raraou and her mother took the bus to Doc Manolaras' office. 

‘Here's Mum to see you, doctor,' says Raraou. She always called him doctor even though he was a politician now; shut down his doctor's office years ago. But he gave her a quick onceover while voters lined up to pay their bribes in the waiting room.

‘Nothing wrong with you, Asimina, you're looking fine', says Doc Manolaras. ‘She may be presenting minor indications of hysteria.'

He wrote them out a note, then sent them off for a free
examination
by some doctor political cronies of his, one of whom happened to be a gynaecologist. Two days they spent running from one doctor's office to another, the legless man was
grumbling
, but who cared about him. Could her mother hear? the gynaecologist asked Raraou.

‘Of course she can. She's only dumb.'

‘In any event,' says the gynaecologist, ‘there's nothing to worry about, my child. Your mother has stopped having her period, for good. An unusual occurrence in such a young woman, but certainly not dangerous.'

‘That's just what I suspected all along,' said Mrs Fanny that evening, ‘but I didn't want to say a word till a doctor got a look at her'.

And so on the third morning they went off to work again, the three of them; the cripple was in a rush, two days alone in the shelter and he was just about dead with boredom, he wanted noise and crowds, so he claimed.

‘Don't you worry, Asimina,' shouted Mrs Fanny as they passed her blockhouse on their way down the hill. ‘So I've still got my periods, even if I'm fifteen years older than you. Look all the good it's done me.'

‘Don't you worry Mum, said Raraou as they made their way towards the fish-market. ‘You should be happy; it's all one big bother, month in month out, nothing but trouble. What's a period good for anyway? I still can't figure it out, all the fuss! 
Wish mine would just dry up, you and me we're real sticklers for cleanliness the both of us, all these necessities of nature, well, we just don't approve, do we?'

Fact is they went out and bought two eels to roast over the coals that night, to celebrate the occasion. It was a waste of money, the cripple complained, but Raraou told him I bought them out of our share, so eat your helping and shut up!

Lately he'd got quite bold what with Raraou's mother's dizzy spells (quite normal, they'll last two or three months, said the gynaecologist) plus her mind just wasn't on her work. One night he tried to touch her again. Raraou had just finished
boiling
an egg for her mum and she poured the scalding water over him. He screamed in pain, and later he asked her plaintively, Why do you keep trying to stop me? Can't knock her up any more, that's for sure.'

That night, after several months of freedom, Raraou began chaining him down at night again. But now instead of looping the other end of the chain around the leg of her bed she wound it around her wrist. And if the clanking of the chain happened to wake her at night Raraou would yank it until she could hear him groan. Then she would drop off to sleep peacefully once more.

One day – spring was here – because of the terrific take, the cripple decided to wind it up early. They'd even collected a handful of foreign coins, which Raraou would take over to Doc Manolaras' office the next day to see what they were worth, They stopped off at a shop on the main road and bought pork sausage and wine. Let's have a party, said the cripple. On the way back they encountered huge machines widening streets and demolishing ruined buildings. Look, said the cripple, the Allies, they're coughing up the war reparations.

Raraou felt fine, because her mum was fine too. She'd been relieved of her monthly indisposition once and for all, the dizzy spells were gone for good and the cripple, he'd learned to spend 
the night in chains, it didn't bother him, and besides, the take was on the increase, he was putting on weight and chewing Raraou's ear off, why doesn't she get her MP to pave the street right up to their blockhouse door. But Raraou would never think of doing anything so impolite, they'd given him trouble enough with the matter of the pension for a good two years now, A happy conclusion is not far away, he would tell her every first of the month when she went calling at his office. The voter
registration
cards were ready. No one will ever know a thing about the extra years; it was the only way we could get cards issued for you and your brother, you see. But I'm giving you another birth certificate that makes you years younger.

He passed on the greetings from her brother Fanis, he was doing just fine there on the island, faithful, productive worker that he was.

Raraou and her mum broiled the sausages, fed the cripple, ate their meal and then plonked him down hard on his pallet; he'd begun trying to feel the mother up again. That was when Raraou wheeled him straight to his mattress without taking him to the toilet first, flopped him face down on his bed, chained him, took her mother and hurried over to Mrs Fanny's place, the cripple's little transistor radio wasn't working any more, all you got was static, it needed repairs. Plus, Mrs Fanny had electricity.

As her mum washed the dishes Raraou leafed through a
magazine
, Mrs Fanny, she bought magazines to learn new patterns. Just about all she could do was leaf through the magazine, what with all the roaring of the earth-movers and the bulldozers you couldn't hear a thing on the radio.

Then one of Mrs Fanny's neighbours came up, shouting Mrs Fanny, come quick, bulldozers. But she had a paper from city hall; she showed it to the crew foreman, it certified she was a legal resident of the blockhouse, a civil war displaced person.

‘They're heading for your place,' he tells Raraou, ‘you don't have a permit, hurry if you want to save your belongings.' 

Raraou took her mother by the hand and they started out for their blockhouse. And when her mother tried to run ahead Raraou held her back. They strolled along at a normal pace and when they came to the turn in the road, they saw their
blockhouse
and two bulldozers crawling towards it. They stopped, and Raraou held tight to her mother's hand.

‘We're not going any further,' she said.

And they watched as the bulldozers heading for the
blockhouse
. Because of the distance they heard no noise. And when the first bulldozer hit the blockhouse it seemed to hesitate for an instant, then back up before ploughing it under. Then came the second bulldozer, driving across it at right angles, and where the blockhouse had once been now only flat ground was left. Only then did Raraou and her mother start moving again towards the place which, until just a few moments ago, had been their blockhouse.

‘I didn't want to save a thing, not a rag,' said Raraou to her mother. By the time they reached the spot, the bulldozers were about to head off in another direction.

‘Anybody live here?' one of the operators asked Raraou.

‘Not that I know of. Nope, nobody,' she said, and her mother nodded her head as if to say, ‘Yes, that's right'.

‘The municipal development department has it down as uninhabited,' he said. ‘But me, I could have sworn I heard voices; you hear anything?' he asked the other bulldozer
operator
.

‘Voices? With the roar these babies make?' said the other man. ‘What voices? You're hearing things. Let's get on with it, we got work to do.'

‘No; nobody,' said Raraou.

They left.

Raraou took her mother's hand and they walked back to Mrs Fanny's. Spent the night at her place. About a week later came the good news; the pension had finally come through. 

Some dogs, strays most likely, came sniffing around the flat spot the bulldozers had left, sniffing persistently; but finally they went trotting off frustrated. And when the paving machines had done their work, the dogs disappeared.

FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE
I ever lived in a house with wooden floors. Parquet, even. So when I walk in the door I say to myself, Roubini old girl, I say, you’ve arrived; I was so carried away I forgot to call myself Raraou.

Mum, she couldn’t be bothered. Mum, I tell her, behold your house. In Athens, no less. Here’s where we’ll live and here’s where we’ll die, like high-society ladies; they’ll have to carry us out of here feet first, when the time comes. So I want you to be happy, Mum. Happy, victorious, and every inch a lady.

Her name I changed to Mrs Mina. My mum, Mrs Mina, I told them down at the bakery, will be coming by for the roast. Made sure Mrs Fanny got it right too: my mum, Mrs Mina. And on the cross on her grave I had them carve ‘Mrs Mina M.’ No last name. Just M. Making amends.

With the money Doc Manolaras gave me from the sale of our house in Rampartville, first I bought the plot, then the
apartment
. Me, you won’t catch me being a provincial ever again, even after I’m dead. The graveyard, it’s just a little place around the corner, but my fellow actors I tell them, You know, got my mum buried in the First Cemetery. My enemies, let them eat their hearts out, plus it tidies up Mum’s memory, socially speaking.

The gravestone I bought secondhand. While we were still living with Mrs Fanny, at her place. Small but tidy; but full of her provincial hand-me-downs and trinkets plus the furniture she brought along with her from Rampartville. Once a
provincial
, always a provincial, that’s Mrs Fanny, even today. There, I said it; but she’s a well-meaning sort all the same, and when we came up to Athens, she took us in without us even asking and we stayed at her place for about two years, till Mum’s pension came through and we sold our house. We had to stay with her, 
to keep her company, she insisted; we were doing her a favour, even though there was an abandoned house not far away, just like hers. Furniture, carpets, all our valuables, everything, we sold it all back in Rampartville before we left.

Still, we were much obliged to her for her warmth and
hospitality
for two whole years.

The only thing I brought with me from Rampartville was the clothes on my back, and Mum’s wedding photo. All the rest I gave away to the needy ladies in our neighbourhood.

Me, when Doc Manolaras announced the house had been sold all I could think about was my little pullet. Did they respect her memory? But later on I told myself, she doesn’t need their respect. By now she’ll be burrowed down deep to the centre of the earth, I imagined, just let them try and find her and drive her through town with their bulldozers and graders and
humiliate
her publicly.

As soon as everything was settled I went out and bought
furniture
. Bought one bed only, a double bed for the two of us, with a soft, bouncy mattress. Now for the bridegroom to break in real nice, said the mattress man who delivered it. The console I bought a bit later, Markezinis was in power then; meanwhile I’d paid the place off. Enjoy your dowry; now for a husband to mess it up, said the cleaning lady.

You heard what I said, the cleaning lady. Comes twice a month, she does. Thought Mum would like it, but instead she just got upset. What I mean is, I had the other tenants in mind too. Mum would be needing a cleaning lady when I was away on tour, I mentioned it to the lady (some ‘lady’, anyhow!) who runs the dairy downstairs.

Because now, now I was in the theatre. All because of Doc Manolaras, wonderful man God bless him. He’d done really nicely for himself too, what with being a member of parliament for Athens, we’re climbing the ladder together, Mr President, I say to him one day. He wasn’t president of anything, but show 
me a politician who doesn’t like being treated like a big shot. Call him Mr President I wrote to our Fanis. Him I always give advice even if he is older than me. Well, he may be older, in my mind and in my soul he’s still thirteen years old. That’s the
reason
why Doc Manolaras and me, we arranged to have the
apartment
in my name. Eliminates transfer problems and estate taxes later on, he said. After, he gave me a note to this stage director he knew, saying, The bearer of this note is a party friend, please arrange for her to get work.

As it turned out, maybe the bloke talked like a patriot but he was a dirty old man. Past forty-five. So he invites me over to his place. I go, he asks me in, starts to caress me, gives me fifty drachmas and then he does something to me which I won’t say what it was.

‘Sweetie,’ he says to me as we’re going towards the door, ‘you’ve got great prospects as a whore.’

‘What do you mean, whore?’ I say respectfully. ‘I came here to become an actress, what’s this about whores?’

‘Whore, sweetie, is what you just did, right here.’

‘But I don’t want to be a whore,’ I say.

‘But,’ he says, ‘you already are one. Best of luck.’ And he points to the fifty drachmas in my hand.

Fortunately Doc Manolaras knew lots of people in the
theatrical
world, so he sent me to see someone else. This one hired me on the spot. Just what I’m looking for, he said. He was an old man too. What am I talking about? Maybe he was forty-five, no more, but they all looked like old men to me back then. Talk about lustful! But when’s the last time I met a man who wasn’t? I’ve got it in my blood, so it seems. I ask him if I had talent for the stage. Come to my office tomorrow a hour before rehearsal, he says. Make sure you’re squeaky clean and wearing your fresh underwear. After I’ll tell you if you’ve got talent for the stage.

Next day I went off, light-hearted. Gave my mother a kiss and off I went. All squeaky clean and ready to go. 

‘For your basic successful actress,’ my agent told me, ‘the trick is to show up nicely washed on the inside, especially when the stage director invites you to his dressing room. She should always be clean and nice during work hours, and never have her period on work days. Those are the the Ten Commandments of the successful actress. Obey them and she’ll make progress.’

Progress I made. I was always obedient, everything my stage director said to do I did. But he was always telling me, Hey Raraou, you’ve got a hole in the head where your brain should be.

That got around to all the troupes as time went by. No
matter
though, always had plenty of work, I did, Doc Manolaras’s little notes were a big help, fortunately most of the impresarios were good nationalists so I was never out of work. You name it, I played there. Why, I learned the whole geography of Greece upside down and inside out. Just ask me the name of the town, any town, and I’ll tell you what prefecture it’s in.

Of course I haven’t really reached my peak as an artiste yet, haven’t really got the recognition I deserved, not even now when I’m about to start drawing my actor’s pension. Never really got to play any of the great roles; usually what I got was the non-speaking parts or the dead people. Never went to
acting
school you see; I’m self-taught, whatever I know I learned on my own. A few times I got to speak lines. I remember, once I had a line that went ‘Look, ’tis the wife of the bishop’. Well, I said ‘Look’ twice, just to expand my role. Still, all the
impresarios
would pick me. Always squeaky clean, fresh underwear, and condoms in my bag – at my own expense – I’d give them a break on the wages, let them know what the other actors were saying behind their backs because me, ever since I was born I feel grateful to anyone who looks after me and I know how to show my gratitude. So that’s how my mother Mrs Mina never wanted for nothing. Why, I got her a radio and a fridge and even a telephone, she couldn’t do a thing with it but I figured so 
what; never said a word again, in fact. Bought her a TV too, just recently it was, the year before she died and did she ever enjoy it. Went out contented, I treated her like a queen, yes indeed I did. You think I’m going to sit there and take it just because the other actors dump on me, call me fink and stooge and such like? What do I care about them? And when they went too far and started slapping me in the face say, or kicking me, I’d head straight to my MP, Doc Manolaras. He’s in fine shape, still alive and raring to go, even made it to deputy minister for a little while. Good old Doc Manolaras, always stood by me. One day I said to him. Doctor, you’ve always treated me as a mother.

At the start of my career he gave me recommendations for a lot of impresarios from our party. Back then, in fact, he made sure I got acting lessons, free. For two months the teacher taught me everything there was to know, a real lecher the guy was, your original red-hot lover. Tonight we’re going to sleep together, he’d announce every morning first thing. Two months straight the guy gives me a bum deal, literally, I mean, being as how he had peculiar tastes in bed. But I don’t mind; he taught me plenty. So what if people say I got nothing but a hole in the head where my brain should be. But all the impresarios went for me, seeing as I was always squeaky clean and willing and ready to go. And when you get right down to it, it was an honour, I was never so much known for my looks anyway, really. Raraou, I’d say to myself, you’re not in the same league as Vivian Romance so whoever makes a pass at you he’s doing you a favour. But all the same, I was a cutie, young; for them I was like candy, old men, all of them. Now wait just a second I can hear you say, how come you’re calling them old when they’re only forty-five-
year-olds
, and you’re over sixty. Well, I’m over sixty and proud of it!

When you come right down to it, people always said I was a real sex-pot and passionate at that, word got around the troupe, how Raraou was real dynamite in bed. Nonsense; I fooled them, all of them. It was all an act, I was only playing a role in bed. 
Never really liked it either but I pretended to out of courtesy and, besides, it paid. Me, my laurels I wanted to earn up on the stage. Plenty of times while some Tom, Dick or Harry was
panting
and puffing there on top of me, I’d be memorizing my lines, the lead role, I mean to say, and that way the time would pass gloriously.

When I turn thirty I say to myself, Roubini, I say, you ought to get your head examined. You’re going to have to put up with it so you might as well enjoy it. Plus, you’re paying the shot for the condom, right?

So, a little bit at a time I learn to enjoy it. Takers I had, that’s for sure. So I was nothing special, but this agent or that was always inviting me to come up to his office. The guy was no Tyrone Power, of course, but still, he was a male. And when we were on tour I found out that people in the provinces were just wild about actresses, whether your name is Iberio Argentina or Raraou. Not too long ago, last year I think it was, I had a thing going with a gentleman who was only free after eleven at night. He was a fine fellow, don’t get me wrong, but if I don’t have a show the next day to keep me wound up I’ve got my night cream on and I’m ready for bed by half-past ten, all this while Mum was still alive. And the guy’s got this thing about kissing me while he’s doing whatever else he’s doing, kissing me all over the face, like suction cups and sucking off all my face cream. One night as he’s kissing me I say to myself, Holy Virgin, there goes three drachmas, every kiss was costing me three drachmas’ worth of face cream.

When I realize what’s going through my mind I freeze. Roubini, I say to myself, if all you can think about at the height of passion is your three drachmas, then maybe it’s time to retire, sexually-wise, I mean. So I dumped him. Our hours don’t match I told him.

No more sex, please. Better the night cream and the soft skin. So I get myself an unconditional discharge from sex.
Thirty-eight
 
years’ service is plenty, I say to myself. And my panties I started calling my little pensioner. And that nasty little cop down at the police station (when was that exactly?)…