The Goodtime Girl (31 page)

For the duration of the voyage, Kivelli slept all day and stayed up all night. In the dead silence between past and future, between Greece and America, she retraced her steps. It was shocking how quickly the pages of her notebook filled, how furiously the words came. She began with things already half-decomposed and formless: scenes from her life in Smyrna and its end, which she reconstructed and embellished, filling in the blanks in her memory, writing them as if they'd happened to someone else. Of her arrival in Piraeus, her time at Kyria Effie's and her first encounter with Spiros, she wrote whatever she fancied, raising the dead, the troublesome and the vain, putting words in their mouths, thoughts in their heads as if she were an artist like Colette. Perhaps Spiros had redeeming qualities that his mother could enumerate, or Crazy Manos moments of gentleness and humility that he didn't dare show for fear of being ridiculed. But those things were not part of her story.

By the time she arrived at the more recent episodes, they too had faded enough for her to tell as she pleased. Yet as she wrote, she could not help but wonder about her own role: If she had been warmer to the Smyrniot, might he have turned into an ally, taking her further than Egypt, to Paris and Rome, and even to America? And if she'd told both Diamantis and Marianthi the truth from the beginning, allowed nature to take its course, what might have transpired differently? Would she be on this ship alone? She'd put her desires, her suspicions first, and for that she was sorry. But it was too late to change anything now, so she wrote it as she recalled it, without trying to make herself seem blameless.

Nonetheless, it hurt to describe the betrayed look on Marianthi's face the night at the Bella Vista when she confessed that Diamantis was her lover, and the drumming of his heart as he pressed his body against hers for the last time, the question in his eyes he'd assume her flight was the answer to. He would understand her departure as an unexpected, perhaps regrettable turn in his story, just as she took his actions and inactions as instrumental to hers, though neither version was the truth. Without Marianthi, there was nothing left to hold them together — they were both her creation and their song had come to an end. The greatest relief, however, came from revealing Marianthi's secret, giving her the credit her husband denied her, and finally setting her free. As for Kyra Xanthi's winding tale about the Cucumber and the nunnery, she told it as the old woman hoped she would — fully and in her own words, even though no one would ever read it.

Every morning as the sun rose, turning the water orange as fire, Kivelli tore out the pages she'd composed overnight and gave them a solemn and dignified burial at sea. She shed no tears as she watched the sheets covered in her tiny, wild script float, then sink. Instead, she imagined luminous fish carrying her memories down into weed-filled caves where they'd rest among shipwrecks, lost cities and fortunes, and the bones of the loved and the unloved, until the saltwater erased the ink, then dissolved the paper.

GLOSSARY

aman: mercy, pity or alas in Turkish

asteri: star

baglamas: small stringed instrument

Barba: uncle

behleri: single string worry beads

bouzouki: Greek musical instrument of the lute family, with a pear-shaped body and long neck

briki: small pot for brewing coffee

fafouti: toothless man

fassaria: trouble, commotion

hammam: public baths

Kyr: Mr.

Kyra: Mrs. (informal, slang)

Kyria: Mrs.

kafenion: coffee shop

kseri: card game

laterna: barrel organ

loukoumades: small round donuts with honey and walnuts

loukoumi: Turkish Delight

mangha: tough guy

manghissa: tough girl

manghites: young toughs

meltemi: strong August wind

mezzedes: hors d'oeuvres

narghile: hookah, waterpipe

outi: oud

pitsiriki: little fellow

putana: prostitute, whore

rebetiko: Greek urban folk music, combining influences from European and Middle Eastern music. Often referred to as the Greek Blues.

retsina: Greek white (or rosé) resinated wine

skordalia: potato and garlic puree

tekke: hash den, from the Turkish word for Dervish convent

tiropites: cheese pies

toumbeleki: round, flat drum

tsifteteli: Greek belly dance

tsipouro: eau de vie, moonshine

xenos: foreigner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THIS NOVEL HAS BEEN A long time in the making, and many people helped me along the way, providing historical and musical expertise, editorial feedback, readerly insight, and friendly support and encouragement. Among them are Michel Basilieres, Alan Bourassa, Marylin Casselman, Sally Cooper, Michael Devine, Steve Heighton, Susan Lamond, Andrew McCrae, Athanasios Sklavis, Tanya Tree, Helen Tsiriotakis, William Weintraub, the members of the Rembetiko Forum, the Rebetiko Hipsters, and the staff of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens. I thank them all for their contributions, and I hope anyone not mentioned by name knows that his/her help was appreciated. I would like to express profound gratefulness to Cigdem Erkal Ipek and her father, Ali Erkal, who welcomed me into Izmir as if I were a prodigal daughter, and showed me what remained of Smyrna. Thanks also to my agent, Samantha Haywood, whose enthusiasm and belief in this book never flagged. The support of The Canada Council of the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and CUPFA's Professional Development Fund was instrumental in the extensive research and the writing of this book. Finally, I would like to thank Cormorant Books for publishing this novel in a climate where literary fiction is increasingly a labour of love and a feat of daring against all odds.

AMONG THE BOOKS THAT INFORMED my research are Marjorie Housepian Dobkin's,
Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City
; George Horton's,
The Blight of Asia
; and Gail Holst-Warhaft's,
Road to Rembetika: Music of the Greek Sub-culture
. There were also many books written in Greek, including memoirs, eye-witness accounts, academic studies, and other types of narratives from both Smyra and Piraeus that helped me enter into the spirit and the time of the two places. Finally, Costa Ferris's film,
Rembetiko
, also had an influence on my understanding of time, place and culture.