The Goodtime Girl (9 page)

15

From dusk to dawn I get high on ouzo and wine
Despite all my troubles, I have a good time
'Cause I know how to live and I know how to play
And I don't give a damn what anyone says

Four days after the raid at Barba Yannis's, whatever had not been carried away by the cops or looted by packs of beggars and thieves was thrown out into the square and burned. It was just a stack of spindly chairs and rough-hewn tables, but it signalled the end in a way only a fire can. Neighbourhood children hopped around the blaze, thrilled by the explosions of sparks, the dancing flames lighting up their little faces. Fishwives watched from a distance, arms crossed in smug satisfaction as their husbands mourned the loss of their neighbourhood refuge where they'd retreated in hashish and song from the troubles of life. Kivelli's eyes smarted from the smoke, and she held a handkerchief to her nostrils as she skirted the square, trying to avoid notice. Who knew what they'd throw in next in their frenzy? She had seen how quickly fire could spread, from building to building, from soul to soul. As she rushed towards Kyria Effie's for her debut, she hoped that singing would rid her of her agitation and fill her purse with coins.

When she arrived, however, things did not look promising. Her audience was made up entirely of Kyria Effie's girls, who had nothing better to do for the same reasons the bars and tavernas in the neighbourhood were empty. Even if they offered, she wouldn't accept any money from them. The fact that they were sitting around waiting to be entertained instead of entertaining in their rooms meant that their debt was rising threefold in Kyria Effie's ledger. Nonetheless, their spirits were good, and they were impatient for the festivities to begin.

“Thank God you're here, little sister. We were dying of boredom,” whined Narella before collapsing dramatically in an armchair and playing dead.

“We were about to start practising French tricks on each other,” explained Sophia the Cappadocian, “and Effie was going to charge us for that too.” She was wearing her belly dancing outfit, complete with bells around her waist and ankles, and zils on her fingers, which she clapped as she spoke whenever she wanted to make a point.

Kyria Effie was nowhere in sight. Narella said that she'd gone out “to trawl the streets” for customers, but the next moment she walked through the door looking murderous. Using the same finger she might have drawn across her throat, she summoned Kivelli, who reluctantly left the giddy harem to hear what its keeper had to say. “I can't pay you anything tonight, so if you want, you can go home,” she said, blunt as always.

Since there were no men, there would be no money, but the girls were eager for a night of song and dance to make up for the lull that had fallen over their lives. They might have all packed a bag full of charms and travelled to another neighbourhood where tavernas were full of men with bulging pockets and bordellos had lineups outside. But even if such a place existed somewhere close by, it was too late to go there tonight. Kivelli didn't think it was fair to deprive them, and the truth was that she too had been looking forward to the evening since no other option had presented itself, not from the Smyrniot, not from anyone else.

“I'll tell you what, Kyria Effie.” The madam leaned in closer, her dark eyes less sad than leery, on guard against being taken advantage of because that's what she did to everyone else. One could still blame her for that, despite her history. “I'm going to stay and sing for the girls anyway, and you don't have to pay me a drachma.” This brightened her up a bit, but there was still wariness in her voice.

“You'll sing for free, then? For your pleasure?”

“For mine and that of the girls. But should a man come through the door, you'll give me ten percent of whatever he pays to go upstairs. Otherwise I won't come back next week, once the rumour has spread.”

Kyria Effie began to calculate, using the fingers on both hands and whispering to herself. “Ten percent is too much. That's what the girls get for spreading their legs. I'll be ruined.” She played with her locket as if to draw attention to it, but Kivelli had already heard that story and it wasn't going to change her stance. On the other side of the curtain someone was shaking a tambourine to the beat of a tsifteteli, Sophia's zils rang out and hands clapped. The girls were amusing themselves quite well without her, and suddenly Kivelli longed to be part of it, to have some fun for the sake of it, though she did not make the mistake of letting on to Kyria Effie, who was counting again.

“I'll give you five percent tonight, and we'll see what happens next week,” she offered in the wheedling voice of a swindler. Kivelli crossed her arms and shook her head the way she'd seen grandmothers do in the butcher's market when they were being offered inferior meat. “What else were you going to do tonight, Miss?”

“Who knows? I might have found something had I not accepted your invitation. And you did promise to pay me.” If she could have, Kyria Effie would have denied it, but in the end she capitulated. Ten percent of nothing was nothing, which she could live with for the time being.

There was applause when Kivelli stepped back into the parlour, but whether it was for the show or her handling of the madam she did not know. She began with “Lowdown Doll” and “Last Night in the Dark,” borrowing the tambourine and keeping her own rhythm. When she got to the Marianthi's song, the girls quickly picked up the chorus and sang along enthusiastically:
“I am the girl, that goodtime girl, who all the manghes crave …”
Narella stoked up a narghile, donating a piece of hashish she had stashed in her purse. “Manos forgot it in my room,” she explained, “and he's already crazy enough.” The other girls laughed, harder still after they began to pass the mouthpiece amongst themselves, wiping off different shades of rouge and saliva as if it were a gold communion spoon. Some coughed like consumptives; others swallowed the cool smoke like water.

They soon began calling out requests: “I'm Not for You,” “You Can't Fool Me,” and “That's Enough Talk.” When they went to the tavernas they listened to whatever their men wanted to hear, but tonight they had free reign. The songs they loved most were invariably about manghes who had done their women wrong. Some were full of triumph and disdain, telling the philanderer or cheapskate to get out of town and go to hell. Others dripped of heartache and regret, lamenting years wasted and hairs turned white over the wrong man. They took turns singing with Kivelli, and she let them take over, no matter how sour or sweet their voices. With enough heartache anyone could turn pain into joy. Even Kyria Effie looked like she was having a fine time. She might not have made any money, but she wasn't paying anything for this little celebration either. From an armchair in the corner she snapped her fingers and looked upon her girls with indulgence, beaming with pride as if she had brought up each and every one of them herself. She hadn't taken any of the hashish, but emptied her decanter of peach brandy directly into her mouth as the night progressed.

A few men eventually walked through the door — passersby who had heard the music from the street. The first to enter the parlour was a sailor with ruddy cheeks, slicked blond hair and shaggy eyebrows. He proclaimed that he'd died and gone to heaven when he saw the harem of dancing and singing beauties who received him like a pasha, cheering and smothering him with kisses. He chose Sophia, and the former belly dancer swayed her hips and played her zils all the way up the stairs. Narella joked that she probably kept them on in bed, accompanying the rhythm of his thrusts, though no one heard anything once the door was closed and the music resumed.

The second man was scrawny and cross-eyed, and thought he might enjoy the music for free. Kyria Effie threw him out by the scruff and threatened him with the glass decanter. If he were a regular, she might have let him stay, but even in these lean times there was no call for encouraging skinflints and impotents. He returned a little later with a few coins jangling in the pocket of his too-short pants — not enough for a girl of his own, but enough for a peep through the hole in Sophia's wall. When he came back downstairs, his face was pink and his eyes bright. He stayed for the rest of the night, improvising on a small wooden flute between verses and shakes of the tambourine.

By four in the morning, five men had come and gone, swearing they'd be back the next week with friends and instruments in tow. The girls thanked Kivelli and kissed her cheeks, and even Kyria Effie did not look too resentful when she handed over ten percent of the night's earnings. It wasn't much, but it would pay for a few lunches until something else came up. As Kivelli was leaving, the madam offered her the broom closet for the night — Despo, she said, had disappeared with the manghes and all of the dresses she hadn't yet paid for. Kivelli politely declined. Whether the streets were safer or more dangerous at that hour with all the manghes gone was to be seen. She was willing to take her chances so she could rest in the peace and privacy of her room and try to figure out what else she might do to survive.

16

Kivelli was lying on the threshold of sleep and wakefulness, where the outside world lurked and impinged on her dreams, changing their direction, their destination. This was a state she could remain in forever, safe in her cabin and removed from the commotion on deck, letting the winds guide the ship she was floating on to whatever port they chose. Perhaps this was what it felt like to be dead — almost present but not implicated. She pulled the covers over her head to hide from the strains of the Viennese waltz and the fawning voices of lovers that seeped in from under the door. A shrinking ray of sunlight crawled across the stone floor, trying to escape. It was getting late, but she was not too concerned about time. Someone was bound to come looking for her if she lost track, shout her name from the laneway or throw pebbles that landed on her floor like stars sapped of wishes.

Margarita had been instructed never to disturb her or let anyone up, no matter how forceful, desperate or charming he was. Papa wasn't coming, and there was no one in Piraeus she loved enough to permit such an intrusion. The widow had thus far proven to be a better guard than Cerberus, and nastier. So Kivelli paid no mind to the plod of footsteps in the corridor, the female voices outside her door. Mother and daughter, she assumed, up to something she wasn't interested in. How she envied the manghes their caves by the water. No matter how hard she begged, she'd never been invited. Not a place for women, they explained, though she imagined it would be the perfect place for a woman to retreat from the world, to curl up and sleep, only waking when an approaching ship threatened her solitude. Kivelli buried her head under the pillow to preserve the distance between her dark and warm cabin and the light and noise that encroached upon it from all sides.

A fist banged on the door, the sound muffled by the pillow feathers but unmistakable. Margarita had once woken her with slaps across the face because she said Kivelli's screams had roused the whole block. She thought someone was killing her. Kivelli raged even louder, yelling that she had no right to enter the room even if some crazy mangha high on cocaine was gutting her like a fish. “And if the house is on fire, douse me with oil and let me burn!” Margarita hadn't been back since. For a moment it struck Kivelli that she might have died in her sleep, on the ship, underwater, and this disrespect, this invasion, was just the lot of the dead. Next they would be inside, plundering her things.

But wakefulness was quickly vanquishing sleep, yanking off its silken veil. There was a conversation going on outside the door. Margarita was pretending to whisper, though her voice was shrill and strident. This was her favourite tactic to wake Kivelli for no reason other than aggression. Her landlady still hated her, maligning her to neighbours to garner pity for what a God-fearing widow had to endure under her own roof. She even washed the coins Kivelli gave her in vinegar, though she never refused them. “Singers and prostitutes are the same shit, mistresses of the devil,” she was telling whomever was in the hallway. There was no reply to these allegations, so Kivelli decided Margarita was addressing her, expressing what she didn't dare say to her face. Then she heard a beleaguered sigh, followed by the strangled squeak of the door's hinges.

“Get out,” she yelled from underneath the pillow, which smothered the authority of the command. But it was too late. Kivelli rolled over onto her back, pushed her hair out of her eyes and saw she was no longer alone. Though she didn't immediately recognize the intruder in the dimness of the room, her white and red dress looked familiar. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, more startled than angry.

A stab of pain hid behind Marianthi's smile, and her reply was stilted, apologetic. “You said you'd come — you gave me your word — but you didn't. So I came instead.” She sat at the small table by the window. Margarita was still in the hallway, talking either to herself or Aspasia, though it was just an excuse for eavesdropping.

“I told her no visitors. This isn't a bordello or a taverna. I'll put her things on the street at the end of the week!”

“I'm so sorry,” Marianthi croaked. “I had no idea.” She began drumming her fingernails on the tabletop, then moved a clay water jug and a bowl of pebbles as if she were arranging vases of flowers.

Kivelli reached for the nightdress that lay crumpled at the foot of her bed. It was a faded, olive-green cotton sack that she'd brought from Kyria Effie's. She'd learned to sleep naked because it was the closest thing to sleeping in the silk Papa imported from the Orient. Though her mind had gradually given up every luxury she'd once taken for granted, her body retaliated against the cheap fabrics of hand-me-downs with rashes and scabs. Kivelli tried to picture the Smyrniot's wife stripped of her flowered frock, as exposed as she felt with her sitting in the room. Marianthi blushed and crossed her arms over her ample breasts.

“Next time you break in, wear something quieter. Your dress is giving me a headache.” Kivelli quickly pulled on the muted nightdress, then got out of bed and walked barefoot towards the table. She poured herself a glass of water, dipped in two fingers and pressed them to her eyelids. “And when I give my word, it's as good as gold. But I gave you a kiss, which around here means nothing much.”

Marianthi looked ready to explode. Her lips were moving as if she were struggling to find the words to say whatever it was that she needed to say. Or maybe she was singing silently again, though Kivelli couldn't make out the song. She leaned over her to unlatch the shutters, to let in some light that might offset the brightness of her dress and the drabness of the room. Marianthi took a few short breaths, as if her nose were running, and looked nervously out the open window, tugging on the small gold cross she wore around her neck. “Your landlady said that you usually got up around this time. She didn't want to let me in, but I can be quite convincing when I really want …”

“You bribed her,” Kivelli said with a smirk.

Marianthi smoothed her hair. “I gave her my hat,” she replied sheepishly. “But I don't regret the price,” she quickly added, and gave Kivelli a wilted smile.

“What are you going to do if it rains?”

“It never rains at this time of year, and if it does I'll accept it as my punishment for barging in on you like this. But I was dying to see you, to hear how it went.” She dropped her gaze to her shiny black shoes to hide her emotion, but the fluctuations in her voice betrayed her. “I counted every minute for six whole days, waiting for you to knock on my door.”

Kivelli studied her uninvited guest. A swath of late afternoon light illuminated Marianthi's neck and the down on her trembling chin. Had she worn the same dress as the first time they'd met out of fear she wouldn't be recognized without it? It was a smart thing to do. So much had happened to Kivelli in the last week that the Smyrniot's wife had been cast aside with all the other incidental details. But here she was again, insisting, determined. It was much harder to forget someone who'd confronted you twice. It took at least three times the effort.

“What are you after, Marianthi? I didn't understand when I came to your house, and I understand even less now.” Kivelli flicked a pebble out the window and someone cursed from below. She then moved the jug and bowl to their original places and began tidying the room, which suddenly seemed too small, messy and ugly for anyone to live in. It was as if she were seeing it for the first time, and she hated it. Kivelli turned away from her, but the other woman's breathing was too loud and agitated to ignore. She could almost feel the irregular beat of Marianthi's heart in her own chest. “I think you should just go. I have a lot of things to do …”

Marianthi stood up but did not take a step towards the door. She clutched the back of the chair as if at any moment she might use it to ward off a lion. “I already told you, Kivelli, I want your voice.”

“My voice,” she echoed in a tone so icy that Marianthi shivered inside her white and red dress as if winter had caught her by surprise. “What does that mean, you want my voice? It's not some piece of furniture you can buy for a song, then put in your house as if it belonged there.” Marianthi flattened herself against the wall next to the sombre Virgin Mary, another inconvenient woman who refused to budge. The juxtaposition of their two frozen faces infuriated Kivelli.

“You want to hear me sing? Tell your husband to play you that song I recorded. Or better yet, let him bring you to Kyria Effie's some night.” If she was shocking enough, perhaps the nice married lady would run home and leave her in peace. “But since you risked life and limb crossing the bridge in those ridiculous shoes, I'll give you one for free, as a favour.” She began to sing, loud and out of tune, a vulgar song that manghes sang when they came to Kyria Effie's.
“If I were the hem of your skirt, I'd stoop to see the hole of your cunt.”

Marianthi's face turned red, and she pressed her hands over her ears. “Stop,” she yelled. “You've misunderstood me entirely. Just give me a chance to explain.”

Kivelli perched on the edge of her bed as if it were a bench at Smyrna Station and she was waiting for the four o'clock train to Aidin. Her hands folded in her lap, she looked in the direction it would be coming from, willing it to come faster, to see the black locomotive with its funnel cloud of smoke approaching, getting closer and bigger until it stopped before her and the porter helped her climb aboard. Turning her attention to the stranger across from her who was not properly attired for travel, she feigned polite interest. “Explain then,” she said calmly. “But quickly. I don't have all day. I'm off to Thessaloniki this afternoon.” This hadn't been her plan, but now that she'd pronounced it, it sounded like the truth.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Marianthi asked, her words thick and slow.

From under the bed Kivelli retrieved a dusty half-filled bottle Sakis had brought weeks before. Sediment that looked like flakes of skin floated through the murky yellow liquid. “There's some wine, but there's nothing to eat. I wasn't expecting company, you understand.” She uncorked the bottle and sniffed the contents, her nostrils wincing at the sharp smell. “Or there's water. Maybe you should just have some water.” She pointed at the clay jug. “I can't be responsible for what might happen to you otherwise. They'd say I poisoned you on purpose.”

“I'll take the wine,” Marianthi replied, reaching for the bottle and pouring a few fingers of liquid into the glass Kivelli had already used. “To our health,” she toasted, then gulped down a mouthful that stripped away a layer of her tongue before burning its way down her throat. She coughed hard and pressed her hand to her chest until she caught her breath. “There is so much I want to tell you,” she began, her voice sultry and low. “So many things, I'm not sure where to start.”

Kivelli flopped back onto her bed and closed her eyes, letting Marianthi's words come alive in her mind as if she were listening to a fairy tale or reading a book. When was the last time she'd lost herself in a novel? So long ago she might have forgotten how. In its place was this peculiar woman sitting in her room, full of stories that she wanted, needed to tell. If they were good stories, maybe she'd invite her back. There was no question of returning to her house in Castella with all its relics and mirrors.

Marianthi perked up immediately, like a schoolgirl recounting her debut at the opera to her best friend. All timidity left her and she became a woman full of confidence, bold and bright as her dress. Kivelli wondered again how she'd ended up with the Smyrniot. Perhaps his music had seduced her; it was a mistake many gullible girls made. While she spoke, Marianthi's hands moved through the air, drawing the spaces and shapes invoked by her words.

“Two weeks ago, on Saturday night, I went to the Attikon Theatre with an acquaintance …” Her hands created a steeple over her head, and Kivelli thought she might begin to belly dance, but instead she sat down and crossed her legs, turning her foot in little circles. “… Elpiniki, the wife of Panayotis's toumbeleki player.” Her voice dripped with disdain as she pronounced the other woman's name. “A dull little thing and quite annoying.” She poured herself some more of the pungent wine, and this time it did not make her cough but brought a glow to her cheeks. “How I love the theatre,” she continued. “I can get so lost in the story that I believe its world is more real than mine. But this was an idiocy about a farm girl in love with a goatherd from the next village.” She crossed her arms in frustration and made a sour face. “Elpiniki, of course, was thoroughly amused.”

For a moment, in the darkness behind Kivelli's eyelids, other scenes from the Attikon stage arose — romance born out of the ashes, a birth that killed the mother. Her ears rang with the heartrending soliloquies that had kept her awake all night in the loge that was her first home in Piraeus: the raspy lament of a shrunken grandmother who'd watched her whole family die and called out a litany of names with a question mark at the end; a peasant woman's droning recitation of everything she'd owned before her trip to Piraeus — ox, rug beater, wedding ring. She opened her eyes and focused on Marianthi, who flashed a smile as if she believed she'd finally won over her audience of one. The truth was that it was safer for Kivelli to look at her.

“So instead of taking a taxi straight home, I proposed that we take a stroll down by the water. It was a warm and lovely night, and I was still craving a little drama.” Was Marianthi fearless or naive? It had to be the latter to confuse drama with the dangers down on the docks on Saturday night. The few times Kivelli had gone there, she'd been with Sakis, and even then she felt ill at ease. She wasn't certain whether the Smyrniot's wife actually had the nerve for such a caper, but it was just a story. What did it matter if it were true as long as it was amusing?