The Secret Sister (8 page)

 

The flight attendant asks me if I have a foreign passport and she gives me a form to fill out for Customs.

Where will I be landing soon, Amalia? There used to be an island, in the South Pacific, in the Coral Sea, between Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia. On nautical charts it was called Sample Island. During a reconnaissance expedition, the cartographers never found it. Returning from their sea voyage, which lasted twenty-five days, they said, “That's odd, this island is nowhere to be found.” Where will I be landing soon, Amalia? Does our country exist? The country I never visited and which only now have you allowed me to travel to? The country where Menelaos and Anthoula were born, the country that welcomed Erasmia and the other Frosso, the country our mother never knew—does it exist?

The paper Frosso gives me a faint smile. She's twenty-three years old. I hold her in my hands with tender care. Seventy years separate me from the time this photograph was taken, just before she jumped over the side into the frozen waters of the Atlantic. “God seals the hand of every man, that all men may know His work.” The pilot tells us where we're flying over, it's night outside. With a magical depth gauge used to measure unexplored oceans, I dream of a voyage to the ocean floor. I'm equipped with scuba gear and a high resolution underwater camera. I swim, I sink, and at some point, inside a marine cave, I locate her body, nude, dressed in corals, seaweed, plankton, the skeletons of dead fish wrapped around her arms and legs, conches and seashells, a frozen liquid preventing decomposition, Frosso of 1940 is swimming on the bottom of the sea. I immortalize her with my camera. I know you won't believe me. I need proof. I develop the photograph.

“
Calm yourself, my dear Jonathan. Proof is only for daydreamers.
”

Three hours and a bit to go. I'm the only passenger who hasn't closed his eyes, not even for a moment, except in order to see a forbidden film. PG-rated. In the place where the island was supposed to be, cartographers found a huge depth of one thousand four hundred meters. Had the island sunk in there? Or did it never exist?

Amalia, I'm feeling queasy . . . I never got used to the skyscrapers encircling us, I get vertigo when I look up at them from a window. An opening onto the void. I try to ignore the empty seat next to me.

“
When will you stop pitying the Argyriou family, Jonathan?
”

Don't talk as if you have a different name, you're an Argyriou too.

“
But pity no longer touches me.
”

Amalia, my heart, don't stop talking to me.

“
Someone once wrote that all happy families are happy in the same way and unhappy families are unhappy each in their own way.
”

I don't care what writers say, I want you, I mind being the same, not being unique, I love you. Don't stop talking to me.

“
It's all in your head, Jonathan, you don't really love me, you love being unhappy.
”
 

You don't know what you're talking about.

“
You love all that binds us to our history, you love all the things we never had
.”

Unhappiness doesn't concern me, I don't care about happiness. I could jump into the void, Amalia, right now. I could break the glass pane and hurl myself into the void with all my strength.

“
You'll never do that, don't kid yourself.
Make do with dreams. At least they're not bloody
.”

While I'm falling into the void and just before the darkness envelops me, in a flash of lucidity I'll see the same dream as that woman. As she was falling onto the train tracks, she dreamt of the caress of a childhood sea.

“
Now you're pretending to be Anna Karenina, stop playing roles, Jonathan.
”

I love you.

“
You love the roles you play. The role of the lovelorn exiled Greek brother, the son of an unknown father and an alcoholic mother, suits you perfectly.
”

Be quiet.

“
You.
”

Me?

“
Yes, you.
”

I am you.

“
You'll be arriving soon, stop your daydreaming and turn your mind to something practical. Which hotel are you staying at? Where will you go as soon as day breaks? Till what time and along which streets will you wander tonight? Will you go to New Ionia, will you look for Grandpa's house, will you see if there's a hole in the ground or a multi-story building, perhaps a shopping mall, and Sakis will be there, the owner, the doorman, perhaps even the security guard, and then you'll end up at the harbor? Will you see ghost ships unloading their passengers with their flags at half-mast, and other magnificent ships for happy tourists, their flags waving proudly? Will you leave the climb up to the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis for last? Will you have put on a clean shirt? How will you arrange the unknown images inside you, Jonathan? A country we know is one thing, but a country we imagine is quite another. You don't just get to know a country from what it has plenty of, from its monuments and its past, but also from what it is now missing. How foreign are you to this land? Try to go to the home for abandoned children. They need shoes. Choose the kids to whom you'll give what they're missing. Here are their names, and each one's age and shoe size:

 

1. Petros, twenty months old, size 21

2. Vivi, three and a half years old, size 25

3. Haris, two years old, size 23

4. Nikos, twelve months old, size 20

5. Raphael, one and a half years old, size 19

6. Panayotis, one and a half years old, size 20

7. Elli, two years old, size 22

8. Nikos, twelve months old, size 18

9. Myrto, two years old, size 21

10. Anastasia, two years old, size 22

11. Yorgos, eight and a half years old, size 36

12. Siphis, six years old, size 30

13. Revecca, two years old, size 23

14. Yannis, ten months old

15. Andrianna, eleven months old

16. Stella-Rosa, seven months old

17. Elias, eleven months old

18. Nadia, nine months old

19. Marinos, nine months old

20. male, four months old

21. male, four months old

22. female, five months old

23. male, seven months old

 

Tell me, Jonathan, how will you decide, how will you choose which ones to leave barefoot and which ones to give shoes to? From the moment we were born, we struggled to get an answer, there's no compass, Jonathan, I suggest you pick five pairs of shoes at random, and make sure you don't meet the children themselves. They feel awkward when faced with their benefactors. Sometimes they become surly and refuse all donations, and other times they plead for a brief smile. Leave your gift and go. Don't watch it being received. You don't need to see young children coming to blows for a pair of shoes. You're traveling to a foreign country, Jonathan, get ready. You don't need to meet the traffickers of children's souls, those who sell their organs, their eyes, their hands, their hearts.
”
 

I can dream, Amalia, of the light. Light. Happy, well-fed and warmly-dressed children enjoying sandy beaches for a summer and spring that never end. Carefree, fearless children, and the future is a window open to the horizon. The hawkers of souls are nowhere to be seen. In the streets, people's breaths smell of jasmine and kindness.

“
Dreams have some nerve . . . Sweet dreams, Jonathan.
”

Travel advisories tell those traveling to Greece to be careful. Homeless folk and underfed children, people losing their jobs every day and others who decide to end it all, parents who hand their children over to institutions because they can't raise them. Graffiti on the walls: “I'm in torment,” “I don't want to live.” Is this our country, Amalia?

“‘Don't go, it's absurd,” I kept telling myself, pigeons feeding hungry pedestrians, people with empty eyes walking along, mumbling, do you really want to experience that? Demonstrators, tear gas and chemicals blinding you. Am I a madman? I'm a kid who never knew his father. Containers for babies used in the past are making a comeback. In special boxes fitted into the outside of hospital walls, mothers can leave their unwanted babies. Infants are abandoned on apartment block steps, in church courtyards, in public maternity hospitals.

“
You always exaggerate, Jonathan, whether you're hopeful or pessimistic.
”
 

I love you, Amalia. Exaggeration is what love dresses in. Otherwise love withers like a foundling.

At night, when sleep takes us all into his arms, Amalia, we become homeless. All of us. A strange fraternity, vast and endless, ties us to each other. I close my eyes for a moment, I pull down the shade. Amalia, you make me love whatever I come across in this country. Our country, Amalia. We'll disembark together. Together we'll wander through its wounded streets. You bring a lullaby to my lips . . . You make me transform myself, and I have nothing but these disguises of mine, you lend me women's and children's and infants' clothing, my body is never left bare. I dress up as a mother. You dress me, Amalia. Nakedness disappears. I see them lying down on the sidewalk, Ermou Street, Omonia Square, Exarchia, Theatrou Street, Gazi, along all the streets I studied on the map, and it's as if I have already walked these streets countless times in my imagination, I see them wrapped in blankets, in cardboard boxes they call home, a heavy winter is on the way, with snow and hail. Paper houses just soak up the rain.

I bend down over their heads and whisper in an unusual, almost unknown tongue:

 

My sweet boy, why aren't you sleeping?

Don't be afraid, your mama's here

I'll sing my lullaby for you

And all your fears will be gone

Sleep well, my son

I love you and I sing for you

This lullaby.
17

 

I borrow your voice, Amalia. The voice of our mama, and Erasmia, and the other Frosso, all the women's voices come together in my voice.

But the truth is that I'm afraid of the freezing winter there. However much I borrow the magic of your voice, fear wins me over. I'll be on my own. How will I get along?

“
The land has surprises in store for us, Jonathan. Surprise is the antidote to fear. A crazy child thought its mother was many mothers in one. It screamed that she had two heads. The mean one would try to eat the child, while the other was tender and compassionate. The child sang while it was being slaughtered, singing to the blood it was losing.
And the blood turned into song and light. Light made of amber. Transformation is the magical medicine for our country.
”
 

Are you telling the truth?

“
The land has surprises in store for us, Jonathan. It's a good land. Do you remember Grandma's Hal­cyon Days? When winter went on for too long, she'd tell us that the weather there is different. In the heart of winter, in the cold weather and the rough seas, for a few days there's something like a short summer. Darkness hides itself, the wind subsides, the chill moves away, the sun warms the country, winter disappears into winter. The whole land looks after a bird.
”
 

It's a bird called Halcyon and it must hatch its eggs in the winter. Its eggs will hatch in nests in the rocks. It's wintertime, but there's a god who lets the sun shine brightly to keep the mother warm until her babies are born.

“
Yes, Jonathan, you're traveling there now. Winter might pause.
”
 

“We've started our descent into Athens. Please return to your seats.”

I can dream, Amalia.

“
Now is the moment, Jonathan.
”
 

Takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts of a flight. The pious woman in front lets out a little screech.

“We're almost there,” she says with relief.

“Yes, we're almost there.”

“You're Greek?”

“Yes, I'm Greek.”

Once upon a time, Amalia, there was a country . . .

“
Go on, Jonathan.
”

Once upon a time there was a family . . .

“
You always told nice stories, Jonathan.
”

So as not to lose you, Amalia.

“
Jonathan, for once, I would like to hear it from your lips.
”
 

What?

“
I would like to hear your voice telling me that I . . .
”
 

There's no chance of that happening, Amalia, forget it.

“
I'm dead, Jonathan, your sister is dead. I died on Tuesday, January 8, 2013, a few days before you got your visa for your trip.
I'm also at the Green-Wood Cemetery, in the well-tended grave of the Argyriou family.
”

It was snowing, Amalia. The park was all white that day. White and frozen. You could go ice skating on the lake. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. The squirrels were freezing in their nests, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. Quite some time went by. Nothing. Not a single squirrel appeared. I scattered the seeds, the acorns, the hazelnuts. Nothing. On the lake, the ducks looked like statues in a still life. Some more time went by. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. Nothing. So I imitated your voice. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. And then I saw him. Our little squirrel. I recognized him immediately. The tip of his tail was a little singed. It was his distinctive mark.

“
I remember, Jonathan, we named him Woody because he lived in the wood.
”
 

And not Woundy.

“
No more wounded names, Jonathan.
”

“Woody came running to my feet. I emptied my pockets. He sat on his hind legs and began munching on a chestnut. We remained facing each other. Frozen Jonathan and Woody with the mark on his tail. There wasn't a soul to be seen. It was ten below zero. The colorful city was protecting itself from the cold.
I want to go to Greece
,
 
I said to myself for the first time. Woody ate one more chestnut, gave me one final glance and then ran off. January 8, 2013. Tuesday.