Sophia Nikolaidou: The Scapegoat

One night Manolis came home, sat down beside me, stroked my back. He started to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. He was a wise child, he never spoke without thinking, the way others do.

— It would have been better if I had died, mother.

I turned and looked at him, for the first time in a long while. He was hunched over as if he were carrying stones on his back.

I remembered the dream.

If you had to choose, who would you choose?

The next day I ran to church and confessed. I told the priest.

— God forgive me, Father. I’m torn to pieces over the child I lost. But if I lost Manolis I would die.

ZOE TSOKA, WIDOW OF THE AMERICAN REPORTER

He stared at my arms. A widow doesn’t wear sleeveless dresses, I’m sure that’s what he was thinking. They all look at me strangely, and they’ve called me in for interrogation eight times. I don’t cry, don’t beat my chest, don’t wear a kerchief. I’m young, beautiful, slender. Too much the stewardess for their taste.

If they could, they would have buried me with him.

And he, the head of the Security Police, is the worst kind of village boor. A lout. I caught him picking his nose. I’d rushed into the room, I couldn’t understand why he’d called me down again, just to tell him the same things over and over. He pulled his finger out of his nose and stuck the precious discovery on the bottom of his chair with an air of indifference.

Revolting.

Where I’m from men like him were my servants, they shined my shoes, opened doors so I wouldn’t dirty my gloves. I grew up in Alexandria, with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a French governess and a real porcelain tea set for my dolls. The lace from my dowry dates back three generations. My dresses were all tailored in Paris.

On evenings when she was going out to the theater, Mother would take me into her room and lay her dresses on the bed so I could help her choose. We picked out earrings and necklaces. She sang and clapped and tickled me, pulled on satin gloves, spritzed herself with perfume. She always left in a rush. She would kiss the air around me, so as not to muss me with her lipstick. She left the other dresses on the bed and the jewelry boxes open. When she was gone I would try on her clothes, her jewelry, her pumps, posing in front of the three-paneled mirror. I was pretty.

Father worried that I would marry too young. But Mother would reply that a woman’s marriage is her career — which is to say, the sooner the better , she added, pinching my behind. When I told them I was going to become a stewardess, they didn’t show the enthusiasm I had expected, but didn’t object, either. Father, who had lost piles of money during the war, not to mention Mother’s entire dowry, said that it was a fine job, well remunerated. And you’ll meet plenty of respectable gentlemen , Mother said, smiling.

She was right, I did. I even came close to marrying one of them. His name was Jan, he was Swedish. He worked for his father’s company, and he was in line to be president. He was polite and obliging. He entertained me for three days in Stockholm, in December, just before Christmas. We ate reindeer with elderberry sauce. It smelled so awful I thought I would vomit. But the worst part was the darkness — a thick darkness that enveloped people and houses and everything else. It was only light for three hours each day. And it was a weak, consumptive light that came out looking frightened and hid again soon after.

I made some excuse and left early. I wouldn’t have stayed another day for all the world. My soul shrank in that darkness, I thought I would die.

Later on I met Jack. He was twice as old as me, and twice as tall, too. I had met very few Americans in my life, but he certainly stood out. His eyes shone as if he had a fever. He laughed out loud, and he hugged me so tight he left a mark. He danced like a movie star. He loved life and let it show. He had friends everywhere. With him the day was a thousand hours long. There was time for everything.

He asked me to marry him. He kneeled in the middle of the street one day and kissed the toe of my shoe. Passersby were watching, but he didn’t care. He took the ring out of his pocket and said, Will you marry me? without any warning, without any wasted words. I said yes right away, and he kissed me so hard my lip split. It’ll be like sugar, the two of us together , he promised. He wasn’t one for words, he preferred actions.

After we were married he asked me if I knew any good communists he could talk to, if we had anyone in the family who’s in the Party, any reds, a man I can trust , someone who could arrange an interview with the rebel General. I laughed. So that’s why you married me , I teased.

I did in fact have a third cousin who was a rebel fighter. Jack insisted that we go visit him in jail. I still remembered Nikitas in shorts, stealing candies from me and shoving them all in his mouth at once. Stuffed, saliva running down his chin, and him laughing so hard he almost choked. The young man who came and stood before me now was as thin as a branch. His eyes had seen war, his hands had killed. I didn’t recognize him. Nikitas , I whispered. He was only a year older than me. A vein pulsed on his cheekbone. He saw me notice. If he could, he would have ripped it out then and there.

Jack asked me to tell Nikitas he was a reporter. An American , he added, since that usually opened doors. He would go wherever they told him to, would follow their instructions to the letter, as long as he could interview the General.

— Your husband is crazy, was Nikitas’s response. Or he’s pretending to be, he added, not even looking in Jack’s direction.

We left empty-handed. Jack had plenty of enemies at that point. He’d been making a stink to people in high places in the government, because the American aid packages weren’t being distributed to the families of communists in the villages.

— From a political perspective it’s not unjust, I heard him saying to someone over the phone. I understand your position, we don’t feed the hand that bites, or kills. But, my dear friend, they’re letting women and children go hungry.

Antrikos, our friend in Athens, warned me.

— You need to reel him in, he said. Two days ago, Jack met with the Minister of the Interior. They say Jack was shouting about the riots breaking out all over the country. He accused Rimaris of letting his men pick and choose where the American aid ended up. Sincerity isn’t a solution or a cure, Antrikos cautioned. There are certain things we just don’t say.

Jack should have known.

We could all see it: my husband was ambitious. He wanted to be the first and the only. If anyone ever said no, he simply didn’t listen. His stubbornness brooked no denial.

— A reporter’s job is to do the things others find impossible, he told his friends with a smile.

Antrikos disagreed.

The General was the trophy they were all chasing after. No one had ever met with him, no one had any idea where he was. An interview with the leader of the rebels in his hiding place would make an international splash. If Jack could pull it off, he would return crowned with laurels. Then maybe he would calm down. We’d go to America, have a family. He would work a desk job at the radio station, he wouldn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone anymore.

— Don’t listen to him, Antrikos advised. When this is over, something else will come to take its place. The man can’t sit still, don’t you see?

That’s when I started to notice. At restaurants he always kept his back to the wall. He slept with a revolver under his pillow. He said it was part of the job. The truth was, he lived dangerously. That’s why he took pleasure in every moment. And I admired him for that.