Angel Igov - A Short Tale of Shame

They ate gyros downtown, that was good, Maya said, but now I can just tell that I reek like garlic, come on now, Krustev joked, we’re not gonna kiss each other, right, and suddenly he realized that it sounded exactly as if Spartacus had said it and the three of them didn’t react, the comment sailed past just as their own routine comments did, springing up so naturally amid their conversations that they didn’t even find them funny anymore, and he felt his chair rising slightly off the ground and swaying in the air, that same sense of rocking and the loss of solid ground that he felt in the sea. He took them through the old town’s narrow, fantastic streets, lorded over by haughty, regal cats in the lazy afternoon, and that became yet another easily lost day, for months now all his days had been lost, but until now he had been at pains to lose them, he had wriggled through the cramped holes in the rough, scraping walls with effort; here, where the streets really were cramped and the walls rough, he couldn’t sense the sand draining away; but when evening came and the city again filled up with tourists eager to buy sandals and silver bracelets, to eat heavy, impressive dishes and to drink bad wine, Krustev already knew where he wanted to go, and he knew that he wanted to go alone. They had set out to walk around the old town along the fortress wall, this was actually his idea, but he had forgotten that it was quite a hike, at one point Sirma announced that she’d had enough, you guys go on ahead, and sat down on the grass along the path, come on, lazybones, Spartacus goaded her indignantly, but she was already leaning against a crooked tree and taking off her sandals. Spartacus waved dismissively and he and Maya continued on, I’ll stay here with her, Krustev called after them and sat down in the grass across from the girl who was intently massaging her toes, and felt the urge to light up a cigarette, a long abandoned habit, which from time to time cut through his consciousness like a flashback, the consolation of having something in your hand, the awkwardness of just sitting there doing nothing. How is she, Sirma asked him suddenly, how is Elena, and only now did he stop to think that she alone of the three hadn’t said a word about his daughter until now, I think she’s fine in the States, he said cautiously, not because he was hesitating as to what to say, but because he didn’t know whether what he was saying was true, and plucked a blade of grass, started chewing on it and admitted, I don’t really know her at all. Sirma seemed about to say something, but then kept quiet. Now was his chance to slip away for a few hours, he tried to explain and she seemed to understand immediately, you must’ve been here with Elena and your wife, and she nodded at his left hand, and Krustev said, yeah, I was with them, now he already knew that they knew, and Sirma knew that he knew that they knew, but she didn’t ask anything more, silence about silence, Krustev said to himself, I don’t ask them about their stuff and they don’t ask me about my wife’s death, what on earth could I tell them, that my wife went to the seaside with her boyfriend, whom she’d been with for eight years, someone I may have read about in the papers, but I didn’t want to know who he was and now I’ll certainly never find out, they had gone to the seaside together, she could swim, unlike me, but she got caught in the undertow and when they pulled her out of the water, she wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t alive either, and it was only then, when I went to see her in that white room that I could again speak honestly and openly with her, and yes, as you guessed, she died, and it’s a bit of a long story, but in the end I grabbed my car keys and credit cards, left the house and hit the road, yes. Go, said Sirma, go, you don’t need to explain, everybody needs time alone, remember that Guns N’ Roses song, everybody needs somebody, you’re not the only one , but sometimes you need to be the only one , right? What, you don’t think that we always keep tabs on one another, go on, and if you’re late getting back, we’ll meet up at the apartment, but if not — you’ve got our phone numbers.

He found the place more by feel than by memory, he had gone there only one single time eight years ago, a stupid tourist with his wife and daughter, but he had been told to definitely visit that humble and inconspicuous little restaurant far from the tourist joints, where it showed that locals also lived on Rhodes, here you didn’t order food, the owner decided for you and brought it over himself, an elderly, bony Lydian with a white beard and a huge moustache, with blue eyes and a salty face, as if he had just stepped off the fishing boat, he served his guests with respect and spry gestures, in which there was not a trace of the sycophantic servility demonstrated by the waiters in the usual restaurants, he moved briskly through the small space, carrying bowls of salads, plates of octopus, calamari, and mussels, which his wife prepared in the tiny kitchen behind the bar. Even Elena, who was known for reluctantly pushing food around her plate for half an hour, was impressed, now these were unpretentious, yet disconcertingly delicious appetizers, which they washed down with a liter of white wine and despite the stern glance from her mother, he poured some for Elena, too, for the first time he poured wine for her at the table, she took a sip cautiously, yet proudly, wrinkled up her nose and said it was a little sour, but otherwise all right, and drank her first glass of white wine along with the strange black dish which swallowed up the light, squid served in a sauce made of its own ink, if you were a writer, Elena said suddenly with one of her last fanciful, childlike whims, if you were a writer, you’d have to eat only this, an animal cooked in its own ink, being a writer, you’d have to eat ink, what do you say? They said that’s exactly right and even shared this idea with the owner, he found it amusing and twisted his long moustache in satisfaction, well maybe your daughter will become a writer some day, if she eats ink regularly. Then Krustev turned his attention to the squid itself, incidentally, if you’re a photographer it also made sense to eat it, but Elena’s idea had lodged in his memory, because he thought of it from time to time, imagining a writer who ate ink sitting alone at the table, lost in thought and slightly scowling, dipping his bread in the black sauce and stuffing it into his mouth, now after all those books he had read over the winter, in which the people and the stories from the printed page seemed more real to him than everything around him and certainly more real than he himself was, he again wanted to eat squid ink, the strange, slightly tart taste of the sea and of something which cannot be defined, and for one more evening to draw close to the life of the man with the blue eyes and salty face and his heavy wife, who chopped, minced, fried and steamed, the two of them truly like something out of a book; and for that reason he had to go alone.

He found it; and it was the same, nothing about the place had changed, the same simple tables, the guitar hanging on the wall, and on the other wall — black-and-white photographs of old men from the islands, rugged, eternal old men, but among them there was one with huge, magnetic eyes, which seemed to have gathered all the possible dreams of his island, emanating them in his radiant gaze, which gushed from the picture and spilled throughout the space and far beyond it. The proprietor’s beard was also as white, his moustache was also as long, Krustev sat down at one of the small tables, across from him four men were drinking ouzo, it was unusual for someone to come here alone, but he and the blue-eyed owner agreed on salad, squid and wine, he spoke English well, Krustev remembered that back then, too, they had been surprised that such an elderly man did so well with English, but perhaps he wasn’t really as old as he looked, or perhaps he was eternal, like the old men in the photos. Krustev turned his eyes to the pictures and gave himself over to the oncoming return, the reversal of time, he let it pull him back into the sea, he once again thought of his grandfather, hidden behind a mask of rugged and scowling silence in the last house in the village, heavily treading the earth with his feet, how would he have gotten along with this spry man of the sea here, and right then he appeared with the plates and pulled him back into the present. Krustev broke off a chunk of bread, dipped it in the black squid sauce and involuntarily blurted out, I was here years ago, and back then my daughter said that this was a dish for writers… Because writers should eat ink, the owner added, well, yes, I remember all three of you, I was just wondering where I knew you from, years may have passed, but it’s all stored up here and he tapped his forehead, I’ve got a memory like an elephant, I don’t forget anything, and even if I want to, I can’t, which is sometimes not a good thing at all, but other times is good, so did your daughter become a writer? I don’t know, Krustev said foolishly. And he thought to himself that whatever he might be asked about his daughter, about his wife, he would be forced to reply I don’t know far too often, he bit his lips and suddenly started talking, as if the chunk of bread soaked in ink had freed the long stopped-up stream, the swarms of words stuck in his body now poured out uninhibited in a language that was foreign to both of them; when he started telling him about his wife, the proprietor’s salty face grew serious, until that moment he had been standing over the table, stunned, but now he pulled up a chair and looked at him carefully with his blue eyes and only when Krustev fell silent, winded, after he had told him about his daughter as well, and about the three young people and how he had brought them to Rhodes and about that self of his that he remembered from years ago, the raging Slav with the guitar from Euphoria, he told himself that he didn’t know anyone else who was able to listen like that, you did right, the man said suddenly, sitting there across from him and looking at him with his blue eyes, and repeated you did right. Krustev felt himself blushing, he turned his eyes away and his gaze fell on the guitar. How long has it been since you’ve played, asked the old man. I don’t know, Krustev smiled and realized that he didn’t even know his name. Ardis, said the proprietor. Boril, Krustev replied and again wondered at the hard, marble sound of his given name. The squid had gone cold. And it shows that you loved to play when you were young, Ardis said. They called him from the other table, but he waved them off angrily and fixed his blue eyes on Krustev. Your daughter, I remember her very well, saying that about the ink, she was a smart girl, find her again. But first, eat up.