Christos Ikonomou - Something Will Happen, You'll See

He started walking down Kondyli again toward the bridge. The wind had picked up. Women in black were walking on the sidewalk leaning into the wind and holding the edges of their coats to keep the wind from blowing them open. He heard church bells ringing in deep, heavy mourning and it struck him as strange because he knew there wasn’t a church around there and for a moment, unconsciously, he stopped and looked up and started to cross himself — then immediately caught himself. He walked on with his head down staring at his boots which were covered with mud and dirt and looked like small black animals that had just emerged into the world from some burrow deep in the ground. He turned right on Antioch Street and then on Grevena and turned right again and looked at the building of the town hall which was tall and grey and he thought how small he would seem if someone looked at him from up there. He stopped in front of the Bank of Greece and took his ATM card out of his wallet and put it in the machine and pressed the buttons and closed his eyes for a few seconds and said something on the inside as if he were a man of faith who prayed every Good Thursday in front of an icon of the crucified Christ and then he opened his eyes and saw on the screen a tiny little person looking at him with hands raised — we’re sorry we can’t complete that transaction — and pulled his card from the machine and put it back in his wallet which was black and empty and then he turned and left.

He crossed the street and turned onto Tsaldari and held his breath as he walked in front of the kebab stand and turned left and stopped in front of the Galaxy Supermarket and looked at the people shopping or waiting in line to pay and he was suddenly gripped by dizziness and panic because it occurred to him that at ten when he met his daughter the supermarkets would already be closed so where would he buy the pasta and cheese and milk and the Kinder egg for the kid and he looked at the business hours posted in the supermarket window and saw that tonight it was closing at nine and his panic grew and he leaned against a parked car and told himself to calm down, said it three times like a prayer — calm down calm down calm down — then went and stood on the corner of the street where there was a bitter orange tree with no bitter oranges on it and he pulled off a dusty leaf and crushed it between his fingers and smelled his fingers to try and pull himself together but all they smelled like was dust and sweat and fear.

Then a sudden gust of wind blew and a black garbage bag leapt up from the sidewalk and wrapped itself around his legs and for a moment he froze as if there were a black snake on his legs and then he shook his legs and started to kick at the air to get the bag off and he kicked the air and shook his hands and legs and on the sidewalk across the street an old woman stopped and looked at him and shook her head sadly and crossed herself — Good Thursday evening and a north wind was blowing and the sky was the color of the kid’s eyes who had been sitting for hours now at the kitchen table with his hands together dreaming with open eyes of a table covered with food. And it wasn’t winter, it hadn’t snowed, so he couldn’t even go outside and break off an icicle hanging from the edge of the roof and lick it to trick his hunger into thinking it was being fed. It was spring, and it hadn’t snowed around there in ten years.

• • •

Sir, the girl said. Would you put the crown on our Jesus’s head?

• • •

When he got to the dock the digital clock on the stern of the ship said ten to nine and when he stubbed out his last cigarette the clock said ten past ten and his daughter was still nowhere to be seen. He stood up from the bench and circled the cars that were waiting in line to board the ship and then weaved between the cars looking at all the drivers and passengers. He scanned the people walking over the gangplank onto the ship and those few people leaning over the railing at the stern, to the right and left of the flagpole, looking down at the other people and at the cars and trucks.

At twenty-five past ten he asked someone wearing a white shirt with blue letters that read BLUE STAR 2 if he could go up onto the ferry.

At twenty to eleven he bummed a cigarette off a truck driver and smoked it watching the stars flickering in the sky and said things about his daughter. Vulgar awful things. Things he had never said, things he didn’t know a father could say about his own daughter.

At ten past eleven the ship loosed its moorings and pulled shuddering away from the dock with thick black smoke pouring out of its funnel. He stood there waiting until the lights on the ship were one tiny light way off in the sea. Then he turned to leave and saw something on a bench and went over to see what it was. A Coke with a straw in it and a half-eaten cheese pie. He glanced around and picked up the cheese pie. He smelled it.

Then he wrapped it in the paper and put it in his pocket.

He went out of gate E1 and headed back walking sometimes in the street and sometimes on the sidewalk and as he passed under the bridge he read something scrawled on the wall in black spray paint — kick a nigger and ruin your boot — and saw the lights of a truck coming slowly in his direction and thought about jumping into the middle of the street and standing there and letting the truck run him over so he could put an end to all this once and for all and then he stepped back and pressed his back against the wall of the tunnel and spoke to his body as if his body were a dog and he were its owner and he stayed like that with his back to the wall until the truck passed in front of him and drove off.

Then he thought about the kid. He imagined the kid being given his dead father’s clothes and the kid taking them and stroking them with eyes full of tears and as he stroked them he would feel something hard in there and would stick his hand in the coat pocket and pull out a half-eaten cheese pie. How ridiculous that would be. How ridiculous.

• • •

After midnight he went up Cyprus Street walking on the left-hand sidewalk and when he got to the church of Osia Xeni he looked across and saw light and shadows behind the yellow pane in the door and crossed the street and went inside.

Six or seven women in black and a girl about eleven years old were decorating the bier with flowers. They were standing around the bier choosing flowers one by one from big bunches and cutting off the stems and sticking the flowers in the styrofoam. Daisies. Roses. And other flowers whose names he didn’t know.

They turned and looked when he came in and kept looking as he sat down in a chair and crossed his arms over his chest and smelled the air which smelled like incense and human breath. He raised his eyes without lifting his head and looked at the enormous figure staring down at him from up in the dome and looked at the other figures painted on the walls and the purple ribbons and the icons and the candles burning and melting and bending over in the empty air like tired bodies looking for something to lean against.

Beside the bier was the cross. A big tall cross made of dark wood. Christ had his eyes closed and his head was lolling to the right. Arms bent at the elbows, legs bent at the knees. The nails in his hands dripped blood. A gash in his right side was bleeding, too. He turned his head away and closed his eyes then opened them again and looked back at the crucified figure. How peaceful he was. Peaceful. Calm. Resigned.

He looked once more at the women. He would ask them for money. Of course. He would ask them to give him some money. Five or ten euros each. Whatever you can. So I can feed my child. However much you like. Happy Easter to you all. They couldn’t possibly refuse. Not for me. For my child.