Christos Ikonomou - Something Will Happen, You'll See

It’s a win-win deal, she said. You’ll have a free house and I’ll have free caretakers. So no ifs ands or buts. That’s how it’s going to be.

She grabbed Lena’s hand and squeezed it in hers. Her mouth was trembling. She had tears in her eyes.

You guys know how to run the store, she said. And if you need anything you can always call. We’ll talk every day on the phone, okay?

It was evening, near the end of May. They were sitting in the kitchen. Vassilis had made coffee for the women and was drinking cognac out of a snifter. It was getting dark but they didn’t turn on any lights. Lena was toying with the beads of her necklace and looking at Vassilis.

I don’t know, Vassilis said. It’s all pretty sudden. I mean, it seems like a lot of responsibility. We’re not cut out to be bosses. Or caretakers.

Oh, come on, said Lena’s sister. Over here. Look at me. Here. I’m handing over the best bookstore in Chania and I have no doubt you’ll turn it into the best bookstore in all of Crete. I’m sure of it.

She leaned over and stroked Lena’s belly.

You have to consider the future, she said. It’s not just the two of you anymore.

Then she opened her purse and pulled out three little boxes and opened them and showed Lena and Vassilis the three platinum crosses she’d bought — one for each of them. And for my godchild I’ll get a cross with diamonds on it, she said and stroked Lena’s belly again.

She held out a hand to each of them.

Everything’s going to be fine, she said. I’m sure you’ll manage. Have faith. That’s the most important thing. People who don’t believe in anything are just as unhappy as those who are searching for something to believe in. Faith isn’t a road. Faith is the end of the road. Or maybe it’s a road with no beginning or end. At any rate, I for one am very optimistic. Agreed?

Okay, Lena said.

If I won the lottery I’d be optimistic too, Vassilis wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut.

He emptied his glass and then wiped his hand on his shirt and took his sister-in-law’s outstretched hand.

• • •

When the house burned down Lena was twelve weeks pregnant.

It was the last weekend of July. Her sister had just gotten back to Athens from Mexico and was leaving again on Monday for some godforsaken place — Nepal or India or somewhere like that. Utterly insane. She wanted to buy Lena a ticket to come see her in Athens. They had to see one another, she’d missed Lena so much. And she had so many things to tell her, incredible things that she’d seen and heard in Peru and Mexico. She wanted to tell her all about the Mayans and Incas and Aztecs, the Yucatan peninsula, about the sun of Mazatlan that turns an indescribable green when it sets.

I’ve heard that, said Vassilis. The sun is green over there. The horses, too.

So, what do you think? Lena asked. Should I go?

Go. And make sure to talk straight with her. Ask where all this is leading. You and I are stuck here running someone else’s store and living in someone else’s house. Great, so she won a bunch of money and wants to play Phileas Fogg. But what about us? Our whole lives are on hold. Who knows, she might get some crazy idea in her head in the next place she goes and hand all her money over to the children of Calcutta and then disappear into the jungle to feed elephants. I have no idea. How long is this whole story going to last. I can’t sleep at night. It’s all I can think about.

Why? I mean, what were we before? Lena said. Weren’t our lives on hold before?

She opened the fridge and poured a glass of water and set the bottle on the table. On the television they were saying the heat wave would last until Monday. Forty or even forty-one degrees. It was even worse at night, it never cooled off. She came and sat on Vassilis’s lap and pressed his head against her chest. Her breasts were fuller these days and her face was puffy and glistened as if she were sweating all the time. In the mornings she felt dizzy and she was always complaining that she was tired. There were days when she didn’t get to the bookstore until afternoon and didn’t really help much at all. She just sat at the register and read baby books.

It’s not like we’re strangers, Lena said. She’s my sister. It’s not just anyone’s store and house. What’s gotten into you?

But they’re not ours, either. They’re not a stranger’s but they’re not ours, either. The uncertainty is driving me nuts.

He took a cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth without lighting it. For the past month or so Lena hadn’t let him smoke in the house. She was trying to get him to quit. And drinking, too. Things were different now, she said. The days are over when you could play Billy the Kid. You’re going to be a father soon, she said and laughed. You’re going to be Kyrios Vassilis. And then Kyr Vassilis. And then barba-Vassilis. And I’ll be Aunt Lena.

And she laughed.

He toyed with the cigarette in his fingers then laid it down on the table. Lena drank her glass of water one mouthful at a time. She held it in her mouth until it got warm and then swallowed slowly. The way he was looking at her sideways, and the way her neck was bent, her face seemed unrecognizable to him. Distorted. He closed his eyes.

It’s not fair, he said.

What?

The whole thing. Three hundred thousand. Three hundred thousand. I can’t wrap my head around it. And she never said, hey, guys, here’s a couple grand for you to go and spend however you like. All she gave us were those stupid crosses. As if we’re Mau Mau or something. That’s one nice sister you’ve got. You should be proud.

Lena stood up from his lap and sat on a different chair. She looked at the bottle of water sweating on the table.

Pity the man with no nails who expects others to scratch his back, she said. That’s what my mother used to say.

Then she said she was scared to fly with the baby. She’d talked to her doctor and he said it was fine. But she was still scared.

Go, Vassilis said. Go and talk to her. Explain how things are over here. Tell her that something has to give.

I’ll go. But I’m scared.

All of a sudden her upper arm was covered in tiny little bumps. She set her glass on the table and started to rub her skin.

I’m fine, she said. It’s okay. It’s gone now.

Then they fell silent. They stared at the sweating bottle of water on the table. A drop rolled down from the neck of the bottle. Then another. And another.

• • •

An entire weekend. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d had the house to himself for an entire weekend. Years and years. In the morning he drove Lena to the airport and on the way home he started quaking all over with nostalgia. Nostalgia for the years before he was married, when he drank alone, walked alone for hours from Pahiana to Souda and back again. Alone. With other worries, or no worries at all. Alone.

He opened the bookstore and before noon had talked to Lena on the phone once or twice and emptied an entire bottle of tsikoudia. Then he went next door to the house and kept drinking and put on music and started to dance in the darkened living room and as he danced and sweated and drank he remembered the years when music was his only friend, the years when music gave him strength and made him feel invincible. He remembered the years when he dreamed of becoming a singer, a rock star, giving concerts and interviews. New Idols, that’s what his band would be called.

From Nietzche’s Zarathustra and it meant something but he’d forgotten what.

Soon he got tired and dizzy and he lay down on the floor to catch his breath. In life you don’t get what you deserve but what you demand, is what the self-help books say. And there, in the darkness, looking at the things around him that weren’t his, smelling the strange smell of the house, it occurred to him that he’d never demanded anything in his life. And he realized that now, even if he wanted to, it was far too late to demand anything at all.