Christos Ikonomou - Something Will Happen, You'll See

No, Michalis, he says. I’m not offended. It’s something else I’m thinking about. We talk and talk and the more we talk the better I understand that what binds us together are the things we’re afraid of and the things we hate. How did we end up like this? Where did all the hatred and fear come from, can you tell me? And the more time passes the worse things get. Some days I see things that make me want to kill someone. My lord. I went through hell on the ships all those years but I never felt a thing like that. Never. But now it’s too much. I’m drowning, you know? Drowning.

Michalis looks at Vayios who’s still standing at the window and Vayios winks without smiling and puts a finger to his lips then taps that same finger on the side of his head. He comes back from the window and sits down across from the admiral and fills all the glasses again. He drinks, then bends down to light another cigarette from the candle.

It’s bad luck, says the admiral.

Vayios stays there bent over the candle staring at him holding the cigarette between his teeth. In the half-dark his face fills with strange frightening shadows.

It’s bad luck to light your cigarette from a candle. On the ships we used to say that if you light your cigarette from a candle a sailor will die.

What do you care, Michalis said. You’re on dry land now.

The admiral lifts his head and looks at us like a man coming out of a coma trying to figure out who all the people are standing around him. His eyes are foggy like two steamed-up windows.

Then he leans over and blows in the direction of the candle. The flame bends to the side and nearly goes out but then springs upright again.

• • •

One weekend last month Mao came out onto the steps later than usual. It had been raining all day and when night came a thick fog fell all around and if you looked carefully you could see steam rising from the wet asphalt like frozen breath — as if there were something alive in there, some strange creature with a thousand mouths breathing in the dark. As soon as he got outside he made a psspss sound and the cat jumped out from behind a pile of cardboard boxes stacked outside of Yiota’s corner store and limped over to him at a run. Mao folded up one of the boxes and put it down on the steps and sat down and set his cigarettes and his bottle of booze next to him then grabbed the cat by the neck as she rubbed up against his legs with her tail in the air and lifted her into his lap and started petting and talking to her. And the night was so peaceful that if you listened hard you could hear the raindrops still falling from the branches of the mulberry tree and the gurgling of the water running in the street by the sidewalk and you could hear the tinkling of the cat’s bell and Mao saying things you wouldn’t expect to hear from a kid like him. Wistful things full of nostalgia. A young kid like that — what on earth did he have to feel nostalgic about? And his voice was so sweet and calm, even calmer than the night, a murmur like the gurgling of the water in the street by the sidewalk. And if you closed your eyes you felt a strange peace spreading inside you until the gurgling of the water and Mao’s voice ran together. Because everyone says it’s a great comfort to hear a human voice in the night. It’s a great comfort to know someone else is kept up by fear — to know someone is doing something to send that fear away.

Only Michalis saw what happened that night.

He was sitting in the living room watching a documentary about what the end of the world will be like and at some point he got pretty alarmed and turned off the television and put on the radio and poured himself a whiskey. His mother was in the bedroom with her girlfriends listening to songs on the television. They have a habit of all gathering at Michalis’s house because they’re widows and don’t like to be alone at night. And Michalis is always chiding his mother and telling her that she’s turned the house into an old folks’ home but she doesn’t pay any attention. When the bottle was empty he went in and woke up the old ladies who were sleeping there with the television on. He took them all home then came back and pulled a blanket over his mother and went into the living room and opened a new bottle and undressed and lit a cigarette and then sat as he did every night beside the window and watched Mao who was sitting on the steps and smoking and drinking and talking to his cat.

Michalis likes sitting in the dark at night and watching Mao. Lots of times it occurs to him to take his bottle of whiskey down and sit next to Mao on the steps and put an arm around him and pat his shaved head and tell the kid to talk to him instead of the cat. There are lots of nights when he’s thought of doing that. It wouldn’t bother him at all to stay up all night and go straight to work sleepless and still drunk. But he knows Mao doesn’t want other people around. And if anyone else in the neighborhood saw him they’d all start whispering behind his back. Better to lose an eye than your reputation — right? Right.

It was after three when the Mirafiori showed up. It came down from Cyprus Street the wrong way on a one-way street and crept along with its lights off until it stopped in front of Mao’s house. Michalis saw the brake lights come on and yellow smoke rising from the exhaust pipe. He saw the big yellow scorpion painted on the back window. He stood up and opened the window. He waited. He thought about putting on some clothes because the damp chilled him to the bone — but he didn’t have time. Mao jumped to his feet and the cat leapt from his arms with a wild hiss and then Mao hurled himself against the passenger’s side door. The Mirafiori sped off, its tires skidding over the wet asphalt. Mao ran after it. Outside the deafmute’s house he stopped and threw an arm forward and a gunshot rang out — a dry empty bam like a branch breaking. Then there was the sound of shattering glass. The Mirafiori turned the wrong way onto Kastamoni and disappeared. Michalis was hanging naked from the window. He wanted to shout something down to Mao but no sound came out. He saw Mao standing in the middle of the road with his arm stretched out and his legs spread and bowed like a cowboy’s. Michalis expected to see lights coming on and doors opening and people running out of their homes but none of that happened. Mao went to the corner. He looked up and down the street. He looked up at the sky that vanished into the fog. Then he walked back slowly looking straight ahead his boots thudding on the pavement. Tall and so thin — a shadow with no body.

When he got back to the steps he took a swig from his bottle and lit a cigarette. The cat was watching him from where she’d scrambled up into the mulberry tree. He called to her but she didn’t come over. A light came on in the house. Mao tossed his cigarette to the ground and started to run.

Michalis hung naked from the window and watched as Mao disappeared at the end of the street. The darkness fell on him like an enormous shadow that had finally found its body.

True or false that’s what Michalis said.

• • •

The next morning we gathered at the deafmute’s house. There were at least ten of us there, maybe more. The deafmute was really pissed. The bullet had shattered the windshield of his car. He kept cursing Mao with his hands and Mao’s mother and his own bad luck because he always parked his car in front of his house but the night before some stranger had taken his spot so he had to park his car on the corner. He waved his hands and rolled his eyes and the veins in his neck bulged like they might burst. Someone said it was the whole neighborhood’s fault since no one called the police and someone else said no one realized the sound was gunfire — who ever heard of such a thing, guns going off in the middle of our street — and then the first guy said we were all chickenshit pussies and if he’d been here last night — he was at a wedding — he would have grabbed the bastard by the throat and shoved the gun up his ass. Pretty soon all hell broke loose since the calmer among us were getting annoyed with the deafmute who kept thrashing around and saying mmmmm nnnnnn and we told him to sit down and shut up so we could figure out what to do and the deafmute got even angrier and turned bright red and grabbed a telephone book and started banging it on the table. Everyone was furious and scared. Some people wanted to go down to the police station and others were cursing Mao’s mother who wandered the streets like a priest’s dog and had turned her house into a bordello. One guy said that women are the world’s great weakness and ever since they started to do other things than the only one they’re made for — which is to say having babies and raising them — they’d ruined themselves and their kids and all the men in the world. And everyone said something had to be done because who ever heard of a bratty doped-up bastard out loose in the streets with a gun in his hand and if we don’t do something for sure tomorrow or the next day he’ll go out and shoot the first guy he sees. And Iraklis with the beard who has a stall in the market asked who wanted to come with him to Mao’s house to beat the kid up and someone said Mao never came home last night. Everyone was furious and scared. Then Michalis said let’s not go overboard we have to find some way of dealing with the situation. He reminded us that Mao guards the whole neighborhood and lots of people feel safer knowing someone is staying up at night and watching over things. And let’s not forget what Mao went through with his sister. Let’s not forget that those assholes from Korydallos swore they were going to come to his house one night and hurt his mother and his little sister.