The Slap

  Thanassis wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulder. ‘We all get old, my Manoli, but don’t you dare go dotty on me.’

  He was drunk by the time Koula rose, clutching her handbag, her face determined, brooking no argument.

  ‘Paraskevi, we have to go.’

  The old woman shook her head furiously. ‘Stay—you can’t go.’ Paraskevi looked over to Manolis who was reminiscing with the men, laughing at an old joke from Stellio. ‘Mano, tell Koula that you have to stay.’

  Manolis took one look at his wife and shook his head. She could not be convinced. Koula did not like to drive; she particularly did not like to drive at night. He would certainly not be forgiven for his drunkeness if he forced her to stay.

  He rose from his chair. ‘We have to go.’

  The farewell was a blur of hugs and kisses, of shaking hands, of promising to phone, to see one another. Athena showed them to the front door. In kissing the young girl’s cheek—the rejuvenating perfume of a young beautiful girl, this was intoxication, this was paradise, this was the only God worth knowing—he also remembered the occasion. Thimios was dead. He offered his condolences once more, but the words came out an incoherent jumble, from both the drink and his emotions. Athena waved them goodbye as Paraskevi walked them down the driveway. She was holding Koula’s hand.

  ‘We can’t lose one another again.’

  ‘I promise, we won’t.’

  Paraskevi would not let go. ‘Koula, he was my everything, my sun in the day, my moon at night. I fear I will go crazy without him. I need you. I need you.’ Her last imploring words were lost in a sudden torrent of tears. Manolis watched the two women, now both crying, holding tight to each other. Slowly, reluctantly the old woman pulled herself away from Koula. She kissed Manolis on the cheek, wetting him with her tears.

  ‘Thimio loved you.’

  I know. And I loved him. He knew that.

  ‘You must visit.’

  ‘We will.’

  With a great effort, a stab of pain tearing through his knee, he climbed into the passenger seat of the car. Koula adjusted the mirrors, made her prayer, turned on the ignition. The car hesitantly reversed in the drive and turned into the street. With effort Manolis turned his head back to see Paraskevi receding, her hand still waving, looking old, weary, spent, out in the cold, in her funeral black.

  The following morning he awoke from a dream of profound tranquility. He opened his eyes to the material world, a childlike smile on his face, his limbs, his bones feeling rested, youthful. He attempted to clutch onto the dream, force it into consciousness, but it eluded him. Thimios had come to him in his slumber; the night had been full of his old friend’s musical laughter. Paraskevi too had been in the dream, as had his wife. Koula had been young again, as they all had been. Her skin velvety, her body and breasts firm, as she had been when he first met her, when she had caused his eyes and his heart and his loins to tremble. Manolis stripped the sheet off himself. He was wearing flannel pyjamas, and he had been sweating. He released a shocked blasphemy: fuck Jesus. His cock was hard, upright, was poking through the slot in his pyjama bottoms. You old bastard, Thimio, are you reminding me of youth for the last time?

  Koula was in the shower. Manolis shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen. Although they had found peace in the night, his old bones had not miraculously revived.

  He grimaced as he bent down to find the briki; gently, he bent his knees, grabbed it, and then, clenching his teeth, forced himself quickly to stand upright. He released his breath and started to brew the coffee. He watched the thick lumps of chocolate coffee slowly dissolve into the water to form a thick black syrup. The warm peace of the dream had not yet deserted him. He had not forgotten that he’d buried a friend yesterday, that pain had not been displaced by the dream. But in being reminded of their shared past, and also of the inexorable finality of life, he found a renewal of his pleasure in the raw, coarse reality of being alive. Maybe that was why his cock had fought for one last stand. This vulgarity, this blood and flesh was life. Thimios had died; he too would soon be dead, God willing, as would Koula, as would Paraskevi, as would all of them. The suffering and the pain and the arguments and the mistakes of the past did not matter. In the end, they did not matter. Was that what the dream had shown him? Manolis was glad that there was no outstanding hatred, resentment or feud that he would take to the grave with him. He doubted Thimios had either, he was not that kind of man. Regrets, of course, only an imbecile did not have regrets. Regrets, some shame, a little guilt. But they had all done the best they could, they had raised their children well, educated them, housed them, made them safe and secure. They had all been good people. Death was never welcome but He always came. It was only to be truly lamented when He took the young, those neither prepared nor deserving of it. Then death was cruel. Manolis watched the foam rise in the briki and he turned off the flame.

  Koula walked into the kitchen as he was pouring the coffee into the small cups. Surprised, but pleased, she tightened her bathrobe around her and sat down.

  ‘How’s your head?’ she smiled at him.

  ‘Perfect,’ he answered, also with a smile. ‘I’m still tough, don’t worry. A few whiskies won’t incapacitate me.’

  It did not, however, take them long to start bickering. He couldn’t believe how much their perceptions of the previous evening differed. Coming home, they had been too exhausted to talk. They’d eaten a small salad, some feta with bread, and gone to bed and fallen fast asleep.

  ‘Aren’t we lucky, husband?’ Koula’s eyes now shone. ‘Our children are doing so well. We have nothing to be ashamed of.’

  That glint in her eyes—yes, it was smugness. Was it also spite? He felt his calm deserting him. Koula didn’t notice. She continued her excited chatter.

  ‘Of course, one can’t blame Sandra and Stavros for their child being diseased in the brain.’ Koula touched wood and her lips drooped. Then she immediatley cheered up again. ‘But their son sounds like he’s hopeless, has no idea of what he wants to do. I’d be tearing my hair out if I was Sandra. But maybe she doesn’t care. She is Australian. ’

  ‘Sandra is gold,’ he growled. ‘Always has been.’

  ‘As for Thanassi, a good man, but he’s become a degenerate.’

  Manolis closed his eyes. He had thought in the joyful rediscovery of his past yesterday that all the petty envies and inanities of the middle years could be thrown aside. He believed he had glimpsed a truth, a possibility: equanimity, acceptance, a certain peace—in old age, all men were equal. Not in work, not in God, not in politics, only in age. But it was not so. He tried to drown out his wife’s chatter. He wanted a few more minutes in a world where hierarchy and snobbery and vindictiveness did not hold sway.

  ‘And poor Emmanuel. Two sons and neither of them married. He must be so ashamed.’

  ‘What the devil has Emmanuel got to be ashamed of?’

  Koula rolled her eyes. ‘The sun hasn’t risen yet. Have you already lost your temper?’

  She was right. He should say nothing, keep the peace. He sipped his coffee and let her talk.

  ‘And poor Tasia.’

  ‘What about Tasia?’

  He had never paid any attention to Tasia. He wasn’t going to begin now.

  ‘Her oldest is still unemployed. It’s a disgrace.’

  He fought the rise of his glee. It served the old gossip right. Then he reprimanded himself. He was not going to get caught up in this. He didn’t know the lad. The poor cocksucker had enough to deal with if Tasia was his mother.

  ‘Have we got any loukoumia left?’

  Koula frowned at him. ‘You’re not meant to have much sugar.’

  ‘Just one loukoumi.’

  Koula leaned over her seat, and opened the cupboard. She brought out the box of Turkish Delight. ‘And her youngest, Christina, she’s divorced.’

  ‘Our Elisavet is divorced.’

  Koula was outraged. ‘It’s not the same thing. Christina was alwa
ys loose, our daughter worked hard in her marriage. It was not her fault that she married an animal.’

  They glared at each other. Manolis lowered his gaze.

  Not for the first time, he sighed inwardly at the innate conservatism of women. It was as if being a mother, the agony of birth, rooted them eternally to the world, made them complicit in the foibles and errors and rank stupidity of men. Women were incapable of camaraderie, their own children would always come first. Not that his own children did not come first with him, not that he would not sacrifice for them. He was here, in this house, with this woman, in this particular life: he had sacrificed for them. But he was not blinded to who and what his children were. Of course, there were men who thought as women did, men whose children made them insensible to the worth of others. But they were weak men, not men who belonged in the world. And sure, of course, there were also strong women, women of fire and spirit, women who led revolutions, women who chose martyrdom. But they were rare. Women were mothers, and as mothers they were selfish, uninterested, unmoved by the world.

  His wife was still talking, her lips moved, he heard the rush of sounds, but he blocked her out. He read her face instead. There it was: self-righteousness, the flash of mockery, the pleasure in another’s misfortune. Had she forgotten the day he had found her banging her fist against the kitchen floor like a madwoman, flecks of blood spattered over the linoleum, her grief and fury at her daughter’s divorce impossible to stem? How she had not been able to face going to the factory, to the shops, to leaving the very house when Hector told them he and Aisha were not going to marry in a church? Had she forgotten her grief, had she so excised it from her mind, that she could now gloat over another woman’s equal misfortune? Women gave birth to men and hence gave birth to greed.

  He finished his coffee and his hand dropped to his lap. He blushed. He was still hard. He looked over to his wife and tried, but failed, to resurrect the girl from the dream. It was years since they had been intimate. It was years since he had been carnal at all, a brothel in Collingwood where a young stoned girl had bitterly, unenthusiastically tried to arouse him. He had just wanted her to sit on his lap, for him to stroke her long hair and tell her stories. It was laughable. His body failed him when needed and now it was taunting him without mercy. What would Koula do if he stood and asked her to go to bed with him? What possible words were left between them to describe his desire?

  I want to fuck you, wife.

  She would laugh. She would laugh, she would be cruel, as cruel as his mother had been all those years ago in that other world, in the village, when she stripped the quilt off him one morning and found his cock had slipped through a hole in his trousers. She had pointed at it, cackling, What can you do with that poor little thing? His mother’s laughter had awoken his brothers who also began to tease him. They stripped him of his clothes, and he, outraged, had run out crying in to the snow. He had sheltered in the cellar, folding himself among the warmth of the goats. He had wanted to die. He had wanted them all dead, most of all his mother. His poor, hungry, beloved mother.

  Well, now she was long dead, as was that life. As was that world. Manolis ordered his cock into a retreat. Damn you, you’re no use to me now. He and Koula would never be husband and wife, not in that sense, not in that way, ever again.

  Age was cruel, age was an invincible enemy. Age was cruel, like a woman. Like a mother.

  At eight o’clock, Elisavet arrived with Sava and Angeliki. The children stormed into the house, Sava cursorily hugging his grandparents before tearing into the lounge room, turning on the television and slotting a disk into the DVD player. He and Koula never used it. They had bought it for the grandchildren. Angeliki was in a temper. She sat on her grandmother’s knee and burst into tears.

  ‘What happened, my little doll?’

  ‘Sava hit me.’

  Wearily, Elisavet leaned over and kissed her father on the cheek. Manolis returned the kiss. They were both stiff in their greeting. It had been this way ever since she had ceased to be a child. She was reserved around him and he was the same. Defensiveness had become a habit between them. Neither wanted to be the first to start an argument. Once they started arguing it would always escalate.

  ‘Sava did not hit you. I told you not to play with his DVD.’

  Angeliki’s contorted face was almost demonic in its fury. ‘He did smack me.’

  Her temper was like her mother’s. Deep, resentful, nursed till the final ebbing of its force. Manolis received no comfort in realising the patterns would be repeated. They circled around each other, uncomfortable and, yes, a little cautious, but he did love his daughter. He was sure of her love for him.

  He made a comical monstrous face at Angeliki and she couldn’t help herself—she laughed.

  ‘How’s my little angel? Are you glad to be spending the day with Giagia and Pappou?’

  Her face went back to its scowl. She was not letting go yet. Elisavet shrugged and sat down next to her father. Her hair was long, greasy, streaked with grey. Manolis knew his wife would want to say something about this, tell her that she should take more care of herself, make herself look younger. She was looking like an old maid—how did she expect to find a man looking like that? Sure, she was still good looking but she was a divorcee with two children. She couldn’t afford to be picky, she couldn’t afford to let herself go. All those things that she must not say. All those things that could infuriate Elisavet.

  ‘Where are you going today?’

  ‘I told you,’ Elisavet shot out, in English. ‘To a conference.’

  Conference. Both his children seemed to be always attending conferences. He had no idea what they meant by the word. A meeting ? Why couldn’t it occur at work?

  Elisavet spoke more gently. ‘It’s a teacher’s conference, Dad. I helped organise it. It’s about literacy.’ Manolis did not understand this word.

  His daughter struggled to explain it. ‘To help children who find it hard to learn to read and write.’

  ‘If they work hard, then they learn.’

  ‘Mama, it’s not always that easy. Sometimes they haven’t got the opportunity. I’ve told you, many of the kids I teach come from families with no money, or the parents are not around . . .’

  ‘Where are the parents?’

  He watched his daughter inhale abruptly. ‘Prison, hospital, dead. Lots of reasons.’

  Koula shook her head at the insanity and selfishness of the modern world.

  ‘They pay you?’

  ‘I get time off in lieu.’

  Koula snorted. ‘They should pay you.’

  Elisavet laughed. ‘Yeah, well they should.’ She reached for a Turkish Delight and popped it in her mouth.

  ‘You have time for a coffee?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Mama.’

  Koula handed Angeliki over to Manolis. The little girl looked over her grandfather’s shoulder, into the lounge room where Sava was sprawled on the floor watching his movie.

  ‘Why don’t you join your brother?’

  She started to wail again. ‘He doesn’t want me.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Kiki.’ Elisavet swallowed the sweet, a shower of icing sugar falling from her fingers. ‘I can’t take this anymore. Go into the lounge.’

  The little girl’s sobs increased.

  Manolis stroked her face. ‘Why don’t we go chase the next-door-neighbour’s cat?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘She can come in here,’ Sava called out from the lounge. Her tears abruptly finished with, Angeliki rushed into the next room.

  Elisavet turned to her father. ‘Thanks for looking after them.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. We’re their grandparents, you don’t have to thank us for that.’

  ‘I’ll pick them up around eight. That okay?’

  He nodded. He would be exhausted by the end of the day. He’d have to entertain them, Koula would have to feed them, scold them. He’d take them for a walk in the afternoon. Sleep would be welc
ome at the end of the night.

  ‘Do you want to leave them with us tonight?’

  ‘No, Mum, their father is picking them up in the morning from my place.’

  Koula’s face hardened. ‘How’s that ilithio, that worthless piece of shit? Still screwing around?’

  ‘Mum!’ Elisavet motioned towards the other room. ‘They can hear you.’

  ‘Good. They should know what an animal their father is.’

  Manolis intervened. ‘Koula, shut up.’

  Elisavet looked over to him gratefully. The coffee brewed and Koula brought it over to the table. ‘You have them next weekend, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Good. It’s your cousin’s birthday. Rocco can’t wait to see Sava. Sandi told me over the phone.’

  The boy called out over the scream of the television. ‘Is Adam going to be there?’

  ‘Of course, my little man.’

  Angeliki piped up. ‘And Lissie?’

  Sava’s answer was scornful. ‘Of course she’s going to be there. If Adam’s going to be there, she’ll be there.’

  Koula dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Have you talked to your brother?’

  Elisavet’s brow creased. ‘Last week.’

  ‘Did you ask him about the party?’

  Elisavet’s tone was evasive, cold. ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘And that Indian woman?’

  ‘She’s got a name, Mama.’

  ‘Is she coming?’

  ‘No.’

  Koula banged the table. ‘She was sent to this earth to torture me. Every day I ask the Blessed Mother why my poor son had to be snared by that Indian Devil. Why?’

  Manolis shook his head. Aisha had been a wonderful wife to Hector, smart, capable, attractive. They were lucky. Couldn’t she see it?

  ‘She’s not coming, Mum.’

  ‘Because of that stupid Australeza friend of hers? That one’s also a cow.’

  ‘Harry shouldn’t have hit that child.’

  Sava called out loudly from the lounge room. ‘Yeah, he should have.’