Dead Europe

  I was in Andreas’ bed, tracing lines across his chest and belly. Tell me about Colin, he said.

  —What about him?

  —Describe him.

  I hesitated, wondered what to say. He is gentle and kind, I answered.

  —Describe him.

  I touched Andreas’ hair.

  —His hair is red and curly and he always cuts it short.

  —What colour are his eyes?

  —They are green.

  —And is he small or big?

  —He is very tall, very broad shoulders.

  —And is he hairy?

  —Yes. A little on his belly and a little on his chest. He is getting hairier as he gets older.

  —And what is his cock like?

  I laughed, laughed at myself for being embarrassed.

  —Tell me.

  —It’s long and it is thick. He has a foreskin.

  Andreas shifted his squat cock and I placed my hand over it.

  —Does he mind you going with other men?

  I took my hand away. I lay back on the bed and looked up at the white ceiling.

  —I don’t tell him.

  —Do you think he goes with other people?

  I looked at Andreas, at his thin dark face. His tone was lazy and sleepy, but I distrusted the questions. Of course I did. It was because I did not trust myself.

  —Sometimes. Sometimes I smell him when he comes home late and I wonder if he has been with other men.

  —So you have, how do the Americans say it, an open marriage.

  I jerked my body away from him and groped for the cigarettes.

  —Fuck you, I was trying to be honest. I love Colin. I love him very much and we have been together a long time. I wish I was strong enough not to need sex from other people. I smiled and blew lightly on the lit cigarette. I love Colin, I repeated.

  Andreas reached over for a cigarette and kissed my shoulder.

  —I believe you.

  —And you, I asked, do you have a boyfriend?

  He shook his head.

  —Would you like to?

  —No, he answered. He covered his cock with his hand and with the other hand drew the cigarette to his lips. I am marrying next spring. Her name is Diana. She too is a journalist. She is a friend of your cousin.

  I got up and hunted for an ashtray.

  —Does that shock you? I find that it shocks Americans and I assume you Australians are very similar.

  —It doesn’t shock me. I sat back in the bed and we lay next to each other.

  —Do you know Giulia is divorced?

  I stared at him.

  —I didn’t even know she was married.

  —Yes, she married. She never believed it to be love. I think it was because she was tired of her mother constantly nagging her to get married. So she married, the big wedding, it was lovely. And now they are divorced.

  —What was he like?

  Andreas chortled and then let out a big hearty laugh.

  —Too nice, too tame for your cousin. He wanted children and a nice apartment in Athens. She wants more from life.

  —And you?

  —I am forty-four, Isaac, and I want children. Diana is very sweet. She accepts me.

  —Do you love her?

  —Of course. Tenderly. I don’t pretend it is a great passion. But neither does she. He chuckled. It is a little like the wedding we witnessed tonight. Our wedding is mutually financially beneficial.

  I lay next to him and we were silent as we smoked our cigarettes.

  —Have you ever been in love?

  —Americanaki, he teased me, then he reached over and kissed me violently on the lips. I drew away. He began to touch my thighs, my balls, and I was aroused.

  —I stupidly fell in love with a Serbian soldier. In Bosnia. So yes, I have been in love.

  His cock was pressing against my stomach, he was on top of me.

  —Do you still see each other?

  —He is dead.

  He pushed my legs apart and his cock was straining against my arse. I gently pushed him away and he dropped back on his pillow.

  —Only Colin fucks me, I explained.

  —I see. He scratched at his balls and his cock began to droop. He leaned over, pressed his body against me and closed his eyes. Tell me about your family. Your father was university trained. Did he remain rich?

  I shook my head.

  —My father worked as a labourer in Australia, in factories, I explained. He was educated in France and in Thessaloniki but he had to leave Greece quickly, in 1964. As Giulia explained to you.

  —Ah, that’s right. The brave migrant, exiled for his politics. We have all heard these fairytales.

  I said nothing.

  —And your mother?

  —She came to Australia when she was eleven. Her family are from here, and I waved across the room, pointed out to the dark world outside the window. She’s from these mountains.

  —Where we are going tomorrow?

  —Yes.

  —Has she been back?

  I shook my head.

  —And your father?

  —He’s dead.

  Andreas nodded slowly but his arm that was wrapped around my shoulder squeezed me tight.

  —How did he die?

  The moon, the half-moon, was visible through the window and its pale light glistened silver across Andreas’ naked body.

  —A heroin overdose.

  Andreas was silent. His breathing was even and soft. I thought he might have fallen asleep so I slid myself from under him and searched for another cigarette.

  —I understand, he said quietly.

  —You understand what?

  —Why you distrust us Greeks. We are not very kind.

  He raised himself on his elbow and looked over to the wooden chair on which he had thrown his shirt and pants.

  —That is a Prada shirt, he told me.

  —It’s nice.

  —Yes. We wear Prada shirts now, Tommy Hilfiger jeans, but we still have our Eastern ways. Does your family know you are visiting the village?

  —No.

  —No, of course not. His eyes were wet with tears.

  —How about you? Tell me about your family.

  —Peasants from Kozani. So, like you, I too am déclassé.

  —I don’t understand.

  —I am a peasant’s son in designer clothes. I too don’t quite belong. He stretched his arms and yawned. My father took us to England for ten years and that’s where I learnt my proper English and how to scrub tables for fat English women who have no taste for food. My mother worked as a cleaner in a hospital in London and when we returned we had money enough for me to attend university and to bribe someone in Antenna to take me on as a reporter. My parents are very proud of me and are very happy that I am finally to marry.

  I shivered, chilled by the bitter unhappiness in his voice. He suddenly jumped out of the bed, and he was standing over me, and his voice was cold and clear and calm. Too calm. I wished he had shouted. His eyes were freezing.

  —And so now you know why I hate the Jews. I hate them because they killed Dejan.

  I heard him pissing in the toilet and when he came out I pretended to be asleep. He lay next to me and pretended to do the same, till finally, blissfully, near dawn, sleep did come.

  I awoke to the sound of a loud argument; two men on the street were disputing each other’s version as to how their cars collided. I also awoke to that poisoning combination of guilt, regret and a hangover that can so often be the result of casual sex. My first thought on awakening was that I missed Colin, and then, leaning over and looking at the naked brown back of Andreas, my stomach clenched and my eyes felt bruised. He awoke as I was putting on my shoes and he asked me what time it was. When I replied that it was ten o’clock he groaned and asked irritably why I had woken him so early.

  —I want to ring Colin.

  His frown vanished.

  —Kala kaneis. It’s good you do this.
r />   He closed his eyes, and then, turning his back to me, he said, I won’t tell Giulia.

  I leaned over and kissed his shoulder.

  Giulia was asleep and snoring as I entered my little room. I took my camera and I clicked and she awoke. Stop it, she squealed, I look terrible. She breathed heavily and groaned. That’s it, I am an old woman, she said. I have to give up drugs.

  —Good on you, I answered, and leaned over and kissed her. She smelt of sleep.

  She kissed me back and took a cigarette from my shirt pocket.

  —Did you sleep together?

  I was framing the view from the bedroom window. I took the shot.

  —Yes.

  She got up out of the bed and came and sat beside me. I played with her hair. She was naked except for her black cotton knickers.

  —Eisai entaxi? Are you all right? She sniffed at my skin.

  —Yeah. I’m fine.

  —Good, she said, and slapped me hard on the cheek. That slap was from Colin, she said, as she threw her cigarette out of the window and went to have a shower.

  The journey to my mum’s village was perilous and long. The road had never been asphalted and every fifteen minutes Andreas had to stop the car so we could remove boulders and rocks that had fallen across the narrow path. As we drove higher into the mountains, the lush green fell away to a stark barren landscape of bleached rock and tall lonely pines. The three of us fell silent as we journeyed and Andreas switched off the radio. We passed small villages where old women dressed in black, some of them veiled and scarfed, watched us suspiciously as we rumbled past. The only young people we saw were thin men working shirtless in the fields who Giulia said were Albanian migrants.

  Agrio Dassos was perched near the peak of a mountain, the small stone cottages balancing precariously on the cliff’s edge. The road continued further up the mountain and disappeared into a dark thatch of forest. Giulia shivered and pulled a thin black jumper around her shoulders.

  —To telos tou kosmou, she muttered. The end of the world.

  Andreas stopped the car. There was no square, no sign of life in the village. We left the car and proceeded past an old cottage which had fallen apart, one good wall remaining, the rest of it rubble. We turned a corner and saw two old men sitting at a table drinking coffee. An old wooden sign, with the word Kafenio written on it in hasty black ink, creaked and shuddered in the wind.

  Andreas approached the men.

  —Can we order some coffees?

  One of the men slowly rose to his feet and went inside the shop. The space was small and uninviting but the other man gestured at the table opposite and invited us to sit. I looked at his wrinkled face.

  —Where are you from?

  —From Athens, replied Andreas, and then he pointed at me. This man is from Australia. The old man searched my face.

  —I had brothers in Australia. They’re all dead. He took a small clump of tobacco from his jacket pocket and began to roll himself a cigarette. We fell silent as we waited for our coffees.

  Silence had descended on us as soon as we entered the village: it lay heavy and oppressive on the rocks and trees, it was thick in the air and on the breeze. It was as if we had left spring behind, and as I looked across the terraced fields sloping down into the vast blue of the sky, I wondered if this place had ever known the warmth of that season. The sun above us was dull and far away. We could not keep our eyes still. I thought I heard a whisper behind me, Andreas jumped at a shadow, and Giulia pulled her jumper tighter across her shoulders. When the old man delivered us our coffees the clink of the porcelain on the table seemed to ring through the mountain air. Then we heard the bells.

  A woman wearing a thick black dress, a dark blue scarf covering her white hair, was leading three goats along a path. As they clattered across the path the small bells on their necks clanged harshly. She stopped on seeing us, squinted, and yelled up to the old men.

  —Poi einai autoi oi ksenei? Who are these strangers?

  We were all foreigners.

  From Australia, one of the old men answered and Andreas did not bother to correct him. Instead he turned to me and asked me what I wanted to do. I shrugged and wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me or whether there were eyes spying at us from the treetops. The shadows danced everywhere. He spoke to me in English.

  —We cannot stay here. There are no hotels or pensiones or anything like that here, Isaac. This is a dying Greece. Take your photographs; when you come back next time all of this will be gone.

  Giulia turned on him and her eyes were moist. Bullshit, she said, this place has been here for thousands of years and it will be here when your euro and your EU and your fucking NATO will be just memories.

  Andreas laughed.

  —Do you see young people? No. Look at the old houses abandoned and fallen down. Look at the dry earth with nothing growing on it. This place is dead.

  Giulia took a sip from her coffee and then without looking at me she leaned over and touched one of the men on his shoulder.

  —Excuse me, Uncle, she asked, do any of you know a Reveka Panagis?

  I shivered, and held my breath for an answer.

  —Who? inquired the other man.

  —Reveka Panagis. She was a neighbour of mine in Australia.

  The two old men looked over at each other and began to whisper. I looked again at the old men, at their faces, into their eyes, wondering if I could find a glimpse of my mother in them. Or of myself. I gulped at the coffee, slammed the cup on the table and grabbed my camera. I’m taking photographs, I barked, and without waiting for a response, I left the table.

  The silence followed me as I took the path that wound past the ploughed terraces. I walked alongside heavy squat cottages and again I thought I could hear whispers following me. Shadows danced and twitched all around me, but every time I stopped, the silence would descend. The path, full of wild nettles, began a steep ascent and on turning a corner I saw a tiny church. I opened the black wrought-iron gate and walked past the building to the small cemetery beyond. Tall yellowed grass ran wild across the greying cement crucifixes and the cracking white stone. I began to take pictures. I focused on the weather-beaten carvings on the stone. I took photographs of the church wall. I was framing the small bell tower, hoping to catch a shot of the white stone against the blue sky, when I heard a laugh behind me. I turned around and a young boy, his face dirty and his feet bare, was laughing behind the gate. His ragged clothes were thin and filthy and I wondered if he was a gypsy. I looked up at the sky, judging the light, then fiddled with my lens, and raised my camera to take a shot of the boy.

  But he had disappeared. I swung around and looked at the path, I walked to the gate and peered below. The ground sloped down to a precarious drop. The cemetery was perched on the cliff’s edge. I drew back and looked behind me but the gypsy child had disappeared completely. And then for the first time in years, as I walked out of the church grounds I found my hand had flown to my forehead and to my heart. I had made the sign of the Cross. And again I heard laughter.

  I took the path back to the shop and Giulia was waiting for me, smoking a cigarette.

  —Where’s Andreas?

  —Gone for a walk. She took my hand. Are you angry with me?

  —My mother doesn’t want anyone here to know about her.

  Giulia squeezed my hand tight. Her eyes were bright.

  —Yes, I know, but listen to me.

  I interrupted her.

  —No, you listen to me. This is my family business.

  She let go of my hand.

  —And what are you going to find out on your own, she mocked me, with your terrible Greek?

  I started walking away from her, past the coffee shop, past Andreas’ BMW now coated with fine coppery dust. I was walking away from the village.

  —Wait, she called after me, and I heard her steps running towards me. I did not look around.

  —Wait, she repeated, and my anger dissipated on hearing the whine o
f her tortured English. I turned to her, all smiles, I was going to ridicule her accent. She was breathless as she took my hand. I was about to speak, to tease her, when she placed a hand over my mouth and I choked back my words.

  —Will you just listen to me for a second? she pleaded. Just listen. I spoke to those old men.

  Her breathing was slow and heavy, she was searching for words. She took her hand away from my mouth and stroked my cheek.

  —My darling Isaac, my darling cousin, did you know your mother’s family is cursed?

  MICHAELIS PANAGIS HAD not liked America. He had not liked the crowds and the sprawling city of New York, he had not liked the tiny rooms in which he had to live, he did not like the bosses who ordered him to do this and to do that. He did not like it that Americans spoke fast and that they travelled even faster: he feared automobiles and electric underground trains. He did not like the thick sound of the American accent, did not like what these strange foreign words were doing to his own tongue. Speak English, wop, speak English. Even the Greeks there cursed him like this. No, Michaelis had not liked America.

  But America had been good to him, though it had not been without effort and had not been without sweat. Michaelis’ nightmares were still full of the deep black caverns of the ironworks in which he had found himself at fourteen. The dark pits with their charred walls and roaring furnaces had seemed like Hell and he was to spend thirteen years stoking those furnaces, shovelling coal into their ravening mouths. Countless times the flames had snatched at his skin, and his body was full of the marks of the devil fire. But he had money, he had a cheap corner in a room which he shared with a silent Armenian called Essaman and a Persian Hebrew called Samouli, and he was determined to not let the temptations of the city seduce him. From morning, when he arose and began his prayers, to the evening when he threw his exhausted body onto the mattress, Michaelis asked God that he would return to his village rich enough to silence once and for all the insults against his parents. He asked that he be allowed to marry the beautiful Lucia. And with those two prayers on his lips, he would fall asleep until his nightmare began again the following day.