Nicolai's Daughters (7 page)

Alexia stood up, took the plates away and washed them. He continued arguing. When she turned around, she saw he had her paper in front of him, an oily stain colouring one corner. He was scratching notes on her pages with his ballpoint pen. She listened as he went over his comments because she knew if she didn't, she'd be up all night.

“But I'm making that point on the next page. Don't you see?” Alexia said, though when it got even later, she stopped challenging him too. Instead, she let him ramble on and ignored most of it, submitting the paper the way she wanted it. That was the last time she showed him her homework. She got an A and never mentioned it.

“
Ella
,” Christina said. “Kids are kids. No? We were young once. We old and sometimes we forget.”

They quieted down as if pondering what she'd said and later hummed agreement. Alexia's younger cousins finished eating and kicked a soccer ball around. The men lay down to nap and the women cleaned up. Alexia picked up a few plates to help.

“You will have plenty of time to ruin your hands when you have husband,” Christina said, gently slapped Alexia's hands and took the plates from her.

“If you are lucky, you won't find one,” Katarina said. “Too much work.” They laughed and flung rolled-up napkins at each other.

Alexia lay back on a blanket and listened to their chatter and laughter as they filled garbage bags and stuffed their empty containers back into their baskets, boxes and coolers. She'd never really understood she was part of such a big family even though her father talked about them, and when he received letters from Christina he'd give Alexia updates. She used to hear his translations of those letters and imagine what these people were like. Tall like Nicolai, funny and loud. Different. In her mind, they were exotic, and when she was a kid, Alexia missed them without ever knowing who they were. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn't met them then. Not having a family made her more self-sufficient. Perhaps all the noise would have scared her or repulsed her in some way. Or maybe she would have rejected them altogether.

He told me Greece was a paradise, she thought, but never bothered to take me. The first time he called, a month after he left, I didn't recognize his voice. Someone had taken my sad, unable-to-get-out-of-bed dad and turned him into a cheerful, happy one I didn't know. I accused him of not being my father, cried and threw the phone. What an idiot. Mavis tried to make things better. “You have to be a good girl,” she said, “while he's away.” That's all I've ever been. I knew if I didn't behave, he wasn't going to come back.

Alexia watched her aunts finish packing the containers. Their world was so different than hers. It didn't matter. She was here to do a job. That's why she was here. Nothing more. She rummaged through her purse for her cell.

1986

Nicolai ran towards the swing, waving his arms. Her little hands clutched the chains, her knuckles white. The man gave the swing another push. She rocked even higher.

“That's high enough, Alexia.” He meant to shout, but his voice came out a cracked whisper. Could she hear him? She tried to smile, wanting to please.

She tilted her head and met his eyes. Her smile disappeared.

“Hey, you. Stop that.” He yanked the man's arm.

The stranger turned.

Nicolai recognized his hazel eyes, his own lopsided smirk.

The man stared at Nicolai, daring him to do something, anything. The other Nicolai pushed Alexia again, his hands hard against her back.

“It's going too high, Daddy.”

“It's okay, you know what you're doing,” both men said in one voice.

“No,” she said and let go.

“Alexia!” he screamed, grasping for her. His hands fell to the side of the bed.

He bolted awake. His eyes darted around the room. He heard the groan of pipes and a flush down the hall. He lay back into the sag of his boyhood bed, staring at the ceiling, willing the dream out of his head. A spider lowered itself from the beam, bobbed along a thin line caught in the shimmer of the early morning sun. Nicolai rolled over, pushed himself to the edge of the mattress, then sank back into the middle. He pulled the covers over his head. Alexia was with Stuart and Mavis. She was safe.

He heard a door slam. The radio in the kitchen came on, the male announcer's tone loud and insistent. Nicolai understood every word and none of it was English. It was his native tongue, the language he spoke with his parents, his sisters. Greek. He was back to where he'd started, in the home he thought he'd never return to.

There was a crash. The radio must have been knocked over. A whispered mutter. Then static. The announcer's persistent voice replaced by a cheerful tune that echoed off the walls, a clear sign that his father was gone for the day. Above the clatter of dishes and the rush of water in the sink was his mother's voice. What did she have to sing about? He walked down the hall to the bathroom and turned up the hot water.

“Ah, Nicky, did you sleep well?” she asked as he came into the kitchen.

“Yes, okay.” He sat at the table and his mother poured him coffee. A bowl of cling peaches, another filled with yogurt and a small plate with two soft-boiled eggs was placed in front of him. Thick slices of his mother's warm bread sat in a basket.

“You have to eat, build your strength.” She hovered beside him.

He picked at the fruit, sipped the coffee and reminded himself he had to call Alexia. His mother turned towards the counter to knead another ball of dough. “Wasn't Maria's skirt short? What did you think of Solon? He will make a good husband. Did you see how little meat and vegetables Katarina took? And she didn't finish that.”

Midmorning he went with his mother to the market. He carried her bags as they walked from one stall to another. She laced her arm in his. “You remember Nicolai, don't you?” she asked the friends she met. “He's a successful businessman in America now, but he didn't forget his family. Yes, he's here for a visit.”

“Ah, even the owl thinks her baby is the most beautiful,” the tomato seller said. She put her hand on Nicolai's shoulder and leaned into him. “Your mother is proud of you. She talks about you all the time.”

They had lunch in the café across from the railroad station. The wood floor was as faded and cracked as it had always been; the metal chairs and uneven tables still had bits of napkin stuffed under the legs to keep them level. “I never go out for lunch,” his mother said, “except if one of your sisters comes.” She waved at people she recognized, pointed at Nicolai and mouthed, “My son.”

Nicolai picked at his calamari, his gaze on his plate.

Someone slapped him on the back. He dropped his fork.

“You're here,” the man said. “It has been too long.”

Nicolai looked up at Achilles. “You haven't changed one bit,” he said, taking his friend's hand.

Achilles kissed him on both cheeks.

He smelled of the same stale cologne they used to slap on their faces when they were teenagers. His hair was as long as it had been in high school. His pants were tight; his shiny shirt unbuttoned to where a growing belly stuck out. He wore sandals and that same silly, almost hopeful grin he'd had as a boy.

Nicolai's mother looked up briefly, but went back to her salad. “This onion is sour,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” Achilles asked.

“He comes to visit us,” his mother said, edging her chair away.

“Hello.” A woman stood behind Achilles. She ducked around him and leaned down to kiss Nicolai's mother on each cheek.

Nicolai stood up and his chair fell backwards. “Hello,” he said, letting the chair drop as he took her hand.

“You don't remember me?” Her face grew red.

“Should I?”

“Dimitria. Your cousin. You used to tease me and pull my hair.”

“But you were a kid with braces the last time I saw you.” He righted the chair. “Please, sit. I'll find more.” An image came to him. A time when they were kids playing alone in her bedroom. They were barely teenagers.

“We are at the bar,” Achilles said. “You enjoy your lunch. But we should get together soon.” Achilles put his arm around Dimitria's waist. “Right?”

“Yes.” Nicolai shook Achilles's hand. Dimitria offered hers. He took it in his. She had a strong grip, a man's hand. Sara's hands were small. They were the first things he noticed about her. Even in this place, far from home, he couldn't get away from Sara. He was sure there were moments when he didn't think of her, but he couldn't say when.

He watched Achilles and Dimitria move to the other end of the café before he sat down. “You have to be careful with that one,” his mother said. “He has big ideas for this and that and no money. He is all talk.”

Nicolai tore at his bread, then dropped it, uneaten, on his plate.

“Dimitria thinks she'll get Achilles to settle down, but he's not the type. You can knock on a deaf person's door forever. He will never answer.”

“He had all the girls following him in school.” Nicolai gazed over at the bar. Achilles sat close to Dimitria, whispering in her ear. She nodded. “I guess he's got whatever it takes to make a woman happy.”

“He feeds women lies and they believe him.” His mother glanced over at the bar and shrugged. “She'll never find a good man.”

“Maybe his way is better.”

Her head tilted towards the bar. “He has nothing. You have a daughter.”

“Yes, the one my parents refuse to acknowledge.” He folded his hands, clutched them together in his lap.

The lines around her mouth deepened. “Your father is old-fashioned,” she said at last. “He thinks we shouldn't mix cultures.” She patted her mouth with her napkin. “Differences or no differences, family is all we have.”

He leaned back in his chair. A group of men squeezed around the table beside them were arguing. One man smacked the newspaper. “Athens can't understand what we need.”

“But we put them there,” one man said. Others shouted in agreement and they all started talking at once.

“Someone is always mad,” Nicolai said. “What kind of family is that?”

His mother picked at the last bits of salad and threw her fork into the bowl. “Nothing left here to worry about.” She looked around the café and beckoned the waiter. “We need a good cup of coffee.”

Nicolai glanced again at Achilles and Dimitria, wondered what they were talking about. His mother put her hand over his, stopping him from tapping his spoon against the table. “It's a good thing some things stay the same.”

He faced the café rather than her. “He's ashamed of me.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” She moved her hand up to his forearm. Her skin looked dry, flaking. It was so thin he could see the blood pumping in the dark, swollen veins. He wanted to hold her delicate hand, make things better, but how could he take away the years of washing dishes, cleaning up after him and his sisters? His father? “We have to understand,” she said. “Life was not so easy for him.”

“The war ruined him.” He said it like a catechism. His fingers drummed on the table. “I've heard it all before. That's no excuse.”

She picked up her napkin and folded it once, then shook it out and folded it a second time along different lines. “He wanted to go to America or Australia or England, anywhere, just to get away.” She shrugged and snapped the napkin. It drooped open.

“I know the story. He met you in Patras and fell in love.”

“We have you, Christina, Katarina and Maria.” She threw the napkin down on the table. “They will clean this. I don't have to do it for them.” She swallowed her coffee in one mouthful. “Bitter,” she said, her face scrunched up. “I don't know why I'm surprised.”

“He didn't want any of us.” Nicolai leaned toward her.

“Something very bad happened to him. None of us can understand.” She moved her chair back and snapped her fingers at the waiter. “Stop passing off your dirty water as coffee.”

Back at the house, he stood at the kitchen table and watched her wash potatoes in the sink. He was never quite sure what to do with himself in the kitchen. It had been the same with Sara. She commanded the kitchen, had her system and knew what she was doing. His mother put a peeler in his hand and said, “You can help, you know.”

When his father came in, he continued to the bathroom without greeting them. He returned to the kitchen a half hour later and turned on the radio. “Is dinner ready?” he asked, sitting down in his chair at the head of the table. Nicolai sat at the opposite end.

“What did you do today?” His father wiped his fork and knife against his sleeve.

“He helped me,” his mother said before Nicolai could respond.

“Good.”

“And your day?” Nicolai leaned towards his father. Was it possible that they might finally have a real conversation?

“My days don't change. One day is the same as another.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true.”

“If you hang around women, you'll become like them.”

They ate. In the background, the news anchor's voice droned the day's events and catastrophes. When his mother said something, his father silenced her. “I'm trying to listen. I can't hear you and the radio at the same time.”

She would stop talking, then start again. “That coffee was awful today. Dish water couldn't taste worse than what they tried to sell us.”

Nicolai smiled and nodded. “No one can make a cup of coffee as good as yours.”

His father got up, walked over to the radio and turned up the volume.

His mother shook her head. When she turned to glance at Nicolai, he averted his gaze.

He finished dinner and went to his room, leaving his parents at the table, the weatherman's voice now in the background, warning about the high temperatures, dry conditions and wind gusts. The day had passed and now it was too late to call Alexia. He calculated the time difference. She'd be in school. He'd make sure to call her tomorrow.

The phone woke him. He hadn't heard his father leave. This was the first time since he'd arrived that he'd slept without dreaming of Alexia. Sara. His mother called out his name from the kitchen, came to his door and knocked quietly. “Telephone,” she said.

“Give me a minute,” he said, slipped into his pants and went to the phone.

“How's the sleeping beauty?”

Nicolai recognized Achilles's voice right away and smiled.

“Does he want to get a coffee this morning?” Achilles asked.

Nicolai arrived at the same small café where he and his mother had had lunch the day before. Achilles was already there, reading the newspaper and sucking on an ice cube. His iced coffee was a milky brown.

Achilles stroked the tuft of hair on his chin and nodded towards the train outside. “It brings tourists to see the gorge and Kalavryta. They stay for a night or two in our village before and then again after they come back from that place. There are many ways to make money here.”

Nicolai ordered a coffee.

“I want to show you my project. Do you have the time?” Except for the hint of a beard, Achilles's face was as smooth as when they were children. His smile was mischievous, as if he knew a secret about you that you hadn't told anyone else. Achilles hadn't followed the usual path of families around here, farming his father's land, or at least Nicolai could see no signs of it. His fingernails were not stained like those who had worked the fields. Despite their best efforts, they could never wash away the dirt rooted day after day beneath their nails.

They walked across the railroad tracks, past the school and down to the narrow pebbled beach. A slice of crumbling blacktop ran between the beach and a large, empty field. Remnants of a newspaper blew across the road and flapped against a twisted and decaying olive tree.

“Can you imagine what someone could do here?” Achilles placed his arm around Nicolai's shoulders. “Think of restaurants and cafés. We could build a boardwalk all along the beach with lights. Tourists could stroll anytime they wanted. It could be beautiful.”

“I suppose so.” Nicolai walked ahead.

Achilles caught up. “This could be ours. Together we could make our little village special. If it doesn't change, it will die.”

“It's been the same way for hundreds of years. They can't kill us off so easily.”

“But we could do better, don't you think?” He laced his arm through Nicolai's. “I think about settling down sometimes. Doing better. Maybe this is what I need.”

“I won't be staying. I have a daughter in Canada.”

Achilles stopped and tugged at Nicolai's arm to make him stop. “Is she with your wife? Are you divorced? This is what is said about your return to the village. And this is not the only thing.” He shook his head. “I tell you this as your friend.”