The Clover House (26 page)

Nikos stops at the edge of the crowd and turns to me.

“Look, Calliope, about Aliki. I don’t have a problem with
what she did, and she really doesn’t have a problem with what I do now. If she does, though, we will talk about it. She and I. So, you see, there’s no one you need to defend. No one you need to watch over.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“Besides,” he says. “You’re not here to watch over me. You’re here to be seen. Admit it.”

“In this thing?”

He puts a hand under my chin—not altogether comfortably.

“No woman paints her eyes like that when she wants to blend into the crowd.”

I am conscious that people have noticed us. I am enough shorter than Nikos that it’s possible people think I am his daughter, a wayward girl caught by her father on the way to a secret dance. I don’t say anything—because I sense Nikos is right.

“Let’s go,” Nikos says, and pulls me into the wave of people heading toward the doors. As soon as we are into the colonnade, he lets go and blows a kiss at me over his shoulder. I call after him, losing him immediately, as the force of the crowd pushes me into the dance.

The room is much bigger than I had imagined, and it is packed with people. Techno music thumps loudly; people are dancing beneath a web of streamers hung from the carved ceiling. I see now that not every man is wearing a tux and that some have opted for business suits, while others are wearing jeans and button-front shirts. The disparity between the openness of the men and the concealment of us women is startling. As I stand by the wall, I have the odd feeling of having wandered naked into a room full of the dressed. There are many more men here than women. I spot the women in the crowd
from the shininess of their fabric—a fabric whose slinkiness and thinness makes them, and me, look vulnerable. But there is nothing vulnerable about what is going on a few feet away from me. A woman with a parrot-blue feathered mask is drawing one gloved arm around the neck of a handsome young man while, with the other, she tugs his hip toward her. His face bears a look of exhilaration tinged with fear. Perhaps this is his first Bourbouli.

I think of how Jonah would be in this gathering. No tux for him: He would be wearing his button-flies with a good white shirt; he would have chosen his skinny dark-green Pumas to signal he was dressing up. Would he stay with me, or would he go and find someone else, I wonder? Or would I?

To my left, an older man is drinking from a plastic cup, looking out a bit dazedly at the dancers. I don’t want to be standing here, like him, with nothing to do—and I wouldn’t mind some wine, regardless of what Nikos said. So I make my way around the edge of the room, eventually finding a long table where waiters are handing out plastic tumblers of red wine. I take a few sips, wincing at the sweetness, and stand back to scour the crowd. I have no hope of finding Nikos, and I wonder if I will run into Anna, for I am sure that she is here, wearing a domino like mine. I remind myself that Anna and I will remain a mystery to each other tonight—as will all the women in the room. It is Stelios I will look for.

My thoughts go back to the day in the field: two days ago, long enough for it to be over. Whatever
it
is. A friendship? When I hardly know him. A relationship? When he has a girlfriend. An acquaintance? More than that, if I consider all the flirting. I don’t like to be manipulated, and I know I have been.

I feel a hand on my waist. It’s the young man from the parrot-blue woman.

“I followed you,” he says.

I tilt my head to the side. “It’s not supposed to work that way. You’re supposed to wait until I choose you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t interested,” I say, enjoying the ease with which I am falling into this role.

“Choose me now,” he says.

In answer, I lead him into the center of the room, among the dancers, and for a while we make the small shuffling dance steps that serve as an excuse to rub your body against someone else’s.

“Want some wine?” he shouts over the music.

“Sure.”

But after he hands me another plastic cup, I manage to wander away from him to another part of the room. It is darker here, shadowed by the mezzanine that overhangs the space. Here, people are freer—holding on to each other, wrapping themselves around each other. I cast a look about for Nikos but don’t see him and am relieved. But I do see Stelios. He is walking through the edge of the dancers, scanning the shadows for someone. When he moves out of the dance-floor lighting, I step toward him.

Keeping my mask in place, I slide my arms up around his neck and remember the stubble I felt there when he carried me from the square on the night of the parade. He runs his hands up into the sleeves of the
domino
, along my arms and over the smooth fabric of my blouse. I step closer, pushing against him, giving him the signal that there can be more. Now I feel the exhilaration I saw on the young man’s face before, with the parrot-blue woman. And now I understand the power of the
domino
. It is the power of being no one, with no identity and no ties, no origins and no home. I have spent so much
time lately looking for this kind of freedom, and here it is, behind a mask and beneath a tailored shroud of black cloth.

Stelios has pulled his hands out from my sleeves and is moving them along my sides. He lets his thumbs glide over my breasts. So this is what he does when Anna is not around. I dismiss the scolding thought of Jonah. I am enjoying this and it seems important. I pull his face down to me and begin to kiss him, a deep, dirty kiss.

“I’m glad you’re wearing this,” he says afterward.

Me too, I say to myself, thinking of my
domino
. I notice he is holding my hand, playing with the red beads of the bracelet Anna bought for us all.

“Shit!”
I hiss, biting back the word before it is out.

“What did you say?”

Before I can answer, he pushes my mask onto my forehead and kisses me, hard. His tongue flicks along the edges of my teeth, as if inviting me to give up. Of course he has known me all the time, and I have been ridiculous. I thought I was playing him, but he was playing me. I bite down on his tongue, not too much, but enough to let him know I’ve understood his game.

He makes a noise of surprise and pulls back.

“Did that hurt?” I ask, mocking.

“No. Does this?” He pinches my nipple, beyond the point of pleasure.

“No,” I lie.

“Good.”

He pinches it again, only this time just enough to make me want him. I rub my hand across his crotch and feel him getting hard.

All this time, we have been moving backward, toward the darkest section of the room. Now we come up against a wall and he pulls me around so that my back faces outward. I suddenly
realize that the
domino
that gave me such a sense of power is actually getting in my way. Everything I think of doing with Stelios is foiled by the damned thing. I have a sudden urge to punish him—for playing me, and for playing around while Anna does whatever she is doing elsewhere in the room. I want to leave him aching with desire, his pants tented over his straining cock, and I want to bring Anna to find him.

“Hey!” he protests, and I ease my grip on him. He is trying to reach up between my legs, but the
domino
is too tight. I already hitched the thing up once today, to put the spare key in my pocket so Nikos could stay out all night; I don’t need to hitch it up again.

I pull away, slowly, and slide my mask back over my face.

“Callie,” he says, grabbing my hand. “Don’t say anything to Anna.”

“I won’t,” I say, smiling. “It’s Carnival.” I hold my hand up in the air and shake the red beads. “Pact!”

I
wander out into the Plateia, dizzy from desire and wine, and start walking toward Aliki’s, not because I want to see her—or anyone—but because it is the only route I can follow without having to think. If I think, I will remember, and if I remember, I will have to think about what just happened. I walk a block before realizing my mask and hood are on. I would leave them on, an armor to disappear in, if I didn’t think I looked strange to the others on the street. It is too early for any self-respecting reveler to be walking away from the Bourbouli.

I push the hood back and draw my hair out so that it spreads over my shoulders; the back of my neck is sweaty. A man coming toward me on the sidewalk gives me an approving look. Farther down Korinthou, a group of men and women are
standing outside the door of an apartment building. The women are wearing cocktail-length gowns beneath coats draped over their shoulders. The men are in suits. As I pass, the buzzer sounds and they file slowly in through the door one of the men holds open. When I reach the corner of Korinthou and Agiou Nikolaou, I have to make a choice: continue toward Aliki’s apartment or keep walking. I head home.

Grateful to Nikos for the key, I let myself in and take the elevator upstairs. I close the apartment door as quietly as I can but turn to find Aliki sitting in one of the living room chairs.

“Hi,” I say, drawing up from my crouched tiptoeing.

“Calliope, what’s the matter?”

It suddenly occurs to me that my makeup must be smudged. I must look like a mess.

“Nothing. I was just tired.” I smile.

“And Nikos stayed.”

“He said he’d be coming soon,” I lie.

She tilts her head at me. I wince.

“We got separated.”

She laughs a single snort.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Aliki stretches and rises from the chair, her finger in her book.

“It’s all right, Paki. It’s not your job to keep my husband on the straight and narrow. Come on.” She motions me to the kitchen.

She moves a stool out of the way to close the door that is always propped open. I see now from the oven clock that it is just past eleven. To me, it feels as if it is the middle of the night—the kind of night you awaken from unsettled and upset without knowing why. Aliki pours us each a glass of Coke
Light. I take a long drink of the stuff, slightly sweeter than its American version.

“You were thirsty.”

“I guess.”

“So. Nikos. I bet he left you at the door.”

“Pretty much. I didn’t see him at all once I got inside.” As soon as I say this, I wish I could take it back.

“He finds a way of disappearing. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Aliki, he’s not a bad guy,” I say, and she laughs again, more openly this time.

“Did you think he was?”

I make an equivocal gesture.

“No,” she says. “He’s not a bad guy. Sometimes he does bad things, but he’s a good man.”

“You should go to the Bourbouli with him.”

“There’s no point in going unless I want to have a Carnival fling of my own.
Been there; done that
,” she says in English.

I wonder briefly if it might be all right to tell her about Stelios.

“I told you,” she says, refilling my glass. “He’s not the only one. It’s just—” She pauses, restarts. “It’s time to stop.”

I look at her for a moment before asking a question I would never dare ask in broad daylight.

“Do you love him?”

She takes a sip.

“Yes.” She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. “And I like our marriage and our responsibility for Demetra. We owe it to her to be good together. It’s a good thing, marriage, Paki. It can be.”

“I know,” I say.

As I clean the makeup off my face in the bathroom, I think
about what Aliki has said about Demetra. She must have known I would be glad to hear it—the parents taking responsibility for their child, turning their marriage into a safe space for a little girl to grow up in. Except that now it seems clear that Aliki has chosen to trade her own independence, her force of character, for her child’s happiness. Was that what my mother was trying not to give up, her force of character? Did the war make her need it more, value it more? Maybe I was the burden she couldn’t bear without losing some of herself.

“You need more than a cotton ball, girl,” Aliki says, handing me a cleansing wipe she draws from a blue packet. “What happened to your face? Or do I not want to ask?”

Now is not the right time. I don’t even know what I would say.

“Just tell me,” she goes on. “Was it a bad thing or a good thing?”

I know she is worried about me.

“It was a good thing,” I say, but I’m not sure that it’s the truth.

Callie

Wednesday

Nikos has gone to work when I get up the next day, and I am glad not to have to face him. Demetra is in her room when I walk by, standing by a dollhouse in her pajama bottoms and a red long-sleeved T-shirt. I take a good look and realize it’s the large wooden dollhouse that my grandfather built especially for my mother. There is an artist’s studio on the top floor, where a tiny doll made to look like my mother stands among the props of her imagined futures: a tiny easel, a ballet barre, a little stage. None of those futures ever came, and neither did the dollhouse. During my childhood, the house was one of the many things my mother pined for but was told—by my father and others—that she could not bring to America because of the expense or the trouble.