He turned around and looked at the house.
But the girl isn’t bad. A fresh young thing. You could eat her for dinner.
What are we going to do about the deafmute, Michalis said.
Fuck that crybaby pussy. We’ll see what we can do with that girl, though. Wouldn’t say no to a piece of her. Anyway. We’ll see. How about an ouzo at Satanas’s? My treat.
• • •
Mao’s been missing since that Saturday night. No one knows what happened to him. And his mother and sister are lying low too. Michalis went by the house once or twice but no one was home. He says maybe they went to that island where they sent the older girl, Katerina. Or maybe they’re staying somewhere else for a while until the whole thing blows over. Who knows.
Meanwhile there have been developments in the neighborhood. Last week they brought some of those big blue bins from the municipality for recycling and put one on each corner and sent around flyers and some special bags for us to collect our papers and cans. Progress. On Thursday night when we were sitting at Satanas’s the admiral came and asked if we’d heard what happened to that guy Sofronis who lives next to the school.
What happened, said Vayios. Did he die?
He’s lost it, the poor guy, said the admiral. Last night my son was coming home from work and found him trying to climb into the recycling bin. He caught him just in time. What are you doing, barba-Tasos, he says. Are you crazy? You’re trying to get into the trash? And the guy turns around and you know what he says? Let me be, Stefanos, he says. Just let me be. A man who lets his wife die like that is fit for the trash. They can pick me up and recycle me and maybe I’ll come out a better man. Just listen to that. Listen to the things that happen out there in the world. My son could barely hold him back. And then he sat on the street corner and laughed to himself like a crazy person. Things are not going well around here. I’ve said it before. Things are not going well.
I remember his wife, said Michalis. She struggled with the hospitals and doctors for a while. Cancer, right, admiral? I’m pretty sure.
The admiral ordered a half kilo of ribs and some tsipouro for the table. He started to say something about Sofronis and his wife but saw that no one was interested. No one spoke. Outside a wind had picked up and we could hear the windowpanes creaking and the wind whistling through the cracks. It was almost eleven. Satanas had turned off the TV and was standing behind the bar watching us.
Tomorrow I’m going to go see my kid at the clinic, Iraklis said. They said we should take him out for the day now that it’s the weekend. They say it’ll do him good. Keep him from going nuts. But his mother is scared and doesn’t want to come. She doesn’t want me to go either. She’s scared. So I don’t know what to do.
How old is he? Asked Vayios.
Twenty. Going on twenty-one.
Take him to a Russian. He doesn’t need a family outing. He needs a woman. That’s the only way to keep him from going nuts in the state he’s in.
As for my kid, they’re going to lay him off at the end of the month, the admiral said. He found out yesterday. But I’d already warned him. Take care, I told him. Take care not to lose your faith. Don’t do them the favor and lose your faith. You have to believe. There may be no god but you have to believe. Your belief is god. That’s what I told him. But the whole thing’s hit him pretty hard. Last night I got up out of bed and found him smoking on the balcony. I didn’t know what to do, him leaning over the railing like that. It made my blood run cold. I sat in the dark and watched and I was so scared.
Iraklis put out his cigarette and got up.
I’m going, he said. I have an early morning tomorrow.
As he left his foot caught on a chair and it fell to the floor. He didn’t even look back.
The admiral tipped his glass back and emptied it then filled it again. His hands were shaking. He looked out the window at Iraklis who had bent over next to a car trying to light a cigarette out of the wind. He took a sip then bowed his head and shut his eyes and started to speak with his eyes closed.
I still believe, he said. I really do. Recently I’ve been lying in bed at night making up stories. Like I’ve discovered some magic potion that makes me invisible and I steal money from the banks and distribute it to everyone. Or that I buy a big estate high up over the sea and build a house that would make you stare. Villa Constantina. That’s what I call it. And I build five or six more little houses out of stone and I give one to everyone and we all live there together a happy life. My daughter takes charge of the garden and the trees and the flowers. I make my son the foreman. He’s the foreman together with Iraklis’s kid and Mao. I give them each a solid wage and a nice car and they’re real happy. Mao’s mother and older sister are in charge of the kitchen. They go out shopping and decide what to cook stuff like that. And the other sister the younger one plays music for us at night while we’re eating and having a good time. Sure. I’ve thought of everything. Down to the smallest detail. And I’ve built all kinds of things on the estate. A huge room out of stone on the ground floor with big windows all around. And inside there’s a swimming pool one of those heated ones. So you can swim even in winter and look out the window and see it raining and snowing. Beautiful things. Just beautiful. There’s this other building as tall as a castle and it has glass all around too. That’s where we have our parties. The floor is all parquet and I’ve put a table in there that goes all the way from one side to the other and seats thirty or forty people easy. There’s a fireplace and a dance floor. And the best stereo system but of course we don’t even need it since we’ll have live music from Thomai. And then there’s a special computer that splits the ceiling in two when I touch it and all the glass on the sides comes down. That’s a trick for summer so we don’t get too hot even though I’ve also put in the best air conditioner there is. On summer nights we gather up there and eat and drink as much as we want and dance until the sun comes up. And I’m sitting there in a corner watching you all having a great time and I’m so happy even though there’s something burning me up inside. Because you guys don’t know. You think I won millions in the lottery or something. That’s what I told you. You don’t know that I’ve found this magic potion that makes me invisible and I’ve been robbing banks without ever getting caught. And you also don’t know that every time I drink that potion I lose a year off my life. That’s the deal. Every time I drink the potion my life gets another year shorter. But you don’t know anything about that. I don’t ever let you find out. And we clink glasses and you make toasts to me, may the admiral live a thousand years. And I watch you from my corner and I’m so happy. I look at the kids having fun and I’m happy. I look around at all the things I built and I say, things are just fine. And when the party ends and you all go to sleep I get up and go down to the beach and sit all by myself and stare at the sea for hours. And I feel a sadness like you wouldn’t believe because I’ve drunk a lot of that potion and I don’t have much time left. And I think how in the end what I did is pretty cowardly. But I don’t regret it. No. Because I’ve seen your faces and I know. I know that sometimes good doesn’t walk the same road as truth. And I know that good is sometimes more important than true. I know.
He stopped talking but didn’t open his eyes. His cheeks were yellow. Vayios looked at us and pursed his lips and shook his head. He pushed the admiral’s glass to the far edge of the table and gestured to Satanas, who came out from behind the bar and picked up the chair Iraklis had knocked over and then came over to us. He tore at a rib with his teeth.