Under the icy water the color of her skin changes, the pallid color seems to fall from her skin like old whitewash chipping off a wall. Her breasts harden and rise like a fox’s snout in the bushes. Ellie strokes her chest and feels panicked blood coursing through her body and she rubs her petrified belly and wiggles her toes and watches drops of water fall on her peeling toenails.
My toenails, says Ellie. The southernmost border of my body. Where my body ends, where Ellie ends, where the nation of Ellie ends.
Not much of a border. It might as well be a strainer, I might as well hang a sign that says come on in make yourselves at home.
The Unguarded Democracy of Ellie.
• • •
In the bedroom she puts on her old lilac bathrobe and lights a cigarette then pads barefoot into the kitchen and thinks about unplugging the telephone but the line’s been cut so there would be no point.
She pours a glass of wine — dark red Cretan wine almost black like old blood — and as she pours it into the glass she sees her hands shaking and thinks how she really needs to eat something sweet, that’s the problem for sure, low blood sugar.
She smokes and drinks and when she’s through with her cigarette she goes back into the bedroom and opens the closet and pulls all his clothes off the hangers and tosses them in a big ball onto the unmade bed. Shirts, pants, a cheap fake fur coat, an old suit. She pulls out all the drawers and empties them onto the bed. Underwear, socks, a twisted tie. A belt with a broken buckle. An insole for a size 45 shoe. A long yellow shoelace. At the top of the pile she puts his shoes and slippers.
On the way to the bathroom she stops in the kitchen to light another cigarette and refill her glass. Then she goes into the bathroom which is the most difficult part of the house because it’s where people leave the most complicated traces. She opens the medicine cabinet and tosses his razors onto the floor and his cologne and comb and nail clipper. A bottle of rubbing alcohol. His scissors.
And that little brush she’d bought for him so he could scrub the grime from under his nails after work.
In the living room she sweeps up whatever she finds in her path. Sports papers and car magazines and lighters and empty cigarette packs and old photographs. His things. All his things, scattered through the apartment like crumbs.
In the cupboard under the sink she finds green trash bags that cinch with a yellow plastic ribbon. She bags up Sotiris’s clothes and all the rest of his things and drags the bags over to the balcony door. Outside it’s stopped raining but drops of water are still dripping from the balcony railing and Ellie stands and watches them — just look at that, Ellie says, tonight even the metal bars are crying.
She lights a cigarette and a cough climbs up her throat so that she can’t breathe.
For the money, Ellie says. All that for a handful of money.
She opens the door, coughing, and goes out onto the balcony. She grabs a garbage bag from inside and throws it over the railing into the street. She hears the thump but doesn’t look down. She throws another bag and then another. The drivers on the street slow down and raise their heads. One man out walking his dog stops and looks up. Garbage bags are falling from the sky at the corner of Cyprus and Ionia Streets in Nikaia — garbage bags are falling from the third floor like suicidal women in green dresses, like cowardly sinners on the night when the end of the world will come.
The man bends down and hefts his dog into his arms and runs off without looking back.
Just think, he even took the pig, Ellie says. The pig.
• • •
Ellie goes back into the kitchen. Her hands are still shaking, they’re shaking even more now. It’s low blood sugar for sure. She opens drawers and cupboards and lines up semolina and sugar and honey and almonds and cinnamon on the counter. She’ll make halva. A nice semolina halva with almonds and plenty of cinnamon. It’s low blood sugar for sure.
She puts the almonds on to boil and tries to remember the recipe, how the proportions go. One two three four. A cup of oil two cups of semolina three of sugar four of water.
Eight hundred euros. Nine hundred at most.
She multiplies the amounts by three — three six nine twelve — and gets to work. She puts the sugar and the water on to boil with two spoonfuls of honey and some orange peel. She pours the oil in another pot with the semolina and cooks it over a low flame stirring constantly, so the semolina will brown slowly and not burn and she’d have to start all over. As soon as the semolina is the proper color, she takes the orange peel out of the other pot and pours the syrup over the semolina which hisses and spits and it surprises Ellie who stirs even more quickly now, quick strong movements until the semolina absorbs the syrup and the halva starts to stick together and peel away from the pot.
She takes the pot off the flame, tosses in the almonds, stirs the mixture well, then takes a break to smoke a cigarette.
The lettuce in the basin is dry. The heart of the lettuce looks white in the dim light. Small and tender and white. Ellie reaches out and gently touches the heart of the lettuce and strokes it gently.
Outside it’s getting dark. Black birds sit rustling their wings on the electrical wires like notes on the staff of some strange music, some music written to be played on the last night of the world.
• • •
She pats down the halva and smooths the golden surface with the wooden spatula and lights another cigarette. The smell of halva spreads through the house and for a moment disguises the smell of Friday and the smell of loneliness and the smell of the malicious poverty slowly and silently and confidently gnawing at Ellie’s dreams and strength and life — and those of anyone who lives to work, who is born and lives and dies for work. For a handful of bills.
Malicious vulgar poverty. It too has become a creature of the house. A creature of the house, a pet rat.
• • •
She spreads her best tablecloth on the kitchen table and empties the halva directly on top of it. She starts kneading it and shaping it with slow careful motions until it starts to look like a person. With her hands she forms the legs and neck and head. She uses a fingernail to carve the eyes and nose and a big smiling mouth. The hair should be long and loose, but she has less luck there. She lets it go, though, since she doesn’t want to start over.
It doesn’t matter, Ellie says. Too much hair would be hard to digest.
When she finishes she lifts the tablecloth carefully by the corners and carries it into the bedroom and lays it out on the bed. She tosses the covers onto the floor and brings the bottle of wine in from the kitchen along with her glass and cigarettes.
She sits on the bed with her knees up and settles in and pulls the tablecloth close.
All for a handful of money, Ellie says. Eight or nine hundred at most.
I don’t get it, says Ellie. If poor people do things like that to other poor people what on earth are rich people supposed to do to us.
Christ, I just don’t get it.
I’m Ellie Drakou.
I don’t understand.
Outside the rain has stopped but drops of water are still dripping from the balcony railing. Look at that, Ellie says, how strange, tonight even the metal bars are crying.