Okay, he says. I hear you. Okay.
His voice comes out deep and muffled as if he’s got rags stuffed in his mouth. He rolls down the window and tosses out his cigarette butt and watches the lightning over by Salamina flashing in the sky like uprooted trees. He hasn’t shaven and smells of sweat and his hair is like a thick tangled wig. Look at that, I say to myself. The third leg of the dog. Except families don’t have legs. They’re not dogs. I don’t know what they are. Maybe snakes. But not dogs, that’s for sure.
He looks at his shredded sleeve and tries to roll it into some kind of shape then sees it isn’t working and gives up.
Let’s get out of here, he says. Let’s go. I want to show you something.
I turn the key in the ignition and start driving. The windshield wipers are on high but they don’t stand a chance against this rain, the glass is one big torrent of rain gushing down. We turn onto the avenue and I pull into the right-hand lane and we drive over a pothole full of black water and I curse the hour and the day — take care, my mother says, take care take care of the boy a dog can’t live with only two legs — and suddenly I realize I have no idea where we’re going, there’s no place in this world for the two of us to go and that shaking comes over me again and I don’t know what to do.
Pull over, I hear him say. Here. A little further. Here.
I stop. My foot is trembling on the brake. He rolls down the window and points.
Look, he says. I made that. Look. What do you think?
On a high wall there’s a painting of an old-style soldier in blue pants and a red coat all buttoned up. He’s missing a leg. He has on a yellow belt, a tall black hat and he’s holding a black rifle against his shoulder.
He gets out of the car and goes and stands in front of the wall, looks up at the soldier and points. He’s already drenched, the bandage is loose and hanging from his forehead like a flap of skin.
Okay, Picasso, I shout. It’s great. Now get in the car. We’re leaving.
The tin soldier, he says. Remember how he used to tell us that story when we were kids? It was the only fairytale he knew, and he raised us on it. Remember? Remember how sad his voice used to get? Oh brave soldier, who can save you from death. Remember how his voice used to break at the part about the ballerina standing on one leg? And the soldier thought she was missing a leg just like him and he fell in love with her. That tin soldier loved the ballerina so much. It was terrible. To want something so badly and not be able to have it. Remember? Remember the part where the tin soldier finds the ballerina again and feels like crying tin tears but stops himself because he’s a soldier and soldiers don’t cry? And that’s how he stayed until the very end. Solid and strong and silent looking straight ahead with his gun on his shoulder. Until the end. Until a fire melted him down, everything but his little tin heart. Until then he stayed solid and strong with his gun on his shoulder. Until then. Remember? Remember?
He’s drenched, dripping all over as if every pore in his skin is an eye and every eye is crying. It’s raining harder. Raining with hatred, like a punishment. Lightning keeps flashing across the sky. It’s like there’s a war on up there — light warring with darkness. A war. Light battling to enter the world and someone battling to shut it out, to seal up all the cracks, to sink the world in darkness.
My foot a jackhammer on the brake.
Get inside, man, I shout. I’m leaving. Get in.
He stares at me and his lips form a swollen smile and then he puts his arms at his sides and lifts his left leg and hops to find his balance then stands stock still with his arms glued to his sides stock still staring far off into the darkness.
In a thousand years, I hear him say. In a thousand years if the world still exists maybe the things that are happening now will have become fairytales. And parents will tell their children stories about strange people who once lived and died for a handful of cash and the children will listen with their mouths hanging open and all these things will seem magical and unreal. In a thousand years. Who knows. Maybe the workers and the poor people of today will be the tin soldiers of the next millennium. Or the dragons and witches. If the world still exists. And if people still tell fairytales. Who knows.
Get in the car, I shout — and I pound hard on the horn so it drowns out the thunder and I rev the engine with my foot which is quaking as if it’s not my foot but some stranger’s. Come on, I shout. Get inside. Get in.
But he’s standing there stock still on one leg in front of the one-legged soldier on the wall, looking off into the darkness with his eyes wide open staring into the darkness with the rain pouring down, heavy gray rain like tin, raindrops falling on him like bullets from the war taking place in the sky, the war between darkness and light — and he stands there stock still staring at the dark with his eyes wide open.
My brother a tin soldier.
Unmoving, unspeaking, unarmed.
Magical and unreal, a creature for the fairytales of the next millennium.
Mao
EVERYONE CALLS HIM MAO. Because the rumor is when he was born he was as yellow as a little Chinese baby. Even his mother and his sisters call him Mao. His father was killed in a gas explosion in Perama years ago. A communist but an easygoing friendly guy. He’s the one who gave him that name. Mao. And even now that he’s a tall strong young man everyone in the neighborhood still calls him that.
What’s up, Mao?
Fuck you all.
His older sister Katerina got raped last summer behind the Katrakeio Theater where the quarries used to be. Apparently it was these ten or so guys from around Memou Square in Korydallos. We never saw her again after that. Her mother sent her to live with relatives on some island — Chios or maybe Samos. No one knows for sure, they’re keeping it a secret. Katerina was a pretty girl, the whole neighborhood always said so. Tall and thin with yellow hair and grey eyes. A tender thing. Everywhere she went people always turned to look. But from a young age she got mixed up with a bad crowd and late nights and that kind of story never ends well. Everyone always told her mother keep an eye on that girl keep an eye on Katerina but what could she do a woman raising three kids on her own. Who goes around all day selling tupperware and pots and pans from house to house to try and make ends meet. The younger daughter Thomai is exactly the opposite. She’s a pretty girl too but she took after her father. From home to school and school to home and never any surprises. She doesn’t care about friends and cafés. She’s a top student and speaks foreign languages and even plays the accordion. Her father was crazy about the accordion but he never got a chance to hear her play — she hadn’t even been baptized when he was killed in that explosion in Perama. They named her after him. His name was Thomas so they named her Thomai. And in the evenings when we hear her practicing her accordion the whole neighborhood remembers him. A dyed-in-the-wool communist but a quiet man — he wouldn’t have hurt an ant.
The September after they kicked Katerina out of the house Mao dropped out of high school and got a job at a billiards parlor up in Perivolaki. His mother still hasn’t forgiven him for it. She can’t stomach the idea of her son putting an apron on every day and carrying coffees and sandwiches and beers to the customers. They fight about it all the time. Though really it’s just the widow who does the fighting — Mao never says a thing. Not a single word. It’s terrifying. And then he goes outside and sits on the steps all night and smokes and talks to the stray dogs and cats. And everyone in the neighborhood sees him and none of us knows what to say.
Mao’s changed a lot since last year. Not that he ever had much give and take with anyone but now you can’t even get a full sentence out of him. Michalis Panigirakis whose father used to work in the graveyard and who knows about these things says Mao has the look of death in his eyes. He says Mao knows who hurt his sister and he’s saving up to buy a gun and hunt them down. He says Mao found some guys from Mani who can get him a good handgun for a thousand or so. Michalis says the guys from Korydallos sent Mao a message that if he dares make a move they’ll break into his house at night and tear his mother and little sister to shreds. And they’ll pin Mao down in the corner and make him watch.