Now and in the Hour of Our Death (8 page)

“Please.” Past Becky's shoulder Fiona could see the Papodopolous family walking along the corridor. “I'm going to need one. Dimitris's parents haven't a word of English, and I'm never sure if the little devil translates exactly what I'm saying.”

“I'll skedaddle. Do come along to the common room when you've finished.”

“I will.”

Becky left, and Fiona stood aside to let the parents of a black-haired, damson-eyed boy precede her into the office. “Good morning,” she said.

She listened to Dimitris's rapid-fire Greek. “
Kalee mairah
.”

Fiona heard the liquid sounds of words that were meaningless to her, as would be hers to the parents, when the father said, “
Kalee maira, kay efharistoumai pou mas dethikatai stou yrafiosas.
”

Dimitris was obviously enjoying being in charge. “My father says, ‘Good morning and thank you for seeing us.'” His English was barely accented.

“Please have a seat.” Fiona pointed to the chairs in front of her desk and waited until the father, who was dressed in what was obviously his best suit, preceded Dimitris to the chair to Fiona's right. He sat, a heavyset, balding man, crossed his legs, and waited.

Dimitris came next. When seated, his legs did not reach the floor.

“
Efharistoumai,
” said the mother. She was wearing a flower-patterned dress. Fiona couldn't help noticing the woman's jewellery, two enormous finger rings and a golden crucifix that swung from a fine gold chain around her neck. Mother waited until her husband and son had been seated side by side before joining them. They were, Fiona thought, like “three dicky birds all in a row.”

Dimitris immediately began to swing his legs back and forth.

Fiona sat. “Dimitris, please tell your parents I'd like to talk to them about you.”

“
Thelee nas sas maleesi ya mena
.”

“
O Dimitris enai kalo ped, poli kalo pedi
,” the mother said.

“She says I am a
very
good boy.” Dimitris translated, grinning. “
Poli kalo pedi
.”

“I know that,” Fiona said, trying to smile, “but you can be disruptive in class.” Would he tell his parents that?

“
Toe keseri oti emai kalo pedi
…”

Those were the words, “
kalo pedi
,” the mother and Dimitris had used for “good boy.” He
was
embellishing what she was saying. She understood why the lad would try to cast himself in as favourable a light as possible, but could she trust him to convey some of the less flattering things that she must tell them? Fiona studied the parents' faces.

“…
alla poles foress emai nohleticos stin taxi,
” Dimitris continued.

She saw the father frown. The mother shook her head, grimaced, and heaved a huge sigh. Something that had not pleased them had been transmitted. Perhaps Dimitris was doing his best to tell them what she was saying, and she could hardly blame the boy for trying to sugarcoat the pill.

This wasn't the first time Fiona had been forced to surmount the language barrier. She decided that she would use an old tactic that had worked before. She would not
tell
the parents anything. She would ask specific questions, and from the answers hope that she would be able to see if the message had got through. That, of course, assumed that Dimitris wasn't quick enough to garble the translation and still give her what she would think were the parents' responses. She didn't think a ten-year-old would be as clever as that—at least she hoped he wouldn't be. And watching their expressions and how they sat would help.

Dimitris kept swinging his legs so that now there was a rhythmic drumming of his shoes on the desk front.

The father growled and put one hand on the boy's leg.

“
Eni kalo pedi,
” the mother said emphatically, then spun round and clipped her son firmly round the ear. “
Dimitris! Katsai eseehos kai mein klotsas to trapezee.
”

The kicking stopped. Dimitris sniffled. “Mother says I should stop kicking.”

She hauled him to her bosom and made soothing noises. He grinned at Fiona but kept up the sniffles for his mother's benefit, leaving Fiona in no doubt that, as she already knew, he was a bright lad and, being bright, could probably play his mother as an angler plays a fish. “All right,” Fiona said, “let's all just take a minute and settle down.”

Did that thump mean that the boy was beaten often? Not likely. As far as Fiona knew, Greek mothers were, if anything, overprotective. Certainly she had been quick to comfort the boy after the punishment had been given. It was more probable that she spoiled the boy at home.

“Now,” she said, “shall we continue?”

The interview lasted for nearly an hour. By the time it was over, Fiona had been able to persuade herself that they had made some progress. She thought one of the little lad's difficulties was that he had not yet fully developed the ability to make the critical connection between cause and effect. That actions—his actions—would lead to consequences, and understanding the simple fact was the basis for understanding the concept of personal responsibility.

The parents had agreed that Dimitris would be allotted some specific tasks, like feeding the family dog—he'd seemed to be excited about that prospect—or helping his brother and two sisters with the washing up. Rewards and punishments had been defined. If he failed to wash his share of the dishes, his next meal would be served on the dirty plates. As a last resort, she had told the parents, if Dimitris was behaving badly, they should simply walk away from him and shut themselves in another room. That message had been passed by Dimitris with a look for Fiona that would have frozen water.

She had privately resolved that he would need more attention from her and the other teachers—lots of TLC—but that was some of what teaching was about, not just the three Rs so beloved by the mathematics teacher.

It had been agreed that they would meet again in one month to discuss Dimitris's progress, and—Fiona had breathed a quiet sigh of relief—the parents would bring an adult friend to translate.

As the family was leaving, the father said, “
Efharisto, Despeneice Kavanagh, ya tin prosohesou ston Dimitris. Adio.
”

“My father says, ‘Thank you, Miss Kavanagh, for looking after me.' And”—he looked down at his neatly polished shoes—“I'll try to be good. I promise.” He looked up at her. She could still see the imp that lurked behind those damson eyes, but she couldn't stop herself from reaching forward and tousling his hair.

He grinned at her—and took off racing down the corridor, his mother yelling after him, “
Dimitris. Dimitris, pearpata, mean trayhes
…,” which Fiona presumed meant, “walk, don't run.”

She shook her head, closed the door, and sat at her desk. Lord, she thought, the joys of parenthood. Once the cuddly baby stage was over, raising the little ones was a full-time job, and in her opinion did not receive the recognition it deserved.

She asked herself, did she regret never having had children of her own? It was a tough question, but nothing, nothing, would have persuaded her to bring a child into the lunacy that was Belfast back in the '70s. Perhaps if Davy—there he was again—perhaps if they could have come to Canada together, she would have enjoyed being the mother of their children, but it hadn't happened, and now? The media were talking about a woman's “biological clock,” and, at forty-three, she knew that hers was ticking very fast.

Yes—she answered her own question—there was and always would be a tiny, nagging regret, but she knew that she, unlike Dimitris Papodopolous, did understand cause and effect. It had been her choice to be childless, and she now had to live with the consequences of that decision. And she did have a kind of a family—Dimitris and all of the other children in the school—and although the faces changed every few years, that family would never really age and move away. They'd always be there as long as she was a teacher. There was one other thing to consider (selfish as she knew the thought to be): Her school family went home at three o'clock and on weekends.

She picked up her pen and began to write her report of the interview.

*   *   *

“All done?” Becky sat, back straight, shoulders back on an elderly sofa in the teachers' common room. “How did it go?”

“It's over, thank goodness. I think I've given them something to work on.”

“I'm absolutely sure you have.” Becky stood. “I can't say I'm overly fond of meeting with parents, but as an old mentor of mine used to observe, ‘In this life, there will always be a certain amount of shit to be shoveled. My advice to you, Miss Johnston, is to stop complaining, get yourself a long-handled spade … and start digging.'”

Fiona laughed at the incongruity of the coarse sentiments being expressed in accents that would have done a BBC newsreader proud.

Becky grabbed her coat from a clothes tree and said, “Come on. Coffee. You've earned it.”

Fiona followed her friend out of the school to where Becky had her car parked.

“How about that coffee shop on Fourth?” Becky asked.

“That's fine by me. We could walk.”

“I always say, if God had meant us to walk, He wouldn't have invented the internal combustion engine. Hop in.” Becky pulled away from the kerb, drove the short distance from the school to Fourth Avenue, parked and climbed out.

Fiona asked for a table on the patio. “It's far too nice to be stuck inside any longer today.”

She followed Becky as the waitress led them to a table for two in the corner of the wrought-iron-railinged enclosure. Becky ordered a latte, Fiona an espresso.

“Isn't that sari absolutely gorgeous?” Becky said, inclining her head toward the sidewalk.

Fiona saw a Sikh couple, the woman in a sari as iridescent as the tail feathers of a peacock's fan, walking beside a man wearing a bright orange turban. Behind them, a group of Chinese women was striding along talking loudly in what she assumed was either Cantonese or Mandarin.

Becky leaned forward and said quietly, “I wonder why the Chinese always have to yell at each other? It's a bit common, you know.”

Fiona laughed. Becky had kept more than her accent. Occasionally, she let something slip that told Fiona that, in the eyes of the English expatriate,
Britannia
still ruled the waves.

“It's just their way. You get used to it. I think it's wonderful that so many people from all over the world live here in Vancouver and seem to be able to get along,” Fiona said. “Not like where I come from.” There was a tinge of sadness to her voice.

“Quite so,” Becky said. “Live and let live.”

The coffees arrived.

“I'm serious.” Fiona sipped her espresso. “The family I saw this morning is from Cyprus. The father's half owner of a taverna. The other owner is a Turk … and all the waiters are Italian.”

“Regular little League of Nations. I suppose the exception does sometimes prove the rule.” Becky had a moustache of latte foam. “I'm not too fond of Cyprus. We, the British that is, lost a lot of boys there in the fifties. Peacekeepers. Trying to keep the Turks and the Greeks from each other's throats. Still, as you say, it is a rather promising sign that Johnny Turk and a Greek are going into business together over here.”

“Johnny Turk?”

“That's what my grandfather called them. He fought the Turks in Gallipoli in the First World War. He did say they were damn fine fighting men. Damn fine. And it wasn't the Turks the British soldiers had to contend with in Cyprus. It was EOKA, the Greek Cypriot terrorists.”

Fiona lowered her cup to its saucer. All this talk about war, about Cyprus. EOKA. Sudden memories ran in her mind—like the nightmare—memories she would rather forget.

Becky ploughed on. “The Greeks wanted
enosis,
political union with the Greek mainland, and to chuck out the Turks. They still do, and that Archbishop Makarios?” Becky scowled. “The Greek Cypriot leader? Nasty piece of work.”

“I know,” Fiona said softly. Cyprus. Cyprus. She frowned. She hadn't talked about Connor to anyone in Canada, but—she looked at Becky's open face—they'd become close friends in the last few years. Why not tell her?

“My big brother, Connor, was killed there. In nineteen fifty-five, when I was fifteen,” she blurted.

Becky sat upright. “Good Lord.”

“He'd joined the British army. They sent him to Nicosia. He was shot dead when he was off-duty, Christmas shopping on a place called Ledra Street.”

“Well, I'll be damned.” Becky leaned toward Fiona. “I didn't know. I really am very sorry.”

“It's all right. It was a long time ago.” Fiona sipped her coffee. “It really shook me up then. I was hardly more than a child, and it seemed to me that Connor had been killed in the middle of someone else's fight.”

“It never changes. British boys are still dying trying to keep ethnic and religious groups apart.”

“In Cyprus?”

Becky looked deeply into Fiona's eyes, hesitated, then said, “And, forgive me for saying so, in Ulster.”

And that was the truth. “I know,” Fiona said, and thought of Davy and the soldier he'd killed. And the forty years Davy was serving in the Kesh. “There've been too many deaths there.”

“I seem to remember that once upon a time you actually tried to do something about it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You told me you'd been up to your neck in the Ulster civil rights movement. A regular … what's the American word…? Peacenik. That's it. You said that you'd worked hard for them.”

“Yes. I did.” What was Becky driving at?