The Clover House (10 page)

“The story,” I say. “How can you not remember?”

Aliki stops and sets her hands on the counter. She tips her head to one side but still won’t turn around.

“I remember the story a little. Something about getting Nestor in trouble. Ask the aunts.”

“I will,” I say. “But there was more to it. Nestor probably has something about it in his stuff. Which I want to start going over as soon as possible.”

“Yes, but wait until I can go with you. If the neighbors see some foreigner fiddling with the lock, it’ll cause more trouble than it’s worth.”

I think about the way I am dressed—my jeans and my turtleneck and my beige wool peacoat. Dark hair and a straight nose don’t make up for them.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember the basement story. I feel like I know every word.”

Aliki shrugs again. “I don’t know. It’s not that big a deal.”

“You used to think the stories were a big deal,” I say. “When we were kids.”

This makes her turn around.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Paki,” she says, with an indulgent smile.

We are looking at each other, not speaking, and I am about to ask Aliki what’s the matter when the front door opens and Demetra’s singsong spills into the apartment. Aliki pushes off from the counter and returns to her potato peeling. Nikos leans into the kitchen doorway, Demetra’s coat and scarf in his hands.

“What’s cooking?” he says.

“Leg of lamb. Go wash your hands, Demetra.”

The girl starts to whine.

“Listen to your mother,” Nikos says, reaching for a garlic clove on the counter.

“I thought you had to work,” I say.

“The boss called me in,” he says, pointing to Aliki. “Reinforcements.”

“I needed a break,” Aliki says, and I wonder whether she planned it so that I’d see my mother first alone.

Nikos is already out of the kitchen when the phone rings. I hear him answer it, sounding mistrustful, and I wonder if it is Jonah. But then I realize Nikos is speaking Greek, and I am pleased that my brain has made no distinction.

“It’s for you. Someone called Anna?”

He holds the phone over to me and pops the garlic clove into his mouth.

“Yes, this is Calliope.”

“Callie!
Ela!
Come with us to the parade, or do your boring relatives have a solid grip on you?”

Anna is shouting over the hum of a crowd in the background. I steal a glance at Nikos, hoping he cannot hear what she is saying.

“No, but I don’t know if I should.”

I want to tell her that my relatives are not boring and I am happy to be in their company.

“Why not?” Anna persists. “Come with us. It’ll be fun.”

“You can wear my velvet hat!” Stelios shouts into the phone.

“You heard that?”

“Yes,” I laugh. “Wait.” I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Some friends want me to meet them later tonight.”

“But it’s the parade,” says Demetra.

“Are you going?” I ask Aliki.

“Yes, but go out with your friends. I don’t want to keep you.”

“No, I want to come with you, if that’s all right.”

“Sure.”

This isn’t quite the welcome I was looking for, but I’d rather choose family over these people I’ve only just met. I uncover the phone.

“Anna, thanks for the invitation, but my family’s got plans.”

“Come on! How much fun can they be? They’re in mourning.”

I don’t bother to explain that though my uncle’s death is new to me, my family has already begun to adjust around it.

“Sorry. But maybe another time?”

“Look, in case your plans change, we’ll be near the northeast corner of Plateia Georgiou. It’s an eight o’clock parade. See you there!”

Aliki is in the kitchen when I hang up the phone. I offer to help her with the cooking, but she tells me to relax.

“Who are your friends?”

“That’s the thing. I just met them on the bus. I can’t understand why they care this much about me.”

“They’re Greek, that’s why. We’re social creatures, Paki, always eager for the next new thing. Or you can chalk it up to the ancient code of hospitality. Or the next hot girl,” she adds, giving me a leer.

“Oh, definitely the ancient code.”

“It’ll be nice to have you with us tonight,” she says. “Demetra will be pleased to show you all the festivities.” She jabs a knife into the lamb in several places and begins stuffing garlic cloves and knobs of butter into tiny slits. “I called your mother. Must have been after you left. She’s coming to lunch too.”

I realize that my mother’s inclusion in this family group is an afterthought, and my old urge to protect her rises for a moment. I cringe at the thought of what she will say when she arrives. How could they forget about her? How could her own
daughter come to her house and not invite her to join them for the meal?

“You should have had me tell her,” I say.

“I know.”

The regret in Aliki’s voice signals that we are allies, both of us bound up now as always in my mother’s indignation.

She asks about my morning visit and I give her a brief account, sparing her my mother’s complaining, which she already knows about anyhow. I remember the lawyer, Constantopoulos.

“I should call him.”

“Monday,” Aliki says. “Don’t even bother before then. You’ll just make him mad and then he’ll delay you on purpose.”

“He would do that?” I can’t imagine Jonah ever pulling a stunt like that.

“Yes, he would.”

I think about how the old Yankees with the Mayflower names can hold up a gift if they think someone on our staff has been pushy. Maybe not so different.

I
hear the aunts before I see them. They are outside the door to the apartment, chattering amiably about some disagreement or other. I expect a buzzer to sound, but the door opens and Aunt Thalia leaves her key in the lock to come embrace me.

“Calliope, Calliopaki!” she cries, alternately kissing me on the cheeks and hugging me close. I look over her shoulder to Aunt Sophia, who is drawing the key from the lock. Her face is utterly serious, as if nothing were going on around her except the task at hand.

The two sisters seem far younger than their years. Were it
not for her insistence on a bun and her standard outfit of skirt-and-cardigan, Sophia could pass for sixty instead of her actual seventy-four. She likes to point out that when she retired from her job at the harbor administration, everyone was shocked she was old enough. Thalia has let her dark hair go gray but keeps it in a modern cut, with short wisps that frame her face. Both of them are wearing black from head to toe, for Nestor.

“
Ela
, Sophia,” Thalia says, rolling her eyes. “Leave the key.”

“Mine doesn’t stick,” Sophia says. “Why does yours?”

Sophia hands Thalia the extracted key and holds me out in front of her. She is a tall woman even now, and she looks down at me with an appraising eye. “Calliope. We missed you,” she says, and I know that this is true.

“How long are you staying, Calliopaki
mou
?”

“Just a few more days,
Theia
Thalia,” I say, using the word for aunt. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for the funeral.”

“Poor boy,” Thalia says, tearing up. “What are we going to do now, two old women?”

I wince at the number, wondering again what it is that keeps my mother on the other side of the dividing line.

“Have you seen your mother?” Sophia asks.

“Is she coming?” asks Thalia.

“Yes to both,” I say, and for some reason they find this funny.

They agree to sit down in the living room, where Nikos arrives to serve them small glasses of wine. I hear the two women murmuring together that my Greek is very good, all the same.

Aliki is carrying the lamb to the table when the buzzer rings.

“I’ll go,” I say, embarrassed that my mother is the only aunt without a key of her own.

I buzz her up and wait for her in the hallway. When she
emerges from the elevator, I can tell she is disappointed to see only me.

“Am I the first?” she asks.

“Come in,” I say, kissing her on the cheeks and dodging the question. She looks younger now that she is dressed, her bumps and angles smoothed out by a black sweater over dark-blue jeans.

The sisters all kiss as if they see one another every day, but I know from Aliki that they do not. I wonder if this is their way of pretending a closeness that no longer exists.

Nikos calls us to the table, where there is some tussling about where to sit. Thalia, in her former home, expects to be seated at the foot of the table, but my mother claims the spot without even saying anything. If her daughter is the guest of honor, then my mother is owed this bit of reflected tribute. Nikos settles the debate by assigning us all to specific seats. My chair faces the tall windows screened with filmy white drapes. Behind me is a sideboard of sleek ash topped with ceramic bowls in solid primary colors; from my seat, the old walnut dining table is the only thing I can see that is not crisp and simple.

The aunts want to know about my life in the States—not too much, just the demographic details of work and marriage. My ring is still twisted the wrong way around, and I keep my hands under the table until this part of my story is finished. I explain my job and brace myself for the puzzlement I saw in Marina and the others last night.

“But you sound like a
gyftissa
,” Sophia says, “begging the rich for money.”

“Or like a socialist,” Thalia says, chuckling.

“It’s not like that,
Theies
,” I say, but don’t clarify.

Thalia brightly turns to Demetra.

“Parade today! Are you going to march with your school?”

“She’s not coming with us,” Demetra says, pointing her fork at me.

“Demetra,” Aliki says. “Don’t say
she
. Say
Theia
Calliope.”

Theia
. Only in Greece can an only child be an aunt. Though I’m her mother’s cousin, I am Demetra’s
theia
the way Thalia and Sophia were mine.

“No, I
am
coming,” I tell her. “You can be my guide tonight.”

“What else were you going to do?” My mother looks up from her food.

“Some friends asked me to meet them for the parade.”

“Well! It’s about time you made some friends here,” my mother says.

Thalia caresses my arm, as if claiming me from my mother. I can’t resist.

“Yes, I met them yesterday. On the bus with the chickens,” I say, looking at my mother with all innocence.

For a while we are all absorbed in our food, commenting on the tenderness of the lamb and the crispiness of the roasted potatoes. I’m relieved that Nikos is not responsible for the death of the lamb. He passes the bread around so that we can sop up the sauce in our plates.

“This is so good,” I say, savoring the dense crumb of the loaf.

“Drimakopoulos bread,” Thalia says. “For generations, we’ve been buying their bread and no other. Even when we had the taverna.”

“Theies,”
I say. “You know, I went to the house today.” They all look up. “Someone let me in.”

“How was it, Calliopaki
mou
?” Thalia asks. She sits back in her chair and puts her hands in her lap. My news has canceled her interest in the meal.

“Filthy, I’m sure,” says Sophia. “Students and leftists living in it.” She trails off, leaving us to assume the depredations caused by such people.

“It’s not bad,” I say. “It’s apartments.”

“Well, there is a nice one on the second floor,” says Thalia. “It’s your room,” she nods to my mother, “and our room, plus the bathroom, and a little kitchen made out of part of Nestor’s room, bless his soul.”

“You haven’t seen it,
Mamá
?” I ask.

“Your mother won’t come with us,” Thalia says, and I can’t tell if my mother was even going to answer me. But she has an answer ready for her sister.

“Why should I come?” she says. “I can’t understand why the two of you feel the need to go visiting these people who have ruined our beautiful home.”

“But that’s the point, isn’t it, Clio,” Sophia says. “It’s not our beautiful home anymore. It hasn’t been for decades.” There’s a tone in her voice that I can’t quite place. I watch her for a moment, but she reveals nothing.

“Clio, we have simply gone a few times to see how the house has changed. That’s all,” Thalia says. “Now, Nikos, will you stop hoarding that lamb and let me get another taste of my daughter’s cooking?”

Nikos obliges, visibly relieved that his mother-in-law has changed the topic. I concentrate on my food.

“Well,” my mother says. “What did you do in the house, Calliope?”

“I went down to the basement.”

“What on earth for?” Thalia asks.

“Come on, you remember the story.
Mamá
must have told it to me and Aliki a million times.”

“What story?” Demetra asks.

“About the old house.” Aliki says it in an offhand way.

“Your poor uncle got into huge trouble for that prank,” Thalia says.

“I couldn’t find the drain,” I say, waiting.

“Drain? There was no drain,” says Sophia.

I remind the aunts of the story of the basement flood the way my mother always told it to me—with the hose, and the water, and the scullery door opened, and the drain. As I recite the story, I feel my allegiance shifting from the girls to Nestor, who never got to join the game. All these years, I have been blind to the fact that the sisters’ gaiety rested on the despair of their little brother.

“That’s not how it happened,” Sophia says. “There wasn’t any drain.”

“Yes, there was,” says my mother. “In the scullery. Are you sure you looked properly, Calliope?”

“I checked the whole floor. Moved boxes out of the way.”

“Well, you must have missed it. Because what fool wouldn’t have a drain in the scullery?”

“Then our parents were fools, because I’m telling you there was no drain,” Sophia says.

“Clio,” says Thalia softly, “don’t you remember about the rice?”

“No.”

“What rice,
Theia
Thalia?”

“When Nestor opened the scullery door to come out into the hall,” Thalia says gently, patting my arm again, “the water went into that room and it had already gone into the other rooms as well.”