When the Cypress Whispers (8 page)

The gate slammed shut behind Yianni just as Yia-yia emerged from the kitchen with a tray carrying more pita.

“Popi, where is everyone? What happened?” Yia-yia asked as she placed the tray on the wooden table.

“I have no idea,” Popi replied, shaking her head from side to side, draining her glass of the last few drops of beer.

Daphne opened the door to the small house and walked inside. She closed the door behind her and steadied herself against the door frame, her legs shaking and uncertain. She lifted her head and looked out across the room. It was a tiny home, just two small bedrooms and a sparsely furnished living room. The pounding inside her temples was so strong that it blurred her vision.

There was nothing in the room but an old, uncomfortable green sofa and a table with four chairs whose red satin seats were covered in plastic slipcovers—to protect from the guests who never come, Daphne thought, sighing.

Behind the table, up against the wall, was a long glass cabinet covered in family photos. There was a black-and-white photo of Daphne’s parents on their wedding day; Mama’s hair teased, sprayed, and curled elaborately. There was a faded black-and-white photo of Papou from his days in the Greek navy, handsome in his pressed uniform and squat mustache. Next to Papou was a rare photo of Yia-yia as a young mother, standing at the port, holding Mama’s tiny hand, a stern expression on her face, as was the standard back then—no one of that generation ever smiled for photographs. The rest of the photos were all of Daphne—Daphne at her christening, Daphne taking her first steps out on the patio under the olive tree, Daphne looking awkward and buck-toothed in her third-grade school portrait, Daphne and Alex kissing on their wedding day, Daphne looking far more ethnic with her familial Greek nose still intact, Daphne and Evie blowing kisses to Yia-yia from their Manhattan apartment, and Daphne in her chef’s whites waving to Yia-yia from the kitchen at Koukla. It was Daphne’s entire life played out in cheaply framed, dusty photos.

She felt a bit steadier now, away from the burning afternoon sun and the burning vitriol of Yianni’s accusations. When she was certain she could stand on her own, without holding the wall for support, Daphne walked toward Yia-yia’s bedroom. She knew what she would find, but she had to see it for herself.

The bed creaked as she sat down, her hands beside her body fingering the crochet bedspread and dipping in and out of the weblike pattern. After a few moments, she leaned forward and reached down under the bed, her hands finding and grasping it almost instantly. Daphne lifted the box on to her lap. She placed her hands on top of the dusty shoe box, her chipped fingernails tapping the lid for a few seconds before she lifted the top off the box and looked inside.

There they were, just like Yianni said they would be. There in the box were stacks of dollars, piles of green bills, thousands of dollars—all of the money Daphne had been sending Yia-yia for the past several years.

Daphne stared into the box and looked down on the result of all those hours spent away from home, away from Evie, away from Yia-yia. She put her hands in the box and lifted out the result of all those hours spent on her feet, fighting with suppliers, arguing with her staff, and crying from bone-aching exhaustion. She fanned out the bills, the result of the awards, accolades, and full reservation book that she had fought so hard to earn.

There it all was, all stuffed in a shoe box shoved under Yia-yia’s bed. And it was all meaningless.

Eleven

M
ANHATTAN

J
ANUARY 1998

Daphne wrapped the crochet scarf once more around her neck as she exited the Eighth Street subway station near New York University. She burrowed her face deeper into the scratchy wool and braced herself against the biting wind that whipped up Broadway. Another icy gust slammed against her body as a wind-induced tear rolled down her face.

Damn it.
She buried her face even deeper in the brown material. There was no escaping it. Even the brand-new scarf that Yia-yia had made, which had just arrived yesterday from Greece, was already infused with the scent of diner grease.

Damn damn damn.

Daphne shivered uncontrollably, even under the arsenal of layers that Mama made sure she put on before she walked out into the single-digit cold. As her muscles vibrated and twitched, Daphne felt as if she were lying on one of those ridiculous twenty-five-cent massage beds that Baba became obsessed with a few years back during their big family getaway to Niagara Falls.

It had always been a dream of Baba’s to see the legendary falls in person. After all, he had seen them on a Seven Wonders of the World list, right there alongside the Parthenon. As much as she knew her father wanted to see the falls for himself, Daphne was shocked when her parents actually left Theo Spiro in charge of the diner, packed up the Buick, and headed north for a two-day getaway. Baba never left the diner, never.

But as impressed as Baba was with the ferocious beauty of the falls, it seemed he was even more taken with the vibrating beds at the Howard Johnson’s. Daphne had fed quarter after quarter into the tiny slot and watched as Baba smiled peacefully, his enormous belly shaking and jiggling like the giant bowls of cream-colored tapioca Mama served every Sunday. Daphne knew that for Baba, this twenty-five-cent indulgence was the epitome of luxury and success. For him, a man accustomed to standing on his feet behind a hot grill, flipping burgers for sixteen hours a day, a pulsating bed in a $69.99-a-night motel room decorated in a palate of Nathan’s mustard yellow meant he had indeed made it, that he was finally living the American dream.

Daphne reached the lecture hall a good thirty minutes before the start of class. She hated getting here so early, but since the train from Yonkers to Manhattan ran only twice an hour, Daphne often found herself sitting alone in lecture halls, waiting. Some of the other commuter students often met for coffee and cigarettes in the cafeteria across the street, but Daphne hated their gossipy small talk and crude flirtations. She preferred to just sit alone and wait.

Grateful to be out of the cold, she began the process, unpeeling layer after layer. First, the bulky black down coat came off. Then she removed the yellow cardigan, followed by a brown cotton sweater, and finally the diner-scented scarf. There was no way Daphne could fit it all on the back of her small lecture-hall chair; she had to pile everything on the floor next to her aisle seat. She detested doing this, but with no place else to stash her winter wardrobe, she had no choice. Nothing screamed
commuter student
like a pile of warm winter clothes and an entire day’s worth of books lugged around in a backpack.

Daphne knew she wasn’t like many of the students who lived on campus in a haze of bong hits, dorm parties, and guilt-free sexual exploration. But sometimes, sitting alone in a lecture hall, she liked to pretend that she was. Maybe it was really possible? Maybe she could be mistaken for a tousle-haired co-ed who had just raced out of her boyfriend’s bed and sprinted across the street to make it to class in time. Daphne relished her daydreams of being like the other students. But then, inevitably, her eyes would once again fall on the telltale pile of clothes and books beside her. She was again reminded that instead of an intoxicating mixture of incense, patchouli, and morning sex, Daphne’s signature scent was diner grease.

Daphne would never forget that day in her History of Theater class. It wasn’t the bone-chilling temperatures that made the day memorable. It was him. It was Alex.

She had seen him around campus a few times, but she never really thought much about him other than a fleeting notice of his all-American good looks. But that day, when Alex stood up in their theater class to give his oral presentation, Daphne realized that appearances could be very deceiving. This was not the one-dimensional privileged American boy “who only wants one thing from a nice Greek girl like you” that her mother had so fiercely warned her about. The moment he began to speak, Daphne knew there was so much more behind those cornflower blue eyes than football, keg parties, and the latest sorority girl conquest.

Daphne would never forget how his voice cracked and his hands shook as he stood in front of the class, holding his paper. His shirt was worn and wrinkled, and his khakis were creased in all the wrong places.

“In my opinion, Christopher Marlowe’s
Doctor Faustus
contains one of the greatest, if not the greatest, passage in theatrical history,” Alex began. He paused for a moment and looked around the classroom, then lifted the paper slightly closer to his face and once again began to speak. But as he began to read the passage, Daphne noticed that his hands had stopped shaking, and his voice took on a steady calm.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!—

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack’d

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;

Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

And then return to Helen for a kiss.

Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;

Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

When he appear’d to hapless Semele:

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

In wanton Arethusa’s azur’d arms:

And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

As he finished the passage, Alex once again looked up from his paper. He planted a slight, crooked smile on his face as he scanned the room for some sort of encouragement or reaction from his fellow students, but all he met was bloodshot blank stares—until he glanced at the girl with the pile of books and clothing beside her. Daphne locked eyes with the disheveled American boy and shyly but knowingly smiled back.

“Very well chosen, young man,” the professor remarked. “Now, tell me what this all means to you.”

“To me, this passage is art,” Alex began. He stared into the paper, which he clenched with both hands. “For me, true art evokes emotion. Love, hatred, joy, passion, compassion, sadness. Whatever form it takes on, art makes you feel something. It makes you know that you’re alive.”

Alex stopped to take a breath. He looked up from his paper and made eye contact with Daphne once again. She squirmed just a little in her seat and felt a knot form in her stomach.

“This passage makes me think of the power and possibility that exists between two people,” Alex continued. “It makes me think of what it might be like to love someone so deeply and completely that you would go to war for her, risk the lives of your friends for her—as Paris did for Helen. If art evokes emotion, then this passage haunts me. I feel haunted by it, by the possibility that a mere kiss can make the angels sing and make a person immortal . . . that the gates of heaven can be opened by a kiss.”

On the surface, it made no sense. This was a class assignment, homework, nothing more. But despite the immigrant’s cardinal rule, “Keep to your own kind,” as Daphne watched Alex give his five-minute presentation, she knew that everything had changed.

“Thank you, Alex. Well done.” The professor dismissed Alex with a nod of his head.

Alex gathered his papers and prepared to return to his seat, starting up the stairs that led to the multitude of empty chairs in the cavernous lecture hall. Daphne forced herself to look away, to stare instead at the mosaic pattern of the lecture hall carpet. It hurt too much to watch him, to know that boys like him were not meant for girls like her. But then her solitary contemplation was interrupted by a whisper from above.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

She knew it was him before she even glanced up. As Daphne stared up at him, he didn’t wait for an answer. They both knew he didn’t have to. With his long, muscular legs and frayed-at-the-hem khakis, he climbed over the pile of Daphne’s clothes and slid into the seat beside her—and into her life.

“Hi, I’m Alex,” he said as he extended his hand. Her long lashes fluttered before her big black-olive eyes locked in on his once more.

They went for coffee after the lecture, both uncharacteristically cutting classes for the rest of the day. The entire afternoon was spent walking and talking and holding hands under the coffee shop table; just their fingertips touching at first, but by sunset, he cradled her hand in his. By nightfall she knew it was time to go, that Mama and Baba would worry if she were late. He asked her to stay, to come back to his room. She wanted nothing more than to do just that, to nestle against his chest, to smell him and feel his heart beating against hers. But Daphne said no.

They walked hand-in-hand to the subway, neither one complaining about the bitter cold or even seeming to notice it. There, at the entrance to the Eighth Street subway station, he lifted her chin with his fingers and kissed her for the first time.

When she finally opened her eyes, she found his, electric blue and staring back. From that moment on, Daphne loved staring into those eyes.

She missed those eyes.

Twelve

Thankful Evie had finally fallen asleep easily, Daphne grabbed her white cardigan from the back of one of the plastic-covered chairs. She held tight, wringing the soft material around and around with her hands as she stepped out into the breezy moonlit night.

“
Ella
, Daphne
mou.
Katse etho.
Sit here,” Yia-yia said as she patted the chair beside her, the dark spots and bulging veins of her hands illuminated by the golden glow of the fire.

Daphne joined Yia-yia in their usual spots by the outdoor oven. Neither spoke at first. They sat side by side and watched as the flames jumped from the burning logs, sending white-hot embers floating and tumbling into the evening breeze like the circus acrobats Daphne perpetually promised to take Evie to see, but had never quite found the time for.

“Are you cold, Daphne
mou
?” Yia-yia asked as she reached out to grab her own shawl, which hung on the back of her chair, and draped the fringed black fabric around her hunched shoulders.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Do you want something to eat, Daphne
mou
?”

“No, Yia-yia, I’m not hungry.”

“You didn’t eat very much at dinner. I told you, you need to put on some weight. You don’t want to look like a skeleton in that gown, now do you?” Yia-yia teased.

Daphne didn’t even have the ability to fake a smile. She just kept looking into the fire, mesmerized by the smoldering embers. She felt drained.

In the few hours since their heated conversation, Daphne had played the scene over and over again in her head, her temples throbbing. But eventually something odd struck Daphne, something she’d never expected. At first she didn’t realize it, but once she’d caught a glimmer, there was no escaping it. As hateful as Daphne thought Yianni’s words were, she couldn’t help but feel that she had caught a glimpse of concern under the heap of insults he had piled on her. No matter how misguided his accusations were, there was an underlying theme to them. There was no question; this fisherman seemed to care deeply for Yia-yia. Even though Daphne wanted to despise him, to hate him, to make him suffer for causing such chaos in the short time she had known him, she felt conflicted. How could she hate someone who loved and cared for Yia-yia so deeply?

Daphne turned and looked at her grandmother. Each line, each wrinkle and dark spot, on the old woman’s face was awash in the soft amber light of the fire. Reaching out her hand, Daphne lifted Yia-yia’s hand to her mouth. She kissed Yia-yia’s rough knuckles before holding the old woman’s hand against her own cheek.

Does she really think I’ve abandoned her?
Does she really think I’m not there for her?
Daphne felt her eyes well up again. She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to stave off the tears that were certain to come again. Yia-yia studied her granddaughter’s face for a moment as Daphne held her hand so tenderly. They both had so much they wanted to say, but for a little while longer, neither said a word. Finally, Daphne spoke.

“Yia-yia.”

“
Ne
, Daphne
mou
?”

“Yia-yia. Are you lonely here?” The words spilled out of Daphne’s mouth like the guts of a sacrificed lamb.

“Daphne, what do you mean?”

“Are you lonely here? I know it’s been a while since I’ve visited, and with Mama and Baba gone . . .”

Yia-yia lifted her hand from Daphne’s lap. With both hands now free, she raised them to straighten her scarf, untying and then retying the knot under her chin.

“I need to know,” Daphne pleaded. “I know it’s been a long time since I came to see you. But I was trying so hard to take care of everything. To make sure Evie and I, and you, would be all right.”

“We are all right,
koukla
mou
. We’ll always be all right.”

“I hate the thought of you here, by yourself, with so little, when we have so much back in New York.”

“I am not alone. I am never alone. As long as I am here, in my home, surrounded by the sea, the wind, and the trees, I will always be surrounded by those who love me.”

“But you are alone, Yia-yia. We’ve all gone. Isn’t that why Mama and Baba left here, to make a better life for us all? It worked, Yia-yia. We finally have everything they hoped for us. I can finally give you and Evie the things Mama and Baba could only dream about giving me.”

“What do you think Evie needs, Daphne? She’s a little girl. Little girls need their imaginations and their mothers, nothing else. She needs your time. She needs you to whisper secrets with. She needs you to tell her stories, to kiss good night.”

Daphne winced at the words. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been home early enough to tuck Evie into her bed back home in New York. It had been weeks, months even.

Yia-yia looked away from Daphne for a moment. When she turned back, Daphne could see the fire’s reflection in her grandmother’s eyes.

“Nothing can replace a mother’s love, Daphne. Nothing can replace a mother’s time. Your own mother always knew that, even as she struggled to give you a new life.” Yia-yia watched as Daphne squirmed in her seat, but it didn’t deter the old woman from finishing what she had to say. “Did you see her tonight when she sat in your lap, purring like a small kitten? It’s because you didn’t push her away this time.”

“I don’t push my daughter away,” Daphne protested, struggling not to raise her voice.

“Tonight when Evie sat in your lap, you didn’t run off to take care of something else more important. You were still. Finally, you were still long enough for Evie to catch you, to hold you, and to feel you hold her back. For that sweet moment, Evie felt like she was the most important thing in your life. And for that moment, that child was happy.”

Daphne felt the tingle in her eyes once more.
Damn it.
She had not seen Yia-yia in years, yet it was still true; Yia-yia could read Daphne with one glance.

“Daphne
mou
.” Yia-yia spoke again. “I see how you go through the motions, but the life has gone out of you. Whittled away like your modern new nose. Beautiful, yes, but where is the character, the very thing that makes you different, special—alive? You’ve forgotten how to live, and even more so, you’ve forgotten why to live.”

Daphne gazed into the fire. “Yia-yia . . . ,” she said, speaking directly into the flames, “didn’t you ever wish your life had turned out differently? How if you could change one moment, everything would have turned out so different . . .” The sound of her voice trailed off, “So much better . . .”

“Daphne
mou
,” Yia-yia replied, “this is my life. No matter who is with me, who has been taken away from me or gone away in search of a better life, this is my life, the only one I have. This is the life that was written for me in countless coffee cups, decided for me in the heavens before I was born and then whispered about on the breeze as my mother gave birth to me, her screams mixing with the cypress whispers as I emerged from her womb. A person cannot change what has been whispered about, Daphne. A person cannot change her fate. And this is mine—just as you have yours.”

There was nothing more for Daphne to say. She just sat there next to Yia-yia, watching as the last smoldering log collapsed on the ever-growing pile of ashes.