A Story
“Pah!” he spat bitterly, looking away from the television screen. “Waiter! Another whisky, no ice.”
For days, relations between the two countries had hung in the balance. A layer of ice accompanied the ambassadors as they travelled from one capital to the other for instructions.
“Politics is a whore!” he said to himself.
With an agitated gesture, he poured the whisky down his throat and did not lower the glass until the last drop had fallen. His eyes became two beds of embers. A turmoil churned in his chest, rising into his throat at times until he felt it would choke him.
“Here you are, sir!”
The waiter set down another glass of whisky and walked away with heavy, dragging steps.
“Sir! What sort of gentleman am I!? Can’t they see I can’t even master myself? My life, our lives, hang on the coat hanger of politics. We have
become a warehouse for insults. Anyone can dump whatever rubbish
of insults they like on us.” It seemed to him that all the evils of this world lurked behind the word “sir”.
He paid and went outside. His head was very heavy, and he felt dizzy. He skirted “Omonia” Square and headed downhill towards the hotel. That hotel he used only for sleeping. The stench of filth hit you as soon as you entered. A smell like a dead dog pierced your nostrils. It seemed to him that all the filth in the world had gathered in that hotel. It was an “International” hotel. It harboured Albanians, Turks, Bulgarians, Arabs. All had fled misery only to fall back into its lap.
“Hey! Sir!”
A young man stood before him in a grey suit and a white shirt with a stiff collar.
“We offer unforgettable moments. Now, when night conceals beauty, we reveal it. We offer sex of the highest class. We offer pleasures that only we know how to serve.”
He could tell from his speech that he was not Greek.
“With their delicate touch and spectacular performances, our women quench the flames of scorched souls. They soothe every soul ablaze with love and lull it into a dream-filled sleep. For all this, they ask a very reasonable
“fee. Whatever the client can afford.”
“Ha!” He laughed to himself and stopped to wait. Even love had become a trade. What hadn’t become a trade in this world? A man pays all his life. From birth to death. He pays for the failings of this fleeting world. He pays for the failings of politicians, who play with the fate of nations at diplomatic tables as though at chessboards. They sacrifice human heads, soldiers and horses for a king, even if he is an ass in thought and deed.
“Just say the word, sir!” The young man followed him. “Say the word and she’s yours. For the whole night, if you like.”
“Go away, please!”
His words emerged exhausted by their long journey from his lungs to his mouth. In truth, he wanted to hit him. To hit him until the flame of hatred burning in his soul died out. But by now he had grown used to every kind of insult.
He left the last lights behind and turned into the half-dark alley whose every corner he knew. He wanted to hide. To disappear from the world. Only then did he feel he had escaped the professional fishers of souls.
“Hey!”
A flattering soul emerged from the darkness, amid the illuminated lettering.
“Sir, where are you going all alone tonight?”
“To the hotel.”
The young man walked and spoke as though paralysed.
“The hotel!?”
The other man laughed.
“You want to imprison this night, a night you’ll scarcely ever bring back to life, in the hotel’s dark little holes? Come, sir, into the arms of dreams. Life itself is calling you into the bosom of its mysteries.”
The young man wavered.
“A cigarette, please!”
The man in a suit as dark as the night itself took out his packet of bait, his face expressionless. He gave him a cigarette and drew him through the darkness towards a door.
The young man obeyed blindly. In fact, he had desires he could not decipher himself. They were as contradictory as life itself. He wanted to forget. Yes, yes, to forget that he too lived in this world. This world entangled in troubles, where everything unfolded against his will and wishes.
The heavy beat of the music roused him and brought him back to life. Before him was a dimly lit room and a group of young people his own age dancing to an unfamiliar rhythm.
“To hell with it! How many years have we got to live, anyway? Let us forget, for a few moments too,
“the misery of this monotonous life. Let us forget that beyond misery there are also moments not easily forgotten.”
“How do you like, sir?”
The young man could not understand what the waiter was saying.
“What would you like?” he then asked in Greek.
“A double whisky.”
His Greek was halting.
“Fifteen euros.”
He said this to make it clear that this was no ordinary bar.
The young man hated himself for being in such a state.
“Bring the whisky first,” he said indignantly. “I came here on my own two feet.”
The waiter walked away without arguing. Once he realised where the young man was from, he tossed his order into the bin of oblivion.
The young man existed in the depths of the darkness, ignored. As though he had never lived. He wanted to kill this world hidden in the corners of the night, but with what? He had the strength, but could darkness be killed? It was nothing, and nothing could not be killed. For the first time, a desire arose that had never stirred in his soul before. He wanted to show that he was human. A man of flesh and blood. He too had the right to live in this world like everyone else. He got up with difficulty and went to the bar.
“Sir! I came to your establishment to enjoy myself. A double whisky with ice and Coca-Cola, please.”
An undefined hatred seethed deep in his soul.
“Pleasure comes at a price, sir!”
The irony in the waiter’s voice was plain to hear.
He felt that this executioner of a word, “sir”, would hound him to the very end...
“I know, but serve me first.”
Swaying, he hid once more in his corner of oblivion. The lights had gone out, and it resembled an abandoned stage, with no play and no actors.
The waiter brought the double whisky.
Lefteri reached into his pocket and took out his wad of money. No less than four thousand euros, for which he had worked for several months. He always carried it with him, since he had
no papers of any kind. He was afraid the police might catch him and send him back to his homeland.
The waiter had frozen like a statue, his gaze fixed intently on Lefteri’s hands.
“Take it!” The young man held out a twenty-euro note. “Keep the change.”
The bar became a stage where the drama “Money” was being performed. In an instant, it lost its focus. Everything turned upside down, as in a fairy tale. Two pistol flashes lit up oblivion, and a new comedy began. The hunters of the night instantly concealed their
claws and insults and appeared before the young man with angelic faces. They splashed lust-inducing scents over their heads and chests and drew flattery from their dictionaries. No more than three minutes had passed when the beauty of the establishment herself appeared in that dark corner. The battle was still on. The young man had to fall into flattery’s lap.
All delicacy, her chest half exposed, the golden chains of death swaying over it. Proud, indifferent to the rank smell of his clothes, she appeared like a rainbow after a downpour.
“May I sit down?”
Her sweet, soft, caressing voice made Lefteri swallow. Her enticing scent made him blush to the tips of his ears. He felt ashamed. “If only I’d put on some better clothes,” he thought. To the lady, the smell of his clothes did not matter, only the smell of the money he carried.
“Please!”
With every courtesy, he showed her where she could sit. He tried to pay her a compliment, but only mumbled it between his teeth.
She sat opposite him with both elbows on the table. A milky spotlight fell on her face and breasts. The cleft dividing the two sides of her chest was faintly visible. Full, prominent breasts rose and fell rhythmically with her breathing. Her skin was soft and lovely, gleaming beneath a thin layer of cream that gave off a pleasant scent of violets.
Lefteri swallowed as though trying to gulp down something he could not identify. Something he desired, yet which frightened, dazed and soothed him all at once. In those moments, he thought he had entered another world. A world where money had no value. Moments like these were worth more than its weight.
The lights faded, and they lost themselves in a sea of dreams. The young man paid, and the girl gave gifts of kisses. Wherever desire died down, whisky was poured. Whenever drowsiness closed his eyelids, kisses woke the male in him, and he put the value of money to sleep.
The battle continued as though nothing had happened.
.....
When Lefteri opened his eyes, he saw that morning had come. A shaft of sunlight fell across the great broad bed. Around him was a well-furnished room. Large windows. Two violet curtains that gave the room a faint pink hue as the sun’s rays struck them.
The young man took fright. Across from him, in the other corner of the room, stood a bed. A girl lay on it. One white arm was outside the blanket, and her blonde hair lay loose, spilling over the pillow.
Lefteri sprang out of bed. He reached into his pocket and began
counting the money. It was all there, untouched. He could make no sense of it. He replayed the previous day’s events like a strip of film. They went only so far before breaking off, snapping...
“No!” he whispered under his breath. “No, no, it’s impossible. Ahem... ahem...!” He coughed to let her know he was awake.
The girl rolled over, clutching the blanket to the top of her chest. She had not slept all night. All sorts of thoughts had run through her head. She had watched his battered face as he snored heavily, the sound more like a groan. She had wept. Was she weeping for herself, or for what she saw? Towards dawn, sleep had weighed down her eyelids and made her forget everything.
“What!?”
The young man could not believe his eyes. Before him was Merita. His sister’s closest friend. Oh God! It was impossible! He could not believe he had slept with her. He wanted to explain himself, but he was so shaken that he could not gather his thoughts.
“But how did you turn up here? I thought you...”
The girl stood as though caught in the act.
“We got married and came to Greece for a better life, but....”
“But what...?”
“Petriti abandoned me, sold me. One night, out of the blue, he threw me out into the street. I had no other choice...”
The girl began to cry. “The owner of the club, who paid him the money, took me by force. Where could I go? Where could I drown myself? I didn’t have a single ten-cent coin in my pocket. I didn’t speak a word of Greek. When I saw you at the club last night, I felt I’d been born again. You were drunk and couldn’t control yourself. You started paying and...”
“And what? I counted the money, and it’s all there. Are you saying you replaced what I spent?”
The girl lowered her head. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks.
“I swear to you, I’ve never been to places like that. The situation we’re in...”
A lump formed in his throat, and he could not finish his thought.
The girl watched him without taking her eyes off him. How he had changed. He had grown up before his time.
The skin on his cheeks was rough. His eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, his gaze pale. A cold, distant gaze, like exile itself. She wanted to draw him close and
stroke her uncombed hair. Soothe him, lull him to sleep. Into a deep sleep, to take him away from this world that tormented him and had reduced him to this
state.
“Yesterday was Saturday, and...” he broke into her thoughts. “My sister held her wedding dinner. I, her only brother, couldn’t even wish her happiness. Lead a merry dance. Be there to share her joy and mine. I couldn’t... I couldn’t, and I never will. That day will never come again, either for my sister or for me. I’ll be missing from her memories for the rest of her life. From the memories of the guests, of our relatives. That’s why... that’s why I drank. I drank to forget the pain. The pain that torments me today and will torment me all my life.” Then he took the girl by both shoulders and gazed deep, deep into her tear-filled eyes. Now and then, her face seemed to wear his sister’s white veil and take on her likeness.
“Get up and get dressed!”
“Where?”
The girl spoke in fright. Her chest shook with a deep sob.
Lefteri’s knees buckled.
“Get up,” he said again, but more gently this time. His voice trembled like that of a captive bird they would not release, but tortured without cease. “Get dressed, let’s go. Yes..yes..let’s leave this world.”
Then he turned his back to the girl to give her a chance to get up and change her clothes.
