The Daughter Page 17

  I didn’t keep my word. Forgot all about her, what with all the excitement of the life in Athens, what with settling down, moving in with people, me entering into the theatrical realm, all those tours, almost 2,000 little towns, I forgot my little pullet. Now, when I’m having some difficulty finding work, now I remember her. What I mean to say is, I’m not having any difficulty finding work, I’m in fine form in fact and I have this psychiatrist’s certificate to prove it, but the impresarios seem to like the rabble better, what can you do? In any case, I’m thinking a lot about my pullet these days, not so much her face though, if you know what I mean. A few days ago I dreamed about her, I’m having some weird dreams recently.

  What I mean is, it was Mum I dreamed about. It was as if I could see her in my sleep. We were in this green field, full of tall grass, no earth to be seen. And there was a gentle breeze blowing from somewhere, the tips of the grass were bending over as if a little brook was flowing over them. In the distance of my dream picture was a factory with a tall smokestack, but it hadn’t worked for years. Mother was sitting there in the grass. It was me who put her out to pasture, to scratch for worms with her fingernails. She’s looking at someone, but it’s not me. She’s looking right through me, as if I was never born. She’s sprouted feathers. Coloured ones. So that’s it, I say to myself, she didn’t starve to death in the Occupation after all. There’s a ring of fine white downy feathers around her neck, like a beard fluttering in the breeze. And I’m sitting there beside her on the grass, all ready to enjoy her company and to look after her at the same time just in case somebody tries to steal her. But I’m not in my dream picture, I’m in the audience like a spectator. Mum is calm, it’s late in the afternoon and she has everything she needs, she’s doesn’t see anything, doesn’t need her eyes, staring straight ahead with a kindly look on her face, not even scratching for food. I’m feeling sad that she doesn’t even need me. There’s a sun in my dream, but it’s far away. The downy white feathers on her neck are fluttering like a kind of thin beard.

  Don’t ask me how it was I had that dream. It didn’t make me the least bit happy. Not sad either.

  Anyhow, that trip of ours was kind of a festival for me, because it was the first time I ever left Rampartville, not counting our school excursions before the war and our hike down to the seaside. We drove through cities and towns; places I would get to know better after I turned twenty, on my many various tours.

  And so I was on my way towards Athens, light-hearted and without a worry in the world. The youngest of the family was taken care of, he had a job, a place to live, a wage. Ma’s hair was uncovered. The moment we crossed the Isthmus I decided from now on I would call her Mum, no more Ma or Mother. All of a sudden I had a past which I was leaving behind me, all nice and tidy, clear of the cobwebs and the dust.

  We disembarked in the capital, but it was a month before I got a good look at it. Seeing as Doc Manolaras gave Tassis instructions to drop us off at the outskirts, not far from Mrs Fanny’s blockhouse. We hugged and kissed, she was obliging but kind of distant, without a smile on her face. She climbed into the van and showed Tassis the way, Doc Manolaras already sent her the instructions.

  ‘Stop here,’ goes Mrs Fanny when we get to this open field. We climb down, there’s a low hill with what looked like a country chapel on top. That’s your blockhouse, Mrs Fanny says.

  It wasn’t exactly the kind of place I was expecting; what I was expecting was more like an uninhabited, furnished one-storey house, but I didn’t say a word. We unloaded our worldly goods with Tassis and Mrs Fanny lending a hand, and we moved in.

  ‘Why it’s just fine,’ I said, ‘got lots of room’.

  ‘There’s water down the hill, the public fountain,’ said Mrs Fanny pointing. ‘If you don’t have your own can I’ll lend you one.’ But we had our own. She showed us the way, we filled our can and a jug besides, and climbed back up the hill, Mrs Fanny right beside us like a guide, and I felt like an explorer as she pointed out different things to us, I liked feeling like a tourist, even though I didn’t know that particular word yet. She even offered us a broom made from dried thistle stalks, but we had our own, from Rampartville. Still, her gift came in handy, particularly outside the blockhouse. I got out a chair for Mum because she was getting in the way, standing there like a dressmaker’s dummy, still couldn’t get it through her head that we were living in the capital now. I sort of throw things together go off and buy some paraffin for the stove and the lamp and when I get back Mrs Fanny says, Well, I’ve got to be going, it’s almost dark. When they bring you the cripple tonight, don’t be frightened. He’s entitled to half the space. And off she goes. I show her to the door, and from the top of our little hillock I could see Athens off in the distance, for the first time. After, I went inside to cook supper, we ate and then we waited to see just who was this cripple and why he was coming to visit us.

  ROUBINI AND HER MOTHER were in bed when they brought the cripple. It was their only bed, Ma’s double bed; the other one they’d left with a neighbour of theirs, a woman named Kanello.

  First Roubini swept out the blockhouse; the cement floor was littered with garbage. Then the two women laid out a rag mat on the doorstep. The cripple who had been first to claim it had left the place in a mess; all his possessions – a pillow, a blanket, a water jug and a cup – were piled in a heap at the back, out of the draught from the entrance and the gun ports. The earth was banked up at the entrance to make a kind of ramp for his cart.

  Roubini plugged up the gun ports with wadding and scrap paper and hung a blanket across the entrance, for a door. Their dining table did double duty as a kitchen: on it she set up the gas burner, the tin water can with the spigot at the bottom, and the plates. On second thoughts she moved the water can outside, next to the entrance. Tomorrow she would look after a toilet.

  Then she whipped up a quick meal, they ate, turned down the wick until the oil lamp only glowed faintly, and the two of them turned in.

  When a kid brought the cripple; the two women woke up and stared. He was a half-man, his legs were missing, cut off at the roots, and there he sat, bolt upright and top-heavy, like a statue of some Latin American dictator, on a hand-made wooden cart with four castors, two handles at the back for pushing, and a rope in front like a bridle, for pulling. He was maybe forty, with a muscular back and sinewy arms, he’d lost his legs three years ago and his arms had grown strong from pushing. He looked like a wrestler. Every morning he would go down to the main road. The kid was from a nearby group of houses, he would come for the cripple and help him out of the blockhouse. At night the same kid would sling the rope over his shoulder and drag him back up the hill, for money. And every night when they got back the cripple paid him. First the kid would lift him out of his cart so he could do his business, then plop him back on and pull him inside, right up to his bed. Then the man would give him the money, the kid would say goodnight, and the next morning he would be there, ready to go.

  The cripple begged for a living. If he handled his cart carefully, avoided going uphills and took all the short cuts, he could reach the main road on his own. When he begged he would vilify anyone who passed him by without making an offering, he was a war amputee, he shouted in a demanding voice, and people had an obligation to support him. He put money aside, socked away all he could from whatever he collected – mostly loose change – and every so often, every three months or so, he would go to a woman, a common street whore, and plonk his savings down on her table.

  Sharing living quarters with the two women was perfect for him. Two frightened provincials, a mute mother and that skinny, plain, feeble-minded daughter of hers, now things were beginning to look up. Now he had partners, he could expand, start soliciting in Athens, find himself a good location.

  The first thing he did was declare that the blockhouse belonged to him, but he would let them stay. They would settle the rent later, he said. But it was a bluff, to keep them in a state of permanent insecurity.

&nb
sp; At first he thought to himself, ‘now I’ve got me a whore of my own, free for nothing’ whichever of the two happened to suit him. But when he saw how terrified and wild-eyed they were, he said to himself, Forget it, some other time.

  Finding his living space tidied up and his meals ready was something he hadn’t expected, he was accustomed to his way of life. He didn’t mind having someone to take him outside for his bodily needs, of course. His main concern was business, though, the begging business. But now, in exchange for rent, he had two partners; the older woman to push and pull the cart, and the girl as a crier, to pass the cup. Now it was on to greater things. Part of the take he’d pass on to them, for their food.

  The girl bridled at first. Our member of parliament put us here, she said. Better watch yourself, because us, we got legs. But finally she went up to him and announced they’d be happy to work together, what a wonderful idea, she would get to know Athens better plus get the feel of the stage, their MP was going to arrange a pension for her Mum and he was advising her to make a career in the theatre. Well, until all the appropriate arrangements had been completed the girl agreed that they would work together. On condition he call her mother Mrs Mina and her Miss Roubini. What d’you mean ‘miss’, he says. For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name, kept getting it upside down, backwards, inside out. In fact, one day he came out with Raraou. She was so delighted she adopted the name. That would be her stage name, she told him. Raraou. Or, Mademoiselle Raraou.

  And so they set up shop. Only for a little while Mum, said feeble-minded Raraou to the mute. Till our member of parliament fixes us up, she said.

  They would set out at dawn. Took a good two hours’ slogging to reach downtown Athens with the mute hauling the cart, harnessed like a draft horse. Her daughter had made her some pads out of old rags for her armpits, so the rope wouldn’t cut into her flesh. Behind came the girl, holding on to the handles, and atop the cart sat the cripple like a totem pole, shouting at them all the while to mind the potholes, the bouncing irritated his private parts. Raraou would giggle, just hearing him say it gave her the itch, she had to be a virgin, for sure. Sleep together? she wouldn’t hear of it.

  They strung up a kind of curtain between them, with a sheet on a string, so they could undress at night. He liked to ogle them. The mother sat upright in her chair like a dressmaker’s dummy while the daughter washed her face and combed her hair. When they wanted to take a bath, they hauled in water by the bucketful, heated it, poured it into the wash tub, and moved the cripple out.

  Nights, when he couldn’t sleep, he looked them over in the dim light of the lamp. The two of them lay there sound asleep, dead tired after a whole day of walking or harnessed to the cart. In her sleep the daughter was embracing the mother, protecting her head and running her fingers through her hair, sound asleep, the both of them. Mostly he couldn’t sleep. He would masturbate in the hope it would tire him out and he could get some sleep.

  Come daybreak they would set out again. And when they reached their location they made up their minds exactly where they would beg, at the public market, or over where they unloaded vegetables. The daughter steadied the cart with four chocks which they always kept on hand. Then she swept off a space in front of the cart with a little broom, laid down a piece of carpet, smoothed it out, set out the contribution plate, and beside it a pot with a sweet-smelling herb like marjoram or basil, depending on the season, which Raraou filched from windowsills or first-floor balconies. When customers would see the little pot, they knew they were dealing with nice, clean, neat people, down-on-their-luck people, and not some kind of riffraff or something. The cripple had them buy a little paper flag and stick it in the pot, to make the whole thing more nationalistic. And so, with the broom and the little flower pot, it was the next best thing to being at home, like being in their own front yard in fact, and anybody who noticed all that tender loving care would think maybe they were really the owners of the swept-off space, and would show them something like respect. Raraou felt just like the lady of the house. Going through the cripple’s junk she’d even turned up some high-heeled pumps with tinselled bows. She would keep them on his cart, hike the whole distance in her normal shoes and when they started work, slip on her pumps and wait for the customers to arrive, then launch into her begging number. That’s how she imagined it, as a number in a review, as her theatrical debut.

  Her mother sat off to the side to catch her breath, after two hours in harness. She would sip from her water bottle and eat some bread and cheese at the appointed hour, after the shops had closed for the midday break and before they opened again later in the afternoon. Bold as brass, Raraou would cry, ‘Help the cripple who gave his legs for the nation’. She liked the job. Sometimes she would sing the message, even dance it. At first the cripple would lose his temper. You’re makin’ me look like a jerk, dimwit, he growled, me, I’m a pro. But as time went by Raraou stopped paying attention to him, stopped fearing him, began talking back to him. Even threatened to hit him one time, right there in front of the audience, Come on, get up! Get up and catch me, hit me! And at the same time she howled, ‘Have mercy on the crippled soldier!’ And the cripple was shouting, ‘A drachma for the deaf-mute and her starving daughter, a drachma for the poor refugee deaf-mute!’

  For Raraou that was an insult, He’d better stop, she told him, or they would dump him on the spot. But her mother didn’t seem upset and so, over time, Raraou got used to it too, in fact she started using the line herself, wailing, Have pity on the crippled hero and his deaf-mute wife. From then on she used it continuously, her mother didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, the cripple got the idea they should learn how to say, ‘Have mercy on the heroic crippled warrior, have mercy on the deaf-mute refugee’ in European. The take would go up for sure, he explained: there were more and more foreign tourists in the bazaar he’d noticed; they were kind of simple-minded people, good for a handout. But they didn’t know anybody who could talk in foreign languages. The cripple kept reminding her, Hey, Raraou, how come your member of parliament doesn’t translate it for you? But Raraou didn’t want her protector to know she’d turned her mother into a beggar. And as time went by the cripple forgot the idea, the deaf-mute hauled the cart and while the other two were begging she would sit there staring off into the distance. Nothing could bother her. Only one day this passerby made a remark that riled her. The man, a weird-looking sort, dropped his contribution on to the plate and turned to Raraou, Tell me, miss, just how does the couple here manage, technically speaking, I mean? Then the deaf-mute jumped to her feet, but Raraou reached him first and leaped at him, hanging from his jacket lapels until they were just about ripped off. Police! Police! he shouted, and the trio quickly gathered up their belongings and moved to another location for three days.

  Once every two weeks Raraou would set the cripple back on to his cart, prop two boards against his back and wedge them into the corners; his movements were abrupt and he had a tendency to topple over on to his back. Afterwards she whispered something in her mother’s ear and went off, without telling him where she was going. It was to the office of her member of parliament, name of Manolaras, a sleazy tin-pot operator from the provinces, nobody knew just what strings he’d pulled to drag her all this way, right to his electoral district.

  Manolaras always greeted her with a smile, treated her to Turkish delight, and assured her that the pension was on the way; he would also pass on the latest news from her brother, who was working on his farm doing general upkeep, and as soon as the foreman died, Raraou’s brother would get the job. She asked him to pass on her greetings to her brother Fanis, kissed Manolaras’ hand and then went back to the cripple feeling relieved, particularly now that she had some spending money and a pocketful of Turkish delight.

  He was still looking after their house in the provinces, he told her, but the best thing was to wait a while, property prices were going up, people from the villages were moving into town. looking for places to buy
. And as far as the theatre was concerned, You’re still too young, he told her, first let me get your pension looked after, then I’ll introduce you to the right people.

  Yeah, he was just a small-time operator, but open-handed and kind-hearted, and besides, he had a soft spot in his heart for Raraou. So off she went, as happy as she could be, holding tight to the Turkish delight, and later she would insist her mother eat it. You have to, Mum, she said. And she waited until she was sure her mother had really swallowed it.

  In less than six months she’d learned all the streets, Mum, I feel just like an Athenian, she said. Coming back from Manolaras’ office she went down streets where there were theatres, musical reviews mostly. She stopped in front of the posters with the names of the stars, pretending to read. But when nobody was looking she would reach into her pocket, pull out a stub of chalk she always carried with her and scrawl, at the bottom of the poster: ‘And Mademoiselle Raraou’. Then she would step back, admire her handiwork, and go back to work. No worries about leaving her mother alone with the cripple in the bazaar any more; she was used to it now, begging didn’t bother her. In fact, her hair had grown and she’d put on some weight, the weather here in Athens seems to agree with her, thought Raraou.

  Of course the cripple was always trying to feel her up but it seemed normal to her, a kind of status symbol. Her mind was made up, all men are destined to lust after me, because there’s no other ticket for me to get ahead as an actress. Certainly, it never occurred to her to actually do it with him, not even for an instant. Firstly, she felt shame for her mother: if my mother became a sinner by performing that act, I will never in my life perform that act. To honour my mum. Furthermore, it would have been a mockery of her ideals to experience love with a man who was missing half his body, he was just a flesh-and-blood chest-of-drawers sitting there bolt upright, until they bundled him up in his blankets. Besides, he was a beggar. A beggar by choice and by conviction. While her goal in life was to become a princess.