One Core Belief

INTRODUCTION Delfi’s aim was off. The potato peeling had missed the inside of the bucket and was now stuck to its exterior. She shook the water from her hands and began to dry them on her apron, pausing to take in the effect of its pale shape against the black plastic. She c****d her head and had to stifle a laugh when she realised that the peel had formed an unflattering cameo of her mother-in-law, Evangelina. She turned back to the sink, scrubbing the potatoes with renewed vigour, her shoulders trembling under the weight of her suppressed laughter. From behind her, she heard determined steps on the slate floor and the click of Evangelina’s tongue against the roof of her mouth. Delfi set her shoulders in soft defiance and scoured the potatoes with brutal force. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother-in-law bend to the bucket. She waited for the reproach, but the older woman seemed to be deep in reverie and merely extracted the peel and, without a word, returned to the small storeroom at the rear of the taverna. Delfi was intrigued and wondered what Evangelina would do with it. She would like to think that she would keep it to laugh over later with Josef as they sipped ouzo between the lunch and dinner trades. But Evangelina didn’t drink, nor did she sit companionably with her husband, and she would certainly not store the cameo for a laugh, but as further evidence of her daughter-in-law’s shortcomings. Nikolas angled the box of tomatoes through the doorway of the second storeroom. Soon, he resolved, he would widen the door’s frame when he found the time. He set the box onto the floor and began to straighten the kinks out of his back. His perspective from the rear of the taverna spanned the indoor and outdoor tables to the sea. The morning sun had just risen over the eastern peninsula, the opposite prong of the island’s horseshoe, and was already shedding white light. His mother and father would be happy, he thought, as the warmer the day, the more tourists came. For Nikolas, though, as he stood with his hands resting on his hips, it was enough to just take in the beauty of the moment. In the shadowy space to his left, Delfi was peeling potatoes, striking at them with a murderous intent. He smiled at the sight of his wife’s solid frame, the ample curves accentuated by the apron’s ties at her waist. He could go to her, quietly, and surprise her. He would part the thick coil of her hair and kiss the white of her neck. He imagined himself cupping her voluminous breasts. She would turn to him as she did in the privacy of their bedroom and…Delfi threw a peeling at the bucket against the wall. It missed but stuck to its exterior. She shook the water from her hands and began to dry them and, just when Nikolas thought she would remove it, she seemed to reconsider and turned back to the sink, every now and then glancing at the bucket. Nikolas thought he could see her shoulders trembling. His mother appeared from the other storeroom. At sixty-five, Evangelina was still nimble. The calves beneath her apple-shaped torso were strong and she could outpace most. Nikolas knew that Evangelina had seen the transit of the potato peel, and he waited to see what would happen next. Delfi had not moved, and he could tell that her shoulders were braced. Evangelina stood at the bucket, seemingly transfixed. When she bent to pluck off the peel, Nikolas envisaged her next move—to place it with a clear statement of displeasure inside. Instead, she kept it in her hand and returned to the storeroom without a word. Nikolas saw Delfi’s shoulders relax, and she began to hum a popular tune and sway her substantial hips in time with its tempo. The sight of his young bride, the sound of the waves as they retracted through the pebbles on the shore, and the warmth of the rising sun stirred Nikolas and his pleasure ran like warm honey through his body. Evangelina was not having a good morning. She had risen, as usual, at four thirty in plenty of time for Mass. It was a ritual she had maintained since her youth when she would accompany her mother and grandmother to the chapel in their village on the island of Skosias. This morning, she had called in to see Sophie, as she did every day, and found the old woman still in her bed with a heavy cold. Though Evangelina was anxious to get on her way, she was reluctant to leave her and called Sophie’s daughter who lived just a twenty-minute drive away. Evangelina could have left but chose to wait. When the daughter arrived one hour later, her displeasure oozed into the space between them. Evangelina hurried to the Chapel of The Dormition of Our Lady but was too late. The Mass was halfway through, and she would not be seen to be tardy. Instead, she stood outside, out of view beneath the window, and gave her own salutations to Theotókos, Mother of God. Evangelina’s relationship with Mary the Mother of God was deep. They shared certain traits—unwavering faith and a tolerance for the shortcomings of their human husbands. In sentimental moments, Evangelina could see the very strong resemblance between the two men. Her Josef, too, was kind and gentle and had kept a donkey in the early years of their marriage. The strongest connection between the two women, though, was their love for their sons. Of course, Evangelina would not assume that she knew the depth of Mary’s grief, but she had her own worries. Feeling incomplete without the Communion wafer, Evangelina had made her way to the taverna. Between work, family and her commitment to the church and her neighbours, Evangelina would reflect that her life was full, or partly so because there was still special room left for grandchildren, a prospect that might now finally come to fruition. For many years she had despaired that Nikolas would never find a suitable bride. Despite her strong belief in the intervention of God, she was no longer willing to wait for an answer to her prayers and had taken matters into her own hands. Though she had left her own island many years ago when she married Josef, Evangelina returned often to visit her family. While there twenty-one years ago, her second cousin’s niece Delfinia was born on the feast of the Assumption. Evangelina had mentally marked the day as portentous and had tucked the knowledge away in her heart for a rainy day. When Nikolas came back home to live, at forty and without a wife, Evangelina produced her trump card. Surprisingly, her son was receptive to the idea of marriage but, in retrospect, his agreement was too passive. Though the girl, Delfinia, was only eighteen, she agreed. Evangelina had no doubt that she would. Her son was a catch—handsome, intelligent, gentle and kind. But lately, she was beginning to suspect that the young Delfinia was shrewd, if not calculating. Nikolas was, after all, the heir to Hestia’s Taverna, a better prospect than on offer from the local boys of her island. In the little storeroom, Evangelina prepared the kalamari and sardines for the grill. The morning sun was already white and so, with experienced calculation, she took out an extra two handfuls of each from the salted water. It was messy and smelly work and, for that reason, was done away from the dining tables. Eventually, Evangelina would hand this work over to her daughter-in-law, but for the moment, she gave her the simpler jobs. Customers seemed to like the domestic touch of the preparation at the sink inside the taverna. They could see that their potatoes, aubergines and salads were freshly prepared, though the gutting of fish was another matter. As Evangelina turned to the container to pull out another ‘just in case’ handful of sardines, through the open door to the taverna, she saw something fly from Delfinia’s hand to the bucket placed at a ridiculous and impractical distance from the sink. Evangelina waited for her daughter-in-law to retrieve the offending waste that had adhered to the outside of the bucket, but Delfinia stood stubbornly at the sink c*****g her head this way and that. In the wake of Sophie’s daughter’s tardiness that morning, Evangelina had had enough of the younger generation of women who, in her mind, were lazy and spoilt. This included her own daughter, Elektra, but Evangelina was in no mood to think about her today. She threw aside the towel she kept solely for wiping fishy hands and strode purposefully behind Delfinia to the bucket. As she bent to retrieve the peel, she paused to take in its effect against the black plastic. Inwardly she gasped when she realised that she was face to face with a perfect image of the Mother of God in profile. Gently, Evangelina lifted it off, careful not to distort the holy shape, and returned to the storeroom with the relic softly enclosed in her palm. Josef was oblivious to the goings on inside his taverna, though this was not unusual. He disliked tension and, although he was fond of his young daughter-in-law, the atmosphere between her and Evangelina was too much for him on most days. He would hear about it later anyway, on the way home in the truck. In the five-minute drive, Evangelina would unleash her frustrations with the girl—the irregularity of the potatoes, the density of the baklava, tables left for too long before being cleared—pausing only to make the sign of the cross as they drove past the church. Evangelina would give him a look, but Josef explained, every time, that to take his hands from the wheel to cross himself would put their lives at risk and he was certain that Theotókos, the Mother of Jesus, would not want that. Josef had no interest in the church, despite his name. Like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him, he went through the motions of formal religion to appease his wife, but, like those wonderful men, his devotion was to the sea, to his fresh catch of fish each morning, to his olive trees and grape vines. For Josef, the smell of his tomatoes warming on the vine was better than any frankincense; the sun’s light on tiny wave crests more brilliant than any gilding; the murmur of the sea as it filtered back from the shore more mesmerising than any communal prayer. And then there were his canaries. What hymn could cause as much rapture as the song of his beloved birds? Josef scraped off fragments of charred meat he had missed in the cleaning the night before with a wire brush. His eyesight was not as good as when he was a boy, but at sixty-six, it wasn’t too bad either. He didn’t bother with spectacles—he didn’t read anyway. As long as he could see the first green shoots of the garlic bulbs, the first feathery carrot leaves and the tiny green buds of his lemons that was good enough. As he cleaned, Josef found himself thinking about his youth, as he often did these days. Perhaps it was the warmth of the morning, perhaps it was a scent carried across the water, but Josef was thinking, with a small twist of something that felt like grief, about the first time he saw the young and beautiful Evangelina. He remembered that he had been on his way home from a long day’s fishing. As he passed the island of Skosias, he stopped in the shelter of its bay to eat his bread and cheese and to savour a cigarette. He had pulled the boat on to the shore and was resting in the sun with his back against a large rock when he heard her. Evangelina’s laugh, carried to him on the breeze, was the first thing he had fallen in love with. It was a sound he no longer heard, and Josef’s knot of grief tightened as he remembered. He had turned on his knees at the sound and removed his cap, which was new and brilliant blue. With his nose resting on the cool rock and his eyes just above its rim, he had watched. He saw a girl, not much younger than himself, up to her knees in the sea and an older man in the shallows by the shore. The girl’s skirt was knotted across her thighs and, even from a distance, Josef could see the strength of her legs. The man, who Josef would learn later was her father, was short, and the girl was shorter still, but her curves…ayyy…The older Josef with a wire brush in his hand remembered those curves. Hidden from view, he had watched the two of them for a while. Together they worked as a team. She would go further into the sea and loosen the net while the man would haul it in. When one corner of the net seemed to be stuck and the two struggled to release it from the sand’s grip, Josef summoned up his courage. Rocking back on his haunches, he dusted tiny stones from his trousers and, with heart racing and hands trembling, he folded his bread and cheese into a clean handkerchief and placed them into the boat. He steadied himself, took a deep breath as he replaced his cap and stepped onto the stretch of beach towards them as though he was out for an afternoon’s stroll. ‘Yeia sou,’ he called. The two were both knee-deep now and were struggling, their strength sapped by laughter. ‘Yeia sou,’ the man returned. ‘Can I help?’ Josef was addressing the man, but his eyes never left the girl. She stopped when she heard him and stood up quickly. Her hands released from the net and one tugged at her skirt while the other clutched at her blouse. A lock of hair, as black as the vein of rock in the cliffs that housed Josef’s family taverna, had escaped its ties and was hanging over her forehead. The man, who waded then between Josef and the girl, sized him up and down. Josef felt as though his longing was exposed and shifted his cap about his head. The older man shrugged with a look in his eyes that only now, as an older man, Josef was able to interpret and said, ‘Ne, that would be good.’ Josef’s pants were already rolled to his knees. The girl had not moved though her head was now bent, and she was staring into the water. As he waded into the sea, its thickness strained against destiny from rushing towards him. ‘What is your name?’ the man said. ‘Josef.’ The girl’s head jerked up and she eyed him with, what Josef hoped, was interest. She released her hand from her blouse and tucked the curl of hair behind her ear. ‘Welcome, Josef. I am Stavros. We could do with your help. My daughter, Evangelina here,’ the father’s arm swept back as though to draw her in, ‘is strong, but not enough today. I could use a son.’ ‘Baba!’ Evangelina scolded her father. She has a sharp eye, Josef thought with amusement and a stirring of passion. Evangelina had come out of the taverna and was standing beside him at the grill. From the corner of his eye, he could see her clasp and unclasp her hand around something she held in her palm. ‘Josef,’ she whispered, and in Josef’s nostalgic mood, the hint of passion that stirred was like the echo of a lost time. He turned to her. From behind her, the sun lit the wayward strands of her now grey hair and formed a soft halo. Evangelina’s eyes were still sharp and clear, but this morning they seemed to be illuminated by something else. ‘Agapi mou. What is it?’ His voice had caught in his throat, and he had to cough. Evangelina hesitated, then opened her hand. She looked down at the thing in her palm and, when her eyes met his, he thought of the young girl on the beach forty years earlier. When he failed to respond, she thrust her hand closer. He knew he was expected to make a response, but was anxious now that, whatever he said, it would be wrong. It was a potato peeling that she was showing him. Delfinia must have cut it the wrong way and Evangelina was holding the evidence out to him. ‘Ahh.’ He nodded as though he understood and knew that his response would not be good enough. Evangelina’s face wore the look of disappointment he had come to expect. She closed her fingers over the peeling. ‘Why do I bother!’ she said and left him standing at the grill, the wire brush still suspended in his hand. Josef shifted his cap with the other hand and sighed. Elektra stood in front of the mirror and ran her fingers through the short strands of her new style. Christos had cut it shorter than usual, but the fringe was fuller in comparison and tapered to a chic point over her left eyebrow. The colour was darker too; it was red black, not what she would have chosen but, she had to admit, the effect was great and made the speckled gold in her dark eyes stand out. Her vision shifted to the reflection of Sappho’s behind her; her café. She loved to take it in this way. Reflected in the mirror, it had a surreal quality as though it was still a part of her imagination. The honeyed wood of the polished bar and the collective gleam of the glasses suspended above it, the wooden tables and stools—they were all as they had been in her daydreams. Elektra turned from the mirror and sucked in the reality of it all. She knew she had a lot to be happy about. The café-bar had tripled its takings in just two months since the liquor license had been granted; she had finally found reliable staff in Anton and Paulo, and she was in love. But there was a shadow that she couldn’t ignore. Elektra could feel her blood pressure rising at the thought of her family. They enraged her. In fact, it was only Evangelina who maddened her because she adored her father, but there were times when she wanted to shake him too. Elektra’s anger was a habitual distraction from guilt. Evangelina and Josef had set her up in the café; she was grateful, but that gratitude weighed her down. She wanted to get on with life, to branch out, but she felt now more than ever as though she was bound to them by an invisible rope that stretched from Hestia’s Taverna in the west of the island to Sappho’s in the east. The way Elektra countered this was to ignore them. She often didn’t answer her mother’s calls, saying she was too busy. Nikolas and Delfi are there, she reminded herself whenever the guilt surfaced, and Evangelina and Josef were only an hour’s drive away. After all, they didn’t go out of their way to see her, she mentally argued in her own defence. Elektra pictured her parents trying to negotiate the traffic of the island’s capital in their old truck. She held back the thought that she had visited them only once in the past four months. Josef and Evangelina were like a cramp in her little toe.