Apartment in Athens (29 page)

After that she began, in her whispers, rehearsing her discourse to Petros. This was what she chiefly wanted of him, she personally:—“Petros, I want you to take my son Alex to work for you in the underground. He is young, and he is undersized because he has been undernourished, but he is brave and clever, with the Helianos imagination.

“Petros, my husband told me, and Demos told me, that one thing you do is to place explosives in buildings occupied by the Germans, and perhaps bridges and perhaps railroad-trains: I do not remember everything they said.

“Now, this is a kind of work which my Alex could do very well. He is an attractive boy with a sunny smile, and so small: they would not think any ill of him if they observed him wandering here and there. We can wrap your explosives up neatly, to give him the appearance of any ordinary street-boy delivering a package. If I knew more of the details of your warfare I could suggest other little tasks. He would make a good messenger-boy.

“Please understand that this is not a thoughtless offer, Petros, no, not thoughtless. I do not underestimate the Germans any more. I can imagine the risks my son will have to run, working for you. I have considered the cost to myself, as it may turn out in the end.”

All that afternoon and the next morning, she went on whispering the same theme, off and on, clarifying it in her own mind:—“Do not blame me, Petros. I know myself and I know my son. He has never really loved anyone except my other son who died in battle on Mount Olympos. Ever since then he has been suffering from an inexpressible hatred. Now that they have slain his father as well, he needs to do something. For two years he has not had any life except the care of his little sister, Leda, whose mind is weak. Now I will not have him shut in here any longer, wasting his life on us two. Our lives as they are now are not worth it.

“It would be a great comfort to Leda and to me if he could still live here, at least a part of the time. I could advise him against his worst fault, which is imprudence. I could make sure that he understood your instructions. But if you think he would be more useful shifting for himself in the street with the other street-boys, very well. If you prefer to take him into the mountains, very well. In my proposal I make no reservations.

“Let me bring him to see you. Question him and see for yourself what his feeling is, and what he is like. Try to think of a way to make use of him. It is his dearest wish to give his life against the Germans. Nothing else interests him. My husband warned me of this long ago. In those days my only thought was to prevent it. I was frightened and ignorant. Now in my present misfortune, alone, helpless, and sick, I believe that I could prevent it. For in spite of his hatred he is kind. But now I feel that I have no right to prevent it. I have no desire to prevent it. Furthermore he will never be good for anything else.

“Petros, please accept him. I am a poor widow, a woman of no more worth, but with a strong and terrible heart. I have nothing else to give, and unless I give something I shall go mad.”

There was no make-believe about this. It was her firm resolution which she would recite to the hero of the family when he came; and if he would not help her she would find some other way. Alex might have a way of his own. She could tease Demos with talk of von Roesch, von Roesch, until he at least took her seriously. She grew impatient to be well.

On the ninth day she felt almost strong enough to get up, but still had the patience to obey Vlakos. The first time she got up was in the ensuing night, that is, just before the dawn of the tenth day. Helianos had appeared to her in a dream, which had pleased her; but when she woke it startled her so to find herself alone that she could not recall any of it, which was a little false loss like a mockery of her bereavement.

The furniture in the room, even the four walls, in a kind of unhealthy pearly light, anaemic blue, looked insubstantial. In spite of the filth and ailment and murder in Athens, the air coming in the window was sweet, like a child's breath. Then she felt a nameless emotion. The beginning of her recovery of health had only increased her sadness. Probably from now on it would be measured only by her strength; as much as she was able to bear, so much would she feel. Now as it seemed, it thrust her heavily out of her bed and lifted her to her feet and held her up straight, although she was weak from the time of her illness.

Her instinct told her where to go, through the sitting room, down the corridor, softly past the open doorway of the room where the others slept, back to the kitchen. Then upon the threshold she stopped in dismay, finding the folding cot back in its place with the small figure of her son on it. No one had warned her of this. She felt an instant of superstition. No, no, it was only one of those excesses of little pattern in her life that she had had to accustom herself to. She went on into that strange bed-chamber which, now, Alex had inherited.

With her eyes feeling their way into the shadow, with cautious hands, she took an old stool out of its corner, and sat down beside the small boy doomed to heroism; the slight Helianos that she had left. She liked to be near him now that she had thought of a way to prove to him that life had taught her to understand and love him. He lay curled up close to the wall with his hands under his chin, his knees drawn up, somewhat in the position of a child unborn in the womb.

Oh, she sighed, unless Petros impressed her as an honest hero and a good man, she would not give him up; there was time to change her mind once more. But it was only a sigh; she did not really expect to find any such poor excuse, or any way out of her decision. She had Helianos' word for Petros' heroism and goodness.

It was time she asked Alex himself what he thought of it, although she knew his answer. His only hesitation would be his love of Leda. Was the little one to be a millstone around his neck always? Perhaps not; he had so perfectly enslaved her heart to him, she so delighted to do whatever pleased him: he might make use of her even upon deadly errands, or at least let her tag after him to keep him company. Stranger things than that had been seen in this war.

Meanwhile outside in the martyred city she heard a delicate whisper: the restlessness in its sleep preparing to get up presently. Then if she had cared to, she might have taken another look at the Acropolis, the temple in a blur, the hill in a black veil, her great reminder, her worst keepsake. She consciously kept her back turned to the window.

Before long she would come back here to cook famine, to sew rags, to clean havoc and contamination. It had occurred to her that the neighbor woman would be glad to stay and serve her forever. No, if she and Alex were going to work for Petros, they could not have this guileless talkative one so close to them. When she took over the housekeeping again, she meant to keep the curtains drawn close against the Acropolis, and work in a half-light.

Alex, restless, stretched himself out on the cot full length, and happened to push the pillow away from his face so that it slipped to the floor. His mother knelt and took it and for a moment sat on the floor with it in her arms. She found the warmth of his breath in it in one place. She let herself down from her knees and put her head on it for a moment's rest, and then—thinking a dozen vague words in a row: life worth thinking about, interminable war, loving hearts—fell asleep.

A little later, when Alex woke and wanted his pillow, he saw her and exclaimed in fright; but at his cry she woke instantly, smiled, and apologized. “I couldn't sleep, I do as I please when you are all asleep, I came to look out the window, I didn't mean to fall asleep here.”

He told her how foolish she was, and in an affectionate voice but with a little pretentiousness of manhood, ordered her back to bed where she still belonged.

This is a New York Review Book

Published by The New York Review of Books

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright © 1944, 1945, 1972 by Glenway Wescott

Introduction copyright © 2004 by David Leavitt

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Antiaircraft guns, Athens, 1941; courtesy of Bundesarchiv, Germany

Cover design: Katy Homans

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wescott, Glenway, 1901—

Apartment in Athens / Glenway Wescott; introduction by David Leavitt.

p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

ISBN 1-59017-081-4 (pbk.:alk. paper)

1. Greece—History—Occupation, 1941—1944—Fiction. 2. Triangles

Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Germans—Greece—Fiction. 4. Apartment

houses—Fiction. 5. Athens (Greece)—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

PS3545.E827A845 2004 813'.52—dc22

2004003860

eISBN 978-1-59017-482-1

v1.0

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