Apartment in Athens (19 page)

Even as he grimaced and she stared him down, she noticed with a little pride what perfect teeth he had. Poor little devil, with his calamitous physique, yellow-skinned, lean but soft and paunchy, with arms and legs that reminded her of sticks loosely put together with thongs—but with this one perfection, matched like a string of pearls, whiter than any pebble!

As it happened, as their lives were, in a spell and a snare around Kalter's life, this was the last occurence of her maternal bitterness against him, disappointment in him. Presently she would have to forgive him for everything, once and for all.

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS ONE OF KALTER'S FREE DAYS, AND
his presence in the apartment made Mrs. Helianos uncomfortable, irritable. He still had not made any reference to her tantrum about the key and she was afraid he might; she was not in a mood for it. He had said that he was not feeling well and declined to eat anything in the middle of the day. He had asked her to keep the children quiet, intending to sleep, but evidently he was not sleeping. She could hear him inexplicably walking around his room a while, then at his desk pulling out drawers and noisily pushing them shut again, and repeatedly clearing his throat, blowing his nose. She was so tired that she did not want to hear anything and so nervous that in spite of herself she kept listening and hearing everything.

She went to her kitchen-window once more, with her odd un-Greek notion that the midday sunshine did her good, and sank to her knees with her elbows on the window sill. She had sent the children to play outdoors, on the major's account, but they had returned for some reason. Their piping little talk came to her from the bedroom, and she wondered if she ought to go and scold them, before they disturbed the major. She could remember when with less provocation he would have shouted the house down. . .

Then there was a pistol shot, resounding through the apartment. She could tell by the sound exactly what part of the apartment it came from: the sitting room, his room. Just for an instant she thought that Helianos might have come back and taken his revenge; but she knew his step so well, even on tiptoe, even all the way down the corridor or at the front door she would have heard him come; therefore she instantly dismissed that thought, as she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the kitchen toward the sitting room. There was no one in the apartment except herself and the children and the major, she thought; there was no one in the sitting room where the pistol shot had come from, except the major; had she not been listening, nervously listening to everything in spite of herself? Therefore she thought she knew what had happened, she hoped it had happened, as she listened outside the sitting-room door—it was silent, not a voice, not a breath, not a footstep—and tried to see through the keyhole, in vain; then ran to the children's room.

Leda was trying to come out into the corridor, Alex was holding her back with both hands on her shoulders. Leda looked as if she had lost what small mind she had; her fleshy features out of shape and fixed in a grimace. Alex was transfigured, with his beautiful face loose and white like a handkerchief and his morbid eyes shining, and his unreasonable lips apart, panting, saying, “Mother, Mother, something has happened. Tell me, is it Father? Has Father shot him?”

“You know better than that,” Mrs. Helianos answered, “your father is not here, your father is in prison. Now, listen to me, you must behave well, Alex, like a grown-up man.”

She took Leda and sank into a chair, drawing the stricken infant body tight in her arms, and the pudgy face clenched like a fist against her breast; at the same time with some difficulty holding Alex by the wrist as he pulled and wriggled away from her. “Mother, let me go,” he begged, struggling to free himself.

She had no notion where he was going or what he wanted. Then he drew his face down to her hand which held his wrist, and for an instant she fancied that like a little animal in a trap he was going to bite her, but instead he kissed her hand and rubbed the tears out of his eyes on her wrist. “I'm afraid, Mother,” he cried, “Mother, aren't you afraid?”

No, she was not afraid, she was happy, thinking happily that there was no one in the apartment now except herself and the children. There had been no one in the major's room when the pistol shot had sounded, except the major; and therefore she kept hoping that there was no one in the major's room at all now, nothing except the major's body with the pistol shot through it; and his body, she thought almost gleefully, hysterically, was nothing to be afraid of. Her hysterical heart was throbbing faster than she had ever known it to throb, but she did not mind it because she was beginning to have confidence in what she hoped, and she could scarcely wait to go and see if it was so. But first she had to get these poor children out of the way.

Oh, she needed Helianos more than ever in her life, and here instead she had only Alex, still holding him by the wrist: this half-Helianos, poor flesh of their flesh, small body deformed by the war, small dæmonic mind perverted! But with Helianos away in prison, in her very womanly spirit habit-bound by her relationship with him, now there was a vacancy which in these circumstances had to be filled, by someone; and it was Alex or no one!

She drew him by the wrist around where she could look at him; and looked at him as it were with strange eyes; and for a wonder, for the first time in a long time, did not mind his undersized spindling paunchy body, and was moved by his strange face—the morbid light in his eyes sparkling wet with tears, the indefinable expression of his lips, the smile that was no smile—and neither feared him nor feared for him; and decided to take him into her confidence. She had to have someone in her confidence, someone to help her, especially with Leda.

“My little boy Alex,” she said softly, “I think I know what has happened. There was no one in the major's room except the major. He has shot himself, that is what I think, what I hope. . .”

Alex gave a soft exclamation deep in his throat, and stopped struggling, so that she did not have to hold him by the wrist any longer. The pain in her heart was not a bad pain, only a fast pain, but she was glad not to have to hold him.

“Alex, will you do something for me? Will you do as I tell you?”

“Yes, Mother, I will.”

“Then, Alex. . .” She was trying to whisper, just in case she was mistaken about there not being anyone else in the apartment, but when she tried to whisper no voice came at all. “This is what I want you to do. Take Leda down to the street and stay with her until this is over, until I come for you.”

“No, Mother, I won't,” he answered loudly. He could not whisper any better than she could.

Meanwhile Leda lay in her arms as quietly as if she had fallen asleep, with her face like a bad dream.

Then she had an inspiration about Alex. Next day she was to ask herself if it had been mere cowardice, but surely it was not so simple. . . There came into her mind a wave of singular pity for the vengeful little boy who had never had a chance for vengeance, and a wave of greater affection for him than she had ever felt before. In the past she had denied him her affection because his vindictive spirit displeased her; now it did not displease her. Suddenly she saw how she could compensate him for the long denial, and at the same time make use of him, for Leda's sake, to get Leda out of the way, and for her own sake: so that she could postpone everything for a moment and sit here with Leda for a moment and rest.

“Alex, do you hear me? It is for Leda's sake. You love Leda, don't you? She will never get over it if she sees what has happened.”

He only stared at her, shaking his head.

“Alex, you hate Major Kalter, don't you? If I let you go by yourself, to see what has happened to him, then will you take Leda down to the street?”

“Yes, yes, please let me, Mother. I want to see what has happened,” he said.

It was a cowardly inspiration in a way, cowardly and clever. For if what she hoped for had not happened, if instead he interrupted some evil deed of the German's, or terrible exploit of Greeks against him, what harm? They would give him a cuff or a kick, that would be all! They would blame him only as one blames children, without any further suspicion; he was too young to be blamed in earnest, or suspected or arrested.

She grasped him by the wrist again and made him wait. “I don't think the door is locked, I took the key away—”

“I knew you had taken it, Mother,” Alex said as quick as a flash.

“Don't interrupt me, Alex, listen to me. Tiptoe to the door, listen outside it, peep through the keyhole. Open it only a crack at first, quietly, to be on the safe side. If the major is dead or badly hurt, go in. Go as close to him as you like and look at him.

“I will wait here. When you have seen whatever there is to see, you can tell me about it. You can tell Leda too, but not now! Someday, when she is old enough. . .”

“Let me go now, Mother,” he cried in a high painful voice which made her ashamed of herself.

“Don't touch anything,” she called after him as he scampered out of the room.

It was a wicked thing: letting him go, sending him, and she only half understood it. It was the last effect of her having been spoiled by Helianos all her life: in unreasoning excitement she required someone to do something for her. Even a semblance of help was better than nothing; a ghostly-faced wild feeble manikin of a son better than no one. It was her nature. It occurred to her that Alex with his wild nature might be better than his father at this kind of thing; a manikin better than a man, in the circumstances.

She lifted Leda away from her bosom, looked at her, and gave her a little shake, to which she made not the slightest response, and kissed her grimacing cheeks. Perhaps the fright of the gun had done her the same harm as the massacre of the municipal market: stupefaction, mind and body. Perhaps this time it would last longer than three days; all the rest of her useless life she might be like this, like a heavy fleshy doll. With distracted tenderness, all the foolish gestures of mother-love, she fondled and rocked the hopeless small body as she might have done if she had been Leda's age, and Leda in fact a doll.

Then Alex came back. Evidently whatever he had seen had done him good; his cheeks were no longer dead white, his eyes no longer starting out of their orbits, and he had regained control of his voice. “He is dead, Mother,” he announced quietly.

“I know, I thought so.” She shut her eyes for an instant, imagining the proud powerful German figure fallen on the floor or down under the desk, and his evil changeable soul flying out the window with the pistol shot, whistling away, fading, in the silence after the pistol shot. . .

“No one was there,” Alex added. “The front door was locked, the sitting-room window was latched on the inside; so no one could have been there, could any one? The sitting-room door was not locked, I went in and looked. Don't you go, Mother, please, don't you look!” he begged.

“Very well, I won't. Now take Leda, as you promised. . .”

Then he drew himself up as tall as he could and with an expression of obscure old drama, said, “I killed him, Mother.”

“No, you did not, Alex. Remember, now you are a grown-up boy, you must not tell lies.”

“I know, Mother. Don't scold me,” he said. He started to cry but quivering in every nerve, stopped it.

“Now take Leda. If she can't walk, or doesn't want to, you'll have to carry her. Don't stay in front of our door, go away down the street, because the Germans are coming. Take care of Leda, play with her, talk to her, tell her anything you like, but not what you have seen.

“I won't be long. I must telephone the Germans to come and get him.”

Leda could and did walk, very softly, as if in her sleep, clutching her brother's hand. For an instant, as Mrs. Helianos followed them down the corridor, watched them down the stairway, bolted the front door after them, her tired spirit lost its sense of direction: she felt some of the emotion of not expecting ever to see them again.

Then she wanted to see Helianos so badly, and needed his advice and help so badly, that she gave a little whimper, but in the empty apartment the sound of it distressed her, so she hushed. It was no time for sentiment. It was time she did something about getting the major's body out of the apartment, unadvised and unhelped. She had been given hard tasks and shameful tasks since the Germans came to Greece; this was the worst.

Alex had closed the sitting-room door, so she could put if off a few more minutes if she chose to. By that time the jerky unwilling beating of her heart had begun to frighten her, but gradually, as it seemed by exercise of will power, she was able to control it. “It is God's mercy,” she said to herself out loud, “I am not going to have a heart attack.”

She stood there in the corridor holding her breath, conscious of the seconds, the minutes, wasting them, pretending to concentrate on what had to be done. “Thank God,” she said, “for the major's telephone.” It was there in the closed sitting room with his body.

Once more her absurd voice in the still apartment making these remarks to herself, distressed her. This habit of talking to herself had been one of her reasons for fearing that someday she might lose her mind. Now she realized what self-indulgence that fear was; what spoiled hypochondria! In fact, all things considered, even in this tragic farce which had come upon her, she marveled at what good sense she had, and quietness of brain, even amid her habitual chatter.

Then, when she kept quiet, hearing only her own heartbeat—gradually beating better, though with a wet beat, as it were a sodden squeeze—it was fantastic, it was a little world in which everyone else was dead; and the silence, and absolute loneliness without the children, without Helianos, without even the major, half distressed her but half pleased her.

She went back to the kitchen and looked out the window; leaned far out, and saw Alex and Leda a little way down the street walking up and down, talking: the brave small boy pulling the automatic little girl along by the hand, and doing all the talking, telling her some long but apparently not terrible story, not the truth. Leda was walking not quite straight forward, with her fond face turned sideways toward him.