The Years That Followed (10 page)

pilar

Madrid, 1966

Pilar is waiting.

She has been doing a lot of that lately. But this is the kind of waiting that is energized, filled with anticipation. It does not at all feel like the early years, full of empty longing, when Pilar was waiting for something—anything at all—to happen. It is instead a certainty that something is already happening, already making its way towards her. All she has to do is be ready, to welcome that something when it arrives.

To welcome him when
he
arrives.

He
, of course, is Petros, and this is his sixth visit to Madrid since that first night at Number Eleven last October. Pilar remembers the exact number of occasions Petros has swooped into her city, into her life, enfolding her in his huge embrace. She keeps a diary of their weekends, cramming page after page with the details of all that he says, all that they do together. She wants to hold on to every moment. Pilar plans to relive every day she spends in Petros's company. Part of her understands that she is laying down memories for the future, for that time when he will no longer be with her. She wants to postpone that day for as long as possible. The months since they met have become absorbed, one into the other, slipping past in a hazy excess of fine dining, fine gifts, and finer sex.

Pilar is in love. For the first time in her life, she is in love. Being in Petros's bed is very different from that rite-of-passage fumbling in Torre de Santa Juanita. That all now seems like another world: poor,
young, inexperienced Gonzalo. Pilar pities him and wonders what has become of his life—although she's pretty sure that she can guess at its limits. A life defined by the poverty of soil and struggle and the unforgiving scrutiny of your neighbors.

It is Pilar's delight that makes Petros laugh. “You make me feel young again,” he tells her as they lie in the vast bed of his vast bedroom. “You make me into a twenty-year-old all over again, tireless and hungry—always ready.”

Pilar knows, of course, that this is not the truth—or rather, that this bears no relation to fact. Petros is in his early sixties. He is married, naturally. And he has four sons. “She is a good woman, my wife,” he tells Pilar at last, because she has asked. “Maroulla and I married very young, and we married because our parents arranged it. That is all. It was a union that was of benefit to both families.” He shrugs. “That is how things were.”

He leans over and kisses Pilar. “So even though I am so much older than you, I have never met anybody quite like you.” He strokes her hair and whispers to her. “And I have never made love like this before.”

* * *

Early in the new year, Petros whisks Pilar out of Madrid.

He does this, often without warning: they've left the city on a whim and gone to Granada, to Seville, once to Málaga, where they spent an entire weekend aboard a yacht. Pilar has learned to make her arrangements well in advance of her lover's monthly visits.

Rufina is glad of the extra money and asks no questions. She goes about her chores of mopping and dusting, cleaning and polishing as silently as ever. The woman never complains. Pilar thinks she is glad of the peace and quiet of the
portería
one weekend a month.

“Are you sure you can be free, even at short notice?” Pilar had asked her back in December.

Rufina had looked at her, a little wearily. “Yes, Señorita Pilar. I am never busy at weekends. My oldest girl can look after the little ones.”

And so Pilar escapes to the glorious freedom of Petros's arms.

“We are going to Barcelona tomorrow,” he tells her on the night of his arrival in March. “First thing in the morning. I have booked us into the Majestic Hotel. I think you will like it.”

Like it? Pilar can hardly speak. All that five-star luxury? “Really?” she says. She can hear how excited she sounds.

Petros is smiling at her. Pilar sees how amused he is and wishes for a moment that she wasn't so transparent.

“Yes. I have a meeting for a couple of hours in the early afternoon. The rest of the day will be ours, and Sunday, too, of course.”

“How will we get there?” She tries to sound calmer, more casual. After all, it looks as though she might have to get used to this.

“By car,” Petros says. “My driver will be here at six thirty a.m.” He grins at her, his face suddenly years younger, full of mischief. “So we'll need to have an early night.”

* * *

The driver, Quique, is punctual. He waits outside the front door of Petros's apartment building, and Pilar smiles to herself as the elderly
portera
greets them the following morning and opens the door to the street. “Good day,” Pilar says, smiling. But the woman doesn't acknowledge her. Her eyes slide over Pilar and she greets Petros instead. “
Buenos días, señor.
”

Pilar doesn't care. She hopes the old bag is watching as Quique leaps out of the Mercedes and opens the car door for her.

* * *

Barcelona enchants Pilar. She wanders around Park Güell while Petros has his meeting, her mind opening to Gaudí's work in a way that exhilarates her. She loves the Ramblas, which she and Petros walk down together in the evening, hand in hand, stopping off for hot chocolate to ward off the city's cold air.

But above all, Pilar loves the sense of intimacy that develops as she and Petros talk for hours and she listens to all he says, absorbing everything she can about this man whom she loves with an intensity she has never dreamed possible.

Over dinner, when Petros is mellow with food and wine, Pilar dares to ask him about his family.

He looks at her, his eyes a question. He hesitates before he speaks. “Pilar,” he begins, “I—”

She interrupts quickly. “I want to know,” she says. “I want to know everything about you.”

Petros reaches across the table and takes her hand. “This is a wonderful gift,” he says, “the time we spend together. But I am not free to love you in the way you would like. I need you to understand that.”

Pilar nods. She will not allow her eyes to fill. “I know,” she says. She is glad her voice sounds steady and strong. “I know that. We both understand that. But I still want to know about you, about your life when you are not with me.”

He strokes her hand. “As long as we are clear, Pilar. I don't want to hurt you.”

“I know. I know. Now tell me.”

And Petros tells her of his four sons. “I am proud of them,” he says. “Of all of them. Yiannis is the eldest. He will be head of the family business when I retire. Ari and Spyros are the middle two, very close in age. They run the Athens office. And then there is Alexandros, the youngest.”

Petros pauses for a moment, and something crosses his face—a shadow that Pilar thinks might be sadness or resignation.

“What about Alexandros?”

Petros waves her question away. “Oh, he's always been a bit of a worry. A malcontent. He just needs to grow up.”

“What does he do?”

“Right now, he is spending a year between the United Kingdom and Ireland. He is perfecting his English and working with some international colleagues of mine.” Petros draws deeply on his cigarette. “I hope he is serving a proper apprenticeship. There is a place for him in the business, of course—he just needs to be ready for it.”

Pilar knows by Petros's tone that he will not say more. Instead, he smiles at her, that warm, mischievous smile that makes Pilar's heart sing.

“And what about you?” he asks. “Don't you want children of your own someday?”

For a moment, Pilar cannot answer. Of course I do, she thinks. But it's impossible. Because all I want is you.

“Someday,” she says. “Right now, I have other fish to fry.”

* * *

Petros has a lavish apartment in the Calle de Santo Domingo, in a building Señor Gómez has helped him find. Petros is pleased with his
purchase. The first of many, he tells Pilar. Although his main business is shipping, he believes that a man must diversify.

“It is dangerous to place all the eggs in one basket,” he tells her from time to time. “The risk is too great. This is something I like to teach my sons.”

And Pilar nods as though she agrees. Pilar tends to agree with most of the things Petros says. Sometimes she understands them. Pilar is very happy indeed with how her building is performing and feels no need to diversify.

She understands, too, that Petros will be with her as often as he can, now and into the future. He has promised a longer time together, sometime this year. Perhaps ten days somewhere discreet and expensive. Pilar longs to remind him of this promise, but she has learned when not to mention it, when to pull back: usually the moment Petros begins to frown. Not yet, he says; not yet, but soon.

Maribel and Alicia suspect a boyfriend, and Pilar has been careful to tell them nothing. It is easier to be careful now that she no longer meets the two young women at Roberto's. He, Roberto, was regretful at Pilar's decision to leave Number Eleven.

“I shall miss you,” he said. “But nonetheless, I understand. Remember, there will always be a job for you here, should you ever change your mind.” To Pilar's astonishment, his eyes filled as he took one of her hands in his and kissed it. Then he looked her right in the eye. “He's a lucky man, whoever he is.” And then he let her go.

Pilar was speechless. She wondered whether Maribel and Alicia might have spotted something that night back in October. It would have been hard for anyone to miss Petros's imposing presence that evening. Casually, she made sure they looked in another direction.

“It's just somebody from home,” she insisted. “Not really a boyfriend. More a childhood friend.” She tossed her head then, showing a lack of interest. “Besides,” she said loftily, “he's much too young. I'd never be interested in someone that young.” She saw Alicia and Maribel exchange glances, saw their unwilling admiration of her sophistication, and she turned away, smiling to herself.

And now Petros is here once again. It is May, and summer is bursting to the surface all over the city. Pilar knows just how that feels. She and Petros are spending this weekend here, in Madrid. He has been
traveling a lot and is tired. Pilar is glad. She likes looking after him, loves it when he needs her.

When Pilar is with Petros, the great disparity in their ages no longer seems to matter. He has energy, vision, endless ambition, as though these qualities have increased and intensified over the years, rather than diminished. It is as though the accumulated wisdom of each decade stands on the shoulders of its predecessors, driving Petros forward, ever forward. Petros has no interest in a quiet life.

“I will retire eventually,” he says, “and pass on my business to my sons; Yiannis is most capable. But for now, I enjoy too much what I do to give it all up.”

Pilar breathes again. She does not want to think about what Petros's retirement might mean for her. She is afraid to tell him, in the same way that she is afraid to confess how much she loves him. She takes consolation instead from the fact that he is not yet ready to “give it all up.” In there, she believes, somewhere between the “it” and the “all” is where she, Pilar, is placed. She wants to stay there for as long as she can. The thought of life without Petros is painful, sometimes unbearably so.

From time to time in her small apartment, particularly late at night when the noise from the street keeps Pilar awake all through the endless hours until dawn, she allows herself the fantasy that Petros will marry her someday. For this to happen, his present wife will, of course, have to die.

The first time Pilar thinks like this, she is taken aback at her callousness, startled at the ease with which she dispatches this unknown woman. But as the fantasy becomes more insistent, more elaborate, that moment of guilt is all the more easily dismissed.

Old people die, Pilar reasons. It happens all the time. It could happen to whatever-her-name-is—María, Marina, Maroulla—suddenly and without warning. It really could.

And so Pilar lives her life from one weekend a month to the next. She cares for her building and looks after her residents. She writes the occasional letter to her father in Torre de Santa Juanita and goes to the cinema with Maribel and Alicia when she has nothing better to do.

And in between, she waits.

calista

Extremadura, 1989

For some time now, Calista has made no effort to move. The possibility that she has been betrayed, that Alexandros still lives and breathes, is a possibility that paralyzes her. She sits on the floor, surrounded by an air of defeat that insinuates its way into the house as the afternoon stillness intensifies. She looks at the groups of photographs that cover one wall of the hallway: her photographs, her work, the work that gifted her the first real sense of herself that she had ever experienced.

Calista recalls the patient lessons with Anastasios, the reverence with which he handled the camera, the tranquil air of his studio, where Calista's confidence had finally started to bloom. Back then, she had taken dozens of black-and-white portraits of her children as they grew.

Here is Imogen's first day at school. Here, Omiros's first, faltering steps. There, Imogen on her first bicycle, arms flung wide in triumph as she finally gets her balance. And just below, Imogen on her father's yacht, already steady and sure, a miniature sailor in Alexandros's arms.

Calista stifles a sob as images of her daughter's life come crowding.

* * *

It is February 14, 1967.

Calista gazes at her baby's face. She reaches out and takes one of the tiny hands in hers. The baby lies in the cradle beside Calista's bed, her small fists clenched at either side of her face as though ready
to do battle with the world. Calista is surprised all over again at the strength of her daughter's grip. Only a day old, she thinks, and already she is grasping at life.

“I'll look after you,” she whispers to the dark, downy head. “I will always protect you.”

Alexandros, Petros, and Maroulla are Calista's only visitors after the baby is born. Alexandros had hovered outside the delivery room for hours last night, occasionally putting his head around the door. When he sees his daughter for the first time, his face softens, and then he looks suddenly unmoored, bewildered and clumsy, as though he no longer knows what to do with his hands. It is the first time Calista has ever seen her husband at a loss.

Petros, on the other hand, arrives as if he owns the hospital.

The moment she sees him, Calista feels on edge. He is as jovial as Maroulla is quiet, reserved. “Well, well,” Petros says, “a girl.” Calista has only a few dozen words of Greek, but this is one of them.
Koritsaki
: little girl.

Petros says it a few times as though he can't quite believe it, as though he's expecting someone to contradict him. Calista waits for her father-in-law's congratulations—waits for either him or Maroulla to say something kind, anything at all. But instead there is a silence, one that not even Alexandros looks poised to break. Finally, Petros claps one hand on his youngest son's shoulder and says, his tone hearty, consoling, forgiving all at once: “Never mind! A boy next time, eh?”

This Calista has also understood. Maroulla shoots her daughter-in-law a look. The look says:
It's not worth it. Say nothing.
But Calista can't help herself. She feels indignant on her daughter's behalf—on her own behalf, and on Alexandros's. So what if all the grandchildren are girls? Isn't Petros lucky to have such a healthy brood? Calista looks towards her husband, about to beg him to respond, but he turns away from her for just a moment and looks at his father. His face is shadowed by something Calista cannot read.

Maroulla says something Calista doesn't catch, and Alexandros turns around towards her. Then he begins to translate his mother's words.

“Such a lovely little girl,” Maroulla is saying. Her hand cups the baby's soft cheek. “Have you decided on a name for her?”

“Yes,” Calista says. She glances over at Alexandros and attempts
a smile. “I wanted something Irish for her—or at least Celtic. My mother called me after someone in her family, from generations back, to remind me that I'm half-Spanish. I want our daughter to know that she is part Irish. I think we all need to be reminded of where we come from.”

Maroulla nods and smiles as Alexandros translates Calista's words for her. She says something softly to her son and he bends down at last, touches his new daughter on the forehead, and smiles. “Her name is Imogen,” he says. He kisses the baby and takes Calista's hands in his. “She is wonderful,” he says. “And so are you.”

At that moment, Calista is filled with love for her husband. It is a love that feels relieved, grateful. This baby will make everything better.

* * *

When Calista had first come to Cyprus almost seven months earlier, a new and glowing bride, she'd been thrilled with the excitement and optimism of this new place.

Soon after she arrived, Alexandros took her away from his parents' house for a whole, delightful five days.

“Come,” he said. “We will spend our honeymoon touring the villages of Cyprus. I want to show my island to you. I have booked us a hotel in Lefkara.” And he smiled his brilliant smile. “Lefkara is special. You will soon see why.”

During those days, the places she and Alexandros visited together cast a spell on Calista. The sun shone out of that blue, clear light that filled an enormous sky. Each village intensified the sense of ancient magic that she felt was still alive all around her.

Lefkara was a tumble of old houses, the local stone glowing and warm to the touch. Crumbling steps led up and down the narrow arched streets; cafes nestled in the shadow of hills. Everywhere there were huge terracotta amphorae, the bright red blooms of poppies and geraniums spilling out of their open mouths.

Women still made lace in Lefkara, and Calista was reminded of her grandmother in that brooding apartment in Madrid, her elderly head bent over the intricate design of the family's tablecloths, centerpieces, christening robes. Here, too, Calista could see elderly women bent over their tasks, their work delicate, the colors light, the patterns exquisite.

Walking hand in hand with Alexandros in the evenings, Calista saw her husband's island as an enchanted place. Ireland seemed gray and flat and dull in comparison. She loved the exotic growth, the lushness of color everywhere. It was as though life here was lived in harmony, with the volume of some internal music turned up.

* * *

But all at once, out of nowhere, homesickness fells Calista. A sense of loss assaults her with a savagery that leaves her reeling.

After their honeymoon, back once again under Alexandros's parents' roof, nothing is familiar. The food feels oily and strange; the heat is hostile. Ari and Spyros, along with their wives, Eva and Dorothea, have all returned to Athens, and their absence makes the large house feel empty. Although Eva and Dorothea have only a little English, they are warm and funny in a way that Maroulla and Petros are not. And they gossip, furiously, about their husbands' family.

From them, Calista understands that her parents-in-law are anxious that their eldest son marry. “Yiannis is old,” Eva tells Calista, shaking her head. Her brown eyes are large with the sincerity of her amazement. “He almost forty. He must have wife.”

“Why doesn't he?” Calista asks. She has wondered this herself.

Dorothea shrugs. “He work. Too much.”

And Eva shakes her head. “No. He does not find good wife here.”

Calista is puzzled. “Do you mean nobody is good enough for him?”

Eva brightens. “Yes! No woman good enough.”

Calista grows more curious about Yiannis. She wonders what sort of man he is. Alexandros had been stung that his eldest brother had not attended their wedding.

“Isn't he in Asia somewhere?” Calista had asked. “It's a long way to come at such short notice.”

But Alexandros would not be appeased.

When Ari and Spyros return to Athens with their families, Calista misses their noisy, welcome distraction. Alexandros is gone from early morning until late in the evening: all day, every day.

Maroulla is occasionally kind in that casual, offhand way she has, once the two women are alone together. But she, too, has her own life, with friends and family and comings and goings that do not include Calista.

By the end of September, Calista feels that she is the only one
without
a life of her own. And she still has at least four months to wait for her baby to arrive.

During the long afternoons and the restless nights, Calista dreams of the cool, familiar rooms of her Dublin home.

* * *

When Philip's letter arrives, Calista cries for a full morning. Her twin is a good correspondent. He writes regularly, affectionately, and his news is lively and witty:

Oxford is astonishing. I can't believe my luck. I'm settling
in well, and Michaelmas term begins in a week or so. I've already met some of my lecturers, and I'm in the college residence with a couple of guys who seem decent enough. They tease me about my Irish accent, but I suppose that's only to be expected. I can't wait to dive headlong into philosophy—I feel as though I have found my way at last.

I miss you, Cally—and I know that the parents do, too. But we will come and see you as soon as the little one is born. I find it hard to believe—but happily so—that I am about to become an uncle!

Don't forget to send me photos—I think where you are is a lot warmer and sunnier than where I am.

Love always from your “better half”—you once called me that. But no more, I think: I am so happy that you now have Alexandros in your corner.

Write very soon.

Philip

Her twin's letter makes Calista feel suddenly suffocated. No longer by the heat, but by the oppressive smallness of her life. She feels hemmed in by her parents-in-laws' house. She needs to escape with her own new family to a place that is theirs: a home just for her and Alexandros and their baby. But Alexandros gets impatient with her every time she brings it up. After the last time, she doesn't mention it again.

“Not yet, Calista. I keep telling you. My father says I must prove
myself before I can have a house.” Alexandros had looked at her then, and something in her face seemed to make him relent. He sat at the table across from her and took her hand. “You have to try, too, you know? It upsets my mother to see you so sad all the time.”

“I know,” she said. “I just can't help it.”

She misses having Philip for company during these long and empty days; she keeps seeing his face at the airport on that July afternoon as they'd all said good-bye. Calista even misses having her parents to fight with, and she misses Maggie. Maggie, that fund of information and conversation; that knowledge of a world way beyond Calista's horizon; all that easy, familiar companionship. But above all, she misses a life she is unable to define, a life suspended somewhere beyond her reach.

Maroulla speaks some sentences of halting English, Calista has little Greek, and sometimes the strain of daylong silences drives her to the bedroom that she and Alexandros share immediately after lunch, pleading exhaustion. It is easier than trying to make herself understood.

As Calista lies on her bed during these slow afternoons, windows shuttered against the sun, the air heavy with heat, she begins to wonder if this is what her mother meant.

If this is to be her bed for the rest of her life, the bed she's made for herself after all. The bed she now must lie on.