The Scapegoat Read online

  We had four children. Manolis, Savvas, Evgnosia, and Violeta. Another two died on me, twins. I light candles for them on the Day of Lights, I learned that from my mother. I fill a basin with sand, stick the candles for the dead in there, so there’s a light to show my little birds the way. I lost them before they even tasted milk. You people here don’t know that tradition. You don’t bring your dead into the house.

  My husband, Stathis, worked in the fields. A farmer. Nineteen years old, what could he know, you’ll say, of running a household, a beardless child himself. Quick to anger, and to punish the children. He never lifted a hand against them the way other fathers did, who hit their boys with belts. You could hear the screams from the street. Stathis just furrowed his brow and stared at us with that look of his, like a bull. It made our knees quake. He used to shut the littlest, Violeta, up in the barn with the animals, and left Manolis there to make sure she didn’t sneak out. My little girl never ate much, even as a baby. All she wanted was eggs, she couldn’t stand the sight of bean soup. He would let her go hungry and that imp still wouldn’t open her mouth to let a bite go down.

  My boys were more obedient, especially Manolis. They had respect. Stathis wanted to send them to school. He wanted to make them into men, that’s what he used to say. We may go hungry, wife, but our children will go to school, he would shout, mostly for his mother to hear, who had other ideas. He would raise his hand and point toward the Greek school of Trabzon. We have fine schools here, and my sons are going to learn their letters, they’re going to make something of themselves.

  We made plans. We had no idea that the Turks were sharpening their knives.

  My Pontus is gone, is gone, is gone.

  They took my Pontus away.

  Mothers fleeing with babes, stunned and dazed.

  They burned my village, smoke and fire.

  Where is my husband, my brother, dead with no grave.

  We mourn, we mourn, with souls in our mouths we cry.

  Don’t ask me how we made it to Greece. The children hear the stories adults tell and think they remember. But only Manolis remembers. I had no husband by my side, so he became the man in the family, a boy of eight. He helped with the little ones, he took charge. I was a widow with four children. Try to imagine that.

  Later on they’d come and say, You folks were rich, you had money. You came with gold coins sewn into the hems of your dresses, whole fortunes. Whoever hasn’t lived the life of a refugee has easy words to speak.

  When they brought us to Salonica, I didn’t care about the hunger or about how filthy we were, after days on boats. I looked at the city and said to Manolis, This is where we’ll live. The sea was a comfort to me.

  I grabbed the girls in my arms, the boys clung to my skirts. Hold tight, I told them, and walked as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t want to lose courage. I couldn’t get sick, either. I had children to care for.

  I bought our first eggs from a local woman at the port. She looked at my hands, hoping for rings or bracelets, but I gave her coins. The dirty thing spat on the ground. You’ve come to eat our bread, she muttered, tucking the money into her dress. She wanted more, for a pot with a hole in the bottom, but I pushed her away.

  At the church of Agia Sophia I pulled the key to our house in Trabzon out of my apron. A big wrought iron key. I set an egg in the hole, it fit perfectly. I crossed myself and cooked it over the candles burning as offerings. I fed my children in the churchyard. Violeta laughed. Mama, it’s nice here, she said, clapping her hands.

  Manolis spent two years at the Papafeio orphanage learning to be a carpenter. One day a teacher came to the house and told me about the American School, said my child should study there, he’d do well. I remembered Stathis. He would’ve cursed me from the grave if he knew his child was an apprentice carpenter. I was ashamed before Manolis, too. His heart leapt at the teacher’s words, but he just sat in the corner and didn’t speak. That child never asked for a thing.

  —A boy’s studies, Kyra-Maria, the teacher said, are the golden bracelet on his wrist. You’re from the Pontus, you understand, he added to butter me up.

  That night when the other children were asleep, Manolis came and stood at the head of my bed.

  —Mother, he said, touching my arm.

  —You’re barefoot, son, you’ll freeze, I scolded him.

  There was a cold like poison that night.

  —Mother, Manolis said again. If I study, I’ll be able to take care of the little ones.

  Ai, let me take pride in my dear boy.

  That’s what he called them, little ones, though he was just two years older than Savvas. But Manolis was old from birth. What a serious child, others said, impressed. Sometimes even I forgot he was a child and spoke to him as if he really were the man of the house. Because Manolis took charge of things. He placed orders with the butcher, helped his siblings with their meals, with their studies. He scolded them, yelled at them if he felt the need. And they looked up to him, Violeta most of all. She’d run to him with her drawings, or in tears if something went wrong. He was the only one who could get her to eat, she would clean her plate for him.

  May lightning strike me, there’s not a bad word I can say about my son. He finished the American School, found work. As a reporter. He knew English, that helped. We all took a deep breath. I thought we’d been saved. I thought our worries were over. Our sadness had brought joy.

  My mind couldn’t even imagine.

  I sent two children off to war, but only one came home. Years passed, the tears dried in my eyes. I still think about Savvas every day. I light a candle, I pray for his soul to be as light as a feather. And I don’t fear death as I used to. When the time comes, my boy will come to lead me away. I’ll hold him in my arms. I’ll get my fill of him, my second son, the son who felt neglected.

  —Mother, he used to say, you’ve only got the one child, Manolis.

  I’d get mad, lash out at him.

  Not a year had passed since he died when he came and found me in my sleep.

  I opened my arms and waited. He was wearing his good white shirt, the one I’d sewn for him. The dead don’t speak in dreams, that’s what my mother used to say. But Savvas had a bone to pick.

  —Mother, he asked. If you had to choose, who would you choose?

  Oi, oi.… I woke in a sweat, sobbing. The ceiling struck my chest like iron. My soul ached. My heart stung, deep in pain.

  Woe to me, such a great evil I never saw.

  —Which son would you give to Hades, mother?

  I knew the answer.

  And my Savvas knew it, too.

  I’d told them I loved them all the same. We would lie together in bed, and the little ones would ask:

  —Who do you love best, Mama? Tell us, Mama!

  It was their game. Only Manolis never asked. I would raise my hand, show them my fingers.

  —Look here, at my fingers. Each one is different, none like the next. But whichever one I cut off, I’d hurt just the same.

  Lies. I told them lies.

  They would fall asleep amid laughter, kisses and caresses. Lullabies, songs about the sea at Trabzon.

  I climbed up the hill of Poz Tepe

  And saw Trapezounta below

  The tears in my poor eyes

  May never dry.

  My Savvas was killed in the service of the country.

  —I could shit on your country, I howled, and Evgnosia ran to shut the windows.

  I shouted at her to take down the icons.

  I wanted nothing of God in my house.

  I never had a chance to kiss the blood of my son.

  They buried him in a foreign land and sent me a piece of paper.

  I thought I would die.

  My guts turned to rock.

  If you slit me open, you’d find soil and stone.

  Any mother would understand.

  And anyone else should keep quiet.

  May their mouths be filled with cement.

&
nbsp; An angel came, with wings.

  With the cross in his hand.

  He came and announced the terrible news.

  What I could give I gave.

  I even gave my soul,

  I gave my child as a gift to God.

  Light a candle, suffer no more.

  Let this soul rest, wear black no more.

  Manolis suffered, but he didn’t show it. He had to seem strong, to support me. That’s how firstborns are, they shoulder all the weight and never say a thing. I didn’t realize it then, I thought the pain was mine, belonged to me alone.

  I didn’t forget my Savvas, but I stopped crying in front of the children. I didn’t want to poison their days. But when the children were out, when the house was empty, I brought the whole world down with my sobbing.

  One night Manolis came home, sat down beside me, stroked my back. He started to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. He was a wise child, he never spoke without thinking, the way others do.

  —It would have been better if I had died, mother.

  I turned and looked at him, for the first time in a long while. He was hunched over as if he were carrying stones on his back.

  I remembered the dream.

  If you had to choose, who would you choose?

  The next day I ran to church and confessed. I told the priest.

  —God forgive me, Father. I’m torn to pieces over the child I lost. But if I lost Manolis I would die.

  ZOE TSOKA, WIDOW OF THE AMERICAN REPORTER

  He stared at my arms. A widow doesn’t wear sleeveless dresses, I’m sure that’s what he was thinking. They all look at me strangely, and they’ve called me in for interrogation eight times. I don’t cry, don’t beat my chest, don’t wear a kerchief. I’m young, beautiful, slender. Too much the stewardess for their taste.

  If they could, they would have buried me with him.

  And he, the head of the Security Police, is the worst kind of village boor. A lout. I caught him picking his nose. I’d rushed into the room, I couldn’t understand why he’d called me down again, just to tell him the same things over and over. He pulled his finger out of his nose and stuck the precious discovery on the bottom of his chair with an air of indifference.

  Revolting.

  Where I’m from men like him were my servants, they shined my shoes, opened doors so I wouldn’t dirty my gloves. I grew up in Alexandria, with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a French governess and a real porcelain tea set for my dolls. The lace from my dowry dates back three generations. My dresses were all tailored in Paris.

  On evenings when she was going out to the theater, Mother would take me into her room and lay her dresses on the bed so I could help her choose. We picked out earrings and necklaces. She sang and clapped and tickled me, pulled on satin gloves, spritzed herself with perfume. She always left in a rush. She would kiss the air around me, so as not to muss me with her lipstick. She left the other dresses on the bed and the jewelry boxes open. When she was gone I would try on her clothes, her jewelry, her pumps, posing in front of the three-paneled mirror. I was pretty.

  Father worried that I would marry too young. But Mother would reply that a woman’s marriage is her career—which is to say, the sooner the better, she added, pinching my behind. When I told them I was going to become a stewardess, they didn’t show the enthusiasm I had expected, but didn’t object, either. Father, who had lost piles of money during the war, not to mention Mother’s entire dowry, said that it was a fine job, well remunerated. And you’ll meet plenty of respectable gentlemen, Mother said, smiling.

  She was right, I did. I even came close to marrying one of them. His name was Jan, he was Swedish. He worked for his father’s company, and he was in line to be president. He was polite and obliging. He entertained me for three days in Stockholm, in December, just before Christmas. We ate reindeer with elderberry sauce. It smelled so awful I thought I would vomit. But the worst part was the darkness—a thick darkness that enveloped people and houses and everything else. It was only light for three hours each day. And it was a weak, consumptive light that came out looking frightened and hid again soon after.

  I made some excuse and left early. I wouldn’t have stayed another day for all the world. My soul shrank in that darkness, I thought I would die.

  Later on I met Jack. He was twice as old as me, and twice as tall, too. I had met very few Americans in my life, but he certainly stood out. His eyes shone as if he had a fever. He laughed out loud, and he hugged me so tight he left a mark. He danced like a movie star. He loved life and let it show. He had friends everywhere. With him the day was a thousand hours long. There was time for everything.

  He asked me to marry him. He kneeled in the middle of the street one day and kissed the toe of my shoe. Passersby were watching, but he didn’t care. He took the ring out of his pocket and said, Will you marry me? without any warning, without any wasted words. I said yes right away, and he kissed me so hard my lip split. It’ll be like sugar, the two of us together, he promised. He wasn’t one for words, he preferred actions.

  After we were married he asked me if I knew any good communists he could talk to, if we had anyone in the family who’s in the Party, any reds, a man I can trust, someone who could arrange an interview with the rebel General. I laughed. So that’s why you married me, I teased.

  I did in fact have a third cousin who was a rebel fighter. Jack insisted that we go visit him in jail. I still remembered Nikitas in shorts, stealing candies from me and shoving them all in his mouth at once. Stuffed, saliva running down his chin, and him laughing so hard he almost choked. The young man who came and stood before me now was as thin as a branch. His eyes had seen war, his hands had killed. I didn’t recognize him. Nikitas, I whispered. He was only a year older than me. A vein pulsed on his cheekbone. He saw me notice. If he could, he would have ripped it out then and there.

  Jack asked me to tell Nikitas he was a reporter. An American, he added, since that usually opened doors. He would go wherever they told him to, would follow their instructions to the letter, as long as he could interview the General.

  —Your husband is crazy, was Nikitas’s response. Or he’s pretending to be, he added, not even looking in Jack’s direction.

  We left empty-handed. Jack had plenty of enemies at that point. He’d been making a stink to people in high places in the government, because the American aid packages weren’t being distributed to the families of communists in the villages.

  —From a political perspective it’s not unjust, I heard him saying to someone over the phone. I understand your position, we don’t feed the hand that bites, or kills. But, my dear friend, they’re letting women and children go hungry.

  Antrikos, our friend in Athens, warned me.

  —You need to reel him in, he said. Two days ago, Jack met with the Minister of the Interior. They say Jack was shouting about the riots breaking out all over the country. He accused Rimaris of letting his men pick and choose where the American aid ended up. Sincerity isn’t a solution or a cure, Antrikos cautioned. There are certain things we just don’t say.

  Jack should have known.

  We could all see it: my husband was ambitious. He wanted to be the first and the only. If anyone ever said no, he simply didn’t listen. His stubbornness brooked no denial.

  —A reporter’s job is to do the things others find impossible, he told his friends with a smile.

  Antrikos disagreed.

  The General was the trophy they were all chasing after. No one had ever met with him, no one had any idea where he was. An interview with the leader of the rebels in his hiding place would make an international splash. If Jack could pull it off, he would return crowned with laurels. Then maybe he would calm down. We’d go to America, have a family. He would work a desk job at the radio station, he wouldn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone anymore.

  —Don’t listen to him, Antrikos advised. When this is over, something else will come to take its place. Th
e man can’t sit still, don’t you see?

  That’s when I started to notice. At restaurants he always kept his back to the wall. He slept with a revolver under his pillow. He said it was part of the job. The truth was, he lived dangerously. That’s why he took pleasure in every moment. And I admired him for that.

  I was a fool. I thought life owed us something. Disasters were for other people, that’s what I thought. I’d never been denied anything.

  I got out all the crystal from my dowry. I wrapped each piece carefully in rags, then packed them in barrels, in layers of hay. I would take it all to America, even the porcelain tea set for my dolls. I would have a baby girl and we’d sip tea and pretend to be ladies together. Our departure date had been set.

  Auf Wiedersehen.

  Jack had been up in Salonica for days. We’d fought, that’s what the papers wrote. But I had only stayed behind to pack for our journey. Our clothes, the radio from my dowry, the embroidered sheets. The furniture he’d brought back from the Middle East. The desk, the armchairs, the bed. I had a suit made for the flight, pear green, with a cream-colored hat and gloves and a bow at the back. New clothes for a new place. A new life.

  It wasn’t a serious argument. We’d have settled things with a kiss. In bed, where all our fights got resolved. Jack just didn’t want to bring me with him. He was trying to protect me. I arrived, as we had agreed, a few days later, and was told that he’d gone missing.

  I was the only one who didn’t worry. I was sure he’d return. It was a foolish but unsinkable optimism. A childish stubbornness. People commented on it, I know. Everyone else was worried, you see.