Tonight, jazz and old rebetika came from the various cafés. An American couple walked ahead of me. The woman marveled at the nightlife; the man wondered if the area was safe. “What crisis?” he repeated, with performed perplexity. What crisis.
I wanted to grab him by his ill-fitting T-shirt; I had to clench my fists. What sort of person does not know that in times of crisis the bar business booms? I had to chime in. These people sit with the same two-euro coffee for hours, I told him. He responded that that was a bad business model. I gave up. His wife looked at me, as if hoping for more conversation, as if she might invite me to sit with them for a drink. All these Americans came here, wanting to know about the crisis, the refugees—from me, a real Greek!—and though I’m sure they were genuine, the idea of this disaster tourism really pissed me off. Years ago, this couple would have stayed in Plaka, and now here they were, in some overpriced, rented apartment, wandering to see for themselves whether it was safe, collecting tragedies and signs of blight as if this might make their trip more authentic. I remember Mira saying that people flocked to Athens because it felt edgy and only mildly dangerous, the safest dangerous place in the world.
I kept walking, passing three young cops on the corner. One looked into my eyes and nodded politely. I was too old to provoke authority, even when wearing a hood. I was no longer of the Molotov demographic, and with my lighter hair and eyes I was also not, to them, an immigrant. Another band of cops stood on the next corner. They recognized me and said, “Good evening, Captain.”
On the way home, on Mavromichali, I stopped at a taverna my father had loved. An old haunt of the left. A small stroller was parked out front, and two bicycles. The guys working there had surely been born in the 1990s; they’d told me they considered themselves apolitical, which to me seemed very political. On a small shelf in the corner I noticed two of Aris’s father’s books and a few poetry anthologies. I looked at the display of photos on the back wall, near the bathroom. Sure enough, smack in the middle was a black-and-white photo of my father and Aris’s father, their arms around each other. I showed the waiters, who politely feigned interest. My young and laughing father soothed me a bit. I ordered some keftedakia and fries with my beer.
I was looking forward to seeing Dimos that weekend. He’d just arrived in Athens from New York, where he’d lived for twenty years, though his parents still lived on the island, where we’d become friends. Dimos was a historian. We had all thought he’d go into politics, but he preferred to bury himself in archives and libraries and books.
The last time I’d seen him the twins had been three or four. I had been excited for his visit—the fog of having two small children made me crave adult company. Those days, I was rarely home for more than a few days at a time, so I suggested he stop by for a drink in the evening. I shopped for interesting new craft beers, set out pistachios and olives and graviera from the island.
This was a mistake. I don’t know why I didn’t suggest a nearby café. Somehow, I wanted him to see my full life, the chaos of children, the bustle of family. Maybe it was an act of aggression. I don’t know. The twins had been in the other room, jumping from the couch to the floor, onto the cushions. Katerina was in the kitchen with Eva, who was fresh from a breakup, drinking wine and discussing the awfulness of men. Katerina’s wistfulness for her pre-parent life showed only in her vicarious living through Eva’s dramas, which she approached like projects for work.
But the chaos did not annoy me then; I remember feeling happy for a house alive. Fatherhood no longer felt so foreign. I heard Nikos shriek from the other room, and Ifigenia cry, and then both of them shrieking again. They were not shrieks of serious distress. I looked to Dimos to laugh—I had thought he might find it amusing, at least, if not charming—but he only looked uncomfortable. Irritated that we’d not have the sort of deep conversations we’d been having all our lives. He was adorable with the children, don’t get me wrong, holding them up in the air, to their delight, but I knew then that our friendship would strain. Years earlier, when I’d invited him to the christening, he’d scoffed and couldn’t believe I’d given in.
And now.
In those early years I had felt almost pleasure at the sight and sound of unruly children in restaurants, in airplanes, in enclosed spaces where the children weren’t supposed to be unruly, even in Greece, where children were everywhere but adults still somewhat resembled adults. Adults behaving badly sometimes, but nevertheless. A relief, maybe, an admission to a club I had previously resisted joining, a closed society of new parents who looked over with compassion and pride and relief that the screaming child was not theirs, not this time. Sometimes in those earlier years I barely noticed it.
I’m not sure when the shift happened, but I’ve become intolerant to noise. Even children shouting with joy on a beach, or a mother calling out to her daughters, can drive me crazy. Ifigenia comes home and practices the violin and anger rises inside me, and Nikos with his loud scratchy voice, his belligerence, makes me lose my cool. Katerina’s banging around in the kitchen makes me want to explode. At sea, even in moments of distress and chaos, there are always so many moments of deep, deep quiet, and I know Katerina could sometimes tell when at home I would rather have been elsewhere. Was it possible to love someone deeply and truly but not want to be in their presence? I don’t mean the kids are driving me crazy. Something darker. How many duties as a father had I been spared simply for my comfort? Katerina knew that to keep me close she would have to do everything herself. And I suppose that was no longer worth it.
9
Mira
I wasn’t planning on visiting Fady and Dimitra that evening—while in the States, sometimes weeks would pass without my seeing friends—but after Fady learned the story of what had happened at the pharmacy the day before, he said, “Either you come here or we come there.”
When I arrived, I allowed him to delicately remove the bandage from my cheek so he could inspect the stitches, but Dimitra demanded we do so discreetly in the entryway; she didn’t want to upset the kids. Fady tipped my cheek up to the pale hall light, grudgingly praising the work. “There will be no scar,” he said.
“Ha,” I said. I hadn’t told them I’d seen Aris again. But when Fady returned from the bathroom with a new bandage and a bit of antibiotic ointment, Dimitra had to reapply it because his hands were shaking. He told us he had a commission he needed to finish and disappeared to his workshop.
In the kitchen, Rami was doing Leila’s math problems and Leila was, according to her, making slime. Some sort of internet thing, Rami told me, giving me his usual shy half hug. The two of them sat together, across from one another at the table. Leila had straightened her hair and it hung like a glossy curtain down her back, and with her caramel-colored eyes she looked disconcertingly like a young Nefeli. Rami concentrated the same way I used to, head cradled in hand, deep in thought. I used to fall asleep that way.
Rami paged through his old book, showing me drawings I hadn’t yet seen, about a young boy in school in Damascus. Toward the back of the sketchbook he’d drawn some stark, pastoral landscapes, nearly dystopic, nary a human in sight. But I found it harder to engage him than normal, for whatever reason. Usually we had an easy rapport.