“Eva’s okay?” I asked. It was the first time I had said her name.
“Exhausted, but okay,” he said. “C-section.”
“You’re at the hospital now?” I asked.
“She’s so tiny.”
“How wonderful,” I said, and I truly meant it. As if all those years together were still leading up to this moment.
“Mi mou,” he said. He hadn’t used this nickname in months, years. So much in those words. I am frightened I am sorry I am overjoyed I am alive.
“It’s okay, Ari mou,” I said. “Se filo.”
20
The Captain
After Nefeli’s funeral the day was bright. I saw Mira up ahead, a small figure in black. Her hair was a bit lighter now, perhaps from the sun, worn in an elaborate braid wrapped around her head, the way Ifigenia sometimes wore hers to soccer practice. Behind her, I saw the journalist-singer and her husband, their daughter. I wondered what had happened to the boy whom I know Mira loved.
“Hi, you,” I said. I leaned in to greet her with a kiss on each cheek. When I touched her waist I felt something flutter inside me.
“Hi,” she said, as she pulled away. Her lip trembled. She did not say It’s been a long time, and I was grateful. Her usual self, her serious face, as if I greeted her at funerals every day.
There were hundreds there, it seemed. I caught a glimpse of Aris with his father across the crowd. My father refused to come: I don’t think he could accept it. He wanted to keep her there, with him, up in the house, her megaphone up on the hill. When I spoke to him the night before, though he seemed bewildered, I understood that he had loved Nefeli, and even though she did not love him in the same way, she loved him too. Losing her was more painful than I had previously understood. They were both difficult people, which made people fall in love with them left and right.
I did not want to say It’s good to see you. I wanted to say May her memory be eternal, but I did not. “Let’s go somewhere,” I said instead. “Let’s have a beer.”
Her eyes were red. She glanced back at her friends. “Later today?” she said.
We agreed to meet not right at the port but at an old café a bit farther away, on the water next to a small beach, where my father’s friend Minas kept his old fishing boat.
I arrived first and sat in the shade. I was alone in the café, and on the beach next to it a young woman and her dog played with a stick. When Mira arrived she didn’t say anything but instead sat right down and smiled. It felt odd to be sitting across from her like that, facing her. The waiter smiled at Mira as if they shared a secret. We ordered beers, the waiter brought pistachios. We spoke.
When it began to rain, something strange happened. We both instinctively moved our chairs to the long end of the table, which was covered under the awning. As if choreographed. The sea facing us. At that moment she turned sideways, and smiled. Conspiratorial. Then she turned her head back to the water. Together we stared out into that openness, continuing our conversation, side by side, as if nothing had happened, but of course everything had.