Chapter 32
32
THE BAROS’S APARTMENT, KASSIOPI
‘Your mother is insane!’
Maria had said that particular sentence a number of times while Christos was making Greek coffee. They had a modern machine, but he knew Maria would reject anything that wasn’t boiled in a briki .
‘She locked me in this apartment! Locked me in! Like an animal!’
Christos let her continue raving, pacing the tiles, getting out her frustrations, thinking that, although the apartment was a little tight for space, it wasn’t the worst place to spend all of the few minutes from when his mother and Magdalena had left her to when he had arrived.
‘She is acting like a child! I come here to tell her I forgive her for the names she calls me and I am here to help with the planning for Vaggelis’s service and she goes crazy! “It is not my place”. “Are you saying I cannot plan anything without you?”.’
‘Coffee,’ Christos said, gently pouring the foaming liquid into two small cups. ‘Come, Auntie Maria, please, sit down.’
She took her bag off from around her body, plopping it down on the sofa, and then she sat. ‘You made this coffee the way I showed you when you were six?’ She eyed the cup with suspicion.
‘Of course.’
‘Not the way they make it in Athens?’
‘No, Auntie Maria.’ He passed her the cup and saucer, then as she pressed the porcelain to her lips he waited for her verdict.
‘Well?’ Christos asked, when she had returned the cup to the saucer and put both onto the coffee table.
‘It is OK,’ she replied.
Christos smiled as he sat down opposite. This was high praise from his aunt. ‘Good.’
‘No, not good. I said OK.’
He laughed.
‘Nothing about this is funny, Christo. What are we going to do about your mother? She is out of control!’
‘I do not know what to say. You know she does not do anything anyone has told her since…’ He stopped himself from speaking.
‘Since your father left,’ Maria filled in.
He sighed. ‘Yes. And a wife doing as she is told by her husband is not a good thing. Perhaps that is one reason why she feels she needs to be in control of everything so completely now, because she enjoys the ownership she has not had before.’
‘I do not want to control her, Christo. I am her sister. I only want to help her. There is taking ownership of your life and then there is taking this independence to the extreme where you isolate yourself from everyone who cares.’
He swallowed. Molly had said something so similar.
‘I am independent,’ Maria continued. ‘Granted, my husband died rather than left me for someone else but?—’
‘What?’ He chilled.
‘Your uncle! My husband! He died! Did you hit your head from the fall?’
‘No. What you said about my father, leaving for someone else. He had another woman?’
‘You must know he did! Angeliki, she tell me!’
This couldn’t be true. Christos knew nothing about any other woman in connection with his father. He had also been witness – even if it was just hearing through the walls – to all their fights, and there had been no arguing about an affair.
‘But, anyway,’ Maria continued, ‘perhaps she has found a new best companion with the mother of your fiancée.’
For a second, Christos was thrown and then he remembered the joke he had played on his aunt calling Molly that. He needed to rectify it.
‘Is that who she is with now? Planning your wedding to her daughter by herself like she is planning Vaggelis’s service by herself.’
‘She has gone to the vet,’ Christos informed her. ‘She has Armeena.’
‘That cat is still alive?! How? It must have more lives than a… well, than a cat. You need to talk to her, Christo.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, she will not talk to me! She locked me in this apartment! Otherwise, there is only one alternative.’
He already felt fearful at what that might be. He sipped at his coffee.
‘You will bring her to my house tonight and we will stage an intervention.’
He shook his head. ‘The last time we staged an intervention it was on Mr Tomas, and the priest had to leave the village afterwards.’
‘That was not an intervention. That was a herbal exorcism. And it had nothing to do with the priest leaving. He went to Piraeus to coach a basketball team.’
‘She will not agree to go to your house tonight.’
‘Ha! I know this! That is why you will not tell her. You will tell her something else. You will invite other people. Your Molly. Your Molly’s mother. Magdalena. Bring the cat if you have to. Say there is free food. Say it is… Old Theo’s birthday.’
‘Auntie Maria, we say it is Old Theo’s birthday so many times he must have more birthdays than… a cat.’
‘Well, you suggest a better way, but this needs to be fixed. The more days that go by the closer we are getting towards Vaggelis’s service and he would not want our family to be separated.’
It was true. Vaggelis, despite never having married himself, was a great believer in family and community and the sharing of good times and hard times, finding resolutions as a united group. It was a shame his best friend had been the complete opposite and nothing had seemed to be able to bring Andreas to his senses.
‘If I can get my mother to Old Perithia tonight there might have to be a few extra guests,’ Christos told her.
‘I do not care if you bring the whole Kassiopi choir. There will be pastitsio for everybody.’
Unlike the orange cake, Maria’s pastitsio – mince, pasta, béchamel sauce, not unlike lasagne – was excellent.
‘I do not know if she will come,’ Christos said with a sigh. ‘But… I will try.’
‘You are a good boy,’ Maria said, reaching forward and taking his hands in hers. ‘You have always been a good boy. Now, make sure to bring your Molly. I am sure I have some photographs of you she will want to see.’
‘Auntie Maria, no.’
She laughed. ‘What is this word “no”? I do not believe in it.’
And now he knew his fate was really sealed.