Something Will Happen, You'll See by Christos Ikonomou

Author:Christos Ikonomou [Ikonomou, Christos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-914671-36-7
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2016-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Charcoal Mustache

IN MARCH during one of the blackouts Takis Vassalos and I are sitting at the Existence Ouzeri on the corner of American Ladies and Bythinia Streets across from a tiny triangle they call Plateia Irinis, Peace Square, which has a strange billboard in one corner advertising Immortal Cabinets and a statue in the middle of the American doctor Esther Lovejoy who apparently saved lots of lives in these parts after the population exchange of 1922.

Takis waits tables here every evening from five to midnight, five to one, five to whenever. During the day he works as a contract laborer for the municipality. He works two jobs because he has two kids. His wife Vasso died forty-nine days ago. She was driving down to Faliro and had a heart attack in the car and some stranger saw the whole thing and brought her to Metropolitan Hospital – she was still alive and fighting, wouldn’t give up – and that’s where the trouble started because it’s a private hospital and they refused to admit her if the guy didn’t pay and of course he objected – he was just some stranger passing by, what an absurd thing for them to expect of him – and while they were haggling Vasso died right there in that hospital corridor among strangers, far from Takis and her children and Takis says if he were a real man if he had a drop of self-respect he would go to that hospital with a grenade in each hand and blow the whole whorehouse sky high and take everyone with him, doctors nurses hospital directors, all those motherfuckers and a few more for good measure. If he were a real man if he still had integrity if he didn’t have two kids and debts to the banks and a mortgage on his house. If this if that my whole life these days is one big if, Takis says. How did they manage to convince me that I’m weak and washed up and can’t do anything anymore can’t react in some way – I don’t care about the money, Takis says, I don’t want money or revenge. What I care about is that there’s this huge injustice and I know I have to do something about it but at the same time I’m not sure who’s innocent and who’s guilty, if I knew then maybe things would be different, says Takis. See what I mean? Another if. If and if and if would make even a dissident diffident.

That’s the kind of thing Takis has been saying recently. But tonight is different. Tonight as we sit by the window in the dark and outside it’s like wartime like the occupation with darkness all around and the streets deserted and your heart freezing from the cold and dark – tonight Takis says other things. A little while ago he got up and found a gas lamp and lit it and made his boss go home – a blonde from Smyrna

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