The Secret Sister by Fotini Tsalikoglou

Author:Fotini Tsalikoglou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions UK
Published: 2014-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“We are entering an area of turbulence. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts.”

“Sir, the sign is on, please buckle up, we’re entering turbulence.”

“Thank you, I’m so sorry. I didn’t notice it.”

If you ever have a child, don’t give it a dead person’s name. Give your child a name without a past, Amalia.

“Me? Have a child? You’re talking craziness again, Jonathan.”

* * *

She was lying on the couch, it was in the afternoon and we’d just got back from school, she was dozing. She had already changed her name. She had begun to drink like a fiend. She kept stashing little bottles—so that they’d fit anywhere—of whiskey in the bathroom, in the throw pillows, in your room. One day, “What’s this?” you asked, you didn’t know. You found a little bottle in the belly of one of your dolls.

“It’s nothing,” said Grandma. She snatched the bottle from your hands. “It got there by mistake,” she said.

Why did they lie to us? What was the truth they were hiding from us?

Mama got up from the couch, any sleepiness had disappeared from her face. She shoved Grandma angrily. “It didn’t get there by mistake,” she shouted. “I put it there, it’s mine.”

“What is it, Mama, what’s inside?”

“Medicine.”

“Why did you put it here? You ruined Marlena’s dress, her belly button’s sticking out, look,” and you pointed at the hole in the belly of your huge doll and there was anger in your face, “you’re bad,” you yelled at her, “I don’t love you.”

“I’m bad, but you be good,” she said, and shut herself in her room.

We could hear nothing, what were we waiting for? Sobs? Sighs? It became quiet. That woman’s tears never had a voice. Silence.

“I’ll buy you another doll,” said Grandma.

“I want that one,” you declared, and from that moment on I only cared about one thing; ever since I can remember myself, I only wanted one thing: that you should never have anything broken, nothing with holes in it, nothing ruined. But our story was full of holes. And Grandma was too old to fill them, Anthoula too clumsy, and Grandpa . . . for some time now, Grandpa had been preparing for his big journey.

You were seven and I was nine. A story ran on inside us. Children can endure all kinds of stories. They’re saving their strength for what is to come.

Who was our father? In the beginning, I called Menelaos “daddy,” and no one said:

“Wrong, that’s your grandpa, don’t call him ‘daddy’ again.”

Menelaos never got angry and never corrected me when I called him “daddy.” It made him happy, and sad, and frightened, and I could see all these things in his eyes, Amalia, I’m telling you the truth, I was just a little kid and I could see that a person is never a single one, but lots of people together, and the things people have inside them are many and muddled up, and it’s this “lots of people together” that makes us want one another.

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