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April 1973
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I AWOKE THE next morning exhausted and gasping for air. I’d spent another night thrashing in murky, dream-water, trying to reach the cruise ship that always eluded me no matter how fast I swam. Music pulsing from the ship, some popular song emanating from an upper deck, followed me into wakefulness. “Drift Away,” that was the tune. I shook my head to silence the music as I pulled myself from bed. A cold shower, two aspirin, and two cups of black coffee later I left for work, hoping I looked more capable and efficient than I felt.
Mrs. Klein wasn’t fooled. She knew something was wrong. “You didn’t sleep again last night. You’re wandering around like a zombie.” She pressed a Styrofoam cup into my hand. “I know what you’ve been through, and I promised your mother we’d look out for you, but you have to wake up. You have to show us that you want this job.”
“I do want it. You know how much it means to me. I’ve already finished that op art poster. Do you want to see it?”
“Be careful with that coffee, your hands are shaking.”
She was right. Small brown waves were sloshing against the side of the cup. I set it down on her desk. There was no concealing the fact I was a mess. “Sorry, you’re right. Something happened yesterday, and I can’t get it out of my head.”
She looked skeptical, probably tired of my excuses, but waited patiently as I decided what to tell her.
“I had dinner at a Greek restaurant last night with some people I met at Kosmos Bakery.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I didn’t want her thinking I’d been on a date. She’d be on the phone with my mother planning my wedding before lunch.
She perked up, nodding her approval. “That’s wonderful. I’m glad you’re starting to make friends and get out.”
“No, it wasn’t wonderful. It was awful.”
“Why? did you get food poisoning? Is that what kept you up last night?”
“No, nothing like that, the food was great, but after dinner we were walking down Danforth when a car came out of nowhere and hit this girl we were with. I keep seeing her crumpled on the pavement like she was dead.”
Mrs. Klein’s hand jumped to her chest. “Oh my God, no wonder you couldn’t sleep. Is she alright?”
“I don’t know. They took her to St. Michael’s in an ambulance.” I picked at a jagged piece of cuticle on my thumb. “It’s not like she’s really a friend. I just met her last night, but I can’t get her out of my mind.” The cuticle began to bleed and I tucked my thumb inside my fist.
Mrs. Klein watched me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. “Why don’t you take some time off?”
“No, honestly, I’m okay.” I looked her in the eyes, imploring, afraid she was firing me. “I really need this job.” That was the truth, and she knew it. Where would I find another employer willing to pay me under the table and ignore my immigration status?
“Amy, you’re a talented designer, but you’re not well. Take a long lunch, get your head together, maybe check on your friend at the hospital, then we’ll talk.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, and this time I read affection and concern.
“Thank you, thank you for everything.” I was already reaching for my coat. I needed to see Nancy, to know she was alive.
I bought a bunch of daffodils from a sidewalk vendor then caught a southbound subway.
Mrs. Klein was right. I needed to start thinking straight. I needed to start living my life again. The Kleins had given me a toehold in Toronto, and I owed them everything for this second chance. As the train clattered and swayed through the underground tunnel, I realized how much I loved the city and my job. Toronto was a boom town, filled with energy and optimism. I’d arrived like a leaf plucked from a sickly violet hoping that fresh soil and a sunny sill would generate new roots and radiant bunches of purple flowers, but it had been two years, and I hadn’t put down roots and I certainly hadn’t blossomed. As the car screeched to a stop, I exited to the familiar sound of the subway’s door chimes, inhaled its distinctive smell of iron dust, sweat, and vinyl then climbed the stairs to Yonge Street determined to do better.
St. Michael’s Hospital was a forbidding structure that covered the better part of a city block. I got so lost in its labyrinthine corridors that an elderly nun had to rescue me. She led me down one hallway lined with vintage photographs of nurses in starched white caps and long white pinafores, then up another decorated with colorful Inuit prints, finally leaving me in front of a bank of intricately etched brass doors with instructions to get off on the fourth floor then turn left. The antique elevator clanked and rattled up four flights and a hundred years to the new wing, a sleek, modern structure awash in fluorescent light.
I followed the signs to the ICU where I was stopped by a kind but determined nurse. “I’m sorry, but flowers aren’t permitted in the ICU. You can leave them in the ladies’ room or the family lounge, but not in here. Who are you coming to see?”
“Nancy Wells, she was hit by a car last night. The lady at Patient Information told me I’d find her here.” I pointed to the erasable white board hanging behind the nurse’s station. Nancy’s name and room number were clearly visible. “She’s in room 416.”
The nurse didn’t turn around to look, but her expression softened. “Miss Wells is still asleep. The anesthetic they gave her during surgery hasn’t worn off yet. You must be her sister. We’ve been expecting you.”
“No, I’m not her sister.” Why would the nurse think I was her sister? Could she read my mind? Did she have access to my nightmares? “I’m just a friend. I was with her when she got hit by the car.”
The sweet expression faded, replaced by a look of exasperation. “Then I really am sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to leave. We only allow immediate family to visit in the ICU. Patient Information should have explained that before letting you come up. We keep telling them family only, but they can’t seem to remember.” She backpedaled a bit, probably realizing how harsh she sounded. “You could leave a message. I could give it to her when she wakes up.”
“She’s okay though, isn’t she? I mean, she’s going to live?”
“Miss Wells’s condition is serious, but stable. She’s in no immediate danger. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.” The nurse folded her hands protectively over a pile of files on her desk.
“Could you tell her Arcas’s friend Amy stopped by and tell her I hope she’s feeling better.” I retraced my steps down the hall and waited for the elevator wondering what to do with the flowers. The door slid open, and there was Arcas, clutching his own little bouquet of daffodils.
“Don’t bother,” I said before he even stepped off the elevator. “They won’t let you in. Family only, and they don’t allow flowers.” I was surprised by how glad I was to see him.
He looked startled to see me. “You left without saying good-bye. You just disappeared. I was worried about you.”
“I’m sorry, seeing Nancy unconscious in the street like that brought back some bad memories, that’s all. I got freaked out and ran away, but that wasn’t your fault. I had a wonderful time until . . . well, I owe you an apology.”
“I thought maybe you were running away from me, that you didn’t want to see me again.”
“No, nothing like that, in fact I’m happy I ran into you.”
We stared at one another’s flowers with amusement as I stepped into the elevator, and stood self-consciously beside him. We descended one floor, two, three. In another moment the doors would open and he’d be gone. Just as well, I thought. It’s a risk getting close to other people. Then the old Amy suddenly emerged from wherever she’d been hiding for the past two years. “Do you want to get some coffee in the cafeteria?” And just like that, I took a first, tentative step toward a new life.
“No, let’s go to the diner across the street. It’s quieter and they have better pastry.”
I looked down at my boots and smiled. He wasn’t mad. He still liked me. “How do you know that?” I asked as the doors opened and we stepped off the elevator.
“Because I make it.” He smiled at me. “They get their pastry from Kosmos Bakery.”
It was the first sunny day in weeks, but I was wearing both a sweater and a raincoat because there was still a chill in the air. Arcas was wearing nothing but a form fitting T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans, yet he seemed oblivious to the cold. We crossed Bond Street and entered a small restaurant on the corner.
I held up my little bouquet of flowers. “What do we do with these?”
He took my daffodils, added them to his, and made a great show of presenting them to the matronly lady in a white apron standing at the register. “Mrs. Panagos, a beautiful lady should have beautiful flowers.” He handed her the bouquet, kissing her on both cheeks.
“Arcas, what are you doing? My husband’s in the kitchen. You’ll make him jealous.” She smiled flirtatiously over the yellow blooms.
“Then he should buy you flowers himself. What have you got for lunch?”
We slipped into one of the red vinyl booths, and Arcas ordered a gyro and fries while I had the country salad with warm pita and feta cheese. I tried making mindless small talk, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Nancy’s accident.
As we finished our meals, I sipped my coffee and picked at the plate of almond cookies Mrs. Panagos had brought to our table Chorís chréosi. free of charge. “You saved my life last night. Honestly, I froze like a rabbit. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t pulled me out of the street. Thank you.”
“It was nothing.”
“No, it was absolutely something. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. My eyes must be all red and puffy. They feel like sandpaper.” I didn’t tell him about my nightmares or that I’d heard my sister scream for help, better to keep those recurring hallucinations to myself.
“No, your eyes are perfect. Even without sleep, they’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, me and Mrs. Panagos, we’re both beautiful, but you can’t have us both. You’re going to have to choose.” How long could I keep up this insipid banter? He was a good-looking guy, and I wanted to be a normal girl again, but I didn’t have the patience for this sort of nonsense anymore. My new life would have to be different from the one I’d left behind.
Arcas took a big bite of his gyro and turned to look at Mrs. Panagos whose gray hair was tucked into a net and whose apron strings could barely circumnavigate the equator of her belly. He turned back to me with a perplexed expression. “I’m not sure. This is a difficult decision.”
Nancy was lying across the street in the intensive care ward, and we were making jokes. “Seriously, we could have been killed. Whoever was driving that car must have been drunk or high on something. That guy was coming straight at us. He didn’t even slow down. Did you know Nancy had surgery last night?”
“No, what kind of surgery?”
“I don’t know. The nurse just said that the anesthesia from her surgery hadn’t worn off yet. Last night was so scary. I thought she was dead.”
Arcas put down his sandwich. “The paramedics told us she has broken bones and maybe a concussion, but she’s going to be okay. You don’t need to be so frightened.”
“The nurse thought I was her sister. Does she have a sister? Has anyone notified her family?”
“Tom gave the police her parents’ number, but he was a mess. He could hardly talk.” Arcas dropped his voice. “He threw up in the police car when they drove us home.”
“I’m not surprised. He’d had way too much to drink. Thank God, Nancy wouldn’t let him drive.”
“Yes, the drink plus he was afraid the accident was our fault. He felt guilty because he thought that car was meant for us.”
“Why in the world would he think that?”
“We got into a fight with a bunch of fascists at our last rally. They threatened us, told us they’d drink our blood, stuff like that, so he thought it could have been one of them.”
“Seriously? Is that possible?” I was incredulous but a little frightened. “Could those men have followed us here? Are we safe?”
“Of course, we’re safe. Things like that happen in Greece, not Toronto. Tom was just drunk, talking crazy, but still, he blamed himself for Nancy’s accident.”
We were quiet a moment, staring inward. I was pretty sure we were both reliving the preceding night. “How long have Tom and Nancy been together? I thought I’d see him at the hospital.”
“About a year, but it’s not serious. Tom’s going back to Greece as soon as someone shoots the colonels and Nancy wants to travel and have some big career.”
“The colonels?” I felt stupid. I might be living in Canada, but I was still an American. My knowledge of contemporary politics began and ended with Watergate and the Vietnam War.
“You know, the junta. He hates them so much I’m surprised he doesn’t go back and shoot them himself.”
Arcas clearly assumed that everyone knew about this junta, but I didn’t. I’d have to own up or fake it. “OK, I’m stupid. I admit it. I remember reading about some sort of coup, but that’s all I know.”
“Oh my God, where do I start?” Arcas stared at me, deciding how much history I could take. “Have you heard of King Constantine?”
I nodded. I had heard of King Constantine. “He married a Danish princess, right?”
“Right, you used to see his photograph in ladies’ magazines because he was this handsome guy who won an Olympic medal for sailing. When I was in high school all the girls wanted to marry him, but he turned out to be an idiot.” He ran his fingers through his dark curls and shook his head. “About ten years ago Greece finally elected a decent prime minister, Georgios Papandreou.”
Without thinking, I was playing with the pendant I always wear around my neck. Distracted, Arcas lost his chain of thought. “That’s a strange necklace. What is it, a cat’s head with writing on it?”
I quickly tucked the chain and the small gold charm back into my sweater. “It’s nothing, a birthday gift from my parents. So, what happened after Papandreou was elected?”
“Everyone was happy except the military and the monarchists. But then the king forced Papandreou to resign because he wanted to choose his own government. The problem was, Constantine didn’t know what he was doing. Every morning we’d wake up and there’d be a new prime minister. Everyone was plotting against everyone. It was like the Middle Ages. The country was a mess, so Papandreou came back, recreated his old party, and planned to run again. This was six years ago—1967. He would have won if the colonels hadn’t staged a coup and cancelled the election.
“They told everyone Papandreou was a Communist and threw him into prison. We were supposed to believe they were big heroes for saving Greece from Communism, but only the stupid people believed it. Papandreou, the poor bastard, died in prison a year later, and the colonels are still in power. So that’s what happened. My country, the country that invented Democracy, is being ruled by a bunch of fascist pigs.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know what to say. Thank God nothing like that could ever happen in the United States. We were a solid, established democracy, a beacon of freedom for the world. Kings and coups belonged to small, struggling countries without our history of free elections, checks, and balances. “What happened to Constantine? Was he in cahoots with the colonels?”
“Not exactly, but he was the coward who handed them the keys. After they arrested the prime minister and surrounded the palace with tanks, he made them the official government. He changed his mind the next day, but it was too late.”
A twisted smile crossed Arcas’s lips. “Two days later he jumped into an airplane with his whole family and flew away like a frightened little bird.” He made a flapping motion with his hands. “They’re in Italy now. They’re like Tom, planning to go back as soon as someone shoots the bastards.”
“Were you in Greece when all that happened, or were you in Canada already?”
“I was in Greece, at university.” Arcas stood up abruptly. “Which reminds me, I have a class in an hour, so I’d better get going. I hope I didn’t bore you with Greek politics.”
“No, not at all, I’m embarrassed I didn’t already know what happened.” I stood up and put on my raincoat. “Anyway, I should be getting back to work.”
Arcas paid the bill, but neither of us moved toward the door. I thought he might ask me out again, but he just said, “It was a nice surprise seeing you today. Also, it was very nice of you to visit Nancy. I didn’t expect to see you there.”
“Well, that didn’t work out very well, but at least we tried. I thought we’d see Tom, but maybe they don’t let boyfriends in either.”
Arcas shrugged.
“I’ll try sending her a card. Let’s hope they allow cards in the ICU.” I put out my hand and Arcas took it and squeezed my fingers warmly. Again, I thought he’d say something, but he just studied my face with his beautiful brown eyes. Disappointed, I took back my hand. “Well, good-bye and thank you for the history lesson.”
Arcas smiled sadly and brushed a stray curl from my face. “I didn’t tell you the whole story. I left out the parts that would make you angry.”
“Why would I be angry?”
“Because a nice American lady might not want to hear the whole story. There’s a lot I didn’t tell you.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear it now. I’ve got to get back to work. But you can tell me another time. I’d love to hear the rest of the story.”
“Yes, maybe another time.” He held the door open for me then jogged off toward the university.