Katoumári, again
Koula, 70
New York City, 2016
Of all the places for her daughter to run off to, it had to be New York City. Of course. Athena had watched too many movies and too much American TV. She had read too many books and had too many ideas about what it would be like. What was the big deal about New York anyway? Why did everyone make such a fuss about it? It was just another big, overpopulated, ugly city on the other side of the world. There had once been those terrible terrorist attacks. Planes flying into the buildings, the towers crumbling, people jumping from the windows. Koula remembered watching it on television and the thought of it still made her feel sick. It was the worst thing she had ever seen. Why would Athena want to be there? What was so great about New York?
‘So, when are you coming back?’ she asked Athena as soon as they were bundled in the taxi together at JFK.
‘Seriously, Mum, can’t you just say, Hello Athena, it’s nice to see you. Thank you for picking me up from the airport in peak hour traffic in a snowstorm,’ Athena said, pulling off her blue gloves.
‘Why don’t you say thank you to me for flying for two days to get here?’
‘Thank you for flying for two days to get here,’ Athena said. ‘Clara and Sam are very excited to see you.’
‘Of course they’re excited to see me,’ she said. ‘So, when are you coming back?’
‘Where are you going?’ asked the taxi driver.
‘94th and Lex please,’ said Athena.
‘Okay, it will be a while with all the traffic.’
‘Great,’ Athena said.
‘So, when are you coming back?’ Koula asked again.
‘I’m not coming back.’
‘What do you mean you’re not coming back?’
‘I’m staying here. We’re all staying here. Richard and I have decided that it’s best for us both to move on. What more is there to say or to do? David is here. I love him. I have a job now. The kids have started school. Everything is sorted,’ she said.
‘No, Athena, everything is not sorted. You’ve had your fun, now come home. You cannot take them away from their home, which is Perth. So their father is and always was a loser – and I knew it from the beginning, I would like to remind you. But, what about me?’
‘What about you?’ Athena said.
‘I’m their Yiayia. You think I can just hop on a plane every five minutes to see you? It’s the other side of the planet. I’m getting old.’
‘No, Mum. I don’t expect you to.’
Koula sighed and shook her head. They weren’t even out of the airport yet. She never saw reason, this girl. Never understood what she was doing. Never cared about how her actions impacted other people.
‘You don’t care about me. You don’t care how this has affected me,’ Koula said.
‘I’m sorry if it’s affected you or my divorce has somehow embarrassed you or upset you, but I was completely miserable and I cannot go back. It’s that simple. I just can’t. So you can sit here and lecture me and carry on like this the whole time you’re here or you can decide to have a good time,’ Athena said, folding her arms.
‘Oh, Athena! Who is looking after the children?’ Koula asked. ‘They are not alone with David?’
‘David is at work. They are at home with our nanny,’ Athena said.
‘You have a nanny! You have left your children with a stranger!’
‘Valentina is not a stranger. Everyone here has nannies.’
Koula shook her head and did the sign of the cross, just to make her point.
‘Chrissie’s daughters have never used nannies,’ Koula said. ‘They only stay with Chrissie and her daughters.’
‘Chrissie’s fucking perfect forty-year-old daughters who live next door to their mother,’ whispered Athena.
‘I heard that!’ Koula said. ‘And you should be nice about Chrissie’s daughters. Eleni is your koumbára. And you never christened the babies in the Greek church! We are all still waiting for the christening, Athena. They are way too old now.’
Athena sighed and stared out the window, biting her lips and then rubbing strawberry lip balm into them with her fingertips. She offered some to Koula.
‘I don’t want your lip balm, Athena,’ Koula said. ‘I want you to come back with me to Perth.’
‘I can’t talk about it anymore. I can’t come back. Mum, do you understand that I didn’t exactly get Richard’s permission to take the children out of Australia? Do you realise that if he makes a fuss once I’m back then I could go to jail?’ she said in a loud whisper.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I need to stay out of Australia. They won’t extradite me from here, but you have to understand that I can’t risk going back.’
‘So, what are you telling me, Athena? You can never come back?’
‘I don’t know,’ Athena said in a quieter voice, looking away. ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this.’
‘Oh, Athena,’ Koula said.
Outside, it was snowing. If it had been a different situation Koula would have thought it beautiful and rare, but now it felt like she had been pushed into this crazy New York, complete with snow and yellow taxis and her crazy child-abducting daughter, like a bad dream. A nightmare. A winter nightmare.
‘This is the worst weather I have ever seen. Do you know what this is?’ asked Koula.
‘What?’
‘It’s like I am Demeter and in the winter—’ said Koula.
‘And David is Hades, I guess,’ interrupted Athena.
‘You are Hades, Athena,’ said Koula. ‘Clara and Sam are Persephone and you have taken them away from me.’
They sat in silence for the rest of the journey. Koula looked out the window at the snowy concrete. She still didn’t understand why everyone made such a fuss about New York.
_____
Koula’s bedroom in the apartment was small but tastefully decorated, even though she would never admit such a thing to Athena. The linen was expensive and smelled of lavender. The oak furniture in her bedroom must have been from another time, another home, another family. The window looked out to Central Park. She wasn’t allowed to open it, but she wouldn’t have wanted to anyway as it was freezing. The walls were smooth and warm, centrally heated from within.
There was a lot of art in the apartment. In the guest room there was a nicer black-and-white swirl. Some of the others were bright, horrific reds and oranges. But nothing was as terrible as that painting that Richard and Athena had in their first home. The vomiting girl. Now that was awful. At least Athena had moved on from that.
And David. He seemed – nice? He was old. He was clearly making an effort with Koula, asking her what she wanted to do while she was here and offering Broadway tickets and dinners and all sorts of things that Koula wasn’t impressed by.
‘I just want to see my grandchildren,’ said Koula. ‘That’s why I am in New York. It is not for shows or restaurants or anything else, I’m afraid.’
‘Okay, then,’ said David with a big American wide smile. Koula thought his smile made him look like he was one of those Muppets. He left her alone.
_____
In the morning, after the children had gone to school and Koula was drinking a cup of coffee, she began to flick through the series of expensive art magazines on the marble kitchen counter. There were messes of paint and rude sculptures, but then she froze as something caught her eye.
Mary from years ago stared straight at her.
She gasped aloud.
It could not be.
But it was.
Koula stared at the beautiful almond-shaped eyes for a minute and her breathing quickened. Mary’s mother’s name was written below: Margaret Marinos. Koula turned the magazine upside down, pages open.
‘What’s wrong?’ Athena asked as she appeared at the doorway.
‘Nothing,’ said Koula, shaking her head.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Well, maybe I have,’ said Koula, reaching for her coffee mug.
Athena walked over and turned over the magazine.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
Koula looked down at the floorboards. They were beautiful floorboards. Expensive.
‘You know her,’ Athena said.
‘She died,’ said Koula, sipping her coffee. ‘The girl in the painting. That is her mother’s painting of her. I remember now that her mother was an artist. She lived in Perth for a brief time, when I was young, before I married your father.’
‘And you remembered her?’
‘Some people are difficult to forget,’ Koula said.
‘What happened?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Maybe you should go and see her. The gallery is not far from here. We can go now if you like.’
‘No! Athena, I do not want to go there!’ she said. ‘Take me to the supermarket and I’ll cook some food for you.’
‘You didn’t come all this way to cook. Don’t you want to see something in New York?’
‘I came to see my grandchildren,’ she said. ‘I already told you.’
‘They’ll be back this afternoon,’ Athena said. ‘So, are we going to go out this morning?’
‘Yes, the supermarket.’
‘Alright,’ said Athena, sighing. ‘We can go and buy some groceries and then come back to the apartment. You’ve come all this way to do that.’
‘Good, I will get dressed. In all my clothes. Because it is so cold here,’ she said. ‘Of all the places you choose, this is it. London and now this!’
Koula ran a hand through her hair and exhaled. She tried to forget the face, but it hovered in front of her eyes as it had done every night. And now she was here. There was a painting not far from here that held the face of the woman she had killed with her evil eye. And the mother. Margaret, the artist. What would the mother say? Koula shook her head.
_____
The supermarket was dark and cold. The fruit and vegetables were stacked in pyramids and Koula frowned at the prices when she realised it was per pound, not kilo. It had been a while since she had used pounds and ounces, although she used to many years ago.
Koula asked Athena to get out her phone to use as a calculator to work out the prices of things.
‘It’s okay, I’ll buy the groceries,’ said Athena.
‘No, you won’t. I’m just trying to work out if they’re ripping you off. And these are from Mexico,’ Koula said, holding up a mango.
‘It’s the middle of winter! Of course they’re imported from Mexico,’ Athena said in a loud whisper. ‘What’s wrong with Mexico?’
‘It’s too far away. It won’t be fresh. I always buy local.’
Koula shook her head and placed the mango back on its pyramid.
‘Oh, you’ll like this part,’ said Athena, leading her mother to a colder refrigerator section with feta cheese, olives, taramasalata and yoghurt. Not their yoghurt, but some sort of American Greek yoghurt.
‘Do you want any of these?’ Athena asked.
‘Okay, maybe I’ll try and see what they’re like,’ Koula said.
‘There’s also a bakery near here that sells Greek sweets. It reminds me of your cooking. They even make – what’s that special one that we used to have at the kitchen teas?’
Koula shrugged.
‘Katoumári, that’s it,’ Athena said. ‘They even sell that in little paper bags.’
‘You can’t just sell katoumári in little paper bags. It’s only for when someone is getting married! Who are these people? They are not real Greeks. They are opportunists,’ Koula said.
They finished their shopping and Athena arranged for it to be delivered to the apartment.
‘So you just go home now without carrying the shopping?’ Koula asked.
‘Well, we can’t carry it all ourselves,’ Athena said. ‘It’s okay. They only take a couple of hours to deliver it. This is how it works in New York.’
Everything was better in New York. That’s what Athena thought. Everything was better than home in Perth because they didn’t drive to the supermarket in their own cars and other, poorer people, who only just arrived in America, delivered your shopping.
Koula followed Athena back along the footpath (Athena called it a sidewalk now) and through the icy cold, back to her apartment. Koula turned on the TV, and when the shopping finally arrived, she unpacked it all and started making fasoláda and roast lamb with lemon potatoes for dinner. She would cook for them and they would eat it.
Koula did not want to know exactly where she was on the map or how close she was to that gallery. She did not want to go there and tried to push it way back, out of her mind, to another place.
_____
Days passed and Athena had to go back to work. Koula sat in the apartment and then decided that she knew the way by now. She could go out by herself. She could have a coffee. She knew her way back.
She wrapped her black scarf around her head, wearing her feather-stuffed puffer jacket and Athena’s spare snow boots as she trekked through the snow, cold biting her face in all directions. Why on earth did Athena want to be in this city?
She understood the love thing. Of course she understood that Athena loved David. But it was just so inconvenient. And what about the twins? They would grow up with no family around them? At least they had each other. But maybe they wouldn’t remember Perth. Their cousins. Their grandparents. Koula.
Before long, Koula was walking past cafés and a butcher shop. Next there was a florist, with all the flowers inside. And then, right in front of her, the gallery. In that moment she knew she could not turn and retreat through the snow. She had unintentionally found her way to Mary’s portrait in the front window, and Koula knew that she would have to go inside and tell the truth.
She pushed open the door and the scent of a fragrant candle threaded towards her. She unzipped her black puffy jacket and unwrapped the scarf from her head as she looked around at the paintings.
‘Good morning,’ said the girl at the desk – not Mary’s mother – standing and walking towards her.
‘Hello,’ said Koula, clearing her throat.
‘Have you been to our gallery before?’ the girl asked. ‘Is there anything I can show you?’
‘Actually, a long time ago, in Australia I knew the artist. I was hoping to see her if she’s around? But if not, it’s no problem. I’ll just leave.’
‘Australia? Oh yes, Margaret said she was in Australia for a short time. I think that’s where her daughter – oh, here she is.’
Koula breathed in and turned as the cold whisked into the gallery. It was Margaret, Mary’s mother, a much older version of her, but definitely the woman from the kreváti, in a black-and-gold brocade coat and red beret. She took it off her head and then looked at Koula.
‘Margaret, this lady is from Australia,’ the girl said.
‘It was a very long time ago,’ said Koula, trying to breathe slowly. ‘You may not remember me. I am Kyriakoula—’
‘Oh, yes. I know, I know. I remember. Of course I remember.’ Something flashed in her eyes, but they were kind. She shuffled over to Koula and squeezed her hands. ‘I remember you.’
Koula nodded.
‘What are you doing over here in New York then?’
‘My daughter lives here.’
‘That is so lucky,’ she said. ‘Do you want some herbal tea? Colette can bring us some tea. Sit down, sit down.’
Koula sunk onto a green velvet lounge and studied Margaret, sitting opposite. Her face was the same as that day at Mary’s kreváti, but with more pronounced lines.
‘You work is very beautiful. This is a lovely gallery,’ Koula said.
And. Now it was time.
‘Margaret, there is something I must tell you. It has haunted me all these years. And now I can’t seem to escape from it. I walked straight here, no idea how.’
Margaret nodded.
‘I ended up marrying Evan.’
She took a deep breath.
‘The day of the kreváti. I – I was so jealous – I had loved Evan for so long and then Mary arrived and she was so beautiful.’
Margaret nodded.
‘I took the máti from the wedding bed. It was my fault – her death. How she fell down the stairs. The evil eye. It was me,’ Koula said, shaking. ‘I put it on her.’
‘You think you killed Mary?’
‘I have seen her face every night before I go to sleep. Every night since then. I’m so, so sorry,’ Koula said, tears beginning to well in her eyes. She held her hands to stop them from shaking.
‘Oh, Koula,’ Margaret said, shaking her head. ‘Mary had a heart condition. She was lucky to be alive. Every year we were blessed with more time. We knew there was nothing that could be done. And it probably wasn’t fair to do the whole marriage thing. I just wanted her to experience as much as she could. I knew it wouldn’t be forever. Nobody lives forever. She wasn’t even meant to live for five years, but she did. I saw you that day. I remember you. You did so well, trying to put on a brave face. Someone had told me that you’d wanted to be matched with Evan. You were very young. And – I saw you take the máti.’
‘You saw me? And you didn’t say anything?’
‘I don’t even know who pinned it to the bed. I never believed in the village stuff – I’d been brought up differently in Athens and I didn’t believe in the superstition.’
‘You didn’t believe in the máti?’
‘I should never have let it go that far – all those women going crazy about the wedding – the baby boy thrown on the bed – do you remember that? Mary would never have survived childbirth. As it was, that night it was all too much. She went to sleep and didn’t wake up.’ Margaret sighed and stared at the floor. ‘If anyone killed Mary, it was me for going along with the whole getting married thing when we moved to Perth.’
‘So she didn’t fall down the stairs?’
‘No, no. My husband and I just couldn’t bear the Greek chorus, so to speak. And I didn’t really know what I should have told Evan’s mother. I felt so bad that we’d strung everyone along.’
‘So it really wasn’t me?’
‘Of course it wasn’t you,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You were always meant to marry him. And Mary was never meant to be here for very long. I wish it had been longer, of course, but none of us are in charge of these things.’
‘So,’ Koula said. ‘I’m not cursed. And my daughter is not cursed.’
‘You are not cursed, Koula,’ said Margaret. ‘And your daughter is definitely not cursed. What a lucky girl to live in New York! Does she have children?’
‘Twins.’
‘Amazing! And how is Evan? He was a good boy, wasn’t he? Did I hear that you started a kind of ice-cream company or something?’
‘Yoghurt,’ Koula said. ‘It’s still going. It has been his life.’
Margaret nodded. ‘Do you like contemporary art?’
‘Honestly, no,’ said Koula. ‘But my daughter does.’
‘Here is the tea!’ Colette said, walking in with a steaming glass pot of a red potion.
Koula sat with Margaret and drank tea. They spoke about the terrible financial crisis in Greece. Koula said that she still had relatives there and she sent them money regularly. Margaret told Koula about her life in New York with her husband. How they had both been blessed with good health in their old age. Koula told Margaret about her mother’s death.
Margaret sent Colette down the road to buy some katoumári in a paper bag. And then when Colette arrived – ‘Here is the katoumári!’ – they ate the warm pastry dusted with sugar and cinnamon, as if it were a day of celebration.
_____
‘Where have you been? I was worried about you,’ said Athena, when Koula finally arrived back at the apartment.
‘I saw somebody I hadn’t seen in a long time.’
‘Sounds interesting. A man?’ Athena raised her eyebrows.
‘What’s wrong with you? Of course not. I was trying to get this curse lifted.’
‘What curse?’
‘But apparently we’re not cursed,’ Koula said, squeezing Athena’s hands. ‘Not even you.’
‘Okay,’ said Athena, withdrawing her hands. ‘Maybe sit down and have a drink. I made some soup.’
‘You made soup?’
‘Well, I heated up some soup that the guy at Whole Foods made. Does that count?’
‘No, Athena. It does not count,’ said Koula, pulling out a chair and looking out their window at the falling snow. ‘Maybe I will teach Clara to cook, when she is older.’
‘And Sam.’
‘Oh yes, Sam too. But Clara needs to know.’
‘So, tell me about this curse,’ Athena said, pouring a glass of red wine. ‘It sounds quite full on.’
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘I’m not, I want you to tell me about it.’
‘Alright then, I’ll tell you.’ And just like that, Koula told Athena the story of the kreváti and the máti. The burden she had carried with her for years and its final, beautiful end in the art gallery with katoumári.
Athena’s face folded and unfolded as she listened to her words.
Then she placed her hand on Koula’s arm.
‘Did you really think that you were cursed? You really thought that by taking the máti you’d killed that girl?’
‘What else was I meant to think?’ said Koula. ‘Don’t tell your father. Or David. Or anyone.’
‘I won’t,’ said Athena. ‘But, I think you’re a little hard on yourself. And you’ve always been very superstitious. It’s not real, you know.’
‘Well, I’ve always said that you have to be careful. I let envy get the better of me.’
Koula unclipped one of two mátia from her bracelet and gave it to Athena.
‘This is from your Yiayia Sia,’ Koula said.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there at the end. You know that I’m sorry,’ Athena said.
‘Not as sorry as me. She said some weird stuff. You should have heard her.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t her daughter. I was her sister’s daughter.’
‘Oh,’ Athena’s tone changed slightly.
‘She was saying all kinds of other crazy stuff too.’
‘Like what?’
‘It’s all nonsense, Athena. The woman had dementia. She had it all mixed up.’
‘Right,’ said Athena.
‘Now that she is gone, this máti is yours now.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ said Athena. ‘But you still know the protection of the máti isn’t real.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not real. It is what it is, and now it is something from your dead grandmother,’ she said.
‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ Athena said. ‘But maybe you will stop being so funny about all this stuff now since you’ve had independent confirmation that it’s not real.’
Koula shrugged. All these years it had felt real, but now she felt a huge sense of relief, lighter.
It felt so good not to be cursed. Koula was actually a normal non-cursed person and had behaved in a way that was probably to be expected of a love-struck teenager.
And now Koula was a yiayia and had been for many years. Mary would not have had this life and these children. And who knew whether or not she would have been able to deal with Evan, obsessed with the yoghurt business. Reliable, a good man, but worked too hard. Instead, Mary was forever a beautiful young girl, immortalised in her mother’s art. Mary was in living rooms and galleries dotted around New York, watching other people live their lives: elation and devastation and everything in between.
And here was Koula, eating store-bought soup in an expensive apartment looking over Central Park, with Athena and her second husband and the twins, who were chasing each other in circles around a white marble coffee table.
Koula didn’t know what any of it meant, and after a mouthful, the store-bought soup maybe didn’t taste so bad.
But she could have made it better.