DURING THE COURSE OF MY RESEARCH for the trilogy for young readers, I often visited the Book Passage bookstore, and it was there I met Juliette, a young, very beautiful, and very pregnant American girl who was barely managing to counterbalance the most enormous belly I had ever seen. She was expecting twins, but they were not hers, she told me; they belonged to someone else, and she had merely lent her womb. It was an altruistic impulse on her part, which, after I learned her story, seemed truly foolish.
At the age of twenty-something, after her university graduation, Juliette took a trip to Greece, a logical destination for someone who had studied art. There she met Manoli, an exuberant Greek with a mane of hair and a prophet’s beard, velvety eyes, and an overpowering personality that immediately seduced her. The man wore very short shorts, and when he crouched down or sat and crossed his legs, his private parts were no longer private. I can imagine they were exceptional, since women chased him at a fast trot through all the little streets on the island. Manoli had a silver tongue and could spend twelve hours in the plaza or in a café telling stories without taking a breath, surrounded with listeners hypnotized by his voice. The story of his own family was a novel in itself: the Turks had decapitated his grandfather and grandmother before their seven children, who, along with other Greek prisoners, were forced to walk from the Black Sea to Lebanon. Along that route of sorrow six of the siblings died and only Manoli’s father, who was then six years old, survived. Among the hundreds of tourists golden from the sun and eager to roll with him on the warm Grecian sands, Manoli chose Juliette, for her air of innocence and her beauty. To the surprise of the island’s inhabitants, who considered him to be an incorrigible bachelor, he proposed marriage to Juliette. There had been a previous marriage to a Chilean woman who, bizarrely, had run away with a yoga instructor on the day of her wedding. The story wasn’t clear, but according to local gossip, the rival had put LSD in Manoli’s drink, and he had awakened a day later in a psychiatric hospital. By then his scatterbrained wife had disappeared. He never heard anything of the Chilean woman again, and in order to marry Juliette he had to cut through the red tape to prove that his wife had deserted the marriage, since there had been no one to sign the divorce papers.
Manoli lived in an old house atop a cliff overlooking the Aegean sea; for more than two hundred years it had belonged to a succession of lookouts whose responsibility it was to scan the horizon. At the sight of enemy ships, they had to jump on a horse, kept always saddled, and gallop to the mythic city of Rhodes, founded by the gods, to sound the alarm. Manoli set tables outside and converted it into a restaurant. Every year he put a coat of white paint on the house and dark brown on the shutters and doors, like all the homes in that idyllic town where there are no cars and people know each other by name. Lindos, crowned by its acropolis, looks more or less as it has for many centuries, with the addition of a medieval castle, now in ruins. Juliette didn’t hesitate an instant to marry, although she knew from the beginning that this was a man who could never be tamed. To avoid the pain of jealousy and the humiliation of having someone come to her with the latest gossip, she informed Manoli that he could have all the amorous adventures he pleased, but never behind her back, she would rather know. Manoli thanked her, but fortunately he had the good sense never to confess an infidelity, and as a result Juliette lived in peace and in love. She and Manoli were together for sixteen years in Lindos.
The restaurant kept them very busy during high season, but it closed in winter and they used that time to travel. Manoli was a magician in the kitchen. He prepared everything at the moment: meat, grilled fish, fresh salads. He himself chose each fish the boats brought from the sea at dawn, and every vegetable that came on mule back from the gardens outside of town, and his fame spread beyond the island. It was a twenty-minute stroll from the town to the cliff where the restaurant stood. The clientele was in no hurry; the majestic countryside invited contemplation. Most stayed through the night to follow the trajectory of the moon above the acropolis and the sea. Juliette, with her classic face, her light cotton dresses, her sandals, and her dark chestnut hair loose on her shoulders, was even more attractive than the food. She looked like a vestal virgin of some ancient Greek temple, and it came as a shock to hear her American accent. She glided among the tables with her trays, always sweet and pleasant despite the tumult of the customers crowded around the tables and awaiting their turn at the door. Only twice did she lose patience, and in both instances it was with American tourists. The first had to do with a blimp of a man, red-faced from too much sun and ouzo, who three times sent his plate back because it was not precisely what he wanted. Worse, he did so with objectionable manners. Juliette, exhausted after a long night of serving customers, brought him the fourth plate and without a word dumped it over his head. The second occasion was the fault of a snake that curled up a table leg and slithered toward the salad bowl in the midst of hysterical screams from a group of Texans who undoubtedly had seen others much larger where they came from. Juliette saw no reason to frighten the customers with that uproar. She fetched a large knife from the kitchen and with four karate chops cut the snake into five neat pieces. “I’ll be right out with your lobster,” was all she said.
Juliette willingly put up with Manoli’s manias—he was never an easy husband—because he was the most entertaining and passionate man she had ever known. Compared to him, other men seemed insignificant. Women, right in front of her, handed Manoli the key to their hotel rooms, which he always refused with some charming joke—after carefully taking note of the room number. They had two boys as good-looking as their mother: Aristotelis, and then four years later, Achilleas. The younger was still in diapers when his father went to Thessaloniki to consult a physician about his aching bones. Juliette stayed in Lindos with the boys, looking after the restaurant as best she could, not attaching too much significance to her husband’s aches and pains since she had never heard him complain. Manoli phoned every day to talk about trifles, never referring to his health. If she asked a question, he answered evasively, with the promise that he would be back before the week was out, when they learned the results of the tests. However, the very day she was expecting him back, about dusk, she saw a long line of friends and neighbors coming up the hill toward her house. She felt a claw in her throat and instantly recalled that the day before, during his phone call, her husband’s voice had cracked with a sob when he told her, “You are a good mother, Juliette.” She had been thinking about those words, so unexpected from Manoli, who was not given to heartfelt compliments. At that moment she realized that it had been his good-bye. The sorrowful faces of the men gathered at her door, and the collective embrace of the women, confirmed her fears. Manoli had died of a galloping cancer that no one had suspected because he had been so clever in hiding the torment of his deteriorating bones. He had gone into the hospital knowing that his hour had come, but out of pride had not wanted his wife and sons to see him die in agony. Juliette’s neighbors coordinated their efforts and bought plane tickets for her and her boys. The women packed her suitcase, closed the house and restaurant, and one of them went with her to Thessaloniki.
The young widow went from one hospital to the next, looking for her husband; she wasn’t even sure where he could be found, but finally she was led to a cellar, no more than a cave in the earth, like those used for storing wine, where a corpse lay on a slab, barely covered by a sheet. Her first feeling was one of relief; she thought she had been the victim of a terrible mistake. That yellow, skeletal cadaver wearing a twisted expression of suffering did not remotely resemble the happy, full-of-life man who was her husband. But then the orderly who had showed her the way held the lamp close, and Juliette recognized Manoli. In the hours that followed, Juliette had to dredge up strength, find a cemetery plot, and bury her husband without ceremony. Afterward, she took her sons to a nearby plaza, and there amid the pigeons and the trees, she explained that they would not see their father again but that they would often feel him at their side; Manoli would always look after them. Achilleas was too young to understand the immensity of his loss, but Aristotelis was terrified. That same night Juliette awakened with a start, certain that she was being kissed. She felt soft lips, a warm breath, the tickle of her husband’s beard. He had come to give her the farewell kiss he had not wanted to give before, when he was dying alone in the hospital. What she had told her children to console them was absolute truth: Manoli would look after his family.
THE TOWN OF LINDOS CLOSED RANKS around the young widow and her children, but their embrace could not sustain her indefinitely. Juliette could not manage the restaurant alone, and since she couldn’t find other work on the island, she decided that the moment had come to rejoin her family in California, where at least she could count on her parents’ help. Life changed for the boys, who had been brought up free and secure, playing barefoot in the white streets of Lindos, where everyone knew them. Juliette found a modest apartment, part of a church project, and was hired by Book Passage. She had no more than moved in when her mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and after only a few months Juliette had to bury her. One year later her father died. There had been so much death around her that when she heard of a couple who were looking for a surrogate womb in which their child might grow, she offered hers without much thought, with the hope that the life within her would console her for so many losses, and give her warmth. I met Juliette when she was deformed by the pregnancy: swollen legs, blotches on her face, circles under her eyes . . . completely exhausted, but happy. She kept working in the bookstore until she was forced to stop by order of her physician; she spent the last weeks on a sofa, crushed by the weight of her belly. In fewer than four years Aristotelis and Achilleas had lost their father and two grandparents; their short lives were marked by death. They clung to their mother, the one person they had left, with the inevitable fear that she, too, might disappear. For that very reason it seemed strange to me that Juliette would run the risk of that pregnancy.
“And who will the parents of these twins be?” I asked her.
“I scarcely know them. The contact was made through a bereavement group I meet with every week, adults and children going through a period of pain. The group has helped us a lot; now Aristotelis and Achilleas understand that they are not the only ones who don’t have a father.”
“The agreement with that couple was that you would have one baby, not two. Why should they get a bonus? Give them one baby and hand the other to me.”
Juliette burst out laughing, and explained that neither of them belonged to her; there were strict rules, even legal contracts, in regard to eggs, sperm, and paternity, so I couldn’t take one of the twins for myself. A shame, but it wasn’t the same as a litter of pups.
Juliette is the goddess Aphrodite, all sweetness and abundance: curves, breasts, kissable lips. Had I known her earlier, her image would have graced the cover of my book about food and love. It seemed normal that she and her two Greek boys, as we call her sons, would become a part of our family, and now when I count my grandchildren, I have to add two more. So the tribe is growing, this blest group in which happiness is multiplied and sorrow divided. The most prestigious private school in the county offered scholarships to Aristotelis and Achilleas, and by a stroke of luck, Juliette was able to rent a small house with a patio and garden in our neighborhood. Now all of us, Nico, Lori, Ernesto, Giulia, Juliette, and Willie and I, live within the radius of a few blocks, and the children can go from one house to another either on their bikes or walking. The family helped Juliette move, and while Nico was making some repairs, Lori was hanging pictures, and Willie was installing a grill, I was calling on Manoli to look after his own from the other side, just as he had promised with the posthumous kiss he gave Juliette in farewell.
One summer afternoon we were all sitting around the pool at our house watching Willie teach Achilleas to swim—he was afraid of the water but he was green with envy when he saw the other children splashing around—and I asked Juliette how she, such a maternal person, could carry two babies for nine months, give birth to them, and then that same day let them be taken away.
“They were never mine. They were in my body for a while, that was all. While I was carrying them I cared for them and loved them tenderly, but it wasn’t the possessive love I feel for Aristotelis and Achilleas. I always knew we would be separated. When they were born, I held them for a moment in my arms. I kissed them and wished them good luck in life, and then I handed them to their parents, who immediately took them away. My breasts, heavy with milk, ached afterward, but not my heart. I was happy for that couple who so badly wanted children.”
“Would you do it again?”
“No. I’m nearly forty years old, and pregnancy takes a lot out of you. I would only do it for you, Isabel,” she told me.
“For me? God forbid! The last thing I want at my age is an infant.” I laughed.
“Then why did you ask if you could steal one of the twins for yourself?”
“It wasn’t for me, it was for Lori.”