It was then that Kostas noticed the loaded catapult in his grandmother’s hands. At the very same moment, she seemed to realise who he was.
‘Konstantino.’
His name was like a harsh whisper of disbelief and, for him, hearing his grandmother’s voice, a voice he never thought he would hear again, squeezed his heart like someone had put it in a vice. He didn’t know what to think, let alone know what to say. His brain was busy trying to connect dots that weren’t matching, weren’t making the right pattern or conceivable solution. Sense didn’t have a place in this moment and he didn’t know what to do except stare, establish the physical facts before him. Hisyiayia. Her big marble-like blue eyes too large for her other petite facial features, a face now a little more lined with age, black dress that stopped at her knees, floral apron over the top marked with spatters of long-ago cooking or painting or who-knew-what.
And then the catapult was put down and her thin, branch-like arms were around his middle, her head resting just above his navel such was their height difference, squeezing, hugging.
‘You may have thought I was dead, Konstantino. But, really, now you have forgotten how to hug?’
He rubbed her shoulders, patted a hand on top of her headscarf.
‘Oh, so I am a dog now?’ She took a step back, out of the circle of embrace she had made, and held his hands tight. ‘And you have lost your tongue?’
He shook his head but still, apparently, the words weren’t coming.
‘If you do not speak, how are you going to be able to introduce me to your wife?’ she asked.
‘Gosh!’ Faye exclaimed. ‘No, hello, hello, Mrs… Kostas’s grandmother. I am Faye Lawson. I work at the Hotel Margaritári and?—’
‘I am Kyriaki. You will come in now. Sometimes I get hikers and I only have so much ammunition for my catapult. I will make coffee and then Konstantinos might have recovered the power of speech.’
He watched his grandmother reach out and squeeze Faye’s arm. She was alive. This was real.
‘Konstantino,’ his grandmother said loud.
‘Ne.’
‘Éla. Come.’
34
‘Well, I have never been in a treehouse before.’
Faye smiled then, lifting the cup of no-clue-what-kind-of-tea-it-was to her lips. It was small talk she was making because after Kyriaki had taken her on a thirty-second tour of the home there had been no conversation and the only sound had been the kettle boiling on the small gas stove and the cicadas from the branches mainly outside, but sometimes protruding through the open windows. There was one main room comprising the living space, a sectioned-off area with a bed and then a tiny ‘shower’ room the size of a cupboard, consisting of some kind of pumping system and a bucket. It was as rustic as it got.
‘It is the only way to live,’ Kyriaki stated. ‘Here I am away from everything I do not want and in the middle of everything that I do.’
Faye looked at Kostas. They were sitting in the central area on tiny wooden chairs, his tall frame making them look like furniture for dolls.
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘As long as I want to remember,’ Kyriaki answered. ‘Conformity had me in a house made of stone while my son grew up and then, when my husband died, I made here my home.’ She nudged Kostas’s leg with the toe of her shoe. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Why are you not dead?’ Kostas answered.
‘Kosta, I don’t think—’ Faye began.
‘If you are not his wife,’ Kyriaki said, ‘you do not have to speak for him.’
Faye felt significantly reprimanded and she wondered if it might be better if she left. ‘Maybe I should go.’
‘No.’ This came from Kostas. And then: ‘Please.’
‘Wanting someone around you, Konstantino? This is a new development.’
‘The new development I am struggling with,Yiayia, is you being alive. Did you want to be dead? Did you ask to be dead?’
Kyriaki shook her head. ‘As you can see, I am not dead. And I pretend to be nothing else. You thought I was dead because you listened to what people told you and did not trust your instincts or look with your own eyes.’
