Kallia Papadaki

Agis and Mary

She gathers the crumbs from the table. With her palm she drags them

to the edge. A chain hangs from her wrist. Mary, with etched lines, and

under it, a mobile phone. Agis looks at her. No, he doesn’t want to help

her. He looks away. He knows what is about to happen. All the crumbs

fall. And as they fall they form a drizzle of wheat crumbs. Then a lake,

maybe a plain, perhaps a knoll, from meaningless bits of bread. Mary

stands with her back slightly bent. Agis stares at the floor, “Leave them

there, Mother. I’ll sweep them up.” Mary drags her slippers into the living

room. Agis leans his elbows on the table. The sharp crumbs prick at his

naked arms.

 

Mary sits on the worn sofa. She waits patiently, arms crossed in her

lap. Agis suspects why. He gets up from the table and turns the TV on.

Another life embraces them. Mary gets bored easily. Agis sits next to her.

He has made a video of advertisements from the 1980s for her. She likes

advertisements. They fascinate her. His eyes close. His unemployment

check isn’t enough for both of them.

 

Agis gives Mary a bath. He shampoos her hair with his gnawed fingers. He

chews at their tips from anxiety. He rubs her skin with the sponge, “Am I

hurting you?” Mary doesn’t say. Only her eyes are vaguely lit. She likes the

water, it reminds her of something familiar, something from her past. Old

age disgusts Agis. The hands stained with brown splotches, the body that

shrinks like gathered cloth. He takes a deep breath and dries her back.

Mary smiles because somewhere inside she knows the order of things and

what will inevitably follow: “A ride, a ride.” Agis nods to placate her.

 

He helps her get into the car. Mary knows the car well. How its seams

are torn, its metal dented. How it belches exhaust. She knows it with a

knowledge that accompanies her always. Agis is tied to that “always” and

its small changes that signal something won’t be reversed. Small changes

that upset him. The engine groans. He changes gears. His father’s car

won’t wear out. Metal lasts, a man doesn’t. His stamina is like a seam. It

frays, like the leather seats. The car speeds up.

 

Mary likes the countryside. The trees that tower above her. The flowers

that change with the seasons. The greenery that never has the exact

same shade. Mary likes TV and the countryside. Agis walks close to her.

Always two measured steps behind. If something happens, he’ll be there

to catch her. Old people are always falling, their bones snapping like stale

bread. Mary leans against the trunk of a tree. Agis watches her. There

by the tree she looks like a crone. She could live forever, just to torment

him. A breeze is blowing. It might rain. Old people sense changes in the

weather. That’s probably why they talk about it so much. Mary’s anxious.

Her look meets his. Agis comforts her, “Let’s go home.” Mary leans on him

for a bit. Then they take the road back. Mary in front. Agis behind. Always

two steps behind.

 

Now it’s raining like crazy. Now and then, the distant rumble of thunder

can be heard. Mary is afraid of lightning. Agis pushes a pill into Mary’s

mouth, “It’ll pass.” He gives her water to swallow down the pill. Mary

refuses it. Fear parches her mouth, the pill won’t go down. Agis presses

her jaw with his fingers to close her mouth. Old people sometimes forget

to breathe. From stubborness perhaps. Agis doesn’t insist. Only as much

as she can take. He strokes her hair. Her stamina is inexhaustible. Mary

swallows the pill.

 

She sleeps in her room with the door half open, never closed. Agis

sweeps up the crumbs from the floor. Later he washes the plates and

straightens up the small mess that two people who live with very little

can make. Mary has nightmares often. Agis understands. The more you

forget, the more you struggle to remember. And nightmares wake up the

memory, yanked as they are from nothing to become something larger.

Mary breathes quickly. A bad sign, someone sleeping so wide awake.

Agis sits on the couch and turns the TV on.

 

It’s approaching three. The small hours of the night pile up on him. He

can’t sleep. He prefers the night. Then, when Mary’s asleep, he has

the impression that he’s even more alone. He changes channels. Mary

winces in her dreams. She calls out a name, “Pantelis, Pantelis.” No,

it’s not him. His name is Agis. “For Christ’s sake!.” He kneels next to

his mother, “I’m here.” Mary opens her eyes and looks at him gravely,

“Pantelis.” Agis knows that he’s not and never will be her Pantelis. It’s a

torment to him, this misfortune to resemble him. He takes her hand in his.

Mary falls back to sleep. Agis sleeps on the couch. With the light on. He

turns it off a little before dawn. Many times he fears that dawn won’t come.

Then he leaves the light on. His fear can be measured in the nightly

kilowatts of the power company. The nightmares that live inside him like

mice. They gnaw at him, along with the electric wires. He rolls over, along

with the day.

 

He has difficulty waking up in the morning. It’s not that he can’t. It’s that

he doesn’t want to. Just before he leaves the apartment, he pauses at her

door, “I’m leaving and I’ll come back.” Mary opens her eyes. He listens

in on her struggling to lift herself from the bed. He unscrews the kitchen

fuse. Then locks the door. It’s tiring to search for his mother on the streets.

He prefers her to wander between four walls. Mary cries. Her crying is

heart-rending. Like a stream rolling over sharp rocks. The sound of Mary’s

tears reminds him of gargling when he was a boy. And his swollen tonsils

that were never taken out. He always thought they would blossom. Then

he grew up.

 

Agis stops at the neighbourhood lottery shop. He doesn’t gamble. He’s

learned to make do with very little. And that little that he has is greater

than the probability of winning at those games you play with five or six

numbers. Even the possibilities cost. Agis wanders the streets. Whatever

his mother doesn’t do, he does. With the difference that, however much

he tries to forget, he remembers. He always returns around dusk. A little

before six. Regular repetition reassures Mary. When she dies, perhaps

he’ll miss her.

 

Agis and Mary always or almost always eat together at six. If not at six, a little

before or after. Mary asks, “What time are we going to eat?” Agis answers,

“At six.” And already it’s 6:15. Memory is even stronger than time. They eat

together. The crumbs pile up on the plastic tablecloth. On the stamen of the

flowers. Under Mary’s plate. She likes bread. She digs motes into the bread.

It’s the time when Agis falls silent. Her nails dig at the bits of bread like a hoe

scrapes the earth. Mary eats very little. She scatters the rest on the floor.

Agis feels sorry for the bread that’s wasted for some architectural whim.

Agis smokes on the balcony. Mary stays in the kitchen. Her hands

touch the window. Agis knows that she’s waiting in ambush. His balcony

resembles a jail. It could be one. The railing is his height. He’s not

especially tall. Mary put the railing up when he turned five. She was afraid

he would be attracted by the height. Agis looks down. How insignificant

the world is. Mary hits the glass with her palm. Agis sticks his face into the

latticework. When it came time he didn’t take down the railing. He couldn’t

be bothered, He forgot, didn’t have the money. And lucky for him, since

now, with Mary, it’s useful. Mary pounds the glass with both her palms.

Agis puts out his cigarette. The order of things has an internal rhythm. His

mother has swallowed the order of things. An alarm clock that permeates

her and strikes like an electric current, without warning.

 

Agis makes like he is reading. Mary watches TV. Agis reads. It’s easier

to read than to pretend to be reading. Mary urinates on herself. It doesn’t

happen often. Only now and then. Agis sets his book down. He peers at

her. Her few white hairs. Bony face. Sickly body. The TV is on. Another

life embraces them. Agis bends to pick her up. Mary resists, “No.” It’s

not yet time for bed. Agis pulls harder to lift her up. It shocks him how

resistant her skinny body is. He raises her up into his arms. Mary’s fists

press his chest. He tugs at her hair. The television plays on.

 

A bath, in Mary’s language, implies a ride. Two words that go together.

First a bath, then a ride. Their relationship is beyond dispute. Mary raises

her head a bit, “A ride?” Agis doesn’t have the energy. How to explain to

her that this bath has nothing to do with a ride? Instead he shakes his

head, “It’s late.” In Mary’s head, time isn’t something that limits things.

Time lives through things, it doesn’t define them. Agis nods his head,

“Tomorrow.” His promise of tomorrow is closer to today. Mary puckers

her lips. Tomorrow, the pacifier.

 

When the order of things changes, there are consequences. Tonight

Mary is sleeping on the couch. Agis is in his childhood room. His clothes

constrict him. It could also be the place. Usually he sleeps on the couch.

Sometimes with the clothes he wore all day. He changes sides, like Mary

changes channels. But Mary is sleeping. He hears her. The tug of breath

that hurries to arrive somewhere. Now Agis sleeps and doesn’t sleep. The

shadows pile up on him, the outlines that his childhood posters left on the

unpainted walls. Agis puts them up against the child he was. The man he

never became. Sleep is a pact. A compromise with what he did during the

day. Agis, for days, nights, years now, hasn’t managed to sleep. Because

of the things he didn’t accomplish, and those that he could have.

 

Agis isn’t asleep. Outside, the sun rises, slowly, torturously. The two

spheres of a buttox form faintly in his mind. Through a diaphonous pair of

pants. He dips his hand down the front of his pants. He doesn’t take long

to finish. He gets up to go to the bathroom. A small imperceptible smudge

stains his underwear. He doesn’t see it, he feels its wetness somewhere

inside himself. He washes his hands well, rubs soap into the small canals

that the joints of his fingers make. Agis takes off his clothes and puts them

in the wash. He is naked from the waist down. He stands in the middle of

the bathroom. Time flattens out the differences. Time and the setting for

the whites. His whites and his mother’s at 90 degrees. He wraps a towel

around his body. Turns on the hot water heater and sits on the closed

toilet seat. Waits for the water to heat up. He counts the bathroom tiles.

Again. Maybe in all these years he’s made some sort of mistake.

 

Mary hangs the clothes. Agis stands behind her. With every motion,

every small loss of coordination between her hands and her body, Agis is

the counterweight. He maintains the balance. Mary insists on hanging the

clothes. Agis doesn’t understand why. Maybe it’s the sound of the wash

machine that attracts her. The quiet, monotonous, repetitive pattern. And

the temporary weight of wet clothes. Mary gets tired easily. Since she

started the job, Agis will finish it. The balances get overturned. Mary sits

in a chair. Her eyes follow the motion of his hands. She stands up straight.

Agis fears that the most. How she stands up quickly. And the sound of her

slippers as she shuffles across the marble floor, what defines the day’s

tempo.

 

Agis buys fresh bread. The white bread is already stale after one night.

His fingers hesitate over the brown loaves. They have weight, that’s

how they look piled up there. He asks for white bread. From habit and

resignation. Mary doesn’t eat brown bread, from habit and because it’s

not a luxury. The only luxury that Agis knows is the crumbs that Mary

scatters on the floor. Crumbs, a luxury only a sparrow would value. Mary

waits for him behind the door. She has fallen down. She reminds him of

an upended insect trying to right itself. She hasn’t broken anything. Agis

lifts her up. Mary leans against him. Agis helps her with her first step.

They disagree on the direction. Mary grabs the doorknob. Agis drags her

to the living room. Mary cries. Her tears are heart-wrenching. Like

a stream rolling over sharp stones. Agis leaves the bread on the kitchen

counter. The refrigerator door is open. On the floor are vegetables with

the fruit, yesterday’s food and the open milk container. Their afternoon

meal is splayed all over the floor. Agis puckers his lips. His tears are

internal. Like underground rivers that are blocked by cement and debris.

 

Mary wants to go for a ride. In Mary’s head, time isn’t something that limits

things. Time lives through things, and often, like today, it defines them.

Her own time is a demand, it is right now. Agis dresses Mary with her

favourite robe. The dark robe shows goodwill on the part of Agis. A step

toward reconciliation. Mary’s eyes have a vague brightness. Happiness in

old age looks like cataracts. One of the big, round buttons is missing from

her good robe. Her happiness is so enormous that the button doesn’t fit.

 

Agis drives. The old tape player is useless. There aren’t tapes like that

anymore. Mary’s window is half open. Her white hair reminds him of snow

in early summer. Agis changes gears. Mary loves the countryside. The

trees that tower above her. The flowers that change with the season. The

greenery that never keeps the exact same shade. Agis walks beside her.

He takes the bracelet with her name on it from her wrist, and the mobile

phone. Now he’s walking two steps in front of her. Mary leans against

a tree trunk. Agis looks at her from afar. Next to the tree she resembles

a crone. She would live forever just to tyrannise him. Agis is walking

backwards, “I’ll leave and I’ll come back.” Agis runs. And while he runs he

looks at his hands that are getting smaller. They are awkward fists. Buds

that never managed to blossom. Hers are the wise knots you see on tree

trunks. She stands there unshakable. Like those branches that won’t lean

with the wind.

 

He sits on the worn couch. He gets up and turns on the TV. Another life

embraces him. He counts the change in his pockets. Not enough for

cigarettes. He shoves his fingers between the cushions. A pin pricks him.

Beside it a button. The pain he feels is that thick, round button.