Dimitris Nollas: The Rusted Knife

They brought in all sorts of whores who acted as singers, and the drink, particularly at the end of the week, dampened the smoke-filled atmosphere. The songs, perhaps the one genuine thing in that gaudy setting, flooded the night with plaintive melodies and poignant lyrics that talked of betrayal and unfaithful lovers, of broken promises and a district buried beneath a high-speed throroughfare. They all sang of things of a feminine gender that no longer existed; of a past of which only the frayed ends remained.

Occasionally, a sense of fear, like smoke from a strong cigarette, hovered in the air. It arose from the feeling that at any moment and for the most ludicrous reason it might all explode and shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. And this strange taste came from the postures and the body heat of the customers, who soulfully sang along with the poignant songs but whose talk had to do with the next day’s affairs and had the taste of metal.

Vasia had been working there as a waiter for three months and yet it was as though he had lived all his life in that world. He had come from around the Black Sea and had grown up in a port. Smart and alert as he was, he had realized from the very first that the money wasn’t in the wages or in the tips from the horny customers, who first made themselves out to be nobs before behaving like scum to the girls. The waiters had set up a common kitty for whatever “deals” were arranged in the bar and they each took a cut at the end of the month. Behind the waiter’s mask, you’d usually find someone who offered all kinds of services, and so Vasia saw as his benefactor an old waiter by the name of Fotis, from whom he had bought the position, given that Fotis had decided to take himself off to Salamis for a well-earned rest.

He sold some remaining household goods to meet the down payment that they had agreed on and would pay Fotis a percentage of his weekly earnings for a year. If he wanted to work, he had to pay rent. When they had shaken on it, he was so overjoyed that he rented a motorbike and took his wife to visit some relatives they had in Menidi.

Every Sunday, he added up the week’s earnings, took out Fotis’s percentage and delivered it to him himself before going home. Fotis would be getting his fishing gear ready, having been up since the crack of dawn, and would gladly make him a coffee, give him advice about his kids, and then they would arrange a day for their next meeting.

It was the early hours of Sunday morning and the bouzoukis were playing as though they were about to give up their ghost on the bandstand. The few remaining customers were getting their things together to leave when two latecomers walked into the joint and ordered two beers. The barman exchanged a few words with them and nodded to Vasia to come over.

It had been a good night and Vasia was doing his sums at a table at the back of the room. He listened to the American version of his name with some indifference, slipped the notepad into his pocket and went over to the counter. In the mirror behind the bottles, he saw the two men watching him as he came up behind them, and a strange yet familiar feeling took hold of him.

It wasn’t the first time that he had imagined himself looking at himself as though he were a neutral observer and doing something to upset an otherwise calm and predictable situation, thereby allowing something deafeningly absurd to intervene and overturn it. He didn’t imagine himself doing something absurd exactly; the truth is that he was afraid of doing something like that and, at the very same time, his second thoughts held him back. As, for example, a few days previously when he had considered beating up his landlady while she was politely explaining a bill to him. What if I were to slap her in the face? he had thought at that same moment, without of course going through with it, though he had approached her threateningly. Now, however, an idea had fixed in his mind as he was coming up behind the two men. What if I were to stab them, just as they are with their backs turned to me? he thought as he came within two paces of them.

Vasia had carried a knife since coming to Greece, but had never needed to use it, and his thoughts, continuing to veer off-course as he approached the counter, convinced him that he wouldn’t have time to get both of them together. He did have time, however, to shudder at the thought that had passed through him.

“Billy,” the barman said to him once he was beside them, “these lads are looking for you.”

The lads were two men in their thirties and Vasia noticed the transparent skin of one of them; it was as though of fine cigarette paper and his lips were blue as though from lipstick.

“How well do you understand Greek?” he asked him, after quickly sizing him up.

Though not believing it would show on his face just how well he understood Greek, Vasia was not offended and said “Well enough.” He sat on barstool and the other man, who had still not spoken, got up and stood in front of him holding the glass of beer. When the barman came to serve him, Vasia waved him away with his hand and the barman left them on their own. The lights went out one by one and the musicians had already packed up. From outside came the sound of cars revving as the people were now in a hurry to get home to bed.

“So,” said the one with the sickly skin, and Vasia felt the cold knife in his trouser leg and caressed it through the material, “so, old Fotis died today and this lad here is his nephew.”

“How did it happen?” asked Vasia with the surprise of someone who doesn’t want to remember how deeply death intrudes into life.

The man didn’t even bother to listen to him. He simply continued: “From now on, you’ll give the money to the lad.”

Vasia’s intuition told him that he should take as fact whatever these two characters came out with; however, he found the courage to ask when it was that Fotis had died. The expressions of both men froze in bewilderment. It was as though they were the ones who didn’t understand now and so Vasia went on asking. He felt as he had done just previously when he had imagined murdering them. As though he were thinking – even worse, as though he were doing things that had no connection, things that didn’t follow.

“I don’t know the lad,” he added, nodding in the direction of the one who was supposed to be the nephew.

It seems that the patience of the pale-faced man had reached its limits. He exploded, though without raising the tone of his voice. “You lousy punk,” he hissed, and Vasia saw his skin becoming even whiter in the darkness, “do you mean to say, you Russian punk, that in your shitty country nephews don’t inherit their childless uncles? Or is it that you don’t understand the language and you’re making fools of us?”

“No,” Vasia cut in, taking care to articulate as best he could. “I understand… But no need violence. I promised. I gave word to Fotis.”

The one claiming to be the nephew couldn’t conceal a frown when, in his confusion, Vasia added:

“Even if you tell me you’re his wife, I won’t give you what I owe.”

The two men exchanged a look as though confirming that they were dealing with an idiot.

“It seems you don’t believe what we’ve told you. Maybe you’d like to see for yourself?”

Vasia got down off the barstool and felt the knife in his pocket weighing heavy on him. He reflected that it wasn’t easy for them to do him harm in there, but if he followed them to some deserted spot in Salamina to see the corpse, then anything might happen. He hitched up his trousers with both hands till they stopped at his crotch. “Why shouldn’t I believe them?” he asked himself, and together with his question he heard himself answering: “That’s why”.

“It’s too late now. Better to go tomorrow,” he told them.

The eyes of both men flickered for an instant. It appeared they had decided to stop playing games. “Let’s go,” the nephew rasped, and the other one, the pale-faced one, followed a couple of steps behind them.

They went out of the bar and walked to the corner, which was dimly lit by a street lamp. At the edge of the horizon, Vasia noticed the darkness slowly receding and a deep red taking its place. He was thinking of the place in the Caucasus, from where he had come, when they opened the door of a black Mercedes and pushed him inside. The door closed behind him with the two men standing outside.

Across from him, slumped like a sack on the expensive leather seat, was a man who only with great difficulty was managing to hold his head up. His face was bruised and his eyes blackened. Beneath his nose, the snot and tears had mixed with the dried blood. Vasia was able to recognize Fotis when, from the mouth of that pitiable wretch, came a voice like a death rattle.

“Hand it over,” he just managed to whisper. “Hand it over to them.”

Terrified, he put his hand gently on Fotis’s knee and realized what a weak fool he was himself. Then, as he was about to open the car door, Fotis again said something but Vasia understood nothing. Fotis said, “It’s as though my eyes have broken and rolled inside my body,” and then Vasia not only felt weak but also like someone suspended in a void.

When he got out of the car, the day was already breaking. He counted out Fotis’s share of the money and was afraid lest they took all the rest too. The one who was white like a shroud took it, shoved it in his pocket without counting it and said, “No need for you to come to Salamina to bring it. We’ll pass by to collect it.”

Once they had got into the car and set off, Vasia removed the chain from his motorbike and, before starting up, took out the knife and weighed it in his hand. He looked at it for a moment in the same way that we say goodbye to someone who we never really got to know, and then he recalled Fotis’s last words and felt as though he were gazing into his innards. Never mind, he thought, it’s rusted anyway.

Then he let it slip from his hands into the gutter.

Translated from the Greek by David Connolly