The Years That Followed Page 18

  Calista knows the evening is over.

  All she has to do now is endure the agony of waiting until it ends.

  * * *

  When Alexandros closes the door behind their guests, Calista says quickly: “Omiros is awake. I’m going up to him before he disturbs Imogen.” Alexandros nods curtly, and Calista flees.

  Omiros’s cries would never wake Imogen; she sleeps like the dead. But either Alexandros doesn’t know this or he chooses to ignore his wife’s fiction. It gives Calista time to gather her forces, time to think about how to handle what will inevitably come next.

  She changes Omiros and settles him for the night. She steps into Imogen’s room and pulls the sheet out from under the tangle of her daughter’s sturdy legs. Then she goes slowly back downstairs.

  Even though Calista expects it, she doesn’t see it coming. Alexandros’s fist catches her on the left side of her jaw and sends her reeling across the living room until she crashes into the arm of the sofa and falls to her knees, stunned by the suddenness of it all.

  Then, oddly, she is standing again, with no effort of her own. A burning sensation across her scalp tells her that Alexandros has her by the hair. He pulls her up off her knees and makes her stand, facing him. His face is much too close to hers. Calista flinches and pulls back from him. She can smell his breath, a mix of garlic and wine and coffee.

  “What is wrong with you?” he asks. His tone is soft, reasonable, as though he is making a genuine inquiry, a thoughtful one. Calista wonders where Mirofora is. But it is as though Alexandros can read her mind at times like this. “I sent Mirofora home. I told her she was looking tired, that she could come back and clean up in the morning.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Alexandros lets her go. He chooses and lights a cigar. Calista waits as he goes through the whole long ritual while the tension in the room grows like a headache. Alexandros draws on the cigar, rolling it thoughtfully between his fingers. Then he blows a cloud of smoke into Calista’s face.

  But something about tonight has made Calista defiant. “There is nothing wrong with me, Alexandros. Why are you doing this to me?”

  Her husband looks at her as though he cannot believe what she has asked him.

  “Why?” he says. He grabs her hair again, more fiercely this time. “Why? When you make me look stupid in front of our guests? When you cannot even follow a simple conversation in English—it is you who are doing this to me.”

  The rhythms of Alexandros’s speech suddenly remind Calista of her mother: of María-Luisa’s emphases, of her insistence on the polish and the practice of social skills—as though nothing were more important than surface.

  “These men are necessary to me,” Alexandros says. Then he pushes Calista away from him. His face is filled with disgust. “Get away from me,” he says. “You have made any kind of relationship impossible.”

  Calista’s whole body feels filled with too much substance. It is difficult to carry it with her up the stairs. She is not sure whether she will manage to reach the bedroom before her legs give way. She needs to soak a towel in cold water, to stop her face from swelling; her hair will cover only so much. And Calista is not sure what Alexandros means; his words go round and round inside her throbbing head.

  Is a relationship with these necessary men made impossible by her, Calista, or has she made any relationship between herself and Alexandros impossible?

  Calista no longer knows.

  Right now, tonight, Calista no longer cares.

  pilar

  Madrid, 1973

  * * *

  Look after Francisco-José for me. I know your brother grew into a fine young man.

  Pilar cannot excise these words of Señor Gómez’s, no matter how hard she tries. For months now they have kept her awake at night; they refuse to allow the memories of her Francisco-José to leave her alone. And she’d been doing so well, practicing how to forget. She’d become good at it over the years: finding those small distractions that would take her by the hand and lead her willingly away from the center of her memories.

  But after Señor Don Alfonso’s death, nothing could console Pilar; nothing would keep the past from fueling her dreams. All her daily tasks became infused with memory. Even Señor Bartolomeo failed to distract her.

  “Are you unwell, Señorita Pilar?” he’d asked her recently. His eyes were concerned as Pilar turned away from all the treasures he had displayed before her. She had stood, listless, as he rolled out the familiar black velvet cloth. Pilar watched the way the bright lights of the shop made the jewelry glitter, the way the fire in the stones came alive, calling to her. But she could no longer hear them. They no longer warmed her.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “Just a little tired. I think I’ll leave it for now.”

  “Of course.” And Bartolomeo smiled. “Please, rest and take care of yourself. We hope to see you soon again.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Soon again.”

  * * *

  As Pilar leaves Alcocer Anticuarios, she hears the tiny bell jangle behind her. It has the high, pure note of finality, although Pilar has no idea why. For a moment she hesitates, glancing up and down the street. She really shouldn’t, not in her home city. It is not anywhere near her own neighborhood, of course, but still, it could be dangerous. Holiday encounters are one thing. Home territory is quite another.

  Finally, she shrugs and makes her way down the street, turns left and right and left again, and enters the first bar she finds.

  “Whiskey,” she says.

  It is late afternoon, and the bar is almost empty. Pilar takes off her jacket and sits at a table in the corner. Someone has left yesterday’s copy of El País behind, and Pilar sees page after page of a smiling Pinochet, waving to his people in Chile. She is reminded of the day she spent with her father in Badajoz all those years ago, and is filled with sudden revulsion. Pinochet and Franco, she thinks, cut from the same cloth.

  The barman arrives with her whiskey and a jug of water. “No water,” she says. The young man looks startled. He takes the jug away without a word.

  Pilar spreads the newspaper on the small table and makes sure to look absorbed.

  Four whiskeys later—or maybe five, perhaps even six—Pilar decides, somewhat unsteadily, that it is time to find a taxi and go home. She tries, and fails, to come to standing.

  Out of nowhere, a man materializes beside her. He has another whiskey in his hand. His face is friendly, open. He is young; much too young.

  This much-too-young man sits down beside Pilar. Afterwards, she has no recollection of their conversation. The only thing she recalls is the last question he asks her, his voice soft, his breath whiskey-tainted as he leans his smooth face closer to hers.

  “Wanna fuck?” he says.

  Without a word, Pilar drains her glass.

  They both stand. Pilar concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. The young man offers her his arm, and she shakes her head.

  He leaves the bar, holding the door open for Pilar.

  Without a word, she struggles into her jacket and follows him out into the deepening evening.

  calista

  Extremadura, 1989

  * * *

  About a year after her house was finished, some four years ago now, Calista got a phone call from Rosa. She can still remember the young woman’s excitement.

  “You told me I could call,” Rosa said, “and I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  Calista could hear Jaime’s voice in the background, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Rosa shushed him.

  “Not at all. It’s lovely to hear from you. Is everything OK?”

  “You have to come,” Rosa said. “Fernando is here, but he has to leave soon. Please, come and say hello to him and join us for dinner. We all insist.”

  Calista was intrigued. “I’d love to,” she sa
id. She had become fond of Jaime and Rosa, energized by their energy and optimism.

  Besides, her evenings on her own had become much too long.

  * * *

  Calista was surprised to see that the bar was closed. The blinds were drawn. There was a scribbled notice in the window in Rosa’s handwriting: “Sorry! We’re closed this evening. Open at ten tomorrow morning, as usual.”

  Calista knocked, and the door was opened at once. Jaime grinned at her. “We’ve been waiting for you. Come on in.”

  José and Inmaculada greeted her warmly. Rosa kissed her on both cheeks and handed her a glass of cava. “We’re so glad you came!”

  Fernando stood up and shook Calista’s hand. “Good to see you again, Calista.” Then she saw that three of the bar’s tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room. Large sheets of paper were spread out over their surface. The visible folds reminded Calista instantly of Maggie’s spotless aprons all those years ago. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Jaime took Rosa by the hand. They both waited, expectant.

  Calista looked from one shining face to the other. “What are you building?” she asked at last, smiling.

  Jaime said: “We wanted you to be the first to know. Well, after Fernando, of course. He had to draw up the plans.”

  Rosa clapped her hands. She couldn’t contain herself any longer. “Come and look,” she said. “Look at what Fernando has designed.”

  “You started something, Calista,” Fernando said. “I think your house has given the village hope. You’ve made it think more highly of itself.”

  Rosa tugged at Calista’s sleeve. “Sit, please. Fernando has to go. Jaime will talk you through it all while Inmaculada and I get dinner.” She pulled out a chair for Calista. “We knew you would understand the drawings.”

  Calista listened as Jaime talked her through the plans. She liked how earnest he’d become, how adult he now was. Watching his face, Calista missed her own two children with the sudden intensity of an ambush. Something in her face must have changed, because Jaime stopped for a moment and looked closely at her.

  “Calista, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, of course—sorry, just remembering something. These are wonderful drawings, Jaime. Fernando has done an excellent job.”

  Jaime nodded. “We’ll keep this original, central area, but these two new wings will extend to either side. Then the whole bar will surround this outdoor courtyard, which can be covered, if necessary, by the sliding roof.” He sat back. “Do you really like it?”

  “I love it.” She smiled. “And given how Rosa’s cooking is coming along, I’ve no doubt that she and Inmaculada have plans for outdoor catering.”

  “Yeah. But the focus of the courtyard is not just the food.”

  Calista could see Jaime’s mounting excitement. She sat back and sipped at her cava. “Tell me,” she said. “I can see that it is something momentous.”

  Jaime leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “Music,” he said softly. His face became even more animated. “I want to host traditional music here. So many musicians around Extremadura, so few opportunities like this. I want to make Torre de Santa Juanita a center for all sorts of music—mostly folk, because that’s my passion, but we want there to be something for everyone.”

  Calista remembered the melancholy songs she’d heard when she first arrived in Extremadura. They had reminded her of Ireland.

  “Look.” Jaime handed her an artist’s impression of the courtyard: a large, paved space with a small, raised stage at one end. Folding doors led out from the bar’s main area. It looked intimate, inviting.

  José and Inmaculada emerged from the kitchen then, their trays laden with plates and cutlery, glasses and bottles. “What do you think, Calista?” José asked.

  She looked up from the sketch that Jaime had given her. “I think it is absolutely wonderful,” she said. “I can’t wait for the opening night.”

  “Not too ambitious, then?” Inmaculada glanced at her as she set the table for dinner. Calista could hear the concern that underpinned the question.

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I think it’s pitched just right. And you’ll have the best part of a year to market the idea.” She paused. “I have a lot of promotional experience from my work in London. I will help in any way I can.”

  Inmaculada’s face lit up. Calista was struck by how much younger she looked. She wondered if something was wrong. She and José were quieter than usual.

  “Thank you,” Inmaculada said. “That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “Still worrying, Mamá,” Jaime teased her. He kissed the top of her head. “Even after all these years! Don’t you trust us?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But all mothers worry.”

  “I’m also a photographer,” Calista said quickly, seeing the way Inmaculada’s eyes had filled. “Let me do a brochure for you. I’ll have it printed and distributed to all the villages around. It would be my pleasure.”

  Rosa appeared, carrying platters of tapas. “What would?” she asked. “What would be your pleasure?”

  * * *

  Calista had not used her camera in a long time. She had put it away, as she had put away so many other things, soon after her arrival here. She hoped she had not made a mistake by offering to help.

  Something about Inmaculada and José that night was not right. Jaime was attentive to them, and Calista saw him squeeze his mother’s hand more than once.

  Inmaculada watched her son all evening, her eyes rarely leaving his face. At times, Calista thought she had looked almost fearful. And José, in turn, had watched his wife. His attention to her was subtle, tender. He, too, looked preoccupied. Both had been grateful for Calista’s offer of practical help.

  As she drove home, Calista felt filled with misgiving. Taking out her camera again would not be easy. So much of her life was contained behind that lens.

  She wondered if she was ready to face it.

  * * *

  It is early April 1974.

  As Calista looks in the mirror this evening, she sees what she has become: a beautiful woman, not yet twenty-five, married to a well-connected businessman who is, in his own words, going places. She, Calista, is simply the wife, the mother of his two children.

  The more visible Alexandros becomes within his family, his society, his business world, the more Calista feels herself disappear. Above all, she misses her photography lessons with Anastasios; she misses the electrical charge that used to light up her life on those mornings. Alexandros finally put a stop to them once Omiros was born.

  “Your family duties come first,” he said. “You don’t have the time to dabble in photography.” He looked at her, his eyes cold. “I will have nothing that interferes with your new responsibilities here.”

  “I would never allow anything to—”

  But Alexandros wasn’t listening.

  “Enough!” he said. “I will not change my mind.”

  Dismay overwhelmed her at Alexandros’s words. Her portraits of fishermen, of lace makers, of small barefoot children and their mothers, all of these had made Calista feel intensely visible herself, fully present within the frame. It was as though she, too, became a focus; she no longer felt like the tolerated outsider. The cloak of anonymity that the long-dead Katerina Pontikou had gifted her gave Calista the freedom to take risks, to push the boundaries of her skills as far as she could. She learned that she was good at what she did. And the money she earned made her proud. When she told Anastasios that she could no longer come to the studio, he smiled sadly and shook his head. “I can teach you no more,” he said. “But I am sorry this freedom has been taken away from you.”

  When Calista left the studio for the last time that day, she saw how Anastasios’s eyes filled with tenderness, with grief, as though he were bidding farewell to one of
his own children.

  Calista poured her heart out to Philip when it happened. She wrote pages and pages, secretly, terrified that Alexandros might find out.

  “I feel as though something essential has been ripped away from me,” she wrote. “Photography is not just a hobby, not just a pastime; it helps me feel alive. I am lost without it, Philip, and I don’t know what to do.”

  At the same time, she was aware of her twin’s career and all that he had achieved. A first from Oxford, followed by a master’s, followed by a PhD at the University of California. Philip had gone to live in San Francisco, and although his letters to Calista arrived less frequently than before, she knew her brother had never been happier.

  The loss of Anastasios, Philip’s stellar career, the trappedness of her life with Alexandros: Calista knows that she is close to drowning.

  Alexandros walks into the bedroom now, just as Calista has finished dressing. She smiles at him. He smiles back, and she feels hope coil itself around her once again. He is in a good mood.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  She nods. “I’ll just go and kiss the children good night,” she says.

  Alexandros frowns and shakes his head. It is like the sun going in, Calista thinks. Hope loosens its grip. “Leave them,” he says. “Eleni has just put them to bed. There’s no need to disturb them.”

  It doesn’t disturb them, Calista wants to say. It’s our nightly ritual—­what will disturb them is if I don’t go and kiss them good night. But she stays silent. She nods instead, smiles again. “Of course. You’re right,” she says. “Let’s go.”

  Alexandros barely speaks on the drive to the city center.

  * * *

  As they enter the restaurant, Calista sees the way the social fabric unfolds once again all around her husband, its bright colors glittering in welcome. Alexandros smiles his brilliant smile, shakes hands, jokes and laughs with his father’s guests. He says the right thing to everyone, stepping across the surface of politeness with an ease and grace that makes every eye in the room follow him.