Athena in the Outback

If all daughters saw their fathers as heroes, godly figures, some even as tyrants — then it was not surprising that Maree was any different. Except to her, her father was a poet. He was a genius who knew the significance of words. With a will stronger than her want, she was lured into the same world. She had her father to thank for this. Maree was assured it was in their blood, passed on by their ancestors as far back as ancient times. After all, not many were fortunate enough to have the ghosts of Homer, or Sappho, or even Pindaros haunt their every word printed on paper. ‘This form of genius is a curse, it will be our catastrophe,’ her father, Manoli, had warned Maree. But to his daughter, it was no more than a gift — a welcome gift.

Maree remembered as a child sitting on the rear steps of her parents’ house watching her father and Uncle Dimitri playing backgammon on a battered board her father had brought back with him from the old country. Both leaning on an old wooden table they found in the garage, drinking glass after glass of Retsina.

The summer heat in Sydney was relentless. The men seemed not to notice, even though the sweat ran down their foreheads.

The heat didn’t bother Maree either as her mother, Anastasia, had made sure she wore her straw hat. ‘The sun in this country is very strong, you don’t want to get skin cancer,’ her mother explained. ‘You’re very pale, I don’t want you burning.’

Maree enjoyed Sundays — the smell of barbecued meat floating through the air and over the fences, the neighbours mowing the lawn in the afternoon, even the high-pitched sound of cicadas; she didn’t even mind the Salvation Army waking her up in the morning as they passed through the streets playing their brass instruments. But what she really looked forward to was the ice cream van that drove at a turtle’s pace through her street, playing its melody, a sound alluring to the ears of children. How she adored that scoop of vanilla ice cream with that piece of flake tilted on the side, especially on such a hot day.

Today she hadn’t heard it drive by, and it was already midday. So she sat on the steps waiting for that melody.

‘Maree, come here. Come join your uncle Dimitri and me. Come have a bit of wine with us!’ her father said merrily. Maree got up from the steps that led into the house feeling two feet taller as she was about to have her first taste of alcohol. Just as her father’s glass reached her lips and the warm taste of wine hit the back of her throat, her mother intruded. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said to her daughter, snatching the glass away. Anastasia looked at her husband disapprovingly. ‘Why? What do you think she drinks at communion? It’s the same bloody thing,’ he said in his defence.

Anastasia placed some olives next to the bottle that was half-full, glancing at Manoli crossly. ‘And I’ve told you before, I don’t want you swearing in front of the child. You haven’t been back more than a few hours from church and you’ve already started’. She grabbed Maree by the hand and took her into the house.

Dimitri seemed impatient, eager to defeat his opponent as he did every Sunday after church. So while Anastasia had been addressing Manoli, he had quickly moved his counters for him. ‘Manoli, keep your mind on the game, that’s why you’re always losing,’ he said, trying to get his brother-in-law’s attention. Manoli turned his head and saw what Dimitri had done.

‘Why did you move them there?’ Manoli complained.

‘Where else could I move them? You just threw a 4 and 1. There was nowhere else to go.’

Manoli mumbled something at him, too proud to admit that Dimitri was right.

‘You know why you win? Because every time I look away you’re always cheating. Bloody socialist! You play the game like your party runs the country, with backhanders. That’s why Greece is in the state it is,’ Manoli said lashing out.

Dimitri ignored him.

The men tried their best to concentrate on the game, which proved difficult as they found themselves mesmerized by a pair of cockroaches crawling up the brick wall of the house trying to overtake each other.

‘Six and one! Six and one!’ Manoli called out as he threw the dice on the old wooden board, excited at the thought his prediction may prove true. And it did. ‘Yes! Yes!’ he shouted, jumping up from his seat. ‘It’s a miracle!’ he said, looking at the dice in disbelief. ‘It’s a miracle! Thank you God!’ Manoli cried, kissing the gold cross that sat on his neck. ‘That, my brother-in-law, is what you call luck,’ he added, slamming his counters on the board. He slid them across from triangle to triangle, blocking Dimitri from being able to continue the game. Dimitri cursed him under his breath, gulping down what was left in his glass.

‘Shit! Look what the communist has done to me,’ he said to him.

‘Who are you calling a communist vre?’ Manoli replied furiously.

Their voices drifted to the kitchen where Anastasia and her sister Eleni were preparing the meat for the barbecue. Anastasia agreed that Maree had done her part the night before helping her get the marinade ready for today’s meal, which meant she didn’t have to assist. So she sat quietly in the corner and watched. Both mother and daughter were eager to see what their new homemade mixture would taste like once the meat was saturated in the dressing and cooked. When they had finished spreading the marinade over the steaks, Eleni moved onto the next chore, the seasoning of the potatoes. Anastasia tried to ask whether she needed help, but was unable to hear her sister with all the racket going on in the backyard. The men were getting rather rowdy, which they always did after they had been drinking. Maree ran outside to see what was going on.

Instead of following her daughter, Anastasia popped her head out the kitchen window. ‘Can’t you both stop arguing? Half the neighbourhood can hear you. Find something else to talk about. It’s always politics or religion. What about football or something you at least agree on?’ she said, trying to ease the tension.

‘Aren’t I right?’ Anastasia asked her sister who was reducing the oven temperature. ‘They’re going to make us the laughing stock of Earlwood.’

Eleni agreed, nodding her head.

‘Yes, my darling,’ screamed Manoli, teasing her.

‘I’m in the kitchen, not down the road. You don’t have to yell,’ she hollered back. ‘Men!’ she snarled.         

‘Women!’ he groaned, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They’ll be the death of us Dimitri. Do you hear me? The death of us,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at his brother-in- law as he moved his counter. ‘All these years and I still don’t understand them.’

Manoli looked at Maree. ‘Daughter, come keep your father company. Your uncle Dimitri is a bore.’ Her father extended his hand. She ran straight into his arms and embraced him. ‘When did you become so strong?’ He questioned his daughter, lifting her onto his knees.

Manoli sat upright, his chair caught in the cracks of the concrete patio.

He rolled the dice across the wooden board, each die tumbling over the other, and as he moved his counter across the board, out of nowhere, he delivered this monologue. ‘Not even Kazantzakis could have come out with something so extraordinary,’ Maree thought to herself years later.

‘Athens, my friend,’ he said to Dimitri, ‘reminds me of a beautiful woman who puts the others to shame. An old lover; years later you still spend hours in the darkness thinking about her, about the humid nights when you had just made love and you lit a cigarette and looked at each other, no words, just silence, except perhaps for the laterna, the barrel-organ outside that serenades you as it passes. And you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Can I go a day without seeing that face, that beauty standing by the window, with the moonlight resting on her hair? And only the thought of it, just the thought, makes you want to get a knife and cut into your heart, like a savage, to numb the pain. But deep, deep inside that wretched heart of yours, you despise her, you’re bitter towards her, because she has betrayed you, because she has chosen to share her time with other men too. All the promises she made, all the dreams you fixed in your head, vanish straight out that window. How can the woman you love be so cruel?’ Her father picked up his empty glass and waved it at his brother-in-law. ‘Tell me,’ he pleaded. ‘So you leave. What else can you do except cut her throat and become a murderer for her sake, and no woman’s worth your freedom. Am I right?’

Maree’s uncle looked dumbfounded. He gestured at Manoli to continue the game filling their glasses with the remaining Retsina, but was soon interrupted by a loud noise coming from inside the house. Something had broken in the kitchen. Maree released herself from her father’s grip and ran to see what had happened. She found her mother on the floor picking up the marinated meat and putting it back on the plate. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said as her daughter scrunched her face. ‘The floor’s clean, I mopped it this morning.’ Anastasia looked at Eleni who was holding her stomach, laughing hysterically. ‘I think I’ve wet myself,’ Eleni said. Maree stood there staring at the floor where her auntie was standing, waiting.

‘It’s his fault you know — my husband. He’s had too much to drink,’ Maree’s mother said angrily. ‘He gets like that when he’s had too much.’

She stormed outside. Eleni and Maree followed. ‘What are you waffling on about? I can hear you both from inside the kitchen. No more drinking, do you hear me? Only water from now on. It’s bad enough I worry that one day you may leave me for a younger woman, let alone a whole bloody country. And I hope the woman you were talking about in your little speech was me, if you know what’s good for you. Imagine, all these years I had a philosopher for a husband and I never knew. Especially one that spoke like that,’ she said annoyed. She took the empty bottle of Retsina and replaced it with a jug of cold water.

Manoli laughed. He grabbed his wife by the waist and pulled her closer to him. Eleni, who was now sitting on her husband Dimitri, had started to sing an old Greek tune that Maree had heard from her mother many times before. ‘You shameful man,’ Anastasia said to him. She struggled to get out of his strong grip, still holding onto the bottle. Finally, she gave in, settled on his lap and joined in the singing with her sister. Manoli sat there with a cigarette between his fingers, listening to his wife. He enjoyed such rare occasions, finding comfort in the tenderness of her voice.

‘Bloody cigarettes — they’ll be the death of me if I don’t end up cutting the habit like a knife. They’re as lethal as a woman’s tongue,’ Manoli sighed, putting out his cigarette.

With all the singing and drinking, Maree, who sat herself back on the steps, wondered whether anyone had noticed the smell of the roast potatoes burning from inside the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry anyway. The summer heat had suppressed her appetite. Maree looked at the barbecue stand that had been planted in the backyard, hoping that the grown-ups would cook the meat soon, before it got dark. Otherwise, she would have no dinner and she knew by then her stomach would ache without any food to satisfy her hunger.