The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou Read Free Book Online Page B

days later, and was told that he’d gone missing.
    I was the only one who didn’t worry. I was sure he’d return. Itwas a foolish but unsinkable optimism. A childish stubbornness. People commented on it, I know. Everyone else was worried, you see.
    —His mule of a wife comes and goes without a care in the world, people at the hotel whispered behind my back.
    I asked them to heat water, so the bath would be ready when he came back. I left him a note and went out for a walk in the town, to buy ribbon for a hem.
Make sure to shave, honey, so your whiskers don’t tickle me. I miss you. Zouzou
.
    That was his pet name for me, Zouzou. He would purse his lips and say it playfully.
Zouzou, will you pour me some whiskey? Zouzou, what did you do with my newspaper? Zouzou, want me to teach you to dance jazz?
He thought it was funny that I knew how to waltz but couldn’t dance jazz. He was a wonderful dancer. He could dance for hours on end. He would pull me onto the dance floor, hold me in his arms, and I’d let myself go.
    —Listen to the rhythm, he would whisper in my ear. With this kind of music, all the dancing happens below the waist. You’re from the East, you know how it goes.
    He would slip his hand under my skirt so casually that no one even noticed.
    —He’s handsome, your husband, Antrikos’s wife said to me one afternoon when we were getting snacks ready in the kitchen.
    I liked it when other people admired him. I didn’t even mind all the crazy things he did, the fire in his belly. I preferred him that way, it was better than him clinging to my skirts
. A husband should be the master of his house
, my mother said
. And a wife should know how to manage him
, she would continue, embroidering dishtowels for my dowry
. Marriage takes work, little miss
, she lectured me when I was a girl. She taught me the rules, her rules
. First, always be attentive. Second, learn how to pamper. Third, provide beauty in the home and in your dress. Fourth, housekeepers and maids
should be good, obedient, and fat
. If I asked why they should be fat, she would shake her head.
Because a fat woman knows how to cook, my dear. And she’ll never set a house on fire
, she would continue, though she never explained what she meant by that.
Five, tell the truth to the priest, not to your husband. Six, separate bedrooms save a woman’s sleep and her marriage, too. Seven, a husband should love and care for his children. Eight, your nightgowns should be even finer than your dresses. Nine, always be a lady, except in bed. Ten, marriage is a career. It takes persistence, endurance and dedication
.
    Those are the things my mother taught me. If she could, she would have opened my little girl’s brain and shoved it all in. The first time she met Jack, she gave him her hand and smiled. That night she pumped me for information. Where he lived in America, who was paying him now that he was working in Greece, if he’d ever behaved improperly with me, since she’d heard that Americans have no manners. She wasn’t too keen on the fact that he didn’t speak French. How would she tell him everything she needed him to know?
    Because my beanpole, as she called him, would be taking me far from the war. We would go to live in New York. The houses there didn’t have bullet holes, as they did in Athens. The shelves in the markets were full of canned vegetables and colorful candies. We would buy a car. I would meet important people. I would wear nylon slips. I would live well.
    What mattered was that I leave as soon as I could. My passport had been issued. There was nothing standing in the way. Life had been kind to us.
    ARIS TSIRIGOS, ENGLISH TEACHER TO MANOLIS GRIS
    He was a good student. Diligent, conscientious. He took care with his homework. At recess he didn’t run around in the courtyard with the other kids, he just sat and watched. He liked difficultwords, the ones he thought would impress people. But he didn’t know how to use them properly. When