I had a long nap as I hadn’t slept the night before. When I got up, it was already dark. I rang Nisha a few more times. Again, it went straight to voicemail. I made myself some dinner of couscous and snails and sat out on the balcony to eat, the throw that Nisha always used over my shoulders. The blanket smelled of her – wood polish and bleach, spices and milk. She felt so far away. Where had she gone? What had Seraphim meant? Did he know something? You never knew with him.
Seraphim is the son of an old family friend. When I was a kid, he would come with his parents and sister to visit a couple of times a year. Being two years older than me, he either ignored me or bossed me around. Then our families drifted apart, and I went off to university in Athens. When I returned, I moved to the heart of the city centre. Years later, after I lost my job at Laiki and started renting the flat above Petra’s, I bumped into him again in the grocery store down the road. He recognised me immediately, embracing me, whacking my back with his big hands. He told me about his Jaguar （he collected antique cars）， his property （a sprawling villa）， and his beautiful Russian wife. It seemed that there should have been a parenthesis there too, but he left it out.
I was envious. There he was, his life pretty much sorted, while mine was falling apart.
‘So, how are you, my friend?’ he said. ‘I heard you’re flying high in the financial world?’
I had been about to nod and simply agree with him, but then he added, ‘Or has this crisis been a blow?’
So, I told him, matter-of-factly, that yes, in fact, it had been a blow. I didn’t mention, however, that I’d been looking for work with zero success and wasn’t even sure how I was going to make next month’s rent payment to Petra.
He nodded, thoughtfully. ‘And I heard you got married . . . and so young!’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she’s wonderful. Very supportive.’ I didn’t tell him that I’d lost her too.
The first loss had led to the second, and those two had in fact led to a third – the loss of my naivety, which in reality I should have outgrown already. It was only when we knew each other better that I confessed to him that she had, in fact, left me.
‘Do you live around here now?’
Yes, I had said, and told him the name of the street.
‘Great. We’re practically neighbours.’ He had hesitated for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what . . . I have a proposal for you. I think you’ll like it. Will you meet me at eleven thirty tomorrow evening?’ From his pocket he took out a crumpled-up receipt, flattened it out on the grocery story counter, and wrote down the name of a street, the name of a bar and his mobile number. He also wanted to take mine – ‘Just to be sure,’ he said.
I wanted to go and meet him. There was something about him, some energy, that said: Follow me and I’ll show you a life that’s better. He had an infectious smile and his eyes always shone with possibilities.
When I looked at the scribbled address, it turned out to be Maria’s. I should have known from the time he wanted to meet – it ran until the early hours.
*
Maria’s bar was an open ground for sex workers, pimps and drunk old men. Just off the main street with dark windows and a wooden door. On the dance floor, an older woman threw tiny pieces of paper into the air as if she was showering herself with confetti.
Seraphim was sitting at the bar talking to the barmaid, who was dressed in her habitual tight black. He spotted me straightaway and waved. He had clearly been looking out for me.
I joined him. Without asking what I wanted, he ordered a couple of beers. He was grazing on some nuts. He pushed the bowl towards me. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
‘No, thank you.’
‘You must try them. Fresh from the trees. Lightly roasted. No added salt.’
I felt that I couldn’t refuse. It was the same when we were kids. One time, when I was thirteen and he was fifteen, he convinced me to climb a tree. He told me about a beautiful bird he had seen up there, a rare species that he’d never encountered before. Of course, I was excited, and I went up quite easily, as I was agile and strong. But coming down was a problem. Trees are notoriously difficult to climb down. I was stuck up there for a good hour before my grandad came up the hill carrying two bales of hay on his shoulders, which he placed on the ground below me so that they would break my fall.
The nuts did look good and I’d been anxious about meeting him, curious about what this proposal might be, so I’d hardly eaten. Now I took a handful of them and threw them in my mouth.