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Evgnosia wouldn’t go there every day, she would visit his grave every three, sometimes every four days; in December she brought him a little Christmas tree, she decorated it with a gold round ornament, left a Christmas greeting card, it looked like the nativity scene, she even added a small sheep, “My dear child, don’t cry, that’s what you did every Christmas, you cried and cried, I’m all alone you kept saying, I’m all alone”, but Roudama also visits him regularly at what she calls “the hereafter”; it was there that she met Engnosia, so every now and then she’d invite her to her coffee shop, “may your son rest in peace” she‘d tell her and treat her a cognac and a Greek coffee, “it’s ready Evgnosia, the foam is thick”, she’d say when the coffee came to a boil and they‘d sit outside for hours, discussing about Chalkidiki where Roudama had a beach house, or about her son that owned a funeral home and had just been married; a golden marriage that was, to the assistant mayor’s daughter an elementary teacher who loved children, “we should have four and name them after flowers”, she used to tell Roudama’s son and Roudama was pleased that she had such a great daughter-in-law and took pride in showing Evgnosia pictures without considering whether she made her feel jealous or sad since she had lost her only child less than a year ago; but for the cause of death not a word, just what Roudama had heard, rumors that he was suicidal, that he had hung himself and his mother had found him all bruised outside their house, in the middle of the day and not being able to take it she started yelling, the whole of Zagliveri gathered round, ambulance nurses tried to get him down, but the noose was too tight so they needed a special tool; finally they got him down and took him to the Health Center, the noose still hanging around his neck, while Evgnosia wouldn’t accept it, “he’s not dead” she kept saying and then “give him a bypass” to the doctors, meaning resuscitation, “there’s nothing we can do, your child is gone” the doctor said and brought her some water to drink, but she didn’t drink it, she didn’t cry, she just banged her head against the wall; never until this day has she shed a tear, never to this day, almost a year later, has she accepted that her son is dead, the whole of Zagliveri had been talking about it, after a little while they put the dead man in the refrigerator, his hair was long and loose, his mother made him a ponytail, she talked to him and kissed him “I made you your favorite dish”, she had lost it, her cousin held her, but in vain, “just leave me a little while longer”, she whispered, “a little while longer”, and in the evening she bought him clothes for the funeral, she put him in white, and she also wore white herself, she didn’t sit at all, she was standing during the whole service, talking to him; “why, my dear priest?” she asked in the end, “there’s no explanation, it is the Almighty’s will”; she spent days and nights trying to figure out why, she read the Gospels, she read what the elders had written, she even went to talk to a wise old man that had answers for everything even about life after death, who told her “the soul is built, created by God, it has a beginning but no end” and then used parables; Evgnosia found some comfort there, she went again, three times in two months and then said “I will stop going, I will grieve now”, but she didn’t grieve, or actually she grieved, but only reached the first stage of grievance, she was in denial, “my child’s soul is immortal” she kept thinking, she searched for solace, the only person that comforted her now was his only friend, a fifty-year-old poet, awarded by two literature magazines; her son had met him at the presentation of his poetic collection and he would frequently talk to her about him, so, the poet told her that “if a person that knew your son finds the meaning of life thanks to him, then he won’t have died in vain” and she accepted the beautiful words that consoled her and she made it her life purpose to find some meaning in all that absurdity, but she couldn’t find any, she just found a bit of sense in visiting the grave hoping she could discover who was leaving a red rose; she had been there in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, but she never saw anyone there, just a red rose; someone was visiting the grave once a week, but on different days, at various times; she asked the poet and Roudama, it wasn’t them, very few people attended the funeral, some soldier friends of his from other villages, it couldn’t have been them, she didn’t know who it was, she hoped she’d find him, she had made it her life purpose, there was some sense into that, neither Roudama knew who it was even though she was at the coffee shop every day, “it’s a ghost, a shadow”, she would tell her; “who is it my child?”, Evgnosia would ask her son, but the old man next to him would listen, an old man that had gone west a few days before and now Evgnosia had an audience from the adjacent grave, “old man, don’t listen while I talk to my child” she’d tell him, but she’d also light his candle every now and then; who would have known that roses were her son’s favorite flowers since the time when his grandmother Anthi was alive and had planted a rose bush in their garden; the grandmother from Asia Minor that used to milk two cows in Pontus and produce fourteen okes[1] of milk in her youth, who had a pear tree in the garden and whose father made patent leather shoes for Turkish women, grandma Anthi that used to tell stories about the Asia Minor Catastrophe which the departed would listen to and soothe the pain his father had caused him leaving and abandoning them when he was but two years old; the departed had grown up with no father, just with Evgnosia and Anthi with her stories, well, especially with Anthi, since Evgnosia worked all day long as a maid to make a living, while when she wasn’t working she’d weave all-wool blankets which she’d then sell at the marketplace in Zagliveri; she’d weave and work in order not to think of her husband that had left one fine day, without leaving a message or saying goodbye; and Anthi, her mother was helping her, the daughter of the finest family in Kinonisa that owned fields with hazelnuts and corns, but lost everything overnight; Anthi who died when she was a hundred and her grandson, Evgnosia’s son, when he was twenty and Evgnosia still can’t believe it and she keeps wondering about the meaning of life, whether it’s love as the poet claims, she keeps wondering what Anthi would have to say about all that, she keeps wondering if she’ll ever accept her son’s death, she keeps wondering who’s bringing the roses on the grave.
From the short story collection “Roses on the grave” Melani editions
Τranslation from Greek: Alexis Panselinos
[1] One oke, or oka (ottoman measure of mass) equals 1.282 kilos. Fourteen okes equal 17.9 kilos
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