Free The House on Paradise Street by Sofka Zinovieff

never managed to treat him as a son. They lied that Antigone was dead and it took years before he got the story straight. Even now there was much he didn’t know. He never met his father, though he had discovered that his wartime name was Eagle – Captain Eagle – and that he had been killed during the Civil War.
    I noticed how Nikitas’ humour dissolved into acidity when he spoke of his Uncle Spiros.
    “The worst sort of fascist. A policeman whose glory days were during the Junta. When I was young he would punish me and beat me. He’d come into my room and stare at me before he removed his belt. And he called me ‘Little Bastard’.”
    By the time we had finished one small bottle of Plomari ouzo and eaten several plates of the snacks, the sun was lower in the sky and it was pleasant to wander: past the archbishops, with their mitre-topped tombstones, and the bronze sculpture of an emaciated mother clutching a limp baby – a monument to the suffering during the Nazi occupation. Progressing along shaded paths that snake beneath cypresses and pines there were large family vaults and tidy graves with flickering oil lamps and fresh flowers. Sculptures lined the way: languid maidens, portly matrons and satisfied old men, all with fixed marble stares. We laughed at the signs saying: “Don’t steal flowers from the graves,” and I pretended not to notice when Nikitas’ arm brushed against mine, though I wanted to touch him. Stopping to admire the tomb of the Sleeping Maiden, he pulled my arm to make me stand with him.
    “The long sleep. She makes it look quite pleasant.”
    I hadn’t known that the English word cemetery comes from the Greek kimitírion – “sleeping place”.
    On our walk we saw the tomb of Nikitas’ maternal grandmother, who had died the previous year. Maria Perifanis, 1897–1987. Someone had planted rose geraniums in the earth and he picked a leaf, rubbing it for the scent.
    “She lived on the floor above Alexandra, so after she died, I inherited her apartment,” he said. “She was the best thing about my childhood. The bravest person I knew.” He didn’t tell me then that he had threatened to take his aunt to court to obtain his share in the freehold. But I sensed his strength next to me, with his bull-like sturdiness and broad shoulders that made people think he was shorter than he was. Oddly, people often think that I am taller than I am, and later, Nikitas was quick to point out that his height surpassed mine by at least half a centimetre.
    We continued along the pathway to where a kink in the perimeter wall and a tall cypress tree created a corner that was hidden from view. Nikitas stopped and I hoped he would pull me to him and press me against the wall. There was a tension between us that I sensed could only be resolved that way. But he didn’t do anything, and just leaned back, a hand outstretched, as if testing me. There was a moment of hesitation, like the seconds before deciding to jump into cold water, before I moved in closer. Our breaths tasted of ouzo and there was a warm, resinous smell from the russet tree trunk that prickled behind my back. He undid the buttons on my shirt and the sun warmed my skin as he stroked me. I had sized him up as a “pouncer”, but he surprised me with his gentleness. Before we left, he smoothed my clothes into place and brushed the cypress needles from my back.
    Two days later, I left for Thasos, and although I came back to Athens several times during my year’s fieldwork, I didn’t see Nikitas. We hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers and I certainly didn’t want to ask his aunt. Even so, I loved my trips to the capital and embraced the freedom of the anonymous city. It might have been noisy and polluted (as the islanders repeatedly told me), but it was exciting and “erotic” (as Athenians were quick to point out). People looked into your face as you walked down the street, making a visual contact, however brief, that was not found in