Walking eased that anguish a little, allowed me to move my body along with my racing mind. I walked through neighborhoods I’d rarely visited, into Kaisariani, its own village, really, with a history dating back to the Asia Minor refugees. I strolled the wide pedestrian walkway that wound around the Acropolis, watched the puppeteers and musicians, older tourists holding hands, American college students in tiny clothing. I walked through Psyrri, where the vibrancy of the crowded, lively cafés seemed to beat inside me along with my heart.
As for this apartment, it was the longest I’d spent here in years, and besides the sad-eyed woman whom I’d glimpsed in and out while the apartment was being renovated—a woman I later understood to be Mira’s mother—I’d been alone on this floor. Even before Katerina and I had agreed to separate, I spent a night here every few months, those nights I had time off between routes but didn’t want to sleep on the ship, didn’t want to go all the way back home. To come home for a day sometimes seemed too disorienting for Katerina and the kids. Or so I told myself. Katerina and I both knew that it was simply disorienting for me.
One evening, I walked through the heart of Neapoli, where large concrete apartment blocks built during the junta transitioned to old neoclassical homes—some bright and well-kept, some in disrepair, many decorated with graffiti—and down the countless steps of Isavron, through Exarcheia, to Kallidromiou, where the breeze felt cool and airy. Here it was lively, the night pleasant, and under heat lamps people leaned in to intimate conversations, evening coffees, and drinks. I wore sweatpants and an old hooded sweatshirt, my indoor self turned outward, only my keys and phone and twenty euros zipped into my pocket.
After wandering awhile, I climbed those steps again and reached Dexameni Square. Though it was too early in the season for the open-air cinema, the open-air café was packed: kids played on bicycles and pogo sticks, adults of all ages sat in large groups and small, drinking cocktails, eating mezedes. A couple my father’s age—late seventies—sat on the same side of a table, glasses of white wine before them, holding hands and looking out, as if it were all theirs. The man wore a dark suit with a red cravat, and the woman’s dark hair was perfectly styled, her dress navy blue with white piping, a trench coat draped over her shoulders. Their tranquil looks unsettled me, and I decided against sitting alone. Instead I kept walking until I reached one of my standby bars in Plateia Mavili, where I knew both the bartenders—a heavily tattooed bearded guy and a serious-faced young woman, whose ponytail swished back and forth as she worked. I drank a tall draft and headed home.
The walk back to my apartment was like strolling through a tiny village after a wrong turn, or something near the beach on a less-traveled island. Take any parallel street and you’d pass immaculate residences with well-manicured gardens, yoga studios and law offices and trendy cafés. But on this route, a few chickens still hopped around, an old trailer was parked in the middle of a lot, and a fenced-in area held a mini junkyard: a few old cars, metal pipes, old furniture. There was only one actual house, and I loved it. It stood bright and cheery behind a rickety, makeshift fence, as if the concrete of the city had been built up around it, or as if I’d walked into a fairy tale. It looked recently restored: a warm, creamy yellow coat of paint, red tile roof, and a garden of bougainvillea and oleander and lemon trees. Next to it was an old shed, which had at one time needed a new coat of paint. Now, it had been painted with flowers and citrus trees, a mirror of its setting.
At home on my balcony, I smoked a cigarette. The courtyard was eerily quiet, and the night, with only a shaving of the moon, was dark. Only the sounds of the occasional motorbike, maybe a car radio. I slept a long, blank sleep until sunrise.
•
The next night Mira propped her feet on the balustrade, wearing sheepskin slippers. If the light was right you could see the shadow of a person behind the cloudy glass partition, and if we both leaned over the balustrade we could have had a conversation face-to-face. But we did not.
I had learned a bit about Mira from Sophia: she was from Chicago. A professor of some kind. Sophia wasn’t sure. Her parents had recently died. Nefeli was her aunt. I thought of what I might say, if only in greeting. Then, the flick of a lighter, the inhale of a cigarette, the exhale of smoke. My words tumbled out before I could think. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said. I had not only broken some unspoken code of communal living, I had implied a history. But if she found it odd she did not miss a beat.
“On and off. But I officially quit years ago, after college.”
“I try to quit,” I said, though I had stopped trying a few years ago. The couple who lived on the other side of the courtyard arrived home and began cooking, as they always did. Below them, someone made a video call in French, which happened every other night at eight. The neighborhood took on a new life in the evenings.
I asked if all was okay with the apartment, the heater.
She didn’t speak at first, but her feet shifted. “I somehow lost the key to the building,” she finally said.
There are three things you need to know about Greek apartment buildings, I told her. First, there’s strong disagreement about whether to lock the front door, with the key, from the inside. So you also need a key to get out, after midnight.
