“Simonides was Posno’s favorite poet. Sixth-century. Doesn’t translate well into English. You’ll stay for lunch?”
Lew looked at the clock on the wall. There was plenty of time before his next appointment.
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Pappas, moving next to Lew and putting an arm around his shoulder. “Perhaps we’ll set an empty place for Posno. What do you say?”
Pappas escorted Lew to the dining room where Dimitri, Stavros and Franco were already seated. On top of a sun-orange tablecloth were six place settings, each with a blue-rimmed plate, a knife, fork, spoon, napkin and wineglass. Pappas took his place at the head of the table and Lew sat at his right. In front of Pappas was a large dark bottle of wine. Pappas picked up his napkin, revealing a black metal handgun. The only sounds in the room were Franco chewing on a macadamia nut and a bustling of metal-on-metal, dish-on-dish from the kitchen.
No one mentioned the gun.
Pappas reached for the wine, noticed that the cork had been pulled and rested in the mouth of the bottle. He removed and examined the cork, looked around the table and nodded his approval.
No one mentioned the gun but everyone at the table looked at it.
“Dimi opened this bottle,” Pappas said, leaning toward Lew with a smile. “Impatient. Look at the cork. Bruised. Small bruises, yes, but in wine you need to strive for perfection.”
Bernice Pappas bustled into the dining room carrying a large tray with platters piled with food and hot bread.
She did not see the gun next to her son’s plate.
“Smells like nearly forgotten memories,” said Pappas.
“ Lazaridi Amentystos, ” said Pappas, pouring a full glass of wine for Lew, doing the same for himself and then handing the bottle around as his mother hovered between her grandsons.
When the food was laid out, Bernice Pappas sat across from her son and saw the gun. Her eyes went from the weapon to her son’s reassuring face.
Pappas smiled and said, “ Lam Paldakai, thin slices of lamb with my mother’s own sauce. Begin, please.”
And the family began, silently taking small servings of lamb, peas, black olives, salad saturated in olive oil. Bernice Pappas put nothing on her plate.
Franco broke the silence.
“And that?” he asked, nodding at the gun on the table near Pappas’s hand.
Pappas stopped chewing and looked at the gun as if he had just noticed it.
“Ah, that. It’s just desert. An acquired taste. Most people I’ve known taste it but once.”
Pappas looked past Lew at Franco and kept smiling, raising his glass in a toast to his mother.
“Johnny.”
It was Bernice Pappas. John Pappas seemed to be frozen in his smile at Franco, who met his eyes but didn’t smile.
“Johnny,” she repeated.
“Pop,” said Stavros. “Please.”
“I always try to please,” said Pappas, holding out his arms. “Let’s talk about the Bears, bird flu, the oil crisis, global warming, if Shakespeare was Shakespeare and if Homer was really four different writers. Pick a subject, Mr. Fonesca. Not what we talked about a little while ago. There’s time for you to talk about that with Stavros and Dimi and my mother after we finish, if you must.”
Franco dug into his food, eyes up and darting from face to face in this family he couldn’t quite figure out.
“The Bears are going to have a great season,” said Franco.
“I don’t think there are any Greeks on the team,” said Pappas.
A game was being played between Pappas and Lew with Pappas conducting it, Franco in the middle, and Lew quietly eating his peas.
Dish after dish, subject after subject was consumed and disappeared from the table and from memory.
Gone were the salad bowls; Dimitri helping his grandmother clear the table.
“The Bears are doomed forever to be up and down. Cycles,” said Franco. “Professional football is about cycles.”
All about cycles. Pappas nodded his approval.
“There isn’t going to be any bird flu,” said Stavros nervously, his good eye fixed on his father, his glass eye staring at something interesting on the wall. “It’s all Chicken Little. The sky isn’t falling.”
The sky is falling, thought Lew.
“Global warming?” asked Dimitri of no one. “People didn’t cause it. It’s natural. Turn off your engines and walk eighteen miles to work. Besides, a warmer earth means longer summers, more music. You still want to blame someone, blame God. It’s all his idea.”
“God is oil,” said Bernice Pappas, head down, thin darkly veined hands slowly, shakily spearing a piece of lamb and guiding it to her mouth. “Oil is a miracle. How many goddamn dinosaurs you think died and left their oil. King Kong would have been up to his ass in dinosaurs and that still wouldn’t have come close to accounting for the oil we’ve sucked out of the ground. Now they’re finding it in the dirt in Canada, billions of gallons,” she rambled.
“Oil, that’s the real X-File. Did my husband Alex see that? Hell no. Did he say anything, hear anything I ever said to him?”
She stood across the table, steak knife in hand.
“Did he? Shit, look at all of you. You’re not listening either.”
“Momma, please sit down,” said Pappas gently.
“Then put that goddamn thing away,” she said, pointing at the gun, knife still in hand.
“Momma, please sit,” Pappas said firmly.
She sat, defeated.
“I’m sorry,” Pappas went on. “My mother…”
“She gets very intense,” Stavros explained.
Bernice went back to silently eating.
Franco was working on his second glass of wine, Pappas his third, Bernice her third, Stavros and Dimi their first. Lew had only sipped the wine. Now he looked up at his host.
“Well, I think it’s time for desert,” said Pappas with a grin. “It’s a beautiful fall day. The grass is green, the leaves a cascade of color, the clouds a fine cotton white, the sun bright and I am together with my family and some new friends. It won’t get better than this.”
“Don’t,” said Lew, looking up at Pappas, who met his eyes.
The others at the table, except for Bernice, looked puzzled. She kept up her eating pace.
“Will there ever be a better day to die?” asked Pappas, picking up the gun.
Franco was on his feet, chair kicked back, dish in his hand. Olive oil was dripping from the plate. Stavros and Dimi rose together and said, “Pop.”
Pappas nodded at Stavros, smiled at Dimitri, looked at his mother who continued to look down, a glass in her hand. He winked at Lew who quietly repeated, “Don’t. I know you didn’t-”
“But,” interupted Pappas. “There is trial, prison. Secrets exposed. Shame.”
“Pop,” said Stavros. “Please.”
“I choose Greek tragedy, not courtroom farce,” answered Pappas, turning the gun and firing into his own left eye.
No one screamed. No one jumped up. The only voice was Franco’s saying, “Holy shit.” For an instant, the only movement was Franco’s, who crossed himself.
Then Lew got up, leaned over the blood-covered face. The two sons knocked over their chairs and went to kneel and weep in their father’s blood. Franco stood behind them. At the far end of the table, Bernice Pappas said, “I didn’t make any desert.”
“She knew,” said Dimitri. “She knew he was going to do this. Why the hell did he do this?”
He looked at his dead father, then at his brother and finally at Lew.
“What did you say to him? What did he say to you?” asked Stavros.
