“Does Lila know?” said Kouros.
“I’ll tell her when I get home. She won’t mind. Tinos is next to Mykonos.” Andreas smiled. “It’s an easy commute for the wedding. Let’s all plan to leave for Tinos this afternoon.”
Kouros and Tassos looked at each other. Tassos said, “Are you sure you can leave today? You do know it’s Thursday?”
Andreas smacked his forehead with his hand. “I forgot all about tonight.”
Tassos said, “Don’t worry. I know who to talk to on Tinos. I’ll catch the next fast boat and be there in a couple hours. You stay here and keep your bride-to-be happy. No need to start a war with Lila so close to your wedding day.”
“Yeah, getting one going with the Albanians was enough of that sort of thing for me for one day,” said Kouros.
Andreas smiled. “Think positively, Yianni. How could things possibly get any worse?”
Maggie opened the door and popped her head inside. “Chief, it’s Lila. Something about you keeping a promise to pick up your mother ten minutes ago for the final fitting for her dress.”
Kouros put the towel back over his face. “Guess you have your answer, Chief.”
Chapter Eight
When Andreas’ mother asked him to come along with her to the final fitting, his first reaction was, “Why me?” He knew as much about fashion as he knew about rocket science, probably less. But, his sister couldn’t come and, as the only other child in his mother’s life, Andreas went because he knew how anxious she was to look just right. His mother said she’d never bought a dress “this important” before and wanted it to be “perfect.”
Her home was not far from his office. She’d moved there as a young bride, it was where her son and daughter were born, and her hero cop husband died. The old neighborhood was unrecognizable from when Andreas grew up there. Greek was no longer the dominant language. No language was. It was a hodgepodge of languages, people, and cultures. It was also dangerous.
Andreas and his sister had begged their mother to move but she refused to leave her home, even to live among her grandchildren. All Andreas could do was ask the local police commander to keep a special eye on his mother’s place, and the word on the street was “stay away, it’s protected.” But new trouble moved into the neighborhood every day, and it took time for them to get the word.
Andreas sat at a traffic light two blocks from his mother’s place. The colors and faces passing by were very different from his childhood memories. He guessed at their nationalities. As a cop he was pretty good at that. Profiling some would say. Self-defense said others. Members of certain groups just seemed to commit certain crimes. They specialized. Cops knew that but couldn’t say so publicly.
Perhaps we should, thought Andreas. Bring it all out into the open. Let everyone know the truth, that every group had its special sorts of predators-and that they preyed worst upon their own kind. It’s not helping anyone ignoring that reality. The scum of a group always makes the news, making it easy for the rest of the country to classify everyone in the group as bad. No way that was true. No more so than that all Greeks were…
The blaring of the horn from the car behind him jolted Andreas out of his daydream. “Okay, I get it, the light’s green.” He drove through the light and saw his mother standing on the sidewalk. Enough about saving the world, he thought. Time to focus on what really matters. Andreas smiled. “I’m back to thinking like a Greek.”
It was turning into a beautiful late afternoon. No Albanian gang war and no more lawyers. Andreas even got to surprise Lila when he walked into their apartment.
“My God, were you fired?” Lila kissed him on both cheeks.
“Not that lucky.”
“Then maybe my watch is broken. It reads five-fifteen.”
“That means I’ve only been up for a zillion hours.”
“How did the fitting go with your mother?”
“Fine.”
“How does the dress look?”
“Fine.”
“Boys. You’re all alike. Are these the sort of one word answers I can look forward to from our son?” Lila smiled.
“Yes.” Andreas stretched his arms and yawned. “Where is he?”
“I put him in for a nap. But if you want to-”
“No, don’t wake him, I’m too exhausted to be much fun to play with. I better take a nap myself.”
“Good, I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed until the first guests arrive. You need to get some sleep. Our flight to Mykonos is first thing in the morning.”
Andreas thought this might be the right opportunity for mentioning that as soon as they landed he’d be catching a boat to Tinos. Wrong move, stupid, said a little voice inside his head. Take the nap and keep your mouth shut.
On the Thursday evening before a wedding, close family and friends traditionally gathered together at the home of the bride and groom for to strosimo tou krevatiou — the preparation of the wedding bed. Amid food, drink, much joy, and playful teasing, the unmarried girls (alleged virgins all) attempted to make up the bed while the young men waited around to undo it. It was a playful match, with a young man interested in the attentions of a particular girl making care to undo her handiwork. That undoing ritual took place three times before it was on to tossing gold coins and jewelry on the wedding bed amid a shower of confetti, rice, and money.
But the most precious commodity tossed upon the bed, and the truest indicator of the real purpose of the practice, was saved for last: children. Giggling, laughing children, carefully bounced about by giggling, laughing parents. Tradition had the first child on the bed a boy, for superstition held that a male child symbolized good luck. Perhaps as a sign of changing attitudes-or intrigues yet to come-it was not unheard of in modern days for a future bride to coordinate the efforts of her girlfriends at assuring a girl child landed first.
The tradition was rarely practiced when the couple already had a child, but holding it was not forbidden from any religious perspective and Lila wanted to observe it “for Tassaki.”
The party went on until three in the morning, and though Andreas had far less to drink than at his bachelor party, the combination of all the toasts he’d been cajoled into joining and no sleep for two days had him feeling about the same. He wasn’t even sure if he slept at all before their early morning taxi ride to the airport, and could barely remember their flight to Mykonos. He was also fuzzy about precisely how he’d told Lila on landing that he was going to Tinos and “should” be back that night. But he distinctly remembered her response.
Lila clutched the front of Andreas’ shirt, pulled him down to her eye level, and said a single word, “ Sunday!”
“How are you feeling, Chief?” were Maggie’s first words when Andreas called her in the office.
“Not as bad as I’d thought I’d be.”
“Where are you?”
“On a ferry from Mykonos to Tinos. Should be there in twenty minutes. Just checking to see if Christina and Angelo have anything to tell me.”
“Just a minute, I’ll check.”
Andreas looked at his watch. It wasn’t even ten yet.
“Chief?” It was Christina.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes. We’re on our way into the office. Just left the taverna.”
“How’d it go?”
“We found the girl. She was there with her uncle. It’s his place but he said he didn’t know any Punka Carausii and couldn’t remember the names of any of his customers. We showed him a photograph of Punka and he said he didn’t recognize him.”
