The Hidden Read online

  He disembarked when he recognised a street name from the map. There were few signs and he took his direction from the light. The shopfronts on each side were cavernous and contained nothing but pet stores and tractor showrooms. They were large enough to accommodate the orange and green chassis of the tractors, so large that the sounds of canaries and cockatiels echoed and multiplied, as if there were flocks of birds gone wild in the recesses of the buildings.

  He crossed a public park, deserted in the rain but for a single black woman with Ghana braids who sat on a bench by a clock tower with her head in her hands. By the time he reached the restaurant he was an hour late and the owner, Mr Adamidis, scowled and bundled him out of sight before the customers could judge him.

  The room upstairs smelled of men and cockroaches. On the wall by the door were a washbasin, a mirror and an Agricultural Bank of Greece calendar. A defunct deep-fat fryer stood in one corner. Four mattresses were laid out on the floor as far from one another as possible, their sheets in various stages of disorder, a suitcase beside one, a sports bag by another. On the mattress nearest the window a long-faced man lay smoking. He turned his head as Ben came in, then turned away without interest.

  –Sleep where you like, Mr Adamidis said, his accent heavy, gesturing at both the man and the mattresses. –Any valuables, you can leave with me. Come down when you’re cleaned up. He looked Ben up and down. –You have anything valuable? Fine. You want a drink? Some water?

  –No, I’m okay.

  –Okay, well, that’s okay. I was only offering. I’ll see you downstairs in half an hour, right?

  He ran his eye over Ben again, his hand on the door. He looked as though he regretted having listened to his nieces. The smell of meat and the sound of laughter drifted up in the moment before he closed the door behind him.

  Only one mattress had no accompanying territory of belongings. He shucked off his rucksack, laid it down. The bedsheets looked clean, but the smells of sweat and insecticide contaminated everything.

  How did I get here?

  He had left England with almost no ambition beyond leaving. It had hardly mattered where he went, only that he put some space and time between himself and the life he had damaged beyond repair. Three months had been the most he could take off from his obligations, and Athens was somewhere he knew, a destination that would not seem untoward to his colleagues and friends.

  And so now here he was, in Athens. The sweat was cooling on his back. He was shivering with the cold. The discomfort of the room was nothing to him, but now that he had come to a stop he found himself uneasy. It was unsettling that he should have stepped out of his old life and ended up so quickly here. In a room above a meat grill, in the backwoods of a foreign city.

  It was as if he had gone wrong somewhere. As if, at some point, he had turned down the wrong road without ever realising it, so that now he headed on towards some dark and unexpected place.

  –Is not so bad.

  When he turned the man was watching him. He had spoken in English. He transferred his cigarette into his left hand and held the right outstretched.

  –Kostandin.

  –Ben.

  –English, right?

  –How do you know?

  –You look English, Kostandin smiled. It was a good smile, crooked and wry. –And maybe the boss said.

  –What’s he like?

  –Like a boss. Sit, sit!

  He motioned to Ben, drawing his legs out of the way, nudging his cigarettes across the sheets. His eyes were deepset, the skin darkly pigmented within the sockets.

  –Most of the time is on vacation. When is here, he never trust no one. He nodded his chin towards Ben’s rucksack. –Not me, not you, not his wife. Only his son. Watch out for the son. Where I come from we say, Shake hands with a Greek, then count your fingers. With the boss you count them, with the boy you look for blood.

  He nodded, awkwardly, searching for the right thing to say.

  –How long have you been here?

  –Too long. Two years. The pay is shit, the food is good, the room…as you see. Long hours. Is better when we are busy, then the time goes faster. But the boss is okay. The room is free.

  He was still cold. His clothes were wet. The man’s tobacco lent him warmth.

  –Where are you from?

  –Albania.

  –Apollonia is in Albania.

  He was gratified when the man’s face softened, becoming unexpectedly tender, his features losing their mournfulness.

  –Our beautiful city of the Romans. You been there?

  –I read about it.

  –Why?

  –It’s what I do. Archaeology.

  –Arkeologji, Kostandin repeated, and nodded. –Ruins, sure. We have plenty of ruins in Albania.

  When his cigarette was finished Ben got up, fetched a towel from his pack and went to the washbasin. A sliver of green soap lay congealed between the taps. The water began to warm. He took off his shirt, scrubbed his face, hands and armpits, dried his hair, clothes and skin.

  –Now you don’t do it. This archaeology.

  –Not right now.

  –So why you come here?

  –I needed a place.

  –But how come Greece?

  –It’s my area. It’s the place I know best.

  –Sure, in archaeology. But England is old country. Buckingham Palace, Windsor Palace. You do archaeology in England. Is better.

  He rescued the soap from the plug, replaced it between the taps, rinsed its grease from his hands. The agricultural calendar was open to February. Under the picture, Auster Slaughterhouse Ltd, Kalamata was captioned in English and Greek. In the photo, an interminably bored young woman was severing a pig from snout to anus.

  –Why not stay in England? the man insisted, and Ben shrugged, to delay, perhaps to postpone the need to answer, his hackles rising. –You going to do some archaeology here?

  –No. Look, I told you, I just need somewhere to stay.

  –What are you, then, a teacher? A student?

  –Both.

  –You look like a student. But students have their own places. Maybe you are kind of something else.

  There was a cataclysm of pans from downstairs, the sound of voices briefly raised. Ben pulled on his shirt. –Maybe I’m something else like you.

  –No. Kostandin’s own cigarette was finished. His arms lay across his upraised knees, his eyes motionless on Ben, his lean body folded away against the wall. –Not like me. Nothing like me. You are another kind of something else.

  Archaeology. From the Greek arkhaiologia, meaning discourse on ancient things.

  He didn’t think of it that way himself. The study of secrets: that was what it was to him. The way the past could be put back together, piece by piece, by force of ingenuity and rational intelligence. The way history could be bared.

  The body in the gravepit and the notch in the skull; the meaning of its jewels and the method of its sacrifice; the pollen in the poison in the wineskin at its feet…it could all be discovered. Could be rediscovered. All things would answer, in the end, if you knew how to question them. If you were patient, if you listened, the earth itself would speak.

  He remembered Nessie’s voice, the day that he had left her.

  The dawn fog had begun to lift. The sky beyond had been a flawless grey, as if Oxford lay under a northern sea. He had stopped the car on Foyt’s square and turned off the engine, cautious as a stalker. The house had been visible through the pines. There had been lights on downstairs. Foyt’s car had still been in the drive.

  He had meant to see her, one more time, but when it came to it he couldn’t face Foyt again. Instead he’d sat there like a coward and called up the number on his mobile. The streetlights had still been on, their circuits set to winter time, their heads ringed with lit fog. He had stared through the trees at the house while he waited.

  The au pair had answered, a nondescript girl with a name he always forgot. Foyt had hired her himself through o
ne of Oxford’s many language colleges.

  –It’s Ben.

  –Ben?

  –Vanessa’s dad. Can I speak to her?

  A voice in the background, the girl covering the mouthpiece. He had caught the sound of his own name and Foyt’s voice. Tell him…

  Then the au pair had been talking again, Foyt leaving her to it. Delegating him.

  –You can ring later? She has her breakfast now, and then we go to the nursery…

  –Just for a minute. Or look, I’m just round the corner, I can come by–

  –Now? No, now is not good.

  Sunniva; that was the name. She had always looked sullen when he came for Ness, and she’d sounded sulky then, as if she had been waiting for a boyfriend to ring and picked up on a telemarketer.

  –You can ring us at the nursery?

  –What? No. Look, Sunniva–

  –Sunniva.

  –That’s what I said–

  –You’re going away, yes? A holiday. Greece. Emine said so.

  –It’s not a holiday.

  –It will be nice for you.

  He had closed his eyes. The anger had welled up in him, then, useless and hopeless. It did that so often now. It was as if his reserves of it had grown during the months of separation. It was as if there were a sea of it inside him, cold and tidal and unkind. It terrified him. He would grow angry so quickly, sometimes with total strangers, like Kostandin the Albanian, but more often with those he loved, with Emine most of all, so that however much he wanted to see her he no longer trusted himself with her. He would dream of such terrible things. Breaking open her skull, prising the fragments apart, to find out what there was left in there for him.

  Only thoughts. He would never have touched her. But then he had already done so once, in his own needful way. Once had been more than enough for both of them.

  –Hello?

  The girl’s voice had changed. It had become prim and brisk, the tone she would use with a recalcitrant child.

  –I’d like to speak to my daughter.

  –We are late for the nursery, and she is not dressed yet.

  –I don’t need her dressed, I just need–

  –If you want you can speak to the professor.

  –Oh, for Christ’s sake–

  From somewhere in the distance, garbled by transmission, another voice had reached him; a falsetto bellowing. There had been a sigh, then the clunk of the phone; an altercation, coming closer; then, finally, heavy breathing.

  –Daddy.

  –Shrimp.

  –My name’s not Shrimp.

  –No? I’ve got the wrong number, then. Who is this?

  –It’s me but my name’s not Shrimp.

  A shadow at the kitchen window. He had watched the blind darken, his enemies looming up and away.

  –What is it, then?

  –You should know because you named me.

  –Is it Nessie?

  –Yes.

  –Hello, Nessie.

  All the anger had drained out of him in the time it took to say her name.

  –Daddy, how old are you?

  –How old? Oh, ancient. Why?

  –Mark’s dad is fifty.

  –Mark who?

  –It was his birthday party we went to, silly!

  –Right. Head like a sieve. Did you sleep well?

  –Hm. We’re eating breakfast now. Me and Sinny. That’s what I call Sunniva now, Sinny, it’s a nickname, like Shrimp is a nickname, but better.

  –You don’t sound like you’re eating.

  –Not now. After and before. What’s so funny?

  –Nothing. Mum said you wanted to talk. She said you wanted to ask me something?

  –…I did, but I forgot.

  –Oh well. Listen, I had a good time yesterday. How about you?

  No answer. He had still heard her breathing, but her attention had gone elsewhere, drawing away. Already he had been losing her.

  –Hello? Hello, Nessie. I want to speak to you. Hello? I want to speak to you. Nessie, he had said, trying to be calm; and suddenly she had been back again, louder and much closer than before, like a radio signal emerging through interference.

  –Daddy, are you going away?

  He had told her about it many times, ever since he had been certain of the necessity. She had never seemed to understand. He had almost regretted it, then, that she had grasped it at last. He had wondered who had explained it to her, or if the information had been there all along, dormant, waiting for acceptance.

  –Are you?

  –Yes. Yes. We said goodbye yesterday. Did you forget?

  –We always say goodbye.

  –Yesterday was different.

  –I didn’t know.

  –It’s just for a while. Is that alright?

  –I don’t want you to.

  –I have to.

  –Why?

  –For work.

  Such a lie. Had it ever been a white lie? It had been so easy to lie to his child.

  –Where are you going?

  –A place called Athens.

  –Athens is a stupid name.

  –It’s just for a bit, love.

  –When will you be back?

  –In the summer.

  –When’s the summer?

  –You know that. After the spring.

  –Is it spring now?

  –Almost, he had said. –Almost spring.

  No sound. A car had gone past through the grey, and then the square had been silent again.

  –Nessie?

  –Okay. You can go.

  –I’ll be back before you know it.

  –No you won’t. I’m going now.

  –Wait–

  –I’ve got to go. We’re very busy here.

  –Nessie?

  But his child had gone, and it had been only the girl he would soon forget who had came back to the phone to say goodbye.

  There were nine of them at the grill. Lowest in rank were Modest and Florent, Albanian brothers arrived that winter from just over the border. Less junior by virtue of culinary skill and age were Kostandin and Ben. Some weekends Mrs Adamidis’s nieces would help out with the waiting for pocket money. Adamidis and his wife oversaw them all, and had worked the restaurant together for thirty-eight years. But the pinnacle, the top of the grilled meat food chain, was their son, Nikos.

  Kostandin had earned more trust from Adamidis than he liked to admit: to do so would flatter the Greek too much. Often the owners would be away, on business or pleasure, and then Kostandin would be entrusted with the role of front-of-house man, not only cooking but hurrying out to greet and entertain, sometimes distributing largesse, the sparse courtesy of a glass of three-star brandy where it would bear fruit later. In any case, whether Adamidis was there or not, the kitchen work and much of the waiting were left to Ben and the Albanians.

  Every day it opened the restaurant was busy. It filled up for the lunchtime main meal and filled again late in the evening, when the midday crowd of construction workers would be interspersed with couples in search of corner tables, hangdog travelling businessmen who smoked as they ate alone, students from the local college, and the occasional family, complete with children for Adamidis to dote on and spoil with spoon sweets and Pepsis. Few foreigners came to Metamorphosis, but the meat grill had no need of them.

  The work was relentless. He had taken the job as a temporary thing, a stopgap, but it did not feel that way. By the end of the first night scars and burns had already begun to mark his hands and forearms. The burns crawled with pain, as if there were something lodged and living under the welted skin. In the days that followed the wounds healed slowly and imperfectly. There was a permanence to them that was disturbing.

  There was the smell, too. From almost the first moment he set foot in the place its odours crept into the fabrics of his clothes and self–ammonia, cooked meat, raw meat–so that even on his mornings off, when he read or walked in the park, the impression of hunger clung to the edges
of his consciousness.

  He was not always unhappy. It was hard work for soft hands, but he knew he could survive it. He knew enough about shame not to be ashamed of it. When he contemplated the endless appetite of the customers, the food that came back to the kitchen as waste, the place disgusted him, and away from it, too, he loathed the mindlessness of the work. But it was sometimes different when he was there. The shifts were backbreaking, yet there was a rhythm to them which he found himself caught up in when he considered it least, a pattern of tasks which gathered up all his attention, a dancer’s understanding of those around him, a pack mentality, so that he would look up from turning meat, giving orders, taking orders, to find to his astonishment that hours had passed, and the sun gone down into dusk outside.

  To be with someone. To be a part of something.

  It was something that happened most completely when the place was at its most hectic, when the temperature and grinding nervousness in the kitchen were almost unbearable, so that he would step from its oven-heat into the cool and civil noise of the dining room with no time to feel relief. Kostandin had been right: the work ate time. It devoured not only hours but days–years, perhaps, given the chance–so that he woke one morning into nine o’clock quiet and lay still, counting the days to find that he had been in Athens a fortnight. Two days before his birthday had passed uncelebrated. He had turned twenty-five without knowing it.

  He dreamed of his wife and child again. They were just the same, paused, as if they had been waiting for him on freeze-frame. The stars shone through the porthole behind them. They flew together through the darkness in darkness.

  How wrong he had been to leave them. In his dreams his leaving was revealed as the mistake it was. He should never have left Oxford. He had given up too easily, however far he and Emine had gone wrong, whatever wrong he had done them. The moment he had left he had gone wrong again.