Rhodes, Greece.
Papas Yiannis, an overweight Moses with tortoiseshell glasses, unruly hair, and a long beard the colour of damp cigarette ash, had walked over from his house across the road. He and Bubba had hatched a plan and wanted Naomi to take care of it.
‘We’re depending on you to do this,’ he said earnestly.
‘But why? It won’t work!’ Naomi said. ‘You can’t just post a gun to England. And what’s Rebecca going to think when she receives it? I’m astounded that my own grandmother and you, Papas, a man of God, have thought up this crazy idea. Have either of you considered the possible repercussions?’
They both pulled in their chins and blinked. She continued. ‘Where did it come from, and why is it in our house – our home?’
‘Naomi, your grandmother will explain the whole thing when she’s stronger. Trust her.’
‘After everything I’ve done for you and your sister.’ Bubba’s one drooping eye appeared emotionless, the other overcompensated and glared angry daggers.
Instantly, Naomi felt the presence of Rebecca; this was about her and, for a second, she resented it.
Now, beyond the striped rug hanging over an archway, Bubba was asleep in her bedroom that used to be their lounge. Papas Yiannis had gone back home across the street. Naomi stared at the gun on the table and tried to rationalise what had happened, but her thoughts were far from clear. She was overwhelmed by relief, grief, and an odd sensation that had made her insides quake the moment she had returned from the beach and saw her grandmother with a gun.
So much could have changed in the seconds after she walked into the cottage. How was she supposed to know Bubba was trying to dismantle the gun? Naomi had thought her grandmother was going to kill herself. The weight of her own emotions pulled at her jaw, turning her mouth down, and aching in her neck. Tears of relief rolled down her face. She found it impossible to imagine life without Bubba.
The weapon lay disassembled and inert on the time-worn kitchen table.
What was her grandmother doing with an old gun? Where had it come from? What awful deeds were attached to its past? Naomi knew the Jews of Rhodes had a disturbing history. As a child, she had visited the museum at the Kahal Shalom Synagogue in Rhodes Old Town with her sister and grandmother. But young Naomi was more interested in the prospect of an ice cream in the square. Impatiently, she had watched Bubba scrutinise faded photographs of skinny men in baggy suits. The old lady often nodded and muttered, sometimes dabbing her eyes or shaking her head.
Naomi took a calming breath. The tension of the evening made her body clammy, like waking from a nightmare. Her white tank top and khaki shorts hung damp and heavy against her skin. She needed a cool bath, perhaps a fresh bar of her latest Palma violet soap, or her homemade honeysuckle shower foam. Sometimes, the only place she could relax or work on her business plan was in the tub.
She stared at the five pieces of gunmetal that made up the pistol. Despite the weapon being dismantled, her heart continued to thud. Reluctant to touch it, she covered the parts with a tray cloth. The contrast of a cold metal killing machine and the embroidered pink flowers seemed ludicrous.
Guns N’ Roses, she thought playfully, recalling her youth. Half-forgotten nights with Costa came rushing back. Loud pop songs blaring from an evil cassette player notorious for chewing their favourite music tapes. They were sitting on a blanket on the roof in the light of a full moon when Costa asked her to marry him. They toasted each other and their future with cheap beer and sang their anthem, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, until Bubba banged her broom handle on the ceiling under their feet, telling them to turn it down.
At times, their passion for each other would become so intense they wanted to get under that old blanket, but they had feared the priest could see them from his darkened window.
Naomi started up to her bedroom, the stone steps cool underfoot. Shortly after, wearing nothing but the scent of honeysuckle and a bath-robe with Costa Cruises embroidered over her heart, she returned downstairs and rummaged in the kitchen drawer.
Where was the wretched door key?
She glanced around the small room that was desperate for a lick of paint, unable to remember ever locking the cottage, but a gun in her home changed everything. Although the pistol was disassembled, she recalled a film where Al Pacino snapped his weapon together in seconds, and he was blind!
There was a sense of urgency in the night, and she had no chance of sleeping until the house was secure.
Realising the futility of securing the door when the window catch was broken, she leaned out and hauled the louvres closed. Old paint crackled and flaked as rust broke its grip on the hinges.
After bolting the shutters, Naomi spotted the big iron key peeking from behind a length of crocheted curtain. The lock mechanism, also rusted, proved difficult but after a drip of olive oil, the stubborn contraption turned.
Sleep came in fits and starts. She woke in a sweat under the faded patchwork Bubba had sewn together decades back. At four thirty, Naomi abandoned her bed.
In the kitchen, she lit one of her vanilla candles. Released by the flame, the fragrance filled the room along with a glow of soft yellow light. She closed her eyes and inhaled gently.
Ice cream; fudge; Mama’s hair.
Her tentative relaxation shattered when she found herself staring once more at the tray cloth covering the gun. Naomi yanked the kitchen drawer open and swept the offending pistol into it. The clatter made her jump. She glanced at the woven rug separating the kitchen from Bubba’s room. Had she woken her grandmother with the dramatics? She stilled and listened. The gentle snoring paused.
‘Help me . . . help,’ Bubba whimpered.
Naomi’s heart leapt. She pushed the rug aside, turned on the light, and hurried to Bubba’s side. ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ She rescued a pillow from the floor, plumped it and wedged it behind her grandmother. ‘Do you need anything? Some tea?’
‘Tea, yes. What time is it?’ Her eyes, huge and slow-blinking, appeared alien-like in her thin face.
‘Early.’ Naomi sat on the bed and rubbed cream into Bubba’s dry hands. ‘I’ll run you a bath later. You can try my jasmine shower foam, then sit outside for some fresh air while I do your room.’
They exchanged a glance. ‘Sorry,’ Bubba slurred.
Naomi recognised the honesty in her word and she filled with tenderness.
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve nothing to apologise for. Try and get another hour, then I’ll bring you a nice mug of mountain tea, okay?’ She smoothed a strand of silver-white hair away from Bubba’s cheek.
‘Will you take me to the hairdresser’s sometime this week?’ the old lady asked.
Speechless for a moment, Naomi lay her hand protectively over the thick braid that snaked across Bubba’s pillow. ‘But you’ve never been to the salon in your life. What’s brought this on?’
‘I want it cut off. Short and spiky like that TV woman. It’ll knock years off me and be easier to manage.’ She smiled at Naomi, her mouth pulling up on the good side of her face. ‘No need to look so shocked, child. It’s only a haircut I’m asking for, not Botox and a boob-job.’
Naomi giggled, glanced at the small flat screen on the opposite wall and said, ‘You’ve been watching too much American TV. Don’t ever change, darling Bubba.’ She kissed her grandmother’s forehead but, as she stood, Bubba snatched her hand.
‘You will do it, won’t you?’
Instantly, Naomi knew she wasn’t referring to the hair appointment. Her voice hardened. ‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ She tugged her hand from Bubba’s grasp and moved to the door. ‘Have I ever let you down, Bubba?’ The words came out harder than she intended as she left the room.
‘I said words I regret . . . to Rebecca,’ Bubba cried. ‘They’ve haunted me every day since.’
‘Sleep now . . . Sleep.’ Naomi allowed the rug to fall behind her.
She needed to put her mind to work. The fact that Naomi felt she could rightfully call it ‘work’ was an achievement in itself. A landmark in her business’ progress, and she was obviously grateful for the extra cash. Her last batch of candles and beauty products had made her fifty-three euros. A turning point. Earnings of less than two euros an hour, but that didn’t matter. She had a profit margin. The recent rise in electricity, water and phone prices strained her finances, and she considered every cent that came in and went out.
Naomi longed to have her own shop, with her products artistically displayed on glass shelves. When things got tough, it was this dream that kept her going. She would mix creams and perfumes for her loyal customers, and always have fresh wild flowers on the counter.
The window over the sink drew her attention. Above it, a bare plank fixed by three cheap brackets supported decades of her grandmother’s writing. Greek, Italian, and kosher cookery books, volumes of handwritten lotion and potion recipes, and several hard-backed notebooks containing Bubba’s perfume formulas. A burgundy silk-bound book labelled THE POEMS AND SONGS OF PANDORA COHEN also stood on the shelf. Naomi smiled at reading her grandmother’s beautiful name on the spine and promised herself she would find the time to study the verses. At the opposite end of the bookshelf was the only ornament in the room: the china figure of a singing girl.
She flung the cobalt shutters open, allowing a cool draft to enter the stuffy kitchen. A sudden gust extinguished the candle, leaving a thin wisp of smoke coiling and rising for a moment . . . like a smoking gun. She glanced at the drawer, reached for the light switch, but hesitated when a window across the street lit up. Papas Yiannis was making his early-morning coffee before he left for church.
Movement on the priest’s flat roof caught her attention. Silhouetted by fading moonlight, his granddaughter Marina kissed her boyfriend goodnight, one floor above Papas Yiannis’s head. From the darkness of her kitchen, Naomi watched them and recalled the magic of romance. He lifted a simple ladder and lowered it onto Marina’s balcony. After another hurried embrace, Marina slipped off her high-heels, hitched her short skirt even higher and climbed down to her room.
The two were in love, Naomi knew it. Since his wife and daughter had died, Papas Yiannis, who was already an old man, had become overprotective of his teenage granddaughter.
The boyfriend hauled up the ladder, lay it out of sight, and crossed the rooftops like a cat burglar making his escape.
Naomi recalled the breathless passion between her and Costa when they’d met in Crete. Nothing would have stopped her from seeing the athletic brown-eyed man she’d fallen for and then married. Time proved the strength of their love with two fine sons at university and a husband that she missed terribly throughout the summer season. She turned on the kitchen light and headed for the coffee pot.
Despite his bullying her about the gun the night before, Naomi was fond of Papas Yiannis. His offer to look in on Bubba this morning was a kindness in itself. Since the stroke, Naomi had little time for herself. She mused over what she could fit into her upcoming hour of freedom. Before she left, there were Bubba’s ablutions to deal with, and breakfast . . . then the pistol. She shivered, wondering once again if dreadful deeds were connected to the weapon. Surely not. Nevertheless, the sooner she got rid of it, the better for everyone.
She filled an enamel jug and stepped outside to water the geraniums. The lingering night air cooled her damp skin. She studied the fading stars, glum for a moment as Bubba’s emotional outburst came back to her: after everything I’ve done for you and your sister. So out of character. She didn’t understand what had upset the feisty old woman. The stroke? These days most patients made a reasonable recovery. Bubba knew that.
Strokes were common in Paradissi Village. People blamed the airport, the planes, something to do with exhaust fumes or jet vibrations.
Just a month ago life had been normal, calm and organised. Naomi had ambitions and a modest business plan. Her routine teetered on the brink of change and a tinge of excitement hung in the air.
After many years of putting others first, her days had become her own once more. An adventure. She wore makeup, painted her toenails, and socialised in a quiet way. The girls’ poker night was the highlight of her month. She regarded her occasional lunch at a beachside taverna and her fortnightly trip to the hairdresser’s as pure luxury.
How short-lived that precious interlude had been. Now she had a bedridden grandmother in the living room, and a gun stashed in the kitchen drawer.
There was no doubting that the stroke had been severe. Naomi wondered how she would cope if, after living an active life, she was so cruelly poleaxed. To lie on a bed with nothing but a sponge ball to squeeze and a lifetime of memories to contemplate must be torture.
The illness brought on a type of dementia that triggered Bubba’s maudlin recollections, especially when she was tired. One moment she was fine, her old self; the next she would slip into a time of danger and sorrow, and relive her darkest hours. A single word could flip a switch and send her hurtling into a past that Naomi knew nothing about. Bizarrely, she found herself fascinated by these ramblings, although they seldom made sense.
Bubba claimed her old life was nobody’s business but her own. However, when these moments took her, she returned to an era of emotional turmoil; her eyes glazed, tears welled, and she often called out for her father.