The Goodtime Girl by Tess Fragoulis Page B

Kivelli’s, she became the only person in the singer’s audience, and an understanding, complete and unequivocal, flowed between them. In a blink of an eye the unknown woman vanished, but the feeling lingered — at least that’s how she would tell it later. In truth, Kivelli hadn’t noticed her at all, but like a story from her childhood repeated frequently by Papa, this second-hand scenario would lodge itself in her mind as her own recollection: the first image in the next chapter of her life, the beginning of everything that later came to pass.
    Kivelli finished her set and joined Sakis and the Cucumber, who bought her drinks and put more in her plate than whole tables of manghes combined, no matter how fancy their English suits, how large their amber worry beads. The big man had taken an avuncular interest in her, and she had a certain grateful affection for him. As for Spiros’s untimely dispatching, the Cucumber said nothing more about it and neither did Kivelli. She’d slept through his funeral and went to work that night as if nothing had changed. Someone else from the band stepped up to take the empty seat on the platform. Lots of guys could play bouzouki; it was nothing special.
    When Barba Yannis came back from the cemetery, he reported that Spiros had been buried without his instrument. His mother needed to sell it since there was no one to take care of her now that her only son was gone. Mitsos the accordion player wondered how the Little Squirt was going to kill time in Hades without it, but Kivelli felt no pity. Spiros had been a poor excuse of a man, no matter how much his Mama loved him, and was no better a musician. His songs quickly disappeared from the taverna’s repertoire after it came out that he’d stolen most of them from Old Batis, who dragged his battered laterna from square to square, singing tunelessly along to the cranked notes and collecting a few coins for his efforts. No one wrote an elegy for Spiros, which was the final insult, though Sakis let drop that the big man honoured him by shitting on his grave. This was both a bon voyage gesture and a confirmation that all debts were paid. Once in a while, Kivelli sang Spiros’s song about the Cucumber and tried to muster a little enthusiasm for it to please her new protector. Thanks to his favour, all the boys at Barba Yannis’s behaved like gentlemen, at least in his presence. And God help anyone who crossed the line. All she had to do was mention Spiros’s name.
    Some people joked that if Barba Yannis had known what a boon to business the shooting would turn out to be, he might have ordered it himself. Then again, who could have predicted any of it? Life was like that. One day you were here, the next, who knew? The men of Piraeus shrugged and nodded and turned their palms skywards. One day Kivelli was beholden to Spiros, the next she was free to do as she pleased. To sit proudly between the Cucumber and sweet-talking Sakis, who enjoyed telling the story of how she’d caught his eye.
    It was on his first rounds with the Cucumber, soon after Sakis had been baptized, and it felt like his birthday, name day and wedding celebration rolled into one. The big man had introduced him to Kiki that night, and only a slop would have turned down such a gift, so he let the blonde with the plump cheeks and narrow hips hang off his arm like a big gold watch, even though it was a fake. He was in high spirits, which got even higher when he heard Kivelli sing. She hadn’t been at Barba Yannis’s very long and knew only a few songs, which she repeated every set, though no one seemed to care and Sakis wasn’t complaining.
    â€œYou growled and purred like a cat that might scratch a man’s eyes out if he rubbed your belly the wrong way. You stabbed my heart and hardened my prick at the same time.” They didn’t call him the Sweet-Talker for nothing. He’d asked around and learned that Spiros