The Secret Sister by Fotini Tsalikoglou, Mary Kritoeff Page B

Jonathan, I just couldn’t bear it.
”
 
    â€œWhy did you do it, Mama?”
    â€œShe’s protected there. Here everything’s . . . everything’s . . . open, open windows, drafts, noises. She’ll have peace and quiet there.”
    You started playing louder, Amalia, banging on the keys ferociously. Demosthenes cowered in a corner.
    â€œ
I couldn’t bear to listen, Jonathan. I just couldn’t bear it.
”
    I felt the anger welling up inside me.
    â€œWhatever you feel like doing,” I threw in her face, “whatever harebrained idea you get into your head, who are you to decide about our lives, who the hell are you?”
    And it all came pouring out of me at once. I asked her about our father. For the first time.
    â€œWho is he? Forget the lies you’ve been feeding us all these years and just tell us.”
    â€œWhat does it matter?”
    â€œHow dare you? Who are you to decide what matters?”
    She began mumbling something.
    â€œHe’s a stranger, I didn’t want it to go any further, an unknown father leaves no traces. I didn’t want any traces.”
    â€œWas he indigent? Homeless? At the Blue Mountain there was a man who called me his son, was it him?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWas it the same stranger with Amalia?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIs she my full sister? Same mother, same father?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just die?”
    That was when you stopped playing, Amalia, your fingers, which had been running wildly over the keys, stopped in midair. “I’m leaving,” you said, but you didn’t, you stayed there, looking down at the piano keys as if you had kept on playing.
    â€œWhy don’t you just die?”
    She looked at me without moving. Like a statue. As if gazing at me from afar. She bowed her head, touched her chin, and I remembered the funerary stele at the museum.
    â€œWhy don’t you just die?”
    She began speaking gibberish. I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
    â€œ
No, Jonathan, it’s not true, don’t play hide and seek with your memory. Mama answered you, she didn’t speak gibberish at all, she said:
    â€œ
‘I can’t die because dead people don’t die, I can’t die because I’m already dead, from the moment I took the place of a dead woman. My family saw to my death before I was even born.’
    â€œ
That was what our mother said, Jonathan. And it was then that I stopped playing, I stood up and left the room, remember?
”
 
    It’s been a long time, Amalia.
    â€œ
Fourteen years, Jonathan. January 2013. You’re traveling to our land of origin.
”
 
    Amalia, you shouldn’t have . . .
    â€œ
There’s no such thing as should or shouldn’t have, Jonathan. Who are we to say? Who are we to change it? The destiny of the world is more important than our own.
”
 
    Once or twice a week I would visit Grandma. She was growing old with a quiet dignity. Her health was good and her mind was in fine form for her age. At first, you’d come along too, but then you stopped visiting. I would go alone.
    â€œ
Grandma wanted you there alone, Jonathan, my presence prevented her from speaking.
”
 
    Eight years went by. Menelaos’s diner was sold to an Italian. Its name was changed from “Ellinis” to “Bella Napoli.” Once a month you played piano there and sang. Your friends would come along, Michael, too. Music won you over. You kept practicing and playing the piano. And I would sit and read for hours on end and look for a job to justify my existence. We were too old to go roller skating or ice skating, too old to feed the squirrels in the park and play hide and seek with them, too old to ask: “Mama, where do you drift off to, why won’t you speak to us?” The colorful crowd was always there, in the streets, on the avenues,