A Dream of Kings Read online

  A DREAM OF KINGS

  A Novel

  by

  HARRY MARK PETRAKIS

  Copyright 1966 by Harry Mark Petrakis

  All rights reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  Originally published by

  David McKay Company, Inc.

  DEDICATION:

  For my wife, Diana, who has

  endured me for twenty years.

  http://harrymarkpetrakis.com

  Praise for Harry Mark Petrakis...

  "In his tales, violence is measured by brotherhood, passionate hate by passionate love. And in the end it is man who, despite his weaknesses and his blindness, has the right to victory."

  - Elie Weisel

  "I've often thought what a wonderful basketball team could be formed from Petrakis characters. Everyone of them is at least fourteen feet tall."

  - Kurt Vonnegut

  "Harry Mark Petrakis is good news in American literature."

  - Issac Bashevis Singer

  "I've always thought Harry Mark Petrakis to be a leading American novelist."

  - John Cheever

  "Joy. A strange word when you think of contemporary fiction... or contemporary poetry, or contemporary anything. I am tempted to say that Petrakis is unique in our time because in his stories he can produce it, and he does regularly. It is as if some wonderful secret had been lost, then rediscovered by him."

  - Mark Van Doren

  "Petrakis has something more important than skill; a deep and rich humanity."

  - Rex Warner

  TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BIO/HMP

  CHAPTER ONE

  Spring of the year. A morning in early April like a knife driven suddenly into the cold strong heart of winter.

  His body sprang awake to the cries of birds. They were the seagulls taking flight from his dreams, fleeing the winged ship that carried his soul through the visions of the night. With their departure a truce of daylight lingered across the wine-dark and turbulent waters.

  He slid carefully from the bed, edging his big naked body toward the precipice of the lumpy mattress, swinging his legs over the side in an arduous effort not to waken his wife, Caliope. Her body and head were hidden beneath the pillow and disheveled blankets but several long and oily strands of her hair spread like twisted stalks across the pillow.

  The head of the Medusa, Matsoukas thought, and then in affectionate atonement he gently stroked the broad outline of her rump. He felt her flesh quiver and respond even in sleep to the caress of his fingers.

  In the bathroom, the missing tiles making a checkerboard of the walls, he stood before the cracked vanity mirror that severed his face into jagged halves. He soaped his cheeks vigorously and shaved, tilting his head, contorting his mouth to meet each swift slashing pass of the straight razor that he handled as if it were a saber. He flung the soap and stubble the blade gathered into the stool and swept the razor under a spray of lukewarm water on its return to his face. He finished with a brisk patting of scented lotion to his cheeks and then regarded his reflection with satisfaction.

  Despite the distorted visage in the cracked glass, his head appeared hewn from some dark and basaltic rock, his craggy face a ravaged bas-relief from a Greek column. His black hair, giving no hint of his forty-seven years, clustered thickly at his temples. His sharply peaked brows seemed reins haplessly seeking to restrain the wild, dark lunge of his eyes. His broad nose, broken and never properly mended after his match with Zahundos, exhaled into the forest of a roguish moustache that bristled about the ivory stockade of his strong white teeth. The only feature that affronted his vanity were his long and unshapely ears, one a half-inch lower than the other, giving his head a lopsided appearance. In addition both ears had lobes so large they might have provided a pair of smaller ears for a conventional head.

  He gathered his clothes and dressed in the damp and dingy kitchen. He slipped into the same shirt he had worn the day before, trying vainly to smooth the wrinkles, sniffing at the armpits, scowling at the frayed collar, feeling it an imposition to be reminded of his economic debilities so early in the day. He looped his tie into a wide knot and pulled it up to clasp his thick and muscle-corded throat.

  Ready to leave, he walked quietly down the hall, holding his nose in bitter distaste as he passed his mother-in-law's lair, releasing it only when he came to the room in which his two small daughters slept. He pushed open the door gently and listened until he could hear the whispers of breath that rose from their beds.

  He passed down the hall and entered the parlor. Within the bay formed by three high and narrow windows a single child's bed stood, a bed that resembled a cage because of the high bars and railings along the sides.

  He stood beside the bed looking down at his sleeping son, Stavros, seeing the boy quiet for a beneficent interlude, undisturbed by the dreadful struggles that consumed him when awake. Yet even in sleep his flesh seemed an almost transparent shell spread tightly over the bone of his cheeks. His breath, coming in short spasms up the frail canal of his throat, fluttered a network of roots around his mouth, twisting his lips in sour little patterns. His whole body bore an affinity to shadow.

  Matsoukas looked bitterly at the feeble sun barely visible in the sky. Everything was washed in a strange pallor, the window frame, the roofs of buildings, and the arabesque of the elevated tracks.

  He began to speak to his son in a whisper so soft the words barely sounded beyond the edge of his lips.

  "The sun has risen but you cannot see or feel it," he said. "It is pale and without strength and beneath it even the weeds wither and die. But soon now, my beloved, we will leave this place of dark and rot, soon you will feel the sun of the old country, the sun of Hellas."

  He closed his eyes and felt himself caught in a frenzy of recall.

  "You have never seen a sun like that," he whispered. "It warms the flesh, toughens the heart, purifies the blood in its fire. It will make you well, will burn away your weakness with its flame, will heal you with its grace."

  He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a small cube of sugar. He peeled off the paper and slipped the cube under the boy's pillow. He kissed the tips of his fingers and placed them softly against his son's moist cheek.

  He left the flat, drawing the door closed quietly behind him.

  "How are you, Matsoukas?" Toundas, the bartender at the Olympia, asked him uneasily.

  "Enough time wasted on the amenities!" Matsoukas said. "A glass of ouzo and a cup of steaming black coffee!"

  Toundas, frail and lamb-faced, peered nervously at the closed door beyond the end of the bar. "Your credit has been cut off, you know," he whispered. "It would mean my ass."

  "My friend," Matsoukas said gently, "you cannot honestly expect me to fret over the past, present, or future fate of your ass. Just a glass of ouzo and a cup of coffee."

  Toundas poured him the coffee with trembling hands. "Don't you have thirty cents to pay for the ouzo?" he pleaded.

  "Not a drachma! My income goes to sustain my family and not to fill the fat pockets of scoundrels like your boss."

  "I can't!" Toundas closed his eyes. "I can't!"

  "You don't seem to understand," Matsoukas said patiently. "My day is just beginning and it is important that it start well. In the course of this day I will bite into ripe sweet fruit, pull the cork from at least one bottle of wine, take the hand of a
friend—perhaps your fortunate hand—in a pledge of friendship, read aloud a few of the odes of mighty Pindar, look upon the loveliness of women, (but none, he thought, more lovely than Anthoula) perhaps like Prometheus carry my fire into the thighs of at least one, conduct the rigorous demands of my business under the venerable influence of the stars, and, finally sit down to a plate of pungent moussaka."

  At a corner table an early morning drunk sleeping with his head cradled in his arms, snored a sibilant grunt of resignation. Toundas poured a small glass of ouzo and placed it before Matsoukas. He returned the bottle to the shelf and sadly loosened his apron in preparation for his discharge. Matsoukas finished the ouzo and coffee calmly and waved the bartender a fond farewell.

  Outside on the street he walked with a long brisk stride that made the blood flow through his arms and legs. He paused before the window of a haberdashery to admire a tie of scarlet-dotted magnificence. He studied his reflection in the glass, adjusted the brim of his hat at a rakish angle, and buttoned the top button of his suitcoat which he wore locked in military style.

  He stood at the corner waiting to cross, staring with revulsion at the cars streaming past. He was particularly repelled by the miniature ones in the shape of distended beetles. He braced himself wondering if it might be feasible to let a beetle hit him so he might retain an attorney to sue for bodily injury. The cursed things might be deceiving, however, he had heard they were built like small tanks and he could be seriously maimed. He shrugged and crossed the street.

  He entered the Tegea Grocery and breathed with fervent pleasure the sharp aroma of Calamata olives in brine mingled with the scent of mezithra and kaseri cheese. He walked slowly along the counter toward the loaves of cheese. Akragas, the short squat grocer, dark tufts of hair sprouting like the stems of radishes from his ears, stared at him in hostility.

  "My esteemed landlord!" Matsoukas rendered Akragas a snappy salute. "Descendant of the great eunuch, Ali Pimp! All commoners genuflect by clutching the left ball in reverence!" He bent low in a mock bow and grabbed at his crotch with a groan. He straightened up quickly. "Enough fooling around," he said somberly. "Have any clients been in asking for me?"

  The grocer's lip curled in derision. "Have any mice been in asking for the cat?" he sneered.

  Matsoukas started toward the narrow stairway in the rear of the store, pausing to pick up several pieces of his mail from the end of the counter. Akragas delivered a parting salvo.

  "I could have rented that office again yesterday to Madame Galapi for piano lessons," he said loudly. "Instead of such a responsible tenant I have a boob like you waiting for customers who rarely show up. I will not wait two months for my rent again! Next time I sign an eviction notice for sure!"

  "You would miss me, old sport," Matsoukas said. "Be patient and someday I will write you an epinician ode immortalizing your good humor and your generosity."

  Matsoukas heard him grumbling and cursing as he ascended the stairs. He entered a small windowless hall and walked between rough-stuccoed walls from which the old paint had peeled. At the end of the hall, before the dim outline of a glass door, he reached up and caught the dangling cord of the socket. In the first snapping of light he marked with a curse that Akragas had changed the bulb again, substituting one of a smaller wattage. He had to hold the bulb almost against the door to illuminate the lines of black lettering that completely filled the glass. He stood reading each word with the same measured delight he felt each morning, reliving for a zestful moment the years of trial and struggle in which he had nurtured and mastered the listed skills.

  PINDAR MASTER COUNSELING SERVICE

  Leonidas Matsoukas—President

  Doctor of Wisdom and Inspiration

  University of Experience

  and

  College of Life

  Palmistry-Astrology-Omen Analysis-

  Inspiration to overcome drinking, bed-

  wetting, and impotence-Greek poems

  written for all occasions-Real Estate

  Bought and Sold-Wrestling Instruction

  (Hellenic Champion of Pittsburgh 1947-

  1948)-Vocabulary Tutoring-Personality

  Improvement-Talent Agent for Banzakis Restaurants

  (Attractive hostesses in special demand)

  BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

  He inserted his key into the lock and after some grunting and pushing, the balky bolt snapped back and the door opened. He stepped into the small office cloaked in heavy shadows. He walked around the desk sure of himself in the dark, and raised the shade of the single large window. He stood staring down at the kitchen door of the bakery across the alley, feeling his heart lunging in a tumultuous sea of his blood.

  The bakery belonged to Anthoula (even her name ravaged his flesh) since the death of her husband of a heart attack more than a year before. For these many months Matsoukas had been witness to the somber ritual of her mourning. She rose several hours before daylight (he had once stayed in his office overnight to confirm how early her lights went on) and she worked steadily in the bakery until evening, most of her time spent in the kitchen baking the bread and trays of sweets while a tart-tongued old lady named Barboonis waited on trade in the store. Each evening after the bakery closed Anthoula retreated to the small apartment upstairs whose windows faced his window across the alley. After supper she again descended to the kitchen to bake for the following dawn.

  In the beginning he had pitied her because she was young, no more than thirty, and her husband had been stricken in his prime. As the months passed and she held rigidly to her mourning, attending church dressed in widow's black on Sunday mornings, Matsoukas felt himself drawn to her for the fierce allegiance she accorded her dead. At the same time he could not help thinking of her lush and lovely body deprived of a man's caresses.

  Every so often during the day for most of the year (except in the coldest months of winter) she came fleetingly into the alley from the kitchen to empty some paper or scraps into one of the cans. Dressed to work beside the blazing ovens she wore only a sleeveless white shift and Matsoukas had long decided that she must be naked beneath it. The sight of her bare legs and bare feet in thonged sandals, her shapely bare arms smudged with stains of flour, and her glistening black hair bound into a great bun at the back of her head filled him with a wild fluting of desire.

  Yet for all of his longing he had never managed to speak more than a dozen words to her at a time. She rarely emerged from the kitchen. On those infrequent occasions when the trade became too much for old lady Barboonis to handle and she pressed the buzzer by the register that rang in the kitchen, Anthoula came out to wait swiftly on customers and quickly return to her sanctuary. Still Matsoukas knew that Anthoula felt his muted desire. On a number of instances he had turned and caught her appraising him with the admiration of a woman who senses herself in the presence of a virile man. This excited him, and yet each time he determined to scale the cursed moat of counters and trays, respect for her venerable mourning restrained him.

  He turned from the window with a sigh. There was his desk with the scarred and stained surface, a swivel chair that perched crookedly to one side because of a broken bearing, and a pair of mismatched armchairs on the other side of the desk. On the desk was a gleaming and ornately ornamented belt of silver-buckled elegance inscribed:

  FIRST PLACE,

  HELLENIC WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP,

  PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA,

  May 22, 1947

  There was a foot-high alabaster model of the headless and armless Aphrodite of Cyrene, whose smooth and naked buttocks even in miniature were an awesome sight. And on the corner of his desk a jar containing several handfuls of soil he had carried with him from Crete. He had kept this soil near him always, pressing it in his palm at times of anguish and receiving great strength from the fierce black earth, kneaded with the tears and blood of centuries.

  The walls of the office (he had painted them himself after considerable experimental blending of col
ors) were an Aegean sea-green with tinges of Mediterranean purple. They were further decorated by a number of framed testimonial letters from enthusiastic clients, and some photographs of classical sculpture. His greatest pride were the paintings in dark frames of his great-grandfather and grandfather, paintings he had commissioned from a pair of old tintypes he had inherited.

  The two old men were lions with flowing beards and hair that fell thickly to their shoulders and moustaches waxed into steely tips. They were cannoneered with muskets, cartridge belts, and curve-bladed yataghans. Both had been killed fighting the Turks, one in 1866 at the monastery in Arkadi, the other at Megalokastro in 1889, surrounded by the bodies of the Turkish soldiers he had slain. In a futile effort at vengeance the sultan hung his severed head on a pike outside his harem.

  His family well knew the smell of powder and war. As a young girl his grandmother helped cut up the old books the monks brought from the monasteries to make cartridge cases. In 1917, a year after Matsoukas was born, his father died in Thessaly fighting the Bulgarians. In 1942 he lost his brother, Stathis, as they fought side by side in the mountains of Albania against the Italians. When the Nazis came with tanks and stukas to shore up their beaten allies, Matsoukas retreated with his companions to Crete to fight until that blessed island too succumbed. For two years afterwards he fought with the guerrillas in the mountains, making bloody forays against the German garrisons at night.

  For a moment he stood before the paintings, lost in a winged recollection of those zestful days and nights. The campfires before the mountain caves, the fragrance of the lamb roasting on the spit mingled with the aroma of figs and pomegranates and the canary-yellow winter melons. The harsh husky laughter of his comrades, the cleaning of weapons before a battle, the wild joy of combat itself, the smell of powder and death gilding the earth with a keen and jubilant vigor.