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Ibrahim opened the door and his heart immediately sank into his guts.
“Oh, Lord above have mercy,” he said, brows furrowed in worry. “Come in boy, come in.”
He reached his hand out to wave Herakles, who looked miserable as sin, inside. As soon as the young man had stepped closer, he put his hand on his back.
“What’s the matter?” He asked, as soon as the door was closed behind them.
Herakles looked at him, the tired green eyes so unusually wide open to hold all the pleading in them. “I need to talk to Natasa.”
He’s a child, Ibrahim thought.
“Of course you can. She’s in the kitchen, but you can just sit down in the living room, while I tell her you’re here. Do you want anything else? I’ll make you tea.”
Herakles raised his eyebrows for a moment. “No, thank you. Sorry.”
Natasa stepped into the kitchen’s doorway before the two could even make it into the living room.
She sighed. “Iraklis, what happened to you … “
“Can we talk?” he asked.
His hair was unkempt and the fit of his suit sloppy. Why he wore one in the first place baffled her. He was 23 and physically all a man, but she knew the features of his face were yet to deepen. From Apollo to a Kronos. Time would leave its mark on him.
“We can talk,” she said. “Let’s go into one of the guest rooms.”
Herakles nodded. At the end of the corridor, she told him: “You go upstairs, you know the one. I’ll be there in a second, love.”
While Herakles climbed the stairs, she turned to Ibrahim.
“If you need me for anything, you’ll call, yes?” he asked her with his hands on her arms.
“You’re gift enough for being in my life,” she told him and kissed him. “And there is nothing that you can do to help with this.” The smile on his face waned and she climbed up the stairs after him.
Once in the guest bedroom, she locked the door behind them.
Herakles sat on the bed and stared at the night table. Bad memories. She settled on the chair in front of the vanity.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” he said.
“What is the problem?”
Herakles looked at her, with those big green eyes, a look Natasa knew so well.
“Him.”
Bad memories indeed. These days, her doubts about whether or not enabling Herakles to see his lover behind his father’s back really came back to bite her in the ass.
“You’ve talked to him,” she said.
“I tried it again.” He looked away. “But there is no getting through to him.”
“I could try,” Natasa offered, though the idea of getting this involved in the business made her skin crawl. The thought of how her own children were turning 18 and had their mind set on joining Herakles made her sick. Now being the least opportune of times, too. She knew that they knew that there was a rift between Herakles and Sadık, she hadn’t raised two idiots. But even for a smart person, it was hard to grasp that someone who treated you so kindly could be so cruel to you.
“No, you wouldn’t get through to him, either,” Herakles said. “There is no … there is no argueing with that man.”
“Then we won’t argue,” Natasa said. “But if he takes you for so granted that he takes your part of the cake, well then … people need a slap on their fingers.” Or a stab with the cake knife. She sorely wished that she hadn’t left her cigarettes in the kitchen.
“He said I’m overreacting and that I shouldn’t worry.”
“Was that was he said during your last talk?” Herakles nodded. “And what did you respond?”
“Punched him in the stomach.”
She sighed. “Reasonable.”
Herakles stared at the night table. He then stared at the bed.
“Look, Ira, I didn’t pick this room to torture you,” she said. “But he isn’t the boy who laid with you in this bed anymore. And neither are you. He backstabbed you first and unless you’re going to give him a taste of his own medicine, it won’t end well for you in this shark tank.” She had already given him the talk. But he wasn’t stupid either.
“I know,” he said.
So Herakles went and did it, busted a smuggling deal in the Aegean that should’ve been his had Sadık not simply assumed his compliance and taken it for himself.
He ignored the phone calls and e-mails. If someone wanted to convey something by word of mouth to him in the office, he simply shut that person down. That was harder to do when the person was Sadık himself. “What the fuck is this bullshit about?” he asked as he showed up on the doorstep of Herakles’ house one afternoon. He even wore one of his gaudy masks, which made his fury look ridiculous but angered Herakles even more all the same.
He threw the door shut in his face, but of course that wouldn’t work. At one point, Sadık ended up in Herakles’ house. He remembered that they had ended up in the kitchen and he had picked up a knife. Sadık had pulled his hair. He had punched him in the nose. The times where this kind of fighting had ended with them fucking on the floor – Sadık would never get the bloodstains out of that one rug – were over.
Herakles immediately closed the terrace door after he had thrown the front one into Sadık’s face. The strays that had settled into his house did not take well to all the commotion. Some of them had meowed and wailed, which had only riled up Sadık further. On his way out, a large, old white cat had clawed at his leg.
Sadık loudly cursed, glared at the cat and was about to kick it.
Herakles immediately dove in to scoop up the cat and stumble backwards into the corridor.
“Get out of my house,” he told him. “Get out of my house right this second, before I forget myself.” His voice shook with cold fury.
Herakles dreaded to leave his house for the next few hours. Less afraid for himself, no matter how much that thought unsettled him, and far more concerned with the safety of his cats. Yet, after the sun had already set and most of the cats had made it outside to be on the prowl, he made it into the Simonides’ house with a spare key.
He knocked on the walls of the entrance corridor. “It’s me!” he announced himself.
“Hera!” That was Omar.
“We’re in the kitchen!” Natasa added.
Ibrahim, Omar and Timothea sat around the kitchen table and played Uno. Pots and pans bubbled and sizzled on the stove.
“You can be so glad I never paid a penny for your school, otherwise I would have hassled you a lot more about these grades,” Natasa said to her twins and Omar giggled while Timothea tried to hold her chuckle in as Ibrahim stared very concentrated on his hand.
Sometimes he wiggled his eyebrows and had a hard time to keep his own façade up.
“And here, you, Ira, would it kill you to announce your coming beforehand, so I know that I’ve got to stuff five hungry mouths instead of four?”
“I won’t stay here for long,” Herakles said as he stepped properly into the kitchen.
Timothea frowned. “What happened to you?”
Herakles rubbed over the bandaid on his neck. “Nothing to worry about.” He smiled at and stepped towards the table, between Timothea and Omar. “You two are doing fine?”
“Fantastic,” Timothea said.
“Having a great time,” Omar said. He tugged at Herakles’ sleeve to make him lean down to him. He showed him his hand – two 4+ cards.
Herakles raised his eyebrows and smiled. He patted Omar’s shoulder. He then turned to Natasa. “Natasa, could I have your time? It won’t take long.”
Natasa watched Timothea give her brother a peeved smile while Ibrahim rearranged his cards.
“Of course you have. Watch the stove, I’m not having burnt gyros for dinner.”
“Yes Mamá.”
They went back to the guest room. Natasa would have much preferred the terrace or living room, but above all, she preferred her children not being privy to such discussions.
“He showed up, didn’t he?” she asked after she had settled into the chair. Herakles still stood and shot her a curious look. “I’ve got my eyes and ears everywhere, Iraklis.”
Herakles nodded. He walked around the room for a few moments.
“I do have dinner on the stove, Ira,” she reminded him.
He sat down on the bed and buried his face in his hands. His stare empty, he looked at the shelf across of him.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” he said. “For how much longer do I have to do this.”
“Until you snuff it,” Natasa said. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the vanity and lit one. “Or you turn yourself in or live somewhere else under a fake name, leaving everything here behind. But pulling such stunts often leads back to option A.”
Herakles stared ahead.
“I can’t help you with that,” she said and took another draft. “But you know what I can do? Get some chicken gyros into you.”