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Gus

 

Downstairs was packed with bodies.

A sea of them, wall-to-wall, in every room of Smythe Mortuary.

My family home.

At least they were all alive this time. Not that I felt any easier than if they’d all been laid out in caskets.

All the talking. The laughing. The cheek-pinching and back-clapping. The din of conversation punctuated by a sudden barking laugh; of forks scraping across fine porcelain. It was all . . . unusual, given the setting.

Living in this house; descending from generations of morticians, I knew what it was like to exist quietly. Always on the periphery of death.

From an impossibly young age, I’d known all the right things to say if I accidentally ran into a grieving guest on my way out to play ball with friends. I knew how to ask questions and get people talking about their loved one, because even when I was a kid, I recognized that sometimes people just needed a warm body to tell their stories to.

Today, the bodies were here for me.

And no matter how hard I was grasping for that same quick compassion I’d always taken for granted, it was ripped away from me. A carrot just out of reach.

The whole time Mrs. Petsalis had been talking I’d been eyeing the main staircase, waiting for my chance to bolt. I could only joke and charm and keep people at bay for so long. My carefully arranged smile was as frozen as if it had been embalmed in place. My jaw wired shut.

I balled my hands into fists behind my back. My shoulders ached from the strain of holding them erect for so long. I’d exhausted all the ways to covertly wipe coffee and half-masticated graduation cake spittle off my cheek before the elders of my future parish noticed their blunders.

Mrs. Petsalis stopped cooing about her lovely granddaughter who’d be “just right for me” to acknowledge something her husband said. There it was. The lull I’d been looking for.

“Mrs. Petsalis—” I placed a hand on her shoulder. Lovingly, gracefully. I’d hoped.

“Marina.”

“Marina. Would you excuse me for a minute, I need to check on my father.”

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. A liar.

“Such a devoted son. Of course. Bravo, Kosta. I’m so happy we have men like you in the church. I’ll bring Anna next Sunday, yes? A man like you should marry. Uh, such waste of this handsome face.” She patted my face again. Her Greek accent was the same as my Yia-Yia’s. It should have comforted. Instead, her words slithered in the pit of my empty belly and dug deep.

When I entered seminary, it certainly hadn’t been my intention to waste my handsome face on celibacy. I thought I’d be married by now; entering the priesthood side-by-side with my wife, my presvytera.

I’d never expected I’d end up a monk. I liked women. Liked fucking. Way too much. I was good at it.

Fucking ironic.

I backed away, trying to maintain an outward nonchalance while inside, my heartbeat thudded in my throat. Checking one last time to ensure no one had been paying attention, I turned the corner and flew up the staircase, my seminarian’s robe billowing behind me.

I hoped our guests had left the private rooms vacant. They’d all been to enough services here to know the upper floors were family-only. There was more than enough room for them to mill about in the Blue Room and the Mauve Room and the cavernous, mahogany paneled foyer below.

But a morbid curiosity about this house was only natural.

If I could get a minute to myself . . . I’d be okay.

I could swallow again; stick my head out a window and suck in the humid spring air instead of the humid interior air recycled from too many sets of lungs.

A moment alone was all I’d needed. It was all the time I could afford, since the crowd I was running from was here to celebrate my graduation.

I couldn’t ditch them for long.

Pausing at the top of the narrow attic steps, I took a deep breath and blew it out in a long, audible huff. I straightened the high collar of my robe. It still chafed after years of classes and services.

The heavy ornate cross hung just past my heart. It came with the uniform. The one ostentation. The filigreed setting of the jewels cut into my hand as I clutched it, but I didn’t loosen my grip as I turned the knob to open up the solitary attic space.

I took a step into the room and stopped.

Startled eyes met mine. Sage green and impossibly big.

Decca.

She spun around. Her black hair caught the mottled colors of the stained-glass window, the light painting a fractured portrait on the canvas of her hair and body.

She fiddled with her nails before dropping her hands to her sides and huffing out a breath. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be—”

“No, it’s fine,” I lied. “I’m the one who’s not supposed to be up here.”

“There are—” She pointed to the door.

“Yeah.” I nodded once, slowly. “There are.”

I loosened my grip on the cross. The movement caught her attention. Her eyes glittered as she studied the silver and ruby emblem hanging from my neck.

“Everyone’s finding ways to set me up with women in a last ditch effort.” I said, pretending as though I didn’t feel exactly like I was on a gallows; the rough fibers of a noose scratching my neck, compelling me to scream out for my executioner to just kick the damn stool out from under me already.

“None of the women you dated at seminary . . .”

“No.” I smiled half-heartedly.

Something flashed in her eyes. “But then you . . . you’ll just have to put off your ordination. Until you’ve found someone.”

“Decca.” I stopped, searching for any words that didn’t make me sound pathetic. “It’s time.”

She nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

What was she apologizing for? For bringing it up again? Or was it pity that my dick would never get wet again?

We stood in silence for long, empty minutes. Slowly, the knots in my shoulders uncoiled and I felt like myself again.

Why was she here? In my room? What could possibly appeal to her in this unvarnished, bare space?

She took a step closer as she adjusted her necklace. The emotion on her face unreadable. I wished she’d just leave. Leave me in peace to pray and breathe and calm down.

Oh. I was blocking the door. She couldn’t leave. Not without squeezing past me through the doorframe. I hadn’t even stepped fully through the threshold after catching her in my room.

Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled. “I was looking at your books. You have an enviable collection.” She moved to the bookshelf. It was weighted heavily with the texts I’d needed in school: dusty volumes written in Koine Greek, the original language of the Gospels. But there were also modern Bible translations, liturgies, and services—both Orthodox and Protestant. I owned a healthy amount of secular and religious philosophy and important translations of major religious texts: the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the pristinely translated Clear Quran, the Babylonian Talmud, Zohar, and Mishneh Torah, the Canaanite Baal Cycle, the Vedic writings of Hinduism.

I glanced feverishly at the top left with a sinking in my gut. The second shelf from the top was entirely devoted to Wicca, Druidism, Neo-Paganism, witchcraft and various folkloric, indigenous, and heritage practices, especially those concentrated in Appalachia and southern US.

Where Decca’s people came from.

How long had she been in here? Had she noticed how cracked those spines were compared to the other books I’d only referenced occasionally? How dogeared the pages were in the Foxfire series of oral histories?

I’d started acquiring the books in the “witchy” subsection when I was at school in Boston. Back then, Decca and I had spent several nights a week on Zoom calls, talking about philosophy and religion. Her cases. My papers. She’d listen to me humming a chant that constantly ran through my head. We’d work together in silence. We’d watch Netflix.

Once in a while, she’d casually mention something her Granny had done. Sometimes, a surprising, rural phrase would slip into her mostly academic discourse. I’d say nothing, but later I’d comb through my books, looking for vestigial examples of what she might be referring to.

All to learn more about this mercurial woman who’d broken through my walls and forced my friendship.

Now that woman was here, and something told me she’d been waiting for me.

“You have a Satanic Bible?”

I shrugged. “I like to know how all God’s children think.”

I took a few tentative steps into the room but didn’t shut the door.

Decca noticed. Her eyes remained on the door for a split second before she turned and made a beeline for the books.

“What are these?” She pointed to the Greek on the spines.

“Different liturgies. Services,” I clarified, when she looked up.

I moved closer to her and bent low, looking for a specific book, running my fingers over the tops of the spines. “Here.” I wrenched it out from its tight squeeze and handed it to her. “The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. That’s what you’ve seen. When you’ve come to church with my sister.”

She held it like a Holy Relic. The tip of Saint Barbara’s desiccated pinky finger. A fragment of Saint Anna’s skull. I half expected a mysterious beam of light to shine out from the pages and illuminate her face.

I laughed. Her sweet reverence was . . . endearing. “It’s just a guidebook for service. It’s not even blessed. A textbook, really.”

“May I borrow this?”

“Keep it. I have a hundred copies.”

She narrowed her eyes skeptically and opened to the beginning. “To Kosta. I can’t read the rest. It’s in Greek.” She closed the book and held it out to me. “Gus, I can’t keep this. It was a gift. An expensive one, considering the age of its still-intact leather binding.”

“It was. And I’m giving it to you.” I felt for the slits in my robe to pocket my hands in my slacks underneath.

She sighed but hugged the book close to her chest. “Why did he inscribe it to Kosta? I’m assuming that’s you.”

I nodded. “The Greek nickname for Constantinos is Kosta. The American nickname is Gus. The greek Kappa and Gamma don’t sound as different from one another as they do in English. It’s my Grandfather’s name. You can blame him.” I smiled.

“What does it say? The inscription.”

“Congratulations.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I grinned. “No. It doesn’t.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

I shook my head.

“Then I won’t accept it.” She laid it on top of the other books on its shelf.

I sighed. “It’s from my mentor at school. Father Nikiforos Giannapoulos. He was . . . he helped me overcome a lot of condemnation about myself. Things that came from me, rather than from God.” I opened the book to the inscription. I wouldn’t translate it directly, though I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted to hold those cards so close to my chest. “It’s about not losing the light of Liturgy.” I closed the book and handed it back to her. “There’s a reason our church hasn’t altered it’s Sunday service in almost two thousand years. It’s meaningful.”

She looked at the book, then looked up at me. Her lips pressed together in a line, her mind obviously conflicted.

“Take the book, Decca.”

She did. “I’ll treasure it.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that serious.”

“It is to me.” She swallowed and had trouble speaking her next words. “This is the expression of your faith. I want to become familiar with yours, especially since you’ve obviously spent quite a bit of time trying to discern mine.”

I winced. She’d seen the books then. Known what their presence had meant. Heat rose in my throat and face. My little secret had been exposed.

“Why?” I sneered.

“Because we’re friends.”

I snorted.

“Because I do everything for my friends. Your God said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.’

“John chapter fifteen, verse thirteen.”

“Well, I didn’t know that part. You’re lucky I got the quote right. Granny loved that verse. She would’ve laid down her life for her friends and I would do the same.”

Her words—the sincerity behind them—hit me viscerally. I stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

Seeing her as someone I wished could be . . . more.

“Were you coming here to pray? Is that what you rush toward when life gets too real?”

“I . . .” I cleared my throat. It was exactly what I’d thought to do, only I hadn’t expected anyone to have noticed.

Of course Decca had. She noticed everything. Noticed . . . me. Always.

I straightened my shoulders, knowing there was nothing I could hide from her. I’d never hidden anything before, when our conversations had been over the phone or a computer screen, but here, we were . . . vulnerable. Raw. Precarious.

“Yes. I came here to pray.” Though now, it seemed silly. I already felt calmer just being here and talking to my friend.

“This is your safe place?”

Was it? Was this attic the reason I’d rushed up here in a panic to get away from all the well-wishers? I didn’t normally need to rush out of a crowd. I wouldn’t make a very good priest if I’d need to escape my congregants that quickly.

Something had called me up here. I had been drawn.

Had it been just about these four walls?

I gritted my teeth and swallowed. “No. There’s nothing special about this room. Just that it’s far enough away from all the people downstairs. Even in school, with deadlines and the rigor of academia, times of prayer and reflection were carved into our schedules. A theologian once said, ‘When I prayed, I was new. When I stopped praying, I grew old.’ I guess once I got used to praying ceaselessly, I feel . . . old whenever I stop.”

She nodded and smiled tightly. It was meant to convey connection, but I’d never felt so disconnected from everything in the world. The foreignness of my future loomed before me.

A gaping hole.

“I’ll leave you to it then.”

I nodded, barely hearing her. Her shoes clunked slowly over the rough boards of the attic floor. She was still hugging the liturgy book like it was something precious to her.

She was leaving and all the air and light and peace in the room were leaving with her.

“Decca.” I turned. She stopped and looked back. “Would you like to pray with me?”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what her response would be. Her face was always so expressive, it displayed all her conflicting emotions at once. Slowly, her lips parted. A smile broke out, expansive and sunny, like dawn over the mountains. She nodded, striding back toward me.

“Always.”

I took a slow breath, basking in the relief that flooded back into my system. Like an alarm had been blaring and someone had finally turned it off. Or smashed the mechanism with a sledgehammer.

I took her hand. It was warm and soft. I resisted the urge to brush my thumb across her knuckles as I lead her to the bed where it was easy to lean and face the icons in the corner of the room. “I’m going to kneel. You don’t have to. The floor is . . . hard.”

She knelt.

I smiled to myself and knelt next to her, pressing my thumb and first two fingertips together, making the sign of the cross. She’d been to my church with my sister enough times to know she didn’t need to follow my lead. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Glory to you, O Lord, glory to You.”

Her head bent low in reflection as I recited the prayer of Saint Basil. “You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. And though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Open our mouths and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God, the eternal Father, with your only begotten Son, and your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.”

I crossed myself again three more times and rested back on my heels.

We’d both gone quiet after that.

The party continued below, the voices a low din, almost felt more than heard as they filtered through the walls and the cracks in the floors.

The sun had set while I’d been up here, and we were now shrouded in darkness. I turned to her. There was just enough residual light to bring out the contrast in her features. Those dark-painted lips. Hollowed cheekbones. Large, round eyes rimmed in smoky black. In the dark, she looked vampiric and almost . . . Greek. I smiled to myself.

“Open our mouths and fill it with your praise.” She repeated quietly before going silent again. “I can feel how that would calm a tormented spirit. It’s not enough to ask that he take away our pain, but to give us something to fill it up with instead of leaving us with a gaping wound.”

Her eyes flickered around the room, becoming glossy and big. Impossibly big.

“Dec, I’m . . . sorry. If I’d known it would affect you, I would have chosen something different.”

“I think anything you prayed would have this effect on me.” She put an elbow on my bed and ran her fingers through her long black hair. I didn’t see her wear it down very often. “Gus, did you . . . never mind.”

“What is it? You can ask me anything.”

“Do you think I was the reason you came here?”

To my room, she’d implied. Where she had already escaped.

I thought for a moment, remembering that inexplicable transparency we shared. I could keep nothing to myself. She’d know somehow.

But that was beside the point.

“No. I think it was just good timing.”