A Colder War

20

There was nobody on the beach.

Iannis Christidis sat alone on the damp, low-tide sand, listening to the near-silent rhythm of the folding waves, his brain numb with alcohol. It was perhaps two or three o’clock in the morning; he had long since lost track of time. Reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt, he pulled out a crumpled packet of Assos and clumsily tapped three cigarettes on to the hard sand. He let two of them roll away on the wind and pressed the third to his lips. Then he reached into the pocket of his trousers for a lighter.

A last smoke for a condemned man. He could not even taste the tobacco. The first inhalation of smoke tilted his head back so that he was looking up at the black sky, tracing stars in the blinking double-vision of his drunkenness, then a gasp as he rocked forward and groaned and fell to one side.

Christidis picked himself up. He pressed his fist into the sand and sat up straight. He looked out at the water again, at the black night, the silhouette of a fishing boat moored fifty metres from the beach. This was his island. This had been his life. This was the decision he had made and the mistake was too great now, the shame and the guilt. Everything to live with, nothing to live for.

He was sure now that he was going to do it. He put the cigarette in his mouth and began to scrape at the ground in front of him with both hands, like a dog burying a bone. He was pulling back the wet clods and piling them up at his feet so that his shins and the top of his knees were soon covered in thick sand.

As a child he had played on this beach.

He choked on the cigarette, the smoke doubling back on the wind and stinging his eyes. He spat it out on the ground, spittle running down his chin so that he had to wipe it away with his sleeve. He reached around and felt his wet trousers, taking out the wallet and tossing it into the hole he had made. Taking off his watch and his wedding ring and throwing those in, too. He started to put the sand back, to cover up the hole, the waves suddenly louder, as if the tide was rushing in to carry him away. A ship must have passed in the strait a few minutes before. Iannis was able to realize that. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as he thought he was.

He packed the last of the sand over his personal belongings, stood up and stamped down with his feet. He wasn’t even sure why he was burying things on the beach. So that they could identify him. So that they would know that he was gone. Otherwise someone might walk past in the next few hours and steal the wallet, the ring, the watch. Christidis began to take off his trousers and underpants, his shirt, threw the packet of cigarettes on the sand. Balancing on one leg, he took off first one sock, then the other. He wondered why he was still wearing them. Why hadn’t he taken off his socks? His whole head was suddenly black with the noise of the sea and the night and the fear of what he was about to do.

Christidis stumbled forward. He hoped that somebody was watching him and that they would stop him from moving forward. But nobody came. He walked into the water and felt the sand suddenly subside beneath him, a steep cliff dropping away beneath his feet. He was up to his chest, the sea in his mouth, spluttering and gasping for air. But he began to swim, heading away from the shore. Moving.

All of the alcohol and the dread was suddenly out of him. He was swimming past a boat, heading out into the open water. He almost reached out and touched the stern, but knew that if he did, he would never let go. He went past the boat, turned and looked back at the rocking silhouette. The beach was grades of blacks and browns and Christidis was out of breath. He thought of his clothes on the flat wet sand and the wallet buried in the shallow hole beside them. All of that his past now. His life.

He was treading water, looking back at Chios, the salt in the water crackling in his ear. Don’t be a coward, he told himself. Don’t go back to what you are living through. He had tried to face the wall of his shame. He had thought that time would make everything all right. But he had been wrong.

He turned and continued swimming. Moving east in the direction of the Turkish coast, taking himself further and further away from Chios. Getting tired now. Starting to worry. Getting cold. He knew that was a good thing. He knew that it meant the sea would eventually take him.