[ . . . ] So every Sunday I went to the coffee shop and we sat together, not that we ever said much, to tell the truth. I did the talking, he just sat there, smoking and drinking. I ast if he had a family, what he spent his money on, whether he had seen any other places in the States. Nothing. It struck me, actually, specially in the early days when all I talked about was the village, and how I missed that-and-the-other. He never once said, ah yes, I miss that about the old country too, you know, like most people would. I mean, say I was talking to a Brit, at some point even he’d say, aye, your village sounds nice, I wouldn’t mind seeing the seaside in Vlihada if it’s as pretty as you say. Argyris kept quiet. Never gave the slightest hint he was touched by any of it. Not a peep. Just looked at me like a fish. Couldn’t tell whether he was angry or scairt or hungry, like you can with other animals. In fact, I’ll tell you this much, out of everything, that’s what rattled me most about the guy. Honestly, it spooked me, sent shivers down my spine, the fact he’d spent so many years abroad and never once felt homesick. He didn’t sigh if he heard the name of the place he was born in, or a song he might have danced to in happier times. Nothing. I never come across anything as dark as that. Living in exile didn’t bother him, not a bit.
Why am I telling you all this for, anyhow? Never mind. Bout a month or so after I moved apartments, my boss told me he didn’t need me any more. Said his nephew was coming over from Greece so he’d be taking him on at the restaurant, and I best start looking for work elsewhere. I’d only picked up a few words of Englezika, I just did pot wash and cleaning, so I got by without learning much. Trouble was, I still didn’t have any kind of trade to speak of. Things weren’t exactly desperate, mind, there were jobs around, but I was too shy to make any real connections. Sure, I’d met people, but they was all workers like me. And if you didn’t speak Englezika you always landed the same kind of job anyways. I’ve come here to make something of myself, I thought, not just scrape by. I didn’t give up though. Best keep looking, I figured.
One Sunday, I was talking to Argyris about it all, mainly to get it off my chest, since I never knew if he was listening, he hardly ever answered me. So there I am, talking and talking, and I find myself asking if they needed anyone at his work. I didn’t even know where he worked. I mean, I’d asked him once but got no answer, so I never brought it up again. Like I say, I’ve no idea what possessed me to ask, but ask I did, and to tell you the truth I was expecting a quit-asking-questions, with him downing his cognac as he always did, killing the conversation there and then. You couldn’t do my job. Do you even know what I do? he said abruptly. He really caught me off guard. I’m telling you, I was convinced he paid me no mind dipp. Well, do you? he asked again. No, I said, you’ve never told me, have you? I’m a knocker at Union. I looked at him dumbly. Have you ever slaughtered a pig? he asked. I clicked my tongue, no. But I’ve seen it done, I said, why, what of it? Well, you’ll know then, before you slaughter it, you’ve got to hit it on the head. With a sledgehammer, or whatever. Main thing is to knock it out before you slit its throat, otherwise there’s no getting a handle on it, it could even kill you. That’s what I do, but with cattle. The Americans don’t do it like we do in Greece, we stick a skewer in the gap between the head and the backbone to paralyse it. They kill cows like we kill pigs, with a sledgehammer square in the forehead. He paused for a second. D’you get it? he said. I clicked my tongue again. That’s my job. Someone takes the cattle from their pen outside and leads them into the slaughterhouse, shoving them into these cages where they barely fit. They can’t move dipp, let alone run away. They’re wedged in tight. Well, on top of the cage there’s a sort of ledge I stand on, watching carefully, and when I get the chance, just when the calf stops moving its head, I whack it with the sledgehammer right between the eyes. He leaned across the table and placed two fingers on my forehead, barely touching me, like a priest christening a baby. That’s where I hit it and it goes down. That’s what a knocker does.
I’d never heard of it, I’ll be honest. A whole job just doing that. I told him so. That’s what it’s like here. A factory. Everyone has their role. Wait, I said, is that all you do? Yes. Then another guy opens the side door and the calf falls onto a conveyor belt going round the back, where someone else ties it up by its hind leg, then the machine lifts it over to the guy who’ll slit its throat to drain the blood and what have you. I stared at him, stunned. Wait, so how many calves do you kill in a day to get full wage for a job like that? Two or three a minute. Depends. Are you the only one with that job in the whole factory? Serious as ever, without batting an eyelid dipp, he says, there’s about twenty of us. I couldn’t get my head round it. That’s a nasty job, I said, going in and killing a thousand animals in a shift. And what does he say? I’ll never forget it as long as I live, that’s how much it gave me the shivers: killing has its own beauty. But it’s only beautiful when it’s useful. You’ve got to do it without spite, without hate. A killer doesn’t have to be a brute. That’s why I said you’re not cut out for my job. It takes more than muscle. You have to understand what I just said, too.
I was stumped. He was right, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking, what kind of person wakes up, drinks his coffee, puts his clothes on, and then goes somewhere where they put a sledgehammer in his hands and he starts hitting and killing till dark. And later, when he gets home, he’ll sit and eat, read his paper, do whatever he has to do, all without being bothered by the stink of blood and shit on his body, still able to sit quiet the same day he’d heard all those bellows, all those cries of the creatures he’d killed. How long have you had this job? was all I could ask. Since I got here, he said, thirty years give or take. I tried to speak, but my voice caught in my throat. D’you get it? Thirty years. Thirty years was longer’n I’d been alive. He guessed at what I was thinking and said, I was already “soiled”—he used the English word—least now I was choosing what would dirty me. Before you go getting mixed up with something, just mind you reckon with yourself how it is you want to get soiled. Doing anything at all gets you dirty. That might be the best bit of advice I ever got, cos that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to stay. Being in America, away from home, that’s what soiled me, and it wasn’t what I wanted. And Argyris was right. That’s why I was always griping, but he was the only one who could see it.
I did find a job in the end. I met a grocer at the coffee shop, another Greek, about to open his second shop and he needed somebody to mind the first. The pay was better on account of the extra duties and whatnot, so I managed to put aside quite a bit. I was saving up to leave, you see. I stopped going out, not that I went out much anyways. Sometimes I’d go and see a woman, but that was about it, and I still went to the coffee shop with Argyris every Sunday. Till one day I said, I’m sick of the same thing week in week out, let’s grab a bite somewhere, my treat. At first he said no, not one to break his routine, but I went on and on, so in the end he said, all right, what the hell.
I knew of this one taverna that bought supplies from the shop where I worked, so we went there. We sat down, I started telling him about my plans to go back and such, and when I saw he still wasn’t saying anything, I turned round and said, you’re always so quiet, Argyris. Say something for once, would you? Like what, he said. I don’t know, I said, tell how it was you decided to come here. I’ll tell you, he said, not because you’re asking, but because you’ll listen. Ever since we met at the coffee shop, I knew you weren’t like the others. You always listen, and you’re patient enough to understand. Even when the truth is hard to take, you don’t run away. I appreciate that. Same way I appreciate you bringing me here, it’s a kind thing.
He told me he came back from the war in twenty-two. He stood out from the rest though, since besides fighting in Asia Minor and in Russia, he’d also fought in the earlier wars against the Turks and the Bulgarians, and then in the Great War. Ten years in the thick of it, all in all. Eighteen when I left, he said, twenty-eight when I got back. And when he returned, they made a fuss like you wouldn’t believe, cos he came back with a rank for “exemplary bravery” and medals. A perfect trooper. There were only a handful like him in the whole of Greece, let alone in the village. Just imagine, Plastiras himself had pinned the medal to his lapel. That’s the kind of fighter we’re talking about, his pa used to say, showing off in all the coffee shops. It was around then that Argyris got engaged to m’ mana. Long story short, his old man was so proud of him, he threw a feast for his return. We’ll pull out all the stops, said his pa, invite the whole family. They slaughtered a lamb and baked pittas like it was a wedding, and when the time came to sit down, when everyone was eating and drinking and singing, an old uncle turned round and said, so tell us then, Argyris, what was it like in the war?
I didn’t know any better, said Argyris. After ten years at war, I was green at talking to folk. So I didn’t think twice, I sat there and spilled it all. Every last detail. I spent hours going over where I’d been and what I’d done, how many I’d killed, how a bayonet is one thing and a knife is another, how a man’s throat slits different than a child’s, how Bulgarian women scream different to Turkish women, how a man kicks when he’s hanged and how he thrashes when he’s butchered, how even little babies, who don’t know yet, still cry if they smell blood and see a knife, and I even . . . I even told em about the Turk, how just after killing him, I dropped down and bit off his nose for taking a shot at me like a cheat, and about the girl I sullied at her father’s feet before shooting them both in the head. I told them all of it and if I left anything out, well that’s only because it might’ve slipped my mind. And even though they’d all been laughing and drinking before, now everything had wilted. Not like at a funeral. Worse. Like a mother watching her child get flattened by a cart, right in front of her eyes, that’s how they all looked. M’ mana started crying. Right beside me. I reached out to take a piece of meat from the dish, and my elbow touched her shoulder, that’s how close she was. I froze. Or rather, I got angry. They were the ones who ast me in the first place, why was it my fault? I got up and said, I’m going out for a smoke, and as I stood there by the log pile, smoking and trying to hold back the rage that was building up inside me, my pa came and found me, he didn’t touch me, just stood about three feet away and said, Argyris, how much innocent blood have you spilled, son? Then, as if a saint had touched my shoulder, the sea inside me stilled, and I said, that’s what blood’s for, Father. For shedding. Now go on back inside and let me smoke in peace.
When I went back in, they were all making their excuses to leave, as I’m sure you can imagine. Even when people know the truth, they can’t stand to actually look at it. Well, they sure as hell couldn’t.
And me, what could I say to that? I was lost for words. Argyris said that after that night, he was like a leper in his own home. If they could have, he said, they’d have washed every single thing I touched. But the worst thing was how they looked at me. Terrified. Can you imagine dipp? For your mana and father to look at you and fear you? Time passed, two three months, still there was no letting up after what happened. Eyeing me constantly they were, and if I turned to look, they’d lower their gaze to the ground. I couldn’t breathe. That’s when I decided to go. I didn’t care where. Away. That’s all I could think about. Somewhere far away. Looking at my options, America was the furthest place I knew, so I figured that’s where I’d go. I had to fight for it, mind, cos back then they didn’t let many folk in, but I managed. I got ready to leave, packed up all that was mine in the house, from underpants to photographs. M’ mana dropped to her knees. What are you doing? she asked. You’re going away and leaving nothing behind for us to remember you by? I said to her, what do you want a picture for? To cry over every day, like I’m dead? When that’s what you’ve been praying for, the whole time I’ve been here? Over in Turkey, a thousand mothers curse my name, well, what’s one more? I said, and left. When I arrived here, I didn’t know anyone, and it felt like I’d been given a new lease on life. But I knew the dirt would follow me. Ten whole years. Work hadn’t made me a man, like it had others. Killing had. And I knew it would be back all right, since even once the war was over, I’d still be looking for blood. When I looked at folk around me, all I could see was where to cut, where to squeeze, where to strike to bring them down. I knew I had to rein my soul in, otherwise the way I was going, sooner or later, they’d have me up against a wall. That’s when I sat and thought about it, and realised that not all dirt is the same. Put it this way, if you see a farmer all caked in mud at church, you’d say he was dirty. But if you see him covered in mud in the field, you’d say he was hard at work. And because this kind of mud doesn’t wash off your boots, it’s what your soul is made of, you’ve got to look for the right field. Well, I thought, seeing as you was schooled in blood, Argyris, you’ll have to make your way in blood, too. That’s your lot. So one day I went to Union and ast for a job. And when they saw I was the best at this job, they took me on permanent. Everyone came and patted me on the back, Brits, Greeks, Russkis, Germans. Everyone. But again, if they knew what it was I did, that I break heads for a living, they’d only look down on me in disgust, even though I’m a master at what I do. People don’t mind foulness, so long as it stays out of sight and it’s not their hands getting dirty. So long as they can go out, dressed up, arm in arm with their lady friends, free of the stench of it, and pick up cutlery with hands that aren’t swollen with blood and tuck into their steaks without getting dirty. That’s what it means to be sivilaized. Stepping on shit in high heels. It’s hidden, the work I do at Union, just like what I did in the war was hidden, but here, they don’t call me killer, they call me knocker. Easier on the ears. If you’re at the rear, do you have any idea what goes on at the front? If you’re a grocer, a tradesman, a whore or whatever, do you have any idea what goes on in a slaughterhouse? You don’t go to those places, and if you don’t go there, they don’t exist, and if they don’t exist, then who cares what they do there. That’s why I’ve kept on at this job. That’s what I was looking for when I left the village. And if I send them cheques now and again, it’s so they remember, so I can take my revenge for what they did to me, so they never forget it’s because of the killing these hands do that they’re doing all right.
He said a lot that night. It was like he’d been holding back all that time when he was quiet, and when he realised he could trust me, he opened the floodgates and filled a meadow. He told me about the scar on his face, a calf, he said, I missed my aim and fell into the cage and he cut me up with his horn. I enjoyed it though. Pain adds value to the things you do. You need to pay for everything you get. And for every knock, I pay with bones that ache come winter or summer. That way, I sleep easy at night, knowing that everything is in its place. We stayed out late, and for the first time, I watched him get drunk. Him, a man who could down five cognacs at once and still walk straight as a train on its tracks. When we were about to leave, for the first time he shook my hand and hugged me. May you find your home, he told me, and we said goodbye. [ . . . ]
