“You’re the one who’s going to pay, μαλάκας,” said the first one. These men were new in town. They weren’t backing down. The manga realized that, and he was afraid.
But he was afraid only inside. The manga was outside, with his coat slung over one arm. There was a reason for that, now and then. The arm is quicker that way. The manga’s knife was in his hand and slicing up into the first man’s nose before anyone knew what was happening. It was like a blood-filled balloon popped in midair. Everyone started shouting, but the first man’s shriek stood out. The manga kicked him in the crotch to make him stop.
The guy on the left flew at the manga and ran face-first into the coat the manga has just shrugged off his shoulder. The third man followed the first to the floor, kneeling and clutching at his comrade. The first man’s hands were up at his face, blood pouring out from between his fingers. The manga glanced down and decided to take the third man’s ear off, then spun and plunged his knife into the flailing second man, piercing his own long coat. He finished with a kick to the second man’s head.
“I’ll call the police!” Anita shouted from behind the counter. The manga briefly considered throwing his knife at her, but instead just covered the ground to the countertop in two steps, leaned over it, and smacked her hard across the face.
“Money! Four hundred dollars,” he said. “And you owe me a new coat.”
As Anita was falling to the floor, he said to her, more calmly, “I see another Nazi in this place, it burns down.”
It was a very late night for the manga, and for his Papou. There were calls for the old man to make, and even a two a.m. meeting with a few of the friendlier police officers from the old days. Self-defense, sure. It was three on one. And the fascist with the stomach wound had been carrying a pistol. Not on him, but in a knapsack under the booth. The one with his EU passport in it.
All three of the men were named Nikos. They were being stitched up. The one guy might even be able to use headphones again one day. It would be easy for the police to get them back to YVR, so long as Anita insisted that she had seen nothing at all, not even the manga, and that the bruise from her face came from slipping on a spilled egg in the kitchen earlier during her shift. Another phone call, from Papou to her parents’ home, made sure she would.
As the sky lightened Papou slept finally, his snoring audible from the living room. Yiayia came out with a plate of scrambled eggs, made the way Manolis never liked them — with olive oil instead of a pat of butter and a splash of milk. It was the first time in his living memory that his grandmother served food without a smile.
“Why you take Papou’s old clothes, eh?” she asked. “Don’t you have money for your own?”
“The Nazis, Yiayia.”
Yiayia clucked her tongue. “The Nazis.”
“Papou hates Nazis. You hate Nazis.”
“You don’t know what Papou thinks of the Nazis,” Yiayia said. “Half his family was Nazis. Papou waves whatever flag someone gives him. Nazi, Communist, Canada. That’s what’s good for business.”
“But he never talked to Big Manolis again,” Manolis said. “Because he was a Nazi collaborator. Manolis’s sister turned down his food, she—”
“Shut up,” Yiayia said. Manolis flinched as if smacked. Yiayia hated shut up. She used to scold Manolis when he was young, telling him never to tell Mikey or Popi to shut up. When you say shut up, your face ends with a frown; it’s the devil in you, she’d say. When you say, “Be quiet, please,” your face ends with a smile.
“Oh, baby-mou,” she said. “Yiayia’s sorry. Big Manolis wasn’t a Nazi; he was just pretending.”
“Then why’d you cut him out of the picture? Why did Papou never speak to him again?”
“During the war, he went to his sister’s with food and money. She’d just had her baby, little Toula. Beautiful baby. And Manolis gave Toula so many kisses and held her and told her of all the good things he could bring her, and then she died.”
“But that wasn’t his fault...”
“Manolis, he said all these beautiful things, then forgot to spit. Vasso was so angry, she sent him away.” Yiayia crossed herself three times. “Then the baby got sick, got sick and died. The devil took Toula away; it was the vaskania. Manolis had given her the evil eye and killed a little girl. All he had to do is spit, and he wouldn’t. He said it wasn’t modern. He liked to be modern, not messing with goats and olives like everyone else. It’s like he didn’t want to be Greek.”
“Come on, Yiayia, it was war. She was probably starving, sick and weak. The evil eye?”
“Vasso’s husband was a Communist. Everyone in the village knew it. She was too ashamed to go to the priest and have him make the prayers to save Toula.”
“You know that’s not how it works,” Manolis said.
“In Greece, that is how it works. Vasso wanted to be modern too.” Yiayia looked over Manolis’s borrowed clothes again. “It’s good you’re not modern.”
Manolis didn’t correct his grandmother. He ate his eggs quietly, and kissed both her cheeks, and shuffled out the door, one foot dragging, and got the hell out of that apartment before sunrise, before his grandfather woke up.
Survivors’ Pension
by S.G. Wong
Victoria-Fraserview
They’re waiting for me as I leave the cemetery.
The hefty one gives a slight bow of the head, then grabs me by the elbow. His friend, tall, slender as a reed, gives our surroundings a quick assessment. My heart races. I know everyone else is gone. The open grave awaits the digger, the massive backhoe parked ten feet away, on the paved path.
“You were a good friend to Mrs. Lin. We saw the happy photos on her phone,” says the hefty one, gaze flat. “She pointed you out to us.”
“Before she died.” The reedy one has a deep voice, like a bass singer.
“I don’t know what...” I try quavery puzzlement.
“Skip the theatrics.” The hefty one twists my fleshy arm in his hold until I hiss. “She told us about your insurance scam.”
I bite down on my tongue, taste blood.
“And your ghost.” His breath smells like cigarettes and something overly sweet, Coke maybe. “We’re gonna take over the scam, then we’re gonna take the ghost.”
“You can’t just—”
He tugs me toward the mausoleum, his companion close behind. I have a hard time keeping up. The reedy one slides past me, opens the door, checks for bystanders. His shoes squeak on the marble floor.
The hefty one shoves my shoulder, rotating me sideways as I stumble over the threshold. My face collides with the doorframe. I feel a splintering pain in my left eye, a vertical line of agony. My sharp cry echoes across two floors of empty, dead space.
I shake my head, wince at the resulting throb from my eye. “Whatever Stella told you, the scam’s over. Everyone’s gone.”
The hefty one flicks his hand. I reel from the slap. “You’re not,” he says.
His partner looms inches from my face. “Heal it. Show us the goods.”
Damn it. Damn Stella and her big mouth to the eighteen hells.
The big one pushes his thumb against the top of my left cheek. I smell earth and copper on his meaty hand. “Do it, old woman, or I break a bone.”
No good choices. “Just... gimme some air, all right? I can’t work with you breathing in my face.”
I back up against the wall. The two brace themselves, bouncing on the balls of their feet. I want to laugh. Like I’m going to fight.