Achilles Alexandrakis was arranging the fruit on his stall in front of
his little shop on Clark Street. It was a clear, breezy morning, cool
for October, but not cold enough to endanger the fruit that Achilles
handled so deftly in his dark, slender fingers. As he built the oranges
into their yellow pyramid and grouped about them figs and dates, melons
and pears, and grapes and pineapples, a look of content held his face.
This was the happiest moment of his day.
Already, half an hour ago Alcibiades and Yaxis had departed with their
pushcarts, one to the north and one to the south, calling antiphonally
as they went, in clear, high voices that came fainter and fainter to
Achilles among his fruit.
They would not return until night, and then they would come with empty
carts, and jingling in their pockets coppers and nickels and dimes. The
breath of a sigh escaped Achilles’s lips as he stood back surveying the
stall. Something very like homesickness was in his heart. He had almost
fancied for a minute that he was back once more in Athens. He raised his
eyes and gave a quick, deep glance up and down the street--soot and
dirt and grime, frowning buildings and ugly lines, and overhead a meagre
strip of sky. Over Athens the sky hung glorious, a curve of light from
side to side. His soul flew wide to meet it. Once more he was swinging
along the “Street of the Winds,” his face lifted to the Parthenon on
its Acropolis, his nostrils breathing the clear air. Chicago had
dropped from him like a garment, his soul rose and floated.... Athens
everywhere--column and cornice, and long, delicate lines, and colour of
marble and light. He drew a full, sweet breath.
Achilles moved with quick, gliding step, taking orders, filling bags,
making change--always with his dark eyes seeking, a little wistfully,
something that did not come to them.... It was all so different--this
new world. Achilles had been in Chicago six months now, but he had
not yet forgotten a dream that he had dreamed in Athens. Sometimes he
dreamed it still, and then he wondered whether this, about him, were
not all a dream--this pushing, scrambling, picking, hurrying, choosing
crowd, dropping pennies and dimes into his curving palm, swearing softly
at slow change, and flying fast from street to street. It was not thus
in his dream. He had seen a land of new faces, turned ever to the West,
with the light on them. He had known them, in his dream--eager faces,
full of question and quick response. His soul had gone out to them and,
musing in sunny Athens, he had made ready for them. Each morning when
he rose he had lifted his glance to the Parthenon, studying anew the
straight lines--that were yet not straight--the mysterious, dismantled
beauty, the mighty lift of its presence. When they should question him,
in this new land, he must not fail them. They would be hungry for the
beauty of the ancient world--they who had no ruins of their own. He
knew in his heart how it would be with them--the homesickness for the
East--all its wonder and its mystery. Yes, he would carry it to them.
He, Achilles Alexandrakis, should not be found wanting. This new
world was to give him money, wealth, better education for his boys, a
competent old age. But he, too, had something to give in exchange. He
must make himself ready against the great day when he should travel
down the long way of the Piraeus, for the last time, and set sail for
America.
He was in America now. He knew, when he stopped to think, that this was
not a dream. He had been here six months, in the little shop on Clark
Street, but no one had yet asked him of the Parthenon. Sometimes he
thought that they did not know that he was Greek. Perhaps if they knew
that he had been in Athens, had lived there all his life from a boy,
they would question him. The day that he first thought of this, he had
ordered a new sign painted. It bore his name in Greek characters, and
it was beautiful in line and colour. It caused his stand to become known
far and wide as the “Greek Shop,” and within a month after it was put up
his trade had doubled--but no one had asked about the Parthenon.
He had really ceased to hope for it now. He only dreamed the dream, a
little wistfully, as he went in and out, and his thought dwelt always on
Athens and her beauty. The images stamped so carefully on his sensitive
brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on
them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or
walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the
sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the
lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to
rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here,
under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face had grown a
little sad.
At first the days had been full of hope, and the face of each newcomer
had been scanned with eager eyes. The fruit, sold so courteously and
freely, was hardly more than an excuse for the opening of swift talk.
But the talk had never come. There was the inevitable and never-varying,
“How much?” the passing of coin, and hurrying feet. Soon a chill had
crept into the heart of Achilles. They did not ask of Athens. They
did not know that he was Greek. They did not care that his name was
Achilles. They did not see him standing there with waiting eyes. He
might have been a banana on its stem, a fig-leaf against the wall,
the dirt that gritted beneath their feet, for all that their eyes took
note.... Yet they were not cruel or thoughtless. Sometimes there came a
belated response--half surprised, but cordial--to his gentle “good day.”
Sometimes a stranger said, “The day is warm,” or, “The breeze from the
Lake is cool to-day.” Then the eyes of Achilles glowed like soft stars
in their places. Surely now they would speak. They would say, “Is it
thus in Greece?” But they never spoke. And the days hurried their swift
feet through the long, dirty streets.
A tall woman in spectacles was coming toward him, sniffing the air a
little as she moved. “Have you got any bananas?”
“Yes. They nice.” He led the way into the shop and reached to the
swinging bunch. “You like some?” he said, encouragingly.
She sniffed a step nearer. “Too ripe,” decisively.
“Yes-s. But here and here--” He twirled the bunch skilfully on its
string. “These--not ripe, and these.” His sunny smile spread their
gracious acceptableness before her.
She wrinkled her forehead at them. “Well--you might as well cut me off
six.”
“A pleasure, madame.” He had seized the heavy knife.
“Give me that one.” It was a large one near the centre; “and this one
here--and here.”
When the six were selected and cut off they were the cream of the
bunch. She eyed him doubtfully, still scowling a little. “Yes. I’ll take
these.”
The Greek bowed gravely over the coin she dropped into his palm. “Thank
you, madame.”
It was later now, and the crowd moved more slowly, with longer pauses
between the buyers.
A boy with a bag of books stopped for an apple. Two children with their
nurse halted a moment, looking at the glowing fruit. The eyes of the
children were full of light and question. Somewhere in their depths
Achilles caught a flitting shadow of the Parthenon. Then the nurse
hurried them on, and they, too, were gone.
He turned away with a little sigh, arranging the fruit in his slow
absent way. Something at the side of the stall caught his eye, a little
movement along the board, in and out through the colour and leaves. He
lifted a leaf to see. It was a green and black caterpillar, crawling
with stately hunch to the back of the stall. Achilles watched him
with gentle eyes. Then he leaned over the stall and reached out a long
finger. The caterpillar, poised in midair, remained swaying back and
forth above the dark obstruction. Slowly it descended and hunched itself
anew along the finger. It travelled up the motionless hand and reached
the sleeve. With a smile on his lips Achilles entered the shop. He
took down an empty fig-box and transferred the treasure to its depths,
dropping in after it one or two leaves and a bit of twig. He fitted the
lid to the box, leaving a little air, and taking the pen from his desk,
wrote across the side in clear Greek letters. Then he placed the box
on the shelf behind him, where the wet ink of the lettering glistened
faintly in the light. It was a bit of the heart of Athens prisoned
there; and many times, through the cold and snow and bitter sleet of
that winter, Achilles took down the fig-box and peered into its depths
at a silky bit of grey cradle swung from the side of the box by its
delicate bands.