V
It had been agreed that Mattina should be allowed to go to see her uncle and aunt every other Sunday, in the afternoon. But it had happened lately that Sunday after Sunday her mistress had said, “I have to go out myself, a friend expects me,” or, “My head aches; I cannot be troubled with the children; you can go out another day.” But the “other day” never came. An older serving maid, or one who knew town ways better, would have asked for the outing on a week day; but Mattina did not know. She cried a little over her lost holiday and stayed in week after week, in the narrow street and the close rooms that always smelt of stale smoke.
It was a blazing hot Sunday morning in September, and the fifth since Mattina had last been out, when as she was sitting in the small kitchen listlessly peeling and slicing a pile of purple aubergines[21] which seemed as though it would never lessen, someone shuffled along the street outside and stopped at the little window which was level with the pavement.
It was Kyra Polyxene, the old washerwoman who lived on the top floor of the next house, and who went out washing to nearly all the houses of the neighborhood. Mattina knew her quite well. She had been engaged two or three times to help for a day when the big monthly wash had been an extra heavy one. The brown old face and the gray hair made Mattina think a little of Kyra Sophoula when she looked at her, except that Kyra Polyxene was taller and stouter and wore no kerchief on her head.
She put her face close to the window bars and peered in.
“Good day, Mattina, what are you doing in there?”
Mattina let drop the slice she was holding, into the basin of cold water beside her, and came close to the window.
“Good day to you, Kyra Polyxene; I am cutting up aubergines to make a ‘moussaka.’ ”[22]
“How is it you have so many aubergines?”
“We have people to-day for dinner. The Kyria’s sisters are coming, and Taki’s godfather also.”