The following is a short synopsis and a few pages from my manuscript, POLLY BRILLIANT’S WILD DANCE.

 

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POLLY BRILLIANT’S WILD DANCE is a semi-fictional novel about a middle-aged Jewish woman—a female fusion of Zorba the Greek and Odysseus. From birth until age fifty-five, when she moves to Greece, her traveling companions have been disenchantment, restlessness, and internal conflict.

 

Polly’s journey propels us through Boston, Berkeley, Barcelona, Las Vegas, Athens, Mykonos, and Kythera.

 

The story begins in a small city north of Boston where she irreverently survives her lower-middle class family, turns into a precocious five-year-old vamp and approaches her teenage years frustrated at not being able to dump her virginity because of an over-protective father. Polly fails to become a beatnik, trashes two unsuccessful marriages, and adds an illegal abortion to her sketchy history.

 

Polly spends a year on Mykonos and falls in love with Greece. When she returns to the States she promises herself to retire at an early age and live forever on a Greek island. Five years after getting her AARP card, Polly decides to pursue her dream:  to live on a Greek island. She sells her possessions, and buys a one-way ticket to the island of Kythera. It’s time for her to forget her poor choices in men and redirect her creative juices into her passion for painting and writing.

 

While living on the island, various ex-husbands and ex-lovers periodically begin to appear through a series of flashbacks, disrupting Polly’s idyllic existence:  one apparition emerges from a Byzantine church, another from behind an ancient olive tree, while a skinny naked Jewish man arises from oncoming waves with a huge crucifix in his mouth on the day of the Epiphany. Polly discovers one man pierced through with a spit, roasting over hot coals on Easter Sunday. These resurrections remind her of their zany relationships.

 

After ten years of Greek madness, Polly learns how to dance through life with wit and renewed determination. Reinvented, she returns to the States, her home within, and the circle complete.

 

 

 

 

 

POLLY BRILLIANT’S WILD DANCE

PROLOGUE  

As you set out for Ithaka, hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure,

full of discovery. Constantine Cavafy, Ithaka.

 

“Mi fováse, don’t be scared, Americana,” shouted an old woman who suddenly appeared from under the floor, or so it seemed. I hadn’t noticed her among the six passengers boarding at the Venizelos Airport for the forty-minute flight to the Greek island of Kythera.

She had to be crazy. Only someone insane would leave their seat when, within the first twenty minutes in the air, the thirty-five seat, twin propeller plane rumbled and then dropped at least two hundred feet, eleven times. But who was counting. Before each drop, the pilot announced we were flying at two thousand feet above sea level. Unaware of any subsequent elevations, I subtracted two hundred after each drop, which meant, if my calculations were correct—which they probably weren’t, since it’s impossible to measure how many feet a plane has dropped while sitting inside worrying—we were flying two hundred feet below sea level. In Greece everything is possible.

The old woman, head covered in a blue kerchief, her black almond-shaped eyes danced with excitement, food stains down the front of her flower printed dress, grabbed the seat in front of me with one hand, gripped my shoulder with the other, and pushed her toothless grin close to my face. “No worry, Americana, the plane it dances a wild dance, like the Syrtaki.” Her reference to my favorite Greek dance put me at ease, more or less. “We Greeks know how to survive, we dance.” She threw her head back and cackled, a sound similar to one I’d heard years ago when I worked in a mental institution on the outskirts of Boston.

After stumbling and nearly falling over, she assumed a pose known, at least, throughout the Western world, as the one Zorba struck on the beach seconds before he discarded his pants and ran bare-assed into the sea. She snapped her fingers, unclipped my seatbelt, and yanked me out of my seat. “Páme, let’s go.” Her strong grip around my hand didn’t give me much choice.

“Horévoume, let’s dance.” She pulled me along swaying to her own version of a Greek folk dance. The other six passengers shouted “Opa” and clapped as we moved past them, our hands clenched high above our heads. We charged up and down the aisle ignited by the tempo of the sea below instead of traditional bouzouki rhythms.

Hell, I thought, if I’m going to die, why not die inches away from my dream, laughing and dancing. Future ads for Greek dance classes might read,

Polly Brilliant’s Wild Dance, taught in all Greek folk dancing classes throughout

the world as a tribute to a woman who entered life crying, and exited

laughing and dancing.

Alone in my new venture, knowing only a few basic words of Greek, and determined to live on Kythera for the rest of my life, or at least as long as possible, I’d need a lot of help. I wished this dancing Siren, mad or not, to be my neighbor and friend. If we survived our precarious flight, I promised to believe in her ability to defy the gods and wanted her on my side. We’d dance through fields and storms together.

The stewardess finally managed to grab the back of our shirts, reprimanded us for disobeying the BUCKLE SEAT BELT warning, and flung us into our seats. My new dancing partner disappeared, returning whence she came. I never saw her again.

One bounce, two bounces, and another dramatic tilt as the wing outside my window did a perfect Tango Dip. Will I survive? That last plunge put us so close to the sea, I watched schools of fish race toward an unseen goal. Should I shed my pants Zorba-style and jump or gamble on the pilot’s expertise?

I’m dead, I’m dead, I repeated my thirty-year-old mantra from the summer of 1966, when after my first failed journey into the world of marital bliss, I’d entered Athens on a rickety bus from the northern port of Igomenitsa. Am I destined to live or die, or both in this magnificent country?

The young lady across the aisle turned and smiled, her face wet with tears. “My goat, she tell me no go with two wings up areoplano.”

The man in front of her interpreted, “No her goat say, she mean her mother say.”

“Thank you. Everything will be okay.” I replied, in what I hoped might be intelligible Greek. I was on his side and certainly wanted him on mine.

His warm, toothless grin symbolized the endurance and longevity of Greek lives. I would live, if for no other reason than I was in Greece, surrounded by Greek survivors. He clicked his worry beads to the frenzied beat of the right engine; the left engine sputtered and labored, threatening to retire early.

Two suitcases fell to the floor from the overhead compartment, just missing the old man’s head.

Another swoop nearly threw me into the aisle. My seat belt expanded and contracted like a rubber band.

A woman three rows down turned to me and said, while simultaneously poking a forefinger into her chest, “Toula, have three curtain. Curtain must have tree. Toula in sea dead, no one give curtain tree.” She started to cry.

 The interpreter turned, “She mean her chicken need food. Ach, such bad English.”

I must remember to get this man’s phone number.

My hands tightened around the armrests as the plane bounced, I’m sure more than a million times, and finally came to a sudden stop. The other passengers jumped from their seats, cheering, applauded and rushed toward the exit. By air, sea, or land, the Greeks always cheer and applaud when they arrive at their destination. I used to think they were paying tribute to the staff until I realized the accolades were self-directed; they’d endured and survived another journey into the unknown.

I meandered along unknown roads and working through an abundance of mistakes I’ve returned to this old country. It isn’t my old country, I’m Jewish, but Greece is more like home than anywhere I’ve ever lived. Wherever I am I hold my breath out of fear, except in Greece. With my feet planted on Greek soil life flows through me like an endless stream of certitude; I am one with myself and I’m safe.

So, why does a fifty-five year old Jewish woman, several times divorced, mother of one daughter, toss her life in the air, along with the cards she’s dealing as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas, and move to a remote island centered between three tempestuous seas, the Aegean, the Ionian and the Cretan?

At ten, I mentally ran from my childhood. At nineteen, I physically ran from my life. At fifty-five, I chose to run toward it. Moving to Greece was my last escape from my tilt-a-whirl existence. I left behind all memories, good and bad; wiped the board clean to begin scratching out a new path. Or, so I thought.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

LEAVING HOME

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free. Zorbas, Nikos Kazantzakis

 

 “Mrs. Mendelbaum can’t sleep,” my mother announced during one of my rare appearances in the kitchen.

 “And?”

“You’re coming home too late, Polly. She calls me after the ten o’clock news and wants to know what time you’ll be home. Then I can’t go back to sleep.”

Mrs. Mendelbaum, the eighty-year-old widow living next door became the catalyst I’d been waiting for.

 “She stays awake until three or four in the morning waiting for you to come home. She calls me and asks me when you’re coming home. Come home earlier. We need to get some sleep.”

My mother wanted me to change my lifestyle for a woman I’d seen only once in twelve years and whose first name I’d never known.

             Three months prior to my mother’s request, Shaynee, my best friend and I rented an apartment on the first floor of a gray stone building in Boston on Commonwealth Avenue. Out of consideration for my parents and fear, I hadn’t spent one night in my new apartment. My mother’s overt request pushed me over the line. I decided to help Mrs. Mendelbaum and my mother get some sleep.

             On a Wednesday night I told my brother, Marty, about my plans.

“When are you telling them?” Panic spread over his face like a psoriasis flare-up.

“Saturday. I’ll tell her in the morning and then Dad when he gets home from work.”

Saturday morning I heard Marty leave the house at dawn. I crawled out of bed and found my mother in the kitchen cooking borscht. My father would arrive home at noon, shave, bathe, and at 12:45 top off his soup with a large dollop of sour cream. The rest of the day he’d spend relaxing, maybe wash the car he loved, or spend extra time reading the newspaper. But, not today.

I poured a glass of milk and sat at the table. Rose stood at the stove.

I folded and unfolded the edge of the tablecloth and stared into Mrs. Kendall’s kitchen window on the second floor in the next building. “I’m moving. Shaynee and I rented an apartment on Commonwealth Ave.”

 “When?” She stirred faster.

“Today. I’m going to start putting my things into my car. As soon as I finish my milk.”

“What time?” Her shoulders dropped. I wondered: Is she relieved or concerned? My future was tenuous. She’d tried to help me build a secure future, but I’d failed her. Flighty and disconnected from their reality, my parents didn’t have the skills to help or direct me.

“The minute I finish packing.”

I understood her questions had nothing to do with how she felt, there was another, more intense situation to be dealt with, and she wasn’t going to deal with it.

“You tell him.” She placed the pot of soup in the sink to cool, and wiped her hands on her apron, then looked at me. “I’m sure you’ll be happier on your own.” Without another word she removed her apron, went into their bedroom, and closed the door.

I spent the next hour packing my car with clothes, books, and sundries. Then I stood in my bedroom window and watched the street for another hour. My father drove up to the house, circled and park the car across the street. This will be the last time I’ll ever watch him do this. I loved watching for him to come home, park, and climb the front stairs. Today, I dreaded what was about to happened. He crossed the street, stood next to my car, and checked my tires. On the day I received my license he armed me with proper automobile maintenance for life. “Check your oil every week, look at your tires every day, make sure they’re full.” I almost changed my mind. Stay home, Daddy loves me, Daddy takes care of me, the world is a safe place as long as I’m holding his hand.

I heard his key turn and the door open. He stood in the living room outside my bedroom door. I sat on the side of my bed like a stranger. Unwanted tears trickled down my cheeks. I dried my face with my hands and checked in the mirror to make sure my eyes wouldn’t betray me. I wanted him to understand my determination to become independent. He didn’t knock. He shouted, “So? And, where do you think you’re going?”

I walked out of my pink schoolgirl haven with its twin beds, brown bedspreads and schoolgirl dreams and closed the door. I wanted to shield him from the vacuum I’d left behind. My back pressed against the wall next to the front door.

“I’m moving into an apartment in Boston with Shaynee.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” My left eye twitched, my saliva evaporated. I slurred, “Better for everyone.” I lied. I’d been waiting for this moment for nine years, since I was ten. I wanted to be free from my parents and the Mrs. Mendelbaums of the world.

My father grabbed the oversized brandy snifter from the coffee table and threw it at me. I ducked; it hit the wall. Pieces of glass crunched under my feet as I moved toward the door. Then, with clenched fists he beat me as tears of love and fear streamed down his face. I didn’t lift my hands to protect myself. I didn’t cry. He had never struck me before except for the usual rear end spanking most children experienced.

 “Hymie, let her go,” my mother shouted from behind the closed door.

Did I hear a sigh of relief? Or, had I imagined it?

I left my father standing on crushed glass, sobbing. I loved him more than anyone else in the world, but I had to leave.

There were times while growing up a terrible feeling of dread would envelop me. My future looked as bleak as my parents’, an unhappy marriage, a struggle for survival, and a growing hatred for my husband, the person who I’d blame for my misery. I saw marriage as a trap like being stuck in an invisible pond of glue. More than the brandy glass shattered that day, nineteen years of my life broke apart. It hadn’t been much, but it had been safe. I had no choice but to move forward.

 

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