Cousin Yiannaki, An Idiot Savant

This is Yiannaki, my mom's first cousin. In his fifties, he spends his days walking, smoking cigarettes and eating anything offered to him. He was one of the many family visiting for my wedding. We all have stories, about our experiences, memories, our loves, our truisms. After the wedding one night we sat on my parents' deck and he wanted to talk to me, to tell me how lucky I was to find Doug. "He is a good man, good man." Yiannaki repeated. He wanted to tell me about his love. Here is his story as he managed to tell me only a few nights before he returned to Cyprus. Cousin Yiannaki was a brillaint student who attended the University of Athens in Greece some thirty years ago. He studied Accounting and Finance and was top of his class. According to Yiannaki, during this time he met a girl, but not just any girl. As any good story goes, Yiannaki fell in love with this girl. She would call him up to go out, watch a movie, go out for coffee. Yiannaki imagined him marrying this girl one day. He promised her a house, a Benz, diamonds, a fine silk wedding dress, anything she wanted, Yiannaki would make sure he would get for her. She stayed in Greece, Yiannaki went to Saudi Arabia to make his fortune. He did and he worked hard and long for two years. He had enough to get by each day, didn't go out, barely spent his money, in fact lived quite poorly for what he was making. His white collared shirts were frayed and yellow. He used his tea bags two, sometimes three times. He saved every dollar and riyal he made. He received one letter from his beloved the entire twenty four months he was there. He assumed she was busy with her studies, having one more year of school after Yiannaki left. He thought, she is finishing school, she is starting a new job, she is preparing for my return. He made excuses, realizing what was happening all along. Yiannaki kept in touch with many friends back in Greece. One friend, George wrote Yiannaki a few short weeks before Yiannaki's return to Greece. "She is engaged," George wrote in a one of many letters to his friend. "Her fiance is Panayiotis Antoniou." He was Yiannaki's former boss. It was difficult to digest, and actually he decided not to. He threw the letter away and pretended he hadn't read it. At night he broke out in sweats that drenched even in between his fingers. He would wake up, breathing heavily, wanting to run for kilometers, but then collapsing back on his bed as though he already had. He returned to Greece, wealthy from only two years of laborious, diligent work. He looked for her, for Helen. He called for her back in their old neighborhood. He said he was always sensitive, but in that moment, he felt like a child who had lost everything from parents, to home, toys, pets, siblings, all the things that bring comfort. He was lost, abandoned, a child once again. He cried that night, the following morning, over coffee, with a cigarette in his mouth, he wept such tremendous tears his cigarette could not remain lit. He did not put salt on his food because his tears sprinkled over what he ate. He could not read, play cards, or watch television. His vision impaired from the continuous falls of tears. His decision, for a brief period of time, alcohol. He wanted his mind to go numb, but found only his body did. His decision, to go into the monastery and become a recluse. Still not having faced what happened to him, the silk wedding dress he promised Helen, still hanging in his closet, Yiannaki thought he needed a retreat. At the monastery Yiannaki rested, eating no red meat, drinking wine, and eating onion and bread with all his meals. He attended three masses throughout the course of the day, totalling anywhere from five to eight hours, depending on the time of year. He still dreamt of women and wanted to be with them. The head monk advised Yiannaki to remain strong and go back into the real world; and so he did. Still not being helped. He was depressed, suicidal and at times spoke and rambled so noone could understand him. Doctors experimented with anti-depressants, schizophrenia meds, pills and injections. He began to gain weight, develop high blood pressure and high blood sugar. His stutter was magnified and his train of thought, scattered. The doctors toyed with his doses for years. He's been on disability for over twenty five years. Each month a check comes in the mail from the government, a payment of apology for screwing him up. His life is a wash. When I ask him if he ever wants to find his Helen again, see her, talk to her, ask her what happened; he cuts me off. He says if he sees her, he will kill her. She lives only a few kilometers away from him in Cyrpus. He found out from a mutual friend that she is slowly and painfully dying of cancer. He believes in karma and knows it is because she broke him, that she is now suffering. He reminds me that life is so precious. He explains how he could have been worth millions now, married, with children, living and working and happy. Instead that "poutana" ruined him, he says. "She made me go crazy, crazy, she made me go crazy. I was depressed, you know depressed, " he explains in his stuttering broken English. He speaks of it as though it happened two years ago. His anger is still vibrant and you fear for this woman's life when he says he will kill her, so convictingly, with a burning rapidness in his eyes. Even behind his thick lenses, his eyes explode when he talks of his love for her, his hate for what she did to him, and his life long desire to "finish her with a riffle". I observed him as he said that, a certain craziness in his eyes, a bit of spit on the side of his lips, the cigarette burning in his hand, and thought what happened to this man. This person who was fine on day, fell in love the other, and was destroyed shortly thereafter. When he speaks of these time, it's as though he is reliving his past; still a victim when he speaks of this experience, but saying, "I wouldn't be here now if that hadn't happened, and now I am happy."