White Vespa

Fifty-six



27 Aug.





Sometime before dawn the rain came in a clamor of thunder, crooked lightning illuminating the neoclassic facades of Sými town for a flash before the darkness swarmed back. Myles stood in the ruins of an old house high over the harbor, taking shelter. He’d stayed out after dropping Anne, preferring to walk out the night rather than try for the sleep he knew would elude him. The storm had caught him far from his Vespa and far from home, again walking the high alley where he’d once seen the leaping woman between buildings. Now he looked out over the buildings themselves to the town as it appeared suddenly lit up by a flash of lightning. He closed his eyes, watched the afterimage of the buildings glow and fade, beautiful and ghostly. He shook his head, no camera. He hadn’t grown tired of Sými’s beauty, still wanted it, more of it, and maybe the camera didn’t really help him hold it. He looked, but he was cold and ready for the sun, large and yellow, to warm him after the long dark night. Then the rain did stop and the clouds opened, and the last of the stars shone pale over the town lights also going pale in the glow of the coming day.

Myles stepped away from cover, retracing his steps over the shining cobbles to the Katarráktes, the backstairs down to Sými town and the Vespa he’d left propped on its stand out in the open. The little town, for all its grand staginess, had taken him in, felt like home to him now, if only for awhile. The summer world would not last. Even if he stayed, it would go. His friends would go. He’d known it from the beginning. But people coming, people going, Myles didn’t think it made the summer world any less real. What else did people ever do? What was life if not transitory? And life finally did not admit of understanding. Even the small life of an island is unknowable. Myles wondered idly as he walked the steps down if it mattered what you called that final unknowing. He thought it did. He thought it was best to think of it as mystery. He thought love made it mystery, and that you had to love to really live, for living to matter.

The Vespa stood at the foot of the stairs looking frail and abandoned. Myles squeegeed the rainwater off the bike’s wide seat with his hand and grimaced, the seat was sodden. Not so mysterious, he thought, getting on, but real. He laughed although he was alone.





Fifty-seven



27 Aug.





“You’re not leaving because of that?” Jim asked, quizzically. “We all wanted to.”

The rooms had the disordered look of departure, things not packed but gathered into piles. Jim sat edgily on the couch, watching Michael, who was pacing, glancing uneasily toward Blue’s closed door.

“No, not just because of that,” he said at last. “I’m glad I gave him a shot. It’s just that this surrogate dad stuff has gotten, well, less fun. I think there’s a reason dads get years to prepare for teenagers. I, anyway, sure as hell am not prepared.”

“Come on, you make a gallant dad,” Jim said.

“Ha, ha. Anyway, it’s about time to deliver Blue back to her real dad, and, as long as she’s here, I think she should see a little more of Greece.”

“But what about us, Michael?” Jim had gotten very quiet.

“That’s the other thing. She’s kind of in the way, don’t you think?” Michael had stopped behind Jim’s chair and pressed a hand to his shoulder.

“Of course, but she’s been in the way all along, and being together seems far better than being apart.” Jim was looking down, between his knees, at his hands, which seemed to hang there like a mason’s.

Michael crossed his arms around Jim’s chest and leaned down next to his ear. “This isn’t good-bye, you know? The other reason I want to get back to the States early is to start looking for a new job, in Columbus, or Cleveland . . .”

Blue’s door swung wide, and she stood in it, looking a little flushed. “What is this?” She gazed at the two of them critically, “It could be an embrace. And Jim, you’re looking kinda teary eyed.”

“Stuff it, Blue,” Michael shot back, but affectionately.

“Ah, some kind of big talk . . . I get it. But watch the sweaty embraces, please! Family values, don’t forget.”

“Right,” Jim said. “Blue, you can call me uncle Jim, and I’ll give you nothing but good sober advice on all of life’s big questions. What do you say?”

“What do I say? Like, thanks!” Blue grinned, a little too bright-eyed.

“So, what’s up?” Michael asked, watching Blue fidget with her watch then reach for the door handle.

“Just going out, to hang out. You know?” Blue said.

“Until when?” Jim touched Michael’s hand.

“Couple hours? Not too long. Have we got a plan for later?”

“Maybe,” Michael said as Blue disappeared out the door, “a celebration . . .”





Fifty-eight



27 Aug.





They ran down. The alleys were narrow and Yórgos ran flat out, arms spread as if to fly, his fingers brushing the crumbling walls here and there. Váso was running too, but losing ground, and she started to shrill, a high keening, that whistled down the alley in front of her and bounded back. When she crossed a side alley the echo broke and for a second she seemed to float through a sunny vacuum, then it was back, and she was in the shade, still running. She saw Yórgos turn his head when he hit the Kalí Stráta before bolting left, on down. When she leapt onto the steps herself she had to dodge two old ladies in black, their heads covered in shawls, who reached for her, trying to shush her.

Yórgos, she could see him below, was airplaning his way down, running a lazy meander between the walls, slower; she began to catch up, and she yelled, “Yórgos!” once, very loudly. She was almost up with him when they cut through Vapori, dodging the waiters, still running. Toward To Stenáki, Váso suddenly realized. When they saw Mr. Myles coming out of the bakery they veered away from him, looked away.

Myles turned his head, watching them go. “Huh,” he said, to no one in particular. He was carrying two fresh baguettes, each in its own sack, and when he turned back from staring after the kids he tied the bread to the back of the Vespa with a bungee cord. He stood next to his bike for a minute, searching the pockets of his khakis for a shopping list. Even as he looked for the list he knew he wanted more than what was on it. He wanted a gift, something exotic beyond what he’d be able to find on little Sými. He located the list in the loose pocket of his khaki shirt, and stared at it. With fish, he’d scrawled at the top of a scrap torn off a photograph that hadn’t turned out, and nothing more.

He kicked the bike alive and swung forward and around, one foot out, skimming the ground, as he pivoted around his sandal. Then he rode down the alley, past the familiar shop fronts, some bustling, some sunk in an afternoon doze. At To Stenáki he waved to Paniyótis and saw the kids, still shy of him, duck through the open doors inside. Another odd thing, he thought, and rode on.





Fifty-nine



27 Aug.





“It’s nothing, Myles. Let it alone.”

“Nothing! What the hell happened?” Myles was trying to get a look at the right side of Anne’s face, but she shied. “Jesus, Jesus. Nothing?”

He hadn’t noticed at first, had been busy with the bulky packages he was tying to the back of the Vespa to make room for her. Then he had noticed, the awkwardness that came from keeping her head turned away, the puffiness around the sunglasses, and the purple bruise that spread from the glasses out over her cheek to a raw, half-moon cut over her cheekbone.

“I been hit harder. I’m gonna get over it.” Anne sounded exasperated.

“Yeah? But what happened? Tell me!”

“Tell you what? I got slugged, all right? Please, please, Myles. Let’s just go. Get on the Vespa and ride.”

Myles heard the tears before he saw them, and he acquiesced. He couldn’t insist in the face of her tears.

“I need to swim.” She’d stepped over the back of the Vespa and wrapped her arms tight around Myles’ waist.

He could feel her tears on his neck. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He started the Vespa and rocked it off its stand, jumping away from the steps and onto the paraléia. He drove out, away from Sými town, by the boatyards and around the point, and down the gravel track that led to the beaches.

“I’ll tell you, Myles. I promise. This doesn’t have to be the whole day, does it? We can still live, can’t we?”

“We can try,” he said quietly, too low for Anne to hear over the throb of the Vespa.





At a steep pebble beach, a small beach between rocky points, Anne leaned forward and said next to Myles’ ear, “Here.”

Myles swung his head around, surprised. “Here?” It was a nude beach already populated by day trippers off the excursion boats. They usually rode on. But Myles braked the bike to a stop and stepped through, holding the Vespa upright while Anne swung off and started down the stony beach, her straw bag over her arm and chaffing at her hip. Myles watched her out of the corner of his eye as he unstrapped the bags, the baguettes, a string bag full of groceries, and a canvas bag bulging with a small grill and a plastic sack of the rough, island charcoal. “Damn,” he growled, and he felt tears start in his own eyes.

Anne stood in her black one-piece, a rumpled white shirt open over the suit. She looked around, decided the spot was good enough, and sat down. The sky bent over them, hard blue. Myles pressed the legs of the grill into the pebbles, mounded the black chunks of charcoal into a little heap, doused the heap in lighter fluid, and put a match to it. The flames leapt up and an oily smoke rolled into the sky. A smudge. Anne moved a little away, trying to smile as Myles shambled toward her.

“Be awhile.” He gestured back at the grill. “Maybe we ought to go ahead and swim.”





And so for the last time they waded into it, together, the sea clear around their knees and the broken sun scattered in a haphazard blaze on the shifting water. Myles felt Anne’s hand pressing his then letting go as she arced forward, opening a crease in the waves and slipping through.

He realized, at last, that Anne had been pressing her sunglasses into his hand, and he waded back to shore to set them, with his glasses, on a rock. When he turned back to the water he did so half-blind, the world blurred. He waded in again. Then plunged, swimming deliberately out, toward Anne, floating alone and low in the water.





“What of it?” Paul said aloud, although he was alone in his room. He stood in front of the tall mirror, satisfied with the harder looking man looking back at him. The embarrassing first days in the gym had been worth it. He looked ready, but thought wearily there was precious little to be ready for. For travel? He’d done so much of it it hardly required ready. He’d found if he needed it, it would be there, in the new place. Human needs being what they are, insistent everywhere.

But what he didn’t need was to carry his big suitcases down to the ferry dock. He’d hire somebody, get one of the town cabs. Paul sat down at the table with a piece of paper and an envelope. Not staying, he wrote carefully. It wasn’t the rat, he giggled, which proved friendly. Just had enough of Sými and all the drama. Enclosing half a month’s rent additional, to keep you happy. “Not that I care,” he muttered, as he slipped the paper drachmas into the envelope and licked it shut.





Anne’s sunglasses were where Myles had left them, on the flat upside of a low rock standing above the surrounding cobble, but his glasses were gone. He cursed low but at length.

Anne heard him and exclaimed, “Myles!” Still, she sounded more surprised than scandalized.

“But who would want my glasses?” Myles was looking around, out over the scattered, blurred flesh of the sunbathers. They looked innocent, as far as he could tell. “Damn!

“Hey,” he said in a loud voice, “any of you seen my glasses?” The question elicited baffled glances and some polite head-shaking. “Damn,” he said again, but wearily.





The charcoal had gone mostly white, and Myles spread it across the floor of the grill with a tarnished fork. He could see about three feet before things got fuzzy. Enough to cook, he thought. Then he glanced furtively at Anne, at her bruises. He shook his head, bewildered.

“What?” Anne asked.

“Are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” she said. “Does the fish look okay?”

Myles peered at the swordfish steaks. “Better than okay.” He dribbled a little olive oil over the fish, then pulled open the small bags of spices and pinched, grinding them between his fingers, letting the fragrant herbs shower down. “All grown on Sými,” he said gravely. “The guy told me so.”

“And that makes it true!”

“Well, it could be true.” He set the steaks down on the grill to sear and a puff of fragrant, white smoke rose off them into the air. “Like a sage smudge,” he said quietly, “to purify us.” And he took what was left of the sage and tossed it on the coals, where it smoldered and then flamed and then was ash.

“Are we going to be pouring libations with the wine?” Anne asked, her voice a shade mocking.

Myles poured out two glasses slowly, then said, “We are, for Dionysus.”

“That devil?”

“Ah, now, who else? And where would we be without him?”

“Where are we with him?” Anne whispered, her voice ragged as she leaned into Myles and kissed him. “But our little revelries,” she said quietly, “I wouldn’t have missed them.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she whispered the word low and drawn out and ending in a growl.

So they ate, and flirted, and against all expectation they were happy again. They slivered garlic into warm olive oil and dipped chunks of bread torn from their baguettes in it. They ate the cold hórta Myles had managed to buy at To Stenáki. Myles set his baby espresso pot right in the coals and the espresso rolled out thick as syrup, and they drank it bitter with almost dry, twisted Turkish sweets, dusted green with ground pistachios.

“Myles?”

He looked up, saw she’d taken off her sunglasses, saw the plum-colored bruise, the swelling that distorted the beautiful symmetry of her face. He lifted his eyebrows, encouraging, though his heart was stiff with dread.





Blue sat wiping the ruined make-up off her face. She’d been sweating, had run to Pédhi and back, then run it again. She felt better, too tired to feel badly.

“Good run?” Michael was leaning against the door jam, gazing at her speculatively.

Blue sucked at her bottled water, glancing quickly in Michael’s direction. “Guess so. Same as always.”

Michael looked her over. “You’re not really dressed for running.”

Blue lifted up a Niké clad foot.

“Except for the shoes.”

“Got a sudden urge,” she said.

“Anything to do with a certain too-handsome man?” Michael struggled to keep his voice casual.

Blue tossed a cotton ball into the waste basket. “Yeah, something,” she laughed uneasily. “The last thing he said, yelled actually, was, Tell Michael I never laid a hand on you! I was already running.” She looked around at Michael. “What a dad pose! Lighten up, it’s true, he never touched me.”

“Well?”

“He did touch Anne, clobbered her.” Blue whistled nervously.

“What?”

“I’m not really sure what happened,” Blue said carefully. “When I got there—”

“Got where?”

“His place.” Michael stepped into the room. “Michael, enough. You were right, I found out.”

Michael stopped, then slumped into a chair. “I don’t think I’m actually up for this,” he said at last.

“Look, they were on the bed. It looked like they might have been doing it, you know? Yórgos and Váso were running away just as I came up, and I saw them, in a mirror, Anne with her back to the mirror, on top. I think Paul saw me. He bellowed, and his fist came around and smashed her, crushed her, and she just disappeared. So I started to run, too, chasing Yórgos and Váso down the alley. Then I heard him shouting, and I turned my head, and he was standing half-naked in front of his place, yelling, Tell Michael I never laid a hand on you!”

“Do you think he’ll mind if I lay a hand on him?” Michael asked, getting up. “Blue, you stay here; I won’t be long.”

Blue opened her mouth to object but then didn’t.





The Kos ferry was already tied up; Paul looked over his shoulder at the port as his taxi pushed its way through the crowd of walkers. So the place was beautiful, grand, and theatrical; he didn’t think he’d miss it. There would be another place, another beautiful place, full of people like these, on vacation from their real life back there, or people living more like himself, people out so long there was no home back home anymore. The driver pulled up as close to the ferry as he could get then turned around for his money.

Paul left his suitcases down with the cars and went up a shiny green and white stairwell to the ferry’s upper deck. The place was crowded with backpackers. It was the season of college students. He sat down, watching, listening. He was bored, but vaguely amused by the inept eagerness of the Americans. They cared too much, he thought.

He felt like leaning forward, giving them good advice, saying, What do you want here? Say what will get you what you want. Just that. And after awhile, it’ll get easy. You’ll stop having the stupid impulse to show them who you are, and that’ll be a good thing, because you’re barely anybody. And that way you won’t force them to realize that they’re barely anybody, either.

Then he noticed the ferry was moving. The prow came around and the buildings on the hills above Sými harbor swung left to right, and Paul went forward, to look at the open sea coming on.





At Paul’s, Michael forced the door when there was no answer to his insistent knocking. He hadn’t really expected Paul to open the door for him. Inside, he saw at once the place was abandoned, that Paul had gone. The doors of the big island wardrobe hung open, and there was mess everywhere. A pair of semen-stained shorts hung on a bedpost like signage. Michael could smell them from where he stood. “That f*ck,” he exclaimed. Then he saw the envelope on the table and opened it. And he felt suddenly hopeful: to leave Sými, you had to depart from the dock wherever you were going. So he ran.





The crush on the paraléia at ferry time was daunting, but Michael dodged his way through the crowds as best he could. As he got close, he could see that one ferry was already backing away from the dock, but that another was still taking on passengers. He brushed by the line for the boarding ferry and shoved his way past the ticket taker, leaping onboard. He ran up the steps to the upper deck, only half aware of the invective that rolled in his wake. A boat hand stood up from where he’d been kneeling by coiled ropes and started up the stairs after him. Michael was looking for Paul when the crew caught up with him, pining him against a rail.

“Paul!” He roared, struggling to get free. “Where are you, you shit?”

And carrying across the water came a clear reply. “Say it again, slowly, Michael, enunciate!” Paul stood at the rail of the Kos ferry, just now passing on its way out of Sými’s small harbor. He had his hands up to his mouth, cupped, and his voice cut through all the hubbub. “Blue,” he sang out, “I never touched her, Mike. Maybe next time, Mike, whaddya say?”

Michael stopped struggling. He could see Paul was grinning, waving coyly.

“Bye, oh bye! You look like such a man when you’re mad, Mike! Show ’em, Mike!” Paul threw a few punches into the air, then watched as the deckhands on the Sými II pushed Michael back down the stairs to the lower deck. It looked to Paul like they were being unnecessarily rough! He tittered, “My, my,” as he turned from the rail. He was in a forgiving mood, feeling expansive now.





“I tried . . .” Anne fell silent as soon as she’d begun.

“Tried?”

“I tried to strangle him,” Anne said, her voice even and pitched low.

Myles pushed himself up on an elbow to get a little closer, so he could see her face.

“I had an idea, a stupid idea, I guess. He was getting ready to leave, I . . .”

Myles started to interrupt, but Anne silenced him with an angry glance.

“I wanted to be done with him. I don’t know, I . . . It seemed to me that I had the right, that somehow he’d proven finally he didn’t deserve to live.”

Myles nodded.

“And I wanted the punishment to fit the crime. That’s when I got this idea.” Anne shook her head, a wan expression on her face. “You remember Pru?”

“I remember her.”

“Yeah? Well, a couple days ago at Vapori . . . It was morning, I guess. Hell, I don’t know, but Paul started talking about Pru. He had this ridiculous dreamy expression on his face, but it was all, somehow, so demeaning. It was as if he’d seen in her no more than a puppet, a puppet that with only a little fumbling he’d been able to make jump. When he got his fingers on her strings, he pulled them. He said he’d picked her up by asking her if she wanted to strangle him.”

“What?” Myles asked, incredulous.

“That’s what he said. When he got her up to his place he let her try. You should have seen him, Myles, telling it, just telling it, the look on his face, his face just shone, joyful, lewd. I was scared to look under the table.”

Myles turned away. A couple were dressing near them, standing by their towels, but even they were fuzzy, and beyond that it was just colors. He looked back to Anne. “Why?”

She showed no sign of having heard him. “Then he picked up his cappuccino cup, ran his finger around the rim, sucked the foam off his finger, and just moaned, That was so good.” Anne fell silent for a moment. “So I said, I could do that.”

Myles jerked forward and Anne came fully into focus. “You said what?”

“You heard me. Then I said, What could be better? You like ’em forbidden. What could be better than a sister? And he grinned, he said, A daughter, maybe.”

Myles groaned. “I can’t believe he’s your brother.”

Anne forced a brittle smile, though it hung a little lopsided on her bruised face. “Aren’t you listening, Myles? He is. I wouldn’t want you to doubt that.”

Anne pulled back a little, rested on her elbows, eerily composed. She put her sunglasses on and gazed over the beach to the water. A woman stood ankle deep in the sea, rinsing the sand from her legs, while her partner pulled on a striped swimsuit. Anne looked at her watch.

“So,” she said. “I went up to his place this morning.” Again, her voice was flat, dissociated. “I made sure I was wearing my big black belt, slung around my white sundress.” Anne let the couple pass by them before continuing. “I could hardly get up the hill. But I did. He was there, in loose, white boxers, and just totally at ease. I hated him all over again for that f*cking easy way of his. Everything’s so easy for him, because he doesn’t care. I wanted to see his face turn blue.”

Myles sat still, as if he was watching an interview on a slightly out-of-focus TV. “And?” he finally asked, as if he’d just remembered he was there.

“I touched my belt and said, I’m ready. He just laughed at me, said, Are you? and sat down on the bed. I like a girl ready, Sistah. Then he laughed some more, kind of hysterically. So I took the belt off, running it through the buckle as I walked toward him. When I got right up to him, he said, How about a sisterly kiss? So I bent to kiss his cheek, but his mouth came round on mine and his hands ran up under my dress. He grabbed hold of my panties and pulled his mouth away with a pop. Sistah, he said, I don’t call this ready, and he jerked them down around my ankles. The whole scene just seemed surreal: there was laughter in the alley, giggling, an innocent world right outside the window, but not for me. I kept on. I looped my belt around his neck and pushed him back; he was grinning boyishly, I swear. I wanted to take his breath away.”

Myles wasn’t looking at Anne anymore; he sat with his head buried in his knees in front of him, barely listening, but he heard her, as he sank away.

“Then . . .”

Myles broke in, “You thought something good was going to come of this?”

“Before he could get his shorts off I crawled on him. I cinched the belt up tight, and he started to writhe under me.” Myles had begun to quake. “He still looked happy, so I put my foot on the buckle and pulled as hard as I could. That dreamy look went out of him; his face sharpened, got attentive looking, as if he were concentrating on a high-pitched whine. He was still writhing under me, and I could feel that he’d grown hard. Sis-tah . . . Sis-tah . . . He croaked out, a crazy grin stretched across his lips.”

Anne paused, but Myles said nothing.

“I thought he was weakening, that on the edge of blackout I might be able to overpower him. I thought, This is it. Then I heard a screech at the window, and before I could turn my head Paul’s fist came around, here,” she raised her hand to her eye. “The next thing I remember is Paul yanking me up off the floor from behind the bed. He had a red welt on his neck but my belt was gone. His shorts were a slimy mess. Then I felt a stickiness between my legs.

“I hope, he hissed, that was as good for you as it was for me, Sis-tah. But I just bet you’re not much good at having fun, are you? Now get your sorry ass out of here.

“I did.”





“Myles?”

“Don’t we ever get to let go of anything?” Myles said.

“Some things are big enough they hold us. We’re held, we can’t let go.” Anne stood up. She reached across her body and pulled a strap off her shoulder, then with her off hand pulled the other strap free. She looked at Myles, and he nodded. She pulled the black suit the rest of the way down, off her body, and for the first time stood naked in the open air.

“It’s done,” she said, and started down the beach toward the sea. Myles watched her go, how she picked her way over the pebbled beach. He glanced down at his trembling hands, and when he looked back she was just a blurred line in the water, wading away.





Sixty



27 Aug.





She dove, and it seemed to her as she broke through the surface that she was getting free at last, that the old Anne must still be standing there above the waves, paralyzed, unable to move ahead or to stop looking back. She opened her eyes and pulled herself forward under the water, swimming powerfully, opening the way in front of her with her arms, kicking through with her legs.

She concentrated on the feel of the water, even in August still cool. It wasn’t like anything except water. It accepted her, accepted her passing. It made way and closed behind her. She relaxed, swimming. She felt she too was made of water, that she had begun to dissolve and phosphoresce. The bruise on her face, that had stung when she dove, felt like it was melting away. She imagined a purple stain along her cheek, a ribbon of color twirling past her ear, diluting to nothing in her wake. Her very face felt smoothed, as if the features that made her Anne might be washed away. She saw her hands dart out in front of her, her arms spreading, then gone. She felt like a pulse in the water, a wave.

She swam on over the dark sea bed, against the tightening of the held breath in her chest, under shards of sun, a shattered mirror scattered on the ruffled surface. She remembered how that looked from above, but already the memory seemed old, difficult. There were no years, perhaps there never had been, only this and this.





Sixty-one



29 Aug.





They were drinking Rebel Yell.

The wind in the olives was the same as before, turning the dense green of the leaves silver by blowing them sideways. The midday heat still baked the landscape, until everything looked as if it had been put down on the first day and just stayed there. Jim sipped at his drink, let himself go in the drone of insects. The shadows shifted around the feet of the trees. A colony of ants was repairing a scuff in their constructions. Some swallows were working the air off the phone lines over by the road, swooping up after wild dives, turning left, or back, as if it was only a thought, to turn, and it happened.

“Going to get a plate,” Jim said, standing, and he walked across the yard, past the pots of jasmine, and through the open door into the house. Inside it was all disarray. Jim found a platter, scrawled over in the old island style, and carried it back out to the table under the olive tree.

He tipped the bourbon bottle a little to check their progress, then stood it back up. “Myles,” Jim said gently. “You really ought to eat.” He reached into the black plastic sack he’d arrived with and starting setting things out. “Paniyótis sent some stuff up, octopus salad, melitzanosaláta, tzatzíki, and look, real wheat bread.”

“I think I’ll stick with the Rebel Yell.” Myles shook his head slowly, back and forth, eyes closed under the bill of his Black Top cap. “Thoughtful of Paniyótis, though.” Myles pulled himself up. “Okay, a little food,” he added, picking up a chunk of bread, dabbing at the puddle of tzatzíki Jim had shaken out on the platter. But after a single bite he set the bread back down. “You eat, Jim. And don’t look so worried.”

“Haven’t I got reason to be worried for my friend?”

“Maybe,” Myles looked up cockeyed, his old glasses sitting on his nose a little crookedly, “but I’m not going to hang myself if that’s what you’re thinking. If you’re worried I’m going to be sad, well, that would be pointless. I am sad. I’m gonna be. And if you want to know the truth, I was sad before, too. Hell, I was sad before I had a good reason.”

“A real joker right to the end,” Jim said affectionately.

“Is this the end?”

“I hope not.”

“It’s not, Jim, not for us. If we’re still talking about it, it’s not the end,” Myles started to quake. “It’s just that I loved her, I,” he stuttered, “I knew I shouldn’t, but I fell anyway. I dove. I believed in love.” Myles took his glasses off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He glanced up at Jim. Then he said, “Again.”

“Don’t . . .”

But Myles had raised his hand. “I know,” he whispered. “But not now, no good advice now, please.”





“So what happened?” Jim asked at last. Then, when Myles didn’t respond, he said, “If you think you can talk about it. I guess you know the island is buzzing with rumors.”

Myles sighed. “About what?”

“About what happened.”

“She drowned. I think she meant to.” Myles leaned forward in his chair, put his head in his hands. “When she stood up to go back into the water, she nodded to me, and I think that was good-bye, and I nodded back. I don’t know how she read that. I just nodded, that’s all, I didn’t mean anything by it. But I couldn’t call her back. She’d been telling me how she’d tried to kill Paul, to strangle him. And I guess I failed her. I just couldn’t help judging her.” Myles lifted his red eyes and met Jim’s. “What she did, it was crazy, hideous.”

“I heard about what happened at Paul’s place,” Jim said.

“What Blue saw?”

Jim nodded. “And Yórgos. Paul must have had the whole thing planned. He gave Yórgos and Váso a hundred drachmae each to tell Blue he had a little surprise for her. All she had to do was show up at twelve sharp. He must have been pretty damn confident she’d come. Told Yórgos and Váso the surprise was for them, too, same time, same deal. And everybody showed. A bunch of innocents.” Jim gave his head two quick shakes. “Everybody in attendance for Paul’s little farce.”

Jim fiddled with the food in the ensuing silence. He didn’t want to look up.

“That f*cking Paul,” Myles muttered. “So goddamn clever. Anne didn’t know . . . She didn’t understand the whole thing was staged. But that’s not quite right. I guess what she didn’t understand was that it was Paul’s show. She thought she was the one staging things.” Myles sighed heavily, pulling on the brim of his cap. “Or maybe she was just desperate. God. She should have known to run.”

“Paul did.”

“So I heard.”





Myles sat remembering. Anne walking away, down, the way she walked into the fog of his myopia. She was there, going away, and then just an upright blur in the water, a skin-colored smudge. Then not.

He said, “I didn’t understand anything had happened. I was doing what, cleaning up, picking up the mess of lunch. I could hardly tell. My hands didn’t seem to be mine; I was watching them. They did the work.” Myles dipped his chin, thinking. “!t was as if I’d been in a car wreck, got out to wander around in the wreckage.”

“I know. Shock.”

“Then some guy, just another guy on another towel, he said, That girlfriend of yours never came up.” Myles remembered the odd way his neck had felt as his head had swiveled around. He’d said, What? Then people started getting up, looking out over the water. What? He’d said again, his voice pitched near shouting.

“Then,” Myles resumed, “then suddenly everybody seemed to know something terrible had happened. A whole wave of sunbathers swept together into the water. I got up, too. I went after them, but I was so shook I could hardly keep myself upright. An immense clumsiness. When I hit the water I just pitched forward. I might have drowned too if someone hadn’t hauled me out.”

Myles slumped further into his chair, deflated, even in the telling of it. No one had asked him if he wanted to be saved. They’d dragged him back to the beach, sat him on a rock.

“As long as it seemed she might be alive everyone wanted to help find her, but as soon as it began to seem it might be a body they were looking for they started to leave, to drift off like smoke.”

Jim shook his head.

“Can’t blame them,” Myles said, then added in a whisper, “not their tragedy, really, Anne’s tragedy, my tragedy.” Myles coughed, then wiped at his eyes.

“Jesus, now what?” Myles’ body had begun to jump. “Hiccups!”

“Are you okay?” Jim asked.

“No!” Myles exclaimed then he hiccupped again. “Is there no end to it?”

Jim tore off a chunk of rough bread and handed it across the table to Myles, who was quaking.

“And then,” Myles croaked it out. “Then things got official. Guys in blue shirts and funny hats blowing whistles. People running up and running away. But I couldn’t follow what was going on. I couldn’t see. Everybody was speaking in Greek. It was about then that Michael,” Myles’ body jumped again, “showed up.”

“Yes.”

“He told me what was going on, how the fishing boats appeared out of nowhere, the old sponge divers, or sons of sponge divers, stripped off their shirts and dove. I guess on an island they know something about drownings. They didn’t find her, her body, but they looked for a long time. When they gave up, Michael was still there. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

“I know.”

“He brought me back here on the Vespa. It was getting dark by then. The sky looked like a great bruise. I couldn’t help noticing. And I thought, I am a lost man. I keep having that thought, hearing those words. There’s no scream in them, nothing like real lamentation. Just a cool observation, a judgment. I am lost.”