—
When she got home her father was still up smoking his before-bed cigar with a large cup of herbal tea, a soporific that she suspected Carissa knew how to prepare with a dab of numbing hemlock. He was alone on the terrace, listening to Dean Martin with his feet up in his leather slippers. She went out to kiss him goodnight, and he took her hand for a moment as she stood next to him, asked her if she wanted to come to an art party the following night. It would do them both good, would it not?
“I don’t think so, Daddy. I can’t take any more of those, honestly. Why don’t we have dinner at Manolis? Just like old times.”
“All right,” he said mildly, too weary to disagree about anything now. “I can’t stand Manolis, but I’ll do it for you. It’s time we had a tête-à-tête, you and I. Without Funny, I mean.”
“I’d like that too, Daddy. Really I would.”
Jimmie then put down his cigar and expelled the last of the smoke. His voice was slightly strained.
“Did you see the Haldanes today?”
She shook her head and let go of his hand.
“I’ll see them tomorrow,” she said.
“Then where have you been all day? Funny says you’re smuggling drugs. I said it seemed improbable—but only mildly so.”
“I went for a long swim in a beautiful place.”
“I see. But that doesn’t really mean anything, does it?”
They smiled, and the long-standing ice suddenly broke between them.
“No, Daddy. It doesn’t. But you know what I mean.”
“I suppose I do. I’m fond of long swims myself. It’s why I have a house here, after all.”
She leaned down to plant a kiss on his pugnacious forehead. He was smelling more and more of perfume, she had noticed. Was there something wrong?
“It keeps you fit,” she said.
A dry sadness lasted for the rest of the conscious part of the night. She called Sam and told her everything that had happened at the hotel, including the sexual part, though she offered no details. The American girl went quiet for a while. Then Naomi told her what she had told Faoud. She asked if Sam would be willing to help them.
“It’s for a good cause,” she said several times.
But Sam was surly. “That sounds incredibly stupid.”
“It’s not stupid at all.”
“Stupid and dangerous. Don’t do it, don’t even think about it.”
But Naomi was not at the stage where anything could be discussed, let alone refuted.
“I’m asking you,” she said impatiently. “Just don’t say no. I know there’s nothing in it for you—but it’ll be a blow for justice. There’s no way you can refuse to do this for him. You’ll feel like a criminal if you don’t.”
“I feel like one now. Is that what you wanted? I think it is.”
NINE
Eighteen hours later Jimmie dressed in front of his full-length mirror—cream suit, buttonhole, pink plaid Borelli shirt—and set off alone for the house of Spiro Mistakidis, a wealthy art dealer who also had his summer house on the hillsides above the port. Phaine had gone to dinner with other friends and he was free for a few hours. Not free enough, and not for enough hours, but sufficiently free to flirt a little and talk with his old male friends without reserve. The bare hills rising up into a tender dusk always filled him with a vague yearning and a sadness for times past. He had a well-rehearsed line of Homer at hand to capture it, one that had rolled inside his mind for years, Telemachus pining for Ithaca: “Goat, not stallion land, but it means the world to me.”
He picked his way down the steps with his rosewood cane and stopped from time to time to listen to the starlings and take in the twilit white walls. He had never ceased loving this little island and was proud of his loyalty to it. But times were changing. In reality, he was already thinking of selling the house and moving its contents to the Italian one. It was the social life here that was so strenuous. At the Mistakidis house that night there were fifty people and he knew almost all of them. One had to navigate among them, keeping up the banter, and the small amount of freedom he had carved out went nowhere but to hours of such banter. He was introduced to some Turkish collectors and then stood on a terrace in the full moonlight with a silly drink in one hand while torrents of absurd words flowed uncontrollably out of his mouth. Who knew how. Dinner with his daughter proved to be a more attractive proposition, especially as he got to Manolis early and enjoyed a glass of wine by himself, the cane resting against his legs and his shirt unbuttoned. The heat and babble had sapped him, but he revived. Things were rather swell in the larger scheme of things; he had made a few million that year with sales of art pieces to Moscow and Taipei, and with his rainbow of shares. It was the family problems that multiplied and became intractable.
When Naomi arrived she was prim with him, which he liked. They ordered a bottle of white and some skorpina fish. How many of their problems, he thought, could have been resolved instantly by just having dinner together at Manolis? He had been a bit of a stubborn fool about it, and now it was almost too late.
“You look tremendous,” he said as soon as she sat down, and he meant it. “Those long swims have been doing you good. Your color has come back.”
She said she was feeling better the last few days. The heat agreed with her, made her less grumpy.
“Ah,” he said, raising his eyebrows and glancing down into the cold wine settled into his glass. “It’s always good to feel less grumpy.”
“I’ve been exploring the far side of the island,” she went on. “You remember how we used to go there with the Saplamideses? Maybe I’m feeling nostalgic.”
“Yes, your mother loved it there.”
“I found a life jacket there a few days ago. What do you suppose it means? I know what everyone is saying.”
He had the feeling—it teased at him like a draft from a badly closed door—that she was testing him in some way. She wanted to sound out his morality about one of the dark issues of the day. It was childish, but if she wanted to do that he wasn’t willing to back down.
“You think they’re reaching even here now?” he said. “Let’s say they are. I would say one would have to contact the police and let them deal with it. Of course, you can’t let people drown—”
“I didn’t see anyone,” she added slowly. “But I wanted to know what you thought about it. I mean, do you think we have an obligation to take them in—as Christians?”
“I’m not exactly a Christian, Naomi. And you’re an atheist. There are no obligations one way or the other.”
“So you’d deport them back to Turkey?”
“I was under the impression that they had a safe haven there. They’re fed, clothed, housed. No one is threatening their lives. Apparently they have other reasons for throwing themselves into the sea. They seem to like what we have. But what do we have that they like, do you think?”