—
As soon as Sam had gone, Naomi and Carissa went back out into the nocturnal garden and smoked some cigarettes. They stared at the uneven ground, and horror blossomed inside them silently to which words couldn’t be matched.
“What now?” Carissa said in the end.
“I don’t know. We’ll wait and see what happens. I don’t think they had a busy social schedule this month, did they?”
“They told me they were going to have drinks with the Korders tomorrow night. Other than that—”
“Damn. I’ll call them tomorrow and say they’re indisposed.”
“Indisposed? You know how gossip works here.”
“I’ll say they went to the mainland for a few days. The Korders won’t think twice about it.”
Carissa nodded, half convinced, because it was lame, but it would have to do.
“We’ll have to improvise,” Naomi went on. “What else can we do but improvise?”
She went into the house and came back with an envelope with the money she’d promised. She asked Carissa to count it, and when she did she found that it was twenty thousand euros instead of fifteen. Naomi immediately put a hand on her arm.
“Don’t say anything. It’s for you. I feel terrible for putting you in this situation, so just take it. It’s the least I can do.”
The maid said nothing and accepted the gift. For her, it was a stupendous amount.
They went inside and made sandwiches and ate them with brandy from Jimmie’s stash. They played some jazz and lay on the sofas, smoking in order to banish through a trivial defilement the onset of guilt. The somberness of their mood, however, was soon reflected by the pall of smoke that formed around the dingy old chandelier that Phaine had bought in Kifissia an age ago when Mitsotakis was still prime minister. But Naomi resolved to herself to think only of the future from then on.
FOURTEEN
In the following days the island withered under a heat sweeping in from Africa. Toward midday the sky had the cold fineness of powdered silver, but at twilight it was still light enough that the mainland could be clearly seen, like a brooding foreign country, magnified by the very water that separated it from the wealthier sojourners on the island. When the wind fell in the suffocating afternoons even the coastal villages were lulled and their paths were baked into a dustless hush that made sleep seem inevitable. People sat inanimately in the shade, their eyes wide open as if waiting for the relief of dark and nothing more, and the American girl had eventually, over a number of idle days, formed the strange idea that all cobwebs in the trees had fallen like herself into a suspended animation.
Along the path to Mandraki, she and Amy made their way shortly after eight, as they had done since the first day of their arrival, mother and daughter locked in a private mental duel of their own, a duel that grew more grueling every day. Amy had come to the conclusion that her daughter was losing her focus and vitality; she was slipping into a special summer depression that she had never seen before. It must have to do with the Codrington girl. One day, as they passed the little restaurant above the cove, she asked Sam about Naomi’s father and stepmother. She had not seen them in the port for a while.
“I don’t know about their movements,” the girl said sullenly. “Naomi told me that they go to parties on other islands. They do their own thing.”
“Other islands? I didn’t know there were any other islands, socially speaking.”
Her thwarted snobbery was roused.
“Maybe we don’t understand the whole scene here yet.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to understand, Mom. I’ve given up trying to understand Europeans anyway. It’s exhausting. If you don’t understand them it’s just the same. They behave just like they did before, and so do we.”
“That’s a little defeatist, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think the Codringtons think about us for one second. Not even half of one second.”
“I didn’t say they did. But still—it’s annoying.”
“What’s annoying?”
“The fact that I don’t know about these other islands. I should have done some research.”
“Why don’t you read Tolstoy instead? It’s perfect for that, this place. Just read fucking Tolstoy.”
Amy’s short laugh reached the boys.
When they were settled, and had drunk their first coffee of the morning, Amy asked her if Naomi was really going to be what she called a long-term investment.
“You mean as a friend?” her daughter asked.
“Even as a summer friend. Maybe you’re spending too much time with her. It’s worse than a Greek boy. Now I wish you had a Greek boy. A Greek boy wouldn’t be so mysterious.”
“What’s mysterious?”
“I don’t know. The two of you. You’re not sleeping with her, are you? If you are, you can tell me. I won’t tell your father.”
“Of course I’m not sleeping with her.”
“I’ve got nothing against this girl, Sam. But you’re not yourself lately. Why don’t you go to a few parties on your own? It seems to me you could just hang out at Pirate Cove by yourself and make some American friends.”
“But I don’t want any American friends.”
“You know what I mean. Just go out without Naomi. Maybe she’s a little too English for you. It makes her too overbearing—”
“Not at all.”