The early ferry to Piraeus passed through a narrow strait separating the mainland from the island of Poros. By Galatas the waters were little more than a canal, and every time she went through it Naomi felt the dread that came from being squeezed into that arid defile. They observed the scene from the deck eating souvlaki sandwiches with mayonnaise, their noses painted with sun cream, and this time she felt no dread whatsoever. They passed Aegina, its calcimine houses shining under a cloudless sky, tidy as shrines. They were happier as soon as Hydra and Poros had disappeared below the horizon and the luminosity was ahead of them and not behind.
Separately, it occurred to both of them that they could make a run for the airport and take their chances. They had their passports with them. But the enticing thought came and went, and once it had gone it would never return. At the port they half ran into the street and stopped a taxi to take them into the city; to the neighborhood of Caravel and a cafe called Oroscopo where Naomi had been going for years. It was a Sunday, and the streets were subdued, though not far away from Oroscopo a clown in dreadlocks performed fire tricks at a traffic light. They had the first drink of the day, two beers, and ordered omelettes. They suddenly felt exultant. Naomi finally opened the bag she had brought with her and showed Sam the silverware. She was going to take it to a shop she knew near the Plaka and sell it off.
“That’s wild,” Sam cried. “So now you’re going full gangsta?”
“I may as well. I don’t want this crap in my house.”
“Won’t they ask where it came from?”
“You forget, I was a foul teenager here. I know all the places. You don’t think it’s my first time selling Phaine’s silver on the sly, do you? She never noticed. She certainly won’t notice now.”
“Her ghost will.”
“Well, her ghost can’t stop me. I don’t believe in ghosts anyway. I’ve already decided I’m going to make some changes in her arrangements.”
“So you’re going to renovate the house?”
“I’ll wait till everything dies down—then yes. I’m going to clear it out and start again. I’m going to paint it all blue inside. It’ll be so much more beautiful. I’ll make it like my mother wanted it to be. She had taste, unlike that bitch. Jimmie had taste, only it was bad taste. I suppose it’s better than having no taste at all.”
At high noon, with the shadows at their most diminished and the streets lit as if by neon, they took a taxi to the Plaka and climbed up to the Acropolis through the slopes of pines, which broke up the heat. At the Propylaea they took some selfies against the steep steps leading up to the Parthenon and suddenly the secret society of two had begun to blossom once more without anyone to inhibit it.
When they got to the Parthenon and into the full sunlight, the view of the islands far off in their haze took their thoughts away, and in response they sat on one of the walls and looked down at the Theatre of Dionysus below it. The walls, more ancient than the temples, with their darker color and weeds, always filled Naomi with memories of her father. Childhood summers, when Jimmie took her here with her mother and they had picnics on the walls. It was her father’s one noble idea: the transmission of the idea of Eternal Greece. But it was a mystery why he had this idea in the first place and why he didn’t act on it in any other part of his life, let alone his insalubrious business dealings. The two elements existed side by side in his character without anyone’s knowing how or why. Perhaps it came from his own childhood, since he had always been an avid reader. And because it came from his own childhood, it had entered hers and had remained with her. Sitting on the wall with Sam and saying nothing was her last farewell to him.
After an hour they went back down to the Areopagus and a fiery view of the city. The rock, unchanged for millennia, the place where Solon and Pericles stood; and the twenty-first-century city, battered almost to death. Tourists streamed back down to main paths, Koreans and Taiwanese, and as dusk fell the site’s solitude reimposed itself. They sat close together without talking as thousands of lights came on, and Sam thought, we could stay here all night, I wouldn’t mind. She was admiring Naomi more, and was almost in awe of her decisiveness, her ability to turn on a dime and improvise for her own benefit. She had not been fazed for more than a few moments, although Sam admitted to herself that there was also something unsettling about this same quality. Quiet and dogged, Naomi had swept onwards like the beautiful criminal she was at heart, unaware of the complexities of conscience.
“We’ll spend the night at the Grande Bretagne,” Naomi said at length, taking her hand for a moment. As if, knowing this city better than anyone who spoke their language, she had the credentials to decide everything two girls might do during a free evening in it. “It’s where we Codringtons always stay. There’ll only be one of us now, but I’ll have a Haldane with me—and that’s far better all round. I think I can pay for it with a candlestick. Maybe two.”
They walked down into the Plaka. Its once-maddening tourist crush had diminished, which was precisely why it had become more quietly desperate. Just beyond it were old boutiques on the verge of extinction and, conversely, pawnshops doing brisk business. Naomi sat Sam in a cafe and made her wait while she sold the silver. It was pointless to involve her in a transaction that might be witnessed. Agreeing this time, Sam waited with her metrios. A half hour later Naomi came back without the bag and with an impressive amount of cash.
“We could fly to Bali with this. Shall we?”
“Let’s!”
Instead they took another taxi to the Grande Bretagne on one side of Syntagma Square and checked in with Naomi’s Greek ID card. The staff knew her well, however, and they asked immediately after Mr. and Mrs. Codrington.
“They’re in Rome,” she said coolly. “Can we have Daddy’s suite? This is my cousin, Samantha.”
“Certainly, Miss Codrington.”
“And bring up a bottle of gin with some Canada Dry.”
They bowed by just moving their heads.
Naomi and Sam went up to the suite and closed the tall windows against the sun. In fifteen minutes the room had cooled down. There were sets of games in the room, and they played Scrabble on the bed all afternoon while drinking the gin and Canada Dry. Sam was the winner.
“I’m going to take you to an amazing restaurant tonight,” Naomi said. “A known Codrington nightspot. But I think, apo ton theo, that you’ve earned an evening there. And so have I.”
“By God, eh?”
They slept for two hours, then dressed. Descending to the haughty lobby, they asked for a taxi to go to Kolonaki, where they were let off at a quiet corner with no crowds and from where they sauntered up a small street to a place called Spondi. Jimmie and Phaine knew the owners well, and there were unassuming outer walls to protect them. They came in and the waiters looked happier than usual to see them. They were accustomed to uttering cries of “Mister Jimmie!” and displaying a dramatic courtesy toward the Greek woman, Phaine, whose father they had known in the days of Costas Simitis. For it was Phaine’s Athenian family who enjoyed gravity here.
They were shown to Mister Jimmie’s usual table.
“Just bring us something delicious,” Naomi said to them in Greek. “My cousin has never eaten here before. I want you to show her what you can do.”