It dawned on her that Ridi’s pockets must have been filled with the small pebbles he’d collected when he dived into the sea to save the drowning girl. He could have emptied them instead of being weighed down in that wind-tossed sea, but to please Athina he hadn’t; or so she wanted to believe, when it was as likely that in the emergency, he hadn’t remembered the faux gems. He just ran into the water. No matter which version of the story was true, both made him heroic.
She could forgive him everything and wanted him to know it. Struggling to see her phone through blurring tears, she found the young waiter’s heart message from a couple of mornings earlier and messaged it back to him. Clasping the phone to her breast, she hoped it wasn’t too late.
◆ ◆ ◆
FROM THE DECK OF HIS boat, Stavros, playing his bouzouki, might as well have been plucking Ridi’s heart. The young waiter, cross-legged on the kitchen floor, crown-making materials scattered around him, assumed he was employed in a futile exercise: finishing a crown Athina would never wear. His despair made the fisherman’s trebling melodies all the more poignant.
After several trials, he landed on a solution for constructing a copy of the Crowned Madonna’s double-decker headpiece by running souvlaki sticks, which he sharpened at both ends, through the center of rounded Styrofoam posts, and sticking a coronet on each protruding end. He tucked and smoothed aluminum foil over the whole thing to imitate silver and reinforce its whole structure. Studiously, he compared the jewels in Athina’s photographs to his supply of colorful pebbles, hoping to replicate the lineup of jewels of the original crown, but soon realized it was futile. The icon’s crown was laden with diamonds while what he’d collected was mostly the red spit of ancient volcanoes worn smooth by the zillions of waves that had swept them out to sea and tumbled them back onto shore again.
As he set about gluing them to the crown, Ridi felt as if he, too, had been swept out to sea and tossed back. That morning, he literally had been, but surviving that ordeal was tame compared to the tsunami of emotions that repeatedly swamped him. He couldn’t help but feel pity for the girl stranded in the clinic: a lifelong friend, a brief lover, and in the end, a trickster; but she had tricked herself if her intention had been to trap him, though it would have worked if his son had survived. Son or daughter, Jura knew that Ridi would never abandon his own child. He wasn’t a man who could; he would deny himself first. Through cold treachery, she had intended to subvert him by taking advantage of his nobler instincts. Her brutal miscarriage relieved him of a paternal duty, but still, there was Jura at the edge of death because she had come searching for him. Where was his responsibility in that uncrafted conundrum?
He worked steadily, positioning each pebble, careful that the heavier ones were closer to the bottom for balance, and used the smallest fake diamonds to fill in all the empty spaces. As it took shape and became something truly worthy of a queen, he wept, imagining the crown forever abandoned on the kitchen floor, the detritus of its creation scattered like toxic waste around it.
Despair.
That would be his first vocabulary word to learn tomorrow. In his native Albanian, he knew the word well. He had lived it, internalized it, certain it would define his life if he never escaped his village.
Treachery.
He could certainly claim to be a victim of it.
Unforgivable.
Another word he needed to explain what he was feeling. He only lacked one: a bigger word for sad than sadness. Then he landed on it.
Wretched.
That was the word. That’s how he felt—wretched. Heartbroken and miserable. Once he articulated it, he couldn’t hold back his tears. They ran down his cheeks. He wiped them away but more kept coming. Soon his hands were wet, and when he touched the pebbles on the crown, they turned shiny. He dabbed tears on all of them, making them shimmer in the low light, but to what end?
Futility.
Another word he needed to learn. Who cared how beautiful the crown if Athina never wore it? She might not even look at it! In an instant, it changed from being a symbol of his love to a haunting reminder that he had lost her. Sobbing, he lifted his fist intent on destroying it, when his phone pinged. He stopped and reached for it.
Athina had sent him a heart.
Another sob escaped him, but that one was for joy. He sent a heart back to her, and kissed his phone wishing he could send himself, too.
◆ ◆ ◆
VLADIMIR AND THE PINBALLER WERE having a spat. That was evident by how hard the kid punched the game machine’s buttons, as if he could accelerate the pinball, when in fact the flippers always made their jerky movements at the same speed. He would’ve had a better chance gambling on a change in the tilt of the earth. Instead he set off the Tilt! alarm for the umpteenth time and Takis decided that was it for the night. “That’s it, closing time,” he announced.
The Russian pushed his shot glass across the bar. “One more,” he ordered.
Takis poured vodka. “Make it fast.”
Vladimir knocked it back and slammed the glass down. “Was that fast enough?” He left money on the bar and walked out.
The pinballer hit the game machine and followed him.
Takis loaded the last dirty glasses into the dishwasher and, with a last swipe of a sponge on the bar, checked that nothing else needed to be done. Vassoula usually left him to close up and he preferred it that way. Like most Greeks, he was a night owl, but in Melbourne at least it had a purpose other than making him hungover the next day. His whole life had opened for him there—his night life in particular—and if he had any hope of scoring in tiny Vourvoulos, it would only be at the drunken end of the night. Occasionally he had, but that night there weren’t any tipsy guys to cruise; and even if there were, he’d be ignoring them knowing that Nick was waiting up the hill.
He turned off the lights and locked up the bar, and minutes later pushed open Nick’s gate. The drowning moon had long disappeared, leaving the Milky Way to light the garden path. He didn’t bother looking for the key over the door; he knew it would be unlocked and went inside. The bed was tossed but he couldn’t quite make out Nick. A strip of light seeped under the bathroom door and he guessed him to be in there. He thought he would surprise him and be in bed when he returned, so he quickly stripped down to his briefs, then decided those should come off, too. Scurrying to the bed, he tripped over something and reached down for the bedside lamp. Nick must have knocked it over, but why hadn’t he picked it up?
“Nick?” he said in the dark.
No answer.
“Nick?” he repeated a little louder.
Again no answer.
He flicked on the lamp.
It took him a moment to comprehend what he saw: rumpled sheets spotted with blood, and spiders—black widows!—crawling in them. Alarmed, he swung around to the bathroom door. “Nick! Are you all right?”
Takis tried to open it but it was blocked. He pushed harder and Nick moaned. Working the door wider, he squeezed his way into a nightmare. Nick had a dozen puncture wounds on his arms and legs and bloody drool in his beard. Nick was burning hot with a fever, and his breathing shallow and congested. He looked close to death and needed urgent help. Takis tried to rouse him but couldn’t. An ambulance from the island’s capital was an hour away and something had to be done sooner. The only person he could think to call was his sister. He did, describing the scene while stomping on spiders. “They’re fucking everywhere!” he cried. “And Nick’s barely alive!”
Vassoula said, “Make sure all the spiders are dead. Can you boil water?”
He glanced around and saw a kettle. “Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
Takis turned off his phone, quickly dressed, and checked the bed. Some spiders were still burrowed in the sheets. He rolled them in a big ball and left it on the terrace, then sought out any spiders still lurking in the room and smashed them with a shoe. When confident they were clear, he turned on an electric kettle in the corner that served as
a kitchen, and went to rescue Nick from the floor. The bathroom was so small that he had a hard time angling him through the door. His wounds trailed blood. He managed to lift him onto the bed when Vassoula let herself in.
Without a greeting, she went to the bed to look him over. “At least he knew enough to try to get the poison out. Have you checked his back?”
“No.”
“Let’s turn him over.”
They did it together.
“What happened to him?” she asked about his scars.
“He was in a fire when he was a kid.”
“Too bad for such a handsome man.” She examined Nick. “He has four bites on his back that he couldn’t reach.”
The kettle clicked off.
Vassoula pulled four shot glasses from her purse.
“I’ll get the towels.” Takis darted into the bathroom, grabbed every towel and dumped them next to the bed. Vassoula lined up four shot glasses, and unsheathed a knife that he recognized. Their mother had used it to bleed them on occasions when they had been dangerously ill. Short but elegant, its silver handle was thick to ensure a steady hand, and its stubby blade was scalpel-sharp. Takis stopped up the sink, poured the boiling water into it, and dropped in the shot glasses. He swished the knife around to sterilize it. “Do you think bleeding him will still help?”
“Nothing else will.”
He wet a dishcloth for her to clean the bites on his back. Then he handed her the knife. She pressed it to one of the wounds just enough to dimple his flesh and nodded at Takis when she was ready. He plucked a shot glass from the steaming water as she pierced Nick’s skin. Only a hint of blood welled along its blade. Vassoula withdrew it and instantly Takis capped it with the glass. The suction created by its heat pulled blood and venom from the wound. In quick order, they cupped the other bites. Nick moaned each time the burning hot glass touched him but remained unconscious. They watched as blood pooled inside the glasses until Vassoula said, “That’s enough.” When she pulled them off, Takis pounced with towels, soaking up the blood that spilled out and pressing hard to stop the cuts from bleeding more.
When the whole event was over, Takis leaned back against the wall, taking in the pile of bloodied towels and linens. “It looks like a slaughterhouse in here,” he said.
“Black widows don’t nest in beds. Someone tried to kill him,” Vassoula replied.
“That’s crazy. Why?”
“Or at least make him very sick. You said he was an FBI agent. Maybe someone else knows that and doesn’t like him snooping around.”
“I made that up because you were making fun of him,” Takis confessed. “He’s not an FBI agent. He has a souvenir badge that he bought in a store.”
“Do you think they sell real-looking FBI badges in tourist shops?”
“I believed him.”
“Who else knows he works for the FBI?”
“Athina, though she didn’t actually see the badge. She heard me say something about it. Why would she want to kill him?”
“Maybe she’s the arsonist.”
“Athina?”
“Or she mentioned it to someone, who mentioned it to someone, and the arsonist finally heard.”
Vassoula started rummaging through Nick’s bureau.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see his fake ID.”
“You can’t go through his stuff.”
“He won’t wake up for a long time.”
“That’s not the point.”
Vassoula opened a second drawer. It was empty.
Pulling out the bottom one, she said, “So it’s what I thought.”
“What?”
Vassoula lifted a clear plastic bag containing one of the detonators. “He has three of these. That was no fake ID you saw. He’s here because of the fires. He’s not here looking for love either.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He’s come looking for you because of the Takis Fire. He might think there’s a connection.”
Takis paled. “Don’t call it that.”
“Everybody calls it that. Everybody thinks there’s a connection between you and the fires, too, because they started when you came back.”
“Don’t try to frame me.”
“I’m trying to warn you. A lot of people have noticed the coincidence. I’m sure your FBI boyfriend has, too.”
Nick’s shoulders suddenly spasmed. With a second convulsion, he gagged and drooled bile onto the mattress.
Vassoula touched his forehead. “His fever broke. He’s going to live.” She picked up her bag. “Roll him on his side. That way, he won’t drown in his own puke. And be careful what you say when he comes around.”
Nick spit up again.
“Maybe you should give him a big deep kiss and make him feel better.” With a derisive laugh, Vassoula was gone.
He rolled Nick onto his side, tucked a pillow under his head, and propped another one against his chest to keep him from rolling onto his stomach. Of course Vassoula would cast aspersions on the nicest guy he’d ever met. Handsome, too, though at the moment it was hard to see past the blood and sputum. His sister had almost thrown herself on him. That’s what made it all so crazy: they could each desire exactly the same flesh, and yet for Takis to do so was somehow wrong.
He gathered up the bloodied towels and dumped them on the bathroom floor. From the closet he took an extra blanket and draped it over Nick. He took off his shoes and crawled into bed, and spooned with him for warmth. Maybe Nick had come looking for him, but even if their encounter was less than happenstance, their attraction was honest and mutual. Besides, the last thing Takis worried about was unintentionally incriminating himself. Some lies he’d told so often that they’d become real to him. He’d be willing to take a lie detector test on the Takis Fire, so he wasn’t worried about an FBI agent, in some unguarded moment, cajoling the truth from him.
The truth about Takis was that he wanted to go home. He’d paid his dues by helping his sister. He could be on an airplane to Melbourne in a couple of days, or in Athens spending more time with Nick. Both possibilities cheered him as he reached to switch off the lamp and realized it wasn’t on. The sun had already crept high enough to light the room.
CHAPTER TEN
VASSOULA HAD NEVER LOST ANYONE she mourned until Omar’s disappearance. Carrying a large basket of lavender roses, clipped from the overhead arbor he planted when they opened the restaurant, she kicked off her shoes and waded into the water. The smooth stones bruised her feet as they likely had Omar’s shoulders rolling on the bottom of the sea. His boat had come ashore at that spot, a point where converging currents conspired to wash up detritus. Had his boat beached itself, or had Omar beached it, abandoned it to go missing by choice? Going on a year, every day Vassoula prayed she could wake up from her nightmare, promising God that she would become an ardent believer if He made that happen. When she woke up, there would be Omar, so handsome again. She wished it so hard and knew it would never happen. Never handsome again. Omar deserved his revenge. She could almost convince herself that he was still alive and the fires were his. Certainly they belonged to him.
The wild lavender roses belonged to him, too. Omar had recalled how his grandmother waxed poetic about them—“a scent as sweet as our lives back then”—when reminiscing about the old days in Greece before the Exchange. It was a time his grandmother barely remembered, but her mother’s stories—Omar’s great grandmother’s stories—had been told so often, they became all their memories. The roses still grew on what had been his family’s property; it’s how he knew for sure that he had pinpointed it. He cultivated them, sticking rooted clippings in the ground to mark the plots of other Turkish families. The lavender roses flourished, their stems seeming to grow a foot a day and always abloom with dozens of the scented flowers.
That morning, Vassoula tossed handfuls of her roses into the backwash of the waves, wanting them to float out as far as possible, hoping they reached wherever Omar h
ad finally come to rest. Soon the water was carpeted with them. She contemplated throwing herself into the sea and letting it take her life as it had taken his. Ahead of him, he had only envisioned an outcast life. Their love would never recover from his ruined face; and she knew, he had chosen death to spare her his tormented presence. Yet the fact that she had known his passion, and now must live without it, was its own abhorrent fate.
Omar.
She whispered his name.
Omar.
And tossed the last flowers out to sea.
◆ ◆ ◆
RIDI REVIEWED THAT DAY’S VOCABULARY words a final time before slipping the page torn from a notebook into his shirt pocket. He had practiced aloud what he wanted to say to Athina, writing down the Albanian words and looking them up in Greek. Each time he ran through them, he heard the conversation he intended to have; and with an uneasy certainty, knew it would never come off that easily. It didn’t matter; he’d be crying when it finished, happy ending or not.
He revved up his scooter to shake off its morning sluggishness. Predictably it backfired before he zoomed off through the stone hills. The changing weather, with winds and rains, and now a sparkling day, had left things fresh and clean. He could hear birdsongs above the rattle of his scooter.
His heart, too, was singing, and why not? The night before, in the depths of despair, Athina had sent him a heart. It had been a message of mercy that could only mean one thing: she loved him. She loved him and she forgave him. He sent one back. He wanted to reassure her that he still loved her. Whatever she had done was forgiven, too.
Forgiveness.
That was his first word on that day’s vocabulary list. He would forgive Jura, too. How could he hate her for despairing as much as he had over the notion of spending a whole life in their miserable village? Her methods were scurrilous, but her motivations were as valid as his own. She had taken a great risk. He wouldn’t abandon her. Neither would he abandon himself for her.
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