by Tamar Hodes
And then, best of all, at Olivia’s party he had met Frieda. A few years younger than him, she was beautiful, talented, kind, and as passionate about art as he was. She was clearly unhappily married, so he had no qualms about their affair, and she was not demanding of him, so it was perfect.
At first their love-making was gentle, Carl conscious of not pushing himself onto her and scaring her away, but as their work and relationship became stronger, and they were more certain of themselves and each other, they moved the boundaries, opened the possibilities out. They learned more about each other and about themselves, what they really desired from life and from their affair. Freed from expectations of marriage and children, which so many women wanted to push him into, Carl relaxed. Without discussing it, they consented to keep their relationship a secret and avoid hurting others. In the letters he wrote to his parents, trying to heal their rift, Carl described the island and his work but said nothing of his relationship. Neither he nor Frieda expected love and maybe that is why, unexpectedly, it came so naturally to them.
In her shuttered studio, they liked to make love against the wall, Frieda naked and her one leg bent, her foot pressed against the cool bricks so that she could offer herself to Carl like a book, open wide at its centre. He would suck her breasts and then her mouth and she became bolder and more demonstrative, much less passive as time went on, and more an active participant, raking her fingers through his hair, directing his mouth, holding his hardness, and begging him to enter her when they could not wait a moment longer.
Or they would lie on the blue settee and she would take him in her mouth while he kissed and licked her, and they would be beyond ecstasy as if they were both there and beyond there, present and elsewhere. Time meant nothing then as if, sulky at being ignored, it had slipped through the shutters and dissolved itself in the sea.
When they emerged hours later, their faces and bodies hot, Demi would wave from his bakery. They never knew how much he had guessed, but diplomatically he made no comment when Frieda went in later to collect her daily bread.
Back home, family life was busy. They liked to eat on the terrace and Evgeniya had always prepared them something delicious: a lamb stew or a roast chicken in a big pan, surrounded by potatoes, chickpeas, onions and beans. It reminded Frieda of cholent, which her mother had taught her nanny to make, and sometimes it made her homesick for South Africa, although she knew she could not have stayed there. She remembered seeing benches labelled whites only and how sick it had made her feel. How could it be that Nanny was to be trusted with childcare and preparing their food but could not share a seat with them? When Frieda saw the bond between Esther and Evgeniya, it reminded her of the comfort she had felt in her nanny’s arms, and hearing her sing her Afrikaans songs: Jan Piriwitz, her favourite.
Evenings passed quickly: meal, reading, playing games, bath-time, and then, when the children were in bed, more work or evenings at Douskos’ Taverna. It was easy to hide their broken marriage from others. It was when darkness fell, and the stars gave little light, that Jack and Frieda were left alone, faced with the stark reality which they could not escape.
One night they spoke in hushed whispers on the balcony while the children slept.
‘We are barely even husband and wife,’ said Jack sadly. ‘We never speak to each other and I can’t remember the last time we had sex.’
Since she was sleeping with Carl, Frieda could not bring herself to be intimate with Jack, as if that would take the betrayal too far.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda looking out to the dark hillside for answers and finding none, ‘but we have just grown apart. Maybe all those years of you teasing me about my background and not taking my painting seriously have taken their toll.’
‘You’ve done the same to me, Frieda: all those barbed comments about my parents’ wholesale business and my failure to become a successful writer.’
‘We thought that Hydra would heal us.’
‘We were naive. How can an island do that?’
‘Maybe nothing can. I suggested we went for counselling, but you wouldn’t go.’
‘I think we’ve gone beyond that, don’t you? I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight – again.’
And with that they each went to their separate places to sleep, rooms and worlds apart.
xi
‘Leonard! Leonard! Can you open the door?’
He came down from his study, hair ruffled, his mind still in his writing, to find Marianne on the doorstep. She held a letter in her hand.
Sophia Kyria brought them coffee in tiny cups and they sat on the terrace. The early morning summer sun was warm, coating the island in amber.
‘I’ve had a letter from Axel. Another long one. He’s got malaria and now he’s decided that he wants to come back and live in our house on Hydra again. He says he needs the sun. What am I going to do? I can’t live with him any longer. It will affect Axel Joachim badly.’
Leonard smiled warmly. ‘It’s simple. You both come and live with me.’
‘Really? You are so kind. But is that a good idea? Axel will be so jealous.’
‘Then let him be. He’s the one who betrayed you. Is he with Patricia still?’
‘No, I get the impression that it’s over. I think he’s returning alone.’
‘There’s no problem. I have so much space here. The thought of waking with you every day and going to bed with you every evening fills me with such joy. It will be like bedding the sunlight. And I love your little boy so much. You know that sometimes I can get him to sleep more easily than you can! Think about it.’
Marianne drained her cup and stroked Leonard’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I will try to work out what to do.’
Marianne kissed Leonard and thought: I love every hair, fingernail and pore of this man but I do not want to disturb him or stop the flow of his writing. I would hate to do that.
She left his house, full of angst and indecision. Her dreams had been troubling lately and she had been trying to interpret them and understand herself.
Although Austin Delaney had only lived on Hydra for a while, everyone was aware of him and all spoke well of him. Olivia said he had trained in psychoanalysis at the Jung Institute in Switzerland and practised in India. As Marianne walked along the dusty path from Leonard’s home to Austin’s, she wondered: how do we know how to live? Which decisions should we take? She had tried the I Ching, and meditation and yoga, inspired and encouraged by Olivia and Magda. She had read Freud and attempted to interpret her dreams, but she had found no easy answers.
When she had met Axel in Oslo, she had thought that their lives would be simple and uncomplicated, yet here they were separated with a young child, her in love with Leonard, Axel restless and ill, and the future seemed uncertain.
She hurried past The Gardenia Dwarf’s house, past the two wells where chickens roamed, hoping for a few drops of water spilled from the bucket of a careless visitor.
Austin’s house was in a shaded spot, guarded by pine trees, and there was a goat’s bell at the door. Tentatively, Marianne rang it.
‘Hello Austin,’ she said nervously, when he appeared. ‘We met the other evening at Douskos’ Taverna. I’m Marianne. Is this a convenient time?’
‘Come in, my dear,’ he replied warmly.
In the living room, she saw book-lined walls and sculptures from India, of couples loving each other, of women and children embracing. There were ceramic pots and African masks.
‘You look distressed, my dear,’ he said, gesturing for Marianne to sit on the sofa, an orange Indian cloth draped over it.
‘I am. My husband Axel and I live in a house here together and we have a son, but Axel and I have separated. He has been living in America but now he wants to come back and I cannot live with him. Leonard, my lover, a Canadian writer, has invited my son and me to stay with him but I am undecided. And my dreams are so confused at the moment. I don’t know what to do.’
‘I see, my dear, that you are ve
ry troubled. Tell me what your dreams are like.’
‘Last night I had one where I was standing in a field, in a deep, you know…’ She gestured with her hands.
‘…Furrow?’
‘Yes. I recognised the field. It was one in Larkollen in Norway, near my grandmother’s house, where I worked one summer, picking cucumbers. I was wearing an orange shirt, but it was Leonard’s, not mine. Then suddenly, my penis fell to the ground. It was so strange.’
‘I see.’ He smiled kindly as if nothing could ever shock him.
Austin placed a sandbox on the table between them.
‘You see this, Marianne?’ Around the box lay dolls, tin soldiers, matchboxes and other toys and artefacts. ‘You can play here however you like. Take your time. Do what you like but let me observe you.’
Marianne paused for a moment and then she made a little altar out of the sand. She took the wedding ring that Axel had given her and buried it there. Then she lit a candle with the match and waited.
‘Interesting,’ said Austin. ‘You need to come and see me every day for five days, at the same time. Ten o’clock. You will have to write down each day what happens and then you will be able to reach a decision. Will you do that?’
She agreed.
The following day she arrived at his house, and he led her in.
‘Yesterday,’ she confessed, ‘what I wanted to do was to pee in the sandbox.’
‘Yes,’ said Austin. ‘I know. Now our work begins. You are ready to be truthful. It is time to live your life as you want to.’
Over the next few days, Marianne found that she could be increasingly open with Austin. They discussed her dreams, she read from her notes and he again used toys and soldiers to enable her to reveal her feelings. She realised that she was opening up more and more each time. He said little but watched with his kind eyes and egged her on, like a parent running behind the child on a bike, not touching but being near.
On the fifth day, Austin said, ‘I am going to Zurich for a while, but I think you have you found your answer now, my dear, and you know what you need to do.’
She did, and a short while later, she and Axel Joachim moved into Leonard’s house. She brought with her some furniture: the brown writing desk that Francisco had carved for Axel; a fishing board washed up on shore; Axel Joachim’s old carved cradle; his trainset; and the black table with woven-backed chairs that she loved. She arranged Momo’s white shells in a circle on the bedroom table. Some had serrated edges; others frilly. Some spiralled into themselves in cornets as if trying to return to the sea; others fanned themselves wide, stiff and boned as corsets.
She was careful not to invade Leonard’s house, but he was happy for her to soften the edges of his spartan home and add her pretty touches: a mirror in the hall; a rocking chair in the living room; gardenia plants on the balcony. Each morning she cut a single bloom and put it in a glass by Leonard’s typewriter, hoping that the freshness would help him start each day.
Later they also grew marijuana on their terrace.
Leonard continued his routine, rising at seven and working at his typewriter, being quiet, compelled, he told Marianne to create, whether the work was good or not. She admired him, respected him, listened to the tapping of his keys and sensed part of the joy that she imagined he was feeling. In a small way, she felt that she contributed to his work by being in his life, making him happy, being present but also absent, an enhancement to his writing without being a distraction from it.
She and Kyria Sophia were careful not to disturb him when he wrote. Some mornings, while the maid swept the house and cooked, Marianne would take Axel Joachim in his pushchair down to Katsikas to stock up on fruit and vegetables and to collect their mail. Leonard sometimes received cheques from his publisher for his work and she from her grandfather’s inheritance fund. Axel’s publisher even sent her small cheques from time to time. They lived simply, Marianne making their clothes, Axel Joachim wearing hand-me-downs from Charmian and George’s children, and their food was frugal. Kyria Sophia was adept at using simple ingredients, often foraged in the hills and turned into something delicious.
In the afternoons, after lunch and a siesta when Axel Joachim slept and Marianne and Leonard made love in their cool bedroom, the three of them would go down to the beach or walk along the harbour and then, in the evening, after dinner when the light faded, Leonard would write again or sometimes they would go to Douskos’ Taverna and join their friends.
But the mornings were their favourite time. They woke early, the shutters failing to block out completely the eager, bright and early sun, which wanted them to open the windows. Sometimes they made love but, at other times, they lay naked on the white bed and just looked at each other and the possibilities they saw there. Leonard liked to stare at Marianne while she slept and could not believe her beauty, the way her eyelids caught the light and shielded her from it while also allowing it in.
One time, Leonard fingered the scar on Marianne’s stomach.
‘What’s this?’ First thing, his voice was even more gravelly than usual.
‘When Axel and I were in Athens, I had appendicitis and had to have an emergency operation.’
‘What was that like?’
‘Primitive. The hospital was very basic and they hung up sheets so that I couldn’t see what was going on. Axel sat by my bedside and typed on little pieces of paper. The first time I was able to go to the bathroom on my own, there were small sheets hanging up to be used as toilet paper. They were Axel’s writing: the nurses had not realised the significance of his masterpiece.’
They both laughed.
‘So, I’m sorry, Leonard, but I am not perfect or unblemished.’
Leonard ran his fingers gently across her scar and blinked in the sun. ‘It is only when there are imperfections that we see the real beauty,’ he said.
Some mornings he awoke really early to work on his novel and would leave Marianne sleeping. She would awake, turn to look at the dent in the bed where he had lain, and stroke that space with her hand. Sometimes he left her signs of love: a poem entitled ‘Breaking the Wish-Bone’ and underneath a drawing of a chicken wishbone snapped in half and the words Poem for Marianne. Another time, he wrote her a cheque, a real one, and the recipient was Marianne Ihlen and the signature was Leonard Cohen but where the sum of money should have been there was a drawn heart. One another occasion, a silver mirror and a note, reminding her to look at her reflection as often as she could. He also gave her a tortoiseshell comb, mottled, its teeth sharp.
No-one had ever treated her with such love and kindness and her eyes filled with tears at his affection. She could hear him, tapping away at his typewriter, and was pleased that he had the fresh gardenia to spur him on.
She would not disturb him when he wrote but waited until later to thank him for his kind gestures.
‘You are everything I desire,’ he would whisper. ‘I wish for nothing more.’
Sometimes Leonard and Marianne would look at themselves in the mirror that hung in the hall – her, blonde, small-breasted, and him dark-haired, slender – and think: how could anyone be that lucky in love?
But when the light faded and darkness fell, they searched for their reflections in the flat, black surface and could not find them.
xii
News spread faster across the island than the wildfires that sometimes caught on the dead grasses and licked the dry earth with their orange tongues. The main spreaders of gossip were the maids who, in spite of their long working hours, always managed to find time to talk. Unlike the artistic expats, they didn’t have the luxury of long, candlelit discussions at Douskos’ Taverna or leisurely picnics on the beaches. But they found other places to meet.
One such location was at the twin wells where the maids went to fetch water, only a few houses having their own supply in their courtyards. Also, there was the huge communal oven at Demi’s bakery where, for a few drachmas, the maids would take raw food that needed cooking, often lamb k
leftiko or goat stew, which demanded more space than the tiny cookers in their employers’ houses. In the ovens, as well as twigs and leaves, there were juniper berries so that all the food came back infused with that extra scent. Demi labelled each dish so that every family took the correct meal home. Bread could be collected from Demi’s at the same time, vegetables, fruit and oil bought from Katsikas, and maids looking after the children would often coordinate their visits so that whilst the youngsters played, the women would talk, their fast, babbling Greek guaranteeing that what they said remained a secret from the foreigners.
So Kyria Sophia (Leonard’s maid) would tell Evgeniya (Frieda and Jack’s maid), and she would tell Maria (Axel and Marianne’s maid) who would tell Sevasty (Charmian and George’s maid) who would tell Agape (Magda’s maid) who would tell Ellina (Olivia and Georgos’ maid), so no-one needed to buy a newspaper. Speech carried so much faster than print (most of them could not read anyway) and it was free.
Between them, they had already spotted Frieda and Carl’s affair; they knew that Marianne had moved in with Leonard; that Charmian was sleeping with Anthony Kingsmill and Nature Boy; that Axel, who had now broken up with Patricia and had contracted malaria, was back in his old house. And that was how Marianne discovered that he had returned. Kyria Sophia told her.
Leonard and Axel Joachim had grown close (the little boy always calling him ‘Cone’) and so Marianne, on hearing news of Axel’s return, left them home together while she went to visit him. She took with her warm bread and a basketful of goods: fruit, bottled water, cold meats.
Axel looked pale and tired, black rings under his eyes, and Marianne noticed that he was sweating and shivering although it was a warm day.