The Water and the Wine

by Tamar Hodes

  ‘Where were you intending to go next?’

  ‘We weren’t sure. Maybe Great Britain. Maybe the States.’

  ‘I have pressure on me, too. My father is constantly writing to tell me that he is too frail to run the legal practice and that he wants me to take it over. Keep it in the family. He does not rate my painting. He thinks that I am a wayward youth who has run away to a Greek island to get it out my system, paint my silly canvases, and that I will return and see sense, marry a boring girl who my mother approves of, have lots of kids and be a lawyer.’

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Although we are such different people, I do feel some duty towards my father and I understand that a man who built up the company from nothing does not want to hand it on to strangers or sell it.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do. We are both trapped.’

  ‘Don’t despair. I will think of an answer. I am working on it. But all our talk of the past and future means that we are wasting the present.’ He closed the shutters in the studio and they lay together on the blue settee.

  And he kissed her more passionately now, his tongue deep in her mouth, and he caressed her breasts through her shirt, then unbuttoned it, throwing it and her bra to the floor, and she undressed him too. She felt him stiff in her hands and she drew him to her.

  They made love with every part of them, as if there was nothing more to give, and when they both came, they cried out and kissed while he wiped her tears away with his hand and they felt closer than ever.

  The gifts created problems for Frieda. She did not want Carl to feel that she did not appreciate them by leaving them in her studio (she now had a crate of them), but what would she do with them? She had thought of giving them away but to whom? All the women she thought of – The Gardenia Dwarf, Polixenes, Mrs Benedictus – would question where they came from. She had thought of giving them to Evgeniya but it would seem very odd, and as the woman was amazingly dedicated to her husband in spite of his drinking and violence, it would feel somehow unethical, giving the fruits of an illicit affair to a devoted wife. Besides which, what would Evgeniya do with jasmine perfume and peaches?

  Frieda would have to take them home but explain their presence.

  One evening, when the children were in bed, she and Jack were in the living room. They seldom rowed nowadays. It was more an atmosphere of neutrality, like talking to a colleague. There was no emotion, they had passed beyond that, and there was an unspoken acceptance that their marriage was over. They both agreed that they had put too many expectations on Hydra as a healing force and, unsurprisingly, it had failed them.

  ‘The monthly cheques just aren’t enough,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve had to order more books for my research as I can’t get to a library. Then there are the bills, the rent, things the children need. It doesn’t stretch far enough. All I can think of is that we get rid of Evgeniya.’

  ‘No, that’s not a good idea. She enables us both to do our work and Esther adores her. Also, she is the breadwinner in her family and they need the money.’ She sighed and avoided his eyes. ‘Well, I’ve had a bit of good news. I’ve sold a couple of paintings.’

  ‘Really? That’s great. Who to?’

  ‘Oh, just friends, but anyway, I’ve bought us all some treats that we can share, just to make life more pleasant for us and the kids.’

  ‘Treats. What kind of treats?’

  ‘Oh, fruit and olive oil, and soap which Esther would like, and chocolate and honey for Giddy, and I got you some goat’s cheese as it’s your favourite.’

  ‘It’s kind of you, Frieda but don’t you think they are a bit frivolous when we need money for bills and I have no typewriter ribbon?’ Frieda remembered on the kibbutz when there had been an argument over money. The committee had had to decide what to spend their limited funds on and when it came to a dispute between a new typewriter ribbon for Jack or a part for the tractor, the latter won. Jack resigned from the committee in protest and there was a bad atmosphere for weeks.

  ‘Well, I did spend some of my earnings on new canvases and paints so that I can produce more and sell more.’ Frieda could feel her cheeks burning. ‘That makes sense, doesn’t it? Investing in materials?’

  ‘In a way, yes, but don’t you think it is quite important that I am able to type, given that my advances from the publisher are supporting us?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Frieda wondered whether money issues would haunt her all her life. If their marriage did break down, she would be a single parent with two children and how would she manage then? She had no qualifications and had only lived on a kibbutz and painted. Jack was never going to earn much, and was clearly not great at managing it. If they had two households to run, they would surely struggle. Most of her cousins and friends from school had married wealthy businessmen in South Africa and now had houses with pools and maids and she had turned her back on all that in her quest for excitement. Had that been wise?

  ‘Look, I’m not saying that you haven’t done well to sell paintings but if you do sell any more, please can you bring that money into the home rather than buying soap and honey that we don’t need?’

  That night, Frieda could not settle even though Jack always slept in the other room now. At first the children had queried it but had come to accept it as the norm. She had mixed visions of Jack and Carl and her children’s little faces, Esther’s podgy and pink, Giddy’s more fragile and pale, and she didn’t know what to do or who to confide in. The thought of them eating gifts from her lover made her stomach turn.

  She had wondered about telling her mother about Carl, but she would be upset. Frieda thought of telling Charmian but she would see the affair as wild and exciting and trivialise it. Also, when she was drunk, she had a habit of blurting things out and Frieda did not know if Charmian could be trusted. Frieda thought of talking to Marianne who also knew the perils of marriage but she did not know her quite well enough. No, she really was on her own and would have to manage.

  The following day she saw Carl and told him about the situation.

  ‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘I told you I’m good at finding solutions. Must be the legal training. My father sends me far too much money. It’s to make me feel guilty. I will give you some each month. There’s nothing here to spend it on. How many goat bells do you need?’

  ‘But that will be like you paying for the relationship?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he laughed. ‘I am just helping the person I love.’

  And that is what happened. Every time his monthly amount came through, he gave Frieda a wad of notes. She stared in amazement at the huge pile, fluttering slightly at the edges like a baby bird plucking up courage to fly away.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she whispered. She had never held so much money in her hands before. On the kibbutz, everything was communal and the kibbutzniks were allowed no money or possessions of their own. When her mother had sent her frequent packages of food and treats, she had had to share them out.

  She had to think carefully about when to hand it over to Jack so as not to look suspicious.

  Life was becoming ever more complicated.

  She gave away some paintings to friends whose houses they regularly visited so that it would appear that they had bought them.

  ‘I thought you might like a painting of the boats in the harbour,’ she said to Charmian; and ‘Would you like a picture of the goats eating rosemary on the hill?’ to Marianne and Leonard; or ‘Magda, I thought you would like my painting of the monastery? Please take it.’

  They were all delighted and some, like Olivia who loved her gift of a painting of wild anemones, offered to pay.

  ‘No,’ said Frieda emphatically. ‘It’s my way of thanking you for making us all so welcome here.’

  At night, her body burned with deceit. She had the terrible sense, lying there alone in the dark, with the moonlight slipping in through the slats, that this deception could not be sustained for ever and that when it was revealed, it wo
uld do so explosively.

  Somehow, she was now sure that it could only end badly.

  xxxi

  By early March, a modest sun made a half-hearted appearance. Narcissi and wild hyacinths sent their stiff stalks above the soil as if to establish themselves and some buds opened, peeping out cautiously from long leaves and releasing their uncompromised perfume across the island.

  Marianne and Magda often took their sons down to the beach, where the women could start to tan their winter-white skin. The friends sat in the bay, edging their cotton dresses above the knees, as if reintroducing their bodies to sunshine. It was yet not warm enough for swimsuits. They lay on towels next to where Alexander and Axel Joachim, beside each other, did not interact. They had spades and sometimes they dug them into the sand or picked up shells to examine but they acted as two independent entities. Occasionally, one boy would stare at the other, spade suspended in the air, and then return to his occupation and his narrow world.

  ‘How are you settling back again, Magda?’ Marianne’s voice sounded deeper when they lay down.

  ‘It’s certainly an adjustment. Prison felt like hell. You saw it. It really was a nightmare and here we are by the beautiful sea. It is hard to accept. It’s like when you’ve been asleep and your eyes have to adapt to the light. When I wake up each morning, I still think I am in darkness and then I have to get used to the beauty again.’

  Marianne understood. In a way, it reminded her of living with Axel and then with Leonard. Before she was blind; then she saw the sunlight. Sometimes it was hard to accept that it could be the case, that it could actually be true. She could not believe that someone could love her that deeply.

  ‘I know what you mean, Magda. When we have been through difficult times – and we both have – beauty seems more intense somehow.’

  ‘That’s true. After the ugliness of the prison, I can hardly bear the beauty of the sea.’

  ‘When I was a child, Momo tried to balance the difficulty of my home life by introducing me to loveliness: the birds, white shells, the calm lake. She showed me that nature was a gift which could belong to me.’

  It was a practice sun that lit the sea in March, warming itself up in preparation for summer: the water shone but not brightly, like silver that needed polishing. There were little sparkles on the surface that flashed and glinted but then dissolved, unsustainable. Small waves rose and peaked, like the emerging breasts of young girls, before flattening out again. The sand made a margin by the sea, of white mixed with shells and stones. All was still as the day opened itself to them. Even the gulls, usually coarsely vocal with their smoker’s cough squawk, were silent, as if assessing the atmosphere and acting accordingly. One perched on a ledge near them, astonishing them with its size, looking out of proportion with its large head, sharp yellow beak and white body. Both boys looked up to stare at it if in awe.

  ‘Bub,’ said Axel Joachim pointing to the gull.

  ‘Yes,’ said his mother. ‘Bird. Big bird, isn’t it?’

  ‘I am worried about Alexander.’ Magda raked the sand with her fingers. ‘He is very quiet and serious and at night he sometimes wakes up screaming and crying.’

  ‘He has had a shock, that is all. He will settle back here again.’

  As she spoke of Magda’s son, Marianne also thought of hers. She wondered how he would be affected by losing his father and then maybe Leonard, too. All these connections and breakages.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve reached a decision, to stay on Hydra. Alexander needs stability now.’

  Yes, thought Marianne, we all do.

  ‘And what about you, Marianne? Will you stay also?’

  ‘I don’t know. I am concerned by the reports I have read in the paper about the junta overthrowing the government. It’s all very worrying.’

  ‘You can’t believe those stories you read.’

  ‘Are you sure, Magda? The Athens News predicts that the military will take over the running of this country and it will be terrible. All foreigners will need permits, they say, to prove that we are not earning anything in Greece. All weapons and knives will have to be handed in. It will be awful, like living under a dictatorship.’

  ‘It won’t happen. The papers like to scare us.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. My mother wants us to return to Oslo. She is getting older now and she would like to give Axel Joachim the kind of childhood that she was unable to give me. Leonard is becoming famous. I think he will end up in America but would that be good for us?’

  ‘He loves you. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, he does, but he loves his writing more. I am competing with it but the writing will always win. He likes life simple, bare; he is so selfless, so hardworking. He is almost like a monk.’

  ‘Albeit a very sexy monk.’

  Marianne laughed. ‘That’s true. I can never work out if he is selfish or selfless.’

  ‘Both maybe. But what about you, Marianne? What do you want to do with your life?’

  The question startled Marianne. She had not thought much about it. No-one else had asked her. ‘I am still trying to work that out,’ she said quietly. ‘When I was a little girl, I danced and sang, and I wrote and drew. I thought I could do and be anything I wanted but now that I am an adult, I realise how hard it is to do those things and do them well. Maybe I am better as a support to others than as a success myself.’

  ‘The typical situation for women: not important in their own right but only in their roles as daughters, wives, mothers. Looking after everyone else. Feeding them. Clothing them. Loving them. And when they are done with us they discard us like apple cores.’

  Marianne agreed with her friend but did not want to reinforce her cynicism.

  ‘Well,’ she smiled warmly, ‘let me serve you today.’

  They sat in a circle to share their picnic, two women, two little boys. The sun glazed the blonde heads of Marianne and her son; she saw with sadness how the light illuminated Alexander’s dark hair but was unable to lift Magda’s grey. She remembered when she had first met Magda and her red mane was the first thing she had noticed, bright and strong; then the chunky jewellery and her lovely, colourful clothes. Now she looked drab and Marianne thought: the sun can make its subjects shine but it can also bleach them. Had the men in her own life made her sparkle or wiped her out?

  From baskets and bags, Marianne brought out pitta, slit at home and made into packages, stuffed with falafel and salad; olives and gherkins in little boxes; tzatziki to moisten their meal with. Magda had cut the boys strips of carrot and cucumber, and plucked grapes from their stalks so that they sat heaped and translucent in a little bowl. The women drank white wine, the boys juice.

  ‘Look,’ said Marianne, grabbing her friend’s arm. ‘It’s him again. He is always here when we are.’

  They looked up to the promontory where a man in trunks waved, then lifted his arms above his head and dived in a perfect arc. The water foamed around him, the waves unsettled and then they flattened out again. The women could see his head above the surface, protruding like a seal.

  ‘He’s called Theodore,’ said Magda, shyly. ‘He is a sailor and I’ve known him for a while. He came to Lagoudera a few times.’

  ‘How exciting,’ teased Marianne. ‘I think you have an admirer.’

  ‘I’m not interested. Men have hurt me too badly. I am better on my own.’

  ‘I know what you mean, Magda. They can be dangerous.’ She wiped the mouths of the boys and packed the food away.

  ‘Not Leonard.’

  ‘Don’t idolise him. He is an amazing man, so talented, but he has his flaws. Sometimes he disappears at night or for a whole day and he will not say where he has been.’

  ‘He’s probably just walking, thinking about his writing and his songs, getting ideas. He would never betray you.’

  ‘I don’t know. He has written a song about a Suzanne who he says was just a friend but there are lines that sound romantic to me; and there is this recent song, Sisters of Mercy, w
hich also makes me doubtful. Who are these women and how do they bring him comfort?’

  ‘I don’t know, Marianne. Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Because it annoys him. He’s both secretive and honest, open and closed. He doesn’t like me to ask him lots of questions and he hates it when I am possessive and jealous. When he writes, he is in a kind of trance and I don’t want to be the one to break it.’

  ‘You have rights as well, Marianne.’ She poured her friend more wine. ‘You don’t always have to bow to his wishes.’

  ‘That is the dilemma. If you do what others want, then you keep the peace but you do not develop your own identity. If you fight back, then the atmosphere is horrible for you and your children. I grew up with my parents fighting. It is dreadful. I don’t want that for my child.’

  The swimmer was out of the water now and drying himself in a blue towel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Magda, her mouth twisting, ‘but then you can end up being a doormat with everyone treading over you.’ Marianne listened carefully to her friend’s words. ‘And you ask me why I don’t want to get involved with a man again.’

  Later, after they had parted company and Marianne was wheeling Axel Joachim up the hill, she still had the bitter taste of Magda’s words in her mouth. Maybe she was right: maybe Leonard was determining their lives and Marianne was following sheep-like behind him? Maybe she was treating him like a God who set the agenda and she was merely a worshipper?

  But when she rang the goat bell and Leonard came to help her carry the sleeping boy and his pushchair carefully up the steps to their home, all her fears dissipated.

  ‘How was Magda?’ he asked quietly when the boy had been transferred to his bed.

  ‘Cynical and bitter. I hope that the old Magda will one day appear again.’

  Leonard took her in his arms. ‘If anyone can return her to the light, it is you.’

  They kissed sweetly, gently. He ran his hands over her warm hair.

  ‘And how are you? How is your writing?’