“Cecilia! Cecilia, wait!”
She paid no attention.
He threw a half look up at the road, turned to the violent flow of the river. There was nothing, nobody, not a thing. “Cecilia!”
Then he saw it too. It was something like a figure, a shape in the water, something vaguely floating in the muddy foam, something compact, ambiguous, probably human in the water. The thing, caught between fallen trees on the opposite bank, moved against the jagged end of the trunk in a way that was black and stained and heavy.
Cecilia was advancing toward the riverbank as if she were going to throw herself into the current.
“No!” he yelled again. “Wait!”
Since she seemed to hear nothing, since she seemed to be out of control, he cocked his gun and fired in the air. The shot echoed dryly between the hills. He was shocked by the sudden desperate fluttering of birds taking flight from the vegetation, as if someone had violated a truce, quarreling and squawking in the air in sudden angry confusion. But the shot worked. She’d stopped still, a motionless statute frozen halfway across the rocky beach.
“Don’t move! It could be a trap, an ambush!”
Slowly he inched his way forward, his gun ready, steadily scanning the shadows of the bushes, the sharp angles of the stones behind which nobody could be hidden. When he reached her side, he saw she was pale and sweaty and cold, at the mercy of the thing floating on the other side of the river.
“It’s him,” said Cecilia. “It’s him. I knew he’d come. I knew it. I told Mama. It’s him.”
“Stay here. You’re not to move. Understand?”
Since she just kept muttering, it’s him, it’s him, it’s him, in a very low toneless voice, her cheeks colorless, it’s him, it’s him, it’s him, the moan of a wounded animal. Emmanuel decided to quickly cover the distance left between him and the boiling edge of the river. It looked bad. What seemed to be a dead man (or was it a woman, could it be a woman with some sort of shivering long hair, that flowing blackness?), the man was submerged in the water, and the tangled branches of the trees, a few leaves that still hadn’t fallen or kept on growing stubbornly obstructed the clear identification of the form the waves were agitating, lifting, sinking, dashing against the rocks, hiding behind the foliage. Farther upriver the dirty mirror of the water reflected the sun’s imperfect glare. Emmanuel shaded his eyes and tried to find a place where they could cross. He remembered a few round, flatish stones downriver. There they were. They could serve as a bridge.
“Come, Cecilia,” he said smoothly, trying to smile. “Do you want to come with me? Shall we see what it’s all about?”
She obeyed, a manikin. Only her eyes had any life, restless eyes, exhausted, teary. “Put that away,” was all she asked, pointing weakly toward the gun, not turning her face in his direction, drawn by the bundle slowly twisting in the flow.
Now he had both hands free. He tried to put emphasis and certainty in his voice. “It’s nothing. There’s so much garbage in this river.”
“It’s him, it’s him,” Cecilia’s floating, dark eyes repeated, but she herself didn’t say a word. She accepted the hand he offered her. But he noticed her fingers were lifeless and she didn’t respond to his squeeze.
The captain waited another instant, examining the figure of the orderly standing before his desk, and then blinked a couple of times as if swallowing air through his eyes.
“So, you gave my letter of invitation to Kastoria?”
He had taken the liberty of including Mr. Kastoria’s brother Sebastian in the invitation, since if the captain had known of his presence, his visit, he undoubtedly would have wanted him to attend the dinner in honor of Colonel von Spand.
“Fine. And the brother, is he coming?”
Unfortunately, he had to return to the capital in a few days. Because of that, he wouldn’t be in the area next week. Nevertheless, he sent his regards.
“But Kastoria is.”
Yes, of course. He was nonetheless uneasy about what he called the business of the river. He wanted more details. How long was that going to last? Those had been his words.
“Repeat them to me exactly.”
And how long is that going to last? That was how Mr. Kastoria put it. And he added, I see that your captain has a soft hand, fuck it all.
“He said that, in those words?”
With your permission, sir, that’s what he said.
“And how did you answer him?”
He had indicated that the captain’s patience was running short, that the captain was acting under orders not to provoke an irreversible confrontation with the populace, and, finally, that the captain had indicated to the lieutenant that the affair was going to be cleaned up, one way or another, before the German colonel arrived.
“That’s what you told him?”
Yes, sir, that’s what he’d told him.
During the brief crossing, he sensed she was calming down. They had to pay close attention to their feet, concentrate on every rock, stay aware of the powerful flow of the river, think about the next rock, and the next, and take care not to fall, they had to feel the strength of the tendons and muscles anchoring them to every little island along the way. They had to work together with their hands and arms and shoulders and the trembling of their bodies, their shoes spattered with foam. They had to avoid looking upriver, toward the trees and that thing bobbing and sinking, always trying to keep their balance.
When they reached the other shore, they let their eyes, which had been looking down, go on ahead, examining the path they’d now have to find. At last their legs guessed where to stop, near the rotting roots of the two big trees, and then he raised his eyes and swung his gaze suddenly toward the river. He reached for a branch and began twisting it furiously until a long dry crooked stick was left in his hands.
“Don’t move.”
She watched him advancing out on one of the trunks, progressing very carefully toward the end. Near the tip she saw him stop, holding onto one of the branches, balancing against the current. She wanted to tell him to be careful, but nothing came out. Her mouth felt full of dust. Then she saw him using the stick like a shovel, like he was poking a fire. The shape insisted on turning over every time the stick touched it. She wanted to shut her eyes, but the air or the light or the river kept them wide open. Something forced her to focus on Emmanuel in the fallen trees, the rush of the river racing like her heartbeat into the valley below, the body responding to every savage shove of the stick.
Then Emmanuel turned around.
“Look,” he shouted over the noise of the river. And she could read an unreal grin on his face. “Look, it’s nothing.” And on the point of the stick hung an old black washed-out raggedy piece of cloth, once a dress or a curtain or shroud, now nothing but a stinking, dripping hunk of rag.
“Who is it?” she asked, not wanting to understand.
“Nobody. It’s nobody. Just a piece of shit. A shitty rag.”
And he threw the stick toward the shore. It fell at Cecilia’s feet. She stepped back, trying to fathom the water spilling from that dead corroded branch.
“What did I tell you?” Emmanuel came back quickly along the trunk, talking nonstop, triumphantly. “Just nerves. We’ve been poisoned by so many stories. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say this river’s full of garbage?”
He came up to her, lifted the stick again, and swung it around in the air, spattering them with mud. He swung it as if there were a garland on the end of it or a trophy of war or an enemy’s head.
“Didn’t I tell you it was all nonsense? Didn’t I tell you?” He waited for her to make some comment and then added, “My captain always says that we have to watch out for the living. That the dead watch out for themselves. So let’s quit kidding ourselves about these old wive’s stories. Stories of old bitches who don’t know anything about anything. Ignorant old bitches.”
As her only response, she took his arm and lowered it. Then she caught hold of the stick and, p
ulling, dropped it on the ground. There it stayed. Then she pulled his hand toward her heart and placed it there. He could feel that pounding under her smooth skin. A fish flopping around about to die, about to burst, explode. “Did you really think it was your …”
“Yes,” she said. “It was him. I thought it was him.”
His hand moved down, lightly touching her breast, it was the beginning of a soft massage, undulant, musical, warm. He reached around with his other hand and pulled her to him.
“But it wasn’t.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
“Do you want to stay here? Or shall we go back to the other side?”
“Whatever you say, love,” she answered.
“Let’s go back over, to my tree. Come on.”
“Whatever you say,” she repeated.
Then Mr. Kastoria’s brother had wanted more details, so he had felt obliged to tell him the whole story, including Sofia Angelos’s recent decision to camp by the river and the subsequent agitation all over the region. His brother had commented, in light of this, that these affairs should be cleared up with a good round of bullets and that it was a shame there was always some guy who thought himself very intelligent and counseled the army badly, obstructing its proper work. On his return to the capital he was going to speak with military friends of his and advise them once and for all that it was about time to do something. Where else in the world do illiterate peasant women hold the nation’s armed forces in check? What we conquered by force they now wanted to take away from us with negotiations and empty words about national reconciliation.
“Why are you stopping? Go on.”
The problem is that just then Mrs. Kastoria intervened.
“Beatrice?”
Yes, sir, that’s right. She didn’t ordinarily participate, but she’d gotten quite visibly agitated since he’d begun telling the story, and suddenly she spoke up. She wanted to say that she understood those poor women, and that really it was time to return their husbands to them if the army had them or knew where they were, and besides, she thought that the captain had acted with considerable prudence, with great care and even with wisdom, if such praise didn’t embarrass the captain, but as far as he could remember, that’s how she’d expressed it. And that it was good to count on soldiers who harbored healthy sentiments and who did all they could to find nonviolent solutions to problems. She hoped everything would turn out peacefully, because there had already been too much bloodshed and vengeance, and that she was tired and fearful, and that her brother-in-law would do well to exhort his friends not to force things. She and Philip had to go on living in the country, while he was happy in the city and wouldn’t suffer the consequences.
“What did her brother-in-law say to that?”
Nothing, sir, because Mr. Kastoria took over. He indicated to his wife that she understood nothing of political matters, that she shouldn’t get involved, that she should leave this business to men. Then he tried to coax her into saying what she was afraid of.
“And she?”
She said, after a bit of wheedling, that she’d heard rumors, she knew of bodies that had started turning up everywhere, even in their private fields and orchards, right on their property they were appearing, perhaps hanged, dead men, and that those dismembered men, they started walking around at night, all rotting and dirty and faceless, and nothing could stop them, because nothing can stop the dead, and that the servants whispered of nothing but that, and the farm hands too, and even the guards. And that she’d awakened the other night in a sweat and gone down and found the doors open, the doors of the house, someone had left the doors wide open, and that one of those dead men could have come in, someone had left the doors open for just that purpose, someone.
With the captain’s permission, it was pitiful to see Mrs. Kastoria so upset, because she had always been a model of serenity, a truly sweet woman. He’d have the chance to meet her at the dinner.
“Women are sweet, that’s true. Sweet and unforgettable. But they wouldn’t exactly make model soldiers, would they?”
No, the captain was absolutely right. All of them, all of them let themselves be influenced by this kind of foolishness.
“Then what happened?”
Philip Kastoria intervened again, first to calm her down, then to confirm that the situation was becoming impossible, that it was good the visit of Colonel von Spand would put things in order. That that was very, very good. That it was sad to admit that the Germans had to force our own soldiers—among whom was no one more nor less than the son of General Constantopoulos, those were Philip Kastoria’s words, so the captain would understand them as such—our own soldiers, he said, to show more balls. Or did the captain prefer that he, Kastoria, and his men should impose a little order? Otherwise the foreign colonel would do it in his own way. But that it was preferable for our army to take care of our own internal affairs, our own problems, it was about time.
“And did he say anything else?”
Yes, sir, that we should take care of business, and he added, if they can. That.
“If they can? He said that?”
More or less that. It was hard to repeat it word for word. But that was the sense of it.
“And you, what did you say to him then?”
He hadn’t said anything. He didn’t even know what immediate plans the officers had.
“What we’re going to do, you’ll see soon enough. And that old bitch, she’s going to see too.”
“I don’t want him to be born here,” said Emmanuel. “Not here.”
She didn’t answer. She let fall one of the little stones she had in her hands, followed its playful roll with her eyes, picked it up to hold it, let it go, picked it up again, over and over. He studied her game. Suddenly he reached, stretched, intercepted the stone.
“Give me my pebble,” she sang. “It’s mine, give it to me.”
Emmanuel hesitated. He opened his fingers provocatively, so they could both see its shiny black-and-white design, then shut his fist again.
“Who says it’s yours? Prove it to me.”
“It’s mine,” she said stubbornly. “You’re stronger, but it’s mine. I was playing with it.”
“Come take it from me then,” Emmanuel’s eyes sparkled. “Or give me something for it. Let’s see, what can you give me?”
She leaped and tried to catch his hand in the air, but he easily evaded her.
“I shouldn’t have to give you anything, but all right, to avoid problems, to make peace, I’ll offer you a kiss. No, five kisses. One for each finger. No, no, six, one for each finger and another for the palm of your hand.”
“This is a very valuable pebble. Very magical. It takes away all your troubles, every single one, and it’s the stone of truth, besides.”
She grabbed hold of his arm. With one hand she was artfully reaching down toward his fist, sneakily advancing like a centipede.
“The stone of truth?”
“Yes. Whoever holds it has to tell the truth, can’t help it, when someone asks him a question. And even more so if it’s a woman.”
“That’s not so. It’s a lie.”
She’d reached his fingers and was trying to pry them loose. When she managed to get one free, she went to work on the next one, but he took advantage of her concentration, as intense as a child’s, to close the first one again.
He grinned with a festive innocence.
“I’ll give it to you, you know. But when you have it you have to take very good care of it.”
“Better than you. That little pebble wants to roll. It wants to be dropped and picked up again. It wants a pretty hand like mine. Look how pretty it is. Not an ugly one like yours that’ll hurt it, keep it shut up all day—no sunlight, no nice little lizards.”
“You have to answer one question, that’s all. When I give it back, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “If I can.”
“I’m going to whisper it, like this, real slow, in your ear, so j
ust you and the little pebble and me can hear.”
“Give it to me.”
“Promise?”
“Of course.” Suddenly her voice was serious. “Besides, I don’t have any secrets. There’s nothing about me that you can’t know.”
“Then here’s the pebble.”
Her face lit up. She felt the pebble, polished it with her breath, rubbed it along her arm to feel its clean smoothness. “It’s mine. It’s mine and I’m never going to let go of it.”
He came closer. “I’ll collect the six kisses later,” he said. “Now for the question.”
She arched her neck so her head was right next to Emmanuel’s mouth.
“Do you have the pebble?” he asked in a murmur she barely heard over the river rattling through the stones. She nodded and showed her little fist which had closed around the tiny treasure. “Then you have to tell me the truth.” She nodded once more. He felt how her body softened, melted into his. “Remember, this stone is the stone of truth.” Again she nodded yes. “Tell me, then”—and he lowered his voice until it could barely, just barely be heard—“are you pregnant?”
“And that’s all? You haven’t forgotten anything?”
No, sir. That was all. Perhaps the captain needed something else? Perhaps he had some other question? Because if not, sir, he’d excuse himself.
“No, thanks. I don’t need anything.”
Then the orderly wanted to take the opportunity to thank the captain for his kindness in letting him take his girl friend on this trip. It was a gesture he appreciated, he wouldn’t forget it, if it wasn’t presumptuous of him to say so.
“It’s nothing.”
The captain watched him heading for the door and concealed a vague smile. “Oh yes, one more thing.”
Whatever the captain says, sir.
“Did you tell Kastoria that I’d offered to help you go to the city?”
The captain should forgive him, but he didn’t understand the question.
“Did you tell Kastoria that soon it was likely you’d be returning with me to the capital? Did you tell him that?”
With his permission, it didn’t seem appropriate that he should discuss with Mr. Kastoria his private conversations with his military superiors.
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