Aphrodite's Smile

by Stuart Harrison

  As the casket was lowered into the ground I tried to summon some kind of emotion, but all I could manage was a kind of confused regret. I met Alex’s eye and she offered a sympathetic smile.

  At the end of the service the mourners began to drift towards the gate, pausing to offer words of condolence to Irene, who looked pale and tired. Miros Theonas stood at a respectful distance watching the proceedings, his gaze riveted on her. I wondered whether they would resume their relationship. Theonas had the look of a patient man. He would bide his time until a suitable period had passed, but he would not give up. I couldn’t help harbouring a vague resentment towards him for being there, though I told myself it was unjustified.

  I told Alex that I had spoken to Irene earlier and she was going to talk to Kounidis to see if he would agree to tell her the remainder of the story about her grandmother. We hung back, waiting until the last of the mourners had gone before joining Irene to take her back to the house where food and drinks had been laid on in the Greek custom. I introduced Alex to Alkimos Kounidis.

  ‘It is remarkable,’ he said as he shook her hand and gazed at her face with a vestige of the shock I had seen before, only now it was overlaid with wonder. ‘When I first saw you it was as if sixty years had not happened. For an instant I truly believed that you were your grandmother. The resemblance is quite astonishing. I had almost forgotten how beautiful she was.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, blushing a little.

  ‘I was very sorry when Robert told me that she had recently died.’

  ‘Did you know my grandmother well, Mr Kounidis?’

  ‘No, I cannot say that I did. I was a few years older than Julia, and we came from different villages, though of course I knew who she was. Everybody knew Julia Zannas. She was the most beautiful girl on all of Ithaca. I spoke to her a few times in the market at Vathy but only when her father was present. In those days a girl of Julia’s age was never allowed to be alone with a man who was not from her family.’

  ‘Has Irene explained that Alex wants to find out more about what happened to her grandmother during the war?’ I asked. ‘She said that you knew the story better than most.’

  ‘Yes, this is true,’ Kounidis agreed.

  ‘Irene told us how my grandmother met Hauptmann Hassel,’ Alex said, ‘but I would like to hear the rest of what happened.’

  Kounidis considered this. ‘In that case I would like to invite you both to come and stay at my house for the weekend. Have you been to Kioni?’

  ‘Years ago,’ I said, and Alex shook her head.

  ‘It is a very pleasant town. The harbour is popular for visiting boats, and my house is nearby. I would be honoured if you would be my guests. Come for lunch tomorrow and bring your swimming costumes with you. There is a small private cove below the house.’

  I glanced at Alex and she nodded her assent. ‘Thank you, Mr Kounidis. That would be lovely.’

  ‘Excellent. I shall look forward to your company. Unfortunately I cannot join you now.’ He turned to Irene and murmured something quietly to her.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Alkimos,’ she said.

  ‘Until tomorrow then.’ As an afterthought he turned back to us as he left. ‘When you come tomorrow stop in Frikes. There is a plaque on a rock there that you should read.’

  When he’d gone, we returned to the house. Irene was kept busy with the twenty or thirty people who had returned. Some of them approached me to shake my hand, often taking the opportunity to relate some anecdote or other concerning my father. It was clear that those who had known him had also held a genuine affection for him. The tales they told portrayed him as Kounidis had two days earlier – a fun-loving, gregarious man who though he may have enjoyed a drink had been well liked and respected.

  Miros Theonas joined us briefly, and when I introduced him to Alex he regarded her with interest. ‘I trust that you are enjoying your stay on Ithaca?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. It’s a lovely island.’

  The two of them got talking and so I excused myself and went out onto the terrace where I had just seen Irene. She was standing alone gazing down to the harbour, and when she saw me she turned and smiled.

  ‘Would you rather be alone?’ I asked.

  ‘No. I was just thinking about your father. I will miss him.’ When I didn’t say anything she looked towards Theonas and Alex who were standing close to the door. ‘She is a lovely girl, Robert.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she is.’

  ‘May I say something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I could not help but notice the way you looked at her last night. Is there anybody waiting for you at home in England?’

  ‘No, but it isn’t like that,’ I said. Then I thought of the night before, how I’d kissed her. ‘Besides, I don’t think she’s ready to think about anything like that.’

  ‘Ah, you mean because of the young man she was seeing, Dimitri?’ I must have looked surprised that she knew, because she smiled knowingly. ‘Ithaca is a small island. But she is not seeing him any more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am sorry. It is none of my business. But sometimes I wish …’

  ‘Wish what?’

  ‘I only mean that I would like to see you happy. Your father used to feel the same way. Despite what happened between Johnny and I in recent years, we were very happy together before. I think he used to worry about you.’

  ‘About me?’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘He was afraid that because of your own childhood you would not have children of your own. Perhaps he thought that if you did you might understand him a little better.’

  ‘I don’t know why he’d think that. But if I ever do have children, I know I’ll make sure I’m always around for them.’

  Irene smiled sadly. ‘When your father was alive I always tried not to interfere between you. When you were younger I was afraid that if I did you would resent me.’

  She was probably right. Part of the reason I’d always liked her was her neutrality.

  ‘I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing. Perhaps if I had tried harder you would not have always been so angry with him.’

  ‘Christ, Irene. What did he expect? He buggered off and left me when I was just a child.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighed heavily. ‘And he always regretted it. There is only one thing that I can tell you about him, Robert. He loved you. He said it many times. You should try not to be angry with him any more. But not for him. He is gone now. Do this for yourself.’

  Some people came out onto the terrace then, and Irene left me to go and speak to them. I went to join Theonas and Alex who were still talking, but I was preoccupied and I didn’t join in their conversation much. Eventually Theonas saw that Irene was alone in the kitchen and he excused himself, but before he left I remembered the news clippings I’d found in my dad’s study and I asked him about the murdered man.

  ‘Ah, yes. The tourist.’

  ‘Then you have identified him?’

  ‘I am afraid not. But the taxi driver who took him from the ferry to the monastery at Kathara said that he spoke with a foreign accent.’

  Alex looked perplexed by our conversation so I explained what we were talking about.

  ‘But please do not be alarmed,’ Theonas assured her. ‘Ithaca is very safe. There has not been such a crime here in living memory. Once a man killed his neighbour in a dispute over some land, but nothing like this. Unfortunately even here we occasionally get unwelcome visitors. I think whoever did this terrible thing has long since left.’

  ‘Then you don’t believe the murderer was local?’ I said.

  ‘It is unlikely. The motive appears to have been robbery, since we found no wallet or personal belongings on the body. Also we know that on the day that this man visited the monastery, the only other vehicle to take the road to Kathara was a tourist bus. The passengers were from the inter-island ferry. Many of them were young people travelling among the islands. They come from all around the wor
ld. They stay a night here and there in cheap rooms or they sleep on the beach. Some are students and they are welcome. But there is also a bad element. They sell drugs and steal the belongings of others. We managed to trace some of the people on the bus, but most we could not. There is no way of knowing who they were.’ Theonas shrugged resignedly. ‘I am afraid it is likely that this crime will never be solved.’

  ‘But if it was a robbery committed by some backpacker, why was my father interested?’ I wondered.

  ‘This I do not know,’ Theonas answered. ‘And now if you will excuse me …’

  When he had left us I went outside with Alex. I was still bothered by the murdered tourist. I was also thinking about my conversation with Irene. ‘I think I need to get away from here,’ I said. ‘Do you feel like having a drink somewhere?’

  ‘All right. But do you mind if we don’t go into Vathy?’

  I wondered why until I realised that it was probably because she didn’t want to run into Dimitri. I said that Irene had recommended a place, and we took the Jeep and drove up to the village of Perahori, which was nestled in a fold of the hill a couple of miles away. We went to a small taverna where the owner had built a concrete pad on stilts on the hillside across the road to serve as a terrace. Sitting in the shade of a grapevine it felt as if we were hovering in space. Far below us the harbour glittered in the afternoon sun and to the north, Mount Nirito towered over the landscape.

  The wife of the owner brought drinks and snacks. ‘If you want something more, you shout, yes?’ She smiled and then retreated again.

  ‘Look at that view,’ Alex observed. ‘Sometimes I find it hard to think of going back to London.’

  ‘I wonder what would happen if you lived here though,’ I mused. ‘Would it all become so familiar that you wouldn’t notice it any more? Would food like this stop tasting so good?’ I gestured to the bread and the salad swimming in olive oil.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted reflectively.

  ‘You would have found out if your boyfriend hadn’t let you down.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I would.’

  I could smell the scent of her perfume and once again I remembered what it had been like to kiss her – the stiffened, surprised response, and then just for a moment or two the soft yielding of her mouth.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said. ‘How do you feel about Dimitri now?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘After last night.’

  She thought for a moment and then said, ‘I’m not sure what I feel.’

  ‘But you feel something? Between us?’

  ‘Yes.’ She frowned, struggling to rationalise it. ‘I thought at first it was because of the night you pulled me from the harbour. I think I wanted that to explain what I was feeling. I kept asking myself how it could be anything else. I was in love with Dimitri.’

  ‘Was?’

  She made a helpless, frustrated gesture. ‘I don’t know anything for certain any more. I never thought of myself as the kind to fall in and out of love.’ She broke off, realising the implication of what she’d said. ‘What about you anyway? You said there had been somebody in England recently.’

  ‘There was. But it didn’t work out between us.’

  ‘Would it be nosy of me to ask why?’

  I tried to think of a way to explain. ‘Alicia, that was her name, did something that made me feel as if I couldn’t trust her any longer. After that …’

  ‘I’m sorry. And then you came here to find your father had died. Perhaps we’re both a bit vulnerable at the moment.’

  ‘I’m not sure it matters why things happen, does it?’ I countered. ‘Only that they do.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed.

  For a time we sat quietly. It was a comfortable, easy silence. Eventually Alex began to talk about her grandmother. She said that she had been thinking about what Irene had told us, and about the decision Julia had made at the end.

  ‘Do you think she was right to go with him?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I think we need to hear what happened afterwards.’

  ‘But if there was nothing else. If that was the end?’

  ‘It couldn’t be,’ I insisted. ‘There are always consequences. I don’t see how you can judge an action without knowing what they are.’

  ‘But put yourself in her place,’ Alex insisted. ‘She couldn’t have known what the consequences might be. None of us ever can.’

  ‘No, but we can make a judgement based on experience.’

  ‘Then what would your judgement have been?’

  I could see that she wasn’t going to let it go, so I tried to explain how I saw it. ‘It’s basically a case of divided loyalties. Which is the greater? Her loyalty to her family and people? Or to her feelings towards the man in charge of an invading force?’

  ‘You make him sound brutal. But that wasn’t how Irene depicted him.’

  ‘It’s a fact that the Germans were invaders, however you sugar it.’

  ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘So what’s your answer?’

  ‘I think she was in an impossible position, and her own people should never have put her there without her agreement.’

  ‘Then you agree with what she did?’

  I wanted to say that I did, because I knew it was what Alex felt, but I couldn’t. The best I could manage was a compromise. ‘I think we need to know the rest of the story. I’ll tell you when we’ve heard what Kounidis has to say.’

  She smiled, acknowledging that I was avoiding the issue, but for the moment she was willing to let me off the hook.

  After I had dropped Alex back at her room later that evening and returned to the house, the guests had all gone. Irene, drained from an exhausting day said that she was going to bed. Left alone I tried to read for a while, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was thinking about Alex. When I’d walked her to her door we’d kept a distance between us. I hadn’t even kissed her on the cheek.

  In the end I gave up on my book and went to my father’s study. I stared at the picture of him in the newspaper article. I couldn’t reconcile myself to the knowledge that he was dead and buried. In the end, too restless to sleep, I decided to drive into town and have a nightcap. The streets were busy, and as I drove around the square I knew I didn’t want to sit alone nursing a beer so I drove on until I found myself heading out of town along the dark stretch of road that led to the marina.

  It was quiet when I arrived. I parked the Jeep and made my way past the buildings to the water’s edge. I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. An enormous full moon hung over the harbour, its pale light casting deep wedges of shadow among the boats. I listened to the comforting slap of water against their hulls and the creak of ropes straining against cleats. It wasn’t until I’d almost reached the Swallow that I saw a light in one of the windows. It grew dim and then bright again and, after a while, I decided that it must be somebody moving around with a torch.

  As quietly as I could I climbed aboard at the stern. The wheelhouse was directly in front of me, the cabin-housing further forward where a short flight of steps led to the cabin door. From that angle I couldn’t see the light any more. As I felt my way forward something slid beneath my hand and before I could catch it, it clattered to the deck. I froze, certain that whoever was on board must have heard.

  Seconds dragged by into one minute, and then two, and when still nothing happened I began to breathe again and my heart slowly ceased its heavy thumping. I started cautiously forward again to the cabin door. It was open a crack. I pushed it wider to reveal complete darkness within. There was no sound, no movement, and I wondered if I’d been mistaken about the light. Perhaps it had come from somewhere on the harbour and I’d been fooled when it reflected through the window. I stepped inside and in that instant the door was suddenly slammed into my face. As I staggered backwards, a figure charged towards me and the impact of a shoulder drove me down against the steps. Something hard slammed into my spine and I gasped in pain, but even
as my attacker leapt over me somehow I had the presence to grab for a leg. A man’s voice cursed in a low breath, then with a violent kick he jerked himself free and clattered up the steps.

  I scrabbled to my knees and went after him, but he’d anticipated me. Too late I saw a shape leap from the dark and a pair of powerful arms locked around my waist and propelled me towards the side of the boat. Realising that I was about to be driven over the side I flung my hand out and my fingers closed around a winch handle. I hung on tight, bringing us both up short with a wrench which I felt all the way up into my shoulder. My attacker grunted in surprise and, seizing the momentary advantage, I brought my knee up hard. I felt it connect and heard a muffled exclamation, but as I was released I lost my footing and thumped my head against the rail. For a few brief moments I was too stunned to move.

  It was long enough. The man leapt to the wharf and by the time I was on my feet I was twenty feet behind. I hit the ground as the other man reached the cover of the shadows between the buildings. I followed blindly into the pitch darkness and before I’d gone more than a few steps I knew I’d made a mistake. I glimpsed a movement near my feet and, though instinctively I leapt to one side, something hard whacked into my shins and swept my legs from beneath me. As I fell I rolled to avoid a vicious kick aimed at my head and then, curling into a foetal position, I wrapped my arms around my skull for protection and waited for a rain of blows.

  Seconds passed but nothing happened. Warily I struggled to my knees as somewhere close by a car started. It accelerated hard, the engine note changing with the gears, and by the time I reached the road it was a hundred yards away, the headlights illuminating the trees before it vanished around a bend. Gradually the sound of the engine faded.

  When I reached the Swallow again I lowered myself into a chair by the chart table. My shins were bleeding and the right one, which had taken the force of the blow, was already turning a nice shade of green. By the light of a battery-operated lantern I searched the galley and found a bottle of Scotch and a glass in a cupboard. I poured a stiff measure and looked around. The cabin was a mess. Cupboards had been opened and the contents taken out, though nothing was broken and, in fact, on closer examination everything had been arranged tidily. A considerate sort of thief I thought wryly. I noticed that the radio remained in its place, as did a CD player and the electronic navigation aids, which struck me as odd. I wondered why the thief hadn’t taken them first, since they were the most visible items of any value.