Aphrodite's Smile

by Stuart Harrison

  I sat down at my dad’s desk. I’d wondered from the beginning why he had gone to the marina on the morning he had vanished. I doubted that he’d intended taking the boat out. He must have known he wasn’t capable of that in his condition. So he must have had another reason to go there. Had it been to retrieve the missing journal? But he had never left the marina, and the journal wasn’t on the boat.

  Of course it was all conjecture, as Theonas had pointed out. There was no proof the journal even existed. When I left the museum I wasn’t sure what I would do next, or even if I should do anything. If my father really had been involved in smuggling antiquities, then perhaps it was better that nobody should know. It was this conflict which I knew plagued Irene; the desire to maintain the status quo, thereby possibly allowing a murderer to go free, or digging up an unpalatable reality that would finally destroy my father’s reputation for ever.

  As I drove back to the house I pondered the idea that perhaps it was true that some things really are best left in the past.

  FOURTEEN

  I hadn’t closed the shutters over the window the night before and when I woke the first signs of dawn were lightening the sky. It was quiet, the cicadas and birds hadn’t yet stirred. A faint breeze disturbed the leaves on the olive trees and carried the scent of wild mint and pine from the hillside. I heard the sound of a car on the road below the house, the engine note dropping as the driver changed gear before it faded and was gone.

  I dressed and went downstairs. Irene wasn’t up yet so I made coffee and took it onto the terrace. The tops of the hills seemed on fire as the sun rose behind them, while far below the harbour remained deep green and utterly still. I’d slept badly. All night I’d dozed fitfully thinking mostly about Alex.

  I left the house while it was still early and drove into town to the house where Alex was staying. When I went to her room the shutters were closed and there was no response to my knocking. I called her name quietly once or twice, but there was still no reply. I didn’t want to wake the whole household up and I was contemplating what to do when I heard a sound behind me. I turned to find a woman watching me from the door of the house.

  ‘Kalimera,’ I said.

  ‘Kalimera,’ she murmured, regarding me suspiciously.

  ‘The young woman who’s renting your room. Do you know if she’s here?’ The woman looked at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Alex. The English girl.’

  ‘Ah, Alex. Yes.’ She beamed and came towards me. ‘Alex is sleep?’ She pointed at the door and the closed shutters.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The woman shrugged and knocked. ‘Alex?’ When there was no reply she shrugged again. ‘Come again,’ she said, it being evident that if Alex was inside she was asleep.

  I had no alternative but to leave. The woman went back to her house and closed the door while I lingered outside in the street. The town was beginning to come to life. A small fishing boat chugged across the harbour toward the entrance and several scooters buzzed back and forth along the waterfront, their riders hunched over bags of fresh bread they had fetched from the bakery.

  I got in the Jeep and decided to go and have a cup of coffee somewhere and come back in half an hour. As I slowed for the intersection at the end of the street I glanced up the hill to check for traffic and as I did, Alex appeared at the bottom of a flight of steps. She appeared engrossed in her thoughts and when I called her name she looked startled.

  I got out of the Jeep and went to meet her. ‘I’ve just been looking for you. I think I woke your landlady.’

  Alex shot a nervous glance back the way she’d come. I looked to see what was wrong, but there was nothing there. ‘We were having a slight communication problem,’ I added.

  Belatedly I realised that she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when I’d dropped her off the day before. I noticed other small details. Her hair had been hurriedly brushed and she wasn’t wearing any make-up.

  ‘Have you been for a walk?’ I asked, wondering why she hadn’t said anything as a kind of dread seeped into me.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, though she didn’t meet my eye.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep last night either.’

  She started to say something then looked down at her feet. Everything about this was wrong. A second or two passed in silence and then, when she looked at me again, she wore a pleading expression. All at once I guessed where she had been. It felt like a punch to the gut. For a few moments I couldn’t react. I didn’t want to believe that I was right, but her silence was damning.

  The sun had risen and it was already warm. Sunlight splashed on the wall behind Alex. I couldn’t look at her while I tried to steady my feelings. Instead I studied the mortar between the pitted whitish blocks. It was cracked and decaying. A small clump of wild flowers had somehow managed to gain a tenuous hold and clung there hopefully, a cheerful but seemingly doomed dash of cheerful colour in an otherwise hostile environment.

  ‘Robert,’ Alex said in quiet appeal. But her voice triggered something in me. I turned on her.

  ‘You didn’t stay there last night did you?’

  Her eyes widened at the coldness in my tone. I stared at her, knowing the answer even before she finally shook her head with a small, barely perceptible movement. She reached out, but I recoiled from her touch. She flinched and allowed her hand to fall away.

  ‘Please, can we go somewhere so that we can talk? I want to explain …’

  I cut her off. ‘I just want to know one thing. So that there’s no misunderstanding. Just tell me if you spent the night with Dimitri.’

  ‘Please. I know how you must feel but …’

  ‘Just … answer … me …’ I said, cutting her off again.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath. ‘Yes. I was with Dimitri.’

  Though I knew that would be her answer I wasn’t prepared for how I felt. I hadn’t really understood how much she had got under my skin. Even now she seemed small and vulnerable and I felt a rage of conflicting emotions. Part of me wanted to embrace her and comfort her as if she were the one who was being hurt, but at the same time I wanted to lash out at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Really I am. You have to let me explain.’

  ‘Christ! Explain what?’ I demanded savagely. ‘You must have gone to him as soon as I dropped you off!’ I gestured to her clothes. ‘Did you even wait for me to get to the end of the street?’

  ‘Robert …’

  ‘Was that him in the car which followed us?’ I said, suddenly remembering the Fiat. I shook my head, beginning to see it all. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No. Listen to me. It’s not the way you think …’

  ‘Isn’t it? How is it then? Tell me, I’d like to know. You went there after I left. Then what? You got chatting, time slipped away and before you knew what had happened it was late and you thought you may as well stay over rather than walk all the way back? Because it must be what? Five minutes away? Ten?’

  She shrank back from my mounting anger. ‘I had to see him. You have to understand …’

  ‘Oh, I understand. Just tell me this. It may be a stupid question given that you spent the night there, but did you fuck him?’

  She recoiled as if I’d slapped her. ‘Don’t do this,’ she murmured.

  ‘Come on, Alex. You wanted to explain. Well here’s your chance. Did you fuck him? It’s a simple question.’ I thrust my face close to hers. ‘I ASKED IF YOU FUCKED HIM!’

  Her eyes glistened. She stepped away from me and fear flashed in her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ I said, moving a step closer. ‘You can’t be afraid of me, Alex. I’m the one who pulled you out of the harbour, remember?’ I aped a sudden flash of insight, slapping my hand against my forehead. ‘Is that what it was all about? The other night? Was that my reward? Or maybe I didn’t come up to scratch, is that it? Is he a better fuck?’

  Abruptly she slapped me. Her hand moved in a blur of speed and the force of it snapped my head a
round and left my cheek stinging.

  Neither of us moved. We stared at each other in silence. Tears were leaking down Alex’s cheeks. She stepped past me and I watched her cross the street.

  ‘One thing,’ I called after her, ‘you don’t know how I feel.’

  After I left Vathy I drove north along the coast road. I had no clear idea of where I was going.

  Without planning to, I arrived at Piso Aetos where a ferry was waiting to depart for Kephalonia and on impulse I bought a ticket. I told myself that I should never have become involved with Alex. Snatches of images came and went. I imagined her in bed in a darkened room, the sheets twisted and fallen to one side, two naked bodies, both tanned, her ankles locked around Dimitri’s back as they moved in passionate unison. My knuckles were bloodless as I gripped the rail with such ferocity that the tendons in my wrists stood out like wire beneath the skin.

  When the ferry slowed as it approached the wharf in Efimia I joined the other passengers to go ashore and found a taxi to take me across the island to Argostoli. There, I found a café close to the marina where dazzling yachts and sleek expensive launches filled the berths. A few people were drinking their morning coffee and reading the papers. An American couple sat nearby loudly discussing their itinerary for the day. The husband was complaining.

  ‘I think we should just take a goddamn cab. I don’t wanna drive on these roads the way some of these people handle a car. They’re crazy.’

  ‘I guess it wouldn’t cost much in dollars anyway,’ his wife agreed. ‘Do we need to get some more of the money they use here, what do they call it now?’

  ‘Euros. Jesus, what is this do you think?’ The man prodded his breakfast with a fork and looked around for a waiter.

  I heard him complaining, but tuned out his irritatingly intrusive drawl. When the waiter came to my table I ordered vodka on the rocks and he looked momentarily surprised. ‘A big one,’ I added, miming with my hands.

  He shrugged. ‘OK.’

  My drink came and I polished it off. I’ve never been big on drowning my sorrows in alcohol, but it was a day for making exceptions so I signalled the waiter to bring me another. While I drank it I wondered how soon I could get a flight back to London. I had no desire to stay another day in Greece, and even less to return to Ithaca. But I had left without my passport, and anyway the least I could do was say goodbye to Irene. I supposed another twenty-four hours wouldn’t kill me, especially if I found a painless way to pass the time.

  I ordered a third vodka. The alcohol on top of an empty stomach was making me light-headed and numb, both feelings that I welcomed. I noticed a woman at a table nearby looking at me. She was perhaps thirty, obviously Greek, with long thick reddish hair and pretty features. When I stared back at her she held my gaze frankly.

  ‘Would you like to join me?’ I asked.

  ‘It is early for drinking I think.’

  I shrugged, and she got up and came over to my table.

  ‘You have come here on holiday?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Actually for a funeral.’

  She looked at me askance, unsure if I were serious. ‘Who was it that died?’

  ‘A man. I didn’t really know him.’ I waved a hand vaguely.

  She gestured to my drink. ‘Is that why you are drinking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you always have vodka in the mornings like this?’

  ‘Always,’ I assured her.

  Her English was thickly accented, but a lot better than my Greek. She was wearing a cotton print skirt and a tight-fitting top which revealed little but hinted at a lot. I glimpsed slim brown thighs, and she caught my eye, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Are you married?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you are not telling me the truth. You have left your wife at the hotel.’

  ‘Why do you think I’m married?’

  ‘You are good-looking. All men who are good-looking and are not fat are married.’ She laughed throatily. ‘Actually even the fat ugly ones are married.’

  I laughed with her and emptied my glass, vaguely surprised that I had finished it so quickly. ‘You sure you wouldn’t like one of these?’

  She cocked her head on one side. ‘Maybe I will. Yes. All right.’

  I signalled to the waiter and this time ordered two vodkas. He glanced at the woman with a slight frown, but she ignored him.

  ‘What is your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Robert. What’s yours?’

  ‘What is your wife’s name?’

  ‘I told you I’m not married.’

  She smiled as if we were playing a game. ‘Then you are divorced.’

  ‘Never been married.’

  ‘You have a girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  She sat back in her chair and regarded me quizzically. ‘You are gay?’

  I looked deliberately at her cleavage. ‘Not gay.’

  She grinned and leaned towards me. Her breasts pressed against the table and almost spilled from her top. Our drinks arrived and we clicked glasses.

  ‘Do you like what you see?’ she asked me, watching where my eyes strayed. I didn’t answer, and then she stood up and for a few moments I sat blinking at her. The sun was behind her and the glare hurt my eyes. I reached for my drink but somehow the glass had emptied itself.

  ‘Why don’t you pay some money for the drinks,’ the woman said. I couldn’t have sworn to it but she appeared to be frowning, and I detected a note of impatience in her tone where moments before there had only been a kind, coquettish flirting. Nevertheless I put some money on the table and stood up. She took my arm and we began walking along the street.

  ‘I don’t know your name,’ I mentioned.

  She gripped my arm more tightly as I stumbled, and then she decided that wouldn’t do and put her arm around my waist, guiding my own around hers where it rested just below the soft weight of her breast.

  She looked impatient again then shook her head and smiled, not without a trace of sympathetic humour. ‘You have had too much drink.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Come with me. It is not far. You can rest.’

  I was led through narrow streets to a building with an exterior which I hazily observed was shabby and unattractive. The doors were open to a gloomy hallway, its tiled floor splintered with cracks into which the grime of many years had accumulated. The woman guided me to a third-floor apartment that was simply furnished but clean. In the living room a collection of icons of saints arranged on a table by the window swam in and out of focus.

  ‘I will fetch you a drink,’ the woman said, and pushed me towards a couch. She went to the fridge in the kitchen and took out a jug and when she returned she gave me a glass of red juice which I drank thirstily.

  ‘Would you like more?’ she asked.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘OK.’ She opened a window and the sounds of the street filtered up to us. It was hot in the apartment. The air was stifling. I was sweating and beginning to feel sick.

  ‘Can I use your bathroom?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’ She gestured to a doorway.

  I passed a room containing a bed and a set of drawers, on top of which were more icons. In the bathroom I turned on the cold tap and the pipes rumbled behind the walls before a stream of warmish water emerged. I closed my eyes and splashed my face. When I straightened up I was suddenly overcome with a bout of dizziness. Reaching out, I steadied myself against the basin and peered at my reflection in the mirror. I looked pale. I needed to sleep it off. As I went back towards the living room a voice called me from the bedroom. I went to the doorway and found the woman sitting on the bed. I still didn’t know her name. She patted the space beside her.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Groggily I obeyed. Casually she pulled her top over her head and, before I could say anything, unhooked her bra. ‘You must pay,’ she said, interpreting my amused surprise as delight I suppose.
>
  I took out my wallet and gave her some notes, then a few more until she seemed happy. ‘Look, I just need to rest,’ I said. ‘This has all been a misunderstanding.’

  ‘I do not think so,’ she said.

  I started to tell her she was wrong, but I stopped myself because of course she was right, I had known all along that she was a prostitute. She pushed me onto my back and started tugging at my clothes. Before I knew it she had undressed me, and then she was naked herself. As if in a dream I watched her cup her breasts. She smiled and arched her throat as she pushed her hands back through her hair, then she positioned herself over me. I registered the smoothness of her skin, the dark patch of coarse hair at the base of her belly. Behind her on the dresser the icons watched us with their saintly expressions. They seemed uniformly unhappy I thought, before the idea dissolved. For an instant I thought of Alex. I felt the silken brush of hair against my chest and then I reached out for the stranger above me.

  Sunlight streamed through the window and splashed onto the bed. I opened my eyes and squinted. My body was bathed in a sheen of perspiration and my head pounded. My mouth was so dry my tongue felt as though it was a foot thick. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost five in the afternoon.

  The woman was gone, as was all the money in my wallet. I got up and made my way unsteadily to the kitchen where I drank several glasses of water. A search through the cupboards turned up some aspirin. When I was feeling marginally better I searched the apartment for money so that I could get a taxi, but I didn’t find any.

  I let myself out and on the way down the stairs I passed a middle-aged woman carrying a bag of groceries. She regarded me with frank, unsmiling disapproval.

  ‘Kalimera,’ I mumbled.

  The woman made some response and continued past, waving her hand and firing a staccato burst of unintelligible Greek at me. When she reached the top of the stairs she glanced back, a thick-waisted matron dressed entirely in black even down to her thick stockings, her brow creased into a frown of censure.