by Dillon, Paul
“Aren’t you going to sit?” asked Elena.
“I was just thinking how lovely you two look together. It’s nice to have you here.” Nicia’s simple and humble dignity echoed in her voice.
“Please, let me clear away the dishes,” said Elena, deflecting the compliment.
The years had been kind to Nicia. Her hair, cut short, framed a face that could have belonged to a woman ten years younger. Thin, gold-rimmed glasses gave her a tender, distinguished look. Despite the early morning heat, she wore a cardigan over her scoop-necked summer dress.
Nicia sat. “I’m glad your father got home safely. How was the flight?”
“They had a delay in London—nothing major. He said he’s missing you already,” replied Elena.
“He said that?”
“Of course.”
Sometimes it was hard to imagine that her father was Nicia’s younger brother. Elena had always thought of her father as American and Nicia as Greek. Both were evacuated to the States after the earthquake but Nicia had returned a decade and a half later, married to Andreas, her childhood friend. Elena had many fond memories of Nicia; she’d been a regular visitor to their house in Boston.
“I can’t believe it’s been four days since the festival,” said Sophia.
Before getting up, Sophia knocked back a last gulp of strong Greek coffee and grabbed her jacket from an adjacent chair. Even at this hour, the temperature had soared to eighty degrees. She draped the garment over her shoulder, letting Elena know it was time to go then walked off to the house.
Pushing back her seat, Elena paused before rising, giving her aunt an opportunity to speak. Nicia said nothing.
“Well, I should be going then. Are you sure you’re okay with the dishes?”
“Don’t worry. Go and enjoy yourself, you’ll love Fiskardo, it is so beautiful.”
Elena rose, put on a pair of sunglasses then helped Nicia to her feet. They walked back towards the house.
The magical courtyard, separating the villa from the olive grove, captivated Elena. Passing through the iron gates, she paused to admire the garden.
Bounded by the dwelling and three high walls, the area was a square of approximately sixty feet. The sidewalls, mostly overgrown with climbing plants, reduced in height via a series of curves until they met the rear boundary wall. Doors and windows bordered in white, with shutters and frames of a deep and glorious blue balanced the pastel shade of the pink house.
Elena’s eyes darted around the scene, absorbing the colors; the ornaments, the flowers. Wall fountains, vines, vases, palms, geraniums … color abounded. Scarlet, flowering bougainvillea hung in baskets, climbing everywhere over the walls. Even the floor had luster. Earthenware pots, a hundred or more, both plain and decorated, big and small, sat on a deep patina of reddish-brown terracotta. Four diamond areas, each planted with flowering azaleas gave the space symmetry. In the center of the square, amid the riot of color, a wooden pergola held pride of place. Wisteria and vines grew up its stanchions, sprawling over the roof, providing shade to an enormous weather-beaten table.
Looking up at the house, Elena recognized her bedroom, from whose balcony she had sat reading in the early light of dawn. A swallow’s nest clung to the eaves above the veranda doors.
“I’ve been hoping to see the swallows each morning. I haven’t seen any,” said Elena. “Did they leave?”
“Yes,” replied Nicia. “About a week before you came. They arrive one moment and are gone the next. The older I get, the shorter they seem to stay,”
The beauty of the courtyard touched Elena, prompting a question.
“You must be very happy here. Do you ever regret leaving America?”
“Not really. This is where I belong; this is my land, my people, my culture. Even though I left the island as a young girl, its memory stayed with me. How about you, could you be happy here?”
“Well, I’m going to say yes, standing in this courtyard but, really, Boston’s my home—maybe when I’m older.”
Sophia reappeared at the back door, clutching a portfolio case. She looked chic in a black suit with pencil skirt, hemmed just above the knee. “Come on, we’ve got to go,” she said.
“Coming; let me get a bag from the room, I’ll see you at the front.” Elena hugged Nicia then followed Sophia into the house.
The car was running as she hurried through the front door. A leather bag hung from her right shoulder. Sliding into the BMW coupe brought little relief from the heat. The air conditioning was on full, the car had been in the shade, but the leather still felt warm against her legs. Sophia pushed a CD into the player. Reggae, thought Elena, turning up the volume. It’s going to be a good day.
“So, who are these artists we’re visiting?” asked Elena.
“Ah … Pasquali and Dimi,” replied Sophia. “Like I said earlier, Pasquali’s a recluse, I won’t be able to take you to his studio, so I’ll drop you off in Fiskardo after we see Dimi. You’ll love it there. You should have an hour or two to look around before I pick you up.”
The car made its way through the outskirts of Argostoli, heading towards the southeastern edge of the lagoon. Elena tried to imagine the strange artist, Pasquali, in his studio. It’s an octagonal room at the top of a house. The walls and roof all glass. Strong light streams in from every angle, bouncing off the wooden floor; a moveable canopy provides shade. Pasquali wears a battered old fedora tilted at an angle, his beard reaches down to his white vest, stained with sweat. Looking more like a seedy criminal than artist, Pasquali paints his model. She’s naked, plump with auburn hair, and chained to a wooden post. A fierce black dog looks menacingly on.
Elena stopped daydreaming. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay on your own with Pasquali?”
“Yes, I told you, I’ll be fine. Grandfather’s known him for years and I’ve been there several times before. Besides, his wife’s always in the house. Don’t worry about me.”
If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Sophia, thought Elena.
Argostoli looked picturesque across the lagoon. The old stone Drapano Bridge, now closed to traffic, shone white in the sun. Elena had seen the town from this side of the lagoon four days earlier. That day, she’d been at the cemetery with her father.
Clinging to the curves of the corniche, the BMW climbed higher into the mountains.
“It’s a magnificent drive to Fiskardo,” said Sophia. “Cliff edge all the way.”
Elena looked down at the turquoise sea far below. “You don’t say.”
“It’s great if you’re a passenger but mile after mile of hairpin bends tires me out. I’m glad I’m not driving alone.”
“It’s good to know I’m earning my keep.”
“There are a couple of famous lookout points along the way. We’ll stop and take some pictures. You brought your camera, right?” Sophia continued without waiting for a reply. “Oh yeah, when we get back, we’re going to dinner with Nik, he promised to bring a friend along.”
“Hmmm, I hope he’s not expecting a blind date.”
“Why? Worried your boyfriend will find out?” asked Sophia.
“Yeah, right … fine, I don’t care, so bring him.”
The conversation forced Elena to think about Greg, back home in Boston. There’d been a confrontation when she revealed her intention to stay on in Kefalonia. Confiding in Greg had been a mistake. If only she hadn’t told him that Nicia would let her stay indefinitely, that Sophia had offered to help her find work that she enjoyed connecting to her cultural roots. He had taken everything the wrong way. Greg was serious about their relationship; she did not doubt he intended to marry her. Deep in her heart, Elena was still undecided.
Just as Sophia promised, the coast road was spectacular. On the driver’s side, the crystal waters of the bay sparkled in the sunshine, hundreds of feet below. Across the channel, the mountainous Pali peninsula dissected sea and sky. Elena gazed out of the passenger window at the rugged hills; they seemed to tolerate nothing
but scrub and pines. Every few miles, a stone ruin or abandoned farmhouse embellished the desolate beauty; each immortalizing some sorrowful tale.
Once more, her thoughts drifted back to Greg. She checked herself, vowing not to think of him again today, and started a new topic of conversation.
“I really love Nicia, she’s so contented. It’s a great story, how Andreas came to find her in America and how she waited for him. I wish I had that kind of conviction.”
“Nothing so romantic is going to happen to us, that’s for sure,” said Sophia.
“After breakfast yesterday, the three of us sat talking about the earthquake and the evacuation. Listening to Nicia and Andreas tell their story, really affected me. It made me focus on the importance of family.”
“I wish my mom would move back from Athens, but that’s not going to happen. Grandma misses her.”
“How is she? I don’t think I’ve seen her in ten years.”
“Still reporting, dreaming of becoming a famous writer. Every year she’s going to take a break, come home and work on the masterpiece but it never happens. You’re in a similar business though.”
“If I haven’t lost my job, but writing advertising copy isn’t journalism. Mind you, if I stayed here long enough, even I’d get the inspiration to write that great novel. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a career change, photography maybe.”
“Well you’ll get plenty of practice today.”
Bathed in light of an unworldly clarity, the dramatic Ionian view had a therapeutic effect on Elena. She watched Sophia take a drink of water. Her cousin looked tired; navigating the twisting, precipitous road required concentration.
Within half a mile, they reached the first stopping-off point. Sophia pulled the car over at a rest area overlooking the cliffs and opened her door. “Come on, bring your camera.”
Mid-morning heat rushed into the car, engulfing Elena, calling into question the logic of going outside. Too late, Sophia was out, striding over to a low stone wall, overlooking the sea. Elena reached for her camera and followed.
“Myrtos Beach,” said Sophia. “One of the most beautiful in Europe.”
Elena looked down at the small curved bay far below. “Is that sand? It looks more like snow.”
People, smaller than ants, lay on a mile-long strip of brilliant white. Kaleidoscopic shades of blue, green, and turquoise tinged the translucent waters of the crescent bay.
“I want to go down there … right now,” said Elena, clicking the camera shutter.
“Well, not today. Maybe you can get Nik’s friend to take you tomorrow.”
“Maybe,” Elena smiled.
“It’s not sand.” Sophia answered the earlier question. “If you ever go down there, you’ll be standing on small white pebbles. That’s why the water has that gorgeous color … Hey; let’s ask these people to take our picture.”
She approached a family of tourists, handing Elena’s camera to an obliging teenaged boy. The girls sat on the wall with the white beach far below. Sophia put her arms round Elena’s shoulder.
The boy handed the camera back to Sophia who passed it to Elena.
“What do you think?” asked Sophia.
“Two smoking-hot babes overlooking so-so beach,” replied Elena, as she checked the image on the small display. “Let’s go, before I convince myself to bring Nik’s friend tomorrow.”
They returned to the car in high spirits.
Sophia made another stop, at an overlook of the ruined castle at Assos. This time, she stayed in the car while Elena took pictures.
“It was built by the Venetians in the sixteenth century,” Sophia called out.
Elena wondered what the castle had defended. From her vantage point, she could not see the village of Assos, nestled in a tiny cove far below. She took a single picture of the fort atop its rocky promontory and got back in the car.
“It’s about ten more miles to Dimi’s studio,” said Sophia as they left the horseshoe-shaped lookout.
On the outskirts of Fiskardo, Elena became drowsy, hardly noticing the increased signs of habitation. Sophia braked sharply, turning off the main highway onto a narrow road heading into the hills.
At a bend in the lane, Sophia slowed the car to a crawl, opposite a group of pines. She turned right, through a gap in a rough-hewn stone wall, into a private driveway. Rising straight, for two hundred yards, the track cut through a small copse of cypress and pine trees. Elena lowered the window to smell the pines; the air was alive with the shrill sound of insects, singing in the summer heat.
The car drew to a halt where the drive dead-ended in a turning circle. Elena looked around for Dimi’s villa. A tall limestone wall obscured the house; tree branches drooped over from within.
“This is it.” Sophia got out, slipped on her jacket and reached for the portfolio case.
Elena followed her towards an archway, flanked on either side by large terracotta urns. From the pots, dwarf trees grew, like sentinels; their foliage trimmed into toadstool shapes. Daisies blossomed around the base of their slender, stick-like trunks. Inside the entranceway, wrought iron gates were fixed back in an open position and entwined with flowering red vines.
Elena looked up at a series of steps, cut from a pink-hued stone. Retaining walls of limestone followed the steps upwards. To her left, cypress trees towered above the parapet. On the right, a terraced garden sloped up to the villa. From the entranceway, the steep incline concealed all but the clay tiles of the house roof. Terracotta vases, planted with flowering shrubs stood on each alternate stair. Elena stepped back a few paces to photograph the entryway. Sophia climbed on; now halfway to the top.
The two-storey house revealed its wonderful colors gradually. As Elena climbed, red roof gave way to pale cream stucco and deep purple windows with decorative wooden shutters. She followed her cousin along the side of the building. Large vases of trees and vines spilled their foliage and flowers against the wall.
Elena paused, fascinated by a strange doorway. Without calling to Sophia, she fiddled in her bag for the camera. As if an illusion, what appeared to be one door was, in fact, two, their combined width no more than three feet. Each was almost too narrow to be of practical use. She adjusted the lens, zooming in and out to best frame the shot.
It was the act of focusing that first attracted her to the texture, and complex color of the wood. She puzzled why the word ‘purple’ was now so inadequate. The old timber had a distressed patina that Elena sought to describe … in some areas, the paint is the color of grapes, in others, that of the dust that sometimes clouds their skins. Four small panes of glass, obscured by white lace curtains, were set in the top half of each door; the bottom had deep, raised panels. Dried flowers, oranges and browns, hung in bouquets, from each center-transom.
As Elena pressed the camera shutter for the third time, she became, momentarily, an artist behind her easel contemplating her painting. In this manner, she became aware of the dark, diagonal shadow that angled down across the wall and over the bottom of the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
Elena was startled out of her reverie by Sophia, who was standing next to an olive-skinned, ruggedly handsome man in his fifties.
“Dimi, this is Elena, my cousin, from America. Elena, this is Dimi.”
Deftly, but firmly, Dimi raised Elena’s hand to his lips, kissing the back, throwing her off guard.
“Please to meet you Dimi,” she said. “I was just admiring your door. Umm, have you ever painted it?”
Dimi did not answer her question. He pulled on a cigarette, the smoke wrapped around his tousled, dark-grey locks, refusing to disappear in the still and breathless air.
“I’m enchanted to meet you, Elena,” said Dimi, letting go of her hand. He gazed straight into her eyes. “Your cousin is very beautiful, Sophia. Perhaps she is an artist also.”
Neither girl answered.
“Shall we go inside?” asked Sophia. Without waiting for a reply, she walked off; Dimi
followed. Elena had a moment to notice Dimi’s broad back and powerful legs before he turned around to walk beside her.
“No I haven’t painted the door. Perhaps you think it would make a nice composition.”
He paused for a few seconds then the changed subject.
“I can see you are a very sensual woman.”
Elena suppressed a laugh. She could sense an attraction to Dimi; indeed, his physical presence was intimidating, but his manner had suddenly become amusing. She thought ahead to the studio; Dimi would be wearing a silk dressing gown, smoking a cigarette, like a Hollywood actor from a black and white movie. In a debonair voice, he would say, “I’d like you to pose nude for me today. Would you mind terribly, darling?”
“I’m looking forward to seeing your work. Sophia tells me you paint still-life.” Elena ignored Dimi’s earlier remark. She could not remember whether Sophia had mentioned him having a wife.
At the rear of the house, they entered a courtyard. Tall cypress trees formed a boundary at either side. The property ended at a cliff with a view overlooking the bay and the nearby island of Ithaca. A low balustrade wall with spindles of classic design marked the cliff-edge.
“Let me show you the view, Elena,” said Dimi, leading the way. The girls followed him across the neat, orderly grounds. Elena noted the contrast from the approach to the house, with its mass of pots and colorful plants to the formal, minimalist, space at the rear. The garden stretched forty or fifty yards from the house to the escarpment. A small grass border ran along the cypress trees at either side, abutting a wide avenue of limestone tiles, inlaid with red terracotta diamonds. In the center of the two pathways, a neatly trimmed lawn, about twenty yards wide, rolled out before a rectangular pond covered with water lilies. Between pond and cliff, the limestone flags formed a spacious patio furnished with tables and chairs in a style reminiscent of a Parisian Café. As they approached the wild hillside, the rhythm of cicadas grew louder, swept up by the ocean breeze. Multi-colored dragonflies, straying from the pond, hovered around the patio adjusting their flight in the wispy air.