The Med

by David Poyer

  “I’ve got to think of getting back to town pretty soon,” she said at last. “We’ve had a wonderful time, Moira. I envy you this, your work … doing what we always dreamed of. By the way, are you sleeping with him?”

  “With whom?”

  “Professor Rentzey.”

  “Oh, good heavens, no.”

  “I didn’t mean anything—”

  “I know you didn’t, Betts. No, it’s one of the grad students. The tall boy, Michael Cook.”

  They laughed by the soft light of a kerosene lamp. “Betts”—she had almost forgotten her college nickname.

  “But you don’t have to go,” Lieberman said then. “I don’t want you to. I have an extra cot. Why don’t you and Nan stay here?”

  “Oh, Moira, I can’t impose.”

  “Impose? Don’t be an ass. I’d love to have you.” Lieberman leaned back on the cot, looking serious. “You know, it would be ideal for you. You don’t get to do much fieldwork, do you?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I guess that means no. But, Betts, why not? I could get Rentzey to give you part of the site. You can do ceramics; we have great trading pieces—you could do trading networks!”

  “It would take so long.”

  “What else are you going to do?”

  She felt trapped; worse, she felt guilty. Moira was right. It would be ideal; it would be a dream come true. Forget the textbooks, do real fieldwork. “But what would I do about Dan? I have to meet him, when they decide where they’re going next. I can’t just disappear.”

  Moira lowered her eyes. “It’s your choice. I guess it would be rough for you out here, especially with Nan.…”

  “I’d really like to,” Susan said again. She tried to smile, to pass it off. “But we have our room back in Nicosia, all our things are there … we can visit you again … but I really think we’d better go back.”

  “Maybe you’re right, at that. You know,” and Moira looked into the dark beyond the open flaps of the tent, “the islanders are nice, but there’s something else, some undercurrent. There’s a lot of talk about the Turks.”

  “I heard something about that in the city, too. I thought it was just a pass. You mean there might be trouble?”

  “I can’t say. We have to be damn careful about the local politics. The man who owns this orchard, he comes around sometimes to watch us; he hates Muslims. Curses them. It’s terrible, there’s so much hate between them. And really they’re not so different, to our eyes.” Moira turned a piece of glazed ware, an ancient drinking cup, in her hands. “Anyway, it might be safer here. If anything happens, it’ll start in the city. It always does.”

  “I’d stay, really, but Nan gets so cranky. I can’t inflict her on everybody here. You don’t know what it’s like with a baby.”

  “She’s not a baby. She’s smart. And pretty. You’re so lucky to have her, Betts.”

  “Oh, I know.” Susan smiled, looking back toward the fire; Cook, his hair shining gold in the yellow light, was showing Nan how to coax hollow music from the mouth of a bottle. “It’s a pain sometimes, but I love her. You should have children, Moira.”

  “Oh, Jesus, plenty of time for that. How’s your husband? You know, I still remember the day you met him, when we went up on that bus. I was so jealous.”

  “Dan’s all right. We have our problems. He’s away so much. The Navy’s like that. I can’t say he didn’t warn me.”

  “It must be rough, having him away. But you can cope, can’t you?”

  “I do, yes … somehow.”

  She parted the tent flaps, looking out toward the fire again. As she did so a puff of air made her shiver. It came from the east, several degrees cooler, a different wind than the hot, uncertain breeze that had prevailed all day. This was steady, calm and cold.

  “Feels like rain,” said Moira, close behind her. “The orchards can use that. It’s been even drier than usual this summer. You know, Betts,”—her roommate put her arm around her, looking with her in the direction of the fire, the little girl, the circle of amused men—“I don’t know if I should ask you this, but—”

  “God, Moira, you know you can ask me anything. I may not answer you, but you can ask.”

  “It’s like—when you’re married, and your husband’s away so much—don’t you ever get horny?”

  Susan had to laugh. Moira Lieberman—“the Ox” to everyone at Georgetown—had never been famous for reticence. But then her laughter faltered.

  “You don’t have to answer, like you said.”

  “No, it’s all right. I was just thinking about it. It’s so good when he’s there. The being apart makes it like a honeymoon. If it wasn’t for Nan we could spend weeks in bed. But when he isn’t there—yeah, I get horny as hell.”

  “Do you ever think about other men?”

  “Think? Sometimes, Moira. But that’s all.”

  “And so you’re happy? You really are?”

  She hesitated then, for the barest fraction of a moment, looking toward the stakes, flickering in the firelight, that marked the careful rectilinear dissection of the dig. Her first love, the love of ancient things, the laborious, fascinating, ultimately impossible reconstruction of the past … “No, it’s fine,” she said at last. “I guess you can’t have everything.”

  And she was grateful, somehow, that Moira did not remark on the pensive way she said it.

  * * *

  She began the drive back that night with more annoyance than trepidation. Nan was whiny, didn’t want to leave, and her unusual behavior elicited an equal snappishness from her mother. There were tears from the backseat, where the bag of toys was, when at last they started down from the hills. But her annoyance melted as she concentrated on driving.

  It was a task. The clouds that had come with the wind covered stars and moon, and there seemed to be as few lights now, late in the twentieth century, as there had been in the twelfth. Rain spattered briefly, then lifted, but the road remained only a pale winding among cliffs that shone like pavement in the weak headlights, and she had to concentrate to keep from mistaking one for the other. Shadows flew along before them, swept after the humming tires like black wings. When at last she turned onto the main road she gave a puff of relief. Only then did she wonder about Nan. She twisted to look into the rear seat, but only a flash of dark hair showed as Susan flicked the dome light on and off. She was curled up back there, asleep.

  Leave her be, then … she turned back to the road. Mile by dark mile the island sped by, wind buffeting the tiny car.

  The conversation with Moira had left her dissatisfied, on some deep level that she only vaguely understood. What was it that had upset her? Her shortness with Nan had only partially been her daughter’s fault.

  Was it the invitation to the dig?

  Had it been what the Ox had asked, about Dan?…

  She was still wondering about it when her foot slammed down, sending her toward the windshield. The lights had loomed up suddenly as she came round a bend. Rain spattered the glass again, and she flicked on the wipers and peered forward, the car shuddering as wind lashed at the doors.

  Trucks. They were turning out of a side road, down from somewhere in the hills; rolling slowly onto the highway that led inland, toward the capital. Two, and then several more; large canvas-covered vehicles with strange headlights. Then she realized that they were blackout headlights, and that the trucks were a military convoy. They wound slowly onto the rain-silvered highway, the growl of motors reaching her through the wind. They’re headed east, she thought. East, toward the Turkish lines.

  The last truck was towing an artillery piece. Its barrel turned toward her, directly in line with the little car, as the convoy gathered speed into the night. She sat frozen, holding the wheel, listening to their diminishing roar as the taillights dimmed into red blurs, dissolving in the rain.

  * * *

  That night, back at the hotel, Nan woke crying at three. She was feverish. Susan made tea, put cold clot
hs on her head, and then, when she finally went back to sleep, took out a book. She studied for a time, then got up, restless, and stood at the window. At last she opened it and stepped out onto the balcony that every hotel room in the Mediterranean seemed to have. She shivered in the wind, wrapping her robe more tightly about her, and looked out over the city.

  At this hour, long before dawn, Nicosia was like a neglected cemetery. The buildings were grave markers, their bases whitened by the few streetlights, all their windows dark. The streets were empty. Several blocks away, over a bus shed and a restaurant, a neon sign beamed out CYPRUS AIRWAVES. Beyond that was a wider street, a few palms and plane trees, and the pillared portico of the Town Hall. Beyond the buildings she could make out dimly the mound of the old city wall.

  There are things to see here, she told herself. We won’t waste this time. But still the windy, waiting silence seemed to echo something in her own heart, something lost and afraid. She wished now she had stayed with Moira. They would be asleep now in the tent, or lying awake telling funny stories about college. But her next thought was of Nan. It might be one of those waterborne diseases the guidebooks warned about. If the fever held she would need a doctor, and the capital, not the hills, was the place to find one. So on balance, perhaps it was best that they had returned.…

  Something moved on the street, and she leaned over the balcony, looking down.

  It was a group of men, twenty or thirty of them, moving along purposefully at a jog. They were carrying guns. Police? Troops? So strange that they would be running through the streets, at night.

  Stranger than that, she realized suddenly, looking down at their white shirts, dark hatless heads, was that none of them was wearing a uniform.

  That decided her. Armed men in the streets: That was something more than rumor. That and the trucks … as soon as it was light she would get Nan dressed, pack a bag, and go … go where? To the embassy, of course. That would be the safest place. And there might even be a doctor there. She was not really worried about Nan—she was healthy—but it wouldn’t hurt to have her looked at. And the man at the counter, no, his supervisor would be better, perhaps could tell them now what was happening, what everyone seemed to fear but not speak of, as if saying its name would bring it on. She thought for a moment of Dan, then dismissed it. He was far away. Always far away, it seemed, when she needed him.

  Well, that was the way things were for Navy wives. And much as you dislike the word, she thought, that is what you are. “Dependents,” in the seemingly deliberate insult of military terminology … although she was feeling anything but dependent, and would see to it with all her strength that her daughter did not grow up to be.

  She left the windows open and went back to the bed. Her daughter … she smoothed Nan’s hair. It was hard sometimes to remember what it had been like before she had someone more important than herself to take care of, something more urgent than her own wishes. She’d been such a child herself when she’d married. Possibly, as her father joked sometimes, more than a little spoiled. She smiled to herself, her hand moving gently, and then the smile ebbed away.

  She would do anything to keep her daughter safe.

  She was picking up her book again, turning to sit down, when she heard distant gunfire. Her first feeling was incredulity. Her first action was to pick up the room telephone and dial the desk.

  There was no answer.

  That’s it, she thought, all the fear galvanizing suddenly into resolve. To hell with waiting. We’re going now.

  * * *

  Nan, bundled tight in two sweaters and the heaviest coat they had brought, did not cry or even whine in the elevator down. At two floors the lift jerked to a stop, the doors banged open, and more people crowded in, frightened-looking in hastily donned clothes. They seemed all to be foreigners—or non-Greeks, she corrected herself. Americans, British, an elderly couple with a small dog. When they reached the lobby she headed immediately for the desk, but there was no one there, no one at the switchboard. Carrying the single suitcase she had packed, she went next to the street entrance, and stared out. There were a few lights on now, in the storefronts, and knots of Cypriotes were gathering here and there on the street, looking east.

  “We’re going to the American Embassy,” she said, to the lobby at large. “Does anyone need a ride?”

  She took the old couple. Their name, the woman said, was Stanweis, and they were from New Jersey. The poodle’s name was Ferdy. She bundled them into the backseat and headed south. Strangely, they seemed to be the only ones going anywhere. The Nicosians that they passed simply stood waiting, on the sidewalks or in front of their stores, watching them go by. She left the car on a side street, near where she had parked the day before, and they walked the last two blocks, Nan holding tightly and silently to her hand. Halfway there she remembered that she had left her camera in the car. She did not go back.

  The embassy gates were open and lit. Two marines stood by them, looking self-conscious. They were unarmed. “Ma’am. Your passport?” said one, as she came up.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re an American? We have orders to check.”

  “Of course I’m an American,” she said. This was too much. “I was born in Washington. My husband’s in the Navy. You can see I’m not Russian.”

  “We’ll still have to see some ID, ma’am,” the other marine said inflexibly. She showed him her dependent’s card. As they went inside she heard the Stanweises begin to argue. They had left their passports at the hotel. She thought for a moment that she should go back, help them, but then looked at Nan. She looked so wan that Susan hurried on inside, wondering again about a doctor.

  There were people already there. They stood around the counter, where another marine stood next to a civilian official; she was saying that conditions were unsettled; they couldn’t say for certain what was happening; that everyone was welcome to stay, but that there wasn’t much room. Susan could see that. People were already fencing off areas of the hallway with luggage and blankets. Walking down the corridor, she saw that several of the offices were open, with people sitting inside talking on telephones. She went back to the desk, noting that people were coming in steadily now through the gates. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman. “My little girl is sick. Is there a doctor available?”

  “A doctor? Not right now—we have a Greek nurse, but she won’t be in till morning.”

  “Permit me,” said someone behind her. She turned; it was the old man, Mr. Stanweis.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said. “Can I help?”

  “Certainly,” she said, and smiled. Bread on the waters …

  A little later, she hastened to claim with their clothes and the suitcase the last few square feet of floor. She laid herself down next to Nan—“probably just a touch of flu,” Stanweis had said—on the wool coat she had expected never to need in the Mediterranean. She was so tired.…

  When she opened her eyes again, later, she realized she had dozed off. The hallway lights had dimmed; Nan was asleep, snuffling a little as she dreamed.

  Lying there, Susan Lenson mused drowsily on the thick walls … the guards out front … the impregnable, invisible, inviolate shield of the American flag. For the first time that day she felt secure. The marble floor was hard, but as she drifted off, she thought it was lovelier than the softest bed.

  Nothing, was her last thought, can touch us here.

  And outside, gunfire rattled distant in the Cypriote night.

  IV

  THE READY

  12

  U.S.S. Guam

  Five hundred miles to the west Dan Lenson raised his head suddenly from his desk. He recalled neither nodding off to sleep, nor what had just awakened him. He blinked blurrily at his watch. Fifteen minutes … was that all that he’d been out?…

  He was holding his time-distance ruler, trying to recall what he’d been calculating on it, when the phone on the bulkhead buzzed again. At the far side of the darkened stateroom a horiz
ontal figure stirred, flinging up an arm in unconscious protest. He grabbed for the handset. “Lieutenant Lenson.”

  “Dan?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Good morning. Are you going to relieve me? It’s ten minutes past.”

  He looked at his watch again, registering time rather than duration. Ten past four. Where had the night gone? He had poured it all into the scribbled sheets that covered the desk, into planning for something that would in all likelihood never happen. And now it was time for watch again. “I’m sorry, Commander … I mean, Jack. I got to working here and forgot the time.”

  “I understand. You’ll be up soon, then?”

  “Yes sir, right away.”

  “Take your time. Just wanted to check.”

  He snapped the phone into its rack and slumped, closing his eyes. Three days now without sleep. His face felt wooden, his skin numb, and the coffee he drank by the dozen cups a watch seemed to have no effect anymore. Watch, and work, and watch … then being saddled by Sundstrom with this stupid operation order on top of everything else. He pushed the mass of paper into the desk and locked it, then got up, staggering with a roll, to pull his flashlight and jacket and cap off the bottom bunk.

  Her picture. He hesitated for a moment, torn between her shadowed eyes and the need to relieve the man who waited for him topside. He imagined her somewhere behind them, she and Nan breathing close and soft in some hotel room in Italy or Greece. At this moment, this moment.