A Terrible Beauty

by Tasha Alexander

  “She adores you,” Philip said. “She never once looked at me the way she does you.”

  “She did not have the time to—”

  “Please, do not try to comfort me. I am happy for you, but if I am to be honest, I must own I am happier for her. No man could be a better husband and partner; she is lucky to have you. Seeing her again has been like a dream, despite the obvious difficulties of the situation, but I am well aware my presence here is troubling to her.”

  “You had to know it would be,” Colin said.

  “I did. I shouldn’t have come to the villa. If Bohn hadn’t been so terribly injured in his fall—”

  “You did what was necessary.”

  “I shall return to the dig and keep my distance from you all.”

  “I hate to lose you again, Ashton. Your friendship has been the most important of my life.” I had never heard a tone quite like this in my husband’s voice. It very nearly cracked.

  “I do not think, old boy, there is any way for you to have both me and her. It would cause her nothing but pain, and I have already been the instrument of too much of that.”

  “I shall come see you at the dig, before we leave the island, and perhaps…”

  “That is more than I deserve, but I will not refuse the offer.”

  They returned to their companionable silence, and I slunk back inside, consumed with guilt. I did not want to keep Colin from his friend, and determined I would do my best to show them both we could peacefully coexist. I recalled Philip telling me he hoped we could someday be as easy with each other as Jeremy and I were, and I saw no reason such a goal could not be achieved. That decided, Morpheus came to me at last. I did not stir, even when Colin came to bed, and could only tell he had been there when I woke in the morning and saw his clothes strewn about the room.

  A glance at my watch told me I had indulged in a rather extravagant lie-in, so I hurried to dress. By the time I went downstairs, breakfast had long since been cleared away, but Mrs. Katevatis appeared out of nowhere with a dish of yogurt drizzled with honey and walnuts for me.

  “I knew how exhausted you must be when Nico brought your tea down, cold and untouched. Are you feeling well?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Only tired, but much better now. Thoroughly refreshed, in fact.” I heard Margaret on the terrace in front of the house and, taking my yogurt with me, I joined her there. The chairs Colin and Philip had occupied the previous evening remained pushed close together, and I felt a slight pang looking at them. “Where is everyone?”

  “Colin and Jeremy are arranging for a boat to take us to the volcano,” Margaret said. “Philip and Fritz are gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “They left at the crack of dawn, without saying goodbye to anyone but Mrs. Katevatis, who said they were eager to get back to their work.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” I said. “I had hoped they would join us today.”

  “I do not think Professor Hiller von Gaertringen would look kindly on them treating his dig as a holiday adventure.”

  “Quite right,” I said. “Will they come back to dine with us?”

  “They will not be back,” Colin said, opening the gate that led to the cliff path and ushering Jeremy onto the terrace in front of him.

  “We should at least invite them—”

  “No, Emily,” Colin said. “We must let them to their work.”

  Jeremy made a display of studying his boots while Margaret feigned interest in a bird squawking in a nearby tree. I bit my lip so hard I drew blood.

  “He did not even say goodbye.” Tears stung my eyes and I blinked them away.

  Colin stood in front of me, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “It would have been too painful, my dear,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You must let him go, whatever the toll it exacts. There is no other way forward.”

  Philip

  Troy, 1894

  Sacred Ilios, built upon the plain …

  Philip would never tire of the view of what, to him, was nothing short of a holy place. Hills erupted from the landscape in the far-off distance, but it was the plains in the valley of Scamander that fired his imagination. Dörpfeld felt confident that the level on which they were currently focused—Troy VI—housed the city of Homer’s epic, and Philip could not have agreed with more fervent enthusiasm. The experience of being there, of touching the walls beneath which Achilles had fought, nearly overwhelmed the Englishman. On rest days, he would hike the distance between the ruins and the sea and try to imagine how it had looked, all those centuries ago, with camps teeming with tens of thousands of Greek soldiers filling the now-empty space. Occasionally, he would dig on his own, no longer afraid menacing individuals would jump him should he find anything of import.

  His confidence proved unwise. Two weeks before the end of the season, he received a visitor in his tent, long after everyone in the camp had succumbed to slumber. Hakan, tall and lanky in the robes of a nomad, a turban wrapped around his head, crouched over him, brandishing a long knife and holding it close to Philip’s throat.

  “I know what you have,” he said. “And I will not rest until I have retrieved it for Demir.”

  12

  When I awoke that morning, I realized I might not be able to convince Philip of my sincere desire to be his friend, not now that he had exiled himself to the archaeologists’ camp at Ancient Thera, but I could, somehow, persuade Colin we could come to terms with the inherent discomfort of the situation. I would do anything necessary to ensure he did not lose the dearest companion of his youth, the man who understood him in ways that even I might not have.

  Because I had arisen so late, we did not have time to stroll along the cliff path on our way to the boat that was waiting for us. Instead, Adelphos brought donkeys to transport us, as well as our enormous picnic lunch. I suspected Jeremy of adding several bottles of champagne to whatever Mrs. Katevatis had packed. The day was fine, the molten orb of the sun blazing down on us as the beasts of burden plodded along, following the curve of the island.

  Once we reached Fira and began our descent, the air changed, as it always did, the breeze that cooled us at the villa seemingly stopped by the tall rocks of the cliff. Whenever I commented on this, Colin pointed out the flaws in my theory: If the cliffs were stopping the breeze, the effects would be felt on the opposite side to where we were, and, if anything, we would be blown back against them. I refused to listen to him. In my mind, some ancient force misdirected the wind here, allowing it to be felt again only when one had stepped onto a boat and relinquished his or her fate to the sea.

  I admit, once again, to succumbing to the lure of the dramatic. Greece has that effect on me, and I will never, while walking its hallowed ground or sailing the seas on which Odysseus traveled, believe the Olympians do not still rule Hellas.

  The captain of our little boat was Kyros Katsaros, a local fisherman who had long ago become a friend, and who happily abandoned his ordinary work whenever we wished to be ferried either to the volcano or to one of the other small islands in its environs. We always paid him at a rate superior to what he could have earned otherwise, and his wife, a beautiful young woman who I liked to imagine was descended from sea nymphs, encouraged him to do all he could to persuade us to hire him with ever-greater frequency. Kyros helped Margaret and me over a narrow plank and onto the deck. Jeremy followed, but Colin leapt straight from the pier onto the boat, and before long our journey was under way.

  We skimmed through increasingly deep water—even at the port, the depth was too great to allow a ship to drop anchor—as the boat moved toward Nea Kameni, one of the small islands in the caldera. Born from volcanic eruption, its black basalt surface harbors little life. Only a few flowers sprout from its soil, and the loose, rocky path leading from the northern shore to the volcano’s crater crosses a bleak landscape that brings to mind a line written by the first Baron Lytton in his novel Pelham: “A mysterious and unearthly communion of the soul with the bei
ngs of another world.”

  Jeremy stretched out on the deck of the small boat, placing his hat over his face to avoid sunburn. Colin, an enthusiastic sailor, pulled ropes and assisted Kyros as he guided us to our destination. Once there, the fisherman carried ashore the large baskets containing our supplies and told us he would have everything set up in a cove on the red-hued shoreline by the time we returned from the volcano.

  The smell of sulfur hung heavy in the air as we started up the path, and I had no trouble imagining the terror the ancient inhabitants of the island must have felt when ash and pumice rained from the sky onto their homes. There is something arrogant about hiking up the side of a volcano, as if one is taunting Hephaestus, daring his anger to materialize in spewing lava and fire. The last eruption on Santorini had occurred fewer than thirty years ago, and although there were no signs of another brewing, I felt a bit daring whenever we traveled to this side of the caldera.

  “As if Hargreaves would risk losing you to an ill-timed flow of lava,” Jeremy said, when I expressed this sentiment to him. “I assure you, there is nothing brave in our actions today. The air is dreadful, though, isn’t it?”

  “Wait until you get to the hot springs,” Margaret said. “The smell is even stronger.”

  “Remind me again why we came?” Jeremy asked. Margaret took him by the hand and dropped her head onto his shoulder.

  “My dear boy, you came for distraction,” she said. “We came to make sure you don’t fling yourself into the volcano.”

  “Couldn’t one be distracted in a casino instead?”

  “That did not turn out well last time,” Colin said. I looked at him with surprise that he would so callously refer to the events Jeremy had suffered in the south of France, but his comment elicited from Jeremy a hearty guffaw that made me doubt entirely the possibility of ever fully understanding the thinking of gentlemen.

  We continued up the gentle slope until we stood at the edge of the volcano’s crater, looking down at a large expanse of rock, mainly dark, but interspersed with random profusions of rust-colored stones.

  “And thou, fiery world, / That sapp’st the vitals of this terrible mount / Upon whose charr’d and quaking crust I stand—/ Thou, too, brimmest with life!” I recited.

  “Another of your dreadful ancient poets?” Jeremy asked.

  “Not at all. Matthew Arnold, writing in our own century about the philosopher Empedocles, who died when he flung himself into the crater at Mount Etna. Some claim the volcano spit back out one of his sandals, but I am not convinced.”

  “An inspiring story, Em.” He looked perfectly bored; I knew it to be an expression he cultivated with great care. I reached down, picked up a piece of pumice, and tossed it at him. He caught it effortlessly with one hand.

  “Astonishing how light it is, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Quite. And I had feared you were flinging rocks at me in an attempt to cause injury,” he said with a grin, and then pointed over my shoulder. “Look back to Fira. What a view!”

  “Worth the smell of sulfur?” I asked.

  “I withhold judgment until I have had a little sea bathing.”

  We skirted the circumference of the crater, and then, finished with the volcano, started back down to shore, where our picnic awaited us.

  “I don’t think I shall swim today,” I said. “The water is too cold for me.”

  “You promised me hot springs, Em, and now you tell me they are cold?”

  “There are sections that are quite warm,” Margaret said, “but the surrounding water is cold enough to put off us ladies. Furthermore, we will be much freer to watch and comment on your athletic prowess if you are out of earshot.”

  Colin and Jeremy disappeared behind a large rock, where, presumably, they would change into their swimming costumes before diving into the clear water. Margaret and I removed our boots and stockings and, bunching up our skirts, waded in the shallows while the gentlemen bobbed up and down in deeper water.

  An unfamiliar voice called out from beyond the beach. I turned, but saw no one and moved through the water away from the hot springs, following the sound around a jumble of tall rocks that protected a small inlet. There, on the shore, stood two gentlemen (I use the term loosely), out of view of anyone not in the water, arguing animatedly. I slipped closer to the shore until I reached the rocks, which were large enough to conceal me, and I could now recognize the men’s language as Turkish.

  Having very little of the language at my command, I could not understand much of what they said, but distinctly made out the name Chapman, as its inherent Englishness stood out from the foreign tongue. I saw Margaret approaching me, and with a finger to my lips, I shushed her, and pressed up against one of the rocks. With effort, I could peek just beyond its surface to catch a glimpse of the men. One, tall and lean, his face nut brown from the sun and heavily lined, appeared to be taking out a great deal of anger on the other, a broad and muscular man, with no hat protecting his bald head. A knife hanging from his belt glimmered in the sun.

  The tall one said Chapman again, and I watched Margaret’s eyes widen. I had pulled my head back down so as not to be spotted, and we made ourselves as small as possible behind the rock. My heartbeat quickened when I heard the crunch of their feet on the pebbles of the beach, but they did not enter the water or approach us. When their footsteps faded, Margaret and I quietly returned to our own side of the beach, where Kyros had our picnic waiting.

  I hailed my husband, who swam like a fish and would have stayed in the water until sunset if allowed. Jeremy, floating on his back, languidly made his way toward the shore, reaching it long before Colin, who, though swimming at a far faster pace, took what could generously be described as an indirect path to us. Once they had toweled themselves off and changed back into their clothes, spreading their striped swimming costumes on rocks in the sun to speed their drying, they joined us on the blanket Kyros had spread on the pebble-covered beach.

  We all sat on overstuffed, soft pillows and immediately tore into the spectacular dishes Mrs. Katevatis had packed for us: tyropita and spanakopita, their fillings—cheese in the former and spinach in the latter—almost bursting from the flaky pastry encasing them. There were also plump dolmades (grape leaves full of rice and spiced meat), salty feta cheese, and tomatoes, along with bread she had baked early in the morning and a bottle of crisp white wine made on Santorini.

  “How can you say with any confidence they were speaking of Ashton with menace?” Colin asked, as I recounted for him what Margaret and I had observed. “I know you do not understand much Turkish.”

  “It was apparent in both their tone and their gestures,” I said.

  “You cannot possibly claim to know simply from tone and gestures they were directing malice toward Ashton. Or if he even was the topic of their conversation.”

  “You must admit it is too much to believe it to be a coincidence that they spoke his nom de guerre,” Margaret said. “I would perhaps be skeptical, too, if I had not heard it myself—”

  “You wouldn’t believe me?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “You do have a flair for the dramatic, my dear,” Margaret said. “It is one of your finest qualities.”

  Frustrated, I shook my head. “Regardless of what you think, I am confident they were talking about Philip. Am I to believe there is someone else called Chapman on Santorini at present?”

  “Perhaps they were discussing Homer,” Jeremy said. “I have seen you engaged in violent arguments on the subject, particularly when it comes to translators.” He popped a dolma into his mouth.

  “We ought to warn Philip,” I said.

  “Warn him of what?” Colin asked. “The fact that two men of indeterminate origin had a conversation of indeterminate topic that may or may not have included a reference to the false name he has been using?”

  “Yes, exactly,” I said. “He told us Demir is a Turk, and now, whatever their origin, two men speaking Demir’s language are here, near where
Philip is working. I would be concerned even if they had not said his name. Do you want him to suffer the same fate as the unconscious man back at the villa?”

  “I hardly think it is wise to condemn an entire nation of Turkish speakers on the basis of one story of dubious credibility,” Colin said.

  “I thought Philip was your dearest friend,” I said. “Now you speak as if you don’t trust him and are content to let him, too, be injured.”

  My husband’s eyes darkened slightly. “The man in our villa was injured because he chose to run away from us rather than identify himself. We have no evidence—none—that his presence on the island is connected to Ashton in any way at all.”

  “All of our nerves are strained at present,” Margaret said. “Why don’t you have some more wine?”

  “My nerves are quite fine, thank you,” I said. I threw down my napkin and stormed away from them.

  “Em!” Jeremy called out as he followed me along the beach. I walked faster until he pulled on my arm, stopping me. “What is going on here? Why are you arguing with Hargreaves? I realize I ought to be encouraging you, and probably would if I thought divorce would ever become socially acceptable, but as the chances of you leaving him are slim, I must say you are … overreacting to the present situation.”

  “Overreacting?” My hand ached to slap him.

  “Ashton is a grown man, capable of taking care of himself. What you and Margaret saw on the beach is at best a sketchy indication that two gentlemen may or may not be referring to him in conversation.” I was looking away from him, down at the rocky beach. He bent over and forced me to meet his eyes as he continued. “How do you think it makes your absurdly handsome husband feel when you make such a display of worrying about Ashton?”

  “I was not making a display.”

  “Call it whatever you like,” Jeremy said. “Just try to be a little less insistent about us all having to be thinking about Ashton constantly.”

  I did not think his words were entirely fair, and I was still convinced the men on the beach had been talking about Philip. Furthermore, Colin knew better than most I would be concerned about any person in Philip’s situation. This was not about Philip because he was Philip; it was about common concern for someone who might be in grave danger.