The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  “Stavros isn’t supposed to come inside,” she said.

  “But he has a key, remember? C’mon, you don’t really expect an old goat farmer like him to resist the temptation to do a little snooping around?”

  I certainly didn’t. Stavros was the quintessential local, which meant he wanted to know all the doings in his patch of the pasture. His family had been here since Hellenic times, and he maintained the limited viewpoint of the entrenched islander. To hear him speak of people from the neighboring isles you’d have thought they were from another country altogether, so disdainful was he of their seamanship and their farming skills. This outlook made him the perfect watchdog, and he had always seemed friendly enough. Although who knows what he really thought of us, with our hobbyist attitudes toward the sort of chores he had poured his life into.

  “Well, at least nothing seems to be missing.”

  “He’s not a thief, Mila. Just a gossip. Remember all the dirt he told us when they were building the DeKuyper place? He probably just needed some new material for his friends at the pub. Maybe he’s worried you’re secretly a Turk.”

  That produced a theatrical cold stare. Nothing gets a Serb’s back up quicker than calling him a descendant of the Ottomans.

  “Relax,” I said. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll speak to him tomorrow. Lay down a few ground rules. But he’s going to be our neighbor for the rest of our lives, so we might as well get used to him poking around.”

  “The rest of our lives. I had almost forgotten that part.”

  Her eyes got a little dreamy, and she moved closer, her hand brushing my cheek before she slipped her arms around me. The top of her head came up to just beneath my nose, and her hair smelled like the sea. We stood that way a moment, tightening our grip while we got used to the idea of settling in. It was scary and exciting all at once, and I felt her heart beating urgently. I looked over her shoulder through the big window facing the sea, searching for an omen. But there was only enough sunlight to see the faintest glimmer of the waves.

  “Why don’t we wait ’til tomorrow to round up supplies,” I said. “I’ll fire up the scooters. We can go back into Emborios for dinner, that fish taverna you like. We’ll bring back a jug of retsina.”

  “Sounds perfect.” Her forehead was pressed to my sternum, and I felt the words go straight into my chest. “We’ll watch the nine o’clock ferry come in, like we always do. When the wake comes ashore we’ll know it’s the last thing from the mainland that can bother us.”

  “Until tomorrow, anyway.”

  She unpacked our bags while I retrieved our scooters from the locked shed out back. I had left the tanks empty, so I poured in fresh oil and gasoline, cleaned the plugs, and primed the carburetors. Each engine choked to life on a wheezing sputter of blue exhaust, and I let them run a while before shutting off the smaller one. We would take the big one into town, riding double. Mila didn’t like riding hers after dark on the island’s narrow and twisting climbs.

  Our favorite taverna was on the opposite side of the harbor from most of the noise and tourists. This offered more seclusion, and also a pleasant view back across the water. At night you could see the ferries approaching from miles away, lit up like floating Christmas trees.

  The evenings were still warm enough to eat comfortably outdoors, so we took a table at the edge of the patio. Wavelets hissed onto the smooth stones of the beach just a few feet away.

  As with almost any such place in Greece, cats were underfoot from the moment our food arrived. They were fatter out here in the islands, perhaps from hanging around the fishing docks, demanding their cut of the action as the boats came in. Their overwhelming numbers in Athens were easy enough to explain, with all those alleys and sewers to breed in. Here their presence was more of a riddle, and I liked to joke that they must have been placed by the government’s secret police. They certainly made perfect operatives—invisible by day and omnipresent by night, eavesdropping on conversations at virtually every café and taverna.

  We dined simply but well on a tomato and cucumber salad, a bowl of olives, a plate of the local goat cheese, and a whole snapper, which had been brushed with oil and grilled until the skin was charred. Mila’s stomach was still a little shaky from the ferry, so I ate the lion’s share. We also drained the better part of a small carafe of the taverna’s homemade retsina, and then bought a corked jug to take home. We had developed a taste for its sharp, piney flavor, much as the Greeks did under Roman occupation, when the centurions and imperial bureaucrats took all the good stuff for themselves.

  The proprietor, a big jolly fellow named Nikos, delivered the jug personally to the table, having remembered us from earlier visits. When we told him we were now here for good, he slapped me heartily on the back and called for complimentary shots of ouzo, beaming all the while. Mila was strangely silent throughout, and seemed relieved when he finally left the table.

  “Still queasy? Or are you chilly?”

  She shook her head and smiled wanly.

  “Sorry. He scares me a little.”

  “Nikos?”

  She nodded, knocking back her ouzo in a single gulp.

  “It’s the only thing I’ve never liked about this place.”

  “He’s a big teddy bear.”

  “I know. But he reminds me of Karadzic.”

  I turned in my chair just in time to see Nikos disappear through the kitchen door.

  “You’re right,” I said, chuckling at the resemblance. “Especially the hair. A Balkan pompadour.”

  But a glance at Mila told me this was no laughing matter. For a moment she even seemed to be trembling. Reminders of the war could affect her that way, especially when they triggered one particular memory. And I suppose someone who looked like Radovan Karadzic was as potent a reminder as any. I am referring, of course, to the wartime “president” of the Bosnian Serbs, an accused war criminal still at large. As a Serb, Mila had technically been one of his subjects, but by going to work for the UN as a legal protection clerk she had boldly declared her neutrality. That turned all three warring factions against her, and the Serbian soldiers were especially harsh. Just for laughs one of them fired a shot over her head when she was escorting refugees across a snowy checkpoint.

  Throughout the war Mila lived and worked at a UN office in the city’s hulking telecommunications headquarters, the PTT Building, which sat within a hundred yards of the siege lines like a giant concrete bunker. She shared space with three other women. They slept on cots next to their desks, then stacked the cots in a corner every morning. They stored their clothes in a file cabinet and their cosmetics in an abandoned office safe.

  We met in that office. It’s also where we had our first desperate assignation, right there on her cot, taking advantage of a rare evening when her roommates were away. I still remember the sharp press of my elbows against the aluminum tubing, the eerie red flashes in the darkened office every time a tracer round screamed past the windows, and the rumble of the floor whenever a shell landed nearby. Make love during a firefight and the earth does move. Afterward Mila took great pleasure in introducing me to friends and family as “battle-hardened,” knowing that only the two of us would get the joke.

  Since the end of the war she hadn’t once been back to Sarajevo. Whenever she needed to touch base with her family she instead visited her mother’s Greek relatives, her aunt Aleksandra’s brood in the suburbs of Athens. In fact, it was while staying with them that we had planned our first trip to Karos.

  But now, seated there at the taverna on the first night of our future, she looked truly shaken, and I wondered if it had something to do with knowing we were now here for good. On previous trips, any annoyance would soon be left behind. Now it was something she had to endure.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, refilling her glass. “If I see him rounding up any tourists for detention I’ll make sure he’s arrested.”

  Mila shook her head, and soon afterward I quietly paid the bill to a crestfallen
Nikos, who seemed mystified by the pall that had fallen over our table. We strapped the jug to the back of the scooter and set out for home. By then the last ferry had departed, and from across the water only one bar along the strip in Emborios was still playing music, a blaring chorus of the Who.

  These scooter trips could be a little harrowing even by day, and the air had cooled considerably in the hours since sunset. Mila kept my back warm by snuggling close and tucking her arms around my waist, and I soon grew accustomed to negotiating the tight curves. I fell into a rhythm, leaning gently into each turn and accelerating on the inclines, just tipsy enough to be thrilled by fleeting glimpses of dimly lit farmhouses in the ravines below. An oncoming van passed a bit too close for comfort, but that was customary here.

  It was only the smaller hazards that made me jumpy. Approaching the crest of a hill, the pale beam of our headlight illuminated a clump of pine needles on the pavement just ahead. I swerved to avoid it, trying not to squeeze the brake, and then accelerated jerkily as the engine coughed. Mila must have felt my racing heartbeat, but she was accustomed to this quirk of mine, this remnant of our past. Having traveled on far too many mined roads, I could no longer bring myself to cross suspicious piles of leaves, mud, or trash on any bike or scooter. I had once assumed the habit would fade over time, but if anything it now came to me naturally, like a feature built into the steering. Mila had learned not to mention it.

  If we hadn’t left a light on we might not have spotted our house. It was something to keep in mind for future late-night excursions, although I wondered if those would become a rarity as our little homestead developed its own comfortable rhythm. Even the worst places did, and I had developed a knack for learning them, a skill almost as useful as picking up the local language.

  The last few hundred yards up our stony driveway were some of the trickiest of the ride, and Mila heaved a sigh of relief when we finally bounced to a stop.

  “I’m spent,” she said, as breathless as if she had been running.

  The silence of the hillside seemed to close in on us.

  “It’s been a long day. Got enough energy for one last toast?” I lofted the jug from the back of the scooter. “Christen our new life?”

  The pale glow from our front window illuminated a weary smile.

  “Of course.”

  We had to search the cabinets for the wineglasses, and if I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn Mila was again sniffing the air.

  “Here they are,” she said. She wiped off the dust with the hem of her skirt while I threw open the doors to the patio. We went to the trestle table outside, and she raised her glass to mine.

  “To perfection,” she said.

  “You think that’s what we’ll find here?”

  “Not all the time. No one does. But sometimes, sure. It’s what you deserve. You’ve earned some perfection.”

  Doubtful. But I was happy to let Mila believe it, so I tipped my glass to hers and savored a resinous sip. Then, as if by prior signal, we strolled off hand in hand to the bedroom, where she placed her glass on the nightstand and lit a candle. I embraced her from behind, pressing against her buttocks as she sighed and arched her back. She turned to me slowly for a lingering kiss, and we undressed each other as tenderly as if it were our first time. Considering the circumstances, it almost seemed like it was. I suppose we were eager to set just the right tone. No need to rush anymore. No mouths to feed or fears to calm but our own. With a new and unlimited freedom lying before us, we could achieve frenzy by degrees, which made it all the more tantalizing.

  Afterward we lay in bed, relaxed and swapping old stories that had always made us laugh. We had made it, it seemed. One journey completed and another begun. The window was thrown open to the night noises of the sea, with a full view of the stars.

  “You see?” she said. “It’s not always so hard finding perfection.”

  “Sure beats making it in a tent out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No more of that, I guess. God, when I think of all the strange places we’ve made love. Maybe we should make a list.”

  “We could have your aunt Aleksandra put it in needlepoint. Hang it on the wall over there.”

  She laughed.

  “Perfect. That little hooch in Sierra Leone could go right at the top.”

  “What, because of our audience?”

  Several lanky young boys had walked in on us while Mila was seated atop me, breasts dripping sweat onto my chest. Fortunately they had not come to alert us to any emergency. They had simply been on a random prowl, checking out the latest arrivals from the outside world. Mila got flustered and told them she was giving me a massage for a stomachache, a story I promptly ruined by heaving with laughter and making her breasts bounce.

  “You think we gave them an education?” I asked.

  “I’m sure they’d seen worse. Or better. Family of ten living in the same room. Not much they hadn’t seen from Mom and Dad by then.”

  We recalled other locations—a grass mat beneath the stars in Goma, a hammock slung inside a sweltering tent in Congo that collapsed on us during a cloudburst. Or that night on the edge of a mud desert when Mila got up for a drink of water and nearly stepped on a scorpion that had bedded down in her shoes.

  Other places came to mind as well, but some were best not mentioned on this night or any other. Merely thinking of one of them made me want to pull the covers higher over Mila, so dark and powerful were its memories. Fortunately, her imagination must not have strayed there, because when she next spoke she sounded as cheerful as before.

  “I do miss the mosquito netting. There was something very sexy about it, having it draped all around us like that.”

  “The lace canopy bed of the aid worker. Maybe Stavros could lend us one of his fishing nets.”

  “Stavros.” She frowned. “Next time he’s in here he better not smoke.”

  Then she yawned and rolled onto her side, facing me. A lock of hair fell across her mouth, and she was too drowsy to even pull it away, so I did it for her. Within seconds she was asleep. I leaned across her to blow out the candle, then thought better of it. I was still too keyed up to sleep. Part of it was excitement over what lay ahead, but I was also still agitated by the disturbing memory that had crossed my mind moments ago.

  I slid out of bed and threw on a robe and slippers. Then I took the candle, refilled my wineglass, and stepped back into the night. The breeze was picking up, and it carried the scent of the fields, a grassy blend with weedy hints of caramel and skunk. Somewhere around the house were guidebooks for the local flora and fauna. I needed to start learning which plants made what smells, and which ones might be useful. This was my universe now, a pleasing thought. In the morning there would be no crowds seeking aid and comfort. Only Stavros, uphill with his goats and his blue bee boxes, out walking terraced groves in the sun.

  I searched the sky, which on clear nights here was always brilliant with a milky wash of stars. There was Orion with his belt, standing guard. Above him to the right I spotted Castor and Pollux, twin brothers to Helen of Troy. They always seemed more mysterious and timeless when viewed from the land that named them.

  It was around then that the owls started up. They’d done this without fail during our earlier trips, and the sound’s familiarity was welcoming. I listened for a while as I savored the last of the wine, vainly trying to decipher their meaning, and I was about to turn in when I heard the boat.

  The motor didn’t sound like a big one, and a few moments later I spotted red and green running lights passing just offshore, moving slowly north to south. By water, we were only three miles from Emborios. The journey was easy under good conditions, and the sea was still fairly calm despite the freshening breeze. But it seemed odd for such a small craft to be poking around at this hour, and in these waters. The fishermen of Karos sometimes trolled or laid traps in darkness, but that usually happened toward dawn, and I’d never heard that the pickings were particularly good along our stretch
of coastline.

  The boat continued south, now moving out of sight. The noise was loud enough that the owls halted in mid-sentence, as if annoyed by the interruption. Unless the boat was circling the island—which seemed unlikely—its only possible destination was the southernmost dock, at the DeKuyper villa that Stavros had told us so much about. It was uphill from us, barely visible from our place and perhaps a mile away as the crow flies. It was the only house farther out on the point than ours, except for a few abandoned stone shacks built centuries ago by hunters and herdsmen.

  DeKuyper was a Dutch industrialist who had made his fortune in plastics, apparently by winning big contracts with the European Union. According to the locals, he rarely visited, and even then he almost never showed his face in the towns. Stavros had positively gushed with tales of the Italianate marble and custom ironwork that went into the construction of the villa, reputedly the largest on the island. But he always showed a grudging respect whenever he spoke of the man himself, in the way of a serf discussing the lord of the manor.

  I had always wondered how much Stavros exaggerated these stories. From our vantage point the house seemed to fit snugly into the hillside. It didn’t look any flashier than about half the new places that now towered over Emborios. Perhaps DeKuyper had found one of those architects who is an expert at concealing wealth and ambition. Maybe the house, like an iceberg, kept its bulk out of sight. I walked to the southern edge of the patio and looked uphill. Total darkness. If DeKuyper was home, or receiving visitors by sea, then he hadn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat.

  It’s hard to say for sure what unsettled me most about the boat. Its apparent stealth, perhaps—the careful speed as it crept down the coastline, even though every craft I’d seen before on such a track had plowed by at breakneck pace, trailing a white rooster tail of spray. Maybe it was also the natural skittishness of anyone trying to settle into a new home, especially one as isolated as ours. In any case, when the boat did not return in the next fifteen minutes I watched the hillside in anticipation, waiting for a light to come on. When none did, I concluded that it had either scooted farther around the island or out to the open sea.