What Casanova Told Me

by Susan Swan

  The espresso bar grew noisy and Luce finished her coffee and left, eager to get away from the gregarious Athenians. She consulted her map again and headed for the temple of Zeus where Asked For had fought with the Greek shepherds, wearing the Turkish pants that Jacob Casanova had bought for her. Her guidebook said it was built by the Roman emperor Hadrian. She walked down a large hill, and sure enough, its huge marble columns were towering beyond a sidewalk cluttered with stalls of fresh-cut flowers and ticket sellers whose lottery coupons fluttered from spikes as long as medieval lances. She crossed the thoroughfare and in minutes found herself inside the temple grounds, hardly more than a dusty field lined with crumbling stone walls half hidden by bits of greenery. It was quiet despite the nearby traffic and it felt good to be away from the racket of Athens. She drank greedily from her bottled water and stared at the Corinthian columns rising up to the delicate acanthus leaves on their crowns.

  She grew aware of someone waving at her across the temple grounds. A dark-haired man wearing sunglasses and a bright yellow-and-black Walkman.

  She shook her head, warning him away. Earlier that morning, the old men in the lobby had pestered her, calling out in Greek and offering her their cigarettes. Lee had pooh-poohed the men and their “gentle Mediterranean hustle” and assured her that the incidence of assault was still low in Greece. But she was growing weary of approaches and she turned to go, just as the man strode over. A dog, a Samoyed puppy, followed, its snowy fur glittering in the hot sun. He looked close to her age, perhaps in his late twenties. He held out her file with the Arabic manuscript.

  “This belongs to you, neh?” he said, using the Greek word for yes although he spoke English fluently. “I was in the bar and saw you leave it behind.”

  “Oh, my God! I don’t remember doing that!”

  “It’s from an old book, isn’t it?” He smoothed down a wing of black hair but it sprang back the moment he removed his hand. The effect was one of suppressed energy, as if an interior force was making its way out despite him.

  “Yes. And I wish I could read it, only I don’t understand Arabic.”

  “I glanced at some pages. It’s not Arabic. It’s in old Turkish writing.”

  “Are you Turkish?” Luce asked.

  “I am Greek. My family lived in Turkey.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Can you read it?”

  “It’s too complicated for me, but I have a friend who reads such things. My name is Theodore Stavridis. And you are—?”

  “Luce Adams.”

  “Where are you staying? I could give you his address.”

  “At the Athena,” she said, and instantly regretted her openness. “I must be getting back.” Glancing at her watch she realized she had to meet Lee at the hotel for breakfast.

  “I’m late.”

  A dog barked and they turned to see his Samoyed disappear into a thicket by one of the old walls. There was a flash of white followed by the noise of frenzied yelping. The Samoyed puppy appeared to have treed an animal. He smiled.

  “She is following her instincts.” As he hurried after his dog, he called, “Ciao, Luce! We’ll talk later.”

  Outside the temple grounds, Luce hailed a cab to take her back to the hotel. Lee was in the lobby, talking to the old porter with a plastic bag in her hands.

  “I was just leaving this for you. I thought Aphrodite might like to sample the local fare,” Lee said.

  “Thank you.” She took the tins gratefully and put them in her purse.

  “You’re welcome. Remember we’re meeting your mother’s friend Christine Harmon and her husband, Julian, for lunch. I’m going to the Blegen Library first to check a few of my facts for my speech tomorrow night. Would you like to come? They have some of your mother’s work.”

  “I’d rather continue exploring Athens, if it’s all right with you.”

  “Of course it’s all right with me. Do you want a coffee?”

  Before Luce could object, the waiter appeared with a tray, and she was obliged to accept a cup of instant Nescafé—the awful muck that passed for coffee at the Athena.

  Upstairs in her room, Luce fed Aphrodite a tin of the local cat food and gave him another round of drops. Then she climbed up through the car-free streets and alleys of the upper Plaka to the northwest side of the Acropolis to find the grotto where Asked For had experienced her vision. Behind Luce sprawled the city of Athens and all its suburbs—a vast, smoky white bowl of low-rise apartments and houses that from this height resembled jumbled boulders recklessly scattered by some god—perhaps Asked For’s pagan Apollo. It was still too early in the day for the infamous nefos—only a few smoky wisps of smog hovered over the Attic plain. A light north wind was blowing yesterday’s polluted air out to the sea and she had a breathtakingly clear view of the tiny, gravel-sprinkled terraces below.

  She turned a corner onto a narrow dirt path running alongside a wire fence and realized she was standing at the foot of the bulky limestone crag of the Acropolis. Tourists usually approached it from the opposite direction but Lee had told her this way up the hill was quicker and she seemed to have found the right path. It led past clusters of whitewashed houses and then into a small, fragrant pine wood where a young man lay sleeping on a wooden bench. On the back were carved the English words: “Live as you want.”

  She tiptoed past him, smiling. Farther down the slope, the tourist stalls were selling ice cream and Loutraki, a local brand of bottled water. Despite the north wind, the sun felt fierce overhead, and she stopped to sit for a moment on the grass.

  From her knapsack, she brought out a photocopy of a small sketch that had been inserted into the journal. Its artist, possibly Casanova or the painter Domenico Gennaro, had drawn Asked For skilfully. In the sketch, a young woman with a strong-featured English face stood in pantaloons and a loose-flowing Turkish shirt. A large cap lay in the grass near her feet. Do I resemble her? Luce wondered. Her hand strayed to her cropped hair. The journal suggested they were similar in height and broad-shouldered slenderness, but her own eyes were pale grey, and Casanova had said the eyes of Asked For Adams were the same light green as the Adriatic.

  She put the sketch away and moved on along the path up the hill. Suddenly she let out a little whoop. Yes, surely Asked For would have stood right where she was standing now. From here she could look down on a maze of houses and courtyards, like the ones Asked For had described in her journal. Only, the houses looked sturdier than the mud huts propped up with marble from the ruins that Asked For had described.

  She was aware of the warmth of the sun on her face and the smell of the pine woods mingled with something sharp and peppery, perhaps wild oregano. For a moment, she felt as if Asked For Adams was standing next to her, and she waited, half-daring the pagan Apollo to appear. But Luce saw only Athens spread out before her, and the glistening Aegean.

  Why did she feel disappointed? She lived in a different age. She started back down the Acropolis path with a sense of loss for all that lay beyond her reach. She was to meet Lee and her mother’s British friend, Christine Harmon, at the Platanos, a taverna in the Plaka. Lee had shown her where it was on the guide map, and Luce had been surprised to discover that the old section of Athens was no bigger than a village. And that, she thought, was exactly what Athens had been in the time of Asked For Adams.

  She hurried down the path through a meadow, perhaps the same meadow in which Asked For had found Casanova asleep. And then past the sidewalk cafés on Adrianou where young men and women lingered over iced coffee in the heat-swollen afternoon, listening to the mournful sounds of Rembetika.

  Near the Temple of the Winds, around a bend in a lane, she came upon people eating at tables placed in the shade of several large azalea trees. She spotted Lee sitting next to a small birdlike woman and a rosy-cheeked man who was smoking in the ferocious Athenian manner.

  The trio rose to greet her, the man quickly snubbing out his cigarette. “This is Christine, Luce.” Lee smiled. “And this is her husband, Jul
ian Harmon, the process philosopher.”

  Lee’s nickname made Luce think of processed cheese, as if Julian were a fast-food version of the real thing.

  “I knew your mother,” he said, shaking Luce’s hand. “Unlike Lee, she saw merit in my views.”

  “Now Julian, Lee’s bark is worse than her bite,” Christine said, extending her tiny hand to Luce. “I am honoured to meet a new Minoan sister,” she added, bobbing her head gracefully in a gesture that reminded Luce of swallows dipping and swooping.

  “Thank you,” Luce murmured. She lowered her eyes to avoid the look of curiosity on the Englishwoman’s face. Minoan sister was a term Kitty had used to describe the women who shared her beliefs about ancient Crete. Luce didn’t believe in a lost golden age, whether it was the ancient Greeks or the Minoans. She wasn’t sure she even believed in the possibility of human improvement.

  Giving Luce a conspiratorial smile, Christine took off her floppy sun hat, exposing a bowl-shaped nimbus of silver hair. They all sat down and Julian poured them glasses of golden wine.

  “We miss your mother’s enthusiasm, Luce,” Christine said.

  “I miss Kitty too,” Julian added. “She believed there was a bond between Alfred Whitehead’s school of philosophy and hers. As I’m sure you know.”

  “Oh, I don’t actually share my mother’s beliefs.”

  “What did you say, Luce?” Christine asked.

  “I don’t really understand process philosophy,” Luce said, raising her voice.

  “Dear child, then I will tell you.” Julian smiled. “In the past, male theologians have made a number of grave mistakes—”

  “You can say that again,” Lee nodded.

  “Quite, thank you, Lee. Where was I? Yes, I was saying that Christian theology emphasized a fatherly medieval image of God—and that God was perfect and unchanging. But for us, Luce, God, like nature, is in a state of becoming.”

  “Yes, as Julian says, we are all in process, Luce.” Christine bobbed her head.

  “Is Julian finished?” Lee said. “I’ve spent my life listening to men make speeches and I don’t want to do it on my holiday.”

  Neither Julian nor Christine seemed bothered by the sarcastic tone in Lee’s voice. They smiled at Luce.

  “Let’s discuss our trip to Crete,” Christine said. “You know the tribute is going to be better attended than I expected—over forty participants.”

  Luce didn’t know why Christine would be startled by the prospect of a crowd; it was an old story as far as her mother was concerned. Kitty had always been surrounded by adoring fans.

  Christine explained that they would spend part of their time in Crete visiting the Minoan shrines that her mother had written about. At the tribute in the cave, each person would say a few words about Kitty and leave an object that symbolized his or her feelings for her on the ancient Minoan altar. “Despite the numbers, we will try to keep the tribute simple,” Christine said. “Kitty hated pompousness, didn’t she, Luce?”

  Luce smiled weakly.

  When the food arrived, she found she wasn’t hungry. She picked at her moussaka, eyeing her mother’s friends as they talked. It unsettled her to think of Julian and Christine knowing Kitty so well. She noticed Lee was not saying much either, though she was eating her usual lunch for two: stuffed green peppers, fried squid, and lamb with lemon sauce. But it wasn’t until their coffees arrived that Lee pushed back from the table and gave them all a friendly smile.

  “Well, now that we have your attention, Lee, let’s talk about Gaby,” Christine said. “I’m afraid she won’t be able to join us. But she wants you to come to Zaros. She sent you this.” Christine handed Lee a postcard.

  “I’d like to go to Zaros,” Luce said.

  “There isn’t time,” Lee objected, fanning herself with the postcard.

  “Oh, Lee. It’s where Kitty died. And it’s not far from Herakleion. Why don’t you take Luce to see Gaby? It will do you both good.”

  Lee didn’t reply.

  “Who is Gaby?” Luce asked.

  When Lee didn’t answer Christine cleared her throat and turned again to Luce. “Gaby was an old friend of Kitty’s, dear. Are you coming to Aegina this evening? The temple there was built on the sanctuary to the great goddess.”

  “If it’s okay, I’d like to stay by myself in Athens today.” Luce stood up, knocking her head into a branch of thick, pink azalea blossoms.

  Lee and Julian stared at Luce, and across the table, Christine made a disappointed noise. “You don’t want to go with us to Aegina? It was important to your mother.”

  Luce glanced at Lee, hesitating.

  “Didn’t I tell you, old girl, that the young are not interested in your message?” Julian said.

  “Many times, Julian,” Christine sighed. “Even so …”

  “I’ll stay with Luce,” Lee said. “It’s too hot for the ferry to Aegina anyway.”

  “No, please go, Lee,” Luce said. “I’m fine on my own.”

  “Oh, balls! I want a nap,” Lee said. “Leave me under a tree somewhere while you go exploring.”

  Luce waited for Lee to pay their bill, feeling like someone plagued by a suitor who barges ahead, ignoring the polite little signs that say “go away, leave me alone!” The two women set off together, moving slowly for Lee’s sake. As they walked through the Plaka, Lee exchanged pleasantries in Greek with the shopkeepers who beckoned from doorways garlanded with handbags and leather sandals. But soon she lapsed into silence. Lee seemed tired, and Luce guessed that the morning spent in the library researching Kitty’s work had been hard on her.

  Lee took her to the old agora where they stopped to rest. Inside its park-like grounds, Lee stretched out in the shade and Luce seated herself a few yards away on a half-sunken wall. She pulled out the copy of the journal. It was so peaceful in the wild, overgrown meadow she might have been in the country. Pines grew thickly around her, and doves fluttered and cooed in the branches above her head. In no time, Lee was fast asleep, her Birkenstocks sticking out from under the diaphanous fabric of her sun wear like the half-shod hooves of a weary draft horse.

  July 15, 1797

  Hardly a day passes when we don’t visit some antiquity whose ruins lie in unexpected places. It is common, for instance, to come across ancient blocks of marble strewn in a laneway or meadow, and fragments of statues are regularly dug up for use in the construction of new buildings.

  Like Jacob, I am interested in the Greek temples, so we were both surprised and pleased when Monsieur Gennaro asked us to join him on a sketching party to the Acropolis.

  I was glad Father was not with me to see his beloved Parthenon. Everywhere we looked, the decay was severe. A small Mahometan chapel has been built near the entrance to the old temple while a mosque rises out of its ruins. Monsieur Papoutsis tells me that the Christians converted the Parthenon into a church; the Venetians blew up part of it when they shelled Athens; and now the Turks have made it a military garrison. We strolled in silent horror. Many of the Parthenon’s statues are missing or broken, the doors of the mosque have been chewed by animals, perhaps rats, and goats graze inside the Erechtheion whose floor is piled with cannon balls. A battery with ancient-looking cannons perches on the cliff just below.

  We found an ill-kept garden within the ruins—growing a small patch of flat broad beans and one withered tomato plant. And under a yellowing grape arbour, the single spot of shade, the military governor sat smoking a flexible pipe, the wooden base of which was decorated with yellow jewels. He gave us watery tea, fed our cakes to his rough-looking children and drank down Monsieur Gennaro’s wine with barely a word spoken.

  It was a sorry occasion, and Jacob excused us from the unhappy tea party and said we wanted to finish our sightseeing. We passed two veiled women who stood on the ramparts shouting cheerfully down at the people on the street below and pointing up at a dark, towering cloud. The sightless eyes of the caryatids holding up the Erechtheion’s roof gazed out across the olive g
roves and cornfields growing peacefully on the plain.

  “They carry a heavy burden,” I said.

  “Ah, but the caryatids are fulfilling their duty, Asked For. Isn’t this what your beloved Seneca said we must do?”

  “Yes, I was taught to be self-sacrificing.” I thought of how I had ignored Father’s wish for me and left Francis behind. “Jacob?”

  “What is it, Asked For Philosophe?”

  “Have you heard from Aimée? When does she expect you to arrive in Constantinople?”

  He turned to look at me and slowly shook his head.

  “Then perhaps something unfortunate has happened.”

  “I have another interpretation, dear girl. What if fate is giving us this time to enjoy one another, away from the cares of the world? Dom has asked me to visit his friend’s country house near Sounion. I would be sad to go without you.”

  He could see that I was flattered, and whispered that I should take him to the little grotto where I had seen my vision. I led him down the path through the vines to the northwestern side of the Acropolis. As always, I felt overjoyed to have him to myself. Although there is much to commend in the hard work of those who raise you, the greatest gratitude must go to those who accept and cherish you for who you are. This love does not come from duty but from the deepest place in the heart.

  There were no plates on the ledge by the grotto but the view of the Aegean beyond the mud huts below was as beautiful as before.

  “Jacob?” I said. “I have thought about your offer.”

  “Do you mean my suggestion that we enjoy ourselves?”

  “Yes.” I stepped close to him and breathed in the fragrant scent of rosewater. “This is my answer.”

  “Have you had enough time to test and verify, Asked For Philosophe?”Jacob held me at arm’s length, laughing softly. I laid my hand against his cheek.

  “Do not tease me, Jacob.”