What Casanova Told Me

by Susan Swan

  “Ah, dear girl!”

  He let out a low groan, pulled me close, and we began kissing urgently, my lips and cheeks wet with what I took for my tears. I drew away to look up at Jacob and that is when I noticed the dark cloud, like a woman’s woollen skirt, spread across the length of the sky. There was a clap of thunder and it began to rain harder in windy gusts. We broke from our kiss and ran for shelter.

  First Inquiry of the Day: Why have I never seen men’s beauty?

  Lesson Learned: I have feared the power of men too much to see them. So today, as I write, I rejoice in the beauty of men. The strong stalks of their necks, bullish or slim; the delicacy of shaven cheeks, the sweet, heartfelt line between ear and collarbone. Yes, I am astonished by the wonder of men in all shapes and sizes, whether they are bald-headed or thick-haired, aged or sapling-young, by their well-shaped wrists and long, supple arms, by their thighs and the trunks of their bodies, moving so purposefully towards what draws them.

  Today, even Manolis, with his knitted zone shawl, or the shepherds who pass us in the lanes, with their bare calves and slippers, are pleasing.

  Luce found herself holding her breath in astonishment. Asked For’s entry was the most exciting one she’d read so far. But low wailing cries were breaking her concentration. It penetrated the sound of the doves cooing in the pines overhead. Was it an animal? The noise persisted. She stood up quietly so she wouldn’t wake Lee and headed towards the Temple of Theseus, whose marble pillars were visible through the pines. In a little clearing, a dark-haired man was digging in the earth.

  It was the same young man she’d met near the Temple of Zeus earlier in the morning. Who would have thought it possible to run into the same person twice in Athens? Casanova had left out the magic of coincidence in his travel principles, she thought. Travellers were like migrating birds who, soaring free from the ties of home, possess the ability to see the synchronous patterns that shape experience.

  As she watched, the young man threw down his shovel. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and she realized he was weeping. He stooped to pick up a bundle and began carrying it carefully towards the hole. Not wanting to intrude, she stepped back into the bushes, but the movement drew his attention. He wheeled about, staring at her in alarm. There was no doubt about it: it was Theodore, the young man who had found the manuscript with the old Turkish writing.

  He smiled sadly at her, holding his bundle close.

  “I thought you were the police,” he said. He tilted his head towards the hole. “A car hit my dog. This morning, after I saw you. So I brought her to the place she loved. Our footsteps are here. Heeonati’s and mine.” He looked around the clearing. “When it is your time, it is your time.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Luce said. “Can I do something?”

  He gestured towards the puppy’s toys lying on the sand. Luce picked up the rawhide bone and the bright blue spongy ball and waited as he lowered the pathetic bundle into the makeshift grave. Then she handed over the toys and he placed them on the dead Samoyed puppy. Bowing his head, he knelt by the grave, letting handfuls of sandy earth run through his fingers. He was murmuring gently, soft sounds like an adult speaking to a child.

  Luce knelt beside him, her own eyes filling with tears. “It is terrible to lose a pet.” Theodore sat back on his heels, turning to look at her, half crouched on the ground beside him.

  “It is not right. You are a stranger.”

  “No, no,” Luce said. “I am glad to help you. Your puppy was very beautiful.” She handed him a Kleenex, and nodding gratefully, he wiped the dirt from his fingers.

  “Thank you for the kindness of your soul.” He rose to his feet and Luce rose with him. Then he picked up his shovel and finished filling in the dog’s grave.

  “Can I buy you a coffee?” he said when he was done.

  “That would be nice. But I have to tell my friend,” Luce replied.

  She woke Lee and together they walked back to find him. He had composed himself while she was gone and now he sat smoking on a bench beside the path, the Temple of Theseus glinting in the sun behind his head. It struck her that he resembled the billboard advertisements for cigarettes she saw everywhere in Athens—there was nothing bland or politically correct about the men in the Greek ads for Karelia Lights: they smoked hungrily, staring lasciviously at indifferent women in filmy white dresses.

  “Theodore,” Luce said. “This is my—my friend, Lee Pronski.”

  “Yiasou, Lee.”

  “Dr. Pronski.” Lee shook his proffered hand. “You live in Athens?” she asked.

  “I work for Dolphin Travel. Are you from America, Dr. Pronski?”

  “I lived in Brooklyn as a child,” Lee said.

  “So I was right about the accent. In my business, I have to know these things.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. I spent years in Toronto.” Ignoring his startled face, Lee took Luce aside. “He seems harmless enough,” she whispered. “Although Lord knows what he was doing with a Samoyed in a place like Athens. The heat must have been hard on his dog.”

  “He’s the man who returned my old manuscripts,” Luce said. How did her mother put up with Lee, she wondered. Did nothing touch her?

  Turning back to Theodore, Lee said, “Well, I guess we can have a coffee with you.”

  “Lee, I think—” She wanted to tell Lee she preferred to go on her own, but the young man interrupted.

  “I’ll get my car. The two of you, wait here, please. Endaxi?” He picked up his shovel and left before Luce could change Lee’s mind.

  In minutes, it seemed, the trio was off in Theodore’s small Volkswagen, hurtling down the Possidonos, the wide boulevard skirting the sea, passing the car dealerships and lighting shops and huge billboards of men and women drinking Metaxa brandy.

  “Will you get another dog?” Luce asked. She was frowning at the back of Lee’s head. Her mother’s lover was sitting where she had hoped to place herself, in the front seat by Theodore.

  “Not today—next year maybe. If I can find one as beautiful as Heeonati.” He half turned his head, looking back at her in the rear-view mirror.

  “Some Greeks I know would put their dead dog in the garbage,” Lee said, raising her voice to be heard over the traffic.

  Theodore made no reply. They passed a saddle-shaped amphitheatre, then block after block of concrete apartments whose flower-bright balconies were shaded by tiger-striped awnings. They sped past warehouses and waterfront ferry offices and market stalls selling fish and tomatoes and barrels of olives, hurtling through Piraeus until they stopped finally at a taverna on a little hill overlooking the harbour. At the edge of the road, across from the taverna, Luce saw empty tables set with cutlery and checkered cloths. The tables had no protection from the fumes of cars and their location required the waiter to dodge the traffic to reach his customers. “Yiasou,” Theodore said to the waiter, who grinned as he set down a litre of homemade retsina in front of them. They drank thirstily and she found that it didn’t taste like turpentine. She looked out over the harbour crowded with Greek ferries and huge white cruise liners. On the wharf, backpackers, bent double under knapsacks, were running in all directions as if they were already late for their journeys.

  A small dark-haired woman appeared bearing a plate of anthikolokithia, fried zucchini flowers, the first of the season. Next to it, she set down a dish of tzatziki and a huge bowl of horiatiki salata. Thick, bright slabs of feta lay across the cucumbers and tomatoes like tiny biblical tablets commanding enjoyment. Lee spoke to her in Greek and she returned to the kitchen without answering.

  “My mother is nervous with strangers,” Theodore said, shaking his head.

  “That was your mother?” Luce asked.

  “My mother is … is very shy if my friends know she is a cook. She comes from a good family in Istanbul. We lost everything after my father died—and so …” He gestured towards the kitchen.

  “How hard for her!” Luce said.


  “Where do you live?” Lee asked.

  “My mother and I—we live in an apartment near Constitution Square.”

  “You live with your mother?” Luce smiled.

  “Of course. And your mother, Luce? Where is she?”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “My condolences. Was she a good woman?”

  “She was a well-known archaeologist.” As she repeated the pat description that might have come from her mother’s resumé, Luce realized she was speaking in the false, singsongy voice she always used when asked about Kitty.

  “Luce’s mother wrote about the Minoan culture in Crete,” Lee added.

  “Kriti? Your mother liked Kriti? She was a smart woman. I know! Like mother, like daughter!” He lifted his glass towards Luce, nodding appreciatively, and Luce was aware of her face reddening.

  “To Luce’s mother and to—Heeonati, my little snow girl.”

  They drank, lifting their glasses to one another. The retsina was doing its work and an unexpected image came to Luce of herself and Theodore alone in her hotel room. They were making sweaty, athletic love, Theodore shuddering with pleasure above her.

  “Luce is an archivist,” Lee said. “I’ve always thought her choice of profession was based on something she and her mother had in common.”

  “What’s that?” Luce asked.

  “A belief in posterity.” Lee helped herself to another glass of retsina. “Archivists and archaeologists are keepers of the collective memory. But so far you don’t share her love of Greece.”

  “You don’t like Greece, Luce?” Theodore asked.

  “I like—Greek food.”

  “For me, food is serious.” He gestured at the platter of merides, the small brown fish fried in batter, the small spinach pies called chortopitakia, and oily green dolmades. “So eat!”

  “Is it like a religion for you?” Luce said, thinking of Asked For Adams, who had included the pleasures of the table in her list of faiths.

  “Endaxi, Luce. And I believe in nature, like the ancient Greeks.” Theodore waved a hand towards the sea. “And the poet Cavafy. Yes, for me it is Cavafy who is sacred … ‘And now what shall become of us, without any barbarians?’” His tone was undercut with an emotion Luce couldn’t identify.

  “‘These people were a kind of solution,’” Lee said, quoting the next line of Cavafy’s verse.

  “So you know the poem.” Theodore’s voice was low and embarrassed, and his eyes moved from Lee to Luce, as if bracing himself for their reaction. “It’s not always easy to be a fan of poetry in Greece,” he said unexpectedly, “even if it’s the birthplace of poetry. But tell us what you believe in, Dr. Pronski.”

  “Like you, Theodore, I believe in nature. And the healing powers of the sacred feminine.”

  “Interesting, neh? And the Holy Spirit?”

  “Why separate the two? You men are the ones who divide the spiritual from the physical realm.”

  “Yes, in some ways it is not sensible to think like this. And does masculinity have equal value, Dr. Pronski?”

  “The sacred masculine is not my field, Theodore. My concern is to right the balance in religious doctrine. We need church liturgies that include women.” Lee’s lecturing tone made Luce uncomfortable. She wished she could change the subject; Lee was ruining their afternoon.

  “Ah, so that’s all it is? Righting the balance!” Luce said icily.

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  Luce turned to Theodore. “Like my mother, Lee believes in a female deity. My mother was a spokeswoman for the goddess movement,” she added.

  “Correction,” Lee said. “Your mother didn’t believe in the goddess except as a metaphor for the feminine spirit. Of course, she approved of the Gaia hypothesis, that the earth is a living being. And she believed the early peoples in Europe revered an earth mother figure. But she was too influenced by our culture of scientific materialism to believe in a deity. And so am I. Have you read Clifford Geertz?” Lee reached for the platter of pale brown fish as both Theodore and Luce shook their heads.

  “Let me see if I can get the quote right. Yes, I have it now. Geertz said that religion creates unique motivations in people … by clothing our perceptions in such an aura of fact that our feelings seem real.”

  “Whatever,” Luce said in her whispery voice.

  “And you, Luce? What do you believe?” Theodore looked at her inquiringly.

  “I don’t believe in religion. Or in any fairy tale about women being better treated in prehistory. I think people like my mother make up stories about a golden age to satisfy their psychological needs.” She glanced at Lee who met her glance impassively and then gazed off at the Aegean. “What we need is the resolve to create a better future,” she added.

  Theodore nodded solemnly and ordered another round of retsina. The sun was low in the sky, but the Aegean was a light blue, broken in the distance by humps of large, pale brown islands. In the harbour below, where Jacob Casanova once caused problems for the Muslim wife, neon advertisements had sprung up out of the dusk: Shell, Nike, 7UP and Karelia Light. It was only half past seven, still early for dinner in Athens, and they had no appointments to keep or phones to answer, nothing to do except stare at the sea.

  On the drive back to their hotel, Athens shrieked with honking cars and wild soccer fans waving little white flags. Motorbikes roared past, their riders screaming into the windows of the car. Unimpressed, Theodore drove on, politely pointing out Athenian landmarks: the floodlit government buildings on Constitution Square, the Telfrique on Mount Lycabettos, the Olympian Temple of Zeus again, now shadowy and mysterious behind the roar of night traffic, and the Acropolis, a ghostly vision of spindle-like columns floating above the thousands of apartment blocks glistening with lights across the Attic plain. Luce stared up at it, remembering Asked For’s first glimpse of the ruin sprouting a minaret and the dome of a mosque. It must have been a startling sight in eighteenth-century Athens.

  Luce found the cat waiting anxiously in their hotel room. He rubbed up against her calf, meowing softly, and she quickly fed him another can of Lee’s cat food. “I’m sorry—I didn’t expect to be gone so long,” she murmured as he gulped down his food. When he jumped out into the light well so he could do his business, she fished out the phone number Theodore had scribbled down for her. The hotel clerk dialed Theodore’s number and a woman with a gruff voice answered, “Neh?”

  “I want to thank you for the wonderful meal!” Luce burst out. The woman shouted angrily at a person in the background and hung up. Was she the same woman who had cooked their meal in the taverna? Luce remembered that Theodore’s mother didn’t speak English, and probably didn’t know who she was. She would try again in the morning.

  Lonely and frustrated, she laid out the contents of her knapsack on the bed. She found the pendulum kit. Why not try it again? she thought. She closed her eyes, holding the pendulum between her thumb and forefinger. “Can you hear me?” she murmured. The pendulum swung in slow, satisfying circles. “May I ask a question tonight?” Once again, the pendulum swung in circular arcs. But when she asked, “Is Theodore attracted to me?” the pendulum swung quickly back and forth, signifying no. Feeling slightly foolish, she brought out the fan-shaped chart of pentagrams arranged under the words Yes, No and Maybe. This time, she held the pendulum over the chart, hoping the answer would be more satisfying if she followed the kit’s instructions to the letter.

  “Purge the pendulum with hyssop, and it will be clean,” she said, reading from the instructions. “Wash it, and it will be whiter than snow.”

  What was hyssop? Wasn’t it the biblical herb sprinkled in old Hebrew rituals? Odd to think she was borrowing from the Bible. She felt pagan, crude, a true child of her mother. Nevertheless, she washed the pendulum, dipping it in a glass of water, and dried it with a Kleenex. Then she began again.

  “Am I travelling with a woman named Lee Pronski?” she asked the pendulum.

  It swung b
etween her fingers in slow circles.

  “Am I in Greece?” Luce asked. Once again, the pendulum swung lazily, around and around. But when she asked, “Is Theodore attracted to me?” the pendulum swung back and forth, and this time the arcs of its swing were larger than before. She sighed and put the pendulum back in its case.

  What was it that Asked For said about the beauty of men? She rose from the desk and picked up the journal, flipping to the entry she wanted: “The strong stalks of their necks, bullish or slim; the delicacy of shaven cheeks, the sweet, heartfelt line between ear and collarbone …”

  Asked For could have been describing the line of Theodore’s jaw, she thought.

  Seven floors up, Lee Pronski emerged from her washroom feeling martyred and cross. She was clad in fresh underwear under her black kimono and three bulky wads of sanitary napkins whose adhesive underpinnings chafed the tender skin of her thighs. All afternoon she had felt a sensation of doom, as if she were a helpless sea creature buffeted by tidal currents on the primordial ocean floor, and she had found herself thinking that the trip with Luce was a mistake. Ordinarily, she would recognize the gloomy mood—its doleful note foretold the onset of her period. Annoying that after all these years she could still be fooled by a few spiking hormones. And what a ridiculous, humiliating business earlier in the day to find herself obliged—at her age—to stuff her pants with the bark-like toilet paper supplied in Greek washrooms. Lordy, it was a nuisance, the nervous checking of trousers when no one was watching. She hadn’t been prepared—it had only been ten days since the horror of the last one. Perimenopause, a harbinger of “the change,” and the perils of its gory flooding.

  It had wearied her trying to explain her beliefs to the two young people, although Theodore had sounded sympathetic. Interesting that he had appeared to think they might laugh at him for his love of poetry. For surely his quoting of Cavafy was a signal. She was surprised that anyone his age still read the dead poet. Cavafy had been a favourite with her generation, and she knew that the term “a follower of Cavafy” was sometimes used as a code word among older Greeks for homosexual. She wondered if Luce understood that Theodore was gay. The girl had been making big cow eyes at him as if she hadn’t noticed.