What Casanova Told Me

by Susan Swan

  “‘The earth is a circle … She is healing us,’” Christine said, grasping the hands of Luce and Lee who stood on either side of the tour leader. The group repeated, “‘We are a circle … We are healing you.’”

  “And now repeat after me, everyone,” Christine said, lifting Luce’s and Lee’s hands high into the air. “‘Merry meet and merry greet, and merry part—and merry meet again. Blessed be.’”

  Holding up their clasped hands, the group repeated the refrain. It reminded Luce of a nursery rhyme. Then they dropped hands and, talking and laughing, headed back down the hill, taking a new route through the trees. Luce ambled along behind. Did her mother come to Crete to play-act schoolgirl games? Surely not, she told herself. She hoped the noisy group wasn’t visible from the road. She didn’t want anyone to see her with this band of dotty middle-aged tourists pretending to understand a civilization that wasn’t their own.

  The road led to a grassy meadow where a lunch had been spread out on tables set up under a huge olive tree. Luce recognized some of the dishes Theodore had introduced to her in Piraeus, the crusty brown red mullet, barbounia, and the welcoming bowls of horiatiki salata. There were also new discoveries, plates of tiny Cretan olives, along with the sour local bread that needed to be moistened in water.

  Two men stood by the table, opening bottles of yellow wine. They were short and thickset, with high cheekbones and sloping foreheads; the pair could have been father and son, their resemblance was so strong. The younger man had tied his reddish-brown hair back in a ponytail and he was dressed neatly in a plaid jacket, jeans and Kodiak boots. The fillings in the older man’s teeth shone in the sunlight as he talked and laughed with his young companion. His hair, a bunching mass of dark grey curls, made him resemble a woodland satyr with curling horns growing out of his forehead. He wore a grass-stained mechanic’s suit, with the words “Andreas. Shell Service” in gold thread on the breast pocket.

  When they heard female voices, the two men turned and stared frankly at Luce.

  Andreas limped over to her in his floppy sandals. She noticed that one of his ankles was bound with a dirty tensor bandage. “Motorbike, eh, shorty?” he said, pointing to his foot. “Engine burn Andreas!” He made a jubilant, roaring noise, grasping at a pair of imaginary handlebars. “I call you ‘shorty.’ No problem, eh?” Andreas said.

  Luce looked helplessly at Lee, who was walking over to her with Christine.

  “Of course Luce minds, Andreas. Behave yourself now. Luce is Kitty’s daughter.” Christine beckoned to the other man, and he came towards them with big springy steps.

  “Luce, Yannis Vatakis is our local guide. And this is his uncle, Andreas, who knows the caves around here better than anyone.”

  “Ela, Christine!” Yannis wagged his finger at the older guide. “If anyone make Andreas-kamaki good boy, it you.”

  Andreas turned to Luce, pinching together his finger and thumb, measuring something infinitesimally tiny. “Yannis, my nephew. Too small for you, eh?”

  Yannis spoke in a low voice to his uncle, who growled back an indecipherable answer that sounded like a curse.

  “Stop that, you two,” Christine said. “Yannis, this is Kitty’s daughter.”

  “I know Kitty,” Yannis said, his dark eyes lingering on Luce’s face.

  Before she could respond, Christine interjected, “Luce, Yannis lost his friend, Constantine, in the accident that killed your mother.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Luce said.

  “We all are,” Christine replied.

  “You didn’t tell me he was coming,” Lee said, nodding at Yannis.

  “I do apologize, Lee,” said Christine, and it seemed to Luce that she was straining to speak gently. “I must have forgotten. But, yes, Yannis and Andreas are helping us.” She turned away towards the others, calling, “Lunch is served, everyone. Eat well because this afternoon we are going to the Skoteino cave.”

  Luce smiled shyly at Yannis who had retreated from their group and stood smoking under a large olive tree. He smiled back, his cheeks forming sunburnt hollows as he sucked on his cigarette. If he had known Constantine, perhaps he would help her find a way to Zaros, she thought.

  Luce sat in the shade of one of the olive trees. The picnic lunch of simple, country food was over and on the other side of the meadow her mother’s entourage now lay about in small groups, chatting or sunbathing. She had chosen a spot as far away from them as she could manage, but a group of older women had come over and settled themselves under a nearby tree. From where she sat, the plump drooping forms of the white-haired women looked like burst milkweed pods, leaking the silvery fluff of their seed pods. It startled her that these women didn’t care about their appearance; they lazed about on the grass, carefree, oblivious to the way their T-shirts and shorts exposed their breasts and the meaty slabs of their thighs. She knew she was being cruel—she had youth on her side—but she didn’t mean them harm. She thought of her own looks as a temporary loan—like an overdue library book that would one day be recalled.

  Ignoring Luce, the older women began to tell each other their life stories and Luce realized, with a little lift of her heart, that she finally had a moment to herself. Reaching into her knapsack, she brought out the pictorial guide to Crete that Lee had bought for her at Knossos. Three days had gone by since her rush from the consulate, and none of the women, not even Lee, had asked for an explanation. They had all been tactfully sympathetic, and even Lee had seemed determined to avoid the subject.

  She stared curiously at the guidebook’s photographs of Minoan artifacts—clay rattles, cylindrical seals made of lapis lazuli, an ivory fly, and a gold signet ring depicting a woman and a griffin—all relics of the artistic, exuberant culture that had meant so much to her mother. She could see how Kitty would be entranced by their beauty, as Lee obviously still was. She paused at a picture of a statue of a Minoan snake goddess whose fierce black eyes seemed to shine with ecstatic fervour. Or was it cruelty?

  Setting the guidebook on her lap, she glanced again around the meadow. Lee was nowhere to be seen and the rest of the group were asleep or resting. She retrieved Asked For’s journal from her knapsack and placed it discreetly inside the guide to Crete. She wanted Casanova all to herself.

  July 20, 1797

  I find myself delighting in my sensuality. Jacob has been my ravisher, and I his—our parts so intermeshed that, between us, we each possess breasts, wombs and manly steeds. I love the feel of Jacob’s sun-browned skin, not dry and papery, the way I imagined an old man’s skin would be, but soft and surprisingly pliant. And Jacob’s manhood is as thick and long as the morels I once found under the maple trees of Quincy. As a girl, I would turn them over in my hand, marvelling. Clearly, men are the princes of the vegetable kingdom.

  Our days by the seashore in Sounion pass quickly.

  Yesterday Jacob and I took an evening stroll to escape Domenico and his friend, our host, Fotis Stamatapoulos. The sea air was warm and the place so quiet we could hear the bees in the sage bushes. Soon we found ourselves on a path to the beach. There was no one to see us so I untied my hair and walked barefoot, thinking of the Quincy shore with its distant views of Boston. I began to gather treasures from the sea, as I had as a child. I found sprigs of sage, the briny shells of dead snails and clams, and strands of kelp, even the dead carcass of a crab, which are called lobsters here. Jacob began to play at my game, finding finely polished black stones that shine like eyes. As we rounded a bend in the shore, we came upon a small fishing village.

  Still barefoot, my hair long about my shoulders, I followed Jacob past a group of young fishermen who sat on the sand mending nets. Jacob asked them where we could buy food, and they pointed at the first house near a small wharf. As we walked on, I heard them whisper and I felt the involuntary shudder a large being like myself experiences when the eyes of men fall unfavourably upon you. How I wish sometimes to be quick as the wind, or invisible like a grain of sand, and not this long-limbed, lumberin
g creature.

  Outside the first house, Jacob called out and soon an old woman in a long black shawl came towards us, slowly navigating across the rocks. We told her that we would pay for any food she could give us. She could hardly answer us for giggling. After she left, Jacob whispered that she thought I was with child because he had asked her to bring so many dishes.

  This information captured my tongue and for a few moments I could not look at him. The woman brought a salad of olives and tomatoes and a platter of squid fried in flour. I was hungry and ate with gusto while Jacob watched, smiling. When I finished the squid, he called for lamb and potatoes, and then he cut off the finest slices of the shank and fed them to me. I gave in gladly to his ministering, knowing that the woman and her family were watching us. We must have made a picturesque sight.

  It was still very humid, although the sun had finished setting over the sea. Wispy clouds streaked the horizon’s edge like crimson laurel wreaths. It was so pleasant to be with Jacob, gazing at the Aegean, that at first I did not mind the mosquitoes. Yet, by and by, their nasty work began to torment me, and I told Jacob I was going to go into the sea.

  “You can swim?” he asked.

  I laughed. “And you?”

  “No,” he said gruffly.

  “Then I will teach you!”

  In moments, my outer garments were off and I stood on the rock closest to shore, beckoning to Jacob to join me. When he shook his head, I dived in and swam far out.

  It was now very dark. On the shore, torches had been lit near the taverna so the young men could fix their nets. Jacob called once or twice but I did not come in. I swam under the waves, emerging a great distance away where I knew he would not look. When his cries grew louder, I swam back towards the spit. There I saw the young fishermen half stumbling over the rocks with their torches. Jacob was on his feet, waving his arms.

  “Come in now! Asked For, I beg you!”

  On the shore, the young fishermen surrounded him, the light from their torches shining on their faces.

  “The fishermen will see me,” I called.

  “They will not harm you!” he called back.

  I paddled in and hauled myself to my feet, wearing only my thin tunic. There was a loud murmuring among the young men but the look of pleasure on Jacob’s face reassured me. Then each man took off his cap and held it, face up, in a gesture of homage.

  “They say you are Aphrodite,” Jacob smiled.

  “They are very kind,” I replied. I realized that the awe I saw on their faces was genuine. And for the first time I found myself able to accept admiration as it was given to me.

  Solemnly, one by one, the fishermen filed off the rocky spit. Jacob wrapped me in the large tablecloth and we stood, our arms entwined, looking out over the dark sea. I was too happy to speak and wished that the slow, swelling feeling of peace and quiet joy would always be with me.

  When I grew chilled, we walked to the little house where he had found us lodgings for the night. Upstairs, we undressed, kissing tenderly. Then, after emptying my skirt of its trinkets from the seashore, I led Jacob to the narrow bed.

  In the small, shadowy room, with the waves lapping below our window, I took off Jacob’s wig with its braided plaits and combed out the long rope of his greying hair. Laughing softly, I dressed his head with the strands of kelp and clamshells I had found on the shore. Next, I took a handful of his black shiny stones and placed two in his ears. Then I placed the crab’s skeleton on his belly button and hid five of the smoothest pebbles along the sides of his groin where the skin is palest. With a trembling hand, I touched the largest stone to the tip of his instrument and it lazily swung upward. Jacob’s eyes flew open and he smiled.

  “Darling girl,” he said. “I am weak with shame over the joy I feel when you give me pleasure.”

  “Do not feel ashamed,” I whispered. “Nothing satisfies me more.”

  It is true: each time I make love to Jacob I rescue him from death. And by the time our lovemaking is done, Jacob is younger than I am. We have proof enough in the new black hairs growing on his face and chest.

  July 22, 1797

  Fotis Stamatapoulos took us to his mother’s village in the hills behind Sounion, because Monsieur Gennaro said he wanted to paint a country scene. We rode for hours on donkeys, seated on uncomfortable wooden saddles, following a narrow stony path that gradually circled its way higher and higher up to a pine-clad ridge. The air was sweet with resin, and the heat the most severe since Athens. Fortunately, Fotis took it upon himself to make the rest of us comfortable. He is a portly Greek who dabs himself frequently with a lemon-scented handkerchief. I believe he feels the heat more than the rest of us.

  We lunched on figs and small stuffed birds and drank a refreshing yogurt drink to cool our throats. To stay cool, I hid my hair under my calpac and dressed in the blouse and pantaloons Jacob purchased for me in Athens. The men laughed and joked that I had become like a brother to them.

  For the first time in many days, I thought of Father with his stern, plump face, lying under the sand of a Venetian beach. How he wished I had been born a son, and not a large, willful daughter.

  The village of Fotis’s mother was a farming hamlet with whitewashed houses. We rode in as the men of the village were having their tea. Jacob found it amusing when they mistook me for a man, even though I did not try to fool them. Fotis told us that my size makes it easy for me to confuse his countrymen who do not expect to meet women outside the home, let alone a woman as tall as myself. And certainly, in the village, there was not a female face to be seen. Emboldened by my disguise, I left Jacob and the men to enjoy themselves and set out to find the women. I discovered them in the fields, hoeing the ground in bright jackets and billowing skirts, their faces as round as water-smoothed stones. They turned away when I smiled at them, and I realized they were frightened of me in my man’s clothing. It gave me a lonely feeling.

  This evening, I am writing in these pages while sitting with Jacob and the men of the village, watching ghazals, as they are called, from a small travelling fair. Rapturous music floats in the air, and the dancers slide their heads like snakes from side to side, their arms rippling like wind in the grasses. They do not seem to grow hot or perspire.

  As we sit in the deepening shadows, a large woman comes forward, clothed in gold coins which hang in tiers from her neck. Even her mammoth hips are sheathed in belts of coins. Clapping tiny gold cymbals above her head, she insinuates herself hip-first into the circle of dancers. Now the fat woman’s hands flutter about her head; she touches her forehead and her breasts. And then, pivoting with an upraised hip, she offers her body in generous supplication. The men peer lasciviously at her and she utters high little shrieking sounds in her throat, animal-like in intensity. Jacob is watching her with fascination. It seems a bee or some other insect is trapped in her garments. She peers down through her blouse, shaking and bobbing. And suddenly the blouse is on the ground and the fat woman stands before us clad in large pantaloons and a second blouse. The men laugh. She begins again to turn and pivot, her face twisted in mock distress. She flicks the material of her blouse in and out so her gold coins clatter and ring, and I am frightened she will remove her clothing. I have never seen such a fat woman.

  She lies on the ground and allows one of the village men to place two water glasses on the curve of her enormous belly. Then she wiggles her stomach so the half-full water glasses clink together musically. A virtuoso feat! The men grow mad with pleasure. They throw sweets and flowers at the large dancer, and Jacob is laughing and clapping. She has won him over and I am glad. We have both felt gloomy lately, knowing our time here is coming to an end.

  Lesson Learned: There is no body too large or too fat for the pleasures of the dance.

  “Did I tell you your mother tilted her head just like that when she was concentrating?”

  Luce glanced up to see Lee standing before her. Behind Lee, the guides were clearing the food tables and putting empty retsina bottl
es into packing crates.

  “Yes, you told me that in Venice.”

  “I’ve never met anyone who concentrated so intensely. It was as if she pulled down a blind.”

  “My mother could be … distracted.” Luce closed the guidebook so Lee wouldn’t see the copy of the journal hidden inside.

  “Your mother had a difficult time understanding that she mattered to others. I don’t know why. It was as if she couldn’t see herself.”

  “My mother couldn’t see herself?”

  “Well, God knows, it’s hard for any of us to see who we really are, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Luce said, startled by the reminder of how Lee had loved and accepted her mother.

  “May I sit down for a minute?” Luce nodded, and Lee lowered herself carefully onto the grass.

  “Kitty would have liked the idea of you being here, don’t you think?” Lee asked. Luce felt a twitch of dread. Even though she knew she was stalling, and not only that, trying to deny the sad afternoon that lay ahead, the last thing she wanted was to talk over family matters with Lee. She had only a few more entries to go and she had hoped to finish before they had to leave for the cave near Skoteino.

  “She was always sorry to leave you behind, you know. You could have come with us any time. She said she asked you.”

  “I had to do my university courses.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right. But I wondered … did you—did you disapprove of us?”

  “Well, I didn’t feel totally comfortable with—you know.” Luce shrugged angrily.

  “No.”

  “With her being far away—in a place where I couldn’t look out for things.”

  “You felt responsible for Kitty?”

  “If she’d stayed in Canada she wouldn’t have died.”

  “Luce, no! Any of us can be in the wrong place at the wrong moment. We can’t control the world’s chaos.”

  “We can. If we try.”