“This is not working for me.” She pointed toward the concession stand. “I’m going to rest in the shade over there. I’m going to complain to Odyssey Tours. This whole side trip is ridiculous.”
Barbara ignored her. “By the cool water the breeze murmurs, rustling through apple branches, while from quivering leaves streams down deep slumber,” she harangued the stones.
“Oh for crying out loud. Stop it. I mean it. You’re getting on my nerves.” Marsha stalked off.
Robert walked over to Barbara. “This is most extraordinary, this meltemi wind, the ‘bad tempered one.’ Of course I have known of it, but not until today have I comprehended its meaning.”
Barbara, distracted, said, “Bad tempered? Are you talking about Marsha? She’s usually not this way, except sometimes her anxiety …”
Robert interrupted her. “Really, my dear, you must pay attention to your surroundings. The brilliant Eudoxus founded a world-class academy of mathematics and astronomy here in this very place. And so, shall we explore together? Over that hill.”
Barbara felt quashed. How she admired professors, how she quavered before them, fearing they dismissed her as a groundling. But she steeled herself, and followed him.
At the crest of the hill, they gazed at the sea below, in the near view a clutter of Doric columns prone on the ground amid granite stones overrun with a riot of purple and pink and yellow wildflowers. Everywhere lizards darted, flashes of iridescent green disappearing into the cracks between stones.
Barbara stretched her arms to the sky. “Without warning, as a whirlwind swoops on an oak, love shakes my heart.”
Robert smirked. “My dear, as I have explained repeatedly to you, with directness, albeit with gentleness, I am available to you neither for tryst nor yet for dalliance. Much less am I what my horrible vixen sister Carol refers to as marriage material.”
Really, his pedantry bordered on satire, like a Saturday Night Live sketch. She suppressed a chuckle because if she showed even a whiff of amusement there was no guessing how venomous he might be. But wait, didn’t she know this man from long ago? He must have been somehow in that other life, the Sapphic one. Had he been so condescending to her then? No, it was impossible. She was a rich and famous laureate, the acclaimed muse of young poets. She stared at him, and then her polite facade cracked.
“Stop it! Why are you so rude? My words are the very stuff that poems are made of! Don’t you recognize them? I thought you were a genius, but you’re only a pompous jerk, and, you’re the, you’re the … the silliest man I’ve ever met! You remind me of a scarecrow my dad set up in the back yard—the crows cawed and made fun of him and pecked out all his straw.”
Robert’s mouth literally dropped, as the expression goes in bad novels. “Well, my dear, the bad-tempered wind must be affecting you. This flash of rage is most curious. Pray tell me, have you ever sought competent professional assistance for anger management?”
Barbara glared at him. Why was it that reality never remotely approximated her favorite reverie, that other people were kind and intelligent, and appreciated the civil give-and-take of philosophical conversation? But to quarrel with him, to take her focus off this marvelous and somehow so-familiar landscape, and this intoxicating wind, was a waste of time, unless she could turn their argument into dactylic strophes.
“Don’t you understand? I’m Sappho, and you’d better stop insulting me. I promise you, I’ll get my revenge in a poem.”
Robert studied her face. Then he pointed into the far distance.
“I cannot make out the sense of these ruins. Most disappointing not to understand. At a minimum, it is necessary to have a world-class private guide with an Oxford classics degree.”
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“My dear, I believe it is time to reconnoiter with our colleagues at the bus. They will be expecting us.”
“If you ‘my dear’ me one more time, I swear I’ll … I’ll—” Barbara could not think of what she might do. “OK, leave, but I’m not going back yet.”
Robert glowered. “Very well, suit yourself,” and he began climbing down the hill.
“Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal,” she shrieked at him. Salt tears welled up, and dribbled down her cheeks.
That night, the Calliope voyaged westward, its destination Santorini, some twelve hours over open sea. Captain Aristotle, a short burly Athenian in his fifties, promised an early arrival at the old port in Skala Pier, 500 feet below the clifftop town of Fira—a special privilege, because the ship was small, and he had cousins there. Ariadne chimed in with speculations about the lost continent of Atlantis. Barbara watched the sunset alone on the upper deck. She felt alienated from Marsha, from Robert, from her fellows on the ship, from the whole world. Fragments of verse free-floated in her mind, as she watched the foam-wake change to golden, then red, and then begin to sparkle silver from a full white moon illuminating the violet waves.
She retreated to her cabin, to prepare for tomorrow’s excursion. Instead of searching for material on Santorini, she took up the Lives, and continued reading the Sappho chapter. She already knew everything in these pages, though they were not things she recalled learning. And even more unsettling, she could have interpreted and expanded the material, easily and effortlessly wowing a roomful of scholars, even as the self-confident aristocrat Sappho had impressed the most arrogant of the Sophists who considered her the equal of Orpheus, the mythic poet who had mesmerized all living creatures.
Ten o’clock was Barbara’s usual “lights out,” but that night at about nine o’clock the Calliope began to toss in choppy waters, the swells cresting fifteen feet. It was impossible to read further. Nausea. Her scopolamine patch wasn’t working. She wobbled unsteadily to the bathroom and threw up all her dinner. This was just as Homer describes the wrath of Poseidon, when the vindictive god seizes his trident and shakes up the sea. The waves crashed, and the ship rocked and swayed. Tell it to the marines, her somber father had repeated over and over, and so she, the first-born child, was always brave and uncomplaining. Probably Marsha was in the bar, laughing off this turbulence. Marsha boasted about frequent weekend sails on Lake Michigan with a “special friend.” It wouldn’t occur to her that Barbara might be suffering.
A poem-fragment came to her. Death is an evil. That’s what the gods think. Else they would die. She teetered back to bed, and retrieved her rosary from the nightstand. Fingering the crystal beads, she began to whisper the mysteries of light. Surely the Virgin would intercede for her.
Barbara heard a faint knock on the door. In her delirium she imagined it might be Yannis. The door was locked, wasn’t it? The ship pitched again, and she lay ashen-faced in bed, unable to form a sentence, even a feeble “go away.” Then she heard the turn of the lock and the door opened. Good heavens, the crew had keys. She braced herself. Surely he was harmless, and nothing bad would happen.
The light switched on. A slender young woman stood in the doorway. Ah, now she remembered. It was Maricel, the maid, who every evening turned down the bed-sheets, and left a chocolate mint on the pillow. Barbara was in the habit of answering the door, accepting the candy, smiling and wishing the young woman good evening. Maricel had mentioned a husband and two children in the Philippines (photos on an iPhone had been produced) who waited patiently for her while she was away four months at a time. Cruise ship gigs paid good money. Now she clucked sympathetically, and rang for chicken broth, ginger ale and water crackers.
“God bless you,” Barbara whimpered. This lovely girl must be a deep-sea ox-eyed Nereid, riding to the rescue on the back of a Knossos blue dolphin. The Virgin had listened.
Barbara’s sleep was fretful, and she awoke often. In her nightmares, the ship sank, and all perished except for Yannis and Robert, who floated off together in a lifeboat on a serene sea, a school of bottlenoses porpoising around them.
In the morning, the sea was calm. Maricel brought plain toast and chamomile te
a. At eight o’clock the Calliope was pulling into the old harbor. The passengers stood on the foredecks, ooh-ing and ah-ing: a deep lapis blue sea, from which rose sheer brown-black volcanic cliffs, at the summit whitewashed buildings that glittered against an azure-mist sky. Barbara, her head aching, kept to herself, watching from the lower deck. Over the intercom came Ariadne’s voice, asking everyone to line up. The company had arranged a private pass to board the gondola and bypass a long line of tourists. They filed off the gangplank. Barbara was last, apart.
Marsha was chatting with a tall, tan man who was traveling alone; no wedding ring, and no white stripe where a wedding ring should have been. Barbara remembered that his name might be Alan, or was it Michael?, and he did something mysteriously lucrative on Wall Street and was constantly shooting photos with professional camera gear. From the look of it, Steve had not panned out, but this new one was an even better catch. Marsha’s white-veneered teeth glimmered in the sunlight as she waved at Barbara.
Robert sidled up to her.
“Good morning, my dear. A most pacific and beauteous day, the proverbial calm after the archetypal tempest. Were you dispirited during this most protracted night of dread?”
Barbara could hardly form the usual banal response, Oh it was nothing, I must have slept through it, or some such. Rather, she said in almost a whisper:
“Stand up and look at me, face to face, my friend. Unloose the beauty of your eyes.”
He seemed not to hear her. “Sit next to me, my dear. This felicitous funicular will transport us to the apogee of this mythic volcano. A fabled civilization on the isle of Thera blown to smithereens.”
But what was he pontificating about? It didn’t matter, at least his voice and manner were friendly. She couldn’t expect anyone to understand her. She stepped into the gondola seat. The machine clanked and swayed up the cliff face, dizzying vistas of blue-on-blue unfolding before them. Nausea again. She closed her eyes and recited several Hail Mary’s, her lips fluttering.
At the top, she tottered out of the gondola, and sank down on a stone bench. Robert drifted away to the far side of the square. Marsha had ratcheted up her flirtation with the tall man. He had a casual hand on her shoulder, and was smiling, pointing toward the sea.
Marsha led her new conquest over to Barbara, to make the introduction. The name indeed was Alan.
“I haven’t seen much of you,” he said to Barbara, glancing quizzically at Marsha. “You don’t look like sisters at all …” his voice trailed off.
Marsha took up the slack. “Oh I know, everyone says that.” And teasingly, to Barbara: “A little rocking last night, just like sailing on the Lake, what fun, really.”
Barbara did not get up from the bench and merely prattled the minimal niceties. “So lovely to meet you. What a perfect morning for walking.” The A-list photogenic couple wandered off. Alan had slipped his arm around Marsha’s waist.
Ariadne hallooed, summoning everyone to follow her. Barbara stood up. Thank goodness, her dizziness had lessened. The guide led them through the narrow pebbly streets, on schedule for a “special private visit” to the archeological museum, before the doors opened to the public.
Barbara lagged behind. She didn’t feel like paying attention. Things seemed hopelessly muddled by the time they were filtered through Ariadne’s quaint, accented English. She slipped around a corner into an alleyway, a winding cobblestone path perhaps three feet wide, between the smooth whitewashed walls of stone houses. She glimpsed intricate stairways, leading up or down to cobalt blue doorways. Purple and pink bougainvillea cascaded from walls and twined around windows. The alleyway meandered up, and at its highest summit dead-ended into a terrace with a plashing fountain in the center. A dozen patrons, a motley of tourists and locals, in their groups of two and three, relaxed at wooden tables under turquoise patio umbrellas at a little café connected to the terrace, plates of baklava and cups of sweet, strong variglykos set out before them.
After the shade of the alleyway, the sudden intense sunlight in the open terrace confused Barbara. Dizzy again, she collapsed into a chair at one of the tables. The umbrella shaded direct solar rays, but still the vibrant whiteness disoriented her. A young black-eyed black-haired waitress appeared. Ariadne had sworn by the healing properties of mountain shepherd’s tea, though the Calliope didn’t stock it, since the beverage was brewed from some unappetizing weed. Here on this menu it was listed, and Barbara whispered her order. The waitress brought a steaming cup and a plate of crusty bread. Barbara sat, dunking the bread into the hot yellowish liquid. The taste was citrus and mint, and oddly calming. There was a memory stirring of some other time, when this health-giving tea had been a daily habit and her creative energy unbounded.
Her head thrummed. Phaon frequents the far fields of Typhoeus’s Etna: passion grips me no less fiercely than Etna’s fire. Ah, yes, in that faraway time in college, her one fierce love, Dennis, whom she had seen French-kissing another girl on the quad as she returned from the library at ten p.m., closing time. She had never confronted him, but broke with him immediately and cried herself to sleep for six months. She was blushing to think of it: that semester had been the one blot on her college record. Straight A’s except during the Dennis fiasco, when her record was sprinkled with B’s and C’s, and her chance at Phi Beta Kappa vaporized. And then her fervid determination to make it on her own. A woman needs a man like a frog needs a biology class full of seventh graders.
All these years she had relentlessly scheduled her life: nothing frivolous ever interfered. It was all work and keeping a spotless apartment and running to buy necessities, with a rigid bedtime and wake-up alarm, her only solace in books—but even then there had been reading goals, so many pages per day, so many books per month, a voice that lectured her if she didn’t keep up the pace.
“You finally can rest. Relax and let go, Barbara.” From somewhere, a consoling voice.
This long-deferred and longed-for trip was supposed to be exhilarating as well as educational. What was happening to her? Why these crazy thoughts, why this melancholy? And now a wailing melody, something unstable and disturbing, a chthonic lament quavering in harsh half-tones. If you wish to flee far from Sappho of Greece, you’ll still find no reason why I’m worthy of being shunned. A harsh letter might at least speak that misery, so that death might be sought by me in Leucadia’s waters.
Barbara rose from the table. She waved to the girl, handed her a ten euro note, and mumbled, “The change is for you.” The girl’s face registered a surprised delight with the American tourist’s generosity, and she skittered back inside the café kitchen, as if afraid that her customer might renege. Barbara stepped over to the stone barricade, barely three feet high, which circled the terrace. She gaped at the picture-postcard view. A sheer cliff. Dark volcanic rock plunged hundreds of feet, at its bottom a thin strip of black sand and then an infinite expanse of cerulean water. Dazzling. Dizzy, impossibly dizzy. Her stomach roiled, as if protesting the strange herbal infusion that only the locals were used to, and an acrid minty taste filled her mouth. She leaned over the parapet, silver waves stippling an unfathomable blue expanse of primordial sea, bluer than any blue envisioned by even the most intoxicated of Impressionists. Aphrodite, born from the sea, offers the sea to lovers. Let go, finally, for the first time in your life, relax and let go.
None of the other patrons noticed Barbara’s fall, so fluidly a part of the natural landscape, a croquet ball rolling down the gentle incline of a manicured lawn, Icarus gliding soundlessly into the sea as in the Brueghel painting, a ploughman and a shepherd oblivious. At four o’clock, when she didn’t check into the ship, the alarm was raised. About an hour later, local fishermen found the body, still intact, blue eyes open wide, the mouth in an ambiguous smile, floating in a shallow lagoon a mile from the harbor, striped crabs already nibbling.
Beef Medallions
Fetus floating in the womb.
Do you know ’twill be your tomb?
Feel th
e cold steel suck and slice.
Where to hide from Hell’s device?
God made you with holy breath.
Silent scream: can this be death?
No harm in it. Life so brief,
Shrug it off. But now, cruel grief
Like slow poison steals and seeps.
See this mother howl and weep.
SALLY TURNED ON her cell phone. Three messages from her husband Phil. She called his Century City office, and he answered.
“Oh there you are sweetheart.” Was there a hint of annoyance in his unfailingly polite tone?
“Sorry, honey. I forgot to turn on the cell. There was a lovely sale at Citron, then I met Marisa for a long lunch at 17th Street Café, you remember her, my old girlfriend from high school? She’s in LA visiting, you met her that one time, what, twenty years ago now, she couldn’t make our wedding.”
Odd to be lying to him, and especially to be embellishing the story with such petty details. Nothing to hide, really, and yet there was a certain verboten topic.
Phil said, “You remember my client Richard, from Disney. He and Irene have separated and he’s a little lost. I invited him over for dinner, and we’ll leave here in an hour. Drop by Whole Foods, would you, and pick up some beef medallions we can broil, and some nice sides. Hope you don’t mind such short notice, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“No worries, darling, there’s nothing to make up. Dinner will be fun.”
It was February, and an overcast sky threatened rain. She walked slowly to her BMW parked in the lot of St. Monica’s Roman Catholic Church. She had driven there in a daze, and knelt in a back pew, head in hands, shoulders jerking convulsively. After a long time, she had stumbled toward the front, and collapsed into a pew near a side altar, close to a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, votive candles sputtering in the shadows. The sanctuary was empty and silent, though every so often other solitary worshippers glided down the aisle and knelt for a while near the high altar.
Curious Affairs Page 8