The story begins really (the beginning of there, that is) in San Sebastiàn, where the Golfe de Gascogne meets the Bay of Biscay in that gentle curve of land as Europe turns west from France to Spain, reaching toward America. The mouth of the Urumea River opens into the particularly protected Shell Bay, and rising through gardens and promenades, tamarinds and railings, are Mount Urgull and Mount Igueldo with views of the sea and the islet of Santa Clara that floats just offshore. Beth had remembered reading in a novel about San Sebastiàn, a popular seaside resort for the royal and the rich, known for its balconies and its food. She didn't remember which novel—she believed it was something by Hemingway—but she wanted to visit the town simply because she had read about it.
She wanted to hitchhike from Deva to Bilbao, visit Bolivar and Guernica and also the birthplace of Saint Ignacio, founder of the Jesuits. She wanted to be in the heart of Basque country, land of Euskera, a language with unknown origins. Of the two of them, Beth was the dreamer. She was driven by romantic notions and whims, a desire to make the impossible happen. Sylvia was the pensive one and the planner, infinitely practical. She read the guidebooks. She had notepads and pencils, knew how to spot gypsies (cute little kids with dirty faces and dirty clothes who'd take you for everything you had with a piece of cardboard as their tool), knew how to read the train schedules and find hotels cheaper than youth hostels. Beth loved exploding Sylvia's plans and Sylvia loved Beth for doing so. In Innsbruck at the train station, way past midnight and everything closed, it was Beth who met Hans, a nice man with gentle eyes and a gentle face and a slight stutter who offered them his grandmother's bed for the night because she was out of town for the season. "He might be a murderer," Sylvia said. "Oh, come on," Beth said impatiently, looking her in the eye and then looking around the sad, quiet train station. "Would you rather sleep here or in a bed?" It was a big warm bed with a huge soft goose down comforter. He fed them soft-boiled eggs at 4 A.M., using his grandmother's silver spoons. Then he let them sleep well into the afternoon.
"How did you know he wouldn't murder us?" Sylvia asked, curling up to Beth in the grandmother's bed. The bed and the room smelled like rose petals and old age. "He still could," Beth said, and fell asleep.
The next day she said, "Season! Murderers don't have grandmothers who go away for the season."
From Austria to Paris to Nice to San Sebastiàn they zigzagged their way, the itinerary designed by their whims. In Nice they met Chas, an American who serenaded them from the street beneath the tiny balcony of their tiny pension, singing Cat Stevens songs.
"It's him, it's him," Sylvia said, lighting up. She had a large smile that opened her entire face.
"Who?" Beth asked. They were having a midnight snack of pain au chocolat and white wine that tasted a little like whiskey. They could buy all the wine they liked and no one ever said a thing. They could sleep late and no one ever said a thing. They could eat chocolate for dinner, lunch, and breakfast, and no one said a thing.
"The cute man from the single down the hall." Sylvia leaned over the balcony and smiled down to him on the street, his songs rising up to them as if the three of them were the only people in the world. From the balcony the girls could glimpse the silver Mediterranean seeming to hold the moon. Beth thought he was singing to both of them, but learned, when he changed his easy plans to come with them to San Sebastian and climb 425 feet up the famous Mount Urgull (presided over solemnly by the imposing statue of the Sacred Heart) that Chas was serenading Sylvia alone—beautiful Sylvia Summerhaze, with her long auburn hair and her sea green eyes (set just a fraction too close together).
Sylvia was Beth's best friend and Beth was jealous, the way a lover might be. Freshman year in high school they had once contemplated sharing a boyfriend simply so they could experience everything together. The boy was Jacob, a blond drummer in a band called Random Joe. Random Joe played a lot of the Police, and Jacob sort of looked like that band's drummer, Stewart Copeland—tall and lanky with dusty blond hair that framed a long angular face with lips as red as lipstick. "He has a strong jaw," Sylvia liked to say. And she kissed him and shortly thereafter Beth kissed him and, lying in bed at Beth's farm, the girls compared notes. Sometimes what Beth wanted most was simply to kiss Sylvia, one of those unspoken ideas that even she herself did not fully comprehend. Jacob sang "Walking on the Moon." He sang it often for Beth and Sylvia. He said he loved Sylvia for her mind and Beth for her body. For a while Beth liked the idea of being liked for her body. She had confidence in her mind.
On Mount Urgull, Beth was admiring the view, her face turned away from Chas and Sylvia, feeling quite light with independence and with the excitement of Chas's company. Chas was four years older than the girls. He had just graduated from Harvard and was working his way around the world before getting serious with a job. He spoke of trekking in Nepal, riding elephants in India, teaching English in Taiwan. He was a good boy, a gentleman in the making, but a type all the same, with his guitar and easy manner. The kind you see traveling the world, privileged and rich, trying on poverty for a year or two before settling down to earn millions in some banking job or other, this excursion a reminder for the rest of his life of what he had seen of the world and of what he didn't want, though he would never admit it. This type, he spoke of eating dog in China just as enthusiastically as he spoke of camel treks, eager to let people know he really had been adventurous—once upon a time, long ago. Back then he had slept on thin mattresses with bedbugs and cockroaches, slept in huts on dirt floors, lived without water for a week, contracted giardia and hepatitis. Oh, but the Taj Mahal was stunning, shining in the heat of Uttar Pradesh with all those cute poor children begging for bonbons and school pencils. Through the young eyes of Beth and Sylvia, Chas was simply an adventurer, all bravado and fearlessness, traveling in the footsteps of the great explorers who came before him, from Marco Polo to Vespucci to Kerouac. And the girls loved that about Chas, that stories and ideas spilled from him—exotic expectations, a desire to experience everything and all. The world was his and the girls found that seductive; at night, curled up together in their bed, they would dream of their own adventures, of taking a world tour, of being brave enough to head to Africa.
But up there on Mount Urgull, determined Chas took Beth's turned back as a chance to sneak up behind Sylvia and kiss her. (Later, Sylvia would tell Beth that she had not been surprised by the kiss, that indeed she had been hoping for it and would have kissed him herself if he hadn't first. "The desire," she said, "had been visible." "Desire?" Beth asked, wanting to laugh. What did they really know about desire?) And just as their lips met, Beth turned toward them. Then, before they could see her seeing them, she turned away.
The kiss hit her like a slap. A rush of envy and fury pushed against her chest, caught at her throat. She saw Chas stealing Sylvia from her. That was the only picture she could see. Suddenly she hated Chas, understood him (just as suddenly) not as an exotic adventurer but as a fraud, a thief taking Sylvia for his own, seducing her with his guitar because she was an easy sweet girl. He would carry her along until grabbed by some other whim. The picture was there, developed in that quick glimpse of Sylvia's head leaning back, her lips reaching up to his. Beth saw them skipping across the world, from elephants to tall mountains to little Chinese men eager to learn English. His lips so gently on Sylvia's, his hands so lightly on her back, as soft as the light summer breeze, which caused her long auburn hair to dance. Their embrace was gentle, it was loving, it was romantic. Beth could feel it as if Chas had been kissing her. She wished Chas had been kissing her.
For a long time Beth would think about this moment. She would think about it once she met Cesare in Greece and everything and everyone became easily dispensable, sacrificial even, and nothing mattered but more of Cesare. She was struck by the uncontrollable will of love, the awesome force of it, which created indifference and undeniable selfishness in regard to others, yet exquisite selflessness in regard to the other, the lover. She and Cesare would b
e together in Greece for just four days, on the Aeolian island of Páros. They would meet on that first morning as Cesare spoke ancient Greek to the landlady of his pension and as the sun lit his black hair, turning it almost blue. Have you ever been watching a movie when the film burned? It starts as a small hole and then grows. As it grows, it devours the image, takes over the entire screen, blotting out the picture with white light until the film snaps. Do you remember how quick it is, how all encompassing, nothing matters but that hole, the increasing size of it, the triumph of it?
Beth gave Sylvia the silent treatment as they drifted back to the hotel, Sylvia all but oblivious as she floated along at Chas's side, believing they held a secret from Beth, a secret that made the intensity of their desire all the more powerful. Walking ahead, Beth hated both of them. She was fury itself—irrational fury, she realized—threatened, afraid, as if somewhere she did believe that Sylvia would abandon her, leave her there in Spain by herself.
"But what's wrong, Beth?" Sylvia asked once they were back in their room and a good ten minutes had passed without a word from Beth. Sylvia danced around trying on dresses. She wanted to tell Beth about the kiss, but was afraid. She had only a vague understanding of that fear; she simply understood that it would be better if she didn't mention kissing Chas. All that was on her mind was seeing Chas again, kissing Chas again. She had even liked the smell of his breath. It was as if she were still inside that kiss, a bubble surrounding just the two of them. She imagined she could sneak out for a midnight walk once Beth was asleep. Seeing him again was an urgent need. She wanted to be free of Beth. She wanted to know everything about Chas, to reexperience that wonderful jetting sensation.
"What's wrong?" Beth snapped, mocking Sylvia's question. Sylvia looked at Beth, holding her with her eyes to make sure. Beth's face revealed everything, though she tried to pretend it did not.
"It doesn't mean anything," Sylvia said.
"What doesn't mean anything?" Beth persisted. She wanted to be cruel, wanted to make Sylvia tell her everything, admit to the kiss as if there were something fatally wrong in it.
"You know what I'm talking about," Sylvia said.
"I do?" They studied each other for a long time and then Beth conceded. "He's a fake," she said.
"Are you going to try to convince me he's awful when just a few hours ago you adored him, too?" Rarely did Beth see Sylvia mad. Then Beth decided she wanted to see Sylvia really mad. Beth wanted to be mighty and evil and say wicked things.
"He'll eat dog in China, get an awful disease in India, come home and brag about it for the rest of his life and think he's somehow more enlightened for it. And meanwhile he'll dump you when something better comes along." She'd heard her father talk about this sort of fake. She knew the mantra.
"This is more than one kiss deserves."
"I'm leaving," Beth said. "I'll go to Italy," she said, wanting to make Sylvia feel the way she felt now—choked, abandoned. She knew she was being irrational, but she couldn't stop herself. She was prone to slamming doors and bursting into flames. A temper, her grandmother called it. "To Beatrice and we'll—"
"And you'll what?" Sylvia said, her green eyes turning angry even though she knew Beth was bluffing, that Beatrice was in Italy studying for her final exams. But the truth didn't matter. The mention of Bea's name now was enough to get them fighting. Beatrice Nuova was Beth's other best friend and Beth had tried to make them a trio in the summers when Bea was in America. But it never quite worked. Beth always remained in the middle with Sylvia and Bea vying for a greater share of her. At Claire, Sylvia would lord her knowledge of the place over Bea, showing Bea where everything belonged, introducing her to the people, making knowing comments to Beth that Bea wouldn't understand. Then Bea would make a suggestion that actually, coming from her, was more like a command: "I would like to go to New York." She would say the words slowly in her accented English. Each word enunciated, each word saying to Sylvia: To Get Away From You. When Beth went to Italy, Sylvia was left behind, envious of her friend's experience, as if it were some sort of tryst that necessarily excluded her.
Sylvia and Beth fought hard now, as if fighting could release the grip. They fought about Sylvia's annoying plans and constant suspicions of everyone, all her gypsies. They fought about all Beth's impractical schemes. They fought about anything and everything, including the shoes of Sylvia's that Beth wore without asking. They fought until they started crying, and then they lay down on the bed and sobbed. They were eighteen years old, overwhelmed by a new and inexplicable longing. Something grand was about to happen to them that they didn't fully understand. For the first time in twelve years they would be separated for more than a few months. They were on the threshold of life and though they would never have been able to articulate it in so many words, it was pushing forth of its own accord—the understanding that they would fall in love and grow up and their friendship as they had known it and their lives as they had known them would be over.
"I'm jealous," Beth confessed.
"For once," Sylvia said teasingly, and then quietly, "I'm the jealous one." They lay on the bed, side by side, Beth in her underwear and Sylvia in a pretty pink sundress with white eyelet at the bodice, especially selected for Chas.
"You look beautiful," Beth said. The ceiling fan stirred the hot air, cooling them slightly, but enough.
"We'll leave," Sylvia said, perking up, rising above Beth on one arm. A late sun leaked through the slatted blinds, pushing in the heat and the smell of paella. She was returning to herself. She liked drama. They both did; they needed drama, fed off drama, created it for their fuel.
"We'll flee in the middle of the night," Sylvia continued. "It'll be fun. Where would you like to go? Africa? Portugal?" Sylvia was a sweet girl. There was no friend she loved more than Beth. She could banish her own dreams if her sacrifice would make Beth happy. Countless times she visited Beth in New York City, forgoing dances and parties at home simply so that she could be with Beth. Indeed, she was in Europe with Beth now instead of on a biking tour of Alaska with her senior class. She had been following Beth's lead since the second grade. A fact that alternately made Beth feel terrible and wonderful. Beth expressed her selflessness in other ways—ways that weren't always so visible and that she couldn't always enumerate but that had to do with her belief in Sylvia, in her ability to be more than a quiet girl from Pennsylvania.
"But you love him," Beth said (trying for that selflessness). And she did believe that Sylvia could be in love. It was possible, then, to fall in love in an instant. That's what love was to them, instantaneous and all encompassing. A shock. A stab. And infinitely important. They were reading Anna Karenina, Tolstoy introducing them to the consequences of illicit adult love. All across Europe they had been reading the book—Beth first, tearing out the pages as she finished and passing them to Sylvia, who tread close on her heels. "Don't cry, don't cry," Sylvia would say. "You're giving it away." And Beth would try not to cry.
"I'm not sure that I do love Chas," Sylvia said, with all the earnestness of her age. "I only just met him."
"Don't you want to find out?" But Beth knew what she wanted Sylvia to do. Beth willed it. Sylvia couldn't betray her. They were best friends. Sylvia Summerhaze, she was Beth's first love. Beth loved Sylvia's pale skin, like her name—that pale creamy haze that veils a summer's twilight. Sylvia loved Beth more than she loved her own sister. She had told Beth that emphatically. How important this had all seemed.
"We'll flee," Sylvia said, more urgently now. "I want to flee." She started stuffing her backpack with her clothing, and then so did Beth, infected, too, with the sense of urgency that fleeing commanded, as if their lives depended on it. They were fast and anxious in their flight. "If this is meant to be," Sylvia said, "we'll meet up with him again. Consider it a test of fate." Beth liked that notion, tempting the gods.
Just before dinner, the two girls fled, tiptoeing past Chas's room out into the street, running to the train station, hopping a train for
Irún where all the big trains converge to take you north, south, east, west. In Irún they chose a train to Madrid; from there they could go to Portugal and maybe even Africa. They were giddy with fear, a fear that Chas would miraculously appear on the platform as they waited for the great southern express. At midnight they boarded the train. They loved that the town was called Irún. I run, I run, I run.
"It should be called Werún," Sylvia said.
"Are you sad?" Beth asked.
"Do I seem sad?" Sylvia smiled. The two girls stood there inside the train, the atmosphere thick with that drama pounding heavily in their chests.
They looked out the window, saying good-bye to Irún, as the metal wheels began turning over the metal tracks. Sylvia's name suddenly rang through the night, rising over the bustle of all the many travelers escaping Irún. Her name floated through the darkness and the smoky light of the station's lanterns. "It's Chas," Sylvia said brightly, as if she had hoped also for the drama of this, as if fate had indeed made its message clear. Chas's round, handsome face bobbed above all the other faces. Unbelievable, Beth thought. Pick up speed, Beth urged the train, feeling astonished and a little manic, her body surging with the power of the train's gathering momentum.
"I'm sorry," Sylvia yelled back, throwing one hand out to him, gripping Beth hard with the other. The grip said, Look, he did this for me. The grip relished, enjoyed, devoured, the meaning of a man running for her alongside a train.
"Meet me in Corfu," he said. His eyes caught Beth's, telling her to promise to bring Sylvia to Corfu. Beth wanted to disappear. Had she had a hand in ruining something? she wondered. Could she be Atropos herself, in disguise. "August first," he added. "Promise?" beautiful word that it is.
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