Seven Tears for Apollo

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  She was not a cold woman. She had never been. In the early months of marriage she had given herself eagerly, willingly, expecting to be his partner in the matter of love. He had not wanted a partner. He had wanted from her an exquisite terror that he knew very well how to arouse. Toward the end that terror had begun with the first movement of his hand toward her chin.

  Once, before they were married, she had seen him step on a dog’s foot. She had thought the incident an accident. Later she had known better. If only she had read it aright, what had happened was a clue to all that Gino Nikkaris was when it came to anything weaker than himself.

  There were only two people he never deliberately hurt—Fernanda and Beth. From the first he had been a possessive father toward his baby daughter. And he had found new ways of hurting Dorcas through her love for Beth. The first time she had tried to run away, Beth had been only a year old. She had taken from the bank the small sum of money her father had left her and caught a train out of the city. But it had not been difficult to follow a mother with a baby in her arms. Gino had not troubled to come after her himself, but had sent one of his men.

  Again memory quickened, flooding her mind with painful pictures.

  Two days after she had run away, she’d opened her hotel room door one morning expecting the maid and had found a lean, sad-looking man in dark glasses standing there. He had stepped quickly into the room and closed the door behind him. She had known at once that her flight was up.

  “I will take you back to him,” he said. He had spoken with an accent, she recalled, and he had never once mentioned Gino’s name.

  She had not surrendered without an effort. She had tried to bribe him, offering the little money she had, promising more.

  He had neither laughed nor grown angry. “It is no use to run,” he told her. “Perhaps I myself would escape if I knew the way. I find it better to stay alive.”

  Whether or not he was threatening her she could not tell, but the last of her courage had seeped away. She went to the bed where the baby lay sleeping and picked her up.

  The stranger had taken her back to Gino. He had been neither kind nor unkind, but she had been afraid of him. He had not talked to her beyond necessity, or even told her his name. In her terrified despair she had not thought much about him at the time, though once or twice later she had wondered if Gino’s death had enabled him to “escape.” Or was he still bound in some strange way to Gino and still serving him? Could it be this same cold, sad man who had entered her room today and left those eerie chalk marks by way of warning? She would be more afraid of him than of a total stranger.

  All this, however, was pure speculation, and without purpose.

  Gino had been cruelly pleased to have her back after that first attempt at flight. He had told Fernanda that she was mentally unstable and that Beth must be taken from her if she grew worse. Frighteningly, he had caught her up at every turn that seemed to indicate emotional imbalance, until she had begun to doubt herself and question her own fears uneasily. She had not tried to run away again for a long while, lest she lose Beth entirely.

  In the meantime there were, of course, other women, and proof enough of the fact. She had not cared. Such interest on Gino’s part gave her a respite to a degree, though not wholly. She was safe only when she was numb, blank, indifferent. And not always, even then, for the whim might seize him to arouse her from lethargy and leave her once more in trembling terror.

  The girl of seventeen who had stood before the statue of Apollo in the museum that day had not dreamed there were such men.

  It was not until Beth was old enough to speak and understand that Gino began in subtle ways to turn the child against her mother. Dorcas had known then that she must take Beth away, and this time she must make good her escape. She must succeed, not only for the sake of her own life and sanity, but for all Beth’s future. In no way was Gino good for the child.

  She had gone to her old friend Markos Dimitriou for help. He still worked at the museum and he had been delighted to see her. Early in their marriage Gino had interfered with their friendship. Perhaps he had not wanted careless remarks about his work made in the presence of Markos, who was simple and good and given to speaking the truth without fear.

  How kind Markos had been when she had told her story and asked for his advice. He had said simply, “Come, we will go for a walk.” He had left his work at the museum, taken her to a bank, and drawn out the savings for a trip to Greece he and his wife planned to make as soon as he retired. The sum was not large, for his wife had known illness and been in the hospital. There was a thousand dollars and he had drawn it out in cash and placed it in her hands.

  “It is a loan,” he said. “You are as good as any bank for money, my young friend. With this you will go away. At once. You must not wait. I have seen this coming. He is not a good man, this Gino Nikkaris. I think both Italy and Greece would be ashamed to own him. Take Beth and go to Chicago, or anywhere. You have your typing skill—you will find work and make a new life. Let me know, and we will be in touch. Do not worry that this is right or wrong. It is right. I think there is danger if you stay.”

  She had embraced him warmly at parting and gone home to make hasty preparations. That was the last time she had seen him alive. If only she had left that same night. But she had waited for a morning train. Gino had been away on one of his many trips and she did not expect him home for another week. In the morning, as she went to the door with her suitcase in one hand and Beth by the other, he had walked into the apartment.

  Not even Beth’s presence had held him in check. At a glance he realized her intent and pulled her handbag from her arm to open it. The money had been there, and he had taken in his hand the wad of bills.

  “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  How well she remembered the look of him at that moment. Tall and slender, his angry vitality lending a flash to dark eyes, fury to winged brows.

  Her throat had closed so completely that she could not answer, even to lie. But he needed no answer. He knew well enough the only person to whom she could have turned.

  When he flung out of the room, taking the money with him, Dorcas had phoned the museum at once. Markos was not yet at work, but they would have him call her as soon as he came in.

  How dreadful the waiting had been all that long morning. How frightening the silent telephone. Markos was not at home either, though she spoke briefly to his wife, trying not to alarm her. Beth had sensed her fear and was frightened, too. Trying to distract the child had been something to occupy her.

  At eleven o’clock a news broadcast gave her the answer. A worker at the museum, Markos Dimitriou, had been struck down by a hit-and-run driver that morning on his way to work and had died in the hospital. The driver had been at the wheel of a green car. Gino had no green car, but she knew he would stop at nothing and he would behave with sharp intelligence, concealing his traces skilfully.

  What had happened afterward was more difficult to recall in detail because it flowed into the blanketing fog and misery of her illness. She had confronted Gino, accused him, stood up to him. That she could remember. And she could remember his laughter and the cunning of the torment he’d begun to practice. Beth was whisked out of her hands and sent upstairs to stay with a loving, sympathetic Fernanda. It must have been easy for him to convince Fernanda of her breakdown and need for professional care. Anything Dorcas had tried to tell her was used as a pitiful affirmation of an unbalanced state. A nursing home was the only answer, Gino said.

  She had gone to the home in near hysteria, beating against the wall of lies that surrounded her, weeping for her child and for Markos. They had treated her kindly in the home, listened to her without belief, fed her, rested her, soothed her. At last she, too, began to learn cunning. If she was to get out, if she was to return to Beth, she must fool everyone, including Gino. Her “improvement” consisted of an apparent acceptance of her illness with all the supposed delusions that had been part of it. Her ne
rves and hysteria had been no delusion and they had increased her own doubts, given her cause to fear that all that was said about her might be true. Yet somehow she managed to learn an acquiescence that hid both her rage and her fear. She presented to the world a meekness of demeanor that won her release. “Well” again, she was allowed to go home. Beth had missed her, and the joy of their reunion had been her reward. Beth had not been won away completely. Indeed, she seemed a little afraid of her father.

  For months only Beth’s welfare had mattered to Dorcas. Still emotionally shattered, she managed, nevertheless, to offer Gino a blind submission that served her well, turning him from her in distaste. Biding her time, she waited until he was away on a trip, then she gave possible watchers the slip and went to the house of Markos Dimitriou.

  Strangers occupied his home. Neighbors said his wife had returned to Rhodes. Newspaper reports had said she was in the hospital at her husband’s side when he died. But if she knew or suspected anything, she had not spoken out. The neighbors had no knowledge of her exact whereabouts, had heard nothing from her. A door seemed to have closed upon her.

  Except for this one fruitless expedition, Dorcas had been exceedingly careful in those first months out of the home. That something new was in the wind with Gino, she was aware. She had learned to recognize his moods of dark excitement, his secret exultation when someone was being tricked, when a coup was in the making. There had been correspondence from Rhodes, even a transatlantic telephone call or two. Then Gino had decided upon a trip to San Francisco. She had kept her own council and hidden the fact that she watched him and waited—waited for the time when he would make a mistake and give himself into her hands. Her demeanor had continued to be mild, deceptively sweet, a little vacant. She suspected that he thought her slightly addled by her experience, and this suited him well. He did not want a wife with an unclouded memory. In fact, he no longer wanted her for a wife at all, but he had not yet decided what to do about her. Certainly he would never let her go and take Beth with her.

  And then it had happened—almost like a blessing. Dreadful though it might be to think of another’s death as a gift from heaven, it had seemed nothing less at the time. On the day he had left for California she had driven him to the airport. On the highway, returning home, she had turned on the car radio and heard the news of the crash. His plane had gone down shortly after take-off and ended in flames. There were no survivors.

  She had slowed the car and made the turn back to the airport. She had gone through the ordeal of being a shocked and bereaved wife. She had telephoned Fernanda, and that doughty lady had come at once to take charge of all that needed to be done—a task that included treating Dorcas as though so great a shock might well put her back in the hospital, treating her, in fact, like fragile glass. All the while, beneath what was indeed a state of shock, relief was beating like wings in Dorcas’s consciousness. Now she would be free of Gino and all he stood for. Free forever. She need not even keep his name if she wished to be rid of that as well.

  All this had been like beginning again. She had needed to learn how to live without fear and deception. Fernanda had put aside her own grief to watch over her tenderly. Her trip to Greece had been long planned, and now she suggested that Dorcas come with her. Not as a guest, but in a working capacity. There was always typing to be done, notes to be set in order. Dorcas would be a wonderful help. Since Gino had been a lavish spender, he had left very little. Dorcas accepted Fernanda’s invitation gratefully, and the trip to Greece had begun to take form in her own mind—both as a pilgrimage she owed to her father and to Markos and herself, and also as a means of reaching Markos Dimitriou’s wife. There was a debt of a thousand dollars which must be repaid. More than that, there was an answer to be found. In a sense that answer would mean for Dorcas a confirmation of her own sanity and balance. If Mrs. Dimitriou knew anything at all, Dorcas Brandt meant to find it out. When she truly knew Gino for what he was, then the last of her shackles would fall away.

  “Dorcas?” That was Fernanda calling from the living-room door.

  She turned, glad to escape the trend of her own thoughts.

  “Brooding, my dear?” Fernanda asked at the sight of her face. “What are we to do about you? I know you’ve been through a terrible experience. I know how hard it must be for you to live with this loss. But Beth needs you in good health. We must take the best care possible of you from now on.”

  Fernanda’s concern was well meant and she had been courageous about her own deep loss, putting on the best possible face for Dorcas and Beth. Yet her irresponsible optimism sometimes set the teeth on edge. Especially when she was guilelessly innocent of any true understanding of what Dorcas had been through and was still experiencing. There was no point in trying to tell her the truth, even if she could be brought to accept it. Let her keep her illusions about Gino. They could harm no one now. But there was one thing that must still be answered—the thing she had shied away from mentioning earlier.

  Dorcas returned to the living room. “Tell me why you erased those chalk marks from the end of the bed,” she said quietly.

  Fernanda was working on her proofs again, pencil poised disapprovingly over a word. She did not look up. “What are you talking about, dear? What chalk marks?”

  This, Dorcas thought, was why she had held back. She had seen the marks. And then they were gone. If Fernanda disclaimed any knowledge of them, what was she to believe? That Fernanda was lying? Or that her own mind was playing tricks on her? That she had seen the circles only because of the other time, only because she feared to see them?

  By sheer effort of will she kept her voice low, unstrained. “When I found that upheaval in my room, I noticed something else. Two circles had been drawn in white chalk on the end of one bed. Why did you rub them out?”

  Fernanda looked up from her work, less guilelessly now. “Oh, dear, you are upset about something. Dorcas, I don’t know a thing about any chalk marks. Are you certain—”

  “I’m certain,” Dorcas said. But how could she be certain if Fernanda claimed she had never seen the marks?

  Abruptly Fernanda flung down her pencil. “Oh, all right! I never was any good as a liar. I did see the marks and I erased them on purpose. I knew how upset you’d be if you found them, and of course I didn’t know that you’d been in the room. I suppose I’m really thinking of Beth and the upsetting effect you have on her when something frightens you. I meant well, dear. So you might as well forgive me. And now I’m going to put you to work and keep you busy until we leave. Then you’ll have no time for this brooding. You’ll feel fine once we’re on our way.”

  Relief as well as fear could make one feel weak, Dorcas discovered. The marks had been real. There was no use being angry with Fernanda. The lights that guided her were her own and like no one else’s.

  Neither of them mentioned the chalk marks again in the days that remained before leaving. Fernanda’s antidote for worry helped, and Dorcas was thankful to find herself assigned to one task after another, with no time at all to think about past or future. Except when she lay in bed at night and could not sleep. Or when she fell asleep and dreamed endlessly of white eyes staring.

  3

  When the day of their departure came, Fernanda’s promise that Dorcas would feel better proved only half true. Even after they were on their way to the airport, Dorcas was ridden by uneasiness. She could imagine a car following them. In the crowds at the terminal she found herself wondering if this man, or perhaps that one, was a friend of Gino. A tall man in dark glasses made her grasp Beth’s hand more tightly. This was nonsense, she knew, and the result of nerves not wholly healed from laceration. Once the baggage was checked through and passport matters completed, she began to feel a little better. The limbo of the overseas waiting room in which they were isolated from the rest of the terminal gave her some sensation of security. And once aboard the plane, with Beth strapped into the window seat beside her and Fernanda across the aisle, the sense of being watched
fell away. At last she could lean back in her seat and give herself up to the luxury of feeling safe.

  With release came exhaustion. She slept a good part of the flight, rousing herself only for meals and when the jet set down in London and Rome and they had to leave the plane in transit. The sense of suspension stayed with her and was oddly enervating, draining her of energy. Fernanda took over with Beth, and Dorcas had no desire to oppose her.

  When the plane landed at the Athens airport, she still felt as though she had not slept for months, experiencing nothing but weary indifference at this arrival in Greece.

  “Put on your dark glasses right away,” Fernanda advised. “The light will be blinding.”

  Both her father and Markos had spoken with longing of the marvelous light of Greece which she must behold with the naked eye to savor fully. But Dorcas put on her glasses and went groggily down the steps to soil that was Greek, feeling nothing of bright spring warmth, nothing of homecoming. She knew Fernanda watched her with concern, but she was past caring. Deep within herself she was lying fallow, recovering. She did not want to waken. Not just yet. It was better to remain indifferent.

  Customs for an American was a matter of form. Beyond the barrier Johnny Orion awaited them. He was a young man in his late twenties, with a cheerful American voice, a near-crew cut of reddish hair, and a wide grin. Fernanda gave him a hug of affection and introduced Dorcas Brandt as her “sleepy young friend.” Johnny said, “I know how you must feel,” and when she could rouse herself for no fitting response, he paid no further attention. After a smile and a “hi” for Beth, he talked cheerfully to Fernanda.

  Vaguely, Dorcas heard the plans he had made. They would have the afternoon in Athens. The plane for Rhodes did not leave until six-thirty in the evening. He had borrowed a car from a Greek friend, since Fernanda would not pick up her rented car until they reached Rhodes. If they liked, he would drive them around Athens, or even out to Sounion.