“Nikkaris?” he repeated. “I once knew a man by that name. A man named Gino Nikkaris.”
That he should have known Gino was somehow disturbing. “He was my husband,” she said quietly.
They walked on, carefully picking their way over uneven ground in the shadow of the Parthenon. There was no difference in the pace of their steps, or in the way Johnny kept Beth from stumbling, or offered a hand to Dorcas. Yet with all her senses she was aware of the change in him. There had been an inner withdrawal, as if he had turned abruptly out of the path they had been taking together in the direction of friendship. His sympathy, his kindness, that moment of something more—all had slipped through her fingers at the mention of Gino’s name. Yet though she regretted this, there was a certain satisfaction in it, too. She was glad that however it was he had known Gino, he’d had no liking for him. While she could say nothing now, there would be time in the future. In Rhodes there would be plenty of time. Someday perhaps she would tell him all the truth. For the moment, in spite of the new stiffness between them, she felt not altogether discontented.
At the Grande Bretagne Fernanda was ready for them. During the drive back to the airport Dorcas sat again in the back seat, with Beth dozing in her arms. She could drift now, allow herself to be borne along once more, grateful that she need make no moves for herself. While she was now willing to be part of the current that carried her along, she was not yet ready to strike out and swim for herself.
On the smaller plane of Athenian Airways Johnny quietly took Beth in charge, leaving her free. Dorcas leaned her forehead against the cool window glass beside her seat and watched Greece slip away beneath the wing. Before long the white columns of Sounion on the lower tip of the mainland came into view. Then they were out over the deeply blue Aegean. Almost at once islands began to appear—many of them like dragons crouching in the sea, stretching out claws and jagged tails. Clouds closed in beneath the plane, but now and then a rift showed an island gleaming golden far below in the light of the setting sun. Quickly the sea darkened and lights began to come on here and there, glimpsed far below in the islands of Greece.
The flight was only an hour and a half and there was no meal served on the plane, since no Greek thought of dining before nine o’clock at the earliest. She sipped the coffee the stewardess brought her in a paper cup, and waited for Rhodes, which held the secret of her future.
She knew from studying maps how Rhodes would look. It was a larger island than most, though not nearly so big as Crete. It lay upon the sea in the shape of a great fish, its nose pointed northeast at a diagonal toward the mainland of Turkey. The city of Rhodes was at that northeast tip, on the very nose of the fish.
The plane began to drop toward a lighted runway and the brief last leg of their journey was over. The man from the car agency awaited them at the little airport—a voluble Greek whose name was Mr. Donada. He found a porter for their bags and led the way to the car that would be at Fernanda’s disposal for the length of her stay in Rhodes. Johnny sat up front and learned about its workings as they left the airport for the town of Rhodes—“Rodos,” as the signs called it at every turn.
Fernanda sat in the back seat and asked questions as fast as Mr. Donada could answer them. The airport was inland, was it not? So now they must be heading for the sea?
This was true, said Mr. Donada. In fact, in Rhodes one could not travel very far at any time without either following the sea or coming in sight of one coast or another.
Fernanda gestured toward a huge dark patch on their right that stood out against the sky—a long mountain that seemed to run beside them. Wasn’t that Philerimos? she asked. Mr. Donada agreed that it was, delighted with her knowledge of his island.
Dorcas held Beth’s warm, sleepy body in her arms and was comforted by the feeling of it. With her eyes closed, she no longer listened to voices, but only to the rush of air past the open window of the car. The spring night was cold, but she did not mind. Philerimos, she thought, remembering Markos and his proud talk of the three ancient cities of Rhodes. On Mount Philerimos there was an old monastery, and there was also what little remained of the ruins of one of those cities—Iyalisos. This would be one of the places they would visit, of course.
The car had turned. “There is now the sea,” said Mr. Donada, and waved a hand toward the left.
Dorcas could smell the fresh, salty odor on the wind, even though she could not glimpse the water in the darkness or hear its voice above the rush of the car. That was the Aegean out there, she told herself. At last she was in Rhodes. But the sense of reality was still lacking.
They left the sea road and turned into narrow twisting streets where houses were set beyond garden walls and there was a scent of flowers.
“You will like the hotel,” Mr. Donada told them. “It is not, of course, the Roses, but it is more new. More small and friendly.”
Fernanda had refused to stay at the famous Hotel des Roses because she wanted something intimate where the unexpected was more likely to happen and she would have more to write about. The Olympus had been Johnny’s choice when he had flown down to investigate.
They turned into a wide street with a row of palm trees growing down its center and drew up to the curb before the hotel. The glass front of the Olympus revealed a brightly modern lounge with a few people sitting about. Mr. Donada turned the car keys over to Johnny while Fernanda approached the desk. She was expected, her purpose known, and she was greeted accordingly. Already there was mail, the desk clerk said. Fernanda flipped through the envelopes expertly and picked out a small one. She read the brief message it contained and nodded her satisfaction.
“Good—very good.” She looked at Dorcas. “A little surprise I’ve arranged for you, dear. But I shan’t tell you till tomorrow. Why don’t you run upstairs and get settled in your room while I’m checking us in? No meals, except breakfast, are served here, so we’ll meet shortly and go somewhere in the neighborhood for dinner.”
A good-looking boy picked out the bags Dorcas indicated and took them up to their room. It was a rather bare room, unadorned, but very clean and bright. The white walls boasted no pictures, the modern furniture was simple and straight of line. A small adjoining bathroom was spankingly new.
Beth woke up and ran about investigating, asking if they were really to live here. When Dorcas had tipped the boy and sent him away, she went to the shuttered doors of the balcony and opened them to the cool night air. She could hear the sea although the hotel was inland by two or three blocks. Surrounding rooftops were low and their room was three stories up, opening on a long balcony that ran across the face of the hotel. Iron rails divided each three or four bedroom section, but there was clearly little fear of housebreaking in Rhodes.
Beth came to stand beside her. “Look at the stars, Mommy. There are so many of them!”
So many more than city dwellers ever saw, Dorcas thought. But it was cool here on the balcony and she sent Beth inside, staying on a moment longer to savor this night of stars. She rested her hands on the metal rail and lifted her face to the breeze from the sea. When she went inside she felt a dry dust on her hands and looked at the palms. They were smudged with white chalk.
The balcony had been dark except for a patch of light falling onto it from the room. Dorcas lifted a small floor lamp to the reach of its cord. Where she had stood there were smudges of white chalk on the balcony rail. Her palms had blurred the marking, whatever it was. Some child from another room had been playing here, of course. But the familiar tightening was there in the pit of her stomach, the trembling at the back of her knees. With her handkerchief she wiped out the chalk traces and dusted her hands. Then she went inside and closed the double doors behind her.
It was nothing, nothing. This was Greece. Was she to go through life “affrighted,” as Johnny had said? A terrified gazelle!
Fernanda tapped upon the corridor door and breezed into the room. She had changed to a full skirt, a light blue sweater that complemented her h
air, and snapped on big flowered earrings. She looked handsome and more than a little excited and eager. Travel always had an electrifying effect upon Fernanda.
She noted Dorcas’s expression at once. “What’s the matter? You’re looking white about the gills.”
Dorcas took a deep, quieting breath before she answered. “It’s nothing, really. There were some chalk marks on the balcony rail outside my room. I smudged them with my hands before I saw what they were.”
Fernanda picked up the lamp and went onto the balcony. “There’s nothing here,” she said.
“I—I rubbed out the marks with my handkerchief,” Dorcas said a little sheepishly.
Fernanda set the lamp down and closed the doors against the cool night air. Her look was one of disbelief.
“The marks were there,” Dorcas insisted. “Made by a child playing with chalk, I suppose. I didn’t want to be reminded—”
“You’re tired,” Fernanda said. “Johnny tells me you had a bit of a weeping spell up on the Acropolis this afternoon. That was natural enough. Now that we’re in Rhodes you can rest for a few days and get your bearings.”
She did not want to be soothed and quieted—and disbelieved. “I’m all right,” she said. “I don’t want to rest. I’m here with work to do and I expect to start in on it as soon as you’re ready for me.”
Fernanda leaned to drop a quick kiss of approval on her cheek. “That’s my girl! Hurry now and get ready for dinner.”
She went off, and Dorcas was thankful for the never-ceasing demands of a four-year-old. She answered questions and persuaded Beth to stand still long enough to have her hair combed. Then she washed the clinging feel of chalk dust from her hands. There had been chalk upon the rail. If she had not smudged it, if she had seen it quickly enough, would she have found two circled chalk eyes staring at her from the flat metal surface?
In the bathroom mirror her face looked pale, and there was a hint of terror in her eyes. “Stop it!” she said to her reflection. “This is Greece. No one has followed you here. No one here knows about what happened at home.” But her own look of pale fright was alarming. Was she looking into the face of a woman who skated on the thin edge of reality? A woman who did not always know the difference between the real and the unreal?
She splashed cold water over her face, patted her cheeks angrily until the blood flowed and the look of fear faded. It was better to be angry than to be afraid. She did not thank Johnny Orion for having told Fernanda about her tears that afternoon. Evidently they both regarded her as a semi-invalid to be cared for gently, with any upsets allowed for and tolerated. She would have to teach them as quickly as possible that she was nothing of the kind. Teach them—and herself.
A natural color had returned to her face by the time she went downstairs to join Fernanda and Johnny, and she made a special effort to seem carefree and interested as they all went out to dine alfresco in the windy courtyard of a small restaurant whose specialty—which came as no surprise—was fish.
Beth fell asleep while she was eating, and when they went back to the hotel, Johnny carried her up to bed. The thought of chalk marks had been firmly dismissed from Dorcas’s mind, and to prove her own good sense and balance, she left the balcony doors ajar when she went to bed.
In the morning Dorcas wakened gradually and lay for a while staring up at the white ceiling with its white-painted beam cutting across the center. She felt more rested than she had in months. Beth was still asleep in the other bed and there was sun beyond the shutters of the balcony. The small room had no window, but only the double doors.
Dorcas got out of bed, slipped into a robe, and went out upon the balcony. The flat rail shone in the light of morning, innocent of smudges. She leaned upon it with confidence, dismissing notions that had their source in last night’s weariness.
The town of Rodos lay across the rounded nose of the fish as it swam toward Turkey. The blue mountains of Anatolia could be no more than forty miles away at this nearest point. The hotel was on the northwest side of the nose, where sunset would be more clearly seen than sunrise. The balcony still lay in shadow, and in the street below palm trees cast their shaggy pattern in exaggerated lengths across the pavement. The sun, rising out of Turkey, had just begun to warm the island of Greece and the wind was cold and bracing. Beyond low roofs the sea was visible, its waves shimmering with gilt in the early-morning light.
Fernanda heard her and came to her own balcony door to report that she was ravenous.
“Do let’s hurry down,” she said. “I’m bursting with plans.”
It was easy to catch something of Fernanda’s excitement on such a morning in such a place. If she were to be disturbed by chalk marks for the rest of her life, she would find herself fainting over hopscotch patterns on the sidewalk, Dorcas thought. Last night’s vagaries belonged to someone else. Today she would not be so ridiculous.
She went inside to bathe while Beth was still asleep, came tingling from a shower that was more cold than hot, and rubbed herself into a glow with an oversized bath towel. This was going to be a good day—she had no doubt about it.
Beth was out of bed now and running about in her pajamas. Dorcas helped her to wash and dress, and they both went eagerly down to the lobby, ignoring the single small elevator, taking the two flights of stairs hand in hand.
The lobby was a long room with glass doors down one side overlooking a flagged terrace above the street. The Rhodes fish motif had been given modern treatment in wall mosaics and color was used with a cheerful and liberal hand. There was much dusky rose and an Aegean blue, laced with touches of warm yellow. At one end of the lobby small tables had been set with brightly colored cloths and matching napkins that bore the fish design.
Fernanda was ahead of them, a pot of instant coffee on the table before her. She was studying one of her interminable lists, ticking off check marks with a silver pencil. This morning she wore a suit of good gray tweed and had wound a blue scarf around hair that was only slightly less blue in its color. She looked up at Dorcas through blue-rimmed glasses of the particularly piquant slant she liked to affect.
“You look like yourself again,” she said cheerfully. “When you’ve ordered your breakfast, I’ll tell you my surprise. Johnny’s a sleepyhead, as usual. I’ll send a boy to wake him if he doesn’t come down soon.”
One of the bellhops, doubling as waiter, hurried to fetch cushions for Beth’s chair and lifted her onto them. When Dorcas had given their order, Fernanda pushed her lists aside and took off her glasses.
“I must tell you what I’ve arranged. I thought it would be a help if I found someone to take care of Beth while we’re in Rhodes. That way you’ll feel less burdened, and you’ll be able to run around more with Johnny and me.”
This was a sensible move, of course, yet Dorcas experienced a prickling of resistance.
“You’ve already found someone?” she asked.
“A woman named Vanda Petrus. She comes to us highly recommended and I think she’ll be just the person to give you some freedom here in Rhodes.”
It was not the plan itself that she instinctively resisted, Dorcas thought, but Fernanda’s apparent belief that such decisions were wholly up to her and Beth’s mother did not need to be consulted. Still, this was always Fernanda’s way, and Dorcas said nothing.
“I haven’t seen Mrs. Petrus yet,” Fernanda went on, “but she’s coming here this morning. The woman who owns this hotel vouches for her and knows her personally. She works at various jobs—sometimes in one of the tourist shops here, sometimes taking care of children when visitors want them off their hands. I understand she lost her own family during the war, so she’s quite alone.”
The arrangement would be convenient, Dorcas told herself. Yet she could not help her continued stiffening of resistance. Fernanda might at least have discussed the plan ahead of time and given her some choice in the matter of who would care for Beth.
Fernanda sensed her resistance and sighed. “I suppose I’ve b
een highhanded again. One has to treat you with gloves, dear. You’re so edgy about everything. And that isn’t right for Beth. It will do both of you good to be apart a little more.”
The accusation was not unjustified. Fernanda was right and she must overcome this tendency to wince from anything that might part her from Beth. The feeling, she knew, was an aftermath of the separation Gino had forced upon her.
“It will be fine, of course,” she said with an effort. “What are you planning for this morning?”
“First a trip to the old walled city,” Fernanda told her. “I want to get behind those walls before I do anything else.”
The “old city,” as Dorcas well knew, belonged to the time of the Crusaders, when the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem had bought the island. They’d ruled it for more than a hundred years, only to be besieged and at last defeated by the Turks in the sixteenth century. Markos had grown nearly as lyrical in his description of the fortress town as he had in speaking of the beauties of the more ancient cities of Rhodes.
Breakfast arrived, with orange juice, warmed rusks in lieu of toast, scrambled eggs, and more coffee. Beth was hungry enough to eat her eggs without objection, and Dorcas found that her own appetite had suddenly come to life. While they ate, a boy from the desk summoned Fernanda to a lobby telephone booth where a call was being held for her.
More breakfasters were coming down to occupy other tables, and Dorcas heard the sound of German and Italian being spoken. Fernanda had said they were the only Americans here. Rhodes was a great vacation spot for Europeans. American tourists were just beginning to discover all the island offered.
Before she returned, Johnny joined them at their table, his short, reddish hair damply on end.
“Hi, toots,” he greeted Beth, and gave Dorcas a cheerful “good morning.” He had been as pleasant to Dorcas as to Fernanda, but with a faint difference since yesterday when he had learned that she had been Gino Nikkaris’s wife. She sensed an edge of something not quite comfortable or easy between them. It would pass, she told herself. A long sleep had rested her and taken away much of her tautness, but it had not changed her feeling of strong liking for Johnny Orion.
Seven Tears for Apollo Page 5