Seven Tears for Apollo
Page 12
When they had finished tea, their hostess rose. “You must see my husband’s work,” she announced. “I will be proud to show it to you. If you will wait one moment, please.”
She swept out of the room to prepare the way for their pilgrimage and Dorcas seized the opportunity to follow the puzzle of the picture.
“Have you ever seen the man in that portrait before?” she asked Fernanda.
“Why—I don’t think so,” Fernanda said. “Though I’ll admit he looks vaguely familiar.”
They both regarded the portrait in silence for a moment and then Fernanda exclaimed aloud.
“Of course, dear! It’s our old friend Pan. How could we mistake that face? You’ll find him chasing reluctant maidens around half the vases of old Greece. I can see why Madame X might worry about that one. Ssh—here she comes.”
The man in the picture did look like Pan, Dorcas thought. Perhaps the artist had even stressed the resemblance. Yet she did not feel wholly satisfied. No mere interpretation of Pan would have the power to upset her like this. Her memory was of something real.
“If you will come with me, please,” said Madame Xenia from the doorway.
The wide hallway had no rug to hide the highly polished luster of the floor. On a carved table near the foot of wide, uncarpeted stairs was a magnificent head of bronze. It was a little larger than life-size, the head of an old man with wide-set eyes, bushy eyebrows, a scraggly mustache, the marks of life and sorrow grooving his cheeks. Madame Xenia paused beside the head.
“This is an early piece by Constantine Katalonos. He brought it here from Athens when we were married. I am from Rhodes, but my husband is not. This is his father. A good man. He died three years ago. One day we will give this bronze to our museum in Rhodes.”
They left the old man to his memories and went on to a closed door that Madame Xenia flung open dramatically. She motioned them ahead and Dorcas found herself in what was surely as fine a studio as any sculptor could hope for.
The light was all that could be desired, although, as Madame Xenia explained, the type of light was less important for the sculptor than for the painter. The floor was of some composition easily cleaned and it gleamed reddish-brown from recent waxing. All about stood wooden pedestal stands, sturdily built for holding heavy blocks of stone or marble. Finished pieces rested on two or three of the stands, two bore covered work still in progress, while the others were empty. Shelves had been built along one long wall, but these, too, showed a sparsity of finished work. A big drawing table with a tilted board held a sketching block, pencils, calipers, all arranged in neat order. Nearby an armature for a miniature human figure waited for the clay. There was no powdering of plaster dust about the room, no traces of clay. What tools were in evidence—a rasp, a gouge, a few chisels, lay upon a stand. The studio was wholly orderly and without life.
Madame Xenia lifted both arms widely, the gesture despairing. “Here he can do his finest work. He has only to ask and I give him what he wishes.”
Dorcas thought of the portrait’s visionary eyes and wondered how Constantine Katalonos had felt when all this perfection and order were pressed upon him and he was shut in with it, told to create—for the glory of Rhodes, and of his wife.
Their guide led them about the room, showing them the lovely marble figure of a dancing girl, the head of a horse in pinkish terra cotta. In passing a stand she touched something wrapped in wet sacking and the wooden structure rolled upon its casters.
“I am posing for this,” she announced. “But I am a difficult subject and he has not finished the head. He is never satisfied. Three times he breaks up the clay and throws it away. I must encourage him to try again. Now I keep the clay wet for when my husband returns.”
Dorcas had paused beside a stand on which there was a piece draped with a square of brown cloth. Madame Xenia saw her interest and drew her away at once.
“This is not good. This one I do not like.” She turned Dorcas with firm hands toward a large mahogany desk in a corner of the room. Her touch brooked no resistance. She took hold solidly and one moved as she directed.
The desk represented Constantine’s “office.” Here he sometimes worked at the composing of poetry, his wife explained. Another of his many gifts. Some of his verse had been published in Greek magazines and sometimes when he could not work in clay he translated his poetry into English.
“My husband wished to publish a book of his poems in England or America,” she said.
“Wished?” Fernanda repeated the past tense.
The mask of tragedy fell suddenly into place and all pretense was gone. The woman turned her back on the desk and faced Fernanda.
“It is not true, what I say—that my husband is away. He is not away. He is dead. He must be dead because he leaves—and that is the end. I do not know where he has gone. I hear nothing—nothing! But this he would not do. Always he is devoted to me. If he lived, he would tell me where to reach him.” She flung a gesture in the direction of the clay head of herself, kept moist for the return of the sculptor. “That I keep to give me hope. But I do not hope any more. Constantine is dead—this I know.”
“My goodness!” Fernanda said, taken aback. “I’m terribly sorry that—”
Madame Xenia broke in with a sudden question. “Tell me—you have done a great deal for the man named Gino Nikkaris? Is this not so?”
Dorcas, still lost in her own puzzling, came suddenly alert.
“Why, yes,” said Fernanda, startled. “Gino was almost a son to me. Did you know him?”
“Come,” the woman said. “We cannot talk in this place.”
She led them back to the elegant drawing room. The tea things had been removed and once more Madame Xenia sat where she could easily raise her eyes to the portrait on the wall.
Dorcas glanced again at that sardonic face—a face out of time immemorial—that of the eternal Pan.
“Please believe me,” Madame Katalonos began earnestly, “it is my wish to help you in your work however I can, Miss Farrar. But there is another reason why I must speak with you. Before Constantine went away, he told me he would see his friend Gino Nikkaris in America. He said he would be gone a month, perhaps two months. I did not approve, but my husband would not always take my best advice. And he had gone to America in the past, so I was not at first concerned. But I have heard no word from him at all, and time passes. I know only that he went to see Gino. Can you tell me what has happened? Perhaps you know whether he came to Gino’s home?”
The slight feeling of illness was upon Dorcas again. If Constantine’s connection was with Gino, then she did not want to remember where she might have seen him, or under what unpleasant circumstances.
Fernanda had listened to her hostess in obvious dismay. Now she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I never learned much about Gino’s friends or his business affairs. You know of the plane crash, of course?”
Madame Xenia bowed her head. “Yes. It is this which defeats me. I do not know where to turn since I cannot ask Gino for help. When I see your picture in the paper and learn you are coming to Rhodes, I determine to seek your assistance. I remember that Constantine tells me of Gino’s American friend, Miss Fern Farrar. If you know nothing, perhaps you can tell me where I may find Gino’s widow. I have put through long-distance calls to Gino’s home in America, but his widow is no longer there.”
Fernanda cleared her throat and threw a bright glance at Dorcas. Dorcas stared at her hands and said nothing. She knew no more of Gino’s affairs than Fernanda did. The name of Constantine Katalonos meant nothing to her. She did not want to admit to this woman that she was Gino’s widow.
Madame Xenia sat forward earnestly on the edge of her chair. It was possible that in another moment she would slip to her knees in dramatic supplication.
“Perhaps you can intercede for me,” she pleaded of Fernanda. “If you can reach the widow of Gino Nikkaris and speak for me, I will go to America. I will do anything. You must help me, please.”
There was no choice, Dorcas realized, reluctant though she was to confess her identity.
“Gino Nikkaris was my husband,” she said.
Madame Xenia had paid very little attention to her since their arrival. She had steered her about now and then, but she had not really looked at her. Now she fixed her splendid dark eyes upon Dorcas as though she would draw the very secrets from her soul.
“You are Gino’s widow?”
Dorcas nodded. “I am, yes. But I assure you that I know nothing at all about your husband. As far as I know he never came to our apartment. If Gino saw him elsewhere—as he often did with business acquaintances, I know nothing about it. I’m sorry that I’m unable to help you.”
That was all perfectly true. There was no point in saying, “I remember something about your husband that makes me ill, but I don’t know what it is.”
For a few moments Madame Xenia Katalonos stared at her fixedly. Then she turned to Fernanda.
“I understand that Mrs. Brandt—Mrs. Nikkaris—is your secretary for this trip? She must be very busy working for you?”
“Dorcas has not been well,” Fernanda said. “I’m not working her that hard. I want her to rest a good deal. Her work for me is invaluable, but it can be fitted into very little time.”
Their hostess’s eyes had begun to shine with new inspiration. “In this case, I would like to ask a very large favor of you, Miss Farrar. Would you be so generous as to loan your secretary to me? Perhaps for one afternoon next week?”
Fernanda was clearly surprised and not altogether pleased. “I’m not sure I understand—” she began.
The compelling gaze fixed Dorcas with its bright demand and she did not wait for Fernanda’s assent. “You will come, please? For one afternoon only—next week?”
“What is it you want me to do?” Dorcas asked uneasily.
“My husband’s poems!” Madame Xenia plunged in, improvising as she went, Dorcas felt sure. “Those he has translated into English. It is necessary for someone to read them, to put them in suitable form to offer for publication in America. You will do this for me? It is a—a memorial for my husband.”
“I doubt that Dorcas would be the right person for such an assignment,” Fernanda put in quickly. “I really don’t think her strength should be taxed with such extra work.”
Once more Fernanda was managing her life, Dorcas saw, and resistance stiffened in her. She had no wish to see Madame Xenia again, but she could not afford to give in to Fernanda’s autocratic rulings at every turn. She must start at once to take a stand and make her own decisions.
“I can at least go through this material,” she offered. “I could do it at a time when Miss Farrar doesn’t need me. There would be nothing taxing about it, I’m sure.”
Fernanda, finding herself neatly caught, gave in somewhat doubtfully and Madame Xenia clasped her hands in triumph. Her purpose, undoubtedly, was to see Dorcas again and prod for some remembrance of her husband, and she was ready to pin new hope upon this flight of fancy.
“Then it is arranged,” she said. “I will telephone to see when it will be convenient for Miss Farrar to spare you. You must do me the honor to come to luncheon. I will make it for you with my own hands.”
She had been promoted, Dorcas found, from a position of no consequence to that of someone to be wooed with elaborate wiles.
Fernanda made little movements of departure, of picking up her gloves and handbag. “We’ve enjoyed this visit, Madame Katalonos. And I shall remember about the kind offer of your house in Lindos. Are you ready, Dorcas?”
The moment had come for her own request. Even as Dorcas swung the strap of her bag across her shoulder and stood up, the words formed in her mind and she spoke them aloud.
“There is a woman I would like to find here in Rhodes. She is the wife of an old friend of my father. Her name is Mrs. Markos Dimitriou. Do you know of such a person living in the island?”
“Mrs. Markos Dimitriou?” Their hostess repeated the name thoughtfully. “I do not know of such a woman. But if you wish, I can inquire. My servants can ask in the market, in the shops. In Rhodes everyone knows everyone. If it is important, I will find this woman for you.”
Dorcas could see that Fernanda was growing uneasy at mention of the Dimitriou name, connecting it, as she did, with the time of Dorcas’s illness. Before Fernanda could say anything, Dorcas thanked Madame Xenia.
“If you will find Mrs. Dimitriou for me, I will be glad to come whenever you wish and see if I can help with your husband’s poems.”
The bargain was made. As they were shown to the door, Madame Xenia promised heartily that if the woman existed in Rhodes she would be found. Fernanda’s attempt at an objection was brushed aside. For once Fern Farrar had met her match in a managing female.
The chauffeur drove them furiously back to the hotel and Fernanda let the matter go. In any event, she was more interested in the subject of Constantine.
“It’s obvious that Madame Katalonos wants to pump you when I’m not around,” she said. “I was trying to get you out of a difficult spot, dear, but you insisted on jumping in anyway.”
Dorcas did not altogether trust the large, listening ears of the mustachioed Greek in the front seat. He might not speak English, but there was no telling what he could understand.
“I don’t mind helping with the poems if I can,” she said mildly.
Fernanda said nothing more. She was frowning somewhat absently and Dorcas wondered why she had opposed a further visit to Madame Xenia’s. Was it because the name Constantine had rung some bell so that Fernanda was anxious to back away from a connection that might lead tortuously into Gino’s “business”?
She thought of the picture again, and suddenly, without warning, memory surged back fully, sickeningly. She knew now the identity of the man in the portrait. In memory she was again a young mother in terrified flight. Again she was opening the door of her hotel room hiding place to a thin man in dark glasses who had come to take her back to Gino. She knew very well now why the sight of Constantine’s face had brought upon her the nausea of physical illness. The man whose name she had never known was Constantine Katalonos.
If there were those who took an interest in Dorcas’s presence on the island, they made no further moves in the next few days. There were no markings of chalk, no intruder on her balcony. The quiet was welcome, though she could not be reassured. The matter, whatever it was, had not been finished. Her identification of Constantine told her that.
Once she had placed the man in the picture, she could not put him wholly from her mind. She had gone over all she could recall about him again and again. There was little to remember. Her own state at the time had been so frantic and distraught that he had been to her only the figure of a jailor. Yet she could remember an air of sadness that the artist had not put into the picture. She had seen Constantine Katalonos at a time when he himself had been thrown into some deep despair. Because of his thralldom to his wife? Or because of Gino? He had told her that she could not escape, that he himself would escape if he could. While he had not treated her unkindly, she had been afraid of him. She had sensed in him a certain ruthless quality that might show her no mercy if she tried to escape. There had been something else, too—a sense that this man followed no prescribed pattern and was capable of unexpected action. She had dared to put him to no test.
Where Constantine might fit into her present picture she did not know, but she dreaded the thought of meeting him again. Wherever she went, she carried her passport with her and she waited anxiously for the word of Mrs. Dimitriou that did not come from Madame Katalonos.
Fernanda’s work was going at its lively best and as usual she was having the time of her life. She made friends wherever she found English spoken, and sometimes without it. Dorcas was kept busy listening to accounts of her impressions and getting them down into a detailed for
m that Fernanda could use later.
Johnny took Fernanda about and ran strange errands for her. He might tease her a good deal, but he gave her good measure in loyalty and effort. Toward Dorcas he remained kind, but had somehow removed himself from the occasionally easy friendship that had seemed to exist between them.
Almost imperceptibly the care of Beth was slipping from her hands. She was aware of an increasing determination on Fernanda’s part to keep the child away from her mother a good part of the time. She checked her own desire to fight this openly and bent herself Instead on an effort to prove to Fernanda that she was all that might be desired in a mother for Beth.
Beth liked Vanda, and since the woman’s care seemed dependable and she was watchful of the child’s safety, there was nothing to complain about. Yet Dorcas’s uneasiness about the woman did not subside. Here, too, she had a sense of waiting—for what she did not know.
One afternoon, when everything had reopened for business after the long rest period, Dorcas walked downtown to the market by herself. She left Vanda in a shady part of the hotel terrace cutting out paper dolls for Beth. Fernanda was writing letters. Johnny was absent, having been sent to take pictures inside the old city.
The market was a place Dorcas enjoyed. Along Mandraki its front was a long low building of stone, culminating in a clock tower that could be seen from all over the town of Rhodes. Its modern architecture had been combined with a touch of the Turkish in the shape of windows and the decoration of the façade. A long row of arched doorways opened upon the market square beyond.
Moving by now like a typical Rhodian, Dorcas let three motor scooters and an automobile wait for her as she crossed the street. She stepped through one of the arches into the open square. In its center stood a small building that looked like a large bandstand. That was where meat was sold, and there was a great uproar of discussion and argument going on in the vicinity every morning when the buyers gathered.