Seven Tears for Apollo

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I’m going up there,” Fernanda said. “Suppose you look around down here for a while and let me go up alone. I can catch the feeling of it better alone.”

  They watched her go, sure-footed in her sandals, her new Greek skirt flapping in the wind, making a bright splash of blue and red against the dun-colored stone way. Johnny set Beth down and she ran to explore a roofless stone house whose broken walls came no higher than her head.

  This was the moment when she could speak to Johnny, and Dorcas turned to him urgently. “Please—I want to talk to you.”

  The words seemed to shatter the dreaming quiet and Johnny shook his head at her. “This is no place for worries. Be free of them today.”

  They found a low wall where Queen Anne’s lace grew tall, and as Dorcas sat down upon it a small green lizard darted into a crevice. Johnny stood looking about him. He reached out to a great pile of stone that had been a tomb, bending to examine a faint marking, still unerased by the erosion of time.

  “Look,” he said.

  The calm order of the place, the singing beauty of it, was quieting. The urgency that had welled up in Dorcas lessened a little and something of the tautness went out of her. She bent with him to see the marking. There was only a single word:

  Χαîρε

  “Do you know what it means?” Johnny said. “They used it a lot, those old Greeks. ‘Be happy.’ Just that—‘Be happy.’ Perhaps it was a farewell to those who were gone, and counsel as well to the living.”

  Something in her reached toward the meaning, to make it her own. Johnny looked at her and then away, as if he did not want to intrude on what might be a private healing.

  “Camiros belongs to the ages before Pericles,” he said. “But even then they knew a wisdom that Egypt somehow missed. In Egypt people lived for the hereafter and in constant fear of the gods. They expected nothing but suffering in the present. But while the Greeks honored their gods, they believed in men. They accepted the tragic in life, yet they believed there was something noble in man himself. They were realists in the best possible sense.”

  So many times Dorcas had heard her father speak of these things.

  “Yet the barbarians came from the north and destroyed it all,” she said sadly.

  “Not all,” Johnny said. “Some of the best of all man’s thinking was left. Perhaps every breath a civilized man draws had its start here on the Aegean.”

  He sat beside her on the wall. Beth ran happily through small stone rooms, talking to herself, content in her make-believe. Now that they were a part of this place, small sounds began to make themselves heard through the stillness. On the ridge behind them wind sighed in the tops of tall pine trees, and somewhere cicadas were singing. From underground came the cavernous sound of water running through deep cisterns of the town. The air was fragrant with pine, with the tang of sea air. Beyond the drop off of the lower ground the water near shore was a brilliant emerald green. Farther out lay the purple-dark Aegean. There was nothing to shut out air and sunlight and the sight of the sea. Camiros had no secrets—all was open and clear in the warm golden honey of the light.

  Be happy, the words said in crumbling stone.

  Johnny sat near her, and the feeling between them was alive again, as it had been a handful of times.

  “You’re quiet now,” he said. “Tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

  She found herself free of the terror left by her dream, found herself able to speak without frightened haste. She began to tell him all that had happened to her. Of how Madame Katalonos had shown her Constantine’s mark on sculpture he had done—the mark of the Athenian owl.

  “Do you see what it means?” she said. “The two circles like the eyes of an owl! Constantine is the owl. Will you believe me now?” She touched his hand lightly in quick, eager pleading.

  He turned his fingers and held her own reassuringly. “I believe you,” he said.

  She went on to explain how Madame Xenia had identified the Castle of the Princess as Mount Philerimos.

  “So that’s where Constantine must have hidden the marble head. That’s what the note says. If I’m on the right track, then the head is still there, buried in the ground. Johnny, let’s go to the mountain and look for it.”

  “At the hour of devils?” he asked, smiling.

  “Of course. If we can get away from Fernanda, let’s go there tomorrow. I don’t think we ought to wait.”

  “You don’t want to take Fernanda?”

  The moments of peace were gone. She reacted almost violently. “No! I don’t trust her any more. She came into my room and carried off the silver owl coin. And she’s trying to take Beth away from me. Haven’t you seen that, Johnny?”

  The concern was in his eyes again. He held both her hands tightly, held them until she calmed a little. She spoke more quietly, still trying to make him understand.

  “I wouldn’t put it past Fernanda to try to finish up some business of Gino’s, just because she feels he’d want her to. Take me to Philerimos, Johnny!”

  But he would not promise. “We’ll see,” he told her, and nodded toward the Greek word upon the stone.

  She drew her hands away impatiently. “How can I be happy when everything is so wrong? How can I find the way to be happy again?”

  “It means more than that,” Johnny said. “Do you remember the famous funeral oration Pericles made after Athens had lost so many of her young men in war? He didn’t ask those who heard him not to grieve. He didn’t tell them they’d made a noble sacrifice and advise them to put grief aside. He expected them to accept what had happened. To accept grief and pain and go on from there with what they had left. To look facts in the face and move on. The facts of yesterday aren’t always the facts of today.”

  She sensed something of what he meant—that she was still a frightened prisoner of all that had happened to her. That she must fling off the enveloping memories that stifled her and separate the present from what was done with. But that was already what she wanted for herself, and only she knew how difficult it was to achieve. If those who threatened her were real, then her anxiety was justified and grew from sound cause. If some of this, perhaps a good portion of it, came only from the cobwebby stuff of dreams, then she was, indeed, in a terrifying position from which she must struggle to escape.

  Far up the hill from her place between votive columns Fernanda waved to them and called.

  Johnny stood up. “She’s through meditating. Shall we go up there and join her?”

  Dorcas nodded mutely and started up the stone way with Beth’s hand in hers. There was nothing more to be said between them for now. If she could find Mrs. Dimitriou, perhaps she could prove what was real out of all this. If she could lead Johnny to where the marble head was hidden, he would have to believe.

  They climbed the gentle rise through a town leveled to their knees and open to the sky. Once Dorcas stopped to look at footprints visible in a block of stone. Here a statue had stood—the image of an honored town father, perhaps, or of some celebrated athlete. Now only the imprints of stone feet were left. This, too, was reality.

  At the top of the hill a high red bank of earth rose steeply, crowned by the six remaining columns of the temple. They found a way up and mounted the steps to stand beside Fernanda.

  There had been restoration here, but tracings of ancient fluting still showed in the stone high over their heads.

  Beyond the columns were stone cisterns set deep into the earth, their underground channels running down through the town. From the cisterns one could walk to the edge of a steeply pitched ravine where yellow-flecked bushes grew thick. The hills of Rhodes rolled away, green and alive, unlike the bare, baked hills of the mainland.

  As they turned back to the town, windy clouds swept across the sun and the light changed before their eyes. The golden honey hue was swept away and the ancient stones whitened.

  “There it is,” Dorcas whispered. “Homer’s ‘silvery Camiros.’”

  Somehow her h
and was in Johnny’s and the current flowed strongly between them. They walked down again into the silvery town and watched as the sun of Greece turned it once more to gold.

  “I can feel it all through me,” Dorcas said. “The peace, the quiet. It’s telling me how to be happy. If I could just hold some of this—carry it away with me!”

  She was aware of Johnny smiling even as he shook his head in denial.

  “The peace of Camiros belongs only to Camiros. I don’t think we can take it with us. I don’t think I’d even want to. This is a dead town, Dorcas. The Greeks turned their faces toward life, toward living. I suppose more than anything else peace is an inward thing. Some men know it in the midst of great tragedy or danger. Maybe it comes first of all from belief in ourselves, from liking and trust in ourselves.”

  She could not accept that. There were too many times when she did not like or trust herself at all. The peace of Camiros held outward healing in it. She did not want to let it go.

  For another hour they wandered among the warming stones. The guard had given up and no longer watched them. No one came to disturb the silence. By the time the sun was high and Beth tired, they were ready for lunch. Back at the car they had their picnic, while Camiros lay hidden beyond its ridges as though they had only imagined it.

  When lunch was finished, Fernanda spread a map open on nearby bushes and she and Johnny discussed possible routes. Fernanda wanted to go on through the interior of the island for a few miles and then circle back to the sea. The road from Camiros was good and they would see some beautiful scenery, with several small villages along the way. But Johnny, studying the map, shook his head.

  “That’s the logical route, I’ll agree. But I suggest going off the main road to this nearest village first.”

  Fernanda peered through her glasses and objected firmly. “That road may not be good and it certainly doesn’t go anywhere. A waste of time. No, we’ll follow the other route, Johnny.”

  Johnny cocked his red head on one side in his most exasperating way. “I’m sorry, Miss Farrar, but there is one small matter I’ve neglected to bring up. It’s my fault and I am sorry, but the gas tank is nearly empty and we’ve got to head for the nearest village.”

  Fernanda seldom lost her temper, but now she came close to it. She was cross with Johnny and further annoyed when Dorcas tried to back up his choice as the sensible one. She refused flatly to have anything to do with his plan.

  “In that case, we’ll go back to the coast road,” she said. “We’ll give up our trip and return to Rhodes.”

  Again Johnny overruled her. “Look, it’s too bad, but this village is close. I think we can make it that far. Not any farther.”

  For good measure, Johnny queried the guide first, but he apparently lived hereabout and came to his job on foot. He had no supply of gasoline.

  Since she had no choice, Fernanda gave in, but she was peeved about the whole thing and would not sit in the front seat beside Johnny. Dorcas and Beth moved up in front and Fernanda sat in the back seat and indulged in a fit of the sulks.

  The offshoot of road, while narrow, had been well tended, so the trip was not, after all, difficult. It took them no more than fifteen minutes, traveling uphill beside a dry river bed where pink oleanders bloomed profusely. Now and then as the road climbed they glimpsed the small white village above. Driving through a stand of pine forest, they came into the open where the village clung precariously to a steep hillside. The car bounced along a narrow cobblestone street, took a sharp turn or two, and wound up in the open square of the town on its last few drops of gas.

  “We made it,” Johnny said with satisfaction. “Now we need to find someone who’ll understand what we want. Where’s your word book, Fernanda? Though I must say the place looks deserted at the moment.”

  Dorcas glanced about at whitewashed houses and a small domed church—all seemingly empty of life in the midday sun. But even as she looked, the scene came alive with astonishing speed. Curious faces appeared in doorways and at windows. Children swarmed into the street excitedly and their elders followed. A woman with a baby in her arms and another small child clinging to her skirt came directly to the car window and looked solemnly into Dorcas’s face. When Dorcas smiled, she smiled back and held the baby closer. The men approached more slowly than the women and children, but they came as well.

  “Hello!” said Johnny to the throng in general, and got out of the car. Several children shouted “’allo!” and surrounded him at once.

  Fernanda was still peevish. “Do hurry up with it,” she called from the back seat.

  Johnny did not hurry. He opened the door and took her hand, pulling her from the car. “The least you can do is let them have a good look at you. You, too, Dorcas. I don’t imagine Americans come here every day. Play it up. Show them your hair, Fernanda.”

  Ordinarily, no one had to tell Fernanda to play it up, but today she did not thaw until a little girl offered her a hastily picked handful of wild flowers. Then she, too, came to life and began to make the most of the situation. She lifted Beth and held her for the children to see. In moments she was involved in an English lesson and being parroted by a delighted audience.

  With so thorough a focus of women and children around Fernanda, and the men clustered about Johnny—up to his ears in language difficulties, with everyone trying to help—Dorcas found herself free to look about by herself.

  The entire town consisted of a handful of houses, a few alleyways, and a main street. Around it the hills rose in a solid mass of green, setting off the white dwellings men had built in this steep place. She found a side street that ran into a bare path winding through a meadow. To reach it she must pass the tiny church, and as she turned in that direction, a woman dressed in black, with a black shawl over her head, came down the few steps. She did not look about her as she hurried up the street, but there was a moment when Dorcas saw her full face. The woman was Markos. Dimitriou’s wife. There was no time to think, to plan. The opportunity was too sudden. It must be grasped at once.

  Hurrying, Dorcas walked beside her. She had to speak before the woman was aware of her presence.

  “Mrs. Dimitriou, do you remember me? I’m Dorcas Brandt—Mrs. Nikkaris. Your husband’s friend. Will you please let me speak with you?”

  The woman stopped abruptly and turned to face her, thrusting the shawl back from her head. She no longer looked like an American. She had aged and saddened, Dorcas saw with regret, and she seemed frightened—as though she were ready to dart off through the nearest doorway.

  Dorcas touched her arm. “Come, please. Over near that field, where no one will notice us. The village people are all around the car that brought us here.”

  After a moment of hesitation Mrs. Dimitriou nodded reluctantly and went with Dorcas to a wall where they sat upon sun-warmed stones, while an inquisitive goat trotted over to study them.

  A little breathlessly Dorcas explained about the great debt she owed to Markos. Not only the money, but a debt of gratitude she could never repay. The money, at least, she must return. She had it with her in traveler’s checks. She would cash these in Rhodes and get the money to his wife.

  With a gesture that bespoke dignity the woman stopped her. “There is no debt, Mrs. Nikkaris. Your husband was very kind in my time of trouble. He sent Miss Farrar to see me after Markos died. He could not come himself to see me because he had to be away, but he helped me through Miss Farrar. He helped me to come to Rhodes. Miss Farrar took care of everything as Markos would have wished. There is nothing you owe us now.”

  Dorcas looked into the woman’s worn face and her eyes misted. Mrs. Dimitriou saw and responded warmly.

  “You must not be sad. It is good that I am here in the hills. In the old city of Rhodes I was not happy. The stone walls crushed me in and I was a stranger. In this village they accept me and I will make my home here.”

  “Did they tell you I was looking for you?” Dorcas asked.

  The woman was silent, glanci
ng around at the goat, as if she could not meet Dorcas’s eyes. It was clear that she had been forbidden to speak freely.

  “Who is it that doesn’t want me to talk to you?” Dorcas persisted. “What harm can there be?”

  Mrs. Dimitriou spread veined hands in a gesture of pleading. “Please—it is not good to speak of these things that are done. I wish only to live quietly and trouble no one.”

  “Miss Farrar has been to see you, hasn’t she?” Dorcas said. “It was Miss Farrar who sent you here so that I wouldn’t find you in the old city?”

  Quite suddenly the woman began to cry. She covered her eyes with a corner of her shawl and wept bitterly, silently. Dorcas watched in dismay.

  “Markos was the dear friend of my father,” Dorcas said. “He was like a father to me after my own father died. You know this is true?”

  Mrs. Dimitriou bowed her head in silent assent.

  “I would have come to you myself after Markos died if I had not been ill. You know this, too, don’t you?”

  Again there was the quiet bowing of the head.

  “I wanted to come,” Dorcas said urgently. “I read in the paper that you reached the hospital before your husband died. I wanted to ask you about his death. Forgive me if I’m causing you pain, but will you tell me about this now?”

  Mrs. Dimitriou managed to dry her tears. She began to speak slowly, painfully. There was little to tell. The police had come to let her know what had happened. She had gone at once to the hospital and a nurse had taken her to Markos’s bedside. There was no hope. The miracle was that he still lived for that length of time. He had refused opiates and had called for his wife. Very soon after she came, he died holding her hand.

  “Did he say nothing to you about how it happened?” Dorcas asked.

  Mrs. Dimitriou shook her head. “He could scarcely speak. He said nothing of the accident. He asked many times for Gino Nikkaris. He said the name over and over, but there was no time to bring Gino Nikkaris there. Later I told Miss Farrar how much he had wanted his friend in that bad time.”