by Sadie King
Victor had a limo waiting downstairs, and about fifteen minutes from leaving the dorm, they were at the terminal of the Madison Springs Airport. Terminal is probably a strong word. It had standing room for about 100 people. The airport served no commercial flights–mostly cropdusters and a few private jets, wealthy ranchers and such.
They headed out to the tarmac a short time later. Out to the jet. It was a metallic beauty—a Bombardier Global Express XRS. The plane had just arrived from Los Angeles with a crew of three: pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendant. Victor had chartered the plane for the weekend, simply to answer Zora’s question. Answer it his way. Very elaborately. Enigmatically, sensually. By taking her through a labyrinth of meaning and feeling.
The crew introduced themselves. The pilot, Mary Kelling, had an air of professionalism and personal warmth about her that put Zora at ease. She normally didn’t like flying, had a fear of heights, and a fear of enclosed spaces, and she would have expected a small plane like this to make her churn with anxiety. But it didn’t.
The XRS was no ordinary small plane. It wasn’t even that small. Victor and Zora walked down the aisle. Both of them awestruck. They were in a flying penthouse. The opulence packed into that narrow metal tube was unbelievable. Everything was bolted to the floor of course. There was a dining room table made of solid cherry, matching chairs, a plush black leather couch facing an ultra-thin, and ultra-large, TV. And the obligatory surround-sound system. Beyond that, with a partition and door for privacy, lay the bedroom. A waterbed fit for a king. And a queen. As far as the makers of the XRS were concerned, coach class, and everyone traveling in it, could go to hell.
Zora wondered what kind of sloshing noises the waterbed would make when the plane hit turbulence. And how hard the people sleeping on it would hit the floor. She hoped she wouldn’t have to find out.
The plane was on its way. And Zora had every intention of putting that waterbed to good use. For sleeping. Victor didn’t send a single sign of seduction in her direction. He knew she was still tired, burned out, could see the dark exhaustion in her eyes, the darker rings beneath them. She would need the rest. Their time in Greece would be history-making. They would be living a myth.
Zora asked the flight attendant, a silver-haired, and silver-smiled, man named Donald, where they would be in 8 hours. When she planned to wake up.
“Let’s see, 8 hours from now we should be over the Bay of Biscay, it’ll be about 4 in the afternoon. Bright sunny day I’d expect.”
In the bedroom, Victor and Zora kissed and undressed each other. But nothing further happened—no forays into unheard-of realms of Eros. They merely fell asleep in each other’s arms. Eros could wait.
And wait it would. They would be traveling to an ancient dwelling place of Eros, in the shadows of Mount Helicon, where the worshippers of the mythic god believed the deity of love spent his time on earth. There would be no better place for erotic love than the domain of the god himself.
They both got their 8 hours, turbulence free. Or at least disturbance free. For the rest of the flight they wined and dined, making sure to leave enough room for the Greek feast waiting for them. Courtesy of Dimitrios and Ianthe Zateli. The couple who ran a B&B on a vineyard on the outskirts of Koropi. The place, overflowing with Grecian charm, where they’d be spending the night. Victor didn’t anticipate getting much sleep there. The Zatelis had promised to teach them a traditional Greek card game. And their hosts wouldn’t even be serving dinner until 10.
The food on the plane was as opulent as the furnishings. First class on a commercial airliner was a distant memory. Coach class had never even existed. Who knew braised pheasant on a bed of saffron risotto went so well with Guigal La Mouline Côte-Rôtie 2007? Who could have imagined the perfect harmony of persimmon sorbet, white truffle cake, and raspberry brandy?
Unwinding after their airborne experience of all things epicurean, they watched a movie together, cuddling on the couch. Victor picked it out from the onboard film database. A classic, one of his favorites. The Red Shoes.
It hardly mattered that Zora’s shoes were black. This was her first fling with the Archers, the British filmmaking team who had brought The Red Shoes to life. And who had brought to bloom another one of Victor’s favorite films, Black Narcissus. That would come a close second on Victor’s cinematic list, black in the wake of red. Black would have to wait for another day, another couch to cuddle up on. Or maybe the same black couch, maybe on the way home. Today they only had time for one shot of the Archers. One color. Red.
And Zora loved it, entrancingly, dancingly, painfully, all 133 minutes of it. The suicide of Victoria, the star ballerina, shone a spotlight into her soul. The spotlight that danced across the stage at the end of the film, in the place of the fallen dancer—that light leaped from the screen and permeated Zora’s being. Tears streamed down her face, and she nested herself, a weeping bird, in the hollow of Victor’s body. His strength supported her, his gravity supported her, his life supported her. At the film’s end, Zora was glad that her own shoes were black and not red. She was glad to be alive and not dead.
They touched down at 7:24 PM Athens time. Tears lingered in her eyes. Another limo took them right to the doorstep of the Zatelis. Before them was the archetype of the Greek cottage. The plaster was a shining blinding white and everything attached to the house—doors, shutters, you name it—was the deepest Greekest blue you could imagine. They lived inside a billowing abode of clouds reflected in azure water.
Stretching away from the home, acres and acres of them, were fields of Assyrtiko grapes. It just so happened that Dimitrios and Ianthe, husband and wife, had both grown up on the island of Santorini, where the Assyrtiko grape is legion. So they had made damn sure that their new home, their Attican vineyard, was awash in Assyrtiko.
The grapes were gorgeous. They had the soft translucence of fruit in an oil painting. Were the lovers standing in a Grecian field, or in the painting of a Dutch master? Even Zeuxis would have been fooled.
The Assyrtiko growers greeted the newcomers.
“Welcome, nice people, nice flying?”
“Yes, very nice.”
And Victor added, “Den einai toso oraia oso e ellenikn ge.”
Not as nice as the Greek soil.
Delighted in his outlook and his tongue, the Zatelis spoke briefly with Victor in their native language. But for Zora’s sake, and for the sake of the other guests, the main language of conversation would have to be English. The only language that could possibly work as a lingua franca for the disparate nationalities that visited the B&B. Victor was simply paying homage to the new ground beneath his feet, the new culture that enveloped him. And showing off of course. He was Victor. Who could never let one of his many talents go unnoticed. Unpracticed.
Two other couples were staying in the cottage that night, a couple from England and one from Germany, and they all gathered in the dining room about a quarter to ten for dinner. The food was plentiful, and it looked sinful.
Sinful didn’t begin to describe it. Holy fuck, was that food rich. Copious amounts of Assyrtiko wine could barely wash it down. Lamb was the main attraction. Dish after dish of lamb. More screaming of the lambs had probably gone into that meal than into a Thomas Harris novel. At least now, mercifully, the lambs were silent.
They had loukanika in gravy, that’s lamb and veal sausage. Zora ate the kokoretsi with relish, not knowing they were barbecued lamb intestines stuffed with the other organs of the lamb, the spleen and lung and heart, finely chopped. If someone had told her, all those finely chopped pieces of lamb would have ended up back on the table. By the time she reached the exohiko, the lamb wrapped in phyllo dough, her stomach had started to protest the richness of the food, but she put on a ravenous face and kept going.
To counterbalance all the lamb, the Zatelis dished up some vegetarian fare, tsouknidopita, a savory quiche of locally grown nettles. And they served their guests two other testaments to the immortal power of phyllo: goat
cheese encased in phyllo, and let’s not forget the onion and bacon phyllo pie.
For dessert they offered up galaktoboureko—semolina custard embraced by, you guessed it, phyllo dough. What the hell else would it be? At least they didn’t have a single thing that would grace the menu of your average Greek hole-in-the-wall in the states. Not a single serving of spanakopita was to be found at their table, nor a single piece of baklava. Although Zora would have happily devoured either one.
For hours afterwards, into the wee hours of the night, a gradually dwindling number of the sated party played thanassis. The card game that Victor had been warned about. Warned because he played horribly, atrociously, worse than a satyr playing at celibacy. Zora slaughtered him like a lamb. She had one advantage she kept hidden: she had mastered the game of rummy over the years, and thanassis was very similar to the version of rummy she’d grown up playing with her parents.
She knew enough Greek to suspect that the name of the game was somehow derived from the Greek word for death. She was right. Thanatos was rearing his ashen head yet again, in a moment of revelry. Eros was yet to come again. Would he reappear in a moment of tragedy? And there was more to consider. She might have beaten Victor at the game of death, at least for now, but who was winning at the game of love? Or was the game of love simply another version of the game of death?
Victor and Zora slept that night like lambs, oblivious of anything but their togetherness and their satedness. No surprise there: the lamb that frolics in the field, destined for the table, is ignorant of what fate holds in store. Of the flaying, the butchering. Of its lowly rung on the chain of being. Of its purpose in the world.
They woke too like lambs, stretching themselves toward the beckoning sky, toward the warmth of the sun, secure in their skins. And truly for the lovers the sky did beckon.
Outside the cottage, in a small field bereft of grapes, lying fallow in the early sun-peeking sky, was an enormous hot air balloon. It was the main reason that Victor had taken so long to arrange their little adventure, making the love of his life feel forsaken.
The balloon had been trucked in from Germany specifically for them, with a crew to set it up. Yet the design was French through and through. Sitting there in the fallow field was a perfect replica of the very first manned balloon. The blue-and-gold flying marvel of the Montgolfier brothers. Joseph and Etienne. Their balloon had graced the skies of Paris in November 1783, a half-score years before bloodier times. A time when royal power, the power of the aristocracy, was still ascendant. That balloon, rising toward the heavens, was their tribute to that power. To this day it remained the most famous, and the most beautiful, balloon in the world.
You might know it—the fabric of royal blue, covered in regal symbols of gold. Symbols of power. Most prominent of all was a large radiant sun, a personified sun, the sun with a human face, the face of the Sun King. Was Victor not such a man? Was he not yearning to rise to the heavens? And beside him would stand the only person in the world who could make him fall, who had the power to test his hubris, who could melt his wings of wax.
The lovers would fly across the skies of Greece in a German balloon of French design. Such is the kaleidoscope of the world, its skein of cultures and people and passions. Victor was ready. He had actually traveled twice to the outskirts of Austin to take lessons from a ballooning outfit called Aerial Dreams. And, miraculously, he had managed to fast-track the necessary permits through the Greek bureaucracy. A more impressive feat than Moses parting the Red Sea. Victor was like a sorcerer of law, any law, any country, and if he wanted something done, the clouds had better part and the sun shine bright. And part they did, shine it did. It would be only he and Zora and the world above.
After a bite of giaourti kai meli, of yogurt and honey, a food that mortals had stolen from the gods as they had stolen fire, Victor and Zora headed out to the balloon. The Zatelis had prepared a lunch for them to carry along and aloft, a container of mezedes, of small assorted Grecian delights. Zora was especially looking forward to the fire-roasted red peppers stuffed with goat cheese and the octopus and fava bean salad.
About 1000 feet into the air, Victor caught the southeast breeze that he wanted, and they sailed over Athens. Below them, like grains of sand, were thousands upon thousands of people—all of them now looking up at the spectacle. Pointing, taking pictures, yearning to be sailing through the sky themselves.
They passed over the Panathenaic Stadium—where the modern Prometheus made his name, Spyridon Louis, who ran the last lap of his gold-medal marathon in 1896. They flew over the Temple of Zeus, over the Acropolis, over its crown jewel, the Parthenon. Eager to see the marvels of Athens, Zora was bent so precariously over the side of the basket that Victor had to grab her lest she fall overboard.
Had she fallen, had Victor not been there to save her from falling, she would have added another legend to the Greek pantheon: the legend of Icarina. The female Icarus, the Ballerina of the Sun. A new Icarus, a new Victoria. Pirouetting gracefully into an earthen embrace. Her enlevement in the arms of the earth, a term from ballet, one dancer being carried off by another, one dancer absconding with another. The earth dancing away with her just as Pluto had danced away with Proserpina. Death dancing away with life. Life dancing away with death.
Without warning, the wind shifted toward the southwest, no big deal, Victor could adjust the course later. They floated over the Isle of Salamina. Dotting the sea around the island, as if drawn there by its gravity, was a floating panoply of boats of every shape and size, from the largest cruise ship all the way down to the smallest Greek fishing vessel. Just under 2 hours had passed as they passed over Salamina, the 15 knot winds at that altitude moving them along at a leisurely pace. A panoramic pace. A romantic pace. A pace about to get even more romantic.
The wind shifted again, winds are the breath of fickle Mercury, always changing. They were now flying due west, but still Victor was unconcerned, he apparently breathed the same air as Mercury, and in two more hours they had crossed the inner waters of the Saronic Gulf. They soared over the Isthmus of Corinth and soon found themselves above the Gulf of Corinth. They had already eaten the last morsel of the mezedes. Those savory delights were a thing of memory, a thing to digest and no longer desire. Down to the last sucker on the last tentacle of octopus in the octopus salad.
They needed to head north. That was where the Polaris of their love resided, the Solaris of their passion. The ancient hiding place of Eros. Their final destination was close to the flanks of Mount Helicon, so Victor aimed higher, much higher, opening up the valve on the balloon, letting the propane fiercely burn.
They climbed to a little over 3000 feet, finding the right winds at that height, winds blowing north. The force of the winds stiffened to 25 knots. They would arrive there in only 90 minutes—a field near the village of Aletheia where their balloon crew would be waiting. By balloon this would be a one-way trip. The crew would take the chartered balloon back to Germany, and the lovers would take a limo back to Athens, where the XRS would wing them home.
They were scheduled to arrive back in Madison Springs a little after 11 Sunday night. A whirlwind journey through time and space. Plenty of time for both of them to wake refreshed for class on Monday. Refreshed, yes. Prepared, not necessarily. Zora despaired of ever being prepared again during her entire time in law school. But Victor was worth it. His love was worth it.
And his passion. Over the Gulf of Corinth, Victor pulled from his right jacket pocket a small vial of golden liquid. Zora couldn’t see what he was doing, her back was turned to him, her eyes sweeping the waters of the gulf like the beam of a lighthouse searching for ships in the darkness. She was looking for nothing but the beauties of nature, the traces of myths in the azure depths.
It was a bottle of perfume. He screwed off its seven-sided lid, and wetted his fingers with the scented fluid. He dabbed the sides of Zora’s neck. As he did so, a jolt of aroma flew up her nostrils and a jolt of heat raced down her spine. She s
pun around. Saw the bottle in his hand.
“Perfume? Mmm . . . I love that smell . . . like everything I love about Greece. Honey. Fields of ripe grapes. Ambrosia. What is it?”
Zora was not one to use perfume profusely. Or lightly. She had the scent of a woman, and for her that was enough. But this was clearly a perfume that Victor had put a lot of thought into. And she was more than happy to oblige him by letting it grace her skin, letting his fluid fingers dance with its aroma around her body.
“Fleur de Narcisse, from the Volcans de Lozere in France. Rich volcanic soil. Not actually Greek. But there is a connection. Do you see it, do you smell it?”
“Fleur de Narcisse.”
She scented the words with her tongue, let their aroma waft through her mind.
“Of course, the narcissus flower.”
“Yes, the flower of the muses. Narcissus poeticus. The flower of the language of love.”
“Ah, but you’re forgetting one thing.”
She took some of the perfume and dabbed it on his neck.
“Where the name came from. Narcissus. Who spurned his love. His Echo. Who loved only himself, who died loving only himself. You should be the one wearing the perfume instead of me.”
“Now you’re asking for it. The full narcissistic experience. Here, let me show you how much I love myself.”
He wrapped his lips around the dabs of narcissus on her neck, absorbing the perfume into his taste buds. It smelled sweet but tasted slightly bitter. With that bouquet on his palate, he kissed her on the mouth in a manner befitting the perfume’s origins—French of course—and they shared the bitter sweetness of the narcissus. Perfume swirled around their tongues swirling around the mouths of one other.
He unzipped her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt. The cold at that altitude, and that time of year, was enough that undressing fully was foolhardy. How romantic to die in each other’s arms, but how unromantic to die of hypothermia.