Of course, the real secret wasn’t hidden in the caves. The caves weren’t the treasure trove of antiques, false or real, that Clive hoped for. He wanted us to be the Hardy Boys and wasn’t very convincing when he tried to make this desire sound ironic. I knew he saw gold heaped in clinking, spilling mountains, chests with strings of pearls, fist-sized rubies, and probably a skeleton grinning beneath the rim of a tricorne hat. Even if he hadn’t articulated this notion to himself, I could read it in his eagerness and knew that only disappointment awaited him. I, on the other hand, was looking to solve the mystery of Jack. Jack was now complicated and I was intrigued.
Of the two of us, I was the better swimmer and reached the caves first. Clive had suggested that we race and at some point I had been tempted to let him win. Clive brought out a side in me that few people did. But I got tired of swimming so slowly. I was momentarily concerned that all Clive’s hand-rolled cigarettes had rendered his lungs useless, but he powered along in a sort of alternating freestyle, breast-stroke, dog paddle, and who cared what it looked like as long as he wasn’t drowning? The waves by the mouth of the cave hadn’t looked like much from shore, but here, up close, they were enough to smash us against the rocks. It took me quite a few tries to scramble onto one of them, where I perched like a seal waiting for Clive. I was wondering, of course, how he was going to make it back to shore. When he finally reached the cave—I helped him up and he sat—because there was not enough room for him to lie down—breathing wildly, the first words out of his mouth were, “I could use a cigarette.”
* * *
Much is made of caves and entering them. A part of me would like to say that there, at the threshold, something of our innocence was still intact; that we did not know; and that our not-knowing had somehow kept us pure. But I wasn’t Wordsworth paddling along full speed in his barque, and Clive—well, if anyone had blown his innocence it was Tomas, who had let Clive believe in a deeper friendship. Not that this sort of friendship wasn’t possible, it was that anything was possible as long as Tomas could get off Aspros. Behind those unblinking black eyes and heavy lashes was a calculating mind, an aware individual who knew that his only currency was his good looks and a canny intelligence capable of making the quick decisions needed to advance himself in the world.
“Let’s go in,” I suggested.
The water was cold in the cave, and paddling around I suddenly remembered the moray eels that were sometimes speared as they prowled beneath the jetties of Faros. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom, but then I saw a rock ledge, narrow but mostly dry, and I pulled myself up and out. There was a candle with a small square of folded oilskin alongside it. When I unfolded it, I found a dry box of matches. I lit the candle and the cave was dimly illuminated.
Clive stood unsteadily on the rock at the mouth of the cave. “Is there anything in there?” he asked.
“Are you scared, Clive?”
“Yes, frankly,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the eels,” I said. I peered into the water.
“What eels?”
“The ones that aren’t here.” I shone the candle around. I couldn’t see anything that struck me as out of place, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Clive paddled quickly across the cave and pulled himself out of the water.
“My foot touched something,” he said.
“What was it?”
“I think it was a net. Maybe they’ve set a trap.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. I held the candle up toward the mouth of the cave. An iron hook was driven into the wall and from it hung a net, very taut, holding something that was hidden beneath the surface of the water.
I swam over to the hook, leaving Clive to hold the candle. I put my feet on a submerged rock, and tried to pull the net up. It was too heavy. I swam down with my mask and made out some roughly round objects—heads?—that were being weathered beneath the surface of the water. I resurfaced.
“Clive, I need a hand,” I said.
Clive put down the candle and gingerly paddled over to me. We pulled at the net and, with both of us straining at it, the objects started to rise. I saw a marble face begin to break the surface of the water.
I am not exactly sure what happened after that. I know Clive saw Thanasi rowing up to the mouth of the cave and shouted something, and this startled me so that I dropped the net. Thanasi began to row away, but then Clive was screaming and I realized his hand had somehow gotten pinned between the taut ropes of the net and the cold stone of the cave. His knuckles were grazed but I knew, from looking at them, that there was no serious damage. Trying to convince Clive of this was not so easy.
“You need to get a boat to get me back to shore.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “I can’t swim.”
“All right,” I said. “I will swim to shore. That will take at least twenty minutes. Then I will walk to Faros. That will take at least fifteen minutes. Then I will find a fisherman who is willing to part with his boat, or maybe I’ll steal one.…”
Clive really didn’t want to stay in the cave by himself. We took to the water. Luckily the tide was going in. Finally, with me swimming circles around him, Clive made it to shore.
He collapsed on the beach, lying there as if he were Robinson Crusoe.
“I’m never going anywhere with you again,” he said. But he was already making plans. He wanted to come back with a boat so we could take whatever was in the net. I told him that was stealing, and he said it wasn’t, because the heads were fakes. I told him taking the heads would be dangerous regardless of their authenticity. People who made fakes were probably fairly sensitive when it came to keeping track of their merchandise.
Clive moaned in an aggressive, frightening way the entire ride back to Stavri, but he was very happy when Neftali made a big fuss over his hand, and not terribly pleased with me. Neftali walked Clive into the house cooing and making sounds of disapproval. She said she would clean his knuckles well and make sure that there was no possibility of infection. Clive was of the opinion that his knuckles might already be infected, but the wound had had a good half-hour soak in salt water as he’d floundered to shore, and the possibility of infection existed only in his mind.
Nathan had a glass of something and rattled the ice cubes festively. “Neftali says the two of you have been acting very suspiciously today,” he said. “What are you up to?”
“We’re solving a mystery,” I said. I waggled my eyebrows. “What are you drinking?”
“Vodka,” said Nathan. He offered me the glass and I took a sip.
“That might hit the spot,” I said. “How’s Olivia been today?”
“Olivia looked all over but didn’t find Amanda. Then she talked to some woman rumored to be Tomas’s grandmother, and the woman shouted something at her.”
“Actually, she hissed at me,” said Olivia, who had walked up to us. “She hissed, and maybe she even cursed me.”
“What on earth did you do?” I asked.
“I sort of did this.” Here Olivia waved her hands over her head like a snake charmer. “I don’t know why, but it was very effective.”
“But no Amanda?”
“No,” said Olivia. She sighed.
“I don’t know why she’s acting so bizarrely,” I said. “Blame it on me all you want, but I didn’t do anything to her, and I don’t find this pseudo-coyness very funny anymore.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Nathan.
“Did it ever occur to either of you that she might be embarrassed? That she might be avoiding us?” Olivia was sincere.
I saw Nathan process this for a moment of polite concern, and then he said, “No.”
I laughed. But it was time to head for the ferry to go get Nikos. Clive had fought me for the privilege, but I reminded him that he was recently invalided and, along with gaining all the extra attention, he had lost his autonomy.
I drove the Vespa dangerously fast to the port town,
inordinately pleased to be seeing Nikos again. I had a lot to tell him, both gossip and real news, and this gave me a sense of purpose, which, for me, was rare. In an unlikely turn of events, the ferry had arrived early, and when I rode up to the pier, Nikos was already walking along with his bag. I parked and ran up to him; I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“Nikos, Nikos, Nikos,” I said.
“Hello, Rupert,” he said. He smiled a big smile, then stepped back to light a cigarette. “You have sun on your face. What have you been doing without me?”
“I have a lot to tell you. I don’t know where to start,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re back.”
I refused to let Nikos leave the port town before sharing a private drink with me. There was so much he didn’t know. There was the head. There was the cave and Jack and Thanasi. There was strategizing over how to get the head—which certainly looked authentic—to New York. And I had to break it to him that Amanda had gone off with Tomas. I was honest with the particulars of the night she’d disappeared, and Nikos took it all with a few fatalistic shrugs in some of the more sensational places. When I was done with all my telling, he nodded to himself.
“This thing with Amanda had to end, but this with Tomas—it isn’t good.”
“Are you surprised?”
“I want to say no, because then I am cool.” He raised his eyebrows to assess whether he was using the correct word, and I nodded. “I know she sleeps with many people. But Tomas … I am surprised.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because Amanda is always thinking about her place in society.” Nikos seemed to feel bad about divulging that. “She thought marrying Jack would make her rich,” he said. “She said he works and works all the time but never has much to show for it. They are always short on cash.”
“Why was she telling you this?” I asked.
“What is that word in English I can never remember? It means making excuses.”
“Justification,” I said.
“Yes. Because she felt bad.”
“Well, she did take good care of him. I mean, running off to Hydra because he was on a drunken tear.”
Nikos nodded. “And there was the art.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The pieces for the gallery in New York. Amanda had found a new agent for Jack, and he was supposed to pack up whatever he had in his studio and ship it all to the States. That’s why Jack went back to Hydra.”
“I thought he went back because the muse had whispered in his ear.”
“Well, maybe.” Nikos shrugged.
“But it was money that made him leave,” I said, as though I’d suspected as much all along.
“Amanda,” said Nikos, “was not calling Jack all the time. Sometimes it was to this person in New York.” Nikos stubbed out his cigarette thoughtfully. He looked at me, smiling with his eyes.
“What are you thinking?” I said.
“Amanda has an obsession with the rich, but her family doesn’t have any money.”
“She went to Smith.”
“Scholarship.”
“So what about it?” I said.
“If she was poor, she would fuck Tomas because she was poor. If she was rich, she would fuck Tomas because she wouldn’t care. But there, in the middle, clinging to all of us by her teeth …it’s hard for me to believe.”
It wasn’t hard to talk Nikos into having another drink, and another. Then we climbed onto the Vespa and made our way back to Stavri. The garden was filled with music, a Louis Armstrong song, loud and happy. I remembered the first time I’d walked to the house like this, side by side with Nikos, and had heard the bellowing Victrola. I pushed the gate open and we went in. Nikos was instantly mobbed, but I saw Amanda standing alone, shadowed by a tree. I wondered where Olivia was. Amanda caught me looking at her and I went over because I had no choice.
“Hello, Amanda,” I said.
“Hello, Rupert,” she said.
“What have you been up to?”
“Don’t start,” she said. “Does Nikos hate me?”
“No,” I said, “but I think it’s safe to say it’s over between the two of you.”
“You know,” Amanda said, looking at me, “I wouldn’t think that honesty was your strong suit, but you always tell me the truth.”
“I would think that was an admirable trait.”
Amanda laughed. “You hate me,” she said. “I bet you hated your wife.”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“Do you know why Olivia is your ideal woman?”
“You have an opinion?”
“Because she’s going to die. You can make peace with a memory, but an actual living, breathing, smelling woman scares you to death.”
“You know,” I said, “you are beginning to remind me of my ex-wife.” Amanda was swaying a little and I knew she’d had quite a bit to drink. I thought I’d earned the right to leave, but she grabbed my arm and clung to me.
“Don’t be so hard on me,” she said. “I only want a few things from life. How can you begrudge me that?”
I wanted to ask her what she was talking about and, regardless of what it was, why she needed my approval. But I didn’t have a chance. Clive came over, his hand dramatically bandaged, and asked if I was interested in going into Stavri for some food. I went upstairs to wash my face and comb my hair. I also managed to sneak up on Olivia and give her a scare as she put on her lipstick. I was surprised to see Amanda still with us as we began to walk down the path into town. Olivia held my elbow and I was feeling rather proud—proud because we were a fairly dysfunctional group and my particular pairing was actually one of the more successful. Nathan and Clive were together up ahead, Clive was singing, and Nathan was enjoying it. Neftali and Nikos followed them, involved in a rapid-paced Greek explication, which, from Neftali’s frequent glances back over her shoulder, must have been about Amanda. Amanda, bringing up the rear alone, seemed lost—more lost than drunk—and I thought I saw her push a tear away with the back of her hand.
I leaned down to Olivia. “Maybe you should walk with Amanda.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said.
“Find out what happened to Tomas,” I added. Olivia shook her head in indulgent disapproval and then dropped back.
I decided to walk with Neftali and Nikos, who politely switched languages and subjects to include me. But I begged them not to bother. I liked hearing their Greek. What could be better than having such fine company and not having to converse? I had other things on my mind anyway. I had yet to show Nikos the head. Though I was convinced it was a fake, I was also convinced that Uncle William would love it. The provenance would hold up under scrutiny—at least his—and since the thing had been planted in the field, we hadn’t had to pay extra. Serendipity. Maybe it was not the kind of serendipity that put the Venus de Milo into a farmer’s field, but Tomas’s desperation paired with Jack’s extracurricular activities created a serendipity all its own. I would have to clear this with Nikos, but I knew he would accept my judgment. He was a pragmatic person from a pragmatic nation. Nothing romantic, nothing flowery. This was why Greece had been capable of such art: art that held up under scrutiny. Art one could look at and enjoy with the intellect, not the heart, not the surge and surge of boiling blood but rather the sublime process of reason.
“What’s the word?” said Nikos. Neftali looked over her shoulder expectantly.
“Justification,” I said. “The word is justification.”
Neftali ordered a fish for dinner and the thing was a leviathan. As the cook set it down, we all cheered. There were a couple of guys with bazoukis singing away, and the wine was light as spring water yet strong enough to numb the tongue. And this is one of my most often visited memories. The candles are flickering, throwing shadows up on everyone’s faces. Olivia, across from me, looks dazzling and young. In this light, you can’t see the dark circles, the graying of her skin. Her eyes are brilliant and her face full
of expression. Someone’s telling a joke, not her, but she’s listening actively; she smiles waiting for the punch line, small smile, big smile, eyebrows up, a moment of disbelief; then she bursts out laughing. She says, “I’m cutting you off, Clive. That was disgusting.” Then she takes a sip from her glass and says, “Wait a minute. Give the boy some more wine.” She fixes me with an admonishing gaze, the I’m-not-dead-yet look. And I raise my glass, because where we are is just a moment moving over our lives, something to hold in the mind, and the present is just a point of reference. It doesn’t exist, and thank God for that, because if I believed in the present—actual experience tied to a moving instant—as I believe in the past and future, I would never survive.
Everyone kept saying that Olivia was very sick, Olivia was not supposed to make it through the next twelve months, but I had never really understood it. I had accepted it as part of my identity: I was a man in love with a dying woman. This was, strangely enough, a place where I felt comfortable. But a part of me always believed that no one is dead until they are dead, and although Olivia had no appetite, had lost some weight, and perhaps was not as lively as she might have been, it was hard to look at her—sitting in bed, reading the back of a pill bottle—and think about death except in the most abstract of ways. When I tried to remind myself that she was very ill—which I did, because, along with Nikos and Neftali, I doubted my capacity to make decisions—I kept seeing her tombstone superimposed over her face. Or even more ridiculous, partner to Alastair Sim, flying over London, introducing him to his past. This was recalled from a film version of A Christmas Carol, which had made about ten years of childhood bedtimes a torture of darkness tinged with the promise of spectral visitation.
I had gotten out of bed to pour myself another glass of whiskey, and she was lying there with the covers pulled up to her neck.
“You drink too much,” she said.
“Yes, I do,” I replied. “Are you going to try to stop me?” I made it sound like an invitation.
“I have my own battles, thank you,” she said.
“I think we should get married in the Highlands,” I said. “Get some crazy minister in a kilt, some pipers, a person banging a drum, and a yak.”
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