“Delos?”
“Yes.”
Tasos frowned and thought a moment. “Like Mykene, Delos is a place of great power in the ancient world. Pilgrims went there for healing. In our legend it is the birthplace of Apollo and his sister Artemis. Once it was the holiest place in all of Greece.”
“I know. I’ve done a little homework. I get there by ferry from Mykonos.”
“Yes. Boats run each morning if the weather is good.”
“And Mykonos?”
“Ships leave each day from Piraeus, or you can fly there from Athens. You mean all these times you’ve come to Greece, you’ve never been to Mykonos?”
Chase shook his head. “I’d never been to Mykene, either, up to now.”
“Ah, but that’s different. Mykonos! It is our jewel!”
“You have many jewels I think, Tasos. Some of them slightly tarnished lately. But many. Much to protect.”
He smiled. “Chase. We are good friends, no?”
“Of course we are.”
“Then let me come with you. I would like to.”
“No.”
“I think I should, Chase. For one thing I am very good company.”
“No. You take care of business for us, and of Anna and the boy. As you say, this cup’s mine.”
“Any cup can be shared, Chase.”
“Not this one.”
And he thought, Nothing speaks to you. But there was no bitterness to it now.
Mykonos, he thought. Our jewel.
All right. Whoever you are.
He drained the wine.
I’m coming.
BILLIE
MYKONOS
She was sitting at a cafe by the harbor only two hours off the plane, barely showered and changed, when the Frenchman walked by, saw her, stopped and turned and headed for her table.
Oh, no, she thought. This I can do without.
His hair was long, blonde and none too clean, the teeth very white and oddly pointed. I wonder if he files them? she thought. It was not a delightful smile.
He was tall and built to scale. His tan was a deep nut brown. His shoulders were absolutely massive, the arms long and simian. His hands were big too and there were tiny scars along the ridge of the knuckles.
A brawler. Wonderful.
She felt the queasiness again. It happened a lot these days when a man approached her. She rallied against it.
All right, she thought, let’s make this as fast as possible.
He stood there grinning at her and the grin tugged at the too-sharp nose and sharpened it further, squinted the small gray eyes.
“You speak French?”
“No.”
“English, eh?”
“Yes.”
He looks like a monkey, she thought. A very large monkey. With a pointed nose. A dangerous monkey. He shifted from one foot to the other and the long threadbare silk shirt swayed back and forth over the dusty jeans. Stop smiling, she thought. For god’s sake go away and leave me in peace.
“I’ve just come back from India,” he said. “Is very good there, I think. Very spiritual.”
“That’s nice.”
“We learned many things, my friends and I. You would like to hear? I think you should.”
The smile was an open leer now.
“I don’t think so.”
Enough, she thought. You’re probably what? Twenty-five? And all very latter-day hippie. I bet you’ve got a stash of pot in your backpack. Beyond that, barely a shilling. In 1967 you weren’t even born yet. You’re ridiculous. And threatening. Please go away.
“You’re a very pretty woman.”
“Thank you. Goodbye. Have a nice day.”
He looked at her.
“You have a cigarette for me?”
She couldn’t help it. He infuriated her. Threat and swagger and now he wanted handouts. She drew hard on her cigarette and blew the smoke out away from him.
“I haven’t any.”
The smile disappeared. But the man said nothing.
“Nor do I have any money for you. So goodbye.”
“No money.”
“No. And no cigarettes.”
“So, give me that one.”
“No.”
“Why not? You don’t need it."
“How is your English?”
“Eh?”
“I said how is your English. I said goodbye to you. Twice. Do you understand the word ‘goodbye?’”
Bug eyes, she thought. Dead bug eyes. There’s nothing in them. “You’re a bitch, you know that?”
“Yes, I know that.”
He turned abruptly and stalked away. He made a fist and jerked his arm into the air. He did not look back. She could feel his anger, his violence, pass over her, rippling away from him like waves off a stone dropped into quiet water.
Very spiritual, she thought. I have fears for the spirit these days.
She stubbed out the cigarette and called the waiter for another ouzo.
SADLIER
The Frenchman, whose name was Gerard Sadlier, was very cross with her.
Once before, in Pakistan over a year ago, a man had made him cross in a different sort of matter-a problem over hashish and money. So he had filled a flight bag with ice which was very rare and expensive there and tied the man to the flyblown four-poster bed in his cheap hotel and smothered him with the bag of ice while Dulac and Ruth walked across his ribs.
It would be overreacting to do that here.
Still, he thought, he might be seeing her again.
Everyone deserved a second chance.
DODGSON
HERAKLION, CRETE
He’d said goodbye to his landlord Andreas and they’d shaken hands and Andreas had said, “Well, do you think you will be back this way again, my friend?”
And Dodgson said, “I don't know, Andreas. Matala has changed."
And the handsome old man nodded sadly. “I know,” he said. “There is a saying. The earth is only sleeping. And you will have to pray for us when she rises.”
Lelia, he thought, had taken it very well.
They’d breakfasted alone. He talked and she listened and then when it was over she said, “You want me to leave?” and he said, "No," it wasn’t necessary, because he and Danny and Michelle had had enough of Matala anyway.
She nodded.
He was shocked. He’d expected a scene. What he got was understatement.
“I’m not too easy to get along with sometimes,” she said. “I know that. I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry about last night. Sometimes I get…out of hand, you know?”
He knew.
But she seemed so sincere and looked so unhappy that despite himself he started feeling sorry for her and tried to make light of it, make it easier for her. joking and drinking lemonada with her until first Danny and Michelle and then the bus arrived. When they boarded he’d kissed her on the cheek and it was as though they were a pair of friends parting and he had that strange feeling of unreality again, the same as he’d felt when he awoke on the beach to find her gone. As though his perceptions were out of whack somehow.
All told, he figured he’d got off easy.
He knew he had when Danny leaned back in the seat and said, “Whew! Goodbye Matalar!"
And then he knew what this was.
This was escape.
There was one flight to Mykonos tonight. They'd be on it.
Meantime they sat in the square nursing Amstel beers, waiting for the eight o’clock Olympic shuttlebus to come and take them to the airport and watching the beginnings of the volta-a sort of nightly fashion show-cum-meat-market, as people paraded by in their evening best, on the lookout for friends, lovers and pickups. Heraklion was a big sprawling town by Greek standards and it was refreshing after Matala to be somewhere so cosmopolitan. Girls in white strolled arm in arm together, smiling into the rows upon rows of cafe tables. Boys cruised by in threes and pairs, denims crisply pressed, arms draped over one another’s shoulders i
n macho solidarity. Young mothers wheeled along pretty wide-eyed babies in carriages.
They sipped their beers and nibbled their mezes.
“You know,” said Danny, “I’ve always hated this town more than any town in Greece next to Athens. But right now it doesn’t look too bad at all, old buddy.”
Dodgson translated. No mad women.
He nodded.
It was amazing how little thought he’d given her once they’d pulled away. Past was past, right? Of course it was. Yet it bothered him. Because this was a pattern of his. You screwed up. Then you forgot about it, buried it. You drank too much, wrote too little and before long you chose the wrong woman again. Always the wrong woman. Sure the world was full of neurotics but it was a special talent of his to keep finding them. He’d met lesser versions of Lelia before, less fierce certainly, far less extreme, but a little unhinged just the same. Passive/aggressive types. Drinkers. Cokeheads. Paranoids.
And then there was Margot.
That had lasted three long years.
And who was to say that Margot, who had taken her own life for god’s sake, was any less crazy than Lelia.?
You got what you looked for in life, didn’t you? What you were ready for? So where was his own mental health in all this?
Gone fishing, he thought. Looking for a line out of that bloody bathtub maybe.
To strain a metaphor.
The volta flowed on by. The girls in white paraded.
His mind did what it damn well was inclined to do and slipped Lelia Narkisos away for a while, maybe a good long while.
Maybe forever.
Tonight he’d be in Mykonos and a tiny toothless woman dressed in black would rent him a room. He knew the woman and he knew the rooms. The woman was in permanent mourning for somebody. The rooms were good and clean and cheap. He knew just where to find her.
They’d bring in the bags and then go out to the Harlequin or Pierro’s or Anna’s Bar for drinks. He knew people in all these places. The people would be well-dressed and handsome. Some even glamorous. You could forget anything inside. You were supposed to.
He pinched an olive off the plate of mezes. It had a rich dark taste, the flavor of earth. He moved it around inside his mouth and scraped it with his teeth until the pit was clean. Then he spat it out.
A girl walked by and looked at him. A slim Greek girl not more than seventeen.
Greek women were getting bolder.
He turned to Danny. “Mykonos will be a whole lot better,” he said.
Danny nodded. “You bet. No bears there, Sparky.”
“You promise?”
The Greek girl moved away, her hips a gentle tide to Dodgson.
“I promise. Nothing with teeth. Honest, Sparks. You got it made now. I promise.”
LELIA
MATALA
“Excuse me.”
The shopkeeper’s eyes were furtive. They moved over her, then away, then moved back again.
It was nothing new. It was difficult for most men to look directly at a beautiful woman. Men were weak. Most were idiots.
Dodgson hadn’t found it difficult. It was one thing she’d liked about him.
“What time’s the bus to Heraklion?”
The man’s eyes darted. I could put them out for you.
“You are leaving us?”
“Yes, I’m leaving you.”
“That’s a shame. You go somewhere else?”
“Yes.”
He waited for more. Of course I’m going somewhere else, you asshole. But she might as well tell him.
“I’m going to Mykonos.”
The man smiled. There was something furtive in the smile, too, as though she’d told him she were fucking half the island.
“Mykonos!” he said.
“The bus. Just tell me about the goddamn bus, will you?”
Or I will pull off your cock and stuff it into your goddamn ugly mouth.
I’m coming, Dodgson. The man told her.
PART 2
ARTEMIS, THE HUNTRESS
“What reasons do you need to die?”
-Boomtown Rats
DREAMERS…
On Delos the shepherd Dinos Siriandu dreamed he caught a chicken in his yard for dinner. The chicken had led him a merry chase. He cornered it, finally, against a bale of wire by the side of his hut.
The chicken did not die right.
He put the bird to the block and beheaded it with a single short stroke of his hatchet. The head fell away.
Normally the body trembled, the legs tried to run. It was a while before the chicken knew it was dead.
But this bird did nothing. It just stopped.
Normally there was blood.
This chicken had no blood.
In his dream Siriandu was repulsed. He threw the bird off the block. He crossed himself. He kicked away the carcass.
The carcass struggled to its feet and walked away.
He woke, listening to what his wife called Hecate’s wind howling off the mountain.
***
Tasos Katsimbalis lay sleeping in his Athens bedroom dreaming of his friend Jordan Thayer Chase.
He saw an island rising out of a dark starlit sea, rising to a single peak. At its summit, by torchlight, a group of ecstatic naked women- Greek women, young and lithe-slaughtered a huge black bull with their bare hands. By sheer weight of number they pulled it to the ground. They tore it open. They drank its blood and ate handfuls of its living flesh. The bull bellowed. Tasos watched them carry pieces of it away with them and down the mountain.
The bull rose up bloody and maimed on its hind legs, its intestines dangling, steaming, and slowly became a man. The man was Jordan Chase. Tasos waved to him and Chase waved back. And faded.
***
In Heraklion Lelia Narkisos dreamed herself lying naked in a driving wind, a brutal stinging sandstorm, and impassively watched the force of it tear at her and the hot winds crumble her to dust.
Then she was whole again. Lying in a dark sudden silence. In a hotel room in Heraklion and on an unknown mountain all at once.
Powerful. Cruel.
Inevitable.
DODGSON
MYKONOS
They sat at the Sunset Bar in Little Venice, listening to the lapping waves in the gentle heat of evening. Above his head an octopus dangled drying from a clothesline. He could smell them cooking over charcoal grills. He could smell the ocean too a few feet away.
The night would be neither cool nor hot. The sun burned down the horizon. The music from the big outdoor speakers poured sweeping and romantic over the sea.
In the distance he heard the flower man. “Tee oreo-anthioan-thopolis!” It was a cry that anyone who came to Mykonos got to know by heart and it made Dodgson feel at home here. In a moment or two he’d round the comer, a stooped old man with powerful shoulders, white hair and a huge wicker basket of flowers on his back. Some tourist would photograph him while he beamed into the camera. Apart from the windmills and the pelicans walking dockside in the harbor he was the most photographed thing in town and the effortless grin was always there. He was a man who seemed to love his work. Half the time he’d give the flowers away. Dodgson envied him.
He was amazed that so little had changed here.
Long ago the international types, the jet-setters, had discovered the island and money had come pouring in-big money and from very few hands only and it stayed that way as a sort of private preserve for quite a while before the crowds descended, and maybe because of that, change had come more gradually than on other islands.
There were hotels now where there hadn’t been six years ago but not too many, and people like the flower man still existed, there were still the fishermen who went out to their boats every morning and had their own private bar to repair to, still the old women who met the produce wagons mornings and then sat knitting every afternoon in the narrow winding fieldstone streets, still the farmers and donkey men, and it seemed to Dodgson that while the new world ha
d arrived here in force the old one had managed to hold on, at least for now.
After Matala it was good to see. For all its chic shops and glitzy bars the place still had character. It was not what you’d call the “old” Greece-you had to go out to the countryside for that-but it was not all pollution and mopeds either. The scent of decay had not yet reached here.
Or had it.
“Jesus!” Danny said.
He was looking at a big dirty bear of a man walking toward them through the tables. Another smaller man and a woman walked behind him. The big man was dressed in silks but they didn’t hang right. He looked like a glacier draped in a schooner sail. There was just too much of him.
The woman might have been pretty if you cleaned her up a bit, washed the stringy hair and fed her now and then. She and the other man were little more than ragged skeletons. It was like watching a small social group of predatory animals, the big man dominant-so much so that the others were starving in the face of his appetites. Even the female. Strange, he thought, the groupings we content ourselves with.
They walked past them and disappeared into the streets.
“Where do you figure they’re from?” said Danny.
“Got me,” Dodgson said.
“French,” Michelle said. “They're countrymen.” From her tone she might have said weasels.
“Thought I smelled Gauloises,” said Danny.
“It is very fashionable to travel very far away and come home dirty. Especially to go east. For that I think we must blame the Beatles. The silks were Indian.”
“Ugly little bunch.”
Over by the rocks two fishermen were working on the day’s catch of octopuses, holding them by one tentacle, swinging them overhead and then whacking them hard against the rocks, a sound like the slap of wet leather. Was it to tenderize the flesh or get the insides out? Dodgson wondered. Two mongrel dogs stood watching.