Tibetan Cross

by Mike Bond

  He felt empty, suddenly appreciating a strand of hair that fell past her ear along her cheek, stunned by her change of mood. I'm hurt, Claire, lost in my labyrinth, fearing everything, nowhere to go, no one to tell. “That's a hassle.”

  “I'll drop you and be gone. No sweat.”

  “You must have other things to…”

  “What's the big deal? Five minutes. Come on!”

  He nodded, feeling dizzy, aware of the set of her shoulders as she tugged on her jacket. “Sure.”

  She smiled. “I used to fear loneliness – sought people out, just to talk. About nothing. Seems long ago.” She slid back her chair. “Don't think I'm forward, Sam – no matter how you see me, that's not me you're seeing.”

  “Nobody sees anybody clearly.”

  She ran a lock of hair under her chin. “If you don't feel good enough to see your friends right now, you're welcome to stay at my place till your ankle's better. It's right near here, in the Plaka. Nothing fancy.”

  He shook his head. “I'm not into attachments, anything, right now.”

  “Nor am I. You shouldn't infer that.”

  “I didn't.”

  “You did! You acted as if I were propositioning you.”

  “It's very kind.”

  “Greek men are a pain in the ass – literally. Some male company might keep them at bay.” She touched his wrist. “Haven't you ever done anything unusual in your life? It isn't something people do, meet on a plane and get off together.”

  Cohen stretched, testing the leg. “I'm not so sure.”

  “Don't be lewd!” She adjusted her collar and stood, the bill and money in her hand. “Do what you want.”

  IT WAS A THIRD FLOOR double in a dowdy rooming house in the Plaka. Leaning against the balcony's rusty railing he could see a corner of the Erechtheum and the tilted peak of the Parthenon.

  “That stuff that you're carrying…” She came up beside him. “How about we have some?”

  “The hash?”

  “What else're you carrying? Are you an international dope smuggler?”

  He went into the room. She was taking off her jacket, her body lithe and lean, breasts full against her blouse as she turned to hang up the jacket. He sat on the bed and flaked hashish into the pipe.

  She sat beside him, spilling hashish into his hand. She jounced. “Hurry.”

  “I can't when you're bouncing.”

  She nudged his elbow. “Hurry.”

  He lit the pipe and passed it to her. She breathed deeply, jade eyes widening. The diamond heart below her throat winked in a stab of sunlight. “It makes me feel gorgeous, this stuff,” She sighed.

  “You are,” he exhaled.

  “No, no. I mean it makes me feel lovely inside.”

  “I'm sure you…”

  “Stop it, creep.” She pushed him.

  The ouzo and hash made his head buzz. Sorrow was gaining, crushing his lungs. The room would not hold still. Killed them all. Head in his hands, he heard her stand and cross the room, go out onto the balcony. Don't drag her into this. He got up, edged round the bed. Say goodbye, thanks. She's so beautiful. Not pretty. Just beautiful. God, those eyes. They terrify.

  On the balcony the air tasted warm and polluted, viscous as gray oil. Death in Athens, lungful at a time. “I gotta go, Claire.”

  She spun round, hands together. “Perhaps that's wise.”

  “It's not…”

  “It's not anything.” Her eyes glittered, her upper lip caught momentarily on her chipped tooth. “Seeing you, I think there's a reason – I really do – why people get what they get.”

  Dizzy with pain, he sat. “That's what the Chetri said.”

  “Chetri?”

  “With one eye. Three days’ journey in one night.” He tried to stand. Fucking knee. Fucking goddamn knee. Fucking Gurkhas. “There's no accidents, the Chetri said. It's been bothering me. Bothering me for days.”

  She sat beside him. “You're not making sense.”

  “If something bad happens to you, there must be some reason, why it happened…things don't occur without reason.”

  She brushed back his hair. “And you want to go?”

  He stood, feeling jaunty. “I'll come by again.”

  She held out her hand, smiling. “Goodbye.”

  He took it. “Perhaps first I'll take a bath.”

  She giggled. “Bath?”

  “Haven't for a while. Come to think of it, nearly two years.”

  She sniffed. “Yuck.”

  “Oh no, not like that. Took lots of baths in rivers. Never had a bathtub. Hot water. Want to soak my leg.”

  “I thought it was your ankle.”

  “Yes, my ankle.” He turned, aiming for the bathroom, but the bed was in the way. Sit here a while first.

  She touched his ankle gently. “Here?”

  “Other one.” He pointed.

  “That's your knee, not your ankle.”

  “True.” He hauled himself up. “Got to soak it.”

  She steered him round the bed to the bathroom, holding aside her hair as she bent to open the faucet, water clattering into the tub. “You okay by yourself?”

  “Couldn't be better.”

  She shut the door and he undressed, sitting on the toilet to unwrap the bandage round the knee, hissing with pain as it pulled away the corrugated black-and-yellow flesh. No wonder it hurts. Goddamn pig. Carefully and very slowly he lowered himself into the steaming water, keeping the leg raised till the bath cooled a bit, then let the leg down and passed out.

  HER VOICE beyond the door. “You okay, Sam?”

  He raised himself up. “Little nap.”

  “Need anything?”

  He pondered. “Bandage and iodine.”

  “You want antibiotics? They're over the counter here.”

  “Yes.” He took the soap and, gritting his teeth, began methodically to wash out the wound.

  A SLAMMING DOOR and jingling keys announced her return. “Still okay?”

  He stood and pulled the plug. “Be there in a minute.” He put on his shirt, wrapped the towel round his waist, and hobbled into the room.

  “Jesus,” she said when she saw the knee.

  “Pig tripped me.” He opened the iodine, pulled apart the wound and poured it in, eyes watering, biting his lip with the pain. She brought him two pills as he secured the bandage.

  “Here.” She pulled down the bedcover. “Lie quiet for a minute.”

  IT WAS DARK, the air thick and still. From somewhere light breathing. Is that me? He slid upward, pain wracking his knee. Shit, forgot about that. His head pounded. More cautiously he eased to a sitting position. The breathing came from next to him, a weight that held down the covers.

  Paul, I'm so happy you saw the football. You'll be in Paris. In three weeks. I did the right thing. Kim isn't dead – I just saw her. Kim, oh Kim, I'm so glad. He fumbled on the table beside the bed, turned on the switch. Oh Jesus. Another dream.

  Claire lay on her side beside him, still dressed, one hand tucked beneath her head, the other between her knees, a raincoat over her shoulders, her nyloned toes curled inward against the cold. Her mouth was open slightly, strands of hair loose over her forehead and cheek. On the table next to the lamp was a glass of water and a pill.

  He edged carefully from the bed, limped to the bathroom. Leg's better. Can go soon. On the way back to bed he bent to check the watch on her wrist. Four-ten. In the morning?

  She murmured, looked up. “You're awake.”

  He pulled a wisp of hair from her lips. “How long'd I sleep?”

  “Since yesterday noon.” She pulled the raincoat closer. “Sorry about here…”

  “Here?”

  “On the bed, my sleeping – nowhere else – didn't want to wake you.”

  “You didn't,” he answered, but she was already asleep. He tugged the blankets from beneath her and covered her, climbed in his side, took the pill, and fell back to sleep.

  DUST MOTES tumbled steadily t
hrough a beam of sunlight; traffic noises percolated up from the street. In the distance a sound of bells, a woman singing, faraway rumble of a plane. “Claire?” His voice sounded an old man's, high and creaky.

  The knee was stiff and very painful. He changed the bandage for the new one that was laid out on the dresser top, dressed, washed, shaved, limped out on the balcony and sat in the sun.

  She came through the door and tossed him a newspaper. “The Heralds of Tribulation. Best I could do.”

  Sunday, April 1. Three weeks to Easter. He squinted at the somber headlines of war and politics, turned to the sports page. A slim time for football news.

  “You hungry?” Her face looked wan, thinner.

  “You didn't sleep well, did you? Yes, I'm hungry.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “After a fashion.”

  “It's lunchtime. I'm starving.”

  “WHAT DID you do,” he asked in the café, “while I was sleeping all day and night?”

  For a second she did not answer and he had a quick feeling of transgression. Maybe she's got a boyfriend.

  “Went out a while, in the afternoon. Just to wander. Mostly stayed at home – afraid you'd wake and not know where you were.”

  He took her hand; it felt surprisingly hard, the skin dry and worn. “Thanks.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You'd have done the same.”

  “Maybe not. My life's been awful lately.”

  “Eat up. Everything goes in spurts. Things'll get better.”

  It was true; sitting in a park in the afternoon sun, with the warmth of coffee and food in his stomach, the nagging sour pain in his leg decreasing, he felt less agony. Maybe Paul really did see the football. He dozed, waking to recount in his head. Twenty-one days.

  He tried to imagine the hitchhike to Paris. Not yet. Knee won't tolerate. Can't sponge off her. Wish I could tell her. Twenty-three dollars left. Dollar a day keeps the killers away.

  One more day. That's it, stay with her one more day – then go.

  SHE TOOK HIS ARM through the noisy streets, halting before an open shop where embroidered shirts lay folded on a formica table, held one against him. “Your wardrobe's light on variety.”

  He tugged her hand. “You don't need to buy me anything. Just be yourself.”

  “Maybe buying you something is being myself. You're afraid, aren't you?”

  “Of what?”

  “There you go again – the order of Jesus – answering a question with another. Afraid of me, them.”

  “Them?”

  “The ones you fought with all night. You're a good person, but you're on a wire – afraid – I can…”

  He snickered. “So now you're a psychiatrist.”

  “Stop it! I'd like to know – help.”

  “So you can sell it? An exclusive?”

  “Whew.” She shook her head. “I see you can be a real asshole when you put your mind to it – does that make me a shrink?”

  “I don't care what that makes you.”

  “I'm not who I seem. Though the seeming's from you, not me.”

  Their room was silent, cooler than the street. She sat on the bed, not removing her jacket. He got up and sat beside her. “It's no thrill – having me as a guest.”

  “That's not it.”

  “What's it, then?”

  She smoothed a crease across her knee. “Jet lag.” She jumped up. “Going to take a shower.” She crossed to the bathroom and shut the door. Through it came the whisper of her disrobing, the faucet roaring, toilet flushing. He stepped onto the balcony and slowly climbed the fire ladder one flight to the roof, where the monoxides of Athens shifted fitfully in dull afternoon light.

  The Acropolis expended its tarnished splendor on the facing hilltop. Laughter and a radio echoed in the lightwell; from the street came the voices of children running and the uneven cadence of diesels; against the chipped hilltop columns boomed a departing jet. He thought of his own flight, the miles to go. But when? Get to Paris early and I'm dead – first place they'll look. I'm in their labyrinth; they know all the exits.

  If I told her? Don't drag her in. Could she suggest someone? Whatever happens, no chancing Paris too soon. Kohler Import-Export? By now the CIA'll be happily sitting in ambush, knowing I have the address. Or did the Tibetans tell them? Better to wait for Paul. No money to get to Fulton Street anyway. So I steal it? That's a laugh, with this leg. Funny how it no longer seems wrong to steal, only tactically unwise. My morality's unraveling like an old shirt. An old hair shirt.

  The wisest is lie low in the labyrinth, let the knee heal. Meet Paul in Paris when the time comes; together we'll find the way out. Then we'll be the hunters; we'll plan the maze; they'll be the prey.

  A cat yowled in the lightwell. He looked down. The bathroom window was open at the top; he could see her legs extended in frothy water. One leg was raised, indolent. A hand moved down, cupping water over a thigh. His pulse pounded; he looked away.

  He sat on the parapet and watched the specks crawling antlike round the Parthenon. She joined him, fluffing out wet hair in the sticky air. “Shower doesn't work.”

  “Greek plumbing.” He turned toward her. “You smell like orchids.”

  “How do orchids smell?”

  “I don't know. If they do, it's got to be like you.”

  She hugged him. “It's time for dinner. Greek lamb, food of the gods. Olives and retsina.”

  “Are you always this hungry?”

  “Yes, for everything!”

  THE RESTAURANT WAS spicy and cool, with French windows opened on a cobbled lane. “Long live krasi,” she said, swirling red wine in her glass to throw beams of the setting sun on the rush-mat ceiling. “Wine and blood.”

  “Gifts of God.”

  “Life's too magical to be the work of only one god. And a sexually frustrated one to boot!” She giggled. “Hard as He tries, He's not even good at evil.”

  After dark the stones of the Plaka were splashed white by the rising moon. They turned uphill toward the Acropolis. Cubiform low buildings cut rectangular shadows out of the lamplight.

  Steel gates blocked the path. Between the bars gleamed the columns of the Erectheum and the moon-scattered tumult of the Parthenon. A cool breeze descended through olive trees, squeaking the gate. She shoved it gently. “It opens!”

  Moonlight ran, white lava, down the marble stairs. The olives whispered new leaves, shadowing them up to the Propylaea. The Erectheum fell below and to the left. Beneath the chin of a goddess, far out in the city the lights of an ambulance flashed.

  The aisle between the Parthenon's columns and wall was striated by shadow and moonlight, the stone cool. She rubbed her chin against his hand. “It's too liquid, time.”

  “Why?”

  She kissed his thumb. “Being here, so suddenly. Time is spilling. I can feel it.”

  “It never stops.”

  “Sometimes it runs out all at once.” She stretched beside him on the stone, traced a fingertip over his lip. “Aren't you glad we didn't hurry?”

  “I've nowhere to go, Claire.”

  “That's what's so nice about it. It'll be over before we know it.”

  He pulled her above him, slipping up her dress, cupping her sleekness. She laced her fingers under his head, shielding it from the stone, her belly fluttering against him, her hair a silken, perfumed tent around him, as he drove deeper and deeper into the enchanting, fragrant center of her, into all that was lost long before remembrance.

  For a long time she lay atop him, licking at his lips, kissing his eyes, as he felt himself go soft within her and his warm slippery seed flow back from her onto him. Her back was slim, strong, and sleek to his touch, her buttocks small and firm, the hair at their juncture curly and wet.

  She wriggled alongside him, the moonlight soft on the wetness of her belly. “In the temple of the Virgin no less.”

  “Which one?”

  “This one, silly. Parthenos means virgin. You Catholics didn't i
nvent everything.” She unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest, nipping at the hair around his nipples.

  He sat against the column, she in front of him within the hollow of his arms. He tucked aside her hair and kissed her ear. “Tu portes une petite perle à chaque oreille.”

  “It sounds pretty that way – prettier than English.”

  “You wear a little pearl at each ear? It does.”

  “Everything sounds prettier in French.”

  Athens glittered below them, a priceless, inscrutable axiom. Tod und Verklarung. Dead, now transfigured. Alchemy: clay into flesh through the medium of love. He felt the world's heartbeat and his own; they were the same. The column at his back was as much himself as the bone that bore against it. Through it his awareness tentacled into the mountain, the city below, the pulsing curve of the earth, the void in which they moved.

  For a moment I forgot. The awful sorrow, the anger, hate. Loving does that, gets rid of it. So much can be forgotten if you love. I must not love.

  He ran a fingertip between her fingers, to the softness where they joined. “Once, long ago, I awoke one morning in a state of grace. I had nothing to do that day but live. I had no plans. Plans are deadly, like wanting. Never again have I had that absolute joy of emptiness.”

  “That's what Montaigne said: Je ne trace aucune ligne certaine, ni droite, ni courbe.” She tossed a pebble clinking over the marble. “Which is why you smoke that stuff?”

  “It saves me from programs and policies…enhances the ordinary, makes transparent the mundane opacity of things.”

  “It does that for me, too. But by making the everyday quintessential doesn't it reduce the quintessential to the everyday?”

  “No doubt. It's not as good as you.”

  She slid down beside him and tickled his ribs. “Do I strip away the mundane opacity of things?”

  “When you take off your clothes.”

  “Surely I knew you long ago. There's just a little strangeness, an ignorance of recent facts. I wonder what you've been doing lately.”

  “Up to no good.”

  “But no good deed goes unpunished, as someone said.”

  Favoring the knee, he eased down to kiss her belly where the little golden curls began, flicking his tongue along the crease between her thigh and belly, into the softness of warm, damp curls, into the intoxicating essence of her. She arched her back as his tongue opened her and he slipped his hands beneath her thighs, his fingertips against their softest inside skin, holding them apart as he kissed and licked gently and slowly, then more deeply and strongly, then harder as her fingernails bit into his back and she shivered, exhaling, closed her thighs and twisted round to nestle against him.