A Hidden Affair: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  When the ferry arrived in the port town of Agios Nikolaos on the northern edge of Zakynthos, I set out in search of a driver who could take me south to the village of Keri. Just outside the harbor, I was pointed in the direction of a car by a man selling fruit on the curbside. The driver and I had eyed one another warily—he was reluctant to travel so far, and I had my reservations about getting in an unmarked car with the stranger, who could not have been more than sixteen years old. But that was as close to a taxi as I was likely to get in these parts, I concluded, and when I pulled out cash to pay him in advance, his enthusiasm grew considerably.

  The driver made no attempt to speak but put in a cassette of music and lowered the window to dangle a hand-rolled cigarette outside. We drove south, jostling along a series of roads in various states of disrepair in a car that had seemingly lost its shock absorbers long ago. For some time, the landscape on either side of the road was shrouded in thick brush and trees, olive groves covering the rugged hillsides. But then there was a sudden break to the right, and as the breathtaking coastline of bright blue sea burst into view, I was reminded of the Côte d’Azur as I had first glimpsed it on the train ride from Milan to Monaco. But the landscape was more pristine here, the lush terrain broken only by the occasional cubed white house, bright beneath the midday sun.

  I sank back against the seat, overwhelmed. I had no idea how to find Nicole once I reached the village, or whether she would tell me where Jared was if I did find her. Not to mention the dangerous criminals who were also after her who I might encounter along the way. And for what—a conversation with an ex-boyfriend who hadn’t cared enough all of these years to tell me he was alive? Perhaps I should give up, I thought yet again. I could catch a flight from Athens to Geneva, check in on Sarah, figure out what to do with my life.

  My hand closed around something in my pocket. The ring. I pulled it out, holding it up to the light. A promise unfulfilled. And I knew then that I had to keep going. To give up would be to admit defeat and make all that I’d gone through in London and since worthless. I needed to see this through, find Nicole, get to Jared. Only then could I move on.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering despite the heat, then gazed out the window once more. The road had grown less paved and the car moved with greater effort through the thick, fresh mud as it climbed. We rounded a bend and a fishing village came into view. The driver stopped before a cluster of dilapidated buildings, gesturing with his head, and I realized he was telling me we had arrived.

  As he drives away now, I study the village, then start up the dirt road that runs from the harbor into the hills. The streets are strangely quiet at midday, the rundown storefronts deserted. Outside a small grocery store, a group of mostly shirtless men lounge on two benches, clustered around a game of cards. They look up, eyeing me as I approach. Despite the close proximity of a resort just down the beach, this is clearly not a part of the island that sees many tourists. How can Nicole and Jared possibly live here without standing out?

  The men are staring at me expectantly. I clear my throat. “English?”

  There are several seconds of silence. A man who had been sitting with his eyes half-closed, head tilted back toward the sky, looks up at me. “A little.”

  I hesitate, wondering whether Nicole is known here by name. “I’m looking for a woman called Nicole.” I gesture to my hair. “Blond?” I remember then the picture of Nicole and Jared from Maureen’s file. I take it out, show it to the man.

  Alert now, his eyes light up and he turns to the others, speaking rapidly in Greek. One of the men points to the hills in the distance.

  He is telling me that Nicole lives in that direction. But the craggy hills seem uninhabited, ominous. I gesture, as though steering a car. “I need to go there.”

  The man shakes his head. “Not possible. The road . . . ” He pauses, searching for the right words. “Too much rain.” As he translates my request, the other men cluck in agreement.

  “What can I do?” I press, anxiety rising. “Is there another way?”

  “Only wait,” he replies before tilting his head back up toward the sun.

  Wait. My heart sinks. Even in this heat, it could take days for the road to dry. I don’t have that kind of time. Deflated, I turn away, starting back toward the harbor. Then I stop again. “How long has the road been out?” I ask.

  “Week,” the man says, opening just one eye this time.

  My breath catches. Perhaps Nicole has not been able to make it any farther, either. But where would she be?

  I turn away, shielding my eyes with my hand as I scan the horizon. Down the coast, I glimpse a tourist resort, hotels and sunbathers dotting the shoreline. Would Nicole have waited there until the road home was passable again? It’s a long shot, but the only lead I have at the moment.

  I turn to thank the men, but they have already returned to their card game. Without speaking, I start down the road, which soon ends at a narrow strip of pebbled beach. As I make my way along the water’s edge, my doubts grow. I don’t know that Nicole made it back, or even that she and Jared really live here. But what other choice do I have? I can try to find Nicole in hopes that she will lead me to Jared or else give up and go home.

  A few minutes later I reach the edge of the resort. The beach is more sand than pebble here, dotted with straw umbrellas. A handful of small hotels sit just above the bay. I walk into the first one, a peach-colored, two-story villa. “Yes?” a young woman behind the desk asks.

  “I’m looking for a guest called Nicole Martine, or Nicole Short,” I hasten to add.

  The woman hesitates and I wait for her to tell me that she cannot share guests’ private information. But she scans the ledger. “No one by that name.”

  Is she using an alias, I wonder? I pull out the photo and show it to the woman, but she only shakes her head.

  “Thank you.” I move on to the next hotel down the beach, a slightly larger, white stucco building, and repeat the same exercise with an older male clerk, who is similarly unfamiliar with Nicole.

  Twenty minutes later I reach the last of the hotels. As I approach the front porch, my shoulders slump at what is quickly proving to be an exercise in futility. Villa Kyrianos is smaller than the others, more of a guesthouse than a hotel, with a handful of tiny bungalows scattered behind it. There is no desk in the lobby, just a sofa and low table bearing a vase of wildflowers. A boy of no more than fifteen polishes the windows.

  “Hello,” I say. “I wonder if you can help me. I am looking for a woman . . . ” He does not speak English, I realize, as confusion floods his eyes.

  I reach for the photo but before I can show it to him, a fiftyish woman appears and shoos the boy away. “You want a room?” she asks brusquely.

  I show her the photograph. “Have you seen this woman?”

  I hold my breath as she studies the photograph, biting her lip. “Maybe,” she says, pronouncing the answer with more certainty than it warrants. “She isn’t a guest here, but perhaps on the beach. So many visitors to our resort, it’s hard to say. Now, do you want a room?”

  I hesitate. The last thing I want is to be stuck here. I have to find Jared. But without Nicole, it seems I have no other choice than to wait until the road is passable again and try to make it to their house on my own. “Please.” I fill out the card she gives me, then hand it back.

  “The room is being cleaned,” she says. “If you come back in an hour, it should be ready. There’s a café just down the beach, if you’re hungry.”

  “Thank you.” I walk out of the guesthouse and start down the beach in the direction the woman indicated, away from the other hotels. Nestled in a cove by a small harbor at the far end of the bay, the café is nothing more than a hut with a few wooden tables. The tantalizing aroma of fresh fish cooking over an open fire wafts through the air.

  I walk to the grill, point to a plate of fish and vegetables. After I’ve paid, I carry the plate and a beer to one of the tables. My stomach grumbles a
s I stab a bite of the flaky whitefish. I study the harbor, a few small sailboats and other pleasure craft bobbing around the docks.

  My thoughts turn to Ari once more. He must have woken up by now and discovered me missing. Would he understand why I left or try to find me? He will go after Nicole, not me, I remind myself with a mixture of relief and regret, to the address in Zante town that his contact provided. It has always been about finding her.

  Why hadn’t he told me that he was Mosaad? Because he couldn’t, any more than I could have told those closest to me about my investigation in London or any of my other classified assignments. It’s the nature of the job or, as one of the other men tells Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II, “the business we have chosen.” It was one of my dad’s favorite movie quotes and rather ironic, in light of the mobsters we’ve encountered.

  I remember my first meeting with Ari in Monaco, the confrontation in Nicole’s apartment. At the time I’d been too preoccupied with finding Jared to focus on the unlikelihood of the coincidence that we were both searching for Nicole at the same time. Now it seems so improbable. Perhaps he had been following me all along, hoping that I would somehow lead him to Nicole.

  I should have known, I berate myself silently. This isn’t like Sebastian, where I had no clue. With Ari, part of me had always suspected that something wasn’t right, that there was more to the situation than met the eye. Yet I had still gone with him. Why? Was it the adrenaline rush, the thrill of the unknown? Or was I simply drawn to men who would ultimately betray me?

  And I still don’t know why Ari wants to find Nicole. His earlier explanation, the rubric of being a private investigator, was clearly a lie. What if his true purpose is to harm Nicole, or even Jared? Suddenly it seems as if by searching for Jared, I might be inadvertently leading others to him, putting him in harm’s way. Would he have been better off if I hadn’t come looking for him?

  I pick up the beer, taking a large swig and surveying the harbor once more. I can see Jared living somewhere like this. But how did he come to be here? One of the sailboats shifts slightly in the breeze, revealing a small boat behind it. My hand stops, beer bottle suspended midair. Standing in the dinghy, fussing with the motor, is a woman with blond hair.

  “Nicole!” I call, jumping up and pushing back from the table, spilling the food from my plate. What is she doing? A boat, I realize as the motor begins to purr, to take her home to Jared when the road cannot.

  I start down the beach, running as fast as my sandals will allow. She looks up, jaw dropping as she sees me. “Wait!” Suddenly it feels as if we are back at the airport in Nice, her contemplating the quickest means of escape. “I just want to talk to you, please.”

  I sprint down the dock, waving my arms. As I reach the end, my foot slips on a wet spot. “Ahh!” I cry frantically as my legs fly out from under me. Unable to stop, I careen over the edge, landing rear end first in the surprisingly icy sea.

  I plunge beneath the surface, water quickly covering my head, filling my open mouth and nose. Instantly I am a child again, helpless against the waves. I flail my arms, trying in vain to bring myself to the surface but instead sinking farther as I panic.

  Hands grab my shoulders and pull me up hard. I break the surface, choking and gasping for air. Nicole is leaning over the side of the boat, holding on to me. “Easy,” she says, barely containing her disdain. “You’re all right.”

  “Barely. I thought for a moment you might let me go,” I add with a laugh.

  “I considered it.” She does not smile.

  “I’m a terrible swimmer,” I confess as she helps me over the side of the boat.

  She pulls the boat back into the dock. “It’s barely six feet deep. You were hardly likely to drown.” We eye each other icily for several seconds, neither speaking.

  “Thanks,” I say, embarrassed, as she throws me a tattered rag to use as a towel. I take in her crisp khaki pants and white blouse, the flat canvas shoes that are so much more practical for the terrain here than my own wet sandals, yet still elegant. Remembering her panicked, bloodstained appearance in Vienna, I wonder where she has been in the days since I saw her last.

  “You should be more careful around water if you can’t swim.” Her voice is terse. She hands me my bag, which thankfully landed on the dock and not in the water as I fell.

  “Well, I appreciate your helping me.” I wipe the water from my face. “This time, anyway,” I add pointedly, recalling how she fled in Vienna.

  I wait for her to apologize but she does not. Her expression is harrowed, dark circles ringing her eyes. Despite her polished appearance, I can tell that whatever is going on has taken its toll on her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks wearily.

  “Like I told you at the airport, I’m looking for Jared.”

  She runs her hand through her hair, exhales sharply. “And I told you it was better if you left him alone.”

  “I need to see him.”

  “Why do you want to find him so badly? I know, you said you need answers,” she says. “But this is quite a long way to travel, really, for a conversation.”

  Why do I want to find Jared? I consider the question. To touch him and confirm the unbelievable, that he is alive, that he wasn’t killed that night in the cold waters of the River Cam. To tell him that I’d learned the truth, delivered the secret that nearly cost him his life to the right hands. But beyond that there is something more. I need answers: Why did he disappear without saying good-bye? Didn’t he trust me enough to share his plan of escape? How could he leave me alone all of these years to grieve?

  “He doesn’t need saving, Jordan,” she adds, before I can answer.

  I look up, surprised. “That’s not it.” But my words ring hollowly.

  “Jared had to run for a lot of years,” she continues, ignoring my denial. “But he’s safe, at least as safe as can be expected. He has a home, with me.”

  And the only thing I can do is stir that up, bring back painful memories of the past, I think, echoing the silent implication of her words.

  She runs her hand along the edge of the boat, eyes me levelly. “I’m his wife, you know.”

  For whatever he might have done and whoever he might really be, I am grateful to Ari in that moment for telling me about Jared and Nicole. Hearing now for the first time, from her, would have been unimaginably stunning and painful. “I know.” I force my voice to remain even, taking satisfaction in the flicker of disappointment that flashes across her face at my lack of surprise. “I don’t want to cause him problems. I just want to talk to him.”

  “You must hate me, Jordan,” she says. Her voice is neutral, as though observing the weather or discussing a newspaper article.

  I am disarmed by her candor, unprepared for the conversation I never expected to have. “I don’t . . . ” I begin. Her face is skeptical. “That is, it’s all been such a whirlwind. You have to understand: until about a week ago, I still thought Jared was dead. Finding out he was alive was the shock of my life. And then, to learn about you . . . But no, I don’t hate you.”

  Because I haven’t had time to get there yet, I want to add. I am not sure if I ever will. It seems silly, when there are so many other people I have better reasons to blame for the way things turned out: Mo for betraying me. Sebastian for making me believe he liked me. The others for setting it all in motion. Without them, Jared would have never disappeared and he and I might be together, living a quiet country life somewhere on the southern coast of England. Instead, I am standing here, talking to his wife.

  No, there are at least a half dozen people I hate more than Nicole. The white hot ball of anger that I’ve buried deep in my stomach these past few days begins to burn and glow. I swallow, pushing it down. There’s a fine line between needing to deal with the past and being consumed by all of the rage and regret. And despite the dance I’ve done with my ghosts and demons all of these years, I’ve managed to keep the latter at bay. I saw Chris cross that line with
his obsession to learn the truth about Jared’s supposed death, and it nearly destroyed him. Something tells me if I give way to all of the anger, let it see the light of day and the oxygen it needs, it is going to feed on me until there is simply nothing left.

  “Well, I hate you,” she announces abruptly, jarring me from my thoughts.

  Stunned, I look up at her. I don’t know Nicole really, shouldn’t care at all what she thinks, but the words still sting. She stares out across the water. “It must seem silly to you, I know.” Bitterness roughs the edges of her words. “I have Jared. I go to bed beside him almost every night and wake up beside him in the morning. Why should I care about a college girlfriend, one who he dated for a few months?” She turns toward me. “Because it is your name he calls out when he cries in his sleep. You’re the one who keeps the shadow over his eyes, and there’s a part of him tucked away that I will never be able to get to because it belongs to you.”

  The weight of her words crashes into me. I understand now the fear in her eyes when I came to her flat in Monaco that morning and she realized who I was, the trepidation that remained even after I told her that I had not come to do Jared harm. It was more than a need to protect him from the forces that had been chasing him all of these years. She was terrified that I had come to take him from her, that she was going to lose the man that she loved.

  A hint of smugness jabs at me. He still loves me. He still wants me.

  Am I trying to take him? I turn the question over in my mind, considering. I suppose when I first set out from London to find him, that was the fantasy: I would find Jared, alone and waiting for me, and we would be reunited, pick up again as though nothing had changed. But even then, some piece of me knew that it was impossible.

  Still, as I made my way to find him, part of me stubbornly thought that we could start over, get to know each other again, this time as the adults we had become. After I had seen Nicole, learned who she was, the dream still persisted. She was just a placeholder, a warm body that could be easily removed. But even if I was the kind of woman who would break up a marriage for my own selfish happiness, I knew Jared would always be loyal.