Nothing could hurt them now.
The next morning Larry arranged for a real-estate agent to show Catherine some apartments. The agent turned out to be a short, dark, heavily moustached man named Dimitropolous who spoke in a rapid tongue that he sincerely believed was perfect English but which consisted of Greek words interlaced with an occasional undecipherable English phrase.
By throwing herself on his mercy--a trick that Catherine was to use often in the months to come--she persuaded him to speak very slowly so that she was able to sift out some of the English words and try to make a wild stab at what he was trying to say.
The fourth place he showed her was a bright and sunny four-room apartment in what she later learned was the Kolonaki section, the fashionable suburb of Athens, lined with beautiful residential buildings and smart shops.
When Larry returned to the hotel that evening, Catherine told him about the apartment, and two days later they moved in.
Larry was away during the day but he tried to be home to have dinner with Catherine. Dinner in Athens was any time between nine and twelve o'clock. Between two and five in the afternoon, everyone had a siesta, and the shops opened again until late evening. Catherine found herself completely absorbed in the city. On her third night in Athens Larry brought home a friend, Count George Pappas, an attractive Greek about forty-five, tall and slim with dark hair with a touch of gray at the temples. There was a curious old-fashioned dignity about him that Catherine liked. He took them to dinner at a small taverna in the Plaka, the ancient section of the city. The Plaka comprised a few steep acres carelessly flung together in the heart of downtown Athens, with twisting alleys and crumbling, worn-down staircases that led to tiny houses built under Turkish rule when Athens was a mere village. The Plaka was a place of whitewashed, rambling structures, fresh fruit and flower stalls, the marvelous aroma of coffee roasting in the open, howling cats and vociferous street fights. The effect was enchanting. In any other city, Catherine thought, a section like this would be the slums. Here, it's a monument.
The taverna that Count Pappas took them to was outdoors on top of a roof overlooking the city; the waiters were dressed in colorful costumes.
"What would you like to eat?" the Count asked Catherine.
She studied the alien menu helplessly. "Would you mind ordering for me? I'm afraid I might order the proprietor."
Count Pappas ordered a sumptuous banquet, choosing a variety of dishes so Catherine would get a chance to taste everything. They had dolmades, meatballs wrapped in vine leaves; mousaka, a succulent meat and eggplant pie; stiffado, stewed hare with onions--Catherine wasn't told what it was until she had eaten half of it, and she was unable to eat another bite of it--and taramosalata, the Greek salad of caviar with olive oil and lemon. The Count ordered a bottle of retsina.
"This is our national wine," he explained. He watched Catherine with amusement as she tasted it. It had a piney, resonated taste, and Catherine struggled gamely to down it.
"Whatever I had," she gasped, "I think this just cured it."
As they ate, three musicians began to play Bozoukia music. It was lively and gay and infectious and, as the group watched, customers began to get to their feet and move out onto the dance floor to dance to the music. What amazed Catherine was that the dancers were all male, and they were magnificent. She was enjoying herself tremendously.
They did not leave the cafe until after three A.M. The Count drove them back to their new apartment. "Have you done any sightseeing yet?" he asked Catherine.
"Not really," she confessed. "I'm waiting for Larry to get some time off."
The Count turned to Larry. "Perhaps I could show Catherine some of the sights until you are able to join us."
"That would be great," Larry said. "If you're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble."
"It would be my pleasure," the Count replied. He turned to Catherine. "Would you mind having me as your guide?"
She looked at him and thought of Dimitropolous, the little real-estate man who spoke fluent gibberish.
"I'd love it," she replied sincerely.
The next few weeks were fascinating. Catherine would spend mornings fixing up the apartment, and in the afternoon, if Larry was away, the Count would pick her up and take her sightseeing.
They drove out to Olympia. "This is the site of the first Olympic Games," the Count told her. "They were held here every year for a thousand years in spite of wars, plagues and famines."
Catherine stood looking in awe at the ruins of the great arena, thinking of the grandeur of the contests that had been held there through the centuries, the triumphs, the defeats.
"Talk about the playing fields of Eton," Catherine said. "This is where the spirit of sportsmanship really started, isn't it?"
The Count laughed. "I'm afraid not," he said. "The truth is a little embarrassing."
Catherine looked up, interested. "Why?"
"The first chariot race ever held here was fixed."
"Fixed?"
"I'm afraid so," Count Pappas confessed. "You see, there was a rich prince named Pelops who was feuding with a rival. They decided to hold a chariot race here to see who was the better man. The night before the race Pelops tampered with the wheel of his rival's chariot. When the race began, the whole countryside was here to cheer on their favorite. At the first turn the wheel of the rival's chariot flew off, and his chariot overturned. Pelop's rival was entangled in the reins and dragged to his death. Pelops drove on to victory."
"That's terrible," Catherine said. "What did they do to him?"
"That's really the disgraceful part of the story," the Count replied. "By now the whole populace was aware of what Pelops had done. It made him such a big hero that a huge pediment was raised in his honor at Olympia's Temple of Zeus. It is still there." He smiled wryly. "I'm afraid that our villain prospered and lived happily ever after. As a matter of fact," he added, "the whole region south of Corinth is called the Peloponnesus after him."
"Who said crime doesn't pay?" marveled Catherine.
Whenever Larry was free, he and Catherine would explore the city together. They found wonderful shops where they would spend hours haggling over prices, and out-of-the-way little restaurants that they made their own. Larry was a gay and charming companion, and Catherine was grateful that she had given up her job in the States to be with her husband.
Larry Douglas had never been happier in his life. The job with Demiris was the dream of a lifetime.
The money was good, but Larry was not interested in that. He was interested only in the magnificent machines he flew. It took him exactly one hour to learn to fly the Hawker Siddeley and five more flights to master it. Most of the time Larry flew with Paul Metaxas, Demiris' happy-go-lucky little Greek copilot. Metaxas had been surprised by the sudden departure of Ian Whitestone, and he had been apprehensive about Whitestone's replacement. He had heard stories about Larry Douglas, and he was not sure he liked what he heard. Douglas, however, seemed genuinely enthusiastic about his new job and the first time Metaxas flew with him, he knew that Douglas was a superb pilot.
Little by little Metaxas relaxed his guard and the two men became friends.
Whenever he was not flying, Larry spent time learning every idiosyncrasy of Demiris' fleet of planes. Before he was through, he was able to fly them all better than anyone had ever flown them before.
The variety in his job fascinated Larry. He would fly members of Demiris' staff on business trips to Brindisi and Corfu and Rome, or pick up guests and fly them to Demiris' island for a party or to his chalet in Switzerland for skiing. He became used to flying people whose photographs he was constantly seeing on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and he would regale Catherine with stories about them. He flew the president of a Balkan country, a British prime minister, an Arabian oil chieftain and his entire harem. He flew opera singers and a ballet company and the cast of a Broadway play that was staging a single performance in London for Demiris' birthday. He piloted Ju
stices of the Supreme Court, a congressman and a former President of the United States. During the flights Larry spent most of the time in the cockpit, but from time to time he would wander back to the cabin to make sure the passengers were comfortable. Sometimes he would hear bits of discussion between tycoons about impending mergers or stock deals. Larry could have made a fortune from the information he gleaned but he was simply not interested. What concerned him was the airplane he flew, powerful and alive and in his control.
It was two months before Larry piloted Demiris himself.
They were in the Piper and Larry was flying his employer from Athens to Dubrovnik. It was a cloudy day and there was a report of wind storms and squalls along the route. Larry had carefully plotted out the least stormy course, but the air was so full of turbulence that it was impossible to avoid it.
An hour out of Athens he flashed on the "seat belt" sign and said to Metaxas, "Hold on, Paul. This may cost us both our jobs."
To Larry's surprise Demiris appeared in the cockpit. "May I join you?" he said.
"Help yourself," Larry said. "It's going to be rough."
Metaxas gave up his seat to Demiris and Demiris strapped himself in. Larry would have preferred to have the copilot sitting next to him, ready to act if anything went wrong, but it was Demiris' airplane.
The storm lasted almost two hours. Larry circled the large mountains of clouds that puffed up ahead of them, lovely white and deadly.
"Beautiful," Demiris commented.
"They're killers," Larry said. "Cumulus. The reason they're so nice and fluffy is that there's wind inside of them puffing them up. The inside of that cloud can tear a plane apart in ten seconds. You can rise and fall thirty thousand feet in less than a minute with no control of your plane."
"I'm sure you won't let that happen," Demiris said calmly.
The winds caught at the plane and tried to fling it across the sky, but Larry fought to keep it under control. He forgot that Demiris was there, focusing his entire attention on the craft he was flying, using every skill he had ever learned. Finally they were out of the storm. Larry turned, drained, and found that Demiris had left the cockpit. Metaxas was in the seat.
"That was a lousy first trip for him, Paul," Larry said. "I may be in trouble."
He was taxiing down the small, mountain-ringed tabletop airport at Dubrovnik when Demiris appeared in the doorway of the cockpit.
"You were right," Demiris said to Larry. "You're very good at what you do. I'm pleased."
And Demiris was gone.
One morning as Larry was getting ready to leave on a flight to Morocco, Count Pappas telephoned to suggest that he take Catherine driving through the countryside. Larry insisted that she go.
"Aren't you jealous?" she asked.
"Of the Count?" Larry laughed.
And Catherine suddenly understood. During the time she and the Count had spent together, he had never made an improper advance toward her or even given her a suggestive look. "He's a homosexual?" she asked.
Larry nodded. "That's why I've left you in his tender care."
The Count picked Catherine up early, and they started driving south toward the broad plain of Thessaly. Peasant women dressed in black walked along the road bent over with heavy loads of wood strapped to their backs.
"Why don't the men do the heavy work?" Catherine asked.
The Count shot her an amused glance.
"The women don't want them to," he replied. "They want their men fresh at night for other things."
There's a lesson there for all of us, Catherine thought wryly.
In the late afternoon they approached the forbidding-looking Pindus Mountains, their rocky crags towering high in the sky. The road was blocked by a flock of sheep being herded by a shepherd and a scrawny sheep dog. Count Pappas stopped the car as they waited for the sheep to clear the road. Catherine watched in wonder as the dog nipped at the heels of the stray sheep, keeping them in line and forcing them in the direction he wanted them to go.
"That dog is almost human," Catherine exclaimed admiringly.
The Count gave her a brief look. There was something in it that she did not understand.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
The Count hesitated. "It's a rather unpleasant story."
"I'm a big girl."
The Count said, "This is a wild area. The land is rocky and inhospitable. At best the crops are meager, and when the weather turns bad, there are no crops at all and a good deal of hunger." His voice trailed off.
"Go on," Catherine prompted.
"A few years ago there was a bad storm here and the crops were ruined. There was little food for anyone. All the sheep dogs in this area revolted. They deserted the farms they worked on and gathered together in a large band." As he continued, he tried to keep the horror out of his voice. "They began attacking the farms."
"And killed the sheep!" Catherine said.
There was a silence before he answered. "No. They killed their masters. And ate them."
Catherine stared at him, shocked.
"They had to send in federal troops from Athens to restore human government here. It took almost a month."
"How horrible."
"Hunger does terrible things," Count Pappas said quietly.
The sheep had crossed the road now. Catherine looked at the sheep dog again and shuddered.
As the weeks went by, the things that had seemed so foreign and strange to Catherine began to become familiar to her. She found the people open and friendly. She learned where to do her marketing and where to shop for clothes on Voukourestiou Street. Greece was a marvel of organized inefficiency, and one had to relax and enjoy it. No one was in a hurry, and if you asked someone for directions he was likely to take you where you wanted to go. Or he might say, when you asked how far it was: "Enos cigarou dromos," which Catherine learned meant "one cigarette away." She walked the streets and explored the city and drank the warm dark wine of the Greek summer.
Catherine and Larry visited Mykonos with its colorful windmills and Melos, where the Venus de Milo was discovered. But Catherine's favorite place was Paros, a graceful, verdant island capped by a flower-covered mountain. When their boat docked, a guide stood on the quay. He asked if they would like him to guide them to the top of the mountain on mule-back, and they clambered aboard two bony mules.
Catherine was wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat to protect her from the hot sun. As she and Larry rode up the steep path leading toward the mountain top, black-clad women called out, "Ke-lee meh-ra," and handed Catherine gifts of fresh herbs, oregano and basil to put in her hat band. After a two-hour ride, they reached a plateau, a beautiful tree-filled plain with millions of flowers in spectacular bloom. The guide stopped the mules and they gazed in wonder at the incredible profusion of colors.
"This named Valley of the Butterflies," the guide said in halting English.
Catherine looked around for a butterfly but saw none. "Why do they call it that?" she asked.
The guide grinned as though he had been waiting for her question. "I show you," he said. He dismounted from his mule and picked up a large fallen limb. He walked over to a tree and hit the limb against it with all his might. In a split second the "flowers" on hundreds of trees suddenly took to the air in a wild rainbow of flight, leaving the trees bare. The air was filled with hundreds of thousands of gaily colored butterflies dancing in the sunlight.
Catherine and Larry gazed in awe. The guide stood watching them, his face filled with a deep pride, as though he felt responsible for the beautiful miracle they were seeing. It was one of the loveliest days of Catherine's life, and she thought that if she could choose one perfect day to relive, it would be the day she spent with Larry on Paros.
"Hey, we got a VIP this morning," Paul Metaxas grinned cheerfully. "Wait till you see her."
"Who is it?"
"Noelle Page, the boss's lady. You can look, but you mustn't touch."
Larry Douglas remembered the brief gli
mpse he had had of the woman in Demiris' home the morning Douglas had arrived in Athens. She was a beauty and looked familiar, but that of course was because he had seen her on the screen, in a French picture that Catherine had once dragged him to. No one had to tell Larry the rules of self-preservation. Even if the world were not filled with eager females, he would not have gone anywhere near Constantin Demiris' girl friend. Larry liked his job too much to jeopardize it by doing anything so stupid. Well, maybe he would get her autograph for Catherine.
The limousine taking Noelle to the airport was slowed down several times by work gangs repairing the roads, but Noelle welcomed the delays. She was going to see Larry Douglas for the first time since the meeting at Demiris' house. Noelle had been deeply shaken by what had happened. Or, more accurately, what had not happened.
Over the past six years Noelle had imagined their encounter in a hundred different ways. She had played the scene over and over in her mind. The one thing that had never even occurred to her was that Larry would not remember her. The most important event in her life had meant nothing more to him than another little cheap affair, one of hundreds. Well, before she was through with him, he would remember her.
Larry was crossing the airfield, flight plan in hand, when a limousine pulled up in front of the big plane, and Noelle Page emerged. Larry walked over to the car and said pleasantly, "Good morning, Miss Page, I'm Larry Douglas. I'll be flying you and your guests to Cannes."
Noelle turned and walked past him as though he had not spoken, as though he did not exist. Larry stood there, looking after her, bewildered.
Thirty minutes later the other passengers, a dozen of them, had boarded the plane, and Larry and Paul Metaxas took off. They were flying the group to the Cote d'Azur where they would be picked up and taken aboard Demiris' yacht. It was an easy flight except for the normal turbulence off the southern coast of France in summer, and Larry landed the plane smoothly and taxied over to where some limousines were waiting for his passengers. As Larry left the plane with his stubby little copilot, Noelle walked up to Metaxas, ignoring Larry, and said in a voice filled with contempt, "The new pilot is an amateur, Paul. You should give him flying lessons." And Noelle got into a car and was driven away, leaving Larry standing there, filled with a stunned, helpless anger.
The Other Side of Midnight Page 28
