George worked on various shards and plates for the rest of the day. Every so often he would consult his books, holding open the pages with washed stones. The professor brought hot cups of tea and digestive biscuits every half hour, and then read the translations over George’s shoulder.
Over tea, Professor Peterson complimented George on the sensitivity of his work. And then, at exactly 3:00 p.m., the professor gave them all a little wine and they stopped working. George gulped his wine mercilessly. The professor poured him another and said, “Steady on, George.”
Rebecca and Henry watched.
Outside the tent, the sky was getting dark.
“I haven’t seen clouds like that in a long time,” Professor Peterson remarked, looking out through a raised tent flap. “There’s going to be one blighter of a storm.”
“Will it be soggy in the pit tomorrow if it rains?” Rebecca asked.
“Probably not,” Professor Peterson replied. “The sun dries everything up rather quickly. Still, it’s not ideal for various reasons I won’t go into—but which in actual fact are the very reasons I’m ordering the three of you to go island hopping.”
“Island hopping?” Henry asked.
“But what about the trays?” George asked. “There’s still so much to do.”
“Those artifacts have been here for approximately twenty-seven hundred years, George. I don’t think another day will make any difference to them—though the fact that it does make a difference to you makes a difference to me, if that makes sense.”
“Are you really giving us the day off?” Henry asked.
“Yes. I’m even going to pay you—all of you.”
“Even me?” Rebecca said. The professor nodded.
“What’s the catch?” Henry said.
“No catch,” replied the professor with a wink. “But I have to leave Athens for a day, so get to know each other even better and then come back ready to find the rest of that Lydian woman’s bones.”
By the time they finished talking, clouds had swallowed up the tent.
Athens was no longer a nest of lights in the distance, but a place that had to be conjured by memory.
As they were tying up the tent flaps, a few drops fell with soft, heavy thuds against the fabric.
“To the Renault!” shouted Professor Peterson. “We’re evacuating.”
“I’ll ride my scooter if you take these two,” Henry suggested.
“Leave it here, and I’ll pick you up the day after tomorrow—you’ll get killed in this weather.”
They all squeezed into the Renault 16, and then opened the two umbrellas Professor Peterson kept in the backseat to ward off anything falling through the sunroof, whether it be rain or snow or volcanic ash.
The engine spluttered and then died. Professor Peterson turned the key again, and with several small explosions, he put the car in gear.
“We’ll coast down the hill and hope it starts properly as we roll onto the motorway.”
Driving back to Athens was easy. Most cars had pulled to the sides of the road. The windshield was so steamed up, however, that the professor had to requisition one of George’s socks to wipe the condensation.
As they neared Henry’s apartment, the professor asked George where he wanted to be dropped.
“Drop him off with us,” Henry said.
“But I really should catch up on my reading,” George protested. “I should go home.”
Rebecca’s mouth flickered.
“We’re all in this together now,” Henry said, looking at Rebecca. “I suppose you could call it fate or something.”
George looked out into a drowning world. In the reflection of the glass he could see the outline of a man, a few lines, a specter suspended by light and dark, by falling rain. A life that was yet to be decided, despite everything that had already happened, every moment is yet to be decided and connected to the one before it by illusions.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As the professor pulled up to the curb, the rain was falling fast in hard drops.
“See you boys day after tomorrow at six sharp,” he shouted.
“Six?” Henry protested.
“Of course. We have to make up for lost time. As for you, my dear,” he said, extending his hand to Rebecca, “it was a genuine pleasure.”
Rebecca kissed him on the cheek. They all rushed from the car into Henry’s building. The professor chugged away in such a low gear that a taxi behind him swerved and almost hit a telephone booth where a man and his dog were sheltering.
Once inside, they toweled their hair dry at the kitchen table while Henry made Greek coffee. Rebecca switched on the radio. The only station Henry received with the least crackle played classical music.
“It’s one of the French Suites,” George said as music filled the apartment.
“What?” Henry asked.
“It’s Bach’s French Suites.”
“Turn it up then,” Henry said.
They listened with towels on their heads.
“Very beautiful,” Rebecca said. “It makes your hot, humid apartment seem like a grand palace in Vienna.”
“What do you think, George?” Henry said, giving Rebecca a cigarette. “Is she full of it or what?”
George shrugged. “I think I might go home.”
Rebecca nodded.
“No,” Henry said. “Please don’t go home.”
George looked at the floor and moved his feet around. “You two have each other—and it’s clear why, so what do you need me around for? You don’t owe me anything.”
He stood, but Henry blocked his path. “No,” he said. “I want both of you here.”
George picked up his bag.
“I’m fucking serious,” Henry shouted, standing in front of George. “I really, really want you to stay. I know it’s selfish, George, but please let’s just try and work this out—don’t discard me because of a weird coincidence.”
“It’s hard,” George said. “I just didn’t expect it to turn out like this.”
Then Rebecca spoke. “You haven’t lost anything, George. Think about it—you have my friendship and now you have Henry’s.”
“I don’t know—I feel like I’ve lost something.”
“You have,” Henry said. “You’ve lost the excuse to be alone.”
“Then why do I feel more alone?”
Henry shook his head. “But you have us.”
George finally sat back down.
“Just imagine how happy we can all be if somehow this ends up being okay,” Henry pleaded.
George nodded, but seemed unconvinced.
“You said I was like your long-lost brother,” Henry said. “Was that just bullshit?”
“No,” George said.
Henry put his hands on George’s shoulders.
“So let me take care of you—let’s share a hundred afternoons looking through old books,” Henry said. Then he turned to Rebecca. “I want to take care of both of you.”
George looked down at his hands.
They all sat listening to the rain.
“Why don’t you start taking care of us by taking George and me out for dinner?” Rebecca said finally.
Water dripped from the balconies and gushed in small rivers to iron grates. Any oranges that had lain in gutters now bobbed against the drains. The only way to tell if the rain had stopped was to watch passing cars for the swish of wipers.
George’s shirt was still too wet to wear, and so Henry went to his room to find another one. A few minutes later, he came back holding a white cotton shirt with French cuffs.
“This was a gift from someone special, and I just got it back from the dry cleaners. I think you should wear it.”
“Okay,” George said, inspecting it. “And it’s my favorite brand.”
“Then it should fit you perfectly.”
George squeezed into the shirt.
Rebecca watched.
After drinking two bottles of Greek wine, they descended in
the slow elevator. Henry argued they should all stay at his apartment on account of the weather and how it would be better if they were going to catch an early boat to one of the islands.
“Are we really going?” George asked.
“Of course we are,” Henry laughed. “We’re young and free, and all this is fine.”
“Strange that we are all together like this,” Rebecca said. “Like we’re the only three people left in the world.”
George stopped at a kiosk to buy a large can of beer. The others waited. Then Rebecca walked ahead slowly.
George offered the can to Henry.
They walked in silence through the narrow, wet streets. Men in sandals nodded to them from doorways of shops with little inventory.
As they crossed a main avenue, the rain began again—first in slow, heavy drops, then small, fast pellets.
And then it stopped suddenly, and the sun fell through distant clouds. Henry turned to say something. It was very bright and their shadows overlapped.
Around them, at unthinkable speeds, planets tilted their bodies of fire and ice.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Henry pointed to a neon sign up ahead.
“Let’s eat there,” he said.
Then it started to rain again and they ran up the street to the restaurant.
Inside, it was small and noticeably dirty, with plastic tablecloths, slow ceiling fans, and slabs of meat on trays in stainless steel cabinets. The dirt in the restaurant was the sort that accumulates slowly over time—the sort that hides itself from the owners through gradualness.
They sat in a corner next to a couple. The woman wore a cream cotton blouse that was tight around her breasts. Her husband wore a black T-shirt that said johnny boy, american legend, with a sequined skull embroidered underneath.
When the waiter switched on the main lights, the sequins on the man’s T-shirt caught the light and the skull came alive with a grin.
The couple was brought a tray of spanakopita. The smell of spinach and warm cheese filled the restaurant. The waiter balanced a cigarette on his bottom lip, and when he faltered slightly, so did the cigarette, which made it seem as though he were not a waiter at all but an acrobat performing a trick that involved smoking and serving spinach and cheese pie.
Despite Henry’s habit of eating at the restaurant once a week, the locals and the staff regarded them with coolness.
The waiter’s hand trembled as he wrote down their order. At Henry’s suggestion, the waiter promised an assortment of what he could vouch for personally. When he left, the owner of the restaurant—a tall, muscular woman with thin lips—came up to the table and asked them if they liked Greek music.
George asked her in Greek to bring three glasses of raki. The woman stared at him. A smile curled at the edges of her mouth.
“You make a good effort with Greek,” she said. “And so I have something better than raki for you—something you’ve never had, any of you.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and then a few moments later, the lights sank and slow painful bouzouki music came through the speakers. A few of the locals laughed.
“Is she doing this for us?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m afraid so,” George said.
Then she came out with three glasses of red liquor.
“Mournoraki, my friends.”
“They each took a glass.”
“Yamas,” George said and then drained the glass of its thick red liquid.
Henry took a sip and spat it out.
People laughed.
“What the hell is this?”
“Probably something from her village,” George said, and then called out to the woman in Greek. She answered back in English.
“From Crete,” she said.
“I like it,” Rebecca said. “It’s like blood.”
And then some food arrived.
“This will warm us up,” Henry said.
“Look at me—I’m still soaked,” said Rebecca.
Two Greek men turned from the counter and looked at her.
Then a large tray of steaming lamb, which the waiter carried above his head.
“Let’s get up at five and take the underground to Piraeus,” Henry suggested, spooning food onto Rebecca’s and George’s plates.
“That’s a bit early,” Rebecca said. “I’m going to the toilet.”
George stood as she left the table.
“What a gentleman,” Henry said.
“Just a habit,” George said shyly.
Henry stared at him for a few moments.
“I’m going to take care of you, George,” he said.
“Thanks,” George said.
“How about we find you a beautiful Greek girl who loves that red stuff?”
When Rebecca returned from the bathroom they ate mostly in silence and listened to the music. Then Henry paid for dinner and they put their coats on. The rain had stopped. The streets were hot and clean.
Instead of going straight back to Henry’s apartment, the three of them wandered the streets of the Plaka, which were choked with tourists buying alabaster busts and leather sandals. The lanes were muddy. Water dripped from tarpaulins onto anyone inspecting the wares.
Then suddenly a man stepped in front of them.
“Very nice Greek place here!” he said, pointing toward a shabby building.
“What kind of music?” George asked.
“Greek music,” the man said rudely.
“Rembetika?”
“Yes,” the man said.
“I don’t believe you,” George said.
“What is your name?” the man said gruffly.
“George Cavendish.”
“Well, Mr. George, I am a traditional Greek dancer with good steps,” he said. “The songs tonight in this place are rembetika songs.”
“You mean hasapiko,” George insisted.
“No, no, no,” said the man sternly. “Traditional songs, rembetika.”
Immediately after entering through a curtain, they went up some narrow stairs past a woman sitting behind an enormous cash register. The restaurant was very dark, except for an empty stage lit with upward-facing lights.
There were about thirty tables, but only two or three were occupied.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been to a tourist trap,” Henry said quietly.
“Not me,” said George. “I’ve been overcharged and robbed since the day I arrived in this country.”
The stage was covered with rose petals. Rebecca picked some up on her way to the table and put them in Henry’s and George’s pockets.
“It’s going to get much worse,” George said, smiling. “But they’ll get us drunk—because if they don’t we’d never pay the bill.”
“What’s rembetika?” Rebecca asked.
“It’s one of the most beautiful forms of all music,” George explained. “It’s alchemy.”
“Is that what we’re going to hear?” Henry asked as they sat down.
“I doubt it,” George said. “Most proper places are closed this time of year, and they are usually in areas where there’s no tourist trade—like empty markets or neighborhoods where there are lots of factories.”
“How do you know all this?” Henry asked.
“Because I’ve spent months just wandering the streets alone,” George admitted. “I’ve met some real characters.”
Henry, Rebecca, and George lost count of how many glasses of homemade liquor they drank—for after every long sip, a hairy arm would reach across the table with a bottle, and the glass would be replenished before it was empty.
When the bouzouki player finally left the stage, he did so by stepping down into the audience and kissing and hugging everyone he could, expertly cradling his bouzouki to one side. Henry, George, and Rebecca all took turns hugging him.
The next singer who came out was a transvestite. He took the microphone off its stand and flicked his blond hair back, winking at an old man in the front row. George told He
nry and Rebecca that they should go, as there were five more live acts and it was late. They agreed and, after stuffing themselves with flaky baklava, found themselves outside the restaurant, standing aimlessly in the street with lit cigarettes. It was half past two in the morning.
“I’m drunk,” Rebecca said. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Henry put his arm around her. “Only if you don’t mind that I am.”
“Cretan firewater,” George said loudly. “They make it in the hills. Last time I drank it I got run over.”
“That’s probably why you survived,” Henry said, buckling with laughter.
Rebecca held George’s and Henry’s arms for balance, but couldn’t help from swaying.
“I think we should find a taxi,” she said.
And then, as such things happen in states of insobriety, a taxi seemed to suddenly appear at their feet, and then they all seemed to be in it, speeding somewhere they couldn’t quite remember how to get to.
In the taxi, Henry didn’t stop talking. And then he tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder.
“This is my brother back here,” Henry said with slurred affection. “He says he’s my brother.”
The taxi driver nodded.
Then Rebecca told Henry how she had met George, how she had seen him and thought he looked interesting. George admitted he couldn’t believe it when she spoke to him.
They alighted at the corner of Henry’s street. George put an arm across Henry’s shoulder and the two men strolled together.
“I’m so very drunk,” Henry said. “So very drunk.”
“It’s hard not to be,” George said, “when you drink that much.”
“You don’t mind what I said in the taxi, do you?” Henry said. “I know you’re an American, but who gives a damn—the age difference is right at least.”
“Thanks,” George said, fumbling for his cigarettes. “I like it all.”
Outside Henry’s building, Rebecca stopped walking and looked up at the moon.
“It’s almost full,” she said.
“Almost—my beautiful, wonderful air hostess,” Henry said. “You should know the moon better than any of us because you spent years flying through the heavens like a shooting star.”
“Let’s go inside,” she said, “before I collapse.”
Everything Beautiful Began After Page 11
