Lies That Bind Us

by Andrew Hart

  I had retreated to my room and, like the first night I had spent in this place, burrowed under the covers, prepared to sleep out the long evening till breakfast time, but I was still awake when the knock came at the door.

  For a moment I lay still, saying nothing, but when it came again, I flung the covers aside and went to it. I was still dressed, but I only opened the door a crack, ready with speeches about how I wasn’t hungry and just wanted to rest.

  It was Marcus. He looked abashed.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “What is it, Marcus?” I said, not opening the door any wider. “I’m really tired and—”

  “I just came to check on you,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Yes?” I said, defiant.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Look, I’m sorry about that. It was a shitty thing to do. I was angry and—”

  “It was a shitty thing to do,” I said. “It was a dick move. Totally unworthy of you.”

  “I know,” he said. “I just said that. And . . . can I come in?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Jan . . .”

  “You made me look like an idiot,” I said. “And it was cruel.”

  “You didn’t look like an idiot. No one knew it was . . . that the story had anything to do with you till you marched out.”

  “It was still cruel.”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “It was, but as I said, I was angry and—”

  “Did you come to apologize or to explain?” I said, laying the question out so he knew that he had to pick one and one only, that the wrong one, or any attempt to pick some kind of middle ground, would result in me closing the door. He seemed to consider this.

  “To apologize,” he said. “Now can I come in?”

  I didn’t say anything but walked back inside, leaving the door slightly ajar so he had to push it open to follow me. I sat on the bed. He looked like he was going to begin some long, wheedling apology or—in spite of what he had just said—another classroom explanation, and suddenly I couldn’t handle either.

  “You think I don’t know?” I said.

  “What?” he replied, genuinely confused.

  “What you think of me?” I said. “That was clear five years ago. Well, four. But maybe you felt it the year before too, and I managed not to see it. Or rather I hid it from myself. I am, as you know, good at that.”

  “Jan, I didn’t mean—”

  “You did,” I said. “You meant what you said, and I don’t blame you. Actually, I’ve always . . . respected you for it,” I said, finding the word at the last moment, “for your honesty. Ironic, isn’t it? But it’s true.”

  “I know.”

  He was still standing up, looking lost and sheepish and very, very young.

  “Oh, sit down, for God’s sake, Marcus,” I said, shoving along the bed so he could take a seat beside me.

  I looked at the wall, feeling his presence, his eyes on the floor.

  “Do they know?” I asked, still not looking at him.

  “I told them I was just checking on you,” he said. “The food is ready and—”

  “I mean, do they know about . . . all of it? Why we broke up? My . . .” I was going to say fibbing but couldn’t. “Do they know I’m a pathological liar?”

  He shifted uneasily at that and shook his head vigorously.

  “You’re not—” he began.

  “Don’t,” I said. “I don’t think this room can hold more than one liar. You’re the American here.”

  “The . . . ?” He looked at me, puzzled. “American?”

  “I’m the Cretan,” I said.

  He flushed.

  “Fuck, Jan, I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed of himself. “I shouldn’t have said that either. I was just taken aback and—”

  “You weren’t wrong,” I said, turning to face him. “And I learned something new. The Epimenides paradox. Never knew that before. So there’s that.”

  He blew out a sigh and squeezed his eyes closed.

  “That’s me,” he said. “Always teaching.”

  He gave me a sad smile.

  “Do they know?” I asked again.

  He shook his head, frowning.

  “I think from time to time, there have been questions about . . . inconsistencies in things you’ve said,” he answered carefully. “But I’ve never heard any real suggestions that . . . you know.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess that’s something. But . . . they’ve probably figured it out. Hell, I lied to Simon within minutes of seeing him. In the car coming from the airport.”

  “What did you say?”

  He was hearing me out. He didn’t really want to know, but he thought I wanted to get it all out into the open, so he was helping, like he was rinsing out a wound.

  “I told him I saw the Colosseum,” I said. “From the plane.”

  He gave me that look I’d seen on his face a hundred times: kind but puzzled to the point of incredulity.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well, there’s the million-dollar question,” I said. “I don’t know. Because . . . because, unlike Simon, who probably goes there for lunch, I have never been to Rome. I’ve never seen the Colosseum, and I really wanted to, and I thought that if I looked really carefully out the window as we came in to land, I’d spot it, and that would be, you know, something. But I looked, and I looked, and I had to lean across this guy who had taken his shoes off and they stank, and he kept looking at me like I was going to steal his wallet if he fell asleep or something, and I couldn’t see it. I don’t think we came in over the city at all. Or if we did, I was on the wrong side of the plane and . . . anyway. I didn’t see it, and I was disappointed, so I started imagining what it would look like from above and—”

  “You liked that version better than what had actually happened,” he said.

  There was a weariness in his voice, but he still sounded compassionate, like he was indulging a child, and when he smiled it was a real smile that made me want to throw my arms around him and hold him forever . . .

  “It just slipped out,” I said. “I was talking to Simon, and somehow the made-up version of my flight sounded better, more real somehow, though I know that sounds stupid. Is stupid. And before I knew it, I’d told him I’d seen the Colosseum from the air. Then I told him I had recently been to Vegas and he asked me about the hotel . . .”

  “You’ve never been to—”

  “I know. I think he knew I was lying. If I got away with it, it was because he would have asked himself why anyone would lie about anything so ridiculously unnecessary and obviously untrue and, therefore, wouldn’t have reached the logical conclusion: because Jan is a pathological liar.”

  “You’re not,” Marcus cut in.

  “I am, Marcus. You know it more than anyone.”

  “I shouldn’t have said—”

  “I’m not looking for an apology,” I said. “You were right. Especially about Wilmington. That was unforgiveable.”

  “Nothing is unforgiveable. I started the course the following summer.”

  “No thanks to me.”

  “You were upset.”

  “That’s no excuse for anything and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Marcus, don’t let me dodge what I did. I have to face it.”

  “Four years later?”

  “If that’s what’s needed, yes.”

  “I could have made the point more constructively,” he said. “Less publicly.”

  I shrugged and breathed out a voiceless laugh.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I had it coming.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment and then I, gazing around the room and out through the great picture window, said, “Jesus, Marcus. How did we get here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Damned if I know,” he said.

  “And you’re the professor,” I said mockingly.

  “Don’t you start,” he remarked with a w
an smile, like we were old allies against the world. “I wish they would . . . I mean, is it intended to make me feel small and irrelevant, to remind me that I’m just a teacher, not some big-shot academic and certainly not anything interesting like a fucking hedge fund manager or whatever the hell it is that Simon does? Jesus.”

  “Maybe it’s a kind of jealousy.”

  Marcus laughed, a short and single bark without a lot of amusement in it.

  “Seriously,” I said. “They have money, but I don’t really know what they do with their time when they aren’t working. They don’t seem to have interests, hobbies, do they? Work, gym, clubbing, mixing with the fashionable . . .”

  “With celebrities . . .”

  “Going to parties . . .”

  “Buying fancy cars . . .”

  “Made of gold . . .”

  “With platinum tires.”

  “What was my point again?” I said.

  He laughed again, for real this time.

  “You were saying how shit their lives were and why they’d be jealous of a high school history teacher.”

  “Right,” I said. “Got a bit off track.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a little squeeze.

  “For real though,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Me too.” I hesitated, then asked the question that had been on my mind since I arrived. “What do you make of Gretchen?”

  “Well,” he replied, seriously, “she’s down with OPP.”

  “Oh my God, that was excruciating.”

  “That would be the word.”

  “She seems quite taken with you,” I ventured. “Did you know her before?”

  “Met her the day we got here. You know as much about her as I do.”

  I decided to leave it at that, merely nodding thoughtfully.

  “Come on,” he said, getting to his feet in a showy way. “Come get something to eat. If Brad is to be believed, they have created the Mona Lisa of burgers.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said, but I stood up.

  “No one does,” he said.

  “Marcus,” I said, taking his hand on impulse.

  “What?” he said watchfully, even warily.

  “I don’t lie to you, you know,” I said. “Not anymore. And I won’t. Ever.”

  The wary look deepened, complicated; then he nodded once and smiled.

  “Food,” he said.

  So we ate. It was good too, and with Marcus giving me encouraging smiles between bites, I managed to put my little meltdown aside and enjoy the evening for what it was. The burgers were half beef and half lamb, and Simon had mixed garlic and oregano into the meat, serving them with tzatziki sauce on the side, while Melissa had whisked up a Greek salad with fresh local cucumbers, tomatoes, and kalamata olives, topped with the best feta cheese I had ever tasted.

  “Gotta say,” said Melissa, “Greek cuisine is kind of limited, but what they do, they do well.”

  “Hey, what’s with the they?” said Simon. “This was all us.”

  “OK, we do it well,” said Melissa. “I guess we’re honorary Greeks.”

  “Cretans,” said Brad.

  I shot Marcus a look, but he didn’t react, merely laughing as Simon exclaimed in mock outrage.

  “Who are you calling a cretin?”

  “I never even thought of that!” said Gretchen, delighted. “Is that where the word comes from? Is it, I don’t know, racist?”

  “Cretans aren’t a race,” said Brad.

  “Neither are morons,” said Simon.

  “I thought it was pronounced krehtin,” said Marcus.

  “Really?” said Kristen, making a face.

  “Yes,” said Marcus. “You’ve never heard that?”

  Kristen shook her head, and Marcus gave her a puzzled look that lasted a fraction longer than the moment merited.

  “Check it out, Brad,” said Simon. “We beat the professor on vocabulary!”

  “Yes!” said Brad, pumping his fist. “F for the teacher! See me after class, young man!”

  Marcus acknowledged the joke with a self-deprecating smile, but I noticed the way his gaze slid back to Kristen. It was an odd look, appraising, watchful.

  “So tomorrow: shopping?” asked Gretchen.

  “Shopping!” Melissa sang out, raising her glass. “There’s supposed to be some really cute leather stores in Rethymno.”

  “Ooh, leather,” said Simon. “Looks like my lucky night.”

  “Shut up,” said Melissa.

  “It’s so great that we’re seeing more of the island,” said Kristen. “Last time we barely left the hotel, apart from looking for bars and that one trip to the cave thing. What was that place called?”

  I happened to be looking at Melissa as she said it, and I saw the change, the way her shoulders clenched and her spine stiffened, the freezing of the smile that had been so genuine only a moment before. And it wasn’t just her. There was a momentary stillness, as if the time had stopped and I was in a weird little bubble, as I had been in the scuba gear, a world unto myself. It lasted only a second, the spell broken by Marcus saying, “The Dikteon cave, where Zeus was born and hidden from his father, Cronus.”

  “That’s right,” said Kristen, seemingly oblivious to the odd tension in the air, the way Melissa was studying her drink without actually seeing it. “You know I saw an old painting a couple of years later, Cronus eating his children. Awful thing. All dark and bloody, and he has this baby with no head, and he’s got these wild, mad eyes. Totally freaked me out.”

  “Goya,” said Marcus. “It’s pretty horrible. He actually painted it on the wall of his living room.”

  “In his house?” said Kristen, aghast.

  “It wasn’t transferred to canvas till after he died.”

  I remembered the myth. The Titan Cronus—Saturn—had been warned that one of his sons would take his throne from him and rule over a new order of gods, so he destroyed them all shortly after they were born, eating them. Zeus’s mother fed Cronus a stone in place of the child and hid the god in the Dikteon cave till he was old enough to fulfill his destiny, cut his siblings from his father’s belly, and imprison him in the underworld dungeon called Tartarus. The memory sent a tremor of discomfort through me, though I wasn’t sure why.

  “To think we actually went there . . . ,” said Kristen with a shudder.

  “More burgers?” said Brad, getting up and moving to the grill. It was a kind of joke, I guess, but no one laughed.

  “I’ll get some more wine,” said Melissa, rising and heading to the kitchen.

  Kristen looked up like a startled bird, vaguely aware that something had happened, but shrugged it off when Gretchen, who still looked a bit starry-eyed around her, said, “So tell me about filming. Do you get to write your own lines at all, or do you have to stick to the script?”

  The atmosphere still felt just a little off, and when I looked around I thought Simon was watching Brad with unusual attentiveness as he moved the meat patties onto the cool part of the grill with a long-handled spatula. He felt my eyes on him and turned, snapping on a smile like a mask.

  “More wine, Jan?” Marcus asked.

  Before I could respond, Gretchen said, “Did I just feel a raindrop?”

  It’s funny the way unimportant things can annoy you. It was a perfectly innocuous remark, and it quickly became clear that it really was starting to rain—hard, as it turned out—but it felt like she was pulling the conversation back to her, as if no one had been paying her enough attention, and all this talk of our last visit was getting on her nerves.

  “I’ll take some of that wine,” she said to Simon as she got up. “But I’ll take it inside, I think. You coming, Marcus?”

  I turned to her sharply, on the brink of saying “he was talking to me,” or something equally unwarranted, but managed to keep quiet. And in truth what I really wanted to say was “Why are you here? Who are you?”

  Stupid.
<
br />   I watched the way she trailed her hand as she walked past Marcus, grasping his and pulling him jokily up. He bumbled and went along with it, but I felt the blood rise in my face.

  “Come on,” said Simon, giving me a look that was as close to compassionate as I have ever seen from him. “Let’s get inside before we get soaked.”

  We did get soaked. At first it was just a few fat, oily raindrops, but the heavens opened before we could get all the food inside, and we went from a clear, if overcast, evening to a full-on storm in under three minutes. The rain washed away the lingering strangeness, pulling us together as we laughed at our saturated summer clothes and marveled as lightning flickered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room. Our rediscovered happiness and exhilaration even survived the blackout.

  We had been directly under the storm for maybe twenty minutes when the lights went out. The sky was just bright enough to see the way the trees bent in the wind, but the last glow of the sun was fading fast and the storm was, if anything, intensifying, rain lashing the windows so that great sheets of water ran down with each gust. The silence was almost as alarming as the darkness. Melissa had been shuffling through her nineties alt-rock playlist through the speakers wired to the villa’s expensive, if old-fashioned, hi-fi, and when the sound (Blink 182’s “I Miss You”) died abruptly, taking with it the soft drone of appliances that you barely noticed, I actually gasped.

  “Damn,” said Simon. “Hold on. Let me check the breakers.”

  The box was in a wall closet at the foot of the stairs to the tower, and he made his way there while the rest of us sat in expectant silence.

  “Ooo,” said Gretchen. “Spooky.”

  We heard movement from the kitchen, then the snap of switches.

  “Anything?” called Simon.

  A chorus of nos.

  “No worries,” Simon proclaimed. “We are prepared for all eventualities. Brad, you wanna help me with the generator? There’s a flashlight in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.”

  “Because of my experience as a professional mechanic, you mean?” said Brad. “What the hell do I know about generators?”

  “I’ll come,” I said.

  Even in the gloom and with my dreadful vision, I registered Simon’s hesitation.

  “I know a bit about generators,” I said. “The store carries them.”