The Lovers

by Vendela Vida

  “Pardon?”

  “You act like you are ninety. Like nothing will ever be as good. That is how smog you are about marriage.”

  “Smug,” said Yvonne, and then was annoyed with herself for correcting Özlem.

  They were silent for a minute.

  “Why don’t you say anything?” asked Özlem. Her face was contorted, excited.

  “Because you have it all wrong.”

  “How?” Özlem said. She was now leaning forward on the edge of her seat. She was ready for a fight.

  There was a part of Yvonne that didn’t want to engage her—the same part that had always tried to duck Aurelia’s accusations. For a long time Yvonne had been happy to let misconception remain as long as she didn’t have to share the truth. But she had come to Datça to strip herself of these lies, to shed this grief. The grief and the lies were the same—one begot the other. Yvonne wrapped her fingers around the base of the chair to steady herself, and started at the beginning. “I was closest to Aurelia when she was younger, because she was the one who needed me more. Her brother, her twin, was completely self-sufficient. From the time he started school, he was embraced by other kids, by other families even. Everyone loved Matthew.”

  As she heard herself speak, Yvonne feared she was telling the story too quickly, that she was rushing over the important facts and relevant observations, and providing useless ones. At the same time, she felt she couldn’t say the words fast enough; she was eager for them to exist in the world.

  She told Özlem about how Aurelia’s troubles as a teenager had become a wedge in her marriage to Peter. How she knew Peter blamed Yvonne for their daughter’s problems because Aurelia and Yvonne had always been close. Peter preferred to take responsibility for Matthew’s successes.

  When Aurelia was finished with rehab the first time, Peter didn’t want her to come home right away. He wanted her to go to a school in Colorado that specialized in teenagers with addictions. But Yvonne was successful in her protests: Aurelia was their daughter, she argued, and she had given Yvonne tearful and convincing assurances that she would stay sober, that she was done with deception.

  For a month after Aurelia returned home, Yvonne felt closer to her than ever before. On weekend mornings they hiked the Long Trail, and on weekday evenings they worked on putting up a trellis and planting jasmine in the backyard.

  But then Aurelia started lying. She lied when she claimed she was vomiting from bad seafood she’d had at lunch. She lied every time she filled the O’Doul’s bottles in the refrigerator with real beer. She lied every weekend when she put on her crisp white shirt and black skirt and said she was going to her hostessing job at Tortilla Flat. Yvonne discovered this lie when she decided to surprise her daughter one Friday night by visiting the restaurant with a few friends. When they showed up and Yvonne asked for Aurelia, the manager pulled her aside and told her that Aurelia had been fired two weeks before—she had been caught sipping tequila throughout her shift. Yvonne didn’t tell her friends. She said it was her mistake, that Aurelia had mentioned she had the night off and, foolishly, Yvonne had forgotten. When Yvonne returned home she didn’t tell Peter, either. She knew he would try to send Aurelia away again.

  Soon, Yvonne found herself keeping other secrets from Peter. She saw the bruises on Aurelia’s shins, from walking into bed frames and coffee tables while drunk, and told him nothing. She knew about Aurelia’s brief flirtation with a muscle relaxer, some pills she’d gotten from a friend who worked at a drugstore; again she told Peter nothing. She began to resent Peter for making her tell all the lies, for forcing her to keep the burden of Aurelia to herself. In the twisted knot of sleepless nights Yvonne came to believe that Peter was fully aware of Aurelia’s transgressions—how could he not be?—but that he’d decided that anything to do with Aurelia was Yvonne’s responsibility.

  “I don’t know,” Yvonne told Özlem, “I’m sorry to burden you with all of this. I must sound desperate—”

  “No,” Özlem said, firmly, and walked to the kitchen. She made tea and brought a damp hand towel to Yvonne. Confused, Yvonne used it to wipe her hands.

  “For your eyes,” Özlem explained. She retrieved the towel from Yvonne and rolled it up. “Here, lie down,” she said, and placed it between Yvonne’s forehead and nose.

  The towel smelled like it had just been washed. It probably had been, Yvonne thought, remembering the maid. She shifted her head and the towel fell to the side. Özlem readjusted it.

  Then Özlem sat by Yvonne’s side, and Yvonne was thankful that she asked no more questions, that she was comfortable with silence. Finally, when Yvonne felt she had taken up enough of Özlem’s time, she said, “You should go.”

  “Really? I think I should stay.”

  “You should go,” Yvonne said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “What about the owl?” Özlem asked, half joking.

  “I’ll deal with him,” Yvonne said, intending to do nothing at all about the owl.

  The next day was Friday, and Yvonne was supposed to be on the Knidos dock at ten for the trip to Cleopatra’s Island. She awoke feeling good, relieved of a lie. Had she really told all that to Özlem?

  She showered and washed her hair with mango shampoo she found in a bathroom cabinet. The lover’s shampoo, she realized. Soaping her body, she wondered if her thighs and buttocks might have already firmed from her daily swims. She pulled on her swimsuit, the lining at the crotch and across her chest still slightly damp, and stepped into a light pink sundress—a gift from Aurelia. She faced her reflection. Her eyes—unswollen, thanks to Özlem’s precautions—shone, and the combination of the dress and her days in the Knidos sun made her cheeks look pinched, her lips bright. She looked alive.

  She ate cereal while standing at the sink. She presumed the owl was still in the basement, but didn’t want to check. With the sex swing on the third floor, it was only a matter of time, she thought, before each of the beds, seating areas, and rooms closed her out, and she would have to start living on the roof.

  She left the front door open again, in case the owl wanted to leave, and locked the gate at the foot of the stairs. The air was cooler this early in the morning. She had a pleasant drive to Knidos, thinking about the day ahead. Deniz had said there would be an American couple on the boat and Yvonne briefly wondered about them before her mind turned to Ahmet. She rummaged through her purse as she drove. A few Turkish coins shifted around at the bottom—enough to buy a shell or two from the boy before she set out on the gulet.

  Captain Galip was waiting for her on the dock. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his white Bermuda shorts. “Merhaba,” he said, and offered a coarse hand to help her into the motorboat that would take them to Deniz II.

  A minute after they pushed off, Yvonne realized she had not seen Ahmet. She turned to look for him and he was there, on the beach, alone. She waved and he did not wave back. Even from across the water that separated them, she believed she could make out the shape of his brow, his eyes. He was looking at her as though she had betrayed him by going on the boat, by not spending the day with him, and this caught Yvonne by surprise. No! she wanted to shout, first to him, and then to Captain Galip. Maybe she could return to Knidos, see Cleopatra’s Island another day. She glanced at the Captain, his expression impenetrable beneath the dark shades of his sunglasses, and when she looked at the shore the boy was making his way to the other harbor, the harbor where she was not.

  The motorboat pulled up to the side of Deniz II, where Deniz herself was standing at the top of the gulet’s ladder. “Please, you are welcome. I am so happy you come.”

  “Thank you,” Yvonne said, hoisting herself up the ladder.

  “Please,” Deniz said, and directed her toward the back of the boat, where a man and a woman sat at a round table that appeared to have just been set for breakfast.

  “Hello,” said the man, standing.

  “Good morning,” said the woman, remaining seated.

  “How are you?
” Yvonne said, though it was clear they were both well. Better than well: their skin was bronze with sun and their chairs were pulled close to one another, as though magnetized. Both of them appeared to be around fifty, a few years younger than Yvonne.

  “I’m Carol,” said the woman.

  “Jimson,” said the man.

  “Jimson?” said Yvonne.

  He spelled it for her.

  “I’m Yvonne.”

  Deniz turned her eyes to each person as they spoke. Of course, Yvonne thought, Deniz must have shepherded strangers together many times, and would be trying to determine if everyone would get along.

  “Please,” Deniz said to Yvonne, and directed her to sit at the table, across from the tanned couple.

  “Thank you,” Yvonne said. She could see the ancient amphitheater from where she sat. She imagined it full, with hundreds of people watching her leave Ahmet. She told herself she had no obligation to the boy.

  “Deniz says you’re from Vermont,” Jimson said. He said Deniz’s name differently than Yvonne did, and she briefly wondered whose pronunciation was correct.

  “Yes,” she said. “Burlington.”

  “We’re from Riverdale, just north of Manhattan,” he said. His New York accent was stronger than Carol’s.

  “And you’re here on…” Yvonne started. She had been about to say your honeymoon. Supposedly, the island they were going to visit had been given to Cleopatra by Marc Anthony on their honeymoon. The island’s famous white sand had been brought over from Tunisia to satisfy the queen, the rumor went.

  “We’re here for the same reason everyone is,” said Jimson, and then added, “Vacation.”

  Yvonne reminded herself that she was on vacation too.

  “My grandparents were Turkish but I’ve never been here,” Carol said.

  Yvonne liked them. She liked their clear determination to enjoy their vacation together: it seemed oddly rare. More common were people who took satisfaction in not having a good time, who expected a country to prove it was deserving of the trouble it took to get there.

  Deniz, who had been watching the conversation with a mixture of skepticism and anticipation, must have decided that they were all getting along well enough. After asking what everyone would like to drink—“Please, you like coffee, tea?”—she retreated down the narrow staircase to the kitchen.

  “Are you staying on a boat or in Datça or…?” Yvonne was always surprised by her ability to make small talk. It came from years of teaching. All those parent-student conferences, all those exchanges with other teachers while standing by the oven-like warmth of the ever-failing photocopier.

  “We’re staying at a little chateau about ten miles from here,” Carol said.

  “Oh, the cute place with the parasols and pool,” Yvonne said.

  “It’s nice,” said Jimson. “It was owned by an Australian man—”

  “Austrian,” Carol interjected.

  Jimson wasn’t annoyed by the correction. “An Austrian man who died last year and now his widow, poor thing, is trying to keep it going.”

  Carol touched Jimson’s elbow gently, and a look passed across both their faces, as though a shade had just been pulled down, or up.

  My reputation precedes me, Yvonne thought. She could imagine Deniz briefing her passengers. A nice widow from Vermont. She is a lovely widow.

  Yvonne was used to the passing discomfort Jimson and Carol were experiencing. She recognized their shared reaction from the times when the words alcoholic or druggie were spoken disparagingly in her presence, before the person speaking remembered that Yvonne’s daughter was both. Yvonne would put on her best blank face—her mask—and nod, as though to say, Keep going. If you gloss over this, I will support you in this endeavor, and we will continue talking as though nothing has happened, no insult delivered, no trespass made against my life. Keep talking, I beg you.

  “So what do you do in New York?” Yvonne asked.

  Relief washed over Carol’s face. She had good skin, the kind that didn’t show wrinkles, and a delicate, pointed nose. “Jimson works in the city, in the jewelry business.”

  “I import diamonds,” he said.

  “Conflict-free ones,” Carol added. “And I’m a designer.” The pride with which she spoke suggested she was new at the job.

  “What do you design?”

  “Swimwear, swim cover-ups, anything to do with beaches,” Carol said.

  “Is that one of yours?” Yvonne said, looking at the caramel tunic she was wearing.

  “It is! How did you know?”

  “Isn’t it spectacular,” said Jimson, more as a statement than question.

  “It is,” Yvonne said, and then she answered Carol’s question. “I knew because it looks like you.”

  Carol beamed. It was what every woman wanted, Yvonne thought, for the life around her—her clothes, her house, her car—to look like her, to be an extension of her.

  “What about you?” said Jimson.

  “I’m a teacher,” Yvonne said.

  “Oh, that’s terrific,” Carol said, as if grateful that Yvonne worked at all. A widowed homemaker, on the other hand—what would they talk about?

  “Nice. Good for you,” Jimson said.

  Yvonne was used to this. All she had to do was state her profession and she received accolades. She could have taught basketball on unicycles, but it didn’t matter as long as she was a teacher. As long as she was the mother of twins and taught, she was congratulated.

  “So where were you before here?” Yvonne asked. Talk of teaching bored her. Teaching itself didn’t bore her, her students didn’t bore her, but vague talk about education seemed a waste of breath.

  “We spent two days in Istanbul,” Jimson said.

  “So expensive!” said Carol.

  “But we had a great time,” said Jimson, squeezing something below the table—Carol’s knee?

  “I think I had a better time,” Carol said, and laughed. She had full, red-painted lips that suggested sex. Yvonne looked down at her napkin.

  “We went to the Cemberlitas,” Carol said, looking at Yvonne as though she should know what this was.

  Yvonne smiled, shook her head.

  “It’s this bathhouse that’s supposed to be so great.” She said its name again, as though repetition might trigger Yvonne’s memory.

  Yvonne shook her head again.

  “Well, I had the best massage,” Carol said. “I mean, they really scrubbed me down.”

  “Your skin does look great,” Yvonne said. It was true—she had noticed the skin on Carol’s arms, polished and gleaming like a new trophy. “I don’t know what it usually looks like, but it’s glowing.”

  “That’s what Jimson said!” Carol exclaimed. “Thank you.”

  “So she has this great time,” Jimson said, “and I get an old man smelling of alcohol. Like he’d been bathing in it.”

  “Must have been raki,” Yvonne said. It was the drink she and Peter had shared in Turkey all those years ago.

  “What?”

  “Raki. The Turkish liquor. Tastes like licorice.”

  Jimson pointed at Yvonne like she was onto something. He was a pointer.

  “Meanwhile, the woman doing me could not have been sweeter or more attentive,” Carol said.

  “She did try to get your money with her sob story.”

  “That’s true,” said Carol. “Everyone in her life had died. Her mother was dead, her sisters were dead, her husband had died—”

  Again, a dark look passed over both Jimson’s and Carol’s faces. Fortunately, they were all interrupted by one of the crewmen, the younger one who had a strong but not unpleasant body odor. He was wearing his white uniform again today—the white linen shorts and shirt with no undershirt—and had arrived at the table with coffee and an assortment of small white dishes. Yvonne’s eyes passed over his offerings: creamy white yogurt, bread, honey, olives, eggs, and thick pieces of white feta cheese.

  “Doesn’t this look scrumptious?
” Jimson said.

  “It does,” Yvonne said. If she had been alone she would have quickly devoured it all, but instead they each per formed the dance of politely offering one another the food they themselves most coveted. “Cheese?” Yvonne said, holding it out to Carol and Jimson, before taking three thick slices for herself.

  “This honey is to die for,” Carol said, holding a spoonful out to Jimson so he could try it.

  A loud mechanical sound erupted from below. Yvonne jumped. Lately, any sudden sound startled her.

  “Anchor’s going up,” announced Jimson.

  “We’re off!” Carol said.

  “Yvonne,” Jimson said. “Would you mind taking a picture?”

  “Not at all,” Yvonne said, her heart still accelerating.

  Jimson pulled out a small camera from his pocket and set it up for Yvonne before handing it across the table. The metal was still warm from his body. Carol removed Jimson’s baseball cap and he wiped a crumb from the side of her wide lips. They leaned in close to one another and smiled.

  “Nice,” Yvonne said.

  “Take another,” Carol said.

  Through the lens she saw Knidos retreating in the background. Jimson’s and Carol’s kind and exaggerated faces filled the frame.

  “You look like honeymooners,” Yvonne said.

  “Twenty-one years ago we were,” Carol said.

  Jimson nodded. “We celebrated our twentieth last year in B.A.”

  “Buenos Aires,” Carol clarified.

  “Look at all those flags,” Yvonne said. As they rounded the corner of Knidos, at the end of the Datça peninsula, there seemed to be Turkish flags everywhere, a dozen crescent moons.

  Deniz was refilling their cups with coffee. “Everything is good? You like?” she said.

  “Delicious,” Yvonne said, and Deniz smiled the smile of someone who knew what the answer would be in advance, but still enjoyed hearing it.

  “Why are there so many flags, Deniz?” said Carol.

  Deniz looked up. “We are close to Greece,” she said.