by Tobias Hill
That was the trouble with Jason. It was as if they had been friends all the time and had only forgotten it for a while. As if friendship could slip the mind. That was what he still distrusted: the hand offered a second time.
–I haven’t thought about it, he said, and Jason leaned across the table, creaking obscenely on the red banquette.
–Oh come on, don’t be shy. Don’t be silly. You’re not queer so it’s one or the other. Natsuko or El. Or Stanton. I wouldn’t put anything past you.
He took off the ring, put it away. He should have got rid of it. He should sell it. But Sparta was too small. Someone would hear of it before too long. He remembered the gypsy woman in the ruined doorway, the day he had walked to Therapne in the rain, and then thought of Elias and Themeus. For all he knew they were family. What was it Chrystos had said?
–You know everyone.
–Of course. Everyone knows everyone, here.
–It’s none of your business, he said to Jason.
–You are shy, aren’t you? Listen, I’ll tell you something for free. Natsuko creeps up on you. Face like a shitsu, arse like an angel. She’s up for it too.
–How do you reckon that?
–Those T-shirts. All This And My Daddy’s Rich. Loaded too. They all are, aren’t they?
–Who?
–The Nips.
–She doesn’t look like a shitsu.
–Oh doesn’t she? Jason said, softly, and then Eleschen was beside them, standing over them like a Valkyrie, her hair in wet ribbons, her face gleaming triumphantly.
–Gods, I forged rivers to get here!
–It’s raining again?
–Like Genesis. Who wants what?
–I think they’re already closing up.
–Bollocks! Where’s Oddjob? There he is. He’s paid for it, see, he’ll be here all night. You can rely on Oddjob, I’ll say that for him. I’ll have a seven star.
–Ben? she said, and he had the same.
Missy was calling for them. It was a fine day, the wind light and silent, and her voice carried her alarm clear over the hills.
When they found her she was kneeling by a row of Calabrian pines, east of Elijah’s chapel, where the ridge fell to a shepherds’ path. It was an out-of-the-way place, beyond and below the Therapnean heights. She had gone there to look for new findspots, but instead of the superterranean dips or knolls or lines of vegetable growth that might have marked underground ruins, she had come on freshly dug earth. A small disturbance by the wood’s edge, the resinous turf of the pines turned and bared.
They were less careful digging this time, knowing what it was they would find–not gold or bronze, but meat and bone–or knowing at least the essence of what it would be: it was still a shock to see it uncovered, the first wing unfolding as it came free.
–Magpie, Ben said, and behind him someone echoed its name in Greek; and someone else exclaimed wordlessly, as if it was not a carcass they had found but buried treasure. Helen herself.
–One for sorrow, Eberhard said, his voice surprised as Missy turned her blade. The bird’s feathers were untarnished, the wings green-black and white, lustrous as ivory and obsidian.
The light was good that evening, and they worked later than they had done before. Afterwards he walked up to the North Hill, looking towards the Parnon mountains. The sunset was creeping over them, but here and there were dark pockets ahead of it. From where he stood they all looked like caves, though most would be open rifts or ravines. There seemed to be thousands of them.
There are caves up there like you wouldn’t believe.
He almost expected to hear them. The golden jackals. Their howling would be like that of wolves, he thought, though he had never heard wolves howl, not in the flesh. It would be like that but higher, less rooted. More ethereal.
Nothing. Only the voicings and belling of the goats, and the sound of someone toiling up towards him. He looked back as Missy reached him, hands in pockets, a thermos tucked under her arm.
–Hey! How are you doing? Want some coffee? she said, and passing him the thermos, I haven’t seen so much of you lately.
–All work, no play, he said, and she laughed, though he didn’t think he had earned it.
–Seems like you’re fitting in great.
–Am I?
–Sure. You’re good at this. And I mean the others like you. You’re working out well. So what do you think? Are they up there?
He shrugged and shivered. It was colder as the sun went down, and the wind was picking up.
–It’s just so weird, the way they bury those things–
They both turned at the scratch of the lighter. Jason was trudging up beside them. His face was wicked in the cupped glow of a cigarette.
–Jason, do you have to smoke all the time?
–It’s just a fag.
–It’s so bad for you.
–I’m doing it for charity. Cancer Research. Sponsored smoke.
–That’s so not funny. And those are so rank.
An edge of plaintiveness had crept into her voice. It made her seem less like the woman he had got to know, more like the voice he had heard on the phone before his arrival. I tell them all to call me Missy, but no one ever does.
He saw Jason shift sideways, closer to her, like a cat that has found someone with an allergy. –Made in America, look. You’re a Carolina girl, aren’t you? Tobacco country, yeah? It’s your neighbourhood duty to sponsor me.
He felt Missy bristle beside him.
–I thought you were on the Skull Room?
–So?
–So if you were, you didn’t get a tarp down on Laco. Didn’t I tell you about that before? You’re the senior guy down there, Jason. Max might be a genius but he doesn’t have your experience. If it rains tonight–
–It isn’t going to rain, any idiot can see that. We did the tarp anyway.
–That’s funny, because it wasn’t there two minutes ago–
–Alright, alright. Jason stuck his cigarette in his mouth, his habitual grin transmogrified into a grimace.
–Tamp it down, Mister! Missy yelled after him, but he was already gone, walking away westwards, a gangly silhouette with the wind tugging at his faded shirt-tails, a Shaggy stepped out of Scooby Doo and befouled by the real world. Missy slumped, the air going out of her with a hiss: Yess.
For a while they stood without talking. It wasn’t a comfortable silence to Ben, though Missy didn’t seem to notice it. When he looked back he could still see Jason in the distance, below the stark ruins of the Menelaion, waving one arm in angry gesticulation.
He unscrewed the flask, poured a cup of Greek coffee–he could smell its sweetness in the cold air–and held it out to Missy.
–Did you want some?
She took the cup.
–You don’t like him.
He said it only to make small talk, but when Missy turned to stare at him it was as if she had forgotten his presence and was affronted to find him there.
–What?
–Jason. Sorry. It seems like you don’t like him much.
–Quit apologising, will you? God.
–I meant, he began, and stopped himself with an effort. Missy made a sound in the back of her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. After a while she passed him back the coffee cup. He had drained it, was running his thumb round the rim, fitting it back in place, when she spoke again.
–You’re way off. Way off. I can look after myself.
–I didn’t mean that.
–I mean it’s not like we’re here to like each other. This isn’t some beach vacation. Cyriac wants results. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, as long as they dig.
Her voice was vehement, but the plaintiveness was still there. He wondered at that, the odd jar of assurance and doubt.
–Why wouldn’t they like you? he said, carefully, not wanting to say the wrong thing again, trying not to mean anything by it beyond the question itself, so that he was surprised when she turn
ed to look at him, her face softened in the dusk.
–Thank you, Ben.
–For what?
–For the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in weeks.
She leaned in, hugged him. As she did so he smelled her. He had forgotten that perfume of hers, a summer scent of lotion and salt. He began to put an arm around her, meaning only to reciprocate, to comfort her, just as she pulled away. Her look had been open. Now it was indecipherable.
–What?
–I meant it. What I said when you got here. About it being good to have you here. It’s not just about the dig. I’m not making a move on you, but–
–No, of course not. I didn’t think–
–It’s really good to have a new face. That’s all. I hope you don’t mind me saying all this.
–It’s fine. Really.
She put her hand out for the thermos, busied herself with it, checking the lid, rolling her lips tight together. Only when she smiled did he realise how close she had been to crying. She had composed herself before looking up at him again.
–Well! I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.
–You too.
He looked back at the mountains before following her down. The sun had set. The caves had disappeared, their mouths lost in shadows.
For ten days he lunched with the brothers. After Missy’s daily meeting they would take their shares of the food laid out and go back to their pit. They would eat with their legs dangling underground–their feet four thousand years in the past–side by side and close for warmth, sharing olives from the Maxis orchards, talking of anything but work: of basketball and the Gulf Wars; of mobile phones and killing lambs; of the secrets of growing the perfect lemon.
He had liked that. They had all liked it, so much so that Missy had scolded them for it. Look at you guys! Sitting on your butts like the three wise monkeys. See no spadework, hear no spadework, speak no spadework. Siesta’s over, amigos!
It had changed after Mystras. They had been less at ease in the wake of that. He had wondered what Chrystos had said; what he had done wrong that day.
It was not that they abandoned him. The brothers would head back to the pit, and when Ben went to join them Chrystos would try too hard with him, translating for his benefit, though he understood them well enough now. Even Giorgios would be less taciturn. Their friendliness had become forced. Then too there was less work for him, Long Hearth having been mined out, the great circumference of the hearth the deepest context, nothing but cold earth below it. On Friday Missy moved him to East Midden, to work with Natsuko and Jason.
He ate his lunch alone. Jason had disappeared somewhere with Max and Eberhard. Natsuko was with Eleschen, under the Gearhut’s deckchair-striped awning. Now and then when the wind turned he caught a scrap of talk or laughter. There had been a mist that morning, the air in the pits wet and cloying–his fingertips had been like pegs as he worked–and though the sun had burnt it away by noon the cold had lingered in his bones. He swapped hands as he ate, pocketing one fist after the other, his nails coiled into his palms.
A pair of fighter planes went over, their black chevrons thundering east. He was huddled into his coat, and didn’t notice Natsuko until she was standing over him.
–Hello, he said, and she smiled with her crooked teeth.
–You look cold.
–A bit.
–No. Very.
–Actually I’m freezing.
She sat down on the ridge beside him, their backs to the old excavations of the North Hill Mansion. Her coat was lined with some kind of fur, a deep black pelt. The wind moved it against her skin. He could see the pockmark by her ear.
She was holding out a sachet, a shiny plastic thing emblazoned with Japanese in cartoonish red and black.
–What’s that?
–Guess.
–Heroin. Dynamite. Chicken soup.
–No!
–Shame.
–It’s a hand warmer. Put it in your pocket, it makes heat for you. It’s like magic. It’s for you.
He took the sachet. She had begun to explain its use to him, her voice patient and musical, and he nodded as if he were listening. At the far end of the ridge Chrystos and Giorgios were playing backgammon on the steps of the Menelaion. He could hear the clack of the men, the trictrac of the dice. Beyond them the air was full of light.
–You like it?
–Sure, he said, and smiled to reassure her. She hesitated as she stood.
–Jason says you will be coming.
–Coming?
–With us. She cocked her head. To hunt.
–Oh.
–Are you? she said, and he found himself held there, locked into her eyes, which were not black, he saw now, but the deep ochre of old dried blood.
–I’m glad, she said, and it was only then that he realised he might have nodded. Then Missy was calling for her, calling for them all, and Natsuko was walking, three steps backwards like a dancer before turning away towards the huts and awnings.
Siesta’s over, amigos!
Saturday they worked till half-six. The days were getting longer. Even so they raced the sun to pack the last of the gear away. Torches dancing over the green for a lost spirit level, a map gone missing.
Jason was posing for Natsuko, a tripod slung across his shoulders, an Indiana Jones-James Dean-Beach Boy captured on picturephone. Eberhard was crosslegged and barefoot, relacing his boots. It had been a poor day’s work, both of the new pits striking an impassable honeycomb of limestone three feet down, but only Missy seemed dispirited. The mood among the others was restless and excitable.
He was standing at their edge, looking towards the Transit van where the brothers stood waiting for him, when Eberhard glanced up at him.
–Are you busy tomorrow?
–Why?
–I want to take you out. I hear you’ve never fired a gun. You should do so before Tuesday week. What time shall I call for you? Would six be too early?
–Six is fine. Tuesday week?
–Unless it rains. The moon is full then.
–We’ll go at night?
–They hunt at night, Jason said, and turning, he saw that both Jason and Natsuko had stopped their play to listen.
–Six it is, then, Eberhard said, and pulled on a boot as Jason started for the cars, his hand clapping Ben’s shoulder as he passed, gripping him there.
–Coming?
–What for? I’ve got my lift.
–Now you’ve got a better offer. We’re going back to the girls’. You haven’t even met Sylvia yet.
–Who’s Sylvia?
–Ah, who is Sylvia, what is she? You’ll never know if you don’t come.
–Look, can I meet you there? Chrystos–
–Forget him, Jason said. His grip tightened.
He shrugged him off, walked down the slope to the van by the northern track. The brothers were already inside. Chrystos leaned from the driver’s window, mobile in his shoulder-crook, smiling ruefully in the reflected highbeams.
–Bad news. Our sister visits friends. Giorgios is cooking. He still makes food like a soldier, always enough for ten. We need another mouth to feed. Ready?
–You go on.
–We can wait.
–I’m busy, he said, and heard Giorgios hurrumph in the interior dark, Chrystos frowning as he folded the phone away.
–Busy. Busy with your foreign friends?
–Only tonight.
–You know what I told you.
–I haven’t forgotten.
–No? We will see, Chrystos said quietly, changing gears, the van already pulling away, its white bulk rocking down the track into the concealing dark.
Canis Aureus: Golden jackal, common jackal.
Carnivora of the family Canidae.
Regions: Palearctic, Oriental, Ethiopian.
Biomes: desert, grassland, forest, scrub.
Conservation Status: unthreatened.
Body length: 3'. Body weight: 24lbs. Standing height�
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A carillon of laughter. The din of a glass-pack muffler. There were lights in the orange trees outside. Walking back from the girls’ place he had wondered what they were meant for. It was two weeks to Independence Day but Lent still had a month to run. Thin crowds converged outside the shops or at the bars around the town square, yet there were few out on the streets even on a Saturday night. Only the young bloods were in good spirits. The older people huddled over their drinks and chat, as if they were living through hard times and the worst might not be over yet; who could tell? Who could tell.
Natsuko and Eleschen lived on the cathedral square, a stone’s throw from the laboratory. They rented one floor of a crumbling villa, a building with a tired grace the postwar blocks around it lacked. The rooms were dirt-cheap, high-ceilinged, ornate and icy: there was no heating, and the landlords–old folks from New Mystras–had nailed up the fireplaces. A month before Eleschen had prised off the boards and used them for kindling, but the chimneys had vomited back smoke and they’d had to flirt assiduously with the widower upstairs to avoid calls to the fire brigade and complaints to the owners. The rooms still reeked sweetly of burnt olive wood, the smell almost masking the scents of perfume, candles and dog.
Sylvia had taken to him. At first she had rushed up to the girls, weeping for their affection, claws skidding on the boards; but later, after Natsuko had taken her for a night-time walk, it was Ben that she had watched, finally trotting over and collapsing into his arms. She was a Laconian breed, white with liver spots, a round muzzle and long, soft ears; a beagle kind of dog, descended from old hunting stock.
–Where did you get her? he had asked, stroking the sow-purse ears, and Max had laughed, the sound of his humour rusty, like a big cat’s cough.
–Corinth, Eleschen had said. I bought her there. But Natsuko had leaned towards him, her eyes obsidian.
–She stole her.
–I did not!
–She told Max to stop the car. She said she felt sick from the road. She went into a restaurant to ask for a glass of water. Then she came out with Sylvia. Jason said What is that? Eleschen said This is Sylvia. Eberhard said I didn’t see dog on the menu. Eleschen said I feel better now. Let’s go home.
