Touch of Danger

by James Jones

  I didn’t answer that, either.

  I was determined I was going to give her a great day of diving and spearfishing. One she could think back about. Why, I didn’t know. I just wanted to. Also, there might be something I might learn from her about the case.

  Somewhere down in the back of that flighty little feather-head of hers, that also carried so much of her own young anguish and a kind of young desolation, there might be some little plum of information she wasn’t aware of.

  She had lapsed back into silence. I didn’t talk either. Around us the summer day buzzed along, friendly, lazy, not at all inimical, making you happy by its existence, seeming to offer you free without charge or work the fruits of nature’s growth.

  There was a slight swell on the sea, and a light breeze that brought on it the smell of the hot land. Along our left side the dun, sere terrain of the mainland unrolled itself hill after hill. Out at sea mountainous islands reared up a dark blue in the heat haze.

  Time seemed to sort of go away. We passed a long low luxurious establishment with its own cove and landing dock that I recognized as Kronitis’s.

  Farther on we came to a cone-shaped head with a chapel on its top that had just been renovated. The old stones had been reset and pointed, and young trees had been set out around it. A new concrete road ran up to it and circled it to rejoin itself and fade away into the dun thistle-strewn hills. It seemed to wait eternally in the sun for the tourist cars that were supposed to come.

  “It’s awful, isn’t it?” Marie said.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  We lapsed back into our silence.

  A couple of miles farther on Marie said, “Here it is.”

  There weren’t any other boats. I ran us in almost to the deserted beach for a look at it. It was a great beach. It had to be at least a quarter of a mile long. And not a living thing anywhere in the baking sun except a few gulls sunning on the rocks. At one end a hill that ran back into the land had three gnarled trees on it.

  “Someday they’ll build one of those roads in here, too,” I said. “If it looks like it’ll pay enough.”

  I ran us out to the reef and cut the motor. I was in a somnambulistic sun-hypnotized mood that had taken me over. Even the future road and all the people and crud it would someday bring here did not bother me that much. My anchor made a loud splash in the sun-stillness. I caught it on the bottom, then just sat and looked down through the clear, clean water. There wasn’t a sound anywhere except the water moving against the boat, and the cry of a gull now and then.

  Behind me Marie took off her bikini and put on her wet suit. She didn’t like the feel of clothing on her under the suit, she explained in a sun- and sea-dazzled voice.

  In the stillness I didn’t feel like answering her. I was acutely aware of her moving nude behind me. Then she came over to me, metamorphosed into that long black apparition again. She had nothing on under the suit.

  “I’ve got to get in,” she said. “You can’t stay out of the water very long in these things.” She had left the tight helmet off. She lowered her mask and speargun in hand went over the side, feet first.

  I got my stuff and followed her. The chill of the water brought me out of my dazzlement immediately. I whooped around my snorkel when I came up. Below me the bottom lay at 30 or 35 feet. The reef stretched away right and left across the face of the beach. Fifty yards out it dropped down an underwater cliff another 35 feet, to a sand bottom which just ran on out to sea until it faded in the haze. Marie had already swum out to the edge of it. I followed her.

  I could see right away that she didn’t know too much. She swam and surface-dived well enough, but 30 feet was about her absolute limit. After 20 feet she began to hedge and freeze up. On the other hand she was much better at spotting fish here than I was.

  “Do you want me to give you a few pointers?” I said.

  “Oh, please. Teach me. Everything you can. I want to learn it.”

  “I’m not being too dictatorial?”

  Under water to her ears, she shook her head vigorously. She had this marvelous quality of putting herself in your hands completely. A lot of people had abused it in her life, I guessed. In me, it brought out all the gentleness I had.

  I started showing her some of the things. Hyperventilation, and oxygenation. How to swim down slowly, not swiftly. The slower she went down the longer she could stay. Don’t rush for the surface, swim up slowly. I made her ignore the heavings of her diaphragm.

  By the time we had done a dozen dives, she was going down and coming up, at 35 feet, as lazily and as gracefully as any of the old pros who had tutored me at 80 feet in the Caribbean.

  “Ohh!” she said after the last one, treading water to put her head out. “It’s always been fun. But it’s never been like this! This is something else.”

  I felt like I’d picked up a few points for decency, with God or whoever. We swam up and down the reef in the little bay for a while, hunting grouper and diving. It was great fun, in the still, marvelous Greek sun. Finally, when I thought she was ready, I said, “Come on, I’ll give you a demonstration.”

  I took her hand and led her out beyond the edge of the reef over the deeper water, and handed her the stringer of fish.

  I didn’t know how far down I could get, but I knew I could make the 45 feet I had made the day before with Sonny. I lay on the surface and ventilated, then started down. I amazed myself by going right on down. I didn’t push myself but the bottom kept coming up closer and closer until suddenly I was on it, without straining at all.

  I reached out and picked up a dead shell half-buried in the sand. I seemed to have all the time in the world. I rolled over and looked up and waved at Marie on the surface. The small figure way up there waved back at me. Just to make sure, I looked at my meter-calibrated depth gauge. It gave me a reading of 20.5 meters. Just about 68 feet. It was weird what you could do when you had an admiring audience to show off for.

  I turned over and started back up. About 20 feet up I spotted a big grouper under a ledge, waving his fins at me. I kept on going. I had that feeling I always got swimming up, of an immense regret to be leaving. I swam slower and slower. My diaphragm heaved only a couple of times. The surface came further and further down to me. Then I popped out through it and blew my snorkel and lay face down on the water breathing, and looking back down at where I had been. It seemed a long way down there. As always, it was awesome.

  “Ohh, that was beautiful!” Marie said beside me. “Oh, that was beautiful. You were beautiful. So graceful. You looked so free. I’d give anything to be able to do that.”

  I guessed that was it. You felt so free. Free of gravity. Free of earth. And graceful. Sometimes you felt that, if only you didn’t have to breathe, you could stay down forever.

  After I rested, I went back down after the big grouper and shot him easily. I saw four or five others, in crevices or under ledges.

  On the surface I added him to the stringer and began the job of getting Marie to go down with me. I knew it would be a hard job, it always was. But it proved easier than I thought with Marie. The first time she failed to clear her ears the first try, and jerked her hand free and went up. The second time a sort of just general malaise and panic at being there, being that deep, got her and she went up again. But the third time I got her down far enough to see the big groupers. Maybe 45 feet. After that, she was over the psychological hurdle.

  We had been in the water maybe two hours by then. In the next hour Marie shot four of the big groupers down under the ledge, and I added them to the stringer for her. I didn’t shoot any more myself, but just went down with her. Then I thought it was time to call a halt.

  Marie acted as if she wanted to go on forever, but I refused to let her. Besides, the stringer was becoming a drag on my streamlining and heavy to lug around.

  Back at the boat I passed her up the stringer, which was a lot heavier out of the water than in, then pulled off my flippers and climbed up myself.

 
On the deck my star pupil had dropped the string of fish down, and was swiftly stripping off her wet suit. She already had the top almost off. As I stepped on deck she threw it down and started on the long-legged bottoms. She had hard, tight, dark nipples, made harder and tighter by the water chill probably. It didn’t seem to bother her that she was not alone. She didn’t seem to mind if I watched. But I minded. I turned my back.

  Perhaps because of me, she put back on her bikini pieces before she stretched out on the coach-roof in the sun, breathlessly.

  “Oh, wow,” she said between breaths, stretching her face up to the sun with her eyes closed. “I guess this is just about the best day in my life. I’m glad you made us stop. I guess I wouldn’t have quit until dark.”

  I decided not to answer. I got out the gin bottle and the vermouth bottle and ice.

  “Oh, gee!” Marie said. “Me, too! I guess you don’t know what you’ve given me, Mr. Davies. You’ve taught me something I’ll be able to use the whole rest of my life.”

  I didn’t feel much like answering that. I began to swish the martini mixture in the big Mason jar.

  After a little bit she sat back up and I handed her a glass. I ran us in to the beach with my glass in one hand, and we ate our lunch on the boat under the tarpaulin. Then we waded ashore to lie in the sun a while.

  The meal had made us both drowsy. We were both ravenously hungry from the diving and I had bought a lot. Bread and meat and cheese and mustard and the tomato and Greek cheese salad. And it tasted great, with the bottles of red wine I had dropped over the side earlier to chill and then dove down for.

  We were not stretched out on the sand five minutes when Marie began taking her bikini off. She started with the bra first.

  I was stretched out on my back, but my face was partly toward her and I could see her from the outside of my eye.

  “I would rather you didn’t do that,” I said.

  She stopped, then turned her head to look at me. “Oh, but it’s all right. Don’t worry. There isn’t anyone within miles.”

  “That was not what I meant,” I said.

  “Oh,” Marie said. Then, “Oh. Oh, all right.” She still had her hands up behind her, at the bra fasteners. She sort of hesitated. “The bra, too?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “It’s just that I’m used to it. Nude bathing. You know? I didn’t even think.”

  I didn’t answer. She left the bra on, and then lay back down sort of thoughtfully and closed her eyes.

  After a long moment she said, “If you wanted to ball me, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Well, I don’t,” I said. “And you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Marie said. She lay still several more moments with her eyes closed. “That’s what I like about it. It’s kicky.”

  “That’s not the truth,” I said.

  “No. It’s not. The truth is I guess I just like you. Like I said the other night.”

  “I appreciate your offer,” I said. “But I’m shy.”

  “Look, you don’t have to explain anything. You don’t want to ball me, you don’t want to ball me.”

  “But now I’ve hurt your feelings.”

  “Are you kidding, Mr. Davies?”

  “Tell me about the kids up at the Construction,” I said. “Instead.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  “You told me they weren’t all students.”

  “There’re some oldies. But mostly they’re just students. College kids. Like I used to be. Kids between years at school. What is it you want to know? They’ll almost all go back and finish school. Take a job. Get married. You’d be surprised how many are there because their fathers made them come. A summer on the bum in Europe. But bumming on the old man’s money.”

  “What about these two, Chuck and Steve?”

  “They’re different. And that girl Diane. They’re worse than just dropouts. They all come from decent families, I think. But they’ve learned to be con artists. They con the other kids for their living.”

  “Aren’t they the leaders up there?”

  “I suppose. In a way. That’s just the trouble. Did you ever see a leader that wasn’t a con artist?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t.”

  “Sure. That’s what the trouble with the world is that we can’t fix. Well, the kids all know that. That’s what all the fuss back home is about, really. And they know it up here at the Construction, just like they know it at home in politics. But they don’t know what to do about it. Their own leaders do them in, too.”

  “Nobody has ever found out what to do about it,” I said. “Chuck and Steve don’t seem much like leaders.”

  “Well, they are. They’ve got the flair. The kids will listen to them and follow them. Steve’s the leader, really. Chuck is just his hatchet man. He’s even got this machete he’s always carrying around and playing with.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “The other day they stole a stray goat from the other end of the island and killed it and roasted it. Chuck cut off its head with his machete. Then he went around with the blood on the machete. Wouldn’t wipe it off. He’s got a thing about blood on his machete.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t ask her if she thought they had killed Girgis.

  “I don’t think they killed Girgis,” Marie said. “Chuck’s not like that. He’s just a kid. He likes to go around playing cowboys.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I see.” I moved my head. I wasn’t going to tell her how he had played cowboys in Mexico. “Tell me about yourself. How did you wind up in Tsatsos?”

  “I’d rather not talk about me, Mr. Davies. If you don’t mind. It will only upset me and depress me and put me down. And I’ve had a wonderful day with you.

  “I came to Tsatsos with a boy I met in Paris. He was traveling through. He had heard about Tsatsos and the Construction. We came together. He left. I stayed.”

  “How did you get to Paris?”

  “From Haight-Ashbury, with another boy. See, I went a year to Berkeley. Then I met this boy and dropped out with him. He wanted to be a rock singer. We lived in Haight-Ashbury for a while. Then he brought me to Paris. I lived with him in Paris for a year before he left me. He said I was disruptive to his art, and he wasn’t doing very well. I don’t know whatever happened to him.

  “Please, Mr. Davies. I really don’t want to talk about me.”

  “And your parents are both dead?”

  After a moment she said, “Yes. For a couple of years. My mother died of diabetes, my father from a heart attack. He drank too much, and she ate too much.”

  “Have you ever thought about going back?”

  “I have. But it’s hard. It costs money. And it’s hard, when you haven’t got anybody there at all to go back to.

  “Please, Mr. Davies!”

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m sorry.” I rolled over and heaved myself to my feet. “Come on. If we’re going to do anything more, we better get moving.”

  She held out her hands to me. I leaned over and pulled her up. We dove into the clear, clean water over the sand, and swam out to the boat and climbed up dripping wet. It felt marvelous, after the sun heat.

  “There’s still time to dive some more,” I said, looking at her in the wet bikini. I was starting to regret not accepting her offer on the beach. I did regret it.

  She smiled and shook the water off herself. She pulled her long hair straight back. Then she shook her head. “No. I guess not. I don’t want to do anything to spoil it. It’s been perfect.”

  “Then we’ll head on back, then?” I said. Now I regretted it enormously. She was really something. So young. But that was just the trouble. And now it was past and too late. I wanted to swear.

  “Yes. And thank you an awful lot, Mr. Davies.”

  I moved my head. There wasn’t really anything I could say to her. Or do for her. I got the anchor
up, and we headed out.

  Ahead of us the sun had moved west just enough to begin to turn the top of Tsatsos a faint red. Where the people were.

  I headed for it.

  Chapter 28

  THE LUNCH CROWD WAS GONE and Sonny Duval was sitting waiting at the taverna like a big mustachioed frog, when we arrived back. He and Jane had gotten back from the Construction, he said, and Jane was out on the big caique cooking the baby’s supper.

  Marie sat and had a drink with us, and spent five minutes telling Sonny what a great guy I was and what a great skin-diver. I hustled her into a horsecab with her duffel bag and sent her back to town, and told her I would see her later. I would leave the fish with Dmitrios for her, for her to sell. I paid the driver.

  “The police were up at the Construction all afternoon,” Sonny said when I sat back down. “They went through everything, and everybody, like a finetooth comb. They wanted to know what we were doing up there. They checked our papers.”

  “What did you expect? You didn’t have to go up there.”

  “We wanted to,” Sonny said. “Jane wanted to.”

  “Then don’t complain.”

  “They’re coming down here to the boat to see us. Probably tomorrow.”

  I was hardly even listening to him. I was still thinking regretfully about Marie, back there on the beach. And I was thinking about something else: I was thinking about what she’d told me about those two giants of hippie living, Chuck and Steve.

  “Listen, there’s something I’d like for you to do for me,” I said. “I want to go up to the Construction. I want to go to Steve’s pad. Can you take me there?”

  “I guess so. But are you sure you want to go up there? You’re not very popular up there.”

  “That’s why I don’t want to ask directions. You can direct me.”

  “All right,” he said, grudgingly. “But it’s hard to land the boat up there.”

  “Well take a horsecab. There’s a couple here.”

  In the horsecab he was silent for a while. If he was embarrassed by my having observed the unsubtle return of Kirk and Jane at noontime, he didn’t show it. Then he said, “When are we gonna go spearfishing again?”