Forth into Light

by Gordon Merrick

  “I’ll say one thing for you, Sid. You’re a cheerful bastard. I hope you can keep it up.”

  “You know what the trouble with you is, Yorgo? You believe in things.”

  “Do I?”

  “Sure. The flag. Mother. You believe it all means something. Now you take—yes, take Peter. Peter could be a saint or the devil. How about that, Yorgo? It doesn’t matter. Right? He’s the pagan life-force. He lives. Peter lives. He doesn’t go around finding meaning in everything.”

  “Not meaning. That’s religion. Faith. Faith in man, in his ability to make a good life with what he’s born with.” Astonished to have said so much without stumbling, George pushed on. “You can’t take Peter. I’m taking him. He’s what I’m talking about. He’s the only person I know who has the courage to—to make a consistent try for happiness. I’m not sure creative people have any business hoping for happiness so go ahead and louse up your life, but you have no right to tell everybody else that happiness doesn’t exist. Peter’s happy because he respects his capacity for happiness and is prepared to make sacrifices for it. Most people don’t and won’t. There’s a reality for you.” George was impressed by his lucidity and coherence. The words were coming slowly but made perfectly good sense. His body might be drunk but his mind wasn’t.

  He had opened his mouth to continue when the ground moved under him. A bad sign. The table lurched and retreated from him. He made a grab for his glass. The ground shook under him again as if it were trying to unseat him. There was a crack like the snap of a bullwhip followed by a thunderous crash. George found himself lying on the cobbled paving with an arm lifted over the back of an overturned chair. This wasn’t good. He was making a public spectacle of himself. He heard Coleman saying something near him and realized that all the lights had gone out. He pulled himself up quickly and made out Coleman’s figure bending over his girl on the ground. There were lumps of broken masonry scattered about. No immediate explanation came to his mind, but he was suddenly filled with an urge to run.

  “Come on,” he cried. “Get her out of here.” He lunged forward and pulled at the girl’s legs.

  “Are you all right?” Sid asked dazedly.

  “Get her out of here. The goddamn building’s falling down.”

  Coleman followed his example and they managed to gather her up and move her down toward the water. Staggering and lurching under the load, George became aware of people milling about all the length of the quai, the mumble of voices, an occasional shout, a scream.

  “What is it? What’s going on. What happened?” Sid kept repeating as they staggered to the edge of the quai.

  They stretched the girl out on the cobbles and she moaned. “Darling, are you all right? Come on, darling. Everything’s all right. Come on, darling, sit up.” Sid’s incantation continued until Dorothy struggled into a sitting position.

  “What happened?” she gasped. “God. My head.”

  “You got conked. There, just sit there for a minute. You’ll be all right.”

  George’s eyes were beginning to see in the dark. He looked back to where they had been sitting. A building had definitely fallen on them. But which one, and why? He was struck by a change in the town’s low skyline. Something was different. Something was missing.

  “Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed. “The clock tower. The whole bloody clock tower fell on us.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Look there. You see? That’s where it should be.” The line of roofs was all of a level against the star-pricked sky, no longer dominated by the ornate square tower. As they looked, the air was filled with a curious roar, growing in strength, like the approach of an enormous wave. In another moment, people began spilling out of the streets which led back up into the town. They came in increasing numbers and the roar became a din of a thousand voices and the slap of running feet. The whole town was assembling on the waterfront.

  “What’s going on?” Sid complained again.

  “It’s an earthquake, silly,” Dorothy announced as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Didn’t you feel it?”

  “So that’s what it was,” George exclaimed. “I thought it was the drink. I guess it was an earthquake.”

  They helped Dorothy to her feet.

  “Do you think there’ll be more of it?” Sid demanded.

  “I’ve felt tremors from time to time,” George said. “Nothing like this. There hasn’t been a real earthquake here since the eighteenth century.”

  “That was real, man. That was real enough to suit me. We could have been killed.”

  George laughed at the shocked indignation in Sid’s voice. He looked back at the gap in the sky where the tower had been. People streamed past them in the dark. Where were they going? Perhaps there was some safe place they all knew about. Flashlights winked among them. Lamps were beginning to appear at the taverns along the front. He heard the Greek word for earthquake being repeated excitedly. “Sismos. Sismos. Sismos.” Keening women clutched children. He noticed that it was suddenly much cooler. A breeze had sprung up from somewhere. He thought of Sarah and steeled himself not to go look for her. He knew that if he hadn’t had so much to drink, he already would be rushing home. He was in no mood or condition to rush anywhere. Home. He understood how Jeff felt about it. Let the earthquake bring it crashing to the ground. And Sarah with it. It was his only hope of freedom.

  Joe Peterson emerged from the crowd with the Swedish girl, Lena, at his side. “Is that you, George?” he demanded in his boyishly enthusiastic voice. “Hi, everybody. How about this?”

  “We hoped you’d like it,” George said. Dark figures whom he didn’t recognize moved in beside them, a boy, two girls.

  “Why aren’t we having a drink? How about it, George? Do you think the Lambraikis could dig us out some champagne? I think champagne for after an earthquake is definitely the right idea.”

  “Shouldn’t we be doing something?” Sid asked. “Digging people out from the rubble? Stamping out bubonic plague? Purifying the water system?”

  “I don’t think we’d better get started on any of that until the lights come on,” George said.

  Jeff and Dimitri were still behind the bar where George had left them, their voices unnecessarily low under the blanket of music, discussing his visit. They were standing so close together that Dimitri had only to lift his finger to run it teasingly over the back of Jeff’s hand.

  “I tell you,” Dimitri insisted, “he practically said he doesn’t mind if we go to bed together.”

  “No. I couldn’t. Not at home. Don’t you understand? They’d all know what was happening.”

  Dimitri laughed and ran his fingers over Jeff’s hand again. “Of course, they’ll know, my Jeff. I’ll love that. It will be like having a new family. If you’re a good lover, I’ll spend the night with you quite often.”

  “Maybe if you——”

  The floor moved under their feet and brought them together with a bump. They steadied themselves against the bar and exchanged a puzzled look.

  “Why did you——”

  The floor moved again and there was a crash of glasses from the shelves behind them. The whole building shook, there was an enormous crash outside, and the lights went off. Dimitri was gripping Jeff’s hand and pushing him out from the bar under the shelf at the end. They ran to the door still hand in hand. Dimitri stood close against Jeff while they peered into the dark. The great crash still seemed to echo in the air. They heard people calling out. The Meltemi’s handful of customers were dark shapes in front of them, all standing and talking excitedly.

  “An earthquake,” Dimitri said cheerfully. “Not bad, if there’s no more of it.”

  “An earthquake?” Jeff repeated, not yet grasping it.

  Dimitri laughed. “At least this building won’t fall down. It’s solid rock.” He withdrew his hand and Jeff’s heart gave a great leap as he felt it exploring for his sex under cover of the dark. A thought of Peter flashed through his mind and he conquered an i
mpulse to draw away, to hide himself. Immediately, all sense of place and circumstance was obliterated by the fact of a man making intimate amorous contact with his body. He reached out and encountered the sheer shirt and smooth bare skin and Dimitri was somehow enclosed in his arms. Their mouths found each other and their tongues met. Jeff’s heart raced wildly, responding to the willingness he felt in the body he had desired for so many months. He dropped his hands and found the full curve of buttocks. Muscles danced and quivered under his touch. His legs began to tremble. Eager hands worked his stiff sex up inside his trousers until it stood upright against his belly. They shaped the cloth around it and moved up and down on it. He was going to have an orgasm.

  Dimitri drew his mouth away with soft laughter. “Good heavens. You’re not a boy, you’re a big man. Tonight will be exciting.”

  Jeff’s chest was heaving with the inaugural impact of this love play, electric with desire. He realized how carefully Peter had handled him this afternoon, instructive but unengaged. Driven by the orgasm gathering in him, he reached out again and pulled Dimitri’s head back to him and took his mouth with his in a way he hoped suggested experience. He slipped the flat of his hand down inside the front of the tight trousers until his fingertips thrillingly reached fine hair and hard flesh. He withdrew his hand and moved it around inside the shirt and slid it under the waistband of the trousers, giddy at taking these liberties with an unknown body and at knowing they were wanted. This was life at last. His fingers caressed the velvet upper curves of buttocks and lingered at the cleft between them. He felt all of Dimitri’s body melt into his.

  Thrilled though he was, he had an intimation of inadequacy. Dimitri had always been to him a figure of dazzling self-confidence and worldy authority, an older man of sophisticated tastes whom he could hardly hope to interest, yet he held in his arms a supplicant, all soft and compliant and yielding to male demands. It denied the child Jeff still felt in himself and called for an aggressive masculinity whose secret he didn’t possess. He had learned his true desire with Peter, but this was life and he hoped it might offer some further revelation.

  Dimitri pulled away with laughter that had become slightly breathless. “You mustn’t undress me here,” he whispered with a hint of delight that suggested he would like nothing better. He turned his back quickly and gripped Jeff’s hips and pulled them up against him. Jeff’s hands slipped under the shirt again and caressed smooth skin of chest and abdomen and they remained locked together for a moment while Dimitri worked his buttocks against Jeff’s upright sex. With only a few layers of thin cloth separating him from the performance of the unimaginable act, Jeff gasped as orgasm threatened once more. A little whimper escaped him as he realized that the danger had suddenly passed and that his erection was subsiding.

  The side of Dimitri’s head lay against his. “Like that, my Jeff. In a little while,” he whispered. To Jeff’s vast relief, he broke away. “Now we must get out lamps. Come help me.”

  They both knew their way around the deep cavernous room. A row of lamps was always kept ready on a table in the rear to fill in the gaps of the town’s erratic electrical supply. They went back to them together, guiding each other with their hands in the dark, and Dimitri struck a match and got one going. In its growing light, they exchanged a glance. Dimitri smiled gaily into Jeff’s dark passionate young face.

  “You mustn’t look at me like that. Not yet. I have my work to do first. We’re going to be very good together.”

  Jeff lowered his eyes, wondering if he would ever again feel anything so intensely as their first brief embrace. They checked and adjusted wicks and lighted the other lamps.

  Jeff set them about on the bar and the tables, thinking about the bargain with his father. He knew he shouldn’t be down here still, but surely an earthquake was an extenuating circumstance. As soon as he had helped Dimitri get organized, he would go upstairs and wait. Thinking it, he knew that if they had their talk now, his father could quite easily persuade him to go home. He still wanted it to happen with Dimitri, but the moment of physical intimacy had stilled his ardor almost as much as if the act had been completed. The undeniably small phallus he had briefly held couldn’t match his dream of the soaring male mystery possessing him. He was entranced by Dimitri, but Dimitri wasn’t worth the things he had done for him, certainly not worth the childish outbursts with his father. This knowledge enclosed him once more in solitude, but he was used to solitude. He was already beginning to learn something about life.

  Dimitri winked at him as their paths crossed. “I’ll sweep up behind the bar. We’ll probably need more glasses. Bring down the carton that’s upstairs.”

  Jeff hurried to obey. There was very little more he could do to help. Upstairs, he was aware of a growing din around the port. Apparently half the town was out. When he carried the glasses down, Dimitri was in back of the bar once more and he could see more people gathering outside.

  “I think this is going to be good for business,” Dimitri said with brisk anticipation, not bothering to flirt with him. “Take those last two lamps outside, will you?”

  Jeff went to fetch them, resolved that this was the last chore he would perform. It would be taking advantage of his father’s tolerance to hang around any longer. He took the lamps out and placed them. The tables were filling up rapidly.

  He had started to turn back when Mike Cochran emerged out of the night. At his side was the blond Swiss boy everybody had been making jokes about for the last few days.

  “Aha,” Mike said, approaching him. “Is this where the island’s youth and beauty congregate? I’m glad to see you survived the earthquake.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Cochran. I was just going.” Jeff could feel his manner growing surly and withdrawn in spite of himself. There was something about the man that made him shy.

  “Oh, dear. Couldn’t you at least make it Mike?” He stepped close to Jeff and put his hands on his biceps and held him in a firm and friendly grasp. “I wondered if I was going to see you again. You’re the member of the Leighton family I most wanted to make a good impression on.”

  Jeff looked at him and looked quickly away. He was very sleek and handsome in the lamplight. He radiated the glamour of his successful world. He was rich, he was famous, he knew everybody. He had had a lot of wives. Mike Cochran couldn’t possibly mean what he seemed to mean, yet there was something special about the way he looked at him. There was the corroboration of the Swiss boy.

  Jeff edged away from him. “I’m sorry, Mike,” he blurted. “I have to go. Orders.”

  “I see. I’m sorry. We’re fated not to become friends.” He exerted an extra little pressure on Jeff’s arms and let go.

  Jeff felt it as if some current had been turned off inside him. Mike’s magnetism was direct and compelling, somehow inflaming to his imagination. He was a satyr, faintly diabolical but irresistible. He turned his dark eyes back to him and tried not to let his shyness make his voice sound hostile. “We’re sure to see each other tomorrow. I have something to do in there. I’ll tell somebody to get your order.” Their eyes held a beat too long, a beat during which Jeff felt that he had completely given himself away; he had told Mike Cochran that he responded sexually to men. He didn’t want to let himself be ashamed of it (Peter said that was bad), but with Mike Cochran it was getting a bit close to home. He turned and fled, his heart drumming in his chest.

  Mike watched him go with a touch of relief. He was very tempted by the thought of having George’s son—it would place an outrageous seal on his total triumph over his old friend—but those great passionate eyes were dangerous. Available, but at a price. Better stick to the easy bits like this little Swiss faggot or, he thought as he saw Dimitri approaching with a breezy swing of his hips, this quite gorgeous bar boy.

  The lights blazed up suddenly all around the port as if on cue to celebrate the beautiful half-naked body; there was a great deep-throated “ah” from the crowd as if in appreciation of it. Mike met flirtatious, invit
ing eyes as Dimitri stopped in front of him and immediately dismissed the little Swiss faggot from his evening’s plans.

  Sarah lay stretched out on the bed in their room, dressed, freshly made up, an untouched drink on the table beside her. By remaining absolutely still she could just barely prevent herself from sweating. She had never known anything like it. It was getting denser and denser, as if gathering for some sort of explosion. Somebody on the rocks this morning had said it was earthquake weather. That’s all they needed. George’s explosion was enough for one evening.

  She was trying to imagine what mood he would be in when he came home. Something was happening; the mold into which their lives had frozen was breaking up. Now that he had actually expressed in words his case against her, anything might happen. She felt she ought to put herself through some sort of mental shadow-boxing, like a fighter tuning up for a match. She suspected that she was going to need all her resources for the next round.

  After all these years, she still wasn’t sure what curious twists and turns might be dictated by his gentle, sheltered background. She had been trained to fight for what she wanted. It had been a struggle in the early years to adjust to his consideration of others, his respect for people he didn’t particularly like, his assumption of goodness where nobody else could see it. Too often, it seemed soft and self-abnegating until she had learned his strength and adopted his values.

  She must be prepared to fight again to keep him if he had talked himself into thinking he had to leave. She could surely find a way to make it impossible somehow, although Mike’s damn check was no help to her. She needed him just as he needed her. Even if it could lead only to mutual destruction, they must see it through to the end.

  Should she pretend to be sick? It had worked once before in the early days of his fame when he was taking too much interest in a girl he didn’t really want. What sort of sickness could she pretend to have?