Seven Tears for Apollo

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I’ll finish Beth’s hair,” she told the woman curtly.

  Vanda nodded and went into her room, closing the door softly behind her.

  At least it was quieting to sit on the bed, holding Beth’s small, wriggling person between her knees while she combed tangles from fine dark hair. Beth talked about her morning and Dorcas tried to listen. There had been woods and paths and rustic bridges in the butterfly valley. Aunt Fern and Vanda had gone up the hill above a little waterfall, but Beth and Johnny had stayed below to watch the water and drop pebbles and leaves into the stream.

  The moment her pony tail was secured with a clasp and a ribbon, Beth whirled away. Pausing in her turn, she stopped beside the bed table and pointed.

  “The silver owl, Mommy—it’s gone!”

  Dorcas spoke carefully. “Did you see it there last night, darling? Do you know who put it there?”

  Beth looked surprised. “I put it there. I put it there for you to find, like the lady said.”

  It was difficult not to pounce and startle all information out of the child. “What lady?” Dorcas asked with forced casualness. “Do you mean Vanda?”

  Beth shook her head. “No, it was the lady with the cat. She gave me the silver owl and tied it into my handkerchief. She said you would like to have it and I must give it to you. Only I forgot. So last night after you went to dinner I took it out of the knot and put it there. Did you find it, Mommy?”

  “I found it,” Dorcas said. “It’s all right, darling. I have it.”

  There was no use in pushing the matter further with Beth. But this was something to tell Johnny.

  For the rest of that day, however, there was no chance to talk to him alone. Fernanda kept them both busy. She was her exuberant self again, and if there had been strained moments between herself and Dorcas, no one would have guessed it from her manner. Fernanda had the ability to slough off the unpleasant and turn her back upon it with the utmost aplomb. She believed in Positive Thinking in capital letters and was always full of schemes which would truly improve the lives of other people, providing they would listen and do as she said. That she adopted such plans herself was evident, and they seemed to pay off in a bouncing energy and well-being that those who loved her sometimes found wearing.

  In the afternoon Fernanda expounded on the interests of Petaloudes as one of the unique beauty spots of Rhodes, and Dorcas made notes.

  “It’s a shame we won’t be here for the butterflies,” she said. “Though of course there are enough accounts so I can write about them anyway. It’s amazing how they come out in this one spot and nowhere else in the world. Little striped butterflies that cluster by the hundreds on trunks and branches. I’ve seen pictures of them.”

  Before Fernanda was through, she would be as much at home with the butterflies as though she had seen them with her own eyes. She would have made a wonderful fiction writer, Dorcas thought. The catapult ball was still riding around in Beth’s tote bag in the back of the car, and every now and then Fernanda added embellishing notes to her story about it Perhaps fiction was really her forte. Perhaps from the very beginning she had constructed a gigantic fiction about Gino, in which she herself thoroughly believed. Gino would have been well aware of what she was doing and thus able to inject into the picture his own fictions about his wife. He would have known that Fernanda would seize upon them and embroider in the direction he indicated. She was still doing this.

  Since no day must be wasted, plans were already afoot for a trip to Camiros. They would go the day after tomorrow, Fernanda announced. Vanda was to have the day off to visit her village, so Dorcas could bring Beth along. Beth had been very good this morning at the butterfly valley—it had been a nice change for her. At Camiros they must have plenty of time to spend among the ruins, so they would pack a lunch and make it a picnic day. Perhaps they might drive into the interior of the island afterward.

  No mention was made in this rush of words of Mrs. Dimitriou or any of the subterranean plotting Fernanda must have been engaged in for some time. Dorcas managed along the way to insert the fact that Madame Xenia had asked her to go through Constantine’s poems the following morning. Fernanda did not warm to the idea, and if she had not had plans of her own for the morning, Dorcas suspected that she would have put her foot down in opposition. As it was, she gave in reluctantly and Dorcas phoned the Greek woman that she would keep her appointment.

  In the evening Johnny went off by himself, so again there was no opportunity for Dorcas to tell him what she had discovered.

  At nine o’clock the following morning Madame Xenia sent her chauffeur to drive Dorcas the few blocks to her home. The burly and voluble Stavros was in a cheerful mood. He drove the long way around at high speed, conversing fluently in Greek all the while. It did not seem to matter that she could neither understand nor answer him. He liked to talk, and she listened. Clearly it was enough.

  The Greek maid admitted her at the gate, but Madame herself stood at the house door and it was at once evident that today she was playing a different role. Gone were the flowing robes and the air of tragedy. Instead, she wore a white blouse, a hand-woven black skirt with Greek warriors and a Grecian key in silver and blue running around the hem. She greeted her guest as warmly as though they were old friends and was charmingly diffident about Dorcas’s opinion as she led her to the sculptor’s studio.

  “You will know which poems are best, I am sure,” she said. “In this folder are the ones my husband translated. There are more in the large envelope on his desk. I have not gone through them all, since I am unable to judge what is best for American publication. You will be comfortable here, yes? There is a bell on the wall if you wish something. I must return now to the kitchen. Today I will make for you a very special lunch.”

  When her hostess had gone, Dorcas sat in the leather armchair before Constantine’s wide desk and stared about her. An American typewriter had been brought in for her to work on, but otherwise the room must have been very much as it was when Constantine himself came here. It was a quiet, bright room, with no sounds penetrating from the rest of the house. Behind the desk windows overlooked the garden. There were plane trees and a distant wall, but no near neighbors to encroach upon the seclusion. She thought of Constantine sitting here idly in the perfection of his prison, or perhaps moving about the room, picking up the tools of his art and laying them down again. Had the genius of some of his earlier work reproached him when he had done so little of late? What resentments had he harbored sitting here, unable to work? Most of all, what was his connection with Gino?

  She opened the folder and read through the first of the poems that had been translated into English. It was not concerned with modern Greece, but dealt with the golden past. By the time she had read through the third poem she was beginning to feel that Constantine Katalonos was no Pindar. He did not bring to poetry the gifts he brought to sculpture. Or else he was not very good in his attempt at English translation. Had he sat here turning out such verse on days when marble remained inert and his hands found nothing vital in the clay?

  His presence made itself felt too keenly in this place. Like Constantine, she found it difficult to concentrate on work. It was too easy to imagine him watching her from some shadowy corner of the room. Her imagination supplied the narrow, sardonic face of the portrait with a pair of dark glasses and she could almost, almost, catch the sound of his voice. She did not want to hear it. She did not want Constantine Katalonos to know that she, of all people, was working among his things.

  She left the desk restlessly and went to stand beside the shrouded head from whose vicinity Madame Xenia had so firmly led her on that first visit. She guessed what might lie hidden beneath the cloth, but she was curious to see for herself.

  As she whisked the covering away, the board the head rested upon swiveled at her touch. The face turned toward her—the face of Vanda Petrus. This was the portrait in the round that Vanda had said he’d done of her, and the reality surprised her. Vanda, in r
ed-brown terra cotta, was warm, earthy, magnificent. In his subject the sculptor had found something worthy of his art. Dorcas studied the head in amazement. She had never glimpsed Vanda in such a light as this. Constantine had caught the woman’s somber quality in the clay—the lines of suffering, but of passion as well, and a certain nobility. The face surpassed mere beauty. An inner quality of courage came through. The sculptor must have seen it there, but to see it, he must have known this woman well. Dorcas replaced the cloth and went thoughtfully back to the desk. It was difficult to imagine that sad, rather ominous man of Gino’s errand creating something like this.

  Perhaps the most surprising thing was that Madame Xenia had not destroyed the head in a fit of jealousy. Perhaps she had never quite dared. She would know that if her husband returned and found it gone she would have to answer for what had happened to it. Sri she had put it in a corner and shrouded it from view, waiting, perhaps, until it was safe to be rid of it? Vanda had said she would not permit the head to be displayed in an exhibition of Constantine’s work held in Athens.

  Having uncovered the masterpiece of the head, it was harder than ever for Dorcas to concentrate on the mediocrity of the verse. The rest of the folder revealed little that seemed worth the typing, and she turned at length to the large brown envelope. Among the papers she drew from it were more poems, some written in Greek and untranslated. There was also a sheet of white paper on which the sculptor-poet had been idly doodling. A row of smiling Korai looked up at her, and he had drawn the outlines of assorted Greek columns. Here and there among the scribblings was a figure she found repeated many times. Again and again upon this sheet of paper Constantine Katalonos had drawn a small, archaic owl with great round eyes.

  Dorcas was staring at the drawings when Constantine’s wife came into the room.

  10

  “How are you working?” Madame Xenia inquired. “You are finding many suitable poems?”

  “Not too many,” Dorcas said. “I’m not sure any of them will be right for publication in America. But I’ll try to select those I like best and type them for you.”

  Madame Xenia nodded. “That is good. What do you have in your hand?”

  “I’m not sure,” Dorcas said, and held out the paper.

  “Ah—I see. This he does when his mind is far away. He sits with the pencil and it goes alone making small pictures. It is of no importance.”

  Dorcas touched one of the owls with a fingertip. “He seems to have repeated this figure a good many times—an owl with big eyes. What do you suppose it means?”

  Madame Xenia laughed. “Come, I will show you.”

  She went to the figure of a marble girl dancing and turned the stand. “Do you see, here in the marble? Give me your hand.”

  She took Dorcas’s fingers and brushed them across a marking cut into the base. Dorcas bent to look at the tiny symbol more closely. Again it was the mark of the round-eyed owl.

  “It is his signature. This he puts on all work that is good. He chooses the owl because it is known through all the ancient world as a symbol of the wisdom and wealth and importance of Greece. When Constantine is very young he begins to make his mark like this—for luck, so that one day he will be rich and famous.”

  “I see.” Dorcas laid the sheet aside and returned to her sorting. She was relieved when Madame Xenia tiptoed respectfully away.

  So the mark of the owl was the mark of Constantine Katalonos. And if Vanda was right, he might be very much alive—hiding, perhaps in Rhodes itself. The possibility chilled her.

  She picked up a new sheet on which he had made several attempts at English lines and read them absently. Then her attention quickened and she read more carefully. The words were no more than phrases, unconnected.

  Done is … deed …

  … Castle of the Princess …

  The bride of Apollo mourns.…

  The Owl had sat at this very desk composing a letter that was to be sent to Gino Nikkaris in America. He had been experimenting on this paper with words that would have meaning to certain persons but not to others. The letter she carried in her passport case must have been the final result. She set the sheet aside and turned to the work of typing the poems. Her eyes dictated the words and her fingers worked automatically on the keys, but her thoughts lost themselves in frightening speculation.

  When Madame Xenia came to summon her for lunch, Dorcas took with her the page on which Constantine had been trying to compose a message.

  The meal was as delectable as her hostess had promised—lamb and rice cooked in vine leaves, beans in olive oil. Dorcas ate what was set before her and tasted nothing.

  When there was a pause in the desultory conversation, Dorcas gave Madame Xenia the sheet of paper.

  “What do you suppose this is? Perhaps the beginning of a new poem?”

  She read the words aloud, puzzling over them. “The Castle of the Princess—that must mean Philerimos, where my husband liked so often to go. It is called by this name because in the monastery church there was a very famous ikon of Our Lady of Philerimos—much celebrated in the time of the knights. It is said that when they left the island they took the picture with them. But in the villages they still call the place the Castle of the Princess.”

  “And the rest?” Dorcas asked, trying to suppress any note of excitement from her voice.

  “I do not know,” Madame Xenia said. “Perhaps it was to be a poem.”

  She read the words again and Dorcas, watching her, saw the sudden tightening of her lips. All in an instant comprehension seemed to sweep through the woman and she looked as though she might faint.

  “Is something wrong?” Dorcas asked. “You’re not feeling well?”

  Without answering, Madame Xenia reached for her wineglass and drank. When she set the glass down, her hand was steady again and color returned to her face in a wave of warmth.

  Dorcas gave her no time for recovery. “Perhaps the loss for which the bride of Apollo mourns could be the marble head of a weeping boy at the museum?”

  Madame Xenia was still the actress and she controlled herself admirably. “I do not know what you are speaking about.”

  “When we visited the museum on our first day in Rhodes,” Dorcas said quietly, “we had some difficulty in getting to see the famous head of the weeping boy. It had been put out of sight for some reason. When Miss Farrar insisted, it was shown to us, but I felt there was something wrong about the marble head we were allowed to see. I don’t believe it was the original. As a patroness of the museum, perhaps you know what has become of the real head?”

  The woman drank wine again, her eyes wary. “I do not understand what you say. It is not possible that anything could happen to the treasure of which you speak. I myself have seen it at the museum no later than yesterday.”

  “And you noted nothing wrong about it?” Dorcas asked.

  Diamonds flashed on Madame Xenia’s hands as she dismissed such nonsense regally, turning now to her own attack.

  “Tell me, please, why are you interested in these unimportant words my husband writes on a sheet of paper? Undoubtedly this is like those small drawings. The words are without meaning.”

  “I don’t think they are without meaning,” Dorcas said. “After Gino’s death a letter came to our address for him. The letter used some of these same words. There was no name, no return address, but the signature was a drawing of a round-eyed owl.”

  “If you have such a letter, I wish to see it!” Madame Xenia cried imperiously. “Perhaps it will tell me something of my husband.”

  Dorcas had no intention of showing her the letter. She had no reason to trust Constantine’s wife. “I’m sorry, but I can’t show it to you.”

  “Then the words of this message—you can repeat them, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know them by heart, I’m afraid,” Dorcas said. “When I found the letter I had no knowledge that it was of any importance.”

  Madame Xenia released her breath in a long sigh. “You ar
e right. These words are of no consequence. You can understand that to hear of this letter my husband had written—it gave me hope. It was a great shock. Most foolishly so.”

  “I don’t think there was anything in it to help you,” Dorcas said.

  Madame Xenia went on sadly. “Constantine laughed at Gino Nikkaris and teased him many times. But he feared your husband and was under his spell. He would follow when Gino called. My good Constantine was no match for that man.”

  “I can’t defend some of the things my husband may have done, Madame Katalonos,” Dorcas said gently.

  It could well have been that they were two of a kind—Gino and the “good Constantine.” Partners, perhaps, collaborating in a theft that would shake the art world, once it was known. For the moment the museum officials were sitting on the lid, working secretly perhaps, hoping to discover the culprits and restore the original head to its proper place.

  Once more Madame Xenia changed her course. “Please, you will not go to the police with this story? You will not go to the directors of the museum? This you will promise me?”

  “But why not?” Dorcas asked. “You tell me the original head is not missing. So I don’t understand—”

  “Because you will make much scandal for the good name of my husband.” She spoke vehemently. “This I do not wish to happen. His name will be very famous in Greece for the work he has done. If you cause a scandal, all will be lost.”

  “Tell me one thing,” Dorcas said. “Do you think your husband could have made a copy of the weeping boy?”

  Madame Xenia’s response was played to the highest rows of a Greek theater.

  “Constantine was the greatest sculptor in Greece today. Perhaps in the world! He would not stoop to make a copy of anything. Never, never!”

  As abruptly as she had soared, she left her indignant heights and spoke in a more normal tone.