by Jack Ketchum
Two doors down from Danny’s room a light went on.
“Damn!” whispered Dodgson.
They sat astonished, silent.
Soon the light went off again. There was an elderly couple in there, he remembered. British.
There was no sound at all from his room.
Danny poured the wine.
“I was out of line there,” he said. “Sorry.”
“No you weren’t. She was. Very.” He thought for a moment. “How’d you like to see another island?”
“Sure, Sparks. Why not?”
“Michelle?”
“I have one more week.” She smiled. It was an understanding smile and Dodgson was grateful for it. “Yes, I think that would be nice.” Danny shook his head. “Guess you never know about people, huh.”
“I guess you don’t.”
He drank the wine.
LELIA
She took off her clothes in the dark and, naked, wrapped herself in one of the coarse linen sheets. She heard metal scrape concrete outside and looked out the window.
Danny and Michelle were getting up to go to bed. Evidently Dodgson was staying awhile.
She supposed there was something left in the bottle.
I know you, Robert, she thought.
He was acting like a child. In fact all she’d done was break up their ridiculous boring little party. Done what was necessary to do in order to have him and have him the way she wanted him. Now.
She wrapped the sheet around her tightly and opened the door and then stepped out onto the terrace.
DODGSON
He’d half expected her.
Nor was the sheet surprising.
What was somewhat surprising was when she opened it. At first he was aware only of her nudity. Nature had given her something formidable and fine. So he looked at her.
Then she let go of the sheet and he stooped to retrieve it, to cover her, cognizant at once of the sleeping strangers in the rooms that lined the terrace, of the hour and of the whole long exhausting night with her-when he felt her hands on his shoulders and heard her say, “No. I want to do it right here. Right here. Let me show you I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be…get inside, will you please?”
“No! Here, Robert.”
“I mean it, Lelia.”
“Let me show you. Let me help you, Robert.”
“Dammit, Lelia!”
He wrapped the sheet around her.
She stepped outside his grasp and he’d forgotten how strong she was-she broke away easily-and laughing, let the sheet fall again from her shoulders. She ran naked to the door where the lights had come on before and then whirled to face him. He moved toward her. “Stop!" she said.
And he did stop. Something made him stop, something that was almost physical. It slid into her eyes clear and dangerous as a snake, cold and mad and god! it was erotic too, suffusing the beautiful features and turning them almost ugly, inhuman.
“Stop there, Dodgson,” she said, “while I get these people out to play.” She turned to the window beside the old couple’s door and he heard someone moving inside, someone rising slowly, painfully out of bed- and all at once he felt frightened for them, scared of what she’d do. He saw her hands go up to cup her breasts and heard her crooning Come out, come out, come out and play with me and heard it obscene as they would hear it, obscene and seductive too and something snapped in him that moved him across the terrace like some great angry animal and he grabbed her and slapped her hard, pulled her back across the terrace while she laughed and gasped in amazement. He shoved her into the room and flung her on the bed. With a control that was almost eerie to him he quietly closed the door.
“Bastard!” she hissed, crouching there. “Bastard!”
“Shut up.” He was trembling now. “Just shut your mouth or so help me I’ll…”
“You’ll what, Robert? Kill me?” She laughed. “Oh yes. Try it, Robert. Try to kill me. I want you to. I dare you.”
Someone knocked at the door.
“You all right in there?”
Danny.
“Go to bed, okay? We’re fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Go back to bed.”
He heard him move away. He looked at her.
“Are you sure?” she said.
She lifted herself up on the bed. Hands in her hair, posed like a pinup. Her smile was pure cold hatred.
Admit it, he thought. You’re afraid of her. You are.
The pale eyes glittered.
“Are you absolutely sure? Maybe you ought to be careful going to sleep tonight."
Like a slap in the face it sobered him.
“Get out,” he said.
“Like this?” She laughed. “Oh, no.”
“Get your clothes on and get out of here.”
“It’s not so easy, Robert.”
“I said get out!”
The smile broadened, horrible now. “If you want me out you’ll have to throw me out, Robert and you’ll have to fucking tie and gag me when you do. Because I don’t care, Robert. I don’t care at all. I’ll wake the whole fucking town and I won’t bat an eyelash. But you’ll care, won’t you. Poor baby.”
He moved toward her.
“Come on,” she said. “Come on. Try to throw me out. Try to kill me. Try it, you fuck! I want you to. Come on and kill me. Fuck me! Make me scream!”
She lunged, slapped him, and Dodgson almost fell she hit him so hard, then before he could recover hit him again, her fist closed this time, the blow ringing in his ear and he felt her going for his eyes, her fingernails tearing at him. He twisted away but she was on him again in an instant, gouging him. He felt one eye tear up and blur his vision, felt blood roll down his cheek. Pain and rage surged through him and he hit her, not open-handed as before but the way you hit a man, to stop him, hit her in the stomach and heard the breath whoosh out of her. She fell back on the bed gasping, then came at him again, fists flailing.
He grabbed her wrists, held them and forced her down on the bed, his full weight pressing on top of her. She rolled and bucked, sweat streaming off her face and body. She lurched at him, trying to use her teeth on his arms and neck. He kept them away from her. He held her. And finally she subsided.
“Enough?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“All right.”
“Enough, then?”
“No.”
“You want me to hit you again?”
“Yes.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“You want that?”
“Yes.”
She rolled beneath him. Her hips pressed up to him. The blue eyes burned, the bruised moist lips hung open.
“You’re crazy.”
“Fine.”
“Stop it.”
“Give me your hand.”
“No.”
“Give me your hand, Robert.”
“Stop it. I’m telling you.”
“I’ll fight you all night long, Robert. I'm strong. You know that. I’ll do anything. Now give me your hand you son of a bitch!”
He stared at her. Then he released her. He pushed himself up away from her, leaning back. Her hips continued to writhe beneath him.
He extended his left hand.
She spread his fingers wide and pressed them to her breasts. She seemed to flush with the contact. Her breasts were slick with sweat.
It was a dream, erotic and awful. He would awaken, he knew, feeling as though he had slept with the dead.
“Hurt me,” she said. “Hurt me badly.”
And because he wanted to, he did.
***
Afterward he lay awake, only pretending to sleep.
There were two good reasons for that.
He felt as though he’d crossed a threshold now and wondered if it was even still possible to go back. His guilt was not only guilt but knowedge. She had goaded him, yes, angered him right to his limits a
nd beyond but after that the crossing was mutual. They had not made love, they’d made combat. He’d hurt her all right-but hurt her because he needed to as much as because of anything she’d said or done. Only a part of him could plead insanity. The other part knew it was not her at all but had more to do with the death of a woman far away in New York City and the empty angry years that followed, the nursed and curdled anger that could no longer reach her, the questions that tormented him useless on his lips, to remain unanswered now forever. Why, Margot? What did I do? And why have you done this thing to me? That was one good reason to stay awake.
The other was fear.
He remembered what she’d said.
“Maybe you ought to be careful going to sleep tonight.”
His guilt hadn’t numbed his sense of her. His fear.
And he wondered-just how crazy was she? Did it only run to rough, punishing sex or was she capable of more? And worse?
Hurt me. Kill me. I dare you.
He had his guilt, his knowledge.
But he also had someone in his bed.
He looked at her. She looked peaceful now, her face composed and tranquil.
Jesus, he thought. Who is she?
What have I done?
He lay still and silent watching her and waited for sunrise.
JORDAN THAYER CHASE
SKIATHOS
Chase sat in the harbor where the tour boats departed for the grottoes and waited for Tasos, “Koonelee Tasos” to his friends-because at the age of seven he’d stolen a rabbit, skinned and dressed, from his father and tried to exchange it at the local grocery for a liter of wine which he then intended to peddle elsewhere at a cut-rate price. In Greece a nickname tended to stick with you. So Tasos was forever doomed to have the word for rabbit prefixed to his name. Even at age forty-eight, a successful businessman, the memory of that first aborted deal walked with him.
Beside him men in overalls were painting chairs bright green, gearing up for the influx of tourists over Easter and then high season to follow.
A hook-nosed old man in a light brown three-piece suit moved among the tables, his orange worry beads held loosely behind his back. His suit was cheap but impeccably pressed and tailored to his withered frame.
He stopped behind Chase’s chair. He could feel the man staring. He turned around.
“Yassas,” he said.
The man didn't answer. His watery eyes seemed just short of hostile. Chase felt he’d been judged and found wanting. All of us, he thought.
As the man walked by he imagined what it would be like to see the harbor through eighty-year-old Greek eyes. Boys zooming by on their Hondas. The tourists sweaty and half-naked off Kokonares or Banana Beach. Middle-aged sons sitting lazy in the shade, sipping Nescafe frappes instead of hot Greek coffee, rattling their newspapers and staring at the halter-topped women.
It’s disappearing so quickly here, he thought.
Even down to the man himself. Ancient worry beads and a three-piece suit. The country was experiencing a massive identity crisis on every level. The old looked at the new with fascination and horror, with both jealousy and dismay.
“Yasu, Chase! Tikanes? Kala?”
Tasos stood over him, reached down and pumped his hand.
“Hell, Tasos, I always get by.”
He hasn’t changed, thought Chase. The same round weathered face, the same hard handshake, the gold-toothed smile. He was suddenly very glad to see him.
He thought that three years was a long time for friends to remain apart. He and Tasos went all the way back to college together. There had been a deal for a tract of land just outside Athens almost as soon as they were out of school and then other deals that moved them into shipping-but mostly they worked together by phone now. Chase realized he’d missed him.
He sat grinning and Chase looked him over. He looked good-slim and fit. The clothes, he knew, were from Paris. Most of the Greeks who could afford them seemed to prefer Paris shops to London.
“It’s good to see you, my friend.”
“It’s good to see you too, Tasos. How’s Annalouka?"
“Fine. fine. She sends her love. And Elaine?”
“Fine. At least I think she is. I haven’t called her yet.”
Tasos frowned. “Why not? You’re not having trouble, Chase.”
“No. No trouble. Things are just a little bit complicated at the moment, that’s all. I’ll call. How’s the baby?”
“A baby no longer, Chase. A four-year-old meltemi! With shoulders like this!”
“Like his dad.”
“Like his dad, yes.”
“So fatherhood agrees with you?”
Tasos smiled. “I was born a father. You should try it sometime.”
“Yes. Sometime.”
Tasos leaned forward. “You look a little tired, I think.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“You’ll stay awhile in Greece? Take a vacation maybe, stay with us?”
“We’ll see. Have you been in touch with Yannis?”
“Yes. He says there is no problem. The growers are eager to supply us and they expect the wine to be superb this season.”
“My people have orders in excess of 5.5 million now. Up.6 million in just ten days. We project another 2.5 million as the cutoff, for this year anyway.”
“Excellent! We will put Santorini wine on the map, my friend. You’ll see. They’ll be begging for it in America a year from now. As usual your timing is perfect, Chase-your instincts, perfect. I am a lucky man to do business with you.”
Chase smiled. “And I with you.”
“Bah! I am a shopkeeper compared with you. So I own a few businesses. So what? We must not bullshit one another. Few men have what you have, feelo.”
“Few men, I think, would want it.”
Tasos studied him.
“You do look tired,” he said. ‘Tired and more.”
“Maybe.”
“And not Elaine?”
“No.”
“So what is it? We are old friends, eh? So speak to Koonelee Tasos. He is a shopkeeper but his ears are good.”
“It’s nothing, Tasos.”
“With you it’s never nothing, Chase.”
He hesitated. He didn’t know why. It would be a relief to tell somebody. Hell, an immense relief. And Tasos knew all about him, as much as anybody knew. Ever since Chase had moved them into shipping against all odds and advice and they’d made their first fortune together, Tasos had known. If he could help, he would.
But Chase was wary of involving him. He was as much the captive of this thing now as he had been kneeling humbly at the entrance to the dromos. Something told him he was supposed to be going this alone. That others might be endangered. That, more then anything, was why he hadn’t phoned Elaine.
What could he tell her that wasn’t a lie? What could he say that wouldn’t involve her somehow?
The warm, intelligent eyes were waiting.
He made his decision.
“All right. Let me order something. Have you got about an hour or so?”
“I have a lifetime, my friend.”
He called the waiter over and started talking.
When he was finished Tasos looked at him and said, “It reminds me of a story they tell here.
"Two fishermen met a priest along the path to the sea in the middle of the night. Naturally they were surprised to see him there, alone, at such a late hour. So they asked him, where are you going, papas?
"I am looking for a light," the priest answered. And the fishermen, they don’t know what to think. Perhaps the priest is crazy-it happens. Because he was carrying a lantern, and it was lit, and the light was bright.
“You see? I think you already have the answers to your questions, Chase. Like the priest, you carry your own light.”
“I don’t know, Tasos.”
***
It was late now. The wine they’d ordered was nearly gone.
“Listen to me, my friend. You say you hea
r a voice that tells you you may die here. If that is to be so, then it will be so. There are many worse places to die. We Greeks are fatalists. But we are pragmatists too. You cannot undo this thing that has happened to you. You say that something commands you-then you must listen. And do what it tells you to do. And save your life if you can.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you must give it up.”
“You believe that?”
“I do.”
He sighed. “I just keep wishing I were drunk or dreaming or some damn thing.”
Tasos smiled. “Were you drunk or dreaming those times you told me of in Mexico or in England or when you were a child in…where was it? Maine? You were not.
“You remind me of Our Lord, Chase-at Gethsemane. ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’ But the cup never passes. You were born with this gift and it has been good to you. It has made you a rich and-am I wrong?-a not unhappy man. But now perhaps you must pay it back. And it may ask much of you.”
There was a silence. They watched the gulls in the harbor.
When at last Chase spoke, his voice was thick with emotion, surprising him.
“What is it, Tasos? Who is it? Do you believe in God?’
Tasos shook his head. “I don’t know, feelo mu. Since our talks so many years ago I have made a little study, I confess. I have read all the books about people like you but I still don’t know. I have feelings, and my feelings tell me that you are very special, that sometimes you hear the voices of others coming from deep inside themselves and sometimes you hear the past and future happening. And sometimes, maybe, you hear the earth itself-which we call gods, or the voices of gods. Perhaps it is the earth, speaking to you.”
They drank the wine in silence. It was not as good as the Santorini wine but it would do.
“I’m supposed to go to Delos,” he said. “I don’t know why I know that but I do.”
