Forgery

by Sabina Murray

  “We should go,” said Steve. “We’ll make Delphi in time for dinner.”

  I shook Adonis’s hand. He seemed genuinely sad that we were leaving. “Thank your wife for her hospitality. It was wonderful to meet you,” I said. I looked over at Steve, so that he knew to translate.

  On the way to the car, I asked Steve who Weldon was.

  “Weldon?” Steve was surprised and tried to seem casual.

  “You were talking about him.”

  “Ah. He’s an American artist.”

  “And your friend,” I said, gesturing over a heap of manure in the road, “he’s a collector?”

  “We keep track of all the stray Americans,” said Steve. His eyes twinkled.

  “And what does kerma mean?”

  “Kerma,” he said, “means coins.”

  I tried to nap again in the car. I thought it might save Steve the worry of my throwing up again, but he knew the worst of my illness was over. Call it experience. I gave up on the nap and lit a cigarette. I lit one for Steve too, and we enjoyed a half hour of easy silence.

  “I’d like to thank you for bringing me up here. I pictured myself a complete loner on this trip,” I said.

  “What, you mean in Greece? It’s impossible to be alone in Greece.”

  “If it were possible, I’d be a good candidate for it.”

  “You? Oh, you’re one of those.”

  “One of what?”

  “One of those social loners.”

  “What’s a social loner?”

  “You think you’re completely self-sufficient and avoid the company of others, but you’re actually very approachable. Even fun. At least funny. A social loner.”

  “A romantic stance?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Perhaps.” I considered. “Or maybe I’m a circumstantial loner.”

  “Oh,” said Steve, “the divorce.”

  “Yes, that and the fact that I spend my life with furniture.”

  “And coins.”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d you get into that? Furniture. You look more like a lawyer. Or a professional ladies’ man.”

  “Very funny.” I tossed my cigarette out the window. “I got a job straight out of college with an antiques dealer. I was good at languages, particularly German. This was in 1955. He had a number of pieces that had come over in the early thirties, wealthy Jewish families wanting cash. Many of the more valuable pieces he’d hung on to, thinking that in better times people might want them back.”

  “Was he Jewish?”

  “No.” I smiled. “Many people assume he is, but he’s a Catholic from Bavaria.”

  “So why didn’t he sell the pieces?”

  “Frankly, I think it was guilt.”

  “And where did you come in?”

  I shrugged. I’d asked myself this many times. “I did have some other duties, but mostly I researched the fate of the owners of some of the pricier things, the Fabergé eggs, the paintings. … I remember a Louis Sixteenth sideboard, gilt. …”

  “Did you find any of these people?”

  “I found one. He was in Israel. When he heard I still had his chair, he called, weeping over the phone. We packed it up and sent it to him. The chair had belonged to his father. He remembered him using it. He kept saying, ‘He used to sit there.’”

  We both fell quiet after this. Maybe it was the thought of all those people survived by their furniture. But also we had entered the mountains, and the winding roads and cypress trees were silencing in their own way. I felt I was driving into the past. There was some patchy fog, and Steve rolled down the window. At one point, we nearly hit a small herd of goats shepherded by an angelic dark-haired boy with eyes like a Byzantine icon. Another time, a truck was barreling down the road with no headlights—a common practice to avoid wear on the battery—and only Steve’s honking and his flashing our own lights alerted the driver to our presence as we pulled off, dramatically, to crouch by the shoulder of the mountain.

  “Tell me we’re nearly in Delphi,” I said.

  “We are in Delphi,” Steve replied, and soon I saw a small cluster of buildings and a plunging cleft between the mountains.

  By the time we reached the hotel, there was only one room left. There were two narrow cots in the room, a shower off of it, a small window with a large view of the diving valley and the far sparkle of the Gulf of Itéa. Steve immediately left for the bar. On the way in, he’d noticed a large contingent of backpacking American girls, all long hair, shorts, and direct gazes, and he was in a hurry to buy them some drinks lest they evaporate, unmolested, into the fog. There was that quality of things being not quite as they seemed, a fairy-tale quality. I was exhausted, ready to shower and brush my teeth. Steve had instructions to wake me for dinner, but I knew he might get sidetracked and wasn’t that concerned. The water in the shower was freezing and that, combined with the stiff clean bed linen, sent me into a profound sleep. When I heard knocking on the door, I was not sure where I was. The room was dark, the light mountain air unfamiliar.

  “Come in.”

  There was a pause.

  I felt as if I were rising from the bottom of a bathtub.

  “For God’s sake, the door’s not locked.”

  It opened; and instead of Steve I saw the narrow shoulders and long hair of one of the girls, backlit and offered in silhouette. She stepped into the room.

  “Hello,” I said. “Did Steve send you?”

  “I came on my own,” she said.

  I sat up in bed. My eyes had adjusted a little. She had broad cheekbones, cat eyes, black hair. She sat on the foot of my bed, calculated immodesty. I wondered how old she was.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “It’s eleven.”

  I realized all of a sudden that I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since the eggs in Athens. “What’s your name?”

  “Jeanne.”

  “Well, Jeanne,” I said. I got out of bed in my shorts, practical immodesty, took my pants off the chair, and put them on. “I’m hungry and I need some food.”

  She stood up and went to the door. I put on my shoes and my shirt as she watched, slyly, over her shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” I said. I buttoned my shirt on the way down the stairs.

  Steve was holding court in the restaurant. He sat at a table with a half-dozen girls, Jeanne’s friends, with his arm casually slung around a thin blonde. I took a seat at the table.

  “There he is!” said Steve, with suspicious exuberance. “My good buddy Rupert.”

  The girls studied me, but Jeanne sat close on my left side, her bare thigh creating an even pressure against my pant leg. “I’m not sure if this is what Mr. Custard had in mind,” I said.

  The waiter, a teenager in jeans and T-shirt, was orbiting the table. We made eye contact. “Can I get you something to eat?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s eggplant with some meat, very popular and quick.”

  I nodded in assent.

  “And I’ll bring another glass and some more of the red?”

  “Bravo,” said Steve.

  “His English is very good,” I said.

  Jeanne put her hand on my arm. “We’ve been teaching him,” she said.

  Steve leaned across the table and stated, with undisguised glee, “They’re bacchantes from California.”

  “Well,” I responded, “I’m a sybarite from New York.”

  Jeanne didn’t say much, which was fine with me. Steve liked his position as the center of attention, and I was busy eating anyway. Jeanne watched me, her wide unblinking eyes fixed on the side of my face. I could tell that Steve was starved for American company, but I felt violated at having been discovered by my countrymen and the loud English, although often funny, seemed intrusive, as if it shone a klieg light on us all, exposing us as confident, condescending, and rich. Hangovers depressed me. I was on my fifth glass of wine when I realized I had entered a phase of misanthropic inebriation. I look
ed over at Jeanne. She was conferring with a friend of hers, a regular Diana with strong features and muscular arms, and the two were looking at me. I returned their gaze, eyebrows raised.

  “How long have you been in Delphi?” I inquired.

  “About three weeks now,” said the Diana.

  “One would think the sights would be done with by now.”

  “The sights keep changing,” said the Diana, and smiled. She whispered something in Jeanne’s ear. Steve had pulled out his wallet and was counting out bills for the evening’s libations. I was now better at the drachmas than I had been and noticed he was carrying quite a lot of cash.

  “What do I owe you?” I asked.

  He looked at the stack of bills. “If you get the room, we’ll be even.”

  I put my hand on Jeanne’s thigh and squeezed it. She didn’t seem surprised. She said, “We’re all going for a walk.”

  “Among the ruins?” I raised an eyebrow ironically, and Diana and Jeanne exchanged a look. “I think I’ll retire to my room.”

  I stood and picked up a near-full carafe of wine and a couple of glasses. I looked at Jeanne, pointedly excluding her friend from my field of vision, and said, “Care for a nightcap?”

  Jeanne thought about this. She looked over at her friend, who seemed encouraging, and smiled for the first time all night. I didn’t like her when she smiled. She went from being an almost emotionless object to an eager teenager.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Twenty.”

  “Really?”

  She stopped smiling.

  “Enjoy your walk,” I said, addressing the table. Steve downed his drink and gave me a thumbs-up. I made it to the stairs and, when I turned, Jeanne was following.

  I think the wine had reactivated the whiskey from the previous night, which must have somehow still been in my system. I can’t explain my behavior any other way. I knew that a depraved sexual encounter with a girl ten years my junior was the only thing that would make me more depressed than I already was, and that appealed to me. There was something refreshing about not having to seduce her with pretty compliments and patience—she took her clothes off shortly after entering the room and didn’t even bother with the glass of wine I poured for her—and she responded quite enthusiastically to my suggestions, which was a bit of a novelty and sent me in some recently unexplored directions. She misconstrued a certain aggressive bitterness on my part for passion and although I might have scared her she was too self-conscious about her age and inexperience to let it show. I passed out at some point and she did too.

  At about five o’clock in the morning, I heard a disturbance in the hall and woke to see Jeanne going through my suitcase. She had her underwear on, and a sleeveless top, but for some reason had left her shorts on the floor by the bed. I reached for my undershorts which were also on the floor, but had not managed to get them on when the door slammed open. Steve was standing there in a state of disbelief. There was a sticky gash on the side of his head that must have been quite sore. It had emptied a considerable amount of blood onto his shirt. Jeanne stepped back from the dresser. We all must have looked at each other several times, around and around, until my mind finally processed the information that Jeanne, or whatever her name really was, had my wallet.

  “Grab her!” I said.

  Steve, clumsily, wrapped his arms around her. At this point, Jeanne let loose a powerful shriek and I heard doors slam open, footsteps down the hall. I jumped out of bed, naked, and ran to assist. At this point we had a good audience and it looked very bad for us. Jeanne bit Steve’s arm, but he hung on. I managed to pry my wallet out of her hand.

  “Let her go,” I said. Jeanne took off, running down the hall in her underwear. I took the towel off the back of the door and covered myself, but I knew it was a bit late for that.

  “Tell them she stole my wallet,” I said. I tried to smile in a reassuring way.

  “She stole his wallet,” he announced.

  “I meant for you to translate that into Greek.”

  And he did. The proprietor of the hotel came up and we made our explanations. He was still a bit suspicious and kept looking at Steve’s head.

  “Tell him we mean to report this to the police,” I said.

  Steve translated. The proprietor’s mood changed suddenly and he seemed very much in a hurry to get away. He left. I sat down on the bed and opened my wallet.

  “Well?” said Steve.

  “It’s all there,” I said.

  Steve picked up Jeanne’s shorts and held them up. “I have a feeling that, between the two of us, you had the better evening.”

  “Did they jump you?” I asked.

  “I think so.” Steve went into the bathroom, and I knew he was looking at his head.

  “When did you figure it out?”

  “What? Oh, about the girls?” Steve laughed. “I think it was when you said ‘Grab her.’”

  He came out of the bathroom, shaking his head in disbelief. “I was actually worried about them. I came to passed out next to a pile of goat feces with a bloodied rock—my blood, next to my head. I thought we’d all been attacked.”

  “Bacchantes,” I said.

  “From California,” Steve added.

  Steve refused to see a doctor and I didn’t have the energy to argue for it. I helped him clean his head and he assured me that, after the amount of alcohol he’d consumed, no germs could possibly survive. Still, we did buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which I poured over the cut as he stood outside the pharmacy, his head tilted to one side, holding the wall for support.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said. I replaced the cap on the bottle and handed it back to him. “Better than coffee,” he said.

  “Any dizziness?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want you to drive off a cliff.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. We walked to his car.

  I took out my wallet and looked at the cash. “How much is the bus going to be?”

  “Can’t be much more than fifty drachma.”

  I counted out about three hundred drachma. “Is this enough?”

  Steve took a hundred and handed the rest back to me. “My accommodation is covered, and I honestly don’t think I should be traveling with that much cash.” He got into his car and started the engine. “Will I see you back in Athens?”

  “Probably,” I said. “I leave for Aspros on Wednesday.”

  I watched Steve disappear up the road. He honked a few times and waved out the window and I, with my book on monuments, began the trek to the oracle.

  Delphi was saved by natural disaster, specifically earthquakes and the resulting landslides. Earthquakes accomplished for Delphi what volcanoes had accomplished for Pompeii. The great works of art were hidden in the folds of the earth, as if Apollo himself had chosen a few key pieces to make the march through the ages, and there they slept, while above, on the surface, everyone from Nero to the Vandals hoarded and crushed what remained. I thought of this as I looked into the eyes of the charioteer, who now stood chariotless and alone. There is something joyless about survival, even that of a gorgeous sculpture. The museum was crowded, people having rushed indoors to hide from the punishing sun. Looking at the charioteer in here with all the people made me feel almost sorry for him. It was a bit like viewing a tiger at the zoo.

  The friezes from the Asprian treasury were in the next, less crowded, room. I had long wanted to see the eastern frieze with its spray of gods and goddesses, superheroes of old: Athena with her owl; Apollo with his lyre, marching onward and into the past. I became conscious at this point of a man who was standing a little too close. I could feel his breath on my neck. I turned to look at him.

  “Some say,” the man began, “that although the dates have not been officially disputed, 525 B.C. is too early by a half century.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The treasury,” the man said. “The style of the carving is too advanced.”

  I looked back at the frieze. Perh
aps it was a bit ornate. “Then why not date it later?”

  “Because,” the man said, “the Asprians were sacked by the Samians shortly afterward. They took everything. Perhaps you know Herodotus?”

  “Not as well as I did ten years ago, but this all sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “After the Samians attacked, the Asprians would not have had the money to make such an exquisite treasury.”

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “What do I think?” the man said. “I am a complete stranger. How could that possibly be of interest?”

  Chastened, I returned my gaze to the battle of the gods and the giants.

  “The Asprians,” continued the man, “actually consulted the oracle. They wanted to know if their wealth would last. The python told them, When there are a white prytaneum and a white agora in Aspros, watch for a wooden company and a red herald.”

  I waited for the explanation. The man seemed quite fixed on the marbles, however, and needed prompting.

  “What did the prophecy mean?”

  “The Asprians didn’t know what it meant either. They went ahead and outfitted their agora and prytaneia in Parian marble. And when the Samians showed up in their wooden ships painted vermilion, they should have been careful. They should have loaned the ten talents the Samians asked for. But they didn’t. And that was the end of the Asprian wealth.”

  “I thought they flooded their mines,” I said.

  “Another theory,” said the man, “unless you are Pausanias, in which case the flooding and the sacking are the same thing. Pausanias refers to the Samian invasion as a flooding.”

  “You are well versed in antiquities,” I said.

  The man smiled. “I am an antiquity.”

  “You are French,” I stated.

  “Yes.”

  “An archaeologist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps,” I suggested, “it would make more sense if you told me about yourself.”