How long would it take for Steve to figure out that he was leading a sting on forged artwork? Would Thanasi let Steve believe that pottery was the full extent of their business, or would he go on to talk about the heads? I wondered if Thanasi even knew I was in possession of one of Jack’s exquisite replicas. I guessed that he didn’t. Clive and I had created a disturbance over the last twenty-four hours that made his recent return to the cave improbable. And I was sure that Tomas had stolen the head before passing it on to me, thinking, correctly, that I would keep it hidden from the others and he would be not be exposed as a thief.
I knew the head was inauthentic but was not prepared to sacrifice it as such. I thought of all its sisters resting beneath the waves in Faros. If I could just get rid of them, my head would stand alone, an important find. Disputing the authenticity of a single head would be much more difficult than relating it to a known group of forgeries.
The Vespa didn’t throw off any light, but it was very loud. Still, the road was deserted and there didn’t seem to be anyone around to hear me. I had started driving with the knife in my teeth, but the handle tasted very bad. I thought of Thanasi’s dirty hands and took the knife in my right hand as I drove awkwardly in the mild moonlight. I thought of Olivia sleeping in her turban and wondered what could happen to me. Who was this man who had killed Jack? Did he want me dead too? I couldn’t see why, but I also couldn’t figure out how offing Jack would benefit anyone.
I made it to Faros without skidding in the gravel and losing my skin, nor did I stab myself or drive over a cliff. I cut the engine, and when I did I heard Steve’s Vespa sputtering on the same road, although he was still across the valley. I hid the bike in the same alley where Clive and I had left it the last time we’d gone to the caves. I ran, ignoring the tearing sensation in my lungs, along the path that led up the hill and then down the path to the beach. I slipped once and lost the knife, and in the time it took me to find it, the blood pounding in my ears, wasted a few precious minutes. If Clive and Steve were heading for the cave, which seemed likely, I had to beat them.
I reached the water’s edge and began to undress. There was such a silence and peace here it was hard to believe that I had anything to do, that there was anything at stake. I remembered a tale from the Arabian Nights where a prince had to cross a body of water without making a sound. The breathing of the waves, the moon, the path of light to the moon, the cool pebbles beneath my feet—all were more of a story than the reality of the actual moment. My sudden transformation to action adventurer also seemed implausible, more the stuff of fantasy—although not my fantasy—than anything else.
I waded into the cold water and began swimming, the knife in my teeth again. I was already worn out, but I began to freestyle my way out to the cave. I saw the entrance finally, and swam inside and quickly to the ledge. My foot hit something—a fish?—on the way over. I lit the candle and held it over the water. There was a monster in there with me, a moray eel. I saw it flicker into view and for a second was mesmerized by its thick undulating muscle of it, then it disappeared into the darker shadows of the cave. But there was the net hanging from its hook, the net filled with marble heads, the heads of Theseus and Hadrian and some lovely woman who would be known as Aphrodite or Artemis or Hera, and I had to drown them all.
I swam through the water, circling my arms gently, barely moving my legs. Somewhere down there, peering from its aqueous cave, was that eel, all spiked teeth and appetite. I reached the net and stood ankle deep in water on the submerged rock. The breeze entered the cave, bringing with it Thanasi’s and Steve’s voices. Faros was not far from Thanasi’s house by water; and perhaps it had been Clive driving the other Vespa. By taking the road, I had made a wild detour. I wondered if Steve and Thanasi knew I was there. The candle would be throwing out light, but maybe the bright moon and reflecting waters would confuse it into something natural.
I started to saw at the ropes, but the knife was dull. I began to wonder just how dry Thanasi’s cheese was, and whether or not it was possible to cut such unappealing cheese with this ineffective knife, when a breeze blew into the cave and extinguished the candle. My eyes took a second to adjust. I would have to finish slicing the ropes by pawing them like a blind person.
The first rope finally snapped, and then, just as I was hearing the dip of oars and the voices of Steve and Thanasi, close now, a second rope snapped. I had two more to go, but as I tugged and sawed and sliced, I realized that the net had grown slack. The heads must have been sinking into the deep. I thought, in an opportunistic way, that maybe I could come back in twenty years and discover them. Maybe they would be waiting for me, eyes angled to the surface, their features worn away by salt and years, as history rattled by on its rusty tracks above, uncaring, unaware.
I unhooked the net and threw it and the knife into the center of the cave. I hoped the eel would find this distracting. Then I heard voices outside, and before I could gauge the intelligence of my action, I was swimming out, holding my breath underwater. When I finally had to come up for air, I was about fifteen feet from the boat. Steve and Thanasi were shining a flashlight into the cave and didn’t see me. I swam back to shore slowly, so as not to create much noise, but also because I was exhausted. Suddenly I wanted to sleep. I couldn’t really see where the shore was. It seemed to be moving farther and farther away, but then I saw a little red glow in the darkness. Clive had followed me and I had a beacon to steer me home. When my feet could finally reach the bottom, I started walking to shore. I collapsed, next to Clive, where he sat smoking beside the heap of my clothes. We were quiet for a couple of minutes.
Then I said, “How’d you figure it out?”
And Clive said, “Figure what out?”
Clive had no idea why I’d left Thanasi’s or what the urgency was. He had a certain faith that I knew what I was doing, but when he found my clothes on the beach—he had been instructed by Steve to meet him with the scooter since Steve was accompanying Thanasi to the caves in the boat—he wasn’t sure what my late-night swim was supposed to accomplish. Clive was waiting for Steve.
“Well, then,” I said, pulling on my pants, “it would be better if Steve didn’t know I’d been here.” I’m sure he’d found my disappearance odd, but, hopefully, was too busy to dwell on it.
When I finally reached my bed, it was four in the morning. I must have been asleep, but it was one of those dormancies where you close your eyes for one second to the darkness and then open them to the light of the next day. I sat up in bed, gasping, and looked for my watch. It was 7 A.M. The house was still. I got out of my bed and looked under it. The head was still there. Nikos was sound asleep, breathing peacefully. He was hugging a second pillow.
“Nikos,” I whispered, “Nikos. Wake up.”
Nikos opened one eye and shut it. “Rupert, you must go away.”
I shook him again. “You have to wake up.”
“It is not important,” Nikos said. He rolled away from me.
“It is important,” I said. “Nikos. Nikos.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me with skepticism. “What?”
“It’s seven now. I think you should be on the eight o’clock to Mílos.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the next ferry to leave.”
“There’s nothing on Mílos,” he said.
“Please, Nikos,” I said. “Please.”
Nikos groaned, and I knew he was getting up.
Nikos dressed while I packed for him. I drove to the ferry because Nikos looked drugged and didn’t seem capable. I was terrified that he was going to drop the head, that it would go rolling off a cliff or get smashed into rubble. Nikos was of the opinion that he could sit on the Vespa, hold the head, have a cigarette, and all the rest. But I hadn’t let him smoke. I hadn’t let him bring his suitcase. I’d only let him pack what would fit into his knapsack, and although I knew he didn’t care about it right then, it was certainly going to bother him later. When we reached th
e port town, there were a few people milling around the dock, all foreigners. The ferry was supposed to arrive in ten minutes.
Nikos surveyed the scene. “No Greeks,” he said.
Sure enough, the ferry was an hour late. I was glad for this, because I needed to speak seriously, and Nikos was useless without his morning coffee and cigarette.
Nikos downed his shot of coffee then waved at the waiter to bring him another. He shook his head. “So Jack was making fakes to pay for guns for the Communists?” Nikos seemed completely disgusted. He rubbed his unshaved face.
“He was an idealist,” I said.
“He was an idiot. What is this thing he said about Byron?”
I thought for a minute. I quoted, “That old fag? He was carried off by his own shit.”
“To Jack,” said Nikos, raising his empty coffee cup.
There was a moment of silence. Somewhere, in the kitchen, someone knocked over a stack of plates and I heard an Opa! and some laughter, and then some angry shouting. The waiter came over with the second coffee. I ordered some toast. I suppose all the swimming the night before had made me hungry. There was still salt in my hair.
“And that plate we got from the Peloponnesus,” Nikos said, stirring in sugar. “It was from here?”
“Made by Thanasi. At least I think so. He had a picture of it, and we know he’s making fakes.”
Nikos rubbed his eyes. “So why am I going to Mílos?”
“I want to get our head off the island as soon as possible. I’m sure Thanasi has told Steve Kelly that he was making them. I don’t want our head to become part of his story, and I don’t want to get mixed up in the investigation.”
“Does Steve know you are buying art?” Nikos asked.
“He’s suspicious of me, which is why I want you to take the head.”
“And you will stay here and pretend nothing is happening?”
“Yes.”
Nikos thought for a minute. He lit another cigarette and gave me a lopsided smile. “Does this make sense to you?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“What does Steve know about you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He saw my art books. He saw me lurking on Pandróssou Street. Clearly I was looking for art.”
“Or he thinks you are CIA,” said Nikos mysteriously. “Maybe you were here to follow Jack.”
“Why not?” I said. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Or maybe he thinks you are a Communist sympathizer.”
Here we both laughed. “He couldn’t think that for long,” I said.
“There is only one thing that really bothers me,” said Nikos.
“What’s that?”
“Who killed Jack?”
I pondered this. I had no idea. Could he have been killed by one of Amanda’s lovers? Did the Greeks have their own intelligence and take care of Jack themselves? Jack’s was a useless death and I felt an involuntary sympathy. “A guerrilla army.” I said, marveling. “What was Jack trying to accomplish?”
“Who knows?” said Nikos. “People like that are always trying to change things.”
“I suppose that’s admirable.”
Nikos winced at my sentimentality. “What if there’s nothing wrong?”
The next week passed in a blur. I had come home to find Olivia packing her things. It was time for her to leave Aspros. She and Neftali were going first to Hydra to help Amanda with the funeral arrangements. I was good at folding and helped Olivia put her clothes together.
“Amanda’s holding together quite well,” said Olivia. She’s decided to cremate Jack and scatter his ashes over the bluff by their house.”
“He’ll have the rare privilege of being thrown off a cliff twice,” I said.
“You are rotten,” said Olivia, but she found it funny.
I waved Neftali and Olivia off the next day, just as I’d waved off Nikos, and I realized I was going to have to leave, and soon, so as not to be left.
Clive, Nathan, and I spent the last few days hiking in the morning, swimming in the afternoon, and drinking at night. Even Nathan was drinking more than usual. One night we ate dinner in the old town, which is something we’d meant to do all summer but had never found time for. Nathan managed to convince a farmer to lend him a donkey and Clive took him on a mad pony ride all over Stavri while I took pictures. And then I found someone to take our picture, and I still have it: Nathan on the donkey, cradling a loaf of bread wrapped in a dishcloth, a towel on his head, while Clive and I fall on our knees in adoration.
When the day of our departure finally came, it was sunny and warm. I could feel the weight of it on all of us, and as Clive packed up the Victrola, carefully wrapping the horn, stacking the records neatly, and draping the whole thing in a pristine white sheet, I heard him say, “Goodbye, old friend.”
We took our things down the steps of the house and out the gate. The caretaker and his wife waved at us. The old woman was wiping tears, which I found touching, because we were loud, unruly, messy, pathologically irreligious, and had never learned enough Greek to say anything more than thank you. We walked around to the dirt road where the taxi was to pick us up.
“Do you really think it’s coming?” asked Clive.
“Neftali set it up,” Nathan said.
“But that was days ago,” said Clive.
“But the caretaker was instructed to follow up this morning,” said Nathan.
“I don’t know why I care,” said Clive. “I don’t want to leave. I hate the United States.”
I noticed Tomas, who was standing behind a tree, watching us in complete stillness. It occurred to me that maybe Nikos would forget about him. He wasn’t my favorite person, but seeing him standing there brought out a philanthropic desire. I made a mental note to remind Nikos of his offer to find him work. Clive hopped up and went over to him. Clive and Tomas talked for a minute and then embraced. Then Clive shook his hand and let go. Clive came back and patted me on the shoulder.
“He wants to talk to you,” he said.
I saw the taxi at the foot of the drive. I thought it might be nice if I gave Tomas some money.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
At closer look, Tomas seemed upset. I wondered if it was just the prospect of our leaving: leaving with all his prospects. I gave him a few bills, and he tried to refuse them. But I wouldn’t take it back.
“I must to tell you something,” he said, very serious.
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s not good,” Tomas said. “It’s all lies.”
I figured he had to be talking about the head. I nodded, amazed at how upset this had made him, and actually felt guilty at having misjudged him. “Don’t worry, Tomas. I already figured it out,” I said. “I know everything.”
“Yes?” Tomas seemed surprised.
“It’s taken care of. Just don’t tell anyone, and everything will be all right.”
13
p
When I reached New York all the talk was of Jack Weldon, what a genius he had been, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. Since I had known Jack in his final weeks, I found myself invited to every cocktail hour, dinner, and event. I had a capacity for parties, but this deluge of invitations, combined with a week of uninterrupted rain, was beginning to test the limits of my sanity.
At some retrospective at the Guggenheim, I saw Amanda across the room. She was swarmed by a phalanx of admirers, or maybe they were detractors, but they were all drawn to her. There was no longer any evidence of “Amandirt” at all. She had cropped her hair quite short and, in her sheet of black cashmere, looked surprisingly elegant. She had stunning black pearl earrings and an Etruscan-revival necklace, all hand-hammered, high-quality gold, a bit like a string of candy corn. Against all the black, the necklace looked contemporary. I had never known her to wear makeup, but now she had on bright red lipstick. Her eyebrows, once bushy and blond, were now plucked and penciled into two black slits, and her eyes, in
contrast, seemed enormous.
My companion on this particular jaunt was Uncle William, who had taken to going to all the openings. I wondered at his sudden interest. He’d always found these galas insufferable, talked about the new money trying to get tips on how to look like old money. No one was looking at the art. The men were looking at the women, and the women were looking at the women to see what everyone was wearing. I knew it had something to do with the head, which Uncle William loved. The head—artist unknown—was now mounted on a ghastly Corinthian column, all serrated leaves and mannerism, something Uncle William had had an Italian mausoleum fitter carve up for him in New Jersey. I had suggested black granite, plain but highly polished, which would reflect the classical architectural features—well, Georgian, but who cared?—of the vestibule in an abstract, referential, yet current way.
I would have stayed longer, Uncle William wanted me to, but I’d seen Hester appear at the far end of the room. The rain had already edged me towards a depression, and Hester—who would have thought it was possible for her to lose weight?—had the appearance of an opium addict. She was again reminding me that once my life had been very centered, that it wasn’t normal for thirty-year-old men to spend their time divided between attending parties and choosing shirts. I had to get out of there before Uncle William made me talk to her.
“I have to go,” I whispered. “I’m meeting someone for a drink.”
Uncle William put his hand on my shoulder. “We were having such fun.” I was leaving for Scotland at the end of the week, and Uncle William was getting proprietary about my time.
“Stay up,” I said, “I’ll be home by one.” Although I knew he’d fall asleep by midnight.
I went to the restroom and made a phone call. Clive. He was staying on a friend’s couch and hating it. I wasn’t really sure if I was up for Clive. He liked to complain about Nathan all the time, Nathan whom he’d hardly seen since the return from Greece, and it was tiresome because Nathan was my friend. But there wasn’t anyone else in New York I really wanted to talk to. I could have asked a woman out. That was usually the easy thing to do, but that seemed disloyal to Olivia. The fact that she had no expectations of me made me want to behave. Clive and I set a time and place, and I returned to the atrium.
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