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July 1973
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BECAUSE I HAD long dark hair and sometimes wore glasses Arcas thought I looked like Nana Mouskouri, which flattered me. I started wearing red lipstick and parting my hair in the center to enhance the illusion, but where Mouskouri’s hair was sleek and straight, mine frizzed and curled.
I was jealous of Nancy’s long, silky hair so one afternoon, while we were sitting on my couch leafing through the fall Vogue, I asked how she got it to hang so straight. I told her I’d tried everything: oversized rollers, sprays, and gels to no avail.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s nothing to it. Go wash your hair and I’ll style it for you. You just have to know how to blow it dry.” It seemed there wasn’t anything Nancy couldn’t do.
I was sitting at the kitchen table a few minutes later while she sectioned my hair and styled it with a round brush and the small blow dryer I’d purchased, but never mastered. I was skeptical but showed her a photo of Nana Mouskouri and told her that was the look we were shooting for.
“I know what she looks like. Nothing to it,” she assured me. “Things are getting pretty serious when a woman changes her hairstyle for a guy. When’s Arcas coming back? I thought he’d be home by now.”
“His father had a relapse, and his mother needs help with the dairy. The university gave him a leave of absence, but he has to be back soon or he’ll lose the semester.”
“Tom’s worried about him being gone so much.” Nancy spritzed hairspray on another section of my hair then rolled it onto her brush. “He thinks it might be dangerous for him in Greece right now. The military’s arresting students right, left, and center—well, mostly left.”
I laughed. “I’m not really worried about the military. I mean, he’s on a farm in some remote rural area, not fomenting an insurrection. But he’s only sent one postcard in three weeks. That’s what I’m worried about. Do you think there’s something he’s not telling me?”
“I hope not, I hate secrets. I had a friend back in Peterborough whose husband sold their car and wouldn’t tell her what he did with the money. He said it was none of her business.”
“You’re kidding? Of course, it was her business.”
“Exactly, it turned out his brothers knew what was going on, but none of them would talk.”
“Did she ever find out what he did with the money? Ouch, you’re pulling too hard.”
Nancy eased up the pressure on my hair. “It wasn’t that much money, the car was an old junker, but I told her I’d get to the bottom of it. I’m good at asking questions and getting people to talk, so I just kept asking around until one of her sisters-in-law spilled the beans. It turned out her husband had knocked up a girl, one of our good friends actually, and he needed the money for an abortion.”
“Well, you’d make a great investigative reporter, but that doesn’t exactly make me feel great.”
“I’m just saying I don’t like secrets. That’s one thing I love about Tom. He tells you exactly what’s on his mind, whether you like it or not.”
The conversation was making me uneasy. “The postcard said he loves me, but I have a feeling there’s something I don’t know. That whole crowd is full of secrets. They’re always plotting something. Of course, with those guys, it’s usually something political.
Nancy unplugged the hairdryer and returned it to its box. She was smart and unusually perceptive, so her opinion mattered.
“Do you think there’s something going on?”
“I think we should go shopping. You need something cute to wear when you meet him at the airport.”
I smiled, grateful she was trying to buoy my spirits. “Did I tell you how much my parents loved what you did with this apartment?”
“You did, but you can thank me again. It really turned out well, didn’t it?”
“You’re a good friend.”
“And that’s a good hairstyle.” She handed me a mirror and I was astounded by the smooth dark hair parted smartly down the middle. No one would ever mistake me for Nana Mouskouri, but Arcas would love it—assuming he came back.
A postcard arrived the following Monday. The gorgeous stamp in the upper right-hand corner bore the figure of a Greek man in a traditional costume. I turned it over and read, Returning on schedule. Olympic Airlines Flight 270 5:57 pm. Miss you, Arcas. It wasn’t the love letter I’d been hoping for, but at least he missed me, and he was coming home.
I met Arcas at the gate with flowers and balloons as though he’d come back from the war or a year in prison. I anticipated a passionate kiss and a joyful reunion, but something had changed. There was a crankiness to him, a distracted irritability that I’d never seen before. He gave me a cursory peck on the lips then stared stupidly at the small bouquet I offered him. He finally thanked me, but left it in my outstretched hand, without even noticing my new hairstyle.
I carried the gifts back through the terminal and to the bus stop where we stood side by side without touching. A chill went through me, but I decided the problem was anxiety about his father and I chided myself for being so frivolous, so self-centered. His father might be dying and I, of all people, should know what it meant to lose someone you loved.
I’d planned a romantic candlelight dinner followed by a night of passionate love making at my apartment, but Arcas begged off, claiming jet lag and exhaustion. He got off the bus at St. George and returned to his rented room, leaving me alone on the bus with a bouquet of lilies in my lap and a stupid balloon bobbing against the ceiling.
Then, unbelievably, weeks passed without a word, weeks spent staring at the phone, weeks without eating and weeks without sleep. For three weeks the world stopped spinning, the sun didn’t rise and even my sister’s faint calls for help, always audible just beyond consciousness, went unanswered. Nancy was no help. She had no idea what was going on, except to say that he looked awful and wouldn’t tell anyone why he was avoiding me.
There’s a story about a genie trapped in a lamp. He yearns for freedom and swears to reward whoever saves him with a palace made of gold. When a hundred years go by and no one comes the genie swears he will reward his savior with a palace made of gold and a harem of women, each more beautiful than the moon. After another hundred years have passed, he promises a golden palace, a harem of beautiful women and the gift of eternal youth. But no one comes. The genie sinks into despair and stares ruefully into the dark cursing his lot and nursing his grief into a tsunami of rage. Then one day, after endless time has passed, a young man finds the ancient lamp, takes the curio home, and polishes it. The genie, finally freed from his long imprisonment emerges like a thundering storm and strikes the young man dead.
I was that genie when I finally heard a timid rap at my door one Saturday morning in late September and found Arcas, pale and downcast, standing on my doorstep. He was holding a small box from Kosmos Bakery tied up with blue ribbon. “I brought you some loukoumades. They’re still warm.”
I slammed the door in his face, ran into the bedroom, and hunkered down under the duvet waiting for the knocking to stop. But it didn’t stop, and each knock made me angrier and angrier. Finally, I ran back, threw open the door, and yelled, “I don’t want your damn donuts. I didn’t order any pastry.”
“I had to see you.”
“Well, take a good look, because it’s going to be a long time before you see me again.”
“No, please, I’m so sorry. We have to talk. I need to explain.” He pushed past me into the apartment before I could slam the door a second time.
“OK, so what is it? You’ve been on a secret mission to overthrow the junta? You were abducted by aliens? You got amnesia and forgot that I exist? What?”
“No, no, it was nothing like those things. It was something different.” He looked into my eyes with the passion I’d expected at the airport. “I was going to tell you that it was wrong for us to be together. I’m like Tom. I need to go back to Greece when the junta falls. My mother needs me. I have family there and . . .” He paused. “I’ve made promises to people in Greece, but that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I can’t stand another day without you. I need to see you, I need to be with you, so I’m asking your forgiveness.”
“Seriously, that was your plan? You were just going to stop seeing me? No letter, no phone call, nothing. Didn’t you think I deserved to know why you decided to stop seeing me?”
He put the bakery box on the table and came toward me with open arms. “Believe me, If I could, I would see you forever. I love you. No matter what happens I will always love you, koritsaki.”
I took a step backward then stopped, agitated and confused. “What do you mean, no matter what happens? What’s going to happen?”
Arcas dropped his arms. “OK, sit down. I can’t tell you everything, but I will tell you what I can.”
I sat down in an armchair and Arcas sat across from me on the sofa. “You know that Tom and I and some of the other Greeks in Canada are working with Papandreou to do whatever we can to overthrow the junta.”
I nodded, although I’d never imagined any of them actually overthrowing anything.
Arcas looked deadly serious. He covered his mouth with his fist as though trying to hold back whatever he was about to say. I leaned forward and braced against some awful news. He lowered his fist. “What if I tell you that I really was on a secret mission? It’s true that my father is ill, but that’s not why I went home.”
A secret mission, seriously? Did he take me for an idiot? I almost said something cutting and sarcastic but looked into his eyes and saw a sea of misery and fear. Despite my native skepticism, my heart raced with alarm.
“I can’t tell you anymore because there are dangerous people who don’t like what I’m doing. You know what happened to Nancy. Do you understand? That’s why I thought I should stop seeing you.”
He looked at me as though I were a child, a koritsaki, someone to be placated and protected. It had to be a lie or some sick joke, but he looked so distraught, so conflicted, that I started to believe him. “So why did you come back? What are you doing here in my apartment?”
He sank his head into his hands, hiding his face. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know if I should ask your forgiveness for staying away or for coming back.” He looked up with eyes glistening with tears he hastily blinked away. “I’m not thinking right. I’m sorry.”
I got up and sat beside him on the sofa. “Arcas, I don’t like secrets. How can you say you love me and then keep me in the dark about whatever’s going on? I need to know the truth.”
“No, no you don’t.” He took both my hands and held them as he shook his head. “You have your secrets and I have mine. Too many questions will ruin everything.”
“I don’t care.” I pulled my hands away. “No more secrets. What the hell is going on?”
Arcas looked ill, and I thought he might get up and leave. Instead, he asked to use the bathroom. When he came back, he was a shade paler than usual, but his face was washed clean and he looked more composed. “OK, I will tell you more, but you can’t tell anyone else, not even Nancy. Do you promise me?”
I wasn’t sure what I was promising, but I nodded.
“Things are going to happen in Athens very soon, big things.” He paused. “Do you still have the ouzo that I gave you?”
“In the cupboard next to the fridge.” I grew increasingly irritated and impatient as he disappeared into the kitchen, but I was glad when he returned with two glasses.
He handed me one then perched on the arm of the sofa, as though he didn’t want to get too comfortable in case I threw him out. “There are people with money and power who want the colonels gone. They plan to smuggle guns into Greece to arm the resistance and I am helping these people. Now, do you understand?”
No, I didn’t understand. This was beyond anything in my experience. My heart pounded as though the colonels’ thugs were coming after me. I took a sip of the ouzo and waited for my heart to slow down. The cold liquor warmed and chilled me at the same time while my mind replayed scenes from an old action film recast with Arcas clinging to the mast of a wind tossed ship at night. “What does that mean exactly? How are you helping them?”
He pursed his lips, and I didn’t think he was going to answer me. “There are cargo ships that go back and forth between Montreal and Athens and if you know people who work on these ships it’s possible to do things. I know these people.”
“How do you know people who work on ships? You’re a student. Your family raises goats.”
“Yes, but . . .” He hesitated and looked away. “My father was in the Navy during the war and . . . No, that’s not the truth. The truth is that two of my friends from school went to sea after they graduated. We are still very close, like brothers. They’d risk anything to bring down this government.”
“So, you just connect the guys with the money and the guys on the ships. Is that right?” Somehow, that didn’t sound so scary. He’d make a phone call or pass along a letter of introduction, no hanging from the rigging with a dagger clenched between his teeth.
“No, there’s more.” He hugged himself and rocked back and forth. “I’ve made promises that will take me back to Greece and I have to keep those promises. Believe me, I’d rather stay here with you, but I don’t have a choice.” His voice sounded uncharacteristically high pitched and whiney.
I put down my glass and leaned forward. “You do have a choice. You always have a choice. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. It’s that simple.”
“No, it’s not.” He put down his glass and raked his fingers through his hair. “Maybe in America everything is simple, but I don’t live in Disneyland. My world isn’t like that.” His voice broke and he looked away. When he turned back to me his eyes had lost their light and the skin beneath his chin seemed to sag. “Listen, I’ve made real promises to real people and terrible things will happen if I walk away. People I care about would get hurt and they wouldn’t forgive me. I can’t tell you more, but I want to be with you now. I want to stay with you as long as I can even if I can’t stay forever. Please let me be with you.”
The past month’s emotional roller coaster ride had exhausted me. I didn’t have the energy for a fight. “When it’s over, will you come back to me?”
“I can’t make promises because I don’t know what will happen. But if it’s possible to come back, I will.” Arcas put his arm around my shoulder and let me bury my face in his neck. It felt so good to melt into his body, to feel him beside me once again that I ignored the alarms going off inside my head and simply basked in his heat and the familiar smell of his skin as he patted my back and made Greek cooing sounds in my ear.
As my crying subsided, I realized that he wasn’t just murmuring nonsense, he was trying to tell me something. I finally heard “I might not be able to come back. What I’m doing is dangerous and terrible things could happen.”
“What could happen? Please, don’t do anything crazy. I need you to come back.”
“Let’s not think about that now. Let’s enjoy this time while we’re together.” He lifted my face to his and kissed me on the lips.
I opened my eyes and he was staring at me. I held him close and whispered, “You know I’d go with you. I’d move to Greece. I’d do anything.”
“Yes, yes, I know koritsaki, but I can’t take you with me, not now. Maybe someday after the junta falls you will come to Arcadia and meet my sheep and go to the beach and swim in the Aegean Sea like a naiad, but not now. These are dangerous times, and you need to stay here where you’re safe. Do you understand me? Do you hear what I’m saying?”
I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest when a new thought struck me. “What about Tom and the others? Is Tom in danger too?”
“No, no, he’s safe.” Arcas stroked my hair. “He doesn’t know about these things I’m doing. He’s a politician, not a soldier. It’s better if he doesn’t know. You can’t say a word to him or Nancy. Do you understand?”
“What could I tell them? I don’t know anything.”
“You know much more than you should. Let the others think I went to Greece to help my mother. Only you and I know there’s more. Is that a promise, koritsaki?” He pulled me up from the sofa and held me close. “Do you promise that whatever happens you’ll never say a word?”
I nodded my consent, feeling confused and a little frightened.
“Good.” He kissed me again. “Lives depend on this promise.”
The threat of danger, and a long separation gave a desperate edge to our love making. Part of me felt disembodied, floating, flying through space while another part responded to every touch of his hands, every kiss, every lick, every bite. He took me with passion that bordered on violence, and I clung to him, shivering and moaning until the sun had set and hunger finally lured us from my bed.
Neither of us wanted to leave the apartment so I threw on a robe and went into the kitchen to see what I could put together for our supper. There wasn’t much, but a quick inventory revealed the makings of an omelet. While Arcas showered, I took out a frying pan and watched a large pat of butter sizzle and dissolve as I tried to make sense of the past twelve hours. What was I doing? I adored Arcas. I was terrified of losing him and wanted nothing more than to wake up beside him for the rest of my life. He loved me enough to tell me about his political work and yet I still hadn’t told him about my sister. What was I afraid of? Why was I keeping my past a secret from the man I hoped would return to Canada and make me his wife? I took the pan off the heat and went into the dining room where I opened the bottom drawer of the buffet and took out a shoe box that held my most valued treasures.
Arcas walked out of the bedroom dressed and smelling faintly of my herbal shampoo. He kissed me on the cheek as I slipped a mushroom and Cheddar omelet onto a plate, added two slices of hot toast and a grilled tomato. Before he’d even sat down, he noticed the small, framed photograph in the middle of the kitchen table. It showed two identical young women flashing identical toothy smiles from the hood of a bright red Chevy Camaro.
He examined it a moment then turned to me with a puzzled expression. “You’re a twin? You never told me you had a twin sister.”
I poured two glasses of wine from a bottle of Chardonnay and sat down next to him at the table. “Her name was Joan.” I pointed to the girl on the right. “That was taken on our twenty-first birthday, three weeks before she died.”
“She was very beautiful, like her sister. What happened to her?”
How much did I intend to tell him? He might never look at me the same way again, but what choice did I have? If we stayed together he’d find out eventually. I began cautiously. “She drowned.”
Arcas put his hand over mine, lacing our fingers together. “I’m so sorry. What a tragedy. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“Because I killed her. That’s why I can’t go back to the States. There’s a warrant out for my arrest.”
Arcas moved his hand away and my heart stopped. He was going to make some lame apology and leave. Who could blame him? It’s what any normal person would do.
“No, you didn’t kill her. That’s not possible.” He sounded both angry and confused. “Why would you say this to me?” Various emotions played across his face in quick succession: doubt, irritation, sympathy, concern. His changing expressions reminded me of the weather in Rochester that could turn from hot to cold, sunny to rainy in an instant. They reminded me of the weather on Lake Ontario the night my sister died.
“I didn’t kill her on purpose. It wasn’t murder, it was an accident, but it was my fault. I made every boating mistake in the book even though I’d been raised on the lake and knew all the rules.” I put my hands in my lap so Arcas wouldn’t see them tremble.
“What happened?” Arcas pushed his plate aside and looked at me intently.
It took me a full minute to find my voice, when I did it seemed to come from some other place, and I listened in horror along with Arcas as the story unfolded.
“My dad owned a speedboat, and we went to the lake almost every weekend during the summer. A couple weeks after our twenty-first birthday, we were allowed to take the boat out by ourselves, and we invited a boy we knew, Stephen, to go water skiing with us. He’d gone on a few dates with Joanie, but we both had a crush on him. Everything was friendly, although there was a kind of tension about which one of us he liked the best. Sometimes we got competitive like that. Anyway, Joanie and I brought beer and he showed up with a couple joints and two bottles of tequila. It was a gorgeous evening in late August, about six o’clock but still light. The temperature must have been in the nineties, but we could get a great breeze by running the boat at full throttle. We burned a lot of gas and laughed ourselves silly seeing how fast we could go cutting across our own wake to make the boat jump. I was the pilot. It was my job to stay sober and get us home safely, but we were finally of legal drinking age, so I felt obligated to get totally wasted. Joanie warned me to slow down on the tequila shots, but I ignored her. She was always the voice of reason, and I was the wild one in those days. That’s how you could tell us apart. I figured Stephen would be impressed by my crazy, free spirit and choose me over my boring sister. Stupid, huh?”
I took a gulp of the wine. “I never saw him again, except for the day he was called to court as a witness.”
Arcas hadn’t stirred, he’d hardly blinked as I unwound my confession. His face barely moved as he asked, “Witness to what? What happened?”
“We were having a wonderful time, so we stayed out too late and went out too far and I broke every rule I’d ever been taught about piloting a boat. We started out wearing life jackets, but they were hot and bulky so we took them off. That actually worked in my favor at the trial since it meant Joanie was partly responsible, but it wasn’t enough to get me off.” I looked out the window. My eyes traveled from the red brick wall of the building next door to its shingled roof, then past a tangle of electric wires to the sky, a sea of dark clouds in a rising wind.
I turned away and stared into my half empty glass as I went on. “Joanie wanted to ski one more time before we went in. It was already dusk, and we should have been making a beeline for the harbor, but we were all high and not thinking clearly. She was a strong skier, so I wasn’t worried about her. Someone’s supposed to keep their eyes on a skier at all times, but I was more interested in flirting with Stephen and finishing off the tequila. Anyway, she was already up on her skis when we heard the first clap of thunder. I turned to let her know we were going to go in, but she wasn’t there, just the rope dragging behind us. I scanned the lake as far as I could see, but it was already dark, and I didn’t know how far back we’d lost her. I shut off our engines and heard her calling for help from somewhere off on our starboard side, but I couldn’t see anything but water. We drove slowly in the direction of her voice, but then it seemed to be coming from a different direction, so we changed course and tried again, and again, and again.”
I took another large sip of the chardonnay to steady myself. “After a while I wasn’t even sure I was hearing her voice. It might have been the thunder, the rain, or the water crashing against the side of our boat. Even when I knew I couldn’t hear her anymore, I kept driving in circles all over the goddamn lake trying to find her in the dark. Stephen finally had to wrestle the tiller from my hand and drive us back to port.
“I begged the police to send the Coast Guard out to find her, but they just took one look at the empty cans and bottles in our boat and arrested me for boating under the influence and involuntary manslaughter. That’s how the night ended. They arrested me for killing my own sister.”
“Did they ever find her?” Arcas asked.
“No. We had a memorial service with an empty casket. I get the willies whenever I think of her body at the bottom of the lake.” I looked directly at Arcas. “Sometimes, I can still hear her calling for help. It’s like an auditory hallucination or something. It scares me every time it happens.”
“I’m so sorry.” Arcas took my hand and kissed my fingers, one after the other. I hadn’t scared him away. He was still sitting beside me. “How did you come to Canada? What brought you to me?”
I twined my fingers between his and squeezed his hand, grateful for his presence. “There was terrible publicity after the accident. The local papers went wild with the story, ‘Drunken boater kills identical twin sister’ with lots of photos of the two of us in bathing suits. It was all over the six o’clock news. Journalists stood outside the house for days ringing our bell and demanding interviews. It was a nightmare. My lawyer said I had about a fifty percent chance of getting off, which meant I had a fifty percent chance of going to prison for up to fifteen years. My folks paid a small fortune to bail me out prior to sentencing, knowing they’d never see that money again because they arranged for me to skip bail and leave the country. They even helped me get my job off the record with Abbot’s Printing. So here I am.”
“But Canada and the United States help each other in these matters, don’t they?”
“Sure, the US and Canada have an extradition treaty, but I’m small potatoes. No one’s looking for me. As long as I don’t go back to the States, I’m safe.” I picked up the framed photo of two laughing girls and stared at it, trying to remember being that happy and that innocent. “So, now you know. That’s my story.”
Arcas took the photo from my hands. He put it face down on the table and stood up, pulling me toward him. “I wish I could make you promises, koritsaki. I wish I could take you away where bad memories would never find you.”