No one really saw the bad news coming. They all assumed that Steve was visiting me. But I knew he wouldn’t be on Aspros unless there was a story to cover, and my mind began racing as soon as I recognized him.
“Rupert, nice to see you,” he said. “I knew you were on Aspros. I didn’t realize you were staying at this house.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said. I went down the stairs and shook his hand. “Who are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for Amanda Weldon. I’ve been told she’s staying here.”
“Amanda’s not here,” said Clive with some authority. “Are you a friend of hers?” He grabbed Nathan’s wrist and looked at the time. It had to be closing in on 2 A.M.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “this is Steve Kelly. He’s a journalist.”
There was silence, then Olivia said, “Pleased to meet you.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” said Steve hastily. “So Amanda Weldon isn’t here?”
“Is it important? I know where she is,” said Clive. “I can go get her.”
“It is important,” said Steve. He rubbed the two-day stubble on his chin and regarded first Clive and then me. He had some bad news, that much was obvious. “Jack Weldon’s been murdered.”
We had all poured ourselves a drink, except for Clive, who was off to Tomas’s to fetch Amanda. The light in the living room seemed too bright and, with the exception of me who was not dressed for bed, we all looked rather silly. Neftali and her face mask, her hair up in curlers and netted, was slumped over her glass of whiskey. She was tearing up and I knew, from spending time with her, that she felt personally responsible for Jack’s death; somehow his murder had been a direct result of bad hospitality. Nathan’s pajamas looked as if they’d been ironed and Olivia was wearing her bed turban, an item I’d never really understood but which she thought was essential.
“How did Jack die?” I asked.
“He fell from a cliff,” said Steve.
“What was he doing on a cliff?” asked Nathan.
“You’ve never been to Hydra, have you?” said Steve.
I wanted to laugh because Nathan sounded annoyed and seemed to think it was just like Jack to stand on a cliff and get murdered.
Nikos said, “Where is the police?”
Steve was sitting on the edge of his chair and looking from Nikos to me to Nikos, with an eager, greasy demeanor. “I got here first. Weldon was found this morning and no one knows where Amanda is except for me, and a few others.”
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“Kaïka from Páros,” he said.
I had a hundred questions flying through my mind. I looked over at Nikos and he raised an eyebrow, quick, meant for me. I stood up, and addressing Steve, said, “Why don’t we go out and get some fresh air?” I picked up my drink so that Steve knew to bring his.
It was a quiet night but breezy, and the trees were rattling the wind in their leaves. I gave Steve a cigarette.
“Are you up for some questions, my friend?” I said.
“Oh, I’m prepared for that, believe me.” Steve was exhausted, but he managed a smile.
“How did you know Amanda was here?” I asked.
“Custard was tipped off by some of his American friends who were tailing one of her acquaintances.”
I thought for a moment. “They were following me,” I said.
“Are you one of her acquaintances?” Steve knew he had to come up with some sort of pretense but was having a hard time finding the energy for it.
“I don’t know.” Steve gave me an honest look. “I thought you would.”
“Well, I don’t.” I thought for a moment. “You were following me too. I saw your car in Delphi after you’d supposedly left.”
Steve shrugged. “You were suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
“How’s the hiking on Aspros?” he asked. There was a play of exhausted humor in his eyes. “Or is it better suited to numisiatic activities?”
“The word is numismatic,” I said. “And I don’t know what you’re getting at. Are you forgetting that you know me? I’m Rupert. I’m not capable of all this.” I gestured with my cigarette, because I didn’t know what all this was. “I’m not averse to helping you. Just ask me something I might know the answer to.”
Steve processed this and then inclined his head in a way that implied both an inquiring mind and the onset of a headache. “What can you tell me about Jack Weldon?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. I’d forgotten that Steve had an interest in Jack. “He was a jerk. He hit his wife. He drank too much.” Would anyone care that he was dead? “How can you be so sure he didn’t kill himself or fall by accident?”
“Well,” said Steve. He winced. “Someone clubbed him on the back of his head, and he landed on his face. And there were signs of a struggle, trampled greenery, two sets of footprints, that sort of thing.”
“Some villager might have had it in for him. Pushed him.”
“That is one theory. One old lady says she saw him arguing with a man.”
“No description?”
“The man was wearing a straw hat.”
“Not much to go on,” I said. I took a long thoughtful drag on my cigarette. “Thanasi,” I said. “Jack had a friend, this Thanasi, a local potter.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“On the coast north of Faros, a fishing village. He lives down a dirt path. There’s a sign for his studio, I suppose for tourists. Maybe some even go.”
“Could you find it?”
“Now?”
I needed Clive to find Thanasi’s place because I’d never been there. Clive wasn’t sure either, but he had dropped Jack off once before. Clive and I hopped on the Vespa, and Steve followed on a scooter he’d managed to rent from one of the restaurant owners in the port town. Amanda was sobbing and frightened when we left. Probably embarrassed, too, since she’d been in bed with Tomas when the news of Jack’s death reached her.
The headlight on the Vespa was out, but I had a flashlight and that, coupled with the nearly full moon, was enough to light our way. I was having a hard time with what Steve had said. Why was I involved? Who would want to kill Jack? What on earth was my connection? Who was investigating Jack, and why? I hadn’t come to any conclusions, but by the time we reached the path that led to Thanasi’s house, I decided I knew more than Steve and probably knew more than any of them—Custard and his British Intelligence or CIA, or whoever—had picked up. I knew more; I just had to put it together.
Clive pulled over by a wooden sign. It said, real local pottery. I took the flashlight and shined a path through the scrubby brush and debris. In the low plants were bottles, misfired pots, and donkey dung, and then, giving me a right heart attack, a donkey, who nuzzled my cheek as I passed.
“Jesus Christ!” I said.
Clive was frightened at first, but then he started laughing. I swung the flashlight around, laughing too, but then I saw Steve, and he had pulled a gun.
“What?” said Steve.
“It’s just a donkey,” I said. “Why do you have a gun?”
“Custard gave it to me, just in case.”
I turned off the flashlight. We were huddled there: me, Clive, Steve, and somewhere—not visible but I could smell it—Thanasi’s friendly donkey. “Steve,” I asked, “am I in danger?”
“I really don’t know,” he said.
“Why would you think Thanasi is armed?”
Steve seemed relieved I’d asked him that. “He might be,” he said. He put the safety on his gun. “The thing is,” he said, “Weldon’s been buying weapons for Greek Communists.”
“What?” I said.
“It’s true.”
I looked over at Clive, who shrugged, apparently willing to entertain this possibility.
“Why would the Communists have anything to do with Jack?” I asked.
“Well, it was kind of his own splinter group,” said Steve. “His own guerrilla army.”
“No,” I said. “That’s impossible. He doesn’t have that kind of money.”
Clive snorted derisively, but I knew he was having trouble following the conversation.
“Wait,” I said. “Does this have something to do with that band of twenty rebels in Delphi?”
“Not Delphi,” said Steve. “Farther north, up by the Albanian border.”
“Seems like a very small guerrilla army,” said Clive.
“And contained,” said Steve. “Not of much interest to anyone except the local officials and the far right, and therefore Custard. Until Jack’s murder.”
“Jack did have a lot of political convictions,” I said. “But they seemed so—”
“Fake,” said Clive. “Just another way of condescending.”
There was a moment of quiet where we heard the donkey, still close by, tearing at the grass.
“So what’s going on?” I asked.
“No one really knows,” said Steve. “Jack was producing something that raised a significant amount of cash and then he was turning around and buying guns that were funneled through Albania.”
“Maybe he was selling drugs,” I suggested.
Steve shrugged. “Opium production in Turkey is at an all-time high, but we’ve been watching the borders, and there’s nothing to connect it to Jack. Whatever it was, Jack was producing it locally.”
I pondered for a moment. “Doesn’t Custard know who killed him? Maybe one of Custard’s American friends?”
Steve shook his head. “This was not organized. Don’t get me wrong. Weldon is potentially embarrassing, and his death might be convenient. But Custard was trying to figure out what he was doing. He wanted to know who else was involved, who the Greeks were, the Albanians.”
“Well, Thanasi might know something.” I found it hard to believe that he was a key figure. This situation gave Thanasi an implausible sophistication.
“What do you know about him?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know anything. But I thought of the crate Jack had taken on the ferry, of the comrade-style embrace that he and Thanasi had shared. “Put the gun away. Thanasi is just a crazy potter with a head full of dreams,” I said. “Let me go first. He’s probably asleep.”
“No, no,” said Steve. He put the gun in his satchel. “I should go. I speak Greek.”
Steve went ahead, but Clive and I followed close behind. I could hear the waves hitting the rocks, but where Thanasi lived there was no beach. Just a cliff, sheer, imposing, beautiful. I wondered if Thanasi knew what a premium this sort of location had in other places, or if he just felt he was stranded at the end of the earth. I thought of the saying, The sea is a road that leads anywhere, but Thanasi wasn’t going far. I had a hard time picturing him anywhere but Aspros.
I waited outside with Clive while Steve went inside the cottage. I would have been happy to stay in the fresh air, with the view of the ocean, the moon, a shred of cloud drifting over it, but the mosquitoes were vicious. I wondered if there was some stagnating pool, a frenzy of mosquito sex and exotic fevers. I edged my way inside the door and Clive followed me.
I assumed that Steve must have broken the news of Jack’s death to Thanasi because of the dejected way he was sitting on the edge of his bed, a small one with a flat mattress and dirty sheets, that he must have just risen from. I felt bad for him. What light had Jack shone on his ordinary life? What dreams had now died?
I was trying to think of what Asprian things could be worth something on the black market, and all I could come up with was myzithra, the local cheese—one did need a license to sell it. Cheese. Chickpea croquettes. Caper salad. That’s all Aspros had to offer. Thanasi’s house was barely the size of my room at Neftali’s, and it was difficult to find a polite place to look. Half the cottage was given over to Thanasi’s work, and a pyramid of sunbaked terracotta bowls dominated the space. A sheet was thrown over half of this, and I could see that some of the work—plates, maybe, but the light was dim—had been glazed and fired.
And then I thought, pots, and then I thought, local pottery. On a plank set on two squares of yellowed marble, probably pilfered from an ancient wall, was a book in English. Of course this was suspicious because that Thanasi read—even in his own language—seemed improbable. I picked up the book and opened it. On the front page it had been stamped instructor copy. It was left over from Jack’s teaching days. I flipped a couple of pages and saw an amphora, black figures on red, much like the bell krater the dealer in Athens had described to me, and then a lekythos, almost deco in appearance, with a young woman in profile holding a water jug—the work of the Achilles painter—and this appealed to me, as it should.
I had purchased it, although on a plate, that night in Athens all those weeks ago. My plate hadn’t been dug up in the Peloponnesus. It had been made right here, and by having Kostas purchase it I had funded Jack’s army. Of course Thanasi, and therefore Jack, would know that Kostas, as my agent, was looking for classical pieces. Everyone on Aspros did, just as everyone knew I had the money to pay for them. All Jack had needed was a middleman, some rebel to take the bus down from the Albanian border in his too-short pants and show up on Kostas’s doorstep in the middle of the night, a blanket of goodies bundled on his back.
I put the book down. Clive looked over. I picked up a knife, left on a cutting board next to some very dry-looking cheese. Clive looked at me questioningly, but I raised my finger to my lips so he knew not to follow. I slipped out the door. I was lucky that the Vespa was far from Thanasi’s house. By the time Steve heard the engine, even if he ran out, I would have a good head start. Would he even follow me?
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 the 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.”