The street was solid with sunlight and the smoky fumes of diesel buses. Pedestrians and tiny cars jostled shoulder to fender, making it hard to distinguish roadway from sidewalk. The bray of horns, the cries of street vendors, pressed inward to her faintly through a film of glass.
Susan Lenson hesitated in the air-conditioned cool of the hotel lobby. Shouting, arguing, singing, the bright swift life of the Mediterranean pulsed past, so foreign it fascinated, but so intense that it daunted her.
She had not expected this. Moira Lieberman’s letters had been filled with scenery. The peach orchards of the Solea Valley; the secluded charm of the hills, where she was excavating a twelfth-century monastery. But that was an hour to the west. Here in the capital, for all the charm and solitude she could see, she and Nan could just as well have stayed in Rome.
When she swung the door open the afternoon sun hit her like a heated hammer. The air cut her breath off, clotting like cotton behind her tongue. She unlocked the car and looked back. The child was lagging back, looking stubborn. She shielded her eyes and studied her daughter.
At three Nancy Lenson was sturdy and compact, her brown eyes tarsier-solemn behind the glasses she had worn for a year now. Her way of silently inspecting people through them sometimes intimidated grown-ups. Her hair was the color of a chestnut horse, cut short except for a bang in front, and because of that and her stockiness—her mother worried sometimes about her weight—she had been mistaken more than once for a boy. She looked like one now, in the bib jeans and T-shirt Susan dressed her in for traveling. But today her solemnity was a scowl, and she looked drawn, her hair damp where it fell across her forehead.
“Bunny, are you feeling all right?”
“No,” said the little girl.
“Don’t you want to go? Come on, baby. Let’s jump in the car.”
“I don’t wan’ go anyplace. Can’t we stay here? I want a Coke.”
“Damn—darn it, get in the car, Nan.” She reached for her daughter’s arm, felt its heat as she bundled her into the blue Fiat she had rented at the airport. So hot … she paused to feel her daughter’s forehead. Nan jerked away, whining, but she persisted, finally satisfying herself that though she was sweating it was only the sun. God, for her to get sick, that was all she needed. Already she half-regretted coming to the island.
But Cyprus had been so ruggedly lovely, from the air.…
She and Nan had arrived the day before, on an Air Greece flight out of Athens. It had finally become impossible to stay with the other wives. They meant well. But they were too—she searched for a word in place of “dull”—too conventional. Too safe.
And they were always there. There were five in their group, she and Alicia from the staff, the other three wives of the Guam’s middle-grade officers; and they were all older than she. For most of them this was their third or fourth trip to the Med, and they wanted to revisit the places they knew. They wanted to buy jewelry or lace or clothes, dicker for hours with shopkeepers, and eat. Nan was the only child, and although the other women praised Susan for bringing her, she had the feeling that they thought she was wrong, that at some level they resented it.
There was no question that it was harder with her along. You had to watch her and cater to her, and Nan, though she was generally as good as you could expect a child of her age to be, didn’t like strange foods (except for gelati). Susan had thought it all through months before, though. Nan would start kindergarten soon. This would be their only chance to travel for a long time, and she felt it would be good for both of them.
The other wives also made remarks about Susan’s studying, and she, in turn, thought they were empty-headed. Oh, she knew that was unfair, they were all nice, but most of them did nothing but keep house, although Alicia was a librarian. They could share her fascination with cathedrals and museums; they liked to feel “arty” occasionally, but when she proposed renting a van and driving off to some obscure village in the hills to look at a dig they begged off. They would rather shop.
Well, now we can see something worthwhile, Susan thought. She crammed herself into the little Fiat and pulled out into traffic, trying to keep in mind that she had to do everything backward—you drove British-style on the left in Cyprus. Not to mention struggling with a street map at the same time.
“Mommy, where we going?”
“We have to get some money, Bunny, and mail a letter. Then we’re going to see one of my old friends.”
“Who?”
“Her name’s Moira, dear. She’s an archaeologist. You’ll like her.”
“Can we put the cold on, Mommy?”
“We don’t have air conditioning in this car, baby. I’ll turn on the fan.”
It didn’t work. A hundred bucks a week for this mousetrap, she thought viciously, and now this. She cranked down Nan’s window and the child settled more or less satisfied, looking out the window at the cars, the streams of pedestrians. By the time Susan found the cross street she wanted, and squeezed into a parking space two blocks away from the American Embassy, she felt wilted; perspiration was soggy under her arms, beading on her face.
“Come on, darling. We’ll walk a little.”
“Want to stay here. It’s too hot out.”
“No. Somebody might steal you, Bunny.”
She saw the frightened look cross her face, and thought: That was a terrific thing to say, Susan. Great, make her afraid of foreigners. “I was just joking. Nobody will hurt you. I just want you with me. Come on, dear.”
“No.”
No doubt about it, it was going to be a wonderful day. “Close that door,” she snapped. “Stay close to me. Don’t touch that puppy, you’ll get dog spit all over your hands.”
“Look, there’s a man; he’s got a gun—”
“He’s just a policeman. Come on, Bunny.”
The embassy was cool and dark, marbled peaceful after the noise and heat of the street. Thankfully, too, the line at the service desk was short. The teller was a dark Greek she only fleetingly thought attractive. “Do you change money here?” she asked him.
“Are you an American, ma’am?”
“Yes, I am. Susan Lenson. Are there any messages for me?”
“Just a moment … no, nothing at present.”
She changed three hundred dollars to Cypriote pounds, big brown and blue notes, putting half in her purse and half in her jeans pocket, and handed over a letter for her parents.
“Do you have any maps of the island?”
“Where are you going, ma’am?”
“Near Kakopetria.”
“The skiing is not good in the mountains now. You want to go to the beaches. Kyrenia was good once, but now the Turks are there. You want to go to Larnaca—”
“No. If I could have a map—”
“Is this your child?” said the man, reaching over the counter to pat Nan on the head. She looked up, suspicious.
“Yes.”
“You’re here alone? I would not advise going about the island by yourself. There are rumors.”
“Rumors? About what?”
“It’s said there may be trouble again. I don’t know, it may be true. Now, you know, I go to Larnaca often. I have a small cottage there, on the sea. The beaches there are very good. Sunny, warm.”
Ah, so it was the make. She should have recognized it long before this. “I have friends near Kakopetria. They’re expecting me,” she said sharply. “All I need is a map.”
“A map, certainly you shall have a map. Here is one. You have a car? It’s only an hour away … here is a fine map,” said the man. “Have a pleasant trip, ma’am.” As she turned away he was already saying to the woman behind her, “Good morning, miss. You’re here alone?”
“Mommy, why did he pat me like that?”
“It’s his job, dear.”
“Why’d he ask if we were Amer’cans?”
Ah, Susan thought, she noticed. And how will you explain this one to your child, omniscient mother? Three generations now and we still must justify, still excuse our skin and our eyes. But we are so polite about it. To her surprise she heard herself say, “Because we’re prettier than other Americans, Bunny.”
They were her own mother’s words, twenty years before.
“Come on. We have a long way to drive.”
Once they were on the road out of the city, her mood, which had been edging from annoyed to dangerous, began to lighten. The scenery was fine. Past the airport, a few miles west of the capital, the fuss of new building sank back to scattered houses, and the road wound through open foothills, gradually climbing. She had to keep her eyes on the road, but Nan exclaimed over an orchard-filled valley, and a little later clamored for her mother to look at the distant sea, blue and hazy. It was so pretty they had to stop and take a picture. Long before she was tired they stopped again in a little village for a cold drink. She had lemonade and Nan was allowed a small cola. (Susan was careful with her caffeine and sugar.) They sipped them on a stone terrace under a shady arbor. Their waiter made them taste the grapes—they were fat and tart—and tried to tell them a story about them, but his English was very bad. She tried her college French on him, but he only looked puzzled. Nan laughed so hard at her mother that she spilled her drink and started to cry.
“Don’ worry, don’ worry, I bring,” said the waiter, smiling, and brought them both fresh glasses.…
They rolled through Kakopetria in the middle of the afternoon. It was a small town, high in the mountains, which stood like Crusader castles above the shaded square on every side. Susan thought she had never seen such a lovely place. They asked directions of a bearded priest, robed all in black despite the heat, and found the monastery west of town in the middle of an apple orchard.
The dig was deserted. She looked uphill—at school they told you always to camp on a rise; it was more sanitary—and saw the tents. The first one they stopped at was Moira’s.
Ten minutes later they were sitting in the midst of Real Archaeology. At a camp table in her college roommate’s tent, sipping watered St. John Commandaria, she examined the potsherds and corroded crosses, each one neatly labeled, that Moira Lieberman pulled excitedly from rag nests in biscuit tins. Her greatest treasure was a cork, miraculously preserved for eight centuries in a patch of dry sand. One end was still stained with ancient wine. Susan passed it to Nan, who held it gingerly, not quite understanding what it was, but knowing it was important. “It’s old, Bunny,” she said. “Real old. From long, long ago.”
“Older than Grandma?”
“Older than your grandma’s grandma’s grandma,” said Moira, and they smiled at each other over the child’s awed expression, her first intimation of the incredible span of years before her own existence.
Later, after a tour of the dig, they shared a camp supper with the chief of excavation, on sabbatical from Michigan; the Cypriote resident; and four grad students. When the stewed lamb and fava beans were gone, the cheese pie demolished, night had fallen like a mauve blanket over the mountains. The men built up the campfire and produced bottles in honor of the visitors. The talk was obviously secondary to the ouzo, and the two women soon drifted back to the tent. They sat on a cot, side by side, and Susan thought how much it was like college; how many nights she and this dumpy brilliant girl had spent sitting together, just like this, talking about their lives to come, the wonderful discoveries they would make. In some ways she had never been closer to another person, and it made her sad to think they had spent years apart.
“I’ve got to think of getting back to town pretty soon,” she said at last. “We’ve had a wonderful time, Moira. I envy you this, your work … doing what we always dreamed of. By the way, are you sleeping with him?”
“With whom?”
“Professor Rentzey.”
“Oh, good heavens, no.”
“I didn’t mean anything—”
“I know you didn’t, Betts. No, it’s one of the grad students. The tall boy, Michael Cook.”
They laughed by the soft light of a kerosene lamp. “Betts”—she had almost forgotten her college nickname.
“But you don’t have to go,” Lieberman said then. “I don’t want you to. I have an extra cot. Why don’t you and Nan stay here?”
“Oh, Moira, I can’t impose.”
“Impose? Don’t be an ass. I’d love to have you.” Lieberman leaned back on the cot, looking serious. “You know, it would be ideal for you. You don’t get to do much fieldwork, do you?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I guess that means no. But, Betts, why not? I could get Rentzey to give you part of the site. You can do ceramics; we have great trading pieces—you could do trading networks!”
“It would take so long.”
“What else are you going to do?”
She felt trapped; worse, she felt guilty. Moira was right. It would be ideal; it would be a dream come true. Forget the textbooks, do real fieldwork. “But what would I do about Dan? I have to meet him, when they decide where they’re going next. I can’t just disappear.”
Moira lowered her eyes. “It’s your choice. I guess it would be rough for you out here, especially with Nan.…”
“I’d really like to,” Susan said again. She tried to smile, to pass it off. “But we have our room back in Nicosia, all our things are there … we can visit you again … but I really think we’d better go back.”
“Maybe you’re right, at that. You know,” and Moira looked into the dark beyond the open flaps of the tent, “the islanders are nice, but there’s something else, some undercurrent. There’s a lot of talk about the Turks.”
“I heard something about that in the city, too. I thought it was just a pass. You mean there might be trouble?”
“I can’t say. We have to be damn careful about the local politics. The man who owns this orchard, he comes around sometimes to watch us; he hates Muslims. Curses them. It’s terrible, there’s so much hate between them. And really they’re not so different, to our eyes.” Moira turned a piece of glazed ware, an ancient drinking cup, in her hands. “Anyway, it might be safer here. If anything happens, it’ll start in the city. It always does.”
“I’d stay, really, but Nan gets so cranky. I can’t inflict her on everybody here. You don’t know what it’s like with a baby.”
“She’s not a baby. She’s smart. And pretty. You’re so lucky to have her, Betts.”
“Oh, I know.” Susan smiled, looking back toward the fire; Cook, his hair shining gold in the yellow light, was showing Nan how to coax hollow music from the mouth of a bottle. “It’s a pain sometimes, but I love her. You should have children, Moira.”
“Oh, Jesus, plenty of time for that. How’s your husband? You know, I still remember the day you met him, when we went up on that bus. I was so jealous.”
“Dan’s all right. We have our problems. He’s away so much. The Navy’s like that. I can’t say he didn’t warn me.”
“It must be rough, having him away. But you can cope, can’t you?”
“I do, yes … somehow.”
She parted the tent flaps, looking out toward the fire again. As she did so a puff of air made her shiver. It came from the east, several degrees cooler, a different wind than the hot, uncertain breeze that had prevailed all day. This was steady, calm and cold.
“Feels like rain,” said Moira, close behind her. “The orchards can use that. It’s been even drier than usual this summer. You know, Betts,”—her roommate put her arm around her, looking with her in the direction of the fire, the little girl, the circle of amused men—“I don’t know if I should ask you this, but—”
“God, Moira, you know you can ask me anything. I may not answer you, but you can ask.”
“It’s like—when you’re married, and your husband’s away so much—don’t you ever get horny?”
Susan had to laugh. Moira Lieberman—“the Ox” to everyone at Georgetown—had never been famous for reticence. But then her laughter faltered.
“You don’t have to answer, like you said.”
“No, it’s all right. I was just thinking about it. It’s so good when he’s there. The being apart makes it like a honeymoon. If it wasn’t for Nan we could spend weeks in bed. But when he isn’t there—yeah, I get horny as hell.”
“Do you ever think about other men?”
“Think? Sometimes, Moira. But that’s all.”
“And so you’re happy? You really are?”
She hesitated then, for the barest fraction of a moment, looking toward the stakes, flickering in the firelight, that marked the careful rectilinear dissection of the dig. Her first love, the love of ancient things, the laborious, fascinating, ultimately impossible reconstruction of the past … “No, it’s fine,” she said at last. “I guess you can’t have everything.”
And she was grateful, somehow, that Moira did not remark on the pensive way she said it.
She began the drive back that night with more annoyance than trepidation. Nan was whiny, didn’t want to leave, and her unusual behavior elicited an equal snappishness from her mother. There were tears from the backseat, where the bag of toys was, when at last they started down from the hills. But her annoyance melted as she concentrated on driving.
It was a task. The clouds that had come with the wind covered stars and moon, and there seemed to be as few lights now, late in the twentieth century, as there had been in the twelfth. Rain spattered briefly, then lifted, but the road remained only a pale winding among cliffs that shone like pavement in the weak headlights, and she had to concentrate to keep from mistaking one for the other. Shadows flew along before them, swept after the humming tires like black wings. When at last she turned onto the main road she gave a puff of relief. Only then did she wonder about Nan. She twisted to look into the rear seat, but only a flash of dark hair showed as Susan flicked the dome light on and off. She was curled up back there, asleep.
Leave her be, then … she turned back to the road. Mile by dark mile the island sped by, wind buffeting the tiny car.
The conversation with Moira had left her dissatisfied, on some deep level that she only vaguely understood. What was it that had upset her? Her shortness with Nan had only partially been her daughter’s fault.
Was it the invitation to the dig?
Had it been what the Ox had asked, about Dan?…
She was still wondering about it when her foot slammed down, sending her toward the windshield. The lights had loomed up suddenly as she came round a bend. Rain spattered the glass again, and she flicked on the wipers and peered forward, the car shuddering as wind lashed at the doors.
Trucks. They were turning out of a side road, down from somewhere in the hills; rolling slowly onto the highway that led inland, toward the capital. Two, and then several more; large canvas-covered vehicles with strange headlights. Then she realized that they were blackout headlights, and that the trucks were a military convoy. They wound slowly onto the rain-silvered highway, the growl of motors reaching her through the wind. They’re headed east, she thought. East, toward the Turkish lines.
The last truck was towing an artillery piece. Its barrel turned toward her, directly in line with the little car, as the convoy gathered speed into the night. She sat frozen, holding the wheel, listening to their diminishing roar as the taillights dimmed into red blurs, dissolving in the rain.
That night, back at the hotel, Nan woke crying at three. She was feverish. Susan made tea, put cold cloths on her head, and then, when she finally went back to sleep, took out a book. She studied for a time, then got up, restless, and stood at the window. At last she opened it and stepped out onto the balcony that every hotel room in the Mediterranean seemed to have. She shivered in the wind, wrapping her robe more tightly about her, and looked out over the city.
At this hour, long before dawn, Nicosia was like a neglected cemetery. The buildings were grave markers, their bases whitened by the few streetlights, all their windows dark. The streets were empty. Several blocks away, over a bus shed and a restaurant, a neon sign beamed out CYPRUS AIRWAVES. Beyond that was a wider street, a few palms and plane trees, and the pillared portico of the Town Hall. Beyond the buildings she could make out dimly the mound of the old city wall.
There are things to see here, she told herself. We won’t waste this time. But still the windy, waiting silence seemed to echo something in her own heart, something lost and afraid. She wished now she had stayed with Moira. They would be asleep now in the tent, or lying awake telling funny stories about college. But her next thought was of Nan. It might be one of those waterborne diseases the guidebooks warned about. If the fever held she would need a doctor, and the capital, not the hills, was the place to find one. So on balance, perhaps it was best that they had returned.…
Something moved on the street, and she leaned over the balcony, looking down.
It was a group of men, twenty or thirty of them, moving along purposefully at a jog. They were carrying guns. Police? Troops? So strange that they would be running through the streets, at night.
Stranger than that, she realized suddenly, looking down at their white shirts, dark hatless heads, was that none of them was wearing a uniform.
That decided her. Armed men in the streets: That was something more than rumor. That and the trucks … as soon as it was light she would get Nan dressed, pack a bag, and go … go where? To the embassy, of course. That would be the safest place. And there might even be a doctor there. She was not really worried about Nan—she was healthy—but it wouldn’t hurt to have her looked at. And the man at the counter, no, his supervisor would be better, perhaps could tell them now what was happening, what everyone seemed to fear but not speak of, as if saying its name would bring it on. She thought for a moment of Dan, then dismissed it. He was far away. Always far away, it seemed, when she needed him.
Well, that was the way things were for Navy wives. And much as you dislike the word, she thought, that is what you are. “Dependents,” in the seemingly deliberate insult of military terminology … although she was feeling anything but dependent, and would see to it with all her strength that her daughter did not grow up to be.
She left the windows open and went back to the bed. Her daughter … she smoothed Nan’s hair. It was hard sometimes to remember what it had been like before she had someone more important than herself to take care of, something more urgent than her own wishes. She’d been such a child herself when she’d married. Possibly, as her father joked sometimes, more than a little spoiled. She smiled to herself, her hand moving gently, and then the smile ebbed away.
She would do anything to keep her daughter safe.
She was picking up her book again, turning to sit down, when she heard distant gunfire. Her first feeling was incredulity. Her first action was to pick up the room telephone and dial the desk.
There was no answer.
That’s it, she thought, all the fear galvanizing suddenly into resolve. To hell with waiting. We’re going now.
Nan, bundled tight in two sweaters and the heaviest coat they had brought, did not cry or even whine in the elevator down. At two floors the lift jerked to a stop, the doors banged open, and more people crowded in, frightened-looking in hastily donned clothes. They seemed all to be foreigners—or non-Greeks, she corrected herself. Americans, British, an elderly couple with a small dog. When they reached the lobby she headed immediately for the desk, but there was no one there, no one at the switchboard. Carrying the single suitcase she had packed, she went next to the street entrance, and stared out. There were a few lights on now, in the storefronts, and knots of Cypriotes were gathering here and there on the street, looking east.
“We’re going to the American Embassy,” she said, to the lobby at large. “Does anyone need a ride?”
She took the old couple. Their name, the woman said, was Stanweis, and they were from New Jersey. The poodle’s name was Ferdy. She bundled them into the backseat and headed south. Strangely, they seemed to be the only ones going anywhere. The Nicosians that they passed simply stood waiting, on the sidewalks or in front of their stores, watching them go by. She left the car on a side street, near where she had parked the day before, and they walked the last two blocks, Nan holding tightly and silently to her hand. Halfway there she remembered that she had left her camera in the car. She did not go back.
The embassy gates were open and lit. Two marines stood by them, looking self-conscious. They were unarmed. “Ma’am. Your passport?” said one, as she came up.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re an American? We have orders to check.”
“Of course I’m an American,” she said. This was too much. “I was born in Washington. My husband’s in the Navy. You can see I’m not Russian.”
“We’ll still have to see some ID, ma’am,” the other marine said inflexibly. She showed him her dependent’s card. As they went inside she heard the Stanweises begin to argue. They had left their passports at the hotel. She thought for a moment that she should go back, help them, but then looked at Nan. She looked so wan that Susan hurried on inside, wondering again about a doctor.
There were people already there. They stood around the counter, where another marine stood next to a civilian official; she was saying that conditions were unsettled; they couldn’t say for certain what was happening; that everyone was welcome to stay, but that there wasn’t much room. Susan could see that. People were already fencing off areas of the hallway with luggage and blankets. Walking down the corridor, she saw that several of the offices were open, with people sitting inside talking on telephones. She went back to the desk, noting that people were coming in steadily now through the gates. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman. “My little girl is sick. Is there a doctor available?”
“A doctor? Not right now—we have a Greek nurse, but she won’t be in till morning.”
“Permit me,” said someone behind her. She turned; it was the old man, Mr. Stanweis.
“I’m a doctor,” he said. “Can I help?”
“Certainly,” she said, and smiled. Bread on the waters …
A little later, she hastened to claim with their clothes and the suitcase the last few square feet of floor. She laid herself down next to Nan—“probably just a touch of flu,” Stanweis had said—on the wool coat she had expected never to need in the Mediterranean. She was so tired.…
When she opened her eyes again, later, she realized she had dozed off. The hallway lights had dimmed; Nan was asleep, snuffling a little as she dreamed.
Lying there, Susan Lenson mused drowsily on the thick walls … the guards out front … the impregnable, invisible, inviolate shield of the American flag. For the first time that day she felt secure. The marble floor was hard, but as she drifted off, she thought it was lovelier than the softest bed.
Nothing, was her last thought, can touch us here.
And outside, gunfire rattled distant in the Cypriote night.