HELENA WOKE UP with a headache. She was grim at breakfast, the coffee made her feel nauseous, the buzzing of the flies sounded like machine guns. She didn’t want to go to the beach. She didn’t want to do anything. Her morning rest in the sarcophagus dragged on into the afternoon and I tried to tend to her—a cold towel? a glass of water?—but my desire to assist seemed to annoy her and I felt subservient and embarrassed. I hid, like Olga, in my room. On the balcony I watched the boats and the sea. A disquiet bloomed, in my throat, over my skin like a rash, a current in my body; I recognized the feeling but told myself I was mistaken, it was nothing. This was not rejection taking shape.

I went grocery shopping, I made mussels, her favorite. I took my time knocking the shells against the coarse stone edge of the sink, I proceeded slowly, I made my movements small. I lit the lanterns on the table in the garden when dusk fell. Helena drank a glass of white wine with ice in it. Olga took a piece of bread and slid it around the plate with olive oil. A hard, forceful silence I didn’t understand rose from both of them. Olga left the table, she almost hissed, thanks for cooking, as if it were a secret code only she and I knew.

Go to bed, I told Helena. I tried to sound authoritative and merciful. I’ll take care of this. She rubbed her temples, she opened her eyes wide, her mouth was straight and broad, she resembled a death mask. Is it a migraine? No, just the heat, the humidity, nothing in particular. None of your fucking business. She laughed, strained. Kidding. She was just so tired.

She had no energy to talk. I left her in the garden, where she leaned back with her glass of wine, staring at the wall.

The following morning she woke full of energy. She got up while Olga and I were still sleeping, she’d already been to the ferry office to get a timetable, she’d bought midnight-colored cherries marinated in syrup, you need to try these. A sweetness that burned and stung. Olga stuffed her mouth full and her teeth squeaked as she chewed. You’re real sleepyheads, aren’t you, I’ve been up since—, and the weather was perfect, a bit windy but not too bad, a nice breeze from the sea. She knocked on the timetable with one finger: we should go on an excursion, what do you think. We should go to Delos. It was possible to make it a day-trip, the first ferry to Mykonos, the boat from there, we could be back the same evening. We could stay overnight at Mykonos but that was for later, when it was bearable, when the clubs began to close down for the season, when the tourists had left. Not us. We’ll see, she said. She’d circled the departures with a pencil and the marks had smudged, sooty shadows over the times. Delos, she said, solemnly. She wanted to see Delos again. She wanted to show us. The lions, the columns, the headless human statues. Archaeologists were the only ones allowed to spend the night on the island, she thought it was so romantic, it had been her childhood dream job, archaeologist. She smacked her lips, her teeth almost chattering with excitement. But not today, we weren’t going to do it today. Today she wanted to be alone.

I was glad to see her in such a cheerful mood, it made me relieved, the feeling was almost overwhelming. She wanted to be alone, I could understand that, or rather, I thought to myself: I can understand that she wants to be alone. I didn’t protest. I waited for her to come back.