47

They soaked in the sun of Samos, and strolled among fallen columns of marble like two people discovering a civilization that was not dead, but only in hiding, trembling in the tomato red blossoms of poppies.

He found himself taking her hand, and holding it, like a man pulling a treasure from its refuge in the darkness so he could reassure himself that it had not yet been stolen. It was a simple enough act, but in the sudden cool dark of a chapel in an olive grove, or on the sun-bleached road of a village, he found himself taking her hand as though just discovering her, and wanting to stay just as he was forever.

One evening in Istanbul, the domes of a dozen mosques before them, the sounds of geese, dogs and children rising toward their balcony from the street, Speke said, “We won’t waste any more time.”

“We didn’t,” she said, offering her hand.

He took it, and studied it as though he would read her palm.

“But we really didn’t,” Sarah said. “I think you are one of those people who have never wasted a single day.”

This time when they made love it was the conjugation of a new human speech, the speech within the words that fill the air, and clutter the pages. It was the shadow speech flowering and filling each fingertip, each cleft and nipple with knowledge, and with faith.

It was only on their return, the drive already breaking new green along either side of the ruts, that Speke felt it rise around him, both the old enchantment of this place, like being able to descend again to childhood, and the old threat.

He stepped from the car, and the trees, in leaf that disguised the char-weathered bark, stood still like forms which had been, just moments before, in flight.

He could smell it with each breath, not an odor, certainly not the scent of death, but something sure and dry in the empty spaces between leaves.

Asquith is here somewhere.

He is still here.