I was so mad that I wouldn’t have shown up for dinner that evening if Dora hadn’t gone to so much work. She had the three of us set up in the formal dining room, a windowless interior room with low light she’d enhanced with a pair of candles. A soft piano tinkled quietly in the background. She’d prepared a grilled swordfish and rice entrée that started with a Greek salad and would end with a traditional dessert of rice pudding topped with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon. It was supposed to be a romantically festive atmosphere. Unfortunately, the dim light combined with our long faces to create a mood more reminiscent of a wake. It was good that no one wore black.
Wes Barnes had on an ivory linen, straight-hemmed shirt with matching trousers and white canvas shoes. Niki wore a slinky knit dress—pink, three-quarter sleeve, mid-calf, slit to the knee—and sandals. I had a brown plaid, short-sleeved shirt with buff corduroy slacks and brown leather shoes. Casual and comfortable we all were—at least on the outside.
Not more than a few dozen words passed between us during the meal. Barnes, sitting across the table from me, cut off a hunk of his fish and chewed in what I hoped was some real soul-searching silence. Niki, her eyes cast downward, took slow, pouting bites. I was so busy kicking myself for nearly blowing it with Marion that I barely tasted my food. Aside from the background music and the light tinkle of silverware, the only other sound was the solemn ticktock of a massive grandfather clock.
I’d made up my mind to return Barnes’s money minus the airfare home. The check was folded in my shirt pocket. I had some things to say to Barnes, and the silence was starting to get to me, so I figured now was as good a time as any to plow into him.
“You knew your guys had quit on you. Why’d you tell me they were on top of it, like they were going to find that scroll any second?”
Wes Barnes looked up and stopped chewing. “Guess it don’t much matter now, does it?” He washed down his mouthful of food with a sip of wine. “Damn Cretans,” he muttered. “Don’t think I got an honest day’s work out of either one of ’em.” He glanced at Niki, pointed. “You mind passing me some of that pita bread, darling?” She did. He plucked a piece from the basket and chuckled as if my decision to leave had proved a pet theory of his. “The yuppie generation, that’s what this is all about. Everybody wants everything handed to them.” He set down the basket. “Nobody handed me anything, Adams. And nobody’s sure as hell handing anything to the Pialigarians. You’re whining to the wrong man.” He glowered at me for a couple of seconds, sawed off another piece of fish, stuffed it in his mouth, and chewed as if it were something he had to kill.
“I don’t care who I’m whining to,” I countered. “You know and I know that that cave can’t be cleared by two people, not even if one of them happens to be a Greek female.”
Niki’s eyes popped up like a pair of lit fuses.
“You see, Barnes,” I continued, “this is the part that I don’t get. The two of you act like moving a few thousand tons of rock by hand is no big deal. So if it’s that easy, why don’t you go on down and clear it out? When you’ve actually got a story, give me a call.”
“We just might do that,” Barnes said. “But I doubt I’ll be calling you, not unless you’re interested in some instruction on what it means to lend yourself to a cause other than your own comfort and gain.”
“We will not be clearing that cave,” Niki snapped at Barnes. “You are not going to risk another heart attack.”
“Point well made,” I said. “Sounds like at least two people in this room are starting to make some sense. And I don’t mind lending myself to your cause, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life busting rock for it.”
“I will find someone who is willing to work,” Niki said. “You will see.” Her eyes flashed with superior confidence and unflagging determination; they were dangerously beautiful in the soft yellow light, but she was still crazy as hell.
That was all anyone said through the rest of the entrée and on into dessert. When I finished, I stood to leave, pulled the check from my shirt pocket, and tossed it on the table in front of Barnes. “I figure this’ll even us up.”
He picked up the check, studied it, refolded it, and then laid it back on the table. I waited for some reaction. Maybe I was hoping he’d see I was serious and come up with some good reason for me to change my mind, but he just sat there slurping his pudding. I nodded a good evening to them both and turned to leave.
“You will be ready at seven?”
Niki had agreed to ferry me to the dock of Perivolos. From there, I’d catch a cab to the Monolithos airport. Her voice, softened with what seemed like an undercurrent of sadness, stopped me at the door and stirred in me the stinging realization that, after Perivolos, I’d probably never see her again.
“I’ll be ready,” I muttered, and I walked out.
Niki had jokingly promised that the ouzo would make life “calm and beautiful,” at least temporarily. Just then, calm and beautiful were two qualities I could use. I was feeling bad about leaving, but I could see no alternative, not with Marion begging me to come home. Barnes would just have to find himself another champion for his damn cause.
I winced at the ouzo I sampled straight from the bottle. Liquid licorice. Over lunch, Nicholas had given me instructions on how to drink it. “Fill a glass to half with ouzo. Top it off with water. Drink it slowly. Do not try to prove your manhood. With ouzo, you will prove nothing.” The mix of ouzo and water produced a milky white concoction more suitable to the taste than the eye.
In the bedroom, I’d just tossed a handful of underwear into my suitcase when I noticed Niki’s book on the desk. Remembering what she’d said about a more romantic side to her story, I opened the book to page seventy-five.
Konstantina, the high priestess of Pialigos, sentenced Anatolios to being cast, hands bound, into the Pool of Death, a superheated volcanic spring located in the bowels of the sacred cave.
Hands bound? Cast into boiling water? I could almost feel the blistering heat rise in my face. Why couldn’t they’ve done the humane thing and just disemboweled and quartered the poor guy? I countered the heat flash with a sip of ouzo.
Fortunately, there is a romantic element that softens, in a sad kind of way, this rather gruesome story. Pialigarian texts tell of how a young temple maiden—Panagiota, the childhood sweetheart of Anatolios—made the ultimate sacrifice to be with her lover. Given the opportunity to denounce Anatolios as an imposter, she chose instead to be executed with him. Though the details of their deaths are unclear, it was reported to me by the high priestess that two skeletons, still poised in their fatal embrace, lie at the bottom of the pool. The site is closed to any but the high priestess, but all Pialigarians who regard these skeletal remains know that they belong to the condemned couple. Songs and poetry celebrating the bond of these tragic lovers abound to this day. But even for a hopeless romantic like myself, it is difficult to grasp the depth of love that these two people must have had for each other. To choose such a horrible death over life without her lover is an obvious reflection of a level of devotion rarely seen between a man and a woman.
The window curtain suddenly billowed, tapping me on the arm. I turned to look outside. The wind had come up; the sea was restless. Lightning flickered in not-so-distant thunderheads. A storm was moving in, and I didn’t want to miss a moment of it. Snatching up the bottle of ouzo, I stepped out on the patio.
Why did I feel such an instant rapport with these two ancient lovers? How could I understand the kind of love they must have had for each other? The feeling was indistinct, like homesickness for a place I’d never been. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the feeling had always been there, the frail murmur of a steady, quiet voice, but strong. I couldn’t turn it off, not even with Marion. And now that I was going back to Colorado to discuss our future together, that murmur had turned to a distinct feeling of reluctance. Why? I didn’t want to leave the islands. I didn’t understand it, but being there touched something in me, some deep place I only vaguely knew had been empty.
Marion wouldn’t fit in here. She thrived on the “circus” that was her business. She needed problems to solve, people to please, and the struggles and strokes that went with the frantic race to get to the top of the heap. I could see it when she came to the mountains. The peace of the Sangre de Cristos was a drug shot in her veins. Once she had her mountain fix, she was ready to plunge back into the stink and the noise of the city. These islands were mine, not ours. Marion would never be more than a tourist attracted to shops and nightlife. For me it was empty shorelines, the rush of surf, the cry of a gull, and the sweet fragrance of sage and mint that perfumed the air. I was home.
But I loved Marion. Didn’t I? Did I love her as Panagiota must have loved Anatolios? If it came down to it, would I choose death over life without Marion?
The storm was closing in. I inhaled the charged air and chased it with the last swallow of ouzo from my glass. I tested another sip from the bottle. Now it was better straight.
What if I discovered that things would never work with Marion? Would I kill myself? No. I wouldn’t throw myself off a cliff or gulp a lethal dose of hemlock. I’d pick up the pieces and move on. We both would. There would be life after Marion.
The wind heaved, threatening to tear the hanging flower baskets from their hooks. Curtains flailed in the windows. A door slammed somewhere in the cottage. I loved a good storm.
The electric buzz of the ouzo kicked in like a truth serum, stirring enough self-honesty to force me to confront another fact. Marion wasn’t my only problem. There was Niki. It was no fluke that I’d come so close to kissing her. That wasn’t like me. Thinking about her stirred something in me. She was different. She wasn’t the stranger she should have been. Why?
The rain started with a few random drops exploding in pings on a metal table. Then, a blinding flash followed by a knee-bending explosion of thunder ripped open the sky, unleashing a horrific torrent. I grabbed the ouzo and dashed inside to close windows.
With the cottage secured, I headed through the flashing room to the reading chair in the corner. I clicked on the light, sat down, and listened for a moment to the sound of rain pelting glass, the thunder rattling windows in their sills. I studied the front cover of Niki’s book. What was going through the mind of Anna Nicole Mikos as she stood there looking out over the sea? What was going through her mind now, this instant?
I opened the cover to a page bearing only a short verse:
There is a voice. A quiet voice. It calls from the Aegean. Sublime, little more than a whisper. The whisper of Pialigos. Few can hear it, fewer still can understand. But those who hear, those who understand will not remain unchanged.
Pialigarian verse
Chills raised the hair on the back of my neck. Had I heard it, this whisper of Pialigos? Had I made a mistake giving in to Marion, quitting before I’d even met the Pialigarians and given things a chance to develop here?
I flipped to the first page of chapter 1. The words moved hypnotically beneath ripples of ouzo. I took another swallow and began to read.
J Douglas Bottorff 