MATALA, CRETE

    

    He and Danny were dressing for dinner, even being a little careful about it because though there was nothing about Matala that called for anything special, the women did.

    Dodgson had stopped through Matala six years before and it was a quiet place then, prosperous and hospitable. Now the paint was chipped and flaking off the tables in every taverna in town. There were too many cars, trucks, mopeds. Red Beach was strewn with garbage. Except for Andreas the people had gone sour.

    The town stunk of fast money, made and gone.

    Were it not for the women he’d have left. But as it was he guessed he’d stay a while.

    He walked to the bathroom and looked over Danny’s shoulder into the mirror. The scotch last night didn’t show at all. A miracle of Greek sun.

    Danny was shaving, singing a tune from Oklahoma! He’d changed the lyrics some.

    “Chicks 'n ducks ’n geese better scurry…

    “When I eat you down where yer furry… ”

    It caught him off guard and he had to laugh.

    Sometimes, he thought, Danny had seen Belushi in 'Animal House' one too many times. There was even some physical resemblance there.

    Danny laughed too.

    “You like that, huh?”

    He shaved the way he seemed to do everything else-with abandon. Long dangerous strokes of the razor. In constant motion. If he wasn't singing he was talking nonstop, moving like a fighter on his short bandy legs, his thick wrestler’s body leaning into the mirror like he was about to bust its jaw.

    “Hey. Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you! What do you think? Are we gonna have a time tonight or are we? Button your shirt. That woman really likes you, you know? I can tell. I’m not kidding. You see what Michelle did to me last night? You see that? She’s got her hand here, see, and she’s feeding me kalamaris with one hand and she’s grabbing my balls with the other. I couldn’t believe that! I like that woman. I really do.”

    The guy was halfway crazy and hyper as hell, but he made Dodgson laugh and that was something these days. He enjoyed Danny. He liked the reckless way he dealt with people, the mix of take-me-as-I-am-or-leave-me-be and insight, even sensitivity. He’d seen the guy loosen people up in a matter of seconds. It was a nice talent. Maybe it had to do with having family money, the easy confidence that could come with that. Maybe it was just that he was younger-at twenty-three, ten years younger than Dodgson. He didn’t know.

    He would never have anticipated Danny. They were poles apart. But he wasn’t a bad roommate. In fact he was a tonic.

    He had his face submerged in the sink now, gurgling through the rinse water. Dodgson tapped him on the shoulder. The head rose up at him dripping and blinking.

    “You think we can get out of here by high season?”

    Danny reached for a towel, wiped his face and tossed it on the bed.

    “Sure. Just let me get my shirt, will you? I paid a hundred twenty bucks for the thing-I’m not going out without it Look at that pure cotton."

    “Very nice.”

    “I’m very glad you like it, Robert.”

    “Ready?”

    “Just about. I look good, right?”

    “Right.”

    “What do you think, shoes or sandals?”

    “Shoes. Chilly out.”

    “Okay. Now step into my office and I’ll tell you something. You want to learn to relax, Rob. You don’t relax, the woman’s going to think you’re needy. Think like you want her or something.”

    “God forbid.”

    “Right. Never hurry. It’s death. Relax. You got that?”

    “I got it.”

    He liked the role reversal. Dodgson the green kid. Danny the philosopher.

    “How do I look? Great, right?”

    “Great.”

    He patted Dodgson’s cheek. “Thanks, Skippy.”

    They went out the door and across the whitewashed terrace and down the steps of the Pension Romantica. Danny took them two at a time.

    Never hurry, thought Dodgson. Sure.

    

***

    

    Andreas, their landlord, sat with his wife under the shade tree off the kitchen, beside him the tall bright flowers blooming. He was sipping coffee. Dodgson saw him there often and usually stopped to talk awhile. They were good people and a handsome couple, always very friendly. Six years ago the Romantica had been the best place to stay in town and it still was.

    “Yassas." Andreas’ voice was lazy. A long day. He smiled and waved at them.

    “Kalisperassas." Dodgson waved back. He had maybe a hundred words of Greek and was slowly learning more.

    It was something worth doing, anyway.

    The short walk to town was good when the cars weren’t roaring by. They passed a field of bamboo and a grove of olive trees. By the side of the road something shifted in a dry wash. A goat. Bedraggled chickens scratched along beside it.

    They walked the long wide valley that always seemed to Dodgson like the pincers of some great limestone crab, one claw just next to the road to the left and the other far off to the right. Every now and then he’d be walking along and he’d hear the pounding of hooves above and a sound like heavy rain falling and a herd of goats would come rolling off the high steep incline, shitting their little round goat turds all the way.

    It was nearly sunset now and the sky was taking color. They passed a pair of German boys, very young, smelling of dope and sweat. Their clothes were threadbare. He doubted there was a dollar between them. And that was part of the problem with the place.

    In six years the tourists had gotten much younger and much, much poorer. Now things were bad enough so that sometimes he thought the only Greeks making money here were the guy who sold thirty-drachma souvlaki on a stick and the man who ran the campground, and maybe a couple of purveyors of cheap Attic beer. Kids sat around in the tavernas playing cards all day. You could order a single cup of coffee or a beer and no Greek would ever dream of hustling you for another. So it was cheap sitting there but it was sad too. You came to paradise and all you could think to do was cut the deck. While the town bled slowly dry.

    They came to the square.

    The women were sitting at a table outside the taverna. Michelle looked up at them and smiled and waved to Danny. Danny waved back and turned to Dodgson.

    “They don't look like they’ve been saying much, do they, Skippy?”

    He was right. Something about the body language wasn’t right. Dodgson had noticed it too.

    Of course they had little in common.

    Michelle was a teacher from Paris. Dodgson thought she had a nice professional poise and lovely eyes and an equally lovely body. She seemed to tend to seriousness-unless she was with Danny. Alone with Dodgson she’d talked about her job and the pre-school kids she handled, about books and about French politics and even when her English faltered she was smart and good to listen to. He’d found that out two days ago on Red Beach, and after a while he'd even forgotten about her nude brown body lying next to him on the wicker mat.

    Lelia, though.

    Lelia was something.

    

***

    

    The way she looked at him.

    He was not exactly unattractive and over the years he’d had his share of interested sidelong glances. This, though, was different from the onset, a matter of degree and kind.

    It was as though she were constantly hungry.

    As though she’d been waiting for him, waiting a long time, and now that he’d arrived they were going to play-and play hard.

    That was the message he got from her all the time.

    He didn’t know much about her. Her name was Lelia Narkisos and on her father’s side she was Greek, on her mother’s French, and she’d grown up in Canada near Quebec. From her father, she said, she’d inherited the dark wavy hair and the Mediterranean coloring. From her mother came the strange pale blue eyes, the generous mouth, the good straight nose and high cheekbones and the wide set to the eyes that in Dodgson’s view made her look both innocent and extremely distant, distracted from the everyday comings and goings of more ordinary mortals.

    How she got by he didn’t know. She told him that in Santorini she’d seen a boy by the side of the road holding a hand-painted sign that said JUST DRIFTING.

    “I’m like that,” she said.

    She had an economics degree from McGill. She hated economics.

    She was thirty.

    And that was about all he knew.

    They’d met on the beach this morning. They agreed that fat people should not go nude in public. He’d discovered in her a tendency toward the sardonic.

    And he saw that she loved to be looked at.

    He’d stared shamelessly.

    He could not imagine a woman physically more to his tastes. She was slim and long-legged. Willowy but not soft. There was a wiry tension to her as though she were held together not so much by muscle as by ligaments and tendons-you could see them in the neck, in the line between shoulder and breast, behind the knees. Her skin was tight and golden brown, lightly freckled across the chest. There was no tan line. Her breasts were small and lovely, the nipples nearly the color of the breasts themselves and disproportionally large. Her pubic hair was bleached to a light blonde-brown by the sun. Her ass was tight and a whole lot more boyish than Dodgson’s.

    She made him a little crazy.

    As he stared at her she would meet his eyes and hold them; so he knew she was enjoying herself and that he had permission. The wide full lips held just a trace of a smile.

    He’d felt himself start to rise.

    It was a problem on a nude beach. He spent most of the day on his belly.

    And looking at her now in the white linen dress, hair still damp from the shower, he could feel it again. The woman carried a major sexual whallop. It made him feel slightly giddy-because she was his tonight if he wanted her. She’d made that clear on the beach today in dozens of ways. A touch. A glance.

    He was old enough to read for god’s sake.

    And he did want her. He was sure of that already. That was what Danny had been responding to when he’d told him to relax. But it was hard to relax entirely and he suspected Danny knew that.

    It was not just Lelia.

    

***

    

    Lately sex was the drug and he was the user.

    They were close enough now so that Danny had to whisper.

    “Look at that Michelle," he said. “Isn’t she pretty. I could dive - down under that table right now, you know that?”

    “Go ahead. I’ll order drinks.”

    “Don’t you tempt me. And Jesus! look at what’s-’er-name. That is a fabulous woman, Skippy. You better not screw up. I almost envy you.”

    “Almost?”

    “Hey, I’m a faithful man.”

    They sat down and Michelle kissed Danny long and hard. He whispered something and they laughed.

    Lelia stared at him, smiling, and he felt the promise between them once again rich and humid and strong. For a moment it felt wonderful, he was basking in the heat of her gaze-then suddenly it was ashes. The world turned in on him, imploding.

    Why? he thought. Why?

    The memories flooded back.

    For the billionth time he damned Margot Perrone for dying. He damned the voice on the telephone, the scratchy metallic-sounding tape on the answering machine that had told him This is Margot. I can’t come to the phone right now but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. I promise. Wait for the beep please.

    He’d left a message.

    And then found out that she was dead two days by then, bled to death in a bathtub full of water.

    I promise. Wait for the beep please.

    And Lelia, it seemed, missed nothing.

    “What’s wrong?” she said.

    He essayed what he hoped was a smile and shook his head.

    ‘Too much sun. No food. I’d better drink.”

    She laughed. Danny began joking with the waiter. Dodgson ordered a double scotch on the rocks. Lelia’s ouzo sat in front of her cloudy and untouched.

    Just for something to say to her he asked her, “How was the shower?”

    She shrugged, “It faked. Wet.”

    And that was better. That gleam in her eye.

    “Hot or cold?”

    “Oh, quite hot.”

    She smiled. Dodgson thought it was a wonderful smile. Wicked. In her eyes, evanescent flashes of promise. Her mouth was probably the most erotic orifice he’d ever seen. He resolved to make her smile as often as possible. Not just for her, for both of them.

    Margot, go the hell away.

    But she wouldn’t. Not just yet.

    

***

    

    He saw himself in a Honolulu bar, silent, drunk, a deep blue twilight folding in over the sea, while after all these months of manly fortitude finally broke in him and he slumped down onto the bar and began to cry. A waitress came over. Sobs racked his body.

    “What’s wrong?"

    Lelia was studying him now, head tilted slightly forward as though evaluating something. Had he shown again? Sure he had. She moved slightly toward him and put her arm across his shoulder. He could smell her light perfume, the clean fresh smell of her hair.

    “Come here,” she whispered. “What is it?”

    “Honestly, nothing.” He smiled again. “Crazy with the heat.”

    She looked at him. Her proximity was dizzying. The pale blue eyes were wide. Then he guessed she decided to believe him. The eyes seemed to flicker and he sensed there was laughter in them. Was she laughing at him?

    No. Her gaze was steady now. The pressure of her arm on his shoulder gentle but firm.

    It was very strange. It was probably remembering Margot. But for just a second or so he’d felt…

    …trapped.

    She pulled him closer.

    “Good. I’m glad you’re all right.”

    She glanced from his eyes to his mouth and back again.

    “Tell me,” she whispered, “so I’ll know.”

    “Tell you what?”

    “Just tell me.”

    He laughed and glanced at Danny and Michelle. They were whispering too, oblivious. “Okay, sure. Only what?”

    She moved closer. The pressure across his shoulder grew greater. He could feel her breast warm and soft against his arm.

    ‘Tell me everything you’d like to do to me, Dodgson.”

    And now he did feel dizzy. The light musky smell of her still-damp hair, the delicate spice of perfume.

    “Tell me everything. And then we’ll do it. I promise.”

    I promise, he thought. Margot.

    I didn’t do it. It’s not my fault.

    Get off me.

    I promise. It rang a very nasty bell deep within him for a moment and then he thought, impossible, forget that.

    You heard what she said. Everything.

    He told her.