SKIATHOS

    

    Chase sat in the harbor where the tour boats departed for the grottoes and waited for Tasos, “Koonelee Tasos” to his friends-because at the age of seven he’d stolen a rabbit, skinned and dressed, from his father and tried to exchange it at the local grocery for a liter of wine which he then intended to peddle elsewhere at a cut-rate price. In Greece a nickname tended to stick with you. So Tasos was forever doomed to have the word for rabbit prefixed to his name. Even at age forty-eight, a successful businessman, the memory of that first aborted deal walked with him.

    Beside him men in overalls were painting chairs bright green, gearing up for the influx of tourists over Easter and then high season to follow.

    A hook-nosed old man in a light brown three-piece suit moved among the tables, his orange worry beads held loosely behind his back. His suit was cheap but impeccably pressed and tailored to his withered frame.

    He stopped behind Chase’s chair. He could feel the man staring. He turned around.

    “Yassas,” he said.

    The man didn't answer. His watery eyes seemed just short of hostile. Chase felt he’d been judged and found wanting. All of us, he thought.

    As the man walked by he imagined what it would be like to see the harbor through eighty-year-old Greek eyes. Boys zooming by on their Hondas. The tourists sweaty and half-naked off Kokonares or Banana Beach. Middle-aged sons sitting lazy in the shade, sipping Nescafe frappes instead of hot Greek coffee, rattling their newspapers and staring at the halter-topped women.

    It’s disappearing so quickly here, he thought.

    Even down to the man himself. Ancient worry beads and a three-piece suit. The country was experiencing a massive identity crisis on every level. The old looked at the new with fascination and horror, with both jealousy and dismay.

    “Yasu, Chase! Tikanes? Kala?”

    Tasos stood over him, reached down and pumped his hand.

    “Hell, Tasos, I always get by.”

    He hasn’t changed, thought Chase. The same round weathered face, the same hard handshake, the gold-toothed smile. He was suddenly very glad to see him.

    He thought that three years was a long time for friends to remain apart. He and Tasos went all the way back to college together. There had been a deal for a tract of land just outside Athens almost as soon as they were out of school and then other deals that moved them into shipping-but mostly they worked together by phone now. Chase realized he’d missed him.

    He sat grinning and Chase looked him over. He looked good-slim and fit. The clothes, he knew, were from Paris. Most of the Greeks who could afford them seemed to prefer Paris shops to London.

    “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

    “It’s good to see you too, Tasos. How’s Annalouka?"

    “Fine. fine. She sends her love. And Elaine?”

    “Fine. At least I think she is. I haven’t called her yet.”

    Tasos frowned. “Why not? You’re not having trouble, Chase.”

    “No. No trouble. Things are just a little bit complicated at the moment, that’s all. I’ll call. How’s the baby?”

    “A baby no longer, Chase. A four-year-old meltemi! With shoulders like this!”

    “Like his dad.”

    “Like his dad, yes.”

    “So fatherhood agrees with you?”

    Tasos smiled. “I was born a father. You should try it sometime.”

    “Yes. Sometime.”

    Tasos leaned forward. “You look a little tired, I think.”

    “No. I’m fine.”

    “You’ll stay awhile in Greece? Take a vacation maybe, stay with us?”

    “We’ll see. Have you been in touch with Yannis?”

    “Yes. He says there is no problem. The growers are eager to supply us and they expect the wine to be superb this season.”

    “My people have orders in excess of 5.5 million now. Up.6 million in just ten days. We project another 2.5 million as the cutoff, for this year anyway.”

    “Excellent! We will put Santorini wine on the map, my friend. You’ll see. They’ll be begging for it in America a year from now. As usual your timing is perfect, Chase-your instincts, perfect. I am a lucky man to do business with you.”

    Chase smiled. “And I with you.”

    “Bah! I am a shopkeeper compared with you. So I own a few businesses. So what? We must not bullshit one another. Few men have what you have, feelo.”

    “Few men, I think, would want it.”

    Tasos studied him.

    “You do look tired,” he said. ‘Tired and more.”

    “Maybe.”

    “And not Elaine?”

    “No.”

    “So what is it? We are old friends, eh? So speak to Koonelee Tasos. He is a shopkeeper but his ears are good.”

    “It’s nothing, Tasos.”

    “With you it’s never nothing, Chase.”

    He hesitated. He didn’t know why. It would be a relief to tell somebody. Hell, an immense relief. And Tasos knew all about him, as much as anybody knew. Ever since Chase had moved them into shipping against all odds and advice and they’d made their first fortune together, Tasos had known. If he could help, he would.

    But Chase was wary of involving him. He was as much the captive of this thing now as he had been kneeling humbly at the entrance to the dromos. Something told him he was supposed to be going this alone. That others might be endangered. That, more then anything, was why he hadn’t phoned Elaine.

    What could he tell her that wasn’t a lie? What could he say that wouldn’t involve her somehow?

    The warm, intelligent eyes were waiting.

    He made his decision.

    “All right. Let me order something. Have you got about an hour or so?”

    “I have a lifetime, my friend.”

    He called the waiter over and started talking.

    When he was finished Tasos looked at him and said, “It reminds me of a story they tell here.

    "Two fishermen met a priest along the path to the sea in the middle of the night. Naturally they were surprised to see him there, alone, at such a late hour. So they asked him, where are you going, papas?

    "I am looking for a light," the priest answered. And the fishermen, they don’t know what to think. Perhaps the priest is crazy-it happens. Because he was carrying a lantern, and it was lit, and the light was bright.

    “You see? I think you already have the answers to your questions, Chase. Like the priest, you carry your own light.”

    “I don’t know, Tasos.”

    

***

    

    It was late now. The wine they’d ordered was nearly gone.

    “Listen to me, my friend. You say you hear a voice that tells you you may die here. If that is to be so, then it will be so. There are many worse places to die. We Greeks are fatalists. But we are pragmatists too. You cannot undo this thing that has happened to you. You say that something commands you-then you must listen. And do what it tells you to do. And save your life if you can.”

    “And if I can’t?”

    “Then you must give it up.”

    “You believe that?”

    “I do.”

    He sighed. “I just keep wishing I were drunk or dreaming or some damn thing.”

    Tasos smiled. “Were you drunk or dreaming those times you told me of in Mexico or in England or when you were a child in…where was it? Maine? You were not.

    “You remind me of Our Lord, Chase-at Gethsemane. ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’ But the cup never passes. You were born with this gift and it has been good to you. It has made you a rich and-am I wrong?-a not unhappy man. But now perhaps you must pay it back. And it may ask much of you.”

    There was a silence. They watched the gulls in the harbor.

    When at last Chase spoke, his voice was thick with emotion, surprising him.

    “What is it, Tasos? Who is it? Do you believe in God?’

    Tasos shook his head. “I don’t know, feelo mu. Since our talks so many years ago I have made a little study, I confess. I have read all the books about people like you but I still don’t know. I have feelings, and my feelings tell me that you are very special, that sometimes you hear the voices of others coming from deep inside themselves and sometimes you hear the past and future happening. And sometimes, maybe, you hear the earth itself-which we call gods, or the voices of gods. Perhaps it is the earth, speaking to you.”

    They drank the wine in silence. It was not as good as the Santorini wine but it would do.

    “I’m supposed to go to Delos,” he said. “I don’t know why I know that but I do.”

    “Delos?”

    “Yes.”

    Tasos frowned and thought a moment. “Like Mykene, Delos is a place of great power in the ancient world. Pilgrims went there for healing. In our legend it is the birthplace of Apollo and his sister Artemis. Once it was the holiest place in all of Greece.”

    “I know. I’ve done a little homework. I get there by ferry from Mykonos.”

    “Yes. Boats run each morning if the weather is good.”

    “And Mykonos?”

    “Ships leave each day from Piraeus, or you can fly there from Athens. You mean all these times you’ve come to Greece, you’ve never been to Mykonos?”

    Chase shook his head. “I’d never been to Mykene, either, up to now.”

    “Ah, but that’s different. Mykonos! It is our jewel!”

    “You have many jewels I think, Tasos. Some of them slightly tarnished lately. But many. Much to protect.”

    He smiled. “Chase. We are good friends, no?”

    “Of course we are.”

    “Then let me come with you. I would like to.”

    “No.”

    “I think I should, Chase. For one thing I am very good company.”

    “No. You take care of business for us, and of Anna and the boy. As you say, this cup’s mine.”

    “Any cup can be shared, Chase.”

    “Not this one.”

    And he thought, Nothing speaks to you. But there was no bitterness to it now.

    Mykonos, he thought. Our jewel.

    All right. Whoever you are.

    He drained the wine.

    I’m coming.