THE FIRST DAY

    

    The harbor woke.

    Fishermen stepped from caique to caique, each to his own, checking traps and nets in the first red glow of sunrise, then ambled to the dockside cafe and waited for the owner to organize and prepare his good thick coffee.

    They smoked and watched the waves. The sea was less tortured today. On this side of the island, at least, they’d get some fishing done.

    A pelican woke-a brisk flurry of pinfeathers. Its bright red eye caught something moving along its back, an insect. Its long snake-like neck turned the head ninety degrees and its orange-yellow bill plucked the bug from its feathers. Then it began to preen. A fisherman from the cafe doused the pelican with a bucket of water. The bird was used to this. It dipped its head, acknowledging him.

    Cats prowled the narrow strip of sand in front of the cafe and dipped beneath the hulls of boats blocked and awaiting repair, their noses twitching to the scent of decay. A pair of mongrel pups raced across the square, faced each other and began their roughhouse play.

    The morning was warm and breezy.

    

***

    

    The flower man woke beneath a wall of snapshots, all pictures of himself-his basket on his shoulder, grinning into Polaroids, Nikons, Kodaks.

    

***

    

    Kostas Mavrotopolous’ pregnant wife Daphne threw open the turquoise louvered shutters to their bedroom and looked out upon the bed of red and yellow flowers. She turned and smiled upon her sleeping husband.

    

***

    

    At the Sunset Bar on the other side of town a starved tabby cat hopelessly stalked a seagull perched upon the rocks by the shore. Inside the bar its owner Georgio selected tapes for the evening, Vangelis and Irene Papas-one less item to deal with later, allowing him time on the beach today with the French girls he was meeting this afternoon.

    

***

    

    In the shop two doors down the town carpenter moved his sawhorse out to the concrete ledge by the sea. It would cut down on the sawdust in the shop and there were many orders for repairs and refmishings and new chairs and tables now that the tourist season was about to begin.

    

***

    

    Across the island at Paradise Beach the campground still slept. There had been a party the night before and with no one around to enforce the four o’clock curfew the taverna had stayed open till dawn. So there was no one yet awake to see that the waves were still high on this side of the island, the winds still strong.

    

***

    

    Two kilometers from the main beach, in a damp sea cave brushed by the waves at high tide, the body of Lelia Narkisos lay naked and rotting, faceup, in a shallow pool of stagnant water.

    Crabs had found her face and body. Her eyes, lips, ears and nose were gone. So were most of her internal organs. What was left was white and bloated and lay with legs crossed together at the ankles and arms spread wide, like a Christ crucified and left to the mercy of the sea.

    In front of the cave the water was deep and crystal-clear in most weather but today it boiled with sea-life-with crabs and fishes who could see that over the narrow lip of rock there was death nearby and good feeding.

    

***

    

    By mid-afternoon the dockside cafes were bustling. Two cruise ships were anchored in the harbor, one full of middle-aged Germans and the other, retired Americans. Always pragmatic, shop owners who had previously piped out rock ‘n’ roll into the square now switched to gay bouzouki to encourage the older tourists’ purchases of sailor caps, shawls, jewelry, retsina and painted china.

    When the Nais docked around four it brought with it by far the largest group of tourists that season-mostly kids making their first stop on the islands out of Pireaus.

    The cafes switched to rock ‘n’ roll again.

    No particular notice was taken of a tall muscular American businessman in a lightweight summer suit who got off the ship carrying a single large leather shoulder bag and a briefcase. He was conspicuous only to the old Greek woman who had rooms to let back near the windmills and who knew a good bet for a reliable quiet tenant who would pay a slightly inflated price when she saw one.

    Jordan Thayer Chase stepped off the Nais at just about the time that Gerard Sadlier, Ruth and Dulac awoke from their nap at their campsite at Paradise Beach, not very far at all from where Billie Durant, Robert Dodgson, Michelle Favre and Danny Hicks lay on their beach mats tanning in the sun.

    The day drew on to disgorge its night.

    

***

    

    At 5:25 Billie Durant turned off her shower and peered through the pebble-glass bathroom window.

    She felt she was being watched.

    There was nobody in the bedroom and the front door was securely locked. Not even Dodgson had a key.

    She went back to her shower, uneasy.

    

***

    

    Michelle Favre and Danny Hicks were walking past a rack of color postcards near bar Montparnasse when each of them felt someone walking directly behind them, practically touching their elbows. They stopped and turned at exactly the same time.

    There was nobody there.

    

***

    

    At 5:45 Xenia Milioris napped in her bedroom. She dreamed that someone came into her room off the porch through the glass double doors and went through her pocketbook. The dream was very vivid.

    So much so that when she awoke the first thing she did was reach for it on her nightstand.

    It was impossible to know exactly how much money had been in the change purse because it had been three days since she’d been to the bank to deposit her tips. But she estimated that 3200 drachmas, the equivalent of about forty American dollars, was gone.

    She tried to recall the dream that now, it seemed, was not a dream at all, to recall the shape of the intruder. Male or female? Short or tall?

    She couldn’t remember.

    She showered and dressed. The room was hot and steamy now. She opened the glass doors to the porch and glanced outside. By the railing she saw a small pile of charred paper. The bottom paper had not burned away entirely.

    It was a fifty-drachma note.

    It was probably the harsh brown soap but the bums on her face started aching badly.