Lily and the Lost Boy (11 page)

The two families often ate supper together. The Haslevs partly made up to Lily for Jack's intrusion into the Coreys' life.

Paul spent nearly every waking hour with Jack. Since his work at the cobbler's was very casual, he was able, now and then, to go with Jack on the pleasure boat to Prinos.

Sometimes Jim Hemmings appeared at twilight in the square beneath the plane trees, his motorcycle slowing down, snorting like a halting bull, the noise breaking into the sweet murmur of early evening. Then he would ride Jack home to Panagia. But often as not Jack stayed with the Coreys, sleeping on an old mattress Stella loaned them. He spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Corey in monosyllables, always moving restlessly, making a struggle not to chew away at his fingernails, Lily saw. But at least he spoke.

On those nights he stayed Lily could hear the mumble of Paul's and Jack's voices late into the night. One time she crept from her room to Paul's feeling ashamed and frightened lest they catch her there outside the door. She held her breath and listened. Inside the room they grew silent.

One morning Mr. Corey went with Lily to get the breakfast eggs. He told her a little about the book he was writing, about the thousands of children, led by Peter the Hermit on a crusade, who'd been abandoned in Marseille, lost, or sold into slavery. On their way back through the temple of Poseidon he suddenly said, “One of Jack's troubles is—he doesn't want to let his father know he
isn't
marvelous, that he's just a boy.”

A friendly goat was nuzzling Lily's hand. It must be easier to be a goat than a human, Lily thought, except you could end up as somebody's dinner.

That morning they were to go to Kavalla. Mr. Corey needed to visit the American library there to find a reference book. Paul had pleaded to stay. When his parents remained adamant, he had reproached them, saying they were always talking about discipline and doing your work. How come they were ready to take him away from it just to go to a library? When he had finished at the cobbler's, he was pretty sure he could go and stay at Mr. Kalligas' house until they came home. Paul had loved going to Kavalla last time. Now, Lily knew, he didn't want to miss a day with Jack.

Paul was not Jack's only follower. Manolis, Paul's Greek friend, spent any time he could be spared by his father from the making of the terra-cotta jars, down on the quay with other children who had come to watch Jack ride a bicycle. Just as his father excelled at dancing, so Jack had become the champion rider.

At midday, usually, the children would begin to gather near Giorgi's taverna. Jack would appear, swaggering, his pocket full of drachmas he had earned on the boat to Prinos. He could bring the bicycle's front wheel up sharply, balancing on the rear wheel. He rode in intricate fast circles so close to the edge of the quay that he appeared to be hovering over the water. He would finish his performance by sailing down the embankment above the streets of the ancient city, his hands held high above his head. The boys who could pay for the bikes would try to copy his exploits, but caution held them back. The smaller boys would ask Jack to give them rides, especially little Christos, whose voice would rise in a wild cry of delight when Jack lifted him to the handlebars.

Lily grew bored with herself for always saying to Paul that Jack was not supposed to ride the children like that. He paid no attention to her anyhow. When she told him she had asked Mr. Kalligas about the village beneath the sea and he had said there was no such thing, Paul only shrugged. “It wasn't a lie,” he said. “You hear all sorts of stories in a foreign country.”

He sulked all the way to Kavalla, staying on the narrow deck of the
Maria
and glaring at the water. From the wharf in Kavalla, where vendors sold everything from head scarves to plaster replicas of Venus de Milo, you could look up narrow cobbled streets to the acropolis and a Byzantine castle and beyond them to the great aqueduct striding across the hills. It had been built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. Kavalla was bright and lively and full of people, and Paul began to look more cheerful, more like his old self.

After they went to the library, they ate in a big, airy restaurant where Lily had a large plate of buttery mashed potatoes, her favorite food. Mr. and Mrs. Corey had several errands to do. The children wandered back to the waterfront and walked around the old market, which was just up the hill above where the
Maria
was anchored. “For you, a very special price,” said an old peddler to Lily when she picked up a small brass pot. She pulled out the pockets of her slacks to show they were empty. The old man laughed, picked out a plum from a small heap of fruit, and handed it to her. “Then you must have this for comfort,” he said.

“There's Mohammed Ali on his horse,” Paul said, looking down at the wharf. The equestrian statue towered above the crowds of people moving about the wharf. Mohammed Ali had once ruled Thasos. Now birds perched on his head.

“I'm glad we're going home soon,” Paul said suddenly.

She could feel the meanness in her coil to strike like a snake. But she restrained herself and didn't ask him how he could bear to think of leaving Jack Hemmings.

They went back to Limena in the late afternoon. There were two white goats tethered on the deck of the
Maria
, and they bleated mournfully all the way to the island. The cabin was full of people crowded on long wooden benches. Among them was Mr. Spyros who owned the movie theater. One of these days, he promised the Coreys, he would get a new film to show. By that time everyone in Thasos—except the nuns from the convent in Theologos—would have seen the film he was now showing, and that was only just, didn't they agree?

As they walked home, Mr. Xenophon emerged from his store to ask them how their day in Kavalla had been. Mr. Kalligas, who must have spotted them from his house as they trudged up the slope, came out to remind them of the fair in Panagia next week. Lily had forgotten about it. Mr. Corey said he was eager to go. “I'm so glad we'll see a real island fair and get to Panagia. More to remember.”

But Lily wasn't so eager. She was sure that Mr. Hemmings would be there, honking and boasting, dancing and kicking up his heels.

They went to Efthymios-Onassis for supper. Afterward, in the warm dark beneath a sky full of stars, they started for home. Dimitrious stepped out of the shadows near the museum and, playing the bouzouki softly, walked with them all the way, whispering good night to them at their gate.

It had been a fine day, a day without Jack. But tomorrow he would be back. When he wasn't showing off his bicycle tricks, he would be pulling leaves from shrubs, jumping at the lean stray cats that skulked in alleys, his hands and feet always moving. Even Rosa waddled away at a fast clip when Jack was in her vicinity.

Lily had seen him once on the deck of the Prinos boat. He had paced ceaselessly, fiddling with ropes, kicking at the railing. He was like an engine racing, with no place to go.

The sun-washed island, its meadows and slopes and mountains, grew gray and black and seemed to shrink beneath the violent rain that swept across it on the day of the Panagia fair. Cloud formations like a monstrous sky fleet turned black over Limena. A wind blew up, howling as it passed among the trees. The sea boiled and foamed. Shutters banged against walls. The house felt entirely different, like a cave smelling of damp stone and earth. Open stands and carts were quickly dragged inside beneath flapping canvas awnings that strained at their ropes. The rain beat down until Lily, looking out at the balcony, thought she was seeing the village under water that Jack had told them about.

Toward late afternoon the rain slackened. There was a long crack in the dark sky, and light poured through it like a ray from a lamp in the night. An intense scent of earth and plants rose from the garden and flooded the house with a green smell that was both rank and sweet. The sun struck the yard and the mulberry tree with points of light like the tips of arrows on fire. Gradually, the sky cleared and turned blue.

The storm brought the island the first good rain since the Coreys had been in Thasos. The wells would be full now, Lily knew, and the narrow streams in the mountains would become torrents that would overflow their banks.

The Coreys and the Haslevs were going to the fair together in two of the little taxis. Mr. Kalligas was to ride with them. He had told Lily the day before that he was especially glad to be going because, along with the fair there would be an engagement party for his great friend, Grigoris, and Juliana, the girl he was to marry.

Lily had run into Mr. Kalligas at the baker's where he had just taken a joint of lamb to be roasted. He had told her about Grigoris. He had been in a serious accident on a fishing boat that crippled him so severely that he could get around now only on crutches. He was rich, Mr. Kalligas said. He owned three boats in the fishing fleet that set out every evening from the quay. And he had loved Juliana since he was a boy no older than Paul. But her parents did not want her to marry a crippled man.

“Every night for one week Grigoris put his crutches against Juliana's house and sit down on the road. And every night Juliana's mother and father look out and see him sitting there. All night long, and in the morning when they get up, he is still there. Seven days he do this.”

“How did he get up without his crutches?” asked Lily.

“What you think! Juliana's mother go out and help him up. She get to know him very, very well.”

“But she knew him before, didn't she?”

“All his life, since he was a baby. But not this way. She did not know how stubborn—like a donkey—he is. He told her he's going to sit in front of her house for a year—until she say okay.”

“Why didn't they want Juliana to marry him?”

“Stupid!” exclaimed Mr. Kalligas, looking down toward the water. “But she give in. I will introduce you. You will see! Grigoris is handsome, my God! Like a god! But his poor legs …” Abruptly, he stopped talking, and his face grew stern as he peered down at the quay.

“Look at that boy! With Christos on that machine! I tell him and tell him not to do that. I must speak to Costa,” he said.

Lily, looking in the same direction, saw, as she expected, Christos riding the handlebars of a bicycle Jack was turning in ever-narrowing circles. Mr. Kalligas left, walking with his quick, neat steps toward the museum. How could Costa prevent Christos from chasing after Jack?

The Coreys had a light supper—Mr. Kalligas had told them there would be wonderful things to eat at the fair—and went to pick up the Haslevs and Mr. Kalligas. They all walked down to the quay and piled into two taxis.

On the long muddy climb up the mountain they passed a roadside shrine that Lily had gone into one afternoon when she was roaming around by herself, when Paul was off somewhere with Jack.

Inside it she had found a small altar in front of which stood a rickety table crowded with thin, honey-colored candles in tin holders. From the walls and the altar hung tiny silver replicas of legs and arms and eyes. Mr. Corey, when she described them to him, explained to her that people who were blind or who had diseased limbs left the replicas there in the hope of miraculous cures. Was it possible that among them hung two little silver legs left by Grigoris? She thought not. From what Mr. Kalligas had told her, Grigoris sounded as though he didn't need miracles.

The road leveled out along a high ridge above the coastal valley far below, and beneath the starry sky the waters of the Aegean glowed like banked embers.

If it had not been for the stars, they could hardly have made out the streets and houses of Panagia. It was so dark—dark as the world had once been, Lily thought, until the coming of electricity. But after they had left the taxis and begun to walk, she observed a yellow glow that, as they drew closer to the village center, she saw was made up of lanterns suspended by cords above long oilcloth-covered tables. There was a burst of noise, of laughter and talking. Groups of people moved about the cobbled streets dressed in their best clothes, some carrying babies, others, surrounded by small, excited children.

A powerful smell of rosemary-scented lamb, grilled on open fires, hung over the village like a cloud. Lily saw dishes of pickled octopus, stuffed vine leaves called
dolmades
, pans of moussaka, dishes of cucumber and yogurt, and
tryopitakia
, pastries filled with cheese. Everywhere reposed large platters of peaches and melons and pears.

They drifted through the thronged streets, parting only to meet again before a table of rugs and blankets woven by the village women, or one sagging with the weight of brass pots and pans hammered out by the men, and they would frequently run into Mr. Kalligas who knew everybody and wanted to introduce them to everybody.

Lily could hear the bubbling rush of a stream that tumbled down the mountain and sped through the village in a narrow channel. The cries and talk of the fairgoers would rise and fall. In a brief lull Lily heard the whirr of cicadas like tiny motors inside the velvet dark that lay at the edges of the village, biding its time, she thought, until it overtook it like a besieging army.

They all met up with each other in the village square, and Lily saw Dimitrious there, playing his bouzouki. A circle of men were dancing, snapping their fingers in the air. Gradually they dropped away until there was only Jim Hemmings in his black leather jacket, his blue eyes like periwinkles, piercing in the amber light of the many lanterns strung around the square. People clapped and cried out as he stamped and circled and leaped—electricity jumping through the dark, Lily thought. He paused in front of a table where a handsome young man sat, a pair of crutches leaning against an empty chair. Then, his arms raised high, he began to pirouette, clapping. A dark-haired, rather plain young woman was sitting beside the young man, and with them were four older people.

“That's Grigoris,” Mr. Kalligas said to her, poking her arm.