One Way or Another: A Novel (2 page)

Which was why Marco was still surprised she would go for a guy like him, a bit of a scruff really, his light streaky brown hair too long, always in shorts or jeans; he didn’t own a real shirt other than the ones she bought him, and which were mostly still in their plastic wrappers. He did own a pair of shoes, though. They had belonged to his grandfather, handmade by Berluti in Paris many moons ago. Marco kept them polished to a rich gleam in respect for that grandfather who had raised him, and also in case he might one day have to wear them to a stylish event in some international city where shoes were the expected norm, though in any case he usually got away with sneakers.

In “real life,” which this vacation most certainly was not, Marco was “an artist” as Martha kept on reminding him. “A
portrait artist,
in fact,” she would add, pleased because Marco’s clients included some of the top international CEOs, men whose likenesses Marco painted to keep the wolf from his door, enabling him, financially, to slip away from that reality into the glorious reality of this vacation, where he could be alone. Apart, that is, from his dog, Em, who went everywhere with him.

Long story short, he’d reply when strangers were curious about the grizzled mutt always at his heels, always at his side in cafés, always tucked under his arm when he traveled. Small and un-beauteous, Em lived in a part of Marco’s heart that understood the loneliness from which he had rescued her.

When he’d found her, a few years ago, he’d been alone on a terrace café in Marseilles. The place did not even have a view and he’d stopped there solely for the purpose of a quick caffeine fix, served in one of those short, dark green cups with the gold rim all French cafés seem to use; plus, of course, a glass of wine made from vines grown up on a hill near St. Emilion
and
an almond croissant made with enough butter to die from. That’s when he saw the animal-catcher van with its wire cage drive slowly by. The dog sat, small, grayish/brownish, youngish, a street survivor. Until now. The van stopped. A man got out on the passenger side, strode across, reached for the dog. Marco got there first.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, or words to that effect, quickly scooping the mutt from under the man’s hands. “This dog is mine.” And so of course, from then on it was.

He named the dog Em, for the St. Emilion he’d been drinking when he saw her. It seemed to fit and she responded to the name from first go. Now, of course, that’s who she was. Em. Marco’s dog. She ate anything, which was useful since he took her everywhere. He would not visit a country that would not accept his dog, not fly an airline where she would be made to fly in the hold, would not stay at a hotel that did not welcome her as well as him. He was, Martha told him, more in love with that bloody dog than with her. Marco did not admit it but it could be true. And that was why the dog was with him now, on this beautiful southern Turkish coast, sharing the small, whitewashed plain slab of a one-room house with the bright blue wooden doors and shutters he’d painted himself, and the even smaller boat, the old wooden gulet, as well as the orange inflatable from which he fished every day.

If he was lucky and caught something bigger than six inches, big enough not to throw back in, that evening Marco would grill it over hot coals on an improvised barbecue made with stones and a piece of wire mesh. He’d share it with the dog, sitting outside under the stars, moving on from the arak to that odd Turkish wine with the slight fizz that caught in his throat but which he enjoyed. Other evenings, they’d walk to the village café/bar where they’d sit under the spreading shade of the ancient olive tree and devour roast goat and couscous flavored with lemon, or a sandwich on thick crusty bread with sweet tomatoes picked that very moment from the garden, with sliced onion and crumbly feta cheese.

The proprietor, Costas, a lean, haunted-looking man in his forties with a springy mustache, very white teeth, and deep blue eyes, knew them by now, and there was always something special for Em: a bone that might have come from a dinosaur it was so big and which made Marco pause to think twice about what he might be eating; or a bowl of fishy stew complete with heads and tails, of which Em seemed particularly fond.

Anyhow, of an evening and sometimes deep into the warm night, Costas’s café/bar became their place, where they were known and there was always company and conversation, and where there was always somebody who spoke enough English to make sense of it all. It was a good, simple life, quite separate from Marco’s life in Paris, and the cities where he painted rich men’s portraits and their wives in pearls and diamonds and small, superior smiles. Still, he made a good living at that, and despite the drawbacks he enjoyed it. And it paid for all this.
This
kind of life, this village, this coast.
This,
he loved.

Sprawled in his sagging lounger, he swapped back to the arak, took another swig, pulling a face. He told himself he really should go a bit more upmarket, spring for the extra couple of bucks and drink something that did not make his eyes water. He turned to watch as a yacht chugged slowly out of the harbor, its black hull cutting smoothly through the waves. The sky had darkened, the air was tense with the threat of thunder, and lightning flickered quick as a blink. A storm was approaching and pretty fast too, as Marco knew from experience they did in this area. The storms could be severe and in his opinion the boat would have been better off waiting it out in the harbor, or at least moored close to shore.

The boat was a hundred yards away by now, and picking up speed. Marco got to his feet, hitched up his baggy shorts, and picked up his binoculars. It was a modern yacht. This one, though, was bigger, smarter, faster.

As he watched, a woman emerged from the cabin and ran along the deck. Her long red hair caught in the wind that was coming with the storm, clouding around her in a coppery halo where the sun’s final gleam lit it momentarily. She was wearing a blue dress that, as she balanced at the very stern, whipped back from her slender body. She put a hand up to her head, her neck drooped in a gesture of what seemed to Marco to be pain. Shocked, he caught a glimpse of a gaping, bloody wound, her white skull. And that’s when he saw her fall.

Marco stared at the place where she had gone under, waiting for her to come back up. The yacht chugged on. There was no sign of her in its wake. No one had come running to help, no one on the yacht seemed to know she had gone. It had been maybe thirty seconds too long and Marco knew she was in trouble. He ran for the old orange inflatable, dropped it into the waves. The outboard started at first go. In a few minutes he was where he’d seen her go in. He circled, staring deep into the sea, but the water was less clear here, disturbed now by his boat. He stilled the engine and jumped over the side.

It was like falling off a cliff. He went so deep his lungs were bursting when he finally popped back up next to the dinghy. The sea was kicking up, the sky dark, the storm was getting closer. And then he saw her hair, long, copper hair floating upward toward him. He was there in a second.

But he could not find her. He dived, and dived again, but the storm had moved in and turbulence shifted the waves, shifted him. He had lost her.

And now the past came back at him, bringing memories he never wanted to relive.

2

The dog cowered in the dinghy, ears flattened by the rain coming down in a single sheet as Marco clambered back onboard. He could not see so much as a foot ahead. Cell phone reception, never good in this remote area, was impossible; he could not even call the coast guard station or the harbor. Thanking God he always put a life jacket on Em, he snapped on her lead and wrapped the end around his wrist. If the boat capsized he would be able to hang on to her.

Green waves sloshed them upward into a froth of foam, then slid them steeply back down again. The outboard sputtered then died. Marco scanned all around, searching for the horizon, for land, for anything but the sea that had already claimed one victim. He wondered if he and Em were going to be next. If so, nobody would ever know about the red-haired girl in the blue dress with the bloody wound on the side of her head. If they ever found her, that is. Nobody would know that wound had been made before she fell, that someone on that big black-hulled gulet had struck that blow. It was something only Marco knew. Now, though, was not the time to think of that; he just prayed he could get himself and his dog out of there.

With a final quick flick of lightning and a diminishing boom of thunder the sky began dramatically to change. In minutes a blade of sunlight shone through and the sea fell back into a blue-green swell, lifting them smoothly toward land.

Marco unwrapped the dog leash from his fingers. Water dripped off the points of Em’s ears, dripped off Marco’s head, ran down his chest. He put a hand over his eyes, searching all around, but did not see the girl.

Other boats appeared, heading fast for the harbor. Marco flagged down a small fishing boat and hitched a lift, hunkering down amongst the scaly catch as they towed his disabled dinghy to the wharf. Both he and Em smelled strongly of fish when they finally walked along the harbor to the coast guard office, something which pleased the dog more than it did Marco.

The office was a square room with two desks, each with a large leather chair, one of which was occupied by a self-important man in a gray uniform and heavy dark glasses which he did not remove as he inspected the still-dripping Marco, up, then down, then back up to his stubble-bearded face. The man’s glance swiveled to take in the wet dog, who proceeded to give a great rolling shake, sending drops of water flying all over him.

“Sorry,” Marco apologized. “It’s a bit wet out there.”

Giving him a disdainful look, the officer brushed off his uniform with a large, well-manicured hand and asked abruptly what he wanted. Marco got the impression he didn’t much care. He’d probably interrupted him on his way to the café for a glass of wine and a chat; soaking-wet vacationers and their even worse dogs who came in messing up his office and his outfit were unwelcome.

He smoothed back his hair and tried to arrange himself so he looked more presentable, difficult when you were that wet and wearing only bathing shorts, but he had more on his mind than mere appearance. “I came to report a drowning.”

The officer gave him a quick glance from behind the dark glasses. “Who?”

“I don’t know. A woman. Young. She fell off a large yacht.”

“How do you know she fell?”

Marco resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “I saw her.”

The officer took off his glasses and stared at Marco. He obviously distrusted him. “So? Why did you not save her from this drowning?”

“Sir,” Marco knew politeness was the only way to success with bureaucracy, “I tried. I dived many times but the sea was in turmoil. I could not find her. All I know is she fell from a large yacht, black, and very fast. It took off, she was left in its wake.…”

The officer sat back in the leather chair. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Marco. “What was the name of this yacht?”

Marco said he didn’t know, he had not had time to look.

“And what were you doing out there in the storm? What boat were you on?”

Marco explained he was a vacationer, about his dinghy, that a fishing boat had towed his small boat back to shore. “She was young, though,” he said, then stopped himself. He had spoken in the past tense. “She had on a blue dress, not exactly what you would wear if you meant to go for a swim off a boat.”

The man eyed him coldly, waiting.

“She had—
has
red hair,” he remembered. “A great cloud of coppery hair, kind of wavy, if you know what I mean.…”

The officer said nothing. He turned away and flicked on his computer. He clicked around silently for a few minutes. “Nobody is reported going overboard. Nobody missing,” he said. “The storm is over. She probably went for a dip.” He shrugged dismissively. “Foreigners on vacation think everything is safe everywhere. On vacation, they become immortal.”

Marco watched him write a message on a yellow Post-it, then walk over to the empty desk next to his own and stick it on the counter. “My assistant will keep an eye on it,” the man said, buttoning his jacket, already heading for the door, which he opened for Marco and the dog.

And that was that, Marco thought, as he squelched toward the café, where Costas greeted him with raised brows and a quick demitasse of boiling hot espresso from his fancy new Gaggia machine, his pride and joy.

Costas did not ask what had happened, that was not his way. Costas listened. He knew everything about everybody and mostly he kept it to himself. And to his wife, of course, the lovely Artemis, ten years younger and second only to the new Gaggia as his pride and joy. So what if Artemis gossiped with her friends, holding back her long dark hair with one hand while the other held her coffee cup, or in the evening a glass of the pink Cinzano and soda she preferred. She also always came back with more news for Costas to keep to himself, unless circumstances dictated otherwise. Which perhaps today, with what Marco Polo Mahoney told him, might well be that kind of occasion.

“Red hair?” he asked, casually. He had been told too many stories over his years behind the counter to take them all too seriously. He took a glass from the row stacked over the bar, poured a good shot of brandy into it, pushed it toward Marco. “Looks like you need that,” he said.

He yelled for Artemis to bring a towel for the dog, dripping onto his white-tiled floor, already awash in a litter of the small greasy papers in which snacks were served. Every now and again a helper, usually a young boy, would come out with a broom and sweep them into a pile in the corner, to be removed later by someone else.

Marco downed the shot. It hit his stomach like a time bomb, exploding a minute later to swirl through his veins. “
Jesus,
” he exclaimed. “What
is
that, Costas?”

“My own special brew. I don’t give to everybody.”