The Coming of Bright (31 page)

To counterbalance all the lamb, the Zatelis dished up some vegetarian fare,
tsouknidopita
, a savory quiche of locally grown nettles. And they served their guests two other testaments to the immortal power of phyllo: goat cheese encased in phyllo, and let’s not forget the onion and bacon phyllo pie.

For dessert they offered up
galaktoboureko
—semolina custard embraced by, you guessed it, phyllo dough. What the hell else would it be? At least they didn’t have a single thing that would grace the menu of your average Greek hole-in-the-wall in the states. Not a single serving of
spanakopita
was to be found at their table, nor a single piece of
baklava
. Although Zora would have happily devoured either one.

For hours afterwards, into the wee hours of the night, a gradually dwindling number of the sated party played
thanassis
. The card game that Victor had been warned about. Warned because he played horribly, atrociously, worse than a satyr playing at celibacy. Zora slaughtered him like a lamb. She had one advantage she kept hidden: she had mastered the game of rummy over the years, and
thanassis
was very similar to the version of rummy she’d grown up playing with her parents.

She knew enough Greek to suspect that the name of the game was somehow derived from the Greek word for death. She was right. Thanatos was rearing his ashen head yet again, in a moment of revelry. Eros was yet to come again. Would he reappear in a moment of tragedy? And there was more to consider. She might have beaten Victor at the game of death, at least for now, but who was winning at the game of love? Or was the game of love simply another version of the game of death?

Victor and Zora slept that night like lambs, oblivious of anything but their togetherness and their satedness. No surprise there: the lamb that frolics in the field, destined for the table, is ignorant of what fate holds in store. Of the flaying, the butchering. Of its lowly rung on the chain of being. Of its purpose in the world.

They woke too like lambs, stretching themselves toward the beckoning sky, toward the warmth of the sun, secure in their skins. And truly for the lovers the sky did beckon.

Outside the cottage, in a small field bereft of grapes, lying fallow in the early sun-peeking sky, was an enormous hot air balloon. It was the main reason that Victor had taken so long to arrange their little adventure, making the love of his life feel forsaken.

The balloon had been trucked in from Germany specifically for them, with a crew to set it up. Yet the design was French through and through. Sitting there in the fallow field was a perfect replica of the very first manned balloon. The blue-and-gold flying marvel of the Montgolfier brothers. Joseph and Etienne. Their balloon had graced the skies of Paris in November 1783, a half-score years before bloodier times. A time when royal power, the power of the aristocracy, was still ascendant. That balloon, rising toward the heavens, was their tribute to that power. To this day it remained the most famous, and the most beautiful, balloon in the world.

You might know it—the fabric of royal blue, covered in regal symbols of gold. Symbols of power. Most prominent of all was a large radiant sun, a personified sun, the sun with a human face, the face of the Sun King. Was Victor not such a man? Was he not yearning to rise to the heavens? And beside him would stand the only person in the world who could make him fall, who had the power to test his hubris, who could melt his wings of wax.

The lovers would fly across the skies of Greece in a German balloon of French design. Such is the kaleidoscope of the world, its skein of cultures and people and passions. Victor was ready. He had actually traveled twice to the outskirts of Austin to take lessons from a ballooning outfit called Aerial Dreams. And, miraculously, he had managed to fast-track the necessary permits through the Greek bureaucracy. A more impressive feat than Moses parting the Red Sea. Victor was like a sorcerer of law, any law, any country, and if he wanted something done, the clouds had better part and the sun shine bright. And part they did, shine it did. It would be only he and Zora and the world above.

After a bite of
giaourti kai meli
, of yogurt and honey, a food that mortals had stolen from the gods as they had stolen fire, Victor and Zora headed out to the balloon. The Zatelis had prepared a lunch for them to carry along and aloft, a container of
mezedes
, of small assorted Grecian delights. Zora was especially looking forward to the fire-roasted red peppers stuffed with goat cheese and the octopus and fava bean salad.

About 1000 feet into the air, Victor caught the southeast breeze that he wanted, and they sailed over Athens. Below them, like grains of sand, were thousands upon thousands of people—all of them now looking up at the spectacle. Pointing, taking pictures, yearning to be sailing through the sky themselves.

They passed over the Panathenaic Stadium—where the modern Prometheus made his name, Spyridon Louis, who ran the last lap of his gold-medal marathon in 1896. They flew over the Temple of Zeus, over the Acropolis, over its crown jewel, the Parthenon. Eager to see the marvels of Athens, Zora was bent so precariously over the side of the basket that Victor had to grab her lest she fall overboard.

Had she fallen, had Victor not been there to save her from falling, she would have added another legend to the Greek pantheon: the legend of Icarina. The female Icarus, the Ballerina of the Sun. A new Icarus, a new Victoria. Pirouetting gracefully into an earthen embrace. Her
enlevement
in the arms of the earth, a term from ballet, one dancer being carried off by another, one dancer absconding with another. The earth dancing away with her just as Pluto had danced away with Proserpina. Death dancing away with life. Life dancing away with death.

Without warning, the wind shifted toward the southwest, no big deal, Victor could adjust the course later. They floated over the Isle of Salamina. Dotting the sea around the island, as if drawn there by its gravity, was a floating panoply of boats of every shape and size, from the largest cruise ship all the way down to the smallest Greek fishing vessel. Just under 2 hours had passed as they passed over Salamina, the 15 knot winds at that altitude moving them along at a leisurely pace. A panoramic pace. A romantic pace. A pace about to get even more romantic.

The wind shifted again, winds are the breath of fickle Mercury, always changing. They were now flying due west, but still Victor was unconcerned, he apparently breathed the same air as Mercury, and in two more hours they had crossed the inner waters of the Saronic Gulf. They soared over the Isthmus of Corinth and soon found themselves above the Gulf of Corinth. They had already eaten the last morsel of the
mezedes
. Those savory delights were a thing of memory, a thing to digest and no longer desire. Down to the last sucker on the last tentacle of octopus in the octopus salad.

They needed to head north. That was where the Polaris of their love resided, the Solaris of their passion. The ancient hiding place of Eros. Their final destination was close to the flanks of Mount Helicon, so Victor aimed higher, much higher, opening up the valve on the balloon, letting the propane fiercely burn.

They climbed to a little over 3000 feet, finding the right winds at that height, winds blowing north. The force of the winds stiffened to 25 knots. They would arrive there in only 90 minutes—a field near the village of Aletheia where their balloon crew would be waiting. By balloon this would be a one-way trip. The crew would take the chartered balloon back to Germany, and the lovers would take a limo back to Athens, where the XRS would wing them home.

They were scheduled to arrive back in Madison Springs a little after 11 Sunday night. A whirlwind journey through time and space. Plenty of time for both of them to wake refreshed for class on Monday. Refreshed, yes. Prepared, not necessarily. Zora despaired of ever being prepared again during her entire time in law school. But Victor was worth it. His love was worth it.

And his passion. Over the Gulf of Corinth, Victor pulled from his right jacket pocket a small vial of golden liquid. Zora couldn’t see what he was doing, her back was turned to him, her eyes sweeping the waters of the gulf like the beam of a lighthouse searching for ships in the darkness. She was looking for nothing but the beauties of nature, the traces of myths in the azure depths.

It was a bottle of perfume. He screwed off its seven-sided lid, and wetted his fingers with the scented fluid. He dabbed the sides of Zora’s neck. As he did so, a jolt of aroma flew up her nostrils and a jolt of heat raced down her spine. She spun around. Saw the bottle in his hand.

“Perfume? Mmm . . . I love that smell . . . like everything I love about Greece. Honey. Fields of ripe grapes. Ambrosia. What is it?”

Zora was not one to use perfume profusely. Or lightly. She had the scent of a woman, and for her that was enough. But this was clearly a perfume that Victor had put a lot of thought into. And she was more than happy to oblige him by letting it grace her skin, letting his fluid fingers dance with its aroma around her body.

“
Fleur de Narcisse
, from the
Volcans de Lozere
in France. Rich volcanic soil. Not actually Greek. But there is a connection. Do you see it, do you smell it?”

“
Fleur de Narcisse
.”

She scented the words with her tongue, let their aroma waft through her mind.

“Of course, the narcissus flower.”

“Yes, the flower of the muses.
Narcissus poeticus
. The flower of the language of love.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting one thing.”

She took some of the perfume and dabbed it on
his
neck.

“Where the name came from. Narcissus. Who spurned his love. His Echo. Who loved only himself, who died loving only himself. You should be the one wearing the perfume instead of me.”

“Now you’re asking for it. The full narcissistic experience. Here, let me show you how much I love myself.”

He wrapped his lips around the dabs of narcissus on her neck, absorbing the perfume into his taste buds. It smelled sweet but tasted slightly bitter. With that bouquet on his palate, he kissed her on the mouth in a manner befitting the perfume’s origins—French of course—and they shared the bitter sweetness of the narcissus. Perfume swirled around their tongues swirling around the mouths of one other.

He unzipped her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt. The cold at that altitude, and that time of year, was enough that undressing fully was foolhardy. How romantic to die in each other’s arms, but how unromantic to die of hypothermia.

He brushed a spot of perfume between her breasts, and lavished his narcissism upon her body with his mouth. At least for now, his tongue would be the most narcissistic part of him. At least for now. Going lower, he rubbed the perfume around the entire concavity of her navel, and then licked it away. She squirmed from the cold of the air and the ticklishness of his tongue. He pulled down her bra, perfuming her nipples, wicking away with his lips and with his tongue the floral bouquet of her breasts.

She enclosed her hand around his—and jerked the bottle from his grasp. It was her turn. Fair was fair, in narcissism as in passion. She dabbed his neck as he had dabbed hers, kissing down past the perfume into his skin, biting a little. Fine—biting a lot. He winced. Jacket came unzipped, shirt unbuttoned. Roughly. He played his hands over her exposed body while she played over his skin, from neck to navel and back again, with her tongue, her lips, her teeth, her breath. She embraced him, rubbing her chest into his, silk against musk. The sheen of woman against the texture of man.

He took back the bottle. He pulled down her pants and peeled off her panties, letting them fall to her ankles. She was already wet with her own perfume. They had explored the heavens; the richer soils of the earth awaited. He added several fingertips of
Fleur de Narcisse
to the natural moisture of her vulva, bathing her there in the aura of wildflowers. To the man kneeling before her, the flesh between her legs was the most fragrant of the world’s wildflowers.

Her body surpassed the perfume. However exquisite it might have been, the
Fleur de Narcisse
was merely the distillation of a simple flower—layered upon the scent, the sultry softness, of a profounder blossom.

Nor would a man of Victor’s exquisite sensitivity to the female form, its intricacies of shape and tone and smell and touch, stop there. The legs, the inner thighs, have their own cartography of pleasure. Their own organic joys. His face descended to her earth. He explored her there with the delicacy of his palate and the texture of his fingertips. But as his face descended, his hands could not stop themselves from their wayward journey, climbing skyward, reaching to her breasts, tracing along her spine, then falling back to earth, back to her buttocks, back to her vulva.

Zora desired more and more to bend Victor’s desire back upon itself, to feed his narcissism with her body. But actively, not passively. She snatched the bottle back to herself, and ripped his pants and underwear down over his legs, using a degree of force inverse to his gentleness. The basket of the balloon began to sway from the rough turmoil she was subjecting him to.