White Vespa (9 page)

 

I imagine him fallen under a sea of glass, a face I can see there, still a boy's face, fifteen or younger, but a face grown inward, away, still sinking away. When he was there, he was there every day, his slow retreat from us hardly remarked. Now it seems I failed to look, that I was reading the newspaper or worrying about work or what needed doing in the yard. Still, I don't think I was abnormally disengaged, not more disengaged than the neighbors with their kids. I think we're all of us turning away from other people, even our sons, even our lovers, because we just can't stand it, because if we do more than peek we are simply overwhelmed. I almost wrote,
by the tragedy of it,
but maybe just by the simple marvel of it, the unseen marvel of another life. Maybe the inability to look is itself the tragedy of it.

 

Myles expected Anne all day, but when it started to get dark he stopped expecting her. She'd be at Two Stories. It had been very hot and dry and during the day he'd carried water to the plants in the yard, starting with the pots of jasmine. Now that it was dark the smell of the jasmine was everywhere in the house, loud. He'd packed a canvas satchel and the Nikon in his leather pack; he'd agreed to join Jim on an excursion to Tílos. It would help him maintain his cover, he'd joked, and, he hadn't said, give him a few days away from Sými, away from Anne. Maybe, he thought, he could keep clear of her after all.

 

He sat alone in the dark, with only the light of a small candle in a storm chimney on the table in front of him. It was pleasant, after the heat of the day, to sit in the dark with a breeze passing through the black windows and doors. He ate the cheese and the fruit, things that wouldn't keep, and a few hard rusks from the bakery. There were two half bottles of wine and he drank both, the retsina with the food and then the red, slowly, after. It was a very practical meal, very simple, satisfying. When the wine was gone he measured out the powdered coffee and sugar and standing in front of the blue flame of the gas ring he made Greek coffee, all by candlelight, and he got it just right again. He thought it was time they made an honorary Greek of him. After he drank it he wished he had someone to read the grounds, an old Greek witch, or a young one, but he was alone in the house.

He turned on the light. The manila envelope he'd prepared for Anne was on the table, and he opened it. He pushed the coffee cup away and spread the seven photos out on the table in front of him. He'd been sure Anne would come to get them, but now he'd have to take them to her at Two Stories, to get them to her before he left in the morning.

Looking at the images he noticed there was a little too much of Anne's upper lip; it seemed the lip of a somewhat wider mouth, and in every one of the photographs it made her mouth look soft and hungry. The wide-set eyes
had an inward look, pooled the light deep down, and were set under ferocious, arched eyebrows. The face was Anne's all right, but it wasn't the face she showed the world. It was as if her features had been imperceptibly rearranged, and the aggregate of small changes made all the difference. Again, Myles thought he smelled something sweet but burnt, acrid, too.

He put his hands in his hair and took a deep breath, and the room smelled of jasmine again. But he was spooked; he gathered up the prints and put them in the envelope and bent the clasp shut. He stood up, stiffly, retrieved the key to the Vespa out of a bowl on the counter and walked out the door.

The Vespa had yellow-tinted glass in the headlight and cast a golden cone into the thick blue night as he coasted through the curves into town. Around the harbor, he rode quietly under the streetlights, and then throttled up for the sweeping turns out of Yialós, up to Chorió. He parked as close as he could get to the Kalí Stráta and walked the last bit to Two Stories, envelope in hand. The thin envelope felt unaccountably heavy.

Nothing can ever be undone, Myles knew that, but he also knew most of the time we act forgetful of that fact. Handing over the envelope, he felt, would be irrevocable. When Anne looked at the photographs, things would be different. But he knew he was going to give them to her; there never had been any doubt about that.

He walked through the open door under the hand-painted Two Stories sign and took the stairs down. Anne was serving drinks to a table of drunks near the wall. Myles couldn't hear what was being said but he could tell it wasn't pretty, that masculine leer swept around the table from face to face. Anne put the drinks down on the table one by one, as if from a great distance. She treated the drinkers with a weary scorn, saying nothing, as if whatever had been said was comment enough on the lot of them. Myles felt a sudden and unreasonable pride in her.

“Got some unpleasant customers, I see.”

“Hi Myles.” She smiled an easy smile. Myles held out the envelope and Anne took it, holding it out in front of her, judging its weight. “A lot of them must have been out of focus!”

“I only printed seven. The most expressive seven,” Myles said.

“Only seven?”

“You'll find contact sheets in there, too. I'll print up any shot you want to see.”

“Okay. Hey, thanks,” Anne said. “Should I look now? Maybe not? Probably better to look when there's more light and quiet.”

“Probably.”

“I gotta work,” she said, leaning close and kissing him lightly, but slowly, on the lips. “Okay?”

“More than okay,” Myles whispered. As she pulled away, he caught her scent; it had been memory, not hallucination, that had overtaken his senses before.

Myles watched her going away, a walk so confident he could hardly believe she was the woman in the photographs. Then she was outside, on the terrace, picking up empty glasses and taking orders. Belatedly, Myles recognized the face turned toward him at the table by the door as Paul's, a knowing but tolerant smile flickering over it.

Myles nodded but he didn't go over, and Paul turned his head back toward the terrace and the town lights beyond. Myles was surprised to see Paul at Two Stories, but not so interested that he wanted an explanation.

When Anne came back to the bar he told her about the trip to Tílos. He'd be up to see her, he said, as soon as he was back on the island. But for now, he needed to sleep.

“Wait a minute. I'll walk you out.”

Myles watched her deliver a tray of drinks then swing back to the bar. She said something to the bartender and gestured toward the stairs.

 

“Are you on foot?”

“Not tonight. The Vespa's in an alley down there,” he said, pointing.

They walked down, the shining flagstones under their feet. In the dark of the alley Myles kissed her, pulling a little on her soft upper lip with his. Anne peered into his eyes, touched his beard with the fingers of her right hand, and whispered goodnight. Then she was gone. For a minute, at least, Myles felt young.

Straddling the Vespa he backed it away from the wall and turned it around. Still warm, it came to life on the first kick, echoing in the alley. Then Myles was gone, too.

 

Anne arrived early, and early enough so that she had a choice of tables at Vapori
.
Soon, she knew, it would be crowded; the place did a big trade every day. She tried one chair, then another, finally settling on one where she could sit with her back to the wall. She put on her sunglasses then took them off again; she pulled her hair back and clipped it behind her ears. No hiding. She was determined to keep things under control. She thought she could.

Paul's invitation to meet for coffee had caught her off guard. She'd still been trying to register the invitation in a general way when Paul suggested a time and place. “Yes?” He said, but it wasn't a question; he'd already assumed she'd be there and moved on. He made everything seem easy. It was one of his gifts.

Anne already had an iced coffee, a frappé, on the table in front of her when Paul turned into the alley where she was sitting under one of the canvas umbrellas in thick, yellow light. When Anne saw him, sidling through the chairs to her table, she glanced at her watch, in mock irritation, but also just to look away.

When the waitress came to the table Paul ordered a frappé too, but
me gála,
and
métrio.

“So you drink that stuff black?” he said.

“
Skéto.
”

“That's tough. I'm being impressed right now.”

“Very funny,” Anne smiled, and it was a winning smile, something not habitual to her face. She couldn't help herself.

They talked. The waitress brought Paul's coffee. All hostility seemed to have been tucked away. In answer to Anne's question, Paul ticked off the places he'd lived, mostly warm and cheap places, Portugal, Morocco, Mexico, Thailand, Bali, Sri Lanka and Goa.

“It's been eight years of vacation,” he summed up. Then, as an
afterthought, he added, “If you stay away long enough there's no place to go back to, and I've been away longer than that.”

Anne said nothing.

“How'd you find me, anyway?”

“I didn't
find you
. Just chance.” Anne lied badly. It wasn't one of her gifts.

“But you didn't seem very surprised to see me,” Paul said.

“I wasn't. I'd already seen you a couple of times.”

Paul laughed easily. “I confess, I'd already seen you, too, but I was thinking you
had
found me. So I was just waiting to see what for. I'm still waiting, you know. If you came here looking for me, hey, I'm honored. It's a long trip out here from—”

“Portland.”

“—from Portland.” Paul looked at her knowingly and nodded, as if he was encouraging her to tell all.

The waitress picked up the empties and Paul ordered a second frappé
,
Anne a gin straight up. It was Paul's turn to consult his watch.

“11:00 a.m.,” he pronounced, “dangerous.”

“Got to keep myself inoculated. You know? I come in contact with heavy doses of the stuff every night.”

“Me too,” Paul responded brightly.

They talked. It had been a long time, so there was plenty to tell. Anne had to admit to Paul's charms. He was more than handsome, supernaturally vivacious. He just seemed to be more alive than other people, life shown in his eyes, his lips, his very skin. Everything about him was mobile, animated.

“So where,” Paul asked at last, “is Mr. Powell?”

“I don't know.”

“Don't know?”

“It didn't last at all.” Anne said. “When I told him I'd been disinherited, he began to doubt the wisdom of having run off to Reno. Of course, the old man had told me I was disinherited way before that, but I hadn't mentioned it. Eloping got me away from Bainbridge Island, from home, from the old bastard. I don't regret it.”

“Glad to hear it.”

 

Sometime after noon Paul reminded Anne she'd tried to drown him when they were kids.

“Hardly.”

“No? Hey, I'm not holding a grudge. We were just kids back then, right?” Paul said. “Kids do some crazy shit.”

“Well, I don't see how you could have drowned so close to shore. I wanted to humble you, maybe,” Anne conceded.

“Humble
me
? This is how I remember it. You convinced me to get out of our little outboard onto a sandy shoal—at low tide—saying you'd take a picture of me when the tide came up just enough so it looked like I was walking on water.”

“I took the picture, you saw it. It was a good one. You had a big golden grin on your face, pleased as punch to perform a miracle. You walked on water, just like Christ! And you got the proof. What's to complain about?” Anne asked, a mocking edge on her voice.

“Yeah. Then you and your girlfriend . . . What was her name?”

“Rose. Actually Sea Rose, I think. That was some family . . .”

“Then you and Sea Rose just laughed as the tide came up fast, a real Puget Sound tide,” Paul said. “Kept asking me about those monster jellyfish.
Then,
then when it was up to my waist, you cut in close with the boat, setting up a big wake, laughing like you'd gone crazy.”