Everything Beautiful Began After Part 7

Henry thought for a moment. "And what do you do?" he said.

"I simply draw." She smiled. "For now."

"What's your boyfriend's name?" Henry said.

"He's not my boyfriend, I told you-he was just a friend, really."

"Greek?

"American. You'd like him," she said.

"Would I?" Henry puffed. "Why do you say that?"

"Because he listens to opera, drinks sherry in the afternoon with a small dish of dried apricots, and of course he knows all about archaeology. The ancient Greek language is his pa.s.sion."

"Do people like that exist?"

"Here they do," Rebecca said.

Henry thought for a moment, and then said: "Let's do that."

"Do what?"

"Let's make here our home-it's so far from our lives that we can be free."

She turned away and looked out into the darkness. Her pillow was soft and warm.

"But I just met you. I don't know you."

"I feel like you know me," Henry said.

Rebecca turned to face him. "If I think too much about what we're doing, I might get scared."

Henry touched her hair. Then he planted gentle kisses on the back of her neck, and she soon fell asleep.

In the morning, Henry dressed and went outside. It was cool. He untangled the strap on his helmet and looked up at his own balcony. Then he mounted his rusty Vespa and rode north, until pulling free of the city.

He slowly climbed the mountain road that led to the scorching, sun-drenched hole he was digging, with what Rebecca would later describe as an expensive toothbrush. By early afternoon, he would leave the site with his briefcase of notes and get on a plane bound for London. A Cambridge University minibus would ferry him to his dormitory for the week.

Rebecca stayed in his apartment until noon. She washed in his hot yellow bathroom, then cleaned the dishes from supper. After dressing, she bought oranges from an Albanian in the street, propping open the front door with an empty wine bottle. She put the oranges in a small bowl and left them on the kitchen table next to the lemons with her address. Before closing all the shutters for the day, Rebecca noticed the topless man who had been boiling towels in the building opposite. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cigarette and pulling at his hair.

Chapter Eleven.

George spent most of the afternoon in bed, a bilingual volume of poetry by Kazantzakis split over his body like a small church. It was open on a page that read: Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

It was about a week since he had seen Rebecca. His apartment smelled of spilled wine. Wilting vines of dill lay on the kitchen counter in thick bunches, while empty wine and liquor bottles occupied most corners and areas where George didn't need to walk. He repeated the line of poetry a few times until he knew it by heart.

He was meeting someone at noon, and so got up, dressed, and made his way to a popular cafe on the corner of his street. George's lunch companion was early, and stood to greet him. They did not shake hands, but were pleased to see one another.

"How are you, Costas?" George said. "Did you order?"

He shook his head.

"Thanks for meeting me. Here are cigarettes and the bottle of ouzo, before I forget."

The man's look of dull shame brightened for a moment. He tucked the cigarettes into one of the many pockets of his heavy coat, but held up the bottle of ouzo and made a great pretence of reading the label. This was an attempt, George suspected, to hide that fact that he was actually illiterate.

"Looks like a nice one, interesting history," the man said.

"It's excellent, just like your English."

Costas nodded appreciatively. He was a dark-haired man of about fifty, but due to his circ.u.mstances he looked considerably older.

"So what have you been up to since our encounter?"

"Honestly?" said George.

Costas nodded.

"I've gone and fallen in love with someone."

"A woman?"

George nodded.

"Greek?"

"French."

"Oh," Costas said. "Very nice."

"But," George said, "I haven't heard from her in a week."

"Have you telephoned?" Costas suggested.

"She doesn't have a telephone, but I've been round a few times and she doesn't appear to be home, or if she is, she doesn't open the door when I ring."

"Maybe she's busy," Costas said. "But then all women are mysterious, no?"

Costas scratched his chin, then reached for one of George's cigarettes. "May I?"

George nodded. "Of course."

Finally the waiter approached along with the owner-a stout man with a heavy gold chain.

The owner stood at their table, arms akimbo, and glared angrily at Costas.

"Sorry, we're closing," he said.

"Closing?" George said incredulously, "But you've just opened."

Costas laughed heartily.

"Both of you get away from here," the owner said.

"But why?" George said. "We're only here for lunch."

"Well, this is a neighborhood cafe, not a charity kitchen."

George stood his ground. "I've always paid my bill, and tipped you generously."

"This is true," the owner said. "So why you know this man if you're so respectable," he said, pointing to Costas-who was already packing up and getting ready to leave.

"I'm very disappointed," George said, standing up, "that you've lost the nature of what hospitality is. You guys invented it."

The owner's lips trembled slightly, but he said nothing.

As they walked away George turned around and waved. It was a peculiar habit of his that often confused people. The waiter, who had said nothing, waved back, and the owner gave him a few harsh words.

"Sorry about that," George said. Costas smiled magnanimously and asked George for another one of his cigarettes. They smoked at the edge of a fountain and watched people pa.s.s.

"Strange world we live in, isn't it?" George said.

Costas nodded. "Very strange."

"Look," George said, turning to face his friend, "I promised to buy you lunch, so how about we just get some souvlaki sandwiches and take them back to my place."

"I don't know," Costas said, "I really should be going soon."

"I know," George said. "There's nothing like being waited on. We could also pick up some wine to drink with our meal-I know you like a drink as much as I do."

"Okay," Costas said. "That sounds nice. Then maybe you could tell me more about the French girl you're in love with."

George purchased two sandwiches and a bottle of wine from a kiosk, then led Costas up to his apartment, which overlooked Kolonaki Square.

"I don't much come to this area," Costas said.

"Why not?"

"Because the police don't like people like me here with all these beautiful foreigners spending money."

"But it's your country," George said, "and you have a right to go where you please."

"You're a nice boy," Costas said. "I wish you were Greek."

When they were inside, George helped Costas take his knapsack off. It was most awkward to maneuver on account of two thick blankets strapped to the bottom with rope.

George asked Costas to sit down and then served him some wine.

"Just a cheap house red," George said, "but it's wet."

"It's wet, yes," Costas repeated after a long gulp. He held up his gla.s.s for a refill.

During lunch, George told him all about Rebecca-the late dinners, the long romantic walks, her ambition to be a great artist, the awkward lingering on her steps. Costas listened politely, and nodded where was appropriate.

After lunch, they drank Armagnac and George thanked Costas again for his generosity the previous week. Costas shrugged. Then he wrote down the address of a derelict house in Athens, where he'd made a bit of a home for himself with a few others.

"If you get lost, come to this address and ask for me."

Chapter Twelve.

To celebrate his night of pa.s.sion with Rebecca, George had decided on an all-day drinking session. After leaving Rebecca's apartment that morning, he spent the afternoon flitting from cafe to restaurant, nibbling on sandwiches and small pies, reading, and drinking as much as he could without drawing attention to himself.

By the early hours of the morning, however, the only bar open was an Internet cafe. It served until 5:00 a.m. and generally catered to backpackers from a nearby hostel.

George paid to sit at a computer, where he sat drinking and feeling sleepy in the bright glow of the monitor. If people were watching him, he was certainly not aware of it.

When the Internet cafe closed, he decided to sleep in a park. Morning was almost upon the city, and despite the inevitable but harmless advances of men who lurked in the bushes, he was comfortable and safe.

He crossed a bridge over the railway lines toward a ma.s.s of trees and empty paths. He skirted the edge of the park railing-hoping he would come upon an opening. Then he suddenly realized that he was surrounded by a group of men. Something poked into his stomach and George looked down to see a sort of pipe, which he later realized was a gun. The men went through his pockets quickly. He could feel their hands upon him like mad animals. Despite the violence of what was happening, however, George was quite relaxed. It was an event beyond his control, and so all he had to do was surrender to it and wait for it to be over. Afterward, they muscled him to the floor and ran away. George lay there, unharmed but in shock.

A homeless man under some cardboard boxes witnessed the incident and took pity on George, who, like himself, he judged to be nothing more than a harmless drunk. Costas helped George to his feet, brushed him off, and offered him a place to sit down with some wine and something to smoke.

After a few swigs of liquor and the remains of a cigar that Costas kept for emergencies, George fell asleep on the cardboard. Costas covered him up with one of his blankets and covered himself with another.

The next morning, George thanked Costas for his generosity and begged him to be his guest for lunch in a week after he'd sorted himself out. Costas accepted, and George told him the address of a cafe on his block that served excellent fish and even more excellent wine. Costas nodded politely and said he would see George then. George also promised a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of ouzo as a return gift for the wine and cigar stub he'd smoked at Costas's expense.

Chapter Thirteen.