White Vespa

Sixteen



19 June





Anne stood by the bar. The terrace was quiet, only two tables out there with anybody at them and the folks at those two tables slow drinkers. She counted her tips, passing the piles of coins to the bartender in exchange for bills. Easy money, overall, and the clientele relatively well-behaved. She’d done a lot of this kind of work and no longer thought much about it. Things evened out. She was beyond worrying about the size of any particular tip. The tips she got were for service; she gave good service. But she didn’t flirt, as a rule. She didn’t want the money that much, and about the customers she felt indifferent. Except for Myles. She had been flirting with Myles.

She asked the bartender for a gin, and he gave it to her in a coffee cup. On the house, all of them were on the house. Maybe the bartender liked her, maybe he didn’t care for the management all that much. Either way, the gin was free.

The bartender was cleaning up, cleaning the bar with a wet towel, restocking. He was very efficient. A John, Anne thought, vaguely amused. From Australia, working his way around the world. He’d been gone three years, half the time in London, half on the road. He had some good stories, Anne thought, but he wasn’t any good at telling them. She’d listened to him trot them out for the real stewheads, the ones who sat at the bar because the bartender had to listen. She thought the suffering must have been about evenly distributed.

Occasionally, when she thought about Paul, she found herself wanting a gun. That, she thought, would simplify things. But she knew she’d never use a gun, not even to threaten with. What she really wanted was simplicity, and a gun would be simple. She ought to have a plan, she knew it. Soon she’d be bumping into Paul, and she’d need something to say. She’d seen him several times already. He liked nothing better than to strut in public places.

She sipped at the gin. On the terrace, the last table was standing up, two couples, tourists, staying over for a single night; they’d told her. Anne went over to say goodbye and by the time they were at the stairs she had cleared the table and pocketed the two shiny, hundred drachmae coins they’d left as a tip. She ran her thumb over Alexander’s face on one of the coins, another pretty boy.

Anne took off her apron and leaned against the bar; she picked up her coffee cup and sniffed the gin, trying to decide whether to finish it or not. John nodded toward the stairs, at Myles coming down, looking sheepish. Anne liked how he looked, loose limbed and relaxed, a little sleepy.

“Here for a drink?”

“Sure.”

“It’s whiskey straight up?”

Myles nodded.

“Mind if I join you? I’ve cashed out. John’s got the bar until closing time.” So they went out on the terrace and sat on the wall.

“You look burnt,” Anne observed.

“Hope not, but clearly I got some sun, and wind. I went for a picnic to Nímos, out there,” Myles pointed. “Not much shade.”

“Take some pictures?”

“Not many. Ate a good lunch and swam myself tired,” Myles said.

“But not too tired for the walk up to Two Stories.”

“I felt restless and . . .” He glanced at her and left it at that.

They decided to walk down to Yialós together. The great steps were deserted; the old slates looked wet in the streetlights but were just polished slick from use. They walked, peering between buildings where they could see down to the harbor, a black pool ringed by the town lights and carrying the pulsing reflections of those lights. Again, Myles was struck by the staginess of the old mansions along the lower stairs.

They sat down on an abandoned stoop, across from a stoned-up doorway. The walls were a deep weathered ocher and the elaborate stone surrounds off-white and hanging ghostly in the low light. Myles asked about Anne’s childhood, and she told him.

“Maybe I was too much alone. Bainbridge Island wasn’t so built up then and not so fancy. In summer there were quite a few people, people with cabins along the shore, but most of the year it was very quiet. A girl alone didn’t have to be afraid.”

“As it should be.”

“I was given a horse of my own when I was seven, a little white mare. I loved that horse, and if I wasn’t out riding I was usually in the barn, feeding her or working her coat with a curry comb, or mucking out. I didn’t have to, I wanted to.”

“All those earthy smells!” Myles joked.

“I liked them! I still like them. And the riding could hardly have been better. I loved to ride in the fog, and there was fog a lot. I loved the way things would suddenly appear, a tree or a house. Just a tree or a house, floating in the fog. Know what I mean?”

“I think so.” Myles said, “Everything isolated in a soft white frame, what it is without all the usual distractions.”

“Yeah. And there were these trees, madroñas,” Anne said, “They had this amazing red bark, smooth, and in the fog, wet, their limbs looked liked arms or legs.”

“That’d had too much sun?”

Anne laughed. “More like flayed. But at seven or eight, those trees just seemed human to me.”

“I’ve seen them,” Myles said, “intense green leaves.”

“And the smell. You could smell the Puget Sound everywhere. When the tide was out, the smell could be overpowering. I loved that smell. I think of the Sound whenever I get a whiff of the sea, so whenever I walk around Sými harbor!”

“Do you go back?” Myles asked.

“No.” Anne shifted uneasily. “You know how it is. You keep going.”

“I’ve known a lot of people to go back.”

“I’m not going back.” She paused. “To the Puget Sound, maybe, but not to Bainbridge.”

Myles glanced at Anne, at the set look that had suddenly appeared on her face. He knew all at once that Anne was unhappy, probably always had been.

“So are you going to take my picture?”

“Maybe,” Myles said.

“When?”

“Ha! I said maybe!” But they both knew he had agreed.





Anne watched the taillight of the Vespa until it blinked out of sight. “Why now?” She wondered aloud, then turned around, away from Myles, toward the clock tower at her end of the paraléia. She walked to the click of her own heels, past shuttered shops, empty fishing boats, and the sleeping yachts. She liked the world like this, seemingly abandoned, a world of things. She might have taken a long walk but she was tired, her legs achy and her feet slow. She thought she would need to drink to sleep. She let herself into her room, leaving the light off. The darkness suited her. She poured by feel, a juice glass half full of gin. She smelled it, a familiar smell, comforting and clean.

She wondered about Paul, about why she was avoiding him, hadn’t approached him. She wanted to; it was what she’d come to Sými to do. But she hadn’t, hadn’t felt she could.

She remembered a toy she’d played with as a little kid. Two magnets, each with a small plastic terrier mounted on it, one white, one black. When she’d tried to press the little terriers together the one had pushed the other away, or they’d leapt together. She couldn’t remember now, not for sure, if they sprang together face to face, as if to kiss, or face to tail, and what would that have been? She shook her head ruefully.

Anne sat down. She remembered vividly the feel of those dogs in her hands, the feel of the magnetic fields they moved in, violent attraction, powerful repulsion. What she felt now was something like that, but both at once.

The little dogs, she remembered, were subject to sudden emotional swings. If she held the black terrier in her hand, carefully, and pressed his face to the face of the white dog, then the white terrier backed away, but might, faster than she could see, turn, and the black dog would be on her, would have pulled her in. That’s how she remembered it.





Seventeen



19 June





Paul wasn’t drunk, at least not as drunk as most of the other people in the place. The bar was called The Erroneous Zone and ranked, he thought, as the island’s sleaziest. It boasted very few regulars, and Paul only trolled through about once a week. Still, it did a good trade. Hard drinkers always nosed it out; he wasn’t sure how.

The music was loud, rock oldies, and drowned absolutely the television that flickered over the barman’s head. Still, here people talked; they shouted. Paul was trying to chat up two women from England, wondering if it would be worth the effort to pry the cute one away from her friend. Working girls, what else would they be here for if not to get f*cked?

He thought it probably wasn’t worth it, but he didn’t feel like going back to his room alone, either. He bought another round of gin and tonics.

“I knew this kid when I was growing up . . .”

“You don’t say,” the uncute one put in.

“Yeah, funny kid.” Paul said. “His claim to fame was that he could hold his breath until he passed out.”

“Uh huh.”

“He did it, often. Got a kick out of it,” Paul said.

“I don’t think anybody could do that,” again, the uncute one.

“Well, he could. I saw him do it several times. But you’re right,” and here Paul flashed one of his practiced smiles, “it’s hard. I tried, but I could never do it.”

“What was this kid’s name?” the cute one said, speaking at last.

“Loren,” Paul said.

“How old was he?”

“Twelve or thirteen.” To which there was no further response. Paul continued. “Still, I admired that kid. He was able to overcome the revolt of his own body. Lot of good things happen right on the edge of revulsion. Know what I mean?” Nods. “Eating octopus tentacles or stuffed cuttlefish, for instance. You know?” Paul took a drink, “He got this little smile on his face just when he passed out. The queerest little smile, a kind of blissful grimace.”

The cute one had swiveled on her stool and was looking into Paul’s face.

“Kinda like this.” Paul rolled his eyes up and made the face as best he could.

“Huh,” observed the uncute one, letting the smoke from her last drag curl out of her mouth.

“Where are you from?” The other one asked.

“Anyway, I always thought there was something sexual about that smile,” Paul said.

“Mmm.”

“Yeah, I thought it was probably the same look he got on his face when he . . . You know?”

“Wanked?”

“Yeah. I even thought maybe he performed his little trick at the same time sometimes.” Paul paused. “Just guessing,” he said, his voice trailing away.

“I hope so!” The cute girl said.

“You hope he did?”

“Real funny. I hope you’re just guessing,” she said.

Paul grinned, a slightly wicked grin.

“So what’s your name?” she asked.

“Paul.”

“Pru.” She held out her hand for a shake. “Pleased to meet you, I guess.”

Paul giggled, a boyish smile suffusing his face.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Pru’s friend said, “goin’ to the loo.”

And when she had, Paul said, “So,” turning slowly toward Pru, “wanna strangle me?”





Eighteen



21 June





It was early for Anne, eight. Two Stories had been busy the night before and she’d worked late. It’d been a good night, no obnoxious drunks, a lot of money. Everything simple. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to walk to Myles’ place but it wasn’t far to anywhere around Yialós. She took time to straighten up the room; she always took time to straighten up. In a room like hers, it didn’t take long. She tidied the bed and pushed the smoky clothes she’d worn the night before into a laundry sack. She organized the dressing table that doubled as a desk, cosmetics on one side, two books and a journal on the other. Finally, she shook the dust out of the peacock feathers she’d bought in the market and stuck them back into a carafe she’d appropriated from the bar. They were the room’s sole decoration; she’d stuffed the pictures and knickknacks the room had come with into the bottom of the wardrobe. When she finished she stood for a minute in the middle of the room, in the order she’d made.

Outside it was still cool. She took the steps down to the paraléia and turned right when she got there, angling close to the hotels as she passed the clock tower. The water was on her left. Later, it was here that the ferries would tie up, and here that the tourists would spill out in their numbers. There were tables and chairs on the sidewalks all the way to the old stone bridge where the harbor ended, but she walked looking at the water and at the neoclassical facades of the old houses on the other side that overlooked it. Yialós, she thought, felt a little like a stadium, everything turned toward the harbor. Not built for games, however, and maybe not for beauty, but the beauty was there. She hadn’t come for it, hadn’t known it was here, but she found she didn’t tire of it. The houses were all similar, but they were all different, too, different within the confines of a shared aesthetic. Something about that, the variations, but the variations all within the strictures of a limited style, made the beauty of the place seem inexhaustible. Not that she wanted to exhaust it; she liked how it felt to succumb again and again to its charms.

Then she was walking alongside a row of sleek yachts. Their tall masts ticked back and forth as the harbor waves ran through their crowded hulls. They moaned and creaked: Anne thought of it as the sound of money breeding. A few of the yachties were eating breakfast, facing one another over a table, backs to the beauty of Sými town. Anne knew the kind, the deck shoes and designer clothes, carefully casual clothes, the too tan faces and too tan bodies. They were from all over, and it didn’t matter where they were from.

Then it was working boats, old, but all but a few of them painted bright again this year. Most of the fisherman were out, but some were still getting ready or working on their nets on the quay. Yellow nets, purple nets, green nets, the floats orange or white where the color had rubbed off. The fishermen were dour until she greeted them, trying out her Greek, kaliméra, and then they smiled and wished her good-morning. However dour they looked before she spoke to them, they always responded.

She kept on at the back of the harbor, not crossing the old or the new bridge, but taking the street along the dry creek bed that Myles had said led to his cottage above town. The road went up in lovely swings.

From the drive Anne could see Myles through the open door, standing at the sink, washing dishes. He’d found a long apron somewhere that ended just above his bare knees in a ruffle. They were hairy knees. Anne stood silently in the doorway, watching. Suddenly he was aware of her and glanced over his shoulder, looking a little caught out.

“Fetching!” Anne smiled.

“Like it, huh?”

“Oh yeah, puts some poetry in those legs that might otherwise be just, like, hairy!”

“I’ve got some pantyhose around here somewhere if you think that’d help,” Myles said.

“Maybe it wouldn’t,” Anne said, crossing over to the sink and kissing Myles lightly on the cheek. His wire rims were a little fogged but she could see he was looking, looking away. She smiled, a shy guy.

While Anne watched, Myles made two little cups of Greek coffee, made them the Greek way. He measured out a heaping spoon of powder-fine coffee and a heaping spoon of coarse sugar for each of the two demitasses of cold water he’d poured into the copper pot. He stirred it a long time before setting the pot to the flame, keeping the heat low, to avoid a too quick or too heavy boil. When the coffee rose in the chimney of the pot, he lifted it just high enough off the flame that the coffee held over the lip, caramelizing. Then he tapped the pot lightly with a wooden spoon, poured the thick coffee into the cups, the froth going first. He poured it carefully, to keep the slug of spent grounds mostly in the pot.

“If, if you like Greek coffee, this should be good,” he said.

“I may require instruction.”

“To drink it?”

“To know what to like,” Anne said.

“That is the hard part, but the best I can do is put a good cup in front of you. That’s good.”

“But you haven’t tasted it,” Anne observed.

“I don’t need to taste it.”

“Well, I’ll want to taste it.”

“I want to, too. I just don’t need to,” Myles said.

“You’re pretty confident.”

“About coffee.”

At that, they started laughing. Myles wasn’t sure if he was wading or already in over his head. They still hadn’t tried the coffee.





Anne had taken off the sweater she’d worn out and paced the room in a black leotard and tight jeans, her bare feet skimming the uneven planks of the old floor. Myles was screwing his battered Nikon to a tripod he had only extended to about three feet. He’d hung a white sheet over an old lamp to diffuse the light.

“Where’s good?” Anne sounded nervous.

“Sure you want to do this?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. But . . .”

“But?” Myles asked.

“No buts. I want to see the pictures you’ll make,” she said.

“To see yourself?”

“To see myself.”

“Anne?”

“Yes?”

“Low expectations are good. I wasn’t kidding when I told you I don’t take pictures of people, well, not portraits.”

“Just for me?”

“Just for you.”

Anne grinned, someone young peeping out from behind her habitually hooded eyes.

“So where’s good?”

Myles pointed to one of the built-in low couches, the shorter of the two, a confined space, white walls, unpainted and hand-carved woodwork. He perched on a chair behind the tripod, looking through the viewfinder, setting up. He had attached a cable to the shutter release and when he was ready moved his chair off to the side.

“Well,” he said, “show me.”

When he looked up, he flinched. It wasn’t the same face. All her extreme angularity was still there, but it no longer looked natural; it looked to have been made, forged, held in tongs and hammered into shape. Myles began to make pictures. He encouraged her to arrange herself, to push her angles into the angles of the confined frame of the divan. And to dream. To imagine the worst, and the best, love and falling. And a hard history seemed to flicker over her face, to contort her limbs.

“That’s enough.” He said finally. He’d shot three rolls, a hundred and eight frames. He had no idea what was on the negatives. But Anne looked drained.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I must be. I feel like I’m just waking up, a little foggy.” She paused, “That was very strange. Everything was normal and then I looked up at you looking expectant sitting next to your camera and whoosh, I was gone. Like a trance, I guess.”

“Huh.”

Then one of those awkward silences started. Finally, Myles forced himself to stand up, suggesting a ride on the Vespa, lunch at the point, beyond the clock tower and the boatyards, at the last taverna before the road turned to gravel and away from Yialós.

Anne stopped in front of the saw-edged mantle, looking at the photo of the man in white.

“I thought you didn’t take pictures of people,” she said.

“That photo was an accident,” he said abruptly, not wanting to explain how a photo of someone else could turn out to be a self-portrait.

“Besides,” he added, “it’s just a street scene. It’s portraits I don’t take.”

“Except for me.”

“Except for you.”