“I talk like all the Greek males talk. If they don‟t throw in a fuck, or a cunt, or a malaka, language does not taste right in their mouths.”
“Do I do that?”
She laughed.
“You are an insipid old timer. And you drive me nuts. If Panos doesn‟t do it, I shall have to have you. Think about it but don‟t take two years over it. I need to be made love to, passionately. I need sex to mellow. My art is turning arid and callous.”
“On the contrary. I think your deprivation is heightening your sensibilities, your poignancy. I see it day by day. And then, Panos is obsessed by Ceres. He loves her too madly to betray her. I still have to think of their reunion. Of course, there is no hope and the outcome will likely be dreary, though I shall try to make it palatable to the reader by a reconciliation at the end of the novel. You see, it is the eternal human tragi-comedy.
The clash of egos.”
“Oh kill the bitch in an accident. Liberate my Panos. It might liberate you, too, my Stratos.”
“And throw away the novel? It is not yet half done and the plot is more or less clearly etched in my mind. All that work for nothing?”
“Seriously, Stratouly, is this your life? You and I, we keep our cards well concealed. A strange situation for a friendship so tender.”
“Yes, my dear. There are definitely elements of my life in it. I want this novel to be like your paintings, Lea. Strong definitions and hazes, truths and dreams, fictions and 16
memories, misty hopes and lost opportunities and the threatening storms of time running out.”
“Yes. Yes. Oh God. You have finally come to it. Time running out. You have told me I advised Panos that only time would heal him. I did not tell him he must not take too long to resolve his heartache, that time is not infinite. He is a mathematician and he might be under the illusion that infinity exists. But not for us humans. Think about it Stratouly. Come to me tonight. Don‟t resist me any more.”
“I am terrified of disappointing you, my Lea. Of disheartening myself. For us men, our masculinity is so crucial. I feel that if I fail, I shall lose you completely. I cannot afford that.”
The coffees and toast arrived and broke the train of their conversation. They ate silently smiling, now and then, at each other.
“In a few weeks even this comfort will shut down. The Terrain boys are leaving for Athens,” said Stratos. He looked at the sky. “What a glorious day it promises to be.”
“Let us go to Thanos,” cried Lea excitedly. “It shall be a start. It was, after all, your invention, their interlude on that heavenly beach. There does not have to be sex.
Let us get used to each other‟s bodies.”
“All in good time.”
“Oh, you kill me.”
“Yes, yes, we shall go. But let us enjoy this peace for a while. The whispering waves. The aroma of the mountains. The need to do nothing in a frantic world. I am not like you. I do not have roots in Limnos. I came and bought this house because I love this island. Thirty years ago I, too, arrived here for my military service like Panos. It was a two-year stint in those days. I was Panos‟s age and had left behind a pregnant Ceres-Thimitra who would not follow me. Oh, different names and problems but the same picture. I idealized and softened Panos. I was not as good. Perhaps the love was not as great and circumstances more difficult. Not the same amplitude of money, difficult telecommunications, antagonistic, narrow-minded families, mine and hers, and an army that offered little leeway. I did not see my family for two years. We had quarreled violently about the foreign whore and the little bastard.
“I stayed in Limnos for two whole years until I was discharged. I bought a bicycle and toured the island. We did not even have the poor, unloved, exploited Russian and Ukrainian girls for sexual relief. In a way, Limnos was both better and worse than it is now. It was poorer, much less crowded and frenetic in summer with severe shortages of water but with this new wealth, you get the feeling of impending environmental degradation. The cars, the pollution, the new hotels, tourist villages and housing; the exploitation of pristine shoreline gives the impression the island will be spoiled. The greed for profit, for more and more money and trivial comforts is depressing. But what can one do. Could anyone stop the ancient Greek tragedy? It inexorably worked itself out. Oh, okay, it is not as bad as that.”
“Go on, my love.”
“Lea, darling, it is the first time you call me, my love.”
“You are a silly and blind man. How could you possibly imagine you would ever be a novelist?”
“Who ever said I was? I am a mediocre architect that made a little money and managed to retire a few years earlier than is usual. The urge to put a few thoughts in writing is recent. In those days, I had just finished a graduate architectural course in London and in the process tied my life in a knot. The first of quite a few. Here, with that ramshackle bicycle and a sleeping bag I borrowed from the army depot, I toured the island for two years in the pitifully few days-off we were accorded. I went to the 17
picturesque village of Kondias with its volcanic scenery and the only pine forest of the island. To the ancient fortified village of Polyochni near the village of Kaminia, where the ores coming from the Black Sea were purified, worked by artisans and traded with the Cyclades and Crete in the years 3000 BC. In an excavation, there, a treasure of golden jewelry was found and is now exhibited in the Athens museum. I went to Iphesteia and Kavirio at the Bay of Tighani which was a place of worship of Iphaistos the God of metals and crafts and protector of Limnos and where ruins of a Roman theater have been found and excavated.”
“Yes, Stratos. Okay, we know Limnos. I have travelled around, too, for my work. Tell me about your life.”
“After I left Limnos I took up a job in an architectural firm in Athens and tried to organize my life and save some money. I found a small flat and a few months later flew to England to see Diana. Yes, that was her name. And Iason. Jason, to them. A lovely blond, typically English boy of nearly three. He was my son. I was his father.
Our story was more banal than Panos‟s but my love for Iason was the same. The blood called. The instinct was there on both sides. They all lived in a flat with Diana‟s boyfriend, a nice enough English fellow and I considered it a gift that despite everything we remained friends with Diana and Iason was able to attach himself to me with her wholehearted encouragement. I started contributing to his expenses and when he grew up a little we spent our summers together in Limnos, a single father and his son. That was long before I bought this house. Oh, he is an architect like me. Travels a lot and we see each other many times a year. He is engaged to Ceres. That‟s where I got that name. A lovely girl. Just as I described her. I call her Thimitra and she smiles every time. That‟s all.”
“That‟s all?”
“Oh, and another thing, Diana married the English fellow. She has two other children by him.”
“Oh, who cares?”
“Well, let‟s say, that‟s one knot that was neatly undone.”
“Go on you slowcoach. Give us the rest.”
“Let‟s go to Thanos.”
“All in good time.”
“Oh you kill me,” he said and laughed. “Yes, let‟s go to Thanos. The story of the knots will end up there on that lovely beach. I have a feeling I shall untie the main one.”
“Of the novel?”
“Of our lives, my Lea.”
“I am not dim, you know. You said, I shall untie, whereas you should have said, we shall untie.”
“We shall untie, my love.”
They left the Terrain and prepared a few towels, sun lotions, sandwiches and water, strapped them on their bicycles and cycled slowly towards Thanos. The sun had softened the chill and the hillocks on the way made them sweat. They took off their T-shirts and shorts and rode on in their bathing costumes. Half an hour later, they were Adam and Eve in an earthly paradise. Not a soul in sight. The limpid sea was whispering eternal secrets to the seashore in small capricious licks. The autumn sun was clement and the sand pleasantly warm. They chained their bicycles on a tree and walked slowly, hand in hand, to the other end of the bay. They arranged their things, spread the towels and removed their bathing costumes.
“You have such an unbelievable body, my Lea.”
18
“Amongst other believable parts. Noses and things.”
“An unbelievable smile. It lights up your face. It really makes you beautiful.”
“So what do I do? Keep smiling?”
“Yes my darling.”
She smiled.
“That‟s it,” he said.
“Lie down on the towel, Stratos. Let me spread some oil on you. Then you can apply some on me. Both back and front,” she said with a smile.
They did so and Stratos was aroused. He made to kiss her.
“Take it easy, my boy,” she told him. “We are old enough to be patient, to take our time. I must get in the mood and it‟s a little difficult in the sunshine. You men are so funny. First you don‟t want, then, you‟re in a hurry.” Stratos laughed. “It‟s just that it might go and not come back.”
“Then goodbye. Tomorrow is another day. I refuse to be stressed. We have more than one knot to untie.”
They lay down side by side. She caressed his hair and looked into his eyes.
“Do you know why I love you?” she asked.
“No. I was never certain you loved me in the first place.”
“That‟s exactly it. Because you said no. Because you are not pretentious or macho. Because you are polite and compassionate and are satisfied with the small things in life. I admire your writing. I really do. You do have talent.” She kissed him gently on the mouth.
“Tell me about the knots.”
“Well,” he said, “there isn‟t an awful lot to tell. My professional life was a whole series of small knots, which accumulated into one big one, and when I managed to untie that, I found myself with a little money. Not a great deal but enough to make me think that our time is not infinite, as you say, and we should get some joy out of it.
The first thing I did was buy this house, here, in Limnos. That was one investment I shall never regret not because of its increasing value but because I love this island. And I was so terribly lucky to find you. We meet much less in Athens but in Myrina, I think of you as my companion. Minus the sex, I am sorry to say. This is our second summer together and I am grateful to you for pretending that we are a couple. They would call me a malaka if they knew I never touched you. But I have lost my confidence. After my wife died, I had two or three liaisons but I could not make love. I was impotent and the feeling is dreadful. It is degrading and traumatic and feeds on itself. I know it is psychological because I have urges and I get normal erections when they are not needed, as you have just seen a moment ago, but when it comes to the act, pphfft, a flat tire. I should have gone to a psychiatrist but I felt too old and ridiculous for that.”
“Oh my sweet Stratos, it is nothing. Why didn‟t you tell me before instead of those obscure insinuations I did not rightly understand?”
“It is a difficult confession.”
“Yes, I know. So difficult to tell. So easy to put right. I shall heal you, my love.
It will be doubly easy because we love each other. Do you love me? Do you love this ugly nose, my Stratos? The slit, narrow eyes? I have my little complexes too, you know, but also a few advantages. I have no erections to sustain. I just open my legs.” Lea laughed. “Will you trust me?”
“I love you, how can I not trust you.”
“It is not the same thing. So, listen carefully. Irrevocable rule number one: no intercourse. Sex and love and caresses, yes, but no penetration. Rule number two but not so rigid because it sometimes gets out of control: no ejaculation. Rule number three: 19
no inhibitions either. I am a painter. I know the body inside out. It is a strange and wonderful apparatus. But the mind rules it.”
She was lying down, sideways, facing him, her head resting on her arm. She opened her legs and Stratos‟s heart started pounding.
“You can look at it, kiss it, lick it, caress it but for this little guy it is out of bounds.” She held his penis. “No penetration, my lad.”
“Until when?”
She laughed. “Oh those fragile, lusty little animals called men!” she said. “They make me laugh, sometimes. You want to run before you can walk. Until I say so. Go on with your story. With your knots.”
She moved close to him. Their oily bodies touched. The sensation was smooth and exciting. She kissed him on the mouth passionately. After two years of friendship, it was their first erotic kiss. He was lost in it. He caressed her body and held her breasts.
His penis was hard in her hand. She moved away from him.
“Get on with your story,” she said.
He could not think where to start, where he had stopped.
“Oh, my Lea,” he said, “I love you. What are you doing to me?”
“I am trying to get you well. Please get on with the story.” He got up, plunged in the sea and swam for a few minutes in the frigid waters.
When he returned, she seemed asleep. She was sunning her back with her legs slightly apart and a black patch, between them. He looked at her. My God, he thought, what a flesh and blood mermaid he had in his nets and he had made of her a statue. A heroine in a novel. He sat on her towel and his cold caress awoke her. She rolled over.
“I am listening,” she said.
“I got married, of course. An ordinary marriage with love and passion at the start and love and routine to follow. With its ups and downs. With two children. You saw them for a few days, last summer.”
“Yes. Lovely children. They did not seem to like me.”
“It is natural. They have me at their beck and call. They do not want to share their guardian angel. They feel something is going on between us even if we do not see each other too often in Athens. But they are growing up. They shall soon be leaving the nest. Sasa has finished law and is working at a lawyer‟s office and most of the time she lives at her boyfriend‟s flat. Alexanthros is in his last year in architecture. He has followed the family tradition. Mine, Helen‟s and Jason‟s. I shall send him abroad for a year or two and then help him establish an architectural firm. I am careful to keep all my professional contacts for his sake. When Helen died three years ago, we had quite an establishment going. Draughtsmen, engineers and so on. She was in the heart of it and without her there, I lost my will to continue. She suffered so much from this murderous illness for one entire agonizing year that I drew my conclusions. What good did all this frenetic business activity do? Provide the best doctors and first class private clinics? The result was the same. The pain was not milder. Her life was not prolonged. I sold the office, made this packet and rushed to Limnos to buy this house next to yours.
Little did I know that life still held a promise. I met you, my darling.”
“I was lucky, too, Stratouly. You did a wonderful job with my house. Not a nail was hammered without your approval. A touching devotion to your profession but mainly to me. They call it chemistry nowadays. Our chemistry was rare. Perhaps it had to do with our shattered lives. We clung to one another. But no. It was more than that.
Much, much more. Your love and admiration for my work has enslaved me, encouraged me and kept me going. I was doing something I needed to do but you convinced me of 20
its worth. Of my talent. We are both creators, artists. That does not necessarily make us better people but this gift of God, or nature, has bonded us as nothing else.” He moved close to her, kissed her and hungrily caressed her luscious, yielding body and they made love within their limits. When they started losing control, Lea pushed him away and rushed to the sea. He followed and they swam for a while.
“You are driving me mad,” he told her.
“That‟s the idea. Trust me. I know what I am doing. My husband passed a similar phase but he tried to solve his problem with drugs. Designer drugs, uppers, downers, cocaine, you name it, and it was a disaster. We both became addicted and at some point, I consulted a psychiatrist and learnt of this method. It was, however, too late for us; our marriage was ruined. I had no urge to help him any more. Indifference had set in. Let‟s eat I am hungry.”
They ate, slept and later swam again. Early in the afternoon, they cycled back to Myrina. Stratos had loved her for two years and was now in love with her. It was different. This new intimacy of the flesh intoxicated him. He could keep neither his eyes nor his hands off her.
“Take it easy,” she told him with a smile avoiding a kiss. “Full marks for this first lesson. You are not yet ready for the finals. We cannot risk a mid-journey flat tire.
It would ruin everything. And thinking about it, I begin to understand that part of the novel where I, I mean Lea, masturbated Panos on the beach. Subconsciously, you did not want sex all the way. There was anxiety in it. A fear of failure. The emotional entanglements of lovemaking with Lea were secondary and it would have taken a few paragraphs to resolve them to the reader‟s satisfaction. Men can love one woman madly and make love to another without much of a problem or change of sentiments. You wanted relief without the risks of the flat tire.”
They had dinner at the port at night. The weather was starting to get chilly and Myrina was slowly closing down, preparing for its winter hibernation. They ate and drank their wine behind the closed doors of the taverna instead of on the terrace. In the new emptiness, the army and the soldiers resumed their role, until then overshadowed, as the lifeblood and flickering winter life of the island. Outside her house Stratos told her he was sorry because it must be hard for her too, these interrupted ecstasies.
“No,” she said. “Think of it as a kind of build-up. Intercourse is forbidden. The anxiety to perform is eliminated. So is your responsibility for the prolongation of the act and my orgasms. It is a build-up of desire. Let us see where it will get us. Moreover, my Stratouly, it is a labor of love. Today was very special for me too.”
“I suppose,” he said, “I‟d better not ask to come inside.”
“No.” Lea smiled. “You might risk a refusal.”
The next day was glorious. Myrina had everything. Fresh air and sunshine, the sea and the mountains, the chirping of birds and the scents of thyme drifting down from the hills, the emptiness, the peace of a sparse population, where the man who passed by was a friend and you said Kalimera to him. Stratos and Lea crossed the street in their bathing costumes, within moments from each other, and jumped in the sea. They met in a dive and kissed underwater. They swam energetically for five minutes but could not remain longer in the icy, early morning water and ran into their houses for a warm shower. Then on to the Terrain for a merry, leisurely breakfast feeling so lucky to be alive, healthy and together, at their age, with the promise of a few more years of happiness, of art and creation and love and perhaps, just perhaps, a partial return of the carnal pleasures of youth. An hour later, they left on their bicycles for the psychiatrist‟s couch, which was a large towel on the sand at the far end of the deserted bay of Thanos 21
where the medicaments were the sun, the warm, clean sand, the pellucid sea, the unguent sun lotions, their naked bodies, their love, their caresses and kisses.
Physical intimacy opens up venues beyond friendship. It opens a probing of each other‟s souls. It arouses a need to delve into the world and thoughts and the past of the loved one. A blurred snapshot of their youth makes them wonder what they were like twenty, thirty years ago. Makes them wish they had met then, talked and kissed.
Not necessarily linked for life. Each might take a different path but tender memories remained together with the hope, perhaps, of meeting again and kissing again.
Conversation is a vital nourishment of love.
“Anthony told me your husband was not a very likable man.” Stratos told Lea.
“Oh, people change, you know. Some more than others. Some none at all, like you, Stratouly. Life corrupts and sometimes success is the greatest distorter.
Gherasimos was a fine young man. Tall, reasonably presentable and bright. Our families were friends. Both were wealthy and when I finished my art studies and Makis (diminutive of Gherasimos) graduated from university, they gently pushed us together.
We were roughly the same age and Makis had already started his spectacular climb in business. He was involved from the very beginning with the modern technologies of electronics, computers and mobile telephony. He created one company after another and soon he moved his offices to California to be near Silicon Valley, the principal source of this fantastic revolution. We had a home in Los Angeles, an apartment in New York, another in London and a lovely villa in Geneva. I loved that city. It vibrates with life, wealth and a luxuriant nature. And, oh that lake, is it not a dream? I often left him for weeks to live there on my own and try to revive my passion for painting. But he never left me alone long enough. Always called me back after a time. Some of the work I did there is in my apartment in Athens. It is not prolific and has an aura of melancholia and unhappiness. Something about it is warped. I was already using drugs at the time.”
“Will you show it to me?”
“Of course, when we return to Athens. Makis,” she continued, “was on an unstoppable trajectory of success. He had phenomenal luck but it does take a brain, too, to build an empire. He was working like mad. Eating, drinking and smoking like a fool.
He grew fat and then huge and he totally ignored my pleading to bring him to reason and my calls for prudence. „I have no time for diets,‟ he would say. „Whom are you killing yourself for?‟ I would ask. „We do not even have children.‟ „For no one,‟ he would answer. „It is a fascinating game I cannot stop.‟ With that bulk, he cut a daunting figure. He became arrogant, hard and rude. He thought he could buy everything with money and indeed, he could. He started sleeping around with his secretaries and women business associates. A few years later, his sexual problem surfaced. Soft and fading erections. But unlike you, his problem was organic rather than psychological. He was an early-stage diabetic. He started using drugs and that seemed to help him. The house was stacked with them and inevitably, I started using them too. I was unhappy and our marriage was practically over.
“We quarreled violently and often and that last time he simply grabbed me, dragged me and threw me out of the house. I walked to a hotel nearby and pretended I had shut myself out of the house and the security system had blocked. I had no papers and no money but was well known to them. Next day I collected a few of my things from home, paid the hotel, took a flight to Geneva and filed for divorce. A few months later, after the divorce came out, I entered a drug rehabilitation clinic there. I was broken but not heartbroken as most people assumed. Moreover, I was very lucky. I had avoided, all the while, the very hard drugs that hook you for life and my treatment was successful. So here we are, basking in the sun of warmth and hope.” 22
“Oh my darling. I am so sorry.”
“Don‟t be. I have found myself again. I have found my peace and my art. I have found a friend, a companion and two reluctant lovers. One fictitious and hopeless, the other real and evasive.”
“Not any more.”
“No. Not any more.”
She smiled and caressed his face.
He kissed her and they made love, on and off, inconclusive, non-orgasmic, frustrating but enthralling, passionate and emotional and he pleaded to enter into her life and her soul and her body but she said,
“No. I have waited for so long. It is your turn to wait.” The next day, it was no.
And the day after.
On the fifth, he was exasperated.
“Cut out this prescription, this curative no,” he cried. “Enough is enough.” He rolled over her.
“No,” she whispered in his ear, biting it. “No, Stratouly. No.” But she opened the way. She knew the tire would hold.
They rested on the towel, in the sunshine, until their perspiration dried, until their breath returned and then plunged in the sea. They made love again.
“Will you marry me, Stratouly?” she asked. “Shall we end our lives together?”
“Oh my God, Lea. Yes. Yes. What a question?”
PART ll : HALLUCINATIONS
And so our story continues with our real and fictitious protagonists. If it gets
confusing, I beg the reader’s indulgence because, as he must be aware, often we
admire fiction for representing reality lucidly and with great insight while reality is
sometimes stranger and less credible than fiction. The fact is, nothing is ever exactly
what it seems, rarely turns out as it promises and is never as wonderful or as
disastrous as we think. Such, thankfully, is the puzzle of life.
“Stratos?”
“Yes?”
“I want you to meet a young soldier I got to know before you came to Limnos.
Well, not so young, actually. He‟s around thirty.”
“A thirty-year old soldier?”
“Yes, funny isn‟t it? He was studying abroad and has just recently returned to Greece. He‟s a mathematician and has been appointed lecturer at the university in Athens but has to go through his military service first.” 23
“Sure, why not? Is it important that I should meet him?”
“No it‟s not important. It‟s just that I come across him now and then in Myrina and after having spent some time with him, I hardly see him anymore. I think he has noticed that we are together but is too discreet to ask questions. There is just this questioning look on his face. He always seems so happy to see me. He‟s very sweet and unhappy and I do like him a lot.”
“Happy and unhappy? Is this a confession?”
Lea smiled.
“Please, don‟t ask for confessions. The torrent will drown you.” Stratos laughed. He looked at her tenderly.
“Far from feeling jealous, I feel so proud that, you, such an intelligent, cultured and experienced person loves me. You do you love me, Lea, don‟t you? I mean, really and truly?”
“Oh Stratouly, what a question? Was it not I that proposed?”
“Yes, my love. That‟s all that matters. Sometimes, I question my good fortune. I did not believe in fairy godmothers. Or should I say, fairy god mistresses?
Enchantresses and priestesses of fornication. And now I have you. Forgive me; I say this in the best possible, most tender sense. With love. With immense gratitude for you have given me back my sexuality, my manhood. How can I not love you dearly?” Lea laughed.
“Never before have I been given such a grand title. It‟s good. I like it. Priestess of fornication.”