It's Beginning to Hurt: Stories (6 page)

The other woman, Xenia, was sallow and angular, with a bony, almost cartilaginous face, the olive skin taut over her little, sharp nose, her ears small but protuberant, like the ears of some nervous tree creature. They looked as if they might swivel. Her dark eyes settled a moment on Abel’s.

Stewart ordered him some coffee.

“We’ll have Melina read your fortune. She’s been predicting all kinds of catastrophes for yours truly. Tell him what you told me, Melina.”

Melina turned lazily to Abel. “He’s going to be married before the year’s over.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. He’s going to settle down in a big house with a view over a harbor, and he’s going to be faithful to his wife for the rest of his life.”

“Apparently I’m to marry the next woman I kiss,” Stewart said with a chuckle.

The woman turned back to him: statuesque, at ease in her slightly bulky softness.

“Well, it’s true. You are.” She smiled complacently at him.

A one-armed old man brought coffee for Abel. Melina spoke to him in Greek, and he nodded.

“Drink that up,” Stewart said, “and Melina’ll tell us what the future holds for you.”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

But he drank the grainy syrup and let Melina take the cup. She swirled the dregs so that the grounds clung to the inside of the white china. For a long moment she stared without expression into the cup.

“It’s not good news,” she said.

“Then I surely don’t want to hear.”

“Ah, come on,” Stewart said. “It couldn’t be worse than my little death sentence.”

“He’s going to be divorced. He’s going to lose his home and his child. Also his job.”

“Well, thanks,” Abel said. “Lucky I’m not superstitious.”

Melina looked at him. She seemed in a luxuriant stupor of indifference toward him.

“That’s good,” she said. “Then you don’t have to believe it.” She ran her pampered-looking hands through her thick, soft wings of hair, one hand, then the other. A sweetish perfume wafted from her. The bunched silk on her wrist reminded Abel of the paper frills you used to see on the stumps of roasts in glossy food magazines.

The one-armed man returned to their table with a tray of pas-, tries: baklava; little pistachio-eyed turbans; something that looked like a small manuscript dipped in custard. One thing Abel and Stewart were agreed on was their dislike of Greek pastries, and they both declined when Melina offered them around. She shrugged, unperturbed, and began eating them herself. Hampering her third and fourth fingers, the double ring looked less like jewelry than some curious splint. Xenia nibbled on one of the turbans.

The weather cleared abruptly. Stewart glanced at Abel. “We’ll go check out the ridge then, shall we?”

As the men stood to go, the two women spoke to each other rapidly in Greek. Melina grinned at Stewart.

“We’d like to invite you to dinner tonight. Both of you.” She spoke with the token coyness of someone evidently used to getting what shfc wanted. “We’ll have the hotel prepare a little feast. Our treat, of course.”

That had been yesterday. They had left the village this morning. Tomorrow they would be back in Athens, the next day home. They came to a turning in the narrow road.

“Shall we go on here or up to the gorge?”

“The gorge.”

Abel turned onto the smaller road.

“And you’ve never actually been unfaithful to Antonia in all the time you’ve been married?”

“No.”

“Not even last night, eh?”

“What?”

“Just asking.”

Here were the strange-looking wind-eroded rock towers.

“Mind stopping a moment? I should get some pictures.”

Alone in the car, Abel watched Stewart jump between the rocks with his camera and tripod. He was in a state of tumult, glutted with sensations. It had been a warm evening, and they had dined outside. After keeping Abel and Stewart waiting an hour, the women showed up on the terrace in extravagant, gleaming outfits: a laced silver bodice on Melina, her midriff bare like a belly dancer’s, loose linen pants flowing from her broad hips, silk frill at her wrist; Xenia in a mauve leather skirt and satin halter top, her freckled, bangled arms looking almost childlike in their thinness. They both wore high heels and makeup. Their hair had been freshly washed and set, and their mingled perfumes billowed ahead of them through the warm air, soft but full of forceful intent, like the scent that hits you as you enter the cosmetics section of a department store.

“What’s this, singles night in the wilderness?” Stewart had asked.

Melina laughed and sat next to him, Xenia seating herself by Abel with a nervous smile that he interpreted to mean that she wasn’t at ease in her getup.

“You look nice,” he heard himself say, an uncharacteristic gallantry that sounded very strange to him as it came out, but for which she seemed grateful.

The women had laid on quite a feast. Champagne and island wines had been procured from the nearest town, fifteen miles away, and a young goat had been slaughtered.

They went rapidly through a couple of bottles of champagne, while the one-armed man brought out dishes of octopus and fried cheese.

“So we were wondering what you guys think we do, for a living,” Melina said. “What do you think, Abel?”

Startled at finding himself for once being addressed by her, Abel blustered. “I—I have no idea . . .”

“You’re a madam in a brothel,” Stewart said, “and your friend here’s a freelance assassin.”

They shrieked with laughter. Jesus, Abel had thought, what kind of witless jackass have I turned into? He downed his glass while Melina continued: “Actually, we both work on Wall Street. We’re investment consultants for a Greek bank. Would you like to guess how much we make in a year?”

“No,” Stewart said, “but I think you’d like to tell us.”

“A little over a million dollars.”

“That’s all?” Abel jumped in, seeing an opportunity to redeem himself. “I pay my driver more than that.”

For this he earned an enthusiastic laugh from Xenia and a faint smile from Melina.

Xenia was smoking while she ate, and after his fifth or sixth glass of champagne, Abel decided to ask her for a cigarette, though he hadn’t smoked in years. She gave him one, took another for herself, and handed him her lighter to light them both. As he held the flame to her cigarette, she cupped his hand, even though there was no breeze to speak of. He was aware of the ridiculously hackneyed nature of the little routine. At the same time—such, apparently, was the hackneyed nature of his response mechanism—he felt a jolt of desire go through him.

He looked into her strange face as he inhaled on his cigarette. She had a slight prematurely wizened look, as though she might have once been undernourished or anorexic. She wasn’t in any sense his type, but he found himself drawn to her, narrowly, as though on a thin thread of mysteriously aroused erotic curiosity. The nicotine swam dizzyingly through his head. The sky had turned violet over the mountains. The one-armed man began hacking up the goat, which had been spit-roasting on a brazier.

“How d’you reckon he lost his arm?” Stewart said.

Melina at once asked the man. His weathered, wrinkled face whorled into a grin as he answered. He was fighting Communists, Melina translated; he was a sniper, used to pick them off in their fields from high in the mountains. Then they captured him, smashed his trigger finger. They were going to execute him, but he escaped. His hand got gangrene while he was hiding in the mountains. It spread all the way up his arm . . . The man burst into laughter and served up the goat.

“Killing Communists, eh?” Stewart said. “Serves him right then.”

“The Communists were worse than the others,” Melina retorted.

“What, are you a Nazi apologist as well as a capitalist pig?”

Stewart said this with a smile, and Melina responded with delighted outrage. They finished the goat, going through several more bottles in the process. Melina spoke to the one-armed waiter, who nodded and disappeared. A moment later there was a bray of harsh, rhythmic music—clarinet, accordion, drum—and a band of ragged-looking musicians appeared on the terrace.

“They’re Albanians,” Melina said under the din. “We found them in Ioannina.”

“Jesus, it really is singles night,” Stewart said.

“We thought you guys might like to dance.”

“I don’t dance with Nazis.”

Melina opened her mouth to laugh but, seeing that Stewart wasn’t smiling now, closed it and looked for the first time unsure of her ground.

“I will drink some more of your booze, though. Not that crappy vino. The Mumm’s.” He held his glass out to be filled. Instead of filling it, Melina passed him the bottle, frow
^r
ning.

“Oho, a pouty Nazi!”

She said nothing. It wasn’t clear to Abel if this was just Stewart’s usual lovers’ quarrel gambit. The idea of his not wanting to sleep with a woman because of her politics struck Abel as unlikely, but there was a glint of what seemed real malice in Stewart’s eye. The four sat in silence. The musicians began stamping their feet and hooting, as if afraid of being dismissed if their patrons didn’t liven up. More to break the tension than anything else, Abel invited Xenia to dance. She accepted with alacrity, and to the delight of the Albanians they took to the floor.

Abel had drunk enough not to feel any self-consciousness as he eased into the all-purpose, low-key shuffle he had perfected as a teenager and felt no subsequent need to embellish. Xenia danced before him, for him, it felt, twirling around, moving a few steps away, but only, it seemed, in order to be continually coming toward him. She held his eyes whenever she did, and the effect on him was powerful. He was aware of not finding her attractive and yet of feeling increasingly mesmerized by her. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Melina in the candle glare of the table, watching them, while Stewart sat drinking in silence beside her. The musicians began playing a slow tune. Again Xenia moved toward him, this time with a tentative, questioning look in her eye. He took her hands and drew her close. The difference between just dancing with her and holding her was immense. His feeling of slight detachment from the situation vanished. With one hand on her small, naked, bony shoulder, the other hand lightly gripping hers, he felt for the first time in many years the vivid carnal reality of a woman other than his wife. The question of whether she was likable or even attractive no longer seemed relevant. He drew her closer, felt her hair brush silkily against his face, then the coolness of her skin against his cheek. His whole body seemed to dilate. Was saying yes instead of no to this all it took, he wondered drunkenly; all it consisted of, that superior vitality of Stewart’s that he had seemed to glimpse back in Kastoria? Circling slowly around, he saw Stewart get up from the table.

“Bedtime for Stewart,” Abel heard him mutter. “Thanks for the chow, girls. G’night...”

He swayed off into the hotel. Melina sat alone for a while, watching them, the frilled silk at her wrist rather tragic-looking now, like the bow on an unwanted present. She ran her hands through her hair, one hand, then the other. A little later Abel noticed that she too had disappeared.

The high mountain road oozed under their tires, softened by yesterday’s rain. It ended abruptly at a narrow footpath. They got out and walked. The air smelled of wet, raw stone.

“What a pair, though. What a profoundly depressing pair. Hope we never get that desperate, eh?”

Abel said nothing.

“That Melina, Jesus! Someone should put a bell round her neck and milk her. As for the wee monkey—”

“—She seemed pretty hot for you. Melina, I mean.”

“You noticed?” Stewart raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I had a midnight visitation from her. She comes into my room in this little pussy-high lace number, all fake teary-eyed, claiming she couldn’t sleep because I’d upset her. I ended up having to let her give me a blow job.”

“That must have cheered her up.”

“I was fucked if I was going to fuck her. Christ, will you look at that!”

The path had come out at the gorge, an abrupt, sheer, granite-shaded plunge of nothingness. A lurch of vertigo went through Abel’s stomach.

“All right?” he heard Stewart ask.

“Yeah.”

“Afraid of heights?”

“No.”

For a moment it was impossible to get a sense of the scale of what he was confronting. The thin glint way down under the furling mist: Was that a little stream or a full-size torrent?

“So the chimp ... I really thought you were going to take one for the team there.”

“Huh?”

“You know . . . Payback for the Mumm’s.
Bojf de politesse.”

“If you mean you were thinking I slept with her, the answer is no, Stewart, I did not.”

A formal denial, he thought as he heard himself uttering it. He wondered how convincing it had sounded. More to the point, how did it make him feel? Anxious? Guilty? He tried to picture himself back home with Antonia, telling the same lie or, if not telling it, living it. . . Was he really going to go back there and continue as if nothing had happened? A distant feeling of horror seized him, as in nightmares he sometimes had, where it was revealed to him that he had committed some unspeakable atrocity. There they were again in his mind’s eye, fixed in the pale winter light of his in-laws’ barn: the swaddled child silently sleeping; his wife all serene, marmoreal immobility, glazed somehow . . . Like the
Pieta
behind her glass screen, he thought, remembering a trip they’d made to Italy for her father’s series, before the baby was born. They’d had to look at the sculpture through the bulletproof glass that had been put there after a man fired a gun in her face.

At the same time a feeling of elation was rising through him. All morning the sense of Xenia naked in his arms on the cool forest floor had been surging back through him in waves; her braceleted hands on his body, the hot musk scent of her throat and breasts as electrifyingly real in memory as they had been in the flesh. It was hard to tell whether he or she had been the more astonished by the sudden, almost frenzied desire for each other that had risen in them the moment he brought her willing mouth against his and kissed her, half deafened by the clamor of the Albanian band. Leaving the musicians to the one-armed waiter, they had stumbled off down through the trees till they fell on a bed of pine needles, unbuttoning and unzipping each other frantically, as if their apartness till now had been the result of a forced separation rather than the simple fact that they hadn’t met. Penetrating her as she gripped the small of his back with her sharp-nailed, jangling hands, he had felt an unfamiliar savage jubilation. More like the pleasure of smashing something to pieces than of making love. Afterward they had gone to his room and slept together on the bed. When he awoke at dawn to leave for the gorge with Stewart, she was gone. But she had left her New York number on a scrap of paper by the bed, scribbled in what looked like crimson felt tip.