Three Rivers (12 page)

The mirror also reflected a box covered in silver paper and tied with a string of gold. Inside, lying on a bed of natural shredded silk, was an exquisite Pharaonic scarab of pure gold about the size of her thumb. Isabel lifted it out of its bed of shredded silk and as she did, she gasped with surprise and admiration at what she saw. Attached to the scarab and hidden in the silk threads were ancient gold beads that had been strung together with occasional large freshwater pearls. It did, in fact, turn out to be a four-strand choker, the clasp being under the scarab.

There was a card in the bottom of the box. It said: “Isabel, this is a token gift simply to say thank-you for coming. Alexis.”

She put the choker on immediately and opened the top two buttons of her dress. Where should she wear the scarab? Front? Back? Side? Should she wear it to breakfast, or should she be cool and not wear it? She would wear it. No, she changed her mind; she would not.

How should she thank him in front of other people? Or should she not? Perhaps a note? Or should she ring him on the phone? She did not know quite what to do.

In the end she wrote a note and gave it to Gamal to deliver to his master. It read: “Thank you. You are spoiling me with so much beauty and attention. Please do not
hold breakfast up for me. I will make a phone call and be with you shortly.”

Five minutes later a note was delivered to Isabel by Gamal. “Get used to it. I have only just begun. Alexis.”

III

Monday/Athens

Dear Isabel
,

Either you call from exotic places like Cairo on a line where I can barely hear you, or nothing. Ava said you called her a few days ago from London. I don’t know what you said to her but she was annoyed about something. I know what is really bothering her but I can’t say. She would like to tell you off but won’t. You didn’t tell her you were going to Cairo. What is the secret, why so mysterious? It would have been more sensible to call me before you left your home, what if there had been a plane crash, how would I know where you were? I bet you don’t even carry an identification tag on your body. Darling, I know you only mean well, but you do not think things out in a practical way. We are not getting any younger. Try and be more responsible
.

It was so nice to talk to you a few minutes ago, bad line and all. I wish you had let me know that you were going to Egypt. I have always wanted to go and see the pyramids. Do be careful, remember that they hate all Jews. I recently met some people who went on a cruise and they said that Egypt was filthy, such poverty and flies. When they went on that famous Nile the captain told them not to fall overboard, that they would be dead before they hit the bottom, that is how many diseases there are in it
.

How disgusting
.

You always look for trouble
.

I still don’t understand what you are doing there, you said you were not on holiday. What kind of job could there be for you there? Well, never mind, what you do is
your business. I never know what to say to people when they ask how you are and what you are doing. I tell them you are well and busy working, what else can I say?

What a busy week this has been for me. I would have told you on the telephone what the doctor said but you cut me short when I told you that he said I would live. Would live, darling, does not mean I am in the best of health, so next time, don’t cut me short
.

We are having such beautiful days here, I am very happy with the climate. There are other things that I am not happy about but I don’t want to complain. If there is anything I am not, it is a nagging complaining mother. You must admit that I have done very well on my own since Daddy died. I have been no burden on anyone and have taken nothing from you. Think of the mother that I might have been, then there would be none of these little flings in Cairo, would there, kid?

Don’t try and fool me, I know you are there on a little holiday and that you just kept it from us because you probably did not want to hurt our feelings, having decided not to visit your mother and sister. Ava and I understand you better than you think, you can’t fool your old mother. Good luck to you. You know what I always say, you better laugh and go when you are able to because when you get older, you have had it. I am a good example of what happens. Your children and friends hardly have time for you and rightly so, and if they do, your health gets in the way from being with them
.

I have a very good life here and it was very lucky that Ava and Alfred inherited their house and built their pool when they did, all those years ago. The life here is social and easy and the climate is wonderful. Of course, I suffer too much in the heat of the summer, even with my air-conditioner
.

My dear, listen to your old mother, it is hell to be old and alone. I moved here because it is closer to you girls than Massachusetts. I bought this flat and there is no return for me but it is a compromise. I am so tired of making compromises, but what can I do? Where was I to go? At least I am near Ava, who is wonderful to me. Of course, I would rather live in London, such a wonderful city, but I cannot afford a London life, I am not a famous whatever-you-are in the art world, and in Athens I can live well. Ideally, I would prefer six months in each
place. I do not go to London for the simple reason that I do not want to be a burden on you. Not that I am on Ava, I have all my own life going here. Too bad you don’t come and live near us. Oh, if I had my life to live over
.

I am sending this letter to your house in London since you say that you will be back there in a week’s time. For the same money that you paid to go to Cairo, you could have stopped off to see us. We are your family, you know
.

On the phone you could not give me a hotel where you were staying. What were you afraid of, that I might appear? I do resent having to ask that Chink where to reach my own daughter
.

Ava and I went shopping. She is looking as beautiful as ever and still gets the eye from the men. I bought a new pair of shoes and they are really lovely, not the expensive Charles Jourdan that you wear. I hate their styles. They are too extreme. Actually, I honestly think they only look good on girls in their twenties, not older ladies like us, but, darling, don’t let me stop you, as long as you can walk in them I suppose you will be stubborn and wear them
.

Believe me, Isabel, you have the right attitude. Being selfish is a much better bet. I hope you had a nice holiday in Egypt, write soon, love you
.

Mother

The October sunshine lit up Kolonaki Square. The traffic was in abundance, and the outdoor cafés were filling up with people on their way home for lunch and a siesta. There was a freshness in the air, but it was warm.

At the Café Byzantium most of the tables outside were filled, and the waiters were doing their rush-around with ouzos, Camparis, whiskey sodas, tiny saucers of rich, black olives, salted peanuts and potato chips. Now and again a waiter would appear, and with a flourish of white cotton a table would be set for lunch.

The Byzantium had the most comfortable chairs, the oldest waiters, the best food, and the drinks seemed a bit larger than those in all the other cafés in the square. It had something else: the oldest and the most interesting clientele. The younger people that favored the Byzantium were writers, painters, movie directors, poets and a sprinkling of pretty young girls who were brought along for
decoration. It was more serious than fashionable, more solid than flash and always amusing to watch.

Sitting at one of the tables with his back to the plate-glass window of the café was a man with a shock of white hair. He was a big man with a rough, craggy handsomeness and kind blue eyes. A retired admiral of the Greek Navy, this man of seventy had an impeccable reputation and was admired by young and old alike for his courage and service to his country. There was always a stream of people passing his table to say hello or shake his hand. Constantine Dendropoulos usually arrived at his table every day at 12:15. Friends and acquaintances would sit and chat with him through drinks, lunch and coffee until four o’clock. Then he would leave, to walk diagonally across the square to his penthouse flat, where he lived with a cook, maid and a famous maritime library.

The admiral had been widowed for eight years, and every matron in Athens was after him for marriage, but to no avail. Three times a week he paid a visit to a married woman in Glyfada who was separated from her husband. She was his lover and friend and had been for fifteen years. He found her when she was eighteen years old. Everyone in Athens knew about it, but since he never took her out in public, no one ever gave it much thought.

The admiral’s money and pension, as well as the aura of respect he had around him, were only a few of the things that made this man so attractive to women. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word and, although retired, worked five hours a day for the Navy on all sorts of interesting projects. The Naval Department had given him a young officer named Dimitri Ionou who assisted him and traveled with him everywhere, including the visits to Glyfada. At those times he remained in the car with the driver.

During the midday outings at the Byzantium, Dimitri, who also acted as a bodyguard, took a table close by and spent the time reading his paper and receiving a few friends of his own. On his days off he was replaced by a seaman who acted as bodyguard only.

On this day, the seaman, named Petros, was sitting at the table close to Constantine, watching the girls go by. A few old cronies of the admiral were also sitting at his table, and they were having a heavy political discussion, about a country other than Greece, for a change. It was
broken up by a young man who came by to collect one of the men and take him home for lunch. The other man left when Constantine called a waiter and ordered his own lunch.

The admiral had waited for over an hour for the American lady who sometimes lunched with him. They had met here at the Byzantium when she tried to order lunch one day, in vain. She spoke no Greek, and since she was sitting at the table next to his, there was nothing to do but help her out. They met many times after that, always sitting at their own tables and now, after several months, she always ate with him when she came to the café.

Constantine was close to being a chain-smoker. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and remembered that he had smoked his last one. At that moment one of the endless line of unattractive Athenian widows, dressed in the traditional widow’s weeds — black, black, black and dull, approached his table. Always the gentleman, Constantine stood up and greeted her with as much politeness as possible. The inevitable invitation to dinner was extended by the lady, and his inevitable refusal was accepted, if not too graciously, by the lady. They said good-bye and he went into the café for a packet of Papastratos. Petros, the seaman bodyguard, started to follow him but Constantine waved him to sit down. Returning to his table, he was delighted to see Kate Wells waiting for him.

She looked flustered, upset, angry. Something surely was wrong. He sat down, picked up her hand and kissed it, telling her how delighted he was to see her, and surprising himself with the realization that he truly meant it. There was something about this tiny, plump American lady that warmed him. She was so soft, sweet and considerate — something he rarely saw in the Greek widows, something rare even in the young Greek girls. She was always dressed with taste and quality, and more than once he had seen and heard Greek ladies remark on her clothes as she went by.

“Kate, you are very late today. I had almost given up the idea of seeing you.”

“Oh, I had to go to the post office to mail a letter to my daughter. She just called me from Cairo and invited me to join her there for a few days. She hates to travel without
me. She always says that she has a much better time with her mother than most other people.”

“Are you going?”

“No, I told her she must learn to do without me. I will not always be here, and frankly, Constantine, I am too happy with my life here in Athens to bother traveling. Oh, it is something with these children. You would think that once they grow up, they would leave you with some peace and quiet, but they don’t.”

The elderly couple parted after lunch, Kate to her daughter Ava’s house for a visit, and Constantine across the square to his flat, with his seaman, Petros, trailing a few paces behind. Petros was carrying a package of chocolate-chip cookies that Kate had made for Constantine. She was always doing nice little things for him. There was the time that she knew his cook was ill and had sent over a roast for his dinner; once she had brought him a carton of cigarettes that someone had given her — on and on the gestures went, finally adding up to a kindliness offered with no strings attached, something unusual and very pleasing to the old admiral.

Often, when they parted the admiral immediately sensed a loss of something comfortable. She was the only American woman that he had ever met for more than a brief introduction, and he liked her, thinking her brave to have given up her own country in order to live her last years out near her daughter in Greece. He had a large circle of friends with as full a social life as he cared to have. They were all Greeks, but most of them spoke English as well as French, and had traveled extensively. He had brought Kate Wells to meet them several times, and they all seemed to find her a pleasant addition to their group. The old admiral was beginning to think she would be quite nice to take to bed.

They had been out to dinner a few times with the daughter, Ava, and son-in-law, Alfred, a charming couple. The daughter was an attractive flirt, and had all but made a pass at him. Obviously, the girl had a great frustration in her life. There was something both aggressive and childish about her, a kind of hardness that the mother did not have. He wondered if the daughter had a lover. Probably not. She would be too difficult for a casual affair and seemed too conservative and moral for a steady, longtime lover. He knew the daughter to be very good to
Kate, but found her too authoritarian towards her when they were together. He also realized that Kate needed someone to take care of her.

It came as a surprise to Constantine that he was thinking of taking care of Kate Wells himself. He thought she might be happier to have a husband, and a home to run again, and he saw her as a pleasant companion to that end. They both loved the Kolonaki life and his country, so their last years certainly would be comfortable. As for his lady in Glyfada, he would always visit her for sex, unless Kate’s life with him made Glyfada unnecessary.

Constantine knew that Kate was attracted to him physically by the way she subtly managed to bump against him, touch his arm or take his elbow when they walked together. Often she would brush a crumb off his lapel or remove a white hair from his jacket. There were so many signs of affection that she showed, and yet never once did she push or press him for attention. There were other things that fascinated Constantine about Kate. For instance, her background.

There had never been anything but Greek marrying Greek in Constantine Dendropoulos’s family for as far back as the family archives and property deeds could prove. They were Greeks on his mother’s side who were sea captains and landowners from the islands of Naxos and Siphnos. On his father’s side were shipbuilders and shipping merchants from the island of Andros. They were all simple island people who made their fortune through hard work and shrewd dealings, and they were proud Greeks. The family had been in the service of their country for hundreds of years. In all the family, there had only been one Dendropoulos who emigrated from his country to America, and he was only spoken of when absolutely necessary. About the only good thing in that emigrant’s favor was that he returned home to find a wife, married a girl from the Mani and shortly afterwards dropped dead from a heart attack before he could return to America. That was fifty-six years ago. Constantine’s family’s story was one of deep roots, security and contentment, and it was no wonder that he was fascinated by Kate’s background.