Cast in Doubt (2 page)

I have dinner at the same restaurant every night. I adore their lamb and fish, and their salads are always fresh. When I go to the movies I take Yannis, if he wants. Helen and Yannis appear to tolerate each other. She knows a little Greek and they transact whatever is necessary in a simple tongue. The foreign movies have Greek subtitles, are never dubbed, and apart from the noise of the worry beads that are swung wildly during action movies, it is perfectly easy for any English-speaking foreigner to follow them. We go often, Helen and I, at 6 P.M. generally.

It was Yannis who told me that Helen sleeps with sailors from the naval base. So it wasn’t precisely my discovery; it was Yannis’, and he is much more in the position than I to find out such material. When he told me he clasped his hands together and rubbed his palms in what amounts to a lewd gesture. He is a simple boy, after all, and simple peasant boys, even those who sleep with rich foreigners—foreigners here are thought to be rich and are, relatively so—these boys are terribly self-righteous and bigoted. My first thought was, when does she do it? because she seems always to be at home, on her terrace. Of course they may visit her in that decrepit house and leave stealthily in the early morning, when the sun is just nudging up over the harbor. Nectaria as well as Chrissoula must know what is going on, but neither has let on to me. Nectaria is terribly open-minded for one raised in such a seemingly rigid society. But then we are foreigners, and their rules don’t apply to us. No one can be as good as they are. I think I am slightly disappointed in Helen, my vision of Helen, though I hesitate to admit this even to myself and never would to the others.

I rub my hands, the way Yannis did but without the lewdness. Lately there’s been a numbness in my hands and feet. Luckily I’m not a painter like Bliss, wherever he is, with wife number-whatever-it-is, because my hands, when numb, are useless and couldn’t hold a brush or even a rag. They tingle annoyingly. Were my eyes to become numb so that they froze in their sockets, I’d be morbidly worried. I wouldn’t be able to read. And life would be over for me.

As if to forestall such a terrible fate, I vigorously shake my legs and arms. Yannis must think me mad. I leap up and down, stamping my feet and jerking my hands. Then I pull my short white terry around me and recline in my favorite chair. The blood must have shot to the colder points of my body. I’m not in good health, and in the States I’d receive better medical attention or be compelled to by high-minded friends. Still, I’m quite happy to be outside of Massachusetts and out of the reach of my brother and his Puritan wife, who would probably love to place me in a hospital.

Perhaps my eyes are already numb and stuck in their sockets. They are large and protruding, colored a limpid blue, which, after much wine, turns milky and pale, while the whites go pink. My eyes might be a suitable flag for the spanking-new gay republic in the States. Though I believe there may already be one. If I stare into the mirror for any length of time and fix my eyes upon myself, I realize again what I did when I was only seven. I am quite repulsive, like a frog.

Helen doesn’t seem to care or notice how strange-looking I am. My head, for instance, is too big for my body, I always had the largest hat size in any class at school, and when measured, the hatmaker would invariably remark on it. I was called alternately Big Head or Egg Head, and fortunately my other extremities were of normal size so I didn’t suffer much from that, when I was young. Here the boys don’t seem so focused on size as we are in the States. From what I can tell, before puberty they all play with each other’s genitals and at puberty some boys are the girls, and some the boys. There is now a young pretty blond who is much fussed over by the others, even courted by them. When they walk along the harbor, he is positioned in the center. The other boys keep their arms around him, or at times one of the boys might hold the favorite more possessively, to claim his rights in the moment. It swiftly changes, but the blond boy always remains the girl. And if his future is like that of the others I’ve seen, he will probably wind up a homosexual, despised by his present mates and sexual partners, and exiled to Athens where he will find others of his kind.

Helen is friendly with these boys and may not be aware of their arrangements. Their contact is limited by language, although one of them has told me that he will take her English class as soon as he finishes high school. He says his mother might pay for it. Helen goes with them to the beach. She does not like going there alone. It is a novelty for Cretan men to see young women on their own, as well as lying half-naked on the beach; to them it is always an invitation. Sometimes they just stand and look at her, from a distance. Sometimes they take out their penises to show her. She is frightened by this.

I haven’t the heart to tell her that I probably would be delighted if they did that with me. It would not frighten me. But then I am different from Helen. In many important ways. She may be as promiscuous as I, or more, but that would be in her own feminine manner. This manner seems not to include cooking. We had one lamentable meal which she cooked and we ate on my terrace. Smitty had the good grace not to apologize for it. I don’t believe people should apologize for what they can’t help. Helen professes to having no artistic ability. In any case, she can’t render life as it is or even close to what it is. I am not sure what she is good at, though I am sure she is good at something. I have always been good with words, and wrote terribly smart compositions about military heroes when I was a lad, pleasing my mother but not impressing my father, who would have, in true American fashion, preferred brawn to brain, especially in a boy that age. My brother, older by four years, was his favorite. Instinctively I knew fairly early that I would never please my father and gave up before beginning, really. I realized he wouldn’t ever love me, and I clung to my mother beyond reason—though I don’t know why I put it quite like that—and she adored me, even when I came to despise her a little. As I grew older and I outgrew her, I was less in need of her protection, such as it was. Nevertheless, when I was at home, I always took her side; my brother, my father’s. I don’t know how Helen feels about her paterfamilias or materfamilias.

Helen has reminded me there is no word in English for man-hating, no equivalent to the Greek misogyny. This bothers her but she is careful not to seem as if it really matters to her. I appreciate her sangfroid, because I would hate to have to minister to her. She never makes this necessary, however, although from what I hear from Yannis, much occurs in her life, as if she were a contemporary Colette. I wonder what that woman was truly like. I’d rather know Jean Genet, but I don’t think he’d be interested in me.

I walk to the restaurant where my usual table awaits me. Christos brings a bottle of wine and opens it with a flourish.
Kali spera
, Horace, he exclaims. We exchange pleasantries. I look up and see Helen on her terrace. It’s just after five. The fishermen are doing what they do with their boats and talking among themselves. Their faces are brown and their skin, even from this distance, seems thick as hide. I’d like to pinch one of their cheeks, to see if he feels it. To me these men are impervious. I pour myself a glass of wine. The wine is cold and dry, much needed after a frustrating afternoon of work on Household Gods. It is so difficult to understand the mind of a woman of that time, perhaps a woman of any time. Like Helen. Though my Helen is, in so many ways, sympathetic and, of course, present. But trying to conceive and fashion the sense and sensibility of a nineteenth-century feminist abolitionist temperance reformer, and fold her character into a modern novel—it’s Great-Aunt Martha who drives me to drink.

That miserly Roger has taken a table near me, not with me; we are cautious about possible presumptions. Yannis hardly glances at him, the other American with whom he once lived, very briefly. Roger sucks on his cigarette, looks toward Helen’s house, and through his small teeth hisses a distasteful remark about her. I declare him a Nelly, and he waves me off with his hand, as if it were possible to banish me. He is not alone in his contempt for Helen. Of the expatriates I am the only one who spends time with her. She doesn’t seem to mind and has indicated that she finds the others very uncool, which is how she put it. When someone speaks like that, uses words such as cool and so forth, I think of the forties and fifties and clubs in New York and Boston where I heard jazz played by excellent musicians, Negro musicians, who seemed indifferent to their white audiences. Black musicians. When it came into existence not so long ago, the phrase “Black is Beautiful” delighted me. It still does. Black is beautiful.

Roger shifts in his chair and pretends to write in his journal. We are, unfortunately, almost all of us here, writers. This is a curse at times though relatively amusing at others, especially after I’ve had a few glasses of wine. Roger had a minor success with his first novel, set in the South, a coming-of-age drama that elided his homosexuality, masking it through other characters that the cognoscenti recognized. Then he received a good advance for his next, which is what he’s still working on, and left the States. Years ago. Even in this place he lives somewhat in the closet. I don’t know why he is here. The Greeks don’t care, not about us. I’ve even seen him flirting with Helen as if he might actually want her.

It was late one night in Christos’ restaurant and one of the waiters had taken out his guitar and was playing bouzoúiki music. There were very few people about. Bouzoúki music has an insistent, demanding sound, and its nervous rhythm set the tone that night. Roger bowed to Helen and fairly lifted her out of her chair, waltzing her around the room while gazing ardently into her eyes as he moved her this way and that. It was quite a performance. That was in the first month she was here.

I don’t know if Helen was taken in. He can be charming and has the foulest mouth. Again Roger says something about Our Miss Helen and The Sailors. Roger gets so Tennessee Williams, more Tenn than Tenn. He’s not from the Deep South, but from North Carolina only, yet he taunts me with his Southern drawl. When he feels he’s scored a point—Roger surely keeps score—his bright blue eyes flash triumphantly. His eyes are much more beautiful than my own, which pale by comparison. So bright shines our Roger. Oh, shut up, I hiss back. Tsk, tsk, Roger responds. I close my eyes, like a turtle in the sun, and turn away to show my disdain. But now Alicia arrives and walks our way. Her presence has an immediate salutary effect. Around Alicia, we keep our gloves on, so to speak.

Alicia has had affairs with a few important literary men, who have deigned to write about her, one salaciously, in fact, and though well past fifty, I’d say, Alicia moves like a much younger woman. She is subtly sensual. Her operatic past surrounds her, and she’s dramatic without being oppressive. A tall, athletic woman, Alicia nevertheless gives the impression of fragility, a fragility that is generally contradicted by her rough-minded, though gently spoken, discourse. Alicia nearly escapes the categories I ordinarily place people in. Her conversation is often elliptical, and like Roger, she can be sharp-tongued; but she is never as vulgar as he. Alicia is suspicious of Helen, whom she’s had for tea and to whom she has offered piano lessons, should Helen want them.

I’d like to find out why Alicia suspects Helen and what she suspects her of. But not in front of Roger. And why has Alicia offered Helen music lessons? What happened at that tea?

The Maori love, Roger is saying, just as we do. The aborigines love as we do. Love, Roger is saying, is universal, whatever form it may take. Alicia interjects liltingly, Yes, dear, but who are we and what do we love? Roger’s cunning eyes take her in joyfully, as if they are, and he is, eating her up. Then he clasps one of her pearlescent hands in his and kisses it. Why, Alicia, we love each other, he says. I love you, dear. Alicia taps the filtered end of her Greek cigarette. She taps it incisively, as if to signal that she is about to make her point. Ever so distinctly she whispers, Roger, I haven’t a clue what love is. Do you want to teach me? Alicia calls his bluff every time, but so gracefully, Roger cannot figure out how best to respond. He has never reviled her with his wicked tongue. I am sure he would like to. Alicia’s mouth asserts her intelligence, curving into a calculated smile that sets Roger back a drink or two.

Tonight I am annoyed by this charade and bored. Sometimes I don’t mind repetitions, but I always prefer originality. I look toward Helen’s terrace, and this time her head bobs up. She waves her tan arms above her head energetically, calling to me. There’s your Psyche, Alicia says. Perhaps you’d better go to the sweet girl, all alone. Roger howls. Alicia exhales a mouthful of smoke. You two, I say waspishly, are unkind, despicable.

I am shaky on my feet. The water slaps against the harbor and the blue sky is under my feet as well as above my head. My legs have gone numb again. Yannis helps me walk away from the table. I believe I’m leaning on him coquettishly, like some Southern belle, or perhaps I’m merely an old drunk, a silly aging queer. I don’t care what they think. Sometimes I hate everyone but Nectaria, Helen and Yannis. Yannis is quite solicitous this evening. I wonder what he wants. Or how much. I rest my head on his broad shoulder—he is short but muscular. I thank the gods for my family’s ingenuity which has provided what I have, such as it is. I can keep Yannis and myself. Alicia and Roger are laughing in the background. I simply don’t care.

Bring me my slippers. Give me my robe. Coffee. Yannis hands these to me sulkily, and as it is early, and as I am barely awake, barely alive, and cannot face an argument with a boy a good deal less than one third my age, not at this hour, I do not complain, do not comment on his surly manner. The coffee is lukewarm. I pull myself together, like a shanty thrown up against a storm, and look instead toward Helen’s terrace.

There she is. She glances up as if I had in some magical way contacted her. She waves her hand above her head and points toward the sea. I suppose this means she is going to go to the beach. And now—at this I lean forward against the rusty railing—she thrusts her arms out in front of her as if gripping a wheel, a steering wheel. She’d like to go for a drive with me. I nod yes and indicate with a flourish of the hands—not this minute, later. She looks down at her book.