Decision at Delphi (6 page)

“There’s one thing I
won’t
do,” Strang said firmly, remembering Steve’s sometimes irritating sense of economy. “I am not going to walk to the hotel.”

“Now, now,” said Steve, “I’ve got a cab waiting, just across the street. Cost me two good American dollars.” He led the way at a half-run. “If he’s gone, I’ll spend tomorrow morning searching for the son of a bitch.”

And he would, Strang had little doubt. “Why not tomorrow afternoon, too?” he asked with a grin as he followed Steve over the hard surface of stone blocks, slippery with rain.

“Because I leave for Taormina then,” Steve said crisply. “There he is!” His cabdriver was yelling at them to run, while he struggled to keep his taxi door closed against the strong pull of a porter’s right arm. “Sorry, lady, the cab is taken. This gentleman has urgent business at the American Consulate,” Steve said to a tourist who had been standing hopefully behind the porter, and settled the question of who was going to open the door by dropping the brief case smartly down on the porter’s arm. “In!” he told Strang. Strang had recognised the dismayed round face of the pink-cheeked lady, now retreating. “Just a minute, Steve—”

“In!” Steve gave a shove with his shoulders, and Strang was in. Steve followed, slammed the door, just missing the porter’s fingers. “Do you know how long it took me to find a cab that would wait? Listen, Ken—for a man who fancies himself as a hard-boiled bachelor, you’re as easy to cut into as a poached egg on toast.” His annoyance wore off. “I’ve often wondered how you ever did stay free. You’re just the type to be caught by a sweet-faced widow, with five children, and two of them crippled. Now don’t get sore! All I’m saying is that you’re a romantic. And I’m a realist. It’s a good thing you’ve got me around, this trip.” He settled himself in the seat of the high-walled taxi, smoothed his hair back from his brow, and gave one of his broad grins. “If that had been a man, back there,” he said, “you’d have told him to get the hell out. But what’s the difference? Women got the vote, didn’t they? They’re equal, aren’t they? That’s what they wanted. So they’ve got it, and we’re all happy. Or aren’t we?” He broke into Italian. “Not that way! Take the direct route. To your right! By God,” he said to Strang, “you would think I was a newly arrived tourist, too.”

In the large, carefully appointed hotel overlooking the sea front, Strang was given a room with a small balcony and a large-scale view of the bay. That pleased him. And the room itself would be a good place to finish his sketches of Paestum— plenty of light from the wall of window, plenty of air from the glass door that led to the balcony, grey tiled floor, white walls, simple furniture, a desk that was steady to the touch, an adequate lamp.

Steve Kladas prodded the bed, tried the two armchairs, ran the shower, flushed the toilet, and pronounced everything—much to his surprise—to be all right. He ordered Scotch and soda and ice, hung up his raincoat in the little entry hall, switched on all the lights, and chose the more comfortable chair. “Haven’t you had enough of sea breezes?” he wanted to know, for Strang had pulled aside the panel of pleated grey silk curtain and opened the glass door that was part of the window wall. He was now watching the high spring tide sending its surging waves across a causeway that led to the little island not much more than fifty yards offshore. Lights were on, down there, blazing cheerfully in the empty restaurants grouped around the island’s small harbour; behind them rose the dark massive shadow of the old
castle whose rugged walls plunged into the sea. Usually, the little restaurants were filled with people and noise and music, making the castle only a backdrop for
Il Trovatore.
But tonight it had reasserted itself. It was the Castel dell’ Ovo, guarding the tiny pleasure harbour of Santa Lucia from the storm as stoutly as it had once fought against Saracen invaders from the sea.

“Shut that door, Ken! You’re blowing the curtains off their hooks.”

Strang came back into the room and made everything fast against the night. “I like it this way,” he said. “It smells better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than Naples in August.”

“And when were you here in August?”

“At the end of the war.”

“Oh—that!” Steve Kladas lost interest.

Strang said jokingly, “You know, there was a war—in fact, five or six wars—outside of Greece.”

Steve looked at him sharply, and then laughed. “Well, I like Naples at any time of year.”

“Sure. It was founded by the Greeks.”

Steve said, “When Preston started enthusing over the Greek western empire, I thought he was nuts. Nuttier than usual, that is. But now, sure I admit it, I’m beginning to catch some of that excitement he kept talking about.”

“Did you never feel it before? When you lived in Greece, did you never look at the ruins and—”

Steve cut in, with a laugh. “Ken, my good friend, if you lived in a village like a thousand other villages where people spent all their days working in the fields and half their nights worrying about the food they couldn’t produce from a rocky hillside, you
wouldn’t have much time to admire the beauty of a line of pillars. It was the foreigners, with books in their hands and stars in their eyes, who had time to admire. Archaeologists did not have to plough a hillside before they could eat.” Steve shook his head. “Now I hear the tourists are following the archæologists. The ruined temples have become big business. So—” he shrugged and smiled—“perhaps the peasants can start catching this general excitement. There’s nothing like money to stimulate cultural interest. But we won’t tell Lee Preston all that.” Steve shook his head again. “How is our bright idea-boy?”

“He came down to see me off.”

“Doesn’t trust anyone to blow his own nose, does he?”

“He’s worried about you.”

Steve didn’t give the guffaw that Strang had expected. “About me?” he asked quietly, blandly innocent.

“Didn’t you get his letter?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s waiting for you downstairs.”

“I’m not staying here,” Steve admitted, and glanced at Strang. “Look, if I’m arranging my expense account to suit me, that doesn’t mean I’m cheating Preston. I’m cheating myself.” He looked round the comfortable room. “And I won’t charge him a penny more than it would have cost me to stay here.”

“If you needed money,” began Strang in embarrassment, “Lee Preston would have—”

“I don’t borrow,” Steve said quickly. “And I don’t need the money for myself. I just need it for—well, for someone else. And I need it pretty damn quick.” He looked at the door irritably. “Where’s that boy with the drinks? What’s he doing?”

“Distilling the Scotch,” Strang suggested.

But Steve had laid aside his comic mask for a tragic one. Morosely, he asked, “You’ve got a sister, haven’t you, Ken?”

“Two, bless their funny hats.”

“And married—”

“Thank God.”

Steve nodded agreement to that. “But they didn’t need a dowry,” he said slowly. Then, back to the brisk, don’t gave-a-damn-for-anyone Steve, “What’s worrying old Preston? Is he thinking I’m going to take photographs for
Life, Look,
and
Holiday,
too? Well, he can drop that idea. I’ve got plenty ahead of me, as it is—plenty.”

“That’s what’s troubling Preston. He thinks you may have your mind on too many things.”

“It’s none of his damned business. I’ll do his job, and do it as well as I can. I suppose he began fussing when I left New York before his final pep talk could be delivered? It was just as well I came here early: I got the Paestum pictures before the weather broke. I spent all of these last two days developing them.”

“How are they?”

“Beautiful,” Steve said with his usual frankness. Modesty was something he considered strictly for hypocrites. “But you should have seen me prowling around Paestum, trying to keep the telephone wires and bungalows out of my backgrounds.”

“Then no retakes are necessary?” Strang asked in relief. “When can I see the prints?”

“I’ll leave the copies at your hotel in Taormina.”

“Leave
them? Look, Steve—you’re going to
be
there when I’m there. In the first week of April. That was the arrangement, remember?”

Steve Kladas looked at him in surprise.

“I need a week at Taormina to get my sketches into shape. Don’t try to talk me out of that, just because you are going to Taormina out of schedule. What’s the rush to get there tomorrow?”

“What does it matter where we begin or end the Sicilian tour? We could just as well have the final get-together in Palermo.”

“And be kept awake by motor scooters until three o’clock each morning? And up again at four, when the peasants yell their news to each other as they drive their donkey carts to market? No, thank you. I’ll work at Taormina.” On a terrace filled with flowers, high over steep hillsides falling down to a blue sea; and Etna, snow-capped, rising slowly into the sky, with a thin spiral of smoke drifting over the volcano.

“Say, you got around in that war,” Steve said appeasingly. “All right, all. right. I’ll see you at Taormina. My, oh, my,” he added softly, with a touch of admiration, “when you dig your heels in, you dig them in.”

“What’s the rush to get to Taormina tomorrow?” Strang asked again.

“That the drinks?” Steve was on his feet, halfway to the door even before the waiter knocked on its panel. “Let me handle this, Ken.” And he did, in Italian that was far from accurate but remarkably effective.

“You know,” Strang said when the boy had left, “that waiter can talk perfectly good English.”

“I like giving orders in Italian. I took plenty of them during the occupation. Funny—we fought the Italians and beat them. Then came the Germans. And what did we get for occupation troops over most of the countryside? Italians. The Germans, of course, kept the big jobs for themselves—like Athens and Salonika.” He paused. “And reprisals,” he added grimly.

“You’ve never told me about your war,” Strang said, curiously.

Steve measured the drinks with more than usual care. “It is something to forget.”

“Is?” Strange echoed the present tense.

“Some things don’t stay buried.” Steve handed Strang his drink. “Here’s to us, anyway!” He added, almost awkwardly, “I mean that. You are just about the only person left I can trust.”

It was always difficult to handle a compliment gracefully. Strang, as usual, retreated into a topic as far away from himself as possible. “How long,” he asked, “have you known the Roilos girl?”

Steve, who had begun walking around the room in a fit of restlessness, halted and stared. “Roilos,” he said very slowly. “What do you know about Roilos?”

“If you’d only collect your mail—”

“You mean Preston wrote me about Roilos?” Steve was tense, grim, and amazed.

“Yes. Katherini Roilos came to his office, just before she left New York. She wanted to—”

“Katherini Roilos?” A look of immense relief spread over Steve’s face. “Never heard of her.”

“No?” asked Strang with a smile.

Steve sat down, searched for a cigarette, and ended by borrowing one of Strang’s. “What does she look like?”

Strang described her.

“And what did she want?”

Strang told him.

Steve’s eyes were worried again, but he still kept shaking his head. “Never met any Katherini Roilos in my life,” he said most finally.

“But,” Strang reminded him frankly, “you recognised the name when I first mentioned it.”

“Why shouldn’t I? There were twenty people called Roilos in our village—twenty in the next one—it’s a common name in some parts of the Peloponnese.”

And feuds were common, too, in the Peloponnese, that large southern stretch of Greece now joined to the mainland only by a bridge over the Corinth Canal; the man-made island of scattered towns where Homer’s heroes had been kings, of lonely farming and fishing villages, of wild mountains and cruel coasts, of hardy people and long memories.

“I’ve heard there are two things that can start a blood feud in some parts of Greece,” Strang said lightly, but he was watching Steve closely. “Kill a man, even in fair fight, and his relatives will kill you.”

“I killed Germans, Italians, collaborators. But it didn’t start any blood feud.” Steve was amused. “So that’s one thing you can stop worrying about. What’s the other?”

“Women.”

“Sure. Greeks take a pretty serious view of their women’s honour. So do I, my friend. I’m still Greek enough for that:” He laughed. “Boy, for an American, you know a lot about Greeks. You’ll stay alive.” He put down his glass, rose, and crossed over to the neatly stacked luggage. He lifted his own case on to the dressing table. “By the way, did I thank you for bringing this little object across the Atlantic?”

“Repeatedly. So much so, I became embarrassed.”

“Okay, okay... Thank you.” Steve turned and gave an elaborate bow. Then, in earnest, “Thank you, Ken.”

“There’s one thing I kept wondering about. How did you
have it sent on board ship in New York?”

“By a friend.” He didn’t elaborate on that. “Did it give you any trouble?” He was searching for a key to open the case.

“When?” Strang could tantalise, too.

“Back at the customs shed.”

“Just about paralysed my right arm.”

“That all?” Steve had got the case open. He looked inside, searching with his hands, nodded approvingly and closed it.

“Not quite.” Strang’s jesting was over. His tone of voice made Steve turn to look at him. “I wasn’t helping to run any contraband, was I?” he asked quietly.

“No. Nothing like that.” Steve was equally graved The cynicism, and its half joking half-serious manner, was gone. “I wouldn’t let you in for that kind of business, Ken,” he said reproachfully.

“I’m glad to hear that”

Steve said angrily, his pride wounded, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Sure. More than you trust me, pal.” But Strang’s broad grin took the edge from his words. “Glad you found everything intact.”

“Hell, I didn’t check the case because of you. Just making sure that no steward had decided to sneak some of the film.” Strang looked startled. “You’re a trusting guy, Ken. Maybe that’s why no one ever steals from you.”