This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) (21 page)

“And remember your kids, Adam? The whole clan was invited and they all came, but their gift to me was brought by Joshua and Zhara. They arrived in time for dinner, bringing with them Oscar Peterson to play the piano and Pearl Bailey to sing “Happy Birthday,” Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd for a little bossa nova. Eric Clapton and the Bee Gees. Their gift alone made my party memorable. Oscar Peterson and Pearl Bailey stayed on for the entire cruise.”

“I did hear about some of it,” said Mirella. “A great deal of what you told me and much more hit every gossip column around the world. I remember seeing many photographs of your glittering party and cruise.”

“That was, of course, not much to my liking. We did everything humanly possible to keep it private, but they used telescopic lenses from boats and tried to break the security ring around the
Topkapi
. Most photographers were satisfied to snap the honored guests as they climbed in and out of the speedboats making the continual run to and from the yacht, but not all of them.

“The official reportage of the party, and the cover stories I agreed to, came out in
Newsweek
and
Time
magazine with me on the cover. All the world loves to read about a rich man,
especially if he owns a ship line. Greek, Turkish, Arab — it’s all the same, as long as he has the right friends and throws glamorous parties. I suppose we can thank Niarchos and Onassis for that.

“The fact that I am only a minor shipowner, and more an international businessman, hardly matters to the media. I am better media fodder if I have a fleet of ships, it makes a more glamorous label. Of course, as I am single, the spotlight is turned as much on my parties in bed as in business. It ups my appeal no end.

“I learned a long time ago to accept that even if the press doesn’t like me, I’m news and so the press decrees that the public does like me. I am for them a means of escape into a world far from their own. Maybe for no longer than it takes to skim through the article, but I serve as escape for them nevertheless.

“Enough talk about my enviable sufferings! The night is young and there is still fun to be had. How about us all going ashore for some music? There are a couple of good places here in Mykonos, disco and bouzouki, a few amusing bars.”

Rashid was not surprised when Adam and Mirella declined; Adam was tired from all the traveling, and Mirella wanted a good night’s sleep before starting their island-hopping.

“Okay, my lovely,” said Rashid, giving Mirella a friendly hug and a kiss. “Until the morning then, you two. We’ll have a wonderful day on Delos. A picnic lunch under the hot sun among the marbles, surrounded by ancient ghosts and the sea.” He patted Adam on the back. The two men shook hands and Rashid happily joined his waiting guests in the launch.

Mirella and Adam waved Rashid and his dozen guests off, as one of the
Topkapi
motor launches bumped across the water toward the picturesque twinkling in the darkness of the night.

14

T
he Mykonos winds came up just after dawn. There was a rough sea, much too rough for the tourist boats to come out from the port, and much too rough for the other guests on the
Topkapi
to leave their cabins, especially after a long night of drinking and dancing on shore.

Rashid was delighted. Except for the guardians of the island, he would be alone with Adam and Mirella to enjoy the archaeological wonders of Delos.

The sun was bright, high in the sky, and, though there was a strong wind, it was a hot summer day. The helicopter landed and the three were joyously welcomed. The pilot handed the two guards a large box of wine and provisions, a gift from Rashid for allowing them to land, and a large wicker picnic basket containing their lunch.

The two men made a great fuss over Rashid, who was delighted with his reception and obviously overjoyed to be there. He gave orders to Taki, one of the guards, where he wanted the table and chairs placed for their picnic. Then, the island theirs, they set off to explore, yet again, this place so dear to each of them.

The uninhabited island of Naxian marble was gleaming in the sun and surrounded by the whitecaps of the rough blue, blue Aegean Sea. Delos, overpowering even in its ruins, still combined the effects of the material and the supernatural. And why not? In ancient times, it was the great center of trading between the Dardanelles and Crete, as well as a great religious center. A reminder that religion and trade flourished together often. Delos had that and more: it had myth as well.

Here, supposedly, Apollo was born, which reminded the three of them of the role that handsome god had played in their lives. It was a statue of Apollo that had brought Adam and Mirella together, ending their final estrangement, and it was the same statue of Apollo that Mirella gave to Rashid in thanks for all they had been to each other. The same Apollo sculpture had been coveted by both men for years before Mirella had materialized to decide who should possess it. And
here they were, the three of them, on the island where Apollo’s mother, Leta, took refuge from the wrath of Hera.

And so, for Rashid and Adam, in their way minor deities of the modern world, Delos held great mystery and wonder. They loved the island and the stories of its ancient beauty, successes, and fate, and sensed still a power remaining amid its debris.

More than for Rashid, the sheer splendor of the island was a wonder to Adam as an archaeologist, an ancient world that was a part of his life.

There had been a lake, now dried up. There was still Mount Kynthos, looking almost man-made in the sunshine. At night, under the full moon, it looked anything but that. In its cold, mysterious beauty it was charming, magical.

Adam had been on the island years before. His schooner had landed one winter night when the moon was full and lit the island as if by a great floodlight. He and Marlo managed to break the law. With the help of the guardians of the island, they were allowed in to experience another wonder of the world — Delos by moonlight.

In the ancient cisterns running beneath what were once great buildings and temples they heard the croak of green frogs and winds whispering like so many ghosts surrounding them. Today in the sunshine Mirella, Rashid, and Adam walked over the stones and were amazed that every time they visited the island, it revealed itself anew to them,

They saw huge, emerald-green lizards roaming in the hot sun with them. They watched the creatures strut and slither over the stones with such propriety. Near the site of the temple that was Apollo’s, they saw a snake weave across his part of the island. In the Agora, near the ancient port, they could feel still the richness and success that had demanded such authoritative building. The layout of everything to the last detail was so elegant, impressive, and grand that it must have had a magnificence almost beyond the imagination. To think of it with all the statues complete and upright made one’s imagination soar in response to what the life of the island must have truly been like.

In reality there is hardly anything upright on the island. It is, for the most part, urbane, ancient rubble of an island city of great importance. And then they appear, the five remaining Mycenaean lions. Lean and slinky in their archaic style, ready
to pounce, as you invade their premises, their privacy. In fact all the poetry and mystery of the place is heightened and you are put on your guard by them.

Rashid and the Coreys walked over the stones, broken marbles, and treasures of they knew not what. But the treasures were there, of that there was no doubt.

Delos, the dry island. No water left, it is spotted with dry brown grass that shivers in the hot wind. Lovely sounds, whispers everywhere. The more you walk into the center and are swallowed up by the battered and broken civilization, the more you feel the ghosts. There are so many mysteries to Delos, you cannot help trying to discover what they are, what they mean. There are facts, too, about Delos that always creep in and are remembered, such as that anything connected with birth or death was removed from the island: they were officially banished from the place. Delos was like a place of immortality outside time. Whatever happened in the ancient days in Delos, the reinforced magic of the place is still strong and very powerful.

It did not seem strange to Adam and Mirella that Rashid should love Delos so much and go there so often. The whole of the Levant had traded there, banked there, worshiped, and felt protected there by the shrines, gods, and myths. There was much of Rashid Lala Mustapha in Delos.

The three walked in silence and let their thoughts merge with the ghosts of so many souls that walked with them. Mirella watched a huge red snake slither over some stones, stretch, and turn in the sun, while she listened to Adam.

“All you ghosts of Delos, you bring into my mind that poem of Cavafy called “The City.”

You said, “I will go to another land. I will go to another sea.

Another city will be found, a better one than this.

Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;

and my heart is — like a corpse — buried.

How long will my mind remain in this wasteland.

Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look

I see black ruins of my life here,

where I spent so many years destroying and wasting.”

You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas.

The city will follow you. You will roam in

the same streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;

and you will grow gray in these same houses.

Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other —

There is no ship for you, there is no road.

As you have destroyed your life here

in this little corner, you have ruined it in the entire world.

No one spoke for a few minutes. The hint of a tear glistened in Rashid’s eyes when he looked at Adam and said, “You could have been a Turk, or a Greek for that matter. To know Cavafy, to feel Cavafy as you do, shows me that you have the heart and soul of the Levant in you.”

The poem, the place, her lovers left Mirella unable to say anything. Adam sighed and smiled, feeling contentment with himself and the world.

Rashid put his hand out to Mirella and helped her by swinging her up a few feet to the level where he was standing. He put his arm around her and they walked up to a lone statue still standing upright. Adam on her other side walked with them. The figure was headless and armless: feminine and draped in the softest folds of marble. It was larger than life-size and might have been statue of Cleopatra, who had once visited the island, and lived there for a time with Anthony.

Adam and Mirella sat at the feet of the astonishingly heroic lady, holding hands and looking across the ruined city out to sea, while Rashid stood back and recited to them. He chose a poem of his old acquaintance George Seferis, and when finished, he sat down with his friends. After a short silent interlude where the only sounds were those of the island, he said, “Ah, to be a Turk and understand a Greek is to be king.”

A smile broke across his face and he laughed loudly, and it echoed through the precious stones of the island and rolled out across the water. He stood up, and with outstretched hands he pulled Mirella to her feet.

“Come,” he said, “I am famished, and we have a delightful lunch waiting for us.”

They worked their way among the ruins against the wind, under the hot sun, and then descended to what once must have been a grand house in ancient Delos. The floor of the room they walked across had been excavated and restored. The mosaics were magnificent, and on them Taki had set a table and three chairs. The silver plates and crystal glasses on white linen gleamed and sparkled among the marble ruins.

“We’ll dine now with the ancients, drink with the gods; and laugh with the wind. May it be like this for the three of us always,” was the toast Adam gave. The three rose from their chairs, raised their glasses high to the gods, and drank.

Mirella and Adam left Rashid and Adam’s pilot on Delos to be picked up by the
Topkapi
’s helicopter. The last they saw of Rashid was when Adam piloted his copter across Delos for one last look from the air, and there was Rashid standing almost exactly in the center of the island waving farewell. They could just hear him shouting, “Dinner, in Istanbul, in four days’ time.”

He looked like a living Apollo.

Mirella and Adam flew from one glorious island to another, the white villages sparkling in the sun. Once they left the wind behind them, from the sky the green islands looked like emeralds, the barren ones like yellow diamonds, and all the villages like lustrous pearls dropped on a shimmering blue satin sea.

First to Paros, where they slept in a valley of butterflies, and then to Anti-Paros, where they climbed the barren hills on donkeys while waiting for their fish, fresh from the sea, to be cooked. They swam naked in deserted coves whenever and wherever it took their fancy.

In Naxos they landed on a high hill and walked through a grove of twisting, turning olive trees, where they could see below what was once the ancient quarry of Ston Apollonas, and the half-completed marble blocks, thirty-three feet long, of an unfinished
kouros
from the seventh century B.C.

It was hot, and very quiet. Too hot even for the birds to sing, but not the cicadas clicking their constant Grecian tune. Hand in hand the Coreys wove their way between the trees, trying to stay in the shade of the silvery green leaves, and slipped and slid down the hill.

Perspiring and breathless with the heat, yet feeling high on
happiness, and drunk with the passion and beauty of the Greek islands, their past and their present, and their very personal and private tour, Adam felt randy for Mirella all the time.

He was acutely aware that he was living through that excruciating, exciting time in one’s life that happens to most of us at least once for a long time, or several times for short periods. That delicious, self-indulgent period when you and your partner are oblivious to anything but yourselves. A superbly egocentric time when the woman in a man’s life is his world, his goddess, and he would do anything and everything not to lose her. That gorgeous “in-love” state when he thinks his partner is the most marvelous creature, exciting woman in the world. That obsessive time when she never leaves his mind, traveling with him every minute of the day and night wherever he goes.

Everything they did and everything they saw, from the moment they left Rashid in Delos, was an adventure in love, togetherness, oneness.

As if reading Adam’s mind, Mirella, still holding his hand, stopped, put her arms around his neck and placed her head on his shoulder and rested against him, wanting to feel his strength, his love for her through her body.

He gently pushed her away and looked deeply into her eyes, and taking her hand again, he led her to a tree and stood her against it. Both her hands in one of his, he lifted her arms above her head and pressed them hard against the tree trunk. With his free hand he undid the buttons of her cream silk shirt, exposing her naked breasts.

She said nothing, she did nothing. She felt a burning sensation in her wrists from his tight grip, and Rashid’s diamond bracelets rubbing against her skin, but she remained silent, pinioned by him to the rough bark.

He held her that way and took a step backward, better to absorb the sight of her naked, heavy breasts. Beads of perspiration on them glistened in the sun, only making them look more voluptuous, beautiful, and desirable. He roughly pulled her shirt farther away from her body, and watched her nipples harden and become erect. Then he raised his eyes to hers and said, “I love you.”

He kissed her wildly, passionately. There was an animal
sexuality about him at that moment. Mirella saw it and said, “What if someone sees us?”

He laughed and ordered, “Take your clothes off,” as he began to undress himself. Mirella did not protest.

He felt wild, desperate to take her: she could see that in his eyes, the way he moved. They were both naked when he took her in his arms roughly, trying to blot out that “in-love” state he felt for her. In that, he was like most men who suffer the condition: he could enjoy it, but preferred to keep it secret and under control.

He fucked her standing against the tree. He was hard, almost crude with his cock, but quite tender and passionate with his lips and his mouth. For Mirella it was wonderful, wild and crazily abandoned, being made love to naked in the bright, open sunlight, in an olive grove on a Greek island, the legendary haunt of Dionysus, the god of wine. Where the beautiful Ariadne was abandoned as a bride by Theseus, prince of Athens. And while looking down into the valley where lay a colossus, the incomplete
kouros
, in the tall grass.

She kissed and bit him with a wild passion of her own, dug her long red fingernails into his back, and gasped when he pulled her away from the tree, bent her over, and took her from behind. Neither could hold back their passion any longer, it exploded in the untamed setting of the Naxian landscape under the burning sun and seared their naked bodies. They came together, only this time with all passion out of control. They screamed ecstasy to the mythical gods and the glorious day.