Three Rivers (38 page)

Ava walked back on the arm of Alfred, saying what a nice day it was. Then, after the walk, the four cardplayers sat down for their game. Everyone was terribly concerned
that Ava not feel left out. No, no, she was very happy with herself. She would go up on her little hill and join them later for coffee and cake.

Ava walked up to her well-arranged little haven on the tiny hill. There was a small breeze, a hot breeze, as if someone had opened an oven door. Yet, in the warm air, her pink polka dot dress was turning and moving. She looked at it and thought:
It is me without me, dancing in the air
, and was enchanted.

First she arranged herself in the sun, but that was much too hot. Then she moved to the shade and decided to work on her writing. She settled down but could not keep her mind on it. She closed the box after only a few minutes and decided to do some exercises.

She stretched and moved her disciplined body. It was hard work but always rewarding. Once she started on her program of exercises, there was no stopping. Heat or no heat, she completed them, then collapsed down next to the writing-box, exhausted. She decided that if she went in for a swim, she would be revived.

She all but dragged herself down the little hill, along the beach and into the sea and was indeed revived. After her swim she felt energy again in her body and went all wet and dripping to visit the cardplayers. She sprinkled them with the salt water, and pushed her wet body up against Takis’s chair so that he could feel her through his back. She ran her wet arms over Alfred’s cheeks to cool him down, but she ignored Philipos and Evangalia. She looked at the various hands being held and managed to drip water over their cards, making very indiscreet remarks about the hands being played. In general, Ava made a fuss and disturbed them.

As the cardplayers paid her no attention nor had any reaction, she went to the portable bar and poured herself a double Scotch, drank it down and announced that she was going to her haven on the hill and that she was not to be disturbed for coffee; she was going to have a sleep.

She lay down and drank in that wonderful feeling of the sun sucking up the wet, penetrating the skin and melting out the nerves of her body. She moved her body under the sun and felt glorious.

She thought about Kate but then decided that there really was not much to think about except that she would hear soon enough that Kate was restless, that the cruise
was a mistake, that Egypt was filthy and that she hated her family in America. She was sure to return to Athens, but all that would take at least a few weeks, maybe a couple of months even. Who was to know? By that time her affair with Takis would be well secured. No, there really was not much to think about Kate, for the moment anyway.

It was Ava’s conscious intention not to think about Kate.

As she lay there, baking now in the hot sun, Isabel appeared in her thoughts. Ava could not help but wonder what Isabel was doing. Was she getting ready to be married? Was she being married at that moment? Was she being fucked at that moment for more diamonds? Was she back in London after realizing what a mistake she had nearly made?

What if Alfred was right and this kind of man did love her? Isabel would have pulled off a coup. Ava could not bear Isabel’s pretense of loving. The
diamonds
were why she was involved. It had
nothing
to do with loving. It was that basic dishonesty of Isabel’s that irritated Ava beyond reason. That nonsense about love.

Ava felt herself growing restless again. She realized that she simply did not want Isabel’s marriage and new life to happen. She jumped up from her blanket, bored with sunning herself and thinking of her sister; angry about the time she had wasted. She went to the writing-box and took out a few typewritten pages; she would sit in the sun and read them. Ava saw and heard the cardplayers through the pine trees. She pitied them for their dull, boring lives.

Realizing how important she was always put Ava in a better mood. She lay down on her stomach, her head and shoulders stretched over the edge of the little hill that hung over the Narcissus. With her two arms stretched out into space and holding her papers in her hands, she began reading.

After the first paragraph she stopped to think over what she had just read. She thought it perfect, and while she was lying there, she stretched her body and her arms even further out. She looked down, and far below her she could see herself and the white paper that she held in her right hand looking up at her, reflecting off the water. It would have been much more clear if she had been closer
to the water. She waved and could see the movement far below.

There was a small verge directly below her about five feet above the river, just large enough to lie on and stretch out over the water. Here she would see the perfect portrait of herself.

She tucked the white paper in the back of her bikini and made her way carefully down the bank to the verge. She brushed the ledge clean with her feet and lay down on it. She looked. There she was.

Her head, her hair, her face, her eyes, nose, mouth, neck, shoulders. She stretched out her arms, making all sorts of gestures, and was delighted to see them motion back to her.

The river was clear, pure, translucent. Ava looked up and down the Narcissus and then far out to the sea as it glistened in the sun.

She gently moved further off the verge and over the top of the water. The closer she came the better she could see every detail of herself. She lay there gazing, enraptured, into the silver reflection hour after hour. She began a conversation with this beautiful woman looking up at her; they went on talking, and she fell in love, more in love with her because of the beauty, the intelligence, all shining back at her. Ava and her reflection talked away the boring people, the cracked and faulted world. They narrowed it down to past friends, family and eventually to Kate and Isabel. After them the moment of ultimate truth hit Ava. There were only two people left in the world. They were Ava and this incredible beauty looking up at her from the river.

She moved still closer to kiss this beautiful girl, her friend, her lover. How could Ava possess her and yet not possess her? At last in a second’s terrible anguish Ava saw that it was this grief that was destroying her.

She reached out and touched the cheek of the beauty looking up at her. She slid slowly off the verge and on top of the beautiful girl smiling up at her. Their lips met and the river covered them over. There was hardly a splash and they were gone.

The search party included eighteen policemen and looked until dark. The following day they continued, along with a motor launch following the river out to sea, hoping to find
the body. They began at dawn and stopped at one that afternoon. The search was abandoned. The body was never found.

Alfred was inconsolable. Under heavy sedation he was watched constantly by his friends, Takis and Evangalia. There was no way for him to contact Kate. He would have to wait to hear from her. And Isabel — he would send a cable not to Isabel, but to Sir Alexis Hyatt, in the hope that he would break the news to her at the right moment.

It was doubly difficult for Alfred because they never recovered the body. He would never have her laid to rest in the earth. There were moments when he could not believe that she was not just out at the hairdressers, or the dressmakers, or in the library doing research on one of her little projects. Her belief in herself was so complete, the adoration she had for herself was so enormous, that to see her just disappear without a trace was doubly horrifying.

He could no longer face their sterile, large, empty flat, with all of her things neatly tucked away in cupboards. He packed a bag and moved into the Hilton to wait for Kate’s return or word from Isabel. He would wait for them to come and pick up what was left of Ava, her clothes.

But only a few days after Ava’s death he suddenly found himself surrounded by friends and relatives who somehow across the years had seemed to have disappeared out of his life without a trace. There was not a day that went by but an old schoolfriend, an acquaintance, a casual cards companion, a distant relative, would call upon him and sweep him back into a sociable life again. Within a few weeks Ava’s disappearance from his life was not even noticed by him. Indeed, he realized, it was almost a relief.

The enormous pressure of Ava had been on him for almost twenty years. Now he was relaxed and enjoyed a new kind of freedom. A few weeks later, astonishingly, Alfred would only have one worry — that Ava might be found alive somewhere.

What had kept him with her for those twenty years? Twenty years! A lifetime. He had made believe that it was love, but now he knew that it was not. What he could not know was that her vanity and narcissism had in the end destroyed her, just as it had almost destroyed him.

One day Alfred caught himself looking in the mirror as he knotted his tie, and realized that for the first time in
years, he was feeling more secure, more confident in himself and his abilities.

These days he often went to have a drink in Kolonaki and sit with his paper, as millions of Greeks did, to watch the women go by. For the first time in years he thought about fucking them, taking them ruthlessly, purely for sexual reasons, but he never did. He now became a charming, more amusing, more sociable Alfred. He liked the way he felt, and he liked what people saw. If he now thought of Ava at all, it was that it was too bad that she was not there to see his new success as himself.

Behind his back all the Greeks who knew him were saying that the best thing that woman ever did for him was to disappear; they had their friend back again. As for Ava, now that she was gone, all that they could feel was relief in her absence.

XI

A very angry, trembling, hot, over-excited Kate dragged herself through customs at Athens airport and into the waiting-lounge for her flight to Egypt. She sat there with her hand-luggage, chocolates and magazines piled around her, a tired, bitter old lady on the verge of tears, but strong enough and more than angry enough to bite back.

Nothing ever went as Kate wanted it to go. Here she was supposedly flying to Alexandria, and there was no direct flight. Now she would have to fly into Cairo. Well, at least she could mail a postcard from Cairo airport. The very thought of Isabel receiving a postcard from her, mailed in Cairo — Isabel’s precious new city — lifted Kate out of her self-pity. Throwing Isabel into a state of guilt always helped cheer her a little.

She opened her bag and took out her handkerchief and her Yardley smelling salts. After wiping her face, drenched in perspiration, she took a deep whiff of them to revive herself.

She had an hour before her plane took off for Cairo, but Kate liked being early for everything. She started to flip through a magazine that Takis had bought her. She thought him kind, but stupid to get himself involved with Ava. Well, the hell with them, who cares anyway? She flipped through a few more pages of the magazine, but could not concentrate.

Her attention kept wandering back to the events of the last twenty-four hours. She was very, very angry at both her girls, but more so at Isabel. The only good thing she could think of that had come out of that luncheon was that she behaved correctly with Isabel. On her arrival in New York, she was sure there would be a letter of apology and an invitation from Isabel to stay with her in London. She knew there was one thing that Isabel could not bear and that was total rejection from her mother. Kate always knew that she could devastate her daughter, and now she would punish Isabel for what she had done.

By the time Isabel arrived in her lover’s arms in Cairo she would have faced the reality of this hateful marriage. Kate made up her mind to be magnanimous about Isabel’s latest mistake. She would never again mention that dreadful luncheon. All Isabel had to do was return to London and be finished with that filthy Arab.

For the moment, however, Kate was very angry. Her mind went back to the moment when she had left the Hilton, walking home to her flat. She was very lucky that she had found her young neighbor, the travel agent. Kate could never understand why strangers, neighbors and friends were all so good and considerate towards her, while her children were so short-tempered and unloving.

This sweet young boy, Stephano, the travel agent, for whom she had been baking Toll House cookies for the last few months, would do anything for her. When he heard that she must be on the day trip on the Nile, he dressed and went down to Syntagma, opened his office and made contact with the ship, ran around and prepared tickets, typed up information for what she had to do, arranged everything.

While little Stephano was doing all that for her, she worked like a fiend to complete her packing. Her hand-luggage had almost killed her as she heaved it around through customs. It was filled with her twelve place settings of silver flatwear, her Victorian silver tea service
and all the jewelry that she had, which was not worth much, but weighed a great deal.

She knew that it was too much to travel with, especially in this heat, but she would not leave it behind. She did not want to go to Isabel’s without her own things. Her main problem at the moment was that it was all too heavy for her to carry from the lounge across the tarmac, and oh, my God, she had to drag it up all those stairs to the airplane and down again in Cairo as well.
Well
, thought Kate,
by then I will have found someone to befriend a courageous old lady with heavy hand-luggage
.

Sitting there among the debris of her life, Kate decided that she needed a nice hot cup of tea. To her surprise, just as she was wanting it, one of the waiters came to clear away the dirty dishes from a nearby table. She gave him the money, and he said he would bring the tea at once. Things were looking up for Kate. The fact that she was able to obtain a cup of tea without the horrors and struggles of trying to catch a Greek waiter was an omen that things were getting better.

She was feeling more alert by now. She sat back and pulled out the little typewritten itinerary sweet Stephano had given her. But the moment that she tried to study it, she realized that she was not quite calm enough to digest the details. Her mind flashed back to that luncheon of the day before.

Again she saw Isabel and her diamonds. That had to be the largest diamond that she had ever seen. And Isabel’s face! That face of contentment, softness, laughter as she put her hands forward to show them her jewelry!

As Kate sat there in Athens airport, staring into space, she told herself:
Face it, your Isabel is a whore
. How could her eldest daughter even imagine going to bed with an Arab?

Kate knew that men sometimes
got
to Isabel, men like that painter. That horrible, handsome American painter. Yes, Isabel really did have a problem. Kate shuddered. Maybe she
liked
sex.

Kate suddenly could not understand what had happened across the years. Why her two daughters would not obey her every wish. She should have been more demanding as a mother. They should have been
made
to obey her. Well, by the time this trip was over, they would both have been put in their places.

She would write a letter to each telling them where she was and how they could contact her. After all, she was a woman of stature, a mother who deserved respect from her children, and she would have it. Every mother she knew was coddled by her children. Only Kate was lonely and did not get enough attention; only she had suffered her many illnesses in silence. Well, those days were over.

The young waiter brought her tea and she sipped it, thinking that she had gained a great deal of control over herself. She laughed at Isabel and that ridiculous entourage of hers, that dramatic entrance to tell her such big news of a wedding.

She took another sip of tea, thinking to herself how upset Isabel must have been when she had to fly to her lover without anyone’s blessings. Well, if she could do nothing properly, why should she expect blessings? It was not that Kate did not wish her well. She wanted
nothing
but the best for her children.

Kate’s thoughts were interrupted by Stephano. I surely hope he got it all planned correctly, thought Kate. Sweet, but who knows how bright he is?

Stephano stood before his friend, Mrs. Wells, with two orchids in a clear cellophane box. He had come to wish her a happy holiday and help her to the plane with her hand-luggage.

Kate could hardly believe it. How sweet of him! All those Toll House cookies had paid off. She made room for him next to her, patting him on the cheek, telling him that he was like a grandson to her. She managed a few tears of appreciation and a sniffle as she pinned the orchids to the bolero jacket of her cream-and-navy-blue-striped seersucker outfit.

He should not have wasted his money on an old lady, she told him. Better he should buy some young girl flowers. Oh, he was such a good boy! Oh, how she would miss him! Oh, if she was only twenty years old she would never let him
get
away!

He was very flattered and puffed up to the occasion, telling her he had some good news. She did not have to travel alone. There were two more people, a husband and wife, who were joining her cruise ship. She would have friends from the beginning of her journey. He would go and have them paged and introduce everyone.

The little travel agent scampered off to find her traveling
companions. Eventually he returned, and when Kate saw him approach, she became furious. Who asked him to stick his nose in her business anyway. She surely did not need a pair of old fogies like that hanging over her head. They must be at least eighty!

The travel agent was beside himself with joy. To think that he was lucky enough to find an American couple from the Midwest to keep Kate company.

Kate could have smacked him one right in the face. He was a nice boy, but why didn’t he mind his own business? She listened as Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Nesbitt from Ogalala, South Dakota, were introduced to her. Oh, my luck, thought Kate, Midwestern farmers. They will be so boring. Whatever are they doing on a trip like this?

It was worse when it was explained by Mr. Nesbitt that the reason they were flying on to meet the cruise ship was that he had been taken ill in Athens and so had missed the sailing.
Do I need this?
thought Kate.
I am on holiday; haven’t I got enough to worry about?

The enthusiastic Stephano explained to the Nesbitts that Kate lived in Athens, but was an American lady from Massachusetts. They thought that was courageous of her, to live in a foreign country. Oh, my, she was so cosmopolitan. They were just farm folks. This was the first time that they had been out of their country ever. Why, they had never even been to Massachusetts, but would be happy to get back to the good old USA.

The Nesbitts only had one small nightcase between them and so were loaded down with Kate’s sterling silver as they clambered up to the plane. Once aboard and settled in the airplane, Kate felt suddenly exhausted, short of breath, and could not stop perspiring. Her dress was wet through as water kept dripping off her body. She called the stewardess for a glass of water and took half a dozen different pills: to settle her stomach, for her nerves, for her headache. But there was nothing that she could take to settle her turbulent emotions about stepping on the ground in Cairo.

She started to torture herself. Should she call Isabel from the airport? Should she even go and
see
Isabel? After all, she did have the address. She decided to stick to the original plan: send one card from Cairo airport and one from Alexandria, then sail out at noon the next day
on the
Aphrodite
, with twelve hundred other passengers, to have a wonderful time.

Let Isabel die of guilt. Imagine being in the same city as your mother and not seeing her, and supposedly a few days before you are to be married. Imagine allowing your mother to deal with those foreigners, to travel alone in a hostile country while you are being kept in diamonds by a rich Egyptian? No! Isabel would get nothing but the card. Let her die of guilt. Well, maybe not die, but at least let her suffer plenty.

Kate closed her eyes and relaxed, trying to put her mind at rest, but torn between hate and love, she lashed herself on. She remembered the time when Isabel was a good young girl. Oh, how Kate had adored her, when she had her darling under control. Where did it all go wrong? Why did she hate her now?

Was it because she got interested in boys? That was what was wrong now. She was interested in this Arab. How could Kate have missed up until now the fact that Isabel was a slut?

It was impossible to meet a man and marry him two weeks later. It was impossible to have been given diamonds that size after two weeks. It was impossible to think of living in an Arab country. It was impossible to
marry
an Arab. It was impossible for Isabel to marry and live with a man after so many years of living alone.

Kate would be the first to bless a marriage for Isabel if she could find a nice, plain, simple, Jewish widower. Someone that Kate, at least, could understand; that she could accept. But no, everything Isabel did was a means of excluding Kate from her life.

By the time the stewardess brought lunch around, Kate was feeling a great deal better. She had even begun to chat with the Nesbitts sitting across the aisle from her. She learned that they were not going to take the boat down to Alexandria. Mr. Nesbitt only wanted to get back to the cruise ship and his own cabin. They would travel back with the man sent to meet them, and after they had taken Kate to her Nile cruise boat, they would continue the journey by car to the ship. They did not want her to worry about all her luggage: They would be extra protection.

What a lucky break for her: She did not have to be bored by them, and they would be taking care of her belongings.
Oh yes, things were sorting themselves out for Kate.

The temperature was 104 degrees in the shade when they landed at Cairo airport. Kate found it unbearable. It bounced off the black tarmac, up through her feet. It shot down in huge bolts from the sky above.

But somehow she pushed through the heat, forward into the terminal.

The terminal was even hotter. There was not a puff of air. It was filthy; what windows there were could hardly be seen through for the dirt on them. The smell of it, oh, God, what a smell! A combination of onion, disinfectant and unwashed-body odors.

Everyone looked sinister to her except the Nesbitts. Mr. Nesbitt in his drip-dry, powder-blue and white plaid jacket, powder-blue Dacron slacks and his $18.95 Hush Puppies. And, Mrs. Nesbitt — for the first time in her life Kate had nothing but admiration for those eighty-pound wonders of crinkled skin and brittle bones, those pure, kindly faces who would never say “fuck” even if they had a mouth full of it. Pure, clean, cotton-trouser-suited Mrs. Nesbitt, with her medium-blue-rinsed hair, all done up in its tight little curls. She could have kissed her right there and then for being Mrs.
I AM AMERICA, SENIOR CITIZEN
. They may be wrinkled, old, and slightly decrepit, but, when she looked at them she heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a decadent, dirty, smelly Egypt.

Customs was a nightmare. Suddenly it occurred to Kate that it would be impossible for her if they opened her luggage and found all that silver. Oh God, why did she drag it along? She remembered Isabel telling her about never taking gold or silver in any quantity through customs of different countries without declaring it. Oh God, on the plane she had written on the landing card “Nothing to Declare”! She had thought it was none of their business what she had with her. Now she began to panic, her heart began to beat faster and then she thought
The hell with them! What will they do with an old woman like me? They will not get my sterling silver. I sweated plenty to get it and keep it across the years, and no Arab will beat me out of it
.