The Immortal (8 page)

She made every effort to keep his attention, smiling at each of his words, nodding enthusiastically when it was appropriate—and even when it was not—and laughing too loudly if he made the slightest witty remark. Clearly, she was making Tom uncomfortable. I tried to balance the unnaturalness in the talk but had limited success. I wanted Tom's attention as well, and it was hard to draw Pascal out. I don't think it was the language barrier alone, because his English was not that bad. He was simply quiet. He did tell us about a crippled boy he took care of at his school.

"His name is Samuel," Pascal said in his thick accent. "Nice, nice boy—
dix arts
—ten years old.

Paralyzed—waist down. Car accident, very sad. But Samuel can use hands. He start to paint when he got to the school after hospital. I purchased him paints, showed him how to use. In the beginning he paint messy kids' things. But he get better fast. He begin to paint trees outside school, the autos, and flowers.

Then he paint, ah, what you call faces?"

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"Portraits," Tom said, listening carefully. He was always quick to defer to Pascal when his French friend spoke, perhaps because it was so seldom. It was interesting to watch the subtleties of their relationship. It was clear to me that Pascal worshiped Tom and his clever mind, but how Tom saw Pascal, I wasn't sure.

That he cared for him a great deal, even loved him, I had no doubt. Pascal nodded his appreciation for the word.

"Portraits," Pascal said, his English improving as he talked more. "Samuel did portraits. He did mine

—very good, better than I look. He did nurses, doctors. He painted and painted—sitting in his wheelchair. He do nothing but paint pictures—all our faces, all day. He get better and better, every day.

He get so good, we call art teacher to look at his paintings. The man comes. He is old. Samuel paints his portrait. The man sits, he watches. We showed Samuel's other pictures, but teacher not believe Samuel paint them. He says, boy is too little to be so good. But we laugh. Samuel paint the teacher and then the man is smiling. He says Samuel is a master. He has been taught by the masters. But Samuel's mother comes. She says to the teacher, my son never painted before the accident." Pascal shook his head. "It is mystery no one understands."

Pascal stopped abruptly. It was a fascinating story, and I wanted him to continue. Tom must have heard the story before. He lowered his head when Helen asked her question.

"What is Samuel doing now?" Helen asked.

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Pascal looked pained. "His kidneys—they go bad. He died."

I grimaced. "That's horrible. You said he was only ten? It's a shame the world should lose such a great talent. He might have been another da Vinci."

Pascal spoke seriously. "Teacher say he was da Vinci."

"Something did change in Samuel when he was in his accident," Tom said quickly, almost as if in explanation. "I don't think medical science can explain it. It's almost as if, with the death of portions of his spinal cord, certain parts of his brain woke up."

"Was Samuel in a coma immediately after his accident?" I asked.

Tom explained the word
coma
to Pascal, who nodded. "At first he sleep so that they can't wake him,"

Pascal said.

"Why did you ask that?" Tom asked me.

I shrugged. "Just wondering."

"Tom had coma one—" Pascal began.

"Let's not talk about that," Tom interrupted.

Pascal nodded. "Sorry."

"What was it?" I asked.

Tom shrugged. "Nothing. Stupid bicycle accident." He cleared his throat and returned to the subject.

"Samuel woke up a different person, that's for sure. At least according to his mother."

"You met the boy?" I asked.

"Yes," Tom said. "He painted my picture as well. I have it in my apartment in Oxford. Samuel was definitely inspired by something."

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The conversation turned to other matters, though none so interesting as Samuel. Then our food and drink were done, and the trouble started, as if on cue. Seemed Pascal had to go back to work. Tom must have briefed him on the situation, but not thoroughly enough. Before standing up to leave, Pascal invited Helen to accompany him. He said in his stumbling English that she could drive around the island with him in his brand-new
camion
while he delivered
legumes
to the hotels. He honestly believed it would be a romantic evening for her, I think. Helen acted confused.

"Aren't you asking Josie?" she said to Pascal.

Pascal glanced at Tom as if for help. Tom remained impassive, probably the best thing he could do under the circumstances. Pascal flashed a warm smile and said, "I would like to go with you." There was feeling in his voice. He did honestly like her. But Helen could not hear the affection.

"I'm with Tom," she said flatly.

"I could show you—sights," Pascal said, giving it one more try.

Helen turned to me. "Why don't you go with Pascal, Josie?"

I lowered my head. "I wasn't"invited."

"Pascal, Josie will go with you," Helen told our French friend.

"I didn't say that," I said.

Helen was annoyed. "Why won't you go? You're being rude."

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"I'm
being rude?" I asked. I probably shouldn't have said that.

Helen appealed to Tom. "Wouldn't you like some time alone with me?" she asked. Talk about putting a guy on the spot.

"Well. . ." Tom said in his most helpful manner.

Helen suddenly froze. "Pascal, why do you have to go back to work?"

"I have to go," he said.

"But why did you leave in the first place?" Helen insisted.

Tom could see where her questions were leading and tried to head her off. "I wanted him to have dinner with me. Pascal works late but gets a break at this time."

Pascal nodded. "We wanted dinner with you."

Helen caught the slip. "With
us?
You knew we would be here?"

"We were just walking by," Tom said.

Helen sat back and threw me an icy glance. "I don't believe any of this," she said. "Josie rests and reads to a certain hour and then suddenly she is starving and we have to hurry out to eat. Pascal, you knew we'd be here, didn't you?"

The young Frenchman wasn't able to follow every word Helen had uttered, but he could sense there was trouble. He adopted what he thought was a safe response. "It's been nice to see you, Helen," he said.

"Goodbye." He got away fast, God bless his good sense.

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Now there were just the three of us, two babes and a boy, an unstable formula if ever there was one.

Helen continued to nod as if Pascal had confirmed her suspicions. Her sunburned skin turned an even deeper crimson. Humiliation, anger—they came in the same shades of red.

"How come you didn't tell me you talked to Tom today, Josie?" she asked.

"I didn't talk to him," I said smooth as silk, but Helen didn't believe me.

She ignored me for a moment and stared Tom in the eye. "Do you like Josie better than me?"

He shrugged. "I like both of you."

Her lower lip trembled. "Please just tell me the truth, Tom. That's all I ask."

I couldn't let him be raked over like that. There was no stopping Helen when she got like this. "I set this up," I admitted. "I did see Tom this afternoon."

Helen had known, sure, but now she
knew,
which was worse. She pounded the table with her fists, and our empty wine bottles danced.

"You just said you didn't!" she shrieked.

"I lied," I said. "I'm sorry. I told Tom to lie to you. I told him to bring Pascal so that Pascal would take you away and I could be with Tom. Everything that has happened is completely my fault. Tom had nothing to do with any of it. I twisted his arm."

My words had a strange effect on Helen. Rather than cause her to explode more, she grew quiet. Too quiet. It was a deadly calm. She ignored Tom and

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turned her attention on me. Her next question caught me like a slap in the face.

"Do you know that Ralph is dead?" she asked.

I couldn't speak for a moment. "No."

She nodded. "He died of natural causes soon after he moved away. I spoke to his mother, who told me.

I thought her phrase 'natural causes' sounded odd. I mean, calling something that killed your only child

'natural.' Do you know what I mean, Josie?"

I swallowed, shocked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't deserve to know." She stood up and regarded the two of us as if we were matching piles of vomit. "You two deserve each other." She nodded again, started to add something, but then must have thought better of it. She turned and disappeared in the same direction as Pascal. Tom and I looked at each other across the table, and I was grateful when he didn't say "I told you so."

"The night can only improve," Tom said instead.

I thought of Helen's previous suicide attempt. Yet, strange as it may sound, I wasn't in the least concerned that she'd make another attempt. She was a different girl from the one last summer. The gods had spoken to her. She was strong. She'd want revenge, not condolences. Not for one moment did I consider going after her.

"I wonder," I said.

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An hour later Tom and I were in a small boat drift-ing in Hora harbor beneath a huge moon. There was a slight wind blowing, and the boat rocked with small waves, but I felt safe. Our wooden vessel was only six feet long. Tom and I sat facing each other, my outstretched legs resting beside his. We had been talking about something interesting, but silence had fallen and was stretching to the point where I had to wonder
when he would kiss me.

The boat belonged to Pascal's boss. Apparently Tom and Pascal were free to use it whenever they wished. It had been pulled up on the beach and chained down. I had helped Tom push it into the water.

"So," I said, finally breaking the silence with the stupidest question I could muster, "what do you think of those Dodgers?"

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"Is that a football team?" Tom asked.

"No. They prefer baseball. They can't take the hits."

"Do you like sports?"

I shrugged, and the boat shook with my movement. "I like to play any sport, but I could care less about organized teams." The harbor area at night, seen from the water, looked like an amusement park. The many lights reflected back on the sea. There were small choppy waves now and foam. The wind had picked up in the last
twenty
seconds. Interesting, I thought. We had drifted beyond the confines of the harbor and were beginning to feel the tug of the ocean currents. Tom acted unconcerned—so I did as well.

"You never told me what had brought you to Greece," Tom said.

"Helen."

He paused, as if he wished I hadn't told him. "Last time she was here she was obsessed with Delos," he said.

"You mentioned that. Did she really go every day?"

He nodded. "She came back every day with a horrible sunburn. I told her to use a screen, but she said she was. Anyway, she was always climbing to the top of Kynthos and lying out on the stones."

"That's where Apollo was supposed to have been born."

"No," Tom said. "On the summit of Kynthos are the ruined sanctuaries of Zeus and Athena. Apollo was worshiped on other parts of the island."

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"Maybe Helen knows something we don't," I said. "But she was sure right about the power emanating from that place. It almost made my hair stand on end. I assume she tried to get you to go there?"

"She never asked me to go with her. But I had already been to Delos." He was curious. "You felt something there?"

"Oh, yes. It was incredible—a surge of peace and power."

"You're the first person who's ever said that," Tom said.

"I'm surprised. I wasn't imagining it."

"You must be sensitive, Josie."

I chuckled. "I'm about as sensitive as an ll.A. city bench."

He laughed. "Are you still feeling guilty about what happened tonight?"

"Yeah. But I'd like to feel more guilty."

"What do you mean?"

I grinned mischievously. I wondered if he could see my expression in the moonlight. "I wish I had more to feel guilty about," I said.

He took the hint. He leaned forward to kiss me. In doing so he accidentally bumped our only oar and knocked it into the water. He went to grab it just as I shot forward to kiss him. The peck surprised him and he gave a start, laughing.

"Hey, that tickles," he said.

I kissed his cheek, adding a little bite. The moon

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had that affect on me. I wanted to jump his bones. Yeah, sure, I know, blame it on the moon.

"Is that all it does?" I asked wickedly.

He fended me off. "Let me get this paddle, Josie, or we'll be—" He stopped, staring over the side of the boat. "Damn."

I followed his gaze. We were now clearly out of the harbor. In the space of two minutes the waves had grown to almost two feet, and the water was really churning. The wind—it was truly amazing—was suddenly blowing hard. I had to wipe the hair from my eyes to see clearly.

"The meltemi
—
it blows fiercely when the gods are in the mood."

The gods must have been in a humorous mood.

The oar was ten feet from the boat already.

"What should we do?" I asked.

"We have to retrieve it before it gets any farther away. We won't make it back in without it. We'll have to lean over the side and paddle with our arms. Let's do it quickly before we lose sight of the oar."

We tried his plan. It didn't work. The boat plowed in circles. Our hand paddles were uncoordinated.

Tom told me to stop after a minute. He looked worried. The oar was an easy thirty feet away now and moving fast.

"What should we do?" I asked anxiously. I didn't want to drift out to sea, even if it was with Tom. The exotic blue of the Mediterranean was a different

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matter at night, especially with that damn wind blowing. The boat rocked precariously. Tom pulled off his shirt.

"I have to go after it," he said.

I grabbed his arm. "No. You'll drown."

He shook me off. "We have to head back to dock now. The current is pulling us out. We can't fight it without that oar."

I couldn't believe what was happening. I was wrong about the gods being in a funny mood. There was something almost malicious in the way the wind had come up. Tom kicked off his sandals and prepared to dive in.

"I'll be back in a few seconds," he promised.

I was staring over the side. "Where's the oar? I don't see it anymore, Tom."

He paused. The water was like angry gray soup being brought to a quick boil. All we were missing was the steam. Tom leaned forward and peered out.

"I can't see it either," he said.

"How can you swim for it if you don't know where it is?" I asked.

"I'll swim in that direction," he said, pointing. "I'll find it. I must go. Goodbye, Josie."

"Don't say that word." I gave him a quick hug. "Good luck."

Tom dove over the side. The ocean seemed to swallow him. It was several seconds before I caught sight of his head. His arms flailed in the moonlit cauldron. I think by going underwater and then coming up, he had disoriented himself. It didn't seem to

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me that he was swimming in the direction we had last observed the paddle. And all this, I thought, because I'd had to kiss him.

I shouted. "Tom! Go that way! That way! Not that way!"

He couldn't hear me. He must have had water in his ears, and now the wind was howling. The tiny boat twisted this way and that. Tom glanced back once—I think he was trying to orient himself using the boat, another mistake. Then he set off in a direction that I believed the oar had not floated.

Then he was gone.

Time passed.

Minutes, slowly bubbling, like the last breath of a man cast into the sea with cement for shoes. Bubbles of wasted time.

He was gone.

It was true.

I couldn't believe it.

"Tom!" I screamed. "Tom!"

I thought he might have been close but unable to see the boat.

"Tom!"

I screamed till I was hoarse.

Tom was gone. The sea had swallowed him up.

I hugged the sides of the boat, trying to keep it from toppling. Salt water splashed my face, stinging with the salt of the deep and the bitterness of my tears. I had not cried in a long time, since I had heard Helen had tried to take her life. Helen should have been with me then. She could have asked about the pain in my

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chest. It was as if a stone fist had been rammed through my sternum. I kept thinking the same thought over and over—it wouldn't go away.

Tom must have drowned by now.

Dead.

"Tom," I whispered.

Hora fell away. The lights, the partying, the people —they could have dropped into a black hole. Only it was me who was falling.

The current pulled me out to sea.

The
meltemi.
I didn't know what the word meant. If only I had a Greek scholar with me to consult. Girl, there are numerous definitions for
meltemi.
Nasty wind. Hard wind. No-sense-of-timing wind.

Screw-you-Josie wind. You're-going-to-die wind.

Was I going to die? I thought that I might. The boat was riding as if on a roller coaster. I had to keep shifting my weight to counteract the instability caused by each slap of water. The waves were now hitting from every direction, and it was hard to keep up with them. Plus the farther I drifted from Mykonos, the higher the waves grew. When they were up to four feet they began to crash over the sides of the boat, and I had to bail furiously, using my hands as a cup. I tired quickly and I realized the sea had all night to claim me as a victim. I was mortal. In that moment the sea became a monster that could never be defeated by something living.

Mykonos fell behind me at remarkable speed. But I was not being dragged straight out from it; rather I was heading northwest, roughly on the same route the

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boat I had taken that morning. It was true, I was floating in the direction of Delos. That gave me cause for hope. If I washed up on shore, before my boat toppled, I would live. But if I missed the island, I was probably doomed.

I bailed faster, fighting my fatigue. I had a goal— stay afloat until Delos saved me. In my heart, I imagined the island as a mother who would embrace me, her child, in this time of great danger. The dream of a desperate soul, perhaps, but it gave me strength.

There was a problem with my bailing the water out of the boat, though. It required both hands, and I wasn't able to grip the gunwales. A cruel wave came from behind and caught me totally unprepared. I felt a sharp thump first and then suddenly I was toppling through the air. When I hit the water head-first, I almost let out a scream of pure terror. But had I done that, I would have let the sea into my lungs and drowned right then.

Maybe it would have been better to have let it end then.

Before the horrors that were to come.

I wonder still about many things.

I didn't scream. I fought to the surface and frantically searched for the boat, half blind with my hair plastered over my face. Silently, in my heart, I cursed Poseidon, the god of the sea, for doing this to me.

Then, out of the blue—I should say out of the black—the boat hit me on the side of the head.

The boat was right side up, for which I was grateful, but it was rapidly filling with water. In a calm sea it 97

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would have been a cinch to climb into the small boat, but now my attempts to make it in only got me hit in the face by the wooden hull. Still, I clung to the boat as I had never held on to anything in my life. It was all I had left in the vast dark watery grave that my world had become.

After a few minutes I realized that part of the reason I couldn't climb back into the boat was bad timing.

The waves kept knocking me back. I decided to take the waves' lead and follow them. I reasoned that if I could yank myself up just as a wave swelled behind me, the water should give me the extra lift I needed.

Looking over my shoulder, I followed a particularly large swell as it approached. Just before it hit, I pulled down on the gunwale of the boat with all my strength and kicked up with my right leg, as if I were attempting to clear a high-jump bar. It worked. The swell shoved up on my bottom, and I literally toppled into the boat, as if I had been thrown.

I was safe, for the moment.

There was no time to rest. I had to start bailing again and risk getting tossed over again. A minute into the chore another thought occurred to me. I was sitting facing the bow, as most anyone automatically would.

Maybe, I decided, I should turn ninety degrees and face the side so I was able to brace my feet against one gunwale with my back against the other. This stabilized my position somewhat while leaving my hands free to bail.

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"I'm not going overboard again," I swore under my breath.

I don't know how long all this took. It may have only been an hour, maybe three. Finally, though, I reached the point of exhaustion that defied all strength of will. My arms were cramped in knots that transformed them into useless sticks. My chest was a burning furnace of pain. The muscles in my back felt as if they were tearing every time I reached down to scoop out another handful of water. I had to stop. I slumped forward and cried on my trembling knees—I couldn't stop crying. I knew then that I was going to die.

"God," I whispered. "Where is my God?"

The wind. The waves. The pain.

Miracles are often tied to prayers.

Suddenly everything began to settle down.

God.

The
meltemi
was being reined in. As miraculously as it had hit, it vanished. The wind didn't merely slow, it stopped. In the space of five minutes the sea became as calm as a mountain lake just before the hand of winter closed its grip and the water froze. The silver rays of the moon shone on the flat surface with such mirror perfection that it was easy to imagine I was adrift in a sea of ice. I didn't know what to do—so I wept.

"My God," I cried softly over and over again.

I was so weary.

I lay down and slept.

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