Collected Novels and Plays (45 page)

At the hotel (L.’s room is 5 minutes up the hill) we hesitated. It was a moment for consultation. To what end? Had we been sleeping together, we would have had to agree on how to act for the next 48 hours, to which of the numberless halftones between frankness & artifice we should try
to tune ourselves. How charming such moments can be! As it was, I merely said I wasn’t sure I felt like going on an excursion, & did she?
The question baffled her, she knitted her brows at the sky. Now that the N.’s were here, had we any choice? So it was decided. I mentioned her nails. Within the hour we had left our sparse baggage aboard & were pushing our way through the onlookers that clogged the Enfant Chic’s doorway.

He had sent out for coffee. Mrs N. (sleeveless lilac dress, sandals) had drunk hers & was wielding an honest-to-goodness fan of stiff silver paper. She rose, greeted Lucine with a kiss and me with a peculiar ironic gaze that trilled above her easy manners like an oboe above a string quartet. I understood it better later. At the time, it seemed, once again, that we
ought
to have been lovers, L. & I, in order further to feel that with charming,
civilized people like the N.’s no pretense to the contrary would be called for. The Enfant gave me his left hand. Our coffees were cool, we drank them on our feet. A merry rapid conversation in Greek was pursued onto the blinding whitewashed steps. Our exit causing the teenage chorus to withdraw somewhat, the E. C. had to raise his voice to show how well he knew his smart guests from Athens. One final sally from Mrs N. made him turn & cover his face with a dimpled hand.
The audience broke into laughter. “Really!” Mr N. murmured, taking his wife’s arm as we walked away.

Lucine: What was the joke?

Mrs N. (smiling): Nothing. Pure nonsense.

Mr N.: Nonsense indeed. My impossible wife said it had been a pleasure, an honor, to visit that gentleman’s boutique, and that she fully intended to come back & spend thousands of drachmas there—only she would have to come alone, without any
men
to distract him from making a sale.

Mrs N. (with profound conviction): But you saw, he was thrilled! It made his day!

On the caïque—which is quite grand inside: fox-fur rugs on the
divans, & French pictures, & a crew of 5—we changed into bathing-suits and ate lobster salad on deck. We had gotten under way.

The meaning of the look Mrs N. had given me was duly, ever so diffidently & amusedly, explained. They’d just learned from the Enfant Chic that I was Orson’s brother, and were astonished. So was I. I couldn’t believe that they hadn’t known, that Dora’s letter asking them to be nice to me had described me simply as a “young friend” of hers. Well, the kaleidoscope has turned with a vengeance.

They were now slightly on guard. I was made to feel that I should have found a way to enlighten them upon our first meeting—despite there having been other guests at lunch and the N.’s not having opened the subject.

However, here I was. Perhaps something could be learned from me.

“You see,” said Mrs N. uncrossing her smooth brown legs to hand me coffee, “while we’re old friends of Dora’s—Akis especially, I am younger” (as if one hadn’t noticed)—“we left, a week after her husband’s death, for 2 years in London & Paris. I am French by birth, and Akis was an adviser to the X. Y. Z. You can imagine our amazement when letters from Athens began to pour in, telling us
that she had gone to America with this man, with your brother who I’m sure must be perfectly charming (I’ve seen the film he worked on twice, and he was also a great friend of some people we know intimately). All I mean,” very apologetically, “is that, absurd as it must sound to an American, Dora had a position here in society. Her father was an ambassador, her aunts were ladies-in-waiting to the old Queen. Her husband belonged to one of our best
provincial families. Also, Dora had reached a certain age. One wouldn’t have cast her in the role of Anna Karenina.”

“You exaggerate,” said Mr N. with a smile. “Remember, she was free to do as she liked.” Then, turning to me, severely: “She worked as a governess for over a year. Did you know that?”

I nodded. He went on, speaking in a legato tenor voice lovely to hear. Things were different in America. Married women worked, enjoyed
independence unheard of in Greece where no husband would permit, etc.

Mrs N. (interrupting): But you’re talking as if we knew for certain that Dora had married this man. The rumor may be totally unfounded.

Mr N.: You’re hopeless, Nicole. Of course they are married. She has been how long in America? Six years? Without a passport she’d have been deported after 6 months.

Mrs N.: Is it true? I’ll have to marry an American if I’m to have my last wish in life?

I: What’s that?

Mrs N.: My last wish is to die while playing canasta in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of Scarlett O’Hara.

Mr N.: It’s too much, one can discuss nothing with you.

A pause. Mrs. N. (animated): No! I want to say that I can understand Dora. Heavens! Who doesn’t want to be American today? Look what dollars are doing for this country. Suddenly we have roads, hotels—ça fait impression, vous savez.

Here Lucine, curled up with her chin in a cushion, made a remark (her own?) to the effect that, yes, America was buying Europe, country by country. The next victim was clearly Greece. L. felt lucky to have come here in time.

We discussed it a while, skimming the sapphire depths of the immense subject. The N.’s wouldn’t exactly admit that Greece was being spoiled—“How can you spoil
this?
” with a sweep of the hand that took in sea & sun & the approaching heights of Mycenae—but did grant that a certain quaint charm was being sacrificed. For this we could thank the Greek Americans. They (or a faction that poured money into Greece
and so had influence in high places) were responsible for the virtual disappearance of tavernas in Athens. It gave them, the G. A.’s, a bad name when other Americans saw a pair of men get up & dance together. They’d even tried to keep the bouzoukia music—to which such dances are done—off the radio, etc. Mr N. was the first to recall that Orson fitted
into the category of Greek Americans, as for that matter did I, despite my
appearance. “You understand, I don’t speak of intellectuals,” he said, as if there were other Greek-American intellectuals besides O. Well, there may be; nothing’s impossible.

It strikes me as I write that this national theme could be most expressively illuminated by the story of Orestes & (Dora)—the one coming to Greece athirst for his past, unaware of how it is his coming, and that of others like him, that will in the end obliterate what he has come for; the other asking nothing better than to be changed, to take on the fancied independence & glamor of the American Woman.
Remember this
.

Mr N. said unexpectedly, “I knew your brother. In fact it was I who introduced him to Dora.”

His wife stared in consternation. “Akis, it’s true? You never told me so!”

Mr N. (winking at L. & me): If you say I never told you, then you must be right, because you are always right. However, you’ll recall my going to Diblos overnight not long before Tasso’s death. He wanted some slight changes in his will. As the boat wasn’t crowded, I sat on deck. Your brother was sitting nearby, reading
Antony & Cleopatra
. I took him for a student. We talked for 2 hours. He had all kinds of lively &, to
me, original ideas. Tasso, I thought, would be diverted by him. So I asked him to the house for lunch the next day. In fact I left him there when I went to catch the afternoon boat. That’s all.

Mrs N.: That’s all! But you’re mad! Invited him to lunch? Someone Dora had never met!

Mr N.: What do you mean? I bring strangers home to lunch all the time.

Mrs N.: Watch out, from now on, that I don’t marry one of them!

She brought her large blue eyes to bear, humorously, upon me. I had been wondering in what previous life I’d encountered the N.’s—or where they had found themselves. It was in the pages of Proust. Addressing each other, they shared with the Duke & Duchess of Guermantes that same ironic consciousness of an audience.

Mr N. (patiently): Do I have to explain that there was no question, during lunch, of Dora’s marrying our friend’s brother? They need never have seen him again.

Mrs N.: And you, did you see him again? It’s fascinating, this glimpse into one’s husband’s life!

Mr N.: I did not see him again. Nor did I see Tasso again until 6 weeks later when we went to his funeral.

Mrs N.: I remember! He was barefoot in his coffin. There was an asphodèle in his lapel.

Mr N.: I beg your pardon, it was in his hand.

Mrs N.: I beg yours. In one hand he held his edition of Dante. The other hand was empty.

Mr N.: You see, she’s always right.

I still prefer my version of Orestes’ & (Dora)’s meeting. Can I use the N.’s in my book? As Lucine said when they’d gone below to take naps, “They’re funny.”

L. is funny enough, if less useful. I’ve sat beside her both nights at Epidauros. She watched the plays with a concentration I’d have thought impossible to muster out of doors. The more glorious the natural setting, the less I care for the human figure. At Epidauros it was like a ballet of fleas on a round, lamplit table. When the gods finally came, I wanted them to be 40 feet tall.

What were they doing but the
Oresteia!
A weird neo-Wagnerian prelude, tubas & strings, offstage. The actors unmasked. The watchman cries
into the afterglow (the first & virtually last intelligible word) and soon the stage is flooded with artificial dawn.

The
Agamemnon
was familiar; the two plays that followed, not. I’ve been reading them in a translation bought yesterday. They are very strange. For instance:

Agamemnon
—a Chorus made up of old men, comically powerless. They wring hands, complain, sympathize, disapprove. Nothing more.

The Libation Bearers
—a Chorus of young women. They have considerably
more influence. Not that they
do
anything, yet they are able to persuade the Nurse to have Aegisthus arrive unarmed, thus ensuring his death.

The Eumenides
—Chorus of Furies (Kindly Ones) which totally dominates stage & action. Orestes enters holding, instead of a sword, a leafy branch—his mind no longer adamant but diffuse, perishable, rustling in a wind none of the others can feel. The furies
possess
him. Only at the end, with the intervention of Divine Wisdom (Athena) do they become civil & courteous, marching off with their judges. Each casts two shadows, one
orange, one green. Verdict: O. shall go free; the Kindly Ones shall be given shrines.

This resolution moved me. The gods alone can change turmoil to peace, hatred to love.

Orestes might reply: I refuse to believe that. The tensions within man’s soul, within society, must effect the miracle.

How wrong he will be to think so!

Throughout, buzzing of insects, buzzing of time exposures. Hushed explications from the N.’s.

Lucine’s attentiveness. The unfolding story must have come as a surprise. When she gathered that Orestes was going to kill his mother, she gave a short gasp, her eyes were sparkling with tears. She impressed me as belonging there, her short curls & clenched hands, uncreasable white dress knotted at the shoulder, there under the rising moon. She was in a sense far more Greek than the N.’s.

I may not see her after tonight.

A car drove us from the theatre to Nauplion where the caïque was already moored. Town jammed. 100’s of torches streaming along jetties & up hillsides in honor of the drama festival. We sat at an outdoor taverna. Mr N. thought of going into the kitchen to order our food. L. accompanied him.

Mrs N. began by saying she had gone to a Swiss school with L.’s mother, that they were an “excellent” California family—“Remind me
another time to ask you what that means!” They had hoped she would look out for the child this summer, which she was glad to do.

I said that Lucine’s having money explained her air of poverty.

“Oh, they have money. That doesn’t prejudice me against them, does it you? Who knows, our daughter may go to America one day. Stranger things have happened.”

Where was her daughter now?

“With her grandmother in France. She’s charming if I do say so myself. Just 16. A pity you can’t meet her.”

Her tone, pure Guermantes, told me she meant precisely the opposite. Having decided long ago that Orson was an adventurer bent on marrying a rich wife, but never having had occasion to wither him by saying so to his face, Mrs N. was finding it appropriate & economical—2 birds, 1 stone—to act as if he and I were the same person.

I could have told her then that my father had money, too, even if O. preferred to be proud & poor. Instead, I wanted to know if Lucine had written to the N.’s about me.

“Tell
me
something,” Mrs N. countered, giving her marvelous imitation of devouring curiosity. “How old are you?” Then: “I thought so. Along with having a nice face, you’re clever for your age. If you’re as young as you say, you’ll remember what it was like to be still younger—to be
her
age. The age at which whoever one meets makes an impression. Her character is still being formed.
It’s a temptation, I admit, to add some little touch of one’s own. You’ve added yours, in any case, from the first day.”