THE TIDES OF TIME Page 6

  “Such as, for instance?”

  “Well, with all due respect, your empire is in decline and ours on the ascendant. Could it not have something to do with the fact that your beys and pashas and so forth take too little interest in the lives of the people they rule over? If you compare our record in India with yours in, say, Rumelia—”

  Lord Arthur was drunk again. In a large company he was often entertainingly so; during the cruise, however, Osman had learned that he could be offensive, albeit in the nicest possible way, when there were only the two of them. Hastily he said, “You could always call them down and ask them. Myself, I suspect he’s only staring at us because he never had a square meal in his life, and he’s wondering what will become of the scraps we’ve left.”

  “You’re right! Dammit, you must be right! Well, when in Rome!…” Lord Arthur jumped to his feet, waving. In execrably pronounced—though grammatical—ancient Greek he called to the black man and his woman, who, tired from her labor, was now sitting at his side. They gazed back blankly until Mustapha came to the rescue.

  “Lord want give you food too!”

  At that they approached, hand in hand, but not hurrying. Watching them, Osman plucked the Englishman’s sleeve.

  “They are probably unaccustomed, you know, to chairs and tables!”

  “Hmm! That’s a point!” Lord Arthur looked around, and spotted an oblong plank of wood which the chance of the waves had lodged in a crevice along the rocky shore. He pointed at it.

  “They might be more comfortable if they ate off that, you mean? Very well! Tompkins, fetch it, will you?”

  His servant hastened to obey, but turned the board over and over as he returned, staring at it with curiosity.

  “What’s the matter, man?” Lord Arthur demanded.

  “There’s some sort of painting on it, sir,” Tompkins answered, and held up one side for inspection.

  Lord Arthur glanced at it, and Osman said anxiously, “Why! It’s a religious image, isn’t it?” He spoke with all the distaste of a good Moslem, forbidden to make images for purposes of worship.

  “Ah, yes!” Lord Arthur screwed a monocle into his right eye and examined the weather-worn traces of paint the wood still bore. “Looks like a crude depiction of a Virgin and Child. Fascinating, this primitive art, don’t you think? But I take your point. They might be offended if we made them use it as a table, mightn’t they? Oh, well! I suppose they’re used to eating off the bare ground… It’s too late, anyway. Here they come. That’s what they’ll have to put up with.”

  With a certain dignity the black man bowed, accepted an invitation to sit down in the shade—though the woman knelt, and for the first time they noticed that she was pregnant—and when given the leftover food made sure that she had the choicest portions.

  “Hmm! Not so savage,” Lord Arthur approved. “Don’t think much of their table manners, but then my own ancestors ate with their fingers, I believe, until forks were introduced from Italy. Tompkins, don’t broach any more of that champagne, but I imagine we could spare a bottle of claret if the Turkish wines are as good as Osman Effendi claims. Come to that, I wouldn’t mind a drop!”

  And, gravely, the guests both drank to his health.

  “Talk about noble savages!” Lord Arthur exclaimed. “I wonder whether that’s natural, inborn, inshtinctive, or—” And checked, as he realized that a tricky word had just tripped him up. Leaning back, he turned to Mustapha, who understood a little English and French as well as Greek and Turkish.

  “You! Ask him what he’s called and how he came here!”

  At first Evgenos answered reluctantly; then the wine loosened his tongue, and he admitted he had been born in slavery and never known his parents. A little boastfully, he made it clear that he had not been freed, but run away, although, with many nervous glances at Osman, he declined to mention who had been his owner.

  “Good for you, then!” cried Lord Arthur recklessly, and waved for Tompkins to refill their glasses. “We abolished slaves in England! Land of the free and all that, you know!”

  After skimming off all possible profit from the trade, Osman glossed silently. With his host in this mood, he did not dare voice the thought.

  Sometimes, though, he did wonder whether he had chosen the right course by westernizing himself. The arguments he always had to endure when he called on his father… But here was someone else, albeit very humble, who seemed to have had no qualms about making an analogous decision. Wine had lent his woman Anastasia courage, too, and when Evgenos hesitated over explaining their relationship she spoke up for the first time.

  “I am an orphan. This is a little island. There are few men. All are my cousins. Trade is not good. The spirit has gone out of the families that own the land. My uncle who adopted me thought most about joining another estate to his. I did not want the husband he decided on. Too many women marry their cousins because there is nobody else. I don’t mind Evgenos being a stranger. He is strong and everybody knows how hard he can work. One day they’ll accept him because already we are growing good food on land the others left. My uncle may die angry but I still like his daughter. Her husband treats her badly and now she is jealous of my good luck, but she will get over that. Even my aunts say now that I may have been right after all.”

  Singling out one comment from the approximate version Mustapha was able to provide, Lord Arthur burst into loud laughter.

  “Your cousin is jealous of your good luck, is she? How amazing! Well, one won’t ask what kind of luck! Eh, Osman?”—this with a nudge in his companion’s ribs.

  The latter remained silent, not so much because he was growing sleepy from the heat and the wine and brandy as because he had been raised never to speak of what transpired in the harēmlik, the “lawful” part of the house.

  At just that moment, however, there was a hoot from the yacht’s steam siren, and they all glanced toward her. A plume of gray was rising from her funnel again, and on her foredeck a sailor was signaling with colored flags.

  “Well, good for Macalister!” exclaimed Lord Arthur. “I should know him well enough by this time to realize that when he means one hour he’ll say two, to be on the safe side. Bloody pessimist! Let’s clear up and get aboard.”

  “Excuse me, m’lord,” Tompkins ventured, “but how much of this food do you want taken back? The potted meats won’t last now they’ve been opened, and some of the fruit—”

  “Oh!”—with a grand gesture. “The nigger can have it! And a bottle of wine too, provided he carries me back to the boat without getting my feet wet.”

  When the steam yacht had departed, trailing her smoke into the sunset like a vast flag, Evgenos helped Anastasia to gather up the remnants and carry them to their shack.

  “I told you they wouldn’t harm us,” he chided, his mouth full of English ham and pickles and stale but white bread.

  “Yet they were afraid we might harm them,” she muttered, propping against the center post of their shack what she had reclaimed as a particular treasure, the icon of the Virgin and Child which the sea had tossed ashore.

  “Why should we? How could they think such a thing?”

  “Because they are so insecure in their luxury.”

  “But here, left for us as presents, are delicacies such as I have never tasted! The glass jars these pickles came in, just to start with, are finer than—”

  She waved him to silence, seizing the wine bottle and drinking deeply.

  “Their confidence is an illusion. All of it depends on how efficiently we can be cowed, like me at sight of that red fez. I’m ashamed. It makes me think of Shanti.”

  Replete, content, he lay back in the warm evening air and listened to her tale as darkness fell.

  “Now Shanti was a soft and undemanding person, chosen for reasons contrary to those affecting Cedric. Her, and her parents’, culture encouraged her to be passive. She expected the world to treat her well, but when it didn’t, though she certainly knew how to complain, she had no f
aintest notion how to act. She did, however, have hopes, and ultimately they were—in a sense—fulfilled.

  “The place she came to was exactly what she’d always dreamed of. It was a benign and hospitable world, where no one had to work. The climate was delightful and the people could go without clothes, though there were many kinds of ornament and decoration. When you felt hungry, there was no need to do more than look for fallen fruit and nuts, or the shellfish which abounded at the seaside. Also there were animals so tame they seemed almost to welcome an invitation to be slaughtered, but they were killed only with great ceremony and on certain feast days that everyone looked forward to for months beforehand, when a sweet intoxicating drink was served and all made merry. Even a storm provided entertainment, in the form of lightning. Much of the people’s music imitated thunder, too, for if a cloudburst washed away a house or two, then felling a few trees and weaving leaves to make new roofs and walls likewise offered a distraction and an excuse for a party. Besides, rainwater filled the drinking ponds.

  “Also there were other kinds of pleasure. She proved attractive to a lot of men, with the entire approval of their wives. Some of the latter too decided to test what their husbands had reported on so well, and pronounced themselves equally satisfied. In a short while she was famous, insofar as fame existed in that place, and a great feast was mounted in her honor.”

  Anastasia paused to reach for the wine again, and he urged her, “Tell the rest!”

  “There wasn’t any ‘rest,’” she said. “That was the beginning and the end, endlessly repeated.”

  PART FIVE

  THE EXHIBIT

  is a warped board painted blue, silver, gold and red.

  It serves to summarize a faith rejected

  THE MONTH

  is August

  THE NAME

  is Giacomo

  During the hot August night Anastasia had tossed aside the thin rough sheet she shared with Evgenos. Just at dawn there came the faintest, faintest wisp of breeze, and the change in temperature awakened her. Stretching languorously, out of habit she reached to reclaim their cover, but checked in mid-movement, sniffing the air.

  “Evgenos!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Quick!”

  And jumped up, seizing her tattered dress.

  He roused more slowly, but as soon as he came to himself he perceived what had excited her. Faint, yet unmistakable, a most delectable smell had drifted into the hovel they called home, as though the beach, the island, the very sea had been planted with richly perfumed flowers. With a mutter of amazement he drew on his breeches.

  “What do you think it can be?” he demanded.

  She said something wild about a vision of saints and angels. Only in heaven could there be such fragrance!

  More cynical, yet confused enough to imagine she might be right, he thrust aside the tatters that hung across the doorway and emerged blinking in new daylight.

  No saints. No angels. Nothing miraculous. But something remarkable, nonetheless. Just offshore lay one of the greatest ships that plied these waters: a Venetian galley laden above deck and below with the most aromatic spices the Orient could offer—nutmegs, cinnamon, pepper, cassia, cloves… How many tons in all she carried, he could not guess, but it was enough to scent the air for miles around.

  At first there was no sign of activity on board. This breeze, this zephyr, was not even strong enough to stir the burgee flying from her mainmast, let alone fill the canvas brailed below its crosstree. Her kedge was down and her oars were shipped, indicating that her rowers were exhausted. The notion crossed Evgenos’s mind that she might have been struck by plague, in which case she was a terrifying apparition. Then again, of course, if her crew were suffering nothing worse than weariness and thirst, and if he swam out to her with skin bottles of good sweet water from the spring beyond the headland…

  Dreams of rescue and reward were dashed a moment later. Three figures appeared on deck, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and shortly caught sight of him and Anastasia. They waved. She waved back frantically. There was the sound of shouted orders, and the ship came slowly back to life.

  In a while, a dinghy was lowered, and three people—possibly the same three, though the distance was too great for Evgenos to be certain—set out for shore, two rowing and the third in the stern, using another oar for a rudder.

  “How wonderful!” Anastasia breathed. “They must be very rich! Perhaps we can sell them something for a lot of money!”

  More cynically Evgenos said, “Most rich people get rich by taking what they want without paying for it. It’s the way of the world.”

  He wished he possessed a weapon that would symbolize his determination to defend against all comers himself, the woman he was so proud of having won, and this patch of ungrateful land that yielded them their meager living. For a moment he thought of the sword he had found as he strove to dig it… but though its hilt and guard were intact its blade was a rusty stub. What else might serve him if the need arose?

  Glancing around, he caught sight of the wooden pole, sharpened at one end, which they used to furrow the patch of dusty, salty ground between their home and the beach. Apart from his fisherman’s gutting knife, it was as good a weapon as they owned. Taking hold of it, he tried to lean on it with a casual air, as though it were nothing more than a stick to relieve strain on a gammy leg.

  Anastasia wanted to rush down to the water’s edge and greet the strangers. He checked her with a touch.

  “Wait until we see how they behave. Wait until we hear what they’ve got to say.”

  “But they’re foreign! You can’t understand foreigners!”

  “I’ve been to places you had never even heard of, you know that. I picked up a little of the lingua franca and I think I may remember just enough.”

  Compliant, she obeyed.

  The dinghy grounded in the shallows. One of the rowers jumped out: a thin boy wearing salt-crusted breeches and a shirt with one sleeve ripped away. He produced a splintered plank and laid it from the bow to a rock that offered dry footing. Stowing his steering oar, the man from the stern picked his way forward and, balancing nimbly, walked the plank to land. It would be fair to guess he was the captain of the galley. He too was thin, of medium height, with a hawk-beaked nose above a dense black beard. A brown velvet slouch cap shaded his piercing eyes. Like the rest of his clothing—a gray shirt that had been white, a plum-colored velvet doublet with its pile rubbed away on the right side, black breeches tucked into wide boots with their tops turned over—it had no doubt once been fine and costly, but now his whole attire was stained and shabby.

  Evgenos kept his face mask-stiff, striving to look like a stupid peasant. But he was plagued by a terrible sense of disorientation, as though from drinking too much wine. Every time he looked closely at the newcomers, he seemed to see more than one of them, blurred and out of focus.

  Then the stranger did something that took him totally aback. He broke into a broad grin and advanced with arm outstretched.

  “Gene! Stacy!” he exclaimed. “How are you?”

  Bewildered, they drew back, and Anastasia caught at Evgenos’s free hand, squeezing his fingers so hard it almost hurt.

  For no one, short of eavesdropping on their pallet stuffed with moss and prickly fern, could have known about the pet names they called each other! Evgenos tightened his grip on the sharpened pole, uncertain whether it would be wise to show defiance, yet ashamed not to.

  At all events, this stranger spoke a language he could understand after a fashion. Framing words with difficulty, because most of the time he and Anastasia had little to talk about—there was no news on Oragalia, only scandal and rumor—he said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  It was the captain’s turn to be taken aback. Lowering his hand, he said uncertainly, “But—Oh, surely, you must remember me? Stacy!”

  Wide-eyed, Anastasia shook her head. A lock of her lank and greasy hair fell over one eye; hastily she brushed it back. She should not h
ave been out here, in the presence of strange men, wearing just a dress and with nothing to cover her head. But she was too frightened now to risk going in search of a shawl.

  “Look!” His expression affable enough, but his voice full of puzzlement, the captain approached more closely. “You must recognize me, surely! I’m *****!”

  However, if what followed was a name, then it was one they couldn’t repeat—couldn’t even register. It was full of wrong sounds, such as they had never attempted to twist their tongues around. It was as much like hearing double as looking at the visitors resembled seeing double… yet neither was a right comparison. Evgenos fought against the sickening sensation with all his might.

  “What do you want?” he demanded again. “Is it water for your crew? We can give you drink if you leave us in peace, but we have nothing fine enough to be worth stealing!”

  The captain stood irresolute for a moment, glancing at his companions; by now they had moored the dinghy and joined him. The second rower was large and burly, with a scarred face and a dirty kerchief tied around his right forearm, patched with brown as from dried blood.

  “What do you make of this, #####?” the captain demanded. Once again the name defeated Evgenos’s ear. As the boy the question was addressed to shook his head, he decided to think of him as Bony, and the burly one as Scarface.

  “You, ǂǂǂǂǂ?” This time the captain appealed to the latter.

  “We’ll have to ask a lot more questions,” Scarface rumbled.

  “I don’t like these people!” Anastasia whispered. “Do something to make them go away!”

  Equally softly, Evgenos returned, “A far cry from saints and angels, aren’t they? But how can I drive them off? All I can do is persuade them there’s nothing here to interest them…” And he added more loudly, “Didn’t you hear me say we’re not worth robbing?”

  “We don’t even have enough food for ourselves!” Anastasia chimed in loudly. “We don’t know how we’ll manage when the baby comes!” And she laid her hand dramatically on the rising curve of her belly.