A Separation(19)
I immediately telephoned all the hotels. He was not staying in any of them, or if he was he was not using his name—although why would he stay in a hotel under a false name, even the notion was ridiculous—and I hung up, uncertain. Perhaps I should have asked Stefano outright if he had driven Christopher, if he knew where he had been planning to do his research, perhaps he even knew the driver Christopher had ultimately hired, it wasn’t impossible. A moment later, the telephone rang. It was Kostas, he asked if I needed anything further. I told him that I was fine. He hesitated, then said that Christopher had been seen yesterday in Cape Tenaro, not too far from Gerolimenas. I felt an immediate wave of relief, which was subsequently replaced by irritation—the entire time I had been waiting, Christopher had merely been sightseeing—I asked Kostas if he knew when Christopher would be back.
He said no, nobody from the hotel had spoken to him. He paused and then said, A friend of Maria’s saw him, he was with a woman. I was too surprised to respond. She is very upset, she is crying, he continued, and for a moment I didn’t know who he was referring to. I’m sorry, I said. Who has been crying? Maria, he replied, she has been crying, it is a real nightmare. Oh, I said, and then added without knowing why, I’m sorry. Don’t worry, Kostas replied, and he sounded cheerful, as if he were speaking of nothing of consequence, She’ll be fine. But would you like to arrange a car, would you like to go to Cape Tenaro to join your husband?
No, I said. My face was hot and I no longer wished to be speaking on the phone, I had to keep myself from hanging up at once. Kostas was silent and then said, Of course, and that I should let him know if there was anything further he could do. I told him that I would stay another night but no longer, that I was looking for a flight that would return to London the next day. Very good, he said. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with us. Yes, I said. Thank you, I have. I hung up and then I called Yvan and told him that I was coming home, and he said good, without asking any questions he said, Good, I am glad.
5.
I walked down to the sea, I did not want to remain in the hotel any longer. I left my things on the beach—it was a harsh and rocky shore, hardly luxurious, the landscape something more than picturesque, edging toward a bleak and extreme blankness—and swam out into the water. It was cold but the water was calm and I went far, well past the buoys and the edge of the cliff, to where the bay opened up into ocean.
I was an infrequent but relatively strong swimmer. The cold was bracing, exactly what I needed: it was impossible to think in the face of it. When I was tired I stopped and rested, treading water before resuming, over time my breath grew short and I did not recover so easily, then I floated on my back and stared at the sky—the color white rather than blue, so that the face of the cliff graded imperceptibly into the atmosphere—and then, as I flipped myself upright, down to the black and blue of the water. I closed my eyes against the sun’s glare and then reluctantly turned and began swimming back to shore. I had gone farther than I intended, I did not know how long I had been in the water.
There were several things I would need to do in order to organize my departure, deferred more than once and now suddenly imminent—the ticket, the packing, the phone call to Isabella. This time, I hardly stopped to rest and by the time my feet touched the bottom—the surface rocky, so that I winced in pain and lifted them at once—I was exhausted and gasping for breath.
When I stepped out onto the shore, two men shouted to me from the embankment, a young woman translated: They say it’s too cold, it’s too late in the season for swimming. I said that I was fine and they shook their heads, they had been watching, they half expected to call a rescue boat but I was a strong swimmer, I had returned to shore without problem, they were impressed. They saw that I had only stopped twice for breath, barely at all, that was very good, better me than them. I shouted my thanks and they waved before resuming their own conversation.
This meaningless interaction raised my spirits, it was the first time I had spoken to anyone in Gerolimenas apart from the staff at the hotel, they had been friendlier than I expected. As I walked back to the hotel, I remembered Stefano’s disdain for the tourists who flocked to the area, it was not difficult to imagine what the villagers must think of me, I was exactly the kind of person they would despise. An outsider, rich—at least relatively speaking, I was staying at the big hotel rather than the more humble establishment at the opposite end of the village’s main road, which hardly seemed to attract any foreigners—a city dweller, a tourist.
A tourist—almost by definition a person immersed in prejudice, whose interest was circumscribed, who admired the weathered faces and rustic manners of the local inhabitants, a perspective entirely contemptible but nonetheless difficult to avoid. I would have irritated myself in their position. By my presence alone, I reduced their home to a backdrop for my leisure, it became picturesque, quaint, charming, words on the back of a postcard or a brochure. Perhaps, as a tourist, I even congratulated myself on my taste, my ability to perceive this charm, certainly Christopher would have done so, it was not Monaco, it was not Saint-Tropez, this delightful rural village was something more sophisticated, something unexpected.
Christopher on the loose in this place—I laughed, I could not help it, it was a terrible thing to imagine. The combination of his charm and erratic sympathy, his persistent inability to imagine the reality of other people’s situations—it was no wonder he was causing such havoc. Suddenly, I was glad I had come to Mani in order to ask for a divorce. I imagined journeying this far in hopes of a reconciliation, only to find Christopher roaming the countryside, chasing one woman after another. Briefly my eyes were wet with tears.