Читать книгу White Vespa - Kevin Oderman - Страница 22

Fourteen

17 June

Paul didn’t smoke, but he often carried a pack of Camels around with him, just to have cigarettes to offer to smokers in distress. There were a lot of smokers among the young travelers he sometimes sought out. And a lot of them were in distress of one kind or another, traveling to forget or to keep from starting a life. Paul sympathized; he’d never started a life, never found a career path he was willing to put even one foot on. He didn’t have to, that was the difference. A cigarette was all it took to get a conversation going. Sometimes he even lit one for himself in a show of extreme fellow feeling.

When Yórgos stopped by his table at Vapori and asked for a cigarette, Paul gave him one, gave him two. He smiled when Yórgos tucked them into his pocket, looking suddenly furtive. It was a bad paper day. Either the news wasn’t interesting or Paul wasn’t interested. He put the paper down and looked down the alley toward the water, at the slow undulations of the boats as they rose and fell on waves Paul couldn’t see from his deck chair in the shade of an umbrella. He was fingering a small roll of fat that pushed over his belt at his waist, wondering once again if he ought to join the gym, to learn to sweat. He didn’t think so.

He looked at his watch. Almost tourist time, time to do something else. He didn’t know what. He wondered idly if he was bored, if this is what people meant when they said they were bored. He wasn’t sure. He decided he was more likely languorous. He thought that sounded better.

He watched the people walking by down on the paraléia, the patterning, first a couple, then three friends, then a lone walker. He liked to try to see people as if they were birds, or animals, and to take an interest in how they flocked together or herded up or went off by themselves. He was a loner himself, but he wasn’t thinking about that; he was just watching. Soon another loner crossed the mouth of the alley, and he forgot all about birds. It looked like Anne! A different haircut and years on her, but surely it was Anne.

He didn’t call out or get up. He sat there. How odd. She wouldn’t be here by chance; she’d have found out where he was and come looking for him. But why? Not for the great relief of having him to talk to, he was pretty sure about that. He was curious, and he felt a little more alive curious, so a little better. He called for his bill and considered the damage when it came. He was spending a lot of money on coffee! At least he had it to spend. Very likely Anne wouldn’t. He shook his head, poor Anne. She’d kissed off her inheritance a long time ago.

Paul stood up, brushed the wrinkles out of his khaki shorts, dropped his newspaper in a basket, and started to walk. His room was close by, on the hillside more or less above Vapori. He occupied the lower story of a restored old house, down an alley off the main steps and then sharply up two flights of stairs. The hill was steep enough that he could see water out the windows that faced the harbor, though he wouldn’t call it a view. But his rooms were quiet and private; the upstairs flat was occupied only on the occasional weekend. Rooms is to exaggerate. There was a bathroom in the back, but the entire rest of the apartment was a single room. There was a sink and a gas ring, but no kitchen. Paul didn’t care: except for the odd piece of fruit, he preferred to eat out. The furniture was outsize, an enormous bed occupied one wall, and there was a large wardrobe on the wall across from it. There was also a full-length mirror on a stand, an antique, and Paul kept it turned so he could see himself in bed or turned slightly away, so he could see out the window on the same wall as the bed. That way there seemed to be a window on the far wall, where there was none. There were only two chairs. A table. The room was bare of ornament, but perhaps because of that it had a stagey look that Paul liked very much.

He worked the key in the door and went in, went directly to the bed and sprawled out on his back, still wondering about Anne. He was amused. He could imagine any number of dramatic scenes she might create for him. He was looking forward to what was coming, whatever it might be.

It was past noon and the room was very hot when he woke up. He rinsed his face at the sink and then pulled his suitcases out of the bottom of the wardrobe. It didn’t take him long to locate the envelope of old photographs. He shuffled through them quickly until he found the one he was looking for: a little girl bouncing on the back of her horse, heading for the barn. Even in the picture you could see she wasn’t riding well, wasn’t maintaining contact with the trotting horse, but she looked happy, such a little princess. The horse had been called Pie, short for Shoofly Pie, a name Anne had picked out of a favorite children’s book.