Cast in Doubt Read online

  But I am arrested in my departure by the young man, by Roman. He begs me to allow him to accompany me on my journey. Under ordinary circumstances I would have said yes—I had already begun to imagine that I could be this clever young man’s teacher, and he my amanuensis, and that he could benefit from my worldliness and knowledge, and so on. Gently I explain to him that I must be alone on this trip. His disappointment is palpable and I nearly relent. But something holds me to my conviction. Instead I offer him my address. I write it down on a small piece of paper and urge him to visit me soon. He takes the piece of paper and folds it twice and tucks it into the pocket of his shirt—he is dressed, by the way, like any young Greek man; no one would know he is a Gypsy. Then he pats his shirt pocket, which is over his heart. He pats it several times. He stares deeply into my eyes. My heart leaps. I am astonished, even mesmerized by this display of unexpected affection.

  We are not alone. All this occurs in the midst of the group, who are no doubt aware of us and this encounter. What do the Gypsies think of me and of this intimate, if not romantic, episode? Suddenly I wonder if they know or suspect that I am a homosexual. Would it matter to them? I cast my eyes about the campsite. Everyone is going about his or her business. Probably they think I am rich. That may be all that matters. I do not know.

  Together Roman and I walk to my rusty old car. I note their two new Mercedes parked behind some trees. As I get in, Roman holds the car door and tells me he will visit me, absolutely. And soon. He touches my arm. I am more than touched. “Look for Helen well!” Roman calls out as I drive away. “Make a good journey!”

  By offering Roman my address, didn’t I, I think with pride, demonstrate to the fortune-teller that I don’t always look for the right things? Am I not taking a chance with Roman? Is this merely foolish pride?

  In the privacy of my car, I repeat his name aloud several times. Roman, Roman, Roman. With a start and a great deal of pleasure, I realize that in French his name is the word for novel. And is it the French who are fascinated by the Gypsies and who, I believe, dominate the field of Gypsiology. I experience a deep satisfaction that bubbles and flows through my languid body like lava down the side of a volcanic mountain.

  Chapter 16

  It was only later in the day that I was able to record some of the impressions I had gathered. I felt privileged to have been in the Gypsies’ company. Though I had momentary doubts, I was mostly assured that they liked and accepted me. I did not know why. Perhaps I held steadfastly then to what dear Gertrude noted about the writing of The Making of Americans: “Whether they are Chinamen or Americans there are the same kinds in men and women and one can describe all the kinds of them.” I was not afraid that the Gypsies would steal from me or kill me. I didn’t know why, either. The simplest explanation was that I did not want to think these things, things I would ordinarily have thought. It was also true that up until that night I had had no real or intimate experience of the Gypsies and had, prior to Helen’s friendship with one and my reading about them, maintained only predictable and prejudicial notions about them.

  I drive all morning, mulling over last night’s events. I let each one sink in thoroughly. Roman is an exquisite, even extravagant event. How is, I ask myself, a character like an event? I stop for souvlaki at a roadside café where I warmly greet the owner, whom I don’t know. I am in exceptionally good spirits. I am not at all hungry and nibble listlessly at the pita bread and meat. As any good Cretan will, the owner returns my solicitude with his own. He offers me a game of tavoli but I explain that I am in a rush. Frankly, I cannot concentrate. I merely glance at the open book before me, Stein’s lectures, and decide to follow the fastest route to the south, so as to arrive at my destination—that dot on the map—before nightfall.

  The village that is nearest to the dot on Helen’s map probably does not have a guest house or inn. Often one can rent a room from a Greek family and indeed, when I arrive there, this is what I set about doing. I park the car on a deserted side street; there appear to be hardly any streets at all. I walk to the only store, a general store, that is open and ask for help. The young woman who owns the store has a room to let just below, in the basement, and so I am in luck. There is a restaurant a mere half mile from here and a beautiful beach, she tells me. Her name is Partheny, which means, curiously enough, “little virgin”; her husband is dead and she wears black, in the tradition of the Cretan widow, but I would guess she is only thirty. She also tells me there are many Americans who pass through, but yes, she believes she has recently seen one with a gold ring in her nose.

  The village is a crudely built, almost barren place, not likely to be invaded by the hippies from the caves at M´tala, which is considerably south of here. It is such an unprepossessing, scrubby spot, with a few ratty flowers and trees dotting the cement sidewalks, I rue the fact that this is the setting for my rendezvous with Helen.

  I move my car to a space in front of the store and carry my suitcase, groceries, liquor, and typewriter downstairs. The room is sparely furnished, but has a sink—the toilet is in the hall. There is just one light hanging from the ceiling but the sheets on the cot are clean enough. There is a table on which I place my typewriter. Quickly I remove it from its case, roll in a piece of paper, eager to bang out as fast as I can—my fingers are stiff—all the strange and marvelous events which have transpired since I left home.

  Perhaps I ought this instant to go in search of Helen, but it is nearly dark. Also I am exhausted, having slept so little the last few nights. Might it have been Roman who undressed me and put my pajamas on me? I muse about this possibility—who else could it have been?

  Overtired and somewhat frantic, I commit the following to paper: The large-screen television is on annoyingly all night. The children occasionally gather around it as if around a hearth. I am surprised that television is so central a part of their lives and I suppose I am even surprised by their having electricity. Roman has watched television all his life; his favorite programs come from America and he talks fluently of them. I admit I never watch it and he—they all—are astounded. At some point the old man calls out that the Gypsies are the smartest people on earth. And then he relates a tale to prove it. I can recall it only generally. Forty not-very-smart Gypsies were sent into a forest to do a job—cut down trees—and instead they bought sheep and used up all their money. Then they fell asleep, but no one Gypsy wanted to sleep on the outside of the circle, so all night they kept changing places, and by morning no one had slept. They lost their rope and axes; thirty-eight of them fell into a ravine and died. The other two—something dreadful happens to both. But the last—this is most amusing—the last dies because he wants to look at his private parts, which he has never seen. By now he is carrying a torch, but he leans so far forward, he falls off a bridge into a river and drowns. The Gypsies who died, says the old man, were the foolish ones, the scatterbrained ones. It is lucky they died, he says, for all the others who remained and didn’t go into the woods, they were the intelligent ones. All the stupid ones were gotten rid of, and that’s why the Gypsies are the smartest people on earth.

  I pull the typewriter paper out of the machine.

  The Gypsy’s desire to look at his genitals is something I’d never come upon before in a folktale. It could be, in a sense, derived from the Narcissus myth, but it’s base; rather its base is focused lower. It could also have to do with masturbation. My hand settles on my crotch, and I speculate, lazily, about whether they obey the same laws and prohibitions that oppressed me. I close the typewriter case, though I would prefer to linger and wander in the luscious maze Roman’s interest in me has provoked. But I can’t find the energy. Fully dressed, I lie down and fall into a blessed, restorative sleep.

  After my nap, I wash, shave, splash cologne on my face, and change into clean clothes. Refreshed, I walk in the direction of the restaurant the little virgin mentioned. I have some anxiety that this might be the night I find Helen, and though I have been planning for this, or at le
ast praying that it would happen, I haven’t the faintest idea what I will say to her. In truth I am unprepared, for what in the world should I say to her?

  When I enter the restaurant, I find no one I recognize, just a few Greeks and several Germans.

  I order taramosaláta, grilled fish, salad, and wine. The view is not spectacular, not mind-blowing, as John might say. I’d nearly forgotten him. I am relatively calm and eat the bread, which is fresh, and fish-roe spread, downing every mouthful with a gulp of cold, dry wine. My appetite is back. Just as the grilled fish arrives, the door opens. I stiffen, expecting it to be Helen. But it is not. I open my book and try to read, but a disquieting idea invades my overwrought brain.

  If I don’t accept the Gypsy’s prophecy, or prophecy in general, ought I to continue to read about or study them? If I reject their ways and ideas, can I learn anything?

  I drink more and continue along this mental path, which now engrosses me. For perhaps this is what the old Gypsy woman meant. If so, I tell myself, I am accepting at least some of her wisdom and ought to be allowed to go on. But didn’t T.S. Eliot become an Episcopalian, an Anglo-Catholic? Don’t most medievalists eventually convert to Catholicism? Jews, Protestants, all? It is a conundrum.

  I make my home, my bed, in a rational world, but I awaken in an irrational one. That might be a good line for Stan Green, though perhaps too refined. Is it any less rational to consider accepting this, the Gypsy’s prophecy, for instance, than Eliot’s acceptance of God, his submission to faith? Perturbed, I rub my eyes. How is it possible to think about something one cannot or does not understand? Prophecy? The writing on Helen’s wall? My experience with the Gypsies has affected me. I hope it has made me a better person, a more human one. I sigh audibly. The Germans glance in my direction.

  My dinner finished, and my exhaustion acute and abiding, I pay the bill. But courtesy demands that I meet the owner of the restaurant and his family. I explain where I am staying; at the mention of Partheny’s name, the owner’s wife lifts her head up sharply, indicating, in a Greek gesture, a strong no. I cannot inquire why. Probably she dislikes Partheny. Of course, a young and attractive widow is always feared in a small village. But that is not the story I wish to pursue. I do let them know I am pursuing Helen and describe her. They too think they have seen her, so I am certainly on the right track.

  Partheny welcomes me back as if I were Odysseus. I hope she is not matchmaking. It is a lonely life she leads. I smile and return to my subterranean abode where she has placed a vase with flowers. It sits on the cheap dresser, inadequately providing beauty to an undistinguished, indeed dismal, room. But in Partheny’s small gift is such richness that I sit on the bed and weep. I do not know why. The events of the last days have weakened me. I sit motionless on the bed.

  Her gift of daisies and narcissus dislodges a buried incident from my days in college, when a friend with whom I had had a quarrel and to whom I no longer spoke left flowers in my room. In just the same way. Then too I wept, uncontrollably, and yet we never again were friends. Pride, I suppose, or callow youth prevented my making the rapprochement. I wonder if he is alive. Life is endlessly sad. To be sad is to be human. To be human is to be sad. With such bathos do I nearly slip out of consciousness. But just before I do, for which I am oddly glad, I hear Roger’s bawdy voice. He shouts gleefully, Blow it out your asshole, Horace.

  In the morning, Partheny knocks on my door and carries in a tray with coffee, a boiled egg, bread and jam. I thank her profusely. Behind her is a little girl with a ribbon in her dark hair. She has a child and is not alone, I tell myself. I eat and dress. I am in a common-sense sort of temper. I will walk to the beach this morning and see what’s what. I straighten my bed and march up the stairs. There is a young man—he is French, I believe—standing close to Partheny. He is nuzzling her neck. Suddenly they become aware of me. She smiles, with some embarrassment, but much less than one expects from a Cretan widow. Clearly he is her lover; it is no wonder the woman at the restaurant last night shook her head no. Partheny is breaking with the custom of her village, indeed, of Crete. She is either brave or foolhardy. She might, and this is Stan Greenish, yet not farfetched, end up dead. I am simultaneously relieved—I am not part of her marriage plans—and worried. The consequences of their actions could be dire. Does the young Frenchman know this? And will he behave responsibly?

  I rid my mind of these concerns as soon as I shut the door behind me. Partheny must know what she is doing. But do I? That must be faced. I amble along the gravel-and-tar street. Pebbles stick between my toes, making walking a nuisance. I despise sandals—one’s toes stick out in such an accusatory fashion—and yet I refuse to ruin my tennis sneakers by wearing them on the beach. I do treasure the ocean and excitement mounts inside me, welling up in my chest. It is how I think birds feel when mating, or what nature intends for them in the winter when they puff themselves up to keep warm. I often compare myself with birds because of my thin arms and legs and slightly rounded stomach.

  I pass the restaurant. The family is on the terrace. I call out to them—Yá sas—and they greet me by name. Then I continue on my way and, after not too long, perhaps another mile, I reach the path to the beach. It is down a rocky incline. I fall just once but do not hurt myself. There is no one in sight and I make my way to an isolated cove where the water is clear as glass. Tinted glass—it is the palest of aquatic greens. I drop the blanket which Partheny has lent me onto the warm sand and remove my trousers and shirt. I am of course wearing bathing shorts; nude sunbathing is for the French and Italians. I smother my skin in suntan oil. I pay particular attention to my face, to my nose especially. Now I gleam and glisten like a Greek god. I unpack my bag, which contains a towel, a flask of water, books, pen, paper, and a small but powerful telescope.

  I intend to read and sunbathe. Then I will go for a swim. Ten laps would be fine. It is so far south here, the sun beats mercilessly upon my head. I put on my blue yachting cap and sit up. I look out as far beyond the horizon line as I can. That is an old game—trying to see how far one can see. But how does one know? After a while—it is extremely hot—I walk to the water and rush in, determined not to be cautious. I do not want anything to stop me. The water isn’t cold. I swim ten laps, I think. It is exhilarating to be in nature in this way.

  I return to my blanket and towel off. It is an utterly peaceful site. I am oblivious to everything but the luxurious lassitude physical exertion and sun cause. I peer through my telescope but see no one in the distance. I douse myself again with oil, lie down, and place my arms over my eyes. I am close to sleep. The air is still. Jupiter and Poseidon must be holding their breath. The waves lap sweetly, blissfully, at the wet sand. I drift off. I am not sure how many minutes go by.

  I become conscious suddenly of something that is near. It rouses me. It is present. Opening my eyes but temporarily blinded by the noonday sun, I perceive a human form. Gradually I can see, but I can hardly believe my eyes. More strange than my chancing upon the Gypsies, who had been in my mind and on my map, as I had wanted to chance upon them—a matter of controlled randomness and, therefore, not unaccountable—is what happens now. Rather, who happens now. That this meeting occurs on an obscure beach in a town not important enough to be on a map makes it all the more improbable. But, for all of that, it happens.

  Standing above me is Stephen the Hermit, the ex-child-movie star, the lunatic, the man who loves electricity. Details of his biography mount one on top of the other as he smiles down at me. Tall and thin, he looms over me. I have not seen Stephen since that night when he ran away from the harbor, humiliated by Roger, Wallace, the Dutchwoman, and me, too, I suppose, his meal left behind uneaten.

  Stephen lopes over to the space beside me and throws down his towel. He positions it not too close to mine, providing us a wide berth. As I remember it, be suffers from claustrophobia and fears all manner of intimacy, which to him must promise and threaten suffocation. Imprinted on his oversized towel is a salmon-pink flamingo
and the words “Miami Beach.” The colorful and incongruous souvenir towel is in marked contradistinction to Stephen, who is in no way like the tourist who might sunbathe on beaches there. It is unimaginable—Stephen the Hermit strolling on Collins Avenue, traipsing into a hotel catering to the nouveaux riches.

  Is there a meaning to his appearance? My mind races along these lines—he is an apparition, then a presentiment. A ghost, someone who has come back from the dead. He has, in a sense, been dead to me. To the Gypsies he would be a mulo! But frankly and quite simply, his presence is first, to me, were I to be completely honest, intensely annoying and implicitly a rebuke. There is something about his accidentally turning up in the place I desperately and urgently needed to find that is irksome.

  I glance at him casually, I hope. Stephen is settling himself down innocuously, patting his shoulder bag—a striped and shabby cloth affair—and placing it neatly on his towel. The bag bulges. What could he—of all people—be carrying in it? Still, taking him in anew, and seeing him thus, I scold myself for my initial lack of charity. At least he has not been consumed by fire. He is safe and, from the look of him, eating well.

  Stranger to say, once I have gone through a compendium of negative responses, I am happy to see him. I have always liked Stephen and have maintained a genuine if distant affection for him. But one would think he were a long-lost brother, so pleased do I become to have his most unexpected and unusual company. Of course I know from my reading about the Gypsies that to them we gadje are brothers, sedentary brothers. I smile to myself—and we are sitting! Normally, as I’ve already mentioned, I do not espouse or experience brotherly feelings. I dislike my brother intensely. Stephen, though, is nothing like my brother. I suppose, also, I am somewhat guilty about not having chased after him that night. It was unconscionable of me. What could I have been thinking?