Wine-dark sea of Ulysses.
“How did you pay for your trip to Greece?”
“I’ve told you. With the money from selling Javier’s home. Or was it the money from his fellowship? I don’t remember for sure.”
Nymphs and sirens and ears sealed against the enchantment and temptation of the sea.
“A Lloyd-Triestino ship. An old tub.”
Sea without bound or limit.
“How many days?”
“Oh, I don’t remember. An orchestra playing waltzes and jazz too. You know how time slides by when you’re at sea. How can you keep count of days?”
Choleric breath.
“Did you go first class?”
“No, we couldn’t afford that. We traveled like sandwiches, between first class and steerage. Stop asking questions. Read Ship of Fools. Go see an old movie starring Kay Francis and William Powell.”
Sea that is the home of the most powerful of gods.
“One Way Passage.”
“Sure. They’re all dead, you see, and they don’t know it. The ship of Charon and all the rest. No. That’s Outward Bound. Sorry.”
Poseidon of the golden trident.
“Did you have much baggage?”
“Don’t joke. One steamer trunk. A world. At that time everyone always traveled with a trunk.”
Sea belting the earth.
“Sure. The three Marx brothers could have stowed away in one of those trunks.”
“We died laughing at it. The hinges squeaked, the little drawers squeaked. The trunk was almost empty.”
Sea boiling with winged weightless fish.
“But at that time you couldn’t go anywhere without taking a world with you. It was a must. All for show. And out hopped Harpo with his harp and his eyes of a harmless madman.”
Dolphins beloved by the muses.
“Harmless? Ask the ship’s manicurist.”
“You’re way off, caifán. But you know about as much about the movies as I know about magnetic fields. Harpo was harmless, I tell you; the wolf was Groucho. But we staggered around more than any Marxist in that fifth-rate steamer.”
Children of the sea.
“We wrote letters on notepaper and stuck them in the empty drawers of the trunk.”
“What did you write about?”
Children of the Nereids.
“I won’t tell you. You’re too inquisitive.”
“Okay. What clothes did you take along?”
Breast-fed by Amphitrite.
“The things that were in style then. I told you, like Kay Francis. A flowered print for daytime. An evening dress with wide skirts. Those tailored suits with a short jacket, a long skirt, and a blouse like a tuxedo, of piqué. That satisfy you?”
Sea of ships that open their wakes across the level green plain.
“Did you do your own washing in Falaraki?”
“Elena helped me.”
Trackless sea.
“Who’s Elena?”
“You don’t pay close enough attention. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. What are you going to do with all these little details? Are you Gallup or Kinsey? Are you a recruiter for the war in Vietnam?”
Sea of purple-shadowed waves.
“You had money enough to pay a laundress?”
“You like to make the story go your way, don’t you? Be patient, my love. Elena liked us. Understand?”
Sea joined to the dark good earth.
“Who did the cooking?”
“I did. But we bought most things. In winter the fishermen brought us things. Almost all of it was ready to begin with. You know, cheese, olives, wine. Sometimes I’d fry a squid. But we preferred food that came from the land. A land so dry … Jesus, I don’t know how we survived.”
Burned by the marine sun of Apollo.
“Like Crusoe and Friday, Dragoness. Like the Medusa’s shipwrecked sailors. On the fare of the people themselves. I approve. Some day you and I will be worthy of each other. What was that fireplace like? Brick? Tile, stone?”