He imperceptibly dropped off to sleep during the night and woke up only when the human presence leaning over his face pulled him out of the depths into which he had sunk. It was Maya, she was looking down on him with a slyly bashful smile, uh, it’s eleven o’clock already, she said, we were thinking of going to check out the beach, the water here must be a lot warmer than on Thasos. They had to walk quite a ways before finding an open space with fewer tourists, the season had already begun and the hordes crawled in tireless ranks between the hotels and the beach. The shoreline was covered with tiny pebbles and Maya grumbled that she would cut her feet, which wasn’t far from the truth, and after hesitantly wobbling around at the water’s edge for a while, Spartacus dashed forward, scooped her up despite her protests, carried her out to sea and simply tossed her in the water, you’ll drown me, you idiot, she screamed, well, he giggled, I’ve been meaning to for a while, and now I finally got my chance. Sirma was standing a little aside, up to her neck in water and watching them indulgently, momentarily amused by their childish antics. Krustev tried floating on his back, at first he thought he’d done it, but then it suddenly turned out that he was lying diagonally in the water with his feet almost touching the bottom. The sea was choppy, the tightly packed waves approached from the horizon and rocked their unmoored bodies, today isn’t so great for swimming lessons, Sirma said, still, the water is a lot warmer than on Thasos, that goes without saying, Maya swam up to them panting, her face red from her battle with Spartacus. It’s nice, said Krustev.
They ate gyros downtown, that was good, Maya said, but now I can just tell that I reek like garlic, come on now, Krustev joked, we’re not gonna kiss each other, right, and suddenly he realized that it sounded exactly as if Spartacus had said it and the three of them didn’t react, the comment sailed past just as their own routine comments did, springing up so naturally amid their conversations that they didn’t even find them funny anymore, and he felt his chair rising slightly off the ground and swaying in the air, that same sense of rocking and the loss of solid ground that he felt in the sea. He took them through the old town’s narrow, fantastic streets, lorded over by haughty, regal cats in the lazy afternoon, and that became yet another easily lost day, for months now all his days had been lost, but until now he had been at pains to lose them, he had wriggled through the cramped holes in the rough, scraping walls with effort; here, where the streets really were cramped and the walls rough, he couldn’t sense the sand draining away; but when evening came and the city again filled up with tourists eager to buy sandals and silver bracelets, to eat heavy, impressive dishes and to drink bad wine, Krustev already knew where he wanted to go, and he knew that he wanted to go alone. They had set out to walk around the old town along the fortress wall, this was actually his idea, but he had forgotten that it was quite a hike, at one point Sirma announced that she’d had enough, you guys go on ahead, and sat down on the grass along the path, come on, lazybones, Spartacus goaded her indignantly, but she was already leaning against a crooked tree and taking off her sandals. Spartacus waved dismissively and he and Maya continued on, I’ll stay here with her, Krustev called after them and sat down in the grass across from the girl who was intently massaging her toes, and felt the urge to light up a cigarette, a long abandoned habit, which from time to time cut through his consciousness like a flashback, the consolation of having something in your hand, the awkwardness of just sitting there doing nothing. How is she, Sirma asked him suddenly, how is Elena, and only now did he stop to think that she alone of the three hadn’t said a word about his daughter until now, I think she’s fine in the States, he said cautiously, not because he was hesitating as to what to say, but because he didn’t know whether what he was saying was true, and plucked a blade of grass, started chewing on it and admitted, I don’t really know her at all. Sirma seemed about to say something, but then kept quiet. Now was his chance to slip away for a few hours, he tried to explain and she seemed to understand immediately, you must’ve been here with Elena and your wife, and she nodded at his left hand, and Krustev said, yeah, I was with them, now he already knew that they knew, and Sirma knew that he knew that they knew, but she didn’t ask anything more, silence about silence, Krustev said to himself, I don’t ask them about their stuff and they don’t ask me about my wife’s death, what on earth could I tell them, that my wife went to the seaside with her boyfriend, whom she’d been with for eight years, someone I may have read about in the papers, but I didn’t want to know who he was and now I’ll certainly never find out, they had gone to the seaside together, she could swim, unlike me, but she got caught in the undertow and when they pulled her out of the water, she wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t alive either, and it was only then, when I went to see her in that white room that I could again speak honestly and openly with her, and yes, as you guessed, she died, and it’s a bit of a long story, but in the end I grabbed my car keys and credit cards, left the house and hit the road, yes. Go, said Sirma, go, you don’t need to explain, everybody needs time alone, remember that Guns N’ Roses song, everybody needs somebody, you’re not the only one, but sometimes you need to be the only one, right? What, you don’t think that we always keep tabs on one another, go on, and if you’re late getting back, we’ll meet up at the apartment, but if not — you’ve got our phone numbers.