Heidi pronounced “Pharaoh” as three syllables — Pha-ra-oh — so that, for the next twenty-five years, I really didn’t know what his name was, even after I saw her write it out in a letter; only then, one day (twenty-five years on), looking at the written word for the Egyptian archon, suddenly I realized what she’d meant to call him. But because we were in Greece, and because in general her faintly accented English was so good, I always thought “Pha-ra-oh” was some declension I didn’t quite catch of pharos — lighthouse.
“Here in Greece,” she said, “you really do lead a dog’s life — don’t you, dog?” She pulled the black leather leash up short again. The collar buckle was gleaming chrome — from some belt she’d found in the Mon-asteraiki flea market; she’d put it together herself on the black leather line. It was unusual looking and quite handsome. Under the poncho she wore black tights and black shoes, with single white buttons on the front. “I take him for a walk in the city — they run up on the street and kick him! You’ve seen them. Don’t say you haven’t. And he’s so beautiful — ” She grinned down at him, slipping into a kind of baby talk — “with his beautiful eyes. It was your beautiful eyes, Pharaoh, that made me take you in in the first place, when you were a puppy and I found you limping about and so sick in the back of that old lot. Ah,” she crooned down at him, “you really are so beautiful!”
“The Greeks just don’t keep pets here, Heidi. At least not house pets.”
“I know,” she said. “Costas told me: you have a dog on a rope in the city. They think you’re probably taking him off somewhere to kill him. They run up and kick him, they throw a stone or a bottle at him — and think it’s great fun! They give him meat they’ve spent twenty minutes carefully sticking full of broken glass! I take him on the subway, and the police say I have to put a muzzle on him!” She made a disgusted sound. “You see somebody with a dog on a leash like this — you would have to be stupid not to realize it’s a pet! They don’t like foreigners; they don’t like dogs. It’s just their way of getting back at both. And even so, on the underground out here this morning, you saw how everyone cowered back from him — they think my little dog is a terrible and vicious beast! I had to put that awful muzzle on him. And he was so good about it. Well, you don’t have it on now — my darling Pharaoh!”
Pharaoh wasn’t a big dog. But he wasn’t a little one either. He was a broad-chested coffee-colored mutt with some white patches as though a house painter had picked him up and maybe shaken one of his forepaws before washing his hands. Heidi’d had him about six months — which was twice as long as she’d known me. One of his ears and the half-mask around his left eye were black.
“They’re just not used to dogs, and he makes them uncomfortable.”
“They’re uncomfortable with him because he’s a dog. They’re uncomfortable with you because you’re a Negro — ”
“They’re uncomfortable with you because you’re German.”
She smiled at that. “Well, that’s barbaric! When I go to David’s silly baby-sitting job, are you going to be all right?”
“I told you, DeLys said I could stay at her place up in Anaphiotika, while she’s away. I’ll be off to England the day after tomorrow. And then back home to New York.”
“That odd old Englishman, John, from Turkey, is staying at DeLys’s too, isn’t he?”
“He’s not that odd. When I was in Istanbul, DeLys gave me his address so I could look him up. After Jerry and I hitchhiked there, I hadn’t had a shower in a week and was a total mess — he was just as nice to me as he could be. He fed me all one afternoon, till I was so full I could hardly walk. He told me all about places to see in the city, the Dolma Bocce and the Flower Passage. And what Turkish baths to go to.”
“Did he feed Jerry too?”
“No. Jerry was scared of him because he knew John liked guys. DeLys had told Jerry about him before we left. So Jerry wouldn’t go see him.”
“You like guys. You like Jerry, I think.”
Which was true. “But Jerry,” I said, “and I are the same age. And we were already friends. I told Jerry I thought he was acting silly. But he’s a southerner, and he’s stubborn.”
“That was a lovely letter Jerry wrote you.” She quoted: “ ‘Don’t step on any low flying birds.’ I always thought he was just another stupid American, too tall, and too awkward, with nothing very interesting to say — even though you liked him. But when you read me his letter, I really began to wish I’d gotten to know him better while he was here. You’re very sensitive to people, in ways I know I’m not. But sometimes, I suppose, we just miss out. Because, as you Americans say, of our prejudices.
“But he is odd,” she went on, suddenly. “Turkish John, I mean — isn’t that a funny name, for an Englishman? Cosima says he gives her the creeps.”
“He’s a little effeminate — he’s a queer,” I said. “But so am I, I suppose.” Though I didn’t really think I was — effeminate, that is.
“I wonder why so many women like you.” Pharaoh went around behind her and, when she jerked him, came back between us, drawing black and white felt one way and another across her shoulder. “DeLys, Cosima, me… Even Kyria Kokinou likes you.” (Kyria Kokinou was the landlady Heidi had decided not to risk angering by having me stay in the room while she was away with her Greek children.) “Do you think there’s any particular reason for that?”
“Probably because I’m queer,” I said. Then: “I wonder why we didn’t have more sex, you and I?”
Now she leaned away with an ironic sneer, backed by her big, German smile. “I was certainly ready!” Heidi and I had slept in the same bed for two weeks; but we’d only made love twice. “I think you were just trying to prove a point,” she said. “That you were.. . ‘queer’, as you say.” Suddenly she straightened. “I’m really not looking forward to this trip. The ferry will have to go out by the paper mill; and it’s going to stink. And I won’t ever see you again, will I? Look, if you can stop for a day in Munich, you must visit the Deutsches Museum. I used to go there when I was little. It’s a science museum. And they have almost an entire real mine in the basement, that you can walk around in and watch it work — that was my favorite part, when I was a little girl. And wonderful mechanical toys from the Eighteenth Century — you can see actually functioning. I know you’ll love it. You like science, I know it. From your lovely books — that you write so carefully. I’d love to know I shared that little piece of my childhood with you. So go there — if you possibly can.” She looked around at the ferryboat. “Well, you have a wonderful trip home. And write me. You’ll go home — you’ll see your wife again. And everything will work out between you. I bet that’ll be so. It’s been an awful lot of fun. I hope you and your wife get back together — or something good happens there, anyway.” She leaned forward and gave me a kiss. I gave her a hug back, and she came up blinking. And grinned once more. Then she turned and went up the plank onto the deck, Pharaoh dashing first ahead, then suddenly back as if he’d forgotten something, so that, with a few embarrassed smiles at me, she had to drag him on board.
At the gangplank’s top a man in a gray suit and an open-collared shirt, lounging against the rail like a passenger, suddenly stood up, swung about, and became very official, pointing at Heidi, at Pharaoh: an altercation started between them, full of “… Dthen thello ton skyllon edtho…!” (I don’t want the dog here) and much arm-waving on his part, with many drawn-out and cajoling “Pa-ra-ka-looo!” ’s and “Kallo to sky-laiki!”’s from Heidi. (Pleeease! and, He’s a good puppy!) It didn’t resolve until she went into her black leather reticule under her poncho to pull out first the John O’Hara paperback she was reading (it ended on the deck, splayed and spine up, by the rail post), some tissues, a pencil, and finally Pharaoh’s muzzle, waving the leather straps at the boat official, then stooping to adjust them over patient Pharaoh’s mouth and ears — while the other passengers stood close around, curious.