I had to hang around the dock for a couple of hours before the captain of the boat got back from his afternoon nap. Jim would have had fits at the sight of the boat. It was a filthy tub that looked as if it would founder in a slight breeze. The deck still showed the traces of its last dozen cargoes-animal droppings, oil, fish scales, and so on. I scraped out a spot and sat down. It’s about a hundred and twenty kilometers from Crete to Thera, and from the looks of the scow I figured she’d be lucky to make twenty kilometers an hour. I overestimated the speed. It was late the next morning before we got in.
Santorini is in the guidebooks. I had read about it, but a verbal description can’t possibly prepare a visitor for the real thing. It’s fantastic.
In an aerial view the group of islands looks like a half-eaten sugar cookie from which a giant child has taken a big bite and let the fragments fall onto his shining sea-blue plate. The main island, Thera, is the largest, crescent-shaped piece. Smaller islands lie like fallen crumbs, outlining the perimeter of the former crater of the volcano. In the center of the bay are two other islands, black intrusions on the surface of the clean sea. They are not parts of the cookie, but new volcanic cores, risen phoenix-like out of the chasm. One of them, Nea Kaimeni, is still active.
Chugging through the channel between Thera and the next-largest island, Therasia, we entered the caldera. The water was a rich teal blue, thirteen hundred feet deep. It seemed funny to think we were sailing over what had been the populated central peak of a circular island. We passed by the ominous black cone of Nea Kaimeni, a desolate heap of cinders and slag, with a trail of pale-green vapor rising from its fumarole. Ahead was a stunning view-the red, white, and black cliffs of Thera, rising sheer a thousand feet out of the blue water, as sharply perpendicular as if they had been cut by the snap of gigantic teeth. The geological strata were defined like the layers of a cake-the black of congealed lava, the pinky-red of pumice, and the awesomely thick layer of white ash that fell during the eruption of 1450 B.C., before the final paroxysm blew the guts out of the island. The cliff glistened in the sunlight, and I remembered Plato’s description of the Royal City of Atlantis, built of red and black and white stone.
On top of the cliff, like a starched crocheted edging, were the sugar-white buildings of the island’s largest town, Phira. I was reminded of a model of the Taj Mahal I’d once made out of sugar cubes for a school project. The town had an Oriental look, with cupolas and domes and arched porticoes.
Other buildings, docks and warehouses and shops, clustered at the foot of the cliff. Connecting the lower and upper towns was a zigzag path that went up the sheer face of the cliff in a series of acute switchbacks.
As soon as we had docked I made arrangements to have my stuff carried up to the hotel, and then I considered my own procedure. People usually ride donkeys up the path; it’s too steep for a wheeled vehicle, and the black lava cobblestones are slippery. The donkeys looked as if they were in worse shape than I was, so I decided to walk. I had been sitting for hours and needed to loosen up.
It wasn’t a walk, it was a climb, and by the time I got to the top I was regretting not having taken a donkey. Blinded with sweat and heaving like a spavined horse, I collapsed in the shade of a fig tree, mopped my wet face, and got my eyes focused. And what do you suppose I saw first? Right. My father. He was sitting at a table at a sidewalk café, staring straight at me with an expression of icy disapproval. I paid no attention, being much more interested in the tall glass on the table in front of him. My throat was as dry as death.
I started walking toward him. Then it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t speak till I was spoken to, so I changed course, heading for one of the other tables. Two of them were taken, but the third had only one occupant. He saw me coming and pulled out a chair. I fell into it. The man grinned and shoved his glass of water toward me. I drained it, pushed the damp hair out of my eyes, and looked at him.
He was worth looking at. As tanned as the Minoan athletes in the frescoes, with brown hair sun-bleached in streaks, he had a thin face and a friendly smile. Handsome? I don’t know. After I’ve known someone for a while I can’t judge his appearance. All my friends look beautiful to me. All I remember of that first impression was that he was brown. Brown hair, tanned skin, khaki clothes. High, arched eyebrows, which peaked thickly in the center, gave him a permanently surprised look. His frayed work shirt was open down the front to show a chest as tanned as his face. The sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, and his arms were covered with the marks of heavy labor, scratches and scrapes and bruises. So were his hands.
“Health nut?” he inquired. “Animal lover? Skinflint?”
His voice was deep; the accent was western United States. I considered the questions.
“Health nut, I guess,” I said finally. “The climb didn’t look that bad from down below.”
“Live and learn.” He gestured; when the waiter came, he ordered, without consulting me. I had no objection to the result, however; it was lemonade, fresh and surprisingly cold, considering that it had no ice in it.
“You speak Greek,” I said intelligently.
“Not very well. Not the modern version, anyhow.”
“You mean you speak classical Greek?” A qualm ran through me. “What are you, an archaeologist or something?”
“Something. If you ask my boss, he’ll tell you I’m a long way from calling myself an archaeologist.”
I drank lemonade and tried to think. Frederick had mentioned that there was another expedition working on Thera. It was just my luck to run into one of the staff members before I had a chance to talk to Frederick and find out what role I was supposed to be playing.
My companion was studying me as candidly as I had studied him. He didn’t seem to dislike what he saw.
“My name’s Jim Sanchez,” he said.
“Really? My dad’s name is Jim.”
I was not trying to be sly. I spoke without thinking. Jim was my father, in every sense but the least important. I had momentarily forgotten about the man who was sitting at a nearby table, as I basked in the warmth of Jim Sanchez’s smile.
“What a coincidence.”
“Yes, I don’t suppose there are more than half a million men in the world named Jim,” I agreed solemnly; and then we both laughed immoderately, as if the silly comment had been an epigram.
Why does it happen that way sometimes, with a total stranger? Within five minutes we were talking as if we had shared years of common experiences. We laughed a lot, over things that weren’t really very funny. We caught each other’s meanings before the sentences were completed. There didn’t seem to be any reason why I shouldn’t tell him my name, so I did. Then he told me where he went to school-he was working for a doctorate at the University of California -and I told him where I was from and what I had majored in at school. Casual conversation, nothing profound or clever; but I felt as if I had known him all my life.
That’s what people usually say when they describe such an experience. It’s a figure of speech.
Or is it? I wonder.
The conversation was a little embarrassing because I had to hedge about so many things-why I had come to Thera, for instance, and how long I was planning to stay. I had just about decided it was time for me to make a tactful exit-mentioning that I hoped to be staying at the Hotel Atlantis-when something came between me and the sun. The long shadow fell across the table like a bar of darkness that separated me and Jim. It was very symbolic.