The Lovers (12 page)

She left the front door open again, in case the owl wanted to leave, and locked the gate at the foot of the stairs. The air was cooler this early in the morning. She had a pleasant drive to Knidos, thinking about the day ahead. Deniz had said there would be an American couple on the boat and Yvonne briefly wondered about them before her mind turned to Ahmet. She rummaged through her purse as she drove. A few Turkish coins shifted around at the bottom—enough to buy a shell or two from the boy before she set out on the
gulet
.

Captain Galip was waiting for her on the dock. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his white Bermuda shorts. “
Merhaba
,” he said, and offered a coarse hand to help her into the motorboat that would take them to
Deniz II
.

A minute after they pushed off, Yvonne realized she had not seen Ahmet. She turned to look for him and he was there, on the beach, alone. She waved and he did not wave back. Even from across the water that separated them, she believed she could make out the shape of his brow, his eyes. He was looking at her as though she had betrayed him by going on the boat, by not spending the day with him, and this caught Yvonne by surprise.
No!
she wanted to shout, first to him, and then to Captain Galip. Maybe she could return
to Knidos, see Cleopatra’s Island another day. She glanced at the Captain, his expression impenetrable beneath the dark shades of his sunglasses, and when she looked at the shore the boy was making his way to the other harbor, the harbor where she was not.

The motorboat pulled up to the side of
Deniz II
, where Deniz herself was standing at the top of the
gulet
’s ladder. “Please, you are welcome. I am so happy you come.”

“Thank you,” Yvonne said, hoisting herself up the ladder.

“Please,” Deniz said, and directed her toward the back of the boat, where a man and a woman sat at a round table that appeared to have just been set for breakfast.

“Hello,” said the man, standing.

“Good morning,” said the woman, remaining seated.

“How are you?” Yvonne said, though it was clear they were both well. Better than well: their skin was bronze with sun and their chairs were pulled close to one another, as though magnetized. Both of them appeared to be around fifty, a few years younger than Yvonne.

“I’m Carol,” said the woman.

“Jimson,” said the man.

“Jimson?” said Yvonne.

He spelled it for her.

“I’m Yvonne.”

Deniz turned her eyes to each person as they spoke.
Of course,
Yvonne thought, Deniz must have shepherded strangers together many times, and would be trying to determine if everyone would get along.

“Please,” Deniz said to Yvonne, and directed her to sit at the table, across from the tanned couple.

“Thank you,” Yvonne said. She could see the ancient amphitheater from where she sat. She imagined it full, with hundreds of people watching her leave Ahmet. She told herself she had no obligation to the boy.

“Deniz says you’re from Vermont,” Jimson said. He said Deniz’s name differently than Yvonne did, and she briefly wondered whose pronunciation was correct.

“Yes,” she said. “Burlington.”

“We’re from Riverdale, just north of Manhattan,” he said. His New York accent was stronger than Carol’s.

“And you’re here on…” Yvonne started. She had been about to say
your honeymoon
. Supposedly, the island they were going to visit had been given to Cleopatra by Marc Anthony on their honeymoon. The island’s famous white sand had been brought over from Tunisia to satisfy the queen, the rumor went.

“We’re here for the same reason everyone is,” said Jimson, and then added, “Vacation.”

Yvonne reminded herself that she was on vacation too.

“My grandparents were Turkish but I’ve never been here,” Carol said.

Yvonne liked them. She liked their clear determination to enjoy their vacation together: it seemed oddly rare. More common were people who took satisfaction in not having a good time, who expected a country to prove it was deserving of the trouble it took to get there.

Deniz, who had been watching the conversation with a mixture of skepticism and anticipation, must have decided that they were all getting along well enough. After asking what everyone would like to drink—“Please, you like coffee, tea?”—she retreated down the narrow staircase to the kitchen.

“Are you staying on a boat or in Datça or…?” Yvonne was always surprised by her ability to make small talk. It came from years of teaching. All those parent-student conferences, all those exchanges with other teachers while standing by the oven-like warmth of the ever-failing photocopier.

“We’re staying at a little chateau about ten miles from here,” Carol said.

“Oh, the cute place with the parasols and pool,” Yvonne said.

“It’s nice,” said Jimson. “It was owned by an Australian man—”

“Austrian,” Carol interjected.

Jimson wasn’t annoyed by the correction. “An Austrian man who died last year and now his widow, poor thing, is trying to keep it going.”

Carol touched Jimson’s elbow gently, and a look passed across both their faces, as though a shade had just been pulled down, or up.

My reputation precedes me,
Yvonne thought. She could imagine Deniz briefing her passengers.
A nice widow from Vermont. She is a lovely widow.

Yvonne was used to the passing discomfort Jimson and
Carol were experiencing. She recognized their shared reaction from the times when the words
alcoholic
or
druggie
were spoken disparagingly in her presence, before the person speaking remembered that Yvonne’s daughter was both. Yvonne would put on her best blank face—her mask—and nod, as though to say,
Keep going. If you gloss over this, I will support you in this endeavor, and we will continue talking as though nothing has happened, no insult delivered, no trespass made against my life. Keep talking, I beg you.

“So what do you do in New York?” Yvonne asked.

Relief washed over Carol’s face. She had good skin, the kind that didn’t show wrinkles, and a delicate, pointed nose. “Jimson works in the city, in the jewelry business.”

“I import diamonds,” he said.

“Conflict-free ones,” Carol added. “And I’m a designer.” The pride with which she spoke suggested she was new at the job.

“What do you design?”

“Swimwear, swim cover-ups, anything to do with beaches,” Carol said.

“Is that one of yours?” Yvonne said, looking at the caramel tunic she was wearing.

“It is! How did you know?”

“Isn’t it spectacular,” said Jimson, more as a statement than question.

“It is,” Yvonne said, and then she answered Carol’s question. “I knew because it looks like you.”

Carol beamed. It was what every woman wanted, Yvonne
thought, for the life around her—her clothes, her house, her car—to look like her, to be an extension of her.

“What about you?” said Jimson.

“I’m a teacher,” Yvonne said.

“Oh, that’s terrific,” Carol said, as if grateful that Yvonne worked at all. A widowed homemaker, on the other hand—what would they talk about?

“Nice. Good for you,” Jimson said.

Yvonne was used to this. All she had to do was state her profession and she received accolades. She could have taught basketball on unicycles, but it didn’t matter as long as she was a teacher. As long as she was the mother of twins and taught, she was congratulated.

“So where were you before here?” Yvonne asked. Talk of teaching bored her. Teaching itself didn’t bore her, her students didn’t bore her, but vague talk about education seemed a waste of breath.

“We spent two days in Istanbul,” Jimson said.

“So expensive!” said Carol.

“But we had a great time,” said Jimson, squeezing something below the table—Carol’s knee?

“I think I had a better time,” Carol said, and laughed. She had full, red-painted lips that suggested sex. Yvonne looked down at her napkin.

“We went to the Cemberlitas,” Carol said, looking at Yvonne as though she should know what this was.

Yvonne smiled, shook her head.

“It’s this bathhouse that’s supposed to be so great.” She
said its name again, as though repetition might trigger Yvonne’s memory.

Yvonne shook her head again.

“Well, I had the best massage,” Carol said. “I mean, they really scrubbed me down.”

“Your skin does look great,” Yvonne said. It was true—she had noticed the skin on Carol’s arms, polished and gleaming like a new trophy. “I don’t know what it usually looks like, but it’s glowing.”

“That’s what Jimson said!” Carol exclaimed. “Thank you.”

“So she has this great time,” Jimson said, “and I get an old man smelling of alcohol. Like he’d been bathing in it.”

“Must have been raki,” Yvonne said. It was the drink she and Peter had shared in Turkey all those years ago.

“What?”

“Raki. The Turkish liquor. Tastes like licorice.”

Jimson pointed at Yvonne like she was onto something. He was a pointer.

“Meanwhile, the woman doing me could not have been sweeter or more attentive,” Carol said.

“She did try to get your money with her sob story.”

“That’s true,” said Carol. “Everyone in her life had died. Her mother was dead, her sisters were dead, her husband had died—”

Again, a dark look passed over both Jimson’s and Carol’s faces. Fortunately, they were all interrupted by one of the crewmen, the younger one who had a strong but not unpleasant body odor. He was wearing his white uni
form again today—the white linen shorts and shirt with no undershirt—and had arrived at the table with coffee and an assortment of small white dishes. Yvonne’s eyes passed over his offerings: creamy white yogurt, bread, honey, olives, eggs, and thick pieces of white feta cheese.

“Doesn’t this look scrumptious?” Jimson said.

“It does,” Yvonne said. If she had been alone she would have quickly devoured it all, but instead they each per formed the dance of politely offering one another the food they themselves most coveted. “Cheese?” Yvonne said, holding it out to Carol and Jimson, before taking three thick slices for herself.

“This honey is to die for,” Carol said, holding a spoonful out to Jimson so he could try it.

A loud mechanical sound erupted from below. Yvonne jumped. Lately, any sudden sound startled her.

“Anchor’s going up,” announced Jimson.

“We’re off!” Carol said.

“Yvonne,” Jimson said. “Would you mind taking a picture?”

“Not at all,” Yvonne said, her heart still accelerating.

Jimson pulled out a small camera from his pocket and set it up for Yvonne before handing it across the table. The metal was still warm from his body. Carol removed Jimson’s baseball cap and he wiped a crumb from the side of her wide lips. They leaned in close to one another and smiled.

“Nice,” Yvonne said.

“Take another,” Carol said.

Through the lens she saw Knidos retreating in the back
ground. Jimson’s and Carol’s kind and exaggerated faces filled the frame.

“You look like honeymooners,” Yvonne said.

“Twenty-one years ago we were,” Carol said.

Jimson nodded. “We celebrated our twentieth last year in B.A.”

“Buenos Aires,” Carol clarified.

“Look at all those flags,” Yvonne said. As they rounded the corner of Knidos, at the end of the Datça peninsula, there seemed to be Turkish flags everywhere, a dozen crescent moons.

Deniz was refilling their cups with coffee. “Everything is good? You like?” she said.

“Delicious,” Yvonne said, and Deniz smiled the smile of someone who knew what the answer would be in advance, but still enjoyed hearing it.

“Why are there so many flags, Deniz?” said Carol.

Deniz looked up. “We are close to Greece,” she said.

“Ah,” Yvonne said. “Everyone likes to mark their terrain.”

Yvonne hoped Deniz would sit so they could talk, but she turned toward the stairs and descended into the cabin.

There was more talk of Jimson and Carol’s stay in Istanbul—the taxi driver who couldn’t find the Blue Mosque, the unrelenting heat, the bridge over the Bosporus that alternated colors at night, the exorbitant price of Internet access at the Suisse Hotel. When there was a lull, Yvonne moved to the large cushioned seating area of the boat, just behind the table, and propped herself up with the large red, orange, and
yellow chenille cushions. She opened her book so she would appear to be reading, but she listened to Jimson and Carol’s chatter.

“Do you think Tessa would want one of the Turkish plates?… . “Do they hang things like that in dorm rooms? They don’t frame posters they put up.”…“I think she has a fridge in her room this year, but not a real kitchen.”

Yvonne thought about how the meaningless talk between couples could fill days, years—an entire marriage. Sometimes it was the meaningless talk she missed most. She leaned over the back of the boat, studying the patterns of water in the wake. For a brief moment, Yvonne thought it was not impossible that she might meet a man one day and remarry. Then she exhaled sharply, extinguishing the thought as she would a candle.

From far away, Yvonne could see the famous beach, white as the moon. When they got close to shore, they nestled between two boats the same size as theirs. Yvonne felt the anchor drop; a moment later, she heard a splash. The younger crewman had jumped into the water and was swimming with his chin above the surface, the boat’s line between his teeth. Deniz and Captain Galip yelled to him as he tried three times before successfully tying the rope to a boulder jutting from the shore.

“I guess I should go change into my swim trunks,” Jimson said to Carol, before descending the stairs. “You?”

“I’m all set,” Carol said. She pulled on the neck of her tunic to reveal a bikini underneath.

The harbor was crowded with pleasure crafts. The yacht anchored to the right of
Deniz II
bore flags from several countries, as though it was trying to befriend everyone at sea. Yvonne heard splashes coming from near the
gulet
to their left. Two men had cannonballed into the water and were calling out to each other in English. Yvonne tried to place their accent—South African? Australian? The flag on the boat provided no assistance. It was a Turkish flag, a chartered boat.