A House Like A Lotus Part 25

The moonlight turned trees and branches to silver. "Full moon, day after tomorrow," Omio said.

Vee started downhill. "Careful. It's rocky and rough, and we don't want any sprained ankles."

Below the monastery complex we came out on a road that ran through the lower part of the village. There were a few shops, closed for the night; what looked like a small bank; a taverna, with people sitting outside, laughing and talking.

Music came from within, and light spilled out onto the road. "Osia Theola is on its way to becoming a resort," Vee said, "since the old resort towns, like Famagusta, are now Turkish. If I were a millionaire I'd buy Osia Theola and save it from the tourists-as well as the Turks; it's anybody's guess as to who's the most destructive."

I said, recalling Max's teaching, "Poor Cyprus. It's always being taken over and ruled by somebody. The Italians were here before the Turks, and the Turks before the English, and now in the north the Turks have come again."

"That's the way of the world," Omio said. "Baki has always been prey to stronger, less peaceable peoples. Now there are more Australians and English than Bakians."

"And yet England," Vee said, "was overrun by Vikings and Normans. The Picts and Angles and indigenous inhabitants were ruthlessly wiped out. Genocide isn't new to this century."

We turned off the main village street onto a dirt road which ran past more tavernas, narrowed to a path cutting through walls of high gra.s.ses, and turned sharply at a boatyard. The sea was on our right. "Not far, now,"

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Vee said, "and we'll come to a good place to bathe, beyond the village, but before the hotel, where it's too crowded for my liking. I've found an unused bit of beach. There's a wide band of stones between the sea and the sand, and I've been trying to move them aside to make a path to the water, but they keep washing back."

"You've been here awhile?" Omio asked.

"For a week, resting. Doctor's orders, and orders I was happy to comply with.

I've slept and swum and worked on my new novel with no interruptions or outside pressures."

So she was writing a novel. I wished I dared to ask her what it was about.

Omio and I followed the path she had made through the stones. I slipped and almost turned my ankle, but Omio caught me. The stones were not very big, and they were rounded from water, but they were still uncomfortable to step on.

Although the cut on my foot had healed, the stone near the laundry umbrella had reminded me that there was further healing needed, and it seemed that I could feel the skin stretching around the scar as I stepped into the water.

Omio dropped down and swam out, cleanly, barely tossing up spray. Vee and I followed. The water was cool, not cold, just right for getting cooled off.

The sky was misty with stars.

"Don't go too far out," Vee called. "Krhis is right about the undertow. This is one of the safest places, better than the beach up at the hotel."

Omio was a superb swimmer, like most island people, but he turned around and came back toward us, then veered off and swam parallel to the land, up toward the 233 /.

lights of the hotel. I would have liked to swim with him, but thought it would not be courteous to Vee, who swam well but not quite as well as I did, since I've been in and out of water all my life.

She stood inside the stones, shaking water out of her ears. "Good thing we've both got drip-dry hair." Omio had turned again and was swimming back. "He's a nice lad," Vee said.

"I'm glad he's here early. You'll enjoy him. He's been through a lot, and he holds no bitterness. You'll find that's true of most of the delegates. I suspect Norine will fill you in on some of their histories. It's probably one of the most varied groups we'll ever encounter, geographically, physically, every way."

Omio had swum back to us and was running through the shallow water with great leaps, splashing silver spray.

"What energy!" Vee exclaimed. "Why can't you bottle it and give some to me?

Come on, kids, we'd better go on back. Breakfast's at seven-thirty and we all need our sleep."

I felt comfortably cool after the swim, but the walk back to the dormitory building was all uphill, and I was sweating again by the time we reached the monastery. At Beau Allaire, Max has a white coquina ramp going over a jungle of Spanish bayonets and c.r.a.pe myrtle, down to the beach. At home we run along our cypress ramp over the sand dunes and across a lovely long stretch of beach.

At Osia Theola we were going to have to work for our swim.

Norine was waiting at the dormitory building, waving to us.

"Polly," she said, "I have a phone message for you."

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My heart thumped. "For me?"

"Yes. While you were swimming, some young man called. Zachary Gray. You know him?"

I hadn't told Norine who the flowers were from. "Yes."

"He wanted to make sure you'd arrived safely. He said to give you his love, and he'll call again."

"Oh-thanks." I could not help being pleased, and showing it. Then I said good night to Vee and Omio, thanked Norine again, and we all went to our rooms. I took a lukewarm bath and lay back in the tub, dazzled by Zachary's flowers, by his call.

The bedroom was hot. I lit the mosquito coil and opened the shutters and lay down on the bed to read for a while. At home there are screens everywhere, and windows open to catch the breeze. Max had told me that when she and M.A. were growing up at Beau Allaire, not many people had screens, and they slept under white gauze mosquito nets. A mosquito net would not be a bad idea at Osia Theola.

The coil went out without my realizing it, and instantly I was attacked by invisible, soundless insects. I slapped at them, struck a match, and relit the coil. Realized I was going to have to close the shutters. I was bitten on the legs, the arms, the face.

I slammed the shutters closed. Scratched my legs. Rubbed my eye. Could feel it hot and itchy. I remembered Renny telling me that the vector, the biting insect which put Trypanozomas into the bloodstream and ultimately the heart, frequently enters the body with its lethal poison by biting the corner of the eyelid. I had a moment of utter panic.

Nonsense, Polly. You come from a family of scientists. Use your mind. Chagas' and Netson's diseases are 235.

endemic in South America, not in Cyprus. They don't exist in Cyprus.

I rubbed my eyelid again. Looked in the mirror. The lid was red and puffy.

Absurd. But I felt infected.

Idiot. Renny would have warned me if there was any Nelson's in Greece or Cyprus.

Max would never have arranged the trip. Ursula would not have allowed it.

Daddy wouldn't even have considered it. There are plenty of biting bugs at home, nasty red bugs, shrilling mosquitoes, no-see-um bugs which bite and the bites puff up like the one on my eyelid and get red and feverish but are unimportant.

That's the kind of insect these Cyprus bugs were, just like the Benne Seed no-see-ums, itchy and horrid but not dangerous. n.o.body would have a conference center where insects were a threat to life.

My heart began to beat less fearfully.

But it was hot. My sheet was wet. The fan was blowing a warm draft over me, doing no more than recirculating hot air. I put down my book and turned out the light; even the filament of the light bulb added to the heat of the room.

The coil burned slowly, its end barely glowing, so that I knew it was still lit.

I was not being bitten anymore. I turned on my stomach, spread-eagled. The cool waters of the Mediterranean seemed eons ago; I was bathed in perspiration.

And I wanted Renny to sit by me on the bed and rea.s.sure me, tell me I needn't worry about the bite on my eyelid.

How do you feel when you know that an insect bite on the corner of your eyelid means death to your heart? What a funny little muscle to hold life and death in its pumping.

But this wasn't that kind of insect, that kind of bite.

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I wanted to run to Renny, the way I had run when I fled Beau Allaire.

I called the hospital. 'I'd like to speak to Dr. Queron Renier, please. It's an emergency.'

'Who is calling, please?' The operator had my most unfavorite kind of Southern accent, nasal and whiny.

'Well-could you just say it's Polly?'

'Just a minute, hon. I don't know if he's in.'

Of course he was in. He'd be in his quarters or on the floor. I waited. The nasal voice came again. 'He's not answering. May I leave him a message?'

I looked at the number of the phone in the booth, gave it to the voice on the other end of the line. 'Please . . . please try to find him. Please, it's urgent,' I said. I could not control the trembling of my voice.

I would have to wait for Renny to call.

Suppose, for some reason, he wasn't at the hospital? How long should I wait?

And what then? I leaned against the wall of the phone booth and I wasn't sure how long I could stand up.

The part of LeNoir Street where Straw had left me was mostly shops. A fewdusty palmetto trees drooped in the morning sun. My breath fogged the gla.s.s of the phone booth, and I opened the door. A few people walked by. A few stores opened.

I waited. Waited.

Half an hour.

I couldn't stay in the phone booth all day.

I would have to go somewhere, do something. The night before, I had wanted to go home. Not now. I couldn't go home.

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I crouched over, as though I had cramps, and heard a funny noise, like an animal's, and looked around to see what was making the noise, and it was coming from me.

I pushed my hand against my mouth and it stopped.

Oh, Renny. Renny, help.

The phone was silent. I had been there for an hour. The street was waking up.

I had to go somewhere and there was nowhere to go. My foot throbbed, and blood continued to seep through the bandage. Numbly, not even thinking, I started away from the phone. I was a few yards down the street when it rang.

I rushed back.

Grabbed the phone off the hook. 'h.e.l.lo?'

'Polly?'

'Oh, Renny, Renny-'

'Where are you? What's wrong?'

I heard myself wailing. 'My foot's cut, and I'm bleeding all over the phone-booth floor-'

Renny's voice was sharp. 'Polly. Calm down. Tell me where you are, and what's wrong.'

'I'm in a phone booth on LeNoir Street near the post office. Can you come for me, oh, please, Renny, please-'

'Where on LeNoir Street? Polly, don't get hysterical, this isn't like you.'

I looked around. 'Two blocks south of the post office. I'm right by a hearing-aid place. I'm bleeding-'

'All right,' Renny said. Tve just finished making early rounds. I'll be there in ten minutes.'

I gave a sob, but there were no tears with it; it was so dry it hurt my throat.

'Hurry-please-'

The ten minutes I waited for Renny seemed longer than the hour before the phone rang. He drove up in his old green car, and I stumbled out of the booth. He hur- 238.

ried around to open the car door for me, and I almost fell in.

'Let me see that foot.'

I leaned back against the shabby seat. Stuck my foot out at him.

'Who bandaged it for you?'

'Ursula Heschel.'

'Polly, what happened?'

'I cut it on a sh.e.l.l.'

His fingers worked the bandage free. 'That's a nasty cut. How did you get here?'

'I walked partway, then I got a hitch.' 'A hitch?'

'Renny.' My voice was heavy. 'Hitching's a federal offense in my family. But I.