The Names

Later that afternoon, near a kiosk where I often bought the newspaper, I saw Andreas Eliades in a car with another man and a woman. The car had stopped for a light and I'd glanced that way. He was alone in the rear seat. It was one of those low-skirted broad-visored Citroëns, medieval, with slash headlights and heavy trim, a battering contraption for sieges. Above the full black beard his dark eyes were set on me. We nodded to each other, smiled politely. The car moved off.

Sherding. Crouched in the pungent earth, soft forms all about her, pink-ridged, curled, writhing, here in B zone, below the black decay. She is scraping down the square. Right-angled corners, straight sides. Her sweat is a rank reminder, the only one, that she exists, that she is separate from the things that surround her. Troweling around a stone. She remembers someone telling her that stones gradually sink through humus and loam. Clip the roots, leave the stones in place. Part of a hearth, perhaps, or wall. An incised design. A glimpse of political life. Rodents, earthworms turn the soil. She senses the completeness of the trench. It is her size, it fits. She rarely looks over the rim. The trench is enough. A five-foot block of time abstracted from the system. Sequence, order, information. All she needs of herself. Nothing more, nothing less. In its limits the trench enables her to see what's really there. It's a test device for the senses. New sight, new touch. She loves the feel of workable earth, the musky raw aroma. The trench is her medium by now. It is more than the island as the island is more than the world.I was helpless, overwhelmed. The bare fact of it disheartened me. I couldn't see what the work signified or represented to her. Was it the struggle that counted, a sense of test or mission? What was the metaphor, exactly?I was compelled in the end to take her literally. She was digging to find things, to learn. Objects themselves. Tools, weapons, coins. Maybe objects are consoling. Old ones in particular, earth-textured, made by otherminded men. Objects are what we aren't, what we can't extend ourselves to be. Do people make things to define the boundaries of the self? Objects are the limits we desperately need. They show us where we end. They dispel our sadness, temporarily.She called that night to say she'd taken a job with the British Columbia Provincial Museum. She spoke haltingly, her voice full of concern. I could almost believe someone close to me had died. The British Columbia Provincial Museum. I told her that was fine, fine. I said it sounded like a wonderful museum. We were polite, accommodating. We spoke softly, moved to a gentleness we clearly felt we owed each other. Owen had helped arrange the job, through contacts. The museum was in Victoria and specialized in the culture of the Northwest Coast Indians. The museum sponsored occasional field schools. Fine, fine. We were warm to each other, considerate. I wanted her to be certain the job was good enough, what she wanted, although she wasn't sure at this point exactly what she'd be doing. She apologized for having to take Tap so far away and promised we would work out visits despite the distance. Work out meetings, trips together, long talks, father and son. Her voice was dense, chambered, the telephone a sign and instrument of familiar distance, this condition of being apart. All the tender feelings passed between us that I'd sought in recent months to revive by some jumbled luck of character, will and indirection, carried now in the static of our voices, undersea. There were many silences. We said goodnight, dark, sorry, making plans to meet in Piraeus for the trip to the airport. After that we would talk again, talk often, keep each other informed, stay in the closest possible touch. Ashes.