The Names

Two days later I saw Ann at the street market near my building, the Friday market. She was hefting a melon, turning it, poking with her thumb."You have to press right here, at the underside. This man is angry with me. He likes to do the pressing himself. Listen to him mutter. I am touching his tiny plump early-season melon.”She handed him the fruit, which he placed on one of the weighing pans of an antique balance. There was a beggar with a Panasonic, playing loud music. We walked slowly down the middle of the street, between the stalls, the men shouting out prices."I've been wondering something. This is awkward.”"What have you been wondering?”"Andreas. Have you seen him?”"I thought you understood it was over.”"There's something I would like to have explained to him.”"Can't you do it yourself?”"This is silly. I don't know how to get in touch with him. I can't find him in the phone book.”"Do you have a phone book? Lucky fellow.”"I went down to the Hilton. There's a phone book at the Hilton.”"I don't know, James. Maybe the phone isn't in his name. I'm sure I can remember the number if you'd like to have it.”"You're annoyed.”"You want to talk to Andreas. Why shouldn't you? But isn't he in London?”"I was hoping you could tell me where he is.”"I thought you understood.”"People are always saying things are over.”"But they're not to be believed. Is that it?”"Where does he live? Where was he living in Athens when you were seeing him?”"Can't you contact him through his firm? That's the obvious solution. Call London, call Bremen.”"Where was he living?”"Not far from the airport. Terrible place. Two concrete slabs on four concrete stilts. A street that disappears into scrub below Hymettus. In summer it's bleached white. Dust hangs in the air. Two inches of dust on the furniture and floors. I tried once to ask him why he lived there. He went into a Greek male frenzy. Not for me to inquire, plainly.”"It wouldn't matter to Andreas where he lived. I don't think he notices things like that.”"No, I don't think he does. What do you know that you're not telling me?”The peddler of lottery tickets stood at the end of the street, between the flower sellers and the vendors of clay pots, calling the same urgent word over and over. A summons to buy, to act, to live. The risk was small, the price was low. Times wouldn't always be this good.Today, today.I called the number many times over a two-day period. Four of those times I got an old man whose number contained six digits, or one less than I was dialing. It was the right number as far as it went but it didn't go far enough. It needed a nine on the end. The other times there was only line noise, a frozen hum.I didn't want to be the victim of a misunderstanding.I took a taxi to the address Ann had given me. I climbed an exterior staircase to the second floor of the building, looked through the dusty windows. Abandoned. On the first floor a woman with a small child in her arms listened to my fragmentary questions about the man who used to live upstairs. When I was finished, she gave me the classic look, the raised brows, tutting lips. Who knows, who cares?So I sat on my terrace, watching the light change, hearing remotely the ram's horn lament of the day's fourth and final rush hour. I had no plans. I would not be leaving the country for three weeks. I wanted to get up early, run in the woods, study my Greek (now that I had the time), sleep through the empty afternoons, fade into the spaces. I would avoid people, stop drinking, write letters to old friends. These were not plans but only private forms, outlines for a human figure. I would sit and watch.Was it clear to him that any data passed on to the CIA, to their Foreign Assessment Center, to the Iraq or Turkey or Pakistan desk, was not related in any way to affairs in Greece? Did he understand that we were simply based here and did not gather local information? Of course he understood. The questions had to take a different form. Who was he? How far would he go to make his point? What was his point?A silence seemed to fall. I watched a glow appear behind the mountain, a shower of light, brick orange, climbing. Then the topmost arc of the moon showed over the ridge-line. It rose in degrees, fully illuminated, a calculus-driven model of pure ascent. Soon it was free of the mountain's dark mass, beginning to vault toward the west, to silver and glint, a cold object now, away from the earth-blood, the earth-burn, but beautiful, hard, bright.The phone rang twice, then stopped.