when the guys began bothering her again. It was time to head back to the hotel. She walked behind the taverna to the bus stop next to the campgrounds. It was just a wider bit of dirt than the rest of the road down to the beach.
She watched a faint-brown-and-green bus wind down the road toward where she stood. Brown and green were the colors of the hills. She wondered about the significance of Mykonos buses being land-colored instead of blue and white like the sea and sky. Probably just a practical one — light brown and green don't show the ever- present dust so much; when the winds are blowing it is like brown powdered sugar flying everywhere.
The bus at that hour was virtually empty except for a few older couples and locals lucky enough to squeeze in some time at the beach before getting back to their jobs. She decided to go into town rather than back to the hotel.
She had a coffee under a canopied taverna on the harbor and watched Petros and Irini do their tourist thing — posing for pictures and giving the occasional nip at gestures deemed unfriendly — Mykonos' clipped-wing, pelican mascots were direct descendants, some claimed, of the pair donated to the island by Mykonos lover Jacqueline Kennedy not-yet-Onassis.
Annika had seen this harbor from every approach and never tired of it. Her favorite vantage was the one she got when sailing between Mykonos and Delos, a sea view of the most famous church in the Cyclades, the fifteenth- century Paraportiani. It stood between the bays of Tourlos and Korfos on the outer edge of a jut of land at the southernmost side of the old harbor. Really a combination of five churches — four below and one above — its roots traced back the thirteenth-century when a portion of its structure served as part of a defensive wall for the protecting castle that once stood there. Paraportiani always made Annika think of a huge mound of sunlit marshmallows topped by a jumbo white cherry. The church was practically all that remained of the castle — that and the Kastro name for the area bordering Little Venice, where today's invaders sought their adventures in all- night bars and clubs.
Annika thought of the night before and how stupid she'd been. She must rid her mind of that memory. Tomorrow morning she'd catch an early boat to Delos. That should do the trick.
The holy island was only a mile from where she sat. She'd spent her college freshman summer there working at archeological digs begun by the French in 1873 and pitching in as a guide through its ancient ruins for VIP tours in one of her languages. She'd loved it. The uninhabited island was different from Mykonos in every way — though in antiquity Delos clearly had been the better place to party. Mykonos wasn't even on the maps of those times, and its name meant nothing more than 'mound of rocks.'
Annika tried to recall the words of the introduction to her tour: 'Basically flat except for two hills, and only one twentieth the size of Mykonos, Delos in the ancient world was considered the center of Cycladic life. But its influence ended abruptly in the early part of the last century before Christ, when Delos backed the wrong protector and twenty thousand inhabitants were slaughtered, its physical and cultural landscape destroyed. The island was leveled, but its intense spiritual power endures to this day.'
She repeated the last words aloud to herself: 'its intense spiritual power endures to this day.' Yes, that's definitely what she needed, and she vowed to be on the first boat the next morning. She'd be back by four at the latest. Demetra was arriving tomorrow. Besides, she had to be — the guards allowed no one on Delos after sunset, and the last boat left at three.
But for now she was off to explore the shops just opening for the evening. Most didn't close until after midnight, some not until sunup. As if following Alice down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, Annika plunged through a break in a row of seafront tavernas, and — like magic — the harbor vanished. She was back in the maze of twisting, narrow stone paths that, for her, held the essence of Mykonos' charm; it was the labyrinth itself — not what it offered — that she loved.
Sure, Mykonos was famous for tantalizing tourists with brightly lit shops, colorful restaurants, roaring bars, and freewheeling dance clubs, but this still was a town where people raised families and shared strong traditions. Down the less traveled lanes, children played their games oblivious to the occasional tourists squeezing through their four-, five-, or maybe six-foot-wide playgrounds. Pairs of grandmothers, all in black, did duty watching the children. They'd sit on stoops in front of their houses or, if a shop occupied the street level, on brightly painted wooden balconies outside their second-floor homes; balconies with gates guarding pets, pots of geraniums, draping bougainvillea, and — if rented to tourists — clothes left to dry.
As she walked, Annika's eyes drifted up from the rows of glossy green, blue, and red banisters to where the white textures of the buildings met the sky. So many whites: light white, dark white, sunlit white, shaded white, dirtcaked white, white over color, white over stone, white over wood, white over steel, white over rust, peeled white, fresh white, old white, slick white, coarse white — against so many blues: dark blue, pale blue, and all those blues in between. Annika smiled, took in a deep breath, and said softly, 'I just love it here.'
She wandered over to Little Venice and in a shop looking across to the windmills bought a blue-and-silver beaded necklace that reminded her of the sea. She was admiring her purchase in the reflection of another shop's window when a voice behind her said in English, 'Great necklace, fits you perfectly.' She could see in the reflection that it was an older man in the doorway of the shop behind her.
She turned and said, 'Thank you.' Her voice was courteous, nothing more.
'Is that one of Susy's?'
'Susy?'
'From La Thalassa.'
She smiled and felt a tinge of pride at having something so recognizable. 'Yes, it is.'
'I thought so. She has great things. Glad her price point is different from mine. Couldn't stand the competition, especially from a fellow South African.' He smiled.
Annika realized the shop was one of the premier high-end jewelers on the island — way out of her league. 'That's very sweet of you to say.'
'I like her, she has style. Would you like a coffee?'
Annika hesitated but caught herself. This is Mykonos, she thought, and jewelers are nice to everyone. She should stop being so paranoid over last night. 'Thank you. That would be lovely.'
She spent over two hours in the shop. The owner was a Greek born in South Africa and also a George — but very different from her George of the night before. He was raised on a farm 'in the bush' and educated in Johannesburg. Although he missed the beauty of Africa — if not its politics — in Greece he'd been able to pursue an interest in ancient civilizations he'd picked up in college. He took great pride in showing her a small Corinthian vase he claimed predated the birth of Christ by more than five hundred years.
Even after more than twenty years on Mykonos, George still felt treated as a foreigner, but he accepted that as a fact of island life. Besides, there wasn't much choice because this was where his business was and where he'd made his life — though off-season he lived in Athens. He mentioned a few other old-timers, as he called them who felt the same way, including the artist she'd met the night before, and pointed to one of his paintings hanging in a corner.
'I admire how his style appeals to so many on so many different levels. It's not just for tourists.' He pointed again and when he spoke, intensity came into his voice. 'See how he weaves mythic Greek figures into his work.'
Annika was tempted to add that somewhere in each painting lay the image of 'a lost soul rebirthing out of darkness into light,' but that inevitably would lead to explaining those were the artist's words to her — and a discussion of their meeting last night. She didn't want to get into that. Instead, she talked about her life as if she were a Dutch girl on her first trip to Greece; but mostly she listened. George liked to talk, and although he didn't say whether he was married, she assumed he was. She pointed to a photograph of a young girl and younger boy on his desk and asked if those were his children.
The question seemed to surprise him. He hesitated, as if searching for the right words. 'No, it's my sister and me. In fact, you remind me of her.' He smiled.
When she said she had to leave, he seemed disappointed but didn't push to see her again. They simply shook hands and said good-bye.
She walked back to the harbor and sat in a cafe to watch the sunset. For the first time in a long while she felt in control of her life. As far as she was concerned, Peter was now ancient history. She owed nothing to anyone but herself — and her family of course, which reminded her to call home the moment she got back to the hotel. For now, though, she wanted to enjoy her anonymity a bit longer. Andreas was getting used to climbing dry, rocky
