“Sometimes. But I try not to think about it too hard.”
Lisa’s makeshift cane taps constantly, chipping away the miles. My blisters have hardened into thick lumps on my heels and soles.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“What was it like?”
“Great and terrible.” Like Oz.
“I’ve never been in love. At least, I don’t think so. I used to have this boyfriend, Eddie. He wasn’t really a boyfriend—more like a boy who was a friend. He kissed me one time and then after that he wouldn’t speak to me. I cried for a week. Do you think that was love?”
“Maybe. Only you can know for sure.”
“I don’t think it was. I hope not. But I hope so, too. Because I don’t want to die without falling in love at least once.”
James is leaning back on the couch, poring through a textbook bigger than his head.
“So, what do you think, Rain Man?”
I laugh. “Jesus, you can’t call him that.”
“Sure I can.” He winks at me.
Raoul turns away from the jar, flashes me a smile that makes me wish I was wearing sunglasses. “I know what they call me behind my back. Could be worse. Like James.”
James is making a meal of Raoul with his eyes when he’s not focused on the book. Part lust, part fascination with the younger man’s expertise.
If Raoul notices, he’s oblivious.
“It’s got to be Greek.”
James’s head bobs like a parrot. “That’s what
“But from when?” they say at the same time.
“It’s like a missing link,” Raoul says.
“Bridging two periods of history.”
Raoul rubs his fingers across the delicate curve of the lip. “It looks like something I saw once. In a painting, though, and the artist wasn’t Greek.
“Ahh,” James says as though that is the answer to everything. “The Eve of Greek mythology. You nosy women can’t help yourselves.”
I’ve heard the story about the woman who opened the box and let havoc grab a choke hold on the world. But the correlation between that and my jar eludes me.
Raoul correctly interprets my confusion. “It’s a matter of one small error in the translation of Hesiod’s work. What was thought for some time to be a box was actually a jar. Zeus gifted Pandora with a simple jar similar to those used to store foodstuffs or bones—”
“Like an ossuary,” James adds.
“—and then forbade her from opening the lid.”
We all look at the jar, at the lid with its rim of wax neatly sealing the top.
“Of course, she opened it,” James says. “But who wouldn’t have?”
Raoul circles the jar, his hand still upon its rough surface. “It’s important to remember that like Eve she was just curious and didn’t act out of malice. Curiosity isn’t a bad thing. It drives us to improve and explore and discover. Without curiosity I wouldn’t have a job. Her actions may not have been all negative. For when she released all the ills of the world on mankind, she also gave us obstacles to overcome. Without them we would have been little more than men of clay. Instead we think and struggle and grow.”
He looks at me. “I wonder what’s inside. Any guesses?”
A cold-hot wave washes over my cheeks. I feel them pinken because he’s picked on my obsession and thrown the question out there like it’s nothing.
“Bones,” James says.
“Dust,” I say.
“Drugs.” James’s second offering.
Raoul flashes his smile, this time at James. “Ancient corn.”
I flop down on the armchair, stare at the jar. “Death.”
Raoul sinks into the couch next to James. We sit. We stare.
The village isn’t on the map, but it’s there off to the left of the road like an afterthought. It’s little more than a knot of houses, at least from our vantage point. The road rises ahead, an endless gray ribbon winding through the mountains. We’re going southeast, although the road struggles to stay true. When I tell Lisa this, her feet slow.
“Can we stop?”
“No. I have to be in Brindisi in fifteen days.”
“But they’ll have beds. Real live beds. With blankets and pillows.”
“Fine.”
“Ha! I win.”
“If you can carry it, you can have a blanket,” I say.
“But I want to sleep in a bed.”
“We can’t stop there. We can’t risk it.”
“Because you have to get to a boat and find your friend. They’re probably dead just like everyone else.”
I want to grab her, shake her, tell her I’m terrified whatever is following us isn’t human anymore. That her prolonged rape could seem like a beautiful dream compared to what a stranger could do. But I don’t because she’s just a kid. I want to tell her that getting to the
“And maybe we’ll both be dead tomorrow.”
That shuts her up.
Guilt paints another coat of grime on my shoulders, but it’s not enough to change my mind. We’re safer out here.
“The air feels strange,” she says. “What does that mean?”
True enough, the clouds are the pale green of hospital scrubs.
“Hail.”
“I want to feel the sun again,” Lisa says. “That’s going on my list.”
“Mine, too.”
The clouds thicken overheard and dip down to meet us.
It’s the hail and high-force winds that force us into the village. We struggle to keep the bicycle upright as we slog our way to the shelter of the stone homes, wending our way between the trees. The road has the worst of it. Here we are slammed, battered, until all our energy goes into keeping ourselves standing. My body aches like a punching bag pounded with maddened fists. Branches fly, catapulted by gusts of untamed air. This wind is new.
We don’t stop and announce our arrival, nor do we stop to take stock of our surroundings. We bolt up the stone steps for the nearest door, dragging the bicycle. I push Lisa in first, the bike, then I tumble into safety.
The wind dies immediately when I slam the door behind us, yet it waits for us, knocking, scratching, flinging fistfuls of hail against the wood.
Lisa is wild-haired and red-cheeked. Cuts mar her skin. I feel the sting where flying debris has marked my own flesh.
