gaze on the Swiss, I… just… can’t… stop.
Every ounce of energy that drained into the water comes roaring back into my body. My muscles quiver with rage until my whole body shakes. I am a cat coiled into a tense crouch, waiting… waiting… waiting for my prey to move. Goddamn you,
He laughs at us.
No more.
My spring-loaded muscles snap into action and I hurtle across the concrete until I’m pummeling his chest with a combination of weary fists and limp hands. Laughter, that’s what he gives me to spur me on. The balance shifts. His hands encircle my wrists, squeeze them until the bones want to shatter.
“You can’t hurt me,” he says. “You don’t have it in you.”
“If I can kill you, I will,” I tell him.
“No.”
For a moment I think the cry has come from him, but his lips are pale stone lines. The noise is Lisa’s.
“No,” she repeats. “Please, don’t.”
He holds me there; I am at his mercy. My attentions shifts from him to Lisa and back to him before making the journey to her once again. To which side of the fence has she slipped? Is she sitting on my grass or his?
“He’s a monster,” I say. “He’ll kill us both if we let him.”
“What do you keep saying? What do you keep telling me? We have to hold on to what makes us human. That’s what you said.”
She pulls herself along the ground, one arm cradling her ribs.
“Don’t move. Your ribs might be broken,” I say.
“You told me that. We have to show compassion and mercy because it’s part of what makes us
The Swiss grins, tightens his grip. “Do it, you fucking coward.
“Shut up.”
His body shakes with silent laughter.
“Zoe,” Lisa says. “Stop.”
The fight melts out of me. There’s a soft thud as my hands fall from the Swiss’s vise. My shoulders slump. That vital force that kept me burning bright enough to fight slips back into the harbor. Energy is never lost, only transformed, yet I feel as if something is lost to me.
“Okay.”
This time, when my body uncoils, it’s like a ribbon tugged loose from a ballerina’s ankle when she’s pushed herself past exhaustion, languid and halfhearted. “Okay.” There I sit, beside the man I could easily murder were Lisa not here to stop me—and draw my knees up to my chin. “I hate you.”
The Swiss stares down at me, his mouth a rictus grin. He prods me with his boot. “Coward.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
“Make no mistake, you are a craven fool. Anyone with guts would find a way to kill me.”
“I wanted to. I want to.”
“And yet, you stopped fighting.”
“Not my idea.”
“Then you are no better than me. We are the same shit, America.”
“Make up your mind. Either I’m a coward or not.”
I crouch and help Lisa to her feet. Her side looks like an oncoming storm, all black and blue with flashes of raw red. Right now I’m useless to her. I’m no doctor. There’s no way of telling if anything is broken, but we have to take the chance that she’s fine and move on.
“Is your baby okay, do you think?”
She shrugs. Does not ask after mine.
“Go,” the Swiss says. “I will not stop you.”
I don’t say anything lest he change his mind.
Map and compass in hand, we limp toward Athens and let the Swiss’s cackles fade first to white noise, then to nothing.
The sky is the flat and constant gray of a paint swatch, but at least it does not rain. Here we are again, Lisa and I. The bike is gone. Our food is gone. Her cane is gone. My knives are gone. The Swiss is gone.
I could have killed him, erased his life like it was nothing more than a smudge. I should have tried. But the sea sipped away my strength, leaving me as empty as a forgotten wineglass. Still, my hands quiver and quake, and no amount of gripping my backpack’s straps will steady them.
If he comes for us again, he’s a dead man.
Holding hands, we trek the Peiraios, the highway that will take us to Athens. Abandoned cars are few. The Greeks must have been courteous enough to die in their homes with their automobiles safely ensconced in their narrow residential streets. We weave between what’s left of the dead. It doesn’t seem respectful to step over them. In my nightmares they grab me, try to grapple me to the ground and take me to where the dead things are.
My dark thoughts ride shotgun all the way to Athens. We should go around, but there is no around to go. Piraeus bleeds into Athens; there is nothing to divide the two cities.
This is the concrete jungle in freeze-frame. Nothing moves except us. We are thieves stealing through a city of dead people, trying to go unnoticed. In plain sight seems like the best place to be. The highway is elevated. No one can approach us in stealth.
We walk until night comes and Athens plunges into darkness. Save for a dot of light up ahead. I describe the scene for Lisa.
“Let’s check it out,” I say.
“I don’t want to go.”
“We’ll sneak up and I’ll see if it’s okay.”
“No.” Hysterical.
“I’ll go alone, then.”
“No, don’t. Stay.”
“Okay. I’ll stay.”
We move closer, because that’s the way the road goes. The dot spreads; we are bugs drawn to its welcoming glow. Lisa tenses until I am walking alongside a violin bow.
“We can stay low; I’ll look over the edge.” I nod at the highway’s lip. “We don’t have to get any closer.”
“We’re not going down?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
We do that. We go to the edge, stay low. Only my eyes peek over the solid gray line. What I’m looking at used to be a playground and park. Now it’s growing wild, with nature reasserting its dominance all over the equipment bolted into the ground where children once played. The swings are covered in a tangle of greenery that does not care that steel can’t choke. A waterfall of vine pours down the slide. And in the middle a fire blazes inside a metal trash can wrenched from its original place against the water fountain.
“I can hear fire,” Lisa whispers. “Are there people?”
Sure enough, I hear the crackle, snap, pop of fire eating.
“I don’t know.” We wait for a while but no one comes. Tired of speculating, I steer Lisa along our original path. She seems okay. Exhausted. But I am, too.
Not more than a few dozen feet have passed when I turn and glance over my shoulder. The light is gone.
