THEY TOLD ME that I should marry that girl. They told me that she was rich. She was. She came from a wealthy Greek family. The family house, which might better be described as a manor or compound, overlooked an inlet. Even though we were in Greece it was a gray and cool day there when I went to visit her. There was a storm off somewhere on that horizon, plump purple clouds were drifting across the sky. Thunder rumbled and the wind picked up.
You know what it’s like.
I should never have kissed her and we should never have made love. These were my two easy mistakes. Because I realized after having bedded the Greek woman that she had no intentions of ever letting me leave. The sex, if I can be honest, was not so transcendent. She was beautiful, but that same eeriness hovered above the sheets. “I’ve decided to invite my entire family over,” the woman said. “To celebrate our engagement!” “What engagement?” I said.
With the aunts and uncles and assorted cousins gathering in the kitchen getting ready to carve up a lamb, I made for my exit. I went to one door, only to find it locked tight, and then climbed a staircase where I entered another room. All of the rooms were painted white, in the Mediterranean fashion, and corridors only led to other corridors. The deeper I ventured into this house, the more lost I became. At some point, I noticed a door open and saw lovely Celeste crossing the hallway with her husband and children, oblivious to my very existence. I pushed on ahead down another corridor, climbed another set of stairs. I saw bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, and libraries. I saw windows that looked out on a disinterested, sad sea.
The thing is this: I never found my way out of that Greek house. As far as I know I’m still there.
north! 