Drowning Lessons by Peter Selgin Page B

belonging to a country by the sea where thick coffee is sipped from skimpy cups. Profession: drawing storyboards for tv commercials. A Renaissance man. Ads for sneakers and soft drinks. A hack.
    â€œSince you’ve been here, you haven’t wanted a man?” asked Andrew.
    â€œNaturally.” She kept looking out the window. “But only to look at. I like to look at men. For me they are part of the scenery.”
    In Ano Viánnos, a market town high up in the mountains untouched by tourism, they strolled. In a hundred kilometers they’d revealed too much too quickly, and now they were road weary, sick of each other and themselves.
    Ice-cream bars in hand, they roamed past battered shops selling fruit and bread, unlit hardware stores where the hardware looked used, cafes with birdlike old men in dark shirts picking at worry beads. Here, at last, was the real Greece: no signs inEnglish, no discos, no loudspeakers, no mopeds. No cement. No young people either, Andrew noticed, only middle aged and old, all dressed in dark clothes, seeking refuge from the sun. The only signs of activity were the women selling pistachios, baskets of lemons, serving coffee and ouzo to men who seemed neither happy nor sad as they chewed their mustaches, worried their beads, and watched the earth spin. For the first time in Greece, Andrew felt as if he’d arrived somewhere authentic. Karina went for a stroll as he took a seat. Unlike his world, where everything was measured in dollars and convenience, here was a poor, gentle, inconvenient world. He could grow old in a place like this. Everyone else had.
    He pulled out his pad and began sketching. The man nearest him, with an oxlike face and missing tooth, turned red, then hauled himself out of his chair, shook his head, and walked away — but only a few steps. Then he stopped and watched as Andrew kept drawing.
    The two men at the same table gazed past Andrew as he sketched their contours, outlined long, hairy ears, bristling mustaches, knobby fists gripping cups and canes. Eventually the ox-faced man made his way to where Andrew sat working and sidled up behind him, watching over his shoulder, rubbing his chin, nodding, snorting. After a while he walked past Andrew and retook his seat, where he resumed his former pose.
    Finished, Andrew held up the sketch for them to see. The three men nodded solemnly, then, little by little, they smiled and looked at each other. One pointed to the pad, then to his friend, and laughed and slapped the other’s back. Soon they were shaking Andrew’s hand, slapping
his
back, calling for raki. All three men turned out to be named Yanni, and so Andrew titled his sketch
The Three Yannis of Ano Viánnos
.
    â€œFor you,” he said, tearing the page from his sketchbook and handing it to them. One of the Yannis hurried across the cobblestones to a small shop from which he emerged with a big jar of honey that he presented to Andrew. More laughter, more back-slaps, more toasts.
To the Virgin Mother. To Crete. To the Great Hereafter. To Zeus.
Karina returned, saw them all laughing, and clasped her hands in delight. “To your wife!” one of the Yannis shouted. “Yes,” said Andrew, hugging her. “To my wife. We’re on our honeymoon.”
    â€œHe is lying,” said Karina, laughing.
    â€œWe are going to make many babies.”
    To procreation! And to your children’s children! Stinyássas!
    A half hour later, as the Yannis slipped into the advanced philosophical stages of drunkenness, Andrew and Karina got up to leave. They had to fight their way through the shaking of hands and patting of backs and gestures indicating to Andrew that he should sketch them all over again.
    â€œHold me,” said Karina as they stumbled toward the green frog. “I am so drunk.”
    Andrew drove over washed-out roads, scaring up starlings and seagulls, up sheer cliffs, down windmill-studded valleys, through brown