awake to share my joy. The boat grumbled and clanked. She wheezed and squealed, but I did not care. I knew that Odysseus was going home!
Esmé stirred once or twice, then fell into a deep, natural slumber. Only later, when we were actually in the Hellespont and the water was growing choppier, did she wake up. I was dozing myself by then. I heard her gagging and spluttering and hardly realised what was happening before I recognised the smell and felt dampness on my chest. She had vomited all over me. This was one of the few things she had in common with Mrs Cornelius. I accepted the discomfort as fitting revenge for the blow, cleaned myself as best I could, then, putting her head back on my shoulder, stroked her to sleep. It seemed my destiny to fall in love with women who had weak stomachs. The sounds and scents of the sea altered subtly as we slipped into the Aegean, passing close to Lemnos and its big Russian refugee camp. With a certain amount of malice I thought that sooner or later the Baroness and Kitty must arrive here. It would be a shame if the child suffered, but Leda deserved a short spell in such conditions. Only then, I thought, would she come to realise from what I had saved her, how much she had lost because of her hysterical folly and her unreasonable jealousy. I had been more than careful to consider her feelings. Now she, in my absence, could consider mine!
By midmorning of the following day it became apparent that Captain Kazakian was not the mariner he had claimed to be. By the afternoon it was also obvious neither he nor his boat was fitted for the voyage. The paddlesteamer was mechanically sound, in the sense that most of her parts functioned properly but she was hardly a seagoing boat at all, being more suitable for ferrying work on inland waters. I caught the captain twice puzzling over maps and staring through an old telescope at the coast. We had never gone out of sight of shore. The launch now stank of burning oil and several times I had awakened from my doze in alarm, thinking we were on fire.
I did everything I could to keep my knowledge and my fears from the almost comatose Esmé. Mostly she lay full length on the bench, very occasionally taking faltering steps to make dry, retching noises over the rail. She had eaten nothing since Constantinople. For that I was selfishly grateful, though increasingly I was concerned about her. I could not believe anyone would react so badly to mere anxiety. Sometimes she looked up at me to ask in a tiny voice if we had arrived yet. I was forced to shake my head. All I could reply was ‘Soon.’ Then I would go to the wheelhouse and discover the bulky Armenian struggling with charts, frowning at instruments and scratching his head with the peak of his filthy cap. His reply to my question was usually a grunt and always the unreassuring information that we were ‘not far from Greece’. I admit my own geography had also been at fault, for I had believed Captain Kazakian when he said Venice was little more than a day’s voyage. At length, when I forced a more specific answer from him, he admitted our position was ‘somewhere near Smyrna’, which was almost the last place I wished to be. He tried to ease my mind by pointing at his obviously malfunctioning compass. ‘But we are on our way to Mykonos.’ He explained Mykonos was Greek; an island ‘not far from Athens’. By that evening, as the sun went down below a mysterious range of bleak cliffs and while Kazakian muttered in tempo with his engine, still puzzling over his sea-maps, Esmé was asleep and I was starving. It had not occurred to me to bring food.
Later, one of the passengers offered me a piece of thin sausage and some pitta which I gratefully accepted. He was more outgoing, more confident than most of the others (who now seemed like fellow refugees rather than tourists); a big man in a black overcoat and black astrakhan hat. He introduced himself as Mr Kiatos and was
Esmé stirred once or twice, then fell into a deep, natural slumber. Only later, when we were actually in the Hellespont and the water was growing choppier, did she wake up. I was dozing myself by then. I heard her gagging and spluttering and hardly realised what was happening before I recognised the smell and felt dampness on my chest. She had vomited all over me. This was one of the few things she had in common with Mrs Cornelius. I accepted the discomfort as fitting revenge for the blow, cleaned myself as best I could, then, putting her head back on my shoulder, stroked her to sleep. It seemed my destiny to fall in love with women who had weak stomachs. The sounds and scents of the sea altered subtly as we slipped into the Aegean, passing close to Lemnos and its big Russian refugee camp. With a certain amount of malice I thought that sooner or later the Baroness and Kitty must arrive here. It would be a shame if the child suffered, but Leda deserved a short spell in such conditions. Only then, I thought, would she come to realise from what I had saved her, how much she had lost because of her hysterical folly and her unreasonable jealousy. I had been more than careful to consider her feelings. Now she, in my absence, could consider mine!
By midmorning of the following day it became apparent that Captain Kazakian was not the mariner he had claimed to be. By the afternoon it was also obvious neither he nor his boat was fitted for the voyage. The paddlesteamer was mechanically sound, in the sense that most of her parts functioned properly but she was hardly a seagoing boat at all, being more suitable for ferrying work on inland waters. I caught the captain twice puzzling over maps and staring through an old telescope at the coast. We had never gone out of sight of shore. The launch now stank of burning oil and several times I had awakened from my doze in alarm, thinking we were on fire.
I did everything I could to keep my knowledge and my fears from the almost comatose Esmé. Mostly she lay full length on the bench, very occasionally taking faltering steps to make dry, retching noises over the rail. She had eaten nothing since Constantinople. For that I was selfishly grateful, though increasingly I was concerned about her. I could not believe anyone would react so badly to mere anxiety. Sometimes she looked up at me to ask in a tiny voice if we had arrived yet. I was forced to shake my head. All I could reply was ‘Soon.’ Then I would go to the wheelhouse and discover the bulky Armenian struggling with charts, frowning at instruments and scratching his head with the peak of his filthy cap. His reply to my question was usually a grunt and always the unreassuring information that we were ‘not far from Greece’. I admit my own geography had also been at fault, for I had believed Captain Kazakian when he said Venice was little more than a day’s voyage. At length, when I forced a more specific answer from him, he admitted our position was ‘somewhere near Smyrna’, which was almost the last place I wished to be. He tried to ease my mind by pointing at his obviously malfunctioning compass. ‘But we are on our way to Mykonos.’ He explained Mykonos was Greek; an island ‘not far from Athens’. By that evening, as the sun went down below a mysterious range of bleak cliffs and while Kazakian muttered in tempo with his engine, still puzzling over his sea-maps, Esmé was asleep and I was starving. It had not occurred to me to bring food.
Later, one of the passengers offered me a piece of thin sausage and some pitta which I gratefully accepted. He was more outgoing, more confident than most of the others (who now seemed like fellow refugees rather than tourists); a big man in a black overcoat and black astrakhan hat. He introduced himself as Mr Kiatos and was
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