FIRST STORY - Where the road ends - PART FOUR (Conclusion)
I did not anticipate it.
Blood flies in the space between us,when the woman brandishes the knife in my direction a second and a third times, screaming for Stelios.
Then something else happens to my body.
The warm liquid cascades down my thighs. In a matter of seconds, though, I go from soft to hard, and the steady stream is an arch flying across the side of the bed, its yellow gleaming with the sun light. If the sound was not audible when the liquid streamed to form a pool around my feet, it is suddenly outrageously distinct as it splashes on the ceramic floor.
I can't see her face clearly, but I know the woman has seen it. She gasps, lowers the knife, and slowly turns her back to me, to sit on the edge of the bed.
"I'm sorry" I say, and my voice is that of a child repenting.
I can't stop it. My bladder is in control. When it's finally done, there is silence in the room, and outside too - for three or four heartbeats only.
People are shouting at the bottom of the stairs. Then these people are shouting at the top of the stairs. And the same people shout running along the veranda. It is shouting to the top of their lungs that they break into the room.
I am paralyzed, as if that certain part of my body holds the privilege to reaction. It pulsates and throbs and kicks to the shouts and heavy steps of the approaching mob. When they enter the room, I quickly place a hand in front of my pelvis. Not so much to cover my nudity, as to detain the white spurts from flying any farther than my palm.
I do not understand Greek.
But I do understand people, and the reason why I am taken to the police district for sexual offence.
-IV-
"Daniela?"
A slim silhouette in the distance, her short hair and the long dress, both white, shine under the moonlight. It is not just an unadorned elegance, but a certain unmistakable personality in everything she does and wears that denounces her.
She gives a start, and backs a step - until she recognizes me.
"It's you!" I watch her smile broaden, as I stride along the beach and approach her. "Of course it is! I should have known you would be here!" She takes the last steps towards me. "But not in my wildest dreams you would be naked!" She exclaims, touching my abdomen.
I blush, and want to retort that I am not naked, when I catch a glimpse of her breast under the loose fabric of her dress. I forget what I wanted to say.
"Are you in for a swim, darling?" She asks. With a gracious movement of her shoulders, both straps slip and the whole dress collapses around her ankles.
I gasp at her nakedness, and once more, as she takes me by the hand into the cold sea. Side by side, feeling the unstable pebbles, leaning against each other for support, we take careful steps, each seemingly taking us into colder waters. When the wavelets, bringing us the silvery light in a steady flow of crests, are breaking at the top of my thighs, I halt, shivering.
"Aren't you taking those off?" She inquires, her hand on my waistband. As I nervously grab her wrist, she answers her own question. "I guess you are not." Smiling, she radiates joy and confidence. "It's up to you, darling."
Patting my butt, she gives a laugh, and plunges into the sea. I watch her swim towards the moon, her tanned body breaching the trail of liquid silvery. More than the cold, it is the beauty and the strangeness of the scene that paralyzes me. There are moments when I expect Daniela shall turn her head and wave at me, beckoning me to join her - and then I'll dive. But she never does. She swims as if having forgotten I am there watching, waiting.
And I am so aware I am not the only one watching her, being watched myself.
She swims to the left, towards the border of the peninsula, until her head is just a tiny white globe melting in the reflexes of the moon broken in a myriad of wavelets, and then to the right, into the open sea, where she floats for a while.
When she returns, I am standing at the same spot, or perhaps a little closer to the beach again, since the currents have pushed me back.
"Are you cold, darling?" She asks, as she rises from the sea, and walks the last steps in my direction. And though her embrace is wet, I am instantly made warm by the feeling of her breasts against my chest, by her arms around my neck, her salty lips on mine.
I am still doubtful about what's happening, or about to happen. The current hits her bared back, and I am not sure if it is just that making her body press strongly against mine. I am increasingly sustaining her in my arms, as the waves do lift Daniela from her feet every other moment, making our tongues push deeper into each other's mouth. In the gentlest way possible, I let our pelvis collide to make her feel how excited I am, so that she may lead us from there. Her hands falling on my waistband gives the unmistakable direction, as she tries again to rid me of my trunks.
"I think-" I try to interrupt our kiss, and for a moment she won't let me, "I think we are being watched." I say, breathless.
Daniela smiles, and her teeth shine whiter with my saliva.
"Them?" With her head, she indicates the forested peninsula. "Watching is their only consolation, now. Never mind, them." She winks.
It is not a certain rudeness with which she finally lowers the back of my trunks, exposing my white butt, but that 'them' lingering in my ears that has the effect of instantly deflating me. Not just my organ, but my whole body, all my intentions, my desire, my presence.
Realizing it, she still tries a joke.
"This is our nudist beach, darling." She giggles, her green eyes bathing in wickedness. "It is perfectly okay."
She must know it, since her breasts are fully tanned, and I can hardly distinguish the tan line around her waist. Still.
"Can we go elsewhere?" I say, liberating her from my embrace, lifting my trunks, while trying to take one step back. "Please?"
It takes a few seconds for Daniela to let go from my body. When she does, it is jumping back into the water with a great splash. For a little while I see consternation in her face, just until she turns her back on me and swims away.
She swims in an arch, and as I observe her approaching the other extreme of the beach, where I left my clothes, I am sure to be left behind.
I consider calling her name, but won't. Should I yell my apologies? For now, I am guessing it is right if the woman reciprocates the rejection she must be experiencing.
I am feeling colder than before, though the water no longer feels any cold.
It's only when she already stands on the rocks that she looks in my direction. Smiling, she pats her thigh repeatedly, the way someone would beckon a dog. And when she whistles, I am sure willing to be her puppet.
I don't see them, but I can feel the men in the shades, moving away to leave the path among the pines free for us to stride on.
Leaving the grove, Daniela takes the path bellow the fortified walls I already know. She runs ahead of me, leading me by the hand between the fragrant bushes. We are not in a hurry, since there is no certain destination for us - at least none that I know of. But we nevertheless run, and jump, and laugh.
Stopping just before the trail's end, where it leads into the deserted town beach, Daniela turns to me. Her dress is still wet, delineating her shapely body, and I marvel at her ageing beauty, crowned by her silvery hair - the color of the moon seen in the sky above us.
"Have you made love in the open before?" She asks, after we kiss. Her 'before' indicates we are about to do it, now and here.
And I haven't - unless the tent where I lost my virginity can be considered 'in the open'. I am not inclined to try, though. Not that evening, not in that village, not with so many men around. I am wondering whether she is an exhibitionist. Our kiss has me fully excited again, and pressing my crotch against her body, I want to ascertain Daniela how I truly desire her - yet, I want us to be safe.
We walk hand in hand along the back streets of the village. Deserted, they are also dark, except for the moonlight, once there are no lamp posts. Dirt soil muffles our steps - we can't hear them ourselves. They are enough, though, for a dog to bark at our passage, more as a salute than menacingly, from behind a tall metal fence. If we are being watched, it is only by cats on their night errands under the pergolas of bougainvilleas and trellised grapevines. The moon casts dark shadows, and only their gleaming eyes can be guessed.
There is light coming from a single house down the street, in front of which two scooters are parked, or maybe abandoned, against the wall. A room on the first floor seems to be the source of faint music, too.
"Listen!" Daniela murmurs, as we approach it carefully.
I don't quite pay attention to the enchantment in her voice, as she squeezes my hand and we stop under the open window. I lift my eyes to watch the smoke of a cigarette rise in the weak light of a single bulb, and drift into the cool autumnal night along with the old fashioned melody.
"Is it a woman or a bird?" I comment in a whisper, right into Daniela's ear. Her ear is pierced, but she doesn't wear any earrings.
I am about to laugh when she places a finger on my lips, silencing me.
The look of disappointment in her otherwise warm green eyes tells me she enjoys the song, and whoever is singing. It also shows that I have spoiled our reunion a second time.
But at the same time, her glance is good humored, as she seems to be settling to the fact that I am her companion to that beautiful Greek night of moon. No matter how immature, how awkward, how prudish, how coward, I am it. It is with that understanding that she leads me away from the whitewashed wall, and back to the middle of the street.
The melody cascading from the open window is a soft lullaby. The vinyl is a bit scratched, but the woman's voice still emerges so crystalline, drenched with innocence and purity. She sings like a bird indeed, I think, her high-pitched voice gliding over a sea of violins.
I have never been a good dancer, nor ever enjoyed dancing. But for once, it is easy and natural to surrender to both women - one who brings the aurora onto the darkened street of the sleepy village, with her sweet vocals that effortlessly turn into delicate humming to suit the glissando, and to Daniela, who leads the steps. Inaudibly, for a minute or two we swirl in each other's arms to Josephine Baker's song, that I'd only come to know a couple of years later. Her fresh phrasing of the song's name, 'Doudou', has never left the tender memories I've kept of the evening.
'Doudou' is the eternal sound of my capitulation. Under my clumsy steps, I trample onto my ex-girlfriend Mireille, forever burying all her lies and betrayal, as Josephine brings the sun into the evening, and Daniela delivers it to my heart.
We flee before the next song starts, when a dark silhouette approaches the window.
We are again running, and laughing.
It is only a couple of minutes before we reach the old woman's house. Daniela negotiates our walking embrace among the beds of flowers, through the garden illuminated by the moonbeam. Though the light is strong enough for one to read a book, it is equally dark under the fig trees that we go past. But she navigates the paths with a familiarity that has me wondering, for a moment, if she is more than just a friend to the old lady.
Daniela is on the second step of the stair, towing me, when I halt. When she turns back in my direction, I am already on my knees. She gasps as I embrace her waist, with eagerness burying my face in her lap. I deeply inhale her intimate parts, smelling to salted cod. Swiftly lifting the dress above her waist, I notice how its white bottom is brown from dirt and sand - and so are her feet and leather sandals. Under the light of the moon, I may count the white hairs of her pubic bush, or the stretch marks like a personal geography lesson across her thighs. I kiss them, licking off the salt, but I make the choice to worship her body's story later on, and instead bury my tongue into her moist inside, where I long to venture.
It's at the bottom of the stair that we make love for the first time.
On the same steps where they shall find Daniela bleeding, the next morning.
I am dumbfounded to ejaculate after having seeded her four times.
And I am sure no one from the mob that has invaded my room sees the sperm in my hand. But they do notice my erection, that won't subside, and their hysterical screams heighten. They are arguing with the woman who screamed for Stelios minutes ago, but now will only murmur in response.
"Nice boy." It's the only thing she utters in English, to defend me.
As she rises from the bed, one of the men snatches and throws the sheets at me, so that I can cover myself. I am still trying to roll it around my chest when two others drag me from the room.
We go past the crime scene, but Daniela has already been removed. In fact, at that moment, though I notice the blood on the stair, I don't know it to be hers.
The driver is a typical Greek madman. But no one else in the car shows the slightest concern as the car screeches on the curves. It's four of them, one on each side of me in the back seat, and two at the front. My escorts engage in a heated discussion, and only when I hear Daniela's name, hardly recognizable under their heavy accent, do I have a hint what they are talking about. They glance at me, too, every once in a while, and I am guessing to be part of the subject being discussed, too.
I won't ask where they are taking me.
I have not been lynched, and that is better than I expected already.
The policemen in the car won't talk to me, either.
The car with the villagers almost crashes into the first police car at a turn of the road. It is screaming and swearing that they transfer me from one car to the other. A police officer feels my body and inspects it under the sheets, and after they all confer and seem to reach the conclusion that I might be a pervert but, apart from that, not very dangerous, four policemen proceed further to the village on the second official vehicle, while only two escort me back to their district.
Turning my head just before we reach the boulders that mark the transition from one side to the other of the mountain, I take one last glance at the village. Through the dusty rear window, I see the pristine village gleaming under the early morning sun. The houses look so immaculate like the first time I saw them from that same spot, though I am now headed the opposite direction. But just like with the white sheet I am wearing, I know the village is equally stained with blood.
I start as the door of the interrogation room opens, and the head of a man appears in the light of the corridor. He peeps in my direction. I did not notice to have dosed into sleep.
"So... You are the offender, are you?" He inquires, in perfect English. I am aware he can see me distinctly, with the light coming from behind him, while to me he is just a dark, indistinct silhouette.
"I am not."
I have been sitting in a dark room on my own for four or five hours now. I am humiliated. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am cold. And I'd be bored if I weren't afraid, and high on adrenaline.
The policeman who brought me in this bare room did let me occupy the leather couch, instead of the rough wooden chairs at the interviewing desk. It stinks awfully. But my own foul smell is even worse. My legs and feet smell to urine. And my hand, to sperm, that I tried to clean on the sheets I am still wearing to cover myself. I am wondering whether blood stains smell, too.
"You are not." The officer replies, shaking his head to confirm his remark.
"Am I going to jail?" I whimper.
"You are going to my office." He retorts. And as he sees me rising from the couch, he adds "In a few more minutes". He slams the door and leaves me in the dark again.
'A few more minutes' can last half an hour at least, but I am finally shown into the marshal's office.
The first thing I notice is my backpack at the corner of the room.
"I believe you'll find all that is yours inside it." He says, following my glance, and informs me the villagers have packed and dispatched it. "If anything is missing, I guess we can send another car to fetch it. Anything important." His tone leaves it clear he is not sending any car back to the village.
The officer allows me to change back into my clothes.
"That's not very convincing for an ancient Greek nobleman impersonation" He indicates the white sheets I am still wearing around my body. "And we'll need it for crime evidence."
After having washed in his private bathroom, letting some soap foam stick to my skin, so that I'll smell to fake lavender instead of the urine and sperm that seems to have impregnated my body, I take one of the chairs at the officer's desk. Showing no indication to have noticed my presence, I have the chance to take a good look at him, who must be around his thirties.
Not just handsome, apart from the attendants at American Express in Athens, where I have cashed my traveler checks, he is the neatest Greek I have ever met. His light brown hair combed with gel, the ironed white shirt and stiff collar, the expert knot on his silk tie, everything about him is impeccable. His desk top might have been a geometric composition by Mondrian -except that it is colorless. Even the antique telephone, that he uses twice before interviewing me, is dark brown. Everything is so tidy, stacks of paper and law books laid in perfectly parallel lines that I am guessing he hides a ruler somewhere. Five pens are laid perfectly parallel on his table, all pointing in the same direction. His neurotic order pacifies me, though.
"Am I going to jail?" I dare ask, since he won't start talking.
"There is a charge against you." He confirms, in a very neutral voice, peering directly into my face.
"And what is it?"
"Public display of nudity." When he rises two fingers, I understand he is mentioning my erection.
"Public?" Indignation rises my voice, but caution lowers it again. "I was in my room!"
"But there was public in the room, right?" He looks at a block full with notes on his desk, his eyes running over the lines, looking for something. "When you..." Again he rises two fingers.
"The 'public' broke into my room. They should be charged. Invasion."
"Did you do anything to the woman?" He inquires.
"Daniela?"
"No. The Greek lady."
"Of course not. She broke into my room, first of all. She... waved the knife in my direction. She should be charged!" And I am wondering whether I should ask for a lawyer, even if it were a Greek lawyer. Is it wise to defend myself with accusations?
"Why did you piss in front of her?"
Because I am Whizz, the Firefighter, I want to say. "Because I was afraid."
The officer nods, and takes a report sheet from one of the stacks. The pile remains perfectly shaped.
"Why did you show her your..." He rises two fingers again. I'm not sure whether he doesn't know the words in English or doesn't want to use them.
"I did not show her anything. I was sleeping naked. I did not have the time to put anything on when she broke into my room."
"But why the..." Two fingers up.
"I was... scared. I don't know. My body. It does crazy things, sometimes. When I am afraid."
"Yes. In your age, I guess, it is not that crazy. Even normal, I would say." Giggling, he takes notes.
"Am I going to jail?" I ask again. "Sir?"
The officer won't lift his eyes from the paper, where he writes. In Greek, naturally.
"You mentioned a crime." I am trying to understand what my situation is. What am I involved with. "What crime?"
His next retort is cold, and I have to wonder how many times he has given such news. "Your friend has been stabbed."
Recalling the blood at the bottom steps of the stair, I immediately understand he is talking about Daniela.
"Why?" I whine, closing my arms against my chest, as if I were to be stabbed myself. Before I can ask whether she is dead or alive, he silences me with an imperative gesture.
"I'll ask the questions, ok?" He says. Although he is polite, his request is an order.
In the interview that follows, I won't tell him anything he doesn't already know. How Daniela picked me at the road, and again at the beach. How many times we kissed, how we danced under the moonlight, how many times we made love - the officer shows no interest, not even curiosity, to anything that is not directly related to the crime.
"You were just her full moon meal, then?" When I gasp at his remark, he amends, "Just a one-night stand, then?"
I haven't thought of myself as such. Though I haven't planned staying longer than a week at the village, I was hoping for more than one night with Daniela. It is not the unabashed way she rode me, or went down on me till I exploded and she drained me. Even if we were to later grow ashamed of the sex we had shamelessly practiced during that evening - there was a moment when I wanted to propose her. I'd wait at her restaurant, not hoping for money, not even free meals. Just to stay with Daniela night and day.
"Why?" I ask again, when the officer has sent his annotations of my testimony to be typed. "And who is Stelios?"
Again, I identify in the officer's glance that combination of doubt and mistrust I find in almost all Greek eyes.
"You'll find it out in the newspapers, I guess, so this is the reason why I am telling you... Though you don't read Greek, do you?" When I shake my head, he continues, "I guessed so. But you are entitled to know. Stelios is the husband of the lady who broke into your room. She thought he might have spent the night with your friend."
"Daniela... was stabbed by mistake?"
"That is yet to be determined. The lady stabbed your friend at the corner of the house thinking the Daniela had slept with her husband. The Stelios. He made it look like he was going to spend the night with the Daniela. When he had the clear intention to spend the night with someone else."
"Did Daniela get stabbed instead of another woman?"
"Not exactly." He pauses, as if trying to determine how long will my look of astonishment last, and how much suspense he can hold. "Another man."
When I gasp, the officer laughs wholeheartedly.
"So Daniela was mistaken for a man?"
"No!" The officer loses his temper. "The aggressor knew the Daniela, and intended to stab her. Because the Stelios, for quite many evenings, had been using the Daniela as an alibi for his affair."
Sometimes, Greek language sounds like a machine-gun for me. The officer, even in English, speaks that fast, too.
"How could 'the' Stelios have an ongoing affair and use 'the' Daniela as an alibi?" I run after the words myself. "Weren't I a one-night stand?"
"You were." The officer sighs. Looking at his watch, he doesn't hide his impatience. "You know, you shouldn't have been there. But since the Daniela picked you and took you to the village herself... I am inclined to think she was in the known about the Stelios affair with the other man... and a couple of other affairs in the village, that had been equally profiting from her monthly ritual for an alibi... And when she picked you, I think... I am sure she intended to end the masquerades."
"Ritual?"
"I guess it will be in the newspapers, too." The officer thinks before continuing. "Your friend the Daniela had this... strange habit." He flips through the notes on his desk. "We could not determine when it started. Maybe as far as a decade ago. On full moon nights, the Daniela would bathe in the sea. Naked, as you have witnessed yourself. Then she would pick a man from the village and make love to him. She would pick anyone among the men above eighteen... and below eighty, it seems. Young or old, single or married. She picked the man-" He shows his fingers sign for erection, "not the person. She had no... method."
Method? "Did she... kill them?"
The officer slaps his own head, to indicate how dumb my question is.
"Of course not!" Again, he looks at his watch. "Otherwise, we would have stopped her, already. It did happen once, when she picked one of the oldest villagers. He died the night after making love to her, less than twenty hours later."
"Poisoned?" I ask, and from the officer's angry look, I realize my silly intrusion is simply not welcome. "A heart attack?"
"No poison, no heart attack. With a smile on his lips-" He picks the detail from the notebooks, "he just passed away. But never again she picked a man above eighty."
I whistle. Fascinating as it is, I can imagine how much disruption Daniela's ritual must have caused at the village. And I recall the lady telling me to go to the 'bitch', instead of the beach. Maybe she meant it.
"How do you know all that?" I insist in posing my questions.
"I knew. Everybody knew. All men knew. The women knew, too. The Daniela became instantly famous in the villages of the region, once men realized what her regularity was. And the villagers decided to claim exclusivity to her... freedom. Perhaps we can call it freedom, yes. It kept her satisfied, anyhow. She never had a regular... man. The villagers prohibited men from other villages of going there, on full moon nights. And the Daniela woman must have agreed, because even in the high season, she would stick to the villagers when choosing a lover for her full moon... celebration." The officer clears his throat. "It's the first time she picked... an outsider. And a foreigner. That she brought into the village herself. I believe, then, she wanted to finally change something. The untrue stories that were being told about her. That she would take many men in one night. That she would celebrate orgies. Lies. Convenient lies told by the men of the village to cover their own deceptions, their escapades. Like the Stelios man. I do believe, though, she must have had a plan and a purpose when she chose... you!"
There seems to be a problem here, I think. My presence in the village, and in bed with Daniela, might have broken the balance of... a decade? But unless Daniela had been following me around the village, she could not have known I would be at the small, secluded beach. I hadn't known my own destination, the previous evening. She did not come knocking at my door. Our meeting was fortuitous. Her own surprise at the beach proved that. No plan or purpose - and I want to confront the officer.
The telephone rings for the third time. I can hear a woman screaming on the other side of the line. Isn't tragedy a Greek thing by definition? Whoever she is, her shouts seem to trigger the worst in the man before me. He loses it, completely. His absolute self-center, the studied composure, his enviable coolness.
First, the officer loosens his impeccable tie. As if chocking on his collar, he unbuttons it. Then, listening to the screaming woman, he messes with his own hair, as if it suddenly itches or hurts unbearably. After he hangs up, without having uttered anything else other than confirmations to what seemed orders and commands - a woman superior? -, he gets entangled with his flannel jacket, unable to find the sleeves as he tries to put it on. He bumps his elbow on the handle, when he tries to open the door. Slamming it, he is gone.
I wait. Listening to the tic-tac of a clock, to barks and meows and cars. I don't even know the name of this town I have been brought to. More than forty minutes go by. Perhaps even one hour, before I venture out of the marshal's office.
No one else seems to speak English in the district. All they tell me about the officer is "Woman" and "Baby", and I can guess why he left in a hurry, and who his woman superior is.
"Should I wait until he returns?" My question is directed to any and all of the four policemen in the room, but only one of them shrugs in response.
"Will he return?" I ask, and the same man shrugs, while the others simply pretend I am not there.
"Can I leave?"
I return the next morning to the district. Having found out at the hotel that there is a bus in the afternoon, I want to check if it is okay for me to leave the town - and probably the country, too. Not in a haste, but soon.
The marshal hasn't returned. I wonder whether they have anything like paternity license in Greece.
There is a little convulsion in the room when I enter, and soon a document is produced. They handle me a few sheets of typed paper. Guessing it is my testimony, without giving it a second thought, though it is in Greek, I sign it.
"I am leaving the town...." I say, carefully making it half a statement, half a question. "I intend to go to Athens, this afternoon... I am guessing it is okay, right?"
After the policeman gets my signature, he returns to his table, and like the other man in the room, he is intent on keeping his back to me, ignoring me.
"Do you know anything about Daniela?" I ask.
But the policeman who would at least shrug is not there.
Which town has she been taken to? Did they warn her family in Belgium? But did she have family? Did she die? Or is she alive? Is she in a hospital or the morgue? Does she need blood transfusion? Could I have donated blood to her? Held her hand? Or helped otherwise?
I make inquiries on the newspaper stands in Athens, around the university neighborhood where I took a room overlooking the National Archaeological Museum. Several students do speak English, and they amuse themselves trying to help my investigation. But it seems like her case is not in the papers, at least not yet.
Dead or alive, I know I won't ever forget Daniela, and decide to go back to the secondhand bookshop to buy the postcard.
It's been three years only, and I have forgotten about Daniela entirely. Until Daniel's arrival.
The reason, probably, is the woman standing on the small balcony of the hospital's room, lighting another cigarette - her second since she has given birth to our son, less than twenty hours ago.
How many did she smoke on the flight leaving Athens? It might have been a whole box. After her ashtray was full to the brim, I suggested her that she could use mine. Though she refused, using her glass instead, the ice was broken and we chat non-stop until our destination.
I recall the displeasure of first kissing her, a couple of weeks later. It felt like kissing an ashtray. But her small, dark nipples wouldn't smell to cigarettes, and I could kiss them instead, or the deliciously moist lips between her thighs. And not even the smoke of a thousand cigarettes could cloud the crystalline light of her blue eyes. Her teeth might be yellowing, but her smile is the brightest thing I have ever seen. Her voice is hoarse, probably from smoking, too. But it makes her amateur renditions of jazz songs sound absolutely thrilling, brilliant, and lends great importance and seems to confer a fascinating depth to whatever she talks about, be it politics or Mediterranean cuisine.
This woman, who could be a jazz singer but instead teaches Math for children, sitting by my side on the airplane leaving Greece, made me forget Daniela from the moment the airplane took off.
I should be ashamed, I guess. But I am a coward, and that shall be my alibi for having escaped the crime scene like I have.
And Daniel, now.
I'll let him know.
No, I'll teach him.
To be as free as Daniela was.
Is.
Whatever.
(coming next "Red guava seeds")
