CHAPTER IX : TASOS.
Tasos put in an appearance that weekend. He brought a diplomatic pouch to the Greek embassy. He was a young man round about thirty at the start of his diplomatic career. Still only a third secretary at the Greek embassy in Cairo, he asked to bring the pouch to London. So he took the Cairo embassy pouch to Athens and from the Foreign Ministry in Athens, the pouch destined for London. They did these small favors among themselves the Greek diplomats. He arrived Friday at noon, delivered the pouch, and was free till Monday when he would make a similar return journey. He booked a room at a nearby hotel and called Annie. Annie phoned me in a panic. Please stay close to me this weekend she pleaded. They had been acquainted the previous summer in Alexandria through mutual friends and Tasos, after that first meeting, was in Alex every single weekend courting Annie. They went out in a group but he stuck close to her. It seems from what mother said that Annie did not show a special interest but neither was she repelled. Maybe the sweetness of Omar’s beauty and lovemaking were still vivid in her soul. In any case, Tasos subsequently met our father in Cairo and asked for Annie’s hand in marriage. Father was delighted. A young man, the right age, educated with a law degree and fine career prospects at the Foreign Ministry seemed the perfect suitor. He talked with Annie who said neither yes nor rejected the proposal outright but asked for time to think about it.
Omar was full of nerves. Who is that bastard who has come from Cairo for Annie? he asked. She called me and told me not to show my face this weekend. Not in so many words, of course. That bastard, I told him, is a man who wants to marry Annie. Anything wrong with that? No, but I don’t like it, he said. From where or what do you obtain this possessiveness? I inquired. Don’t pretend you don’t know I have been going steady with Annie this last year, he answered. With Annie and a few others, I added. This man wants to marry her. Well, so do I, he said. Oh Omar give us a break. You are in your first year at the Imperial, you are one of the most amazing womanizers I know, do you think you can support Annie financially or stop this mad changeover of girlfriends? Do you believe you are mature enough to be a faithful husband to one woman? Anyway, don’t answer these questions. No need. I don’t think Annie is too keen on him but she probably doesn’t want him going back to Cairo telling father that there is another man in the picture, a handsome playboy called Omar.
Saturday and Sunday, Annie and I entertained Tasos. Perhaps he would have preferred to be alone with Annie but he had no choice. He was a likeable young man with a congenial smile. He was impeccably dressed with suit and tie and a Burberry overcoat which made me feel rather scruffy. Slightly shorter than I and just marginally taller than Annie, he spoke such perfect Greek that put mine to shame, and atrocious English. There was an affable familiarity between him and Annie and I started thinking that she could do worse than accept his proposal. He looked at her with warmth and even adoration and more or less ignored me which did not trouble me in the least. She, on her side, was attentive and companionable and I even sensed some affection. I could not discard this liaison as doomed. On the contrary, I saw light at the end of the tunnel. Omar, I thought, you fickle lover, the bird will fly away this summer for good. Not that you will mourn her inconsolably but for once a girl will drop you instead of you dropping her. I felt that weekend sealed an instinctive and implicit pact between them even though Annie might, and probably would, return to Omar’s sexual embrace and the passion between them that was open and permissive, to end her two-year London stint. And this might prove more valuable in her future life than her diploma in Interior Design. This involvement in life and love and sex that will leave her with no regrets of something missed or something not savored. Tasos, too, lived a glorious weekend and if he was not in love with Annie when he arrived, was most assuredly deeply in love by the time he left. I fear my awkward chaperonage prevented him from expressing verbally his feelings to her, which were so evident in his body language. On Saturday we spent the morning shopping for little presents for his friends in the big and famous London department stores. Lunch and rest in the afternoon and a musical in the evening. On Sunday, a sunny day, it was a glorious walk in Hyde Park and a few laughs at Speaker’s Corner. In the afternoon a long, slow stroll in the National Gallery where I mentally awarded another plus to Tasos because he was well aware and appreciative of the great artists and their paintings. Monday, they met very early in the morning at his hotel for breakfast and a more intimate and secluded goodbye after which Annie left for Hammersmith and Tasos for the Greek embassy to collect his pouch and catch his plane. Omar wanted details of the meeting and I told him it was not up to me to provide them and that he should ask Annie. He was, of course, annoyed at my answer but I did not know what she intended to tell him and I could not risk any indiscretions.