CHAPTER XXXIV : ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
For three days Alice took Michael sightseeing. For the budding young architect it was a revelation. He had studied the ancient temples in Architectural History and seeing them proudly surviving in their old age, injured, disfigured, scarred and defaced but still standing almost alive, radiating a sense of history and civilization in the splendor of their settings moved him deeply. He had studied the Parthenon’s dimensions and yet when he saw it he whispered to Alice, how big it is. In my mind I imagined it smaller. What a tremendous edifice. What artistry. Another monument to a deity that did not exist. Isn’t it strange that man’s greatest monuments are to gods and prophets and religions that preached love and peace and yet he remained a savage, cruel and vicious being throughout history up to the present time? To me these monuments are magnificent shrines to man’s ignorance, fear and hypocrisy. Oh stop being cynical, Mike, Alice said. Man, by and large is improving in quality with education and the scientific knowledge he is acquiring. A little in quality, perhaps, but mainly in quantity, piped in Michael.
Come, Alice said, we shall walk to the Agora where the ancient Athenians congregated and discussed their problems, listened to the teachings of their philosophers and in the process invented democracy. When religion, ignorance and fanaticism will be vanquished, man will flourish. Oh Alice, what nonsense, Michael said laughing. He will have destroyed his planet long before that. Alice was not in complete disagreement but was more optimistic by nature. After the Agora they walked to the Thission, the temple of Theseus, and the archaeological museum. The following day they boarded a bus for Cape Sounion and spent the day meandering in that romantic setting gazing at the Poseidon Temple and the blue sea. They lunched at a small tavern and returned home to spend the evening with yiayia Helen. Following that, they took an organized day excursion to Delphi, which the ancient Greeks considered the center, the navel, of the earth and where the Delphic Oracle was located, and the fourth they spent shopping for painting materials in Athens. The strain in their relationship that had developed during the two-year rift was dissipating. They began touching each other affectionately and even holding hands again like adolescents. The warmth, the strong bond, was returning but Michael was cautious in his moves. He did not attempt to kiss Alice. He was afraid of annoying her, of being told abruptly to leave her alone or even asked to return to London. The evenings they spent at home with yiayia. They nestled on the sofa watching the insipid television programs that yiayia enjoyed, making yiayia smile with happiness simply by their presence. They slept in separate rooms and there were no problems there.
They left on the next day in an overloaded taxi for Piraeus harbor to start their itinerary, initially on a tour of islands. Alice, finally, felt lucky and grateful that Michael was with her to help her with her equipment. It was no easy task carrying about ten canvasses stretched on their wooden frames plus the easel and the paints. They boarded a ferry to Santorini which is supposed to be one of the more picturesque islands of the Cyclades complex. I shall not go into the details of their two month circuit of islands and travels in the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece. That would need a book in itself and again Alice, at the end of their two and a half months felt she had seen only a fraction of the natural beauties that Greece possessed. She marveled at the loveliness of smaller towns such as Nafplion in Peloponnesus, capital of the first Hellenic republic after the liberation from the Ottoman Empire. Such as Kavala, in northern Greece, birthplace of Mohamed Aly, ascending up the side of a hill, and multiethnic Thessaloniki where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born and which was a city where many religions and nationalities coexisted in the early twentieth century. It had a considerable Jewish community before it was decimated by the Nazis in WWII. She marveled at the Meteora, monasteries built high up on huge sheer rocky outcrops. She pointed out to Michael the purest blue color of sky she had ever seen. She wondered if it was possible to reproduce it in her paintings. Chester had talked to her about it and about the cloud tinged sunsets. The trouble was, the exquisite paintings of nature and their unbelievable mix of colors did not last long enough and she bought a camera and asked Michael to take colored pictures while she painted as rapidly as she could, in order to complete the paintings later on. As she completed batches of paintings she detached them from their frames, rolled the canvases carefully and put them in round containers and fastened new canvases on the frames. Every now and then she sent batches of rolled up canvases by courier to yiayia Helen in Athens for safekeeping.
It was early in the summer season and rental rooms were plentiful. They slept separately and Michael was on his best behavior. Alice was absorbed and busy with her work and Michael was always with her, always ready to help, to chat, to joke, to bring her a bottle of mineral water. That was enough for him. He seemed to enjoy this aimless day to day existence as an adjunct to his lovely, dedicated and gifted cousin. When they were near the sea, he often left her for a swim in the cool, clear waters and returned refreshed while she might be toiling energetically at her mission, her love, her passion apart from Michael, temporarily suspended, the most satisfying occupation she could have asked for. He admired her silently and he loved her silently. He admired her talent and found her paintings alive and moving. He admired her delicate litheness, her energy, her blue eyes and silky hair as it flew in her face during her work in windy islands like Mykonos. He admired her friendliness and easy sociability as she chatted in Greek with people during their dinners in local tavernas, and was annoyed when she flirted lightheartedly with men who made discreet passes at her not knowing what tied her to Michael because though there was familiarity between them, signs of greater intimacy were lacking. Lacking because Michael was blocked by their quarrel, by what she said to him, that if he was going to forget her he did not deserve her friendship. The silly, arrogant bitch, he thought at the time, who does she think she is, the Queen of Sheba? But often while he was with Janet he thought of Alice with a sinking feeling. He believed, in fact, that he did not deserve her though he did not forget her. That he betrayed an ideal.
And Alice was waiting. She wondered what happened. Michael’s friendly and affectionate detachment disappointed her after the first few weeks. It went on and on. She felt her love for him flower again through their constant contact. Her need for sex was focused on her good looking cousin. Opportunities presented themselves with other men but she sensed his antagonism and disturbance whenever he discerned the slightest sign of flirtation with one of the many vacationers surrounding them. Why was he troubled and why was he isolating her if he did not want her?
As the summer season advanced and the islands flooded with tourists making lodging difficult, they often had to share a room. In it, they chatted, joked and laughed at their daily happenings like any married couple or a pair of roommates or lovers, and Alice thought it strange that despite their increasing familiarity Michael persisted with his unchanging, restrained behavior. They dressed and undressed discreetly and slept on single or double beds without touching. In their desire to pack the minimum of clothing they had left their pajamas back home and in the warm Greek summer slept in their underwear. Alice in bra and panties and Michael in boxer shorts. And the inevitable, because it was inevitable, happened naturally one early morning. It was the culmination of a long attachment that hatched early as friendship, endured through adolescence, and in adulthood mutated to a love that needed carnal expression.
Alice woke up at dawn feeling chilly. Michael, in his sleep, had drawn the sheet to his side and Alice started pulling it towards her trying to cover herself. In the early morning light she noticed the bulge of his boxer shorts. Was he dreaming of someone or was it the usual early morning manifestation of youth and health? She touched it lightly. It was hard. He did not move. She looked at his face. It was peaceful and beautiful. She loved the face of her cousin, who might not be her cousin, and could not resist it. She pulled herself up to him and kissed him lightly on the lips. Again and again. He woke up, opened his eyes and asked, what are you doing? Kissing you, my lovely cousin. He smiled, stretched his arms and legs and yawned. She pulled herself up further and with her chest on his, started kissing him again with greater intensity. He responded and kissed her back, his hands encircling her body. Have you discarded your chastity belt? he asked. Some time ago, she answered. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you try to find out? she answered. His arms caressed her back and he unfastened her bra. I was waiting for today, he said. I was waiting for you to kiss me. It was a resolution not to kiss you first. Why, you silly boy? Because you never allowed me in the past and I am not a toughie. I do not impose my love. No kidding, Michael, quite a gentleman you are. A sulky one though, if I may say so, she said laughing. She pulled off her loosened bra and they kissed, fully awake and passionately. Oh, God, how I love you Alice. I adore you and admire you. Don’t you know it? Why did we waste so much time? Because I was sensible and you were an impatient, selfish and thoughtless little egoist, in the past and at present. A typical male, she said smiling. You did not kiss me but you didn’t want anyone else kissing me. You were punishing me for desisting from sex that would have been detrimental to both of us, and for my devotion and my wish to see you go through college and succeed. You really must grow up if you want to sustain my love. Because I do love you, Michael. Never stopped. He stroked her hair and her ear tenderly, apologetically, because what she told him was true. Her hand reached inside his boxer shorts and held him. They kissed and caressed furiously and removed their underwear and when they couldn’t stay apart any longer, he asked, are you safe? I think so, she said, but better make sure. I always carry condoms in my knapsack. She jumped off the bed, thrust her hand in her bag and returned with a handful of condoms. She fitted one on him and they slid into a sensual delirium.
Alice did not paint that day. One of her two passions overwhelmed the other. They made love a second time, slept a little and went to the beach to swim and sleep some more in the sun. Had lunch at a seaside taverna with plenty of retsina and returned to their room for a Mediterranean siesta, which Alice rarely indulged in because of her work, and slid again into the sweetest exertion of energy that nature devised for the propagation of the species. They emerged from their room at dusk to stretch their legs with a long walk on a country lane, holding hands and kissing every few hundred yards, eventually ending at a village restaurant for dinner with a good local wine before eagerly retiring to their room to attend to their relentless passion. We forget that such erotic exaggerations are possible not only for rabbits but also, sometimes, for twenty-four year old young men. Women do not suffer from temporary depletions of sperm and are quite happy to go along. However, just before going to sleep, while still in a tight embrace, Alice told Michael that the honeymoon was over and tomorrow it was back to work. She had two passions and had to give each its due. Fair enough, Michael said, though it’s the first time I hear of a one-day honeymoon, we’ll cut our lovemaking frequency from four to two. Once in the morning to get you going and at night again for tension-free sleep. Being a bright young man, he probably knew by the age of twenty-four that sexual intercourse invigorates the woman and exhausts the man and, moreover, in the following days claimed to perceive a new mellowness in her painting. As for him, in order to be in tip-top shape at the crucial moments, he helped install Alice at the spot she chose to paint and if there was a beach nearby retired there to sleep in the sun or else went back to their room for a refreshing nap. It was during this initial honeymoon period with her two passions on the Greek islands that Alice said to Michael, I truly feel even at the age of twenty eight that I am Alice in Wonderland.