Forgery by Sabina Murray

Author:Sabina Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2007-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

9

p

For the next two weeks the weather remained clear and hot, and I walked about with an image of the field in my mind: the dusty zucchinis and tomatoes, the thin-fleshed peppers with their narrow leaves—all those lucky plants with their roots plunged into the earth. Olivia said she recognized obsession, and this was obsession.

We were spending a lot of time together, and everyone—me included—was surprised at my seeming devotion. I was following her around, maybe even loving her. I knew I had given in to a pointless hope for our future and, with that, pity—not for Olivia but for myself. I’m not sure how Olivia felt. She hadn’t hesitated when I’d followed her into her bedroom. There was an unshowy confidence in everything she did. Unlike other women I’d known, she didn’t seem to care what sort of relationship we were having. Olivia was different. She never made much of her feelings, and I admired her for it.

In Neftali’s absence, we all became brazenly immoral. I moved into Olivia’s room and Nikos moved in with Amanda, even though our room was quieter, because Amanda’s had a double bed. We agreed that when Neftali returned from Mýkonos in the next few days we would all go back to our old sleeping arrangements, so as not to create scandal. Neftali would no doubt recognize and appreciate the hypocrisy.

I wanted to get to work on the field, if for no other reason than to be occupied. Olivia’s concern for her own health was now exacerbated by her concern for me, watching her struggle. A morning when she didn’t get out of bed was a morning with me sipping coffee in the garden, worried, waiting for her to get up. If I’d been digging up the field, it would have been better for us both. A part of me was still angry with Nikos, who for all his good taste and love of beauty didn’t seem to recognize the value of classical art. He refused to be humbled by it—to be humbled by anything, for that matter—as if having a face that women loved and clothes that men admired were enough.

“You’re always like this, Rupert. Classical this, classical that. You have to stop. It’s like me asking you to be a cowboy.”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” I said. We were sitting in the garden together, and I was trying to convince Nikos to pay a visit to the farmer, who should have been ready to harvest everything.

“Why did you bargain and bargain with that annoying man in Stavri over the statuette, if you find haggling so impossible?”

“Bargain?” said Nikos. “With him?”

“I could hear it in your voice. You were arguing back and forth.”

“No, no,” he said. “We were talking about building a real road to the port, one that doesn’t have steps for the donkeys, and then he said something about buses. He wants to have buses. Remember, he’s running for mayor again.”

But Nikos agreed it was probably time to check on the farmer.

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