The Lovers by Vendela Vida

Author:Vendela Vida
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Turkey, Psychological, Widows, Psychological fiction, Fiction, Fiction - General, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, General
ISBN: 9780060828394
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

The next day was Friday, and Yvonne was supposed to be on the Knidos dock at ten for the trip to Cleopatra’s Island. She awoke feeling good, relieved of a lie. Had she really told all that to Özlem?

She showered and washed her hair with mango shampoo she found in a bathroom cabinet. The lover’s shampoo, she realized. Soaping her body, she wondered if her thighs and buttocks might have already firmed from her daily swims. She pulled on her swimsuit, the lining at the crotch and across her chest still slightly damp, and stepped into a light pink sundress—a gift from Aurelia. She faced her reflection. Her eyes—unswollen, thanks to Özlem’s precautions—shone, and the combination of the dress and her days in the Knidos sun made her cheeks look pinched, her lips bright. She looked alive.

She ate cereal while standing at the sink. She presumed the owl was still in the basement, but didn’t want to check. With the sex swing on the third floor, it was only a matter of time, she thought, before each of the beds, seating areas, and rooms closed her out, and she would have to start living on the roof.

She left the front door open again, in case the owl wanted to leave, and locked the gate at the foot of the stairs. The air was cooler this early in the morning. She had a pleasant drive to Knidos, thinking about the day ahead. Deniz had said there would be an American couple on the boat and Yvonne briefly wondered about them before her mind turned to Ahmet. She rummaged through her purse as she drove. A few Turkish coins shifted around at the bottom—enough to buy a shell or two from the boy before she set out on the gulet.

Captain Galip was waiting for her on the dock. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his white Bermuda shorts. “Merhaba,” he said, and offered a coarse hand to help her into the motorboat that would take them to Deniz II.

A minute after they pushed off, Yvonne realized she had not seen Ahmet. She turned to look for him and he was there, on the beach, alone. She waved and he did not wave back. Even from across the water that separated them, she believed she could make out the shape of his brow, his eyes. He was looking at her as though she had betrayed him by going on the boat, by not spending the day with him, and this caught Yvonne by surprise. No! she wanted to shout, first to him, and then to Captain Galip. Maybe she could return to Knidos, see Cleopatra’s Island another day. She glanced at the Captain, his expression impenetrable beneath the dark shades of his sunglasses, and when she looked at the shore the boy was making his way to the other harbor, the harbor where she was not.

The motorboat pulled up to the side of Deniz II, where Deniz herself was standing at the top of the gulet’s ladder.

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