Daedalus

12Nov06

In half sleep I see the streetlamps on Constitution Hill glisten inside their frosted halos. I watch them swing softly in the crosswinds that waft the spirit of the sea up through the town and sweep the mysteries of heather and furze down from the low-lying hills.

 I breathe the rimy evening air, moist with soft rain, and feel the purchase of my key in the old lock, the softness of the rugs beneath my feet as I enter the warm stillness of home.

It’s nearly two-thirty. I have dozed for maybe twenty minutes, my only sleep in almost twenty-four hours, and yet I feel wide awake.

I open the double doors to the balcony and a gentle ululation of cricket-song and soft jazz fills the room. I can see the fading shadows of the village and, just behind, the luminous blue of the pool and the the spot-lit piazza of the hotel.

I think of the drive from the airport, of Emile and my tetchiness. I’m tired and the youth’s zippy manner and easy familiarity irritates me, accentuates my consciousness of my own low spark.

“There are many Americans in Crete,” he tells me, “In the town you should feel at home, I think.”

After a deliberate and pronounced silence, I reply that I doubt it and, for his information, I didn’t come all this way to “feel at home”

“Anyway, I live in the UK and my father was Irish.”

“My mother is French,” he says.

“And?” I ask.

“I am Greek. First Cretan. But Greek.”

“Your father is Greek?”

“No,” he replies, “my father is dead. To fully be Greek a man must be alive.”

We continue the journey in silence until we reach the village. Just before turning off to begin the final ascent up the mountain road to the house, Emile points to some steps leading to the entrance of a walled courtyard:

“This is my family’s hotel, it’s called Daedalus. The bar opens late; we have some Irish guests just now. I hope you’ll visit us.”

On reaching the house I offer him some money but he refuses:

“Max is a friend. Come to the hotel anytime. You can buy me a drink.”

Then he reverses into the drive and turns the car around.

“By the way, you will like my sister. She hates Americans.”

I wake late, dress and make my way downstairs, where I find Max Thorwaldsen in the kitchen. He is seventy but looks much younger.

Crete has been home to Max and his wife Eva for nearly twenty years. She teaches English at the school in Old Hersonisos, painting landscapes and harbour scenes in her spare time. Max has Glaucoma and is going blind.

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