sat in a beach chair, reading. A novel lay in the sand near his chair, but he studied a sheaf of papers, occasionally ticking a paragraph with an HB pencil. The pencil hovered, ever ready to peck at the legal document.
He paused, sighing. He gazed into the blue vacancy above the Libyan Sea. Through his sunglasses, the sky appeared a dark rich purple. Time passed. He willed it to pass. Sighing again, he resumed his study of the papers.
The beach was not particularly distinguished. It spread away to the west, where a sea wall had been built; behind the wall was Paleohora’s harbour, in which Langstreet’s yacht was at present moored. Visitors ensured that the beach was moderately busy. Tourists lay on the sand, exposing various parts of their bodies to the sun, or sheltering under black-and-white rented umbrellas. Their naked bodies glistened with heavy oils, much like joints of meat roasting. Distant people shimmered like faulty ghosts in the rising heat. The margins of the sea contained infants cavorting and mothers guarding. The faint shrieks of the children reached Langstreet’s ears.
From more distant stretches of water, a bikini-clad figure emerged, to come slowly up the beach to where Langstreet sat, shaded by wispy tamarisks.
‘Oh, that was just brilliant, Archie! The water is gorgeous. You should have come in with me!’ Kathi reached for her beach towel, to dry her face. Wrapping the towel about her shoulders, she stood dripping and looking down at her husband. ‘I must have swum at least a mile. I don’t have a fear of the sea any more, I just love it.’
‘Don’t get cold, Kathi,’ he said, smiling up at her.
She put a chilly hand on his arm. ‘Feel that!’
‘You’re like a frozen fish,’ he said, with a short laugh. ‘Better get dressed.’
‘Dressed?! Don’t you like me in my costume?’ She struck an inviting pose, raising her arms and thrusting out her breasts. She was a dark woman, with honest grey eyes.
Langstreet set his legal document down carefully in the sand beside his chair, weighing it down with the neglected novel. ‘Kathi, you are lovely, and we both know it. But I am in need of some action. You know I never was one for the beach. I’d like to see something of the island. Do you want to come with me for a drive?’
She gave a wail. ‘Oh, Archie, you are indeed restless! We came here for you to take life a little easy – yet still you worry about this lousy law case… Where are you thinking of going?’
He told her he was planning to see what was happening inland, and asked where Cliff was. She told him to look across the road, with a certain edge to her tone.
Clifford could be seen sitting outside the restaurant of a white-stuccoed hotel, clad only in bathing trunks and a white hat, talking to a plump young blonde. His lean body inclined slightly towards the tanned female figure.
‘Don’t bother him, Archie. Let him chat up that Swedish chick. She looks nice. They are just being happy.’
Langstreet asked why she should imagine he was going to bother his son. He knew Cliff had to work fast, since they planned to sail eastwards on the morrow. Not that he greatly approved of such behaviour, but he recognised that the younger generation was freer in its sexual attitudes. Kathi, listening to this, bit her lower lip.
He gave his wife a frowning smile before turning towards the town, making off with his legal papers tucked under his arm. Kathi finished drying herself, applied Nivea Sun Lotion SPF 16 to her body, put on dark glasses, and settled down on her beach mat. She lay there crucified by the afternoon sun.
The little rent-a-car shop in the main street had a potted palm tree behind its plate glass front and only one car remaining for hire; a Fiat Punto, two years old. Langstreet took it. He considered the hire price absurdly cheap.
The engine sounded tuneful as he gradually accelerated. The outskirts of Paleohora fell away, giving place to olive groves in which goats roamed, followed by stands of bamboo. As the Fiat began to climb, these tokens of fertility died away. Soon he was driving among almost barren hillsides. Paleohora’s isolation was written in rock.
No houses or villages clung to the winding kilometres. No traffic crawled along the road. No one walked here. Langstreet became bored. When he reached a lone village, sprouting ramshackle from the crotch of a steep bend, he did not consider it worth his stopping. After an hour, he drove into a small town lonely in the wild hillsides, which signs announced as Kyriotisa. Here he stopped. Consulting his map, he saw how Kyriotisa marked a geographical disposition. The way he had come was the descent towards the sea; the way ahead was the ascent towards Hania, the towns of the north Cretan coast and, at a greater distance, the great urgent world of Europe. Kyriotisa was where it was for good geological reasons.
He climbed from the car, and stretched. He was cramped and felt rather irritable.
It seemed as if Kyriotisa were having a nap, by way of celebrating the sun’s passage from azimuth. A garage and service station stood at one end of the main street, to all appearances closed. The main street presented a dead, greyish appearance, although the shops were open. A dog crossed the road with infinite leisure. Billboards displayed rather faded advertisements for Coca Cola, brands of cigarettes, mobile phones, and Nentelstam Milk for Infants. On higher ground, behind the buildings lining the street, Langstreet could see the dome of an Orthodox church. Despite this token of higher authority, the town appeared to Langstreet to lie under a deadening materialism, the banal everyday. He took a turn up the street, observing that the town was built about a road that went in a great curve to avoid a severe drop into a valley. Behind Kyriotisa, hills rose almost immediately.
Entering a nearby taverna, he ordered a coffee, enquiring whether anyone spoke English who might lead him to old Byzantine churches in the district, as mentioned in his guide book. The waiter who served him with a cup and biscuit was a man with a grand moustache, his wrinkled face much resembling the bark of an old olive tree. He eyed Langstreet closely.
‘You are Germany?’ he asked.
‘I’m English. Do you speak English?’
The waiter still looked dissatisfied. Raising a hand in a ‘wait and see’ gesture, he wandered into the street.
Langstreet drank his coffee, with pauses between sips. The taverna was completely deserted except for an old lady who sat in shadow, unmoving behind a counter.
The silence was broken when the waiter returned with a black-clad monk. The monk was corpulent, not particularly tall, his round weather-beaten face fringed by white stubble. Langstreet rose and gave him a slight bow.
‘You speak English, sir?’
‘You are from Germany?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m from England, although I do in fact work in Germany. Germany and Switzerland. I am an official of WHO, the World Health Organisation. I am here on holiday. Why do you ask me that question?’
‘The Germans were here many years and destroyed this place.’
‘I can’t help that. I’m English, as I’ve already told this waiter here.’ Langstreet stood stiff and formal, looking slightly down on the monk.
‘Then what can I do for you, sir?’ The monk’s expression relaxed as he asked the question. He moved a step nearer Langstreet’s table, resting a hand on it, as though he found its weight a burden.
‘I understand from my guide book that there are several old Byzantine churches hereabouts. I wonder if you could guide me to some of them? I have a car outside.’
‘They are only very small churches, very old, very small,’ said the monk with grave courtesy, as if he felt personally responsible for their shrinkage. ‘They have no merit of architecture. Not a one can hardly be worth your visit.’ When he saw that this statement made no great impression on Langstreet, the monk gestured to him to sit at the table again. He then took the chair on the opposite side of the table, saying, ‘Yes, I will show to you some churches. We are glad to assist our English visitors. First you must know some facts about this place,