394
PARTISAN REVIEW
relief. In a superfluous gesture, he exchanged addresses with three or
four men, knowing full well no one would ever write, then dispersed
lukewarm farewells and perfunctory invitations to Athens, and walked
home, carrying a bottle of red wine in each hand-a parting present
from Nestor. He could barely keep himself from breaking into a run in
his excitement. His one suitcase had been packed days before. Maria,
wearing her black silk dress, waited for him at the table set with the
flocks of pastries she had spent all week baking.
"So, this is it, then," she said in a listless voice, as they sat down to
their last tea together. Constantine nodded awkwardly. He was grateful
to her, of course, but he felt he did not understand her, and her oblig–
ing, quietly sorrowful presence embarrassed him, made him feel helpless
and vaguely guilty.
"I'm taking the boat to Chios tomorrow afternoon," he said quickly
to dispel the sudden silence, "and from there I fly to Athens."
Maria's spoon made clanking noises against the side of the cup.
"Well, that's how things should be," she finally said without looking
up. "You are young, you want to be somewhere fast-paced, somewhere
exciting, and Inos has been like this for as long as I can remember.... "
And at that instant something shifted in Constantine's mind. Perhaps
that last phrase combined with the sight of Maria in her best dress, her
eyelids swollen and red, served to trigger his memory, or it could have
been the saints glaring at him from the dark corner that pushed him
toward a recollection of something said months ago-"Ino has been
here for as long as I can remember." He moved his eyes over Maria's
face, saw, as if anew, her deeply drawn wrinkles, her skin the color of
dried leaves, her faded eyes, the brown age spots staining the parchment
of her hands. A chill began to tiptoe along his spine.
"Madame Passano, if I may ask ... " His suddenly hoarse vOice
tripped and scratched against his throat. "How old are you?"
She glanced at him in surprise, then smiled a tired smile.
"I'm old, Costas, I'm old," she said softly. "Too old, perhaps, to be
alone for much longer. I will be turning sixty-seven this spring."
And so, there it was. Maria was an old woman whose memory
stretched over two-thirds of a century and who had gone to Ino's cave
to beg for some wind shortly after her marriage-yet Ino looked young,
too young to even be alive at that time.... He thought furiously, the
sheer force of his mental energy keeping him from the edge of panic. He
had placed the wind seller's age at around thirty, true, but it had been
dim in the cave, and there had been that earlier moment on the shore
when he had thought her thirty-five or even older.... Still, the words
