One day when she had nothing to do

She cut her baby brother in two

And served him up as an Irish stew…

In the pitch-black night of a far-off Greek island, the story wasn’t funny. It was horrible. No wonder Freud got the names of his classic psychoses out of Greek legends. Maybe I was getting a little psychotic myself, seeing ancient Greeks all over the place… Medea wasn’t Greek, though, any more than Theseus and Ariadne were. They came from further back in time, back in the dark abysses of prehistory when people still believed in human sacrifice and killed the king every nine years and sprinkled his blood around to bring back the spring.

I said a word out loud, a vulgar four-letter word. This was not the time, and it was certainly not the place for gruesome fantasies like the ones that had seized my mind. The point was that Frederick and Medea-yes, use the name, use it and go on-had nothing to do with me. Maybe she was an old girl friend. Maybe she was an old mistress. The key word was “old.” It was all in the past and it had nothing to do with me.

So that took care of two worries. The third one wasn’t so easy to solve. It had to do with Jim.

Not that Jim was a depressing thought. Far from it; he was the only bright spot in a dark world. The worrisome part was my relationship with him. I had lied to him, and I hated having lied. I took it for granted that he would find out. I always get caught when I try to lie, that’s why I gave it up years ago…till I met Frederick. Mostly I was in the habit of being honest. And if I didn’t break down and confess, he was sure to find out some other way. Sir Christopher, for instance-if he knew Frederick, he must know that Frederick had a daughter. Maybe he had dandled me on his knee when I was an infant and he and Frederick were bright young beginners in the field.

I had a feeling that Jim wouldn’t like it if he found out I had lied to him. His eyebrows might be crooked, but his mind wasn’t.

Off in the blackness behind me something made an odd moaning sound. It was probably a goat or a bird or some other equally natural phenomenon, but it made my hackles rise. There was no solution to the third problem, none that I could think of at any rate, and in spite of my resolution to forget the Greek myths, the night was beginning to swarm with monsters. I stumbled on toward the house. I had mashed one of the tomatoes and it was dripping down the front of my fancy dress, which, I suspected, would not wash very well. The fish was leaking too.

By the time I reached the kitchen I was in a rotten mood. The sight of Frederick hunched over his book and the remains of some awful-looking mess in a saucepan did not improve my humor. I dumped the fish in a pan along with some olive oil and started peeling tomatoes. No point in changing my dress, it was a wreck anyhow.

The smell of the frying fish made me realize how hungry I was, so I opened a can of baked beans and ate that, cold, while the fish cooked. It improved my disposition slightly. I looked at Frederick and for a second I almost felt sorry for him. Not that he wasn’t perfectly happy with his cold stew and his boring book, but he looked so alone.

“Want some fish?” I asked.

“I have eaten.” He didn’t look up from his book.

“Nothing that did you any good. It’s ridiculous the way we’ve been living on this canned junk. The bay is full of sea food and there are some nice-looking vegetables in the shops. From now on I’m going to the village every afternoon and buy stuff to cook for supper.”

He didn’t answer, but his nose quivered a little when I pushed a plate of fish and tomatoes under it. He reached for a fork.

I grabbed the book out of his hand. He started to expostulate. I said severely, “I refuse to waste good food on a man who isn’t giving it his full attention. Anyhow, I want to talk to you.”

“Mph,” said Frederick, or words to that effect. He took a bite of fish and burned his mouth and swore.

“Tsk, tsk,” I said. “Such language.”

“You might have mentioned-”

“That it was hot? You’re a brilliant scholar; I assumed you could figure that out yourself.”

Frederick blew on the next bite. He managed to look dignified and disagreeable even when performing this homely act.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Lots of things. For a starter, who was that woman?”

“Woman?” He frowned. For a minute I thought he was putting on an act. Then I realized he wasn’t that good an actor.

“Oh,” he said, his brow clearing. “That woman. I have no idea. She reminded me momentarily of someone I knew-briefly-many years ago. It could not possibly be the same person.”

He fell silent, staring at the fish poised on his fork. Whatever his relationship with that someone he had known years ago, the memory of it was not a happy one. His face looked almost human; there was pain and regret in its lines. Then he shook his head and went on eating.

“Even if she were the same,” he said, as if to himself, “it would not matter. It was in the past. Over. Finished.”

“You sound like Jim,” I said, watching him curiously. “He was telling me tonight how people have to forget the past.”

“An unorthodox attitude for an archaeologist,” said Frederick dryly.

“You know what he means.”

“Quite possibly I do. The past is a subject for scholarly study, not for emotion. Now-is there any other topic you wish to discuss? I am anxious to finish my chapter. Vermeule’s arguments are so puerile-”

“Don’t you want to talk about the-the underwater business? We have a lot of plans to make, seems to me.”

“I have made plans. For the time being you will continue to work at the dig in the morning. After lunch, while the men take their infernal siesta, you will dive. If you are late in returning, I will complain to Nicholas about the irresponsibility of modern youth. That will hide our real intent.”

He looked so pleased at this childish stratagem that I almost laughed.

“No,” I said patiently. “I told you, I won’t dive alone. Especially not right after lunch! These are strange waters to me. I don’t know what the hell is out there.”

“I see. In that case we will have to get in a few hours before we go to the dig. The sun rises before six-”

I groaned. Frederick ignored me.

“And all day Sunday,” he went on. “Perhaps in a few days you will feel more competent and can continue alone.”

There was no point in arguing with him. I shrugged.

“Okay. You’ll have to wake me up; I don’t get up before dawn willingly. Now suppose you tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“Anything that is not a natural formation.”

“That’s a lot of help. Jars, I suppose. What about anchors?”

“The question of anchors is interesting.” Frederick ’s face brightened. “It has been claimed that before the seventh century B.C. ships did not carry anchors. That seems to be extremely poor reasoning. There must have been some method of stopping a ship, and the pierced stone, tied to a cable or rope, would seem an obvious solution that would occur to the most primitive mind. A triangular stone, with a hole in the center, has been identified by one authority as a Minoan anchor. Certainly metal anchors were not used until-”

I sighed ostentatiously and interrupted.

“Pierced stones. They are not going to be very conspicuous. How about masts?”

“They used them, of course. Whether they would survive-”

“These amphorae you talked about. Would they be the same shape as the ones we found on the dig?”

“Yes. Long, two-handled, with a narrow neck and a pointed base.”

“What else?”

“There could be,” said Frederick, “anything down there.”

“Well, I guess that gives me something to go on with. Suppose I do find something. How do I mark the spot so I can find it the next time I dive?”

“I have given that matter some thought. An inflatable globule of some sort is the obvious answer; yet I am reluctant to leave a marker that might alert others. The process of triangulation…”