I spent all the rest of that afternoon searching the south coast of the island eastward beyond the three cottages, then back past them and into Bourani again, nicely timed for tea under the colonnade; but the colonnade was as deserted as ever. An hour searching for a note, a sign, anything; it became like the idiot ransacking of a drawer already ten times searched.

At six I returned to the school, with nothing but a useless rage of disappointment. With Conchis; with Julie; with everything.

On the far side of the village there was another harbor, used exelusively by the local fishermen. It was avoided by everyone from the school, and by everyone with any claim to social ton in the village. Many of the houses had been ruthlessly dilapidated. Some were no more than the carious stumps of walls; and the ones that still stood along the broken quays had corrugated iron roofs, concrete patches and other unsightly evidences of frequent mending. There were three tavernas, but only one was of any size. It had a few rough wooden tables outside its doors.

Once before, coming back from one of my solitary winter walks, I had gone there for a drink; I remembered the taverna keeper was loquacious and comparatively easy to understand. By island standards, and perhaps because he was Anatolian by birth, conversable. His name was Georgiou; rather foxy-faced, with a lick of gray-black hair and a small moustache that gave him a comic resemblance to Hitler. On Sunday morning I sat under a catalpa and he came up, obsequiously delighted to have caught a rich customer. Yes, he said, of course he would be honored to have an ouzo with me. He called one of his children to serve us… the best ouzo, the best olives. Did things go well at the school, did I like Greece… I let him ask the usual questions. Then I set to work. Twelve or so faded carmine and green caIques floated in the still blue water in front of us. I pointed to them.

“It’s a pity you do not have any foreign tourists here. Yachts.”

“Ech.” He spat out an olivestone. “Phraxos is dead.”

“I thought Mr. Conchis from Bourani kept his yacht over here sometimes.”

“That man.” I knew at once that Georgiou was one of the village enemies of Conchis. “You have met him?”

I said, no, but I was thinking of visiting him. He did have a yacht then?

Georgiou had heard so. But it never came to the island.

Had he ever met Conchis?

“Ochi.” No.

“Does he have houses in the village?”

Only the one where Hermes lived. It was near a church called St. Elias, at the back of the village. As if changing the subject I asked idly about the three cottages near Bourani. Where had the families gone?

He shook his hand to the south. “To the mainland. For the summer.” He explained that a minority of the island fishermen were seminomadic. In winter they fished in the protected waters off Phraxos; but in summer, taking their families with them, they wandered round the Peloponnesus, even as far as Crete, in search of better fishing. He returned to the cottages.

He pointed down and then made drinking gestures. “The cisterns are bad. No good water in summer.”

“Really—no good water?”

“No.”

“What a shame.”

“It is his fault. He of Bourani. He could make better cisterns. But he is too mean.”

“He owns the cottages then?”

“Vevaios.” Of course. “On that side of the island, all is his.”

“All the land?”

He ticked off his stubby fingers: Korbi, Stremi, Bourani, Moutsa, Pigadi, Zastena… all names of bays and caps around Bourani; and apparently this was another complaint against Conchis. Various Athenians, “rich people,” would have liked to build villas over there. But Conchis refused to sell one meter; deprived the island of badly needed wealth. A donkey loaded with wood tripped down the quay towards us; rubbing its legs together, picking its fastidious way like a model. This news proved Demetriades’s complicity. It must have been common gossip.

“I suppose you see his guests in the village?”

He raised his head, negatively, uninterestedly; it was nothing to him whether there were guests or not. I persisted. Did he know if there were foreigners staying over there?

But he shrugged. “Isos.” Perhaps. He did not know.

Then I had a piece of luck. A little old man appeared from a side alley and came behind Georgiou’s back; a battered old seaman’s cap, a blue canvas suit so faded with washing that it was almost white in the sunlight. Georgiou threw him a glance as he passed our tabib, then called.

“Eh, Barba Dimitraki! Ela.” Come. Come and speak with the English professor.

The old man stopped. He must have been about eighty; very shaky, unshaven, but not totally senile. Georgiou turned to me.

“Before the war. He was the same as Hermes. He took the mail to Bourani.”

I pressed the old man to take a seat, ordered more ouzo and another mezé.

“You know Bourani well?”

He waved his old hand; he meant, very well, more than he could express. He said something I didn’t understand. Georgiou, who had some linguistic resourcefulness, piled our cigarette boxes and matches together like bricks. Building.

“I understand. In 1929?”

The old man nodded.

“Did Mr. Conchis have many guests before the war?”

“Many many guests.” This surprised Georgiou; he even repeated my question, and got the same answer.

“Foreigners?”

“Many foreigners. Frenchmen, Englishmen, all.”

“What about the English masters at the school? Did they go there?”

“Ne, ne. Oloi.” Yes, all of them.

“You can’t remember their names?” He smiled at the ridiculousness of the question. He couldn’t even remember what they looked like. Except one who was very tall.

“Did you meet them in the village?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes.”

“What did they do at Bourani, before the war?”

“They were foreigners.”

Georgiou was impatient at this exhibition of village logic. “Ne, Barba. Xenoi. Ma ti ekanon?”

“Music. Singing. Dancing.” Once again Georgiou didn’t believe him; he winked at me, as if to say, the old man is soft in the head. But I knew he wasn’t; and that Georgiou had not come to the island till 1946.

“What kind of singing and dancing?”

He didn’t know; his rheumy eyes seemed to search for the past, and lose it. But he said, “And other things. They acted in plays.” Georgiou laughed out loud, but the old man shrugged and said indifferently, “It is true.”

Georgiou leant forward with a grin. “And what were you, Barba Dimitraki? Karayozis?” He was talking about the Greek shadowplay Punch.

I made the old man see I believed him. “What kind of plays?”

But his face said he didn’t know. “There was a theatre in the garden.”

“Where in the garden?”

“Behind the house. With curtains. A real theatre.”

“You know Maria?”

But it seemed that before the war it had been another housekeeper, called Soula, now dead.

“When were you last there?”

“Many years. Before the war.”

“Do you still like Mr. Conchis?”

The old man nodded, but it was a brief, qualified nod. Georgiou chipped in.

“His eldest son was killed in the execution.”

“Ah. I am very sorry. Very sorry.”

The old man shrugged; kismet. He said, “He is not a bad man.”

“Did he work with the Germans in the Occupation?”

The old man raised his head, a firm no. Georgiou made a hawk of violent disagreement. They began to argue, talking so fast that I couldn’t follow them. But I heard the old man say, “I was here. You were not here.”

Georgiou turned to me and whispered, “He has given the old man a house. And money every year. The old man cannot say what he really thinks.”

“Does he do that for the other relatives?”