Monday July 17th

The long awaited day of Mitch's arrival. Amarandi and I meet the dolphin and Mitch, looking very much like an American astronaut steps into the sunshine. We take him to The Hotel for lunch and leave his gear at the room I had reserved for him. He gives us all the news from home which there is very little of, and a care package from my mother containing a few magazines, a pamphlet on improving your sex-life and best of all, an audio tape of my mother talking to us. Amarandi loves it and keeps talking back and asking my mother questions thinking she is on the phone. She falls asleep listening to it at nap-time. He also brought a copy of the USA Today Baseball Weekly, which I devour as soon as I get back to the house.

We plan to go diving at four but when he doesn't shown up by five I go alone. I swim down the coast and catch a few skaros and then return. Just as I come within sight of the village I catch sight of a very large smyrna coming out of his hole. I circle around him and shoot from a safe distance, missing him by a mile. I feel like a cowardly fool. Somewhere inside I make the decision that I am going to catch this creature. It's not even a conscious decision but some animal hunting instinct that took over when I saw it in a vulnerable position. I could smell eel steaks sizzling in Katina's kitchen. I could see the look of respect as I walked through town with my giant catch. "Matheos the great fisherman", they would chant as crowds lined the streets. Each fisherman would offer me his deepest thanks. That would be one less smyrna to tear holes in their nets and eat their fish. Blinded by my impending glory I charge and fire at point blank range. I hit it. Uh, oh. Now what do I do?

First thing I do is swim to the surface and catch my breath. I had to have hit it in the head, but how badly was it wounded? I should go down and grasp the end of the spear and force it deeper, but what if he charges out and bites my hand off? I dive down andI jiggle the spear and it comes loose. I am trying to think about how I can remove the pile of stones piece by piece and get him out. I'm sure he is mortally wounded but I'm concerned about the aggressive nature of a giant fatally injured moray eel. For half an hour I carefully search for him. In the end I give up. Feeling very remorseful, I realized one thing for certain. I had used the wrong spear-tip, having been fishing for smaller fish I was using a trident. Had I been using my single tip with the metal flap that comes up after the spear has passed through the fish, I could have treated everyone at Katina's to eel dinner.

Not that everyone would eat eel. Most people are horrified and don't even want to talk about smyrna. I tell a couple fishermen about my experience as I sit cleaning the fish I had caught. They make a face and wave me away as if to say "Let's not speak of such unpleasant things." I think the idea that there are these blue snake-like creatures the size of small dinosaurs, with sharp teeth, swimming in the same waters as they do, makes them a bit uneasy. They'd rather not even think about it. If a fisherman climbs onto the dock with a giant grouper, he draws a crowd. With a smyrna people avert their eyes. I think it's a form of denial, like when they say there are no sharks in Greece, even though there are sharks everywhere in the world. They go as far as to translate galeos( which means 'shark') to 'red snapper' on the menus in restaurants. No sharks here. Just six foot man-eating red snappers. But I am depressed about shooting the smyrna and worried that there is some curse that follows someone who kills one a nd does not eat it. What if this is the moment that changes my entire life and turns my joy-ride into a Greek tragedy?

We arrive at Katina's by nine and my octopus is grilling. I can smell it from down the street. We have several ouzos and the food starts coming. Niko the contractor sits with us for awhile but he has an engagement elsewhere. He drinks a few beers, some octopus, a fish or too, a couple morepieces of octopus, some fried eggplant and a bit of salad, and then leaves to have dinner in another village that is having a Panagiri.

What happens next convinces me that indeed my life is in transition probably due to the smyrna. Mitch and I go to the bar and sit with James Crispy the artist, cousin Christina and her beautiful little friend. My friend Marina from Montreal sends us a couple shots of something green and we drink them down. From that moment I know I am no longer responsible for my actions. Mitch leaves and I stand up to say good-bye to anyone I know who is still in the bar. Natasha and her husband Panayotis, the famous young artist, ask me to join them. Actually she asks me. He is stone sullen. She and I embark upon a long discussion of America as compared to Greece or from her point of view, why America is fucked up. Panayotis becomes bored and leaves, taking the baby, asleep in her stroller, with him. Natasha asks me if I want another drink. I can see where this is leading so I decline. I just want water. When she finishes what must have been her last of many drinks I tell her I will walk her home, or half way. Of course we en d up walking along the beach, and surprise of surprises, swimming naked.

I feel completely uncomfortable. I have let my macho instincts get me into this mess. I am shaking and my teeth are chattering as we swim around occasionally rubbing sensiously against each other underwater. I don't think it will come down to making love on the beach but I have a powerful desire to rub up against her warm body. I crave the sensation of new romance, but at the same time I flash on Amarandi and Andrea continuously. Natasha definitely wants to take it a step further and several beyond. She tells she had liked my smile from the moment she saw me. I admit I had been attracted to her as well. What were my first thoughts she asks.

"I wanted to touch you", I tell her which sounds a litte more innocent then what I had actually thought and it seemed I was about to get my wish.

"You can touch me now" she says. I reach over and touch her leg. She pulls herself close to me and the next thing I know we are caressing each other and holding each other close on the sand. As this goes on I feel my mind begin working at warp speed, thinking about Andrea, Amarandi, the smyrna and what this all means. Before long I'm feeling as un-sensual as a man can feel while maintaining a hard-on.

"I want you to screw me" she says.

"I can't. I wouldn't feel right. I have a wife and a child." I tell her.

"I have a husband and three children", she counters.

"I shot a smyrna", I tell her, hoping she'd understand

The words of Zorba flash in my head. "There is only one sin that God will not forgive and that is if a woman calls a man to her bed and he does not come. I know because a wise old Turk told me." I feel like a finely-tuned human disaster. I begin the process of extrication. She begins to get defensive.

"You think I am a whore".

"No. I think you are an artist and a beautiful sensual woman. I want to do it but I feel guilty enough about what has happened already" I tell her.

"But nothing has happened. We haven't even kissed!" She is right in a way. Though I wouldn't call our behavior innocent, we hadn't crossed any of the invisible lines that I told myself I wouldn't cross. We had just shown each other some tenderness, obviously something we weren't getting from our mates. So why am I feeling like I felt when I was in the operating room during Andrea's cesarean? I am also getting that "Fatal Attraction" vibe as I begin to realize how drunk she actually is. My midnight swim was beginning to look like the loose thread that would unravel my entire life. The curse of the smyrna.

We don't even kiss good-bye.

"We'll be friends", she says sadly as she walks down the dark street to her home at the Love Nest. Even her last words sound ominous to me. I walk home and climb into bed, my body racing with adrenaline. I had no idea I was so uptight. Maybe I should have done it, just to go through with it and deal with the emotions. But what if it was habit-forming? I think about my friend Lorenzo who had built a small financial empire with his beautiful wife Christina and their wonderful children. Now he was living in some piece of shit apartment in Trieste with the girl he had left Christina for, trying to put his ruined life back together. I realize the momentary pleasure of having sex with another woman is not worth jeopardizing my relationship with Andrea and Amarandi, no matter how shaky that relationship seems to be.

Never again will I let myself to be put in such a position. Never again would I follow my baser instincts. I'll stop drinking. I'll spend all my free time playing with Amarandi. I'll be a loving husband to Andrea. I'll go back to America and work hard to make enough money to fix the bathroom. I'll join the Hellenic/American Association. I'll play golf. I will become responsible, once and for all.

It's too bad I didn't think about all of this on the beach with Natasha. If I had known I would be making all these sacrifices I would have gotten it on with her.

July 19

A wasted day. Too tired to do anything but sleep, read eat and sleep some more. At around six I force myself to take a swim around the coast with Andrea. I shoot one large skaros but he wiggles off the spear. That damn smyrna. My life hasn't been the same since. I decide to get out of the water before I accidentally shoot myself or worse. I had gone that morning and searched the spot where I had shot it yesterday but there was no sign of him (or her).

At dinner we are sitting talking with our new friends from Holland, Niko and Cora when I feel a breeze stir. I turn to Niko and remark that the weather is changing. He agrees and tells us that it is a bad sign when the wind comes in from the sea at night. It means there could be a big storm. Just as the words leave his mouth the wind picks up and the leaves on the olive tree began dancing. Suddenly the captain of the American's sailboat runs back into the restaurant where his crew is finishing their dinner.

"We gotta move!" he commands. They jump up and run towards the dock. I follow. There is lots of activity. Almost every boat is getting ready to set sail. The taxi-boat has it's running lights on and is warming up it's engines. The old men are starting up the outboards on their little dingys and fishing boats. Already you can see the lights of boats bouncing on the waves on their way to the shelter of Agios Nicolaos on the other side of the bay. I go to get Mitch so he can witness the exciting activity. The sea, which had been completely calm an hour before is now choppy and white-capped. The wind is blowing steadily. We watch the Americans run around their boat getting it ready. In a few minutes they are on their way joining the caravan of vessels headed for safety. Finally there are only two boats left, a small red motorboat, and a big old salvaged American style power yacht. It looks like the guy isn't going to move. For whatever reason he is going to ride out the storm tied right where he is, in front of t he bar in the very spot where Uncle Panayotis boat was blasted to smithereens. The owner paces the deck nervously. One of the old fishermen yells to him to get his boat out of there or in twenty minutes he might not have a boat. There is some discussion and then action as he and his friends feverishly try to get the boat untied and away . In the meantime our landlord Yannis Zaferis has come down from Vrissi and gotten into his boat and motored out into the darkness. Finally there is not one boat left of the dozen or so that had been there before the wind had changed. It's raining too. Then as quickly as it had begun the wind stops. The rain ceases and the sea goes calm. It had all been like a fire-drill.

"That's the thing about the sea" said Niko. "You never know if it's the real thing or a false alarm".

I realize one thing. For all the freedom that having a boat seems to represent, it looks like one big anxiety filled pain-in-the-ass. I don't think I would want to own a nice boat unless I was so rich that it's destruction wouldn't cause me despair. If I could see every storm or dangerous predicament as a form of entertainment rather then a life or death effort to save my ship I would be more comfortable. Otherwise, watching from the safety of the dock is just fine with me. Besides, the second order of fries are probably getting cold by now. We return to the safety of the dinner table.

Later as I pass the dock on the way to bed I notice a crowd milling about. I assume they were trying to avoid the heat and humidity that has re-settled on the village with the passing of the storm. I think little of it and go to sleep.

We had arranged to wake early the next morning and drive to Zarafona, my Grandfather's village, with Niko and Cora as our Taxi. I promised them an authentic mountain village experience in return for a ride. Plus I would pay for fuel and food. They happily agreed. Mitch would come too.

When I wake up Elaine, she tells me something about the water-taxi having an accident. I walk down to the port to check out the story. Sure enough there is something to it. Last night when all the boats were leaving for Agios Demetrios to avoid the storm, the water-taxi had taken off in the opposite direction towards Agios Georgios. One of the villagers had gone there fishing before the storm and his worried father asked Nikos Rovatsos, the owner, if he would help him find his son, not realizing that the son had already returned. They saw the rocks too late to avoid them, and the hundred thousand dollar water-taxi smashed into them. That began a rescue effort, which is why the crowd had been standing on the dock last night. They were able to tow the water-taxi across the bay to the beach on the other side, and with the help of several tractors and a dozen or more people from the disco, pulled it on shore before it sunk. Vassili told me there was a couple million drachma damage. It could end the long sad saga of the water-taxi.