When they turned the corner and came in sight of the sea, Harriet was struck by the immense structure of cumulus cloud rising out of the Peloponnese. The sky visible between the Plaka roofs had shown only a meaningless patching of grey and white. At this height, the cloud capes of pearl and slate and thunderous purple could be seen swelling upwards like a cosmic explosion, while to the east a luminous undercloud, floating out like a detached lining, lay peach-golden against the blue.
Observing this spectacle, yet oddly removed from it, Harriet felt she should stop and appreciate it; but Charles went on, behaving as though he were rather more displeased than not by such a distraction. Indeed, when they reached the Beulé gate, he bounded up the stones ahead of her as though enraged by the whole outing.
The evzone sentry examined Charles’s permit, then looked Harriet over approvingly. When he returned the permit, he presented arms with as much exertion and clatter as his equipment allowed.
This performance broke down Harriet’s nervous restraint. Laughing, she asked: ‘Are you entitled to a salute like that?’
Charles flushed, then burst into laughter himself: ‘They lay it on a bit if you’re with a girl,’ he said.
She was enchanted. Detached from limiting reality, lifted into a realm of poetic concepts, she saw Charles not as an ordinary young man – she had, after all, known dozens of ordinary young men, some of whom had been quite as handsome as he – but a man-at-arms to whom was due both deference and privilege. She was her own symbol – the girl whose presence heightened and complimented the myth. Enchanted, she was almost immediately disenchanted; was, indeed, amazed at finding herself dazzled by the cantrips of war. She was against war and its trappings. She was thankful to be married to a man who, whether he liked it or not, was exempt from service. She was not to be taken in by the game of destruction – a game in which Charles Warden was a very unimportant figure. Giving him a sidelong glance, she was prepared to ridicule him; instead, as she found his eyes on her, she felt warmed and excited, and the air about them was filled with promise.
They had the plateau to themselves. The wind blew fresh, singing between the columns, and the distances, sharpened by winter, were deeply coloured. The paving inside the Parthenon was brilliant. Again and again during the last weeks the slabs had been washed by rain and dried by wind until now the whole great floor, reflecting the gold and blue and silver of the sky, seemed to be made of mother-of-pearl.
Harriet wandered about, amazed by the lustre of the marble which held, in its hollows, small pools of rain left by the morning showers, and when she returned to Charles she said: ‘If you hadn’t brought me, I would never have known it could be like this.’
He was pleased by her pleasure, and for the first time she saw his simplicity. She had thought him vain and critical, and now she thought he was not only young but artless, almost as artless as Sasha. They moved around the Acropolis contained in a contentment like a crystal, that both excluded and burnished the outside world. Harriet exclaimed about everything. The view that in autumn had been flattened by dust and sun, now fell back to the remotest rises of the Argolid with the hills blue-black and violet, the gulf waters an ashy blue and stained with shadows as with ink.
She said: ‘Why must they close the Acropolis to visitors?’
Charles did not know. In the seventeenth century the Parthenon had been hit by a Venetian cannon ball and he thought perhaps the Greeks feared more destruction.
She spoke of the golden patina on the columns and asked why he supposed it was darkest on the seaward side. She watched him while he examined the marble. His expression grave and inquiring, he placed his hand on the surface as though he could divine by touch the nature of the marble’s disorder. His hand was square, the fingers no longer than the palm, an intelligent and practical, but not a visionary, hand. Her dislike had changed – and changed suddenly – to a sense of affinity. She was amazed and worried as though by something supernatural.
With his hand starred out on the column, he said he thought the salt wind had drawn some mineral from the marble. ‘Iron, I should think. It’s a sort of rust, in fact. The marble has been oxidized by time.’
She watched him, not really listening. When he turned and found her eyes fixed so intently on him, he smiled in surprise; and she saw how this sudden, unselfconscious smile transformed his face. As they looked at each other, a voice said: ‘Love me.’
Harriet did not know whether he had spoken or whether the words had formed themselves in her mind, but there they were, hanging on the air between them, and conscious of them, they were moved and disquieted.
She said: ‘I must get back. I’m seeing Alan Frewen at five.’
‘I must go, too.’
They returned as they had come, without speaking, but now their silence was luminous and unnervingly fragile. A sentence could corroborate their expectations, if it were the right sentence. Neither would take the risk of speaking; anyway, not then, not at that moment.
As they approached the centre of the town, Harriet felt this suspended anticipation more than she could bear. In Hermes Street, fearing to be caught in further, she planned her escape. She would buy – what? She thought of writing-paper, but before they reached the stationer’s shop, she felt the vibration that preceded the air-raid warning. She stopped. Charles paused in inquiry. They were held an instant as though the tremor were some tangible assertion of their nervousness, then the sirens broke out.
She said: ‘I’m supposed to take cover.’
Charles, though exempt from the order, caught her arm and looked round for shelter. The street was clearing. They followed the others into the basement of an office block that had been left unfinished when war began. They went down a flight of steps and through a swing door. On the other side, they were in darkness.
Though they could see nothing, they could feel the breathing presence of people and, uncertain what was ahead, came to a stop just inside the door. As a precaution against panic, it was forbidden to speak during a raid, but the whole shelter was alive with small noises, as though the floor ran with mice. The traffic had been stopped and the city was still. The noise, when it came, was shocking. One explosion followed another, each uproarious so it seemed that bombs were bursting overhead. The concrete shuddered and a moan of terror passed over the crowded basement. Harriet felt a movement and, afraid of a possible stampede, she put out her hand and met Charles’s hand outstretched to touch her.
He whispered: ‘It’s nothing. Only the guns on Lycabettos.’
‘Are there guns on Lycabettos?’
‘Yes, there’s a new anti-aircraft emplacement.’
The raid was a long one. The air grew hot. Whenever the Lycabettos guns opened up, the same curious moan filled the shelter and fear, like a breeze, passed over it, rustling the crowd. As Harriet pressed against the door, it opened an inch and, seeing the twilight outside, she whispered: ‘Couldn’t we stand out there?’ They slipped quietly out.
Two other people were on the basement stair: a woman and a small boy. The woman, not young, was seated with the boy on her knee. She was pressing the child’s cheek to her bosom and her own cheek rested on the crown of his head. Her eyes were shut and she did not open them when Harriet and Charles came out. Aware of nothing but the child, she enfolded him with fervent tenderness, as though trying to protect him with her whole body.
Not wishing to intrude on their intimacy, Harriet turned away, but her gaze was drawn back to them. Transported by the sight of these two human creatures wrapped in love, she caught her breath and her eyes filled with tears.