Clarence Major - My Amputations

Now, he drove toward Volos and stopped at the Bay of Kolpas. A priest sitting at a table under an old tree at bayside didn't look up as Mason slammed his car door. Two mothers with children who'd by chance met on the road were exchanging words. Hazy day. He looked carefully: there were no winged sea creatures out there in the water. He crossed the street to Restaurant Pemba and sat at an outside table. The waiter came out and Mason got up and went in with him to take a look at the available fish on ice. He selected three different types. While they were being grilled the waiter brought him a bottle of Dymphe. He poured some into the glass while Mason gazed at the priest across the street. Maybe the guy wasn't a real priest but some kind of plant. After lunch Mason got a bright idea. In the back seat of the car he took off his jeans and put on his swimming trunks. He had the radio on while doing this: American pop music. He locked the car and stuck the key into his tiny pocket. Tipping down the rock path he noticed a group of about eleven people sitting in a rough circle at the water's edge. They were eating and drinking and laughing and talking. A couple of kids played near them. Scuffed fishing boats were anchored farther down the coast — a few smaller ones along here had been pulled up onto the sand. Mason looked back. The priest was watching. Him? Mason flapped around in the water. Two from the beach party came in. The man said to Mason, “Bless the Bay of Kolpas. She is warm!” He took up a handful of water and kissed it with a big smacking sound. Mason laughed. The woman was infected by his laughter and laughed too. They wanted to know if he was from North Africa. When he said America they laughed. (How did he like Greece? Very well, of course. The man introduced himself as Elias Vouliagmenis and the woman was Helena Moutsopoulou. They spoke English as naturally as drinking water. Another member of the party came in. She swam smoothly as soon as she was in deep enough then went on by them. “How long will you be in Volos?” Mason shrugged. “In that case, you must come to a party we're having tonight,” Elias said while slapping Mason on the shoulder. “It's perfect! You arrived today? Which hotel? No hotel — yet? In that case, perhaps… ” The woman who'd swum by was now returning. Mason was trying to explain that he'd planned to go on to Larissa when Elias interrupted to introduce Zizi Kifissias, a painter. Mason shook Zizi's hand. She was a handsome woman. Presently two other guys joined them — obviously curious about Mason. They too shook his hand. Names: Pavlos Kallethea and David Pangrati. They were quick to say that they were co-directors of an artists' cooperative first established in Athens but recently extended to Volos. What did he do. Well, wouldn't you know, he was a writer. That suited them fine. They shook his hand again. Helena was now swimming out as far as she dared. Zizi had her head cocked at a forty-five degree angle away from Mason and was watching him out of the sides of her eyes. Was that mistrust? Mason noticed there were still others back there in the half broken circle on the sand talking and drinking wine. When they all went back to the sand Mason met the others: Christos Papadopoulos and Stefanos Georga and Costas Massalias and Mariella Tricoupi and Alexander Papadiamantopoulou — all painters or sculptors associated with Pavlos' and David's gallery. Mason began to relax. Even if he were at the center of some sort of scheme, if The System was seeking and gaining its revenge on him, he could not believe these pleasant Greek people were part of any plot to bring him to “justice” or to trap him, use him, push him further into a complex Buckeye-Nameless plot. Nobody'd held up a card and asked him to describe what he saw. Nobody'd asked him to try hard to remember his name. The real one? Any name. Pick a name. Name your name. So he relaxed. The moment he did, something that had been festering in the back of his mind broke, and the clear puss poured out: that name, it now made sense: Alm Harr Fawond was Alan Henri Ferrand. Think, Mason! And realizing this his heart and brain shrunk. Should he just wait for the machinery to close around him. Surely he could. But this was crazy. He refused to believe himself a Pynchon yoyo or an Ellison dancing Sambo paper doll…. Somebody was speaking to him and he wasn't paying attention. Something about giving a couple of them a lift in his car. Sure, of course. “Besides, you can get first-hand directions…. ” Dazed with anal-fear and with Zizi beside him smelling of salt-water he began to doubt his ability to ever become free of this elusive and massive plot. He also for the first time doubted his ability to be himself. What was Zizi saying? “… and we call our villa Princess Aliki. No reason other than it sounds good. It's just a name. You'll be surprised—”

It was a mellow September afternoon. As Mason drove toward the entrance of the estate he saw an archway. At its curved top — at first — the words were not clear. Moments later they were. Four-thirty slanted sunlight accented them: Villa Princess Aliki. Across these somebody'd driven a brush stroke of black paint. Using the same brush, the person'd painted — on the wooden board — this: Home of The Brave Willow Plantation. Owners: Bobby Joe and Miss Lindy Belle Sommerfield. Zizi, Christos and Helena broke into star-spangled laughter at the sight. Mason was bewildered. “Straight ahead,” they directed. He followed the curving driveway till he came to the house. “What was that all about?” He was serious. “You'll see.” The other two cars were already parked in front of the grand pillared stairway to the enormous doors, which were opened. Mason, as they got out, noticed a man in the yard covering long tables with white table cloths. Inside the foyer Mason got the impression he was in a fifty-room mansion. A man who was obviously a servant came up the hallway from the back. Zizi told Mason he was Plato. “Hell show you your room.” Plato led Mason up a winding staircase and along a corridor past a series of closed doors. As Plato was opening the room he wanted Mason to occupy, David Pangrati popped up from around a corner. “Hello. I see you found your way. Good, good. Just make yourself at home.” He went in with Plato and Mason. “What size are you?” “Size?” “Never mind,” said Pangrati, “I can tell. Hagnon will bring your dinner clothes up. Once a week we do a different period. It's really sort of ironic that you're our guest on a night when we've planned to do pre-Civil War Mississippi.” “What?” “Oh, it's fun! You'll love it! Wait till you see yourself! I got the idea last year when I was in the states. Had a show at the University of Mississippi.” Mariella and Pavlos came in. In Greek they discussed Mason's probable sizes in shirt, jacket and trousers. Then they all left except Pangrati who took a tiny, live spotted bull snake from his pocket. “It's only seven,” he said. “What?” The time he meant. “Oh. What's that? ” “It's my uta. It looks like a chicken flying upside-down in a Chagall but it's really not. I use it as a model for my fresco. You won't find him in the Blue Guide.” His chuckle was snagged on the blue fence of a cemetery gate. Mason cheered up: “If I had a lyre, I'd charm your damned pet!” Pangrati's laughter beat its wings against the wallpaper which was a birthday party scene of floating lovers kissing repeatedly eight thousand times against a background of hand painted blue silk dresses, glazed stoneware, in a living room where sky and earth met in the name of Oceanus. Green violinists provided soft music seeping along the baseboards. Mason dimly realized Pangrati still was talking: “… Need anything just… Hagnon… gardener… His wife, Medea… ” Mason felt suddenly very ill. His stomach was a cosmos of burned pine and rubber. “… Ciao!”