Seduction of the Minotaur Read Free

harmonies. Strings of chili hung from the
rafters, chili to wake them from their dreams, dreams born of scents and
rhythms, and the warmth that fell from the sky like the fleeciest blanket. Even
the twilight came without a change of temperature or alteration in the softness
of the air.
    It was not only the music from the guitars but
the music of the body that Lillian heard—a continuous rhythm of life. There was
a rhythm in the way the women lifted the water jugs onto their heads, and
walked balancing them. There was a rhythm in the way the shepherds walked after
their lambs and their cows. It was not just the climate, but the people
themselves who exuded a more ardent life.
    Hansen was looking out the taxi window with a
detached and bored expression. He did not see the people. He did not notice the
children who, because of their black hair cut in square bangs and their slanted
eyes, sometimes looked like Japanese. He questioned Lillian on entertainers.
What entertainers from New York or Paris or London should he bring to the Black
Pearl?
    The hotel was at the top of the hill, one main
building and a cluster of small cottages hidden by olive trees and cactus. It
faced the sea at a place where huge boiling waves were trapped by crevices in
the rocks and struck at their prison with cannon reverberations. Two narrow
gorges were each time assaulted, the waves sending foam high in the air and
leaping up as if in a fury at being restrained.
    The receptionist at the desk was dressed in
rose silk, as if registering guests and handing out keys were part of the
festivities. The manager came out, holding out his hand paternally, as though
his immense bulk conferred on him a patriarchy, and said: “You are free to
enjoy yourself tonight. You won’t have to start playing until tomorrow night.
Did you see the posters?”
    He led her to the entrance where her
photograph, enlarged, faced her like the image of a total stranger. She never
recognized herself in publicity photographs. “I look pickled,” she thought.
    A dance was going on, on the leveled portion of
the rock beside the hotel. The music was intermittent, for the wind carried
some of the notes away, and the sound of the sea absorbed others, so that these
fragments of mambos had an abstract distinction like the music of Erik Satie.
It also made the couples seem to be dancing sometimes in obedience to it, and
sometimes in obedience to the gravitations of their secret attractions.
    A barefoot boy carried Lillian’s bags along
winding paths. Flowers brushed her face as she passed. Both music and sea
sounds grew fainter as they climbed. Cottages were set capriciously on rock
ledges, hidden by reeds, or camouflaged in bougainvillea. The boy stopped
before a cottage with a palm-leaf roof.
    In front of it was a long tile terrace with a
hemp hammock strung across it. The room inside had whitewashed walls and
contained only a bed, a table, and a chair. Parasoling over the cottage was a giant tree which bore leaves shaped like fans. The
encounter of the setting sun and rising moon had combined to paint everything
in the changing colors of mercury.
    As Lillian opened a bureau drawer, a mouse that
had been making a nest of magnolia petals suddenly fled.
    She showered and dressed hastily, feeling that
perhaps the beauty and velvety softness of the night might not last, that if
she delayed it would change to coldness and harshness. She put on the only
dress she had that matched the bright flowers, an orange cotton. Then she
opened the screen door. The night lay unchanged, serene, filled with tropical
whisperings, as if leaves, birds, and sea breezes possessed musicalities unknown to northern countries, as if the richness of the scents kept them all
intently alive.
    The tiles under her bare feet were warm. The
perfume she had sprayed on herself evaporated before the stronger perfumes of
carnation and honeysuckle.
    She walked back to the wide terrace where
people sat on deck chairs waiting for