Clara relaxed, reassured.
“I like that idea,” she said, and smiled.
They turned to Gabriel, who had remained quiet during the exchange, leaning back on his chair, slightly removed from the table. Was it too soon to consider him part of the family now? Nobody dared count him in yet.
Gabriel cleared his throat.
“That’s it, then,” he said, cutting it short, as if he needed to conceal his disappointment.
And that sounded like enough, at least for the time being.
* * *
Gabriel woke up with a start in the middle of the night. Something in a dream had disturbed him, but the image was already slipping away, leaving only its blurred shadow behind. Clara was fast asleep, and so was Hermes, at the end of the bed. He got up and walked outside. There was an almost-full moon up in the sky that illuminated the trees and the tall grass in a bluish silver wash. He sat outside on the daybed and listened to the crickets and the sound of the sea in the distance. In a few days he would be back in the city, and he wondered whether Carlos and Jacopo would want to see him again, or had they been so friendly with him just because they had shared a house for a few weeks? He had noticed how Jacopo had referred to Hermes as the “family dog,” leaving him out. Both Jacopo and Carlos had been so outgoing with him from the start, and he regretted not having reciprocated warmly enough. Gabriel also wondered whether his relationship with Clara had progressed in any way. She had been very careful not to push him, but he knew she wanted more, and how could he blame her? Why was he so afraid to let go completely? Why was it so hard to open up? It had hurt him to hear her say that she felt lonely. He thought of the extra room in his large apartment. Maybe, one day, she could use that as a studio?
A noise startled him—a faint, quick tapping on the flagstones. Hermes appeared. He sat on his haunches at the foot of the daybed, looking inquisitively at Gabriel, then hopped up next to him.
“Hey,” Gabriel whispered, and kissed him lightly on the top of his head. He lay back on the bed, looking up at the moon that was peeking through the trees. Hermes scuttled next to him and placed his head on his belly. Gabriel felt the dog’s warm body relax against his, and a few seconds later Hermes resumed a slow, regular breathing.
“Stay here, sweet thing,” he heard himself say.
Gabriel rested his hand on Hermes’s back, and pulled him closer. He wanted to make sure the dog didn’t go away so that they’d sleep just exactly that close until the dawn came.
He’d never had a dog before.
* * *
The ferry to the mainland was leaving at nine in the morning. New guests were arriving the following day and Artemis, the housekeeper, showed up with a strongly built woman named Rhea, as extra help. Both of them were armed with brooms and buckets filled with cleaning supplies. They started stripping sheets and towels at great speed, and soon the house lost its familiar atmosphere. Clara, who was gulping down a cup of coffee standing up in the kitchen while Jacopo and Gabriel were piling their bags in the car, turned to Carlos.
“Isn’t it strange, how quickly a stranger’s house becomes your house? You immediately start calling it home, and then it turns back into an unknown place the minute you leave it to others.”
Carlos wasn’t in the mood for nostalgia, but he nodded. Gabriel and Jacopo walked into the kitchen and took a drink of water from the fridge.
“Car’s packed—we’re ready when you guys are.”
Just then Rhea entered the kitchen and saw Hermes. She asked Carlos something in Greek that he couldn’t understand. Rhea called Artemis, who was cleaning the bathroom, and spoke animatedly with her for what seemed a long time, pointing at the dog. Artemis was shaking her head, but Rhea insisted. She pulled out a cell phone from her jeans pocket.
“What’s happening? What is she doing?” Carlos asked Artemis.
It wasn’t easy to understand, but they got the gist of it. Apparently, Hermes belonged to Rhea’s father or her older brother, it wasn’t clear which, and his name was Whiskey. All four of them stood, frozen, while Rhea kept yelling into the phone to someone. The only word they understood, which she kept repeating was “Wheeskee.”
The man was on his way, the women said.
There was nothing they could do, but mildly protest that they couldn’t wait for much longer or might miss the boat. Rhea persisted.
“Two minutes,” Artemis confirmed. “He come in two minutes. No problem for boat.”
She was almost right. Eight minutes later, an old Fiat Panda stopped in the driveway. A man came out, wearing an undershirt, shorts and Crocs. He was covered in dust, as if he’d been working on a building site. He left the car running with the door open and, without acknowledging anybody, he walked straight toward Hermes, who was sitting next to Carlos with his ears pricked and a slightly alarmed expression. The man talked to the dog in brusque spurts, pointing toward the car. Rhea nodded with approval when Hermes lowered his ears and slowly moved away from Carlos.
“What the fuck…?” Jacopo let out under his breath.
Gabriel stepped in and faced the man with a stern posture.
“Wait. Are you sure this is your dog?”
The man said something in Greek without even looking at him. He was clearly in a very bad mood.
Artemis translated.
“Yes, he say the dog always run away. Very bad dog.”
Before anybody could say anything, the man shouted an order to Hermes, who sheepishly lowered his ears and climbed into the car without turning back.
And they were gone.
* * *
The four of them drove in silence to the harbor and dragged their bags to the ferry.
The way Hermes had been ripped away from them had been so sudden and so shocking that they had had no time to absorb the blow.
Finally, Clara spoke. “That man was horrible. Hermes didn’t want to go back to him at all.”
“I don’t know,” Jacopo said. “Maybe he did. Actually, I prefer to think that he was happy going back wherever.”
“Happy?” Clara almost shouted. “No way. I watched Hermes. He was scared. I bet that man beats him. He called Hermes a bad dog. Hermes! And he just sounded so all-around nasty!”
“Stop it, Clara, please.” Carlos was in a black mood. “Don’t make things worse than they already are.”
Gabriel remained shrouded in his silence, withdrawing further from the others.
* * *
The ship pulled out in no time. From the upper deck they watched the island get smaller and smaller and then, within a few minutes, turn into a dot and disappear. Its vanishing into nothing added another level of incredulity to what had just happened, as if everything that had taken place during the three weeks they had lived in Hera’s house had become a mirage or a fantasy.