“Sirina,” Theodoros cut in. “She is always right. She told Dimitris he would die on land. She told me I would die at sea. So now Dimitris refuses to swim. And I refuse to step off this peninsula. We are each other’s prison and pardon.”
She sat on a rock and, for no reason she could articulate, began to speak aloud. I Dimosiografos Xristina Rousaki Kai Oi Dio Voskoi Sirina
Christina arrived in late October, when the Mediterranean light turns from gold to a bruised, melancholic blue. She found them in a stone mitato (a shepherd’s hut) with a roof of dried thyme and a floor of packed earth. They didn’t welcome her, but they didn’t refuse her either. Dimitris offered her sour wine from a gourd. Theodoros just stared at the sea. “Sirina,” Theodoros cut in
Theodoros stopped. He picked up a stone and tossed it into the cove. The plink echoed off the limestone cliffs like a single piano key. She told me I would die at sea
“No,” she said.
Her editor read it. He called her into his glass-walled office.
“Tell me about Sirina,” Christina said, her digital recorder glowing a tiny red eye between them.