Roger's father, a captain in the American Navy, was stationed at the American Naval Base in Greece.  The captain, his wife and Roger lived in an apartment in Athens. Roger was seventeen. He had never lived in the States.
    Every summer, Roger and his mother went to the island of Hydra.  By hydrofoil, it wasn't far from Piraeus, the port of Athens, so the captain could come for weekends.  They rented a small house with a courtyard high up in the steep town.  Just walking along the quay, Roger met his friends, Americans, English, French, Germans, and Greeks too, from the summers before, and among them were always new friends.  All together, they took a caique around to the other side of the island to a beach.
    Among the group of old friends he met standing around on the quay outside a cafe there was a girl he'd never seen before.  Her name was Daphni Papadiamandis, or, as Roger knew that family names in Greek changed according to sex, Daphni Papadiamandi.  She wore a beige halter, so her midriff was bare, and shorts of the same fine cotton and sandals with thin soles and thin straps of leather, and when she smiled at him as she said hello she tilted her head back.  Stuck into the end of her long single plait was a bunch of camomile blossoms.  The plait swung when she tilted her head.  Her irises and pupils were entirely black.  Her face shone with a film of sun lotion.
    She was just the kind of girl Roger was a little frightened of.  He knew a lot of foreigners, or, he supposed, a lot of European natives, because he was the foreigner here, and until he got to know them he felt they were more knowledgeable about politics and books than he was, and even spoke better English than he did.  This was mostly true of the girls, and he could tell just by looking at her that it was especially true of Daphne.
    When the group moved off, Roger, talking with an English friend, followed behind Daphni, who for a while was as if walking alone in the midst of the group.  She carried a white beach bag, and she seemed to be walking more slowly than anyone else, though she couldn't have been.  Her sandals were made of leather so thin the straps looked as though they'd snap and the soles wear out within five steps over the stone quay.  And there was always something about the clothes these girls wore: clean, ironed, they floated a little out from the body, which itself seemed very clean, the fingernails clear and pink, fine strands of hair loose only where they were left loose, at the temples or nape.  The bunch of camomile blossoms bounced against Daphni's back, above the halter.
    Roger also knew about these girls that they complained, though quietly.  They couldn't walk any more, their feet were swelling (their feet always looked all right to him); they didn't want to go to that beach, it was dirty (he'd never thought about the drain pipe); they couldn't sit at that table in the cafe, there was a draught (he never, ever considered the dangers of draughts).  They were always just a little tired.  And the whole European group would stop for a while so the swelling of her feet would go down, they'd go to another beach, they'd change tables at a cafe.  No one seemed to get annoyed that she was a little tired, just tired enough to make her body supple.
    The Greek boy ahead of Daphni in the group said something to her in Greek, and she laughed, and, jumping, joined him.  He had long, tangled hair, was unshaven, and wore a torn tee shirt and paint-stained canvas trousers, and the counters of his jogging shoes were trammelled down by his heels.  That was another strange thing about these Greek girls: their boyfriends were such slobs you'd think they'd never have anything to do with them.  His name was Manolis, and sometimes he and Daphne spoke to one another in English.  He was the son of a conservative politician.
    Manolis said to Daphne, "I thought you might like him."
    "Whom do you mean?" she asked.
    Because of their complicated grammar, the Greeks knew the difference between who and whom.
    Manolis arranged for a caique with the owner, who held it, swaying and bumping, to the quay side.  As the group got in, Roger, who wanted to be near her and imagined she knew he did and would think he was coming on too strong too soon, went to the opposite end of the blue, green and red boat from Daphne, to the prow.  The English boy, Paul, sat next to her in the stern.  The boat smelled of diesal oil.
    Roger said to himself:  All right, we've got the whole day ahead of us.
    The vibrations of the engine made his body shudder.
    The other two in the group were a couple, Joseph and Erica.  They were Germans, and they had been a couple for a few years both summer and winter -- winters in Frankfurt, where they lived.  Together, they leaned over the side and looked at the waves of the boat spread over the green water.  They spoke to one another in German.  Their bare, tanned arms, with blond hair, touched at the shoulders.
    Manolis came to the prow to be with Roger in the shuddering boat.
    "Do you think you'll miss Greece?" he asked.
    "I'll miss the summers."
    "Everyone always misses the summers."
    "The lucky ones do," Roger said.
    Manolis laughed.
    Roger wondered why he became aware of himself, of his sweatshirt with the name of the college he was going to go to in America on it, his khaki shorts, his loafers.  He even became aware, reflected and magnified on the inside lenses of his sunglasses, of the corners of his blue eyes and his short, military side burns.  He was neat and serious.
    Manolis said, "You've never lived in America, am I right?"
    "Never," Roger said.
    But he didn't want to talk about America, where Manolis had spent more time than he had, in places where he'd never been, like Illinois.  When he thought about it, the name "Illinois" sounded strange to him, much stranger than, say, "Pelloponese."  And what about "North and South Dakota"?
    The caique turned into a small bay and passed an anchored sailing boat.  A naked man was drawing up buckets of water from the sea and splashing them over the deck of the boat.
    The six friends jumped from the side of the caique into the low surf.  Manolis asked the owner of the caique to come back for them in three hours, and the friends, up to their calves in the foam, watched him leave the bay, his wake making the sail boat rock, so the naked sailor had to hold onto the mast.
    There were other people, small groups of them, on the beach, gathered about piles of their cast off clothes.
    Joseph and Erica ran up onto an empty part of the beach, pulled off their similar tee shirts and threw them down, unzipped their jeans and, the gaping flies revealing pale tufts of hair and smooth, in-curving skin, let them fall down around their feet and stepped out of them and ran back into the sea and lunged, with splashes that rose high and bright about their bodies, into the sun-laced water, where, submerged, they swam far out.
    Roger didn't like to go naked.  He knew that no one would care if he did or didn't.  Paul went, and so did Manolis.  Roger kept on his boxer bathing suit, which he'd been wearing under his shorts, and he sat on the sand.  Daphne lifted her halter over her head, revealing her small round breasts with large nipples, but beneath her shorts, which she unbuttoned at the side and slid down her long, lean legs, she was wearing a bikini, and she kept this on.  From her bag she took a towel and spread it on the sand and sat on it to pin her plait up on top of her head.  Walking side by side, their buttocks white, Manolis and Paul went to swim.
    Roger dug his toes into the sand.
    "I never saw you before on Hydra," he said to Daphni.
    Her arms raised, still pinning her hair, she turned to him, her chin up, and smiled, as if surprised that he was speaking to her.  She said, "This is my first summer in Greece."
    She lowered her arms, but kept her chin up so her neck was long and curved down inwardly and then outwardly to the space between her breasts.  She sat with her back straight, her knees spread open and her ankles crossed. 
    "Where will you go?" she asked.
    "The States."
    "Oh," she said, implying, Oh yes, she should have known that.
    "Where've you been spending your summers?" he asked.
    She laughed.  "In the States."
    "That is funny."
    "My father is in the Corps Diplomatique."
    "I thought it might be something like that."
    "And you?"
    "My father?"
    "Yes."
    "He's a captain in the American Navy."  Roger asked, "Why're you spending the summer on Hydra?"
    "My parents thought I should come to stay with Greek friends of theirs, to be among Greeks."
    "The parents of Manolis?"
    "Yes," Daphne said.
    "It's not exactly a typical Greek place, Hydra.  I'll bet there're more foreigners here than Greeks."
    "Thank God."  Daphne stretched out on her side, raised herself on an elbow, and faced him.  Her breasts fell sideways a little, just a little, because they were so firm.  She said, "My parents want me to meet good Greek boys from good families.  I'm sorry for them, but I'm going to be very difficult."
    Roger lay back on his elbows in the warm sand.  "You're not interested in Greek boys from good families?"
    She looked at him for a moment, unblinking, then she smiled.
    He rolled towards her, to face her as she did him.  He put a hand over his stomach, inserting his baby finger under the waist band of his bathing suit.  "You prefer American boys to Greek?"
    Her smile widened slowly.  It seemed to him her smile was forming a ring around them, and that, within that ring, they could say, they could do, anything they wanted.  He smiled, too.  The ring closed about them, and there was no one else in the world.
    In a low voice, a voice so low he imagined it was someone else in him speaking, not him, he said, "I was looking at you."
    "So was I at you."
    "I didn't notice."
    "I have a way of doing it so no one notices."
    His pulse was beating so fast, he felt, as on the boat, that he was shuddering.  At the same time he was very, very calm.
    The calmness was everything, so when Joseph and Erica, shaking water drops from their heads and arms, came up to them and said together in heavy German accents, "You have to go in the sea, you have to, it is so beautiful, you have to go," Roger stood and said, "All right," and without looking at Daphni or expecting her to follow, walked, with a rolling motion of his hips, down to the water and dived in, rose, dived in and swam, rose, dived in and swam.
    When he got back to Joseph and Erica, and Manolis too, all sprawled on the sand that adhered to their wet bodies, he asked, "Where's Daphni?"
    Manolis said, "She and Paul have gone to the little bar for soda water."
    Roger looked towards the bar, a whitewashed cinder block building among the bare rocks.  He didn't see anyone.
    At the same time he felt that what was happening was so ordinary it meant nothing, really, he felt that nothing stranger had ever happened to him.
    He asked the others, "Does anyone want something from the bar?"
    Manolis said no.  Joseph and Erica wanted soda water, but Paul had said he'd bring it for them.
    "I want some, too," Roger said.  His bathing suit dripping and hanging at a slant over his hips, the pull cord dangling below one of the legs, he walked among the naked sunbathers to the bar, which was, in Greek, MPAP.
    An Italian father, lying on the sand, was letting his little naked daughter ride his naked thigh.
    A towel wrapped about his waist, Paul was paying for the cans of soda, which Daphni held in her arms.  She was wearing Roger's sweatshirt.  Sand covered the smooth cement floor of the bar in drifts.  She said to Roger, "I got one for you, too."  He looked at her in his sweatshirt.  "Let me pay," he said. Paul said, "You don't look as though you have a drachma anywhere on you."  Roger said, "Then let me carry some of the cans."  He took them from Daphni's arms.  Paul, who yanked off the towel as soon as they got out onto the beach, walked ahead of Roger and Daphne, his hairy buttocks now pink.  Roger and Daphne walked slowly.  She pushed the sleeves of the sweatshirt up to her elbows.  The bottom of it fell just below her blue bikini.
    When the caique owner came round the rocks, the six friends put on their clothes.  As Daphne was lifting the sweatshirt, revealing her belly button, Roger said to her, "Keep it on, you may be cold on the boat," and she asked, "What about you?" and he said, "I'll be all right."
    In fact, Roger didn't like to go even bare chested, and when they arrived at the town, he felt embarrassed walking along the quay without a shirt on.  He stayed close to Daphni, his reason for being half naked.
    They stopped where they'd met, before the cafe.
    Manolis said to Daphni, "We'd better get home and rest before this evening."
    There was no way, Roger knew, he could enter into the plans of a Greek family.  You had to be a relative to do that.  He said to Daphni, "Keep the shirt."
    She didn't say no, as a Greek would normally do, no three times, and then yes, she said, "College students do that in America, they give one another their sweat shirts, don't they?"
    "I don't know."
    "You'll find out."
    Manolis said something in Greek to Daphni, and they left.
    Paul, Joseph and Erica asked Roger if he'd like to stop at the cafe for a frappé, and he said no.  He wanted to get home and put on a shirt.  Then, as he watched them leave he felt lonely and he hurried after them to join them.
    In the shade of the awning of the outside cafe, Roger felt little draughts about his naked back, chest, under his arms.
    Paul talked about his first year at Cambridge.  He was going to join a society.
    "What society?" Roger asked.
    Paul smiled in a sly way. "A very conservative society.  Women are allowed, but only as honorary men.  So Miss Daphni Papadiamanti would always be addressed as Daphni Papadiamandis."
    "How can you join such a society, Paul?" Joseph asked.  "How can you?"
    Erica said, "I'm not sure I will speak to you, Paul, if you belong to such a society."
    Roger stood and, dropping some drachma notes on the table, said he had to go.
    "You're being moody," Paul said.
    "I'm just a little chilly," Roger said, but he wanted to be alone, because being with his friends he felt lonelier than not.
    His mother was sitting in the little courtyard when he got back to the house.  Red bougainvillaea blossoms, falling from the thick vine overhead, covered the marble topped table, in the midst of which was her white coffee cup.  She was in a night gown, and had woken up from her nap just a short time before.  Roger sat at the table across from her.
    She asked, "Did you have a good time?"
    He looked at the red blossoms all over the marble table.
    "Yes," he said.
    "Did you see Manolis?"
    "He came to the beach with us."
    "I saw his parents in the newspaper shop.  They've invited us to dinner tonight.  Did Manolis mention it?"
    Roger looked at his mother, who was, he thought, very beautiful, then said, "No, he didn't."  He leaned his naked shoulders against the edge of the table and lay his head sideways on it.  His mother got up and lightly pinched the muscles on either side of his neck and ran her hands all the way down his spine.  He moaned.
    His mother said, "They said they've got a girl staying with them."
    "I've met her," Roger said.
    "And?"
    "I guess she's all right."
    His mother tickled him under the armpits, and he jolted upright.
    (There's no other reason for continuing this story except for the pleasure of it, if pleasure is in it.)
    The taverna where Manolis' parents -- Mr and Mrs Pandelidis -- had invited Roger and his mother to dinner was in a garden, with a ceiling of dry reeds overhead and electric bulbs and painted gourds hanging from the reeds.  The cement floor was painted with white circles.  The owner had to put three tables together, for Roger and his mother weren't the only ones invited.  There were also a married couple and their little daughter and their son, none of whom spoke English. Roger and his mother Claire were the only non-Greeks. The tables were covered with different patterned sheets of plastic, one blue with bamboos, one green with white check, one pink with yellow roses.  Daphni was placed at the other end of the table from Roger, sitting next to Manolis.  Slouched, Manolis sat turned away from her, as if they had had a fight which she, sitting straight with her head held high, had won.  She was wearing Roger's sweatshirt.
    A loudspeaker started to blast bouzouki music, and Daphni frowned and put her hands to her ears and said something like, "Apesio."  Mr Pandelidis immediately called out to the owner to turn down the music, which he did.  But he turned it up again when people got up to dance within a big white circle at the centre of the cement floor.
    Mr Pandelidis asked Daphni when she frowned, "Don't you want to dance?"
    "I don't know how," she answered.
    "You don't know how?" he said in a Greek accent.  He was a large man and had a large nose with a mole on one nostril.  "This is shocking.  This is truly shocking.  Manoli, show her how to dance.  Go on, now.  I insist.  I know you know how.  Show her."  Manolis hung his head.  "What's the matter with you, that you don't want to show a beautiful girl how to dance?"  Manolis hung his head lower.  Mr Pandelidis looked towards Roger and said, "Roger, you know how to dance."
    "Not Greek dancing."
    "This is too shocking," Mr Pandelidis said.  "What can I do, what can I do, but show you how?"  He held out a hand to Roger's mother.  "Claire, please, you can't say you don't know how.  Together, we'll show them.  We'll make them marvel at us."
    Shaking her head so her long hair would fall into place, Roger's mother slid back from the table and went to Mr Pandelidis, who, standing, had his hand held out to her, his body a little inclined towards her.  Everyone at the table watched them dance, moving towards and back from one another, their arms held out, light, light on their feet.  Manolis started to clap in rhythm to the music, and his mother, Penelope, did too, and then the other couple and their son and daughter did.  And what Daphni started to clap in rhythm, so did Roger.
    Mr Pandelidis made a gesture with both hands that everyone should come to dance.
    The only three people left at the table, with plates of half finished beans and greens and fried potatoes, the tynes of their forks resting on the rims, were Daphni, Manolis, and Roger.  Looking at Manolis, Roger thought:  He's better looking than I am.  When Roger looked at Daphni, he found she was staring at him.  He waited for her to say something, but before she did the father of Manolis called from the dance floor, "Elate, pedhia mou, elate," and the three had to get up to dance with the others.
    Manolis did know how, but it was true about Daphni and Roger, they didn't know how to dance to the bouzouki music.  In the midst of everyone else dancing, the father of Manolis took the hands of Daphne and Roger to bring them to the center of the white circle to show them, one on each side of him, a few of the delicate, skipping steps.
    "Now," Mr Pandelidis said, "swing your right foot out a little, as I do -- "
    Hand in hand, Daphne and Roger, laughing, did as they were told.
    "You see," Manolis said, "you see, you're doing it, you're dancing."