The Nude: A Novel

1

When a Greek fisherman caught a woman’s body in his net—a marble statue, around five feet tall, missing two arms—I was working for a museum in Los Angeles on the other side of the world. After the discovery, a group of men hauled the figure to the island’s only museum, cleaned her, and kept her on a metal table in a climate-controlled room near the back of the building. It was there, somewhere in southern Greece, on a windy day in April, where I first saw her.

Doctor Clarke, the local antiquities dealer, a man named Alec, said. What do you think?

We were standing on opposite ends of the table where she lay, the only living people in the room, his eyes darting from me to her, her to me. I specialized in female statues of the Hellenistic Mediterranean, and though I was a curator for one of the most respected institutions in the states, whenever a colleague or patron called me Doctor, I did not immediately register myself as the object of their address, and in the ensuing blip of silence, an overwhelming self-consciousness would turn my tongue to stone.

What did I think? Pentelic marble, head tilted back, a stretched neck. If the statue should have cracked anywhere, it would have been there, but that delicate neck defied its own vulnerability. She was completely nude, with a rift on her right breast, a smooth abdomen, and censored vulva. Minor depressions carved into both sides of her hips. She might have been holding something in her left hand—a mirror, likely—based on the way her chin pointed slightly upward, as though she were studying a reflection of something—or someone—behind her.

I tried mentioning this possibility to Alec in Greek, but upon hearing me, he appeared shocked, offended. I repeated myself, quieter, and with a questioning lilt. He shook his head. In English, I apologized. I told him my Greek was rusty. He waved his hand as if to say, it’s nothing.

He offered me a pair of white cotton gloves and I began inspecting the statue’s every bend and fold, casually measuring proportions, lightly tracing areas of abrasion. Both her arms had snapped off at nearly identical points. It wasn’t uncommon for figures to be found without limbs, noses, genitalia, but usually, the breaks were uneven. Hers appeared, somehow, purposeful. Which isn’t to say the fissures seemed inauthentic—just, rare. Each new vantage point conjured more questions, more ways of seeing. Her hunched posture insinuated a self-consciousness, while her curved torso and bent knee invited the eye to travel down, then back up again, suggesting either an indifference to possible observers—or else, an invitation. I bent to her level, my eyeline meeting the top of her head, where ropes of wavy hair twisted into a crown, curls like limpets around her temple.

Meanwhile, Alec circled the room’s perimeter, the edges of his wrinkled khaki shorts skimming each hairy kneecap, his black socks pouring into white tennis shoes. On his left ring finger, he wore a thin silver band.

In English, he asked if I had been to Greece before, and in Greek, I said I’d been to Athens.

Athens, he said. Alone?

Yes, I lied, hiding my hesitation, alone.

I stood and glanced out the single clerestory window, where I could see nothing but a stone wall covered in pink-blooming cacti. I’d noticed the size of the room—no more than a ten by ten—but it was only then that I allowed myself to feel its smallness.

My cousin, Alec said. Your— He searched for the word. Translator. Here soon.

Yes, great, I said, thanking him, and though I certainly did need a translator, I resented this stranger’s disbelief in my abilities.

As I walked around, the statue’s pupil-less eyes followed me. I couldn’t decide if her expression was desireful or agonized. Likely, it was both. Her features had remained in decent shape and, when eyed from certain angles, glitzed with traces of red and gold paint. That any pigment had remained was highly unusual for a figure so ancient. Elsewhere, she was either poorly sculpted or else decayed: the ears, for example, pockmarked and peppered with limonite; the feet, hewn without detail, except for the toes, of course, which curled under, as though in a perennial pre-orgasmic state. When viewed holistically, these mismatched conditions gave her beauty a patina of unease. I’d never seen anything like her.

A few moments later, someone walked through the door and a gust of cold air hit me in the back of the neck. I turned. The translator came to me piece by piece: bouncy dark hair, a long-lensed camera in his right hand, swim trunks, a white poplin shirt open slightly to expose a rose-tinged tan. His features were impeccable. The kind of face I fell for in my youth, but tended to avoid now, the soft, feminine shapes too familiar—though he was a couple of years younger than me, I guessed. Early thirties.

I had come straight to the museum from the airport in my usual, conservative work attire: anemic blouse and slacks, closed-toe pumps. Hair pulled into a neutral ponytail. My luggage—an ugly shade of purple, the kind of monstrous bag someone usually reserves for backpacking—leaned up against the wall in the corner. To get through the long plane ride, I’d knocked myself out with a careful concoction of pills, which meant that I had not brushed my teeth or reapplied antiperspirant in over sixteen hours. When I shook the translator’s hand, I offered a close-lipped smile, trying to maintain eye contact as a way to show a dominance unfelt. He introduced himself as Niko Yorgos and began taking photographs of the statue.

I thought you were the translator?

He picked the camera up and said, Budget cuts.

As Niko walked around the room, he relayed unprompted information about himself (he grew up in Athens, but disliked the pace) and tried to gather knowledge about me (he asked where in California I was from and I said, Northern, and then he said, Los Angeles? And I said, "I’m not from there, from there. I’ve just been living there). He asked how I was liking the island (good, though I had just arrived). After some time, he returned to my upbringing and said, You know, my wife, she spent many years in Los Angeles. Is that not a miniature world?" He got closer to the statue’s nose and pressed the shutter. Though I knew little about this man, his having a wife seemed odd. I couldn’t exactly place why.

It’s a big city, I said.

At the thought of discussing my life back home, I turned away and refocused on the statue. I noticed something about the positioning of her body: her chest and shoulders were slightly turned inward, which made me consider the possibility she had come in a pair.

What do you think of her? I asked Niko.

Well, Doctor, he said, as though reading my mind, I think she looks lonely.

Soon, Alec suggested we take a walk around the museum. He wanted to show me the architecture and some other prized items, which were mostly chipped vases, and various clay figurines. Alec was the leading purveyor of terra-cotta vases around the Cyclades Islands and so, the nude was an atypical sell for him. I’d never handled a deal this large, or this risky either, at least, not on my own. A few months previous, I’d attended an antiquities sale in Switzerland in the hopes of acquiring a promising vase, but it turned out to be worthless. I’d watched my colleague Madison purchase a femur-sized figurine last year in London, and even though I was the one who helped him with the appraisal, I’d received no recognition. Not that I’d put up a fight or complained to anyone after the fact. I was still trying to showcase commendable sportsmanship, prove I worked well with others.

Alec’s tour was quick, as the museum wasn’t large, mostly underground, and with various parts closed for repair. When we passed by the front, I grabbed a brochure with a Spedos figurine on the cover. After a few minutes, we walked down to the lowest level, where an entire wing was cordoned off. I wondered what was inside but didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask. Alec quickly led us out to a small, overgrown garden, where he began a lecture about the museum’s history. Above us hung a swollen mid-day sun, and despite the heavy wind, it felt unbearably pleasant. The more Alec talked, the less I understood, but I followed along, feigning engagement. Every so often, someone would walk into the garden and wander around with their brochures and coffees. The island draft—warm and wicked—threatened to blow everything out of their hands.

Niko said hot wind came up from the south and caused the locals to believe the earth’s passions had the power to change their personalities. He called it the siroccos effect. It offers people an excuse to act out of character. But, he said, the sirocco had come early this year. His shirt, white and blank as a canvas, rippled as he rolled up the sleeves.

Perhaps it’s a by-product of the impending apocalypse, I said.

He nodded. Y2K. He nodded again. Are you ready?

A loud group of Westerners—four or five college-aged men dressed in sagging jeans and American labels—ambled inside the garden, their loud conversation supervening ours. As they walked around in total disregard of the property, I felt a shift in the air, or else in myself, the distinct foreignness of my own presence projected back at me. I watched Niko to see how he would react, but he only eyed the young men with an unconcerned, passive expression. Alec, on the other hand, stared at them like a scorned and impatient father. A minute gruelled into two, and finally, the party lost interest and swaggered back inside, leaving behind only an echo of their arrogance, a sound I feared I wouldn’t shake, but then, as though there’d been no disruption at all, Alec began orating again, quickly losing himself in his performance, and so, I turned back to Niko, pleased to see that he was smiling at me, waiting still, on my answer.

I’ve been ready, I said. You?

He laughed but did not reply.

Alec instructed us to move on, and Niko walked alongside me, his hands poised behind his back. He smelled charged, moneyed, or else gorged on luck, as he leaned in unguardedly, whispering into my neck, I think you make my cousin nervous. I regarded him again. This time, he struck me as especially masculine. Algorithmic. I stood straighter, churning my head for a rebuttal: something presumptuous, yet lighthearted. But nothing came in time.

Once we reentered the room, Niko insisted the two of them take me to lunch. I didn’t want to go. I’d have rather stayed with the figure, to whom I already felt a sense of allegiance, but I knew what William would say back home. Gaining trust with sellers was vital; curation was nothing if not a business built on relationships. Unfortunately, I’d had an eye for sculptures, but not for people. If you are to fail, William had warned me once, your tendency toward coldness will be to blame. What I couldn’t say was that I did not feel cold, I felt attached to too much, all the time.

Alec and Niko invited a woman named Melia and another man named Thomas, both of whom had worked at the museum for years, though I wasn’t sure of their positions and did not feel energetic enough to manage conversations with more than two people at one time. Thomas was somewhere in his forties, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to correspond with him much. With his designer denim and clean, leather shoes, he emitted an air of quiet self-importance. Melia, on the other hand, was just quiet.

We all walked up the marble steps, and into the cobblestoned town, where the air had cooled a few degrees since my initial arrival.

Seeing as I planned to leave for my rental after our meal, Niko insisted on carrying my bag. Every time I caught sight of its color in the corner of my vision, its youthfulness irritated me. How unbecoming it appeared amongst the contours of the ancient architecture, the stooped timeworn trees. On top of that, it seemed as though Niko was struggling with the bag’s weight, and though I wanted to take it off his hands, I worried the suggestion would paint me as a person incapable of trusting others. Which, for the most part, I was.

As we plodded along—the roads narrow, mazelike, at times, dangerously steep—we passed several churches and small shops, bleach-white buildings, and more cats than I could count, most of them immobile and unperturbed by commotion, their ears pulled back, eyes squinted shut. The air smelled of salt and tar. Bells reverberated; bay laurels rustled somewhere behind us on the hillside. The blend of sensations had a calming, alchemic effect on my mood, and I tried to personify this by smiling when passersby looked our way, though I was often hindered by a rolling ankle, as cracks in the stones kept taking hold of my heels. Every time I almost fell, Niko reached for my arm, and every time, I politely thanked him and retracted. After what seemed like miles, but was likely only minutes, the pleasantry wore itself out, and the balls of my feet pulsed with pain. I began counting down the hours until I could be alone, prostrate, and anonymous in an impersonal hotel bed.

We came across a café, in the middle of the town square, with bright blue umbrellas and white plastic chairs. Under a yellow awning out front, Niko and I sat on one side, facing the square and its central fountain, while everyone else squeezed on the other. This all happened without my input, which I wouldn’t have given anyway. Niko handed me a cigarette, and though I didn’t smoke, I took it and thanked him. He offered me a light, and then I said, No, sorry. I don’t smoke.

Why did you take the cigarette?

I examined it and considered. I don’t know, I said. We laughed. Already, we had our own little jokes. I couldn’t stand how unprofessional he was making me feel.

The sun dropped behind a mountain and the table ordered a round of ouzo. To your time in Greece, Niko said, facing me, lifting his glass, a thin shadow garroting his neck. The table toasted and the drink tasted like licorice. Niko asked if he could take a group photo of myself, Alec, Melia, and Thomas. Not wanting to ostracize myself, I obliged, sitting straighter and smiling without teeth. As soon as the shutter clicked, I regretted saying yes to the photograph and was sure it would be unforgiving. When the waiter reappeared, I ordered like a philistine: white wine and a salad, and then Niko scoffed and reordered for me. At first, this perturbed me; it was a clear undermine. But once the food arrived—a plate of stuffed grape leaves, sodden with oil, curled calamari, sautéed wild greens—I forgave him. We finished the meal with Lokmas, balls of fried dough drenched in simple syrup, and freddo espressos. Mostly, Melia and Thomas talked to Alec, and Alec to them. For their inattention, I was grateful.

I turned to Niko and asked when he would develop the photographs he took. He said he’d have them to me right away. We digressed. He said he knew a man who photographed Gustave Courbet’s painting L’Origine du Monde, a close-up view of a woman’s nude torso wrapped in white sheets, legs open, revealing her genitals. Are you familiar? he asked. I said of course I was. Right, he said. My apologies. He went on. Apparently, the man sold photographs of the art to tourists on the street, passing them off as originals. I said that was unethical because the photos were not the real piece of art, and he said, If the customers were happy with the reproductions, then does the reality of it matter?

Plato said mimesis was a corruption of the soul.

Is it not true, that much of the Grecian objects with which you work, is it not true that they are Roman replications?

Well, sure, but those were born out of admiration. Roman citizens were feeling this—this desire for Greek culture. They wanted a piece of it for themselves. Something they could display in their homes with pride.

And this is a deviation from my example, how?

We lapsed into a silence, his confidence clouding my thoughts. But then, off my look, he held up his hands. Of course. I am no expert.

By the time we were done, it was four pm, though it felt like three in the morning.

On our way out, Niko said something about his wife, whom he hadn’t mentioned all lunch, but whom I’d thought about whenever he nodded or smiled—suspiciously eager—at my comments. He said she was a photographer. A better one than him. A real one. He said she had received some acclaim, a few years back, for a series of self-portraits. He likened her early work to Cindy Sherman if Cindy Sherman had an interest in the naked form. I nodded along, my curiosity waxing. Alec, Melia, and Thomas said goodbye and walked off, leaving Niko and me alone, a cavalcade of shiny bicycles whizzing past us, car horns blaring. Someone around the corner yelled; a glass shattered.

Are you married, Doctor?

I told him I was not. Usually, I’d have bristled at such personal questions, but I found myself softened by his sincerity, his directness. Or else, by the ouzo.

It is probably better. For your line of work? Lots of travel.

I suppose, I said.

He told me his wife was working on a new project, and then, curiously, he paused, as though waiting for me to inquire.

What kind of project?

He hesitated, then said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss. He said his wife had a strong sense of self and of what she needed as a person, as an artist, and what she needed most of all, right now, was privacy, because there was no freedom without privacy. I had a feeling he didn’t know what the project was either, and I didn’t understand why he’d brought it up in the first place. Maybe he thought I’d be able to illuminate or validate something for him, and though I wanted to be helpful, or at least appear helpful, outside of some required classes, I’d known shamefully little about contemporary art. Over the years, I’d pared my focus down to certain, sacred aesthetic truths—geometric patterns and cool, objective faces; the movement of a body, caught in marble. But I couldn’t let him know this, and risk not living up to the person I thought he wanted me to be, so I said nothing.

He dropped his head, and in newfound shyness, slipped his hands in his pockets, kicked away a small rock. In most simple terms, he said, she is interested in vacancies.

I said the project sounded interesting, because it was the only thing to say about a pitch so vague.

When he looked back up, I felt penetrated.

The wind began moving the other way, or else we had shifted without my noticing. A piece of dust flew in my eye, and I tried to feign indifference as Niko said he’d like to walk me to my hotel. I thanked him and said no; my feet were tired, and I wanted to take a cab. Truthfully, I’d wanted some quiet. He asked how long I was in town for. I said I didn’t know. I mentioned that I’d be taking a break at some point to deliver a lecture in Athens, but he didn’t respond to that information, and instead asked how long acquisitions usually took. I told him it depended on many factors, but likely, no more than a week or so. This seemed to disappoint him.

Well, I said. It was nice to meet you, Niko Yorgos. He moved in closer for a hug, but I intercepted with a handshake, and once I noticed his discomfort at the interaction, I wished I’d had more to drink.

I managed to find a cab quickly. American music boomed from the driver’s speakers, a hit from the previous year, the melody slow and dull. A photograph had been taped on the dashboard—a little girl with her front teeth missing. The cabdriver’s daughter, years ago, I assumed. He told me his name was Dimitri. All men exhausted me, but I found older men, anyone from my stepfather’s age upward, especially draining, as I often tried too hard to impress them. Thankfully, this man seemed unimpressible, with his balding pate and puffy hands. When we got going, the labyrinthine streets opened up like mouths. I felt feverish. My limbs, my neck, rubbery. I rolled down the window. The middle of town bumbled with noise, with people, clusters of shadows fuzzy in the waning light, coteries of teenage girls perched on railings, watching. Their sinuous, informal posture reminiscent of the statue’s. Dimitri turned away from them, onto a residential street where fuchsia flowers laced the sides of homes. An iron chair dragged across stone. A mother called for her child. A wind chime blew. I suspected Dimitri was taking me on the longest route, but I didn’t mind. I was either delirious or content, but perhaps I’d never been able to tell the difference. I stuck my hand out and reached toward the architecture, toward something concrete, the smooth curves of the statue’s body flashing before me, taking hold. Be care, said Dimitri, instructing me to pull my arm back inside, and I relented, but not before I allowed myself a few more seconds of freedom as I closed my eyes, and reached again, one inch farther, a breath held in my chest, the tepid air slapping my palm.

2

William’s assistant Sandra had booked the rental through an agency, and I’d had no way of surveying the property before arriving, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. To find it, I had to walk down a narrow street that I’d at first thought was nothing but an alleyway until Dimitri assured me, twice, verbally, and then once with a delicate push forward. I craned my neck. Balconies jutted from the building; wild plants grew over iron railings. Open windows gave way to cerulean blue, grass green, apricot orange shutters—so bright they seemed, almost, to glow.

As I hauled my luggage toward the entrance, Dimitri asked for the fare. I searched my wallet and couldn’t find any euros, though I remembered procuring some at the airport, the weight of them in my hand. I apologized profusely, my breath quickening. I asked if he took the dollar. He shook his head, and I worried I’d upset him. I said I was good for it, if he came back. He handed me a business card, printed with checkered yellow and black. His taxi was number twenty-six. Me, I will find you, he said. He didn’t mention when.

I made it inside, where a child stood at a walnut-wood front desk with headphones on, bobbing his head. The lobby was less of a lobby and more of a dim, oblong room with a water cooler, a pile of plastic bags containing other plastic bags, and a mop left damp in the middle of the entryway. As I approached the kid behind the desk, he eyed my luggage. I set it down, then pushed the bag behind my leg. I told him my name and handed him my passport, which he smirked at and then photocopied twice. He gave me a set of rusted keys, a tie-dyed rabbit foot attached, then took me outside, where we walked up several flights of concrete stairs.

My room was on the corner of the second-to-top floor, and though it did face the water, another building obfuscated the view, so I had a direct line of vision into another woman’s space, which meant that she, too, could see into mine. The idea of this made me uneasy, but what could I do? Her studio looked like the mirror image of my rental—our bathrooms and kitchenettes on opposite sides. Unlike me, she didn’t have a terrace. Mine faced the street, iron rails lined with plants: sharp succulents in belly-shaped terra-cotta pots, olive trees, a cluster of bear’s-breeches sprouting from a watering can. I turned my head and squinted. Up the stone walls ran a wilted vine of bougainvillea. There was a café across the way, and beyond the café, a pharmacy with a broken, neon green plus sign missing its top so that it looked like a squat, uppercase T. Between buildings, multiple strings of light—the bulbs as big as oranges—hung.

When the boy left, I kept the window open and thought I’d take a nap for twenty, thirty minutes. Anything longer would distress my already fragile circadian rhythm. I slipped into the twin bed with its crinkled sheets and floral comforter and fell asleep quickly to the sound of wind soughing through the linen curtains, the faint smell of garbage and sugar and sea. I dreamed of my little sister Margaret pulling herself out of the pool water and twisting her neck like a rag, tongue out. I dreamed of a room full of male statues, each with a mouthful of bees. I dreamed of Margaret’s eyes gushing with honey.

I woke to the familiar, pulsing beat of an oncoming migraine, unaware of how long I’d been out, displaced by the change in light, by my dreams. I almost never dreamed of Margaret.

The clock on the side table flashed numbers: 88:88, their brightness worsening my headache.

I decided I’d run to the pharmacy for extra-strength ibuprofen to get ahold of the pain before it took hold of me. With the possibility of a promotion ahead, and against the unflappability of Madison, I promised myself I’d cut back on my prescriptions, though I’d already taken two—three—on the plane ride over.

I grabbed a sweatshirt from my alma mater and walked down the stairs and out the lobby, where the front desk child now sat with a backward cap, reading a comic book, a silver Discman in his lap. He waved at me but did not look up.

The sun had already begun disappearing behind the horizon; the sky twisted from pale blue to wistful violet. Whenever I blinked and opened my eyes, the world appeared a little duller. This