The Martians

Chapter 21 Odessa

Oh in those days we were so happy. In love, sure. Just the two of us; no kids; interesting work; lots of free time; all Mars there to be explored together. We would go out into the backcountry on long walkabouts, wandering and talking. Out under the stars at night. For several years we spent the fall in Odessa, where we had work in the vineyards and wineries. We rented a little house in the beach village a few kilometers west of Odessa, at the end of the tram line. A hillside village, looking down on a crook of a beach, buildings clustered at the bottom, scattered among the trees higher up. Our house was pretty high on the hill, with a view down over treetops and tile roofs, and the broad blue plate of the Hellas Sea. Little patio out back, a table and two chairs. A lot of flowering vines, a little lemon tree in a tub. Almost all the summer visitors would be gone by then, so that only one restaurant stayed open, down behind the beach. The cats were friendly and looked sleek and well fed, though no one owned them. In the restaurant one jumped right into my lap and purred. I remember the first time we stood on the patio, looking down, then back at the house—whitewash, vines, the bedroom balcony with an iron railing, the brown hills above and behind, the sea and the sky. We laughed at how perfect it was. Most mornings we trammed into town to work, then came back in the afternoons and went to the beach. Or vice versa. Sunset on the patio with a glass of wine. Dinners in our little kitchen, or down at the restaurant, where a guitar and mandolin duo played on Fridays. Then nights in bed in a house all to ourselves. Sometimes I woke before dawn and went down to start coffee and go out on the patio. One of those mornings the sky was plastered with a herringbone cloud that turned pink, then gold.