You Are Always Safe With Me Read Online Free PDF

who she was, a woman who taught literature and knew the great stories of the world, the fables, the myths, the Shakespearean dramas. How was it her personal story was no story at all: an unchallenged life. Good girl, good student, good daughter, good teacher.
    How did Gerta become Gerta, a painted puppet, a set of dazzling teeth on a Barbie doll figure? What was under all that fashion and makeup and jewelry? And what about Marianne? She was a psychoanalyst, a handsome woman of perhaps 45, athletic, strong, forceful, almost manly in her attitude, but shapely, too, with substantial hips and breasts, and a hefty voice. Some days, when she had cornered Morat, trying to help him learn some English, they could hear her saying from the foredeck, “I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE…” and Morat’s voice repeating, tentatively, “I am, I are, we are…” and Marianne would begin again, “NO, LISTEN TO ME…” Soon she gave it up; Morat was not interested, neither in learning English, nor in Marianne.
    Each morning, when dawn broke over the sea and the crew was first stirring on deck, Lilly would wake and see Marianne poised on the edge of the boat’s railing, white rubber swim cap fastened under her chin. She’d dive off into the water and swim strongly away from the boat, taking her morning exercise, her fearless investigation under way, whether to a stone castle, or a ruined temple, or whatever was beyond the cove where they were moored for the night.
    By the time Morat had made coffee, and cheese crepes, and set out the feast that was breakfast, Marianne was back, climbing up the silver ladder on the boat’s port side, pulling off her rubber cap, shaking her short curly brown hair free, exclaiming about what she had seen on the cliffs, or under water, or holding in her hand a gleaming rock, or piece of broken mosaic tile.
    The guests on the Ozymandias all were mysteries to one another, though in this strange living arrangement, they ate together like family, traveled together to see cliff tombs, Turkish villages, ancient aqueducts, artifacts of long-ago lives. To Lilly, their modern lives were just as much a mystery to her as were those of the ancients.
    Lance, the astronomer, was the most irritating to Lilly He dogged her steps and when she ignored him, he harassed her mother, who was quite affable and encouraging to him. Lilly felt no real kinship to anyone here—she was an odd egg, she belonged nowhere.
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    At dinner, for Jane’s party, Morat outdid himself, and came up smiling from the galley time after time, carrying trays filled with amazements—radishes cut like roses, cucumbers like water lilies, a lemon carved to resemble a swan. Each dish brought oohs and aahs from the guests: a soup of tomato, onions and okra, grapevine leaves stuffed with rice, raisins, mint and pine nuts, cold green tomato soup with feta cheese. Harrison O’Hara translated the ingredients to the guests as he sniffed and tasted the various dishes while Izak moved around the table setting down each new platter as Morat devised another one below, frying and stirring in the clouds of heat and steam.
    “These are called Women’s Thighs!” Harrison announced, inhaling the aromas of a deep fried minced meat dish, served in a shapely cylindrical patty. He laughed and reached for the thigh of Gerta beside him. She lowered her eyes gracefully, and in a moment she leaned over and kissed his ear.
    At every meal was a chilled sauce of grated cucumber, yogurt, garlic and mint, and tonight there was a bowl of humus, a spicy dip of ground chick peas, sesame seeds, lemon juice and cumin.
    Fiona O’Hara sat back proudly, dressed in one of her sparkly evening dresses (left over from her days as a torch singer). She was puffed up with satisfaction, as if she had invented every recipe, the foods, the cook and even Turkey itself. Pride in things one could buy always baffled Lilly—it was not as if Fiona had personally created any of these things, or even earned a