Greece is the destination of the Massé family’s holiday and the landscape onto which Louise projects a future beyond her life in Paris. First encountered through the heat and bustle of Athens and the anticipated voyage to the islands, it later becomes, in her imagined return to Sifnos, not merely a place to visit but a place where she could refuse to leave.

Athens and the Journey to the Islands

Louise spends one night in Athens with Mila and Adam, sharing a tiny hotel room with the children to save money. The window is left ajar against the heat; outside, drunk voices and the squeal of car brakes continue through the night, while the children sleep with their mouths open and a leg hanging out of bed. Their evening had been cheerful: Adam danced on the city’s paving stones, winning the applause of older men. But Louise dislikes the city after walking through it all afternoon under the blazing sun, with the children complaining. Her attention is already fixed on the next day and the islands Myriam has described to them through Greek myths and legends.

The stories are imperfectly retained but emotionally charged. Myriam’s manner of telling them irritates Louise: she carefully articulates difficult words and repeatedly checks whether her listeners understand. Louise nevertheless listens attentively to the myths of Zeus and the goddess of war. Like Mila, she is drawn to Aegeus, whose name is associated with the blue of the sea she is about to cross for the first time. The remembered myth turns the approaching ferry journey into something more than transport: the sea has already acquired a place in Louise’s imagination.

The departure for the port of Piraeus brings the holiday back to practical strain. Louise has to pull Mila from bed and dress her while she is still sleepy. In the taxi, Louise tries to recover the names of the ancient gods but cannot remember them; she thinks she should have written them in her flower-patterned notebook so that she could revisit them alone. At the port, a huge traffic jam and police directing the flow compound the heat. Adam sweats on Louise’s lap as Paul struggles to understand the illuminated signs for the island ferries. The driver turns back, shrugs, and cannot speak English. After Paul pays him, the family runs with its luggage and Adam’s stroller toward the correct boarding point. The crew is about to raise the gangway when it sees them signaling in confusion; they make it aboard just in time.

Sifnos as a Repeated Image

Later, Louise points to a photograph and tells Wafa that the family will return to Greece, specifically to Sifnos. The holiday has not yet been discussed, but Louise treats the return as certain. In her account, the island offers clear water, dinners by candlelight at the harbor, and a succession of small encounters with the sea: walking in coves, catching crabs, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers, and watching the creatures contract in a bucket. She imagines swimming farther out each time, with Adam joining her that year.

The photograph gives this imagined future a concrete point of reference. It shows Louise in an orange dress, her hair loose, seated on a low wall with one child in each arm. Myriam had insisted that the picture be placed on a living-room shelf and told Louise that she was part of the family. Louise remembers how it was taken: Myriam was in a ceramics shop, Mila stood on the wall trying to reach a gray cat, and Paul called Louise and the children to look at him before telling them to smile. In Louise’s later conversation with Wafa, the image of shared family belonging and the plan to return to Sifnos become intertwined.

The Imagined Refusal to Return

Louise’s certainty extends beyond a holiday. She imagines the end of the stay, the family’s final dinner at a restaurant Myriam had loved, and the moment when she will announce that she will not take the flight home but will live on the island. In this projected scene, the Massés initially laugh, either because they have been drinking or because they are uncomfortable. Their laughter gives way to concern: they question how Louise could remain and what she would live on. Louise imagines answering with laughter of her own, as if their practical objections cannot undo the decision she has already made in her mind.

Nor does the fantasy depend on pretending that Sifnos remains idyllic all year. Louise imagines winter changing the island’s appearance: dry rock, oregano and thistles, November darkness, and the first heavy rains. She acknowledges the island’s harsher season but does not imagine herself turning back. She might move to another island, she thinks, but she will not return the way she came. Greece thus changes in Louise’s narration from a temporary holiday destination into the imagined setting of a permanent break with the return journey.