*Greece*
By the middle of November within the department the surface certainly looked calm -- classes were held regularly, lectures were relatively well–attended, there were no student strikes, and the graduate assistants and the faculty usually greeted each other in a friendly manner when they passed in the corridors -- but I could feel the tension building as the term progressed. Vanidis stopped in our office more frequently after we’d had our third monthly department meeting, usually on the pretext of asking our advice on some minor departmental policy. At that last meeting a group of graduate assistants, Cassandra and Kiki among them, had complained that it was insulting to have the department meetings conducted in English just to accommodate the two visiting foreigners and they proposed that from now on all such affairs be conducted in Greek. Vanidis was embarrassed by the proposal, arguing that all but one of us (meaning me) was bilingual and that it was only common courtesy to see that that person was not excluded from the department’s deliberations. As the assistants could make proposals and participate in the discussions but had no voting privileges, the proposal was defeated at the final vote. Theo and I abstained because of the awkwardness of our position; Pappas voted for the proposal without once speaking in support of it and Vanidis got just enough support from the other faculty to defeat it. As we filed out of the room after all the other business had been completed, Pappas stopped at my side long enough to offer some advice.
“Nothing in there to be taken personally, of course, but it would probably be better for all concerned if you could speed up your Greek lessons. A time of heightened national consciousness is not the best time to argue a case on the basis of courtesy.”
In the weeks that followed it became clear that he was only partially correct. Some of the assistants did make it a personal thing and although it was never a matter of outright insult or even obvious impoliteness, there was a definite chill in the air when we met. Kiki was just as friendly as ever, even taking the time one day to tell me the proposal had been a matter of principle and certainly not directed at me as an individual, but Cassandra seemed to be less generous. She spent a few days ignoring me completely and then only gradually allowed herself to become friendly again, never actually bringing the subject up but giving me several opportunities – all of which I carefully ignored – to do so myself. She was Pappas’ assistant in a large introductory linguistics course and I passed her quite often as she was going in or coming out of his office, usually carrying large stacks of student compositions and looking overworked. At one such encounter I asked her if she’d like to have a cup of coffee with me in the student cafeteria on the second floor and she somewhat hesitatingly agreed. When we were seated in the almost-empty room I asked her about the heavy load she and the other assistants seemed to carry in the department.
“Since you people do most of the grading in all the large classes and you invigilate all the exams, how is it you don’t get to vote in the meetings?”
“We still use a very traditional system here -- some of us would call it out-of-date -- and the hierarchy is very carefully maintained. Only full-time instructors have any influence in the department and there are simply no women among them, as you can see. As graduate assistants we are supposed to consider ourselves lucky just to have our jobs; it’s very hard to get these positions and many qualified people apply who are never even considered. Unfortunately, like almost everything else in our country these days, a great deal depends on who you know or who your relatives know.”
“Do you and Kiki have relatives who are influential in the university?”
“No, we are just two of the lucky ones. We graduated from here as the top students in our class and that particular year the Ministry was under some pressure to liberalize the system, to bring in some women -- of course, only at the bottom -- and some young teachers who might have slightly less traditional views about both politics and their individual subjects. Kiki and I were the department’s answer to that pressure and we’ve done our jobs well enough so that nobody has been too anxious to get rid of us, at least not yet. To be truthful, Kiki does all the work for two of the teachers, including their library research and most of their actual classroom teaching, and everybody just ignores the fact. Even the students accept the system -- that is, most of them used to. Lately some of them are getting disgusted with it all and are calling for some basic reforms.”
“I had a feeling that that was going on, but not everyone in the department goes along with it, do they?”
“No, quite a few do their own work and don’t take unfair advantage of us, but most of them just close their eyes to what is going on around them. Only a few are really interested in changing things, in making the whole system more equitable and less repressive. Only a few.”
I wanted to ask who they were but she finished her coffee and hurried out, saying she had papers to mark before the next morning’s classes.
Back in our office I asked Theo instead.
“I don’t know much more about it than you do. Although I remember that back in the late sixties Pappas was publishing quite a few articles on the connection between society and language and the need for serious change in the university system as well as in the country’s basic political structure. Socio-linguistic stuff, I guess it was, and at that time some of the more active student politicians around here tried to get him to become their guru.”
“Did he do it?”
“Not that I know of. He wrote a great deal about the need for reform but he never seemed to join any organizations or give any public speeches or march in any of the rallies. He seemed to believe quite strongly in the issues but he confined himself to the printed page and only an occasional reference to his dissatisfaction with the system in his classroom lectures. Eventually the more aggressively political students found other leaders to follow -- faculty who no longer seem to be around, by the way -- and Pappas seemed content to retire back into relative obscurity. My sense of the place these days, however, is that he’s still highly respected by what currently passes for the politically active portion of the student population, quiet though they may now be.”
“If he gets the chairmanship over Vanidis do you think he’ll try to improve the graduate assistants’ lot?”
“I imagine he’d have a go at it, although I’m not sure how effective he’d be fighting the whole educational establishment. I’d guess that he’d at least make some worthwhile changes in his own department.”
“Any others in the department who are secure enough or dissatisfied enough to openly support him?”
“A few who are fed up with the status quo but not many who are secure enough in their jobs; if he doesn’t get the new chair I doubt that anyone will stick his neck out to support any meaningful changes.”
“I just had coffee with Cassandra and I got the strong feeling that she and at least some of the other assistants are really tired of the way they’re being treated. I think they’d support anyone who’d cut down their out-of-class workload – the unofficial one – and who’d hire a few women faculty.”
“True, but right now they are almost powerless and they’ve got nobody to plead their case for them. Even Pappas, who probably sympathizes with them, is playing the whole thing close to the vest. I don’t know if he’s being cautious because he wants that chair or if he has something else on his mind. If nothing drastic happens between now and decision time – they say that should be in early spring, maybe March or April – I think Vanidis will probably get the nod. He’s now had the experience of running the department and Kiki was telling me that he has a brother-in-law and two close friends who work in the divisional Dean’s office and the Rector’s office. Not necessarily my personal choice, of course, and I imagine we’ll be able to voice our opinions one of these days, but I doubt that whatever the two of us have to say will have much influence on the eventual outcome. Probably shouldn’t when you come to think about it.”
“I think I’ll tr
y to talk to Pappas about some of this, see what he’s really like if I can. We haven’t done much more than pass the time of day so far – he seems to spend most of his time in his office or in the main library, and the few times I’ve gone to his office he’s seemed either busy or distracted, or maybe both. Have you had a chance to get to know him any better since the term began?”
“No, not really. He’s something of a loner and so far I’ve been too busy to make the effort. Now that things are settling down maybe I’ll get around to it.”
A few days later Theo and I were invited to join Dan Kubish and Bruce Meadows on Kubish’s boat for a brief afternoon sail on the bay, just a warm-up, Kubish said on the phone, for the longer day on the water that Talya and I would be having with him at a later date. We took a taxi from the university to the marina where the boat was moored, both of us in good spirits, commenting on the unseasonably warm weather and bright sunshine as the car pulled up where Kubish and Meadows were waiting. The boat was named Gachoucha and she stood alone among the 40-foot and 50-foot racing sloops that rocked gently on either side of her; she was about 30 feet long and the only craft in sight that was not made of fiberglass. Her wooden hull was a beautiful blue with a freshly painted white water line and her teak deck looked newly scraped and restained, her wheel a scarred and dark mahogany with a rich coat of varnish. The brass fittings gleamed from what must have been a recent polishing and the lines and Dacron sails all looked new and were stowed with great care. As I stepped aboard I wondered if Kubish were the sailor or if someone else kept his fine old boat shipshape for him. As we motored out and then raised the mainsail he brought up four cold Amstel beers from the small cabin below and told us about the boat.
“At some point a Turk owned it and the name comes from him. I have no idea what it refers to but I’m superstitious so I kept it, I put in a new auxiliary engine and fixed up the head and galley and bunks down below, but the rest was in decent shape except for a new paint job inside and out and all new sails and lines. I liked the wood and the old brass fittings and the classic look of it – and the price was right. The Greeks confiscated it from some smugglers about two years ago, the Colonels gave it to our Consul General as a gift, and last year the consulate passed it on to me for a nominal amount because nobody had any real interest in it or knew what to do with it. Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, I guess. A couple of the Marine guards are old sailors and they keep it in shape for me.”
Kubish was unusually light on his feet for so heavy a man and he and Meadows handled the wheel and the sails (as the wind picked up they had added a small jib) while Theo and I relaxed and enjoyed the almost cloudless sky and the view of other pleasure boats on the bay who were also taking advantage of the pleasant day. Meadows cast a critical look up at the slight puffing in the mainsail and then back at Kubish who was at the wheel, one hand on the varnished wood and one hand holding his beer, a man who obviously valued his boat and the good life it seemed to signify and a man who seemed rather unconcerned about the smaller details of sailing. He spoke to me as he and Meadows exchanged knowing smiles.
“Bruce is a great believer in perfection. He thinks I should do everything as carefully and methodically as he runs the Farm School but I keep telling him that people of my size and girth are not given to nuances; we’re more interested in the larger picture. When I was younger and much thinner I played football at West Point; as a defensive tackle my whole life was spent keeping track of details. I hardly ever even picked up my head to look around and see what was happening on the rest of the field. Well, now I like to look around and see what the rest of the world is doing.”
“Don’t let Dan mislead you, gentlemen,” Meadows said as he came back to join us around the wheel well. “He still keeps track of things, only now he’s developed this wonderful façade of genial disinterest that puts the unwary and the naïve at ease and allows him to have his way with them. Beware the friendly fat man who sells guns to the natives – he is a great believer in man’s imperfection.”
Their friendly banter continued for a while against the background of the rhythmic and gentle slapping of water against the hull and the occasional cry of a gull as we tacked away from the downtown harbor area and Theo came up from below with more Amstel. I was lying on my back with my eyes closed as I soaked up the sun, lazily wondering how the fluid in my inner ear -- or was it inner ears? -- was adjusting to the easy roll of the boat.
We were heading southwest, toward the mouth of the bay, and the sun was behind us so at least one of us should have seen the danger before it developed, but we were far from shore and the wind had been brisk but steady and there seemed no need for particular vigilance as we lounged and talked together in the stern. Theo yelled something to Kubish, who was still at the helm, just as a sudden gust of wind caught us and the boat leaped ahead, heeling sharply and throwing me against Meadows, whose beer bottle shattered on one of the deck’s metal cleats. The blast from the freighter’s foghorn was so loud I thought she’d already run over us, but as I grabbed at anything to steady myself I saw Kubish spin the wheel and Meadows ducking under the boom as it whizzed by and the Gachoucha came about with the black hull of the freighter looming above us, so close it seemed to have obliterated the sun and thrown us into instant night. I knew I could touch the huge scabs of rust on her side as she slid by if I reached out with either hand, but the enormity of her closeness held me rigid, as if my making any physical contact with the leviathan would ensure my being destroyed by it. The huge mass hung over us for what seemed like eternity and then her wash pushed us out and away, the sailboat rolling and pitching furiously for a few minutes and then settling almost calmly as the freighter’s screws churned past and her wake fanned out evenly behind her.
As I had looked up stunned at the blackness above me I had flashed on Talya and regretted our decision not to have children; as the freighter continued north and we watched her recede my mind recorded the facts that she never seemed to slow down, several deckhands at her stern-rail appeared to be yelling at us and giving us the finger, and the ship was flying the United States flag.
The four of us were shaken but except for some glass to pick up and some water to bail out of the wheel well the Gachoucha was unharmed. We were all a little chagrined about our failure to see the freighter sooner and Theo voiced what all of us must have been thinking.
“I know the sonofabitch had the right-of-way but he must have seen us long before he used his fog horn; it was almost as if the bastard was trying to see how close he could come without actually wrecking us. Damn, I hate any kind of bully!”
“I’m not sure if he saw us at all before he used that horn,” Kubish said, “and even if he did he might have figured we certainly could see him and we’d tack out of his way in time. What burns me a little is that he didn’t even reduce speed to see if he’d sent us to the bottom or if anyone was in the water. I guess he thinks it’s his ocean because he displaces more of it than we do.”
“Did anyone catch the name on the bow or on the fantail?” Meadows asked,
“Certainly not on the bow,” Theo said, and we all nodded agreement, “and all I could get from the stern was that she was out of Wilmington, Delaware. Too damn shook up to notice much more.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Blackbridge to write the DuPont’s a note asking them to have their ships slow down a little and watch out for the little guys in this part of the world,” Kubish quipped, but from the way he said it I got the distinct impression he might do just that.
We stayed out for another hour or so but by then the wind had died down and our collective enthusiasm for the afternoon’s outing had gone along with it; as Theo pointed out when we all agreed to head in, even the beer was beginning to taste a little flat after our near collision. After docking the boat and hosing it down and securing the cabin we walked to the nearby taxi stand. Kubish drove off in his own car to the consulate and the three of us went our separate ways.
In December the current CIA station chief at the embassy, Richard Walsh, was shot and killed in Athens. We heard the news on the radio one afternoon and that night at dinner in Jackson’s apartment overlooking the waterfront there was a great deal of speculation among the guests. No group had yet claimed to be responsible for the killing – as it turned out, no group would and the death would remain a mystery as far as the general public was concerned – and there were a few nervous Americans and a few embarrassed Greeks sharing the cultural affairs officer’s fine wine and imported steaks that evening. Talya and I had decided to go even though we knew the meal might prove to be an uncomfortable affair; the news of the shooting had come too late for Jackson to cancel the dinner and, as Talya pointed out to me, maybe one of the other guests would have more information than the brief radio bulletin had offered.
The director of the Thessaloniki orchestra and his wife, the first violinist, tried to steer the conversation toward musical matters as we sat down to eat, but the rector of the university and his large and aggressive spouse would have none of it; they had obviously decided that it was their duty to explain to each American present that the shooting did not reflect the will of the majority of Greeks and that a nation should not be judged by the isolated actions of its lunatic fringe. Jackson had invited two other Greeks and they arrived, quite fashionably, an hour late. Alexi was in his mid-thirties, a tanned and handsome bachelor who ran one of the largest tobacco businesses in the country, and he was accompanied by Marika, a very stylish and beautiful woman in her late twenties whose family owned the city’s most exclusive tennis club. Neither she nor Alexi seemed, at first, to have much interest in how Walsh had died or who might have killed him, but as the evening progressed it became apparent that they probably knew more about it than any of the others at the table.
Jackson had put Theo at one end and he himself sat at the other and the four couples were arranged along either side, nobody sitting next to the person with whom they had come. Marika was on my left and I had to make an effort to pay attention to anyone else; her long blonde hair framed a vaguely Eurasian face that had inherited the best of both worlds and her dark skin radiated the health of her youth and hinted at regular and strenuous exercise. I asked her if she played tennis at her own club.
“Yes, I’m the women’s champion there, as a matter of fact. Alexi is the best player of all the men; we play as a team in all the mixed doubles tournaments at the club. When we met for the first time it was on a tennis court. Do you and your wife play?”
“As often as we can when we’re at home. We haven’t found a convenient place here yet.”
“You should come and play at our club then. Alexi, you can sponsor them, can’t you. It will give us another couple to play with.”
“Of course,” Alexi said, “It will be nice to have some new foreigners on the roster. Mr. Blackbridge and Mr. Meadows are members, but it’s always good to add to the competition.”
“I don’t know how much competition we’ll be,” Talya said, “but it will be good to hit regularly again.”
“As a matter of fact,” Marika went on, “that man we were talking about before, Mr. Walsh, he used to play at our club whenever he was in town. I don’t think he was a member, but he played as someone’s guest quite often. Never in a tournament, just for exercise, I think. He was very nice, wasn’t he, Alexi?”
“Very sincere and a very nice backhand. I played doubles with Bruce Meadows once against him and Jonathan Blackbridge. I believe it was Meadows who usually brought Walsh as a guest.”
“The call I received from Athens just before the radio reported the shooting said that it happened without any real warning and that no suspects had yet been apprehended and no specific motives for the attack were yet clear. As you can image, the people down in our embassy are quite upset,” Jackson said.
“I suppose one must be prepared for such violence if one is in charge of spies,” the orchestra director added in what was almost an apologetic voice.
“To be shot in a public street in the capital of a country that is friendly to your own nation is little more than terrorism,” the rector’s wife added. “Only a madman would do such a thing.”
“No, I think this is not the act of a madman,” Alexi countered. A friend of mine at the club, one of the consuls from an Eastern bloc country, told me only a few days ago that some investigations by the CIA into some recent demonstrations against the presence of United States bases in our country had angered some very powerful Greeks who had until now been somewhat moderate. My friend thought some of the Americans might have gone too far in trying to pressure certain Greeks.”
“Do you think, Alexi, that Walsh’s death was part of an organized effort to get the Greek government to close the American bases?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps Mr. Walsh and his people made enemies within the present government itself. Unless we catch the assailants or some radical group claims responsibility for the killing, I think it is very likely that we will never know what the real motive was.”
“I don’t agree at all,” the rector said. “The shooting sounds like the desperate act of common criminals to me. If the press would not confuse the issue by writing all this nonsense about our country’s anti-Americanism then the police would be fully supported by the people in their job of capturing the murderers.”
“Were there more than one?” Theo asked.
“The radio report did not make it clear,” Jackson said, “and our people at the embassy didn’t seem to know for sure when they called me, but from what few details we have it sounds like a well planned and well executed attack.”
“When they catch the murders they should simply shoot them and be done with it,” the rector’s wife declared with absolute conviction.
“Wouldn’t that be just what the Colonels would have done?” the orchestra director asked. “Do we really want to go back to that kind of life?”
“Of course not,” she responded, a little less convincingly and looking quickly across the table at her husband before going on, “but with such gangsterism I don’t think we should be lenient. It only encourages the communists and the other troublemakers and it makes us look bad in the eyes of the other democracies of the world.”
“Maybe we should be worried about the kind of country we are becoming rather than what other countries think of us,” the violinist added in a quiet voice.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” her husband said. “If we dispense with the often lengthy process of the courts and just let the police punish people we are no better than a police state, and maybe Mr. Walsh’s death is a more complicated matter than any of us knows and maybe his killers were even acting under orders from a foreign government -- we don’t know, but I think it is best for us to have a thorough investigation and a fair trial before we decide the fate of anyone. Why else did we get rid of the Colonels and their regime?”
“Perhaps because the Americans no longer were as happy with them in power as they once were,” Alexi responded. “Perhaps we are not as real a democracy as we like to believe.”
By the time the dessert and coffee were served Jackson had turned the conversation to other matters and the tension in the room had substantially diminished, but most of the guests started leaving soon afterward and Jackson made no great effort to detain them. Talya and I were the last to go and we agreed on the way home that he had looked relieved to finally have that particular dinner party come to an end.
The next day he telephoned me at the office and asked if I would do him a favor. He said the embassy people in Athens had received several tips about the Walsh killing and one of them led very specifically to the University of Thessaloniki. He wanted me to keep my eyes and ears open and let him know if I found anything that might seem helpful. It was presented as a casual request and I saw no immediate conflict of interest with my lecturing responsibilities so I told him I’d do it. Then he asked if I’d like
to go to Cyprus for a week.
“The American Center in Nicosia, on the Greek side of the Green Line of course, has been closed since the Turks took over the north. It’s our educational and cultural office on the island -- we have a small library of American books and magazines and a few professional journals -- and we’d like to open it up again now that things have settled down a bit. Our ambassador there had requested an American to give a public lecture in the Center -- on a subject of his own choosing, of course, although our people there would like to be advised of the topic well enough in advance so that they can print up posters and get notices of the talk into the newspapers and on the radio beforehand -- and maybe even a lecture or two in some of the smaller cities if that can be arranged. I’m afraid Talya couldn’t go with you -- it would be a testing of the waters, an attempt to see if Greek Cypriot public opinion toward us has calmed down enough for us to become a visible presence there again at this time, and our people there don’t think it’d be a good idea for the lecturer to bring along any family. Want me to call the USIA people over there and set it up?”
I told him I was flattered and would very much like to go; I also knew Talya would be disappointed at being excluded from the trip, but his reasons seemed sound so I didn’t press him on the matter. When I asked if Theo would be going to lecture there as well, he said no, Theo’s area of expertise was not exactly what our people on Cyprus thought the Greek Cypriots would be interested in at this point. He said he’d get back to me in a few days with specific dates and times and I could give him my lecture topic then.
After he’d hung up I tried to call Talya to give her the news, but there was no answer so I told her about it that evening when I got home. She was disappointed for herself but quite happy that at least I would get to go. She said she would keep busy by playing tennis with Marika at the club and eating huge lunches at Olympus Naoussa while I was away. Two weeks later as I was about to land at the Larnica airport in Cyprus -- the Turks had taken over the Nicosia airport and it was not on their side of the U.N. - patrolled Green Line -- I remembered that I had forgotten to tell Talya that night about the favor Jackson had asked of me before he offered me the Cyprus trip.
As I stepped onto the tarmac I was greeted by the American Public Affairs Officer, another senior State Department person on the island, and two large young men with very short haircuts and very well-tailored dark suits. The five of us were ushered into a waiting black limousine by another young man with a crew-cut whose shoulder holster was just barely visible for a moment beneath his jacket as he adjusted himself behind the wheel and then drove us very rapidly and efficiently from Larnaca to the Sunset Hotel in Nicosia. Along the way the PAO pointed out a few of the sights and gave me a printed copy of my schedule for what appeared to be a hectic five day stay. The man from the State Department was pleasant but he seemed to be nervous about my being there. He kept checking a small map of the island that was open on his lap and then he’d glance at the two young Marines in civilian clothes who weren’t driving to make sure they were watching both sides of the road as we moved toward the capital.
At the hotel the PAO helped me check in and then walked with me to the door of my room.
“I’m sorry about the need for the security. I know it can be disconcerting. We can’t afford to have any incidents right now so we’ve decided to err on the side of caution with your visit. We’ve received no threats or anything, in case you were wondering, but we’ve picked up rumblings from some of the more influential Greeks here that they feel you’re being invited at this time -- so soon after the Turkish invasion -- is insulting. They feel we did nothing to safeguard them from the Turks and now we have the nerve to expect them to come and listen to an American talk about something as currently irrelevant as literature when most of them are still recovering from having lost relatives and friends and, in many cases, their home and their livelihood. They’ve got a point of course, but our State Department people want to get back in business here again and it was decided that some very low-key educational or cultural event would be the best way to re-open the doors. I hope Ron Jackson told you most of this already.”
“Well, he gave me a general idea of the situation. Who will be at the public lecture in the Center tomorrow night?”
“To be honest, we’re not sure. We’ve put notices in the paper and we’ve put up posters around town, but I don’t expect too many people will come in off the street. Printed invitations went out to all the leading artists, writers, and other intellectuals in the Greek Cypriot community and all the important politicians have received personal invitations from our State Department, but we just don’t know how many will show up. Our own small diplomatic crowd will be here, of course, but aside from that it’s all guesswork. You obviously shouldn’t take it personally if the audience is rather sparse -- just your public presence at the Center will be an important breakthrough for us at this stage of events.”
“No problem. My ego can handle it, but it would be nice if a few people came who were interested in the topic as well. Thanks for clarifying all this, though. I appreciate it.”
“Just part of the job. I’ll let you get some rest now. There’ll be a car here for you at seven in the morning and you’ll be having an early breakfast with some of the foreign press and then there’s an interview to be taped for one of the radio shows -- it’s all on your schedule. See you tomorrow morning.”
The room was large and airy and the window afforded a view of some gently rolling hills off to the west. After unpacking my one suitcase and washing up a little I pulled the armchair close to the window and looked over the schedule and the accompanying road map I’d been given in the car, the map a thoughtful gesture on someone’s part to help orient me to the island as a whole even though the schedule made it clear that I would be spending most of my time right in Nicosia. I traced our route from Larnaca to the capital and then moved my finger due east to the port of Famagusta, along a line that some enterprising soul in the USIA offices had marked with bright green indelible ink from a broad-tipped pen. Near the southernmost tip of the island, as far from the northern Turkish part as it was possible to get, I noted the British military base of Akrotiri. As I studied the map I realized how devastating the Turkish move had been to the Greeks; cutting Nicosia in two and taking important towns and ports and most of the high ground had left the Turks, both militarily and economically, a potentially advantageous position in the north. The Greeks, south of the U.N.’s Green Line, had enough land, but it was not the most usable land on the island and in a strategic sense they were not in very good shape. As I turned to my schedule I wondered if the British were considering the possibility of their Akrotiri ever becoming the vestigial appendage similar to our Guantanamo.
Breakfast the next morning turned out to be more than I had anticipated. The food was good and the coffee strong, but it was the antagonism of one of the reporters that surprised me and served to prepare me for the day. We sat at a large round table in the dining room of a nondescript house that served as the city’s Press Club and we drank Bloody Mary’s to get the heart started at that ungodly hour, as the Reuters man laughingly explained it to me. Most of the newspaper people were noncommittal or friendly, asking me innocuous questions about the talk I would be giving or what I thought of Cyprus so far, more interested in the free meal and the booze than in me or the lecture, but the Russian from the Novosti Press Agency, a large grey-bearded man named Karkov, was a different matter. He listened to the usual questions from his colleagues and then, in a deep and commanding voice edged with sarcasm, he began to ask his own questions and I was glad no State or USIA people had felt it necessary to be around for the breakfast.
“Do you really believe these people need an American civilian to tell them about violence in modern literature right now? Don’t you think they have seen enough violence to last them several lifetimes?”
“I’m sure they have and I’m not here to play the expert about t
heir recent suffering. I’m an academic and I’m here to give a talk on a specific academic subject. Me being invited here may have been lousy timing, but there may be a few people hereabouts who might be interested, from a literary point of view, in what I have to say. At least I hope there is.”
“Do you agree with your government’s reaction -- pardon me, I should have said lack of reaction -- to the recent hostilities here on Cyprus?”
“I don’t know a great deal about the history of this place so my opinion can hardly be considered a well-informed one, but my personal response to the invasion was one of disgust and anger. I have no knowledge of what the political or military constraints on my government may have been or may still be, but my initial reaction was that NATO should have done more than it did at the time.”
“Don’t you think your country’s inactivity reflects a serious failure to support her allies in time of trouble?”
“Perhaps, but when a nation finds itself caught between two of her allies her extrication is not a simple thing and mutually contradicting defense pacts and treaties are of little help.”
“Some people on Cyprus are very angry at your government and they find your being here at this time to be a further insult to their previous faith in Washington as a reliable friend. How do you respond to such charges?”
“So far I have only heard them from you, sir, but my response, in any case, would be as follows: I am here as a private citizen of my country, free to say what I please even though my invitation comes from and my stay is paid for by an agency of my government, and I would hope that most people would be perceptive enough to be able to distinguish between a nation’s government and her individual citizens.”
“Do you really believe there are still important distinctions to be drawn between them any longer in your country?”
I was beginning to have serious doubts about one or two areas, but this was hardly the time to admit them.
“Yes, I most certainly do.”
Karkov started to ask another question but the Reuters correspondent intervened, handing me a newspaper.
“Have you seen this morning’s local paper? The editorial page is given over to an open letter addressed to you, signed by three of the island’s most important writers, asking you how your government can be so insensitive to Greek Cypriot needs as to send you to Cyprus to talk about violence when only a short time ago they blatantly refused to send anyone to help stem the tide of Turkish violence that swept over the Greek community here.”
There was silence around the table as I read the letter to myself. It wasn’t very long, but it was passionate, well written, and to the point. It asked me not to take it as a personal insult that they would not be attending my talk that night; they could not, in good conscience, support any event sponsored by my government at this time of Greek Cypriot disaster. I recognized one of the three names, a poet whose work I greatly admired.
“That’s quite a letter.” It had been a long time since I had been ashamed of anything and now that was all mixed up with a growing anger, all of which I tried to hold in check for the moment. “I think it makes a valid point.”
I wondered why I always seemed to be defending my country when I was in some foreign land, even with such insipid and obvious comments as that last, when at home I was always so quick to be cleverly critical.
“Don’t you think the letter makes a good case for the ineptness of your country’s foreign policy?” Karkov asked.
“I think the letter makes an excellent case for the need for intelligent differentiation between a nation’s particular government and her people. I think only a blind ideologue or a very stupid propagandist would read it much differently.”
Before anyone could ask anymore questions I gulped the last of my coffee and rose to leave, having decided that a hostile environment brought out the worst as well as the best in some people, but Karkov managed a parting shot that found its mark.
“Wouldn’t you agree, sir, that your coming to Cyprus now is the act of a very naïve man?”
“Quite probably, sir, but this is one man who will never again be naïve about informal breakfast press conferences.”
Even Karkov managed a small smile as I shook hands all around and left the room. Once in the car and on my way to the radio station I had a few minutes to think about how I might have handled the whole thing with more wit and style, but my strongest regret was that I’d taken Jackson up on his offer in the first place, never even considering the inappropriateness of the topic I’d so blithely proposed nor bothering to think about the truly pathetic nature of the timing of my visit. Most of my anger was directed inward, but I saved a little for Jackson and his agency. I’d jumped at the chance of a free trip to Cyprus, almost no questions asked -- blow in my professional ear and I’ll follow you to any foreign country -- but the USIA knew the situation here and they’d conveniently left out the details when Jackson had made his pitch. I didn’t think very highly of myself at the moment and I wasn’t especially enamored of America’s official overseas representatives either. Karkov may have been a nasty bastard, I decided, but he was definitely no dummy.
The taping for the radio station was conducted without incident, the interviewer a bright and very personable woman who was thoroughly conversant with the literature of both my country and her own and whose main purpose during our conversation was to reveal to her listeners my particular approach to that literature. The session lasted about two hours and it was as intellectually stimulating as any seminar I’d ever been in; I was sorry to have it end but at least I left the studio feeling a little better about myself than when I had gone in.
I had an early lunch at the hotel and, as the car would not be back to pick me up until it was time for dinner, I walked into the center of the city to see what downtown Nicosia was like. Traffic at that hour was light, most of the cars picking their way carefully through the large potholes of rubble left as witness to the recent fighting. Blue and white jeeps, each flying the United Nations flag and carrying two soldiers wearing the bright orange jump-suits of the peace-keeping force, patrolled the streets closest to the remains of one of the city’s oldest walls. The supposedly neutral Green Line ran parallel to that wall as it wound through the city and the jeeps moved slowly and deliberately along it, stopping to cross over into the Turkish sector every so often at blasted stone buildings that served as checkpoints and re-emerging on the Greek side after a while, their hood-mounted machineguns covered with white tarpaulin sleeves looking dangerous even in repose. I watched the activity at one of the crossings from my seat at a nearby cafe as the sky darkened and a few drops spattered on the round metal table in front of me. In a short time the rain cloud passed and the afternoon sun returned, throwing the brightly painted jeeps and highly visible U.N. soldiers into stark relief against the dark and crumbling stone of the old wall whenever a patrol came into view. I had seen enough of the city to know it was, at least for the present, a depressing place to be. Many of the shops were still closed and those that were open appeared to be ill-stocked and doing a poor business, although a few of the cafes seemed to be the exception. I contented myself with a cold lager and the passing scene for the rest of the afternoon.
Dinner with the PAO and his family was a hurried affair; his wife had obviously been briefed on the need to get me back to town, about three miles away, in time for the eight o’clock lecture and their two sons cooperated by bolting the meal in a matter of minutes and retiring to another part of the house to watch a favorite television program. The three of us arrived at the American Center just ten minutes before the scheduled starting time, but as we walked into the semi-circular room with its banked rows of modern and comfortable-looking seats I could tell we needn’t have rushed. We walked down the thickly carpeted aisle and one of the young men who had ridden with us from the airport showed us to seats in the front row. Directly in front of us on a temporary wooden platform was a lectern with a microphone and a
small reading light attached and a pitcher of water and a glass set off to one side.
I walked up to the lectern to place on it the notes I would need and in the process I glanced up at the small auditorium with what I hoped would be taken for casual and unobtrusive curiosity. There were probably about three hundred seats in the room and no more than fifty were occupied at that point and that included the group of ten or fifteen well-dressed people who sat together in the center of the first few rows and who quite clearly represented the small diplomatic community the PAO had mentioned. Not exactly a sight to thrill and delight your average speaker, I thought, but as I shuffled a few sheets of paper and poured half a glass of water from the pitcher I saw people coming in, singly and in groups of three or four, through the two main street-level doors at the back of the room. Most of them moved slowly, as if they were hesitant about committing themselves, still not sure about whether they should be there or not, and I tried not to stare as they made up their minds and chose their seats.
I placed my watch on the lectern -- noting that it was already 8:10 -- and turned on the reading light, smiling faintly as I adjusted its metal shade, hoping my stalling was not too transparent. When I returned to my seat next to the PAO and his wife it looked as if a third of the seats were occupied; with my back to the audience for the next few minutes I couldn’t tell what was happening so when the PAO had completed his introduction and I walked back to the lectern amidst the polite applause I was surprised to see that the room was at least two thirds filled. I had begun twenty minutes later than planned but maybe the extra time had allowed some of the undecided to give the evening a try.
As I warmed to my subject and began to get that wholly satisfying feeling that comes when you can sense that your audience is listening hard and you know you still have something worthwhile left to say, just at that point I had the eerie sensation that I was hemmed in, surrounded by something that put me at risk, something malignant and suffocating that only heightened what I’d always considered to be a mild and usually controllable claustrophobia in myself. A glance up at the audience revealed the source of the sensation. Between the last row of seats and the stark white rear wall, about six feet apart and dominating the auditorium from its highest point, stood a dozen black-suited young men. Each remained motionless except for an occasional turning of the head and each looked impassive yet vigilant, like a line of crows perched on a roadside telephone wire who are waiting and watching for the next road-kill before swooping down to feast. They stood at a modified kind of military attention, their arms held loosely at their sides, and when I looked up again I had the fleeting impression that it was all a bad 1940’s western and I was facing twelve guys who were about to out-draw me and leave my bleeding body in the dusty street at high noon.
I managed to get through the rest of the lecture without any additional distractions and the final applause sounded enthusiastic enough -- at such times I invariably recalled a colleague who maintained that such displays of appreciation were as often motivated by relief as by enthusiasm for the presentation -- but I couldn’t help feeling that my sudden realization that the Marines had landed had taken the fine edge off an otherwise decent talk. Nobody who came up to me afterwards seemed to mind, however, least of all the PAO who was all smiles and relieved laughter as he pumped my hand vigorously.
“Well, I’d say you more than earned whatever honorarium we’re paying you. That was a fine talk and I’d call it an unusually fine turnout. My sincere thanks.”
It was after ten by the time we got out of the Center and past midnight by the time I finally got back to my hotel, feeling drained and vaguely uneasy about my role in bringing anything even marginally American to the people of Cyprus. I didn’t sleep very well that second night on the island.
The next two days were spent giving after-luncheon or after-dinner talks to various civic groups in Larnaca and Nicosia and doing a little sightseeing in between, almost always in the company of either the PAO or one of the security men. On the final night of my stay there was nothing planned so I told my hosts I’d have dinner in the hotel, pack, and get to bed early in preparation for my flight the next morning back to Greece. The meal and the packing were finished sooner than I expected so I walked downtown in search of a nightcap and a last look at the city. I settled on the same café by the old wall that I had been to a few days earlier; the weather had turned cooler after dark so I sat at an inside table this time and ordered the same Danish lager I had had there before. I was just finishing it and about to get up and pay when two U.N. soldiers wearing sidearms and pale blue berets came in, looked around at all the other crowded tables, and then walked over to mine.
“Do you mind if we share your table? We are on patrol break and we have only fifteen minutes for some coffee,” one of them said in carefully perfect English.
“Of course, please do.”
They looked like brothers, both blonde and blue-eyed and about the same age, and the one who hadn’t asked about the table now pointed to my beer bottle.
“Do you like such beer? We also are Danish, friends from the same street in Copenhagen, and now we do our service here for one more month and then we go back to Denmark. You do not live here, do you?”
“No, I’m just a visitor, an American living in Greece who came here only for a few days. I go back to Greece tomorrow morning.” I introduced myself as a waiter came to the table. They ordered two extra-large containers of coffee and two pieces of baklava.
“My name is Hans and this is Peter. He is correct about our going home soon, but it is only twenty-eight days after tonight’s patrol.”
“You sound as though you’ll be happy to leave here.”
“We will be very happy to get home. Six months on patrol duty with the United Nations is very boring and nobody likes you very much. The Turks are angry at us because we came here at all. They would like us to go so they can take over the rest of Cyprus, I believe.”
“I think so also,” Peter added. “We always have more trouble from them. People back in Copenhagen will think we are liars when we tell them how the Turks are, how they live. It is a good thing that all soldiers in our group must leave and go to another assignment after six months. Even that amount of time is too much for some of us. We are not accustomed to such dirt and such brutality. The Greek girls are friendly to us sometimes, but we are not supposed to go with them in public and we are warned every week by our commanding officer not to be friendly to any Turkish woman. Last month a U.N. soldier -- he was not a Dane -- was found dead in the house of a Turkish woman he had been seeing very often. They had cut off his penis and his testicles and put them in his mouth. We must be so careful here that it is not much fun for us. I’ll be glad to see my girlfriend at home again. I think we might get married.”
“What is it you actually do here -- when you’re working, I mean?” I asked.
“We go out on eight hour patrols, two men to a vehicle,” Hans said, “and for every two hours on duty we get a fifteen minute break when we must be out of the vehicle. Peter and I can usually arrange to go on patrol together because we have been here so long and we know the sergeant who makes the patrol list. We have a sector given to us each time and the sectors are rotated among the different countries who make up the peace-keeping force. That is so we don’t get too familiar with the people in one sector and start to relax the rules. We drive along the Green Line -- you know what that is? -- and make sure the terms of the cease-fire are being carried out by both sides. We make sure no weapons are being fired, no buildup of troops is taking place, no fortifications or other buildings are being put up within five hundred meters of the line.”
“What do you do if you find that the rules are being broken?”
“Sometimes we talk to them, if it is a small matter. If it is a serious problem we call our headquarters and high-ranking officers come to settle the issue,” Peter said.
“We have pistols and machine-gun and they are al
ways loaded with live ammunition when we are on patrol,” Hans said, “but we almost always use the radio. The jeeps are really complete communications vehicles -- we can contact our headquarters or any of the other nation’s headquarters in just a few seconds. Once in a while a patrol is fired on, but it is usually because the Turks think it is a Greek vehicle or they are just so drunk or so bored they decide to try to scare us. Sometimes it is more serious and several U.N. soldiers have been killed.”
“To die on this island is a stupid thing,” Peter said. “Hans and I know some of the Turks at the major crossings and we try to be as friendly as possible, but sometimes it is very difficult. We are really like policemen and nobody here likes policemen very much, especially the Turks. Have you ever been to one of the checkpoints?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t know foreigners were allowed to cross the line.”
“They are not,” Hans said, “but if you were with us I do not believe there would be any problem, at least not with the Greeks, and we could arrange something on the Turkish side. Would you like to try it?”
I had been anticipating a quiet night’s sleep and the suggestion took some getting used to.
“It sounds interesting, but wouldn’t you get into trouble? I’m sure you’re not allowed to transport foreign civilians across the cease-fire zone. And it might be complicated for me, as well, if I got caught by either side. You see, I’m just a guest of the American government and my government is just a guest of the Greeks on this island. Any incident might be embarrassing, to say the least.”
“We could always say you needed our help for some reason and we gave you a ride. We are free to do such things in the name of keeping the peace. No, we would not get into any trouble,” Hans said. “I do not know about your own government, however.”
I considered some of the possibilities and they all seemed to indicate that I’d be better off going straight back to the Sunset Hotel, but then I remembered how casually -- albeit graciously -- I’d been used on this little island excursion and how upset I’d been at not being told beforehand about that ominous line of bodyguards at the lecture. I decided the Danes looked competent enough to pull it off.
“How much longer do you have on this patrol?” I asked Hans as I indicated to a passing waiter that I wanted the check for the pastry and coffee as well as my beer.
“Four more hours with one more break. We can take the rest period at a place on the Turkish side that is really something to see. I think you should come along. These patrols are usually very boring for us -- getting you across and back would break the monotony for us and you would see a part of Cyprus most people do not see these days, even if it is in the dark. We should have you back before two in the morning.”
“Okay, I’d like to go with you. Let’s have a look at your jeep and figure out how I can fit in.” I paid the bill and we walked out to the curb.
It was a modified version of the vehicles I’d been watching that first afternoon at the café. The white canvas top was up to keep out the evening chill and the rear seat had been removed and replaced by a modern radio and loudspeaker system that took up all but a few feet of the available space. There were canvas tarps thrown over the machinery to protect it and two green raincoats and some rags on the floor space that was left; there were the usual two seats in front of the standard machinegun mounted on the hood and I couldn’t see where I was going to ride. I looked quizzically at the two Danes.
“You will have to ride in front if you are to see anything so you must stay between the seats,” Hans said, “with your knees up so that Peter can shift. It will be crowded but we will always drive very slowly and the distances are very short. When we cross the line and have to talk to the Turkish guards I think it will be better if you are in the back, hiding under the raincoats and canvas covers. That way we will not have to do any explaining. Once we get by the guards, going over and coming back, you can get into the front again with us. I do not believe the Turks on the other side will ask any questions about you once we clear the checkpoints, as long as you are with us.”
I squatted with my back pressed tightly against the metal transmitter and we drove toward the wall as the nearly full moon came out from behind a passing cloud. Both Peter and Hans had their side windows down so I could get a good view of the Greek checkpoint as we approached it. A stone house with one of its walls missing served as the official guardhouse, but the soldiers on duty lounged in front of it, leaning on a blue and white striped wooden pole that could be raised and lowered manually to control the automobile traffic along the narrow road that ran north into the Turkish sector. Peter stopped and Hans greeted one of the guards in Greek as he ambled over, rifle slung on his shoulder and a lighted cigarette in the hand he used to casually wave us through. As we moved slowly past the raised barrier one of the other guards looked at me with what I thought was something more than mild curiosity, but Hans and Peter both waved their thanks and there were no cries to halt. Just out of sight of the Greek guardhouse, at a slight bend in the road, we stopped again and I got in the back, Hans covering me as best he could with the tarps and raincoats and rags. I huddled beneath my oily-smelling protection, having some second thoughts about the wisdom of the whole thing, as the jeep started to move again. A few minutes later we slowed for what I assumed was the Turkish checkpoint.
“Be very quiet,” I heard Hans whisper, “and very still. They may look in the back if there is an officer on duty.”
I felt the instant indigestion and breathlessness that I recognized as my initial symptoms of sudden fear. The scrotum-tightening that always accompanied outright panic didn’t materialize, however, and my mind was able to fashion at least one coherent thought: neither Hans nor Peter had bothered to mention this possibility.
We stopped and I heard Peter talking to someone in English and Hans talking to someone else on the other side of the car in what sounded like halting Turkish. I couldn’t concentrate on either conversation because someone else seemed to be tapping on the body of the jeep with something made of metal, an irregular probing sound that seemed to move toward the rear of the vehicle. My head was covered with one of the raincoats, pressed up against the communications equipment, and a slant of bright light suddenly pierced my darkness. I fought to keep the panic at bay, to remain motionless, and I knew from my dizziness that I must have been holding my breath ever since Hans’ whispered warning. I felt something stabbing at the pile under which I lay and, then, as suddenly as it had come, the light was gone and the probing ceased. I had to urinate so badly I thought my bladder would burst. There was a babble of voices from the front of the jeep and then we started moving again. I let myself start to shake as I threw off my covering and gulped for air.
The jeep halted a few minutes later and Hans came back and helped me out, still less than steady on my feet as I inhaled the cool night air.
“That was more difficult than we expected.” he said in a sincerely apologetic voice. “The guards we know had been replaced by new ones and a young lieutenant was with them. He knew he was allowed to inspect any vehicle that came through this checkpoint, even one of ours, and he had one of his men look in the back with a flashlight and a bayonet. I do not know what he was looking for but I think we were lucky he didn’t find you. He looked a very unpleasant person.”
“Can we cross at a different point on the way back?”
“Yes, I believe that would be the best thing to do. Are you ready to go on?”
“Okay, but I can do without any more surprises.”
Sitting up front now felt like a form of liberation. The temperature had dropped but the sky was clear and in the moonlight I could make out the stucco and stone houses and the wooden shepherds’ huts we passed as we drove slowly north for about a kilometer and then turned east to follow the U.N.-established line toward Famagusta on the coast. The road was little more than a dirt track and after passing through several small villages Peter suggested we stop for a br
eak at a place they knew that was popular with the Turkish checkpoint guards.
It was a large house just off the track and it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, not another light to be seen in any direction. It looked like it had once been the home of someone wealthy; there were mature trees that protected the house from the weather on three sides, the spacious front porch had four stone columns rising to support what appeared to be a large wooden balcony on the second floor that opened onto several wide-windowed bedrooms, and the roof was slanted in the European style rather than flat as were the roofs of most of the other Cypriot dwellings I’d seen.
We parked directly in front and Hans led the way into the house. The Turks had obviously taken over the place after the invasion and, without doing a thing on the outside to indicate what was going on in the inside, had turned it into their version of a battlefield bar-cum-dance hall-cum-brothel. The high ceilinged front room was a mess; the wall-papered walls were spattered with blood and beer and the smell of urine and vomit was almost intolerable, the wooden furniture was broken and splintered and the overstuffed pieces were ripped open and the wool and coiled springs were scattered haphazardly over the floor, and the long wooden dining room table that served as the bar had as many broken beer and whisky bottles on it as whole ones. The floor was tiled but so covered with dirt and debris that moving across it was an effort and the ten or fifteen solders and male civilians in sight who were drinking or dancing with the five or six women who were visible in the meager light from two large table lamps seemed to be oblivious to the chaos as they stumbled about.
I watched that scene as our eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Men would lurch off into another room with one of the women or with each other and small arguments or fistfights would erupt and then die down in what appeared to be a wave-like sequence, the sour smell of sweat and violence washing over the room and then slowly receding, only to return again a few moments later. Several Turks were passed out against the walls, broken or spilled bottles at their feet, their clothes in disarray and soaked with booze or their own sickness. Bazouki music came from a portable radio on the marble mantelpiece of a large fireplace. Peter and Hans moved toward the makeshift bar and I followed.
The smell was slightly less overwhelming -- and the light even dimmer -- in a corner near the unused fireplace so we moved there after Hans had paid for the ouzo. One or two soldiers seemed interested enough to stare our way every so often, but nobody seemed sober enough to focus for very long and whenever a particularly aggressive Turk would stagger over, either Hans or Peter would say something I couldn’t understand and then smile or laugh out loud and the man would eventually stagger way. There were no chairs to sit on so people simply used the littered floor, leaning their backs against a wall or a broken piece of furniture as they stood, many of them resting on their rifles, their free hands wrapped around a glass or dangling from the shoulder of one of the women. When shouting would break out or a scuffle develop, most people would move toward the disturbance, like moths seeking the heat and light of the flame that would consume them, but the three of us would edge away from the action as inconspicuously as possible. Someone turned up the radio even louder and one of the dancing couples fell against a sergeant with an impressive handle-bar moustache and several yellow hash-marks on the right sleeve of his fatigue jacket. He swung his left arm in an attempt to retain his balance and it caught the woman on the side of the head, knocking her down but certainly not hurting her very much. From where I stood it was simply a reflex action with no malice intended, but her partner saw it differently. As the woman went down and the sergeant regained his balance the man awkwardly pulled a .45 from an already opened leather holster at his side and, yelling something loud enough to be heard above the din of the music, drew down on the sergeant. Before he could fire someone else brought a broken chair leg down on the man’s head from behind. He crumpled instantly, blood gushing from his scalp and covering his face in a matter of seconds. The woman stood up, looked down at her partner without any recognition, and wandered away to another soldier on the other side of the room. The sergeant looked at the man who had wielded the chair leg, didn’t seem to be able to place him, and turned back to his previous conversation with no sign that he’d been disturbed in the slightest by the incident. Nobody bothered with the man on the floor and the other dancers went on dancing, stepping around him as the frenzied music continued unabated.
After a while Peter handed me another ouzo and pointed to a doorway leading to the interior of the house. We made our way in that direction, the Danes smiling and nodding in a friendly way and me doing my best to emulate them. We passed through the doorway and along a dark corridor and as we came to one of the rooms off the hallway its door opened and a soldier stumbled out, fumbling with the buttons on his fatigue pants, and brushed past us on his way to the front room. He’d left the door partly open and the three of us bunched together to look in when Peter stopped and indicated we should do so. There was a single bare bulb hanging from a cord in what at one time must have been a small pantry. Spread-eagled across a waist-high butcher-block table, face-down with his buttocks at the table edge and his feet planted firmly on the floor, his fatigues and green underpants down around his ankles, a soldier was being sodomized by one of his colleagues as two others waited their turn; I could see that one of those waiting was the sergeant with the impressive moustache and just as Hans indicated with silent gestures that we’d better move on I realized that nobody in the room was physically forcing the soldier on the table to remain in that position.
The hallway ended at two large wooden doors that opened into a modern kitchen. As we stepped inside we saw why there were only about half a dozen women in the front room. There were blankets and army sleeping bags scattered all over the kitchen floor and at least a dozen women in various stages of undress were ministering to the needs of twice that many men, most of whom seemed barely able to stand. The music from the front hardly reached this back part of the house, but the stench here was even worse. The woman who’d been knocked down by the sergeant was sitting, naked and looking very dazed, under one of the stainless steel sinks against one wall, a faint trickle of blood running down the calf of one bent leg. The three of us backed out of the kitchen and made our way back to the front room, Peter pointing out the closed pantry door as we passed it. At the bar there were two people facing each other, one a soldier and one a civilian, with drawn knives and a crowd was forming around them. I decided that I’d seen enough of the Turkish side of the line and motioned to Peter and Hans that I wanted to leave. As we stepped off the porch into our jeep somebody turned the radio up even louder and there was the crashing sound of breaking glass to be heard above the manic bazouki.
I squatted in the front, feeling almost no discomfort thanks to the ouzos and my relief at getting out of there with all parts intact and in relatively good working order. Peter and Hans were very happy that I’d seen the place and they laughed a lot as Peter drove back toward Nicosia. Hans said we would cross at a checkpoint where there was usually only one guard, but he still thought it best that I hide in the back until we got through. I did so and we passed into Greek territory again without any problems. They dropped me at my hotel and we exchanged home addresses before I thanked them and they drove off, my thirst for excitement quite slaked for the evening.
On my flight back to Greece the next morning I looked down on the divided island as the plane lifted off the runway and banked to the north, climbing slowly as it passed over the length of Cyprus and headed northwest toward the mainland. There was nothing to indicate the manmade Green Line from that height; off to the south I could make out the town of Limassol and the base at Akrotiri in the morning haze, two places I had vague regrets about not having visited, but I had had only a few days and what little I’d seen had left an indelible impression. I doubted that I’d rush to come back again if the opportunity ever presented itself, and knowing that was so brought on a feeling of s
adness; so many things to choose to experience in a lifetime and so often the choice was based on so little evidence. I tried to catch up on some much-needed sleep as the land below gave way to water and the plane droned on toward Thessaloniki.