There is nothing so disturbing as brutalist architecture backing up against renovated tradition. Like Zagreb, Tirana has created a face of culture and beauty, but the beauty is literally only a block deep. Move far enough into the center of town and you’ll be lost in mammoth uncompromising gray structures giving no clue to or indication of their purpose. I was determined to stay in the improved section of town. To distract Nic during the plane flight, I read “After years of being closed to the world during the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, Tirana seems to have become the glittering beacon of a brand-new Albania.” All well and good, but we had to get to Saranda from here and to play the average Odyssey Cruise guests. And I look nothing like the slender winsome Cindy. I figured I’d deal with that discrepancy when or if I was challenged.
“Not close at all.” I continued to read, studying, and reading between the lines. Cruise ships routinely dock at Saranda. And they would need buses to take them to Butrint. If Cindy could hitchhike on a cruise ship, Nic and I could certainly sneak aboard a tour bus.
The taxi to the hotel was typical in that we experienced a half dozen near accidents on the way. I wondered if that car Matt had been passenger in had a near miss; was that why the police pulled them over? I couldn’t believe that even at the tender age of sixteen, Matt didn’t understand about open containers. I needed more time with that boy.
The hotel was appropriately solid and comforting. I had booked one room for the two of us, it would look odd if I hadn’t. Not that we took advantage. We were both too distracted by all the recent events and fell into bed like a married couple: we stared into our phones until we fell asleep.
I planned to take one of the first buses leaving for Saranda. Nic could barely get out of bed, but he did it. “Why are you punishing me?” He groaned and staggered to the bathroom.
“Why not?”
I was confident that a mere eight-hour bus ride would be a piece of cake. Not really. By the time we reached Saranda I was not confident that my poor numb butt would ever recover. Nic could barely disembark. We were in no shape to do much of anything except to find a place to stay in Saranda before, we hoped, hooking up with a tour group.
Saranda is a resort on the Albanian Riviera; in fact, you can ride a ferry from Corfu to Saranda, they are that close. Back in the bad old communist days, government officials convinced the good people of Saranda that the bad people of Corfu were on the verge of invading. Possibly this weekend. Better be prepared. If you’ve visited Corfu, then visited Albania, you’d know how ridiculous that claim is.
In a fit of romance and self-preservation I looked up Trip Advisor and, based on little more than a glamour shot of the beach, chose the Hotel Piccolino.
We checked into a decidedly less glamorous room than the night before. The bed looked just adequate. I missed those days when beds, rooms, hot water didn’t matter. When reclining seats and leg room did not matter. When a bus was a fine and reasonable way to travel. Not anymore.
I changed into one of Betsy Johnson’s more sedate summer dresses, the jagged hem both revealing and concealing, which I thought a good idea, at my age a flash of leg was quite enough. “Let’s go to the beach.”
I didn’t give Nic time to argue that he'd had his fill of sand and going to the beach was a busman’s holiday. A group of tourists clustered at the reception desk as we exited the elevator. Two men, taller than the rest, gazed over the crowd and eyed us. I batted my eyes and leaned into Nic.
“Kiss me,” I whispered.
He turned away from the men and kissed me lightly on the lips. I returned the kiss, moving Nic off to one side, behind a cabinet.
“Two men at the reception desk.” I whispered.
He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “Think those are your purse snatchers?”
I automatically felt for my purse, but I had left it in the room.
“I never saw them. I don’t know.”
He glanced again and I felt his body tighten. “Let’s go to the beach.”
We walked down and out of the hotel to enjoy an almost deserted arch of sand.
It was lovey. Not like the Riviera. But that was okay.
“Why are we here again?” Nic complained.
“Because why else travel to this lovely place?” I waved my hand at the sea and sky. “It has a charm, admit it.”
He grunted. I squeezed his hand. Hard. Clearly it was up to me to keep up the appearance that we were geriatric romantics.
Cindy, even after a lot more wine, had not been much help. She was just a part in the system, her own individual cell. Like any staff working for a corporation she had little concept of the whole of the business. She did not know the mission statement. She just showed up and did her job.
“I made so much money!” She had cried, wiping her eyes on a blackened towel. “I was almost out of debt.”
“Out of debt?”
She nodded. “I owed some people money.”
That was never a good statement to make in Italy.
“And you were almost done?”
“I just had to take one more empty bag to Butrint and bring it back full.”
“To here?”
“To the shop and then I would get my payment.”
That was simple. What had Miranda admitted after the closing scene with Cindy? That she wasn’t the brightest candle in the Murano chandelier?
The question was why.
I asked that out loud as we strolled along the sand. No one could hear us and no one, as far as I could tell, followed. There wouldn’t be any reason to, they knew where we were staying.
But who were they?
“I don’t think it’s a big deal, that’s why.”
“What’s not a big deal? Isn’t trafficking in stolen goods, any stolen goods a big deal?”
He squeezed my hand. “You’ve been out of it for a while.”
“Only five years.” I was defensive, but he was right. I had been out of it, for what felt like a lifetime both in terms of relationships as well as technology. The whole of the Mideast had fallen into chaos since I had lived there. I myself had complained that I had lost more than just those five years between Max and my parents, but I didn’t like it pointed out.
“This is really nothing, a few items, taken from somewhere in Egypt, maybe even someone’s warehouse or attic and brought through poor Albania and sold through a busier port, like Venice. It’s not as if the Venetians don’t know how to do this kind of thing.”
“True.” But that wasn’t all. Miranda didn’t die for a handful of insignificant items. At least I didn’t want to believe she did.
“Then why did you agree to come with me?”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
I blinked but let it stand, I didn’t want to ruin the moment by asking for more explanations.
We dined in the hotel and finally began sharing some of our past, some of ourselves.
When Nic described the past, some of his more successful finds, success that grew as the years passed, his blue eyes lit up, he gestured with his hands and distractedly drew his long fingers through his hair. I just gave in. I gave in to his conversations, our history, and to sharing a bed with him for one more night. We had aged, there was no denying that parts that were once firm were much softer and processes that once were fast and furious had fallen into categories charitably described as slow and languorous. We made love to what we were then, and for just a small moment, what we were today.
I sent Nic down early to fetch coffee. When he returned, he didn’t recognize me, for which I was grateful.
“You look old.”
“Exactly the idea.” I adjusted the wig. The polyester blouse felt odd against my skin. I had so quickly adapted to silk and linen. Fabric makes a difference, the weight of it, the drape of it. I remember trying on a blouse in Target. It was perfect for my new job as caregiver. But the polyester made my skin crawl, the mirror image cried. In the end I just couldn’t buy it. But the same outfit is quite
effective as an invisibility cloak.
Nic was dressed as himself. But that too was the idea. He was the lead, the target, I was the courier, if I could pull it off. We did not know if our contact would be looking for Cindy specifically or just for a lone woman carrying a canvas bag featuring the Odyssey Cruise logo which is just the name Odyssey in serf type. Easy.
I picked up same and draped it over my shoulder along with a large handbag that had forlornly sat in Francisca’s shop for two years.
“You look like one of the horde.” Nic hiked up his jeans and eyed me.
“I’m supposed to. Now, come on, the buses leave at 8:00.”
No matter how much we argued, or how many times Nic searched Google, the only way for us to reach the ruins was by tour bus. We rejected hiring a cab because it would draw too much attention and we’d may be remembered. It was bus or nothing. I was not about to allow Nic to choose nothing.
We paused at the hotel entrance. There were five hotels clustered together. The Odyssey would need to dock out in the deeper water and tender guests into town.
“What are we doing?” Nic whispered.
“Wait for it.” I nudged him towards the entrance to the Hotel Brilliant, (how could it be not?) The hotel, large and commodious also featured western toilets for the ladies.
Sure enough, a bus marked Odyssey pulled up to the hotel, minutes later a stream of ladies exited and rushed into the lobby.
“Now?” Nic asked.
We walked slowly towards the bus, I motioned him to enter; I would wait and board with the first group of ladies, fresh from their comfort stop. At this point no one would count us. Cindy explained that guests were counted as they exited the ship and as they entered the ship, the middle was not as important.
The ladies swooped back, chattering about the hotel, the buffets, the entertainment, I swung in behind them and found an empty seat in the back.
We had one moment when a young woman wearing a name tag marched up and down the bus. She looked straight at me, but her gaze didn’t linger. I smiled, but she had already moved on.
We were off. I turned to my new seatmate. She was roughly my age, but dressed much older.
“You all have the same bag,” I said unnecessarily.
“Oh yes, the cruise director said it would help identify us and get us the cruise bargain.”
It probably alerted the locals that this was a tourist ready for increased prices and decreased courtesy. No harm, no foul, the tourists would be gone in less than three hours, replaced tomorrow by a whole new batch. Customer service is wasted on the transient.
Fortunately for my sore butt, this bus ride was not as long as the first. We bumped through villages packed with three story buildings that had been abandoned at the second story. Every few minutes we were rewarded with a glimpse of the blue sea. Flowers dotted the rolling hills and the air, once we left the edge of the coast, was mild.
We pulled up to the official comfort stop. From there we would walk as a group through the ruins.
Nic disembarked before me. I watched out the window as a half dozen thin boys accosted him waving beads and trinkets. They had picked the wrong man. Nic held up one hand and barked at them. They fell away as if he were Tut come to life. He strode into the rest stop alone. The boys recovered and descended onto a group of ladies. I didn’t know the word Nic used, but I shook my head and strode forward, not looking directly at the children. Some of the ladies were caught in negotiations.
“Six, six US dollars.”
“That is highway robbery, young man.”
“Five fifty, great bargain, you get best price. No one else but me.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
The early stages of commerce are often not smooth.
I had read ahead and offered to lecture Nic, but he resisted my suggestion with a grunt and a hand. “I got it. Ruins. Busman’s holiday.”
Butrint was interesting. The town had been first established as a Greek colony, improved into a Roman city, and finally built out as a Byzantine administration center. It was abandoned in the late Middle Ages. Like Ephesus, the bay, the heart of commerce, had silted up and left the city, high, dry, and irrelevant. It’s easy to make out the layers of building material that represent each epoch. It’s cool
I followed the line of tourists shuffling up and down the slick stone steps of the ruins, griping about the lack of railings. Cake layers of Greek, Roman and medieval buildings greeted us at every turn. I had read that because no one cared for the area for years (and years), much beautiful Roman mosaic flooring was perfect, intact.
Except we couldn’t see them. Every newly discovered floor was quickly hidden again under a thick layer of dirt. A placard with a photo of the floor explained the workmanship and unique patterns of what you were unable to see. The floors were covered in soil so thieves couldn’t chip away at the tiles and spirit them away.
Nic joined me at one of the covered floors. He pulled up and opened his mouth, but I stopped him. “No lectures. I get it.”
He deflated like an illegal hot air balloon over the Valley of the Kings. “Just a few notes?”
I shook my head and adjusted the empty Odyssey bag on my shoulder. We headed into the heart of the ruins to find the park guard.
There were two guards, both dressed in the uniforms of all National Parks all over the world: dull green. A little Max Peters orange would have livened up their ensemble considerably. One guard, an enormous man, completely bald and fierce was busy discouraging people from buying anything in the tiny gift area (little more than a shelf with a few books and five postcards) by refusing to make change. The second guard, just as large as the first, leaned back in a rickety office chair, eyeing the tourists as they paraded through. The chair creaked in pre-splinter anguish.
Was he waiting for Cindy? I kept an eye out for the two men from last night, but did not see them, which meant nothing.
The lounging guard caught my eye and nodded. That was the signal. I stepped around the guard who had been talked into making change after all, and held out (subtly), my empty bag. He in turn held up his enormous hand and shook his head.
“Pink bunker.”
I nodded and walked past him, shuffling through the partially uncovered buildings, the surviving arches of a medieval church, and finally out to the parking lot to once again pass the gauntlet of enterprising urchins.
Nic joined me as we boarded the bus, pretending to introduce himself. He followed me and we sat together in the back.
“I’m your new friend?” I plopped down, empty bag on my lap.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the seat. “The women sitting in the front all wanted to talk.”
“Yes, that’s what we do.”
“I couldn’t handle it, the quizzing, searching information. What do I do? Am I retired, am I married? What deck am I on? Is this my first cruise? Why do your people do this?”
“Because since your people don’t offer it up first, we have to pry it out of you. Like you’re a mysterious dig in the thick rain forests of Peru.” Peru reminded me of Chris, who reminded me that my time was severely limited, Tina and Vince needed to leave on Friday, and it was Tuesday. I pulled out my phone, but there was no service. When we returned to Venice, I would book a flight for that night, so Wednesday, tomorrow, I would be gone.
“It’s exhausting.” He glanced at my bag as our guide walked the aisle counting heads. “Did you get it?”
I shook my head. “He said to check the pink bunker.”
Nic frowned. I shrugged. Our guide, gripping the back of the driver’s seat, announced we would next see something from the communist era.
“Back in the communist regime all Albanians built bunkers on their day off, Sunday. There are about 150,000 bunkers all over our country to protect us against invasion.”
“It must have worked.” Nic said under his breath.
“Shhh.”
“We will stop by the coast to see a good rep
resentation. These bunkers were built between 1960 and 1985.”
“Bunkers,” I repeated. I didn’t say more. And no, I did not raise my hand and ask if some of the bunkers were painted in festive colors (like Lilly Pulitzer pink).
The bus ride to the coast was short. After only about fifteen minutes we again slowly disembarked the bus and were encouraged to explore the coastal bunkers on our own.
“Ten minutes.” The guide called out. “Back on the bus in ten minutes.”
Like a reality game show, ten minutes to spot the pink bunker.
Some bunkers, all round domes, were practical. Many were large cement buildings able to protect a dictator against nuclear attacks if it came to that. These tiny versions scattered all over the rocky beach were only large enough for one, maybe two people if they stayed horizontal. Across the water Corfu glittered invitingly.
I crawled down the slope to the water level and started to wander between the cement domes. The bunkers may have been built in deadly earnest in the 1980s, but the following generation expressed a much different attitude. The bunkers were no longer gray and formidable but covered in neon bright spray paint—here was a Max Peters, Peter Max, Gucci, Pucci extravaganza, exposing the whole thing for what it was—ridiculous.
A few domes were tagged with images that made clear the new purpose of the structures. Many were pink. I glanced at my watch. We only had five more minutes. Nic took the high road and examined each bunker as if he was a professor of archeology. I glanced up from one bunker and noticed that a clutch of three ladies were stalking Nic. I should warn him.
The guide called out—four minutes.
A glowing pink bunker a bit taller than its neighbors loomed up. The top of the dome reached my hip. I glanced around. The ladies were closing in on Nic. The guide was calling out, clearly now, one minute, back on the bus.
After I'm Buried Alive Page 16