Let Slip The Princesses of War

by David Schenck

  Sounds like he just wants me to pay for his trip to visit friends, but whatever. “Deal”

  We start to drive and he starts talking. Really talking. He will not shut up. I quickly learn that he doesn’t need any response from me, so I just let him drone. The traffic is terrible and the promised half hour is up almost before the ministry is out of sight. Eventually, we’re out of the city and the roads start to clear up. We are driving along the sea for a while and I watch the waves and the boats, thinking my thoughts while the driver keeps talking. It’s late June so the sun is still up and the ocean is beautiful and hypnotic.

  After we’ve been on the road for about an hour, the pattern of his talking changes in a way that breaks through my haze. “Almost there he says. This area is part of Megara, my family’s lived in Megara for as long as any. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years. The records only go back so far, but as far back as they go, we’re there! We still have a small farm outside the city. I live in Athens now, it’s a great scandal. I’ll move back one day. But, it’s a small city, it doesn’t have the kinds of opportunity Athens has. My great-grandfather tells me that Megara was once a great city, that we once ruled Athens and Sparta both. The historians don’t say that, the archeologists don’t say that, but in my family we tell the legend of the time when Megara was the greatest city in all of Greece. He tells me this when I’m leaving for Athens, he tells me I should stay in Megara. But, I say, ‘But now, Megara isn’t so great.’ So, he hits me on the back of the head. It doesn’t hurt, he’s old. But still! I’m a grown man, he shouldn’t hit me.”

  I start to tune out again, when he announces, “Here we are! This restaurant is run by my cousin, and before that by my uncle and before him by my grandfather, on the other side, not the hitting side. As long back as anyone can remember. I’ll go in with you and introduce you around. I promise you’ll like it. What’s your name again?

  “Robert, Robert Kakos”

  “Hey” He shouts “Are you Greek? Kakos is a Greek name!”

  “On my father’s side.”

  “Come on! They are going to love you! They don’t get a lot of Americans, and hardly any Americans who are Greek and speak Greek!”

  The place looked ok, it was clearly very old, a little run down, but clean. As he said, you could see the water from the patio and he led me to an empty table. There were a few other tables on the patio and a few groups of people. Everyone was drinking and eating and now, after more than an hour in the cab, I was suddenly very hungry.

  “What do you want to drink? Beer, wine? Ouzo?” I’ll get it for you and bring you a menu!”

  “I’ll have a beer, whatever is good and cold.”

  He goes inside and is back a few minutes later with 2 beers and about a hundred people. He opens a beer and takes a swig, before opening the other for me, then he introduces me to his cousin, his cousin’s wife, kids, mother-in-law, grandmother and various friends. Everyone is friendly and soon my table is full. The beer is cold and good.

  The driver takes a seat and more beers are called for, then ouzo, wine, food. The seafood is, in fact, ridiculously good. I notice the driver drinking and suggest he should take it a little easy since we need to get back to Athens. “Relax, I’ll stop after this drink.” He says swallowing a shot of ouzo and opening a beer. “I’ll be fine in a couple of hours. You Americans are so uptight.”

  I figure if he’s too drunk when we leave, I can always call another cab and he can stay with family.

  We drink, we eat, we sing and dance. He has a pretty cousin (or something) who wants to come to America and asks me lots of questions I don’t mind answering.

  It slips out that it’s my birthday and more drinks are brought out, more toasting, more music. Some kind of pastry with a candle. It is, in fact, a marvelous time.

  It’s a little past midnight when I remember that tomorrow is a workday and suggest to the driver that we should think about heading back to Athens.

  He is clearly too drunk. “Tell you what” he slurs “let’s stay here in Megara tonight and head back early in the morning. We leave here about 6 and I’ll get you back to Athens by 6:30, 6:45. What do you say? I’m too drunk to drive all the way back to Athens. My father’s house is just about 2 miles from here. We can have a last drink and Dorothea,” he nods at his pretty cousin “can drive us in the cab.”

  I can feel myself getting angry, but it slips away. I look over at Dorothea, she is pretty and she seems relatively sober. It’s been a great night, just what I needed, so let the party continue!

  “Ok, sounds good. Will your father mind?”

  “He’s dead, but Mom will be happy to meet you and she’s really got no choice about me!”

  With plans made, we order another round of drinks, and maybe another after that. What are birthdays for?

  It’s a little past 1:00 AM when Dorothea tells me it’s time to go. I’m already planning on being sick (and calling in sick) tomorrow.

  I’m a little wobbly on my feet and she helps me to the cab. She is soft and steady and I enjoy the walk and the cool breeze off the sea.

  The driver is already laid out across the back seat so I take the front passenger seat.

  “It’s just a few minutes up the road” she says.

  I nod and she pulls out onto the roadway. The driver in back is still talking! I can’t really understand him, but he keeps going. Dorothea starts to tell me something about the local history (it must be a family trait). I’m not really paying attention, maybe I’m nodding off.

  I come to attention as the car slides off the road, maybe it’s a bridge, I’m not sure. I remember falling and thinking “Anytime you fall in a car it’s a bad thing.”

  The last thing I remember, I’m waiting for the impact, but I never feel it.

  Chapter 2

  Introduction to the Book of Questionable Facts:

  This book is called the Book of Questionable Facts for two reasons:

  One – Because while much of it (if not most of it) is more or less true, it undoubtedly contains some things that are, if not completely false, at least wildly inaccurate. And;

  Two – Because science demands that we question all assumptions and facts. If your results disagree with something in this book, check your results, have others check your results, but in the end, accept experimental results over anything you read here.

  I wake up in pain. A lot of pain. And it’s pitch black. So black that I think I must be blind. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this kind of dark. There’s always some light, everywhere.

  I’m confused at first, then the night starts to come back to me. I remember the car falling and, I assume, crashing.

  I’m on some kind of bed. I’m not sure if the bed is just incredibly uncomfortable or if I’m banged and bruised (turns out the bed WAS incredibly uncomfortable – but I was banged up pretty bad too). I experimentally move various extremities, nothing moves particularly smoothly, but everything moves, nothing seems broken.

  I feel in my pocket for my cell. Better call the bank team and let them know I’m not coming to the day’s meetings. The light from the screen is almost blinding. If I wasn’t blind before I am now. No signal. 11:31 AM. Well, I’ll give them a call once we’re back on the road. I remember suddenly the driver and his cousin. Where are they, are we in a hospital?

  We must not be in a hospital, because I’m not attached to any tubes and there aren’t any machines that go “ping”. Also no lights. Plus it really doesn’t smell so good.

  Gingerly, I sit up. Then I fall back flat again. If I’m not in a hospital I should be, I think as I pass out. I wake up again. Still in pain, still in the dark, still wondering where they got this uncomfortable bed. I check my cell, closing my eyes a bit against the expected glare. Still no signal, now 2:08 PM.

  I decide to sit up again. More gingerly this time. I achieve sitting status with some difficulty and more than a little pain, but once sitting I remain in that position and don’t fall back. Ok, so I can si
t up. It makes me happier than it should and feels like a real accomplishment. I swing my legs around and put them on the floor. Surprisingly, I still have my shoes on.

  Before standing, I decide to look around a bit. I turn on the flashlight from my cell, not sure why I didn’t think of this before.

  Scanning the room with the light tells me one thing – definitely not a hospital. The room is small, not really much larger than I am. The walls seem to be rough plaster, there is nothing like a square corner. The floor is raw wood worn smooth with use. There is some kind of rough door in front of the bed, which the light reveals to be handmade with a rough blanket and what appears to be a straw stuffed thin mattress. No wonder my back hurts (aside from the car accident).

  So – a few moments of thinking solves the mystery. I’m in the farmhouse of the driver’s mother! The kind of house that must have been in the family for hundreds of years. They might not even have wired it for electricity, that’s why it’s so dark. And the smell – it’s just hundreds of years of living.

  I stand up, or almost stand up and rap my head on the surprisingly low ceiling. I sit back down and suddenly woozy, I lay back down and, no surprise here, pass out again.

  I wake up again and this time the room is less than completely dark, there is a light coming through the door. I check my cell, 4:14 PM; still no signal and the battery is low.

  Back through the process, sitting, carefully standing, bent over to avoid the ceiling and, really without moving, I push open the door. Light floods my eyes and for a few moments I’m blind. Then, I duck down and pass through the doorway. I feel pretty steady.

  I’m on a 2nd floor gallery overlooking a courtyard. This seems to confirm my guess that I’m at the farm house of the driver’s mother.

  There is a woman down in the courtyard, she looks to be in her late 50’s or early 60’s – could be the mother – she is dressed in what, I imagine, must have been the fashion here for thousands of years, a kind of short dress, belted and actual Greek sandals. It’s like my own personal reenactment museum. Colonial Williamsburg but with Greeks!

  I call down to her “Hello” I say in English, then a second later in Greek. “Where are Dorothea and the cabdriver?” I really have to ask his name. There is some kind of bond you form with people who have been both drunk and in a crash with you.

  She looks up at me and seems surprised to see me. Maybe the driver didn’t mention me? Without a word, she disappears into one of the doors and returns a few moments later with a man. Not the driver. Someone else, also dressed in some odd clothing, also wearing sandals, maybe late 30’s. He starts to climb the stairs to my floor. As he is climbing I say to him “Hi, I’m Robert, I was with the cabdriver and Dorothea last night when we had the accident. Are they ok? Where are they? I need to make a phone call and get to Athens as soon as possible.”

  He said something I didn’t catch as he rounds the gallery towards me. When we were face to face he repeated himself (or maybe said something different). It sounded like Greek, similar sounds and even some words that almost sounded like words I should know, but I couldn’t understand a thing he said.

  So, I repeated myself, slowly and pronouncing each word as carefully as I could. He seemed confused. But a look of recognition crossed his face at the word Athens. So, I repeated it. “Athens. I need to get to Athens.” Accompanied with the proper hand signals. Finger pointing at my chest at “I” and making some kind of gesture to convey “go”.

  He repeated with a strange accent “Athens”. Was it possible that the accent was so different that we couldn’t communicate this close to Athens? The driver and I had done fine, the rest of the family at the restaurant too.

  But I remember meeting a guy from Boston years ago and I could hardly understand him, also a cabdriver in Ireland who had spoken to me for the full 20 minute ride to the airport (what is with these chatty cabdrivers?) and I’d only understood that he was no fan of George Bush. And all of us had been native English speakers.

  So, I repeated “Athens” and he repeated “Athens” and finally I think we both realized this was the limit of our communication.

  “Dorothea?” I tried. But this was met with a blank.

  “Cabdriver?” Blank.

  “My friends?”

  “Friends” he repeated oddly, but enthusiastically.

  Then he reached out and grabbed the front of my suit jacket. It was rumpled – car accident, sleeping in my clothes – and a little dirty. He rubbed it between his fingers. And said …. Something.

  “It’s OK, no need to worry. I have clean clothes at the hotel. I just need to get to Athens and everything will be fine.”

  “Athens” he repeated, not letting go of my jacket.

  Before we could get into another round of who’s on first, the woman approached with a clay tumbler. She held it out to me and I think she said “water?”

  I was suddenly wildly thirsty. I took the tumbler with a thanks and drained it practically in one go.

  Now that I had another audience member I tried again to see if we could communicate.

  “Hi, I’m Robert, I was with Dorothea and the cabdriver last night. Where are they? Are they ok? I need to get to Athens, or at least make a phone call. My cell can’t get a signal here. Is there a phone?”

  “Athens” they both repeated. It was almost comic. Almost.

  Then suddenly I had a bright idea. I pulled out my cell phone. They stared. I put it to my ear and mimed making a phone call. Nothing. I turned it on to show them the no signal and as I turned it to them they both jumped back in surprise. The woman backed away as if it would bite her and the man stared at it as if it was the strangest thing he has ever seen.

  OK, enough of this! We couldn’t communicate, and I needed to get to Athens. Neither the cabdriver nor Dorothea were my problem. They were with family. Nobody here spoke the kind of Greek I spoke, but nearby there must be somebody who I could talk to who could, at least, let me make a call!

  I took a step towards the stairs (also towards the woman) – she let out a small shriek and she turned and ran.

  I put away my phone and brushing past the man, I started for the stairs.

  Once downstairs in the courtyard I could see several open rooms and one closed door. Assuming the closed one to be the front door, I went to it. There was an odd type of latching system that took me a moment to figure out. While I was fumbling with the door, the man, still on the gallery above, saw what I was doing and started to shout. I made out the word “NO!” but nothing else.

  I assumed that he was worried that the cabdriver or Dorothea would come by looking for me, but at the moment, I was more concerned about calling someone on my team to explain my absence and figure out how to get back to Athens. For all I knew, the entire Athens police force was out looking for me. I was, after all, an “international banker” and we were less than popular in Greece at the moment. There’d been riots.

  Besides, the cabdriver and Dorothea had essentially abandoned me. I really couldn’t waste any more time.

  So, I opened the door and walked into the street outside. I was so surprised that there was a street and a house across the street and people in the street that I really didn’t look around too closely. I had thought I was in an old farm house and so, of course, I had expected a farm outside.

  Once I looked around a little more, I was even more surprised. Shocked really. There were people in the streets, a fair number, and they were all dressed pretty much like the people in the house. Short belted dresses or robe type things and all with sandals. In fact, the whole place was like a reenactment museum. Was there a “Colonial Athens”?

  I stopped an old woman with a mule loaded with a large clay jar. “Excuse me,” I started in my most careful Greek, “I need to get to a phone. Or a cab back to Athens. Can you help me?”

  “Athens?” she said.

  I think I was about to lose my temper when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the man from inside the house. He was talking
to me fast and clearly he was worried and excited. He was pulling me back towards the house.

  But, I wasn’t interested in going back to the house. I wanted to find a phone! I shook off his hand and started walking down the street. He followed, but at a short distance.

  I stopped a few more people with no success. It was crazy. How could nobody speak Greek this close to Athens, even in a weird rural village where people still used mules (there were a surprising number of mules). Was this, in fact, a reenactment museum? Were they all acting and unwilling to break character even to help someone in distress?

  I walked, wandering more or less without direction, hoping to reach a paved road or find a telephone or something. The man from the house followed diligently.

  I came across an open square. It looked like a marketplace with stalls and tables and people buying and selling. Hundreds of people. All dressed in old fashioned clothes. If this was a reenactment museum it was the best in the world. And I seemed to be the only visitor. As I thought this I looked behind me. The man from the house was there, but so was a fair sized crowd of people. Apparently following me. If this was a museum, I, apparently, was the star exhibit.

  And then I looked up. There was the Acropolis. I’d seen this view, more or less exactly, from near my hotel (which had a lovely view of the Acropolis). Only the buildings were complete.

  I was rooted in my spot. While it might have been possible to construct this museum and staff it with these hundreds of actors and construct a copy of the Parthenon and other buildings (there’s a replica in Nashville, Tennessee), it would be impossible to build a full size replica of the Acropolis. I mean, it’s a god damn mountain!