The Icon Hunter

by Tasoula Georgiou Hadjitofi

  I write to two law firms: L Papaphilippou and Co. and Tassos Papadopoulos and Associates inquiring about the new antiquities law, I am informed by both firms that no such antiquities law exists. The Church remains the owner of the sacred monuments and artifacts.

  In addition, the Church, represented by Polak in the Netherlands, decides to file an appeal in the Lans case.10 Unfortunately, we also lose the appeal due to statute of limitations.

  I’m working from home on June third, when ambassador Zenon’s driver delivers a letter to my office at Octagon. My secretary alerts me.

  “It looks rather official and its in Greek,” he says. “Shall I drop it off to you now?”

  “Yes, please,” I say, wondering what it could be.

  “Madame,” it begins, “I wish to inform you that it was decided appropriately that when you receive this letter your title as honorary consul in The Hague and your services are terminated.”11 It continues, “The embassy is informing all the related Dutch authorities and foreign diplomatic missions in Holland. The secretary of the embassy will contact you to deal with the practical issues of stamps and anything to do with your consulate. I was given instructions to thank you on behalf of Cyprus for your services.” It was signed by A. Zenon.

  I called the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Cyprus to inquire whether it was his decision to terminate me and I am told that he is in China and will not return for another ten days.

  It feels like a blow. I love my work as a volunteer diplomat. I am seven months pregnant, trying to take a leisure day at home to relax with my children, and this happens. I dial Michael at his office, weeping.

  “Please come home, Michael.”

  He arrives minutes later.

  He leaves strict instructions for the nannies, “No calls are to come in here except from the archbishop. Anyone calls from the government, Mrs. Hadjitofi is not available.”

  I have my office staff remove the consular sign from the front of my building, the one next to the Octagon Professionals sign, that I once took so much pride in. I instruct my staff to throw the sign in a box, with stationery, stamps, and anything else to do with the position, and deliver it to Ambassador Zenon’s office.

  I phone the archbishop and give him the news. “I’m calling the president! They can’t do this to you,” he says.

  “Your Beatitude, I’m not interested in returning to the position.”

  The same day, the archbishop decides to decorate me with The Order of Saint Barnabas medal right away instead of waiting for the artifacts to return from Munich as it was originally planned. The Cyprus papers read, state dismisses consul while church honors.12

  “I will not let them do this to you,” the archbishop says terribly upset.

  On July 9, 1999, I receive the Order of Saint Barnabas gold medal. The ceremony is stunning. The Holy Synod created the medal in 1951 to honor individuals who offer their services to their homeland and to the Church of Cyprus.13 The speeches made on my honor are moving. The president of Cyprus attends, my parents are there, and I am completely humbled by the tribute.14

  This medal was given to presidents, patriarchs, and I am the first and only woman to ever receive it. The archbishop asks to see me privately in his office.

  “Thank you for today. To receive this award is quite special,” I say.

  “I’m going to ask that the president see us tomorrow to reinstate you as consul.”

  Smiling through my tears I say, “No, it’s over for me.” He pulls open his top drawer and pulls out a letter to the president of Cyprus. I take it from him and say, “This is all I need,” holding up the letter. “To know that you are willing to meet with the president on my behalf,” I say with tears flowing. “This is enough.”

  “No, it’s not right what they did to you!” He smiles and says, “By the way, I’m feeling much better. Let’s hold off with the doctor until after the baby is born. If things change, I’ll call you.”

  “No memory issues? You’re sure?” I ask.

  “Everything is perfect,” he says. “See to your parents.”

  My parents are waiting patiently for me in the hallway with Bishop Vasilios. My mother places her hand on my abdomen and says, “An angel is coming,”

  Dad hugs me and says, “You’d better hurry before you give birth to that baby on the plane.”

  “Your Beatitude, one day we will tell our story.”

  The archbishop says, “You promise?”

  He likes the idea. I can tell by his smile.

  Back in the Netherlands, the Association of Consuls in Holland throws a celebration to honor me, and more than six hundred people turn out. I purchase cups and fill them with sweets from Paphos, and under a picture of a broken fresco I have text inscribed to say, “The story they tell is the story of every refugee. Tasoula Hadjitofi—A refugee from Famagusta.” It was another magical moment.

  I have more important things to look forward to in my life. At the doctor’s office for a scheduled checkup a couple of weeks later, my blood pressure is too high and I am diagnosed with gestational diabetes. The baby is positioned low, and the umbilical cord has wrapped itself around her neck. I’m admitted into the hospital and placed on bed rest.

  “Why is this happening to us?” I ask Michael, who has just arrived.

  “Relax, I’m glad you are here, and now you will rest without a doubt.”

  Because of my history I am kept in the hospital for several weeks until the baby is due. It is September 9, 1999, and I feel as if I am ready to burst. I’m dilating very slowly and want to deliver this baby today. On my way downstairs to get an epidural, I notice that the emergency room is packed with pregnant women. “What are all these women doing here?” I ask the nurse.

  “Today is 9/9/99, and if you are born this day you will receive a letter from the queen. All these ladies are here to get their letter.” My doctor arrives to deliver, but instead of a baby I receive an apology: “I’m afraid I won’t be able to take you until tomorrow.”

  Michael arrives at my room with champagne in hand, but our celebration will have to wait. The morning of the tenth things are still slow going. “Please, anyone, give me an epidural,” I cry. A doctor, who is not my gynecologist, decides to wheel me down to the emergency room so that I may be given one.

  “You still have a long way to go,” she says as she breaks my water and sends me for an epidural. A junior nurse over to stay with me. Shortly thereafter, I feel a sharp pain and the baby moving. “Michael! The baby is coming!”

  “Hold on, darling, we’re in the emergency room hallway, she can’t be coming! The doctor just said it will take time.”

  I’m moving about in every direction, unable to find a comfortable position, and Michael can hardly keep me from jumping off the table. “She’s coming!” I yell, to the dismay of people in the emergency room watching television. I’m sweating, then I’m cold, then a pain comes, so I scream, “She’s coming!” Finally, I let out a gut-wrenching cry, open my legs, and realize everyone is watching me now instead of the television.

  Michael and the nurse look at me, and then each other. “Oh my God!” they both cry out for support at the same time and then the nurse helps me deliver right there in the middle of the emergency room. My daughter Marina is in such a rush to come into this world that she left her placenta inside and they wheel me to the operating room to have it removed. Marina is handed to Michael, who gets to bond with her first as I am rushed off to surgery. He is able to step into that priceless moment normally reserved for mother and child. It is love at first sight for Michael and very fitting that he would be blessed with this honor.

  Marina is healthy, happy, and obviously raring to go! It is overwhelming for me. After all this time, the number of attempts and disappointments, my miracle baby has arrived. Marina’s birth is also my time to be reborn. One look at her gorgeous little face and I know everything is about to change for the better.

  When we return home from the hospital, Sophia is delighted
to see her new baby sister and Andreas is quite the big brother. No longer having to worry about my consulship, I indulge myself in motherhood. Yes, of course, I’m still working diligently on Munich and the Lans case and my business, but I keep my word to myself and to Michael to slow down. Giving birth to Marina at this later stage in life affords me the financial security to focus my undivided attention on the children and Michael now. Each day is a gift to me as I leave the day-to-day management of Octagon to care for my newborn.

  FEBRUARY 2000, NICOSIA, CYPRUS

  Sitting in the archbishop’s office with my baby Marina strapped to my chest, I compose a press release, which says that the archbishop will be traveling to the Netherlands tomorrow to meet with the Church’s attorney, Polak, and with Church representative Tasoula Hadjitofi to discuss the pending Munich and Lans cases. I instruct the archbishop’s secretary to hold off sending the press release to the media until long after we board the plane.

  By the time Cyprus wakes up, the archbishop will be safely in the Netherlands under the care of one of the royal house physicians. The last couple of months I have noticed a change in him. If there is something more seriously wrong, we will know by the end of this week.

  The archbishop is taken to see Professor W. A. “Pim” van Gool, a professor of neurology with special reference to dementias at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. Of all the people who might run this impressive unit, Pim van Gool happens to be Polak’s brother-in-law. Fate intercedes in our favor once again.

  I use my business contacts to further protect the archbishop’s identity. I rent several rooms at the Kasteel De Wittenburg, a private boutique establishment in Wassenaar, off the beaten path, in case any reporters are in search of him.

  I hire a driver to chauffeur us to various doctor’s appointments and labs for testing. The archbishop naps in the middle of the day, and in the evening I prepare lavish home-cooked meals, inviting a close-knit circle of discreet friends to join us.

  The archbishop is diagnosed with memory loss, probably Alzheimer’s disease.

  “Tasoula, I’m going to need your help,” the archbishop tells me.

  From this point on, I travel to Cyprus every six weeks with a doctor from the Netherlands, and we bring a supply of his medication from Holland, labeled in Dutch, to prevent people from figuring out that he is in the beginning stages of dementia.

  “I want to know details about what is coming, when my judgment will be impaired, as I want to abdicate before that point. I will need your help to do that,” he says. This is a cruel blow. Putting everything else aside—the icons, the Munich and Lans cases—this man is family to me, a father figure who has given me unconditional support. To know that I will be slowly losing him to a dreadful disease with no cure leaves me with the thought that nothing is permanent, that when we are lucky enough to have someone in our lives whom we cherish, someone who is remarkable in every way, we must never take them for granted.

  APRIL 2000, EASTER IN CYPRUS

  The archbishop will lead the Easter service, and we will be christening Marina the following day.

  The Easter service is especially meaningful to me this year. As the archbishop says the words we all long to hear, “Christos Anesti,” I stomp my feet and yell “Christos Anesti” with a new passion. It gives me chills to be here and I feel, in a way, that I have had my own resurrection. I will continue to work with the Church to recover the stolen artifacts, but not at the expense of my health and family. The archbishop must follow suit.

  When all the files are scrutinized in years to come, they will see that it was a refugee of war, an archbishop, and an art dealer-turned-informant who put Aydin Dikmen in jail temporarily and recovered more than five thousand sacred artifacts from Cyprus and around the world. As a refugee in search of her identity, I felt empowered becoming involved in protecting cultural heritage. Repatriating the artifacts helped me to reclaim what was rightfully mine. Now I invite other refugees to walk with me and become a Cultural Crime Watcher. Every piece of cultural history tells a story and although we all ultimately have different stories to tell we must see the bigger picture and rebuild our future with the ruins of our past.

  On Easter Monday, the day after Easter Sunday, we travel to the Royal Monastery of Kykkos, one of the most famous in Cyprus and where the monks still live in isolation. Located on the far edge of the Troodos Mountains, in one of the most picturesque spots on the island; it is the place where men stand guard at President Makarios III’s tomb. It lies on top of the mountains overlooking Cyprus.

  Before the ceremony, I watch the archbishop and Marina share a special connection all their own as he holds her and talks with her playfully. He makes the sign of the cross on the crown of her head, the bottoms of her feet, and in the palms of her hands, enticing her to giggle. Watching the two of them pleases me so. My beautiful daughter grabs for his emblem and smiles at him. He responds in kind, and this moment is forever etched in my mind. As he begins the ceremony to bring Marina into the Orthodox world, I feel grateful to be celebrating this moment, my culture, and traditions in my homeland. This is the image that I hold onto when I think of him, a snapshot lodged in my memory of the great man that he was. It is symbolic that as we proclaim the resurrection of Christ, the christening of my daughter into the Orthodox religion, that my faith is also reborn.

  Thirty-One

  DEALERS OF GOD

  Despite the archbishop’s return to the Netherlands for additional care in 2001, and my regular trips with his Dutch doctor every four to six weeks to check on his condition in Cyprus, his health declines. The archbishop’s physical condition worsens drastically when he has a fall in 2002. Once he is admitted into the hospital in Nicosia for injuries associated with the fall, the doctors become aware of the medications he is taking, and our secret is revealed.

  In 2002 I appeal to the Holy Synod to retire the archbishop, which they eventually do. I continue to visit him through the years in Cyprus and even during his darkest moments, when he does not respond to others, he connects with me, to the delight of his nurses.

  The Munich case from 2000 to 2006 stalls. A new attorney general removes Stella from the case and begins a civil suit against Dikmen.

  In 2007, the Dutch Parliament changes their legislation opening the door for Cyprus to request the return of the four icons from Antiphonitis, government to government. I never get to share the news with my beloved archbishop, as his condition worsens once again. In December in The Hague the streets are filled with the sounds of Christmas as traditional music plays from Dutch mobiles. I think about the archbishop as I pick up a music box, in the Bijkenkorf department store, looking forward to visiting him in Cyprus, when the phone rings.

  It’s Bishop Vasilios. He pauses for a moment and I think, No, God, no.

  “Grandad just left us, and you are the first to know.”

  I knew this day would come, and yet I could not prepare for it. I find a seat in the store and break down in tears as the reality of what I lost is made real. Michael and I attend the funeral in Cyprus. I pay my respects to the great man who is wearing the handwoven gown with golden threads that I had specially made for him. He looks so peaceful as he lay in the Saint John Chapel next to his palace. I remember the times we shared and what we accomplished together. He was my spiritual father and I loved him. And so it is especially difficult for me to watch his opponents arriving in their fancy cars, sitting in the first row, talking on their cell phones, wearing their fancy watches. There is no respect even among the holy men. As I look around I notice that greed has become what some people worship instead of God. A desire for money and power appears to take precedence over all else. I realize that Dealers of God are everywhere, not just in the international trade of art houses.

  After his funeral, I close that chapter on my life as destiny calls me into service once again.

  Thirty-Two

  WALK OF TRUTH

  When my daughter Marina is born, I make a commitment to my child
ren not to pass on the fear and anger that I hold for the Turkish people, something that took root in childhood. I have no wish to taint my children’s experience or allow the mistrust that I’ve inherited to be passed on to another generation. War destroys every ounce of trust between nations. Recognizing the extent of the destruction of the symbols of my faith makes me want to understand the conflict that exists between Turkey and Cyprus on a deeper level. I dedicate a few years of my life to learning everything I can about the Turkish culture. I begin with the language and, through taking weekly walks with my Turkish teacher, Erhan Gurer, we exchange our favorite artists, musicians, writers, poets, photographers, and philosophers so that we may each explore each other’s culture with a fresh perspective. We even confide what we believe about each other’s culture and concerns about each other’s religion. Because there is a respectful space for dialogue to emerge between us, a trust is born and a friendship created.

  In 2011, based on my passion to continue to spread the word about the importance of protecting cultural heritage, and to share the lessons learned from Cyprus, I establish a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Walk of Truth. The name comes from my own “Walk of Truth,” a reflection on the lessons learned from my experiences. I set out on this journey to reclaim my identity and what I discover is that it has been with be all the while. Who I am as a person and what I stand for lives within. I thought that my identity was stolen from me but no one can take that away from you unless you let them. Each of us carries a personal history. Through the course of our work and our personal lives, we unknowingly trigger one another’s emotional wounds. This exposes our vulnerabilities and causes an adverse impact on our productivity and on the environment. Our inner conflicts create misunderstandings between us, leading to the destruction of relationships, which also escalates to a national level. When egos dominate, there is a lack of respect for diversity and religious beliefs that poisons the atmosphere.