Chapter 11
“Miss Morgan, you have a visitor,” said the hotel concierge as Mia finished dusting the reception desk. She glanced over her shoulder and there he was: Angelos Mavromatis.
He was her father’s enemy, the man responsible for her family’s ruin. How could she feel anything but hatred for him? And yet, she trembled beneath the hot gaze of his longing.
She spun on her heel and headed for the door, crying out in dismay as a muscular arm snaked around her waist. “Not so fast, asteri mou , I have a proposition for you.”
- One Week with the Greek
NIKOS
T he children were going out of their minds.
The new basketball I’d brought was stuck in the makeshift hoop I’d constructed from a blue plastic bucket. Engineering wasn’t my thing and the ball kept getting wedged inside, eliciting outraged cries from the tiny, frustrated players.
“Hey, Niko!” I turned around to find Samar, an eight-year-old girl from Syria, holding out her arms. I swept her up to the hoop as she giggled and agitated her skinny legs. She dislodged the ball and took another shot, bouncing the ball straight into the arms of one of the older boys.
“No!” cried Samar when the boy took off with the ball. I set her down and she crossed her arms over her new pink dress—a gift from one of the volunteer social workers on site.
It was the end of a very long day at the migrant camp where I volunteered once a week with Doctors Without Borders. Everyone was exhausted, except for the kids. If we’d let them, they would continue to play until all the lights were extinguished.
I squatted down and tousled her hair. “Hey, what did I tell you?”
“Practice makes perfect,” she repeated, staring longingly after the ball. I gestured to her older brother, who came running over.
“Don’t forget to pass the ball to your sister,” I reminded him as I walked back toward the social center, a portable building that had been established by a local NGO about a year and a half ago. Thank God it existed, there had to be something to take people’s minds off their living conditions.
This wasn’t the kind of place you could be ambivalent about.
It enraged me. The camps were overcrowded with thousands of men, women, and children living in rows and rows of white sheds behind barbed-wire fences.
And though this new camp was cleaner and safer than previous ones, the prison-like austerity of it all it only highlighted the failure of Greece and the EU to find solutions for the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
“Why do you keep going?” Panos had asked just this morning as I waited for the catamaran to pick me up at the port.
“Because it’s not something that I can ignore. Imagine, Pano, these people have escaped famine or war, risked their lives on the open seas, only to be stuck in this holding pen like animals. They need help and human connection.”
“Yes, but you’re always so angry and depressed afterward. Doesn’t it make you feel powerless?”
“If I wasn’t helping, then I’d feel powerless.”
People liked to point their fingers at the migrants as a threat to our way of life, but that was to distract from the real threat: billionaire corporations like Greystone that only wanted to plunder our resources to make a profit. They were the real criminals as far as I was concerned.
That’s why I was in an especially positive mood today as I examined new patients in the camp’s portable medical facilities—I’d found a way to stop the Greystone’s project from going forward, at least temporarily, thanks to my grandfather’s cup.
Callie would be waiting indefinitely for a her permit next meeting.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and a notification flashed across my screen reminding me of the call I had scheduled with my mother.
She was going to give me an update on the visa situation for Emmanuel, a political refugee from Sudan, who we were sponsoring for Columbia University’s displaced scholar program.
My mom and Emmanuel were becoming fast friends, and I had my fingers crossed that it would work out.
Even though we’d spoken just a few days ago, my mom’s face lit up when she saw me, and I smiled. “ Agori mou , how are you? You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
“There’s been a lot going on.” I leaned back in the small, wooden chair. It was child sized and I was spilling over it, but it felt good to release some of the day’s tension.
“Still battling that hotel?”
“Mmm,” I grumbled, running my hand through my hair.
I didn’t want to go into it with her. I couldn’t exactly admit to my mother what I’d done, putting a woman in an abandoned shack with no electricity, and lying to government agents.
She cut me a lot of slack, but she definitely wouldn’t approve of this.
“There has been a development, actually. Yesterday, an archaeologist came to see me about Pappou’s cup.
” I waited for her reaction, but her face remained neutral.
“She has a copy of The History of Lyra . And when she saw the photo of the cup, she recognized it. A bucchero—I looked it up online—it’s a sort of special ceramic technique. She thinks it’s Etruscan.”
“Etruscan? Weren’t they in Northern Italy? How’d it end up in Lyra?” She laughed and shook her head, her short curls falling over her forehead. Her dark hair was just beginning to show streaks of gray.
“No idea. I’m no expert, but she is. She works with Reginald Harris.
” I wanted my mother to be as amazed as I had been by these developments, to consider that she’d been wrong about my grandfather.
He wasn’t just a stubborn, old eccentric who refused to leave his island. Maybe he’d been right after all.
“Well, don’t be too disappointed if it turns into nothing. You know Pappou loved to invent stories. None of it was true.” She pursed her lips, skeptical as ever.
“Careful, that’s your father you’re talking about,” I warned.
“You don’t have to remind me. Why do you think I was so eager to get out of there as soon as I could?
I loved him, but he was too stubborn.” No kidding.
I remembered how they’d argue. She was his only child and my grandmother had passed away shortly after giving birth.
So it had been tough on him when my mother had left for Athens and then emigrated to the US, taking all three of his grandchildren with her.
Despite the kilometers that separated us, I’d always had a special bond with my grandfather—maybe because we shared the same name—and with the island that generations of my mother’s family had called home.
My earliest memory was floating in his boat before I could even talk, stretching my hand out to touch a sea turtle.
All my best childhood memories were on Lyra with my grandfather.
“So, any news from Columbia?” Not wanting to hear her criticize him anymore, I changed the subject.
“Not yet. Your father and I are going into the city this Friday. I may just stop by in person to see if there are any updates.”
“You going to see Kosta?” My eldest brother worked in finance and had a ridiculously expensive place on Central Park South where he lived with his wife and three kids.
“Yes, that’s the plan . . .” My mother hesitated. She was never any good at keeping secrets.
“What is it?” I sighed. I knew she wanted to tell me.
“Now, don’t get mad, but I’m going to the new exhibit at the Whitney with Nathalie. And we might do brunch on Sunday.” She smiled uneasily.
I tensed like I did anytime she mentioned my ex-wife. Soon-to-be ex-wife, rather. Nathalie still hadn’t signed the divorce papers.
“Ma, we’re not getting back together. It’s been three years.”
“But maybe if you came out for a bit, the two of you could work it out.” My mother could not get it through her head that we were done.
At times, I couldn’t remember what had ever brought Nathalie and I together.
Lust, obviously. We’d met in med school and gotten married on a whim in Vegas.
We figured out soon enough that we didn’t have that much in common.
We’d remained friends, however, and she was now a very successful dermatologist on the Upper East Side.
I didn’t regret my decision to abandon my promising career to come back to the place my soul longed for, but my parents were baffled by it. They’d left Greece for better opportunities, and here I was a small-time GP on a forgotten island in the Aegean.
“You know that’s impossible,” I said, and her forehead creased with concern.
“Still having those panic attacks?”
I looked around to make sure no one was listening. I was embarrassed about the crippling panic attacks I started having a few years ago, the ones that drove me to leave New York in the first place. “Nah, I’m good. As long as I stay away from crowds and big cities.”
I’d developed the same sort of agoraphobia that my grandfather had suffered from—airports, big cities, public transportation—I couldn’t do any of it anymore.
After a few months in Lyra, I’d gone to Athens, only to have another panic attack as soon as I stepped off the ferry in Piraeus.
I couldn’t even think about getting on a plane without hyperventilating.
“Oh, Niko. Please don’t tell me you believe all Pappou’s stories.
” I knew immediately what she was referring to—the rumor that some people couldn’t leave the island, that there was some sort of ancient spell keeping them here.
My grandfather, half-jokingly, used to say that he was under the spell.
I didn’t really believe in the myth, but I did feel like my soul was tethered to this place.
“I’ll just have to come to you. I’d like to finally meet Emmanuel in person. And I’d like to see for myself how you’ve taken over Pappou’s practice. Next thing you know you’ll be running for mayor.”