“New owner. New name. That’s usually how it works, sir. It’s not everyone who believes a new name brings bad luck to a ship. Although in this case it would seem that it has. Poseidon’s ledger of the deep and all that.” He shook his head sheepishly. “Pure superstition, of course. But sometimes it has to be admitted that these old customs are not without their foundations.”
“All the same. I’m curious.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll get right on it. I’ve a cousin in the ministry who owes me a favor. An impossible and very conceited man but he might be able to help. In fact, I’ll insist on it. If it wasn’t for me he’d still be the janitor at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki.”
I heard the front door open and close and I went downstairs and out onto the street in time to see Witzel walking southeast down Stadiou toward Constitution Square, in the same direction as the roaring Athenian traffic. I was already looking for a taxi and, not seeing one, was wondering if I’d made the right decision in dispensing with Garlopis and the blue Oldsmobile, which was parked right in front of a florist’s on Santaroza and immediately behind a pistachio-green Simca that Witzel had stopped beside. I told myself to remind Garlopis to get rid of the American car. As Witzel opened the Simca’s door I quickly crossed the road and, speaking English, offered the young priest polishing the scooter outside the cinema a hundred drachmas if he would follow the Simca with me on the back. There was a banknote already vertical in my hand and he took it without a word, lifted the scooter off its stand, started the engine, and nodded over his shoulder for me to get on board. A minute later we were in the midst of the choking Athenian traffic and in heart-stopping pursuit of the Simca as it headed west along Mitropoleos.
“You American?” asked the priest, whose name was Demetrius.
“Swiss,” I yelled. “Like the cheese.”
“Why are you following this man?”
“He stole some money from some friends of mine. I want to find out where he lives so I can fetch the cops.”
“Attica cops? They’re as bad as the thieves. You’d be better off going to church and asking God to get it back for you.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I hear he often asks a savior’s fee. Like your immortal soul.”
Blasphemy is never a good idea when you’re riding on the back of a scooter in Athens. I braced myself and closed my eyes for a second as we came perilously close to the wheels of an ice truck. Then I felt a strong jolt as the smallish wheels of the scooter hit a pothole and, out of fear that we would bounce off the road, I grabbed on to the priest’s black cassock, which smelled strongly of incense and cigarettes in marked contrast to the stinky blue smoke that filled the streets, but the scooter stayed upright and about thirty meters right behind the Simca. Now that I was riding pillion I realized a scooter was perfect for following someone in Athens, if not for my nerves; the city traffic was so chaotic and undisciplined that I might never have kept up with Witzel in a yellow cab. Demetrius made light work of the pursuit and even found time to point out a building on our left.
“That’s the old Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens where I work. Come in sometime and say hello to me and to Saint Philothei, whose reliquary is in there. She was beaten to death by Turkish Muslims for giving shelter to four women who’d escaped from a harem.”
“A lot of guys take that kind of thing much too personally these days. Especially when they’ve had a drink or two. At least I always think so. But please, keep your eyes on the road. We can do the sightseeing later. Better still, you can hear my confession now, while I’m riding pillion. That way we can kill two birds with one stone.”
The Simca turned abruptly south in the general direction of the Acropolis and we followed. Witzel was as angry a driver as he was an insurance claimant; a couple of times he extended all the fingers on his hand at other motorists, which, Demetrius assured me, was an obscene gesture called the moutza. The young priest didn’t tell me what it meant; he didn’t have to: in any language, an obscene gesture isn’t usually meant to be an invitation to a waltz.
Witzel went left in front of some ancient ruins and we did the same, heading up the hill along a narrowing street with the Acropolis and whatever was on top of it now firmly in sight. Then, in front of a café, Witzel stopped the Simca, got out, and walked up the hill toward the Acropolis. For a moment I didn’t appreciate that he had actually parked the car because this was Greek parking and a thousand kilometers from the way people parked their cars in Germany, which was neatly and legally and with a certain amount of consideration for other people.
Without being instructed to do so Demetrius hung back a little, keeping the two-stroke engine running, and I more or less hid behind him to prevent Witzel from seeing me. This was easy; the priest was as tall as a Doric column and just as wide. He made the red scooter he was seated on look like a cocktail cherry.
I climbed off the back of the scooter and tried to steady my trembling legs; they say you learn something every day but all I’d learned so far was that I liked riding scooters even less than I liked being on
