would know her. The one she liked had a Greek couple and a gray-haired, fiftyish man engaged in the traditional haggling over price. After five animated minutes they reached a deal. Now it was her turn.
The gray-haired man smiled and asked her in English where she was from.
'Holland,' she answered in English.
He smiled wider. 'Oh, we have many guests from Holland.' Then he said to her in Dutch, 'I have a wonderful room with a private bath and a view of the town, and because you are from my favorite country — next to Greece of course' — with a yet broader smile — 'I will give you a special price.'
She smiled courteously. 'What is the price?'
'One hundred eighty euros.'
It was more than twice what he'd agreed upon with the Greeks for a double room.
Annika replied in Dutch, 'That's very kind of you, sir, but I can't afford that much.' She turned to walk away.
He grabbed her arm. 'No, no please, I understand. What can you afford?' He let go of her arm.
She smiled. 'Oh, I'm sure it's far too little for such a wonderful room.'
'I'll let you have it for a hundred euros.' He looked at her in a way that made Annika wonder if more than the price of a room was on his mind.
She thought of walking away but decided to haggle. 'Forty.' If he accepted that lowball offer she definitely would walk away.
'Seventy-five.'
'No.'
He paused. 'Sixty.'
Sixty was a fair price, and it was late. 'Including breakfast?'
A new smile lit across his face, and he gestured for her to come. 'Agreed.' He led her toward where his van was parked — with his hand ever so lightly pressing on her hip as if to steer her in the right direction.
She didn't make an issue about his hand even though she was pretty sure it wasn't offered purely for guidance. She smiled as she remembered overhearing her mother once tell a girlfriend, 'Something about Mykonos makes every man think he has a chance at every woman.'
He said the ride from the harbor to the hotel would be less than ten minutes and took the narrow two-lane road circling the original town. It was filled with partiers stumbling along the uneven concrete roadway trying to navigate a maze of illegally parked cars and motorbikes. Crowds constricted parts of the road down to a single lane, but the man didn't seem to care. He never slowed down unless forced to by an oncoming driver. Whether they knew it or not, these pedestrians were not protected by the gods of Delos; they were on their own, and for those not prepared to expect the unexpected from a Greek driver, there were ambulances.
Things came to an abrupt stop at a four-way inter section with an even narrower road. It was the busiest corner in Mykonos, for this was the main portal to the island's 24/7 lifestyle. To the left, the road went up a hill toward the airport; to the right, to what the locals called the bus station.
It wasn't really a bus station, just an area big enough for five buses and half-dozen taxis fifty yards into the old town. Buses going to and from the beaches, outlying hotels, and Ano Mera parked there. Crowds of rushing tourists funneling in and out of town were surrounded here by a bazaar of businesses catering to their holiday needs and fantasies: food shops for a fast meal and booze; kiosks selling cigarettes, postcards, phone cards, film, candy, gum, ice cream, condoms, and more; stands hawking last-minute souvenirs; motorbike and car rentals and ATM's. In quiet contrast to it all — unnoticed behind an unobtrusive wall on a eucalyptus-shaded knoll seventeen steps above the bustle — rested the recent, officially consecrated dead of Mykonos.
The van turned left up the hill. Two hundred-fifty yards later the road turned sharply to the left, then back to the right. As if by magic, the sights and sounds of the bus station disappeared. There was still traffic — and roaring motorbikes — but the crowds were gone and the view was picture-postcard Mykonos. The van slowed as if to take it all in but instead darted to the right through an opening in a low, white-capped stone wall and jerked to a sudden stop. It had to, because the parking area wasn't much deeper than the van and ended flush with the front wall of the hotel. No wasted space here. Four cars were parked in a line along the white-capped wall. Annika noticed that one was a police car.
She knew the hotel had two stories — the maximum allowed — but it was set down along the hillside and looked to be only one story from the road. Even in dim moonlight Annika made out bougainvillea and geraniums everywhere. She'd never been in the hotel, only seen it from the road, but she remembered the flowers and its view of sunsets over the bay by Little Venice, the area named for the dozen or so multicolored, three-story former pirate-captain homes on the northern side of the bay — the only such structures in all of Mykonos.
The gray-haired man quickly jumped out of the driver's seat and slid open the rear door as he said, 'Welcome to Hotel Adlantis. My name is Ilias and I am your host.' He spoke in precise English. Annika realized he hadn't introduced himself before. The Greek couple responded in Greek. Annika said hello in English and reached for her backpack.
'No, please, let me,' Ilias said in Dutch. He took her backpack and lifted the couple's two sizeable bags as if they were empty. 'This way, please.' He gestured with his head in the direction of the lobby and waited, holding all three bags, until his new guests passed in front of him. He followed with the luggage.
The lobby was on the top, street-level floor and at the rear opened onto an open-air verandah overlooking the bay. The inside was unremarkable: standard-issue white stone floor, white walls with blue trim, and a few pieces of furniture upholstered in a coarse, matching blue fabric. A white marble countertop under a white arch on the south wall served as the reception desk. A painting of the hotel's exterior hung behind the counter. It looked like something painted by a guest in exchange for a free room.
A man sitting behind the counter smiled and said 'hello' in English. Ilias put down the luggage and began talking to the man in Greek. Annika could tell from the other man's accent that he was Albanian. Ilias asked about the police car, and the man said that two cops were on the verandah. They wanted to talk to him. Ilias told the man to check everyone in 'by the book' and take the luggage to their rooms. He then excused himself from his guests and went out to the verandah.
Annika gave the man her Dutch passport, paid cash in advance for her room for two nights, and waited for the Greek couple to do the same. She walked toward the verandah and saw Ilias in animated conversation with the police. He was looking at a piece of paper and shaking with his head. She decided not to go outside. Whatever the police wanted was no business of hers, and she didn't want to seem nosy. The man behind the counter said, 'Miss,' and she turned to see him holding her backpack and waving for her to follow him.
Her room was on the lower level. It was small but neat, with glass doors that opened onto a private balcony with the promised magnificent view of a rippling silver sea against far-off shadow-black hillsides. In the distant midst of the bay she saw three towers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame — or, if you preferred reality, the lit-up riggings of three closely anchored, otherwise invisible sloops. The outside view was far better than the inside. Another of those paintings hung in her blue-and-white room. The artist must have slept here a lot.
The man pointed toward the balcony and said, 'Keep locked at night,' then showed her how to do it. She gave him a euro and, when he left, locked all the doors. She turned off the lights and fell onto the bed. From there, she could see through the glass doors to the sea. Her eyes started tearing. This was not a view she wanted to be seeing alone. She fell asleep.
'Miss, miss.' She heard a man's voice in Dutch and quiet knocking. For an instant she wasn't sure where she was. It was still dark out. She looked at her watch. She'd only been sleeping a few minutes.
'Who is it?' Her throat was slightly dry from sleep.
'Ilias.'
Her instinct was to be pissed, but it had only been a few minutes since she'd checked in, and how was he to know she'd fallen asleep? 'Just a minute.' She stood up, turned on a light, and looked quickly in the mirror before opening the door.
He was holding a basket of fruit and a bottle of wine. 'I am sorry, I think I woke you up.'
She forced a smile. 'That's okay, I didn't mean to go to sleep this early.'
He handed her the items without trying to enter the room.
She placed them on top of the dresser next to the door. 'Thank you, that's very thoughtful.' This time her smile was sincere.
'I wanted to welcome you to Mykonos. Is this your first time here?'
