MARIA PAPADIMITRIOU
Haifa Mediterranean Biennale 2010
‘‘HOTEL BALKAN’’ VASILIS H. KONSTANTINOU
Why did I have that fifth Jack Daniel’s? Much as I wanted it, I knew I couldn’t handle it when the chatty bartender Dimitrakis set it down in front of me with a cunning grin. With as much nonchalance as I could muster under the circumstances, I deigned to listen to him repeat his proposal – or should I say challenge – which I wasn’t about to let slip by. I do have my weaknesses, after all. Who could imagine after all these years, all those Jack Daniel’s, all the twilight of my career, that a wretched veteran manager like myself would get embroiled in this tragicomedy of an art collection belonging to this bartender and his boss? But, on the other hand, this was a collection that I’d come across only in my wildest dreams. kilos! I was besotted by way the partisan’s foot rested on a rock as the he rifle in his right hand made me wonder where he’d lost its sling? Woe to any Ustase, German or Chetnik of Draza Mihailovic who dared cross this guy’s path! Just before that, the consumptive clod Dimitrakis behind the bar, the mouthpiece of his boss Kyriakos-the-snitch, was grinning as he whispered into the phone. For sure he was gloating over the hook he’d fed me that I’d swallowed along with its line and sinker on the fourth round of this bogus simpleton bartender’s confessions to their highbrow, worldly but somewhat ditzy client. But truth be known, I’d have said yes yesterday. for my commission – cash up front! Dimitrakis kept repeating this, all
the while assuring me of his boss’s character. “Kyriakos is a gentleman. His word is gold.” Of course, I had my own interests in this venture. I’d get to enjoy the collection while packing it to ship to my childhood friend Maria, the proprietor of the Hotel Balkan in Haifa – a new hotel in need of fine décor. Potentially, we all stood to come out ahead from this venture. Perhaps I’d even manage to add some bravado to my personality before my I took another look at Dimitrakis – what a loser. From his talk in our conversations I’d formed a picture of his relationship with his boss. KyrDragoumi Street. Kyriakos came by every night to collect the proceeds. And the fact is, he’d checked me out first before passing me on to Dimitrakis for the rest. Although to outsiders he referred to Dimitrakis as his “partner,” Kyriakos didn’t want him getting involved in his main business – a whorehouse he maintained on the outskirts of the industrial zone, near the western neighborhoods. “It’s a good business. I double my income every year.” In his youth, when he was building his character in KNE, the Greek Communist Youth faction, he’d read Menelaos Loudemis’ “Abyss Street.” It left him with a blurred picture of an ideal
needed to identify with these expanding new horizons and ideals. Dimitrakis for the hundredth time asked me, “Are you in?” What choice did I have? A sixth Jack Daniel’s was out of the question. I glanced one last time at the comrade Partisan on the bar. He ignored me, but I wanted him. I told Dimitrakis, “I’m in.”
He phoned the snitch again, and was now positively glowing with the congratulations he heard. He gently laid down the receiver and in the same motion refilled my glass. He explained that this would be the last drink and that they’d be expecting me bright and early tomorrow at Kyriakos’ house to get started. His boss, he said, had formed a particularly good opinion of me over the years when we were meeting in restaurants, airports and hotel lobbies in various Balkan capitals. And he’d heard so much about my connections with politicians and entrepreneurs of the new and old order, and my ability to negotiate and to build from scratch, about the investment company I represented with times. Dimitrakis droned on and on. But that sixth drink had numbed my senses, so I managed to survive. It was noon the next day when the great reveal at Kyriakos’ house ed me of the map of the Republika Srpska, post-Dayton version. I felt like I was being invited to lie on a bed of nails. Mrs. Kyriakos greeted us decked out baroque-style, wrapped in a Dior robe, her feet in shiny new slippers. Her manicured red nails poking out from the wide sleeves seemed to smile more than her saucy little face did. After our formal introduction she turned and left the room with the proper touch of distain. Kyriakos, ever the macho man, attempted to growl. But all he got out was a feeble yelp as he asked her departing figure to bring us refreshments. the dining room, visible through the open sliding doors. I could make out a bunch of sculptures arranged on the table. Canvases and rolled paintings were stacked against the table’s claw feet, the chairs and along the walls. But my partners showed no rush to start the guided tour. Were they toying with me, manipulating my eagerness? My mind was riveted on the treasures as I downed a liqueur and a piece of nougat. With Dimitrakis squirming around in the chair next to me, I asked them, not out of politeness so much but to fill the silence, how long they’d been collecting the art. And I unleashed the winds of Aeolus. Kyriakos ritualistically unwrapped the cellophane from his imitaunfolded over the next two hours was full of gallant feats, clever business decisions, and murky ideological assessments. Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kyriakos was ousted from the party for unethical behavior. His comrades had caught wind of his
chumminess with the Security Police and got him out of the way. Some old-timer from his parents’ village, a former instructor and prewar comrade in the Dimitrov Comintern and a political refugee for some years in Bulgaria, but out of touch these days thanks to Alzheimer’s, took pity on him. Kyriakos had sought his advice about “volunteer work” in Cuba pushy. Turns out, the old timer wasn’t all that senile. He recalled some old comrades, apparatchiks in the Bulgarian cigarette industry. He proposed to fix Kyriakos up. “You’re an entrepreneur,” he told him. “You speak two languages and you’re the son of tobacco growers. You grew up Kyriakos didn’t have much of a choice. A brief holiday in Bulgaria might enable him to forget about the party and the Security Police. He made up his mind. His employers in turn decided to take advantage of his passport and sent him on a trial run as trade representative to the painless European market. He didn’t do so badly. An opening appeared. And before he realized it, he was carrying a second suitcase – this one full of counterfeit cigarettes and contraband – and working in the Gulf,
case fit him to a T. Besides the meager sales of legal Bulgar Tabak cigarettes, he soon penetrated the world of counterfeit Marlboros, Camels and Kents. Some sales in the Emirates, Persia and Iraq, a bit in Afghanistan, an opening on the south coast of Pakistan, and he was all set! And when he caught the eye of a local group of Beluchi smugglers, Kyriakos piece of chocolate. A flash of sincerity? An attempt to impress me? To prove to me before we started our dealings what a tough guy he was? In any case, he painted me a complete picture of his activities – no matter how much they tallied with reality. the disintegrated Balkans of the early 90s; it was simply an honorary title. Besides, he has a bit of cash in reserve. So he decided to make the big leap and go it alone on the Balkan market. It made sense to start in Bulgaria. He had connections there. He handed out some advances and promised commissions. “I aimed to get started. Not to brag, but I set the scam up well.” To protect his back in Greece, he renewed his ties with the Security Police. And now that his working circle involved the foreign market, “and National Interests always come first,” they in turn lent him temporarily to the National Intelligence Service. What a windfall! Voluntary intelligence gathering in the neighboring countries: Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav republics, Albania. Even insignificant information on wasn’t always carried on national highways – was considered a scoop by the low-ranking bureau analysts. Even more interesting were the bits of political intelligence culled from translated quotes in local newspapers He knew himself. Keeping his enterprise on a small scale without trespassing on the turf of serious players, our lad managed quite well. my “obsession,” as he characterized his collection from our very first conversations, were his transactions with Gavril, a Bulgarian customs agent at the Kulata checkpoint. Word had it that Gavril along with a loBut up until then, he hadn’t touched cigarettes or drugs. All beginnings are rough. Gavril, to increase his cachet, played hard start, then a diamond cross for Mrs. Gavril and a gold Dunhill lighter
for himself. But the first time Kyriakos’ tried to shove a roll of hundreddollar bills into Gavril’s pocket he got the envelope thrown back in his next day he was invited for dinner at Gavril’s home in Petric. “I fumed all afternoon. Where are you Pangalos to fuck these guys and their wives and their kids, I kept saying to myself?” He made a run to Serres for wine, flowers, cakes and “there I was, showing up at his hovel. But I was relieved the moment I entered. Boy, what glitz. What a ton of jewelry his wife had on. She needed crutches to stand upright.” Kyriakos’ descriptions were engaging; his eyes shown with the recollection of his tour of Gavril’s home, especially when they descended into the cavernous, opulent basement. Gavril suggested a round of billiards. Kyriakos thought at first they dollar bills along with the other reserve wad in his back pocket, and just the thought that he wouldn’t be delivering Rothmans to the Plovdiv macustoms inspector’s basement was no joke; it had a complete bar set up in one corner. And as he sat down on a stool, he looked up and there, facing him – “God help me” – was Jesus Christ. As a boy, before the Party, he’d spent years attending Sunday school. Every Sunday after the liturgy, the religion teacher from the high school in the neighboring town set up benches in front of the bema in the sanctuary, and with a stern gaze terrorized the kids with the descriptions of martyred saints. As for the little sinners sitting before him, they were sure to end up in the cauldrons of hell. To pass the time, Kyriakos spent his Sundays examining with as devout a gaze as he could muster – “so as not to give cause” – the icons of the saints on altarpiece and the little colored icon cards that were handed out each week. One of these was engraved in his memory. Christ was waiting with a sweet smile for a group of children, who were running
up to him for his blessing. Kyriakos’ description was so mellifluous that I got carried away. Forgotten images started coming back to me from some painter’s studio on one of my early trips to Minsk. I recalled a painting of the artist’s father, a member of the Soviet Academy: Stalin in an embroidered muzhik’s shirt, waiting with a sweet smile and stern gaze for an approaching group of pioneers wearing red bandannas. How I envied Kyriakos at that moment! Why did I shy away from buying it then? Why did I have to wait till my last trip to Albania to buy the porexplaining, “depicted a scene from the liberation of Bulgaria in the autumn of 1944….” But then, in Gavril’s basement, the first surprise for Kyriakos was the brilliant smile that illuminated like a halo the face of the young Sofamily. But what softened his heart was the little girl standing next to quettish fashion. Like with the little paper icons that grew damp in his sweaty hands in Sunday school. Kyriakos felt his heart wrench. “I never before felt such a strong desire to acquire anything.” But at that moment, his desire, absorbed by his fear of the Plovdiv mafia, was expressed in a thick, desperate voice: “Gavril, will you sell me that painting?” Gavril agreed at once, and the deal closed with Kyriakos adding to the rumpled envelope with the hundred-dollar bills the wad of equal amount with the rubber-band from his back pocket. the hell. Historically, these particular subjects in Social Realist art never whatever he was told, and the collector, besides his limited choices, acquired a certificate of social propriety. Gavril mounted the stool beside Kyriakos, and the next hour was spent drawing up and signing a new charter of alliance. Besides Kyriakos’ current obligations, it contained the necessary plans for the next shipment of cigarettes to be delivered to Gotse Delchev. sporadic interventions, Dimitrakis compared this to the Iran-Contra Affair and the Oliver North philosophy of exchanging “weapons for hostages.” He stressed that Kyriakos’ insight and discerning management “were beyond the scope, even, of the great powers.” Kyriakos revealed a hidden side of his character here, when he mod-
also prompted him to continue describing his other accomplishments in Bulgaria: how he acquired a portrait of Georgi Dimitrov leaning nonchalantly against several volumes of Lenin’s complete works, and other windfalls, as well as how he finally hooked up with Dimitrakis. “I’ll tell you,” he continued, his voice a combination of swagger and innocence. “I really liked Gavril’s paintings and sculptures. I was thrilled to do business with him. But other windfalls awaited me, other checkpoints, improvised landing strips and tough negotiations with fierce mule-drivers in the mountain passes along the Albanian-Serb border. Work was expanding and I’d never even heard of the word computer, let alone that it took me an entire year to learn how to use a fax machine. I didn’t have time for everything. Imagine: these smalltime traders were giving me bills in feedbags and I needed a whole day to smooth them out and count them. You see, I had very few jobs with organized interests like the one with Plovdiv that I mentioned earlier. -
nia” had just changed hands again, and the new editor-in-chief – they’d started out together at the Macedonian News Agency and the asshole was jealous of him – fired him the first day. “Not that Dimitrakis loved the newspaper; he was made for bigger things.” Now it was Dimitrakis’ turn to blush from satisfaction and grow ten centimeters. He, too, was an outcast from his political den – socialist in his case – though he’d made a promising start as special advisor in the Ministry of Economic Development. His degree in political economics from the University of Craiova was discredited when the PASOK party began drafting arrivistes who’d studied in Western Europe. And the disparagement continued with successive failures in a series of jobs in journalism, accounting, advertising, and sales. He was accused of mismanaging party vouchers in sequential electoral tallies in the early 90s. Kyriakos met him in Bucharest when he was selling agricultural tools for a factory in Gidas, and ran into him again, penniless, in Belgrade. His last boss, a tire merchant from Serres, had fired him by phone. Kyriakos released his pass-
journalist and researcher of Balkan political history, in addition to his daily management of the cigarette business, he was also an expert in identifying the heroes and situations in the collection. He instructed Kyriakos about the socialist past of the region and the political ideology of its dictators. decided to regulate the landscape before turning with a neophyte’s faith to the “New Moscow” of NATO and the European Union. Dimitrakis’ experience in analyzing conditions tipped the scales. It wasn’t worth takthe open seas of the western Balkans,” were his findings. Preceding this, however, was a brief, extremely lucrative intermezzo in Bucharest thanks to the special conditions of the Rumanian Tobacco and Cigarette Monopoly. A law requiring the use of a high percentage of local tobacco in Rumanian cigarette factories fit them like a glove for you,” Kyriakos sighed. And Dimitrakis, to corroborate the story, rea profession.” Still, this brief professional sojourn in that country enriched the collection by quite a few new pieces. In fact, two of these were real gems. One was a plaster bust of Ceausescu, the first prize for sculpture in a national student competition; “a rare thing, the moron never
his head, ha ha!” But Kyriakos didn’t dwell much on the description of Ceausescu’s head. Another acquisition had excited him, and in honor of Dimitrakis’ Rumanian past, he motioned for the latter to continue the description. It was an oil painting, the portrait of a Rumanian girl, a member of Antonescu’s fascist youth corps. In order to keep the portrait on her uniform with grey paint. us by the hand on a tour of the magical neighborhoods of the western what a sojourn that was! From the stifling atmosphere of the hardcore miserly Bulgaria and the ideological mayhem of the dogmatized Rumania, even in the transition to the free market system, our friends landed in the openhearted, playful dealings of those folk speaking Serbo-Croatian in the former Yugoslav republics. However, everything apother reason than the Albanian decency in personal relations, whether
regarding contraband cigarettes or the ongoing pursuit of the social fident and demanding about what they were after. Given that art was cigarette-free, they were also liberated from and absolved of cunning ly trailing behind Kyriakos in the lobbies of Balkan hotels, or skulking I have to admit I felt ashamed at that moment for the elitist way I’d approached the two friends. I must have added some foolishness about the importance of friendship and loyalty, because the atmosphere changed. Had I joined the team now too? Or had I been a member from the beginning? At any rate the ice was now broken. And then everything became easier for all of us when Mrs. Kyriakos finally left with a large purse under her arm, conspicuously slamming the front door behind her. I caught myself identifying with them, but I knew it was only a momentary illusion. nian artist into giving them a portfolio of his early drawings of partisan
help of a new go-between from the Montenegro border and took him to a swanky restaurant. Dimitrakis chuckled at the old artist’s longing when poor guy remembered the wine from the only group exhibition he’d ever been in, in Florence, in one of the cultural ventures made by Ramiz Alia after the death of Enver Hoxha. After the third bottle of Orvieto, “the scoundrel who was a fifty-five kilo rag soaking wet, at the end ordered both tiramisu and panacotta.” And he made the mistake of mentioning his weakness for Fernet-Branca. “So we all went to his house with a bottle, and to be on the safe side we brought along a bottle of Averna.” And that’s where the great robbery took place. “For twenty dollars apiece and the promise of a case of Orvieto, we came away with the whole hoard.” From then on I started getting bored with the narration. In fact, I reached the point where I was wishing for Mrs. Kyriakos’ speedy return. me rather badly. But I still had a long wait before we moved into the dining room of wonders. Time enough for me to take pity on my sorry state and my wretched flesh; to pray for the “business of the hotel” to be over – which is how Kyriakos was referring to my involvement – and as painlessly as possible. But the question of what I part was performing there had begun gnawing on my mind. How had I gotten involved in this farce? What was I doing with these marginal types? Was I supposed to play the role of launderer of the products of dubious transactions, or theft even? And what could I do now? Pack it in and leave them in the lurch? Barely two months remained before Maria’s hotel was to open in Haifa. What would I tell her after literally driving her nuts about how valuable the collection was? I’d convinced her with the idea that in the Haifa of prewar Jewish immigrants, dockworkers and small-business-
tural legends and murky cloud of provincial socialism, that the collection would rekindle the nostalgia of three generations of working-class immigrants for their at once hospitable and inhospitable birthplace. I was tangled up with Kyriakos and Dimitrakis, and even more entangled with Maria. I must have the Devil’s own luck! Why not? Didn’t I always? I got up and took some decisive steps towards the hoard, opening both sliding doors. But no one got up to follow me. I walked around the table, admiring the sculptures displayed on it, and made another, slowthe guys. From one moment to the next, my mood had shifted. I was back to being an enthusiastic fan of the collection, ignoring all the negatives. It was enough for me to simply have a few days to enjoy it at my leisure. lection, that Kyriakos had to move to a bigger home to accommodate years combing the Balkans. But the Balkan region was an unstable environment. Enterprises like contraband cigarettes don’t have much of a the principals avoid long-term associations with the same persons. Our niki. And, of course, they were still holding the collection. And as Kyriakos’ new wife stated that she was being “smothered with those bric-abracs in the house,” it was only logical that they begin divesting it. dining room for “a taste of the treasures.” I decided to look at them through Maria’s eyes and those of the guests at the Hotel Balkan in Haiand themselves. Especially in the Balkans. And the first thing that came to my mind was the story of the “hide-
ous” – as the Serbs called him – Croat Mika Spiliak, Tito’s easy-going, sometime number-two man, but a caricature in Belgrade politics. DurOn a tour of the Louvre he kept hearing all morning, “Mr. President, is Picasso.” And one of his lackey counsels whispered in his ear: “Mr. them laugh in Belgrade. Oh those Balkans! In 1936, the then young reporter, Cyrus Sulzberger asked President Benes of Czechoslovakia for his advice on where to make his career in Europe. “Go to the Balkans, my boy, especially now that war is near,” Benes told him. And Sulzberger took his advice. In wars and upheavals the Balkans hold a lot of mystery. And when the wars and all the various upheavals end, that’s when the still harder years come. Like those thirty-five years of one pitiful but almost capriciously unscrupulous one-party system that had its own way of interpreting art, literature, architecture, and politics. Whatever it took to create a new fabric woven of nationalism, the struggle for liberation, irredentism, as well as new opportunities for the “great life”. But farmers in the same fields continued to plow their land, steal from their collectors, hate their neighbors, write hymns to love and intolerance, and look for easy profits. Of course, this was always under the vigilant eye of the censor, the bureaucrat, the lousy priest, and the local petty-dictators. And speaking of dictators, Kyriakos and Dimitrakis had closed in We began with a tour of the heads in the corner: Some of the best dictators. Others forgotten by history. And still others. 1.Menelaos Loudemis: Abyss Street Number 0, 2007, a novel about the horrors of life on the prison island of Makronisos, in use from the Greek Civil War (1946) until the restoration of democracy in 1974. months in 1926 was dictator of Greece. His arbitrary rule brought an eightmonth suspension of Parliament, a deterioration in relations with Bulgaria (October 1925), and unsuccessful attempts to regulate public morality. party (George Koskotas) that implicated PASOK Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. To proceed with the trial, a temporary national unity government was formed that resulted in a rapid sequence of national elections.