4-The Epidavros Code-piec

4 The Epidavros Code

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he rhythmic hooting of the owls announced the arrival of dusk, which would slowly envelop the ancient grey stones of the theater. The sun was setting. For centuries, the same pattern had repeated itself every summer evening, regardless of whether there was a performance at the theater of Epidavros.

The spotlights switched on, competing with the final rays of the sun as they highlighted the set of the performance. The audience’s final hushing sounds could be heard as they settled onto the stone seats, still warm from the day’s scorching heat.

The sound of three loud thumps on the gong invoked dead silence from the crowd. Only the owls remained indifferent, their rhythmic song echoing in the pregnant hush. Trumpets and drums, the lyre and wind instruments were heard, creating the impression that a king was about to appear. This was immediately followed by footsteps, as the sandal-clad chorus and actors shuffled onto the stage. They arrived via a path alongside the theater, moving like haunted shadows. The actors in the chorus filled the orchestra space. The performance commenced. The tragedy had begun.

Agamemnon was at the back of the set, ensconced between two posts that were holding up the palace of Thebes. He unhooked the leather tool belt from his waist, containing a hammer, pliers, a wrench, screwdrivers and various screws. He tried to find a comfortable position on the plank that he had set up to sit on during the performance as he waited for his cue for the next act, the next scene change. This gave him time to pause and reflect on the drama in his own life, his own family tragedy.

Agamemnon had worked as a stage technician for years at the National Theater. He was a tall, lean, virile man, with an imposing presence. He had a thin mustache that ran along the whole length of his upper lip and ebony hair which he wore slicked back. He always had a cigarette on his lip and a pack 102

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of “Aroma’s” in his hand that he would use to tap his cigarette on before putting it into his mouth. His nickname was “the Areopagite senator” because he looked like one, and because he was at the top of the chain of command among the technicians, mostly due to his skill.

At the same time, a few kilometers further down towards the sea, close to ancient Epidavros and behind the last house in the village, in an olive grove on the southwest hill, was something that gave away a well-hidden secret; perhaps it was the cry of the owl or the scent of the Argolean soil. It was a scattering of huge, chiseled, square-shaped rocks, and a few marble columns that jutted out of the earth, as well as a faint trace of what may have been a stone wall—the remnants of what seemed like a building. It was all this and yet something more. A number of stones had been gathered and carefully placed one next to the other in order to form a perfect circle; the design was a replica of the orchestra of an ancient theater. It would have been otherwise insignificant, had burning torches not been affixed to the ground, every three meters, demarcating the perimeter of the circle in the darkness. At the center of the circle lay a rectangular stone, sort of like an altar. It was free of any meaningful markings but its mottled surface—imbued with shades of grey, white and black—indicated that it had been lying there for centuries. On it, a nest of branches and blossoms had been entwined, exuding an intoxicating fragrance. A beautiful girl lay on the nest, perfectly still, almost as if she was had stopped breathing and was dead. The girl was an adolescent, with black hair framing her ivory complexion. Her hair was carefully parted in the middle and arranged so that it softly fell onto her shoulders. She wore a decorative wreath, woven from fresh olive branches and a translucent white sheath that revealed her nude form, as the flames flickered and illuminated the fabric. A more mature girl kneeled beside her, also wearing 103

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a white sheath and a white veil that covered her head. She was whispering indecipherable phrases close to the girl’s ear. It would help the “sleeping one” become more deeply hypnotized.

To her right and left stood two tripod-shaped columns, which had been improvised by tying branches together. Perched on top of these columns were round metal basins. In one, a flame was burning; in the other, smoldering thyme, oregano and frankincense filled the atmosphere with an exhilarating aroma.

The sweet sound of flute-music bestowed the landscape with a feeling of majesty. A humming murmur could be heard as well, something that resembled a hymn that had as its basic sound, “mmmmmm,” which was being repeated over and over again. Shadows were moving through the olive grove in the direction of the stone circle. They were all young men and women in white sheaths who were holding clay cups in their hands, filled with fruits and nuts. The rhythm was maintained by some who continued to hum the deep-sounding “mmmmmmm.” Their steps coincided with the rhythm, as if they were dancing, as they chanted the chorus of the tragedy: “Love invincible, you who prowl restless on the maiden’s cheeks, you who captivate both the rich man, and enter hovels with the same ease, you who cruise the oceans and cross the seas! Not even an immortal man escaped you, ever this body was left unpolluted, pure, and untouched by your temptations and the joys offer us . . .”1 It was a secret, improvised ritual dedicated to a high priestess of Asclepius. In the ancient world both birth and death were forbidden to take place in the healing temple of Asclepius at Epidavros. The priestesses had to be pure and chaste so that 1

Antigone, by Sophocles, Translated by R. C. Jebb

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they, in turn, could purify and hypnotize their patients. They believed that during the process of hypnosis the conscious soul leaves the body and gains mantic, prophetic, occult powers. The hypnotised patient passed into a state of ecstasy and saw visions of the god of medicine, who bestowed him with healing gifts.

The dance slowly unfolded on the periphery of the stone circle. Another group that was following slowly behind them emerged from the darkness, guided by a leader. He stood out from the rest, with his beard and dark turquoise robe that was cinched at the waist by a leather belt adorned with a golden buckle. His head was covered with a wide hood, almost like a veil, made out of the same cloth. He leaned on a tall staff that had a coiled serpent carved onto its handle. His role was that of the hierophant; three priestesses trailed behind him. One had a live snake wrapped around her neck, the other held a rooster in her hands, and the third grasped a circular tray bearing a knife and two goblets containing red and white wine. Accompanying them were three young men who were also wearing wide hoods; they held cups of fire, frankincense and myrrh. They dragged along a goat and a dog, tied on short leashes. The hierophant approached the hypnotised girl and hit the earth four times with his staff. He whispered undecipherable words that sounded like a hymn, in a deep, baritone voice. He was calling upon fire, air, water and earth, the four elements that corresponded with the elements of the body: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.

These elements were to bring health and prosperity to the four stages of life: childhood, youth, adulthood and old age, and to all four seasons of the year. Every so often he would pause to utter, “Heavenly Grace,� which the chorus repeated, like a hymn.

At some point, in ritual fashion, he let go of the staff and offered his hands to a priestess. She uncoiled the snake from her 105

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neck and placed it in his grasp. He turned and carefully placed the snake on the hypnotised, nearly naked body of the girl.

A breeze swept through, stirring the folds of her diaphanous gown. The snake seemed to be hypnotized as well, moving lethargically as it slowly approached her throat, flicking its forked tongue.

One of his followers handed the hierophant the knife from the tray, and in one swift movement he sliced off the head of the rooster that was in the hands of the other priestess. The rooster flapped spasmodically for a moment, while another held up a cup to collect the blood that was oozing from its wound. The hierophant then poured the blood onto the ground in circular motions, because Asclepius was said to wield his healing power from the ground, as the chorus chanted the name of the priestess, “oh, Electra, oh, Electra . . .” again and again.

According to the ritual, the slaughter of the rooster symbolized new life. The rooster, with its announcement of each new day, was a symbol of new life for the person it was sacrificed for. The chorus stopped chanting the name of priestess-initiate as the hierophant removed the snake from her body, returning it to the priestess’s neck. He then picked up the myrrh and drenched the motionless form of the new priestess; the transparent fabric clung to her body, emphasising its every contour. A sigh seemed to escape her lips. One of the three attendants gently lifted her head. The hierophant picked the goblet of red wine off the tray, symbolizing the rooster’s blood, and bid her to sip the communion four times. Then he did the same with the white wine, which symbolized for the snake’s venom; a potion with medicinal properties that could also cause death. The snake symbolized medicine, as it still does in the present day. The sign of divine approval of a new priestess is determined by the snake’s behaviour toward the maiden on whom the priest has placed it.

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If the snake bites the maiden, she either receives treatment as any common mortal patient would, never again to be anointed as a priestess, or she dies. Wise men are referred to as “serpents” in the sacrament, because the serpent symbolizes wisdom, and moreover, the serpent also hibernates for the winter by falling into a state of hypnosis. The mysterious Dionysian ceremony seemed to be drawing to an end as the chorus lifted their arms high in the air to honour the hierophant by chanting, “Oh hail serpent Orestes . . . serpent Orestes!”

Afterwards everyone suddenly vanished into the darkness of the moonless night, accompanied by the melody of one of the follower’s flutes. The weak torch flames were extinguished by the Argolean breeze.

At the same time, further off at Epidavros, the applause of the theater audience heralded the end of the rehearsal.

Agamemnon had finished his day’s shift and was looking forward to seeing his wife and children.

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Agamemnon had married Kathy ten years ago. They had met when she was working as an actor in the chorus of a production of Hecuba. Her real name was Hecate but she had changed it to Kathy to avoid the association with the sinister goddess of the underworld. Agamemnon didn’t think anything of her at first, but she proved talented enough to work her way up through the cast each year until she landed the leading role. She was very ambitious. But after ten years of marriage and two children together, Orestes and Electra, she ran off with his brother Menelaus, who was a director at the National Theater. He promised to make her a star and she believed him. She abandoned her children and family for the chance 107

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to play Medea. Needless to say, she had no trouble getting into character! Her performance was a smash hit.

Agamemnon was fond of saying that she was capable of pulling a Medea on her own children if need be.

The rave reviews of the conservative press secured her growing reputation. A few years later she was recognized as a true leading lady after playing the part of Jocasta in Oedipus Rex. The part made her dreams of stardom come true. Menelaus was credited with revitalizing and reforming the art of ancient tragedy with his progressive, daring direction.

In the meantime Agamemnon began looking for a new mother for his children. He started going out with a director’s assistant from the National Theater named Semeli. Even though he worked as a technical assistant, essentially just a theater carpenter, he had deep artistic sensibility and a lot of experience, which the production teams appreciated. Semeli was grateful for his advice and input and she proved to be something more to him than just a mother for his children.

Every summer, at the beginning of June they would gather all their belongings, load them into an Opel Olympia station wagon, and move to the village of Ligourio. They rented a summer home there just a few kilometers away from the ancient theater of Epidavros. This allowed them to be close to all the preparations for the National Theater summer festival productions that they worked on with a whole group of other technicians and artists. The children grew up with the theater, the actors, and the mystical ambience of Epidavros as their backdrop.

When Agamemnon had a day off he would take the kids to Nafplio and Mycenae. He would play the part of King Agamemnon for them, under the Lion Gate of Mycenae, wearing his straw hat as a crown and a beach towel as a cape.

He pretended to address his brother Menelaus, telling him that 108

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he would bring back the fair Helen whom Paris had stolen. The children would roar with laughter at his escapades.

“Why has this fate befallen us?” they would yell in unison teasingly, imitating the actors of the chorus.

That phrase of mourning became their family joke.

“Will uncle Menelaus goes to war,” Orestes asked.

“Why was uncle’s wife taken away?” Electra asked.

Holding a reed instead of a spear, the young Orestes played the part of the ancient Greek. Electra, a kerchief wrapped around her head, became the queen of her dreams. How could Agamemnon have foreseen that uncle Menelaus would later be the one to steal away Kathy, his wife and the mother of his children?

Whereas their father took the children on trips to Mycenae, Semeli, in her role as mother, would give them drawing pads and sit them down among the rows of seats in the theater. Most afternoons she would take the kids and they would pile into “Marmaro” and drive the distance from Ligourio to the theater.

“Marmaro” was what they called the jalopy that served as the theater bus that was always breaking down. While she was working on stage she had them draw their own imaginary stage sets.

“This is Ajax’s burning palace,” little Orestes would say as he drew an ancient palace bursting into flame, which he brought to life using water colors and crayons.

“This is Nezer2 flying on a coackroach in Peace,” little Electra would say, as she drew the beetle of Trygaeus from Aristophanes.

They liked comedies better than tragedies. Not because they understood much of what was going on, but because it 2

Christoforos Nezer: a famous actor of ancient comedies

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gave them the opportunity to laugh as loudly as they could when the rest of the audience laughed. Not to mention the fact that those roly-poly actors on stage were funny! They watched some of the actors in the movies as well. In their eyes Pantelis Zervos, Christoforos Nezer, Eleni Zafeiriou, and Sinodinou were mythical, god-like, heroes, kings and queens, who lived in a world full of magic. They were Antigone, Iphigenia, Clytemnestra and Creon!

The problem on Agamemnon’s mind was that every summer at Epidavros the children had to balance having a life with two mothers present. After a short time, Kathy regretted abandoning her children; she started sending them presents and requesting to spend more time with them. In any case, during the summer she lived just two doors down the street. Perhaps it was that she kept playing the part of the Oedipal queen, or that she wasn’t able to have children with the director, not to mention the fact that she was jealous of Semeli, which may also have contributed to her renewed interest in her children.

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Kathy had a different set of priorities for the children to aspire to, compared to Semeli and Agamemnon. She would tell them to avoid actors and theater people. She had a special soft spot for Orestes and seemed to have some kind of plan for him in mind.

“You’re going to become a doctor,” she would tell him.

When she took the kids on an outing she would make them play in the ruins of the temple of Asclepius. She would try and interest Orestes by describing the site: “the hospital dining room used to be right here, here were the patients’ rooms and over there was the temple for religious ceremonies where they

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would make offerings and there are the springs that would bubble with healing water.”

Electra would scramble onto the fallen columns and pose like a statue, then ask to have her picture taken with her little Sabina camera that she had been given as a present. In the museum Orestes would press his nose up against the glass display case that held ancient medical implements. They struck him as strange. Some looked like things he had seen at the dentist’s office when he had gone to have a tooth pulled. The dentist had arranged his tools in quite the same manner as he now saw them displayed on the shelf in the case. Strange! His mother got him a box of “Little Doctor’s” instruments from the gift shop. The toy set gave him the idea of playing the game of “medical examination” with the other children. He was around twelve years old when he convinced a younger girl, the stage manager’s daughter, to take off all her clothes so that he could examine her. It was around the time that children began to get curious about the anatomy of the opposite sex.

He put on one of his father’s white shirts and glasses, slung his fake stethoscope around his neck, picked up a rubber mallet and said: “Cough gently please.”

“Heeh hem,” she obliged.

He touched his ear to her chest and ordered her to breathe in.

“Haaaaaaah,” she took a breath.

That was the moment his father came out into the yard and found him bent over the naked little girl, his hands on her body, trying to figure out where it hurt! The blood rushed to Agamemnon’s head. He slapped Orestes in the face and dragged him into the house by his ear. Semeli heard the commotion and came running. Flustered, she began to dress the little girl.

Orestes had never been so afraid of his father. “I’m going to bury you underneath the tiles!” his father yelled.

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Everything that happened in that place took on a dramatic tone. The little boy was forced to reveal the fact that his mother had gotten him the toy set of “Little Doctor’s” equipment, and that she was the one who wanted him to grow up to be a doctor like Asclepius! That was why he had begun the game.

The scene continued playing out between Agamemnon and Kathy.

He immediately searched out Kathy, furious, and shouted, “stop trying to influence my children!”

“They’re not your children, they’re our children” she shouted back, pounding her chest with both hands. Her tone of voice had an eerie resemblance to the roles she played.

It was just enough to enrage Agamemnon even more, and he began to give her a piece of his mind, as he never had before.

“You dare call these children ‘your children,’ you, who abandoned them and left them without a mother, and humiliated me by running after my brother,” he fired back in an equally dramatic tone reminiscent of the intrigues played out in a palace court.

“No, you started up with ‘her,’ and I had to leave to save myself from your indiscretion,” she shouted back.

“Me? Even the court ruled in favor of awarding me custody of the children so that I could raise them instead of their own mother,” he exclaimed, pointing his finger in the air.

“You bribed the courts—it was you and your political cronies with their connections that brought about this decision.

The same people that got you this job and who you reserve best seats in the theater for; those are the people who took my children away from me. But you should know that I’m going to get them back, with whatever ways and means that I can.

And I can. You and Semeli are not going to get away with doing anything you want with them. They’re my children.”

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“Just like Medea,” Agamemnon hissed at her like a curse as he raised his hand, ready to strike.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare, or else.” Kathy said as she edged back to avoid the blow.

A hand reached out and restrained Agamemnon’s raised arm, mid-swing. It was his brother, who had got there just in time. The fight shifted to the two brothers. It was about time.

Even though they had put on a civilized front concerning everything that had happened, the truth was that all the thunderbolts of the Olympic gods combined could not rival the potency of the hatred that festered between them. Menelaus yanked Agamemnon’s arm back, pulling him around so that they were face to face. With his other hand, he launched a punch, landing one square on Agamemnon’s face with such force that he staggered backwards, crashing against a country-style buffet that was holding a glass clock and various decorative trinkets.

They shattered; his face became covered in blood. His brother took advantage of the moment and threw himself onto him.

The two brothers writhed together on the mosaic floor, pushing any furniture in their path aside. Invigorated from the blow he had been dealt, Agamemnon grabbed his brother by the collar.

In one swift motion, he rolled him onto his back and raised his hand as he prepared to punch his brother’s face. Then abruptly, he grabbed him by the throat, both hands closing around it like with vice-like grip. He began to beat his head onto the mosaic floor, unconscious of his actions. His hatred blinded him.

“You’re going to kill him! He’s going to kill him!” Kathy began screaming, as she threw her body weight onto his with great momentum, in an effort to stop him.

The sounds of the fight, the yelling, furniture being overturned, and Kathy’s tragic screams, brought the neighbors running from their homes. They ran into the house. Farmers with sunburnt faces, village women in drab clothes wearing 113

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headscarves who made the sign of the crucifix, even the village children gathered to see what was going on. Luckily they managed to spare Menelaus from his brother’s near-lethal grip. He escaped with only a few bumps. The confrontation had occurred and drama was played out. Now the story would circulate all through the village, from mouth to mouth. The whole theater would hear; as would all of Athens because Kathy was a famous actress now, after all.

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Orestes wasn’t about to stop playing the game. They were in the full-bloom of adolescence, and he along with his sister would go swimming with groups of friends in the old town of Epidavros. They would all gather on the beach and form a circle around an open fire to have a party and play the game of “medical examination.” They would sing along to someone’s guitar, or stand up one by one and tell jokes. Orestes was responsible for orchestrating the hilarious “operation” sketch!

Someone would lie down, pretending to be the patient, whom they would then cover up with a sheet that had a convenient tear over the abdomen which had been stained with tomato paste for a more realistic effect. Orestes played the part of doctor with great conviction, something he had surely picked up from the countless performances he had seen, and began to perform the operation. He pulled a ridiculously long rope from within the sheet, supposedly the patient’s intestines; a plastic bag filled with water for the stomach; roast chickens, pieces of toast, rotten apples and oranges that the patient had supposedly ingested; hammers, scissors and pliers, that had been forgotten inside the patient’s body cavity; even the arm of a mannequin once emerged, along with everything else that one could

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possibly imagine that could be hidden under the sheet prior to the performance.

Next it was time to play spin the bottle. They would address their questions to the Oracle of Delphi, asking “What should the lad do with the lady?” They would spin the bottle and whomever the top pointed to, “the lady” in other words, would usually plant a kiss on the other’s mouth! That was just the beginning.

First Orestes’s, and later Electra’s, participation in ancient ritualistic ceremonies began with these games, with the friends that they had grown up with. When Orestes got a little older he began hanging out with a group of young actors, artists and archeologists. Girls thought that it was a big deal to hook up with the son of the National Theater’s most famous leading lady. His connections lent him a certain allure. His first sexual relationship was with a young actress named Kyveli. She was older than him and had studied acting and drama in London.

She infused his life with that little extra something that his mother had deprived him of when she forbade him to mingle with actors. Kyveli was reserved and deeply cultured; her femme fatale persona drove him wild. She was the doorway to a world that he had lived, yet hadn’t experienced.

She had already been privy to some mystical ceremonies of unknown origin. Her flair compelled some to start calling her a “witch” due to the spiritual intensity that she channeled into her roles, embodying the priestess of the tragedy chorus. It didn’t take her long to find other like-minded individuals; a closed, hierarchical group began to meet in secret. She gave Orestes the position of hierophant and great prophet, as in ancient times.

They gathered information for their ritual by taking a tour through the underground tunnels of the temple of Asclepius.

They pored over every symbol etched into the marble and stones of Epidavros. They explored the thymele circle, in the 115

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middle of the orchestra space, and tried to decipher astrological signs. They studied books and ancient manuscripts, tragedies and chorus chants. They listened to the locals share stories and traditions. They discovered that Asclepius’s mother Coronis abandoned him on one of those very hillsides because she had been unfaithful to Apollo with a mortal man before her child was born. Apollo then killed Coronis with one of his arrows.

The child was reared on goat’s milk, under the watchful eye of a sheep dog that protected him. Not far away, Zeus later killed Asclepius with a lightning bolt because he not only cured the sick, but was able to raise the dead, upsetting the god’s cosmic balance. These were the places that the group decided to perform its ritualistic initiation ceremonies even when the subject was the resurrection of the dead! They believed in hypnosis, and did everything possible to fall into a trance, or bring whomever they wanted into a state of ecstasy. Kyveli would often repeat Asclepius’s phrase to the new recruits: “When the soul is asleep it is able to see through its own eyes.” A goat and dog were always present at their ceremonies to symbolize the care and protection that had been given to Asclepius, or as they referred to him by borrowing a phrase from Homer and Hesiod : “Hero and God, Great Healer and Teacher of the Mind and Body.”

Someyearslater,onthehillsideoftheOldEpidavros—exactly at the spot where Electra had been initiated into the secret cult of Asclepius with a Dionysian ceremony—the small theater of Epidavros was actually discovered. The positions of the rectangular stone and the glowing circle of the symbolic orchestra were almost prophetic, as they reflected the actual location of the theater’s orchestra space and temple.

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As the children got older they grew closer to their biological mother. Electra shared a strong bond with Agamemnon, but her character and personality were almost identical to Kathy’s.

She was ambitious, social, and egotistical; she always needed to be the center of attention in her circle of friends and was known for her unstable relationships. Orestes didn’t hesitate to take his mother’s side on the subject of the divorce as he had both a weak spot and great admiration for her.

Things took a turn for the worse when an event occurred that rocked the core of Kathy’s relationship. Menelaus had a very wide circle of friends and acquaintances, by nature of his profession. One of them happened to be a diplomat and poet who worked for the Paris embassy. He would visit Greece every summer and spend almost his entire stay at Epidavros, enjoying the performances. He became close to Menelaus and convinced him that he could open the way for venues in Paris and London with his connections. The relationship between the two men didn’t end there. Menelaus spent the following winter in Paris, under the pretense of laying the groundwork for future performances. Kathy got on a plane and headed for Paris without telling him a thing. She slipped a tip to the hotel maid and got the information she wanted. Then, one night, she snuck into his room. She found Menelaus in bed with the diplomat!

The only thing left to do was to curse him from the very depths of her soul. Her wrath was so great that upon returning to Athens she broadcast the news all over the city. She wasn’t as embarrassed as she probably should have been by publically humiliating her partner; all she cared about was shaming him.

She believed that she could hurt him with shame more than anything else.

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Kathy couldn’t help but hear some of the things that were being whispered about behind her back, about her life and choices. She snapped under the burden of everyone’s expectations combined with her loneliness. With the help of a friend, she found solace in alcohol. The alcoholism itself wasn’t even the last straw, or what made people shake their heads when her name was mentioned. What finally did it, was that she honestly believed that she was a direct descendent of the House of Labdacus, ruler of Thebes, grandfather of Oedipus, because she was from the village of Kaparelli, in Viotia, near Labdacus’s ancient palace. Labdacus, king of Thebes, and Oedipus’s grandfather, was attributed with founding the philosophy that man can never escape his destiny. That was the Labdacus curse. Laius, Jocasta, Oedipus, Ismene, Eteocles, Polynices and Antigone herself all shared the same curse, the tragic fate from which they were unable to escape. They were all members of the same family tree. Kathy lost her mind and fell into a mental delirium. The mind has a way of trying to finds its balance as it negotiates treacherous pathways. This depends on one’s life experiences, common sense already available to be drawn from or that developed to defend one’s choices, social position and environment. But was it madness?

“I’m not crazy, do you understand? Did you know that before being killed by Oedipus, his son, Laius had had an affair with the son of a king from Ileia. Why did my husband Menelaus choose him? Am I not enough of a woman?”

“Kathy his name is Menelaus, not Laius,” her friends would tell her.

“Yes, but his brother is named Agamemnon and my children are Orestes and Electra. Those were the names of the real Agamemnon’s brother and children!”

“That’s irrelevant Kathy,” they said as they tried to reassure her and soothe her.

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“Do you know who I am? My name is Hecate, not Kathy. I carry all the curses of the cosmos on my bosom!”

Three times that winter, such thoughts associations caused her to wind up in a rehabilitation clinic. In the clinic she experienced the absolute solitude and social seclusion of life as an outcast.

Some said that what she was going through was a bad sign for an actor. Actors often suffer from the “transfer phenomenon,” as do psychologists. In the process of trying to help a patient, they transfer the problem to themselves. Actors do the same thing. They identify with the roles they play. Instead of getting into character, the character takes them over. That’s not being a good actor! But what is an actor?

She had managed to forge a strong career path up until this point, and from here on in she decided to venture on alone. But what about her life? In her life she found her son. Few people stood by her, but one of those who did was Orestes. He held her hand for hours and kept her company. He felt compassion for her. He mopped her sweaty brow. She realized that she did have a child. She leaned on him and realized that not all was lost. The gift her son gave her when she returned home was that he had decided to live with her, to move into her apartment. She grew stronger. By the beginning of summer they were once again at Epidavros.

“Everything is on the line,” she said. “I will be judged by both man and gods at Epidavros—in the circle of the orchestra, in every echo of my voice, by the warm stone seats and by the applause.”

And it came. It wasn’t just applause; it was thunder. It was a triumph, the likes of which had never been seen before. A grand performance. The audience gave her a standing ovation at the end it and then flocked to the stage. She stood tall, imposing, serious and regal in her black and white sheath, her hand over 119

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her heart as she bowed again and again in front of her audience.

Other than a few friends from the theatre world who made the connection, the audience never suspected nor clued into her personal association with the tragedy that had just been played out.

One more round of applause came after the performance, as she made her way to Leonidas’s tavern in the village of Ligourio with Orestes. It was the spot where all the actors, directors, other artists, journalists, theatre critics and guests of honour would usually gather. It was just a custom, a tradition, but at the same time it served as the most effective way of testing how a show had been received. She smiled brightly—with just a touch of something tragic—at the regulars who shouted “Bravo!” from their tables when she entered. She raised one hand in a gesture of greeting and with the other she held her son close, showing the world that he was the most important thing to her.

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Menelaus was killed in a car accident a few years later while he was on a trip from Paris to Greece. His friend the diplomat was driving the car, and survived the accident. But a month later, they found him dead in his Paris apartment, where he had hung himself. He killed himself because he couldn’t live with the guilt of being the responsible for his lover’s death.

Kathy figured that he had caught her curse, or the “powers that be” had decided to punish the people involved in the “crime.”

She considered that level of infidelity to be as serious as any crime, and believed that they were dealt a fitting punishment.

She never cared for a man again.

With Orestes by her side, her world and home were complete. She was mature enough and imbued with enough life experience to offer him anything and everything. Whatever 120

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scar she had created by abandoning him in childhood she now healed with time and caring. She sincerely answered the questions that tortured him and passed on her values, which became his. She had the necessary experience to draw from. He was at an impressionable age when she taught him what love was, what lust was, and what a woman was. She became his role model. She was both the model mother and the ideal woman.

He worshipped her and her reward was what she had always wanted; that he become a doctor. That is what he did.

A few years later, she didn’t stop at giving him the money to set up his own surgery. She went as far as to sell some of the land that she had inherited and with the money she built him his very own fully-equipped medical clinic.

“I want him to have something of his own so that he can make something of his life,” Kathy said. To consummate the venture—which for her was more of a sacred ritual and obligation—she gave him a copy of a sculpture of Asclepius for the entrance to the clinic.

Of course, she also had a daughter. Many people didn’t even know because they were so rarely seen together. Electra had chosen to follow a path closer to her father’s heart, a path that her mother rejected long ago. She entered art school, pursuing her intrinsic talent, but she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do. Semeli thought that she was destined be a set designer but Electra’s impatient temperament thirsted for quicker recognition and fame, and so she wanted to become a painter.

As soon as she finished art school she left for Paris. She fell in love with an up and coming painter, who became a kind of mentor to her. They traveled to New York together, in search of any opportunity for new artists that the city had to offer. They settled there and tried to launch their respective careers with shows at various galleries. Success was elusive.

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Their relationship became complicated when they had a child.

Electra’s partner claimed that it wasn’t his because around the time of its conception he had suspected Electra of having an affair. He was a lost soul, a drug addict, a flower child hippie who negated the values of the modern world. The rejection of his art added fuel to the fire and soon enough they were both in a very difficult financial position, just barely scraping by.

The loose morals of the times and their environment provided everyone with an easy solution. He began dealing drugs so that he could afford to feed his own addiction and make enough of a profit to live off of. Many New York artists were doing the same so Electra didn’t try and stand in his way as she didn’t consider it to be a stigma. It ended up stigmatizing her soon enough though, when he was ratted on by someone he had sold drugs to and was arrested by the FBI. Electra was on her own. She started looking for a job so that she could support herself and her child. The day came when she found herself clawing through a dumpster outside of a burger joint looking for something to eat. She asked passers-by for a few cents so that she could buy milk for her baby. Some New Yorkers that had bought her paintings took pity on her and helped her find a job. She began working as a secretary for a senator who had been elected in New Mexico. She tried to help her boyfriend in jail with the money from her first paycheck.

He asked her to smuggle drugs to him every time that she visited. Electra refused because she was too scared. She had a baby to look after and didn’t want to end up in his position. He started threatening her through a gang that he was affiliated with when she didn’t give him what he wanted. Electra spoke to her friend that had helped her get the job, and she in turn spoke with the senator. He met with Electra and she explained the situation. He suggested that she leave New York to work with him in Washington. Her dreams of an art career in New York 122

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had already been ruined and so she agreed to accompany the senator to Washington DC. She began a new life. Despite her best efforts to cut off all ties with her incarcerated boyfriend, she never stopped thinking about him. She even tried to use the senator’s influence to get him released. Electra was a woman who possessed Mediterranean allure; she had the dark beauty of an ancient maiden, a true Greek. Her features were uncommon among American women. They made her stand out. The senator certainly noticed her; he was young and well-off even though he had a wife and children of his own. He found a clever way to get close to her, by appealing to her weakness. He dropped by the small apartment that she used as a studio one day to admire her paintings. He was impressed—or at least he appeared to be.

He was so taken that he offered to finance an exhibition of her work in Georgetown. He was sure of her success. It didn’t take long for her to melt into his arms. She had found her shelter from the storm. Her love grew.

The exhibition took place. The piece that sold first was an image of the gateway to the Epidavros Theater, which instead of the depicting the actual theatre in the background, framed the skyscrapers of New York. The exhibition brought her publicity in some of the art reviews of the city. She became the talk of the town. Then a few of her colleagues at the senator’s office started to allude to the “other talents” of the hot-blooded Greek. The scandal broke. As it always happens in such situations, no one seems to be interested in who you are—all they’re interested in is what you’ve done. In order to save the senator’s reputation as the upstanding family man that his electoral base wanted him to be, Electra was made the scapegoat. She was abruptly shunned by his office; the doors slammed shut behind her as quickly as they had opened to let her in. She had nowhere left to go but back to Greece.

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Agamemnon was happy on the one hand, because he was able to bounce his granddaughter on his knee, and shocked on the other, when he heard Electra’s story. He couldn’t believe his ears.

“That’s not how I raised you. You’re just like your mother, the spitting image of Kathy!”

Kathy had a different opinion. “Your father’s responsible for how you turned out. He didn’t instill you with any real values!

They hung you out to dry,” she would tell her daughter, making Electra feel even worse.

Her mother had neither the time nor the inclination to pay her much attention. She was too busy with the preparations for Orestes’s wedding. Ostensibly because of his discerning taste, Orestes had had numerous flings that never lasted long.

The reason was obvious. Nobody could measure up to Kathy.

She had earned the applause of so many crowds, had gained so many admirers, that manipulating her son’s emotions was a piece of cake in comparison. She had given birth to him after all!

“You don’t need them, they need you,” Kathy would say. She kept a close eye on everything that went on in his life.

He not only allowed her involvement but actively sought it out. He would run to her with his every secret to ask for her advice. He had earned quite the reputation on the art scene as an eligible bachelor. When she felt that her social circle was beginning to quip that he should settle down, she convinced him to take the wife of her choice. She chose a bride whom she could easily control and who had enough family money to get the clinic through a rough patch if need be!

The wedding, which took place on Philopappou hill, was beautiful. Marriages arranged and managed by someone other than the couple usually last. Within three years the couple had two children, Ismene and Aristotle. The marriage would 124

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have lasted longer had the children not awakened Orestes’s old metaphysical musings. The impetus took the form of a nurse at the clinic whom he supposedly had fallen madly in love with.

She stimulated his intellect in a way that excited him too much to keep secret. Around his wife he was a calm, focused man of science. Around the nurse he became the rebel philosopher of his youth, he was once again a hierophant. His wife caught him in the act one day; she walked into intensive care room 319 and found them naked, passionately entwined underneath the oxygen concentrator, right next to the cardiograph machine!

They didn’t even stop when they noticed her. The marriage, which was guided by the wisdom of an outside source and could have been successful, imploded on the spot. Eurydice took her children home with her. She had no use for him whatsoever.

* *

*

After the episode with the nurse and his separation, which was the unavoidable consequence of his actions, Orestes put himself back under Kathy’s guidance. She wanted him to convince his wife to let him have custody of the children so that she could raise them for him.

Around the same time Kyveli came back into his life. Her intellectual curiosity always had the effect of throwing him into a state of brooding introspection and self-analysis. The sexist approach to unbridled passion that he had adopted with the nurse was reversed by Kyveli’s anti-phallic feminism. She was an experienced, mature woman capable of integrating his needs into her somewhat dogmatic world view. She believed in a universal code of behaviour, although this was not based on any established religion. Orestes found that he was unable to agree with her about the practicalities of life, and this made him realize that while their goals and beliefs were similar, their 125

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philosophy of life was quite different. They had two different ways of getting to the same end point; one was by way of sea, the other was via the mountain pass. This resulted in endless discussions that never brought any real conclusions. He fell into an intellectual coma, as he would have diagnosed himself, if there was such a term. The last straw was when Kyveli asked him to do the same thing his mother wanted. Influenced by ancient Greek practises, she thought of herself as a true priestess and teacher; she wanted him to take the children into his custody and away from Eurydice, so that she could raise them herself. She suggested that they could either fight for them legally or kidnap them. She preferred the second option because it would allow her to spirit the children away and hide them in a monastery. She would raise them there as she saw fit, and he would be able to come visit them often.

He had never realized just how dangerous she was! He never could have imagined that her youthful fantasies of worshipping unknown gods could wreak such havoc in his life.

That these fantasies would lead to almost criminal thoughts. He considered the ancient lore as a theatrical ritual, a philosophy promoting good, which had helped him fall in love with science. He didn’t hold himself responsible—or Kyveli either for that matter—for his acquaintance with that dimension.

Kyveli left one night, alone. He turned on his mother. He began to tell her that she was a sick and twisted person. He accused her of having traded her children in for success and for having transferred her heroine’s angst onto her children and into her life. He said that she was a true hypocrite and had made her children victims of the roles she played.

“You never treated me like I was your son, you treated me like I was your lover,” he said straight to her face one day. He wanted to say something even worse but held his tongue. No

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matter what he thought, she was still his mother, and that was a bond he couldn’t break.

This caused Kathy to fall back down to earth. It wasn’t what he said as much as the fact that she realized that she was losing him.

Orestes, in the absence of clarity, with his mind clouded by the obsessions that were churning within it, fell into deep thought. He began to make connections and started to contemplate all that he had learned up until now about how to judge and ascertain human character. It was Kyveli who led him to the solution that he was looking for, as it was contained in her teachings about destiny and fate. What he discovered shook him to the core. It was so devastating that it damaged his feelings and values toward people who had exercised a defining influence in his life.

Why? What was it that he discovered?

He realized that Kathy, Electra, Eurydice and Kyveli all shared the same zodiac sign: four Capricorns. The four women in his life, the four seasons, the four elements that all followed the same pattern. His mother, his sister, his wife and his lover. The same number as the number of times that he pounded his sacred staff onto the ground as a hierophant. He fell into his intellectual coma once again. He leafed through his secret books. They were Capricorns with the sun in the same astrological house. Their ascendants were in Leo with Jupiter in Aquarius. He tossed aside the books. He turned his focus to Chinese astrology. He entered their birth dates; they were all born in the Year of the Monkey and shared a western horoscope in Capricorn. He was born in the Year of the Snake.

“This dominating woman will not cope with the association to his own astrological position and will leave,” said the wise book.

He didn’t want to believe it, but his mother had abandoned 127

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him, his sister had left him, his lover, his wife . . . they all had.

How can one explain this if astrology is a fraud? How was it possible? What else was in store for him? He visited Christian churches and saw the zodiac cycle painted on the walls between the saints. In the church where Governor Kapodistrias was assassinated in Nafplio, a five-pointed star was etched into the marble floor of Saint Spiridonas. He had seen the star signs on the thymele circle in the temple of Asclepius in Epidavros.

He began thinking even in his sleep. He wasn’t exactly sleeping, but rather in a state of hypnosis, or as we call it nowadays a state of self-suppression. The more he read, the more convinced he became that the Oedipus complex had governed his entire life. He reached back deep into his subconscious, accessing his childhood, where it all began. And what did he find? Nothing more than years of innocence. The people who raised him—without guilt and just like that—had always tried their best. In following their own destiny, they contrived this story that had now become his. His mother and sister taught him love, affection, and intimacy. This intimacy, which pervaded Kyveli’s glance and embrace, had naturally drawn him to her and kept him by her side. He now realized that this bond had been his most disastrous mistake. Eurydice shared the same quality—the wrong criteria on which to choose a life partner and the love of one’s life. It was certainly wrong to marry one’s mother the first time, definitely still wrong the second; it would always be wrong. What made him feel desperate was the fact that he believed that it is impossible for one to escape one’s destiny. Did this mean that his mother wasn’t crazy to believe that she was a descendant of the House of Labdacus? Who was she? Jocasta? It couldn’t be possible, history doesn’t repeat itself.

After all, he hadn’t killed his father. He wasn’t Oedipus but he did carry the complex that she had instilled in him. He was a conscientious adult equipped with the power and tools to 128

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change his life around. He could change his choices, even his basic principles. The new conclusion he reached was, “we are each responsible for our own luck and destiny.” He wrote, “to hell with my ancient ancestors” on a piece of paper and stuck it on his desk where he would see it every day. It was time for him to get back to work and see his patients, whom he had let fall by the wayside.

He decided not to let any woman take control of his life. He destroyed every sentimental object that tied him to his past. He even smashed the porcelain cups that his wife had left behind when she left him. He got rid of all the decorative knick-knacks that he had been given as gifts because they symbolized the mental and emotional control that others had held over him, or the poor decisions he had made. He lit a fire in the fireplace and burned all the photographs of his wife and his wedding, and any other picture that he didn’t like. Kyveli used to say that “a photograph captures a bit of the soul.” If that was true then “some of her soul is still here,” he said as he threw the pictures of his former lover into the flames. He burned all the photos he had of his mother’s performances. He burned books, things that he had written and old letters. Into the fire went jewellery with all of its symbolism. His whole life story went up in flames. This was the new Orestes. From this point forward if somebody wanted to keep up with him she was welcome to try. Otherwise he would live alone. In his old age one of the many nurses that he surrounded himself with would take care of him after all! What was all the fuss about? There was no need to dwell; tonight he had plans to go out with a university classmate and her friends.

A new life, a new beginning, and new people. The group decided on a trendy tavern in Vouliagmeni. An American poet was one of the people in attendance. While everyone else was telling loud jokes, Orestes sat and observed the scene in silence.

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The American noticed his contemplative air and struck up a conversation. Before he knew it, he had started to speak to her about fate because that’s what was on his mind. They were sitting at the corner of the table, close enough to have a conversation without needing to raise their voices. She pulled out a notebook and handed him some of her poems to read. Then she quickly got up and began dancing the tsifteteli3. Orestes wasn’t really interested in reading the poems, mostly because his English wasn’t the greatest, certainly not good enough to understand American poetry! She continued to dance all by herself, long after everyone else had sat back down. She danced with beauty and grace. When she took her place next to him again he began talking to her about luck, which seemed to excite her. He had coincidentally happened upon the subject of her poems. She searched through her bag and pulled out a deck of cards, telling him how alike their perspectives were, and then suggested that she lay the cards on the table so that she could tell him his fortune. She cleared away the plates and glasses and began laying out the deck. As she did so, she hesitated for a moment and then continued laying a new row of cards. Her expression clouded over as she turned over a dark, ominous card. Orestes didn’t notice what it was exactly because she quickly slipped it back into the middle of the deck. She awkwardly picked up the rest of the cards and threw them back into her bag. “I’m so sorry, I can’t . . .” she said. She excused herself and got up to go to the restroom, claiming that the wine had given her a terrible headache.

He didn’t give much thought to her strange behavior, nor was he concerned with what fortune tellers had to say. Something similar happened just two months later, however, when he was attending a medical conference in New York. He went out for 3

Tsifteteli: traditional belly dance with erotic overtones

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something to eat one night with a group of other doctors in Greenwich Village. In the window of a tiny basement shop, a neon sign flashed “CARD READER.” Someone suggested that as a joke, they have their fortunes read and they all piled inside. When it was Orestes’s turn the negro clairvoyant held his palm in her hands as she examined it. She pursed her lips and muttered something that he didn’t understand. She handed him the deck of cards to cut and then she began laying out the cards in rows. Suddenly, she stopped, looked him in the eyes, and gathered up the deck, pushing away the money that he had put on the table. She stood up and he gathered that she was saying “we’ve shut, we’ve shut” in her language because she shoved Orestes out onto the street, closing and locking the door behind him.

* *

*

Electra lived in Athens with Agamemnon; she was raising her child and trying to get her life back together once again.

Semeli helped her out by passing along some extra work. She let her make a few set designs in the beginning and put her forward for a costume design position at a children’s theater production in Athens. Work like this put her backstage again, a place that was both familiar and comfortable. Her experience in New York gave her an international slant which helped promote her work. She quickly climbed to the next professional level, working on productions with bigger names at more respected theaters. She had enough time to devote to work because her daughter, who had been baptized Hermione, was well taken care of by Agamemnon and Semeli. Semeli was the kind of woman who adored children, even though she never had her own. They emptied Electra’s old boxes out of a room their home to make space for the little girl so that she could 131

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have her own bedroom; after all she was in kindergarten now.

Agamemnon’s hair had turned white but he still carried himself like an Areopagite, and he still sported the same mustache. He walked his little granddaughter to and from school every day.

As she was sorting out Electra’s old things, Semeli found a photo album containing pictures from Electra’s youth. It fell onto the floor and opened to a page that held a photograph of Electra, lying on an altar, almost completely naked with a snake slithering on her chest. A group of priests and priestesses was gathered around her and they seemed to be participating in some kind of ceremony, officiated by Orestes. She wasn’t a prude and Electra’s nudity didn’t bother her. At first, she thought that it was like the pictures she had taken of the children when they were pretending to be ancient Greeks, perched on crumbling columns. She flipped through the pages and found other pictures of girls and boys posing in the same in the same position as Electra had been in. They were all naked, covered only with the same sheer white sheath. What she found more troubling was Orestes’s presence next to his nude sister. Her mind leapt to all sorts of sinful, unusual relationships that she couldn’t begin to fathom. She decided to talk to Agamemnon when he returned from picking up the little girl at school. Electra beat him home.

Electra caught her red-handed, still clutching the album. She became crestfallen when she realized that from the look on Semeli’s face, she had seen the pictures.

“They’re none of your business,” she shouted in frustration, as she grabbed the album from her hands.

“I’m your mother, I raised you and I demand an explanation,” Semeli said sternly.

The two women fought for quite some time. One was fighting to hide her past, the other, to uncover the truth about her stepdaughter’s life.

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“I’m a woman too, which is why I need you to explain to me whether this is how women behave within their social circles nowadays or whether this is how you chose to prostitute yourself.”

Semeli got through to Electra with what she said. As hard as she tried, she wasn’t strong enough at the time to stand up to her stepmother’s logical questions with arguments of her own.

She couldn’t avoid the confrontation, or deny the evidence. She compromised by telling Semeli about her youthful escapades.

She shared the names of some of the people involved and the events that had occurred, while reassuring her that it had been nothing more than adolescent nonsense. Before she told Semeli a thing she made her promise not to breathe a word of it to her father or to anyone else, not even Orestes. The conversation would have lasted even longer if Electra checked her watch, causing her to spring to her feet.

“Why isn’t papa back yet with the little one?” she said, feigning concern.

“They’ll be home any minute,” Semeli responded calmly, gesturing for her to have a seat and continue her story.

At that moment the doorbell rang, and Electra sprang up to greet her child. Agamemnon rushed in all flushed and grabbed Electra by the shoulders.

“Where’s the girl? Isn’t she with you? Who is your daughter’s father?” he yelled, upsetting her.

He was in agony, grabbing at his head as if he was trying to pull out his hair, then clapping his palms together, clenching his fingers.

“What are you talking about father? Where is she?” Electra asked him, alarmed.

“Her teacher told me that her father had already picked her up. So tell me, who is her father? Do you know? Did you ask

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someone else to pick her up?” Agamemnon asked frantically.

He looked like he was on the verge of collapsing.

“Oh God! My god, oh god,” Electra gasped as she slumped into Semeli’s arms, who had come to find out what all the commotion was about.

“What is it Agamemnon?” Semeli asked. “How can the teacher have let her leave with a stranger?”

“She didn’t” Agamemnon said, taking deep breaths. “She saw me coming and she let her out into the schoolyard. I got caught up in a conversation with the captain’s wife. Then suddenly the child went missing!”

“My child is lost!” Electra shrieked. “Do you mean to tell me that someone snatched her right before your very eyes,” she demanded, as she turned to look him square in the face.

“You mean to tell me that the teacher was standing right there and didn’t see a thing?” Semeli asked.

“She did,” Agamemnon said. “She saw a man with long hair get out of a car and wave at her saying ‘father, father.” He took the child by the hand and put her in the car with another two men and then they were gone. By the time I turned around to see what was going on only seconds later, she was gone.” He said clapping his hands together in frustration.

“Does the teacher even know the child’s father?” Semeli asked, perplexed.

“She was aware that the child’s father lives in the United States,” Electra said.

“And she just let her leave with him?” Semeli asked again.

“She told me,” interjected Agamemnon, “that she thought I had arrived with the other men and that’s why she let her go.”

“That idiot,” Electra yelled. “Damn her! And him, he is capable of anything,” she continued screeching. “What do we do now? Where do we go now papa? Let’s try and find her, she can’t be far . . . We should go to the police.”

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“The teacher has already gone to the precinct. Let’s go there now. We’ll find her Electra, we will.” He said hugging her. “It’s all my fault, I’m a foolish old man,” he said bursting into tears as he kissed the top of her head.

The police treated the case as nothing more than a custodial dispute involving a missing child, with some possible consequences for the teacher due to her lax supervision.

The police chief called Electra into his office to explain the procedure. She was clearly frightened and this incited the chief ’s curiosity. For this reason, he asked for more details surrounding the case. She felt compelled to tell him the whole story about everything that had happened in New York. She told him about the drugs, her partner’s time in prison and the blackmail. She recounted how she had fled to a different city, about the senator, about everything. Of course, she left out things that exposed her—such as her affair and how she was ostracized—as she considered these to be personal matters that had nothing to do with the case. The chief frowned when he heard about the drug deals, prison and a senator’s involvement.

He picked up the phone and placed a call to the special security unit, they in turn notified the drug squad, who contacted Interpol. All of this was carried out in a slow and lethargic way.

Everyone who heard the story uttered an “uh huh,” initially suspicious, even of Electra who had brought the charge, and then they passed the buck. The hours ticked painfully on, midnight arrived and still no word, even though they had been assured that an investigation and search had begun. Electra, her hands cold from perspiration and agony, pleaded to be released so that she could go and search for her child on her own, as did Agamemnon and Semeli. She was terrified by the idea that her child was kidnapped and would be taken to America for good, and she expressed this openly.

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“Let me search the hotels, the airports . . . I have to be doing something,” she pleaded. “I can get the story on the news . . .

Make a televised public announcement.”

Of all the officers, a detective named Votsis showed the most interest. He reassured her that everything she was thinking of doing was already being done. Her daughter’s picture was already in the hands of border control. He seemed to possess an in-depth understanding of how things worked and how to carry out a search.

“We’ve made contact with the FBI madam, asking them for any relevant information about your husband.”

“He’s not my husband and he never was!” She said abruptly.

“Then what is he?” Votsis asked “He’s simply the father of my child . . . Nothing more.” She said in frustration, turning her face away.

“Even so . . .” detective Votsis said. “The child was born in the United States and is an American citizen. He may have some kind of court documentation, some rights as a father,” he continued, trying to catch her eye.

“He had absolutely no right to my child. Nothing at all, he is completely insignificant.” Electra insisted, pounding her fist on the desk.

“Very well,” he said “We’ll deal with whatever happens. It’s still a normal work day in America. Let’s sit tight.”

At daybreak they were at home, huddled over the phone, waiting for it to ring. In the meantime Orestes had arrived; he had gone berserk when he found out. He hugged his sister and berated his father, demanding to know what exactly had happened and how. He even cross-examined Electra about the American father of her child. He was furious at everyone.

“You mind your own children’” Agamemnon said.

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Kathy was notified of course, but she reacted so badly that Electra hung up on her.

“You’re unfit to be a mother. How could you entrust your child to your no-good father? He’s incapable of taking care of a child.”

At around seven a.m. Agamemnon got dressed to go out.

He wanted to go back to the kindergarten to look for the little girl himself. “I’ll find my little one,” he said, pounding his finger against his chest. “I’m the one who let her out of my sight and I’m responsible.” He pointed the same finger at Electra and said, “he doesn’t want the child, he wants you.”

He left the house. His plan was to canvass the neighborhood of the school, asking everyone if they had seen anything.

He began with the local kiosk owner and the nearby shops.

He waited for the other mothers to drop off their children.

Clasping a picture of little Hermione in his hand, he begged for any bit of information that could help. He asked the school bus driver, the cabbies, and the carpoolers—nothing! No one had seen or noticed anything out of the ordinary. His grief upset the other parents. They looked at him pityingly, trying to remember the child he was asking them about. He dragged himself around amidst the children like a decrepit old man, searching their little faces for his granddaughter’s, needing to believe that there could have been some mistake. With nothing to lean on, his legs began to tire, his head started spinning and his eyes glazed over. He didn’t want to go home without having found one shred of hope. In spite of this, he made his way back and got his car without going upstairs. He drove around the neighborhood, searching every side street. Looking for what?

The child of course. He had also gathered some descriptions of the car that she had been bundled into. It was said to be a big, new, dark grey car, probably a Mercedes. The kiosk owner had said, “couldn’t have been a Mercedes, I can spot one ten 137

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meters away.” The bus driver had said, “definitely a Mercedes, four door, because they put the kid in the back.”

Back at the house, under the pressure of the recent events, Semeli had forgotten all that had happened earlier regarding the photos and Electra’s attempt to explain them to her. Even if she had wanted to broach the subject, she couldn’t now because Electra had started fighting with her brother. He had begun to chastise her for her irresponsibility, criticizing her for being indifferent and neglectful toward her child. He did this in a cruel and harsh way, which was inappropriate given the circumstances of the moment and his role in the matter. She wept openly and tried to explain herself, making no effort to rebuke him for his insensitivity. He blamed her for everything.

Finally, unable to control his rage, he slapped her hard across the face. His blow threw her to the floor and Semeli rushed to hold him back.

“Orestes please, your sister is not your property to do as you like with. It’s not your child that is missing,” she said, trying to restrain him.

“It is my child . . .” he yelled like a madman.

“What? What did you say? What do you mean?” she asked, looking him in the eyes.

“No more . . . no more . . .” Electra wailed in pain.

“What are you saying? Are you out of your minds? Have you had incestuous children?” Semeli asked, panic-stricken.

“It’s your sperm. She’s not your child!” Electra shrieked at Orestes before collapsing onto the floor where she moaned and writhed.

Semeli’s eyes rolled back into her head, revealing the white underside of her eyeballs as she crumpled onto the floor unconscious, next to Electra. Orestes leaned his head against the wall, devastated. He felt desperate enough to want to bang his head against the wall as hard as he could.

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When detective Votsis rang the doorbell, a sense of calm had apparently descended on the household, which was suspended in dead silence. What can one say when facing destiny, which in truth has been defined by one’s own actions? The detective entered the apartment, case file in hand. He looked into the three pairs of blurry eyes, sunken within their sockets. It’s understandable, he thought—after all this has to do with their child.

“I have no news of the child,” he said hastily because he knew that was what they were waiting for. “But some information did come to light about the father . . .” he stammered with difficulty.

“Of course, you know about the drug problem already,” Votsis began, shuffling some papers in the file he was holding, when Electra suddenly interrupted him.

“Do you have anything new to tell us sir?” she demanded coldly.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat annoyed. “When his sentence was over he continued to deal drugs in even larger quantities than before.”

“I knew that already,” Electra said brusquely.

“What I mean to say madam is that you need to be very careful. You aren’t just up against one man anymore; he is part of a drug ring now.” He gestured with his hands to give her a sense of the size of the problem as he spoke. “Whatever you do needs to happen under our supervision. It would be pointless and dangerous for any of you to go out alone. We are actively pursuing all leads, we have experience and I assure you that we are going to find your child.”

“How can you be so sure that you’re going to find her when you’re dealing with these bastards?” Orestes asked.

“Who are you exactly?” the detective replied as he sat back down.

“He’s . . . my brother,” Electra jumped in.

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“Your brother, I see . . .” Votsis said, and paused before going on. “The FBI is looking for this man because he has had open dealings with some cocaine barons. Is that a good enough answer for you?” he asked Orestes.

“And since the FBI is looking for him, this means that the child will be found?” Orestes asked in a tone thick with irony.

“It does, we’ll find her,” he said confidently. “This case isn’t just a family matter, it’s kidnapping by a felon who is wanted for other, more serious crimes. Both we and the foreign agencies want him locked up. I can’t figure out why he suddenly decided to become a caring parent and come looking for the child though . . .” Votsis said, adopting the demeanor of a true detective with a discerning mind. “Wait until he contacts you. I’m telling you . . . there’s something he’s after that you have. Don’t take him on alone. We’re all ready to help. We’ll get through this together.

I’ll come by again to discuss the details. I’ll let you know . . .” he said as he got up to leave.

He moved towards the door, Electra right behind him. He stopped suddenly, turned, and abruptly asked Orestes, “do you know a woman named Kyveli? I can’t remember her last name but I know that she’s an actress.”

Orestes squinted, trying to gauge the detective’s intention.

“Yes I know her,” he answered.

“Oh I see,” he said smiling. Although Electra was practically shoving him out the door, he suddenly turned to address her.

“I’m sorry madam but you forgot to mention whether you yourself have used or use drugs?”

Semeli, who had been standing there silently for the duration of his visit now intervened. “My children are good, educated people. They have nothing to do with that sort of thing.”

“I see,” Votsis said curtly, implying that he understood.

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“I may have tried drugs in my youth, as did many of my friends,” Electra said suddenly, when she saw that Semeli’s answer hadn’t convinced him. “I certainly wouldn’t consider it now,” she said, indicating how absurd the idea seemed to her.

“Which group of friends are you talking about?” he asked, puzzled.

“How can I remember sir, it all happened so long ago,” Electra responded.

“Was Kyveli a member of this group of friends?” he asked, looking directly at Orestes.

His question had the effect of bringing back the stony silence that had met him when he first arrived. Was he expecting an answer? What was the detective implying?

He realized that no one was going to say anything of their own accord, especially when he already appeared to know the answer, so he kept talking.

“You know, since we’re talking about drugs, the department keeps tabs on anybody who’s been involved. I’m not talking about you but Kyveli. Let’s just say that we know her to have been involved in the ring . . .”

“What ring?” Orestes asked.

“Domestic stuff, nothing international . . . but what am I saying. How could you possibly be involved when you admit to knowing her. Goodbye,” he said quickly and then rushed out the door and down the stairs, leaving Semeli speechless for the third time in the span of a few short hours, as she learned of yet another startling revelation.

* *

*

The days passed without any sign of the child surfacing.

The abductors had made no attempt to contact the family, contrary to what the police had predicted would happen. On the 141

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morning of the third day Electra took some fliers that she had printed and went out to post them around the neighborhood where Hermione had disappeared and wherever else she thought there might be a chance of someone having seen her.

She walked across the park in front of her building and got into her sports car. As she was turning the key in the ignition a man ran up beside her, grabbed a hold of the steering wheel through the window and turned it so that she couldn’t leave.

“Just a moment madam. Stop, and exit your vehicle,” he instructed her in English, spoken with a heavy American accent.

She was so surprised that she pressed her foot on the brake hard, causing him to lose his balance momentarily. At the same time, a second man, who had jumped out of a car parked behind her, approached and flashed his identification and badge.

“FBI madam” he said sternly, slipping his ID back into his pocket before she could recover from the shock.

Both men were young with inscrutable countenances. They had military haircuts, one with hair so short he was almost bald and the other a recent brush cut. They were wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses and perfectly pressed grey suits. Electra, terrified, was about to start screaming for help. American agents in Greece—that was certainly a first! They seemed prepared for her reaction, making no sudden movements as they leaned in and whispered into her ear.

“Madam, we’re here for your protection and in the best interests of your child.”

His words stopped her dead in her tracks. Without wasting a second she got out of her car, allowing them to protectively usher her to their vehicle. A third man was waiting with the motor running. They guided her into the back where she sat between them. The car departed with a screech.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, deeply anxious.

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“Listen carefully,” said the man sitting to her left, who looked slightly older than the others. “First of all we want to tell you about your child and that we are aware she is unharmed.”

“Where is she?” Electra demanded, sitting up in her seat.

“What do you mean she’s unharmed? You know where she is and you won’t tell me?”

“Listen madam,” he continued, “there are times when our intervention can make a situation worse or even put people in danger, which is why we need your help.”

“What can I do?” Electra asked. “You’re scaring me. Is something bad happening? Why does the FBI have to with a small child of kindergarten age?” she shouted.

“Calm down. We are here to help. The first thing you need to do is promise us that you will keep this meeting a secret, it’s for your own good,” the agent said, trying to gain her consent.

“Okay,” Electra answered, nodding her head emphatically, her eyes moist with tears as she brushed away the strands of hair that were stuck to her cheek.

“All right. Don’t you have any friends in America who could provide assistance?”

“What do you mean?”

“You appear to be, um . . . acquainted with a certain senator whose office you once worked at,” He said with difficulty.

The car crossed Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and was quickly heading down Sygrou Avenue. The foreign detective explained, in as few words as possible, that her child had been abducted by her ex-boyfriend and was flown to New York on a private jet.

They had allowed this to happen because the FBI had narrowed in on the illicit drug ring which he was a part of. He would be arrested within a matter of days. Since he was released from prison, he had become a powerful man in financial terms, by way of many nefarious activities. Through his connections and generous campaign donations, he had managed to get close to 143

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the senator of New Mexico. He was counting on reaping the rewards of his patronage by making use of the senator’s support and protection. When the FBI cornered him, he put his plan into action. He blackmailed the senator by threatening to make the pictures public that proved his secret meetings and affair with Electra. He would then kill the child, framing the politician so that it would look like he murdered the girl in an act of revenge. Electra, clearly shocked, began to cry.

“What? That criminal is going to murder my child? And you are just standing by?” she exclaimed, unable to stop herself from swearing at them. She was literally shaking as she tried to free herself from their grip.

They didn’t pay any attention to her reaction. It was obvious that they were following orders from higher up.

“Madam that’s why we’re here. Listen. Listen calmly. Our first concern is the child’s safety. The situation is under control and we won’t let anybody come into harm’s way. We’re going to handle every aspect of the case but we can’t do that effectively from here in Greece.”

“What do you mean? What do you want from me and my child?” asked Electra with trepidation.

“Listen,” the foreign agent said one more time. “It’s twelve o’clock now. A TWA flight is scheduled to leave for New York in an hour. We have reserved a seat for you. Nobody will be notified of your departure or your stay in the United States until this is all over and your child is safely back in your arms.

From this moment onward you are being placed in the witness protection program since you eligible as an American citizen.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a file.

“This is your new passport, which you will need to pass through security,” he said handing her the passport. “Inside of this envelope you will find all of the money that you will 144

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need to cover your expenses,” he continued, handing her an envelope. “When you land in New York, a team of our people will take you to a house that is in a secure location. The rest will be explained by our colleagues on the other end. Okay?” The detective’s question was rhetoric because he was sure of her agreement. He gave her the impression that this was her only option anyway.

“I want my child alive. Please, please tell me what I can do to help,” she pleaded.

“We need your full cooperation madam, both for your sake and your daughter’s welfare. If you comply everything will be all right.”

“What will my parent’s think. What can I tell them at home? Will I just disappear?” Electra asked.

“The Greek authorities will assist us. Don’t worry in the least, everything will be quickly resolved.”

“Okay,” Electra replied apprehensively, not knowing what was in store for her. She knew that this was her only hope of finding her child. Her daughter had always been her greatest joy but who could tell what their luck would be?

The agent signaled to the driver to continue on his route to the airport. He stepped on the gas, obeying the command.

* *

Continues in the pages of the book..

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