The Pillars of Hercules

Clea took us to the museum, where one magnificent statue, a life-sized bronze of a charioteer, was worth the entire climb up the hill. As for the rest I had some good historical sound bites for my growing collection.

—The Oracle sat on this special kettle and said her prophecies.

—Pericles had very big ears, which is why he is always shown wearing a helmet.

On the way back to the ship, while the guide was telling the story of Oedipus—how he got his name, and killed his father, and married his mother, while frowning and somewhat shocked Seabourn passengers listened—I began to talk to the Cornacchias, Joe and Eileen, who told me about their recent win at the Kentucky Derby. It was the second time a horse of theirs had been triumphant—“Strike the Gold” had won in 1991, and “Go for Gin” this year.

“What’s your secret?” I asked.

“I have a very good trainer who knows horses. He feels their muscles. I also have a geneticist, who checks them out. It’s a science, you know.”

The Cornacchias lived on the north shore of Long Island, some miles east of Gatsby country. Eileen was an admiring and pleasant person and Joe an unassuming man, who did not boast. He was also very big. “I tell the horses, ‘If you don’t win, I’m going to ride you.’ ”

“What was the purse this year?”

“I won eight-point-one million bucks. Broke even.”

“Where’s the profit, then?”

“ ‘Go for Gin’ is starting to make money as a stud.”

Back on the ship, we resumed our voyage, and as the sun set behind Corinth we slid through the narrow Corinth Canal, with just a few feet to spare on either side. Jack Greenwald stood on deck in his blazer, smoking a thick Monte Cristo, waving to the Corinthians on shore.

At the Seabourn dinners when black tie was requested, two or three a week, it was impossible to tell the waiters from the passengers. The night before we arrived in the port of Piraeus, a variety of caviar was served that reminded Jack Greenwald of something he had once eaten in the Arctic. This became a long story about narwhal tusks, “an area in which I am one of the few living specialists.”

“I have two very important things to do in Athens,” Jack said to me on deck after dinner. “Make a phone call, and buy a captain’s hat. I want one of those real hats—not one with braid. And the phone call is about my cat.”

“Yes?”

“My cat is a diabetic,” he said. “We must have a medical update. Isn’t that right, Constance?”

On the quay the next day I said that we would save money and time if we took the train the twenty miles or so from Piraeus to Athens. Good idea, he said, and waved away the taxi driver he had been speaking to. But on the way to the train station Jack became bored, and he turned around to see the taxi driver dogging our heels, still whining.

“Please don’t say another word,” Jack said. “I will give you a hundred dollars if you stick with us all day.”

That was fine with the taxi driver, whose name was Leonides. He took us to a jewelry shop. Jack: “Is that your cousin?” Leonides took us to a restaurant. Jack: “You have relatives everywhere.” Leonides had a blue eye on his key chain, a talisman against the evil eye. Jack: “You actually believe that stuff?”

“I’m going to tell Leonides I’m in love with him,” Jack said. “Just see what he says.”

In a wintry voice, Constance said, “Behave yourself.”

“Tell me about your king,” Jack said.

“King Constantine,” Leonides said. “Since one year he come to the Greek.”

“Were you happy?”

“Some not happy. Some people say, ‘Go!’ ”

“Did you say ‘Go’?”

“No. That is not good, sir.”

“You know Jackie Kennedy?”

“Mrs. Kennedy, sir. She married Mr. Onassis for the name, sir. For the name!”

Jack turned to me and said, “When Kennedy died I had to take two numbers out of my revue Up Tempo. They mentioned him. They weren’t funny anymore.”

We went to the Acropolis, but it was shut because of a strike by the municipal workers who staffed it. Still, it was possible to see the Parthenon, as white as though it had been carved from salt, glittering and elegant, and towering over the dismal city of congested traffic and badly made tenements. Apart from what remained of its ancient ruins, and the treasures in its museums, Athens had to be one of the ugliest cities on earth, indeed ugly and deranged enough to be used as the setting for yet another variation of the Heart of Darkness theme, perhaps to be called Acropolis Now.

The Seabourn passengers we happened upon in the city were unanimous in sharing this view.

“Athens is a four-hour city,” one man said, meaning that was all the time you needed to see it in its entirety. That hourly rate seemed to me a helpful index for judging cities.

“I think Athens is a toilet,” a blunter man said.

“There’s nothing to buy in Greece,” a woman said.