The Pillars of Hercules

“Maybe if I find a flat on the top of a house, with balcony, nice view of the sea.”

Still, Janwillem seemed doubtful. Was he?

“I think it is very isolated in the winter,” he said. “There is a Dutch group of people in Benidorm, in Spain. You have been there?”

“Yes,” and I wanted to add I hated it, but why demoralize this Flying Dutchman in his hopes for a happy retirement?

“If you are bored in Benidorm, it is so easy to get the bus back to Holland,” he said. “Here is harder. A ferry to Piraeus, then the train or the bus to Patras. Ferry to Italy. Another train to Rome. Train to Paris. What? Two or three days—maybe four!”

I had met Janwillem by chance, walking the backstreets of Ierápetra, as he was looking for a likely dwelling in which to spend his retirement. By the end of this conversation he had convinced himself that retirement in Greece would be an enormous mistake.

Mounting my motorcycle, I rode back to Ágios Nikólaos, admiring the mountains and the blue bays, sideswiped by cars and trucks, as I made my way through the goat-chewed, sheep-nibbled landscape of sharp rocks and olive trees and cracked white houses, all of it screamingly signposted: For Rent! For Sale! Buy Me! Try Me! Rent Me! Eat Me! Drink Me!

Mike the Greek was still sitting at his motorbike rental agency, still reading the porno magazine he had been leafing through that morning.

“How do you say porno in Greek?”

“Porno!” he cried. “Same!”

Back on the Seabourn, I met Jack Greenwald, who said that he had spent the afternoon in the Jacuzzi on the upper deck with Ambassador Tan.

“We talked about what stressful lives we had led,” he said. “I was lying but I think he was telling the truth. We were drinking and sitting there in the Jacuzzi in the sunshine. It was very pleasant. He tells me he’s on his way to Bangladesh, to help poor people.”

“Was Reggie in the tub?” I asked, using the name we had assigned to one of the British passengers.

Jack wagged his finger at me and said, “No, no. Never trust an Englishman who doesn’t shine his shoes.”

After Warm Purple Cauliflower with Olives in White Truffle Vinaigrette, Chilled Plum Bisque, and Marinated Breast of Guinea Fowl with Juniper Gravy—or did I salve my conscience with the Vegetable Gratin?—I bumped into Mrs. Betty Levy and asked why she had been missing at dinner.

“I’m feeling a bit precious today,” Mrs. Levy said. “I had some consommé in my suite. I don’t want to get anything. They’ve all got something.”

Now, well into our second week of this Mediterranean cruise on this glittering ship, we had learned a little about history (toilets were called Vespasians in ancient Rome, Pericles had enormous ears, Athenians ate porridge for breakfast), and found out a lot about each other. In many ways it was like being an old-time resident of an exclusive hotel. Passengers knew each other, and their families, and their ailments, and were confident and hearty.

“How’s that lovely wife of yours, Buddy?”

“Say, is your mother any better?”

“Lovely day. How’s the leg?”

The only stress was occasioned by the visits ashore—not that it was unpleasant being reverentially led through the ground plans of ancient sites, and down the forking paths of incomprehensible ruins, many of them no larger than a man’s hand (“Try to imagine that in its day, this structure was actually larger than the Parthenon”). It was rather that every daily disembarkation for a tour was like a rehearsal for the final disembarkation, the day when we would leave the comfort of the Seabourn, and that was too awful to contemplate.

This ship was now more than home—it had become the apotheosis of the Mediterranean, a magnificent vantage point in the sea which allowed us to view the great harbors and mountains and cliffs and forts in luxury. At sundown we were always back on board, away from the uncertainty and the stinks of the port cities, and the predatory souvenir-sellers. We were on our floating villa which, in its way, contained the best of the Mediterranean. We drank the wines of the Midi and the Mezzogiorno, our dishes were better than anything we saw in the harborside restaurants, and rather than risk the detritus of the beaches, we had our own marina on the stern. Even with his billions, Aristotle Onassis had felt there was no greater joy on earth than cruising these sunny islands, and his honeymoon trip with his new wife, Jacqueline, was the very journey we were embarked on, sailing—it must be said—in our vastly superior ship.

From Crete, we sailed through the islands called the Sporadhes, living up to their name as sporadic—isolated and scattered—and onward past the Greek island of Kos, to the coast to Turkey, the port of Bodrum, with its crusader castle and its crumbling city wall and its market, which contained both treasures and tourist junk.