Green Neon

9 A plan is needed

Tom left for Athens late in the morning to meet Nikos at the intercity bus station. He travelled a few stations with one of the yellow electric Fiat trolleybuses that moved through the city traffic under their overhead wires silently and without producing any smoke plumes. "A good idea actually," he thought. "If all the buses in the city worked like this, the air would definitely be a lot better."

When the bus strayed too far out of its lane in order to avoid a stopping atxi, it became disconnected from its power lines and was thus stuck. The driver got out and detached a long pole from the left side of the vehicle, which he then employed in a circus-like performance in the midst of the traffic surging around him, trying to connect the pantograph back to the overhead wires. With the expert shouts of the passengers and passers-by, who formed a cluster on the pavement in no time, and with more or less friendly greetings from passing cars, he managed to get the ancient Fiat vehicle moving again in just a few minutes.

A short time later, Tom disembarked and entered the long-distance bus station, a huge, walled square, the air above the asphalt shimmering in the heat. Dozens of turquoise and cream-colored tour buses waited at the site. The older vehicles, which earned their bread and butter here, still exposed traces of the logos of German bus companies under their new paint, while the newer ones, which were mainly used for long distance routes, even had air conditioning.

At the head of the square was the ticket office, a formerly white two-story building with crumbling plaster. Tom looked around and spotted Nikos to the right in front of the entrance. Together they lined up in front of one of the many counters. Although the hall had a high ceiling equipped with large fans, the rotors only whirled the stifling cocktail of exhaust fumes, workshop smells and the sweat of thousands of people who lined up here every day.

After the time-consuming ticket purchase, they looked for the bus to Sounion, and a short time later they were sitting on the comfortable upholstery and letting the wind blow around their noses, because the air conditioning of this bus, which was filled to the last seat, consisted of side windows pushed up.

They silently viewed the urban landscape, dingy areas of mostly one-story, simple concrete buildings next to plush neighborhoods full of greenery, parks, and numerous hotels and bathing establishments - a contradictory picture.

"Where are Sophia and Georgios?" asked Nikos. Tom told him about her mother's call. Nikos said Sophia's parents probably didn't want their daughter to spend the day with two boys who were almost strangers. Tom was dying to discuss the Acropolis visit with his friend, but the timing didn't seem right.

Instead, they discussed the previous day's earthquake, which Nikos had also noticed on the Attic east coast. He confirmed that the Greeks were only marginally aware of such events because they were very common. But that didn't mean that the dangers were underestimated, because without thinking twice he could list several that had caused considerable damage but never found their way into the German newspapers. Such catastrophes were only reported in Central Europe when - as in the case of the Skopje earthquake in 1963 - many people died and entire cities or regions were devastated.

They got off just before the last station. Tom didn't understand why there was a bus stop at this point, because apart from the sign for the bus stop, there was only a stall in which a vertical meat skewer was rotating. On the back wall, charcoal glowed in a wire mesh so that the meat was slowly grilled on the skewer. Next to the stall were two tables with a couple of chairs that had been thrown together. A few yards away was a moped with a trailer stacked with a pyramid of green melons, guarded by an old man who used a giant knife to cut the fruit into chunks of varying sizes as desired, which were then weighed on an ancient scale. Every other car that passed the spot stopped to buy either a piece of melon or a portion of meat.