13 We are already here

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The first few minutes of the bus ride were very quiet. Neither boy wanted to start a conversation. Nikos realized that his German friend had something on his mind and thought of different possibilities of what could have happened. Problems with Sophia? Trouble with Christina? Homesick? He was completely in the dark.

Tom would have liked to report his concerns straight away, but he wanted to save that for a quieter place away from any listeners. But he couldn't think of any other, more trivial topic with which to bridge the silence. Nikos watched him ponder. Finally, Tom pulled himself together:

"Have I already told you that I wanted to go to Corinth mainly because of the Canal?"

For all his ignorance of Greece, it was this channel that intrigued him. He had read about the construction work in a book that also contained drawings from different construction phases which aroused his curiosity. His dream was to cross the canal on foot. However, he wondered if that was even possible. He knew that there was a railway bridge as well as a road bridge, but were they open to pedestrians?

He revealed his idea to Nikos, who immediately came up with a solution. He went to the conductor, who was languidly dozing in his seat. When Nikos spoke to him, his face brightened and he launched into a long, gestural monologue that probably included the complete history of the canal. Twice he had to interrupt his lecture because some passengers got on or off, and since the bus only drove on after his loud "Feeye!", he naturally had more important things to do on these occasions.

By the time his lecture was over, Nikos had not only learned that there was a bus stop right at the entrance to the canal bridge, but also that you could very well cross it on foot on the hard shoulder of the road. The anticipation for the moment suppressed the heavy thoughts that Tom carried around with him.

Reading adventure books, but also watching television programs about distant countries had aroused his great curiosity. At the top of the list were oases in the Sahara, the land of Persia, the Pyramids of Giza, the mysterious Stonehenge, and of course the Corinth Canal. He was about to achieve one of his dream goals.

Now the atmosphere was as relaxed as it was usual between the two friends.

A little later they reached the bus stop. The conductor shooed them off the bus. Irritated, Tom noticed two men in cheap suits who also got out. What was wrong with them? He eyed them furtively out of the corner of his eye until he realized what was bothering him so much: their foreheads had a greenish sheen. They hurriedly disappeared into a tavern just behind the station. He found his observation too outlandish to share with Nikos.

There was still no sign of the canal. The asphalt road, over which many trucks and even more cars rushed, rose slightly so that the bridge and the opposite bank were not yet visible. On the footpath on the left side of the road, the two moved towards the canal. Then the brown wall of the south bank of the canal appeared opposite them.

"Have you been here before?" asked Tom.

"No, I haven't been around much. I only know Attica, the island of Evia, which you call Euboea, and Thessaloniki, but I have never been south or west of Athens."

When they entered the bridge and got a full view of the canal, Tom was speechless at first. He had imagined the waterway to be much wider, but not as deep. A piece of the landscape had simply been removed as if with an oversized saw. Steep brown walls and a long, straight, very narrow-looking canal were created.

The footpath consisted of metal grates through which one could look down which would be a nightmare for people afraid of heights, Tom thought. They were nearing the middle of the bridge when the parallel railway bridge some distance away came into view.

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