Green Neon

14 An impregnable fortress

After both of them had calmed down, they packed up what little was left of their picnic. They strolled along the fortress wall in an easterly direction, stopping time and again to admire the grandiose landscape at their feet. Looking for a shady spot, they headed for a single pillar at the edge of a small field of jumbled debris.

Nikos ran the last few meters and leapt onto a large block of marble. He looked around in all directions, shielding his eyes with his right hand.

When Tom stood at his side after a less graceful climb, an indescribable feeling set in. He felt like the commander of an impregnable fortress. No one was to be seen on the plateau. Nikos raised his arms and in a loud voice began a speech in Greek that sounded dramatic.

When he finished, Tom couldn't help but expect the applause of numerous invisible listeners, but all remained silent. Only the crickets, which had apparently fallen silent during his friend's speech, resumed their concert.

The boys jumped off the boulder and sat down in the shade of the somewhat ungainly pillar, the shadow of which was the only shaded spot in this part of the complex. At the other end of the fortress there was a tower and a domed mosque, where there was better shade, but the view was better here and the climb less strenuous.

Tom asked Nikos what his speech was about. He had addressed imaginary secret police officers and told them that they had no chance. They would not be able to conquer the mighty walls of this castle, and all its inhabitants were safe from any attack.

In fact, Tom did feel strangely safe in this place. There was a complete view of the fortress area, so anyone who moved within its borders would be seen. Enemies from outside would be spotted hours before they arrived. One had only to close the gate in the outer wall, and no attacker could penetrate the interior.

The boys discussed which parts of Tom's experiences they should share with Nikos' family. Both felt his uncle should be forewarned and Nikos promised to let him know as soon as possible. Yannis would then have to decide to what extent to inform the rest of the family.

Inevitably, the conversation turned to the political situation in Greece. Nikos wanted to know all about the resistance men Tom had met at Christina's, and from his comments Tom could tell he admired them. In the German school in Athens, political discussions among the students were very frequent. Most students were unanimous in their opposition to the regime, and some had also discussed options for active resistance. However, there was no organization active at the school.

When Tom told Nikos that they had listened to Mikis Theodorakis' music together and how the men reacted to it, the conversation took a different direction. Of course, like every Greek, Nikos knew these songs, and Theodorakis was a hero for him too. They did not, however, quite agree on the musician's communism.

Tom's experience of communism was shaped by trips to Berlin, where he'd crouched in the back seat of his father's car and feared crossing the German-German border. The ugly, inhuman border security systems made of concrete and barbed wire looked threatening to him. Once the East German border guards dismantled the whole car looking for smuggled newspapers or people. They stuck mirrors under the chassis, they poked around in the tank with long, flexible pieces of wire, and they spoke the ugly Saxon dialect. A system that walled in its inhabitants had to be rejected, Tom concluded.

Nikos had a different view of communism. He knew from stories told by his relatives that the communists had put together the only significant resistance against the German occupiers and had often enough lost their lives in the process. Colonel Papadopoulos, however, the head of the military junta, had collaborated with the Nazis. Even now the communists were the only audible opponents of the colonels' regime, which persecuted them more relentlessly than all other members of the opposition.