FIVE OF DIAMONDS

… the unfortunate thing was
that the drink I was given actually tasted
sweet and good …

D ad interrupted my reading to tell me we were coming into Athens, so I felt it didn’t really do to be elsewhere on the planet.

With the help of a map and some perseverance, the boss managed to find a tourist information office. I sat in the car watching the Greeks while Dad was in the tourist office trying to find a suitable hotel.

When he returned, he was smiling from ear to ear.

‘Hotel Titania,’ he said when he got back into the car. ‘They have parking facilities and vacancies – of course that is important – but I also told them that if I was going to spend some days in Athens, then I wanted to see the Acropolis. So we found this hotel with a roof terrace and a panoramic view over Athens.’

He wasn’t exaggerating – our room was on the twelfth floor, and even the view from there matched its description. Nevertheless, the first thing we did was take the lift up to the roof and then we could see right across to the Acropolis.

Dad stood staring at the ancient temples, speechless.

‘It’s amazing, Hans Thomas,’ he said, breaking his silence. ‘It is truly amazing.’

He paced back and forth. When at last he had calmed down, he ordered himself a beer. We sat closest to the railing at the end of the terrace facing the Acropolis. Soon the floodlights around the old temples were switched on, and Dad almost flipped with excitement.

When he had stopped gazing at everything around him, he said, ‘You and I will go there tomorrow, Hans Thomas, and we’ll also visit the old market square. I’ll show you where the great philosophers walked about discussing many important questions which unfortunately the Europe of today has forgotten.’

He now began a longer lecture on the philosophers in Athens, but after a while I just had to interrupt him: ‘I thought we’d come here to look for Mama – you haven’t forgotten that, have you?’

He had ordered his second or third beer.

‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘But if we haven’t seen the Acropolis first, we might not have anything to talk to her about, and that would be a damn shame after all these years. Don’t you think, Hans Thomas?’

As we were nearing our goal, I understood for the first time that Dad was actually dreading meeting her. This was such a painful realisation that I thought it made an adult out of me.

Up until now I had taken it for granted that when we got to Athens we would meet Mama, and when we met her, all our problems would be solved. I now understood that this wasn’t the case.

It wasn’t Dad’s fault that I had been so slow to understand this; on several occasions he had said it was not certain that she’d come home with us. However, that had been like water off a duck’s back to me. I had failed to see that despite all our efforts, such a thing could be possible.

I knew now that I had been very childish, and I suddenly felt terribly sorry for Dad. Naturally I felt sorry for myself, too. I think this must have played a part in what happened next.

After making some flippant remarks about Mama and the ancient Greeks, Dad turned to me and said, ‘Would you like to try a glass of wine, Hans Thomas? I’m going to have one, but it’s a bit dull drinking on my own.’

‘Well, first of all I don’t like wine,’ I said. ‘And second, I’m not an adult.’

‘I’ll order something you’ll like,’ he said confidently. ‘And you’re not that far from being an adult either.’

He caught the waiter’s attention and ordered a glass of Martini Rosso for me and a glass of Metaxa for himself.

The waiter looked at me and then Dad in astonishment. ‘Really?’ he asked.

Dad nodded, and so it came to be.

Unfortunately, the drink I was given actually tasted sweet and good. Moreover, it was very refreshing with all the ice cubes in it. So I ended up having two or three of these drinks before the great blunder became obvious.

My face turned deathly white and I almost collapsed onto the terrace floor.

‘Oh, son,’ Dad groaned apologetically.

He took me down to the room, and I don’t remember much more before waking up the next morning, but I do know I felt pretty awful as I slept. I think Dad did, too.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28