Chapter 19: Chasing a Dream

Sunday, 14 August 1955, Athens, Greece

Rebecca Hart Allen, world traveler. She stepped off the plane to the glare of the afternoon sun, much warmer here than in Edinburgh. She shifted beneath the woolen sweater she wore over her plaid pleated skirt. Mrs. Weed had taken her shopping for tartans, a favorite souvenir of Americans who imagined they had some Scottish blood in their veins. Perhaps Rebecca did have Scottish ancestors. They had found a Hart tartan, though it was classified as Clan Urquhart. Nonetheless, Mrs. Weed sewed the skirt for Rebecca. Mid-August in Athens, however, was scarcely the place to be wearing wool.

She looked around as she descended the steps from the airplane, half expecting Wesley to be waiting for her. Or perhaps Ryan McGuire. Her visualizations on the airplane from Rome were mixed. She chanted a spell Mrs. Weed had taught her to put herself into a visualizing trance and settled in to focus on her husband. But images of Ryan kept intruding on her subconscious. The men were locked in combat, spinning on the edge of the world until both slipped and fell into an unending chasm. Spinning, falling. Spinning falling. The image repeated in her dream until she thought she would scream.

The wheels touching the pavement had jolted her awake. She was in Greece.

Rebecca tried to come to grips with the utter foreignness of Athens. It was a different world than Edinburgh. Scotland felt like home. Greece was foreign. She was isolated and alone. She had no concept of what time it was and was confused over directions. The travel agent had given her a map, but she was unable to even locate the airport on it.

Worse, she had no idea where she was going. She had told the agent that she would depend on family once she reached Greece. If only she knew where they were.

She finally found a porter who spoke English and he directed her to a taxi stand where she could find an English-speaking driver. She stepped into the cab with her walking stick, and waited while the driver put her bag in the trunk. When he got in the car and pulled away from the curb he asked, “Where to, Miss?”

Rebecca let her head fall back on the seat as she nearly sobbed, “The City of the Gods.” The driver looked at her in the mirror, ignoring traffic has he pulled onto the highway. She was intimidated by the intent gaze. He seemed to be looking at something besides her appearance or her face. He was looking deeper.

“Do you have an address?”

Rebecca snorted. Had she really said that aloud? “Please. Take me to the Hotel Athenee.” The driver looked at her again and abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic.

“As you wish,” he said. Leaving the airport behind, they wound their way into Athens. The driver continually glanced into the rearview mirror—not at traffic, which he seemed to ignore, but at Rebecca. She gradually slumped down in the seat far enough that she could not see the driver’s eyes in the mirror. The cab pulled up beside a beautiful hotel near the center of town. Rebecca had seen a glimpse of the Acropolis as they turned in.

“Here it is. Hotel Athenee. One of our finest. Views of the Acropolis and Parthenon from all rooms.” He turned to look at Rebecca who was still slumped down in the seat and was making no attempt to move. “Are you ill, Miss? This is where you wanted to come, is it not?” Rebecca sat up slowly.

“Yes. Fine. Just a bit overwhelmed. This is ... too big. Is there a smaller hotel you could take me to? Perhaps a bed and breakfast?” she asked plaintively.

“Of course, Miss. There is a small pensione not far from here. A bit less expensive, as well, though that might not be a consideration for you. But there is no view. You will have to walk a bit to view the Acropolis.” He pulled away from the grand hotel and wound through the narrow streets of Athens. The hotel was so small that it was marked only by a wooden sign on the door.

“This is lovely,” she said. It reminded her of the little hotel near the airport in Rome she had stayed at... Was it just last night?

“An Italian opened it right after the war. Sadly, after the occupation, Athenians were not kindly disposed toward the Italians. The owner decided to sell out and leave for his homeland before any further damage could be done. To the building or his person.” The driver spoke with a note of pride that led Rebecca to believe he might have a vested interest in the property.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” she said.

“Not too crowded. Clean,” he said as he held the door open for her. “But a long way from the City of the Gods.”

Rebecca stumbled through the door, turning to face the driver. She fought down the fear that insisted on rising inside her and half-expected Ryan McGuire to be facing her. During her hour in the taxi, she had nearly convinced herself that her journey was hopeless. Mrs. Weed had told her to visualize and what was real in her mind would come to her. But to have the first person she met in Athens respond to her about the City of the Gods was more than a little uncanny—and frightening.

“What do you know about the City of the Gods?” she demanded. Her voice was more forceful and shrill than she intended.

He reached in his pocket and withdrew a New Testament which he handed to her. She looked at him curiously but opened the cover. Her husband’s precise handwriting filled the inside cover. “To my friend, Marcos. May God richly bless you. J. Wesley Allen”

“Wesley!” she cried.

“Are you Mrs. Allen?” a woman’s voice spoke from behind her. A lovely Greek woman wiped her hands on a towel as she approached. “Yes. You look exactly like the photo he carried.”

“You know my husband?” Rebecca asked.

“The three of them, Wesley, Doctor Heinrich and Doctor Jacobsen stayed with us before Marcos drove them to his father’s home in Thessaly,” the woman said. “Excuse my rudeness. I am Helen Pariskovopolis. You have already met my husband, Marcos.”

“You know how to get there? Can you help me? Please?”

“Of course, Mrs. Allen,” Marcos said. “Welcome to our home and our hotel. We will drive to Metéora tomorrow. I planned to go up later in the week to retrieve the campers anyway. Your husband will be quite surprised to see you waiting.”

“Pleasantly, I hope. I’m so worried about him.” Rebecca’s face fell and she looked at the husband and wife before her. Respectfully, she said, “Are you believers? I thought only a select few knew the way.”

“We are believers in the true God and his one church,” Helen said firmly. Marcos smiled at her and placed a protective arm around her. It was the first look of genuine warmth and affection that Rebecca had seen in Greece.

“I am not a believer as you have phrased the question,” Marcos said. “But great is the mystery of godliness. We will talk much this evening and in the morning, I will take you to my father’s house.”

Rebecca was led to a pleasant room where she changed from the hot woolens into her slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. Refreshed, she returned to the main floor where Helen immediately invited her to the kitchen. Seeing the woman in a modest dress, Rebecca was worried that she might offend with her choice of clothing.

“Helen, am I dressed appropriately? I have very few clothes with me and expected to be hiking, much as I do in Scotland.”

“There are differences among people. Women wearing pants is not common in Greece, but is more so in Athens than in smaller villages. We are not as cosmopolitan as large cities like Paris and New York, but there is a great move toward modernization. There is even a part of town where the beats reside.”

“Beats?”

“Ahh. Beatniks? Mostly expatriates from various places in Europe and America. Painters, poets, novelists, and wealthy young people who can live wherever they wish as their fathers pay.”

“Oh. I see.”

“You are dressed for exploring, and that is what you will be doing. I have been to the so-called City myself. Nothing but the ruins of an ancient temple. I suppose, though, that it is of interest to archaeologists. They will have you dusting shards of pottery on your hands and knees, I should think. This manner of dress is most appropriate.”

“That isn’t the description my husband has sent me.” As they worked, Helen opened up a bit.

“I was invited to join in the belief of the ancients,” Helen said. “It was as foreign to me as Greece is to you. I was raised here in Athens. We do not believe in an ancient pantheon. Marcos took me to see the ancient site before we were married, but I had already made up my mind. Perhaps if I had not, I would have seen something different. Marcos and I married and moved back here to Athens. We had a bit of a struggle during the occupation, but survived. I think, though, that deep in his heart, my husband still believes. They see something there that pursues them all their lives. Even my son is a believer and is on the mountain with the archaeologists.”

There were Wilton’s words again. Pursued all their lives. Rebecca helped put food on the table and Marcos joined the women for moussaka and a salad. The food was delicious. Rebecca gradually revealed her story and how she had dreamed that Wesley was in danger. The dream had been so compelling that she had flown to Greece.

“If I had enough petrol in the Jeep, we would leave tonight,” Marcos said as they discussed the journey north. “But I cannot buy on Sunday and there will be nothing available until after nine o’clock tomorrow but coffee. As soon as I have prepared the Jeep, we will leave.”

“I’m worried about Pol,” Helen said. “If something has given you a warning that you must search out your husband, it cannot be good for my son, either.”

“If one is in danger, all are in danger,” Marcos agreed. “Rebecca, I no longer believe there will be a deliverer for an ancient goddess. But I do believe there is a great power on the mountain. I love my son. If he is in danger, I want to be there to help in any way.”

Sunday, 14 August 1955, City of the Gods

Morning dawned bright and clear with no trace of the fog that seemed to surround them in the mornings. The four proceeded to the supply drop-off point and distributed the load for the hike back up the mountain. Doc and Wesley split the burden of carrying the lockbox with them up to the main camp. “Better to be protected than to be exposed,” Doc had said. And they had no more supply runs coming. Locking the henhouse after the fox, Wesley thought as they struggled up the mountain with the box slung between them.