sound and light

balls

Typical start to a holiday in Rhodes: walking past cafés and restaurants, trying to avoid the inevitable pitchmen accosting us from all corners. They’re always shocked when I answer them in Greek; it’s usually enough to make them back off, apologize even. One woman insisted; her colleague got involved, made a sarcastic remark behind my back. I turned and told him, still in Greek, that we were just trying to go for a walk without being harassed every two meters, and that what he was doing was not only making a bad impression but also essentially eliminating any chance of us patronizing his business. The conversation went nowhere, he announcing, loud, rude, in a fake dramatic English accent, “Have a nice evening,” and I answering back, not so loud but equally rude, «Και εσείς το ίδιο. Καλή συνέχεια.»

Things got better from there. We sat by the seahorses, watched gypsy kids wash their feet in the fountain. The “pitchman” (I saw this term used on a sign in Chania, where the mayor has taken a stand against such practices, advising tourists, in unfortunately questionable English, to report any inappropriate behavior to the relevant authorities) at the next restaurant took an interest in my dad’s university ring bearing a well-worn Greek inscription. Dad explained, “This ring represents education; the other, servitude.” I’m not sure the waiter’s English was good enough to appreciate the witticism, but mine was. I am my father’s daughter in more ways than one.


rocks

The next day there was an undisturbed walk through shady trees. Too soon for butterflies, but a graceful conspiracy almost took wing. I missed a step and fell in the museum. It happened in slow motion, as such things will, allowing me to have a whole conversation with myself before I went down. We had lunch in a churchyard, amid the cries of peacocks, the majestic males flaunting tails of green and blue, outrunning motorbikes, flying up walls. We went to Lindos, which had closed at 2:40. Ridiculous, but it was time for my parents to learn how things are in this country. On the way through the village, I sent a manipulative message and got the response I deserved. I decided then and there to sleep on it, to leave the rest til later.


castle

Mom and I went to Sound and Light. I understood this time what I hadn’t before: the pledge to fidelity, chastity, and poverty. The betrayal. The abandonment. The sacrifice of a dream to a cause more significant, if less romantic. The one small moment on which great battles turn. The rejection of icons. The endurance of beauty.

Walking out, we compared our impressions of the ending. Mom was shocked that they had called the victors “Turks.” I thought the ending was quite favorable as far as the Turks were concerned, the siege of Rhodes having been described as “the death of the crusades and the birth of a new era,” less euphemistically known as 400 years of Turkish domination. My mom, still a little confused, insisted, “But isn’t it offensive to call them Turks?”

I guess it is (she was right, though not exactly for the reasons she had in mind) but no more so, as someone was quick to point out, than calling an American an American. Neither have positive connotations in the Western world, or elsewhere. After the show, there were some jokes at my expense. I played it tough, since all of it is play acting, sound and light and little more.