“How do you know these people?” he asks, sounding concerned.
“I am the honorary consul of Cyprus in The Hague, they’re my colleagues.”
Looking shocked, he says, “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to be involved. I didn’t know that you are a consul.” And he walks away.
As I pass the lobby bar, I see two of my colleagues and friends from the Embassy for Cyprus in Belgium, ambassador Michalis Attalides and press officer Dimitris Komodromos. Attalides volunteers to place a call to Ambassador Zenon. His expression causes my heart to sink.
“I see,” he says. “Yes, I’ll explain it to her.”
The ambassador turns to me and says, “There has been a misunderstanding. It is probably best that you leave.”
“What is going on?” I ask. “Who telephoned me and asked me to meet with the president?” He just stares at me, unable to comment on what he knows.
I dial Ambassador Zenon on his mobile phone.
“Alecos, where are you?”
“In Amsterdam,” he replies. “I’m out in a restaurant dining with the minister of foreign affairs.”
“Well, I was asked to attend a meeting with the president.”
“I have no knowledge of this, its not on the schedule,” he responds.
“Can I wait for you to return?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m busy until very late tonight. I will see you when I return to The Hague tomorrow,” he says, and hangs up.
Humiliated, I brush the tears out of my eyes as Attalides and Komodromos kindly comfort me. I can tell that they are equally embarrassed, which makes it worse. Outside the hotel, as I wait for my car to arrive, I run into the ambassador’s driver, making his way into the hotel. He is a lovely man whom I actually recommended for the job.
“How are you, Christos?” I ask.
“Delivering cigarettes for the president and his crew upstairs,” he replies.
“Have you seen the ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs?” I ask.
“They are on the second floor having drinks. Come, I’m going there,” he says.
Meanwhile, Komodromos comes to check on me.
“Are you okay, Tasoula?” He leans in close to me and whispers, “Zenon blocked your appointment. You didn’t hear it from me. Please give my love to your family.”
I retrieve my car from the valet. I’m so upset that I can’t find my way out of the one-way roads and the canals surrounding the hotel. Fifteen minutes later I am right back where I began, facing the hotel again. In the distance I see the ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs from Cyprus walking with several other diplomats. I slouch down in the car to prevent anyone from seeing me.3
Speeding out of Amsterdam, totally distraught, I stop a few miles away and accidentally fill up Michael’s sports car with diesel fuel. Minutes later, on the highway in the middle of nowhere, I feel the car slowing down, so I steer it out of harm’s way to the side of the road where it dies. People stop to help me and I burst into tears, unable to communicate a word.
“Are you okay?” a concerned man asks.
I ask to borrow his phone, which I use to call Michael.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he says.
I’m in the midst of having a full-blown panic attack. The first one I ever experienced occurred during the war. I remember the vibration of the ground as the shell exploded and the dampness of the earth made it into my nostrils and lodged itself in the back of my throat. The feeling that I was going to die any moment is also with me now.
When Michael finally arrives, I weep in his supportive arms.
“I never want to see that man in our house again,” he says.
Preparing breakfast for the children the next morning I notice a missed call and check my voicemail. The sound of the archbishop’s voice is heard.
“How was your meeting with the president?”
The phone rings and I pick it up thinking it’s the archbishop but it is Zenon.
“Tasoula, hello, what a terrible misunderstanding,” he says. “I didn’t know that you were coming to Amsterdam.”
“Alecos, save your performance. You no longer exist for me from this moment onward.” I say as I hang up the phone.4
Even a beach holiday in the Peloponnese cannot remove the weight of the world from my shoulders. The olive trees are abundant in Kalamata, an area famous for the best tasting olives on the planet. The olive tree itself is the symbol of peace, but there is no peace within me right now. The responsibility of managing multiple court cases, Octagon, and the escalating costs surrounding the repatriation efforts are drowning me.
Michael, Andreas, Sophia, and I are alone in a gorgeous rental house by the sea without the normal caretakers and cleaners. Although taking care of Sophia on our own places additional responsibility on Michael and me, we are desperate for privacy.
My mind relaxes in the rays of the sun as my tired body rejuvenates in the Mediterranean waters that surround the white sand beach. One large suitcase carries Sophia’s diapers, food, and medical supplies. She is six years old and her big brown eyes and short brown hair turned golden by the sun make her look like a stunning princess. She only just learned how to walk, at the age of five, fulfilling a dream for me. She looks adorable in the summer dresses I spoil her with. I’m so excited that I don’t focus on the feeding tube that dominates her face or the fact that wherever we go people stare but are afraid to inquire about her. It is their looks of pity that I despise. All the books in the world cannot prepare you for what life is like raising a mentally and physically challenged child.
Andreas is having a wonderful time. We bury him in the sand, swim all day, and collect shells at the beach. Every night as we dine out he sits between us. After we order the food, Andreas speaks directly to the Greek waiter.
“Just three plates, please. My sister doesn’t eat. She is a special care baby.” Michael and I realize that Andreas is accepting responsibility for Sophia in his own way. His studious eyeglasses make him appear older than his seven years. He gathers the leftovers and places them in a napkin.
We dine to the setting sun, retire early, then Michael and I catch up on just being together and falling in love with each other, our babies, and life once again.
When I wake up, I find Andreas outside feeding the stray cats with the leftover food.
“Can I take them with me back home?”
“No, honey.”
“Can you buy me a small cat in Holland?”
“We will talk to daddy and see.”
Being with the family in uninterrupted solitude is such a rarity, and we enjoy our time together immensely.
That is, until Van Rijn interrupts our vacation in paradise. There is urgency in his tone. He is pushing me to take a position to purchase the stolen treasures about to be sold in Germany. He wants a million and a half dollars to do this deal, and he is insisting that if we don’t act on these treasures now, they will probably be lost forever. Over the years I have heard many things from Van Rijn, but his persistence this time leads me to believe that there might be some truth to this story.
My cell phone is ringing over and over again. It’s not Octagon calling, so it must be Van Rijn, as the same telephone number keeps trying to reach me.
“Tazulaah, we will lose this opportunity if you don’t move on it. I can’t wait anymore. My father is dying. I want to clear my name.”
“We will be buying from dealers, right, and not possessors?”
“It’s two or three people tops.”
“I’ll be back in a few days and I’ll call you,” I say.
Michael says, “Tasoula, he doesn’t leave you alone.”
Van Rijn is proposing to lead me to a large supply of looted artifacts which are under the control of two or three dealers. After what happened in Amsterdam with Zenon, this could be the perfect vehicle for me to make an exit.
Arriving home to the Netherlands, Andreas opens the front door and finds the baby kitten Michael and I arrange to have
waiting for him upon his return. He names him Speedy.
Nineteen
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER
On the flight to Cyprus I think about the story of Leonidas, the great king of Sparta and my father’s namesake. I remember how Dad’s face lit up when he shared heroic tales of Greek warriors and how they outsmarted their opponents with great intellect and integrity. As I contemplate the Church’s position in the battle against the art traffickers, I realize that I must become one of these warriors if I’m ever going to recover these artifacts for Cyprus. Unless I come up with alternative solutions to deal with the issues blocking my efforts, the odds are against me.
Attorney General Alecos Markides is a man in his early fifties, who carries an air of confidence. He wears exceptionally thick eyeglass lenses, which make him appear studious. His body language intimates that he is skeptical of me, so I do my best to impress him and place him at ease. I wonder if his initial reluctance to help has anything to do with the fact that Mr. Markides has political aspirations. Perhaps he is sizing up my relationship with the archbishop and trying to assess my political clout.
As a woman whose entrepreneurial success is due in part to introducing the concept of the paperless office to the European market, I am astonished by the antiquated way in which the attorney general works. There are piles and piles of files stacked everywhere the eye can see, many of them seemingly untouched for years, marked by a heavy layer of dust on their surfaces and an odor lingering in the air.
Now I understand why approvals take so long.
Compared to my digitized Dutch company, their methods are from the Dark Ages. Yet there is no shortage of brain power in Cyprus, which places high in the world when ranked by percentage of population earning advanced degrees.
“So you wish to appear on national television and call upon the people of Cyprus to contribute money to repatriate art in cases where we have no legal option?”
“Yes. I believe it will help the Cypriot people heal if they have a stake in rebuilding their future through helping to repatriate stolen sacred artifacts. The legal fees are costly.”
The idea of me being the face of the Church on national television seems to disturb him. He questions me about my company, my husband, and my social status. The attorney general ends our meeting requesting that I fax him and Assistant District Attorney Stella Joannides a written copy of my telethon proposal. As I exit his office, he alerts Stella that I am on my way to see her.
Dusty files seem to be an epidemic throughout the building. The hallways are lined with trolleys of more files with men pushing them into different offices. Alecos Markides and Alecos Zenon share more than a first name. Both men are seemingly uneasy around young, independent, assertive women.
Stella’s office is quite similar to the attorney general’s. She wears shoulder-length blond hair and has long, bright red fingernails. Stella smokes a cigarette from a long cigarette holder, popular in 1940s Hollywood movies.1
I do my best to pitch my telethon concept to Stella, but she is more interested in speaking about her own accomplishments, telling me about the various cases she is working on that are in the media. She also keeps mentioning that she is a favorite of the attorney general, and when she’s all talked out she ends the meeting.
“Send me your plan, darling, and I will see how I can help you,” she says with all of the enthusiasm one might have about getting a tooth extracted.
Entering the Church palace gates, I feel protected by the forces of good. At my meeting with the archbishop, I am greeted with a cold glass of lemonade to quench my parched throat from the sweltering summer heat.
“RIK [the national television channel] and Phileleftheros [the Cypriot newspaper] love the concept of a telethon and they will support it. The attorney general is less impressed,” I say.
The archbishop disagrees, “Forget about the attorney general and collecting money from the public. The religious artifacts belong to the Church, and the Church will have to pay.”2
“Van Rijn is asking for a million and a half dollars to lead me to the looted artifacts in Germany. He won’t move without cash this time,” I reply.
“Do you trust him?” he inquires in a concerned tone.
“Even telling you this proposal, my mind says, is madness. But my female entrepreneurial instincts tell me he will deliver this time,” I say with reservation.
“Elaborate on that,” says the archbishop.
“His father is dying. He wants to make peace with him before he goes. We need to turn the tables on the dealers. There are approximately twenty thousand artifacts missing and we can’t possibly handle twenty thousand court cases. Mr. Papageorgiou is aging, and he is a vital witness for the government because he was director of antiquities just before the invasion. He speaks with conviction, which wins us cases. It’s 1997, twenty-three years after the war, and since the burden is on us to prove when the artifacts were taken out of Cyprus, our only reference point is 1974 when the invasion occurred. In these cases the statute of limitations works against us. We need to act now, and be as unorthodox as we possibly can!” I say to the archbishop, who finds humor in my phrasing. “We might be able to recoup a large amount of inventory in one shot.”
The archbishop responds, “I share your concerns and agree, we need to approach this unconventionally.”
After a sip of tea, I continue, “Here are the risks and how I suggest we mitigate them: I say we let Van Rijn purchase the artifacts with his own money and reimburse him only after Papageorgiou authenticates them. I’ll open a bank account in Rotterdam in the name of the Church and both Papageorgiou and I will be cosignatories. This keeps the financial transactions transparent. We get a minimum list of what we will get for that money and pressure Van Rijn into exposing the dealers involved. We need him to supply evidence to incriminate the dealers. I want to be sure that these artifacts are not coming from Van Rijn’s personal stock. He purchased inventory from Dikmen, they did a lot of business together, so this is a good method to safeguard us.”3
After reflection, he remarks, “Tell him you have only been able to raise half a million. I trust you to negotiate what we will get for that, but I need you to send me a fax, just one paragraph, saying that you request a half million dollars for the bank account. No other details, as it may interfere with the Holy Synod’s approval.”4
“Van Rijn should believe that the money comes from outside investors for your protection as well as the Church’s. I’ll make sure that I get the maximum value for the money we pay. I’ll send you a fax after I’ve negotiated the details.”
At the Hotel des Indes, Van Rijn is waiting at our usual table. Instead of the cool, collected guy he usually parades in front of me, he is now clearly anxious, fidgety, and on edge. He seems vulnerable for the first time.
“Did you get the one and half million?”
“What are you guaranteeing me?”
“One sixth-century Thaddeus Kanakaria mosaic and thirty-one twelfth-century frescoes from Antiphonitis.”
“That’s a rip-off.”
“Tazulaah, come on! Peg Goldberg paid one-point-two million dollars for the four mosaics from Kanakaria, and she was going to sell them for five million apiece. This is a good deal for you!”
“She was a fool, as you should know. I secured five hundred thousand dollars from a group of religious investors. Take it or leave it.”
“Give me the money.”
“You’ll be paid when you deliver and Papageorgiou examines the artifacts and confirms their authenticity. I’m asking you to give the Church something for nothing in this deal to prove yourself worthy of our trust.”
“I can’t buy anything with that kind of money.”
I ignore his request for more funds. “Advance it yourself. You’ll get your money when you deliver.”
“I’ll call you when I have the goods,” says Van Rijn.
Driving home, I think about the safest public location to have the transaction take place. My
bank in Rotterdam comes to mind. The bank manager at my personal bank, ABN AMRO, opens the bank account in the name of the Church of Cyprus with Mr. Papageorgiou and me as cosignatories. I fax the archbishop the account number so that he can transfer funds.
Van Rijn calls me before I arrive home.
“Will you give me half of the money once I deliver the mosaic?”
“Fine,” I say. “You’d better deliver, Van Rijn, and they’d better be real.”
My last fax of the day is to the attorney general informing him that we are going to enter into negotiation for artifacts with Van Rijn with the aim of exposing the dealers and collecting incriminating evidence against them.5
Twenty
THE RETURN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1997, ABN AMRO BANK, ROTTERDAM1
The late afternoon sun begins to fade when I check my watch and wonder why Van Rijn is a half hour late. Waiting nervously with Mr. Papageorgiou, I question whether or not Van Rijn will show, but since there is money involved this time, I am convinced he will. The question I should be asking myself is what antics will he try to pull when he does arrive.
Van Rijn shows minutes later, pale, empty-handed, and visibly shaking.
“You show up late with nothing!”
“Look into my eyes, Tazulaah,” he says anxiously.
I look directly into his eyes. “Where is the mosaic?”
“Promise me that you will not arrest me when I give you the mosaic.”
He doesn’t trust me as much as I don’t trust him.
“I need you to deliver more than the Thaddeus, remember? You will not be arrested. Let’s get on with this before the bank closes.”
“I need to have your word that the police will not arrest me.”
“You have my word.”
“On your honor,” he says.
“Don’t insult me. You have one minute to deliver.”
He exits the bank and walks to a waiting car where the limousine driver hands him a regular cardboard box, the kind you might carry your groceries home in from the supermarket. As he approaches the counter in the bank where we are standing, I feel my body begin to tremble. Papageorgiou opens the box and carefully examines the mosaic of Thaddeus.
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