The Monk Seal Conspiracy
9. The Tug of War
During September an eccentric American professor, Tom Goedicke, joined our team to conclude final research in the proposed biogenetic reserves. He had been a lecturer in geology and oceanography at the American University of Beirut, but after being chased out of Lebanon by the civil war, had spent his time plying between the Aegean islands on board his old 40-foot yacht, the Atoll II. Tom was now the sole representative and member of his own conservation group, the Inner Space Research Foundation. Recently, he had been sailing through the eastern Aegean, gathering valuable information on the seals. On Kalimnos in the Dodecanese, he was told of fishermen eating seals, their strong red meat still considered a rare delicacy. And on the nearby island of Nera, an elderly couple who kept a small caféneon at the port told him of a seal massacre that had taken place in spring. Apparently fishermen blasted the two seal caves on the island with dynamite and seven seals had been killed, including mothers and pups.
After a flurry of garbled telegrams, one describing how he had released a dolphin captured by fishermen on Leros that had been tied to the harbour walls, he announced his impending arrival on Samos. He had been a friend of Ronald’s since the heyday of the Rhodes conference, and only later did we learn that old Tom had been fighting bouts of depression and chronic poverty, and that he was now feeling well and truly washed up. Paradoxically, however, this perhaps explained the keenness and refreshing idealism which he brought to the project and its August doldrums. Rita and I went down to Pythagorion to meet him. Night had already fallen and finally, after walking up and down the quayside several times, we spotted the yacht anchored out in the harbour. We both wondered why he hadn’t tied up at the jetty. After hailing him several times at the top of our voices, a silhouette appeared on deck, squinted against the port’s sprinkling of lights, and waved. He then clambered down into a dinghy and began paddling awkwardly towards us. The dinghy in fact was almost laughable, an orange fibreglass affair so tiny that it was little more than a glorified bucket. This apparently was Atoll II’s lifeboat, though even in a moderate swell it would have certainly capsized.
Tom greeted us jovially. With his salty grey hair, bristling beard and weather-beaten face, he resembled a wizened old sea-dog more than a professor, though his American drawl and a slight lisp sometimes dispelled this impression. We then clambered into the bucket as the sea-water crept alarmingly up to its rim. ‘I haven’t cleaned it out, so be careful of your feet. Don’t step in a mess,’ he declared. Looking down, we saw a pool of urine and what appeared to be the dry excrement of some animal, a pet I presumed. ‘Cats,’ the professor explained. ‘That’s why I can’t come alongside the quay. They would escape.’ Rita and I looked at each other, trying to suppress our laughter. It seemed as though there would be no end to the bizarre events of this year. Once on board, this was confirmed. When Tom talked about pet cats, I imagined two or three at the most, and so we were quite shocked to discover that Atoll II was inhabited by at least twelve assorted cats, of different breeds, colours and ages. Tom had originally brought in one or two for company, but had been unable to resist the temptation of giving a home to any of the stray cats he came across on his inter-island travels. Indeed, cats seemed to be everywhere. Cats were on the bunks, on shelves and in cupboards. Cats were on the table, on the floor and in the toilet. The yacht smelled of cats too, quite appallingly, and in the confines of the little cabin the fumes were sulphurous and almost nauseating.
Inside, the graceful old yacht was like a slum. Tom’s belongings were scattered everywhere, cat food littered the floor, and obviously, judging by the patches of brown excrement trodden into the carpeting, some cats had not yet learnt that the dinghy was their toilet. I wondered how on earth I could broach the subject. How was I to explain to Tom that his boat was just too dishevelled to use as a research vessel? I started by making a few casual hints, but when these fell on stony ground, I decided to wait a few days while getting to know the professor and his idiosyncrasies. Tom’s volunteer crew never lasted more than a few weeks and so were usually quite hopeless sailors. This was probably the reason for Atoll II’s hapless encounters with other boats’ anchor lines, its depressing habit of getting entangled in fishing nets, and its embarrassing ritual of making gentle but hair-raising collisions with other craft whenever it entered or left a harbour. He usually lured young tourists on board with romantic stories of yachts plying the Aegean with the summer meltemi, a life under sail, the freedom of the sea and deserted sandy coves. Two young Germans were acting as his crew at the moment, a boy and a girl, whom he had press-ganged separately on different islands. Tom first wanted to set sail for Kusadasi. It was imperative, he said with a drawling lisp. He leaned towards us, whispering. One of his crew, the German girl, had realized that she was pregnant by some fellow long since vanished, and she wanted to visit a hospital before it was too late. Wasn’t Germany a better place, I asked, somewhat aghast. ‘I have friends in Izmir hospital,’ Tom replied. At the same time, he suggested, if I were to accompany him, we could also visit Professor Remzi Geldiay at the university who was eminent in monk seal conservation in Turkey. I reluctantly agreed, wondering what the police would make of my visit to the infidels across the narrow straits of Mykalis.
But on 21 September, just before driving to Vathi to buy supplies for the trip, I was told by the police in Ayios that I had been summoned to appear before Kyrios Drumpis immediately. By this time the ritual was becoming more than tedious, but there was little we could do other than resign ourselves to squandering yet more hours in the company of the chief of police, and perhaps fending off yet even more lurid allegations conjured up by the bungling minds of YPEA.
As we walked across the platea in Vathi, a police Landrover suddenly screeched to a halt beside us. The chief of police, accompanied by his deputy, Kyrios Tsimbris, leered at us threateningly, a sinister complicity in their eyes. Drumpis ordered me to report to the British honorary consul immediately, or else I would be arrested. YPEA had evidently decided to change its tactics, realizing that I should now become their target as I was supposedly ‘head’ of the project.
Since the break-in of our houses, the consul, Mrs Marc, had become a trusted adviser in our problems with YPEA. On this sleepy island, with few official duties other than to help the odd British tourist who had lost their money or their passport, she found our predicament fascinating, and on occasions like this, a thrilling challenge for her astute mind. Only the Cyprus invasion had brought a greater test for her diplomatic skills and ingenuity, when she had almost single-handedly arranged the evacuation of tourists from Samos. The straggling holiday-makers had converged upon the town, all desperate to escape the island. The airport had been closed to commercial flights and the only ships to arrive had been commandeered by the army and stuffed with conscripts. When at last her begging and cajolery brought an empty ferry-boat to Karlovassi, hundreds of panic-stricken people invaded the port. Crammed full, the listing and rusty ship left at nightfall and, Mrs Marc would tell us with soulful eloquence. ‘They were so alone on the sea. Many thought they would never get to Athens alive.’
The honorary consul prides herself on being disarmingly direct, sizing you up through her eye-glasses. We would be ushered up the stairs of her house overlooking the port, and into her living-room. She would invariably apologize for the mess, since for some reason or other, decorators, plumbers or handymen always seemed to be about the place, leaving sheets, ladders and paint tins across the floor. She would shout at her yapping and asthmatic Pekinese to shut up, stride purposefully into the kitchen for a few bottles of beer and we would then settle ourselves down and talk for hours. Chain-smoking, her gravelly yet expressive voice would become taut with excitement, her eyes would twinkle mischievously and her cackling laughter would echo around the smoke-filled room.
‘I told you this would happen!’ she greeted us breathlessly from the top of the stairs. ‘Come on up and be careful of the mess. I have the workmen in.’
‘I’ve just this minute put down the phone,’ she said as we strode into the living-room. ‘Kyrios Drumpis has rejected your visa application and has ordered you to leave Samos within five days. If you refuse to comply with his wishes, he tells me that you’re to be expelled. He also promises you a YPEA "red stamp" which will prohibit you from entering Greece forever.’ She sank down into her favourite armchair, again that mischievous irony in her eyes. With obvious relish she began to recount the phone call in detail, perhaps embellishing some parts here and there in her unique theatrical way. ‘I said to him, "Kyrios Drumpis, this man you want to expel is as stubborn as I am!" ‘ She let out a guffaw. ‘He then told me that for your own sake it would be much better if you decided to leave because the public prosecutor is preparing a serious case against you. "What case?" I asked him. "A very serious case," he replied and he would say no more.’ She threw her hands into the air and shrugged. 'Ti na kanoumay?’
Mrs Marc had thoroughly enjoyed herself in this mismatched battle of wits, pitting her shrewdness against the police chief’s dull officiousness. I immediately telephoned the Ministry of Co-ordination to request urgent assistance. I was told that Marinos Yeroulanos would deal with the situation at once and in the meantime, I should stay inside the consulate. I then told Mrs Marc that under no circumstances would I voluntarily leave Greece. If need be, I said, we would create a scandal by holding a press conference in Athens and telling everything we knew. A few moments later, the chief of police telephoned to ascertain whether we had arrived at the consulate. Winking at us, Mrs Marc, sharpening her composure and giving her voice an aloof and slightly superior edge said, ‘Yes, he has arrived. But I must say, Kyrios Drumpis, that it is not strictly legal to ask him to leave the country since he does not actually require a visa. He has, after all, only recently returned to Greece from a trip abroad. Furthermore, these international conservation organizations, as you no doubt realize yourself, are extremely influential – Ti na kanoumay? I am sure that any expulsion of one of their representatives would be fully reported in the press…’ After a snort of derisive laughter the chief of police must have put down the phone.
Mrs Marc grimaced, perhaps at the police chief’s manners, and returned to her armchair. ‘It seems that Kyrios Drumpis is most adamant,’ she said gloomily. ‘You must find yourself a good lawyer at once.’ We began to brace ourselves for an all-out battle with YPEA, though we were still impatient to learn what, if anything, Yeroulanos had managed to achieve. We did not have to wait very long for our answer. Ten minutes later the telephone rang again and an ashamed and resentful chief of police curtly informed Mrs Marc that the situation, although grave, had now been resolved. Speechless and mystified, the consul relayed the news to us, word for word. We were all astonished by YPEA’s sudden retreat. After preparing ourselves for the worst, it almost seemed like an anticlimax, devoid of any feeling of relief. Had it been caused by yet another intervention by the Ministry of Co-ordination? Or did YPEA suddenly fear that the scandal would break into the international press? We would never know.
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