Marjorie Thelen - The Forty Column Castle

The phone rang in the middle of the night.

I banged around my bedside stand in the dark, trying to kill the unnerving noise until I figured out it was the phone and not the alarm. I fumbled the receiver to my ear and croaked, “Hello.”

“Marie-Claude,” Aunt Elizabeth said in the faraway voice of a long distance call, “you’ll never believe this. They say I’m an antiquities smuggler, and they’ve put me in jail. Not only that, they think I’m the head of a multimillion dollar smuggling ring.”

I managed a laugh. “You’re kidding, of course.” Even in my groggy state, I had a pretty good sense of humor.

Aunt Elizabeth sputtered incoherent noises. “Marie-Claude, stop laughing this instant. I’m in jail, and it smells, and it’s cold, and the bed is hard. You must come immediately and …”

The line crackled and went dead.

“Maybe you’re not kidding,” I said into the phone.

I dropped the receiver on the hook and groaned back onto the pillow. I wanted to snuggle into my fat, fluffy down comforter and go back to sleep. The night had turned cold, even though it was May in Boston, and I had the bedroom windows wide open. A breeze played in the lacey curtains.

“Deep breaths,” I said to myself and took a few, trying to clear my mind and still my racing heart. Dead of night calls did that to me.

Was this someone’s idea of a joke? Where was my aunt anyway? Then I remembered. She had gone to Cyprus on vacation. Maybe she was in trouble. She had sounded almost hysterical.

I stumbled to the bathroom to see what a hot shower would do to wake me up. The steamy water cranked out positive ions, and I started coming to life. I decided a few phone calls to Cyprus would be in order to find out what I could from this end. Aunt Elizabeth was eccentric but not criminal. This was an obvious case of misunderstanding.

I shrugged into a soft, terry cloth robe and hustled to the kitchen, which wasn’t far from the bedroom since I lived in a loft, fluffing my hair as I went to let it air dry across my shoulders. After I had made a ten cup pot of coffee and filled my favorite ceramic mug, I placed some calls.

It didn’t help. The Cypriot authorities acted suspicious.

“Yes, miss,” said a whispery voice in Greek, like Marlon Brando in The Godfather , “your aunt tried to leave the country with Cypriot artifacts in her carryon. We have her in custody, but you cannot speak with her. She is not in this building, you see.”

No, I didn’t see, but since my Greek wasn’t great, I didn’t know if I understood him correctly.

“You may visit her,” he said. “It is possible.”

That I understood.

My aunt had to be innocent of any wrongdoing, my mind kept repeating. She was a retired librarian, for heaven’s sake. When I finally got through to the American Embassy in Nicosia, I was informed that my friend, the political attaché, was out of the country for two weeks. No special favors there.

A call to my dear friend, Yannis Vasilis, my one Cypriot friend on the island who might be able to pull some strings, was futile. His work phone rang and rang and rang. No one in the office.

I was on the next Olympus jet to Cyprus, a fourteen hour trip from Boston and a country whose laws on smuggling were foreign to me. Not that I was familiar with any laws on smuggling, U.S. or otherwise. I was a mutual fund manager, not a lawyer.

Unfortunately, my aunt had a history of getting herself into untenable positions that she expected me to retrieve her from, like the time she called and wanted me to help her stop a man from jumping off the Prudential Tower. I was in Singapore. Fortunately, the police soon had everything under control. She was a little crazy like that. But jail was carrying crazy to the extreme.

I stowed my trusty laptop in the overhead bin. My cell phone was in my purse. I was armed and ready. My Swiss Army knife used to be ever by my side, but not these days. I wore my favorite pair of black Capri pants, bright yellow strappy sandals, and scoop neck silk blouse to match.

The Olympus flight attendant with the airline smile asked my drink preference, and I ordered red wine. I hoped it would mix with all the Tums I’d been chewing. Ever since the phone call, my nervous stomach had kicked into overdrive.

The passengers were settling down, even the Greek family across the aisle that had tugged and pulled, pushed and squeezed a myriad of packages and baggage in, over and around them before take off.

“Thanks,” I said to the man sprawled in the end seat, who had helped the attendant hand the wine across the empty seat between us. I had noticed him standing in line to board the plane and admired his sun streaked hair and bronzy tan. Marlboro Man. Wonder if he rode a horse and rounded up cattle. Or maybe he was part of the sailing crowd. He was a nice diversion to take my mind off my aunt sitting in jail.

You’ve sworn off men, a little inner voice said.

Did I ever listen to my inner voice?

“My pleasure,” he said.

I couldn’t help a flirty smile. If I had to spend nine hours on an overnight flight to Athens on a mission of mercy, at least the big angel in the sky had given me a sexy seat mate.

Will you never learn, the little voice squeaked?

Geez it was only a plane flight, not a life commitment.

The attendant handed him two small bottles of bourbon, glass with ice, and a snack. I busied myself pouring wine and took a sip of good old Gallo.

“You think we’re the only English speakers on this trip?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said. “Most of the passengers are no doubt Greeks with relatives in the States, and they’re returning home.”

“You’ve taken this flight before?”

I nodded. “Many times. I like the Mediterranean area for vacationing.”

“Where are you going this trip?”

“Cyprus.” I didn’t elaborate why I was going. I mean, a relative in jail can be a real show stopper, and I needed nice, pleasant conversation to keep my mind off my aunt and what she might have gotten herself into. “How about you?”

“Cyprus, too, on business. I’ve been several times to the island.”

His faded jeans and black pullover didn’t look like standard business attire, but it was a night flight. Maybe he was a geek, although he didn’t act socially challenged.

“My friends call me Zach,” he said. “Short for Zachariah. My mother had four sons and was fond of the Old Testament. She named all her sons for prophets — Zachariah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, and Micah.”

I smiled at the thought of a mother going for four prophetic sons. Delusions of grandeur.

“Mine is Marie-Claude. Everyone calls me Claudie.”

Since he had moved recently to Boston, we talked about the Red Socks, Quincy Market, where to get the best lobster dinner, historical sites not to be missed, the best clubs, the best bars.

Zach’s hands were calloused, and he liked to talk with them. I have this thing about a man’s hands, so I liked watching his, which were generous with squared tip fingers. I picked up on a soft drawl and when I commented on it, he regaled me with tales of growing up in West Texas.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked.

“I manage an emerging markets mutual fund with my partner, Lena.” He seemed extraordinarily interested in the business which led to more pointed questions.