32. Fall from Grace

It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace,
for you did bring me out.
——All's Well That Ends Well, V.ii

And so, dear readers, we come to my last day in Athens. I've procrastinated for weeks on writing this entry. Maybe I'm afraid of success, which would explain why so many of my personal projects remain unfinished. But this isn't the end of the tale; I have at least a couple more chapters in store.

Maybe I'm afraid of failure. If I intended to warn unsuspecting musicians away from going to the Olympics with Q., I've failed — he's already taken another team to the Winter Olympics in Torino.

Maybe I'm too busy. Or maybe I'm afraid no one cares. But, dear reader, even if you don't care, that's no excuse for leaving this work unfinished. I'm doing this for me first and you second.

So then.

Sarah and I took breakfast at Acropolis House again, and then split up for the morning. She wanted to return to Leonidou Street and take some pictures of the neighborhood; I had a rendezvous at Hope Place with Philemon, who had been trying for several days to arrange a time for me to record with his band, Proin.

But Philemon wasn't there when I arrived, so I left him a note and moved on to Plan B: visiting the famous National Archaelogical Museum of Athens, just half a mile or so up the road from Hope Place. One simply doesn't go to Athens, methought, without availing oneself of the opportunity to behold the "death mask of Agamemnon" and exquisite sculpture like the Artemision Jockey, the bronze statue of Poseidon, and whatever else I saw on my mad one-hour dash through forty huge rooms of priceless antiquities.

I'm like that with museums, don't ask me why. The Louvre, the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago — seen 'em all, but in a blur. In Athens, I was worried about meeting Sarah at our appointed time. I should have gone back early to find her so we could both visit the museum — I'm not the only one in the family who appreciates classical sculpture.

After leaving the museum I returned to Hope Place, and this time Philemon was there. He had no recording gear with him, so we gave up the idea of my playing on his CD. But I had a couple of apologies to make: one, for being the occasion of strife between Philemon and Michalis; and two (and I broke down and wept when I said this), for letting Q.'s shenanigans distract me from the evangelistic purposes of the trip.

Philemon tried to reassure me. "When we started working with Q.," he said, "we knew there would be problems."

Ah, so Elias and Philemon had reservations about Q., but worked with him anyway. Kind of like me. Maybe they couldn't get anyone better. I guess if reasonable, decent, honest American Christians don't do enough to represent Jesus to the world, then the idiots will gladly do it for them.

I left Hope Place with a promise to Philemon to return that evening with my violin. I bought some shirts and a couple of rebetika CDs on the way to Leonidou Street, where the first familiar face I found was Aziz, the Iraqi-Kurdish tavernkeeper. I flagged him down. "Aziz," I said. "The food: mumtaz. Shikren." (Excellent; thank you.) I don't know any Kurdish, and that's about the extent of my Arabic. For all I know, addressing a Kurd in Arabic might be like speaking German to a Jew. But Aziz didn't seem offended, and he might have even understood me.

I found Sarah; we returned to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon packing. Turns out she had bumped into our bandmate Brian while photographing the neighborhood around Athens Christian Center. She had inquired after Holly, and that's when Brian told her about...

Today's Pearl of Wisdom: As threatened, Q. and E. sent Holly and Logan home one day early. International air travel is tough for a person with a guitar, two large suitcases, a baby, a stroller, and whatever other luggage Holly had, so Brian and Ben Dally had accompanied her to the airport. When they got back, they told us, E. chewed them out. They shouldn't have helped Holly, E. said, because Holly was the "enemy." Then, while Brian and Ben were still asleep the next morning, Q. and E. left them locked inside Athens Christian Center until mid-afternoon while they went somewhere with the rest of the group. They'd just returned and let Brian out before he encountered Sarah.

In the evening Sarah and I went back to Hope Place for the rendezvous with Philemon. Dining tables were set up, and they were filled with people I didn't recognize. After I got the violin out, we took a couple of seats near the tiny stage, noshed on cookies, and struck up a conversation with the two nearest gentlemen, who turned out to be missionaries. One was a Scotsman missing several teeth, and the other was an Australian. I've forgotten their names. I remember the Scotsman talking about opening up a hospitality center for missionaries somewhere in Athens, with thirty beds or so — which sounded very appealing after a week and a half at Athens Christian Center.

In the course of the conversation, the gentlemen asked what we were doing in Athens. So we started telling our story, but just when I came to the part about our difficulties, I happened to glance into a mirror hanging on a nearby support column — and spotted Q.'s face.

I did feel a small measure of relief to know that Q.'s reflection actually could be seen in a mirror, but I realized it wouldn't do to give the gentlemen any further details. After the second or two that it takes to recover from the shock of realizing that one's nemesis has entered the room behind one's back, I changed the subject. Q. was accompanied by B.; I'm sure they had seen us, but they remained in the back corner near the doorway.

The evening's proceedings began with another missionary who got up and spoke for a while; then Elias invited B. onto the platform with his guitar. Then B. invited me up—a move I wasn't expecting, and the first time either he or Q. had acknowledged my presence. I had less respect for B. than I did at the start of the trip, but he still knew how to be a class act. I looked at Q., who nodded his approval, so I stepped onto the platform and plugged in my violin.

I don't remember the first two songs we played. The third was my suggestion: a cover of U2's "Grace." I'd never heard the original; B. had taught me the song. At the time the irony of the situation didn't occur to me, but I've reflected on it many times since. Just get a load of these lyrics:

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

One can't, of course, achieve such things merely by singing about them. I still don't think "grace" means I should have pretended everything was hunky-dory when my fellow believers practiced deceit, manipulation, abuse, and false witness. In our situation, "grace" might have consisted of me and Q. sitting down together, confessing our faults to each other, and asking forgiveness for them. We'd had a couple of encounters where that could have happened, but didn't — partly because Q. had other things on his mind.

I certainly don't wish to blame the impasse entirely on Q. Goodness knows I made my share of mistakes on the trip, and I hope I've been clear about them. And now here I was, onstage with B., who was singing about the ideal of grace in front of two guys who had fallen well short of that ideal. Maybe B. and I should have played "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

Q. and I left without a word to each other. It occurred to me much later that Philemon had invited both of us, perhaps intending to facilitate a rapprochement. Well, I had accepted B.'s invitation to play, which I didn't have to do after being kicked out of the band. And Q. had allowed me to play, which he didn't have to do after kicking me out of the band. So perhaps we weren't complete failures in the game of grace, but we still had a long way to go.

Speaking of long ways to go, Sarah and I returned to Acropolis House and made our final preparations to depart for our 2 a.m. flight. At about 10:45 p.m. we left there for the last time. Just as we reached the Syntagma Square Metro station, I discovered the bulge in my back pocket: our room key, which was attached to a wooden doorknob in lieu of a keychain. There wasn't time to take it back to the hotel and still catch the express train to the airport. Remarkably, there was a customer-service office open; just as remarkably, the staff seemed positively bewildered at my request: that they take care of returning the key to the hotel for me. Fortunately another Metro employee came along who understood customer service better than the customer-service staff.

At the airport, Q. and E. stood off by themselves while Sarah and I chatted with the rest of the group. Ken and Barbie looked exceptionally well rested; they had gone to the island of Santorini instead of to Thessaloniki.

Of our flight there isn't much to tell. Mercifully, most of the group, including Q. and E., were on another plane. Our one flightmate, several rows ahead of us, was B., to whom we didn't speak much, and to whom I haven't spoken much since. Except when he e-mailed to warn me about the lawsuit — but that's a tale for another day.