***
The weather did not turn as bad as expected. Actually, it was pleasant. With many hours of sailing ahead of them until they reached the rocky island, Nikolas sat on his chair and tried to relax and focus his turbulent mind on what seemed like an impossible task.
"How am I ever going to greet Anna?" he wondered. He moved his head to one side as if to avoid the thought. "Will I be able to put my arms around her? Kiss her? Tell her how much I love and missed her?" He shifted in his chair. "Will she be able to recognize me as me? Or will I scare her? She might even think that I am the dead Nikolas's ghost."
He stood up and held on to the mast, watching the swollen sea, imagining an angry Poseidon emerging from the deep waters, seeking revenge. There was a faint smile on Nikolas's lips as he remembered an incident that happened when he was eleven or twelve and visiting the National Museum in Athens with his uncle Spiro:
They were admiring the naked, largerthan-life bronze statue of Poseidon, the powerful god of the sea. As Nikolas ran around the statue, he felt the hollow eyes of the god following him, as he saw them now in the swollen waves. He recalled how he had started to laugh.
"Why are you laughing, Nikolas?"
"Look, Uncle Spiro. He is so big!" Nickolas said, looking up and giggling. "How come his birdie is so small?"
"Why, Nikolas, I am surprised at you!
Well, not all men are created equal."
"But he is a god, Uncle Spiro!"
"You're old enough to ask him yourself," said Uncle Spiro, admonishing him gently. "You'd better be on good terms with him. You never know when you're going to need him!" Uncle Spiro suddenly became serious. "You want to be a sailor someday, don't you?"
Now being able to recollect a little more, Nikolas remembered his Uncle Spiro, a talented jewelry maker, who had been good to
Nikolas, his mother, and his two sisters through the tough times in Piraeus after they arrived as refugees from Turkey. When Nikolas's father was murdered, Uncle Spiro stepped in and became like a father to Nikolas. True to the traditional role of a godfather, Uncle Spiro baptized Nikolas and took care of him when his father was no longer around.
Spiro was the oldest brother of Nikolas's mother, Penelope. He had escaped from a Turkish prison five years before the Smyrna massacre. He was accused of conspiring to help the enemy, in this case, the Greeks, and was committed to a ten-year prison sentence. Spiro paid the guards a handsome amount of gold that he had hidden in the heels of his shoes to secure passage to the island of Lesbos.