When I Lived in Kavala

"Ah," I said, exaggerating my disappointment in the hope of being encouraged to enter anyway, "I heard it was open. Can’t I just slip in this way and make a sea-bath?"

The workman had at first thought me foreign but now recognized in these words a fellow-Greek and felt himself absolved of the need for solicitude. "No," he said brusquely.

"How about down there?" I persisted, pointing down the road at a high double gate of stout wire.

"It’s forbidden. The beach isn’t open to the public yet." He did not bother to turn his head toward me.

I muttered a thank you--which re-awakened doubt of my "Greek-ness" and made all three workmen turn and look at me closely--and walked on toward the double gate. It was ajar. I walked through and picked my way over and around construction materials until I reached the sand and the sea. Four other intruders had got there ahead of me and were sunning themselves. An hour or two later, I walked back the way I had come and, as I passed the main entrance, once again saw the three workmen.

"Did you make a good sea-bath?" their spokesman called out, smiling, as I went past.

"Perfect!" I said, grinning back at him shamelessly.

As I walked on toward the bus stop, I reflected that before coming to Greece, the thought of worming my way past any such barrier would never have occurred to me. Did an employee of a public place inform me that entrance was forbidden? Then forbidden it was and never would I have made any attempt to enter. Did anyone in a position of authority of however mean degree inform me that my intended actions were out of the question, impossible, not to be considered? I took his word for it, bowed to his authority, renounced my purposes. After all, I reasoned in those benighted days, it was not fair to ask for special treatment, to expect an employee to risk his job by stretching rules for my humble sake; no doubt the rules had been made for a purpose, though the purpose might not be clear to me at that moment; what would become of the world if everyone were to break the rules and insist on special treatment; etc., etc., etc.

But such notions belonged to the days before I came to Greece, before I knew much about--anything. In those days, I never would have disregarded the workman’s statement that entrance was forbidden and would never, never have dared walk on after being told it was--just as no Greek, worthy of the name, would have done otherwise than I did that fine, sunny morning in June 1975.