CHAPTER 23 - THE NAKED PRINCE

The featureless leviathan spews out blue and white wreaths of foam that seethe between two rocks—one is black and shiny, and runs with bubbles; the other is red as sun-baked clay. From the gurgling and frothing water that surges back, a blue figure haloed in white emerges and takes the shape of a copper-brown body.

Alex clasps the black shiny boulder that juts above his head and heaves himself out of the tugging waviness, dripping and gasping. The swell knocks him against the rocks and scrapes him up and down. Between two successive breakers, he reaches out and clutches protruding edges. Toes wedged into holes, he scrambles onto terra firma. Out of breath, he staggers on unsteady legs, bends down and lies on the hot stone, limbs outstretched and limp. His head resting against the hard surface, he closes his eyes and feels the sun on his back.

While he catches his breath, he glances back and watches his dark footprints evaporate and disappear. Alex licks his lips; they taste salty. Peering around, he spots a hornet limed in a pool of salt, struggling to free its legs. Here and there, the ground bristles with twisted and charred branches; tufts of crisp grey weeds shoot out of small cracks; roots squirm in every direction.

His skin is already dry. Alex twists and wrings water out of a thick blond lock, then slides his right hand in a furrow and digs a fingernail in the soft ochre soil under a slab of white marble, shot through with blue and pink veins. He wipes his finger on the rock and stands up. Holding himself straight, he hollers at the top of his lungs, and looks around. No one. Nothing but the mad sea and stone slabs as far the eye can see. Peering at these, a vision of Homer’s Argonauts crosses his mind. He shouts again.

He finds it sensuous to walk bare foot on the burning smooth rocks and when he realizes he is utterly alone, he smiles. Living in Sifnos fills him with energy, makes him feel more aware, as if he had lost a layer of skin, and is able to perceive the world with sharpened senses. The greys and purples of the rocks and of the sea, the blood red streaks in the rocks, the sepia folds of the earth, shimmer with extra intensity; the smell of salt and wet stone is stronger than usual.

Jumping from the top of one boulder to the top of the next, Alex bursts into laughter. He finds the whole situation absurd and hilarious. He laughs because he is an Ottoman imperial prince who is jumping all naked right in the middle of Greece, while Greeks hate Ottomans, a seven hundred years’ ruling dynasty.

Alex avoids telling people about this special aspect of his identity. At school, only Simon knows. Alex is sure no one would believe a longhaired boy who listens to Pink Floyd and Santana and who wears faded blue jeans is the descendent of a line of emperors. The irony is that Alex has fallen in love with Greece. However, as much as he is proud to be an Ottoman prince, he despises the Turkish leaders who he regards as thieves and traitors. He has never bothered to learn Turkish. Why should he? Half a century ago, an Ottoman general, Mustafa Kemal, overthrew the Emperor, banished him along with all the Ottoman Imperial Princes — including Alex’s father — shortly before proclaiming himself President of the Turkish Republic. Not only have the Turks stolen the Ottomans’ treasures, lands and palaces, but also they vilify all the Ottomans stand for. The whole thing is disgusting.

Eyes lost in the distance, the young prince does not laugh anymore. Filled with wrath, he clenches his fists and imagines the land of his ancestors, far, beyond the Aegean Sea.

Wind, salt and spindrift have eaten away the rocks, hewn and carved them into delicate, sharp-edged lace, cut and slashed them down into rough plates. Waves have polished massive marble blocks, riddling them with numberless holes and galleries making whole segments of the landscape resemble giant beehives that expose petrified alveoli—some, wide and deep caves, high enough to provide shelter to a group of men; others, so thin, a straw would barely fit in.

In places where the sea has receded and the water has evaporated, thick layers of clotted salt congeal in the shallows, looking like a soup of dissolving hailstones. Pools of lukewarm and unruffled water stagnate in the largest depressions. Alex spots one in which minute tadpoles flick their shadows over the sand in synchronized shoals and colourful sea snails trail at the bottom. He steps inside. A greyish green cloud surges around his foot and hundreds of barnacles jostle in the shallows. As he stands still in the middle of the pool, water spirals around the dome-shaped shells in a swirl of phosphorescent foam, and tiny translucent sand shrimps dart about. The wind wails and ruffles his hair while a slug slides on the submersed vase between his feet. He sits on his heels and lies down. The water is so warm it feels like slipping in it all dressed up. Sheathed in green moss, stones and limpets are soft as velvet.

A gigantic wave explodes on the rocks. When the sea sucks the shattered waters back, Alex distinguishes the wavering grey mass of the mountain that extends to abyssal depths under the turquoise water.

Taken aback, Alex wanders along the shoreline until he finds himself in a place so alien that he stops and stares around him. Stone slabs lay massed together in chaos beyond description—a frozen raised vision mirroring the swelling madness. Alex realizes why in the face of such mindless turmoil, humankind grimly chose to bury and forget Nature’s majestic violence under layers of plastic, asphalt and steel.

He spots the tallest boulder in the area and scales it. When he reaches the top, he looks up beyond the bay and catches the sight of Panaghia tou Vounou sitting on top of a mountain, in the distance. The white structure stands out against the azure blue sky. Enclosed in a soft wind cocoon that makes him aware of every single hair, he imagines himself yelling as he brandishes a blade and dashes through pools of blood, under burning skies.