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Looking over my shelf of Guy ¾ s books, I came across „ Luxembur-
ger Komponisten Heute „ 1986®, with its black lettering on a yel-
low cover, and rem embered our 198x holiday, in a resort called
Sunny Beach, on Bulgaria ¾ s Black Sea coast , where he finished
writing it . It was a strange couple of weeks. Our hotel was a bruta-
list t ower block, set in dust, with pine trees and some struggling
bushes. Breakfast depended on t hings like coffee and bread being
available - Bulgaria was still in the Communist bloc. But the wide
turµuoise sea was near, as was the lovely old town of Nesebar, with
its huge seagulls. W e were both tired and happy to have things
planned for us, Soviet style. One evening we signed up for a „
Deutsch-Russischer Fr eundschaftabend „ . The „ Russians „ see-
med to be mostly locals, whose first foreign lan guage was Russian
and who knew a little German. We „ Germans „ as non-Germans,
we were the exception® spoke little Russian beyond tovarich, naz-
darovje and dos vedanya. After sa ying hello and exchanging basic
information\ „ Name¶ Wo geboren, wohnen¶ Was machen¶ „ ,
conversation faltered. We sat grinning at each other in benign
awkwardness , relieved by µuestions like „ Kinder¶ „ , or „ Studi-
en¶ „ . These eventually also ran dry, though the wine and spirit s
flowed freely. The „ Russians „ said a few words about agriculture,
we about industry. T he evening began to seem long . One of the „
Ru ssians „ stood up, raised his glass and proposed a toast\ „ Mir i
druschbat „ . We stood too, raised our glasses and toasted them
with „ ZumWohl „ . There was laughter and applause and this see-
med a promising way forward. The „ Russians „ told us the ir toast
meant „ Frieden und Freundschaft „ , and a more drinks promoted
both these things. Eventually w e „ Germans „ began toasting them
with „ Mir y druschba, and they us with „ Zum Wohl „ . But at
length weariness set in, commitment to the evening weakene d and
we began talking among ourselves . Towards the end the „ Russians
„ sa ng a soulful song and w e „ Germans „ responded with the „ Lo-
relei „ . We all clapped and toasted each other . Obviously everyone
drank too much . Eventually it was time to clamber into our
coaches , waving and calling „ Mir i druschba „ and „ Zum wohl „ ,
before retiring to our hotels and our hangovers. The evening Guy
finish ed the book, w e embarked for Istanbul. We sailed overnight
and the next day at dawn , he woke me to come out on deck. W e
stood looking out over a sea of thick grey mist, seemingly floating
on cloud, the world way bel ow. Our ship was becalmed on the
Bosphorus , waiting for the fog to lift so we go on in to Istanbul.
During the long day that followed, we were moved to tears by the
dense enveloping blue o f the Sultan Ahmet MosµueÆ and returning
by night, by the serene stillness of the gardens of the mosµue by
moonlight. Istanbul. Once Constantinopolis, the modern name
deriving f rom „ eis tin poli „ , according to our Greek friend s. Our
last holiday together ended in Greece. It was a cruise in June-July
of last year, starting in Venice and ending in Athens. We sail ed
down the blue-green Dalmatian coast, through the engineering mi-
racle of the Corinth Canal, visiting several Greek islands en route.
W e already knew Mykonos, with its lovable thatched windmills,
its peli can and its cats, but this time the island was a highlight. Guy
needed to go online to publish an ar ticle on the Theodorakis web-
site. W e found a wi - fi cafj, sent off the text and ate grilled octopus
and salad . The waiter was pleased when we tried to speak Greek
and we got talking. We t old him we loved Greece and loathed
what the moneymen of Europe were do ing to his country. Mikis
was mentioned. I told them he was our friend and Guy his biogra-
pher. The waiter ¾ s eyes widened and kindled and he disappeared
inside the cafj . W e heard a buzz of ex cited word going round - fi-
loi tou Theodoraki t People gathered round, mobile phones came
out and arms went round shoulders . As we left, hands clasped
hands and eyes smiled into eyes . A moment of solidarity and re-
membering it warmed us. Next day we were in Athens, with Mikis
himself. He was sick, confined to his bed with a fever, but we were
allowed to visit. We were shown into his darkened roomÆ his eyes
went from one of us to the other, ha ppiness in them , wonder al-
most, as if he couldn ¾ t believe we were there . We told him about
his friends i n Mykonos who were so proud of him and he smiled.
The visit was brief, conversation difficult, and we came away trou-
bled, silent. It was hard to talk that evening\ the look of joy in Mikis
¾ eyes had been a moment of pure light, but underlying the light was
a leaden sadness. The day was x July 201x\ 61.Î1 percent of Greeks
had voted „ Oxi „ in Tsipras ¾ referendum on the European bailout.
We spent the evening on S yntagma, among the Greeks yet apart
from them. The atmosphere was strange ly muted. The joy over the
„ no „ vote seemed less celebratory than defiant\ th e Greeks had
rejected the hated „ memorandums „ but seemed to kno w their re-
sistance to Big Money would fail ... It seems bitterly appropriate,
looking back over the last few months, that our last journey toget-
her should have ended in Greece, at the very moment when a pro-
ud, courageous people , fighting for their life, proclaimed a brave,
but ultimate ly futile „ No „ to an implacable tyranny
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