LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

We’ve all heard that kind of story before. Or seen it, in a hundred chick-flicks or old black-and-white Audrey Hepburn movies. We meet a girl, a young woman really, who either a) is hopelessly plain, and suffering from low self esteem, b) has just been left at the altar or is about to marry the wrong man, or c) is totally hot but is just now realizing she forgot to fall in love as she climbed to the top. She takes off, somewhere old, somewhere romantic, someplace brimming with  either covered bridges, crumbling Corinthian columns, or smoky cafés which serve impossibly strong coffee. There she stumbles haphazardly into the man of her dreams, who is inevitably shirtless and glistening unnaturally, and after some resistance they both fall in love and spend a brief weekend, or week, or month, or whatever, together in bliss, living on espresso and crusty bread and making love for hours as either the daffodils bloom and fill the world with hope, or the autumn leaves turn brilliant as a reminder that all beauty fades. But the affair is doomed before it begins, and soon the two lovers must return to their lives, she as either a successful neurosurgeon and entrepreneur, or celebrated model who would rather read books; and he to his fishing boats, his horses, or his wife and kids. A bittersweet goodbye, some tears, and a scene involving a longing gaze out of the window of a train or a taxicab heading to parts unknown.
The thing is that I had an affair like that once.
Except that I was already married. Mark was actually with me at the time. And the glistening stranger wasn’t a man but a dog.
We were on vacation in Athens, Greece. It was the late 1990s, some time before the Euro because they were still using Drachmas back then. I thought it was cool that we were using a unit of currency that had been around since before the time of Jesus. And you could tell, too, because one Drachma was worth practically nothing. A Coca-Cola at the time probably cost like 30,000 Drachmas.
Anyway, Athens certainly has no shortage of crumbling columns, and we had already spent a few days exploring the ruins, the Acropolis, the Plaka and the Old City.
It was actually our last day there. The next day we were heading out to see some of the beautiful blue and white islands of the Adriatic. The whole time we had been in Athens, Mount Lycavittos had been there, beckoning, crying out to be explored. Mount Lycavittos sits in the middle of Athens, rising out of the urban clutter like a single giant boob on a giant one-boobed Hollywood starlet. The legend says that at one time, Athena kept the future king Erichthonius in a small box. One day she went off to fetch a mountain to bring back to use at the Acropolis. She left the box containing Erichthonius with the daughters of the king and told them they must not open it. Of course, overcome with curiosity, they opened the box. A crow witnessed the event, and flew off to tell Athena, who was so enraged when she heard the crow that she dropped the mountain she had been carrying. And that is how it looks, like somebody just sort of plopped a mountain down in the middle of Athens.
So, that day, Mark and I decided that we would explore Mount Lycavittos. We walked from our hotel, winding through the ancient, cluttered streets of the city, until we found ourselves at the base of the mountain. We found a small paved path, which soon disappeared into dirt and brush, and with no small effort, we climbed our way to the peak, just under 900 feet. At its peak, winded and windswept, we found spectacular views of the city, and a small but charming 18th-century Greek Orthodox chapel, the simple, whitewashed Byzantine style which is as plentiful in Greece as taco stands are in Texas. At its door sat the prerequisite old Greek yaya, in her widow’s weeds, complete with black shawl, black babushka, a wart or two, three teeth and a working cell phone. There is one of those at the door of every chapel in Greece. The funny thing is, that probably less than twenty years before, they had all looked like Melina Kanakaredes, all statuesque and beautiful with long henna ringlets and perfect noses. Something horrible happens to Greek women after 45. Maybe it’s all the Ouzo and the olive oil. But, I digress.
The inside of the chapel flickered with the dancing light of dozens of candles, lit by unseen pilgrims, as it bounced and played off the gold and silver of the revered icons, mysterious and inscrutable to me as the Buddhas of Angkor Wat. Outside the chapel were commanding views of the ancient city of Athens, which sprawls out for miles in all directions, an unending sea of Mediterranean terra cotta and Greek whitewash. There is also a restaurant. It is one of those “eat at the top of the (mountain/skyscraper/canyon)” type of places, with walls of windows and plates of greasy spaghetti Bolognese, which seem to sprout as naturally in those environments as edelweiss in the Alps. 
The restaurant was open, although inexplicably empty. Apparently no one else had felt the urge to climb Mount Lycavittos that afternoon. We had lunch there, served by an older man, a gentleman who did his job with the grace and dignity reserved for those of the Old School. A napkin over the forearm, a bow tie and just the slightest bow, regardless of the mediocre fare.
We discovered that the top of the mountain was serviced by a funicular, a peculiar type of railway car which is pulled up and down the steep mountainside using cables and counterbalances. After lunch, we rode the funicular back down to the bottom, sharing the car with a handful of local men, older guys, probably heading home for the typical Mediterranean mid-afternoon siesta, bantering with one another in Greek, probably talking about how ugly each other’s wives were or kvetching about politics, which haven’t changed much in Greece since the days of Troy vs. Sparta. Hearing them reminded me of being in a barbershop sometimes, when all the men are talking about sports. It’s all very manly and slaps on the back, and I’m just sitting there listening, with no idea what the hell anyone is talking about.
At the bottom of the mountain, the funicular left us off in the fashionable Kolonaki district of Athens. We wandered the streets for a while, and somewhere near the Presidential Palace was where we met Buster.
Now, I had heard that the city of Athens made an effort in 2004 to clean the streets of the thousands of stray dogs and cats which plagued the city. What methods they may have employed, I shudder to think. But this was long before 2004, and the “problem” of strays was still pretty bad. For the cats, it didn’t seem quite as brutal: they would make their homes in the ancient sites, out of the way of the insane Athenian traffic; and often kindly women from the neighborhood would take it upon themselves to look after the cats, leaving food out and caring for the sick ones, that sort of thing. The dogs had it much harder, wandering the mean streets, hungry and desperate, struggling to survive day to day. The fact that the people of Athens regarded them as dirty, diseased public nuisances did little to make their lives any easier. A swift kick was easier to find than a kind smile.
Mark and I aren’t from Athens, though, and we couldn’t help ourselves from saying hi to the dogs who came our way, and from offering a kind word and a little scratch behind the ears, regardless how matted or unkempt they may have been. So, when a floppy-eared, sandy colored mutt came our way, all smiles and wagging tail, we stopped and said hello. We let him sniff our fingertips, gave him a little pat on the head, and went along our way.
He followed us.
For about ten or fifteen minutes, the little mutt would shadow our moves, never losing sight of us through the crowded city sidewalk. At one point, Mark said to me, “Let’s see if he’s really following us.” So, a block or two later, we stopped, and sort of hid against a wall. The little dog walked by. But, a few moments later, when he realized he couldn’t see us ahead of him, he started sniffing the air, and when he caught our scent, he came running over to us as if to say, “Hey! I almost lost you guys!”
“I guess we have a friend,” I said. We named him Buster. It was a name that had come to me in a dream a few months before, and eventually it would be what we came to name our dog back home.
The three of us walked together the rest of that afternoon, Mark, me and Buster. At one point, we were strolling through the National Gardens, and we came to rest on a park bench. As we sat, Buster gave us a little bark and a little wag of the tail, as if to say, “Wait here- I’ll be right back,” and he took off into the woods. Mark and I wondered for a moment whether that would be the last we would see of our little friend.
A few minutes later, though, we heard an excited barking, and out from the woods came that sandy colored mutt, barking happily and smiling from ear to ear, and with him he had brought at least ten or fifteen of his buddies from the park. He was leading the pack, a pack of raggedy, unloved, lovable misfits of every conceivable size, shape, and color; from precious little lap dogs to giant, slobbery hounds, and they were heading right for us.
For a moment it was a little unnerving. Here we were, sitting targets for a pack of wild dogs who were running straight towards us at full throttle with teeth bared. It was too late to get away, so Mark and I climbed up atop the back of the bench in an attempt to at least keep our vital parts out of reach while we assessed the situation. 
What a sight it must have been. There was no need for fear. Picture Mark and me, perched on the back of that park bench, surrounded on all sides by a pack of dogs, barking happily and trying to jump up and be the next one to get a kiss. Buster was standing there beaming, his doggy heart was bursting at the seams with love and happiness. I felt like one of those kids they tend to feature in Estée Lauder perfume commercials, a tiny little boy being mobbed by a litter of love-hungry puppies. Meanwhile, the Athenians who were passing by couldn’t help but stop and stare, they shook their heads but they couldn’t help but smile a little at the two crazy Americans being attacked by a pack of filthy strays. I, myself, was laughing.
This has become one of the most precious memories of my entire life.
After a while, though, it was time to say goodbye to the pack. Buster continued to walk with us for the rest of the day, waiting for us if we stopped into a shop or a gyro stand, without benefit of a leash. Before long, people began to look at him as if he was not a stray, but as if he was our dog, and suddenly this dirty little public menace was just somebody’s nice dog. And I think he began to feel the shift in himself, as well.
Before long, the sun began to dip in the late-Spring Athenian sky, and we had to make our way back to the hotel. Mark and I both wondered what would happen once we got there, but neither of us had an answer that we liked, so we just let the moments pass and enjoyed our time together with the scrappy dog. More than once, my heart skipped a beat as he made his way through the city with us, narrowly being missed by buzzing Vespas, belching noxious exhaust and their drivers’ fists raised in ire.
But soon we found our way to the relative quiet of our hotel’s neighborhood, and to the front door. I could see the desk clerk peering out at us, one eyebrow raised as if to say, “You’re not bringing that filthy animal in here.” But we knew that already. I think all three of us knew.
So, we took a few minutes and sat with our little friend. We told him that he was a good boy, and that if we could have brought him home with us at that moment, we would have. It wasn’t that easy though, and after a while we had to say goodbye, and I hugged him and told him I hope he had a good life. The sad part was that a part of me knew that his life probably wasn’t going to be that good. That’s the part of me which aches a little bit every time I think of this story; the part that’s aching a lot right now as I write it all down.
We walked in to the hotel, the desk clerk eyeing us suspiciously as we made our way up to our room.
Buster the dog laid down in front of our hotel and cried. We heard him from our room, that mournful, whimpering cry of a dog whose heart might just be breaking. We were boarding a plane the next morning, though, heading for Mykonos. There was nothing to be done. My heart might just be breaking as well, and all I could think was equal parts of “I’m sorry” and “Thank you.”
Soon, the cries died down, and the next morning as we lugged our bags to the curb, he was gone. A part of me was glad about that, but a part of me looked up and down the block, secretly hoping to see him running towards me.
This is where the film ends, with me in a taxicab, looking through the window as we drove through the orange-tinted mist of an early morning in Athens, silently saying goodbye to my Greek love affair. We broke each other’s hearts.