Within minutes, the two Cecelia boys, Agon, 6, and Ardin, 3, who were sitting on the back of a tractor, complained that they were cold. Without hesitating, Xhavit lifted them down, tucked them into the back seat of his friend’s car and told the boys he would see them when they reached the Macedonia border.

When I meet Xhavit outside his new home — Tent D-258 in this vast camp, which is home to 25,000 refugees — he chokes on his words as he remembers that fateful moment more than one month ago. “They were cold. I just wanted to make them warm,” he tells me, dropping his head in agony. He is a parent whose loving intentions might yet prove to be the most calamitous decision of his life.

Agon and Ardin have not been seen since the night the Cecelias left their home. No one knows where they went, although a possible scenario has developed from bits of stories Pristina’s exiles have brought with them to the camp. In the chaos during the first few days of NATO bombing against Yugoslavia, tens of thousands of Albanians fled Kosovo in convoys that were blocked by Serbian militants. In the worst cases, some Albanians were executed. But many convoys simply disintegrated in the upheaval, with vehicles scattering in different directions.

Here in Macedonia, literally hundreds of people were lost during one disastrous night in those first few days of the NATO campaign. Macedonian special police, intensely jittery about the huge flood of ethnic Albanians swarming across their border, forced refugees out of the border transit camp at Blace, about 10 miles north of this refugee camp. They shoved refugees onto buses in a chaotic act that shunted immediate family members off to different camps, despite their pleas.

Among them were Jehona Aliu’s mother and father and her three siblings. What doomed 5-year-old Jehona was the same quality that has made her a beloved fixture in Stankovic 1: her irrepressible, giggling energy. At the very moment Macedonian police were rounding up the refugees, Jehona had run off to play with other children in the transit camp. When she turned back, her family had vanished. She stood alone and bewildered in the middle of a crowded, unfamiliar mountainside camp.

For an entire day and night, Jehona wandered around the fenced-in transit camp, confused and terrified. Finally, a group of British NATO soldiers realized she was totally lost and took her back to their tent in this refugee camp to care for her. After five days, the soldiers met Xhavit and Fatimre Cecelia, who had begun their devastating search for their two sons. The British soldiers gently suggested that the couple look after Jehona. That was seven weeks ago. Now Tent D-258 has a corner crowded with dolls and a huge Daffy Duck, donated by aid workers and journalists who have come to know the curious hodge-podge family.

“I’ve come to love her,” says Fatimre. “If she cannot find her parents, I would like to take her with me.” The Cecelias are on a list to be evacuated to Norway, where Xhavit’s sister lives, but have been unable to tear themselves away from Macedonia, for fear of never finding their children.

When I squat down to ask Jehona what happened the day she lost her parents, she runs off again. Watching her, Fatimre begins to cry silently. “Jehona speaks in her sleep every night,” she tells me. “I hear her say: ‘Where is my mommy? Where is my daddy?’” So far, there is no answer, although relief organizations suspect they might be elsewhere in Macedonia.

For people like these, one of the few sources of hope is the International Committee for the Red Cross tent near the gate of the Stankovic 1 camp. Refugees arrive at the long desk inside, babbling their stories to the harried staff, convinced that once their details are written down on the standard Red Cross tracing form, their missing loved ones will reappear within days.

But the reality is far more complicated than that. Thousands of Kosovars have all but vanished into villages in Macedonia and Albania, where they have been taken in by local families. Others have already been evacuated from the refugee camps and flown off to Finland, Holland, Germany, the United States and various other countries. Some have probably been killed. In war’s inevitable tumult, many more have simply disappeared. Well into the second month of NATO’s air attacks, Red Cross officials now say they need to begin preparing people for the bitter fact that their loved ones, who disappeared in a split-second’s twist of fate, might not be seen for years — or perhaps a lifetime.

“We have 125 people who call our headquarters in Geneva every day, looking for their relatives who disappeared in the Second World War,” says Pierre Gauthier, the International Red Cross spokesman in Macedonia. “We have people who have been missing since the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Rwanda, Bosnia.”

Finding lost relatives takes time. Only recently have Red Cross forensics experts finally been able to dig up graves in Bosnia to identify many of those on their missing persons lists. On the other end of the scale, people lost during World War II have found their families after 50 years of separation.

For those who are wired, the Internet offers another avenue of hope. In Gostivar, a heavily Albanian town in Macedonia, one Web site — www.refugjat.org — compiles information about the Albanian diaspora. In London, an Internet news service called Out There News appealed last month to companies to donate laptop computers to refugee organizations, so that the name of every person arriving at camps like Stankovic can be entered and tracked electronically. In a similar appeal, the U.S. Information Agency recently announced the Kosovar Refugee Internet Assistance Initiative. A joint project between public companies like Gateway and Hewlett-Packard and private establishments like the Markle Foundation, the initiative will donate $500,000 worth of technology to the refugee camps. So far, though, Red Cross staff continue to handwrite the information. One illegible letter could potentially throw a trace way off track.

Imagine, as a child, arriving in a foreign country alone, surrounded by police, NATO soldiers and thousands of terrified, displaced people. You have lost your home, friends and everything you have known until then. “Children turn up crying, saying they’ve lost their parents,” says Gauthier. “They don’t even know how to spell their name. They don’t know what village they come from.”

Without such details, the tracing can be a miserable process. All over Stankovic 1, homemade signs are tacked to wooden information boards, with pleas like: “Father, if you are in this camp, please come to the Red Cross tent.” Every camp has a duplicate list of lost children and relatives, and each night, new names are entered into a computer database. But the task is difficult. Not only are family members in different camps, they may be in different countries.

Until last week, Vedat Bahtiri, 16, assumed his parents would be among those the Red Cross would find in Kosovo. Injured in a hand-grenade attack last month, he was admitted to a hospital in Pristina. Four days later, he fled to Macedonia when Serbian police surrounded the hospital. There, a cousin found him, and one day arrived at Stankovic camp with incredible news: Vedat’s parents had called his cousin to say, “If you find my son, tell him we are in Germany.”

In the Kukes refugee camp, in northern Albania, Yaton Miftori, 11, has composed songs about his family life in Kosovo. The images provide stark contrast to the tent he now lives in with his cousins. Miftori fled his village of Klodernica in late April, after hiding out in a basement with his injured father. His mother had been trapped in a nearby village, where she had been attending a funeral before the fighting began. Finally, little Yaton set off without his parents, as Serbian soldiers surrounded the village. “My father could not walk, so he stayed in the basement.” So far, the Red Cross has found no trace of either parent, and since he last saw them in Kosovo, Yaton has little chance of seeing them before the war is over.

Indeed, the task of finding missing family members is so huge that the Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children and other organizations have joined forces, working from a single database. They also restrict searches to children under 18 and those over 60 — people known in relief lingo as “vulnerables.”

The three missing people Naser Cakolli is seeking don’t qualify. One day, I meet him outside the Red Cross tent in Stankovic 2, the camp next-door to this one. Since he is 29 and has lost no children of his own, his case is a low priority, but his story is jolting nonetheless.

Just before NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, his three brothers all joined the Kosovo Liberation Army. Cakolli, as the youngest, was delegated to take their wives out of the ravaged province, to the relative sanctuary of Macedonia. Cakolli himself had a wife who was eight months pregnant.

By the time they reached the Blace border crossing, Cakolli’s wife was feeling weak and ill, and the couple went to a medical tent in the transit camp, telling the three sisters-in-law to stay put. When they left the medical tent and tried to return to the three women, the Macedonian police blocked their path. The couple was immediately pushed onto a bus headed directly to Stankovic 2 camp. Cakolli has not seen or heard of his three sisters-in-law since.

Cakolli has scoured the notice boards around Stankovic 2 every day for weeks. But the names of his sisters are never there. They might, of course, be just a few miles away, in another refugee camp. Or, since the Macedonian government has pressed Western governments to relocate refugees as quickly as possible, they might already have flown to other countries, thousands of miles away.

Loss in war is an age-old story, as intrinsic to battle as killing, it seems. “Finding people is just a long process, and we are at the very beginning,” says Gauthier. “Eventually, most people will find each other.”

Until then, Cakolli, Jehona, the Cecelias and hundreds of others will have to keep searching.

I’d appreciate your advice regarding both the best price and reduction in hassle on rail pass travel. I’d like to “Chunnel” from London to Brussels, then wander through France and maybe Switzerland over a two- or three-week period. I’m a senior. Would a French Rail Pass or a limited Eurailpass be better?

The tangle of rail passes is indeed confusing, but the variations are understandable when you consider how many patterns and paces travelers employ. In your case, the traditional Eurailpass, which includes unlimited travel in 17 countries, would be overkill. Also skewing your needs is the fact that England is not covered under most of the European passes, so you’ll have to consider your rail travel there a separate purchase. For your French-Swiss travel, the Europass may be in order; it includes travel in France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. The French Flexipass allows three days of travel during a month-long period for $205 (first class), with additional days of travel available for $30 each, up to six more days.

But besides region, you need to consider how many days during your trip you’ll be traveling, as well as the distances — it could be that point-to-point ticketing is less expensive than a rail pass. Also, there are often three classes of pass travel: first, second and youth.

You can sort out all these factors using Rick Steves’ 1999 Guide to European Railpasses, which walks you through steps to determine what’s best for you. The guide also is available in published form by calling Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door at (425) 771-8303. The train service that uses the Channel Tunnel is called Eurostar, and fares and schedules are available through its Web site. Special fare promotions also are described there. Whenever ordering a pass or other rail fare, students should ask if there is a student rate or discount available. Also check out the Eurailpass site, and note that the pass program is commemorating its 40th anniversary with an unusual deal: Anyone turning 40 in 1999 and purchasing the pass between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 gets a 40 percent discount off the normal price. Eurail’s phone number is (888) 382-7245.

I will be leaving for Ibiza in a few weeks and planned to buy pesetas prior to going. The rate I have been quoted here in Minneapolis, however, seems very poor. Am I better off just waiting until I get there, knowing that I would have to buy currency at the Barcelona airport anyway?

In recent years I’ve relied almost exclusively on airport bank branches or my ATM card to purchase foreign currency once I’ve arrived abroad, and have not been stung. I’ve heard occasionally from people who had trouble finding compatible machines, and increasingly we need to be aware of extra charges that banks assess for using them (especially true if you’re using a credit card rather than a debit card). Still, for those who want the comfort of having cash on hand when they arrive at a distant destination, several options are available that sidestep home banks or travel clubs whose primary job isn’t international currency exchange. (Even with these, you’ll have to consider, besides the exchange rate, delivery fees and any bank or credit card service charges.) Thomas Cook Currency Services, for instance, will take an order for foreign currency over the phone — charged to a credit card — and deliver it to your door. You also can have it delivered to a Thomas Cook branch office for pickup, but the company says 80 percent of people using this service have the currency delivered to their home or business. Call Thomas Cook’s National Call Center at (800) 287-7362 to place an order. International Currency Express has a similar program. Phone (888) 278-6628 in Los Angeles or (888) 842-0880 in Washington, D.C. With a call to Travelex America at (800) 445-0295, you can arrange for pickup of your foreign currency at one of its dozens of airport locations around the United States. If you crave knowing what a currency is trading for in Barcelona, try this method: Go to the American Express site to find all the American Express offices around the world, including their phone numbers. By calling abroad, you can find out what’s posted at that very moment and compare it with your other cash sources. Another financial services company is Oanda, whose online currency exchange converter offers many types of constantly updated exchange rates.

Do you have any information on purchasing time-share vacations? We are considering buying one at Disney but would like to know of anyone’s experience in this area.

The reputation of timesharing has improved a lot in the past decade, partly because the public better understands the concept and is more wary of pitfalls — including the fact that the resale market often isn’t very good. The average quality of time-share units has improved as developers have added amenities and turned timesharing into a more solid vacation package rather than just the sale of motel space.

Another plus has been the entry of big companies such as Marriott International and Disney into the time-share business. The best way to learn from others’ experience is through sites or publications that are clearinghouses for that type of info, such as the Timeshare Users Group, which examines resorts and many other time share-related topics. Another source is TimeSharing Today, a newsletter ($18 for 12 issues; (888) 463-7427) that offers tips on buying and selling, and reviews resorts. The Federal Trade Commission and the American Society of Travel Agents have produced “Timeshare Tips” and “Timeshare Resales,” available by contacting Public Reference, Federal Trade Commission, Washington, D.C. 20580; phone (202) 326-2222.

This is not downtown Belgrade, but the port of Thessaloniki, capital of
the Greek province of Macedonia (which abuts the Balkan nation bearing the same name). This was to be NATO’s military jump-off point
but has now, like all of Greece, turned into the Achilles’ heel of the
U.S.-led NATO campaign.

The pro-Serbian, anti-NATO sentiment is not just the province of a radical
few. Talk in the streets, kiosks, coffee shops and tavernas in Greece’s
second largest city suggests that virtually everyone regards the NATO
campaign as a dark plot ultimately aimed at adjusting borders in the
Balkans — including those of Greece.

“It’s all about the uranium mines in Kosovo,” said Thomas Tsitsis, the
manager of a family taverna and restaurant chain, echoing an idea shared
by many. The plight of the Kosovo Albanians — usually called simply “the
Muslims” — is dismissed as propaganda and lies.

“I cannot believe what is published or broadcast in the Western media
about the so-called refugees until I see it with my own eyes,” said
Costas, a carpenter who spent a decade in New York. He saw no such need
with respect to NATO bombing of Serbian cities.

Dr. Basil Gouranis, a leading scholar on the ethnic politics of northern
Greece, finds this puzzling. “Yesterday, the Serbs were the people who
supported the communist takeover of Greece, eradicated Greek culture and
communities north of the border and foisted the problem of Macedonian
Slavs on us. Today, they are our ancient Orthodox brethren who can do no
wrong.”

Private television broadcasts of a distinct pro-Serbian flavor are one
thing, anti-NATO activities on the part of the government are something
else. While Prime Minister Costas Simitis has stated Greece will not
participate militarily in the NATO coalition, his government has quietly participated in all NATO
strategy meetings and signed all relevant agreements.

The contradiction between these two positions has produced public
outrage. Demonstrators gather daily at the port to protest the
off-loading of military equipment.

There is absolutely no prospect of troops from Greek’s age-old rival and
NATO ally Turkey crossing Greece to bases in Albania, however. The two
countries are at odds over the island of Cyprus, and counterclaims to
Aegean airspace and seabed almost led to war last year. They also face
ethnic problems uncomfortably close to those bedeviling the former
Yugoslavia: Ankara supports special status for “Muslims” (Turks) in
Greece, Athens supports separatist Kurds in Greece — as dramatically
underlined by its harboring the leader of the terrorist Kurdish Workers
Party (PKK) at the Greek embassy until he was captured in February.

Then there is the complex question of Macedonia — not just the former
Yugoslav republic but also the “Macedonia of the mind,” a place of
grandeur dating back to the days of Alexander the Great — who is himself
claimed by both Slavic-speaking residents of Macedonia as well as the
would-be descendants of Pericles in Greece. Athens was so adamant about
this that it blocked Macedonia’s application to the European Union and
the United Nations until it accepted as its official name the unpalatable
acronym “FYROM,” literally, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Now, however, FYROM and Greece are almost in an alliance — if not with
Serbia/Yugoslavia, then certainly not against it.

For those with a historical bent, all this calls to mind the first and
second Balkan Wars of 1912 and then 1913.

The first pitted the Christian states of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria
against Ottoman Turkey (and Ottoman Albania) over control of Macedonia
and its primary city, Thessaloniki.

In the second Balkan War, Serbia and Greece fought Bulgaria for the
spoils of the first — meaning Macedonia — pushing Sofia into the arms
of the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and its old enemy, Ottoman
Turkey, during World War I. Britain and France then came to Serbia’s defense by
sending a force to Thessaloniki that eventually pushed into Bulgaria,
leaving the rolling hills of Macedonia littered with obscure war
memorials and the graves of more than 20,000 allied soldiers.

A replay of that scenario, which ultimately led Europe into the Great War
of 1914, may seem a little too rich for now. But it pays to walk among
the graves, read the graffiti on the walls and listen to the voices.

Memory embellishes the past: Now that I think of it, the Fat Boy
chopper was actually a sputtering moped, and there were mosquito bites and
stained sheets and other sticky annoyances. But I was green then — in the
early 1980s — and youth was in me, and I was spending summers on the Greek
islands, and there was no AIDS. The Mediterranean setting and the allure
of romance commingled to create a brew heady and redolent of mystery. All
this was new to me then, new.

One afternoon in Moscow not long ago I stared into the mirror and
compared myself to a picture taken of me in Athens in 1984. At first I
thought, to my satisfaction, that I appeared the same now as then, with the
dignifying exception of a few gray hairs at the temples. But I began
examining my reflection more closely: Something, some solid cast of jaw and
gravity of gaze, had settled over me in the intervening years. My life as
it had developed had taken its toll on me: I had spent the last six years
in a cold northern land where youth withered early, corruption and deceit
were the norms and bullets riddled the frivolous. I had, unmistakably,
grown “grim about the mouth,” as Ishmael put it.

Suddenly, I yearned to be the carefree youngster in the photo, and
a reflexive question arose: How would I do now, at age 37, on
those same Greek isles? I had never really noticed time passing; was I in
truth no longer young? To counter what the mirror hinted, I decided I
needed concrete answers to these questions in the form of a romantic fling,
bodice and sand and sticky annoyances and all, that would validate me as
who I thought I was and chase away the doubts.

I decided to storm the gates of my past. I recruited my
40-year-old (and skeptical) Dutch friend, Serge, as a travel companion,
outfitted myself with summer attire, including a cool Animal wristwatch and
cooler Armani shades, bought a plane ticket to Athens and set my compass
for the island stomping grounds of my youth.

A week later our Flying Dolphin hydrofoil was skipping a frothy
white V across the blue Aegean, its snout leveled at the isle of Ios. Ios!
A breast of brown rock pointing heavenward, nippled with a white church!
The fabled burial ground of Homer, Ios, over the past few decades, has
garnered notoriety as an island on which crowds of college-age satyrs and
Bacchae re-create ancient Greek rituals of orgiastic revelry with
“Animal House” aplomb. I had first visited Ios in 1985 and left it feeling
like a pleasantly ragged-out but sated survivor of a week-long frat party.
Topographically speaking, it is a windy rock with one village, a few
beaches and 113 bars.

We stepped off our Dolphin into a notias, or Southerner — a wind
from Africa notable for its sweltering heat. Soon after arrival, a
hotelier was leading us to our rooms. A Greek matriarch who had, no doubt,
seen it all before, she ministered to us as might the seasoned matron of a
cut-rate Dionysian temple.

“We have an m-m-good barbecue here every night and all the
brand-name hooch you could want. Stay out all night and bring girls to
your rooms, but just don’t lose my keys! Got that?”

Two hours later we were reclining on chaise longues on Milopotas
Beach. Music pounded from the pool at the nearby Far Out Club. All around
us were buzz-cut teens from northern Europe, teens with hair napped in
purple, yellow and orange clumps. Some wore pirate scarves. Others
sported silver coins on leather necklaces, scorpion tattoos, navel
piercings, tongue studs and nipple and nostril rings. The crowd
resembled a “Trainspotting” cast of thousands, and I wondered what drugs they
must have taken to keep themselves in such perpetual motion: They couldn’t
stop paddling balls, whirling Frisbees, snorting into snorkels. What was
all this activity for?

Next to us sat three Irish girls drinking beers. Maybe they were
19 years old, maybe 20. They were works in progress; their skin
looked dew-fresh, their cheeks baby-fat plump.

Their voices carried.

“Well, we drank on the plane. And on the bus to the port. And on
the ferry. And in the pension. No wonder we all puked!” Uproarious
laughter, gulps of beer for all, an adjustment of wrap-around shades.

“Let’s hit the Square at 10 tonight … Grandma and Grandpa gave me
300 pounds for this trip … My nose piercing itches … You’ve got a
bee on your bum …”

Serge sipped his Heineken.

“Jeff, I can’t talk to girls that age. I just can’t.”

I shrugged off his negativism and swatted at a wasp. We were in
Ios for night life anyway; beach impressions meant nothing.

By day, Khora, Ios’ village, is a dainty labyrinth of whitewashed
alleys peopled by doddering Greek dowagers and mustachioed fruit merchants
leading donkeys loaded with baskets of fruit. By night, it’s a cross between the Crazy Horse
Saloon and a
modern-day Babylon where the streets flow with beer, piss and vomit. It
is not by chance that one of the island’s most popular T-shirts reads:
“Ios — Drink Until You Puke, Puke Until You Die.”

The nexus of night life is the Square, which is basically an alley
with an olive tree on one end, a church on the other and a dozen watering
holes in between — the rest of the bars and clubs fan outward from there.

Around 11 p.m., Serge and I left the hotel, fell in with
the crowd, passed the Orgasm Bar and the Lemon Club, and made it to the
Square. We hadn’t planned it, but we ended up dressed thematically
alike — I in black loafers, a Polo shirt and Levis; he in Trussardi jeans, a
silk shirt and square-toed loafers. I note this here because around us
streamed ripped-up knee-length shorts, Tevas sandals, “Take Me Drunk — I’m Home” T-shirts and pierced cartilage. With our intact attire and dearth of
facial metal, we stuck out like white crows.

Joni’s Electric Bar and Frankie’s Ios Blue — we looked inside the
clubs on the Square and moved on. We surfed the crowd and landed in
Shooter’s, one of the more sedate bars just off the Square.

A guy in his early 20s with a shaved head and two girls in tow
pointed to the empty seats beside me and raised his eyebrows.

“C’n we sit here?”

Sure, I said.

Herb was his name. Twenty-three years old. From the Midwest.

Just finished a magnus opus in which he expatiated upon every tenet and
principle of his philosophy. I found myself nodding off into my Corona as
he nattered on, his nasal voice droning like an anopheles mosquito — until,
that is, he slowed down, took a deep breath and huffed, “Boy, do I feel
old here!”

I snapped awake. “Old? You? You’re 23!”

“Yeah, but these chicks I’m with are young. I c’n hardly talk to
them” (the music was too loud for them to hear us). “Just last night I was
out on the beach with the brunette here — she’s from England and her name’s
Fiona — and I was explaining my philosophy and she just pulled me down on
the sand and took off her clothes and made me do it. She didn’t wanna hear
about my philosophy.”

Old?

I looked at Serge. The other girl grabbed Herb’s Corona and tried
to steal a sip; he grabbed it back. “Hey,” he said, “I told you I don’t
buy you drinks. That’s not my philosophy.” He turned to me: “Violetta
here can be a pain.”

Right. I looked at the “pain” and did a double take, like a
character out of a 1950′s sitcom. Violetta had long curly blond hair, a
billowing front, a saucy little nose and wore a petulant frown. She
called to mind a Benny Hill tart, the kind of voluptuous temptress the
bawdy comedian would have chased at show’s end in fast-motion around tree
trunks in a public park. I felt a warmth in my gut, a rush of blood, a
visceral attraction. I had the urge to buy an entire crate of Coronas and
toss them at her ankle-braceleted feet.

Herb tickled her. She smiled but looked away.

“I’m out for the impossible dream tonight,” he said to me. “I’m
gonna try and sleep with her. It’ll be tough seeing as how I just did her
girlfriend.” He took another lusty gulp and wiped his lips. “Also, she’s
17, and you see, I’m wondering –”
My jaw dropped. I had no idea she was so young.

“– I’m wondering, if I have sex with her, can I be sued for it? I
mean, she’s English, but I’m American and we’re in Greece. So, like, which
legal age applies? Which jurisdiction?”

Later, Herb pontificated on the merits of shaved heads — his own
noggin, he said, was of a particularly manly contour and therefore drove
girls insane with desire (“It’s all in the shape of your cranium”).
Whatever. I stole looks at Violetta: She was ravishing, but that she could
be so young had never entered my mind. Until that moment, I hadn’t paid much
attention to age differences. Almost all the people I knew were past
college age, in their 20s or 30s or older. And besides, in my
mind’s eye, I still saw myself as college age.

But perhaps to her, I, with my head of unnapped hair and without a
nipple ring to my name, was an old codger, a hoary dinosaur washed up on
this isle of youth.

Aeolus puffed up his cheeks and blew and blew. The next morning
the notias was gone and the meltemi, or wind from the north, was tearing
through Khora: Teal plastic garden furniture flew from balconies, empty
plastic water bottles swirled by, alley whirlwinds battled each other like
vicious dogs, plastic baggies raced over the beach like panic-stricken
rodents. Serge and I sat up in the hotel garden and watched the molten-red
ball of the sun slither into the sea and illuminate a fairyland of islands
hitherto hidden in the bluish haze of the horizon. A fellow Methuselah — he
must have been 38 or 39 — got up from his beer, patted
his belly and gave us a companionable nod. I wanted to retch.

I was thinking of Violetta.

Serge took a drag on his cigarette and looked at the sea, then stood up.

“Come on, let’s go into town. You’re not really moping over that
17-year-old, are you? She looked like Ginger Spice.”

“I just can’t believe she’s so young.”

“You’re an old-timer now. Get used to it.”

“It just seems so unfair. I don’t want to get used to it.”

“Does that mean you’ll be chasing a 17-year-old girl around
this bloody island?”

“That would be a pathetic sight, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’d like to see it. So let’s go into town.”

Serge and I started off at another bar we had heard about — Sweet
Irish Dreams. On the way there I decided to stop moping and cheer up. Age
was all in my head. Why, I was even able to fit into the same bathing suit
I had worn when I was on this island in 1985! Nothing had really changed.
Tonight would be the night.

Irish Dreams turned out to have a spill-your-cookies,
get-outta-my-face-mate! air. It was messy and dark and filled with
teeny-boppers on table tops and stumble-drunk blokes. Everyone was in T-shirts
and bathing suits and sandals. The crowd was too much. I went to the
men’s room. Two teens followed me inside and took up positions at the
toilets.

I splashed water on my face.

Teen No. 1 (had hair, wore wraparound sunglasses, spoke with an
American accent): “So, like, we were all totally drunk in this hotel and
couldn’t make it to the bathroom, so, like, we just pissed in the drawers
of this dresser. I mean we just took drawer after drawer out and just
pissed in them all night when we needed to.”

Teen No. 2 (shaking off the last drops): “You’re kidding.”

Teen No. 1 (clanking his buckles into order): “Naw, man, I mean,
like, then Bart got to feeling sick. He just took this dresser drawer and
blew chow in it.”

Teen No. 2: “That’s incredible.”

Teen No. 1: “Yeah, Amsterdam was great. But you know what drinking
beer does to your bowels, man. I mean, I felt this rumble in my gut so I
took a drawer and –”

I hurried out. This place was not for us. As we were leaving, a
tipsy, very cute Irish girl raised her hands and gave us a double
thumbs-up — “Glad to see you, Uncle!” I fancied her to be saying. I
couldn’t help smiling back at her, but … I wanted to retch.

We circled back to the Square and ended up in a club decorated in
1970s-grotto style. Four or five young women danced gracefully by
themselves in the center of the floor. Within minutes, however, the door
flew open and a threesome of young lads, their black hair crew-cut and their
necks draped in gold chains, sailed past us and threw themselves into the
midst of the females. One of the fellows, gyrating like an animated
boneless chicken, rubber-necked and bandy-legged, set out after a brunette.
He and his buddies were like cheetahs on the loose in a flock of gazelles.

The brunette, escaping from him, bumped into me and apologized.
She said her name was Sarah, she was 19 years old and from Belfast
and she worked for the bar as a dancer.

“Oh, these Israelis! I just can’t stand them,” she panted. Her
hair was cut bowl-style, monklike and goofy; her thighs were white sugar,
her ankles and wrists were wispy-thin. She wore a short, black, backless
dress and no brassiere; her breasts were heavy torpedoes but they stood
erect under the thin cotton.

“Why can’t you stand them?”

“Well, the other night one of them kidney-punched me for no reason.
Anyway, I came down here on holiday but my money ran out so I got this
job …” Sarah’s girlfriends came up and said hello, all Ivory-fresh-faced.
They chirped and twittered: Life was a blast, the bar cool, the beach
great. I couldn’t accurately judge their ages until their male
contemporaries, also from Belfast, sauntered over: Goateed,
blue-and-yellow-haired, wearing baggy shorts, they were dorky-looking. But
I censured myself: Why shouldn’t they dress and style themselves this way?
They hadn’t a boss to impress, a living to make, a care on this earth.

There was one other man my age in the bar: the manager. He stood
in the doorway counting a fistful of drachmas. He was all in black and he
wore a bulky silver bracelet. He was not simply grim about the mouth; he
was positively ferocious.

“Get back to work!” he growled as he passed Sarah. She turned
gazelle again and sprang back onto the floor. He went back to counting his
money, and Serge and I left.

Shooters. Herb was nowhere to be seen. Violetta and Fiona were
there, though, dancing on the tabletops and miming Spice Girls tunes. They
were escorted by two apes, two crew-cut monsters in Hawaiian shirts and
Birkenstocks. I tried to wave hello to Violetta, but one of the
Frankensteins tore her from the table and carried her cave-man style to the
bar. There he tipped her to a martini glass, the bartender set the liquid
within it aflame and she sucked it down through a straw. Frankenstein
burped her, then grabbed a beer and poured it down her throat. In fact, he
and his buddy had lined up a score of beers and cocktails on the bar; the
rest of the evening was a medley of Spice Girls tunes, piggyback rides to
the booze and piggyback rides back to the tabletops, accompanied by
Neanderthal grunts and ape scratches and girlish squeals. I followed all
this dejectedly, struggling to poke a recalcitrant slice of lemon down into
my Corona.

“This is bull,” said Serge. “Let’s get out of here.”

Later I saw Violetta riding down the main street drunk as a spring lark
on her ape’s shoulders, holding her hands to the breeze, shrieking with
schoolgirl glee. Fiona, walking with her arms crossed, looked pained and
tried to keep up.

The next afternoon Serge and I sat on the beach watching the
water-skiing and Frisbeeing. A fat teen with a pumpkin-size shaved head
and a tiny goatee flathandled a sub sandwich. Topless German girls, so
young that their breasts had barely budded, rubbed coconut oil into their
tummies. An image from Sweet Irish Dreams came to mind: It was of a
Swedish blonde, 18 or so, dancing on a tabletop to the M People.
She wore flowers in her hair, a yellow halter, a white sash around her
tanned midriff; she was barefoot and her toes were brown. Her eyes
radiated joy — she was so happy to be on Ios, on that tabletop; she was
beautiful and she knew it and she was flying high on the crowd’s adoration.
The world was hers and everything would be wonderful.

I suddenly felt
robbed — I could only think these thoughts on behalf of others now. When I
was first on Ios I simply took and took from the world without thinking;
now I cogitated myself into a funk and concluded that I had lost the urge
to grab.

Serge poked my arm and nodded. Violetta. She was taking small
steps toward the surf, gripping herself in her arms as though she were the
sole survivor of a catastrophe. Her eyes were red, her hair flat, her face
white. She dipped her feet in the water, shivered and tread slowly back
up to the pool.

Sunday was our last evening in Ios. We spent the first hours
watching “True Romance” at the Fun Pub. Serge was tired, I was
disillusioned. I told him how sad I felt at perceiving — for the first
time, really — how quickly time was passing. Then I paused and
suggested — sagely I thought — that maybe I was exaggerating my plight.

Serge sat back. “Don’t live in dreams, Jeff.” He walked to the
door and looked at the crowds passing by the pub. “Hey, we should take one
last walk around the Square.”

Shooters was nearly empty when we arrived. Except for Violetta and
Fiona.

“We’re not drinking tonight,” Violetta told me. “See, we just
stopped drinking today at 1 in the afternoon.” Giggles. “Well,
actually, we could maybe have a Flaming Lamborghini.”

Serge ordered four Flaming Lamborghinis. The bartender poured
liqueur after liqueur into the bulbous glasses. Violetta’s eyes lit up and
she squirmed.

Ladies first. They dipped in their straws, their faces as cheery
as those of children about to get their first glimpse of a department-store
Santa Claus. The bartender set the stuff alight, and as they were sucking
it down, he dolloped in still more alcohol from another bottle. He then
presented them with chaser bottles of Amstel.

We drank next. Their pupils dilated and so did ours. An easy
mirth crept over us all; I felt a rising gusto, an inflation of ego — my
cause was not yet lost! They said they were from London. I told them we
lived in Moscow. I talked at length about life there, about the boulevards
streaming with Mercedes and mobsters and beautiful molls. But they
responded with giddy laughs and uncomprehending stares; I might as well
have said we had just flown in from Saturn. Despite the Flaming
Lamborghinis, a trenchant unease began rolling in, washing away the mirth.

Serge took imperious drags on his cigarette; I did my damnedest to
act relaxed and glib.

“What, by the way, is your favorite music?” I asked.

Violetta’s eyes lit up: “The Spice Girls! The Spice Girls! We
like to dance on the tabletop to the Spice Girls!”

I cleared beer bottles off a nearby table. Serge hung back,
shaking his head. Violetta requested “Human Touch” from the DJ, then,
grabbing Fiona’s hand, pulled her aloft.

“Stop right here” — the two raised their arms — “thank you very much” — choreographed hip swivels — “I need somebody with a human touch” — a forced smile stretched my cheeks apart, a thousand thoughts of tender pity
and alienation and estrangement rattled through my mind — “get outta my face” — here they slapped an invisible man’s cheek.

I was the only Spice fan, and I felt their enthusiasm for their
dance melt away. Another “human touch,” a lackluster hip swivel, a final,
flailing slap in the face of that imagined brute, and I helped them back to
earth. I couldn’t wipe the putty smile off my face; it masked an
unbridgable gulf yawning wider and wider between us. Our conversation
foundered — none of us had anything left to say. The desire I had felt for
her waned under a crushing alienation that derived from — yes — the
difference in our ages. She belonged to another world, to Sarah’s world,
to a world of youth that now, I finally understood, was closed to me.

“Well, ahh, we have to meet these blokes in a bit,” Violetta said.

“It’s their last night, you see. We’ll be back in half an hour. So wait
for us here, OK?” She grabbed Fiona’s hand and they were off.

Serge smirked.

“They won’t be back. That’s their routine — get the old guys to buy
them drinks, then take off.”
They did not return.

I once thought of aging as a beast that could be held at bay by
exercise, a proper diet, the right hair gel, a practiced tailor. It was
something that happened to careless people, to other people. Before my
return to Ios, I believed my options were open: Life was a revolving
smorgasbord and I had the power to choose my dish. I thought I would always
have that power, at least until I achieved true seniority — the age of
80, say — when a pleasant dash of dotage would set in, an endearing
shuffle would ensue, my features would mature into a mien of sublime
gravitas, and I would be, well, regal. Feel free to laugh at my
misguidedness because I am laughing at it myself.

Youth, I now see, was a gift that Life bestowed then
yanked away before I knew it, with unexpected results. Like some
reincarnation of Odysseus brandishing not a sword but a trendy wristwatch
and shades, I returned to my Ithaca and found I had outgrown my Penelope —
but it hurt that she would not have had me, anyway. She showed me that
there were walls in my life that I could not breach.

Now, waiting for the boat out of Ios, I resolved to recognize the
imprint that the years had left on me. I still cherished my youthful romps
on the islands, but in a flush of insight, I saw that time, like a river,
flows in one direction only, and I must ride the current and accept its
gifts. There is no choice, anyway.

Our ferry, the gold-trimmed Maria Pa, honked and rounded the cape
on its way into Ios harbor, fighting the meltemi, hissing as it sliced the
waves, honking again as it backed up to the dock, churning the glaucous
water into foam. Serge and I joined the crowd in pushing our way aboard.
With another honk we pulled away, our bow swinging round until it pointed
north.

With a roar of engines we lurched ahead and steamed seaward. I
didn’t look back.

My search was not what I would call thorough. I didn’t make inquiries before I arrived. I don’t speak a work of Greek. I came armed with his name, the dates of his birth and death and the town he was born in. I could, at least, pronounce that. I had practiced. In fact, if I said only that, people sometimes thought I was from there — an illusion that didn’t last long.

It was midafternoon before I’d made it over on the ferry, gotten a bus into town and found a place to stay. I’d parked my bag on some nice woman’s porch, and when I went back for it, she was sitting with somebody who looked like her father, or maybe her grandfather. I asked her, just for kicks, if she’d ever heard my grandfather’s name.

“Makris,” she repeated after me. “Makris.”

It sounded different when she said it, and I tried to memorize the rolling “r” she put in.

She shrugged in my direction, but didn’t look finished. People did that. If you didn’t wait around, you missed the important part that was coming, and too bad for you.

“It was my grandfather,” I said. “I’m looking for his family.”

The woman looked at the man. She spoke to him in Greek. I understood “Makris.”

He took a drink of something with ice. I heard it. That’s how quiet this town was.

He spoke, then she turned back to me.

“My father says the name is from Galanado. You should go to Galanado.”

I squinted at her.

“Galanado,” she repeated. “Is here, is up there.” She pointed up, toward the hills. I nodded and tried to repeat this word, so I would remember where I had to go.

She grinned and said it slowly: Ga-la-na-do.

She waved at me from where she stood on the porch. By the time I got back to the room I’d haggled for, I couldn’t remember what she had just said. I went to the beach.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

The next day I woke early, drank a cup of strong Greek coffee — don’t ever call it Turkish — and walked along the shuttered beachfront kiosks, stepping over animals asleep next to stairways and stilts. I’d spotted a bike rental place from the bus, and when I found it I checked out the mopeds parked outside. The gears looked crusty, like they’d been sunk and dredged up, but the ones without gears looked all right. The guy at the desk inside looked sleepy, and I felt sleepy, so I smiled. A dog trotted out from behind him. It wagged at me so I scratched its head and waited.

“Miki,” the man said.

I put out my hand, and he looked at it. Then he pointed to the dog.

“Miki,” he said again.

“Right.” I dropped my hand back to the dog’s head. “Hey, Miki,” I said.

We agreed on a price for the moped I wanted, and I signed the paper and handed over my passport for collateral. He looked at the photo, then up at me.

“It’s me,” I said.

He pronounced my whole name out loud once, like a statement rather than a question. Then he handed it back to me and waved me out of the office.

On the road, I quickly began to doubt the wisdom of my idea. I weighed the ruinous condition of the tarmac against where it might lead: The green hills were etched, irresistibly vibrant, against the blue sky, every turn flashing some combination of grove and sea and cliff. I kept going. Maybe my grandfather had taken these roads as a child, I thought. When I came to a junction I looked at my map. Then I looked at the sign. There it was: Galanado.

A half-dozen old men sat in the shade at the taverna, across from a market. They all stared when I parked the bike and got off, so I went into the market. The smell of sawdust made me want to buy bubble gum, but instead I read as best as I could from the grimy card I’d been carrying around for months. It said who I was supposed to be looking for. The woman behind the counter squinted at me, shrugged her shoulders. I tried again. She reached across and plucked it out of my hand.

“Ah!” she said, so pleased she clapped her hands together. “Kinotita d’marchio!” — which sounded nothing like what I’d said. She called to her chubby son, who climbed onto a bicycle and began pedaling away. She motioned for me to follow him. The bright, white stones gleamed like cobbled teeth as I skittered after him on foot. No one answered the door he pointed to. Waiting in a patch of light, I listened to sounds from the open windows. An old woman kept peeking down at me.

A few minutes passed before a middle-aged woman approached. I stood up and brushed off.

“Hello,” I said. “Are you the –” I looked at my card, “ki-no-ti-ta?”

She smiled. “Kinotita, yes,” she said. “Come.”

Just inside the door was a tiny office. Beyond it was a hallway, and a big open room, and a piece of a kitchen: her house. It smelled like lemons. I told her what I was looking for.

“He is the father of who?” she asked.

“The father of my mother,” I said. “He died when she was a girl.”

“Oh,” she said. “That is bad luck.”

I nodded. She continued looking at me from across the desk.

“I am wondering if any of his people may still be here,” I said. “He had some brothers, I think. Maybe they had children.”

Her eyebrows curled a bit, and she shrugged, then turned to pull a ledger book from the shelf behind her, the ringed kind I had in grade school. I gave her the name and waited.

“I don’t see,” she sighed, finally. “You are sure he was from here?”

“No,” I said. “His death certificate said he was born on Ayia Anna. That’s where I’m staying. But they said the name was from here.”

She shook her head.

“No, you must go to Ayia Arsenios,” she said.

I stared at her. “Where?”

“Ayia Arsenios. That is really Ayia Anna, not where you are on the beach.” She paused. “Go to the kinotita there.”

She explained which roads would take me there and showed me to the door.

“I hope you find,” she called after me.

I passed through someone’s olive grove a few minutes later and ate some fruit in the shade, imagining for a minute that I was a farmer’s granddaughter. I thought of the tiny Bronx tenement my mother had described to me. Determined, I got back on the bike and headed toward Ayia Arsenios. I accidentally pulled through the town before I realized I was in it, and had to turn around and roll back. By now it was midafternoon. I asked a woman passing, “Kinotita?”

She pointed. The door of the office was propped with some spare mechanical part. Enormous, slow-moving fans hung from the ceiling. A dozen men were working in there, shuffling paper. I stood at the counter, looking at the little silver bell and feeling sorry for the third time that day that I was wearing shorts. They could see that I was standing there. Finally a man came over.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, “but do you speak English?”

He rolled his eyes, then put up a hand, like a crossing guard, that I should stay. He went into another office and after a few minutes another man came out.

“Hello,” I said. “English?”

He shook his head at me, made a so-so sign with his hand. He smelled like cigarettes in that way that some working men do, not at all like the smell after a night in a bar, and not like office people who step outside and then eat a mint. It smelled good.

Slowly, I said, “I am looking for the family of my grandfather. Named Makris. He was from here.” I sighed. “I think.”

He stared at me and said something in Greek. I shrugged. He shook his head. I stood there while they consulted, loudly. Smoky man won, I suppose, since the other guy motioned for me to follow him out into the street. Then he started walking. I followed him through several winding streets before he knocked on a door, then stepped back and called up to the window, “Maria!” His glasses were steaming up. My heart was pounding.

A woman came to the door and he waved his hand under his chin for me to talk. I said what I’d said in the office, slower even. I was beginning to sweat. She grimaced, looked back at my escort. She shrugged. I realized that we were looking for someone who could tell this man what the hell I wanted. Maria was not the one. We moved on. Two stops later a woman came to the door drying her hands and smelling of bread. She called inside, then pulled a girl forward and shoved her at me.

“Hi,” I said. The girl looked about 16. She was wearing jeans.

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m looking for the family of my grandfather,” I said. “The father of my mother. I think he was from here. From this town. I want them to check this for me, check the records, if there are any.”

She nodded as I talked.

“Where you are from?” she asked when I finished.

“From New York,” I told her. “Is that your mother?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “New York City?” I nodded.

“You are alone?” she asked.

I nodded. Eyes wide, she turned to her mother and talked very fast for longer than I thought it took to say what I said, in any language. The man who’d brought me had one unruly eyebrow that dipped and curled with each expression, and as the girl spoke, his face lifted into the first semblance of a smile I’d seen so far. The girl’s mother was speechless.

“You go with him,” the girl said, pointing. “He understands what you are looking for.”

We ended up on a porch across from where I started out. My guide was humming a little tune, now that I might be family. There was a small crowd gathered by the staircase that led from the taverna to the street, watching. He pounded on the door a few times, and a guy around my age opened the door, wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. His hair was a mess. The older man briefed him and there was a lot more shrugging. The sleepy guy told me, “One minute, OK? Sit.”

“OK,” I said, and sat on the edge of a green metal chair. My guide leaned against the post. I waved away some flies. My eyelids were sweating, and my arms, every part. My hands were filthy. I tried not to cry.

The screen door squeaked and the young man came out. He had combed his hair and put on pants. He sat across from me.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked.

“Do you have a name?”

“My name is Nicolas,” he said.

“Nicolas.” I held out my hand, and we shook. For the fifth time that day, I told my story. “I don’t know if there is anyone to find …” I trailed off and shrugged.

“What was his name?” Nicolas asked.

“Makris,” I said.

He introduced my guide, Mario, to me. We shook hands. After they talked, Nicolas pulled out a note pad. “OK,” he said to me, “tell me what you know.”

So I gave him what I had — two dates and a full name — and he transferred that data into legible Greek. The men from the taverna had crossed the street and gathered around us. Nicolas was some kind of star in that town.

“I go to the university in Athens,” he explained to me. “I’m just home for this weekend.”

“It’s my lucky day,” I said.

Mario was talking to the men gathered, and they were talking to each other. It was getting loud. One or two men climbed up on the porch and peered over Nicolas’ shoulder. “Makris,” I heard. “Makris.”

“This man says this name is from Galanado,” Nicolas said to me.

I shook my head. “I’ve been to the kinotita there. She said it is not from there, and I should come here.”

He nodded, impressed, and repeated it back. Now there were a half-dozen old men standing around. Mario detached himself and went up the street.

“He goes to get the books,” Nicolas said.

I sat back in the chair and watched the talking. The men had formed a semicircle and were arguing and frowning and shrugging, their hands flurrying the air. Someone pointed in the direction I had come from; then another indicated some other, unknown place. Their words rose and fell in time to their hands, or the other way around. One was biting on a pipe. Another wore a taxi driver’s plaid cap, backwards. He smelled like tobacco, and his hands were knotted and wide as boards. He winked at me.

Mario returned and parked himself in the other chair. Pages were turned, his brown fingers marking columns of faded names. The men peered over his shoulder, calling out and smiling, clapping each other on the back when their names turned up. This was a soldier’s log. After half an hour, they got to the end of the book. Then they tried another book. Our shadows shifted. There was no Makris in any records there.

“There were probably many towns with this name, Ayia Anna,” Nicolas told me, sitting up and stretching, “before the war. Many of them are named something else now, probably.” He looked sorry when he said it. I nodded without saying anything. He wrote for me, in careful university English, the name of the right minister, the right department, in Athens. One of the old men said something in his ear. Nicolas looked up at me.

“He says you should come back to Ayia Arsenios,” Nicolas said.

“Where?” I said.

He smiled. He had perfect teeth.

“Here,” he said, gently.

“Of course.” I felt my face flush, and I laughed. “I’ll remember. Efcharisto. Thank you.”

I shook hands with Mario, who smiled shyly, and then with each of the old men there. They stood, all of them, and waited to shake my hand. In theirs, my hand looked small and pale as a child’s, but I didn’t feel lost at all.