"Yeah, the other guy ... The big monster that lurks behind those mountains, waiting to pounce anytime, its claws still full of my father's flesh and the flesh of thousands of others it has devoured." He was glaring at the dark mountains of Turkey, a scarce few miles away. "I wish I could strangle it with my own two hands." A deep sigh escaped from his half trembling mouth as he gritted his teeth and slammed his fisted right hand powerfully on the arm of his chair. "Yes, the damn Turks stole my childhood. They destroyed my home, my dreams, and my country. The Turks took all of it," Nikolas said, spitting out each syllable. "I was barely ten at the time, 1922, the year of the Great Catastrophe, as it came to be known."
"I never realized you were in the Great Catastrophe," Yanni said, amazed.
"My mother, father, two older sisters, and I lived together in a lovely house in a suburb of Smyrna. Oh, the roses, the jasmine, the night flowers in our garden. I remember lying on the grass at midnight counting every star in the clear sky."
His eyes clouding with tears, Nikolas continued, "My father used to take me to his bank after Greek school. 'I will teach you the business someday, Niko,' he used to tell me, kissing me on each cheek and then the top of my head. I was so happy then." Nikolas reached beneath his shirt to touch the gold chain and cross that hung around his neck. It had been a gift from his father, and without looking at it, he held the cross tightly in his hand. Then, suddenly remembering, he cried out, "Oh God, dear God, how could I for a moment forget that this is Anna's cross and chain. Yes, yes! We exchanged crosses on the raft." He held his head. "I forget. I have these lapses of memory." "What happened, sir?" asked Yanni.
"During the war, when my ship got bombed, I was injured and became amnesic," Nikolas replied, holding the cross tightly. "I completely forgot who I was. Now you know why it is important to find Anna."
"I see sir."
"At ten … " continued Nikolas, "I didn't know that in 1453 the Turks had ransacked Constantinople and took over Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a place completely Hellenized, Greek in every respect―in thought and language. In 1920, the Greeks, with the support of the Allies after the First World War, retook the area. Fifteen to twenty thousand people of Greek origin lived in the suburbs of Smyrna alone. The Greeks fought a holding action for about two years, but after the British and French withdrew support, my countrymen, including my family, were left