The sun was bright. The day was cold. The clear blue sky, deep like the white of a child's eye, was frozen. It did not seem like winter was coming to an end.
Chris stared out at the river wondering if he had made the right decision. He wondered if his best friend Archie had not made the better decision, choosing to skip college and take a job writing software for Moonglow. He would start with a salary of fifty thousand a year minimum. There was no telling, he said, where he would go from there.
Fifty thousand a year and he would be only nineteen!
Chris had been offered a similar position. They had told him the same thing. The sky was the limit, Wally, the recruiter who spoke to him at the job fair in the high school gym before Christmas had told him. Despite the harsh economic environment, things were vibrating at Moonglow. They had an optimism that was way out in front of the general sense of gloom and defeat that marked and marred the Zeitgeist.
Obama's going to digitalize all the medical records in the United States for a start, Wally said, and we've got the software to do it better.
But Chris was uncomfortable and unable to commit himself. He told Archie he was not sure what he wanted.
Come on man, Archie said. Did you ever think you could make that much money doing something you'd do just for fun anyhow?
I know, Chris said strangely lacking enthusiasm.
And we'd be together, just like we are now.
Yeah, Chris said. I know. But, I don't know. I can't help it; I don't know.
He himself felt dissatisfied with his response and its passive insistence. But that was all he could say. If there was anything else to say, it was in hiding in some dark recess inside him. He was unaware of it, except for a vague presentment of a nebulous something he was trying to desensitize himself to.
Well, I know, Archie said. You're like...a masochist. You can't just enjoy something good when it happens.
Maybe, Chris said. I gotta think about it.
What's to think? Chris said. You think too much and it will vanish. They want an answer by Saturday. I said yes already. What's holding you back?
Chris shrugged without saying anything.
Saturday, he stood looking out at the river watching his breath as it condensed in the air. Maybe he was making a mistake. So be it. It was his to make.
You blew that one, Archie said on Monday at school.
He was angry. He was hurt. He took it personally.
We could have been together, he said, but you killed that possibility.
Archie took it as a rejection.
Chris's mother had been just as enthusiastic about Moonglow as Archie. She was similarly incensed at what she called his lack of enthusiasm.
You want to be a letter carrier like your father for thirty-five years and then collapse one day and spend the last two years of your life dying?
That's not what I'm saying, Chris muttered half audibly.
As far as I can hear, you're not saying anything. What is the matter with you? Are you loosing your ambition this early in the game? Huh?
She tossed back her head and her long neck stretched and a hank of her long blond hair flew over her shoulder. She was still a young woman. Her husband's death had freed her from subservience to a man who was a dozen years her senior. She felt the life inside her, and she was eager to let it out.
No, Chris muttered.
Are you on drugs?
I'm not on drugs. I don't know what my ambition is.
Even as he said it, Chris knew that it was not true. It hit him, as hard as he tried to duck. He'd given up on what he really wanted to do. He daydreamed of acting. It was an amorphous desire. He was ashamed of it. He did not trust himself. He lived a lot in fantasies. Being an actor was just another fantasy.
He had not told anyone, not his mother, not Archie, no one about the college application he had mailed.
It had been Mr. Gorman, his guidance counselor's idea.
You don't seem happy about programming, although your grades are stellar.
It's ok, Chris said.
Only ok?
Yeah.
What would be better than ok.
I don't know, Chris said.
I don't believe that, Mr. Gorman said.
I want to be an actor, but...
But?
But that's a fantasy.
It is right now. But it could become a reality if you set yourself to it.
After that meeting, at Mr. Gorman's suggestion, and with a no-interest loan from the guidance counselor to be paid back whenever he could of 125 dollars, Chris submitted an application to a university famous for its theater department.
Mr. Gorman agreed to let him use his office for the return address, too. Chris had explained the tense situation at home with his mother, at first only as an excuse for cynicism and apathy. Then he found himself desperately pouring out his confusion to the counselor. He could not understand her fury, she who had pursued her life so sideways, especially since his father's death, suddenly, now, had wanted to see him regimented. It was killing him, his spirit. He could not take it. Gorman knew the only way he could reach the boy was by creating an alternative.
Chris' mother took it like bad news when he told her that he had been accepted with a full scholarship at a prestigious Ivy League university.
A scholarship is not a salary.
It did not come as a surprise to him that she said that.
Please don't sabotage it, he said.
I'm not sabotaging anything. I just want to know what in the world going to a fancy school is going to do for you in the way of learning something that's going to allow you to make money.
She was looking intently into the bathroom mirror applying makeup. Chris was standing in the doorway looking at her. But she was not looking at him. As she spoke, she spoke into the mirror.
Money is not everything, Chris said.
Spoken like a person who has never had to pay rent or electric bills or grocery bills or telephone bills or hospital bills his whole life!
Chris prevailed. But from the beginning of May, when he got the acceptance letter until mid-August when he left home, it felt more like a defeat than a victory. His mother was distant and broadcast an air of betrayal or indifference in every word and every gesture.
Archie, once bound so inextricably to him, once his choice was clear, avoided him all summer. He didn't even answer his portable or respond to textos. Chris did not press it. He was getting himself ready for a new life.
It was the second week of August. In three days Chris would leave for New York. It had been decided that he would take the bus, alone.
All he was taking were two suitcases and a laptop.
It was the last day he would spend by the lake. As had been the unusual case the whole summer, he was by himself again. Archie had managed to avoid him even at the lake. Today was an exception. They saw each other at the same instant, Chris from the edge of the water, Archie as he scrambled down a rocky slope. It was too late to turn back. Besides, he was driven by momentum and gravity, two pretty compelling forces.
So he hurtled down the hill. But something tightened in him as the bare souls of his feet slapped against the flat rock which jutted out over the lake. He took a spot as far from Chris as possible, at the edge of the rock, at a right angle to Chris, not really very far, given the size of the ledge.
Chris felt the snub although there was no reason for it to surprise him. He dove into the lake from his perch. He pawed the hard skin of the water with the cups of his palms as he churned across its surface. Then he burrowed underwater. As he shot through the cold, containing all his breath, an impossible elation took hold of him.
What the fuck is going on? he said breathing freely and deeply, climbing back onto the ledge. Why are you cutting me?
Don't play dumb. It does not become you, Archie said.
What are you talking about?
If you really don't know, then there's nothing I can say that will make you.
It was more than Chris could bear. He burst out laughing.
What are you laughing about? Archie said, indignation struggling to suppress an eruption of sympathetic giggles. He was overcome by the sight of his once-friend's lovely fluid body slick with wet.
I don't know, Chris said, biting his tongue although he was itching to say because you sound like somebody's fucking wife. Instead, he said, This whole thing is ridiculous. We were best friends. Now you avoid me.
I didn't turn down the job at Moonglow, Archie said.
Because you do something does not mean I have to do the same thing, Chris said, letting go. That's not what friendship is. It's more the mark of a jealous and possessive love.
Archie felt bruised by this. A wound opened inside him. He was humiliated. Humiliation did not sit well on his strong young frame.
Chris felt him cringe inwardly, and then he understood.
Chris was perched on a rock facing Archie and the water.
I have a joint, he said, stretching and dragging his knapsack over to him. You want to make believe it's a peace pipe?
He lit it, dragged on it, and extended it to Archie. Archie wavered an instant but then took it and inhaled.
Archie stumbled over his breath as he exhaled, gasped, caught some air in his throat, and began to cough.
His fits of coughing became involuntary, tears filled his eyes, and he broke into sobs.
Chris moved nearer to him to comfort him. Archie was embarrassed. Chris took the joint from his fingers, snubbed it out, and put his face near Archie's.
Are you alright? he said even as he realized he was obviously not.
Archie hardly answered and only gasped.
I know you're no, he said, gently.
Without saying anything Archie threw his arms round Chris and buried his face in Chris' neck. All Chris could do was stroke the back of his friend's neck. Then it was his skull he was stroking. But it was more like caressing.
Then taking Archie's cheeks in the palms of his hands, he lifted his head and looked at him.
I want to kiss you, Archie said.
I want to kiss you, too, Chris said. But I am leaving in three days. You know that. I still am.
I know, Archie said. I know that. That's the way it is. I'll get over it. The world is full of people.
But the words were secondary, for even as he said them, his lips and Chris's were touching.
It was clumsy. It did not go further.
I'm sorry, Archie said.
There's nothing to be sorry for, Chris said.
I have to go, Archie said, although he had not swum. I guess it's Goodbye, he said.
Goodbye, Archie, Chris said, sealing the lid on the coffin.
Freshman year was a revelation for Chris. He came; he saw; he changed.
Chris came to the campus a boy torn by confusion. What happened with Archie had severely shaken him, not just the last encounter, but the whole course of their friendship. He had been a nerd. He hung around with Archie, another nerd. They were both nerds. They took long walks in the deserted industrial parts of the town many nights. They spoke endlessly, hypothesizing distant galaxies and fantasizing impossible creatures.
Bur Chris began to change the beginning of the last year in high school, when they were seniors. Archie's dishabille began to trouble him. He began to scan himself in the mirror for imperfections. He began a war in himself against any kind of flab, physical, mental, emotional. He undertook to read the complete plays of Shakespeare and to listen to all of Wagner's operas. He began swimming every day. That drew him to use the gym.
Archie noticed that Chris was less available than he had been. And he was dressing differently, attentive to what he wore. His body was different, too. Archie did not like it. But he said nothing. When they were together, Chris acted as he always had, but it was different. Archie would not have put it this way, but Chris had acquired elegance.
Chris was changing from within. It was natural to him. It was his own growth. Consequently, he was less aware of how much he had changed than those who knew him were.
He felt more like himself than ever. He liked it.
Chris saw -- better to say -- he felt, from the moment he set foot on the campus, from the first day at the university, that he had entered a world of desire and possibility.
Sometimes one disposition is at work; sometimes, another; people are not simple. He was dazed by the feeling of the air, as he breathed it into lungs that had never felt so gladsome before in its passage. Nor had he ever felt more like himself and less like his shadow. This was something new. It was exhilarating. He felt empty, ready to be filled.
It happened. He was. The change was organic.
He had joined the theater department, began to act in short plays, took singing and even ballet classes as well as gymnastics.
His voice deepened, became a rather mellow baritone. He was six feet tall, a hundred fifty pounds, lean, muscled, and ruggedly handsome.
Larry was handsome, too, even beautiful, and to protect himself he had assumed the role of a hyper-masculine, athletic, uncaring, unapproachable young man. His tuition was fully funded by a track and swimming scholarship, and he excelled at both. He had put himself down as a business major. He excused himself from any girl's desire for a sexual attachment with the excuse that he was in training.
One frustrated date asked him when he told her that, For what, celibacy?
He laughed good naturedly.
Feels like it, he said.
You don't have to, she said.
Yes, I do, he said.
His real interest was theatrical set and costume design. He kept it to himself until Chris told him after swim practice that he was a theater major.
No shit! Larry said, lighting up with surprise.
They became friends quickly despite Larry's being two years older than Chris and scheduled to graduate two years before him.
As a senior, Larry took an apartment off campus, and no one raised any objection when Chris chose to live there, too.
They did not begin their friendship as lovers.
They sat many nights over a few beers or some vodka sours and spoke about their early lives. Chris told of his father's death and the chill that had come over everything those two years that his father was dying while his mother carried on doing what became only her duty with no other concern than to express her virtue under duress and distress. But once he was dead, it was different. She became different, vulgar and hungry. She had no trouble meeting men or bringing them home, intruding into his life with something he could not handle.
Larry's father was a carpenter who had the reputation in the small town he came from of having slept with many of the women in his neighborhood. The fights between his parents were sporadic and made the air tense with violence, but they always ended in bed. He often heard their wild growling. He longed for something finer. In high school he had been rather morose and withdrawn despite his popularity.
I realized I had this power that I did not want of getting people to need me to like them.
What a burden! Chris taunted him.
I know, Larry said. But it is. I don't want demands put on me.
You'd rather be seduced.
The words had jumped out of Chris' mouth.
Maybe, Larry said, laughing thoughtfully.
Shall I seduce you?
Maybe you already have.
How did I manage it?
I think it was when you said you were a theater major. Somehow it made me think that I could be. I mean, you did not look...I don't know how to finish that sentence. You just made me feel like it was possible.
END of PART ONE
Everybody said you had to take his course in Homer.
Chris was in awe of him.
At that moment, with that confrontation, he said, all our attempts at interpretation prove to be insubstantial. Interpretation is revealed to be the bloodless thing it is. The only valid response to the poem, the only response that can make the experience of the poem the experience of poetry is your experience of the encounter as the overwhelming visceral illumination that it is.
A lock of his dusky golden hair fell over his forehead. Without thinking or missing a beat and with the hand that did not have a copy of "The Iliad" open in it, he brushed it back, only to have to do it again after it defiantly bounced back. He was adorable, and though he was not vain, he knew he was. He knew how to use it too, to draw attention and keep it.
Apollo does not signify anything allegorical or metaphorical. This is 12th century Greece, B.C., he continued. He's one of the Gods. Gods were not allegorical or metaphorical. They were actual, relentless and terrifying, terrifying in a thrilling way, in the way that indomitable power is. When Diomedes hurls himself against Apollo in the ecstatic fury of his battle fever, hot from his victory over Aeneas, Apollo thunders out a warning to him.
If you want to do interpretations, make up meanings, I can't stop you, he admonished the class, but I can caution you. All this scene is, what is at the root of this story's power, he explained, is the encounter of a magnificent and furiously raging mortal striving with and then deferring to an ineffable and aroused God. There is an explosion of power so intense that it recoils back on itself. It becomes an implosion.
That encounter is nothing else but itself, and it is existentially terrifying. It brings together the forces of anger and eroticism. They combine in a kinetic confrontation between a man and a God.
He could not have held his audience better had he been a star of the theater. His class was charged with drama and charisma. Students sat on the window sills and radiators. They crouched on the floor in the corners of the classroom, notebooks thrown open, but hardly anyone took notes. Everyone was listening.
Everyone called him Eddie. He called himself Eric. It was his middle name. It was his mother's name with the 'a' trimmed off in recognition of his masculinity.
She had been a concert violinist who had been more devoted to her career than to him. She did not know who his father was. There had been several men around the time, and none of them was eager for a child. Mostly he was raised by his grandmother, a pretentious woman with a large apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and a thick German accent. He was physically punished if his report card was less than perfect.
He was not married. He was courtly and flirtatious with women. At the semi-annual holiday parties he danced with nearly the entire female complement of the faculty and the administration with courtliness and gallantry. But he was always out of reach, impervious to any grasp. He was open, affable, unavailable, and irresistible. He was tenured and had published several books and numerous journal articles.
Chris sat in the first row in his class, basking in his sense of awe. He had copied his staccato style of speaking, his well-fitting ribbed cotton turtle necks worn under an autumnally-brown tweed jacket, and his leather coat.
You are falling for him. Definitely, Larry said. You're under his influence for sure. This is going to hurt.
Chris looked him uncomprehendingly.
Not you, Larry said. Me. Already I can feel you drifting.
I don't know what to say, Chris said.
There's nothing to say, Larry said.
They had been sleeping together. Their passion had flared. Then it ebbed. Chris had taken the spare bedroom with the divan for himself.
It was the leather coat that did the work and took Chris where he never thought he could go.
I like your coat, Eric said walking beside him down the granite steps outside Bluehouse Library into the early and perhaps deceptive springtime. Perhaps deceptive because snow was known to come yet again, even after such sweetness, before winter could be confidently forgotten. This year it would not. But they could not know that, yet.
Chris blushed, giggled, and shrugged.
It looks good on you, too, Eric added.
Before Chris could figure out what exactly Eric was saying, Eric said, But the two of us walking together like this, we might be mistaken for a pair of upper-mid-level Nazi bureaucrats. My rooms are over there. He was pointing to the upper floors of an old Victorian mansion across the street and down the block. Can I interest you in a pot of tea?
I'd love to, Chris sputtered, unable to camouflage his excitement.
Why do you dress like me? Eric said, carelessly, as he hung Chris's coat in the closet beside his.
Chris again blushed.
Please don't be embarrassed, Eric said. I like it. I am flattered.
Because I admire you and I want to model myself on you, Chris gulped, figuring bravado with its attendant ambiguity was the best defense.
But he was to be outdone by a master at the game.
Have you thought about what it would be like to have me inside you? Eric said.
The question would have seemed weird, shockingly odd, even incomprehensible, had not Chris so often imagined slowly stripping seductively and watching Eric watch him doing it, had he not felt his rectal muscles clenching and loosening as he imagined Eric inside him.
He took a breath. He took the leap. I'd like that. I want you inside me, he said. Yes, I have.
Eric smiled. I'm glad. So have I, he said.
He reached out and brought the boy to him and pressed him to himself. He kissed him.
I could see it in your face that I'd gotten to you. You got to me too.
Thank you, Chris said.
Thank you, Eric returned the compliment with a surprising tender sincerity, unbuckling Chris's belt, pulling his turtle neck out of his jeans, and lifting it. You do it, he said.
Eric watched Chris pull the shirt over his head and then removed his own, enjoying that Chris was now watching him.
It will feel like I'm making love to myself, he said, following the contours of Chris's naked chest with spidery finger-tips and touching his lips to Chris's and then backing away.
You like to work out, Eric said, gently taking hold of Chris's firm nipples.
It turns me on, Chris said with a shiver.
Do you work out? he said looking at Eric's smooth, well-wrought torso.
It turns me on, Eric said.
Daylight was gone. They lay together in Eric's bed, slowly dancing their way to ecstasy.
Tell me how you feel, Eric said, looking at Chris looking up at him.
I feel like I'm worshipping you, Chris said.
Slowly they interwove themselves.
You don't have a television? Chris said, in the morning, returning to the kitchen with his empty coffee mug, looking for a refill.
No, I don't have a television, Eric said, smiling, looking at Chris' well-wrought figure, nearly naked except for his black bikini underwear. With his cup extended as Eric tilted the pot and poured some coffee out into it he seemed to Eric posed to be an old Greek or Roman marble of a beautiful young man. Michelangelo would have appreciated him.
Standing apart, had he been able to, Eric would have seen that he too constituted a figure in that ensemble, as he stood arm outstretched, chest gleaming, pouring the coffee into Chris' cup.
But you do have a laptop, Chris continued.
I could not live without it, Eric said.
I'd like to hear you say that about me, Chris said.
With or without changing the pronoun? Eric said.
That's yours to determine, Chris said.
They were silent. The agreement had been made.
Let's shower and then you ought to get going, Eric said.
What happens now? Chris said as he looked at himself in the mirror and brushed his hair.
What do you mean? Eric said.
Are we? Chris said but shifted from words to gestures, shuttling his right hand back and forth through the charged and empty air.
Are we what? Eric asked.
I don't know, Chris said, hesitating. Do you want to see me again?
I'm going to see you in exactly one hour and fifty-three minutes from now and talk to you about Diomedes' third encounter with a God, when he would have slain Ares, if Gods could be slain, Eric said and took a swallow of coffee.
Chris frowned.
"You are teasing me. I mean this way, like this?
Like this, too, Eric said.
Do you want to see me again? he asked in return.
In exactly an hour and fifty-three minutes from now every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday until May, Chris answered.
"I mean this way," Eric grinned and took the boy in his arms and kissed him.
This way, too. I mean it, Chris said, caressing Eric's bicep. But I don't really feel like it's up to me.
Who is it up to then?
You.
What I say goes?
What you say goes.
Get dressed, Eric said. I'll see you in class. Come to my office after your last class, which is over...when?
At three.
Come straight over. I'll be there.
Yes, Sir, Chris said.
Go, now, Eric said.
Chris returned dressed. Eric took him to the door. Naked he stood there and took the clothed boy in his arms and pressed his lips to him. He filled him with his breath. Chris collapsed in surrender against his chest.
Go, Eric said. Standing behind it, he held the door open. Chris went out into the morning light-hearted and confident.
Breaking with Larry was not easy, and as far as Chris was concerned, it was not necessary.
I don't think I'm ready for an exclusive relationship with anybody, he said, defensively. I don't understand how my friendship with Eric affects how we are with each other at all.
But Larry felt otherwise.
Friendship, is all he said, but with a sneer that could cut.
Chris shook his head in exasperation. He could not stand being held back and it kept happening. It was suffocating him; it had been the same way with Archie.
Ideally, you may be right, Larry said. But it's no good. I don't live in the abstract realm of the ideal but in the real world of the flesh. I feel desire, and pain. I know how to keep from showing it. But I let my guard down with you. Right now, the pain is predominant. It's something new for me, and I don't like it.
What do you want to do?
You ask me?
Yeah. Who else?
Yourself. What do you want?
Chris did not answer.
Of course, Larry said. You don't have to decide anything. You just shift for yourself however you want, as if no one else were involved. You follow your fancy.
What else do you want me to follow? Chris said, almost laughing. Yours?
Larry was almost stymied, but decided to say what he felt. It was already too late. Yes, he said, to take me into consideration.
You mean follow your desires instead of mine. No thank you.
What are you going to do this summer? Eric said, his hand on Chris's shoulder as they passed under the marble arch and sauntered through the alley formed by the facing lines of newly blossoming apple trees.
I was thinking of going west to pick grapes, Chris said.
He had decided not to think about things that were impossible, and maybe, he said to himself when he tried to piece things out, it would be a good thing to go into some open spaces and get away from everything for a while, so that the new shapes could take and solidify.
That's not a very good idea, Eric said.
No Chris responded surprised.
No, Eric repeated. A better idea is to spend the summer with me in Greece.
Are you serious?
I'm doing a seminar in Athens the last two-week in June. Then I'm free for the rest of the summer. Our trip would be paid by the university. I always stipulate a traveling companion. I don't like to be alone."
Poor baby, Chris said with an appealing, teasing pout.
Then you'll come with me, Eric said in triumph.
At your beck and call, Chris said with a graceful swooping bow, your devoted warrior and acolyte.
The Aegean Sea breaks its waves on a sable-colored sandy shore. Marvelous rocky caves and arches tower above it on the beach. Great rock walls, too, are submerged within the depths of the water. Only their crowns and peaks break the surface forming alleys and mazes of blue water for swimmers to negotiate like the narrow streets of antique villages.
As worthy of the gaze as these rocks and caves or the resonant horizon filled with an immense emptiness of blue that brings the gaze to it and fastens it there -- were the two masculine figures standing in the wet sand by the edge of the water gazing at the declining sun that was turning the blue sky purple.
Their lithely muscled, supple, sun-brazed bodies glittered with perfection. Their scant black bathing suits showed that perfection. They turned, embraced. Their bodies touched and hardened and they drew their breaths together in a long surrendering kiss as their bodies ignited.
Swimming, they broke their strokes against the strong Aegean, the hard-breasted, blue-chested, sun-crested Aegean, embracing its throbbing water. They returned happily winded to the beach. Clasped in each other's embrace, body pulsed against body as their breathing, dancing, settled to a steady joy.
I'm sorry we have to go back to Athens tomorrow, Chris said, as they climbed up the steps built into the cliff above the beach. The sun had set and the evening's darkness was quickly deepening. Even though I like Athens, Chris added as they unlocked their bicycles.
"You like picking up dope at dusk on Sophocles Street."
"It was good grass," Chris grinned. He was aroused already, ready to ignite at the slightest thing. Now thinking of how powerfully Eric had taken possession of him a wave of desire flooded him. Neither of them had ever felt it like that before. Now it had become the way it was with them always. They lived for each other.
"You could stay here forever."
"I could."
Tired from the sea and the sun, they lay stretched out in their bed only covered by a sheet. They turned and embraced. They kissed as if they were dreaming. They kicked off the sheet and held each other breaking the boundary between bodies. Chris looked up at Eric dazed. They fell asleep still joined.
They woke and began to dance inside their glow, rushing together into a bright gold pneumatic landscape. They faced each other like ancient warriors. Their skin was like breast plates. The way they touched each other was like the hurling of lances.
They subsided into each other's arms. They slept again. They woke again.
The moon was full. It shone thru the window. The window opened on to a terrace. The terrace gave out onto the vast and black Aegean. It was nearly two o'clock.
The night sky beckoned. They kissed and smiled. They put on white trousers and loose-fitting white shirts which they left unbuttoned. They went slowly, facing traffic. There was an occasional passing car that illuminated them and the trees along the roadside, and then was gone. For an instant the dark was darker, and then they could see each other's face.
Eric had his arm round Chris's waist. Chris walked snuggled against Eric, his cheek pressed to Eric's.
They stopped. They kissed. They looked at the moon. They embraced. They flared at the touch of their muscular flesh.
They arrived in Athens in the heat of the day. They took a cab to their hotel. The room was spacious and clean. It was air conditioned. The bed was large, fresh, heaped with a huge comforter. They slept under the happy weight of the quilt, enlaced in each other's arms. They woke. It was evening. They walked in the falling light to the café at the foot of the Acropolis.