Unwanted

By Ellen Boneparth

On the island of Lesbos, two observers of the refugee crisisAmerican blog journalist Sophie based in Athens and Mytilini artist and sailor Nikostake on the rescue of Farid, a young Syrian man trying to escape Turkey and reach contacts in Germany. Sophie, Nikos, and Farid become involved with many ugly aspects of the trafficking experience as they take part in and report on the desperate journey of refugees throughout Europe.

Sophie, Nikos, and Farid reach out to other refugees, to authorities both cooperative and uncooperative, and to each other. What they see on the refugee trail is often exploitative and injurious. What they do to help the unwanted chronicles the humanity of those who can empathize and are willing stand up to victimization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524604738

Ellen Boneparth

In her many novels, Ellen Boneparth usually features a woman who discovers a social problem and becomes embroiled in ways to confront it. Boneparth draws on her experiences working in government, academia and diplomacy. She also frequently draws on her domestic and overseas travels to provide foreign locations and unusual environments. In NOA's ARC, the heroine's journey to confront drug addiction takes her from New York to Washington, D.C., to the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma, and to drug programs in the Northwest and Canada.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

From the air the island of Lesbos looked like an amoeba just as it did on a map. Sophie Newman had always wanted to visit the island but had never before found the time. Staring out the window of her flight from Athens, she took in the mountainous coast of Turkey in the distance and the two huge curving gulfs serenely dividing the island below her. As the plane descended, she glimpsed hillsides carpeted in forest green pines and oaks and silver-green olive trees. Not just a smattering of olive trees, but, she'd read, eleven and a half million island-wide. Once she gave her talk at the university, she planned to explore a bit on the second day of her visit.

She wound her golden blond hair into a knot behind her head, fastened it with a clip, and pulled a copy of the university's email invitation from her purse. Her first day was business -- speaking with communications students about her work as a staffer of a well-known Washington blog that generated news on foreign affairs. Her beat covered Greece and Turkey. Due to her intense work schedule, she rarely accepted invitations to speak anywhere, but the request from the University of the Aegean in Mytilini, the capital of Lesbos, had enticed her. Her host and sponsor was the Department of Cultural Technology and Communications. That was certainly what she did, although her colleagues at blog headquarters in D.C. would never envision themselves as practitioners of cultural technology.

Sophie had started her journalistic career as a reporter for the Washington Post covering metropolitan affairs. She soon found urban news incessantly repetitive -- crime, city politics, neighborhood feuds over development. Likewise, newspaper reporting was too formalized for her taste. Feeling restless, yearning for something international, she jumped when called for an interview at GAP, Global Affairs Post, a blog that prided itself on placing its journalists on the international scene and personalizing foreign affairs.

The fact that Sophie spoke Greek---learned from her mother and used with her mother's family---and knew her way around Athens made her a prime candidate for the job. When she told GAP she would immerse herself in the study of Turkish politics to complement her knowledge of Greece, they took her on for a year's trial. Five years later, she ranked as a regional expert and one of the company's most prolific overseas bloggers.

~

As she made her way out of the Mytilini airport, she was thinking about her next day's excursion, a visit to Plomari, the home of the island's acclaimed ouzo, her all-time favorite alcoholic beverage. Once she toured the ouzo museum and tasted different brands, she hoped to relax for a few hours at Plomari's beach. Having spent all spring reporting on Greece's economic crisis, she was exhausted, more than ready for a few hours basking in the Aegean sun and thrashing around in the north Aegean's chilled waters. As she disembarked from her flight, she caught a glimpse of the turquoise sea across the road from the airport. Yes, she would plunge into the sea no matter how cold it was in early June.

A taxi took her to the relatively new campus on University Hill. Once again she was grateful to be a Greek speaker since the students, who all studied English, seemed to understand her request for directions only when she addressed them in Greek. She found the department, met the chair and several faculty members, and was escorted to the bare lecture hall where a group of a hundred or so students awaited her seated in old-fashioned wooden chairs with arm rests. She greeted them in Greek then switched to English, spoken slowly and clearly, to describe the technology associated with writing and publishing a blog on an almost daily basis.

Lately, my columns are consumed by the steady stream of news coming out of Greece and the European Union. I'm sure you're dismayed by your economic crisis, but I'm rather pleased by it. It has given me an endless supply of blog material. Her audience laughed. My productivity has gone up quite a lot, she joked, as a result of your debts.

She opened the floor for questions and was struck by the students' eagerness to embrace a career like hers. She applauded them on their ambition but warned blogs were most successful in societies where people depended on computers, tablets or cell phones for news---unlike Greece where newspapers and television were still the public's main sources of information.

At lunch in the crowded cafeteria smelling of fried food, several faculty and students pressed her further on the pluses and minuses of her work. Sipping an iced coffee, she gave them a list of the negatives -- continuous and unlimited work hours, a need for computer access wherever she was, constant comments from readers that came into a special email account, and her devoted but exhausting efforts to respond to them.

Why do you bother to answer your readers? a female student asked. They're total strangers.

That's the main reward of this career besides the fun of reporting. I have a large, international following that stays in touch. She smiled and went on. I need to keep my readers satisfied. When they have a personal connection with me, they keep reading my columns, my numbers go up, and my boss applauds how well I'm doing.

~

After lunch was over, Sophie's host offered to drop her at her hotel. She hadn't made a reservation, preferring to roam around the harbor to check out what was available. She accepted a ride to the port and set off along the crescent-shaped bay, waves lapping on one side, cafes and shops, cheek by jowl, on the other. Checking her watch, she realized many shops would be closed for siesta, which suited her perfectly. She could be a window-shopper without feeling any pressure to buy.

Halfway around the harbor, she stopped in front of a small gallery which had a display of ceramics in front, paintings of olives trees behind. She was struck by the paintings. She'd tried to sketch olive trees herself and could never convey the fluttering thin silver leaves that made the trees so elegant. Squinting to see the name of the artist, she was startled when the gallery door swung open and a man carrying a stack of small canvases strode out, locking the door behind him.

Excuse me, she said. I'm trying to see the name of the artist of these paintings but they're too far back for me to decipher it.

Why the name?

Oh, well, I really like the work. Perhaps I could come back later to see them up close.

The man cocked his head. His name is Nikolas. I could open the gallery and show you some of his paintings now.

Sophie studied him briefly. He seemed a bit older than she, perhaps in his early forties, and quite handsome with a deep bronze tan, dark hair and eyes, his jaw and chin outlined by a clipped black beard. I don't want to bother you, she said. You must be on your way somewhere.

No problem. I may not be around later to show you the work. I'm here only part of the time. He dug out keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.

It wasn't much of a gallery, maybe ten paintings on the walls. Mostly, the musty space was filled with piles of ceramic bowls and rows of canvases lying on their sides on the floor. The man gestured toward a straight-backed chair for Sophie and proceeded to bring her a limited selection---five paintings, which he displayed in a row on the floor.

Her gaze fixed on each canvas -- the most evocative depiction of olive trees she'd ever seen.

Would you like to see Nikolas' other work? he asked. We have seascapes, fishing boats, island villages, a few abstracts.

I'm sure they're lovely, she said, looking from one canvas to the next, but I'm taken with the olive trees. Can you give me an idea of the price?

Five hundred Euros.

Her eyes returned to the last painting -- a single large olive tree with gnarly bark, leaves slightly fluttering, a grove of trees in the background. Can I pay with a credit card?

Sorry, cash only. But we can hold it for you for a month.

Her brow wrinkled. I have the money, but not with me. There must be an ATM around here.

At the National Bank on the street behind us. When would you like to pick up the painting?

I'm leaving tomorrow at four. Perhaps this time tomorrow? Would that work?

Fine. I won't be here, but I'll tell the shop owner.

She was thrilled about the painting, though vaguely disappointed she wouldn't see the shop assistant again. He replaced the paintings, leaving out the one she'd selected and attaching a note to it. Your name?

Sophie Newman.

He grinned. Sophia. One of us.

Slightly. My mother was born in Thessaloniki but her family emigrated to New York when she was ten. By the time I was born she was fully Americanized. At least I got my grandmother's name. What's yours?

Nikos.

Like the painter?

He shrugged. Not the same but close.

Is there any chance I could meet him?

He looked at his watch. This time of day he is usually returning to his boat. I could walk you to the dock.

Sophie liked that. You have the time?

I'll make the time. He picked up the canvases he'd been carrying, stored them at the back of the room. "Hela. Come."

CHAPTER 2

As Sophie and the shop assistant followed the curve of the bay to its far end, they chatted about her visit to the university and her work in Athens. Clearly not a techie, he had only a vague idea what a blog was and joked that cultural technology was a contradiction in terms. She didn't try to explain. Instead, she let herself be caught up by the sight of white fishing boats, kaikis, painted with bright blue, red or green trim and piles of mustard-colored fishing nets heaped on the dock in front of each boat.

What fantastic colors, she said, like a movie set.

Nikos chuckled. "You should have looked at the paintings of kaikis."

No way, she said, grinning. I'm devoted to my olive trees.

They walked down the creaky wooden dock past the fishing boats then a number of small cabin cruisers. At the end stood a graceful sailboat in dark wood with a single mast.

It's easy to find this boat, he said. No one else around here sails.

He jumped on board and went below deck. Not knowing what to do, Sophie waited on the dock. Glancing at the stern, she noticed the boat's name -- Nikolas. Obviously, the painter had no problem with self-esteem.

He came up from the cabin and offered his hand. Come aboard.

Don't you think we should wait until... Instantly she got it. He was Nikolas. She'd been incredibly obtuse. She blushed with embarrassment.

He jumped on the dock, took her hand in both of his. Sorry. A bad joke. He squeezed her hand. You were so---

Gullible.

Yes, gullible. A Greek would have figured Nikos was Nikolas. Forgive me. He gently pulled her arm to help her onto the boat. She resisted, but only a little.

How about an ouzo?

She laughed. The magic word. I'm going to Plomari tomorrow to sample the island's finest.

Ha! You won't find the finest in commercial production. You need to try homemade. I just happen to have a bottle below -- made with anise flowers picked in a special Lesbos location.

You'll spoil me.

Just wait.

After a few minutes he returned to the deck with a cold bottle, two glasses, and a platter with chunks of feta and tomato and long, oily anchovies. This is the snack fisherman have when they return in the morning with their night's catch. They don't drink ouzo cold the way I do, my one concession to modernity.

He poured two drinks, and at Sophie's request mixed hers with water. They talked about his passion for sailing to deserted places along the island's shores. He'd been exploring Lesbos for years and never failed to find something new.

Do you take the boat out daily? she said.

Well, I'm on it daily. I live here. But I only go cruising when I'm not busy painting. I'm going out tonight. Why don't you come? I have a berth for visitors.

She felt a flutter of excitement and a pang