The Third Door

I leave Wanda to sit down and rest while I do some climbing, telling her, "OK. I'll be back in about twenty minutes.” Adjusting my round canvas sun hat, I set off toward the next information point. I think I might see some of the out-of-the-way places on my own, maybe the Roman bath, but I have to be careful. Troy is a complicated site, and athletic. I’m about seventy-five pounds overweight myself and can’t afford to get lost, have to double back and double back, and then end up too shaky to help Wanda. First, I want to find the best place to see the Plain of Troy. I follow my guidebook and the maps at the information points and am finally standing on the terrace of the Temple of Athena, looking out across the Plain of Troy all the way to the Dardanelles. Amazing sight. I’m also amazed at how far above the Plain of Troy the ancient city of Troy is. One hundred yards? Two hundred yards? Almost straight down. But the Greeks didn’t have to climb so far up just to get to the walls of Troy, did they? Maybe the plain is so far below the city now because of erosion? Silting up on the shore of the Aegean? It used to be under water, I think, because the Greek ships supposedly sailed in close to Troy. I imagine the Trojans seeing the “thousand ships” arriving to get Helen back. What a fearsome sight, I used to think as a young student, but as I’ve gotten older, however, I have more a sense of Hector, Paris’ older brother, saying, “Oh, for the gods’ sake, Paris. Look what you got us into.” And ten years later, they’re all dead over this stupid kid’s little romance. Well, maybe I’m too crotchety now. I won’t tell anybody I’m “wiser,” because any American under fifty in our 21st century “youth culture” would snort. But actually, I know I’m wiser! I think Wanda can manage to get over to this view. I look at my watch. Twenty minutes have already passed. Forget the Roman bath. I'll get Wanda and we'll come up here and take in the view. It'll be an effort, but leaning on me and on her cane, she can do it. That thick cane of hers is a godsend. None of this would be possible without it. I begin retracing my steps, hoping not to get lost, back to where I left Wanda. As I walk back, I notice the quaint "No Enter" signs the Turks have erected in various places. Danger? Ongoing excavations? I noticed that most of the detailed information about Troy at the visitor center is in English, French, German and Turkish, but when they have only a small sign, it is English and Turkish. Makes me glad I speak English, I think smugly. As I follow the path, I look ahead and see Wanda sitting on a bench listening to a man in a straw hat standing in front of her. She seems to be giving him something. It’s hard to tell. I’ve never seen him before. The man must have approached Wanda, or maybe he is someone who talks to everyone, a common type on the tourist circuit, I’ve noticed. I can't imagine what they could be talking about. I have the guidebook with me, and she knows less about Troy than I do. Maybe he's giving her a mini-lecture on Troy. Better her than me. But what did she just give him? When I get about twenty yards from them, the man looks toward me, turns to tell Wanda goodbye and strolls off in the direction of the Visitor Center. "Who was that?" I ask as I approach Wanda. "Oh, just a German tourist, probably wanted to practice his English. He told me—and probably would have told anybody who was sitting here—about the walls. The levels and so forth. I only half listened. He said the Germans were mainly responsible for the excavations over the years.” “But what did you give him?” I ask, as casually as I can. She looks up at me blankly. “Oh, I just gave him the postcards to mail.” She must have noticed my surprise at her giving them to a total stranger when I could have mailed them myself. “You know. I wrote them on the bus going to Gallipoli. They’re to Aunt Frieda and to Shana. We forgot to mail them at the visitor center, and I worried we might not have time on our way back to the van. What did you see? What did you find out?" she asks. "Well, depending on what you feel up to, if we walk this way up a small hill, we can get to the terrace of the Temple of Athena. From there we can see the famous Plain of Troy. Getting up there will be hard, but it's not far. Coming back down will be harder," I answer. "You’re right. Well, let's go." To our left, a German tourist is boasting about how Germany did all the excavating. Sounds like a German. We begin our slow climb up the hill, Wanda leaning heavily on her cane and me walking next to her, measuring my pace to hers. At last, we can see the platform of the Temple of Athena and in the distance the Plain of Troy and the Dardanelles. After a few more stops for her to catch her breath, we stand together overlooking the vast plain and the sea off in the distance to our left. “The plain seems too far below, doesn’t it?” she says thoughtfully. "I was wondering about that too. I don’t think it was partially under water during the time of the Trojan War. I remember that the Greek ships could come right up to the plain of Troy. But over the centuries the harbor silted up, and what was then water is now land. At least, that's my speculation. I have read that the silting up of the eastern shore of the Med was a problem in Ephesus and Pergamum. The whole Trojan War didn’t get written down until around the 700’s BC, the time of the mysterious Homer. That was five centuries after the Trojan War!”