It was a street in decline, closed shops and demolition, but the buildings at the far end framed the temple perfectly. Someone in the back seat said something, then a car came toward us, horn blowing. The driver stuck an arm out the window to gesture. Then his head appeared, he started shouting. The structure hung above us like a star lamp. I gazed a moment longer and backed out of the street.I asked Ann Maitland, who sat alongside, what the man had called me."Masturbator. It's standard. A Greek will never say anything he hasn't already said a thousand times.”Her husband Charles reprimanded me for not knowing the word. To Charles it was a mark of one's respect for other cultures to know the local terms of abuse and the words for sex acts and natural wastes.We three were in the front seat. Behind were David Keller and his new young wife Lindsay and a man named Stock, a Swiss or Austrian located in Beirut, here to do business with David.There was always someone at dinner who was in town to do business with one of the regulars. They tended to be heavyset men, these guests, northern, raw. Eager faces, strong accents. They drank too much and left in the morning.With Ann's help I worked out our location and headed toward the Caravel, where Stock was staying."Isn't it awful?" Lindsay said. "I haven't been to the Acropolis. Two and a half months, is it, David?”"Shut up. They'll think you're an idiot.”"I'm waiting for my curtains.”I told her she wasn't the only one who hadn't been there and tried to explain why I'd been slow to make the pilgrimage.Charles Maitland said, "The thing is there, isn't it? Climb the hill. Unless it's some sort of perverse celebrity you're angling for. The man who turns his back to the peerless summit.”"Is that a trace of envy I hear? Grudging admiration?”"Climb the hill, James. The thing is right there. It looms. It's close enough to knock you sideways.”He had a way of feigning gruff impatience. It was a role he found himself comfortable in, being the eldest among us."That's just it," I said.