JULY 1989
The gray silk sari, purchased in India, is the last item I place in my suitcase as I prepare for my departure to Oman. By day, Michael will continue his enhancement oil recovery work for Shell Petroleum Development Organization (PDO).
His evenings and weekends will belong to me. As newlyweds living in separate countries, one of us travels to see the other every three months, and this trip marks our honeymoon. As much as I miss Michael, leaving my responsibilities is difficult for me.
Meanwhile, in America, the Peg Goldberg-Kanakaria case promises to be precedent-setting and is attracting the international media in droves. I find myself obsessed with securing as much information as I can to help my government win this case. The only technology available to me at the time to aid me in my research efforts is a fax machine, a telephone, and the library. Calling experts, journalists, and soldiers is how I gather information. I leave for the airport from my office in order to handle some last-minute details and to place a call to Beker CS Advocaten, the Dutch law firm now handling the affairs of the Church of Cyprus. I am hoping to find out if we currently have enough evidence to prosecute Van Rijn under Dutch law. Anja Middendorp, the lead attorney, is a smart, resourceful woman in her forties, and we have been getting along quite well.
“Unless we have proof that the Cypriot artifacts are in Van Rijn’s possession and we can prove provenance, there are no grounds for a criminal or civil case,” she says to close our call, to my disappointment.
The circumstances in Cyprus are not in our favor. At the time of the invasion, the most reliable records of the artifacts available were those of the government’s Department of Antiquities, a handwritten card system describing the most valuable and historical artifacts. It was far from a comprehensive catalogue, and very few of the cards describing the artifacts had photographs attached to them. The most notable antiquities of Cyprus were studied by foreign scholars and referred to in international publications, and these records became a vital source of confirmation of provenance during court cases. In some cases the records of outside scholars were the only proof that these treasures existed. Experts the world over had come to Kanakaria to study unique iconographical characteristics of the mosaics in the Goldberg case. They were well documented, and the prosecution relied upon these records in the court cases. There was so much else that went unrecorded, as the people of Cyprus were not looking at the sacred artifacts as cultural heritage items; they were praying with them. And thus the icons occupied an unusual spot at the center of the intersection of the Greek Orthodox Church and the secular legal system.
The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church consists of a group of six bishops who rule over six regions: Kyrenia, Famagusta, Nicosia, Paphos, Larnaca, and Limassol. Each bishop governs his own region and they have the power to elect the archbishop. Each domain is handled independently and differently. Some regions kept very accurate records of the contents of the churches and monasteries, while others only listed the most valuable artifacts. All identifications came from eyewitness accounts of people in the community: priests, caretakers, restorers, and historians. To initiate a legal case one must first establish provenance to prove ownership. Having inadequate and antiquated systems of recordkeeping created a great challenge in legal battles. The burden of proof of ownership lies with the church, the legal owners of the sacred artifacts, and with the government for historical artifacts.
“In consideration of these circumstances,” says Middendorp, “why not see if there is a possibility to secure information from Van Rijn regarding the whereabouts of the artifacts.”
“I want Dikmen and Van Rijn to pay for what they did.”
“Your best bet is to win his trust and hope he’ll lead you to the treasures.”
No sooner do I put the phone down when it rings again. Van Rijn is on the line, which makes me wonder if my telephone is tapped. My burgeoning paranoia has me secure a job for my intern, Jeroen, with one of my customers, to get him out of my office in case he was is a possible mole.
“I have something very important to discuss with you, Tazulaah,” Van Rijn says.
Knowing that I will never enjoy my vacation if I decline to meet him, I agree. The Hotel des Indes is his meeting place of choice. Van Rijn is sitting at a table waiting for me when I arrive.
“Madame Consul, I must commend you on your taste. That yellow Escada suit is perfection.”
“Thank you,” I say as I take a seat, “You are well versed in designers, I see.”
“I’m an observer of people and works of art, Madame. Sometimes they are one and the same.” He studies my jewelry. “Those Lalaounis earrings suit you,” he says.
Lalaounis is a Greek artist who is world famous for creating jewelry inspired by Classical, Hellenistic, and Minoan Mycenaean art. My hand subconsciously touches the earring.
“A nice replica of a headpiece worn by Elena of Troy,” says Van Rijn.
The waiter delivers a double espresso and a Pellegrino for him and a cappuccino for me. “So, what is so urgent?” I ask.
Van Rijn places an envelope on the table for me to open. Could this be a trap? A seemingly innocent photograph of me opening this envelope could appear as if I am accepting a bribe. Kyprianou’s warning words are ringing in my ear now.
“Would you mind opening it for me?”
He opens it without hesitation and removes a photograph. It’s a picture of an archangel Michael icon.1 I notice the copy was stamped by a Dutch notary and dated October 16, 1987, and it shows three signatures. Van Rijn’s is legible. Looking carefully, I see the other signature is Aydin Dikmen’s, but I can’t make out the third.
“A doctor has it,” says Van Rijn.
“What’s his name?”
“We are not there yet. Let me explain why I called you here.” He takes a sip of his espresso. “You should be cautious around dealers like Robert Roozemond.”
“Why is that?”
“Do you know why spiders never get caught in their own webs? They glide over it by way of the hair that is at the very tip of their legs. They never come in contact with it.”
“How did you know that I met with Roozemond?” I ask.
“The art world is small. I know the players, the network, how the deals work.” He points to himself. “That is not the case with everyone.”
“Why should I trust what you say, Mr. Van Rijn?”
“No one can really be trusted. Only a fool would believe otherwise,” he says.
“My word is bankable,” I say.
“Everyone has a price, and when that price is met, their word becomes worthless.”
“My integrity is non-negotiable.”
“There is something about you . . . I will figure it out . . . count on it,” he says.
“Mr. Van Rijn, what I do, I do for Cyprus. There are some you cannot buy.”
“So I push on until I find your price,” he says with irony.
Pointing to the photograph, I ask, “Tell me where the doctor lives?”
Van Rijn has a little trace of the devil in his smile. “That is for you to find out.” Van Rijn’s game is to give me bits and pieces of information, none of which add up to anything conclusive. He likes to test my capabilities by seeing what I can uncover with only a tidbit of information.
“May I take this?” I ask, pointing to the photograph again. He approves.
“Give my regards to your Michael . . . lucky man . . . !”
Leaving the hotel, I remind myself to fax Kyprianou, who will be pleased with the new information. Van Rijn’s parting comment about sending regards to Michael triggers additional anxiety. Could he possibly know I am on my way to Oman?
OMAN
Love and romance set against the exotic backdrop of Muscat. Located in the eastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, the majestic Al Hajar Mountains that rise in the distance are a contrast to its beautiful signature whitewashed buildings. The house that Shell provides Michael sits on a cliff overlooking the sea. It is the perfect place for newlyweds to nest.
While Michael is at work, I entertain myself at the suk (open-air market). I make sure my attire fits the cultural surroundings, covering my arms and head when outside of the Shell camp. My Mediterranean coloring helps me assimilate even more easily, and in no time I make friends with the locals. The smell of frankincense emanating from burning resin in little pots transports me back to Cyprus in a single breath.
“Fresh fish, fresh fish, miss,” yells a toothless elderly Arab man in a kind of pidgin English. His curly gray hair does not cover the lines baked into his face by the sun. He is holding a tuna that looks as if it was just pulled from the sea. I purchase two pieces for dinner. One day when I arrive at the market the fisherman places a shark he just caught before me and cuts its belly open. To my horror it was pregnant. I was unnerved by having to witness this fisherman’s way of life, and when he sees my reaction he tries to make up for it. For the next two hours he carefully removes the teeth from the shark and gives them to me as a gift. He tells me I must bury the teeth in the sand for a few days so that the worms and ants will clean off the remaining flesh. He gives them to me as a memento of our friendship, and I am touched. Culturally, we can be so different and at times shocked by each other’s ways and customs, but this is the beauty of a colorful society and the world of diversity in which we live.
I struggle thinking about how to reciprocate, and I decide that the most appropriate gift for him would be a Swiss Army knife so that he can work as a fisherman with a bit more ease. By embracing his rituals, I seek to create a space of respect between our two cultures.
While in Muscat, I also contact the honorary consul to Cyprus in Oman in order to connect Michael to the Cypriot community, so that I can leave him with a circle of friends outside of Shell, something he has been yearning for but unable to attend to with the demands of his job. At a dinner party hosted by the consulate, we meet a diving instructor who convinces us to take lessons, the best move we could have made. Diving in the crystal blue waters abundant with sea life, we see beautiful colored sea reefs and corals, and huge stingrays mate several feet above us, making the dive in Oman a spectacular adventure.
We spend the days making plans for our future; it is apparent that we both wish to start a family. I recall how lovingly Michael described his family on our first date, especially his relationship with his identical twin, Andrew. If he could only love me half as much as he loves Andrew, I thought, he will make a great husband. Michael and Andrew have been inseparable since birth. They studied the same subjects, chose the same jobs in the same industry, and their ways of thinking are also in sync. Marrying Michael meant I had to find my own space in our relationship without interfering in their relationship, which was little to ask in the face of the fact that I had found my soul mate.
We dine at the Al Bustan Palace, which was originally built to host the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in 1985. The exotic setting creates the perfect ambiance for a romantic dinner, and an opportunity for me to wear my gray sari. The Arabian décor and its location overlooking the sea of Oman has us both feeling amorous. We sit opposite each other, lost in each other’s eyes but restrained from displaying any affection in public. We leisurely enjoy a dish of prawns and lobster the like of which I’ve never tasted before. As I turn to glance at two local men dressed in white thawbs (cotton robes) and keffiyeh (head scarves) drinking alcohol-free beer at the next table, I feel my sari loosen.
“Michael,” I say, in a bit of a panic, “will you excuse me, please?” As I stand to go to the ladies’ room, the sari unravels. I quickly sit back down.
“My dress is coming apart,” I whisper from across the table. I can tell by his expression that he does not realize that seven meters of fabric are about to drop to the floor. At least I am wearing my matching lace undergarments, but they are not meant for public display.
“Put your arm around me and walk me to the ladies’ room.”
“Physical contact is forbidden, Tasoula, we mustn’t!”
“Michael, my sari is one piece of silk which is now coming undone! I have no petticoat on! Please! I will be naked in two seconds if you don’t act now!”
He jumps to his feet, and he escorts me to the restroom with all eyes upon us as our risqué behavior creates quite a stir among our fellow diners. The dress continues to unravel with every additional step, and I’m sweating profusely despite the air conditioning. I enter the restroom just in time as my sari drops to the floor; I am, luckily, out of public view. We cried with laughter imagining what might have happened if things had not gone our way.
The climax of our vacation is sleeping in a tent under the stars at Ras Al Hadd, a remote village in the Ash Sharqiyah district. At the beach we witness the magnificent, endangered sea turtles (chelonia mydas) nest under the light of a full moon. We watch shadows rising from the froth of the waves, the turtles gradually making their way to the sand where they will lay their eggs. The sound of their digging and breathing mixed with the breaking waves becomes the lullaby that rocks us to sleep.
In the early morning hours just before sunrise newly hatched baby turtles make their way through an obstacle course of predators, like birds and foxes, to arrive at the sea. They mark their place of nesting, and after they travel around the world, they will know to return to the same place. This brings my thoughts back to the artifacts, my need to return home to Cyprus, and the art trafficking predators who are preventing the artifacts’ return. We make love and fall asleep wrapped in each other’s arms under a star-filled sky, knowing it will be three months before we feel each other’s warmth again.
I am met with a firestorm of activity in The Hague upon my return, causing me to work endlessly for weeks to catch up with the demands of my business and my responsibilities as honorary consul. Kyprianou is looking for debt collectors in the Netherlands, something to do with tracking down a missing John the Baptist artifact. Van Rijn has called multiple times looking for me.2 He leaves his contact information with my assistant, which signals to me that I am earning his trust. Roozemond sends a letter to me, copying the Cypriot authorities, in which he states that he has received no reaction from either Kyprianou or myself regarding his request for a list of Cypriot stolen artifacts for his registry.3
In a faxed letter to Kyprianou, I express my concern about providing any dealer with our archive list of looted artifacts, wondering if it would prove to be hazardous to us. If a dealer is in possession of looted artifacts they know what they have. By gaining access to our records, dealers will be privy to what evidence we do and do not hold. Once they realize that our inventory does not reflect every artifact belonging to Cyprus they will have an opportunity to legitimize unlisted looted artifacts they may be holding.4
After Kyprianou gets my fax, he calls. “You are turning into quite an investigator.” He laughs. “Should I worry about you, Tasoula? When you hang around with criminals you begin to develop a criminal mind.”
“You have to know your enemy to beat them at their own game,” I reply.
My low energy and queasiness over the last few days make me wonder if I might have caught a bug in Oman, so I schedule an appointment with my doctor. An impatient Van Rijn finally reaches me.
“Is there something urgent?” I ask.
“One hour, at the usual?”
I call one of my employees who is also an old friend into my office.
“Do me a favor, Pim, go to the des Indes, turn left in the lobby, and you will see Van Rijn sitting at a table. Watch who he talks to, and who stops by his table, if he sets up a tape recorder, things like that. When I arrive, pretend you don’t recognize me, but leave after me to make sure I am safe.”
I stop off to take a few tests at the doctor’s office and arrive for my meeting with Van Rijn, who startles me with a kiss on the cheek just outside the hotel entrance.
I look around for a camera, wondering if this ambush will come back to haunt me. Arriving at his usual table, he wastes no time getting to business.
“You are glowing! Were you on vacation with Michael?”
“What did you call me here to discuss, Van Rijn?”
“If the American judge does not rule in your favor on the Goldberg case, I want to discuss the possibility that I might side with your government on appeal,” he says with candor. Van Rijn is placing his bets with both Peg Goldberg and the Cypriots to cover his losses. Whether the case goes to appeal or not, my government will never make a deal with him. All we are after is his information and I place my bet on litigator Kline.
“Why would you want to do that, Van Rijn?” I ask.
“Well, if your government pays me ten thousand Dutch guilders ($5,250) a month, I can inform you of the whereabouts of your icons, and for a bit extra I might be able to share some insights into the Goldberg side of things, to help you win the case.”
“I’ll pass your proposal on to Mr. Kyprianou. What were you doing in Cyprus after the war?”
“I was in business there for many years,” he says.
“How did Aydin Dikmen get access to the churches in the occupied area?” I ask.
“It pays to have friends, Tazulaah.”
“How did he get past the Turkish military?”
“He’s a member of MIT Special Forces.” Meaning Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (National Intelligence Agency, Turkey).
“He also moved freely in the southern part of Cyprus?”
He had an understanding with a few officers which gave him a free pass to go where he wanted.” Van Rijn smiles. “I like your persistence.”
“Dikmen must have had a small army of people working for him.”
“A bunch of guys. You don’t need to be smart to steal an icon from an empty church.”
“How did he pass the stolen artifacts through customs?”
“Cash in hand opens closed doors.” Van Rijn lights a cigarette and takes a very long drag. “Dikmen had the goods . . . I had the clients . . . we joined forces.”
He lights another cigarette while the first is still burning in the ashtray. “Will your government appeal?”
“Only my government knows.”
“Get word to Kyprianou. I want to strike a deal.”
“Is there anything else?” I ask.
“Nothing equals the beauty of Byzantine art. I want you to know that I do admire and love these pieces too, although we may love them for different reasons.”
“If you love them and know what they mean to people, why do you sell them?”
After a long pause, he says, “You are different than the others in your government. What escapes me is what you are after.”
“Mr. Van Rijn, destroying the churches and selling our sacred artifacts is selling the soul of my people. We pray with these icons daily. It destroys the fabric of our village life when we don’t have access to them. These artifacts are priceless to us, but not in monetary value.”
His eyes read me to detect if I’m telling the truth.
“Dikmen duped me, too, you know. He swore to me that the church of Kanakaria was destroyed.”
“Give me the information?” I ask.
“Do I look like a charity? Get Kyprianou to make a deal; then we can talk.”
“If you are turning your life around, as you say, no strings attached?”
Van Rijn shakes his head. “It is bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth.” His icy stare shows me that he can turn on me at any moment.
“And Aristotle said, ‘Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.’ My gift to you,” I say, before making my exit.
He treats me as if I am his student. What his ego fails to let him see is that I plan to win this game.
After sending a quick fax to Michael Kyprianou to report on the meeting, I make my last call to Thomas Kline, who thanks me for retrieving such useful information.5
On August 3, the church bells ring across the island of Cyprus in celebration. An Indianapolis court in America has ruled in favor of Cyprus and against Peg Goldberg, calling the Church of Cyprus the legal owners of the sixth-century Kanakaria mosaics.6 The case goes to appeal.
The bug I thought I picked up in Oman is not a bug at all. I am several weeks pregnant with my first child, and I see this pregnancy as a sign to turn to Saint Andreas for help. When faced with the challenge of delivering a son after having three daughters, my mother turned to Saint Andreas, who answered her prayers several months later when she gave birth to a son whom she named in his honor. In my case, it will be to recover the artifacts in his name. If I have a boy, I’ll also name him Andreas, as my mother did before me.
To add to the spiritual significance, I know that Van Rijn knows the whereabouts of the Saint Andreas mosaic. I will turn to Saint Andreas for help to recover the priceless sixth-century mosaic created in his image. My search to find it is as much for my mother as it is for Cyprus.