In Europe

and they make no bones about it. Whenever there was talk of holidays ‘in Europe’, the quality of ‘European clothing’ or family members ‘in Europe’, I knew one thing for certain: I had crossed the shadowy outer limits of Europe.
    That had happened in St Petersburg, in Moscow, in Volgograd – oh, how badly my tour guide there wanted to move ‘to Europe’ – as well as in Vilnius, and even one time in Warsaw. In Istanbul, too, the common parlance is as clear as can be: on the ferries across the Bosphorus, people speak of the ‘European’ side and the ‘Asian’ side. But in Greece or Bosnia, officially on the ‘Byzantine’ side of the line, I have never heard anyone say he was going to Europe. Huntington's line may seem convincing at a glance, but the reality is much more jagged, much more ruled by the emotions of the day, much more, too, by recent experiences.
    And Odessa? My old acquaintance Natalya exclaims that she soon hopes to take another holiday ‘in Europe’. Edvard, who is busy setting up a commercial radio station, complains all evening about the trouble he has getting into Europe, even for a brief business trip. ‘Waiting in consulates, waiting for permits, sometimes it takes months. I'm serious: it's almost as bad as back in the days of the Iron Curtain. Only now the barriers have been thrown up in the West, instead of here.’
    There can be no mistake about it: here in Odessa, people think a great deal and often about Europe, more than the Europeans themselves. The next morning I have an appointment with Charel Krol-Dobrov, a professor of European Studies at the University of Odessa. ‘This is a country for advanced students only,’ he feels. ‘In Holland, the border of Europe is clear: it's the sea. But here? Where does it start? Where does it end? Looking at Europe from the East, you get a different perspective. Western Europe has always been content with itself, while people on the eastern borders have always been faced with the question: do we belong, or don't we? That's why there's so much talk in Eastern Europe about the nature of Europe, much more than in the West. What is Europe? What should Europe be? What should Europe become?’
    He tells me about the old Russian dichotomy between Slavophiles and pro-Westerners, and about how the communists nurtured that dichotomy after their own fashion.‘Now that old debate seems to have become obsolete, because the communists have lost and, implicitly, so have the Slavophiles. But here in this city it remains a lively issue. Here people feel the Asian blood in them, but also the European blood, they must come to terms with both of them, and that has been going on for centuries.’
    Outside, on the boulevard, we hear a woman singing. She is standing beneath a big black umbrella to protect herself from the sun, but it seems as though she is still on stage at the opera. In her old voice, she sings arias from
Carmen
,
Tosca
,
Aida
,
The Marriage of Figaro
and
Rigoletto
, an entirely European repertoire. Charel Krol-Dobrov cannot help but laugh: ‘Who is best able to judge movement? The person on the train? Or the person standing outside, watching?’
    This time I have booked a berth on the
Passat
, for the same trip I once made on the
Briz
, but now in the opposite direction. The harbour, as we move out to sea, is lit by the evening sun. Lingering, melancholy notes – a tonality they're always very good at here – drift across the quay and the decks. The smoke from the ship's funnels leaves a thick stripe across the sky, and then the city glides away, the green boulevard, the opera house triumphant on the hill. A yellow pilot boat moves along with us; the pilot, an old man, is drinking coffee on the bridge. The
Passat
threads its way through the line of ships rusting along the coast. And then we head into the Black Sea, that strange, half-dead sea, that ‘wasteland of water’ as Paustovsky called her, that sea where the twins ‘civilisation’ and ‘barbarity’ first met.
    For a full day, there is no coastline in sight. The ship, riding high and empty, bobs across the waves like a beer can. In the restaurant, overgrown with plastic geraniums, meals are served in shifts and according to a strict timetable. Ukrainian girls in bikinis sun themselves on deck, the eyes of the Turkish traders seem about to pop out of their heads, tourists play cards and sleep. In and out of the restaurant three times a day, the rolling of the sea,