by Sara Alexi
‘Anyway, the hotel is not a difficult thing to run. It is managing the workers that is the hardest bit. Like this barman letting us down. Tonight of all nights. That is the sort of stresses it brings.’ Stella loses none of her relaxedness as she speaks.
‘What happened to your barman?’ Loukas asks.
‘No idea. Just got a message this morning saying he wasn’t able to take the job. Three weeks he has been promising me that the whole thing was perfect for him.’ Stella sucks on her straw, making loud noises as she circles it in the bottom of the glass, getting the last of the froth, ice cubes rattling. ‘I’ve even asked Iason to ask his son to do it, but Iason feels sure the late hours will not suit him. I can’t think of who else to ask.’
Loukas shrugs.
They all fall silent.
A tractor grumbles up the street. The farmer waves at the three of them and continues on his way, bouncing rhythmically on his high throne. He has one dog sitting up with him, tongue lolling, and another chasing behind, ears forward, short, fast steps as if he is herding them. A teenager passes on a moped, which he stops outside the corner shop, kicks down its stand, and disappears into the cavernous dark.
The village is still until the boy comes out again, jumps onto his moped, and goes back the way he came, driving with one hand, the other holding a blue plastic bag with his purchases.
They sit longer. An old man walks slowly towards the kafeneio at the top of the square. It is already busy inside. Farmers use the heat and the need of shade to excuse their games of tavli and drawn-out coffees, often with ouzo chasers. It will empty mid-afternoon when the owner, Theo, goes for his mesimeri, his afternoon sleep, and the farmers return to wives for their meals. The few that are single or widowed will come to Stella and she will cheer them with her chicken with lemon sauce, chips and sausages before sending them to their homes to rest in the hottest part of the day.
‘Well, I guess I will do it myself,’ Stella announces.
‘Whilst greeting the guests, dealing with the priest, befriending useful officials and organising the food. Yes, Stella, you really love the easy life,’ Mitsos chuckles.
Looking over to the bakery, Loukas knows it is time he was back. The old woman will be fussing with the food, laying the table. If he is late, she is not above screeching his name from the doorstep for him to come in as if he was five years old. He would rather spare himself that embarrassment.
He stands to leave.
Chapter 8
Ellie turns back towards the square with a bounce in her step. The dress feels nice, makes her feel her age again. With her parcel under her arm, her attention is drawn by the talk in the kafeneio. The palm tree in the square casts dappled shade on its floor to ceiling windows, the glass almost black in the shade, glaring orange in the sunlight. Inside, like ghosts behind the casement, a flux of many white-haired men shift and hover. Trying to see their faces takes concentration. A stone under her foot rolls. She slides. Her arms go out. Her parcel is dropped. Her weight shifts forward. She is going to fall head first. Her hands reach forwards, but they do not meet the ground. Her chin hits something solid. Her chest collides with something unmoveable. She is still vertical. Something has broken her fall.
Initially, it is shock. But then comes pain. Blinking and concentrating on her bitten tongue does nothing to relieve the violent throb. She can taste blood and has lost her bearings.
‘Signomi!’ There is a tone of apology in the deep, warm, foreign voice. ‘Oh it is you. Are you okay?’ The voice in English is lighter now with recognition.
Blinking again, she gains focus.
The dimple is what she notices first.
‘Yes, yes I am fine. Thank you.’ He is so close, remaining where they entangled. Ellie tries to back away, to regain her personal space, but his grip remains on her shoulders.
‘My shoulder is padded with muscles, but your chin is fragile.’ His head tilts forwards, looking down at her, trying to catch her gaze.
‘I am sorry I didn’t see you.’ Ellie’s voice is unsure, quiet. His nearness is more uncomfortable than her throbbing tongue.
‘Nor I you.’
And then they make eye contact, his lashes thick and dark like eyeliner. Ellie’s pain is gone. Her lips part. Her mouth drops open slightly. Something has happened to her legs. They have gained density; too heavy to move, they remain still, locked. Her breathing quickens and a heat from her stomach rushes in all directions, warming and kindling parts of her that normally lay dormant, bringing a second fire to her cheeks. She has not felt like this since the time she was in the store cupboard at school with Marcus.
Loukas is not letting her go, and she has no desire to be released. The look in his eyes is so open, so trusting. His lips so beautifully curved. His dimple so hypnotising. She cannot help that her body leans forward, the distance between them closing a fraction. His hands still on her shoulders; he, too, seems to lean towards her. She can feel his breath now, faint traces of coffee and fresh bread. His bottom lip looks moist, soft. A tendon in his neck grows tight. The stubble of his unshaved chin is soft. His eyes lock hers again and her legs begin to fail her.
‘Loukas?’ It is a screech that comes from across the square, from the direction of the bakery. ‘To fagito einai etimo.’
‘My food is ready,’ he tells her in a whisper. It sounds like another apology, and he gently lets go of her shoulders. Some sense returns and her legs grow strength and her feet unstick from the ground.
‘Yes, right.’ Ellie cannot stop staring.
‘I see you again.’
Is it an invitation or a statement of fact?
‘Yes, I suppose you will.’ The moment she has said the words, they sound distant, as if someone else has spoken them. He is moving away but his eyes are still in hers. She needs to move. Take some control. One step.
‘Loukas!’ The voice screeches. It is enough. A brief glance into the bakery breaks the bubble and normality returns and he is gone.
‘Oh my God!’ Ellie mutters to herself as she stumbles into the square.
Loukas only just holds his composure until he’s through the bakery and in the kitchen.
‘Loukas!’ the old lady repeats. The intonation has changed.
His body may not be under his control but his brain is alive and sharp. ‘The food smells good.’ He hopes that it is enough to deflect her. His heart is still racing. He looks back out of the door to see if he can still see Ellie.
‘Yes, you may well check to see who has seen you. The whole village could have seen you! And your wife, my only daughter, not even cold in her grave these twelve months.’ The old lady’s high-pitched voice hits him like cold water.
Loukas’ heart crashes back to reality. The smile that is pressing his cheeks drops and is replaced by a hot flush.
‘You might well blush. Has your love for Natasha faded so quickly?’ she continues, her eyes filling, her hands beginning to tremble.
She dumps knives and forks on the table with a clatter and scrabbles in pockets and sleeves for a hanky.
‘What’s going on?’ The old man enters the room through the back door where he must have been stacking wood, bark clinging to his hair.
‘Ask Loukas. Ask him how well he loves Natasha and let’s see if he can lie to your face.’ The old lady is crying now, uncontrollably.
‘Steady on my love, of course Loukas loved our girl. How could he not?’ His usual bent stance straightens and he is lithe on his feet to cross the room and put his arm around his wife, all signs of the frailty of age gone. A fleeting thought crosses Loukas’ mind that this is odd. Surely age and creaking bones do not come and go on a whim, but he chases this away as uncharitable.
‘Tell him, Loukas, if you are not shamed to silence.’ The old woman nestles into her husband’s arms, sniffing loudly, the mucus inhalation audible.
‘It’s nothing. There was a girl outside. We bumped into each other. She wasn’t looking where she was going and neither was I.’
‘She
was in your arms and on our doorstep!’ The old lady’s voice loses neither its pitch nor its volume amongst her tears. The whole village will have her views of things if she carries on.
‘She fell, I caught her by the shoulders. She was not in my arms.’ Loukas is partially annoyed by her intimations but mostly horrified that denying the embrace, the embrace that never even happened, feels as if he is denying his right to breathe.
‘Who was it?’ the old man asks calmly but his jaw muscles are tense.
‘No one.’ The words dig under his ribs, feeling like a lie. ‘Someone staying at the new hotel, a friend of Stella’s.’
‘Might have known that gypsy tramp had a part in this,’ the old woman spits.
‘Steady on.’ The old man leans away to look at his wife’s face.
‘Why are you speaking badly of Stella?’ Loukas’ eyes widen.
‘Ach. You do not know her like we do. We were at school with her. Her mama was the same. Married a good man for what she could get.’ The old lady has gained momentum now and makes no attempt to quieten this new defamation.
‘I think you are going too far,’ Loukas defends, but this is all coming out of the blue. He is not sure he understands. He looks to the old man.
‘It was different then, Loukas, you have to understand. Gypsy stayed with gypsy. It was unusual, shall we say, that Stella’s mama married a Greek man.’
But Loukas cannot hide his disgust at this new direction the conversation is taking. ‘What on earth has what Stella’s mama did got to do with Stella, and why are you attacking Stella when it was Ellie who I bumped into?’
‘Ellie is it? Not even a Greek girl,’ the old woman hurls.
‘This is unbelievable.’ Words fail Loukas. The old man breaks from holding his wife and steps toward Loukas.
‘Stheno, my love,’ he addresses his wife. ‘I will take Loukas for a coffee. We will eat when I get back.’ His wife nods in approval, as if her will is being done.
‘I don’t want coffee,’ Loukas protests.
‘Come, we drink coffee, we talk like men. Come.’ Taking Loukas’ elbow, he steers him through the shop to the street.
They cross the square in silence. No signs of age have returned to the old man’s legs. What is it then that keeps the man in bed in the morning? Is it his aching limbs or plain laziness, and why are these things coming to the surface now? Or is it that he is only just noticing now? Loukas enters the café first, under the curling curtain of cigarette smoke that hovers above the coffee and ouzo drinkers’ greying heads.
A dozen conversations drone in a continuous hum, speckled with bursts of laughter, occasional coughs. The high-pitched clack of wood on wood as pieces are lazily slammed on battered backgammon boards by two men who battle out their game.
The large room is sparse with no adornment, nothing of which care needs to be taken. The floor is painted a light grey and the walls, once a stark white, are yellowed with age. The paint on the stretchers and top rails of the chairs has worn through to the wood by hand and foot. The circular metal tables on curved tripod legs have paint-chipped edges, but their construction remains solid, practical.
The number of men has reduced since mid-morning. They all have their routines, their wives to which to return. The old man points at a table in the corner, away from the cluster of remaining men. The café owner, behind the counter, finishes swilling a glass and, with a light step, attends them at their table. He has frizzy, salt-and-pepper-coloured hair that sits like a halo and bounces as he walks, and continues to move even when he has come to a standstill.
‘Two coffees please, Theo.’
‘One,’ Loukas growls at Theo but realises he is growling at the wrong man and makes an effort to soften his tone. ‘Just one please, Theo.’
Once Theo is bouncing back across the room, Loukas turns to the old man.
‘So? What on earth has Stella and Stella’s mama got to do with anything, and why is the old lady suddenly so cross at her?’
‘Ah, Loukas, you were married for such a short time. Not long enough to know women.’
‘What is that meant to mean?’
‘Listen my boy, they are not logical like us. They think a thought and they hang on to it forever. You would have learnt this with time, even with my sweet Natasha. But if we stay here for a while, Stheno will calm down.’
‘Well whatever the old woman’s issue is, it has nothing to do with me. But it’s not right to speak like that about Stella. She’s our neighbour. We do business with her. She is my friend.’
‘She’s your friend is she? Then tell me why she does not order the bread for the hotel from us?’ The old man asks quietly.
Loukas cannot answer. He vaguely wondered when the hotel first tentatively opened its doors but the thought has not occurred to him since. It would be a big order, too, and would make a difference to them.
‘Listen, we are the old generation, me and the wife.’ The old man straightens slowly as if to emphasise his aching bones but to Loukas, the pantomime is wearing thin. Loukas is beginning to feel unsettled about the old man’s plea for rest in the mornings and he is beginning to wonder more and more if all this time, they have been taking him for a fool, playing on their age, and, God forgive, the death of their daughter. But why? Just so he will make the bread instead of them? The old man interrupts his thoughts.
‘In our time, in Greece, there were only Greeks and very few Albanians and Romanians and all those types of people mixing in. When we were children, we had never seen a black face but now the Africans are selling cheap watches and jewellery in all the bigger towns and the Indians and Pakistanis help us to pick the oranges. It is a different time.’
‘Are you going to lecture me on racism?’ This is ridiculous. He lived from the age of ten in Athens, went to university there. He lived a cosmopolitan life until university ended and he and Natasha decided that a job at her family bakery was better than no job at all.
‘No, no son. I am just telling you that some people, Natasha’s mama for one, finds it hard to let go of the old ways. To her, the gypsies and Albanians may as well be one and the same and she believes both will murder her in her bed, given the chance. They are not Christians, you know? They lie.’
Loukas’ face feels on fire, his fists tighten, but his imminent explosion is halted by the arrival of the old man’s coffee. After a few pleasantries, during which Loukas regains his composure, Theo leaves and the old man continues.
‘Before you say anything, Loukas, let me tell you one of the most popular tales we would tell when we were even younger than you. There was no television then, remember. I first heard this from…’ He stops and looks up to the ceiling, trying to recall. ‘Well I can’t remember who first told me it, but it went round and round, people telling it backwards and forwards. They said it was true, and who knows maybe it was, but I think there is no smoke without fire.’ His takes a sip of coffee. ‘So here is what happened. A farmer from across the bay,’ he twists his hand and his thumb loosely indicates the direction of the sea, which is just a short walk away but hidden by a hill, ‘needed help with the work in the fields. At the time, his wife had not borne him children. Anyway, an Albanian turned up at his gate and the man employed him. The Albanian works hard and he is paid and he goes away. The next day, he came again and then again the next day until he becomes as one with this man and the work that needed doing. All this time, he had been sleeping under the trees. Winter comes and he is still sleeping under the trees, but he does not complain. In the spring, the farmer’s wife falls pregnant and in time, they have a son. Well, the farmer has grown close to the Albanian working alongside him day after day after day.’ He stops to take another sip of coffee, raises his cup in greeting to a neighbour sitting a few tables away and calls ‘Yeia mas.’ Another sip and he continues.
‘So he asked the Albanian to be his son’s godfather. He had grown so trusting and fond of the man. The following winter, he allowed the man to sleep in the house when it w
as too cold and the Albanian thanked him for this. But one day, suddenly the Albanian said he was leaving. He had made the money he needed and must return to Albania to be with his own wife and children. The farmer was sad to see him go but drove him on his tractor to the station. They stood side by side at the station and it is then that the Albanian said, "Costa", he said, or whatever his name was. Let’s say it was Costa. "Costa", he said, "you have been a good and kind man to me. You have given me work and entrusted me to be the godfather of your child. But you are a fool." "Why so?" said the farmer. "Because”, replied the Albanian, “for the all the nights I slept in your house, if I thought you had so much as a hundred drachmas on you, I would have slit your throat as you lay sleeping and been away before it was light".’
The old man pauses for breath and effect. He does not seem to be satisfied with Loukas’ response so he explains, ‘A hundred drachmas back then was probably about ten euros now. So for ten euros, this man would have slit his friend’s and his friend’s wife and baby’s throats for that mere trifle. And this is from the mouth of the Albanian, mind you. The farmer was not saying it himself.’ The old man leans over his coffee and takes another sip.
For a moment, Loukas stares, struggling to form what he wants to express. ‘But as you were so keen to point out before you started this story, they are all liars! The foreigners. So why choose to believe this?’ Loukas finally explodes.
‘Why would the Albanian tell such a lie?’
‘It is a story, old man! It is not from the mouth of the Albanian; it is from the storyteller’s mouth. Propaganda!’
‘No, no, son. These stories were tales of what was happening around us back then, from one person to another.’
‘Twisted by the teller for a better response, time after time. It is nonsense.’ Loukas looks out of the windows, shaking his head, slowly wondering why he is even in the village anymore. Natasha is dead. Why has he not gone back to his family in Athens?
But he knows the reason: things are worse now in Athens. There is no work to be had. That, and the guilt is still there.