by John Mole
Since joining in 1975 Greece had done well out of the European Union. Grants for agriculture and infrastructure transformed the country and the personal finances of politicians and bureaucrats responsible for allocating them. The little fishing village of Limanaki was corralled by a massive breakwater and a wharf for a score of offshore fishing boats. Development opened up the coast to foreign tourists, especially Germans – and why not, their taxes paid for it. Windmills nag at our environmental consciences with their ugliness and thrumming. Just outside Horio we admired a state-of-the-Australian-art winery with shiny refrigerated fermentation tanks that put Kyria Dimitra’s brick vat out of business.
The real bonanza years started when Greece joined the euro and money was plentiful and cheap at German interest rates. Modest houses in Horio became suburban villas with lawns and satellite dishes and air conditioners in the windows. The countryside was pocked with white concrete and blue swimming pools. One place even had a helipad. Then came the debt crisis of 2009 and the continuing catastrophe of bailouts, elections, referenda and increasing austerity.
Last summer I went into Sofia’s bakery for a loaf and our daily wine ration. The modern winery is now a litter-strewn, broken-windowed ruin, bankrupted by poor management and a failing bank. Sofia did not resurrect her mother’s brick vat, but sells her cousin’s wine that he makes in a concrete shed next to his house. It comes in handy two-litre bottles and is the same price as water. Like all great estates, he has a photo of his winery on the label. We call it Château Garage. Sofia was upset.
“Alekos just graduated from the Polytechnic. In the top quartile.”
“Congratulations.” I meant it. The Athens Polytechnic, the National Technical University, is the most prestigious Greek university.
“Bah. Engineering and business studies. What does he do with that? All the money we spent on his education. Now what? Nine months wasting his time in the army and back here making bread.”
“I’m sure he’ll get a good job. He speaks good English.”
“We don’t have contacts. In any case, the government isn’t hiring.”
“I meant companies.”
“For Greek companies you need contacts. Foreign companies you need experience. He has no future. What can he do?”
I was too considerate to give her the obvious one-word answer. It would upset her more. She knew it anyway. Emigrate.
Another reason for not saying the word is that I couldn’t remember what it was in Greek. You would think that after forty years in Greece I would be fluent. Some hope. Not long ago I was standing in the line for a cash machine in Aliveri. To avoid panic withdrawals and capital flight, there is a limit of €60 a day, £45, on how much you can take out of a Greek account. We are in Greece, so the daily queues are social events. I joined in the chat.
“I’ve been standing in urine for twenty minutes … fortunately I have a foreign table map … I need to pay Achilles for painting our beetroots.”
Ah, the subtle differences between oúro (urine) and ourá (queue); trapézi (table) and trápeza (bank); chártis (map) and kárta (card); padzária (beetroot) and padzoúria (shutters). But foreigners are funny and I am happy to contribute to the entertainment.
So I sit outside the café with other white-haired old codgers and make a coffee last for an hour, until the sun goes down and I can have an ouzo with an easy conscience while Arfa is up at the house doing interesting things with beans. I plan my next road trip with my old travel buddy, Harley Davidson. Harley is a twenty-year-old Yamaha 50cc step-through. In motorcycle years that would make him about my age. We have made several trips together round the island and I have almost enough material for a book. My working title is Zeno and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. My friend Nick prefers Harley and Me, also a rip-off but snappier. I have a hankering to bike up to Mount Athos, the ancient monastic community and spiritual home of Orthodoxy, where women are banned and you have wine for breakfast.
There is still so much to see. And Horio is still our home to come back to.
Cast of characters
People have been disguised. Nobody in the book resembles people with the same or similar names in the real village.
Adonis Lanky labourer. Maria’s son.
Ajax Ruddy-faced butcher. Married to Eleni.
Alekos Aussie taxi driver and barber.
Antigone Spiros’s sassy daughter. Marries Haralambos.
Aristotle Moon-faced water diviner.
Athina Vasilis’s crafty sister by the lake.
Christos Exhumed brother of Vasilis and Athina.
Costas Silent fisherman. Married to Sofia.
Dimitris Dyspeptic builder. Married to Roula.
Dionysos Haralambos’s sun-touched son.
Eleni Green-eyed butcher. Married to Ajax.
Elpida Waxy-fingered healer. Married to Mitsos.
Fedon Old man with comb-over.
Haralambos Grecian-nosed builder’s merchant. Marries Antigone.
Iphigenia Ajax’s great-aunt, born in our house.
Konstantinos Priest.
Leonidas Communist chair maker.
Maria Mournful dirge singer. Mother of Adonis.
Mitsos Canny melon farmer. Married to Elpida.
Nektarios Dapper roofer.
Petros Vasilis’s late father, introduced cigarettes from Panama.
Roula Siren-voiced wife of Dimitris.
Sofia Fish taverna owner. Married to Costas.
Solomos Youthful doctor.
Spiros Genial carpenter. Antigone’s father.
Vasilis Stylish shepherd. Petros’s son. Athina’s brother.
Yannis Owner of the coffee-ouzo-everything-emporium.
Zenon Elusive digger driver.
Acknowledgements
With grateful thanks to Hilary Adair for her paintings and drawings; Iro Green for her advice and encouragement; Nick Brealey, Victoria Bullock, Sally Lansdell and Terri Welch for creating a book out of a typescript; and my family for all the love and comic material they give me.
Footnotes
All Greek to me
fn1 If you are still wondering about ΝΤΕΙΒΙΝΤ ΜΠΕΚΑΜ or ΡΟΜΠΕΡΤ ΡΕΝΤΦΟΡΝΤ, try David Beckham and Robert Redford.
Labour of Herakles
fn1 What would we do without the loch? So many foreign words we wouldn’t know how to pronounce.
fn2 As in loch again.