by Sara Alexi
Poppy knows this passion is for life, as she pulls him closer and kisses him on the end of his wet schnauzer nose.
Poppy awakes from the memories that feel like dreams. No one has come into the shop all afternoon and now it must be near closing time.
‘I did a good thing, selling the business to Alethea,’ she tells the still air as she makes her way to the door. ‘Let the young take over. Retreat from the bustle of Athens to this beautiful place.’ She giggles a little to herself, happy to have reached the days that are past being competitive, industrious. She turns the key in the lock and then retreats to the stairs in the back corner that lead up to her own rooms. With a hand on the wall, she takes the stairs one at a time. She can hear him inside. She no longer has the passion she used to, she no longer needs it, but she does have love. As she opens the door to her flat, Argon greets her, now old and entirely grey.
‘Yeia sou, Argon, my love,’ she says. He is beside himself with his love for her and can hardly stay still. His whole body quivers. She puts a tender hand out to touch his face, stroke his ears. Argon, the son of her first schnauzer, responds by running round and round in circles.
Mercedes and the Bird
Soft, blue-white clouds fill the sky, and even though the sun has not broken through all day the air is warm and the light gently bright. Everything is held in sharp contrast now it is nearly evening. The wisteria that hugs the wall of the whitewashed cottage has no leaves yet; it is a young plant and it is so early in the year. But last year’s seedpods hang like pendulums. Most of the plants in their pots have yet to embrace the change in the season, except for the lemon tree peeking around the side of the house, which is not only in full leaf but abundant with yellow baubles.
The weather here at the top ridge means that plant growth always lags a little behind the rest of the island, but there is no hurry. The flowers are just for decoration. The plot Sophia tends for food is down within the monastery walls where the frost never bites and the heat lasts even after the sun has gone down. It is funny how everyone still calls it a monastery when for decades it has housed only nuns. Now it is home only to Sister Katerina. The last remaining nun is too old to tend her own garden, and so they have an arrangement that suits them both.
Sophia adjusts herself on the rush seat of her wooden chair. She is not so uncomfortable if she sits with her back straight, but some days the little mite is so full of energy that he, as Yanni says, or she, as she maintains, kicks and kicks until Sophia has to stand up and walk around to settle her. Soon it will be too much for her to tend the vegetable plot. But for the moment all is well, and right now she must concentrate on darning Yanni’s socks.
She can see him, far away in the distance, down the hill. She spotted him and the animals as they emerged from the cover of the pine trees that grow along the top of the island. His hand is loosely leading Suzi, with Mercedes just behind, one animal leading the other, their long ears back slightly; they will be tired. As she darns, she watches him and the donkeys loom larger. He is carrying something over one shoulder. She darns and watches as he comes closer and closer.
‘Yeia sou, my love.’ He lets go of the donkeys’ reins and they wander to the trough. ‘Yeia sou, moro mou.’ He heaves off the heavy coil of rope that he is carrying and lets it fall to the floor, then bends from the waist and kisses her rounded stomach before going to the well to haul up water for the beasts. Their lips curl as they suck up the cool liquid.
‘How was your day?’ Sophia asks.
‘Same.’ Yanni stretches his hands above his head and closes his eyes. ‘Mostly foodstuffs to the shops.’ He refers to one of the many jobs the people of the island rely on the donkey men to do. With no cars or bikes, it is the donkeys that must haul the bottled water, the rice, the shampoo, the salt, the bedsheets, the roof tiles, furniture, everything everybody wants, from the cargo ship to the tiny shops dotted around the island’s only town.
‘Are you hungry?’ She stands. She has cooked stuffed tomatoes, and they are ready in the kitchen.
‘No.’ The stretch seems to revive him and he continues with more energy in his voice, ‘But I have rope.’ And with this, he bounds around the back of the house and returns carrying a frame he has fashioned out of some fallen pine branches. He spent the winter hewing them, and with the addition of a few nails and some clever joints they now resemble a proper double bed frame. His excitement shows in his energetic movements. He ties the end of the rope to one corner and winds it over and back across the frame. With each turn, he puts a boot against the frame and pulls until the rope is taut. When it is done, he trots inside the house and returns with the thin single mattresses from the beds they have been using up till now.
‘Ha ha!’ Sophia laughs. ‘So, we are to sleep out here, are we now?’
‘Try it?’ Yanni adjusts the mattresses so they lie next to each other and then stands with hands on hips to admire the completion of his winter project.
Leaving the darning on her chair, Sophia sits tentatively, as if she is expecting the whole thing to collapse. But it feels firm so she lifts her feet and lies back, fingers linked on her chest.
‘The sky looks so big.’ The clouds have cleared; now there is not even the trail of an aeroplane, just blue.
Yanni sits beside her, then lies down too, and they roll into one another, face to face.
‘Well, this is going to be cosy.’ Sophia laughs.
‘Within a month or two that is going to keep us apart.’ He puts his hand on her belly.
‘Don’t call her “that”. They say they can hear everything, you know.’
Yanni wriggles and puts his head on her belly.
‘Your mama is sorry she called you a “her” when you are a little boy.’ He looks up at Sophia, his curled moustache twisting. He is teasing her.
‘Say nice things to her, Yanni – don’t tease.’
‘I am to speak to your belly?’
‘No, you are to speak to our child, just as you will when she is here.’
‘When he is here I will tell him stories and we will play games.’
‘Tell her a story now.’ Sophia stops straining her neck to look at him and lies back again.
‘You want a story, my little boy?’ He smooths Sophia’s dress over her belly. ‘Shall I tell you one about two donkeys?’ He looks over to his animals. They are standing now with their eyes closed, their working day done. ‘This is a story about Mercedes, because she is a young donkey, just a baby like yourself. And just like you there is much she must learn about the world.
‘So, when I first brought Mercedes up here she looked about her and she did not know where she was or what she was meant to do. So I let her off the rein and she and Suzi wandered over the hillside, eating all they could. But Mercedes wandered over to the edge of the pinewood there, and on a branch a bird was singing.’
Sophia lets out the briefest of sounds, almost a chuckle, but much more relaxed and content. Yanni seems encouraged by this, and he props his head on his elbow and continues with his narrative.
‘“You sing so beautifully,” Mercedes told the bird. “What are you?”
‘“I am a bird,” the bird replied.
‘“Oh, I want to be a bird,” said Mercedes, “can I be a bird?”
‘“How can you be a bird? Birds sing,” said the bird.
‘Mercedes was much put out by this response, so she wandered off, over there.’
Yanni points west, along the island’s ridge.
‘Soon she came to the doors of the monastery, where the monks were about their evening prayers, chanting away. Mercedes listened and then said to herself, “I can do that.” And so she let out her wobbling “heeee”, but when she needed an in-breath she did not let this become a note, she sucked in the air silently, and when she had breath again, she let out another “heeeee”. There! She was singing, and so she returned to the bird and proudly performed her one-note song.
‘“Can I be a bird now?” she asked.
> ‘“No,” said the bird. “Birds have feathers.”
‘Again, Mercedes went away sad, and this time she wandered to the back of the house.’ Yanni points east. ‘There she found the chickens and she gathered up all the fallen feathers and she pushed them under her bridle and into the soft fur of her ears, and into the coarse fur of her legs, until she was covered all over with feathers. Then she returned to the bird.
‘“I have feathers now, so now can I be a bird?” she asked.
‘The bird looked at her from up on the branch, with a sideways look that birds give. ‘“No,” said the bird again, “because birds can fly.”
‘Mercedes left, disheartened again, but as she neared Suzi, who was chewing away on the grass, she saw that hill.’
Yanni points south to a hillock above the house.
‘So she climbed the hillock, and took a jump, hoping the feathers would make her fly. But she did not fly. She fell quite hard on her rump and all her feathers fell out. When she stood, she was very sore, but just then, Yanni’ – he points to himself – ‘came out of the house and took a scoop of meal and opened the barn door and called to Suzi and Mercedes. The two donkeys wandered into the straw-filled barn and began to eat, nose to nose, from the same bucket, and Mercedes said to herself, “Why would anyone want to be a bird when she can be a donkey, in this cosy barn, with a friend by her side and a master who loves her?” Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep.’
Yanni falls silent. Sophia doesn’t move. Slowly, after some minutes of silence, he looks up to her.
‘No, I’m not asleep,’ she said, but quietly. ‘But I’ll tell you something, Yanni my man. You may not be the best carpenter in all the world, but you are going to be a wonderful baba.’
One Hundred Euros
It is a slow day in a little Greek village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. The men huddle around the pot-bellied stove in the kafenio, hands extended for warmth. Theo, the proprietor, looks out across the village square, where the lights of the kiosk cast a warm glow over a scene that is otherwise grey and gloomy. The bakery is closed and the light and life of Stella’s eatery opposite is hidden behind the kiosk. Mitsos, Stella’s husband, will be running it, but in this weather he will be doing little trade. Theo reminds himself to go over later and pay Mitsos for the ouzo and brandy that he brought back from Saros last week – a month’s supply. Theo owes him one hundred euros. But if it keeps raining like this it will be a while before there is that kind of money sitting in the drawer of the old till in the kafenio.
Theo is smiley by nature, but this morning a frown clouds his features. No one is paying anyone. Take Aleko, the village mechanic, for example. He has run up a bill of a hundred euros or so at the kafenio, with a coffee here and an ouzo there. It’s not that he is not willing to pay; rather, that his customers are not paying him. Round and round it goes.
‘Hey, Theo, you want your coffee grounds reading?’ It is Babis, who has just returned from Saros, where he was defending a group of gypsies accused of stealing goats, in a court case. He spent months preparing and, judging by his jovial manner, the outcome was positive for his clients.
‘Not really,’ Theo says, gulping down the last of his coffee.
‘Well, if you are not having your fortune read they say you can turn the cup upside down on the saucer, turn both saucer and cup round three times – you know, like it is a steering wheel – and make a wish. If, when you take the cup off, the grounds are all clumped together, your wish will be granted. If they are all spread out and in separate piles you can forget it.’
Theo ignores him. Babis always has something to say about something and none of it is ever very useful. Theo stands with his hands on either side of the sink, arms braced. It is embarrassing, and shameful, that he cannot pay Mitsos. Not that Mitsos would ever hold it against him – he wouldn’t, no way. But that almost makes it worse.
He is about to immerse his hands in the warm soapy water in the sink when he stops himself and turns the cup upside down, muttering very quietly between clenched teeth. He performs this action with the cup and saucer held below the level of the countertop so that Babis does not see.
Outside, the rain increases its onslaught and the whitewashed walls of the village houses appear grey, the terracotta roofs a dark brown, the tarmac of the road shining under the single street lamp just outside the kafenio.
Absent-mindedly, Theo turns his cup and saucer three times and lifts the cup away. The grounds are piled in the centre, a perfect mound; not a single ground sits by itself.
‘Ha,’ says Theo. ‘Old wives’ tales.’ And he lowers both cup and saucer into the water, watching as the water turns brown.
Once the cups are all washed and stacked neatly to dry, he looks up to see a very shiny car driving slowly up the road from Saros, towards the kafenio. The windscreen wipers swish back and forth, sending torrents of water splashing off on either side. Babis has noticed the car too, and his eyes follow its progress. The car turns left towards the church, presumably heading towards Stella’s hotel on the beach.
Sarah is on reception at the hotel and Stella is in the office sorting through invoices and orders. Opening the hotel is the biggest and scariest thing Stella has ever done in her life but now, only six months in, everything is beginning to run smoothly. She has the staff she needs and agreements with service providers. Everyone knows that essentially it is a summer occupation, and the bigger businesses, like the laundry, are quite happy to wait till the season starts to get paid. Cash flow problems, Stella tells herself, are a problem for any new business. Next year she will hold back all she needs so she has a float that will take them seamlessly through the winter. It would have been possible, although difficult, to pay all the outstanding bills had the hotel minibus not broken down. Aleko’s is not a big business, and he will not be able to wait till summer. The last thing she needs is to become known around the village for being a late payer, so paying Aleko when he has fixed it is not just a matter of pride, but of reputation too.
Right now, only two rooms are occupied at the hotel and she is making no profit. The money that comes in each night from the two rooms is just enough to pay Sarah and the other staff, and she has to make them a priority. A couple from Athens were meant to be arriving yesterday but never showed up. So, unless another guest arrives, which is most unlikely considering the weather, there will be no cash to pay Aleko when he returns with the bus.
Stella sighs. The books are up to date, and the orders she needed to put in are done. Three new bookings have come in today, two for March and one for April, and there are six enquiries for August, so it’s a good day really. Perhaps she should ask for a deposit when guests book, to make things run more smoothly. But right now she would settle for a hundred euros to get Aleko off her back.
A hiss of rain against the windows makes her look up, across the car park. A shiny, expensive-looking car is pulling up. She returns to the orders, wondering what she could cut back on during these quiet months.
The murmur of voices filters through from reception. Stella looks up again and wills the person to stay. She hears keys being taken from a hook. That is a good sign, unless they just want to see a room. She doesn’t have the self-control to stay put and she is on her feet and opening the door to find out what is going on.
‘Ah, Stella.’
Sarah is alone. Stella looks about for the customer but there is no one else in the reception area.
‘I hope I did the right thing, but the gentleman who just came in asked me to hold a room whilst they go into Saros to see if they can find anything they prefer.’
Stella shrugs.
‘For some reason they insisted on leaving a hundred euros to hold the room, but obviously if they find somewhere else they will want that back.’
‘Sounds odd.’ Stella watches the clouds roll by and she is sure she can hear thunder in the distance.
‘Yes, I thought so too. Anyway, it’s there.’ Sarah points
to the note on the reception desk. Stella puts a paperweight on it.
‘Fine.’ Just then the telephone rings in her office and she hurries to answer it. ‘Hi, Aleko. Oh, you have fixed the minibus – thank you so much. Yes, drop it off when you like. How much do I owe you? One hundred. Okay, see you soon.’
There! She almost promised to pay him as soon as he delivers, but stopped herself just before the words were out … Maybe Mitsos has had an amazing day and has taken a hundred at the eatery, or even fifty. In fact twenty will do, just to hold Aleko off until she has some more cash. If she nips out now she can probably get there and back before he arrives with the bus.
‘Sarah,’ she says, ‘I am just going to the village, back in half an hour.’
‘Okay.’
Sarah is doubling as waitress in the restaurant today, and she has brought out the knives and forks and is polishing them surreptitiously behind the reception counter. As soon as Stella has gone, she takes the cutlery to the dining room and takes her time folding a few napkins.
Whilst she is in the restaurant, which is at the back of the hotel, Aleko arrives with the minibus. He runs in, with a folded newspaper held over his head against the rain, and puts the keys on the reception desk. He is about to leave when he sees the hundred-euro note on the desk.
‘Cheers, Stella!’ he shouts through the empty hotel, and pockets the note, leaving his receipt in its place under the paperweight.
If he dodges through the orange orchards and the olive groves he will avoid most of the rain. It’s only a five-minute walk, and Theo is bound to have the stove going at the kafenio … A day like this warrants a coffee, and maybe even a brandy chaser against the cold.
‘Ah, Theo.’ Aleko puts his hand on the proprietor’s shoulder. Before Theo has time to react, he takes the hundred euros and presses it into his hand. ‘A brandy would be very nice on a day such as this.’