Olive Virgins

by Katerina Nikolas

  Keeping house was proving a problem as the Pappas considered menial housework beneath him. His clerical dresses were soon as grubby as his knee-length underpants and a layer of dust settled over the muddy footprints he left in the house. The constant diet of spinach and cheese pies from the bakery made him long for Mrs Christeas’ rooster dishes even though he had maligned them at the time.

  The Pappas stuck up a sign in the supermarket window advertising for a cleaner and tried to persuade the village women to take the job. Impressed with Soula’s hard-working ways he attempted to lure her into taking the position. She flatly refused his offer, telling him “yous can stew in yous pigsty yous nasty man, I dont’s ‘ave the time of day for the god squad an’ will never forgives yous for trying to ruin my wedding.”

  Even Mrs Kolokotronis turned him down, stating “yous thinks I ‘ave times to cleans up after yous when I ‘ave a knitting empire to run and a new grandchild to look after?”

  When the Bishop openly gagged at the fusty smell emanating from the Pappas’ grimy clerical dress he told him to get a grip on his domestic arrangements, reminding him “cleanliness is next to Godliness.” The Bishops’ scathing remarks resulted in the Pappas pulling himself together and finally fathoming out how to use the newfangled washing machine. He invested in a new mop and bucket from the hardware shop, mastered the tin opener, purchased a copy of ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Cooking’ and resigned himself to a celibate life.

  At least now the villagers need not stand down wind of him when he flapped past them on the harbour.

  Chapter 5: Toothless Tasos Loses His Teeth

  Toothless Tasos was busy mending his nets after a fruitless morning’s fishing. His heart had not been in it as he was feeling guilty for shouting at his beloved goddess Thea about the messy state of their house. Opening the package of food Thea had thoughtfully prepared for him he bit down on a piece of crusty bread, only to exclaim “malaka, I forgot to put my false teeth in.” Feeding the bread to the fish it occurred to him instead of nagging Thea to keep the house tidy he could perhaps give her a helping hand as in addition to washing clothes and cooking she was knitting from dawn to dusk to pay off her debts.

  As Toothless Tasos mused on his shortcomings the object of his affection was muttering colourful expletives as she cursed him. “The malaka ‘as no idea ‘ow ‘ard I work, what with keeping ‘ouse, washing, cooking and knitting, while all he does is a bit of fishin’.” Sweeping the house in a temper she threw anything that looked out of place into black bags and was just in time to dump them in the bins before the rubbish truck arrived and drove off to the landfill site.

  Toothless Tasos strolled home, immediately launching into an abject apology for his failings and for shouting at Thea. She was not easily calmed down as his earlier words had cut her to the quick. “Why yous mumbling like that?” she fired at him, not willing to readily forgive him for taking her for granted and treating her like a skivvy.

  “I forgot to put my teeth in this morning. ‘Appen I left ‘em in a glass of water by our bed,” Tasos replied, heading up the stairs to the bedroom to retrieve them.

  Scratching his head Toothless Tasos was perplexed to discover the glass and his teeth were missing. Calling down to Thea he asked “agape mou, ’ave yous seen my teeth, I could ‘ave sworn I left ‘em by the bed?”

  A wave of shame struck Thea as she recalled her bout of feverish cleaning that morning, tossing anything looking vaguely untidy into rubbish bags. She had been so cross she may have inadvertently thrown Toothless Tasos’ false teeth away like yesterday’s garbage.

  “Dont’s start shoutin’ again but I think I may ‘ave chucked yous teeth away when I was busy cleaning. Maybe if we jump on the motorbike ‘an side-car we could follow the garbage truck and ‘opefully find ‘em.”

  Toothless Tasos sighed in despair at the thought his teeth may be lost. They had cost a small fortune to purchase and he had been forced to eat liquidised food for years as he saved up to pay for them. Seeing Thea’s crestfallen face he understood her massive clean-up was the result of his earlier chastisement and he immediately forgave her. Taking her into his arms he said “I knows it was accident an’ not done out of malice my little bougatsa. Quick lets follow the garbage truck and tries to get ‘em back.”

  Chapter 6: Deirdre Puts Her Foot In It

  Bald Yannis was sitting behind the hardware shop counter studying his ledgers. They were far more boring than his favourite underwear catalogues, but much more lucrative. His ‘sponsor a goat and olive tree scams’ were bringing in such a tidy income he had been able to reinvest some funds into enlarging his herd of goats. The Japanese craze for goats in clothes showed no sign of abating and he had many eager suckers signing up to have a cutely dressed goat named after them. Unfortunately he had been forced to knock his ‘catfisher’ scam on the head when Moronic Mitsos’ wife discovered his atrocious love letters to the retired ex-chief of police and threatened to divorce him.

  Married life was suiting Bald Yannis. He considered Soula an excellent wife; she was such a hard worker. She had added some homely touches to his now clean house, cooked good plain vegetarian food and was an asset in the shop. The huge log pile was a testament to Soula’s expertise with the chainsaw and the goats she tended were the picture of rude health. Surprisingly she was not as subservient as he’d imagined, demonstrating a nature that brooked no nonsense, but she was loyal to a fault and her straight talking tongue always rushed to his defence most diplomatically.

  His musings were interrupted by the arrival of Quentin and Deirdre. “We are after a perch for Fotini’s blasted parrot,” Quentin said. “Every time the foul mouthed bird spots me it thinks my scalp is a perch and refuses to relinquish its painful hold, so I want a real perch to distract it.”

  “Does I looks like a pet shop?” Bald Yannis queried, demonstrating his unique brand of customer service.

  “We presumed you are a man of many talents who can craft one from your hardware shop supplies,” Deirdre said flatteringly, neglecting to mention they had already been turned down by Achilles the borrowed builder who was far too busy with Stavroula’s tourist tat annex.

  “I suppose I could knock yous one up,” Bald Yannis agreed.

  “We would also like to purchase one of your hideous old lady dresses,” Deirdre said, taking Bald Yannis by surprise.

  “So yous ‘ave finally decided to dress Greek style Did-Rees,” the hardware shop man chuckled.

  “Certainly not, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of your ghastly rags,” Deirdre declared in her most affronted manner. “They are just the thing to dress the scarecrow to scare the birds away from our almond trees.”

  Deirdre blushed to the roots of her hair when she noticed Soula had entered the shop wearing what she had just described as a ghastly rag. She hoped Bald Yannis’ new wife had not overheard her remark, but was out of luck.

  “Did-Rees I may not be as fashionable as yous but it is ‘ardly practical to see to the goats in twin set and pearls,” Soula blurted. “I loves my new dress an’ knows what real rags is.”

  Bald Yannis smirked with pride at the way Soula put the American woman in her place. He was amazed by the graceful way Soula offered to share her recipe for almond kourabiedes biscuits with Deirdre, adding “I am sure you can tempts the parrot off K-Went-In’s ‘ead with a few bits of tasty kourabiedes.”

  “Well you certainly put your foot in it there,” Quentin scolded his wife as the two of them rushed from the hardware shop clutching a hideous old lady dress and promising to return for the parrot perch. In their haste to exit they almost knocked Adonis over.

  “Oh dear, have you managed to offend Adonis too?” Quentin asked his wife when their Greek friend declined their offer of coffee, saying he had urgent business to attend to. “Adonis always has time for coffee.”

  Chapter 7: Tourist Complaints

 
Adonis had more urgent matters on his mind than drinking coffee with Quentin and Deirdre. He burst into Slick Socrates’ office demanding he use all his lawyerly guile to quell the scheming ruse of a disgruntled German tourist who had stayed in his hotel over the summer and was now threatening to sue for a ruined holiday. Slick Socrates scanned the letter, giving Adonis the opportunity to refute the complaints.

  “He says you misled him as you advertised every bathroom had a patriotic shower curtain, but instead of the Greek flag he was expecting to salute he only had a lobster on his shower curtain. Everyone knows lobster is the patriotic emblem of the village of Astakos, so he starts off by writing nonsense Adoni. Let’s see what else he wants to whine about. He claims he got attacked by a mosquito.”

  “He could ‘ave been bitten anywhere, no proofs it was in my ‘otel,” Adonis said. “I told ‘im he reeked of perfume and should wash it off and use vinegar as a mosquito deterrent.”

  “Then you exercised every precaution which he chose to ignore,” Socrates staunchly agreed.

  “He says he suffered trauma when he got stuck in the lift. He might well have a case with that one,” Slick Socrates suggested.

  “Well he was so fat he got wedged in the lift door trying to get in. The lift wasn’t strong enough to cart ‘is fat carcass between floors. I pointed out the maximum weight sign to ‘im and told ‘im if he ate ‘ealthy Greek salad he might shift some of ‘is lard.”

  “So you did the responsible thing,” Socrates concurred, adding, “He claims he got food poisoning and was too sick to get out of bed.”

  “We dont’s serve food at ‘otel so ‘ow coulds we poison ‘im?”

  “Good point,” Slick Socrates agreed. “There have been lots of cases of tourists complaining about being poisoned to get money refunded from hotels, but they often fake it. Let me telephone Vangelis the chemist and see if he remembers a fat German tourist buying lots of food poisoning remedies,” he said, dialling the pharmacy.

  “Condoms, you say he was buying condoms?” Socrates questioned into the phone. “Po po, he was supposed to be too sick to be having use of such things, thank you Vangeli.”

  “Now I think of it Bald Yannis told me he ‘ad a fat German customer making indecent propositions to ‘is new wife Soula,” Adonis recollected.

  “Well that could account for his next complaint that he was chased out of the hardware shop by a bald lunatic waving a chainsaw. Yannis was obviously just protecting his wife’s honour. We could get Soula to sue him for sexual harassment. Are we nearly done with this nonsense?” Socrates asked, reading the rest of the letter.

  “He complains a duck went for him in the sea and that the beach was too sandy; he moans it rained and Greece is supposed to be sunny; and he got locked in a taxi by a mad old woman extorting extortionate fares.”

  “Bravo for Nitsa, I will buy ‘er a drink next times I sees er,” Adonis proclaimed. “So he ‘asn’t a leg to stand on if he sues the ‘otel?”

  “Not a chance,” Slick Socrates reassured Adonis before laughing, “Oh this is a classic Adoni, he only wants a free holiday in your hotel in recompense for all his sufferings. I will write and tell the malaka he has no chance. Apart from this nutter’s complaint is business doing goodly?”

  “We ‘ad a busy summer and the goat obsessed Japanese ‘ave already started booking for next year. We ‘ave some out of season guests due soon as foreigners seem intrigued by olive picking an’ ‘ave this deluded notion it is romantic.”

  “Po po, romantic my bad back. I feel twinges coming on as soon as anyone mentions gathering olives. I’m already planning to be laid up to avoid all that hard physical labour,” Slick Socrates confessed.

  “Wells Stavroula is a capable woman an’ can hoist full sacks of olives like a man while yous is laid up,” Adonis agreed, remembering he would also need to develop signs of a bad back well before the harvest.

  “I ‘ave persuaded K-Went-In and Did-Rees to ‘elp me with the olive ‘arvest, they is so deluded I ‘ave convinced ‘em it is romantic work.”

  “They’ll learn,” Socrates laughed, reminding himself he must start exaggerating the pain of his non-existent bad back before Stavroula got any ridiculous ideas he might be useful.

  Chapter 8: Fig Cake and Onions

  “Be more careful yous old fool,” Stavroula screamed at her newly found father as Vasilis dropped yet another dish on the tiled kitchen floor where it smashed into hundreds of pieces. “I’ll ‘ave to take that out of yous wages.”

  “Well yous could if yous was actually paying me,” that old fool Vasilis replied.

  “I pays you goodly in ‘ome cooked food and yous should be grateful because it tastes delicious compared to yous wife’s ‘orrible bosch.”

  “It is borscht,” Vasilis corrected her for the thousandth time. “’Ow many times yous ‘ave to be told Bosch is a German washing machine, not Russian soup.”

  “’Owever yous pronounce it dont’s make it edible. That news reader ‘ad to ‘ave ‘is stomach pumped after eatin’ it. ‘Ere taste this sykomaitha before I wrap it in fig leaves,” she said, passing Vasilis a freshly baked piece of rich fig cake.

  “It coulds do with a drop more ouzo,” Vasilis recommended.

  “Yous tastes buds are sozzled,” Stavroula concluded. “I thinks this cake will impress ‘em at the television studio, along with my snail and olive stew.”

  Ever since her new step-mother had made a name for herself on television Stavroula had been badgering Masha to put her name forward as a culinary contender for her own live cooking show. She had been perfecting her favourite dishes to impress the producers even though mail order Masha professed they were not interested in hiring any new talent, being quite happy with their current cooking star.

  “Kyria Papadopoulos is past it,” Stavroula argued. “She must be near to eighty and wears that ‘orrid old cardie an’ nasty pop socks. All she does is stir pans of brown stuff, twittering ‘poli nostimo’ endlessly. Everyone knows it was nepotism what got ‘er the job.”

  “’Er show is so dull and she never cooks anything tasty. Yous would be much better. I’ll ‘ave another word with Masha and sees if she can use her influence, but it might ‘elp matters if yous was a bit nicer to ‘er,” Vasilis flattered his daughter.

  “Yous could be rights,” Stavroula reluctantly agreed, making a mental note to start sucking up to her step-mother as a means to realise her culinary stardom ambitions through a touch of the despised nepotism she had just deplored when practiced by Kyria Papadopoulos.

  “Po po, what is Fat Christos doing on that strange contraption?”

  Christos waved cheerily as he cycled by on a tricycle, pulling along a cargo box with the baby happily ensconced on a nest of pillows. “Ere watch out,” he screeched as Nitsa, swerving to avoid him in the old Mercedes taxi, collided head-on with Petros the postman in his postal delivery car. Petros staggered from the car, staring vacantly at the steam hissing angrily from the now crumpled bonnet.

  “I calls my cousin Adonis the mechanic as yous car will need towing,” Adonis offered cheerfully.

  “Are you hurt Aunty Nitsa?” Tall Thomas called out in concern.

  “I’m fine but yous best gets me a brandy to be on the safe side,” Nitsa told him. “I ‘opes that idiot postman ‘asn’t damaged the taxi. I cant’s afford to be losing any extorted extortionate fares as they ‘elps out with my meagre pension.”

  “The taxi is fine Aunty Nitsa, it’s yous I is worried about. Yous know ‘ow fond I am of yous,” grovelled Tall Thomas, exaggerating his concern to ensure the old crone wrote him into her will.

  Petros the postman stood in confused despair watching his car being towed away. “’Ows I supposed to deliver mail now?” he wailed.

  “I suppose I coulds hire out Onos the donkey to yous,” that old fool Vasilis offered “you’ve
‘ad ‘er before. But dont’s put too much weight on ‘er as donkey is pregnant. Masha can picks me up in the chauffeur driven car an’ I can rub the smitten young struck-off doctor’s nose in ‘is come down in the world.”

  “He should ‘ave been strung up instead of struck off,” Nitsa lamented, glugging her brandy. “I’ve not been able to move one ‘alf of my face since he gave me that shot of dodgy Botox.”

  “I wondered why yous face suddenly had that scary fixated grimace,” Tall Thomas told his aunty.

  “Slick Socrates ‘as promised he will get me compensation for this botched Botox job,” Nitsa said.

  “Yous not finished paying off his lawyerly fee for getting yous out of prison yet,” Stavroula reminded Nitsa.

  “Po po, it was public opinion what freed me on account of me being so popular in fifty-seven countries, not to mention them useful eejits at Amnesty International falling for my tall tales of torture,” Nitsa laughed.

  “I’d best be off now Aunty as I wants to try and flog these gavros off in the village of Gavros. If I’ve any left over at the end of the day I wills drop ‘em round for yous dinner,” Tall Thomas promised, ambling over to the mobile refrigerated fish van.

  “Touting gavros in Gavros is like selling pork souvlaki to pig farmers,” Stavroula pointed out.

  “After they tried to sell us lobsters for ours lobster festival they deserves their comeuppance,” Tall Thomas called out, revving up the van which was full of anchovies caught by Prosperous Pedros poaching in the sea off Gavros.

  “Quick Stavroula,” that old fool Vasilis hollered. “Kyria Papadopoulos’ cooking show ‘as just started.”

  “Po po, there she goes again stirring something bland and brown, and trying to convince the audience it is tasty,” Stavroula complained, glued to the television screen and watching Kyria Papadopoulos endlessly drone “poli poli nostimo.” “It wouldn’t be so bad if she ‘ad one of them dishes she’d made earlier to shows off, but no, we ‘ave to sit and watch ‘er stir them malaka onions for the next ‘alf ‘our. Where’s sense in that? Poli nostimo indeed, more like poli ‘orrible rather than poli tasty.”