A Song Amongst the Orange Trees (The Greek Village Collection Book 13)

by Sara Alexi

  'He then gathers up his friends and they motor back to town with the crocodile still on board, which my baba sells for its skin, and he takes the men for a night on the town with the money.'

  Sakis waits for the customary gasp, or cheer, or laugh of relief but none come.

  'He was known as “Costas the crocodile killer” after that, and I became the son of Costas the crocodile killer. It is, was, a very hard act to follow.'

  They lay in silence for a while, the sound of the sea at their feet. Laughter from the bar.

  'Could he sing?' Jules asks finally.

  'He saved five men’s lives!' Sakis retorts.

  'Did he make people happy?'

  'He killed a crocodile.'

  'Does that make the world a better place?'

  He could get very used to having Jules around.

  Saros Town

  The following day, his throat feels a little better. Not first thing, but about an hour after he wakes up, he is aware that swallowing is no longer painful and that his limbs do not ache quite so much. But he does still feel like he has no energy.

  Maybe going somewhere for the day will help, doing something that will ignite his spirit.

  'Jules, you want to go into Saros?'

  They have just finished breakfast in the courtyard of the hotel. The whitewashed walls are splashed with brightly coloured flowers. Each table has its own umbrella and the fine gravel under their directors chairs crunches quietly when they stand to go to the buffet for more coffee.

  Jules is tearing at his third croissant and dipping it in his coffee.

  'These are good, considering they are Greek and not French,' he says with a smirk.

  'There is a sign there that says they are from a bakery in the village.'

  'Coffee's good, too. Is that from the village, too?' He is teasing now.

  'So, do you want to go?'

  'To Saros town? Sure why not, if you feel alright.'

  Sakis goes to top up his coffee. In the magazine rack by the buffet table, there is a journal with his face on the cover.

  'It was good, wasn't it?' a voice beside him says as he takes out the paper and looks at the cover. It is all about the competition. 'The contest, it was good. We won!' The woman is wearing a sleeveless floral dress and an apron. She is unloading fresh mounds of toast from her tray into the rack. She is small in stature and there is an agelessness about her.

  'Yes, we won.' The woman gives him a long, hard stare. Any minute, she is going to recognise him. He smiles in anticipation.

  'You remind me of someone,' she says. He doesn't give her a clue, but he holds the magazine facing toward her, two smiling Sakis. 'Ah, I know who you remind me of, are you from round here? You have a look of …'

  Sakis does not want to know. She may be ageless but she is old enough to have known his baba. She is about to take away his hard-fought-for identity and transform him into 'The Son of Costas the Crocodile Killer.'

  'No. I am from Athens,' he says and turns away, taking the magazine with him to his table. He watches her as he sits, already feeling bad about being so rude. The woman goes back to filling the basket with toast and adds more pots of jam to the depleted basket, picks up a dirty knife someone has left by the yoghurt, and leaves the courtyard, flashing him a smile despite his discourtesy.

  Inside the magazine is a re-hashed interview that he did a couple of years ago for a very small paper. Andreas is hard at work. He will ring him today.

  'Okay, let’s go.' Jules wipes his mouth on his linen napkin.

  The taxi drops them on the harbour’s edge in Saros.

  'Wow!' Jules draws out the exclamation. 'That is some sight.' He is looking out into the bay, where the old island fort floats on glistening blue water that moves like oil.

  'That's the Bourtzi,' Sakis says as he pays the driver.

  'Why would anyone put a fort out in the middle of the sea?'

  'Well, there was an island there, a rock. To guard the entrance to the harbour, I suppose. You want to go across?'

  'Yes, why not?' Jules runs his hands through his hair. He is not one for using a brush.

  Further along, a sign on the far side of a big tarmacked jetty informs them that it is collapsing into the sea and that cars may no longer be parked there. Moored to this jetty is a fishing boat that has been adapted for carrying passengers. A plywood cabin has been cobbled together to enclose the planking around the boat’s edges, which have been given vinyl fabric cushions. There is a handwritten sign on the pier, leaning against the hull, scraping its presence into the woodwork. It reads “Bourtzi, every half an hour. If you miss the last one back, you will have to stay the night.”

  There is no one around.

  'Bourtzi. What does that mean?' Jules asks.

  'It’s the Turkish name, left over from when they occupied Greece. It means “Tower.”’ A seagull calls overhead. 'Later, Bourtzi and all of Saros was fortified by the Venetians because of pirates. You will see when we get across. Well, you won't see because it's not there now, but there were three floors with movable stairs. To confuse the invaders.' Sakis takes a moment to think. 'Like the Harry Potter film.' He chuckles.

  Jules doesn't laugh. He looks out to the island and nods seriously, which brings Sakis back to his topic.

  'After the Turks, it housed the guillotine. And the executioners. To have the executioners living in the town was considered bad luck, but they had to live somewhere.'

  At one point, a set of steps leads down to the sea. Jules sits on the pavement, his feet on the top step, watching the fish in the clear water.

  'It was a boutique hotel in the sixties,' Sakis finishes.

  A boy with a hooded sweatshirt approaches, holding out what looks like a small plant pot, begging for money. His hood is pulled up and covers what looks like a very bad haircut. His clothes are filthy, with fresh black smudges across his shoulders, and his shoes have no laces. Jules searches his pockets but finds nothing. The boy slouches.

  'But most importantly, it is now a place where part of the Saros music festival is held.' Sakis feels he should tell the dirty gypsy boy to leave, but Jules pats the floor next to him and the boy sits down, the two of them looking into the water.

  'The boat man is taking his time to come,' Sakis says impatiently.

  'You wait for the boat?' the dirty boy says in Greek. Sakis nods. Jules looks up from the fish to watch them talking.

  'What did he say?' Jules asks in English.

  'English,' the boy says. 'You wait boat?' His accent is thick.

  Jules chuckles, a quiet sound, a private amusement.

  'Yes,' he answers.

  'I Bobby.' The boy pats his chest and then bends forwards between his knees, reaching into the water with his pot to scoop up a large piece of swollen bread that has been thrown for the fish from one of the harbour-side cafés. Draining the water away, the boy fishes out the doughy mess and presses it between his fingers. It disintegrates and the slime dribbles into the sparkling surface and sinks, turning the water slightly milky. The few fish that are there rush to the cloud, and new fish swim in from further away. They quickly become a ball of swirling, glistening scales, and the cloudiness clears as the particles are eaten. Bobby shows no surprise at this performance. The water is soon crystal clear again and the boy looks at his fingers, which are covered in a doughy slime. He brushes them together and then dips his flowerpot in the water again and pours the water first over one hand and then the other.

  'You wait long time,' he says to Jules. It does not sound like a question.

  'Half an hour, Bobby,' Jules informs him. 'You go school?'

  'No.' He must be about nine or ten years old.

  'Your mama?'

  'I no have.'

  'You alone?'

  'Yes.'

  'Hm.' Jules nods as if he understands. The two of them stare at the water in silence. Sakis would like to join them, but the two of them sitting there happened so casually, and if he sits too, it will not seem natu
ral. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and swallows, testing his throat for soreness. It is alright. Not great, but alright. He is feeling a little tired. Perhaps coming to Saros was overdoing things.

  'No boat,' Bobby says suddenly. ’To ftiaxnoun.' He reverts to his Greek.

  ’Ftiaxnoun. What's that?' Jules creases his eyes closed against the sun and puts up one hand for shade as he looks at Sakis.

  Sakis looks across the flat water. Now he notices the scaffolding around one side of the fort and the busy people.

  'He says they are fixing it.'

  'Oh.' Jules does not seem concerned. The boy stands, puts his flower pot under Jules’ nose. Jules pulls his pockets inside out to show that he really does not have any money lurking there. Jules asks Sakis for some change.

  He rummages in his pockets and takes out some loose coins and hands them to Jules, who puts them in Bobby’s flowerpot cup. The boy shakes the coins gently against the pot’s sides, smiles a grubby smile, thanks Jules in Greek, and walks away toward one of the cafés, flowerpot leading the way.

  'That's a real shame we cannot go over.' Sakis sighs. 'I wanted you to see how it was when people lived and died for the causes they believed in. The events that inspired the traditional music. Greece when it was more real.'

  'I think that was pretty real.' Jules speaks slowly and takes out a cigarette, lights a match against his thumbnail, and inhales deeply.

  Sakis frowns.

  'Bobby,' Jules clarifies. 'He was pretty real.' Then he stands.

  'He was just a beggar boy, probably a gypsy, but could be Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian. It's all the same these days.'

  'He seems to be quite a character to me.' Jules looks out to the fort.

  Sakis is not sure what Jules is trying to say.

  'He was a character, and so?' This feels like the first time they have had a discord and with the slight tension, he feels the need to sit down all of a sudden. The ground has shifted.

  'So nothing. His life is very real. His need to eat and survive its very real. He came here away from his home in Romania or Serbia, or wherever, and that is very real.' Jules looks him in the eye. 'I think if the boy were musical, he would write a song about it.'

  Sakis looks after the boy.

  'History in the making.' Jules pushes the point.

  Perhaps he should have given Jules more change than he did to give to the boy.

  'I am feeling not so good again. I know we have just arrived, but is it alright with you if we go back to the hotel?'

  Jules shrugs, stands, and begins to meander in the direction of the car.

  'Why did they put a car park by the harbour? So ugly,' Jules murmurs, picking tobacco from his lower lip.

  'Not just ugly but dangerous.' The words come out more sharply than he intended. He'll not say any more, just let it slide. Jules won't ask.

  'Why dangerous?' Jules asks as he kicks a small stone over the harbour’s edge. It plops through the surface, creating a circular ripple that grows wider and wider on the oily surface. The stone itself oscillates side to side as it sinks slowly to the bottom. It lands and fine sand puffs up and mixes with the sea.

  'Someone once put their car into forward gear when they meant to go backwards.'

  'They went in, I guess,' Jules says coolly.

  Sakis does not answer. He has never been told the story directly. Instead, he has picked up pieces here and there, put them together. She was angry. He had phoned and asked her to come into Saros to join him for a drink. But when she arrived, he started talking to some male friends. She had poured herself more wine from the jug, waiting to be given some attention. She had drunk more and more until when she stood, she was not steady. When he returned, the jug was empty. She had left, angry, and he remained.

  'The next day, they called on everyone they knew, he and my yiayia, thinking that she had stayed with friends. They asked around for days,' Sakis says.

  Jules looks at him sharply.

  From the bits his yiayia had told him, no one knew where she had parked the car, nor of its relevance. The police were called. A search was made, house to house inquiries, and as time passed, they presumed she had just had enough and left. Gone to Athens to start a new life, maybe. But no one could really believe that she would do that and leave behind her baby son. It was a week or two later that someone casually mentioned that they may have been the last to see her when fumbling with the door, trying to get her key into the lock where she was parked with the bumper hanging over the harbour’s edge.

  'The police wanted to send a diver down to pull up the car. My baba volunteered.' Sakis stops walking. He should not have come to Saros. It was too much for him, and thinking about this isn't helping. It is not as if it does any good; he never even knew her. He was just a baby.

  The water by the harbour’s edge is so clear, he wonders why they did not see the car sooner. But further along, where she went in, it is much deeper and oil tends to collect there on the surface as the current turns.

  Jules grinds his cigarette out with the toe of his flip flop and throws a lank arm around Sakis' shoulder, pulling him in. Sakis can feel the pulse of his friend’s heart against his arm. He lets himself be steered to a bollard and Jules pushes him to sit down as he sinks, himself, into a squat. His baba told him the rest of the story for no reason one night in Pireaus, when the ouzo had flowed. His big strong baba terrified him with his tears and shaking shoulders.

  'At first, the water was clear but as I let my body sink, it darkened, became misty.' That’s how he began to tell it, just like that, out of the blue. Sakis had no idea to what he was referring.

  'I felt the car before I saw it. I was sinking feet first and my foot hit the bumper. The whole thing was on end, its nose stuck in the sand, the exhaust pointing to the surface.' His baba took a big lungful of air and a cold chill crept over Sakis as he began to have an idea what he was talking about. But in his head, it is his baba's voice.

  'Letting out some air, I sunk further, keeping my eyes fixed on the bottom. I traced down the edge of the car’s roof with one hand, using it to pull myself deeper until I stood on the sea bed, the bonnet against my belly, and then I braced myself and looked up from my feet. There she was! As beautiful as I remembered her. She still had her seat belt on. Her skin was no longer that wonderful bronze colour that she went in the sun. She was white as marble.'

  His shoulders shook, but there was no sound of him sobbing. Big tears ran down his face, dripping into his ouzo glass, clouding tiny patches of the spirit.

  'Her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping. But one arm.' He stopped talking to release the saddest chortle. 'One arm waved to me. I knew it was the current but in a moment of madness, I could believe she was still alive. Then as the truth recoiled back, it made me lose my breath and I had to rush to the surface.'

  Sakis pauses.

  Jules' face has lost all colour.

  ’He had to attach the chains so they could haul her up. The police said, once the chains were attached, his job was done, but Baba insisted on travelling with her. Their last journey together, from the sea bed to the harbour side.' Sakis takes a big breath. Jules’ hand is on his knee and Sakis takes hold of it for strength.

  'He watched her as the car was slowly pulled up. Her hand still waving, her dark hair floating around her smooth white face. Baba surfaced first and then up came the car, up came Mama.' His grip on Jules’ hand tightens.

  His baba’s voice became cold and emotionless when he got to this part.

  'As the car came out of the water, the fullness of her face drained away and then, as if life wanted to cause the maximum pain, there before my eyes, as I watched, her face fell, slithered into the footwell, away from her bones, and her skeleton hung inside the seat belt, tendons and sinews where body and soul should have been.'

  Sakis, dry eyed, stares out to sea, releasing his grip on Jules’ hand.

  'That's reason enough not to come back here,' Jules says quietly. 'Do you
blame him?'

  'Blame who?' Sakis has become lost in a stare, absent.

  'The crocodile killer. Do you blame him for your mama's death?'

  Glancing at Jules, he cannot look him in the eye.

  'Can we go?'

  'Sure.' Jules straightens up stiffly and offers Sakis a hand to stand.

  They wait by the road’s edge for a taxi. Sakis waves at the first to pass, but it does not stop.

  'About a month after he told me this, I came home from school and he was drunk again. “Your yiayia’s died,” he said, straight out. The one last remaining soft piece of my world was whipped from under my feet, leaving a gaping hole that I thought I was going to fall down. She had been my mama from six months old till my baba took me to Pireaus, aged six. I waited for the drop, to find myself hurtling down an empty-sided chasm but before it came, he added, “She left you her house. Not me. You! Could she had stated more loudly that she blames me for your mama’s death?” Then he gulped down another ouzo and the ground beneath me sealed over like concrete. Concrete beneath me, concrete round me. Encased. Quietly, I went to my room, packed a bag, and left without seeing him again. I was thirteen.'

  As Jules nods with such exaggeration, his whole upper body rocks back and forth. He totally understands.

  A taxi pulls up and the driver leans out of his open window. 'Where to?' he asks.

  'The village hotel.' Sakis pulls himself together and points the direction as they climb in.

  Back in the hotel room, he sleeps all afternoon and when he goes down to the beach bar in the evening, he finds Jules chatting to the barman as if he has known him all his life. He has a drink in his hand which he had no money to buy, so his new friend must be footing his bill, too. There are tables on the lawns and diners eat, watching the setting sun over the water. A clarinettist wanders from table to table playing a variation on a haunting traditional song. Sakis listens to the arrangement and his thoughts become engulfed in imagining how it could be improved. A totally new song comes to mind and he is tempted to return to his room, work it out on his bouzouki. But Jules sees him and raises his glass in salute, and then slides off his bar stool.