by Leta Serafim
Alcott had divided up the cave. One area belonged to an American university in the Midwest, another to the Sorbonne, still another to the German archeologists from Heidelberg. It was like Berlin after the war, little flags marking each group’s domain. Patronas now had a laptop and kept track of everyone allowed access to the site on something called a ‘spreadsheet,’ which Alcott had created for him. He’d check them in as they entered the cave, check them out again when they exited.
He had counted fifty people that morning when he was down in the cave, fifty people on their hands and knees, shifting soil back and forth, the way his mother had once done with flour. Some test results had come back, and Alcott informed him that the bones in the amphorae were far older than the rest of the artifacts.
“They’re at least two hundred years older than anything else in the cave,” he said, “according to all the tests we’ve run on them.”
“What does that mean?” Patronas asked.
“If means when they fled Crete or Thera or wherever else they were, these people brought their dead with them.”
And so we all do, Patronas thought. We bring our dead with us wherever we travel, wherever we go. Their bones lay beside us as we sleep. Their eyes look up at us in the faces of our children. Their voices haunt our songs.
He left the cave and stepped out into the wind. The fields below were barren, the grass of summer withered and gone.
* * *
Patronas occasionally had dinner with Papa Michalis at a tavern by the harbor, inevitably footing the bill. The priest favored the most expensive varieties of fish, claiming they had fewer bones, and always prefaced his main course with five or six appetizers. Shrimp was a special favorite, the larger the better, as was barbounia, priced at sixty-four Euros a kilo. In spite of his age, he remained a prodigious eater and would tilt his head and down the smaller ones all in one gulp like a seal.
“Guess who just called me?” Patronas asked him late one night. It was too cold to sit outside and they were huddled at a table in the back near the kitchen. “Evangelos Demos.”
Stunned, the priest put down his fork. “Whatever for?”
“To help him with a case.”
“Tourist trouble?”
“No. Murder.”
Like a dog hearing the sound of his master’s voice, the elderly priest sat up a little straighter and leaned forward, his face intent. “Murder?”
He immediately launched into a long, convoluted discussion of the possible forensic techniques Patronas might employ to catch the killer, swabbing the fingernails of the corpse being a prominent one.
“Father,” said Patronas gently. “The victim was a child, a seven-year-old boy.”
The priest grew very still. “Where?” he finally asked.
“An island called Thanatos.”
Greek Vocabulary
Aggelos: Angels
Agglos: Englishman
Aginares a la Polita: Artichokes in the style of Constantinople
Akrotiri: Ancient Minoan city on Santorini. ‘The Greek Pompeii’
Anapoda: Backwards
Andreas einai: Literally, ‘the men are.’ Dismissive expression, as in ‘what did you expect?’
Apolektikos: Apoplectic
Apothiki: A closet/storage space
A sto diablo: Go to the devil, equivalent of ‘what the hell’
Bougatses: Dessert made of puff pastry and custard
Bourekakia: Appetizer made of eggplants stuffed with cheese and fried
Briam: A vegetable stew
Daskalopetra: Literally ‘teacher’s rock’, a famous landmark on Chios
Dolmadakia: Stuffed vine leaves
Dolmates gemista: Stuffed tomatoes
Drakos: Vampire, monster
Eisai kala: Are you well?
Evlogeitos, H Kyrie: Words from the Orthodox memorial service. Literally, ‘bless us, O Lord.’
Engonaki: Grandson
Gafa: Mistake
Galapetras: Literally ‘milk stones,’ ancient seals with intaglio inscriptions
Geliographia: Cartoons
Horta: Cooked wild greens
Kafenion: Old fashioned Greek coffee shop, patronized only by men
Kalamatino: Circle dance from Kalamata in Peloponnese, popular Greek folk dance
Kale mera: Good day
Kale spera: Good evening
Kamaki: Spearfisherman, a man who picks up women
Kathiki: Vulgar word for chamber pot
Kathighiti: Professor
Kokkoretsi: Grilled intestines, chittlins, offal
Kolopetsomeni: A person whose ass is made of leather
Kommotis: Hairdresser, beauty parlor
Kourabiedes: Special holiday cookies
Kouvetta: Sugared almonds used as favors at baptisms and weddings
Kyria/Kyrie: Mrs., a title of respect
Laderna: Portable musical organ operated by hand
Laiki: Open air market
Loucoumades: Fried dough covered with honey, walnuts and cinnamon
Malia pisgris: Literally ‘cotton candy hair,’ used to describe hair of the elderly
Meltemi: Wind from the Sahara
Meletzanasalata: Eggplant salad
Meletzanes: Eggplants
Me stravose: They crucified me
Mezes/mezedakia: Assorted appetizers
Miralogia: Rhymed funeral dirges sung by elderly women in rural Greece
Mouvgale to ladi: He/they squeezed the oil out of me
Na zisete: Congratulations
Nuxtaloulouda: Flowers that release their scent at night
Olympiakos: Soccer team of Athens
Ouzo: National drink of Greece, anise flavored and very strong
Paidi Mou: Term of endearment, literally ‘my child’
Panageri: Celebration usually held at a church in conjunction with a saint’s name day
Panagia Mou: Holy Mother of God, informal, equivalent of ‘holy smokes’
Parea: Companionship, friends
Paximadia: Narrow hard-crusted sweetbreads, similar to Biscotti, rusks
Phaistos: Site of ancient Minoan settlement where the disc bearing its name was found
Poustis: Slang for homosexual, equivalent of ‘faggot’
Psaria tou Morocco: Fish from Morocco
Psychopathis: Psychopath, psychopathic
Raki: Very powerful Cretan liquor
Refithia keftedes: Meatballs made from garbanzo beans
Retsina: Greek white wine flavored with the resin of pine trees
Rizogalo: Rice pudding
Skordalia: Sauce made of garlic, olive oil, and potatoes
Skylovrise: Nasty remark, literally a ‘dog bite’
Smyrneiko: In the style of Smryna, a city in Asia Minor destroyed by the Turks
Striegla: Loud, shrewish woman
Styfado: Stew made of veal and pearl onions and flavored with cinnamon
Svingis: Donuts
Taramasalata: Spread made of fish roe and mashed potatoes
Theotokos: Formal term for the Virgin Mary, used only in church
Ti kaneis: How are you?
Trahana: A primitive pasta made of sourdough, usually cooked in broth
Trelli/Trellos: Derogatory term, ‘crazy’
Trigono: Dainty sweets made of filo and nuts in the shape of triangles
Trikkala: Very small three-wheeled truck used in the Greek countryside
Tsipouro: Very powerful liquor from Crete
Varvarus: Barbarian
Vlachos: Moron, imbecile
Vrasta: Boil them!
Xontroulis: Fatso
Xenos/xenii/xenia: Foreigners, strangers
Yeia Sou: The equivalent of hello/greetings
The daughter of an itinerant scientist, Leta Serafim was born in Wisconsin and spent the first years of her life in San Diego. Her family moved to Washington, D.C., when NASA was created and her father went to work for that agency. A genuine rocket scientist, he served ther
e for twenty-five years in many capacities—Director of Unmanned Space, Director of Astronomy, Associate Administrator and Chief Scientist—and supervised the American missions to Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter.
Leta attended Wells College in upstate New York for two years before transferring to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She graduated with a degree in political science and Russian studies, with a focus on Dostoyevsky, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn.
While in college, Leta worked at the Washington Post, writing obituaries and doing research for the national desk. She left to join the staff of the Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau. Following her marriage to a Greek national, Philip Serafim, Leta moved to Athens, where she taught art at home while raising her daughters, Amalia and Annie.
When Leta moved back to the United States seven years later, she wrote for the local papers and sporadically for the Boston Globe. Her mother began to lose her sight from glaucoma around this time, and disturbed by her plight, Leta went to work as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons. Determined to educate the public about this disease, she designed and launched multiple media campaigns: posters on public transportation, billboards throughout the city, radio and television announcements, cable shows, etc. She received many awards for this program and served in a similar capacity as Public Health Director for the New England Ophthalmological Society, the oldest specialty organization in the United States.
Leta spends at least one month every year in Greece and has visited over twenty-five islands. She paints in both oils and acrylics, etches, cooks—she’s mastered many native cuisines, but her main focus is Greek—and volunteers on a weekly basis as a tutor in an MIT-sponsored ESL program.
The Devil Takes Half is her first novel, and the first book in the Greek Islands Mystery series. Coffeetown Press will also be publishing her work of historical fiction, To Look on Death No More.
You can find her online at www.letaserafim.com.