The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8)

by Sara Alexi

  ‘Well obviously it had some bearing …’ Babis looks quickly to the door, but Yanni moves to block his exit. ‘But I am not sure why that would move you to strike me, cousin?’

  ‘So as soon you knew the judge was not in the pocket of the mayor, as soon as you knew he was the uncle of someone on your side, as soon as you know you are safe, then and only then do you think to act on the peoples’ behalf?’ Yanni is so cross, flecks of spittle leave his mouth as he tries to speak without shouting, ‘And you haven’t even got the decency to say so. Instead you put on that little performance about being the lawyer of the people. A performance to me! Me, of all people! Who are you really trying to impress? Yourself?’ He draws the tone down at the end of the sentence; he has finished. Babis’ eyebrows raise as he shuts his mouth. ‘What’s more,’ Yanni hisses, animated with new thoughts, ‘I saw you hesitate to speak out in front of the mayor just now. I saw your hesitation when he said he “needed” you.’ Yanni sucks his teeth in disgust. ‘You would have stepped into Gerasimos’ shoes without a care for anyone if you thought you could get away with it.’

  ‘Yanni, the ways of the world are harsher than you think ...’

  ‘The ways of the world are as you make them ...’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You have two parents back on your precious little island. Your memory is short, my friend, and you have forgotten the things that happened to me here in the real world …’

  ‘I have not forgotten,’ Yanni says, more quietly now, ‘but that is no excuse to make the world a worse place.’

  ‘But I am not. We are not. We are going to face him.’

  ‘Only because it will further your career now. Have you no filotimo, Babis?’ Yannis uses the last of the air in his lungs to spit these final words. He turns his face away and takes a lungful of incensed air. A teenage girl comes in, assesses the situation in a glance, and walks out again.

  ‘I don’t think with you both being lawyers, you should argue in the house of God,’ Spiros whispers loudly, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.

  ‘And where did you get the idea I was scum like him?’ Yanni explodes. ‘I am no lawyer.’

  ‘But, he said you were.’ Spiros points to Babis, who is waving his hands as if to stop him. ‘That night that we …’

  ‘When?’ A stillness has come over Yanni.

  ‘When we first saw you in the bar. I asked Takis which was the one we were to beat up, which one was the lawyer and Babis looks up, he must have heard me, he pointed to you, and then when you left, he called you “lawyer” again.’

  Babis backs away from Yanni, his eyes on the door, the only exit. ‘Look, I am sorry, Yanni. I just thought you would deal with them better than me. I am not athletic like you.’ Babis’ eyes shine as if tears have filled them. ‘Gerasimos is known for his hard-handed approach, and the way they were looking at us,’ his eyes flick to Spiros, ‘but really I just thought someone like you could brush them off.’ His voice is pleading, the sweat stains on the armpits of his shirt growing rapidly, the smell over the incense just discernible.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ Spiros asks.

  Yanni watches Babis shrinking and turns to Spiros. ‘No. You can be proud.’ His emphasis is on the word you. His step is sure and controlled as he walks from the church.

  The nun who asked him to wait outside comes trotting as fast as she can across the courtyard.

  ‘I have saved you and your friends a place.’ She smiles through the words.

  Yanni’s moustache twitches but he holds back the words and searches his pockets to draw out the folded and string-bound missive Sister Katerina gave him.

  ‘Please, would you give this to the abbess for me?’ He keeps it short and turns to leave.

  ‘But she is just there, you can give it to her yourself. Where are you friends? I will call them to eat.’

  ‘Please, just give this to her for me.’ He pushes the note into her hands and marches toward the exit.

  ‘But your food. I have saved you a table,’ the nun calls after him. Yanni knows he is being rude, but he has no control over the surge of emotions within him. He could well start to say one thing and something else may come out. Best to say nothing.

  The air is somehow fresher outside the convent doors. The walls, the candles, the incense, the crowded refectory, the nuns themselves felt stifling. He keeps walking. The paved area in front of the convent narrows back to a road. Was he too harsh on Babis? The look of sadness on the sandwich shop girl’s face is all he can picture, that and the side of the young nun’s head. Clenching his fists, he chooses some harsh swear words and mutters them under his breath. Maybe he was too harsh with Babis, maybe he lost control over his frustration in finding and facing Sophia. Maybe Babis had no part in this anger at all. And why did the girl from the sandwich shop seem so happy to see him when first their eyes met, and so sad the second time? He should not have been so hard on Babis. He recalls rocking him after he spoke of his Baba’s death, and then it is him being rocked and Sophia doing the rocking, and then it is him rocking and the sandwich shop girl is in his arms.

  ‘Stop!’ His feet halt and he shouts out to the skies. His mind never raced like this when he was with the goats. Is it the mainland that stirs his thoughts, or is it the woman?

  ‘Damn them all.’ He thrusts his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and, looking down to his worn cowboy boots, bought cheaply one year because they were no longer in fashion, he measures his pace as if he is up in the hills with the goats. ‘That’s a decision, then,’ he tells himself. ‘To hell with them all. I am happiest alone.’ He looks down to the village, and as he descends the hill, his panoramic view of the fields of orange trees changes until he is looking up at individual trees to see the oranges now as big plums but still hard and green.

  It does not take him as long as he expected to reach the heart of the village and after brief enquiries, he is on the road that brings him to the donkey breeder. Alone on the final stretch of road, the light changes and a pinkish hue covers the world, making everything look magical and soft. He thinks of his mama. He will be pleased to see her again. It is just before twilight when he finds the cottage tucked under olive trees and a familiar smell of manure greets him.

  As he passes the truck parked at the end of the house, heat comes from it, shimmering off the engine. It turns out that the breeder has also just returned from the convent.

  ‘I would have gladly given you a lift had I known you were coming my way.’ The man introduces himself as Thanasis. His calloused hands are rougher even than Yanni’s. His suit shows the wear of years and his shirt is clean but a uniform grey. He discards his jacket with relief and, rolling up his sleeves, he invites Yanni into the enclosure next to the barn.

  With donkeys and hinnys around him, Yanni’s heart begins to beat to a gentler rhythm, a sanity seems to return to him, and a quietness settles which he has not felt since he left the island. Thanasis is a man after his own heart and even when his new donkey has been chosen, a really pretty thing with big nostrils and long dark eyelashes, and the deal has been done, Thanasis urges him to linger a while. They drink tepid water together, eat what is left of a spinach pie and a tavli set is brought out. Thanasis suggests he stay the night, in the cot in the barn, and travel with the animal tomorrow on the truck and save himself the bus fare back to the boat that will take him to Orino Island.

  Yanni allows him to win at tavli.

  Looking up through the holes in the barn’s roof, Yanni sees the same stars that are visible from the cottage up on the ridge. Tomorrow night, he will be there. His mama and baba, Suzi and Mercedes. It seems a bit of a long name for the new beast, but seeing as Thanasis has taken the time to sew it into her brow-band in beads, he will probably keep it. Anyway, the point is it will be just the five of them. It’s enough.

  Part II

  Chapter 17

  ‘This heat wave is just not relenting ...’ Stella wipes her face and then her hands on a cloth whi
ch she takes from a hook by the grill before going through to the room with the tables. Her eatery consists of two small rooms. There is a long counter going almost the full length of the first room with a small gap left to squeeze behind it at one end, and this is where Mitsos is most often found, wrapping takeaway meals in aluminium trays for collection, taking the money and tuning the radio into rebetika stations with the cling-film-covered knob. With a turn of his heel, he can attend to the open charcoal grill and the chip fryer on its makeshift table at the far end. The back of the grill and the back wall itself create another corridor of space. Here, mirrored and glass shelves collect grease and dust as the years pass, and the floor has proved impossible to keep clean because the storage of buckets of lemon sauce and bottles of water make mopping a time-consuming affair. At the far end in this dingy area is where Stella will be if she is not serving, her back to the world, washing dishes and glasses in the stained marble sink.

  Mitsos is not in yet today. Work has not fully begun and Stella stands for a second in the doorway that connects the two rooms. Gay plastic cloths cover the four tables, each with a different design; one shows dogs, tails up, running around the edge followed by men in red coats on horseback, another a trellis of flowers, the designs on the tops faded white where the surface has been wiped again and again. A blue glass bottle holding a single plastic flower has been placed at the centre of each. The far corner of the room is partitioned off with a sliding door, screwed to which is a cast metal plaque of a young boy peeing into a bowl.

  Before she sits, Stella wipes over a glazed photograph of a donkey wearing a straw hat that hangs on the far wall, the intense red bow of its bonnet sharp against the green walls.

  ‘Absolutely relentless! I’m having to water my garden twice a day already. My water bill is going to be enormous for this quarter.’ Juliet scrapes her straw around the froth on the inside of her glass and pushes her chair onto its back legs.

  ‘Mitsos is the same with all the geraniums. I said we should plant them out. They are hardy enough, but he likes them in the pots. He says the back yard has had them ever since he can remember.’ She laughs briefly. ‘I told him he must have a short memory because when I moved in, there was nothing but empty pots.’ She wipes a hand across her forehead. ‘Actually, I need water myself. Do you want some?’ She stands again and turns to the drinks fridge.

  ‘Yes please.’ Juliet looks out the open door, across the road to the sandwich shop, and waits for Stella to sit.

  ‘Did you want ice? It’s cold anyway.’

  ‘Don’t mind as long as it’s cold.’ Juliet takes a sip. ‘You know, why would someone want to open up a sandwich shop directly opposite you?’

  ‘Oh I don’t think it is competition. It has its own trade.’

  A man comes out of the bakery two doors up from the sandwich shop. He carries a crate in front of him, leaning back against its weight as he crosses the road. Like enormous brown eggs, the rounded ends of loaves peek from the wooden box. Stella stands and goes through to the grill room where she meets the man and takes her day’s staple. She returns to Juliet eating a chunk she has just pulled off one of the loaves.

  ‘You want some?’ She holds out the remains. Juliet shakes her head. She points with it to the sandwich shop. ‘The farmers use it before my grill has heated up. The kids buy a pie or sandwich there to take to school. I mean, you could hardly eat chicken and chips in the school yard, could you?’ They both chuckle.

  ‘True. I just wondered if it took any of your trade,’ Juliet says. Stella shrugs.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She sits and extends her legs in front of her with the abandon of a teenager, belying her age. ‘You know, I think about half of my business is from the women of the village who can’t be bothered to cook.’ She gnaws on her bread, crumbs falling and rolling down her floral print dress.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Juliet sound genuinely surprised. ‘All the women in the village seem to talk about is what they are cooking, or what they will cook—or what they cooked yesterday.’ She pauses. ‘I think it was one of the first verbs I learned in Greece. Mageireuo.’

  A dog sniffs its way along the road. It is the dog that guards the sheep in the barns just out of the village, recognisable as it is larger than most dogs that wander the village streets. Its wide leather collar is worn where it is chained up when it is working. But for now, it is free and the smells to be found are enticing. It looks up briefly as it approaches the shop. Stella throws the remains of her bread out onto the road in the dog’s path. It sniffs and eats, but with no real relish. This is one of the more spoilt working dogs. Well-fed and given its freedom when his sheep are out in the pasture. It is one of the dogs that does not need to be called when it is time to return to work, eagerly reporting for duty.

  ‘Market days are a good day for me,’ Stella continues. The dog continues its journey, turning up a side lane out of sight. ‘When all the women go into Saros to buy veg but don’t get time to cook, the phone rings off the hook.’

  ‘Unbelievable, and there I was chastising myself for not being more domestic.’

  Stella takes a serviette from the metal holder on the table, pulling at one. They all come out. ‘This heat helps, too. No one can be bothered to cook.’ She wipes her neck and, keeping hold of the used serviette, she stuffs the others back in the holder. ‘Shall we sit outside?’ The used tissue is thrown in the small bin by the door.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? You can never really know a business from the outside.’ Juliet stands to follow, taking both her frappe glass and her water. Sitting at the table nearest to the tree which is wound around with fairy lights, she stretches out her legs and kicks off her flip-flops. The golden colours in her hair take on a brilliance in the sun.

  ‘Talking of business, how is your translation going?’ Stella straightens the painted wooden chairs around the next table—their raffia seats face outward towards the road—before pulling out her own chair to join Juliet.

  ‘Good, good. I have more than enough work. In fact, I have been taking on books recently—bigger jobs. Lump sums, which come in handy. This year, I’m treating both the boys to a holiday to come over here.’ She pauses. ‘If I didn’t, I don’t think I would ever get to see them.’ She smiles but there is a sadness around her eyes.

  ‘Are they doing alright?’ Stella stretches even more, and as her legs extend, her feet point inwards, childlike. ‘Has Thomas actually bought the engagement ring for Cheri yet?’

  ‘Yes. Bless them. But their careers are still all they talk about, so I don’t see the wedding happening any time soon.’

  ‘And Terrance?’

  ‘Terrance is in Peru of all places at the moment, as part of his PhD. Still set on changing the world, one sewage works at a time.’

  ‘I don’t understand all these things they can study now. It seems you can take a course on anything you like in England.’ Stella finishes the water in her glass and pours them both some more. The plastic water bottle is empty. She crushes it vertically, concertinaing it from the top down on her knee before replacing the lid to make it hold its compressed shape. She leans sideways, aims and throws it in the small bin by the door, smiles, and nods at her success. Juliet rolls her eyes.

  ‘I think it’s even worse in America. I’ve heard of some of the most bizarre courses. Princeton used to offer a course in “getting dressed”.’

  ‘No!’ Stella’s laugh is light but heartfelt and after a moment, she wipes tears from her eyes. ‘The world is a bit mad, I think.’ Her laughter reduces to a giggle until it simmers to nothing. ‘Have you got anyone studying with you at the moment?’

  ‘No, why? You want some more lessons?’ Juliet says in English.

  ‘Ha! Thank you but no, not for the moment.’ Stella replies, also in English.

  A tractor putt-putts up towards them, the gears grinding as it comes to a stop in the middle of the road between the taverna and the chip shop. The farmer slides from his seat and the dog that w
as following the tractor stops and watches him enter the sandwich shop. After a second, it flops down in the shade and waits patiently, panting. The farmer comes out, shouting something back over his shoulder to the woman inside the shop, and climbs back aloft. The tractor splutters to life, gains momentum, the dog breaking into a trot to follow. It turns the corner of the square and the noise fades away.

  ‘Who owns it anyway?’ Juliet asks.

  ‘The sandwich shop? A guy from Saros. He’s got three in the villages around here.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s not the woman who works there, then?’ Juliet heaves a sigh in the heat.

  ‘No, she’s only been there for a couple of weeks. It was someone else before that. Do you not know her?’ Stella asks.

  ‘Who, the woman who works there?’ Juliet wrinkles up her eyes, peering into the dark of the shop opposite, but the contrast with the bright sunshine makes it impossible to see anything of the interior.

  ‘She’ll be over in a bit, when the breakfast trade has gone. It’s nice to have some company when business is slack.’ Stella lets her head drop back, the sun on her face. ‘India this year.’ She yawns.

  ‘Hm?’ Juliet, distracted by the children gathering at the bus stop across the street.

  ‘Mitsos. He’s taking me to India this year,’ Stella replies without opening her eyes.

  ‘Wow, lucky you.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a friend from there?’ Stella asks.

  ‘Pakistan.’ Juliet offers the one word, looks up to the square, to the wall around the palm tree where two Asian-looking men sit as they speak.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right.’

  ‘He’s in England now. Got a job there.’