A Stranger in the Village

by Sara Alexi

  ‘Who?’ Miltos asks. The orange trees in the grove adjacent to the yard rustle suddenly, the leaves lifting in a light breeze. The same wind cools the back of his neck.

  ‘Tourists,’ says Aleko. ‘On the one hand, they complain that something will go wrong before it has happened. This means I always expect a big argument when they return the cars. But then, when they do return the cars, there is never any complaint, only smiles and thank yous. I am finding it very stressful.’

  ‘Different cultures, different thinking,’ Miltos says.

  ‘Have you been abroad? Do you know foreigners?’ Aleko’s face is stippled with the sunlight coming through the leaves and it reminds Miltos of petite Florentine, her face dappled in the sunlight of Fontainebleau forest in France, Gus and Henry standing next to her.

  He was there for climbing, the boulders in the woods perfect for practising.

  ‘That’s a good one to start on,’ Florentine said, dipping her hands into her chalk bag so they wouldn’t slip on the rock. ‘You start off there and then go straight up the face.’

  She patted her fingers together to get the surplus off and a small cloud of dust drifted away on the breeze. The sun was brilliant through the pale-green deciduous leaves. The floor of the forest was so flat it didn’t look natural, and there were climbers all over the other boulders like ants, using them for practice and to perfect particular climbing moves.

  ‘It’s got a long reach at the top,’ Florentine added. ‘Actually, I’ll try something with less of a stretch on the other side. You coming, Henry?’

  And the two of them went off, heads together, sharing lovers’ secrets, holding each other’s chalk-dusted hands.

  ‘Personally I don’t like it. It’s a thuggy route, all brawn and no brain. They’ve never done it.’ Gus was still looking at the route, but he nodded in the direction that the lovers left in. ‘Needs too much height for Florentine and too much bottle for Henry.’

  He always spoke directly like that – straight. It never felt offensive, because of his smooth French accent. Then he walked away, around the huge boulder, and Miltos was alone. The birds filled the branches above his head and children’s shrieks of delight could be heard all over the forest. He looked up the rock face, saw where to place his hands and his feet and decided he could do it.

  His chalk bag hung behind him from a cord around his waist. Usually it hung from his harness but as he was not going up any roped routes today he had left all that kit back at the campsite.

  When he arrived the night before he had pitched his tent in the black of night, and the campsite had been silent. But when he had awoken this morning he had been greeted warmly by strangers in the other tents. That was the way it was in the climbing community: everyone accepted, everyone treated like family. It was one of the reasons he did it.

  The moment he poked his head out of his tent in the morning Gus introduced himself and asked, ‘You been here before?’

  ‘No.’ Miltos admitted. They spoke English, their mutual language.

  ‘Well, my friend, be prepared to learn how to climb all over again.’ Gus’s chuckle was a little smug. ‘Try to understand what the problem requires and just enjoy solving the puzzle, eh?’ But he was friendly enough.

  A small, lithe girl walked, catlike, towards them from another tent.

  ‘This is Florentine, my cousin,’ Gus said, and then another head popped out of the girl’s tent. There was an edge in the way Gus introduced Henry.

  ‘It is all slopers and mantles,’ Florentine informed Miltos as she sat down on the dusty, bare earth beside them.

  ‘And there’s a lot of pressing and squeezing,’ Henry sniggered, tripping on the guy ropes as he tried to get out of his tent and running forward to gain his balance.

  ‘The routes are generally beefy and gymnastic, not for girls.’ Gus’s eyes flicked to Henry rather than to Florentine. Henry put a possessive arm around Florentine’s shoulders.

  ‘Strong legs are helpful, as well as strong adductors. There’re a few heel hooks on some of the routes. Also, on some of the slabs you just basically want to do a one-leg squat and you may also want to glue your fingernails to your fingers too.’ Florentine grinned at her own joke and examined her nails, which were short and ragged.

  ‘But you are in the right place,’ Gus reassured him, and then he set about making breakfast for them all.

  Now, standing in front of the route that Florentine and Henry had never attempted and that Gus had described as thuggy, he felt strangely isolated. He wondered if he was the only person who felt like that before a climb. But it was what made him a bold climber because it gave him the sensation that he had nothing to lose. At that moment, death would have been just a part of – the final curtain to – the adventure of youth. So he faced the route, looked up its height and made the first move, stepping on a low, broad rock on the ground to gain the first hold. It was easier than he expected until halfway up, at which point he knew that if he went further he would be committed. There could be no climbing down after that point. He pressed on.

  The greatest demand was now on his upper body and, as he continued, the build-up of lactic acid in his forearms became unbearable. There was no hold on which he could stop to rest, and each manoeuvre demanded more of him than he felt he had left to give. His fingers would no longer curl because of the acid in his muscles and the only way out of the situation was to make an effort to reach the top as speedily as possible. He was two handholds away from the summit, the end so close, but his legs, by this time, were trembling, and the next hold was a long reach. It would need a dynamic manoeuvre and he did not have the strength left. His calves began to give. He looked at the ground and knew that if he hit it there would be no avoiding the rock at the bottom. If he jumped he would be looking at two broken legs, and if he fell he could crack open his skull. There seemed to be no choice left, and he summoned all his strength to bear the impact as his grip gave way.

  Chapter 8

  The fingers that locked around his wrist were so unexpected he could do nothing but stare up into the face of Gus, whose grip on Miltos’s arm was strong and sure. Without hesitation, Gus, shorter than Miltos by a head but presumably fuelled by panic, summoned the strength to lift Miltos vertically from the rockface. Then Henry appeared and grabbed Miltos’s free hand, and between them they hauled him up, his belly scraping against the top edge. For a few minutes the three of them lay sprawled on the flat top of the rock, then Henry began to laugh. Gus grunted, and Miltos felt another gaze on him. He looked around to find Florentine there too, staring at him, a look of ashen horror on her face.

  ‘Never climb up what you cannot climb down,’ Gus spat and took an easy route back down off the boulder.

  ‘Wow, man, that was epic!’ Henry exploded. Florentine’s colour came back slowly, but her staring increased with everything he did after that. For the rest of the day he chose easy routes, Henry joining him, and Florentine occasionally making suggestions, and the dappled shade under the light-coloured leaves of Fontainebleau seemed to be the most perfect spot on earth.

  Two days later, however, he did fall. Not off a rock, but on the wet bathroom floor following a drunken evening with the others. It was a clean break that made him shriek more in surprise than pain. Florentine was first by his side, kneeling beside him and resting his head on her knee. Henry flapped about without a clue what to do and Gus ran to get help.

  The hospital was new and well equipped, but soulless; however, things looked up when a pretty young nurse was assigned to him. She confirmed that the X-rays showed a break, and she spent some time strapping him up. A night’s stay would be enough to check for concussion.

  The nurse was very attentive. Several times she looked him in the eyes for no real reason. It was only when he was shown to a bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror, that he saw what the nurse saw and realised she must have been flirting. There in the reflection, instead of the tall skinny youth he had always been, was a man whose m
uscles had all filled out, presumably from the climbing, and his olive skin had tanned from spending so much time outdoors, and his dark hair had flecks of gold put there by the sun. So, on returning to his bed he did what was the most natural thing in the world. He flirted back. That was when things became weird.

  ‘How are we feeling today?’ the nurse asked as she came in the next morning to plump up his pillows. She had more make-up on than the day before.

  ‘Hey.’ Henry came in. ‘No climbing yet, there was dew in the night and the rocks are wet, so I’m here to kill time until the sun dries them out.’ He grinned and offered Miltos a paper packet with a croissant inside. He politely accepted, but as he had eaten bacon and eggs half an hour before he put it to one side. The nurse was changing his water and made eye contact with him as if they were already in the middle of a steamy relationship.

  ‘I brought you some flowers.’ Florentine came in behind Henry. They were wild flowers and they had wilted somewhat, but Miltos was touched by the thought. Something was different about her, and Miltos had to look twice before he realised that her face, usually scrubbed, was also made up. ‘Henry, go get us coffees,’ she whispered quietly and, like the docile hound he was, with a cheerful smile Henry was gone. The nurse’s eyes flashed at Florentine and Florentine looked daggers back at the nurse. In the same awkward second they were both smoothing the bed, one on each side, and Miltos suddenly felt like a pawn in a game he had not agreed to play. The nurse tried to outdo Florentine by moving from the sheets to the pillow, arranging it behind his head. Florentine might have been petite but she was feisty on the rocks and just as fiery, it seemed, in the rest of life. Without hesitation, she took his comb from the bedside table and started combing his hair, blatantly staking possession. Miltos could only think of poor Henry, who would walk through the door with the coffees at any moment.

  The nurse countered by picking up his wrist and looking at her watch. ‘Pulse steady, that’s a good sign. Nothing here to make it race,’ the nurse said.

  At this, Florentine looked the nurse straight in the face and then bent over and kissed him full on the mouth.

  The nurse huffed her indignation and left the room. When Florentine pulled away, Henry was already standing in the door with three coffees balanced between his extended fingers. The look on his face told Miltos that although he was hurt by what he had just seen, this was not the first time.

  Henry and Florentine left the hospital that morning together, but Florentine looked back at Miltos.

  ‘No, I don’t understand them either,’ Miltos tells Aleko who, having finished his water, is picking at the oil and dirt on his watch strap.

  Miltos was discharged later in the afternoon, and when he returned to the campsite Gus and Henry were still there but Florentine was gone. Neither of them mentioned her and Miltos presumed the topic was not for discussion. But it left him feeling very awkward so he left in the night, the same way he arrived, with no one seeing him.

  For a while after that, he felt very alone; it was almost a physical feeling as if something was tearing at him from the insides. He wandered aimlessly until he found himself in Paris. But his days were purposeless and he wandered aimlessly there too. It was just chance that took him into that museum, but it was as if another world had opened up to him. He discovered French painting, or, to be specific, impressionist painting, and that was the first time he felt that other people like him existed in the world, saw life as he did.

  ‘No, I do not understand them at all,’ Miltos repeats to Aleko, and he finds that now his decision to go to Morocco to find Ghita is no longer the right one. The exotic is not what he wants any more. He wants something more personal, more real. Someone closer to his soul. A good old-fashioned Greek girl, perhaps?

  Chapter 9

  Miltos wanders back towards the village square with this thought in his head. It teases him. A Greek woman of his age will be married, with children, and grandchildren, no doubt. If she does not have a man at home then the chances are she will be in black, the shawl of mourning over her shoulders, weighing her down so she cannot lift her head to contemplate the possibility of new love. Such attitudes are cultural, of course, but for him these are also a problem with no solution. Unless he can find himself a feisty woman, one who flouts the rules, runs to the beat of her own drum – that woman would be his equal, someone who is capable of standing up to traditions and making her own decisions. But before he can dwell on it any longer he is distracted by the thwack of wood upon wood. An animated game of tavli is being played in the kafenio.

  Miltos trots up the three steps into the masculine domain. Above the men’s heads, just below the ceiling, hangs a billowing cloud of tobacco smoke. It hovers thinly, and will no doubt thicken as the day goes on, but for now its acrid aroma does not reach his nostrils. Rather, it is the smell of Greek coffee that dominates. A man with a fuzzy mop of hair is standing behind a long counter by the back wall, watching a briki balanced on a gas stove. This man looks up as Miltos enters and smiles in welcome.

  But he is still thinking about the women in his life and wondering why he has never stayed with any of them for very long. He has had his chance with Greek women as well as with foreign girls, but the Greek women, back in the days when he was courting them, always seemed to have a mama not too far behind them, a combination that generally seemed rather formidable and put paid to any romance that might have bloomed.

  He sits at the counter in the depths of the kafenio, half turned so he can see some of the room and through the window to the side where the corner shop is visible.

  ‘What can I get you?’ The man with the mop of hair has a gentle, easy way of talking, the sort of lilt that is only gained by conversing with people all day every day. Milton’s own drawl is similar but slower. He has removed all the rush from his life.

  ‘Theo, I’ll have a refill when you have a moment,’ another man calls.

  ‘Make mine a coffee, metrio.’ On the rare occasions when he does drink coffee, Miltos likes it strong, black and medium sweet.

  Theo gathers the used cups that are piled on the counter and puts them in the sink, then starts on Miltos’s coffee. With a well-practised movement he stirs a spoonful of sugar into the water and puts it to boil. The granules dissolve slowly and the water takes on a sheen. From a shelf behind him he takes a new packet of coffee, snips off the top and holds it out for Miltos to smell.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ But it is not really a question. Theo gently drops a spoonful of the fine granules on the water where they float, and Miltos watches as the grounds absorb the water, sinking with a satisfying plop.

  ‘I wish everything just took time and patience,’ Theo says.

  ‘Such as?’ Miltos is looking forward to this drink. Theo has lifted the briki from the heat twice already when the froth has threatened to boil over. There will be no traces of grit left.

  ‘Women,’ Theo says. He pours the coffee into a waiting cup and then fills a glass with water from a bottle in the fridge before presenting them both to his customer.

  ‘Thank you. Miltos, by the way.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Theo,’ Theo replies, introducing himself in turn.

  ‘Women can be controlled but not all women can be controlled the same way.’ Miltos shares his knowledge.

  ‘Well, I cannot control my woman in any way,’ Theo huffs.

  ‘How long have you been married?’ Miltos is not sure he wants this conversation; so far, it is only serving to remind him of what he came in to forget.

  ‘Oh no, we are not married, and that is just another example of the problem.’ Theo starts another coffee and looks up to scan the room. ‘No. I want to marry her, and I have asked her, many times over the years. She does not deny her love for me and yet she will not say yes. Then, as if to rub the situation in my face, there is Loukas and Ellie. He’s a young man who works at the hotel. You might have met him, he runs the beach bar.’

  Miltos grunts, his lips on the cup. He canno
t wait to taste the deep-brown nectar.

  ‘Well, he is not even thirty yet and he is marrying in two days’ time. And there is another problem.’ He lifts the briki off the heat as it begins to boil over.

  ‘What’s that then?’ The coffee could not be more perfect and Miltos is only half listening, responding automatically to Theo’s chatter.

  ‘After the church they have arranged to celebrate here in the square. You know, put all the chairs and tables out.’ He turns off the gas with one hand and lifts the briki with the other. ‘And we will use the chairs and tables from the eatery too.’

  He looks up in the general direction of the ouzeri, cup in his hand. ‘Together we will do the food and the drink – only, and I don’t even know if Stella is aware of this, we have already agreed to do Petta and Irini’s baptism party, and it turns out that that is on the same day.’

  Miltos doesn’t ask Theo to clarify who Petta is but he is becoming curious about this Stella.

  ‘But surely the priest knows he has booked these two ceremonies on the same day?’ Miltos says, readying himself for a second sip. If he had a choice he would rather sit in silence to drink the coffee, but Theo seems like a very gentle man, and besides, Miltos doesn’t mind indulging someone who turns coffee-making into an art.

  ‘Hrumph.’ The sound comes from the back of Theo’s throat. He pours a glass of water and takes it and the latest coffee to the waiting customer, before coming back to the counter and wiping everything clean. Hanging the cloth on a hook and mirroring Miltos’s pose, he leans on the counter.

  ‘The priest is all rush, rush, rush, as if he still lives in Athens. It would make not one bit of difference to him if he had booked them both on the same day. He would be happy to run the church like a conveyer belt.’