Authors: Sara Alexi
He comes back smiling, swinging something in each hand, and throws one of them at her feet.
It is a leather flip-flop with coloured plastic jewels stuck on the top. Marina laughs and shakes her head.
‘Try them.’
Marina peels off a sock and pushes her foot into the flip-flop. The thong between her toes feels very odd but not uncomfortable. She stands and looks down. She cannot deny that, even in all their crudity, they look better than her old shoes.
‘Now why would you be travelling with ladies’ shoes in your locker?’ she asks.
‘
Why would ladies I keep taking from harbour to beach and back again not be taking them with them, I wonder?’
‘
You mean they forget them?’
‘
Bags, shoes, jackets, towels, I could open a shop!’
‘
No, you wouldn’t want to do that.’ Marina walks up and down the harbour. The flip-flop is very comfortable.
‘
I’m afraid they are last year’s style, but at least that assures you no one will claim them back!’ He throws the other one, which lands at her feet. She pushes her other shoe off and peels off her sock and pushes her toes in the gem-encrusted creation.
‘
They’re great!’ She wishes she hadn’t spent money on the blue socks now.
‘
Are you going across for the festival?’ He offers her his hand to help her on board and lowers her bag in after her.
‘
What festival?’
‘
Panayia, mother of God, this is the biggest night of the year. We celebrate the island’s most famous captain who single-handedly defeated the Turks in the war of Independence!’
‘
Single-handedly? Along with the Greek army and navy, and every man, woman and child!’
‘
Well, he defeated a lot of pirates and sunk Turkish ships. Anyway, it’s a good show and I will be in it! I will be part of the Greek fleet, attacking the Turkish galleon.’
‘
What? On the water?’
‘
Just find yourself a good view of the harbour after it goes dark, then wait and see!’ The engine engages and his chair swivels and bobs. He leans across and flicks the switch on his plywood box. The Greek singer Anna Vissi joins them in the boat, the captain singing in his own tongue, loud and proud.
He takes Marina straight to the little harbour so the walk to Zoe
’s is much shorter. The walk feels familiar and the steps up to the rooms are welcoming. She anticipates a warm reception.
Zoe is very excited to see her and Roula wants to try her dress on. Uncle Bobby keeps trying to wolf-whistle, but manages little more than a dribble of saliva on his chin. Zoe cuts them all a salad of tomatoes and cucumber and she spoons from a pan of butter beans in a tomato sauce. She pauses her spoon over Marina
’s plate.
‘
Gigandes?
’ she asks. Marina nods and Zoe spoons.
‘
I had an uncle once who had in a restaurant in Athens,’ Marina begins as she tears a slice of bread off the half-cut loaf. ‘One day he was serving
gigandes
and someone called out that there was a cockroach in his bowl of beans. My uncle realised that if it was a cockroach he was finished. Everyone in the taverna had heard the complainer and it would only be a matter of time before word spread across Athens. The customers turned to see what my uncle would do.’ Marina forks a bean and hovers it by her mouth. ‘So he walked over to the customer who had complained, and looked into his dish. He saw the black thing in the beans and with his fingers he quickly picked it out and ate it. “It’s just a burnt bean!” he declared, and no one could argue because the evidence had gone.’ Marina pops the bean into her mouth as if to re-enact the story. Roula laughs through her nose and puts her paper serviette over her mouth. Zoe, who has put down the pan of beans, slaps her aproned thighs and laughs, throwing her head back. Bobby nearly chokes.
The lunch lasts until mid-afternoon and finally everyone is feeling sleepy. Bobby is already asleep. The aunt still hasn’t woken up and Marina wonders how she can be so big if she is never awake to eat. She helps clear the plates before picking up her bag and taking her leave.
It feels good to be back in the rented room.
‘My room!’ Marina chortles to herself. ‘It is amazing how quickly we become familiar.’ This leads to a series of thoughts about Eleni becoming too familiar with the wrong person. She pulls the list out of her bag.
Costas Voulgaris – The Cockerel – because he was noisy – Father owned Kafenio by the port.
Panayotis (Panos) – His father was a barber. Grandma has seen young Panos walking past the house.
Socrates Rappas – Always fiddling with things, quiet.
Yannis Harimis – Known as ‘Black Yanni’ because he is so brown in the summer – his Grandmother was the midwife.
Aris Kranidiotis – Very naughty – his sister married the Papas from the church across on the mainland.
Apostlis (Tolis) Kaloyannis – His father owned the boatyard on the mountain village path.
Alexandros Mavromatis – She says he made her laugh. Known as ‘The Butterfly’ for his flitting from one girl to the next.
She has drawn a line through Panos and Yanni.
The kafenio owner
’s son should be easy to find, and the boatyard man’s son.
Also Panos was such a sweetie and she really did enjoy her brief visit to him, so she thinks she might return to him and ask him if he knows the other people on her list. She suspects he is good at discretion. Maybe he could also cut her hair? And she liked the girl: cool, calming. Interesting people.
After her afternoon sleep Marina takes the back route across to the main town and down to the harbour. She passes what she now thinks of as Aunt Efi’s place, without too much heartache. She passes the little shop that has spread onto the narrow lane. Further along there is a crossroad of paths with a shop almost as cluttered as her own, but with no goat bells or shepherd’s crooks, although it does have exotic fare such as brown bread and avocados.
It is all downhill after that. Shallow steps and steep steps, winding and turning. Dodging onto the shady side as she turns corners. Some of the houses near the port are now used as shops. Nothing has really been done to effect this conversion. The windows remain house windows, but the front doors stand open. Electrical goods crowded into a space as big as her own front room. Galleries, all clinical and white with odd, nonsense paintings, splodges and drips, that sort of thing. A book shop which looks as if it never opens, with a mobile phone number pinned to the door.
Round the corner and the final lane. Tourist goods on narrow benches in front of shops create an aisle that leads to the heightened sights and sounds and smells of the port itself.
Ropes slap rhythmically against the masts of the yachts; the port is no less busy than when she left. Now there are some larger boats anchored on the outside of the far pier, too large to enter the crowded harbour. The goods boat is in, its rear wide metal gangway laid flat onto the stone quay and its guts emptied of cargo. A few cats sit contentedly licking their paws. Maybe there were some fish on board.
‘How do?’ A gruff voice addresses her. Marina turns to see Yanni disappearing up the lane she has just come down. He has sacks of sand, or possibly cement, roped on to his beast.
‘
Hi!’ Marina calls, but he has gone and her voice blends with the harbour noises.
‘
Hello there!’ Another cheerful welcome. Marina turns again to see the other donkey man she has met, smiling away as he walks towards her, his mules laden with six-packs of drinking-water bottles, his hair carefully combed over.
‘
Kalimera!’ Marina smiles in return before he passes.
Marina feels almost as if she is home from home. For a moment she enjoys the familiarity, until she catches sight of herself in a shop that has a mirror for trying on sun-hats outside. The blue dress shocks her. Suddenly she feels conspicuous. What
’s more, the donkey men have recognised her. She scuttles into the nearest shop to ensure Eleni doesn’t have a chance to see her, if she is around.
A woman offers her assistance. Marina looks at the hats as her excuse for being there. She finds a dark blue, very wide-brimmed hat. She tries it on and it flops over her face. The assistant offers her something with a neater brim but Marina is pleased with the effect. She decides that even she would not recognise herself in her new dress with this hat on. She says she will take it and the woman takes out a calculator to work out the price.
‘Do I look like a tourist?’ Marina is dumbfounded at the cost. The woman blushes. Marina tells her she has her own shop and she understands about mark-up but there has to be a line drawn somewhere for Greek people who are just trying to get by. The woman blushes a second time and stabs more buttons on her calculator. She comes out with a price that, to Marina, is still high but much more reasonable. She hands over the money and the woman takes the note but not the coins. Marina smiles. The woman smiles back, looking more comfortable now.
Marina puts the hat on as she leaves the shop and pulls the brim over her face. She looks along the row of cafés. There is no way of knowing which one Costas Voulgaris’ father might own. She wonders whether she should sit at one and then enquire of the waiter, or if she should go into one of the cafés and enquire directly. Coffee is not cheap at the port-side places.
‘
Hello,
bougatza
and coffee?’ he asks. Marina is amazed how he can possibly remember her from all the people he must serve every day. She also feels a little disconcerted at how easily he has recognised her despite her change of dress and hat. Then she notices her brim has blown back in the breeze, framing her face. Besides, she reasons, Eleni has never seen her in anything but black so she will not take any notice of a middle-aged lady in pale blue. She will appear as just another person in the crowds. Nevertheless, Marina pulls down the broad brim of the hat. It flops over her face and she feels uncomfortably dramatic.
‘
Oh, hello. Actually, I am looking for a Costas Voulgaris. Do you know him? His family owns a café down here somewhere.’ It is out without a thought.
‘
Costas Voulgaris, let me think. Ah, Costas! Tell you what, you take a seat and I will bring
bougatza
and frappé. Sweet, wasn’t it?’ Marina nods. ‘And I will tell you all about that rogue Costas Voulgaris!’
Marina cannot help but smile. She selects a chair near to the café so she can see all the chairs in front of her, stretching down to the water
’s edge. There are one or two tourists but it is mostly empty. There is life everywhere but it is not sitting still. Everyone is moving, carrying, pulling, lifting, serving, talking. Only the cats and the tourists sit.
A hydrofoil pulls into the harbour and generates a bustle of activity down that side of the port. A number of men in suits get off. They look hot but they keep their jackets on.
‘Lawyers.’ The waiter puts her frappé and
bougatza
in front of her. She looks up at him and he nods to the seat opposite her. She nods in return. He sits.
‘
How do you know they are lawyers?’
‘
Who else would wear a suit in this heat? Besides, I happen to know that they are exchanging contracts on a three-million-euro mansion up on the hill there tomorrow, so they come today to watch the festival tonight.’
‘
Three million! Why so much?’
‘
Because all the foreigners want to live here, it drives the prices up. It’s an American who is buying the mansion tomorrow.’
‘
How do you know so much?’
‘
It is my mansion.’
Marina flinches and tries to reconcile a man with a three-million-euro mansion working as a waiter.
‘So is this your last day of work?’
‘
Now why would it be my last day of work? What else would I be doing with my day? I sold a taverna last month for over a million.’
‘
How come you have so much property, and why are you selling it?’ Marina has heard such direct questions in Greece all her life, and it seems only natural to ask.
‘
I am from a big family that has grown small. It has all come to me and I am selling it because these crazy prices will not last – how can they? It is not reality, it is madness. So I make my fortune while I can and get rid of things that need my attention. Excuse me.’ The waiter jumps up and persuades a German couple that they need beer and sandwiches. They sit down by the harbour’s edge and the waiter ambles to the café and returns with their drinks, before sliding in opposite Marina again.
‘
Yes, I am the last in the line and unmarried. After me there are no more Voulgarises when I am gone.’
‘
Voulgaris as in Costas, by any chance?’
‘
The rogue himself!’ The corners of his mouth twitch with a suppressed smile.
The lawyers make it as far as the café, puffing and sweating in the hot sun, looking incongruous in their suits and sunglasses. They sit at a table near to Marina and talk into their mobile phones.