Where the Bougainvillea Grows

by Gary Cleaver

  Alex pulled at his earlobe as he always did when serious thought was required, Thassos had already done the calculation but he waited patiently while his friend reached the answer.

  “September” he said at last.

  Thassos nodded “Second or third week.“

  They finished their cigarettes, Alex carelessly tossed his toward the sea, it landed short.

  “That’s it!” Thassos said.

  “What?” Alex was confused.

  “Garbage, Alex, Garbage! If the eggs are to remain undisturbed wouldn’t it be a good thing if nobody used the beach at all? If we spread garbage around the place no-one will come here.”

  Alex thought for a moment. “Except the British, they come here in their little boats and have picnics, they don’t seem to mind if there is garbage on any beach.”

  Thassos smiled. “When we have finished Alex, even they will turn around and go home.”

  Over the course of the next few weeks the boys visited the beach several times, each casually leaving the village with a blue plastic garbage sack over one shoulder, by the end of this period the beach looked…well …

  “Disgusting” said Alex proudly.

  “A true shit pile” agreed Thassos smiling broadly. “Now if one of us comes every other day, just to check.”

  “Good.” said Alex.

  They headed off home. Throughout the summer the boys kept a regular watch on the beach and mostly it remained deserted, however during the second week of August a small group of Dutch hippies took over the area. They somehow managed to get their wretched looking Fiat van close enough to set up camp. They didn’t seem to mind the mess; in fact they added to it, they were content to sit around drinking vast quantities of wine and singing folk songs. One of their number had a battered old acoustic guitar and seemed to have read at least half of the instruction manual, they also, the boys noticed on their visits, laughed a great deal. This could have been due to the almost limitless amount of weed they seemed to possess, but most important of all, they did not go anywhere near the nest.

  The day after the old Fiat groaned and creaked its way on to the highway heading north, the boys returned to check things out. When they were satisfied all was well, they went around collecting up every used spliff that could be found, there was enough, when de-constructed, to make a generous new one. They lit up and shared it between them, soon they got back to their favourite subject, when Thassos suggested that skinny runts like him would never get any action in that department, Alex whipped the baseball cap from his head, screwed it up and hurled it into the sea.

  “Malaka!” cried Thassos “Go and get it.”

  “Oh yes?” said Alex “And whoooo is going to make me?”

  There was a brief wrestling match, Thassos was five kilos heavier and it could only end one way

  “Alright, alright” he said, making faces and walking backwards into the sea. This turned out to be a mistake, if had walked forwards he would have seen the jellyfish, which he now stepped on.

  “Oh” he said, “Oh, ow, ow ow, shit,shit, shit, SHIT!”

  “Problem?” said Thassos mildly.

  “Jellyfish” yelled Alex needlessly. “Oh bastard, bastard, BASTARD!!”

  Thassos tried hard to keep a straight face.

  “Calm down” he said “You must piss on it”

  Alex forgot his pain momentarily and stared stupidly at him.

  “What?” he said finally.

  “Piss on it, I guarantee you it will ease the pain”

  Alex looked around, found what he was looking for and dropped his shorts, took careful aim.

  “Oh my God” shouted Thassos. “Not the jellyfish, the sting, the sting, piss on the sting!”

  “Oh” said Alex a little ashamed, he swallowed his revulsion and did the necessary thing, it did take the pain away somewhat. As the sun sank behind the mountains Thassos walked and Alex limped back to Katsimila, it was the last time they visited the beach together.

  In the second week of September Alex Karamis fell in love, this was not in itself an unusual occurrence, he was apt to fall in love on average three times a week, but this time would be different, mainly because of the object of his affections. He was waiting tables at the hotel Artemis in the early evening. The season being almost over there were few customers and he was able to cover all the tables on the terrace by himself. He came out of the bar with a full tray, as he set down the drinks for the German family of four, he noticed that the table in the far corner, which had been empty since he had started work, was now occupied. A young woman in a yellow dress, with a lot of blonde hair, was staring across at him and it was a sort of ‘Come here now’ stare. He speeded up his tray clearing, then practically vaulted over to her. She spoke to him in fluent Greek, but her accent was strange and some of her stresses less than perfect, he guessed she was French and in her mid twenties. He also noted that her eyes were pale blue and her lips full and sensual. Taking all this in gave him at least a small chance of tearing his eyes away from her breasts, they were very large and it took a great deal of effort for him to concentrate. He tried to be casual and charming, he thought he was doing a pretty good job; Alex had no idea who he was dealing with.

  Suzy Martins, short, buxom and blonde, came from the small town of Virton in southern Belgium. She was twenty seven and worked for the European Union in Athens as an interpreter, she was intelligent, vivacious, spoke five languages and, when it came to young men, was a real hunter-gatherer. She judged her young waiter to be around eighteen, and, while he was a little scrawny, a touch awkward, he was at least tall and quite cute. He would provide a welcome distraction during her short holiday, she thought. He took her order and came back with it in record time, as they talked, Suzy sipped her ‘White Russian’ and toyed absently with her hair. Alex was spellbound, she was pretty, sophisticated, sexy and she was interested in HIM!

  “Yes” he was saying. “This is my grandfather’s place, but I pretty much run it for him, he’s an old guy now and…”

  A loud throat clearing from behind him brought Alex back to earth in a hurry, he turned to face the man himself. At seventy five, George Karamis was not the oldest man in Katsimila, but he was widely acknowledged to be the wisest. He was also a hard task master where waiters were concerned, even if they were family, scratch that, especially if they were family. He was looking at Alex and leaning as always on his sturdy walking stick, he did not speak, he didn’t have to, Alex knew it was time for him to be elsewhere. He gave Suzy a half bow and went back to work, when he had finished stacking beer crates at the rear of the building twenty minutes later, he rushed back out on to the terrace. She was gone. Alex was crestfallen, he cursed his grandfather under his breath, now he would never see her again, he was doomed to die alone of a broken heart.

  The next evening, just after dark, Alex was wiping down a table and humming the saddest song he knew.

  “Hi” said Suzy, who had sneaked up behind him.

  “Oh hi” he said, trying to keep his cool and succeeding, partially.

  “What time does your shift end?” she asked.

  He was thrown, his cool vanished, “Oh…er…I…oh…ten o’clock.”

  “Good” she said, pertly. “I shall come back at ten, we will go for a walk, the moon is full tonight, it will be nice,” her voice lowered an octave, “romantic.” With that she turned and walked away toward the harbour.

  Alex thought she would never suspect he was watching, he was wrong, she walked slowly swinging her generous rear left and right. When she was out of sight he went on to the next empty table and began wiping, swinging the cloth slowly left and right, he was humming the same sad song but at a slightly quicker tempo. The tempo increased, eventually Alex Karamis began to dance.

  As ten o’clock approached he sank back into a black depression, she would not come, he was certain of it, she had merely been leading him on, teasing him, now she would leave him standing there looking foolish. But at two minutes past ten,
an eternity for poor Alex, she walked up to him and without preamble took his arm.

  “Where shall we go?”

  Alex felt the swell of her breast against his arm, he swallowed hard, “I know a place” he finally managed to croak.

  They walked arm in arm along the quiet seafront, past the last of the buildings and out into the moonlit night, heading south. A few minutes later Thassos arrived outside the hotel to meet Alex who had, perhaps understandably, completely forgotten about him. He paced back and forth for ten minutes, occasionally looking at his watch, then, his patience spent, he stomped off toward the beach. He could not believe Alex had forgotten him, the turtles could hatch at any time now and the two of them had to be there, all their efforts would be for nothing if they missed the main event. Pre-occupied with his thoughts of his eventual meeting with Alex and the things he would say to him, Thassos failed to notice a shadowy figure sat at one of the tables in the “Star six” bar, the last building on the front. As he went by the tall dark man unfolded his arms, placed a two euro coin on the table beside his empty beer glass, walked into the street and fell in step behind him at a discrete distance.

  The walk served to calm Thassos a little, “Well” he thought “Screw you Alex, if it happens tonight you will miss the whole thing, I have no sympathy.”

  The moonlight made navigation easy and he crossed the beach before the one with the nest just before eleven, stopping every so often to pick up a flat stone and skim it across the flat sea. A few seconds after he had disappeared into the scrub at the far end, his pursuer crossed as well, in spite of the mixture of pebbles and rough sand his footfalls made hardly a sound. Twenty metres short of the turtles beach Thassos stopped dead, he could hear voices, not actual words just muffled sounds, but definitely human voices. He crept forward as silently as he could, choosing his footsteps carefully, there were many dry twigs littering the ground here and if he were to step on one he would give himself away instantly. Eventually he came to the line of coarse bushes which marked the northern end of the beach; he crouched behind one for a moment and then slowly rose to peer over the top. Picked out starkly by the moon, two naked figures lay locked together on the sand, that was the first thing he noticed, the second thing was that the figure on top was Alex. Outrage rose in his throat and he almost shouted his friends name, a few seconds later Suzy supplied that for him. Thassos quickly decided that he should be anywhere but this place, he began to back away slowly and with even greater care than when he had arrived, after three paces he found himself up against something which, though it was not a tree, was almost as unyielding, he turned and looked up. The tall figure before him spoke very quietly and said one word, but behind the word was many years experience of command and parenthood.

  “Well?” said Dimitris Lambakis.

  “Papa” whispered Thassos, he prepared to launch into a lengthy and, he hoped placatory explanation, he didn’t even manage to make a start, for at that moment, Suzy Martins began to scream.

  This sudden ululation, high, thin and piercing, froze Thassos and his father to the spot, it was a sound, Dimitris thought, that had little to do with passion and a lot to do with panic. Alex however thought it was a compliment for his efforts and immediately re-doubled them, but Suzy was having none of it.

  “Oh my God!” she wailed. “Get OFF me, there’s something in my hair, my haaaiiiir!” She brought her feet down from around Alex’s back, planted them in his flanks, placed her hands on his shoulders and literally catapulted him off; he landed in the sand on all fours like a wounded dog.

  ”Ow” he managed.

  Suzy had no time for his problems, she was up on her feet and heading off along the beach scrabbling madly at her hair and screaming at an improbable volume. Dimitris and Thassos watched her go by.

  “What in the world” Dimitris began, but having no idea how to continue he merely stared open mouthed, fortunately his son was able to help.

  “I think, Papa” he said, “that the lady has a baby turtle in her hair”

  Thassos ran on to the sand to confront Alex, Dimitris took a deep breath, swallowed his disbelief at the situation he found himself in and set off after Suzy. As he caught up with her he decided that this kind of hysteria called for a firm hand.

  “Stop!” he shouted at her. “Stand still and I will remove the creature from your hair” This new development surprised her so much that she stopped dead and did what she was told. He took her by the shoulder and gingerly pulled the struggling turtle free, he set it down gently at the waters edge, the youngster’s instinct took over and it struck out into the sea at once. As they watched it go Suzy suddenly became intensely aware that she was naked, she yelped, threw her left arm across her ample breasts, thrust her right hand into her crotch and scuttled back along the beach to find her clothes. Thassos meanwhile had started to berate the still prostrate Alex.

  “You idiot! Of all the places you could have gone you chose here? God knows the damage you have caused!”

  He had much to add to this, but he became aware that, around their feet, there was an impressive amount of small shapes sculling across the sand, the two boys quickly tip-toed away to avoid crushing them. Alex grabbed his shorts from the top of a nearby bush and put them on, Dimitris returned and the three of them watched as nature played out a drama far greater than theirs, the simple majesty of this scene could not even be spoiled by Suzy’s persistent sobbing from behind a nearby tree.

  When it was over Thassos explained the events of the previous weeks to his father, he braced himself for the reaction, but Dimitris merely smiled.

  “Your mother said you were up to something weeks ago, if I had known it was this I wouldn’t have worried” his smile faded. “And I could have helped, I understand the need for secrecy but you should trust me a little more Thassos”

  “Sorry Papa.”

  Dimitris turned to the other bowed head. “As for you Alex Karamis, the best I can say is…” he paused and then sighed “I saw nothing, nothing at all. Come on it’s late, let’s go home. You too, mademoiselle I think it is best we stick together”

  They made a slightly uneasy quartet walking back along the tracks toward the village, Suzy walked a little way ahead, sniffing occasionally and muttering to herself in Flemish or French and sometimes Italian, she carefully avoided Greek. Alex dragged along behind suffering from a mixture of shame and lack of fulfilment.

  Thassos looked up at his father “Do you think the little ones have a chance Papa?”

  Dimitris looked out over the sea. “I don’t know, it’s very dangerous out there if you are small and defenceless, but I am sure that some will make it” he stole a glance back at Alex. “It depends how fast they learn.”

  The following day Suzy Martins climbed into her yellow Smart Car and drove out of Katsimila. Out at sea the turtles swam on, their new environment filled with dangers, sixty three of them had made it out on to the sand that night, sixty two got to the water (Suzy in her frantic dash had stepped on one) of these only four would survive to maturity; three of these four were female and, unlike Suzy, they would return.

  Aphrodite’s Crop

  In the holy land, in the garden of Gethsemane, olive trees grow. It is said they are the same trees that were there at the time of the last supper. Every year the olives that they bear are picked, pressed, the oil bottled and sent to a single customer: The Vatican in Rome.

  Christos Alexiou had heard this story from his father, as they picked olives together in the winter of 1958; Christo was then thirteen. Fifty years later, on a similar winter’s day, he stood in the small plot of land behind his simple house. He had just twenty eight trees. In a good year, and it seemed this would be, he was able to pick enough olives to provide him with three hundred litres of oil. He loved his trees, privately he called them his children. Through each year he saw to it that they were watered, fertilized and sprayed to keep them free of marauding insects. After each harvest he lovingly trimmed back the branches so that the
y would continue to grow strong and straight. It was a matter of pride to Christo that his trees were the best kept in the whole area of Katsimila and the oil was, quite simply, divine.

  At sixty three, Christo was lean and fit. What he lacked in height he made up for in strength and agility. As always he would pick the olives from all twenty eight trees alone. He shunned all offers of help, even from his wife Irena, also sixty three, who was not lean and fit. He would never say that she had let herself go, but she was a very “comfortable” lady. She wasn’t interested in olive trees anyway. She was much more inclined to cook, sew, watch endless television and complain about their two sons.

  Both Christo junior and George had left home shortly after completing their national service and had gone to seek their fortunes in Athens.

  “Bright lights, big city, no chance” their father had said, but Christo junior had been a moderate success from the start. Now thirty eight, he was married, with two sons and a daughter and held a senior position with a large and successful shipping company. But he rarely visited, his father said that he was ashamed of his family, Irena thought so too. George was another matter. He had spent his time aimlessly wandering through a succession of dead-end jobs and short-term girlfriends. Both parents worried about him constantly.

  Christo looked around at his trees, they were more family to him than his nagging wife and negligent sons, they did not complain, they would not forsake, they never made demands.

  He spoke directly to them. “Tomorrow, my children, we begin. Tomorrow we will make a start”.

  He strode back to the house. Inside Irena was sitting in a chair, one of the bedroom curtains lay across her lap, she was fixing the hem with practised strokes of a long needle. She did not look up.

  “The top hinge on the kitchen door is loose,” she said, “again.”

  He ignored her. He went through into the kitchen and out again through the offending door. It would not shut properly. He ignored that too. Outside in the yard were two small outbuildings, he opened the door to the first one and went inside.