The Tractor and Other Stories

by Sara Alexi

  ‘Of course, I might be being foolish. Maybe it would cost more to repair yours than to buy another one. Maybe–’

  ‘Done!’ Vangellis grabs Grigoris’s hand and shakes it heartily, pumping it up and down. Then he fiddles with Grigoris’s tractor for a minute or two, turns the key, and the engine roars to life. He drives off without making eye contact.

  Grigoris watches him go, then strides down the lane with a jerrycan in his hand.

  Lena is outside feeding the chickens as he chugs into their yard. The sun glints off the engine hood, and the engine is positively purring as he engages the handbrake.

  ‘What are you doing with Vangellis’s tractor?’ Lena asks. ‘And where is ours?’ Her voice is incredulous. The whole village knows of the tension between the pair.

  ‘Not Vangellis’s, mine!’ he announces.

  ‘Yours?’ She does not sound pleased. ‘Yes, mine! I swapped it for our old tractor.’ He grins now, certain that she will be thrilled, but her mouth is a thin line.

  ‘No good will come of it,’ she says. ‘That Vangellis is a bully, and whatever scam you have pulled on him, it will not end well.’ She stalks back into the kitchen.

  Grigoris sighs.

  Over the next few days, he takes the tractor up to the olive orchards and makes short work of clearing the stones, hauling away the dead branches, and generally making the farm look tidy. The tractor performs beautifully, and Lena’s frostiness disappears. Even Vangellis seems happy enough, although Grigoris sees him once or twice by the side of the road, peering into the depths of the old tractor’s engine.

  With this new tractor, Grigoris decides, he might be able to take on some contract work and get a little extra money coming in. He has got out of the habit of going to the kafenio and he feels he has time on his hands. Yes, this little game with the tractors has worked out very well indeed!

  A few days later he returns from a day’s work, whistling a tune over the low grumble of the machine. He turns into his drive and shuts off the motor. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he calls to Lena, and pokes his head in through the kitchen door. Two men are sitting at the table, and they stand as he enters.

  Lena does not look happy. The two men are casually dressed but definitely not farmers.

  He looks from one to the other, and then at Lena, who folds her arms across her chest. He does not recognise either of the men.

  ‘Are you Grigoris?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And whose is the tractor out there?’

  ‘Mine!’ Grigoris rubs his hands down his trousers. For some reason they have started to sweat.

  ‘And the tractor Kyrios Vangellis is using is his?’

  ‘Yes …’ He cannot help frowning. These men don’t look like farmers or tractor dealers. ‘In what way can I help you?’ The taller man takes one hand out of his pocket, producing a flash of glinting silver metal and the impression of blue.

  ‘Police. I’m sorry to tell you your tractor is stolen property, Kyrie Grigori. We have to seize it.’

  ‘No!’ Grigoris steps outside, towards his beloved machine, and the men follow.

  ‘We have reason to believe Kyrios Vangellis bought it in good faith, but the fact remains the people who sold it to him had no right to sell it. Do you have the keys?’

  His mouth hanging slack, Grigoris cannot find words to express what he feels. He points to the ignition. Why him? Why is it always he who ends up worse off? Why?

  The shorter of the two policemen fills out a form and indicates where he must sign. The taller one has climbed onto the seat – his seat! He starts the engine and drives Grigoris’s tractor, his beautiful red tractor, away. And still he can find no words, no way to resist. Lena comes out, watches the tractor trundling down the road towards the square and rolls her eyes.

  As they stand there, watching the red tractor turn in the square and head for Saros town, another tractor comes into view. Vangellis is perched on top, heading towards them.

  Grigoris waits to hear what Vangellis has to say about the situation. He will obviously offer the old tractor back. After all, it was Vangellis who made the mistake of buying stolen goods. His old tractor draws nearer, puffing out black smoke, but it doesn’t slow down. Maybe the brakes are going too, now. But he can fix that.

  But Vangellis is looking straight ahead with no intention of stopping and, as he passes, he briefly turns his head, looks Grigoris in the eye, and grins broadly.

  ‘Bad luck,’ he says, and continues on his way.

  The Tractor Part II

  ‘That smells so good,’ Petros says as his aunt Lena carefully takes the roast out of the oven. There is a shiny new electric oven in the kitchen, but Lena prefers to use the old bread oven out on the patio, round the side of the house, for roasts. It is a large-domed, brick construction, with a metal door at the front and a little chimney that sits at an angle and lets out the smoke from the olive logs that Grigoris cuts and stacks for her. The lamb has been slow-cooking all morning, flavoured with rosemary freshly picked from the garden, and the aromas are amazing. Lena often cooks a leg of lamb when their nephews come to see them, but Grigoris thinks that, this time, their visit may be more than a social call. The boys seem tense somehow.

  At this time of year, when it is almost too hot to move and his muscles are relaxed and floppy, it seems difficult to be tense about anything. By the end of August Grigoris has trouble just focusing; the lethargy of his limbs seems to envelop his mind.

  Beside the domed oven are three lemon trees that shade the table. Shafts of light fall through the leaves, dappling the smooth wooden surface and creating dancing spots on Petros’s and Spiros’s youthful faces. They both look like their baba, his brother Karolos, and sometimes he even sees traces of his own baba, their papous, in their features.

  Grigoris stretches his legs out under the table. The table can accommodate twelve people with ease. At Lena’s name day recently, many more than that were assembled here; it felt like the whole village was in their front yard, and several legs of lamb were consumed that day. But now, with just the four of them, the boys facing him and Lena, it is more intimate, and that is pleasing too.

  ‘So, how’s life?’ he asks, rubbing his hands together as he watches Lena fill his plate with meat. The vegetables and salad are in dishes on the table. Neither of the boys answers.

  ‘Petro? Spiro?’ He looks from one to the other.

  ‘Fine,’ one of them mumbles, but as they are both looking down and sitting so close to each other he cannot tell which.

  ‘Oh? What’s happened?’ Lena takes the lead before Grigoris can open his mouth again.

  ‘We don’t want to trouble you with it,’ Spiros says, but without much conviction.

  Grigoris is about to say something to encourage him to open up, but Lena beats him to it again.

  ‘Your troubles are our troubles.’ Her voice is sympathetic. ‘So tell us, maybe we can help?’ She sets a plate down in front of each of the boys.

  ‘There is nothing to be done,’ Petros says, and he sighs deeply. A chrisomiga flies into the yard and goes straight over their heads and through the open door into the shade of the kitchen. Grigoris can just make it out as it ricochets off the far wall, flies haphazardly around the room, then bounces off the glazed picture of Lena’s deceased parents by the stove that glints as it catches the light. The fat insect narrowly misses Lena’s head when it comes buzzing out again, and she ducks and flaps her hand in front of her face. It flies low and Grigoris’s attention is caught by little vortexes of dust that swirl and die in the light breeze.

  Spiros’s expression, which has been glum since he arrived today, at least brightens a little at the sight of the generous portion of lamb on his plate.

  Lena helps herself to the salad. She eats meagre portions, in order to ‘keep her figure trim,’ she told Grigoris once. ‘Not enough for a bird,’ he replied, though he secretly felt a little ashamed at the size of his own rounded belly. But that was a while ago, and his
belly has mostly gone now, as has his jowling second chin. Since he ‘got rid’ of his tractor last year he has been more active and feels so much fitter. Lena has told him he looks years younger. He is now so active he can eat plates filled to overflowing. He appreciates the benefits to his figure that have resulted from the added manual labour he has been engaged in. That, and he does not have to find money for diesel now.

  When he had the tractor, his chores were over so quickly he was often left with idle time on his hands, whereas now he finds he does not have enough hours in the day. His idle hours were often spent in Theo’s kafenio, and it cost him a small fortune. Now he is physically too far away, out at his furthest olive orchard, to bother about returning to the village for lunch, and so he does without. The ouzo is also a thing of the past as it is not conducive to a full, hard day’s work, and so his euros stay in his pocket. When all is said and done, returning to the old ways has been a change for the better on the whole. But his blood still boils at the way Vangelis swindled him out of his tractor. Well, that is not strictly true … It was he who tried to trick Vangelis out of his new tractor, cleverly swapping it for his old one. But it’s amazing how Vangelis always seems to come out on top, and it is Grigoris who has ended up with no tractor. It happens every time: Vangelis wins, Vangelis on top, Vangelis comes out best.

  These thoughts are unwelcome, and he would like to avoid them, but he glances involuntarily towards the land behind his house. He has an old barn there, and once, a long time ago, when they were on better terms, he gave Vangelis the use of it. Vangelis has stored equipment and fertiliser there over the years, and it has been fine. After all, it is not as if Grigoris has had any real need for the space, and why not help out another farmer? But, as if to add insult to injury, Vangelis now has the audacity to keep the tractor in there – Grigoris’s old tractor, the one he feels Vangelis tricked him out of! Only last week Grigoris demanded that Vangelis remove his things from the barn, and they nearly came to blows over it. Vangelis made it difficult, saying he had nowhere else to store his straw and olive nets, fertiliser and plough, as if it was Grigoris’s problem!

  ‘Something can always be done about everything.’ Lena’s words interrupt his thoughts. The heat doesn’t seem to make her mind wander as it does his.

  ‘Okay, it’s simple.’ Spiros speaks with sudden energy. ‘It’s that Vangelis.’

  Grigoris stops eating. The muscles around his jaw twitch; his emotions bubble through as he speaks. ‘That Vangelis. What has he done this time?’ he snarls.

  Lena looks at him, her eyes wide.

  ‘He employed us to build a wall at the back of his yard,’ says Petros. ‘One to go all around the back and down the side. You know, the old wall that was made of plythra bricks. You’ve seen it, right? The wind and the rain had eroded the mud bricks away, and it was on the verge of collapsing …’

  Spiros takes up the narrative.

  ‘He offered us a job fair and square. To pull down, break up and level off the plythra and then to rebuild the wall with concrete bricks and cement and render it.’ He nods in his brother’s direction for confirmation.

  ‘Yeah, as far as we knew it was a regular job,’ Petros says. His fork plays with the fresh salad on his plate.

  Grigoris can feel the tension rising in him as the boys voice their grievances. That Vangelis has a nerve! First his tractor, and now this. It’s clear from their tone that he has not dealt fairly with the boys. He feels angry. Anything – everything – Vangelis does makes him angry. He has a good mind to go round to Vangelis’s house right now, call the old scoundrel out, and threaten to punch him on the nose if he does not make good whatever he has done to wrong Spiros and Petros.

  ‘So, what happened?’ Lena asks.

  ‘Well, we did the job, rendered it on both sides, even cleared away the mess, and left his yard as neat as if we had never been there …’ Petros says.

  ‘But then he refused to pay us. Two hundred and twenty-seven euros and fifty-eight cents each, to be precise,’ Spiros adds.

  ‘What?’ Grigoris puts down his fork, and he and Lena stare at their nephews. They are young lads, and they are both honest and hard-working.

  ‘Despicable!’ he adds. Lena nods in agreement. The boys will presumably have told their father about it. Grigoris loves his brother dearly, but Karolos is such a passive man that he would rather the boys were cheated than make a fuss.

  ‘Haven’t your parents done anything?’ Lena asks.

  ‘We dare not tell Mama – you know how she is,’ Petros mutters.

  He has a point. Nikki is a feisty woman but no man wants a woman to fight his fights.

  ‘You should do something,’ Lena says to Grigoris, and the suggestion shocks him. To dream of punching Vangelis on the nose is all right in theory, but Vangelis is a good head taller than him and considerably heavier. The reality is, if the man does not want to pay there is no easy way to make him. And Vangelis is stubborn – always has been, ever since they were boys. At one point, for a brief six months or so when they were at school, he outgrew Vangelis. With the height advantage, it was his turn to do the pinning to the floor when they fought. But, unlike him, when Vangelis’s arm was twisted behind his back no amount of force would make him give in. It would get to the point where he thought Vangelis’s bones would snap, and Vangelis would suppress little whimpering sounds, but still there was no giving in.

  ‘What should I do?’ he asks Lena. ‘He is as stubborn as Old Costas’s mule!’ He shakes his head and his cheeks flush with heat, and he keeps his eyes on his food so he does not have to meet Lena’s gaze.

  ‘Ah, but you are cleverer,’ Lena says. He glances up at these words, to see Petros and Spiros regarding him with obvious hope in their eyes. He would love to be the hero of the moment for these boys, but he can think of nothing he could do or say that would make Vangelis pay if he did not want to. He would love to do this to impress Lena, too, but he has lost his tractor and he can’t even get his own barn back. The boys do not know the full story, and he cannot tell them all this and dash their hopes.

  He makes a sound that implies he is thinking and they continue to eat in silence.

  After the meal, Grigoris takes to his hammock by the old donkey shed at the back of the house and begins to doze, trying to suppress his fury at Vangelis. The donkey shed is built of plythra too. The mud bricks, reinforced with straw and baked hard in the sun, are an excellent building material, so long as they are rendered and protected from moisture. They provide excellent insulation, keeping the interior of the shed warm in winter and cool in summer.

  But, like Vangelis with his wall, Grigoris never got around to rendering the donkey barn, and one side, which takes the force of the prevailing wind and the spring rains, is badly eroded. At some point that wall will be rebuilt with cement blocks. He has even bought the blocks and had them piled in front of the shed, ready to begin construction. The cement blocks are stacked across the entrance to the shed and for the past few months Grigoris has been obliged to climb over them every time he wants to get some tool out or put another away. He must get around to finishing this job. Just as soon as the summer heat cools off.

  His eyes close.

  He wakes with such a start that he involuntarily grabs at the side of the hammock, which rocks vigorously.

  ‘Lena!’ He rolls from his resting place: he has awoken with a plan. He must tell the boys. ‘Petro, Spiro.’

  Whilst Lena has been tidying and washing the dishes, the boys have been snoozing in their chairs, and they come to with a start at the sound of his voice.

  ‘What?’ Spiros is the first to speak.

  ‘I have a way for you to get paid by Vangelis,’ he announces proudly, noting the look on Lena’s face – she is mystified but impressed. ‘Are you prepared to do a day’s labour for me for nothing though?’

  They frown in unison but soon find their voices. ‘Of course,’ Petros says. ‘As if we would ever charge you,’ Spiros assures him.


  ‘Right, then.’ Grigoris is about to explain the details of his plan, but a part of him is enjoying the way Lena looks at him, as though he is a hero, and he decides he will keep them mystified for a bit longer. ‘Come here first thing tomorrow ready for work, and we will begin,’ he instructs the boys, and despite their questions he will say no more about it.

  The boys are there just as the sun is rising over the mountains to the east.

  ‘Right,’ says Grigoris, with a hand on Spiros’s shoulder. ‘I’m afraid that, because I have no tractor now, the first part of this job will be the hardest. We will need to take all those cement blocks from here up to the mandarin orchard.’ He indicates the pile in front of the donkey shed.

  ‘But that’s all the way up the hill,’ Spiros complains.

  ‘Well, if you have any other ideas how we can get them to the barn over there …?’

  Petros and Spiros enjoy taking turns to drive their baba’s moped up to the barn, pulling behind it an old pram that they have fashioned into a trailer. It does not hold many cement bricks but it is quicker and less effort than carrying them, and a lot more fun, and when they have transported the whole pile the boys are still fresh and eager. They take a couple of bags of cement too.

  Grigoris tries not to let his anger show at the sight of his barn full of Vangelis’s things.

  When he originally wanted Vangelis out of his barn he went to the police about it, at Lena’s urging. They showed little interest in his complaints, but they did warn him not to meddle with Vangelis’s things, even though they were in his barn. If he were to touch Vangelis’s possessions without permission he might be breaking the law, and Vangelis could prosecute. Since he had once said that Vangelis could use the barn, they explained, it made things more complex, and Vangelis had certain rights. They grew impatient with him after that, and it was clear they would not be of any help, so he left.

  Well, now he will get the boys’ money and his barn back. As for his tractor, never mind! He rubs a hand across his flat belly. Vangelis can keep the tractor and grow fat!