The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8)

by Sara Alexi

  The lizard jerks its head to look at them.

  ‘It was so soft and gentle, I named it Moro Mou, My Baby.’ He chuckles. He can feel his cheeks warm so he repeats the phrase in English to take the focus off him.

  Sister Katerina smiles.

  ‘She died the week I named her.’ Yanni twists his moustache and the lizard darts away. ‘The first of many. I learnt not to love them so much and I never named another.’

  ‘I remember you doing the same with school,’ Sister Katerina says quietly. Yanni frowns slightly, struggling to make the connection. ‘You couldn’t wait to get home to your mama to tell her all about your first day, do you remember? You didn’t have the patience to get all the way up the hill, so you came running in here to tell me all about it, that day and every day for the first two weeks. You loved it so much.’ Her smile fades. ‘But then lambing took precedence and as your time was needed up on the ridge, you dismissed school. You told me, maybe you have forgotten this, that it was an “inconvenience that got in the way of real life”.’ She smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. ‘Pushing it away because you loved it so much, perhaps.’ They lapse into silence. The lizard reappears. Another butterfly, or perhaps the same one, comes and sits on the windowsill. Yanni wonders at how much life there is if you sit still long enough to see it. He finally shifts in his seat, breaking the meditation and Sister Katerina speaks. ‘I wonder if we protect ourselves from our fears by choosing to love people we cannot get near so they cannot hurt us.’ She turns to look at him.

  Yanni meets her gaze.

  ‘Like choosing to love God?’ Yanni asks. His moustache twitches at the corners of his mouth as he struggles not to grin. Sister Katerina gives him a mock stern look and then glances at an icon to let him know that her God is watching them, hearing every word.

  ‘Or in loving Sophia,’ Sister Katerina challenges.

  The butterfly leaves the sill and flies up and over the wall and is gone. Yanni is not in the mood to discuss his love for Sophia. He gazes out over the convent wall, up to the hill tops, a nice safe distance.

  ‘Right.’ Sister Katerina breaks the stalemate and picks up the piece of paper before her. ‘The list is not long. The vegetable garden has come into its own this week.’ She checks what she has written and replaces it on the table to add an extra item at the bottom, folds it, puts it in an envelope, and seals it before handing it to Yanni.

  The sunlight is blinding as they leave the cooler interior. Sister Katerina walks with him through the garden, ‘Sto kalo,’ she calls and then she leans on the heavy door to shut it after him. Just before it fully closes, she stops.

  ‘Yanni, where is Dolly?’ she asks, holding the door open a crack.

  Yanni’s shoulders sink and his brow knots. His hand comes up to smooth his hair from front to back. The sister opens the door wider.

  ‘She is dead,’ he says, blinking.

  ‘Oh Yanni, I am so sorry. What happened?’ Sister Katerina comes out of the gates and goes to rub Suzi’s nose.

  ‘On the way towards the boatyard. The path has narrowed.’ He looks at the floor and twists one toe in the dust. ‘She was carrying a foreign woman.’

  ‘Oh my goodness, the woman as well?’

  ‘No. She is fine, and she has given me money to buy another donkey.’ His tone is flat.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘From the mainland.’

  ‘Ah … I see,’ she says. The ‘ah’ is elongated, expressing her new understanding of the topic of conversation they pursued earlier.

  Yanni waits, hoping she will say something helpful. She is looking into Suzi’s eyes and her hands explore the softness of her muzzle.

  ‘You and Suzi will be sad for a while. She was a good donkey.’ Sister Katerina pats Suzi’s neck and now looks Yanni in the eye. ‘Do you have time to come back in and talk a while longer?’ Her invitation is tender, but Yanni cannot hold her gaze. Dolly feels too far away right now and the mainland too close. He shakes his head. He takes up Suzi’s rein and nods a farewell.

  He walks a few steps, Sister Katerina returns inside her fort, the door thudding closed behind her.

  Yanni stops, rolls a cigarette, and flicks open his lighter. He pulls on Suzi’s reins and they begin to walk away.

  The edge of town, at the top of the amphitheatre of houses, is quiet but as they descend, the noise begins; doors open and close, windows are shut, people call to one another.

  A group of women pass, chattering, their black-encased shoulders drooping with the weight of their shopping bags. Children run, chasing one another, careful to avoid Suzi’s rear end. Stories of children being kicked to death have been drilled into them since birth. Shops appear among the houses and their open doors offer cool interiors. A wide array of their goods trickle onto the pathways. Taverna tables and chairs line the way here and there as they get nearer to the port.

  The lace makers have draped their wares over shop doors, on chairs and tables which all but fill the pathway onto the harbour front itself. Little old ladies in black sitting outside their tiny emporiums twist their fingers and crochet tools to weave items for which neither Yanni, or his mama, could ever find a use.

  They look up from their work to smile at him because he is a familiar sight, but none of them know him well, although they all know him by name, know his nature—and leave him to his solitude.

  Around the port’s three sides, the shops are open and each has claimed as much of the walkway space in front of them as they think they can get away with to display their wares without passers-by being forced into the water. Jewellers compete with designer clothes shops next to art galleries, reflecting the wealth of the visitors who, on holidays and at weekends, descend on this island.

  The cafés are full, extra chairs have been put out, not even a space left to walk between one café to get to another, the chairs and tables trickling all the way to the water’s edge and here, hopeful cats sit and watch and wait for the fishermen who will come home at some point.

  A cruise ship has just come in and deposited its catch of tourists. By this, Yanni judges that he is late, might have missed his chance for easy money. The stragglers are still disembarking, the eager ones already engaged in haggling with the lace makers and drawn into jewellery shops.

  All the donkey men are there. Mimis is helping an Asian girl onto his lead mule while her friend stands giggling, waiting to be lifted onto the rear animal. Both girls wear long-sleeved shirts, white gloves, sunglasses, and very broad-brimmed hats.

  ‘Hey Yanni,’ Hectoras’ gruff voice calls. Yanni pulls Suzi toward him. Hectoras turns to a passing woman. ‘Lady—donkey. Take bags to hotel?’ He uses his limited English to tout for business. The woman ignores him.

  ‘Hey Yanni,’ he repeats. ‘When are you going across to get a new donkey?’ Next to the mass which is Hectoras, almost hidden by his bulk, stands Tollis, pulling his jeans up on his slim hips, his animals not needing to be held. Tollis’ method of approaching the tourists is to make eye contact and then vigorously point at his animals—a little brown donkey and a fine ass with a glossy black coat. His English is for money only; he can count, and this is enough. It is a bit of a mystery, once Tollis has got a foreign client, how he communicates to agree where he will take them, but he seems to manage. He points again and the woman shakes her head.

  ‘It is good that she is paying.’ Hectoras refers to the tourist lady who was on Dolly when she slipped over the cliff. Nothing remains private for long on the island.

  ‘Sure, why not, she is a foreigner, she will have plenty of money,’ Tollis agrees whilst raising and lowering his eyebrows at a passing Japanese girl and pointing at his ass.

  Yanni says nothing.

  ‘So when do you go?’ Hectoras asks.

  ‘Not sure if …’ Yanni begins his sentence but lets it peter out unsaid.

  ‘Big cut in your salary if you don’t,’ Hectoras encourages.

  ‘It’s not like there are any for sale on the island,
’ Tollis offers.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t want to get one from here, they are all too interbred. Go across to the mainland.’ Hectoras and Tollis turn to look beyond the port across the water to the blue hills in the distance, under the clear deep blue sky.

  ‘Over there.’ Tollis points. ‘Behind that hill above a small village near Saros, over the other side of the peninsula. You know Saros, right?’

  Yanni does not answer. Although he has no desire to leave his island, he feels there is some shame in admitting that he never has.

  ‘Yes, yes, jump on one of the water taxis to get across, then just take the bus up to Saros. You’ll get a lift from someone if you start walking to the village and then it is just a stretch of the legs to the breeder. It’s a good stretch, mind, but do-able if it is not too hot,’ Hectoras confirms. ‘Got Bibby from there.’ He pats his lead mule’s neck.

  ‘Donkeys too, or just mules?’ Yanni’s mouth hardly opening to form the words, his reticence betraying his will.

  ‘Donkeys, mules, asses, hinnys, whatever you want.’ Tollis points to his animals in quick succession as another group of foreign girls walks past. They giggle and hide their mouths behind their hands, chattering shyly to one another. Two of them pause and then step forward and nod their heads at Tollis, who grins, showing a missing tooth to one side, adding to his cheeky character. The girls giggle all the more.

  A blonde lady with fine, floating clothes and a large monogrammed suitcase pauses to hitch up a handbag on her shoulder, bangles glinting in the sun as they slide down her arm, six months’ donkey pay on her feet in the form of a flimsy pair of sandals. The sort of woman who thinks nothing of tipping a day’s pay, not aware of how generous she is being.

  ‘Lady, would you like me to take your bag to your hotel for you? It looks heavy and it is hot.’ Yanni approaches her.

  ‘Oh, English.’ She sets down the suitcase gratefully and her shoulders relax. ‘You speak English. Wonderful.’ Yanni steps forward to take her bag.

  ‘You sharp-talker, Yanni. You didn’t learn to gabble in English like that at the school I went to,’ Hectoras teases, confident the lady does not understand Greek.

  ‘Same school,’ Yanni mutters. Hectoras’ bullying days have not been forgotten.

  ‘Yeah, but you were never there, always with your goats, that or you skived off with, er, what was her name?’

  Hectoras’ left hand goes up to his throat, the fingertips feeling a scar under his chin. His voice is goading, challenging Yanni.

  Yanni ties the suitcase onto the side of Suzi’s saddle: once round with the thick rope, underneath, and a simple hitch to stop it slipping. The woman catches her breath and searches in her handbag, from which she retrieves a pair of overly large sunglasses that swamp her delicate face.

  ‘What was her name, Yanni? Smart … Smartest girl I’ve ever met. What was it? Oh yes, Sophia. Do you remember? Left the island when she was only a teenager, didn’t she? To become a nun in that place over near Saros.’

  Yanni clicks Suzi on.

  ‘I bet you haven’t thought of her for a long time, have you?’ Hectoras asks, but he has lost interest; Yanni does not rise to the bait and another tourist is approaching.

  Chapter 6

  Before they are halfway up to the hotel, the foreign woman begins to complain about the heat and the number of steps that climb ever upwards through narrow alleys between the whitewashed houses. She looks longingly at Suzi, who is laden with her suitcase. At this point, Yanni would normally suggest that she take a ride on Dolly, and his fee would double as a result. But now he can make no such offer. At the hotel, the woman dabs her forehead and neck with a tiny lace-edged bit of material and catches her breath. She is in no mood to tip. The cool air-conditioned interior of the hotel beckons and the journey up is forgotten. Yanni returns to the port and watches as work is offered to his colleagues who have more than one animal.

  Up a narrow alley just yards from the port is a little shop that sells groceries. Despite its size, it does a healthy trade, and, although they have their own mule, there is sometimes work to be had delivering goods to demanding customers. Not today, however, although they are very sorry to hear about Dolly.

  When the evening cargo ship groans into the harbour, metal creaking, crew shouting, Yanni gets a couple of runs with water bottles up to another shop, higher up in the town, where four paths cross. A shop that is crammed to the rafters with cold drinks, fresh vegetables, bread, fire-lighters, home-pickled olives to be scooped out of big jars, face cream, string, hair clips and all manner of day-to-day items. It’s a sweaty walk up to the houses in this part of town, but the owners are compensated for their efforts by the most fantastic views across to the mainland, out over the sea, which is dotted with floating islands. The grocery shop saves them a walk down to the shops in town. The shop owner, hemmed in behind the tiny counter with two caged singing birds and an ever-friendly dog, charges higher prices because all the goods have to be brought up by pack animal. But those who frequent her Aladdin’s cave understand and accept this as they push past fly swats and oil lamps that hang from the ceiling to get to the worn wooden counter where they will be greeted with a smile. Besides, so many of the ancient stone houses in the town are holiday homes to rich Americans, English, and French. Their time on the island for the summer months is spent without a thought for money, or so it appears.

  The donkey men generally share the four-paths-shop work between them, one of their daily staples. Yanni is more than usually glad of the work today. As Suzi clops her way up steps and eases her way around the tight corners of the narrow path, there are several times when Yanni encourages her along but calls her Dolly. Each time the inadvertent mistake falls from his lips, his throat tightens and he reaches for his tobacco pouch.

  As the day’s light fades and the whitewashed houses turn pink and the sea begins to darken, the mainland across flattens to an even indigo blue. Yanni looks across to the mainland that stretches away to the west and east. It seems to stretch on forever.

  Down in the harbour, lights in the cafés are coming on. The donkey trade has all but stopped for the evening; it is time for him to head home. Hectoras is standing by his mules.

  ‘How about an ouzo and a game of tavli?’ Hectoras hitches up his trousers around his ample waist as he speaks; the white lining curling over his twisted belt. Yanni opens his mouth and closes it again. It is an unusual offer.

  For Hectoras, it is obvious which café to choose. The name over the door tells anyone who wants to know that Costas Voulgaris is the proud owner. Costas never sided with Hectoras at school, nor did he defend Yanni, unless things went too far and Sophia was not there. He trod the middle ground with wit and goodwill. He is, above all, a diplomat. A skill which no doubt held him in good stead when he went to America to study. But the island lured him back and now he makes coffees and talks to the foreigners in their own tongues.

  ‘So you are going to the mainland, Yanni?’ It is the man himself. ‘You know, I have lost all interest in leaving the island since my adventures.’ Costas Voulgaris pulls out a director’s chair for Yanni to sit, nearest the harbour edge and next to Hectoras.

  ‘You want something, a lemonade perhaps?’ Costas asks.

  ‘I’ll have an ouzo,’ Hectoras demands. ‘No ice.’

  ‘No,’ Yanni answers, but it comes out louder than he intended.

  ‘It’s not that I would mind going anywhere, rather that I cannot see the point, do you know what I mean?’ Costas says as he walks away to get their order.

  ‘I er …’ Yanni stumbles.

  ‘He’s right,’ Hectoras mumbles, ‘and you know why?’ Without looking at it, he kicks out the chair Costas offered to Yanni even further. Yanni looks at Suzi, who is snoozing, and lets go of her rein so it just dangles, and then he slides into the proffered chair. He will sit just for a moment. Suzi will find the journey home easier the more rested she is and the cooler it gets as the day passes into evening.

&
nbsp; They stare across the water, side by side, to the mainland.

  ‘It’s too big,’ Hectoras states. ‘The mainland, it’s just too big, don’t you think?’

  Yanni has no reply.

  ‘This town, Orino town, is just a tiny dot. A lot of people huddled together.’ He slaps his belly and his hand rests there, one finger finding its way between buttons to scratch his hairy navel. ‘We collude in the idea that this place is important, but we are ants.’

  Yanni wonders if he will lose the light if he sits too long. He still has to deliver Sister Katerina’s goods. A cloudy lemonade is set before him, the ice tinkling against the glass. He looks up to tell Costas he does not want it, but the owner-cum-waiter has already turned on his heel and is inviting some German tourists to sit, have a cold beer, enjoy the sunset.

  ‘At school, they try to make you think the island is important,’ Hectoras continues. ‘And then, just as they begin to succeed, the teacher tells you how big the rest of the world is.’ He takes a long drink from the glass of iced water that came with his ouzo. Costas, having seated the Germans, is now clearing used glasses from the table behind them. He stops to watch people disembark from the converted fishing boat that offers day trips to the more obscure beaches around the island. Many of the tourists are sunburnt, they all move languidly, animated but tired, bags bursting with flippers and masks, sunhats and sun-creams, towels over their shoulders. Their own particular tribe.

  Hectoras continues. ‘The lies they told us at school, eh Yanni?’ He guffaws quietly to himself.

  ‘Ha, and who did the most lie telling, eh Hectoras my friend?’ Costas gently taunts him as he passes by. Hectoras plucks a serviette from the holder on the table and wipes his face. He takes a second and lifts his chin to wipe his neck, the sweat running down a line of discoloured puckering and briefly collecting in the thin skin of a deep indentation before continuing down to the sharp distinction where his shaved beard meets the unshaved hairs of his chest.

  Yanni pushes himself up a little from his slouched position. Hectoras drops what’s left of the tissues in the ashtray.