A Stranger in the Village

by Sara Alexi

  ‘He would be that age,’ Vasso says.

  ‘Who would be what age?’ Marina asks.

  ‘The lad I cuddled with before I married – he would be about the age of that man.’ She points in the direction of the hill.

  ‘Ah, yes, and so would Meli,’ Marina says.

  ‘Meli – that’s an unusual name,’ says Juliet. ‘Do you mean meli, as in the sweet stuff the bees produce?’

  Marina blushes, but her eyes twinkle.

  ‘He was sweet, you see, and to him I was his Melissa.’

  ‘His little bee,’ Juliet says, looking up at the sun, which is at its hottest, just past the zenith. The occasional bang of a shutter can be heard around the village, signalling that people are preparing for their mesimeriano. Even the dogs are quiet in the heat and there are few people on the streets.

  ‘What was your boy’s name?’ Juliet turns to Vasso, who is drinking deeply.

  There is a moment’s of silence as she wipes her lips on the back of her hand. ‘You know, when we met it was instant! He was standing in the post office and my knees went weak. I saw from the look in his eyes he felt the same. Mama was with me so I could not do or say anything, but later that day, when she stopped to sit in the square for a coffee, I said I would take a walk along the seafront. I didn’t have a plan or know where he was or anything. I just wanted to be alone to think about him.’

  She pauses, her face taking on the glow of youth, the years dropping away.

  ‘Well, I went to the harbour end and when I turned to go back, who was there, straddling his moped, staring? I stopped walking and we just looked at each other. Then, ever so slowly, he let his bike creep towards me. My cheeks began to heat up and I was struggling to think what I would say when he got near enough to speak.’

  Juliet rolls the cold water bottle across her neck, her eyes on Vasso.

  ‘He spoke first. Oh my goodness, he sent chills down my spine. This low, husky voice. “I have three days,” he said. “Then I go to do my national service.” Well, I was about to be sent off to Orino Island to work in the taverna, and so I told him that. It seemed like fate, and we just stared at each other, not speaking, until finally he said something like, “Realistically this is not going to work, my love.” Can you believe it? He called me his love the first time we spoke. So I said that two days were better than none, my love, or something like that. I can still remember the thrill of saying those words to him, and how I blushed afterwards!’

  Vasso hugs herself, her water bottle spilling a little as she does so, making a dark patch on the floor that is quickly sucked into the hot concrete.

  ‘So did you get two days with him?’ Marina asks.

  ‘Not full days. We arranged to meet later that day on the beach. I told Mama I was meeting school friends. The next day I said I was going to a friend’s house. He picked me up just outside the village and we went to Saros and spent the whole day doing nothing really – holding hands, learning to kiss in quiet corners. But you know what? I still did not know his name. I called him “my love” and he called me “my love” and I sort of didn’t want to know his name or tell him mine in case he stopped calling me his love.’

  Vasso’s chest lifts with a deep breath, her ample breasts rising and then, as she releases the air again, falling just as dramatically.

  ‘I never found out my Meli’s name either. How extraordinary is that?’ Marina says.

  ‘Maybe, or maybe we just don’t put as much importance on real names at that age,’ Juliet suggests. ‘I know I had a boyfriend whom everyone called Click, of all things, but I thought it was a cool name so I never did find out what his real name was. Not until I returned home to visit years later, after my boys were born. Anyway, I bumped into him and it turned out his real name was Walter.’

  Juliet looks at Marina and Vasso, anticipating their laughter, but the name makes no impression on them. ‘Walter is a very old-fashioned name in England,’ she explains. ‘Conservative, even, and rather a soft name for someone who was pretending to be streetwise.’

  It’s clear the other two do not really understand.

  ‘Ahh’ Marina says non-committally.

  ‘Mmm.’ Vasso agrees.

  ‘So, how long were you with Meli?’ Juliet changes the conversation, putting the focus onto Marina.

  ‘One night,’ she replies.

  ‘One night!’ Vasso breaks into a whoop of laughter and nudges Marina with her elbow. ‘I guess that’s all it takes.’ She nods her head in the direction of Petta, who is now talking to Theo, who stands with his arms across his chest on the kafenio steps.

  ‘It was beautiful, gentle, warm,’ Marina says in her defence. ‘You know, I don’t think I even knew what was happening exactly, it just felt right and close and loving.’ Her voice becomes quieter as she remembers. ‘And let’s face it, with that Manolis as a husband, Meli is the only warm loving memory I have.’ There is a hard edge to her voice at the mention of her dead husband.

  ‘I was lucky,’ Vasso says. ‘My Spiros was a good man from the beginning to the end and I did love him, I really did.’

  ‘Being with someone again, sharing the same rooms with them, being accountable – for ages I could not bear the thought,’ Juliet joins in. ‘But it’s amazing how we forget how painful relationships can be, just like we forget the trauma of childbirth.’ She gives a short dry laugh and finishes her water. ‘Right, I’d better go and do some work.’

  ‘Are you teaching at the hotel?’ Vasso asks, taking a step out of the cool of the shop, towards her kiosk.

  ‘No, I have some translation to do, a short story for a novelist.’ Juliet follows Vasso out into the sun, her hand automatically rising to shield her eyes.

  ‘Right, I might get around to pricing up all that stuff you found with the sink plug this morning,’ Marina says.

  ‘Oh no, don’t – it’s nice to find things still in drachmas,’ Juliet says, and she gives a little wave.

  Chapter 15

  The walls either side of the lane are built of stone but the layers of whitewash have smoothed over the edges and corners, as though a white blanket has been draped over them. How many hands have whitewashed these walls, how many children have watched? How many Easter celebrations have been anticipated, as this ritual of whitening the walls has been repeated? Miltos reaches out and lets his fingers skim along the undulating surface as he makes his way up the hill. The route is steep and demands a measured pace, but it does not steal the air from his lungs. Tractor tyres have carved deep ruts up the track; a line of grass grows in the centre, but already it has browned and withered in the early summer heat. He passes the last of the houses, listening to the muffled voices in their courtyards. A woman, hanging out her washing, is talking to a dog, or maybe a cat. She is hidden behind a high wall, chastising the animal, but without malice. Soon the woman’s voice fades and the sounds of birds dominate. Here the walls are lower and he can see into the orange orchards either side. The first of the summer cicadas have begun their harsh mating call. Up ahead, the oranges give way to olive trees and the wall is reduced to a jumbled pile of stones, mostly hidden by long dry grasses, as though whoever built it was distracted long ago and abandoned the task. He will walk up past the olives, cut across to the right just where the wall ends and make his way up to the pines.

  A bird swoops across the lane and, further up, what looked like a twig on the rough tarmac zigzags away: a small snake – an adder, perhaps, that was basking in the sun.

  On the right a little further up is a gate, with a strange home-made letter box wired to it. The top of the box has a brass handle attached to it as if it was once the front of a drawer, and on the handle a lizard basks in the sunshine, its tongue darting out and back, tasting the air.

  The noise of a motorbike coming up the lane startles the lizard, and it lifts its head and slides out of sight behind the wooden box.

  Miltos watches as the bike approaches and then splutters to a stop by the gate. It is the postma
n, who calls out a cheery kalimera over the nose of his moped.

  ‘Kalimera,’ Miltos responds. ‘And a beautiful one it is too.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ The postman is chubby and slightly balding, and he looks about him as if he has only just noticed where he is.

  ‘Many letters to deliver?’ Miltos tilts his head in the direction of the village, which is laid out before them.

  ‘Always.’ The postman twists on his seat to look in his sack. ‘When I first took the job, nearly thirty years ago now, I was given to believe it would be easy. Even my mama joined in. “Cosmo,” she said, “take the job, it has a good pension. And how many letters can a village have?” Well, no one made allowances for things changing.’

  ‘I would have thought there weren’t so many letters now, as everyone has a computer and sends emails.’ Miltos puts his hands in his front pockets, his fingers fiddling with the broken edge of the shell. He relaxes his spine so he is sitting back on his hips, his stomach sinking in.

  ‘Yes, exactly – that’s what everyone thinks. But do you know how much stuff people order from the Internet? No. Exactly. I can tell by your expression it has never crossed your mind. Well, up to a certain weight and size I will deliver. Like these seeds for Mitsos, for example. I have no problem delivering them.’ Still straddling his bike, he pops the packet in the home-made box. ‘If they are too big I cannot, but I still have to deliver a card to tell people to collect the thing. No one thinks of that, do they? No! The number of cards I deliver seems to grow every month! And then they lose them and come to pick up their packages without a reference and who do they blame for that?’

  ‘Ah, but in the late spring days, what a job, wandering about the lanes, nothing but blue skies and birds above you. The satisfaction of a good day’s work done, and home to the wife for a well-earned meal.’ Miltos tries to sound positive.

  ‘I wish.’ The postman – Cosmo, as he called himself – swings his bag behind him and looks at the cuff of his shirt. Miltos can see big clumsy stitches holding frayed edges together. ‘Look at that.’ He holds his arm out so Miltos can inspect it. ‘You think a wife would do that?’

  Miltos shrugs.

  ‘She means well. My mama has always meant well, but – well, her sight is going, and, the simple fact is that one day she will be gone and I will be alone. But I am not sure she thought about that when she was vetting my girlfriends.’

  ‘You have had many, then?’ Miltos asks.

  ‘Well, no, not really. One or two when I was younger, but after my first girlfriend – more of a friend, really – I knew Mama would find fault every time, so after a while I just stopped looking. But now, of course, now I am past my prime, I am thinking what a fool I was – how I should have ignored her harsh judgements and found myself a girl.’ Cosmo turns his hand over to inspect his cuff again.

  ‘Life is tricky, but there are women around,’ Miltos says non-committally. Cosmo is not the only one to suffer; he himself has found a hole in his front pocket. He knows it would be best if he were to leave it alone, catch it with a stitch at the first opportunity, but he cannot resist fiddling, and, unseen by the world, he pokes his finger through, traces little circles in the hairs on his thigh.

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ Cosmo responds. ‘At one point in my life maybe it would have been a bit easier, but now, at this age? … Are you married?’ Cosmo stops looking at his cuff to stare Miltos in the face.

  ‘No. But I was.’ He can see he has Cosmo’s attention. He takes a breath and looks at the horizon.

  ‘I was married for three years. It’s amazing how three years can pass so quickly. And also so slowly.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Cuff forgotten, Cosmo rubs his forehead with his fingers, the beads of sweat soaking back into his skin.

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ Miltos adds quickly, ‘I am not complaining, I have been lucky. I’ve had a rather adventurous life, been here and there, done this and that. I’ve also had the pleasure of a number of girlfriends. But’ – he sighs, a wisp of a breath that is only just noticeable – ‘you are right. Until a certain point in your life it feels like you have a duty to the world. My baba died when I was a young man, and my mama when I was only a child. But my uncle, whenever I saw him – would he acknowledge any of the things I had achieved? No! Instead he would pressure me to join him in his business, as if I owed this to him and my baba!’

  ‘Oh? What business was that then?’ Cosmo takes the heavy bag off over his head and puts it on the floor, settling more comfortably on the seat of his moped.

  ‘Ball bearings. Oh, the joys of ball bearings. Do you know how ball bearings are made?’ Miltos asks, a half-smile teasing his lips.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is so exciting.’ His voice is flat and one of his eyebrows is raised. ‘You take a piece of wire which you cut into tiny pieces and then you cold-head the pieces and heat them up and cool them down and temper them … I could bore you for hours with the intricacies of ball bearings. But let me just tell you, the process of making ball bearings is one of the dullest things in the world.

  ‘Ball bearings are so dull that I thought nothing in the world would tempt me to work with my uncle manufacturing them. But you know what, there came a time when, although my life was exciting, I thought that there was something missing. You know that feeling, when you don’t feel complete?’ he does not wait for a response. ‘Well, I had that feeling and my uncle, with his arm around my aunt, suggested that it was because I was living my life too freely. He suggested that if I committed to one woman and settled down to have a productive life I would find the satisfaction I was seeking.’

  ‘Please tell me you did not acquiesce just to please him?’ Cosmo sounds genuinely concerned.

  ‘I’m afraid I did. I took his job offer and a year and a half later I married the woman he suggested and that began three of the most uneventful, unsatisfying years of my life.’

  ‘Did you have children?’

  Chapter 16

  ‘No, she claimed she couldn’t have children.’ Miltos can hear the cold calm in his voice.

  ‘Was she?’ Cosmo’s eyebrows are raised.

  ‘In year three she left me for the accounts manager because she was pregnant by him.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Cosmo squirms.

  ‘Actually, not so much ouch, more sort of phew! You see, although our courtship was much like any other and the wedding was every woman’s dream – you know, the fancy dress, flowers everywhere, big celebrations – she came with a heavy burden – her mama – and her mama came to live with us! In fact, when we returned from our honeymoon she had dinner on the table and was already running the house. Within a month I could not tell the difference between them when they spoke to me. It was as if Aphrodite had turned into her own mother overnight. I had married one woman, and got another into the bargain, and one was a good thirty years my senior and didn’t seem to like me very much. Also, she wanted everything to be a routine because that was the way her mama before her had always done it. Breakfast at eight, lunch at three, dinner at nine, that sort of thing. We went out for coffee on Saturdays and to church on Sundays. There was no spontaneity.’

  He pauses and turns to his companion, who seems quite happy sitting in the sun, halfway up a hill, listening to a stranger’s tale.

  ‘But do you know what the scariest thing is?’

  ‘Tell me.’ Cosmo smiles encouragingly.

  ‘You try to fit your round self into this square hole, and at the beginning it hurts, so do you know what you do? You try even harder, thinking that if you succeed the struggle will be over. But you never fit, and then the scariest thing is that one day you stop trying. You are neither out nor in, but you stop hurting and you’re just stuck there in this numb impasse and you no longer have the energy either to get through to the other side or to wriggle back to where you came from, and you don’t even complain. You just watch as the minutes, the days and the years of your life tick past.’

  His
mouth has gone dry at the memory so he licks his lips and turns so the sun is on the back of his head, putting his face in the shade. Cosmo stares at him, waiting for more, so Miltos tries to round his story off. A dragonfly hovers between them and then darts away.

  ‘Whilst I was in this position the cuffs of my shirts were always darned very neatly, my friend, but take some advice – be careful what you wish for.’

  Cosmo heaves the bag of mail back over his head. He has not spoken but he is nodding, his eyes on the ground as if he is deep in thought. He revs the engine of his little bike and with a deeply worried look wishes Miltos a good day; he turns to freewheel back down the track, kicking up stones, his bag of mail hanging heavily off his shoulder.

  Miltos remains standing, watching him go. Telling Cosmo the story of his marriage was like listening to someone else, as though it was another man’s tale and nothing to do with him; this is a familiar feeling, one that was present during the years of his marriage. It is remarkable that the feeling is so fresh after all this time.

  Aphrodite often said that he was not a team player. She complained that he was detached from the world and the events in it. In the beginning, he just dismissed what she said. But then her mama began to say it too, and over time the two of them wore him away. He began to wonder if there was any truth in what they said. He certainly didn’t feel as content as the other people he worked with appeared to be, and so he began to seek out books and journals on psychology, psychiatry and anything else that might give him some insight into how the mind, his mind, worked.

  One article he read described behaviour that sounded very similar to his own. It presented the concept of ‘detachment’, a condition that might manifest itself, apparently, in daydreaming and could extend to the extreme of dissociative identity disorder. He felt fairly certain that he had not reached that extreme, but as he read the list of symptoms, which included memory loss, he began to worry. Aphrodite often accused him of forgetting things – not just little things, but whole events. Like the time they had taken her mama out for her name day – he couldn’t even remember the cafe they had gone to or the people they had met. Aphrodite said it was not normal and he had begun to worry about himself. Was his state of discontent a sign of something more sinister, he had wondered at the time. Were the things his wife (and mother-in-law) accused him of just the tip of the iceberg? Did he need help?