The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8) (6 page)

Chapter 7

The cobbles under Suzi’s hooves click in time with the heels of Yanni’s boots. They lapse into a familiar rhythm and Yanni’s thoughts give way to a mercifully pleasant blankness.

The wide path narrows and grows steeper and finally peters to nothing but a dusty track, used by few. It zigzags steeply out of town.

If he were to leave the island, what if something should happen and he were to never come back? His mama and baba are growing ever older, and things that would have once not affected them now present insurmountable obstacles.

Thoughts of them ageing brings also the inevitability of their deaths. One day, he will be alone up there, and what woman would ever choose such isolation? They cluster like chickens, needing the social whirl of each other’s company. If he is ever to even consider marriage, he must be ready to live in town. Something he can neither afford in money nor in peace of mind. There is not a woman alive who would choose to be his wife, if only because of his circumstances. After his parents are gone, he will not be choosing to be alone up there. He will be forced to be alone.

Isolation is different from solitude, and what if something happens to him? When his baba slipped and broke his ankle over at the far grazing area, he crawled the distance home on his knees. It took him four hours and his knees were shredded. If Yanni had not been at home with his phone and his donkeys, it would have been another four hours to crawl into town. Baba would never have made it, and he was a younger man then.

The monastery door is ajar, a slash of light taming the rough ground outside.

‘Well hello.’ Sister Katerina’s voice breaks through his gloomy thoughts as he pushes the door open. ‘Late tonight. Did you get everything?’ she asks with energy in her voice. She scans his face. ‘Yanni?’ she asks more gently.

‘I was thinking,’ he answers with no elaboration.

She takes her favourite seat by the little church from where there is the best view of the garden. There is a jug of water and two cups.

Yanni uses the moment to take the things he has brought for her from town inside. He puts them on the end of the long table before returning to sit with her.

‘Ah …’ A sigh that is almost a yawn is her greeting on his return. The sunlight is now nothing but a soft glow, somewhere between day and night.

‘I was thinking of whether I have to go over to the mainland, Sister,’ Yanni says.

‘Oh I see, and your dilemma is in wondering if you can put off the inevitable, perhaps?’

‘Inevitable?’ Yanni asks.

‘Maybe it is time?’ she says with a glance.

‘Are we talking in riddles today, Sister?’ Yanni laughs quietly, respectful of the mood in the garden.

‘It would not only be a donkey you were buying.’

Yanni frowns and waits for her to explain.

‘Let me ask you a question.’ She straightens her robes over her knees. ‘If there were a good donkey on the island for sale, would you buy it?’

There is a pause.

‘Yes, I would.’

‘So it is not from not wanting a donkey that you are not leaving the island, then?’ A quick roll of her eyes acknowledges her tangle of words. When the smile drops from Yanni’s lips, she adds, ‘Fear’s a funny thing.’

Yanni turns from her to look over the garden. He reaches for his tobacco but, with a sideways glance at the nun, replaces it in his pocket. Instead, he grinds a pebble into the dusty earth with the toe of his cowboy boot.

‘We all feel fear when we face something new. There is nothing over there that you need fear. There is not a big demon out there eating islanders for breakfast or anything.’ She laughs at the thought and her mirth judders through her body. ‘Perhaps this is a lesson being offered to you so you can learn to trust yourself. Trust yourself with people perhaps, realise you have as much right to be here as the sun or the …’ She looks around herself to name something else, at which moment Suzi calls out her loneliness: big heaving bellows as if she knows her cries will never reach the ears of her lost long-eared companion. ‘Or the donkeys.’ Sister Katerina acknowledges the sound. ‘Sometimes we name a feeling we do not recognise as fear, but it may in fact be excitement, or anticipation, or expectancy, but we just have not understood it, or ever connected it with that particular event that we are experiencing. It is only as we step over that threshold, into the fear so to speak, that we can truly name it.’

‘Yes but meanwhile, we are feeling fearful,’ Yanni offers.

‘That’s what I am saying. It is not really a feeling. It is a thought, a pre-emptory thought. That’s the demon, and he is not on the mainland.’

‘You never mention God when you lecture me,’ Yanni says.

‘Do I need to?’ she asks. ‘I have always found logic works better with you.’ Her eyes dance a little, waiting for his response.

‘I think you are the demon that eats islanders for breakfast,’ Yanni rejoins, his attention being drawn by the sound of Suzi scraping her hoof on the ground outside. She will be hungry. He is also hungry.

‘There is another thing, too.’ Her hand raises to the cross around her neck. ‘Sophia.’ She waits. Yanni stops breathing for a second. ‘I cannot tell you how she is in the nunnery near Saros; maybe she has moved to another nunnery. But even if I did know anything about her life, I think it would make very little difference to you. The Sophia you hold in your heart, who keeps you from being at peace, is not the Sophia who has spent the last nineteen years in God’s service. Maybe it is time to face that, too; realise you are holding onto a dream, an imaginary person. Go Yanni, visit her, realise she is not the same person. Give yourself peace.’ The last sentence she says with energy.

His throat is too constricted to speak. He smooths out his moustache and then wraps his arms across his chest. ‘No.’ He says it quietly.

‘Yanni, we have spent many hours together learning, and it was not revealed to me until recently what all the learning was for. Do not use the dream, a dream that, if treated right could turn into a lovely memory, to hamper your life.’

‘But …’ His voice is almost a whisper.

‘Again, we have fear, but is what you feel fear or is it another emotion that you will not truly know until you meet her face to face? Maybe it will be relief, relief that you can let her go. Or excitement, excitement that you no longer have your loyalty to her holding you back.’

‘But it may be heartbreak at my loss.’ Yanni is not sure if he says the words out loud.

‘And the fear is you would not cope with that loss. That is our ultimate fear, I think, the fear that we cannot cope.’ Sister Katerina makes it all sound so easy.

‘What if I cannot cope?’

‘What does that even mean, Yanni? How would it manifest itself if you “could not cope”? What would it look like?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah, so now you fear the unknown again. Maybe “Not being able to cope” feels like sadness, or emptiness, or even hopelessness.’ Katerina waits for some acknowledgement of what she has said. Yanni lets his arms drop to his lap. ‘Feeling sad or empty or hopeless doesn’t feel nice, but how long do those feelings last? We cope with them, Yanni. It is part of human nature.’

He leans forward, his elbows across his knees, his head hanging.

‘The truth is, Yanni, unless you go and you face these things, nothing will change. You will continue on the hill there with your parents, a piece of you yearning for a love that will never be, until God takes your family and then you will be truly alone, and maybe you will have missed your chance to find love and your dreams will be of little comfort then.’

The garden is quiet. The day of buzzing and searching for nectar is over for the insects. The roses in the twilight look black, the moonlight gives a glow to the edges of the paths where Sister Katerina has whitewashed. Yanni wipes his hands down his jeans, sits back, and takes a deep breath.

‘So you will go?’ Sister Katerina asks lightly.

‘So I just walk up to the convent door, knock, and ask to speak to her? What if she doesn’t want to speak to me?’

‘For that, you must trust in God,’ she says. ‘Besides, I have something that I really need to have delivered to that convent. I would not trust it to go by post, so this is the only way. Will you deliver it for me, Yanni?’ The request is so gentle, but even in the moonlight, he can just see her eyes are sparkling, mischievous, alive. He nods; what else can he do? After all she has given him, the hours of her time, the patience, all he has learnt, how could he say no to anything she would ask of him? Especially something so simple as a delivery? It is so little to ask, and while he is there, he can buy a donkey.

‘Good.’ Sister Katerina draws out the word and rolls to her feet to glide indoors, returning after some time with a paper parcel bound up tightly with string. She hands it to Yanni.

Yanni turns it in his palm before finding a pocket in which to store it.

‘Now, you should go tomorrow, I think.’ Nothing she says sounds rushed or pushing, but her delivery is emphatic nonetheless. ‘Don’t you have some family in the village over there? A second cousin was it? He came here once, I seem to remember. What was his name? Your mama will know.’

Yanni feels he is falling into a hole. It seems not only that he must go but somehow, it has been decided that he must go tomorrow. The ground is opening beneath his feet and he dangles.

Sister Katerina must see his hesitation as she takes a gliding step towards the boundary door. Yanni reacts by standing and walking mechanically by her side.

‘Tell your mama that if she needs to telephone your second cousin so he can prepare for you, she can come to use the convent phone. Also, as long as you are on God’s business, tell your mama you will be safe and I will be praying for you—personally.’ She indicates his pocket with the missive. ‘It makes sense for you to buy your donkey whilst you are there, does it not?’ They are at the big wooden door. Yanni nods his head compliantly. As an afterthought she adds, ‘If your mama has any worries tell her to come down to me anyway.’

With this, she gently bustles Yanni out of the door, handing him a delicate rose that she nips off from the nearest of her bushes for him to give to his mother.

Outside alone with Suzi, it is quiet. It is dark.

A day to get there, a day at the convent and the donkey breeder’s place, and a day to travel home, he reasons, but he doesn’t really believe he is going anywhere yet.

He puts the Nun’s parcel in the saddle bag and his hand automatically reaches for his tobacco pouch.

Chapter 8

It is dark. There is a door, no, a window, a light beyond. So bright. Better to keep his eyes closed, just for a moment. The bed he is on, sagging, soft, swirling. Still swirling with his eyes closed. Water would be good. It’s possible to make out the shadows of the ceiling. An oblong room. It is not home. But where, what time? It’s dark. Do the animals need feeding? He knows where he is, he knows everything, it’s lurking just beyond his grasp, teasing, taunting. What can he remember? A boat and a bright sea, his island receding. And then? Then voices, women with bags. Jostling and swaying. A sickness in the stomach. Voices arguing. A goat amongst people, bleating, terrified. More arguing, the goat leaving, more swaying, so hot. A change of people, laughing and rocking and then, and then …

Perhaps if he sits up. Slowly. No, bad idea, lie down. His hand creeps across his stomach, up his chest, over his jaw, sweeping his eyes. Pressing and rubbing his temples does not alleviate the pain or the steady beat of the drum. Twitching his legs, his feet heavy; he still has his boots on. Why would he still have his boots on if he has laid down? Where did he walk? Images of orange orchards, rich and lush, leaves so green, like nothing he has ever seen on the island. And olive groves, with bushy trees thick with fruit and, yes, he remembers that - water coming from pipes beneath them, the ground soggy with the excess. Then? What then? A turn in the road, a school with a brightly coloured fence. Houses with bright blue shutters. And then?

‘Hey Yanni, you’re awake. Come on my man, let’s go.’ The light from the opened door blinds him. ‘We must eat and celebrate.’ A hand grabs his arm and pulls. He shakes it off with a flex of his bicep. The hand has a weak grip.

‘Oh, you’re not one of these people that are all grumpy when they wake, are you? Come on.’

Like the bucket falling from the well’s edge and spilling the water over the parched ground, in an instant, everything returns and soaks in. Being met in the village square by Babis, being hauled into the kafeneio, the open floor-to-ceiling glass doors, clusters of tables surrounded by work-worn faces. So many faces. Babis introducing to everyone his second cousin from the island. Unfamiliar face after unfamiliar face offering to shake his hand, an ouzo thrust into his open palm and a hearty slap on the back from Babis as he takes a sip which makes him gulp and the shot goes down in one swallow. A joke being made of islanders drinking, another glass in his hand, Babis telling expectant faces exaggerated tales of their brief meetings when they were boys, Yanni so much taller and older and wiser. On and on, Babis talked. What could have been said in five words took him twenty minutes. Yanni was tired from the jiggling and pounding and shouting of the journey, so many people, so much that was new and then with Babis droning on, his eyes closed in reaction to everything, shutting down, blocking it out, another slap on the back, another mouthful and then nothing seemed so bad; in fact, he felt quite pleasant for a while. Another glass in his hand feeling smooth and round, the burn in his throat. No idea what was going on, someone said … No, that was Hectoras on the island—on a different day, maybe he … No, it will not come.

‘Come on now, Yanni, whilst you’ve been snoring all afternoon, I’ve been working, another sale going through, but now I am hungry. Come, the food is on me, my friend. Let’s go!’

‘Water,’ is all Yanni can say.

Babis leaves the room and returns presently. ‘Here.’ He hands him a glass of water. ‘I did think you were chucking it back my friend, but who was I to say? First you seemed all strung out, tense, tongue tied and then after a couple of ouzos, you found your stride. I couldn’t keep up. Anyway, it’s great you are here. Come, it’s late enough; let’s go eat.’

‘Could we not stay here?’ Yanni says, not quite sure where ‘here’ is, but the quiet seems preferable to anything he can recall of the mainland so far. How many times has he put his hands to his ears, so many people he could no longer tell them apart, and that bus, that jolting about, the speed with which the land passed, who could think that was a good idea? So many people pressed in so close together, and why was that man given such a hard time when he wanted his goat to ride with him, when there was a woman on the seat next to him with a dog on her lap? And that other woman who talked and talked and when she had worn one person to the point of getting off the bus, she began on another and nothing she said had any practical use to anyone listening. Yanni shakes his head gently to try to clear the fog.

‘Well it’s a bit of a mess here at the moment ... What with Mama going up to her sister’s in Athens. Thought she would only be a weekend, but she’s been gone two months already.’ He picks up a shirt and a tea towel and puts them on the back of a chair by the door. The chair already has an upturned bowl on it, which is none too clean. ‘But Auntie is getting better, thanks be to God, so we must not complain.’ He crosses himself and gathers together various parts of a newspaper that has spread over the floor. He folds it haphazardly and puts it on the upturned bowl, which it promptly falls off. ‘The thing is, what with trying to get myself established in Saros and everything that entails, l haven’t really had much time to clean up around here. Which you might find your way to helping me with, Yanni? Seeing as your time will not be as pressed as mine is … But come, let’s go. Stella and Mitsos make a good chicken and chips and we’ll go to Theo’s kafeneio again and watch the match tonight. You like football, right? Even if you don’t, it’s a good atmosphere and besides, I need to be seen in as many local places as I can, get myself noticed, be the name on everyone’s lips, if you know what I mean.’ He leaves the room, taking the empty water glass. Yanni manages to sit up, his feet over the edge of the bed. Bright light floods through the doorway and he can see past a table and into a sitting room. There are plates, shoes, shirts, plastic bags, boxes from the
zaharoplasteio
—sweet shop—on their sides, empty of the
baklava
and
kataifi
they once held, the honey and gooey remains puddling onto the tiles. Babis did not exaggerate when he described it as a bit of a mess. Yanni puts his hand to his temple again.

‘You want some Depon or aspirin?’ Babis brings another glass of water and two packets. Yanni shrugs. Babis opens one of the boxes and pops out two pills from the blisters. ‘Here you go.’ Yanni inspects the shiny pink pills in the palm of his hand. Very occasionally, his mama took these things when he was young, but very rarely, once a month if that. He wasn’t aware men could take them too, but if they will relieve this pain, then why not? He hardly notices them going down.

‘Right, let’s go then.’ Babis waits at the door with his arm outstretched as if to show the way into the sitting room. Picking his way through the things on the floor and using any surface that is not too covered in grime to steady himself, Yanni makes it to the back door. He is not taking anything much in, but that is probably just as well.

‘I don’t use the front door much.’ Babis trips down the steps. ‘It’s got a nice veranda that looks down onto the back of the roof of the kiosk and the rest of the square, which is great for watching people come and go, but it’s easier to come out of this side door then, look, here is the
souvlaki
shop. You hungry, by the way? You must be hungry. What time did you start out? The bus journey’s not fun is it? It used to be worse but they have straightened some of the roads.’

Yanni shakes his head. The last thing he needs is the noise of a taverna; Babis’ continuous monologue on its own is proving too much. But he must show his appreciation for his second cousin so kindly putting him up. It would not do to reject his hospitality, and he is being very hospitable. Yanni blinks a few times and opens his eyes wide. At least it is dark. Maybe he can manage a taverna and a bite to eat. He will offer to pay. After that, he can make his excuses. He has no desire to watch any football match. He is here to deliver Sister Katerina’s parcel, buy a donkey, and go home—and that’s it. Three days maximum. He has already wasted the entire afternoon sleeping as soon as he got here, so he had better plan out his time carefully. At least his head is starting to feel a little better.

‘Hello Babis.’ A petite woman in a sleeveless floral dress greets him as they leave the house. Shafts of light from inside the taverna spread an inviting glow across into the darkness. Someone has wound a thousand tiny lights around the trunk of a tree that stands sentinel between the tables on the pavement, their wooden tops smooth with plastic cloths reflecting the glow. No one is sitting outside but there are sounds of voices from inside the tiny but brightly lit place.

‘Out or in?’ the woman asks, offering them a choice of any of the four outside tables, each only big enough for two people, with a sweep of her arm.

‘Stella, this is Yanni, my second cousin from Orino Island,’ Babis gushes.

‘Hello Yanni.’ Her voice is quiet and warm and her movements those of a girl but her face betrays wisdom only years can bring, and there is a just a fleck or two of grey in her hair. ‘Will this do?’ she asks, pulling out a chair from the table nearest the tree trunk. ‘The usual, Babis? Yanni, we don’t serve much, but what we serve is good.’

‘You need no more than you offer, Stella. The chicken is always perfect, the sausages are just spicy enough, and everything comes with chips, oh and Stella’s lemon sauce, which is to die for,’ Babis informs Yanni.

‘I can do you a salad if you prefer?’ Stella asks Yanni, a small frown on her forehead, a hand on his arm as he eases himself into the proffered chair.

‘Are we not going inside then?’ Babis looks from Yanni to the glow of the interior and back again.

‘Here’s good, Babis,’ Stella states, patting Yanni’s shoulder gently as she does so. ‘So what’ll it be?’

‘Right then, chicken and chips twice I say, with a couple of sausages and beer, right, Yanni?’

‘Water.’ Yanni’s head jerks up, he blinks to clear the swirling feeling. ‘Please,’ he adds, looking up at Stella.

Babis scrapes his chair out and sits down. Yannis takes his time to try to orient himself. The house they have just come from is on the right side of the square, alongside the taverna where they now sit. A kiosk occupies the middle of the paved area, next to a majestic palm tree with a low circular wall around which a number of Eastern-looking men in shabby clothes sit slumped. Tables and chairs have been set up facing the kafeneio beyond, and a huge television sits on a spindly legged table in its open doorway. Farmers, slightly better dressed than the men under the palm tree, relax here with their ouzo glasses, taking little interest in the Western film that is splashing light onto the road. Mopeds putter by and greetings are shouted.

In the top left-hand corner of the square is a shop which looks more packed with wares for sale than even the kiosk. Next to this is a pharmacy and a bakery.

Next to the bakery, level with him on the other side of the road, is an open door, with a stool outside beside an open window. Balanced on the windowsill, a tray of sandwiches wrapped in cling film hovers half inside and half out. There is a movement at the back of the shop and a tinkling sound, suggesting someone inside is arranging bottles.

A man with one sleeve tucked into his trouser tops brings bread in a cane basket, which he places on the table.

‘Hello, Mitsos. How are you? I would like to introduce you to my second cousin, Yanni from Orino Island. Yanni, this is Mitsos, Stella’s husband.’ Babis grabs at the bread, tearing a piece off and putting the oversized hunk into his mouth.

Yanni moves his chair back, not sure if he should stand to shake the man’s hand or not. Mitsos puts down the bread, freeing his hand, which swings to clasp Yanni’s shoulder. ‘Well, hello Yanni. Stella says I am to ask if you want lemon sauce on your chicken.’ His smile is easy and reaches his eyes. Yanni feels Mitsos and Stella could be people who would be happy living on the ridge like him: no hurry, easy-going, and if this is the only eatery in the village, then presumably hard working. There is something of a farmer about Mitsos.

‘Yanni’s got the biggest goat herd on the island,’ Babis boasts.

‘Have a herd myself, although these days I don’t get to go out with them much, but still, I get involved when they are pregnant and so on. I spend more time here these days …’ He makes eye contact with Yanni, a wistful look as though he is searching for high, silent pastures to be reflected back at him. Yanni unlocks his hands from in front of him and reaches for his tobacco pouch.

The chicken is delicious, not at all tough like the ones his mama cooks, but then they only eat their hens when they are old and they have stopped laying. The lemon sauce is amazing, and he wonders if his mama could learn to make it. The sausages prove too salty but Babis is hungry and takes them from him. While he eats, Babis does not talk, and Yanni encourages him to eat more. Eventually, Babis sits back, slaps his hand on his engorged stomach, and concedes defeat. The buttons of his silk shirt are straining and he undoes a notch of his belt. The tail end, which is capped in silver, clicks against the ornate clasp as he does so.

‘I would like to make a toast,’ Babis says, filling two glasses from the one beer bottle. ‘To cousins.’ He encourages Yanni to pick up the glass and drink. ‘Come on, to cousins! Are you not happy to be here with your cousin?’ Yanni picks up the glass and drinks, just a mouthful. ‘Oh, and to mothers. Single-handed she raised me, Yanni, and look at me now, making deals to sell houses worth hundreds of thousands, so to mamas.’ This time, Yanni only takes a sip. ‘Yanni, is that all your mama is worth? To mothers.’ Babis raises his glass and they drink again. ‘Oh yes and to work! Without which we would all starve.’ Babis clicks his glass against Yanni’s and the glasses are drained.