Girl Gone Greek (13 page)

Having lit one, she then allowed us to light our candle from hers.

“Look at all the people here! Do they usually all turn up to church every week?” Dad asked.

“Ochi!”
snorted Mr Ioannis.

“This is a social occasion for people. Look at everyone gathered in their finest dress, chatting to their neighbour. Would you like to go inside?” Mrs Stella asked in her stilted manner.

“Er, to be honest, no,” I didn’t blame Dad, in view of the crowds of people. We listened to the drone of the priest’s voice through the loudspeaker, the mournful sound that reminded everyone to feel very sad today. The crowd started moving in the procession of the bier where the epitaph was carried out of the church and back down the hill towards the town. It was culmination of a day of great ‘sadness.’

“Come, we can join them,” Mrs Stella instructed. Clutching our candles, we joined the throng. “There’s something magical about seeing all these people come together and walking with candles,” Dad was taken in. Looking around, I could see people chatting away, appearing not as sad as they should be. “As you said, it’s like a social gathering—a time for people to catch up.”

Mr Ioannis didn’t go unnoticed by the crowd, and part of his duty as Assistant Town Mayor was to be sociable to everyone. It took us roughly forty-five minutes to walk the short distance from the church as Mr Ioannis weaved his magic and chatted to men, mildly flirted with women and clucked at babies and children alike.

We left the crowd at the bottom of the hill to continue on to the town square, whilst our small party turned in the opposite direction toward the
taverna
.

“Best to get there early, before these crowds do. It will get busy once they finish in the square.” Mrs Stella turned out to be correct—the
taverna
was already straining at the seams when we reached it. No ordering was necessary as a set Easter menu had been prepared in advance. We settled down to a simple meal of calamari, bread, and salad. “No meat with blood is allowed, but calamari is OK,” Melina explained, sitting next to Dad. It felt a little like being with a pop star as Mr Ioannis back-slapped several people. I noticed Mrs Stella roll her eyes and smile tight-lipped at Dad, who had also picked up on Mr Ioannis’s behaviour.

“She’s a bit scary, your boss. Pleasant, but scary,” Dad whispered. I nudged him in the ribs to shut up, but Mrs Stella seemed preoccupied talking with her youngest daughter, Anthi, about her new hairstyle.

“My daughter has had her hair cut much too short.” Mrs Stella turned to me. “Don’t you agree Rachel? These young people, Mr Hail, they never listen to their parents” she concluded with another eye roll. Dad and I refused to be drawn into this family battle.

“You see? She can’t even be nice to her own daughter!” Dad exclaimed whilst I covered up a snort of laughter as a cough on a calamari piece.

“You’ll drink a glass of wine won’t you Rachel?” Mrs Stella started pouring.

“Why not? It’s Easter after all. And besides, a glass a day is supposed to be good for you. I’d read somewhere it helps ward off breast cancer.”
And it’s probably better for me than the copious amount of Coca-Cola I drink.

“Huh—Mum’ll be alright then, she gets through a bottle a day,” Anthi chimed in. An uneasy silence fell on the table as Mrs Stella’s look to her oldest daughter spoke volumes. I breathed a sigh of relief when Mr Ioannis came back...his easy-going nature was infectious. They were so different. I wonder how their marriage works.

By one a.m. Dad and I had gone out separate ways to bed. We’d agreed to meet by the river the next morning.

“Bumped into that man again at breakfast, he’s off to spend a couple of hours with his daughter today.” Dad and I were sitting in the late morning sunshine, drinking a frappé and camomile tea.

“Not a lot seems to happen on Easter Saturday,” I looked around me. Of course, nothing could keep people from their pilgrimages to the coffee shops or the
Kafeneos
. We’d been warned by both Mrs Stella and the pleasant but portly man at the Hotel reception desk that pretty much everything shut down in the village on Easter Saturday. We’d been invited to Mrs Stella’s house for a meal, but not until midnight.

“Why do we have to eat so late?” Dad asked.

“I think people start celebrations for Easter Sunday late the night before,” I licked frappé froth from my upper lip, “because they’ve been fasting and abstaining from meat. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for them with roast lamb and all, so they have to line their stomachs tonight. Oh Jesus!” I suddenly remembered, “you’re a vegetarian, what will you
do
?”

“I can make allowances; don’t worry,” Dad grinned.

“Are you sure? When was the last time you ate meat?”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Dad reassured me.

We made our way to the café that prepared homemade
moussaka
daily at the bottom of my street. At least this was open today and we intended to buy two big pieces so we wouldn’t starve before midnight.

After another afternoon siesta, Dad arrived at my flat at six o’clock, gently nudging the next-door neighbour’s cats aside as he entered. We tucked into our re-heated
mousakka
and washed it down with a cup of

Tetley. I turned on the TV and the weather girl greeted her audience in her usual outfit (or lack thereof).

“She’s supposed to be attractive Dad, is she?” Dad merely snorted with laughter, indicating that he’d never seen anything so ridiculous in his life.

“I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous in my life!” he confirmed, “and I’m still a man with blood pumping through his veins.”

“Okaaaaay, enough of that I think.” I switched off the TV, mentally shaking away the images. “Let’s head into town.”

“The number of times I’ve navigated this hill of yours in the last couple of days, I’ll be super fit.” We’d returned about eleven p.m., and after freshening up, we went back to Mrs Stella’s house.

“Sit, sit,” she flapped as she bustled us to the dining table in the middle of the room. Already perched in a chair was an old lady—Mr Ioannis’s mother, and Vasiliki, who stood to envelop me in her arms and shake Dad’s hand.

“Watch she doesn’t spit at you,” I whispered, lifting my chin slightly in the direction of Vasiliki.

“Oh, but that’s a compliment, love.” I regarded Dad quizzically. “It means they think you’re beautiful, and want to ward off the ‘evil eye’ or jealousy from others. So they do something negative, like spit at you, which turns out to be a compliment. You’re obviously worthy of jealousy from others.” I remembered my arrival into the village though;
so that’s why Vasiliki had greeted me like that!
And I’d been worried about cleanliness…

“And you know this because…you were spat at when you came to Greece on business?”

“Oh no, not me. But when you came with me sometimes when you were little, you were always spat at, don’t you remember?”
Er, no…obviously not.
Dad smiled as I pulled an incredulous face as I digested this piece of information.

“That’s disgusting! So I’ve been subjected to Greek spittle since I was a kid?”

“Yes, but like I say, it’s a compliment. Now come on, let’s not be rude—come and sit at the table.”

Once everyone had sat down, Mr Ioannis’s mother launched a barrage of questions that seemed like the Spanish Inquisition at Dad, who was of a similar age to the old woman. The most prominent one concerned his age and how he kept so young looking and healthy. Mrs Stella scrambled to translate.

“You see? He’s the same age as you, and yet how different you look,” Mrs Stella observed, rather cruelly I thought. “You need to make the effort to get some exercise, Mama.” Mrs Stella didn’t bother to translate this remark into Greek and actually, ‘Mama’ didn’t understand a word of English and seemed quite content, sitting there gazing at my Dad, occasionally reaching out to pat his hand.
She’d better not spit at him.

Out came the food.
What was that floating in a clear liquid?
It looked like a long squiggle of colon! I jokingly observed this out loud as I decided to at least try it. “It probably is,” Mrs Stella stated nonchalantly. “Let me see? Ah yes, this is
magiritsa
, made from lamb offal. We eat it now to break our fast, after forty days of not eating meat. Tomorrow everyone will be eating lamb on the spit, we need to gently prepare our stomachs tonight for this.”

I stopped mid-slurp, shot Dad a horrified look, but he in turn was dealing with his own feelings about this, especially as he claimed to be a vegetarian. We both tried hard to not look disgusted and ate as much as we could. It actually didn’t taste too bad—like a watery chicken soup—but knowing what it was didn’t help and I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it, especially when I was sure I saw an eyeball, but elected not to check if it was my over-active imagination, for fear it might not be.

“This has been a great experience, thank you.” We politely made our excuses and left. We were looking forward to the next day’s festivities, and besides, Mrs Ioannis Senior seemed to have taken a rather exhausting shine to Dad and kept trying to force more soup his way.

I awoke to the acrid smell of something burning, jumped out of bed, and raced to the kitchen. Nothing was on fire in there. I opened the shutters and understood—the skies were black with smoke from countless barbeque fires that had been lit to roast lamb on spits.

“So, Kaliopi hadn’t been exaggerating when she told me the skies turn black,” I opened the door to let Dad in.

“It’s like London during the Blitz!” he exclaimed.

“You’ve settled rather quickly into the Greek habit of exaggeration.”

In the small patch of garden by my infamous orange trees, the family had set up their own spit, and Mr Ioannis was busy poking a long metal rod through a whole lamb. I turned away—I’d expected a kebab shop style skewer, not the whole animal.

“For God’s sake, you can even see the poor creature’s eyelashes,” I whispered.

“Well, one thing’s for sure—the Greeks know how to prepare meat properly. They don’t mess about and become all ‘precious’ about the issue,” he responded. “And they don’t waste meat either. Look at what was used last night—the whole lamb’s being eaten.”

By midday the meat was cooked and then slowly sliced. We all took a small plateful, as well as Greek salad, and sat around munching and chatting. Mr Ioannis and

Dad seemed to be engaged in yet another discussion about football. Villagers passing by would drop in for a small plateful of food as well. When we took our leave later on for a walk through the town, we discovered this was the norm.

“
Ela
, come here, eat, eat!” yelled the man from the oil shop. He was coming towards us with determination, and this time managed to drag my father and me into his back yard where we made our introductions to his wife and older daughter. I was once again spat at, this time by the older lady, but I took it well. Dad barely managed not to laugh.

“I am Evdoxia,” the daughter extended her hand. Luckily she didn’t spit at me. “My father is always talking about the new English teacher up the hill. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please, do not be alarmed at my father’s insistence on you joining him to drink tea, he gets lonely in his shop all day.” It was nice to meet this man’s family finally, and we spent a pleasant hour eating his lamb and nodding along to the conversation, Evdoxia translating occasionally.

“Dad, I don’t think I can stomach too much more—as hospitable as everyone is, I’m going to burst. Let’s have our siesta now and I’ll see you later.” We’d not managed to make it to the river…at least two other people who I vaguely recognised as the supermarket check-out lady and the baker had pulled us into their gardens for yet more lamb. It didn’t seem to matter that we weren’t close friends or relatives; such was the hospitable nature of these village people.

There was another church service that evening. This time the cry from the loudspeakers was much more cheerful—today was a celebration. But Dad and I decided not to attend, we had a train to catch early the next morning, to Meteora.