A Stranger in the Village Read online

  ‘Yes, but you can’t. I need it then.’ Vangelis is arguing with his companion.

  ‘To do what?’ Grigoris retorts.

  ‘To plough round the olive trees.’

  ‘How can you say you want it to plough around the olive trees when I just said I was going to use it to plough around my trees?’

  ‘Vangeli, Grigori,’ Theo greets them; they immediately stop arguing but breathe heavily for a while. ‘The usual?’ Theo asks.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Can I help you?’ The girl behind the reception desk at Stella’s hotel is wearing an acid-green T-shirt, her eyes wide, her expression open. She speaks to him in English. The wall-to-wall carpeting of the foyer muffles any echo the empty space might otherwise have offered back.

  The man takes his time to look at her; there is no hurry. Life is not a race, and why not enjoy the bloom of her youthful face? He smiles.

  ‘Do you have a room, for a night, maybe two?’ he asks. The mechanic in the village garage said the part should be here tomorrow. A simple fix, he said. ‘Yes, two days should be fine,’ he confirms.

  ‘For one?’ the girl asks. She has delicate eyebrows and they arch to emphasise her question, but as she picks up her pen it is her hand that draws his attention: slim fingers, manicured nails.

  ‘That’s a beautiful ring.’ He leans over the counter slightly for a better look. It is a small stone set on a thin band, probably not very expensive. It has slipped and is slightly too big for her. Maybe she has lost weight recently, or perhaps it was the only ring to be found locally within budget. As he straightens up he notices that her cheeks have taken on colour.

  ‘I am to be married the day after tomorrow,’ she confesses.

  ‘I wish you joy.’ He says it with feeling. Lucky girl, lucky man. He wishes them nothing but happiness and he smiles again to let her know the sincerity of his words.

  ‘Yes, for one.’ His smile remains. ‘The room, I mean. For one.’

  ‘Name?’ she asks.

  Miltos gives the girl his name and, with the key in his hand, he thanks her, assures her he can find the room by himself and pushes through the double doors to make his way along a carpeted corridor. Number ten. There it is.

  Once he’s inside, the door clicks shut behind him and he is alone. He pulls the voile curtains aside so he can see across the hotel’s lawns to the sea; the sun floods in, the room instantly becoming hotter. He looks around for the air-conditioning switch. Unable to find it, he sits on the bed; his emotions overcome him and his tears fall.

  As usual the saline trails come without noise or juddering, just coursing slowly down his cheeks, the sorrow that accompanies them deadening the weight of his arms. His shoulders drop, his chin too, and his bottom lip trembles. He allows the full wave of his emotions to flow over him, suppressing nothing. He wants to vent it all, let every last bit out until he is spent. But it never happens like that. His tears dry before he feels the true depth of his emotion has even been accessed and it is most unfulfilling – like the promise of a sneeze that never comes, but deeper and more important. He swills his face in the sink in the bathroom and presses a white fluffy towel against his skin. It smells of lemons and fresh air.

  Outside, a hiss indicates that the lawn sprinklers have come on. Through the window he watches the grass soak, turning from a pale green to a deep emerald hue. Beyond the lawn the sandy beach is a pale yellow, almost white, and then there is the sea, the wavelets flashing silver and blue as the sun catches them, sparkling as if it is alive. Moments like this make it so much worse. When the world is so beautiful it is at odds with his feelings. He wants either to rid himself of the weight or to stop being capable of appreciating the magnificence of the world. But it is a futile wish.

  His hand seeks his jacket pocket. It’s a safe haven, worn smooth with years of fondling. He takes out the curling white shell, his fingers finding the jagged part where a piece broke off. At one point he drilled a little hole in it and wore it on a chain around his neck, but it got caught on something, he forgets what, and the shell broke free of the chain. For an awful moment he thought it would smash. It landed and rolled, and then the fear came that he could lose it, but with a quick movement he stopped it rolling under … What was it that it nearly rolled under? He forgets. There is so much he forgets these days.

  There is a knock on the door. With a quick movement of his hand across his eyes he wipes away the new tears that are flowing and forces the smile back onto his face.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you …’ It’s the girl. ‘I forgot to say that the dining room is open until eleven and that breakfast is from six till ten, unless you request otherwise. Oh, and the air-conditioning gadget is in the drawer of the bedside table. It seems I forgot to tell you everything!’ The girl smiles brightly, but shyly. Ellie, her name tag says.

  ‘Thank you, Ellie.’ He smiles in return and looks into her eyes, looking for her happiness, for the love she holds there for her fiancé. It is all visible. She will not spend her free time alone crying. She probably doesn’t spend any time alone.

  Ellie leaves and he closes the door.

  His vision blurs again. ‘I am not ungrateful for my life. My God, no!’ he mutters to himself. It has been the most amazing and adventurous life – the things he has done, the places he has been, the experiences he has had! But then, has it been so exciting because of his relentless drive, pushing him ever onwards to try to rid himself of his darker feelings, in his perpetual and insistent search for … for what? The question is unanswerable. It is why he never stays anywhere for any length of time, no matter how much he likes it. Why he never sticks at a job, even if it is fun. Well, he may not have found whatever it is that he is looking for but he cannot deny that he has nevertheless been rewarded with experiences that he would not have missed. He refuses to be ungrateful. He sniffs and lifts his chin.

  He spends a while gazing out of the window at the sea, trying to make out where the water ends and the sky begins. There seems to be a cocktail bar on the beach, a simple hut with a palm tree roof and stools sunk in the sand. He will go down for a drink, chat to the barman, chase away this feeling or numb it with alcohol. He’ll while away the hours until he feels sleepy enough to go to bed.

  Chapter 4

  The young man behind the bar is drying glasses, staring out to sea, and he looks round as Miltos approaches. The young man nods and half smiles, and puts down his cloth, ready to serve. He leans, hands spread wide on the bar; his expression is open.

  ‘And where were you going as you stared across the sea, my friend?’ says Miltos. ‘I’ll have a beer, a Mythos.’ He sits on one of the high stools.

  ‘Actually I was going nowhere. I was contemplating my work!’ The young man pours the beer into a glass and fills a small bowl with cashew nuts.

  ‘Is there much to contemplate about running a bar …? I am Miltos, by the way.’

  ‘Loukas,’ the barman says, and they touch finger ends and then he straightens himself. ‘There is much to everything if you look for it,’ the barman replies lightly, his careless tone inviting banter.

  ‘And nothing to all of it,’ Miltos retorts, accepting the invitation.

  Loukas settles onto his own stool, leaning on his forearms on the counter, hands clasped, his eyes narrowed against the sun. ‘Ah, you could say there is nothing to any of it, but it all depends on the circumstances.’

  ‘Ah, circumstances.’ He takes a napkin from the pile on the bar and wipes the back of his neck. The day will cool off in an hour, once the sun has set.

  ‘Here’s the thing.’ Loukas pours himself a glass of water and they both settle. Miltos turns a little, and they both look out to sea. ‘I am getting married the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah! To Ellie on reception?’ Miltos exclaims.

  Loukas confirms this with a movement of his chin, a sideways nod.

  ‘Yes, to Ellie, and it has made me wonder if I am doing everything right.’ He looks around his domain. To Miltos it
is a small world. A fridge, some glasses, rows of bottles. He’ll need to remember how to make the cocktails. But maybe that no longer requires learning; Loukas will be able look it up on his phone, no doubt. There is bound to be an app. The whole world seems to be running on apps these days.

  ‘I mean, I’m not sure what more I could be doing. I stock the bar and I serve drinks and I love my life, and my work, but there is a niggle in my head, like the wiggle of a tequila worm, and it says, “Have I missed something? Am I doing enough?”’ He puts on a little voice when he says this and then laughs. His neck goes red and he briefly glances at Miltos but without making eye contact.

  ‘What more could you do?’ Miltos asks, still gazing out to sea to allow the boy to recover from his embarrassment unobserved.

  ‘Well, that’s the question – how do you know? And how do I know I am doing everything I should be doing right?’ Loukas asks.

  Miltos can remember a time when he took life so seriously, and one of the tales of his life, one that he has told so many times, to so many acquaintances, comes to mind.

  ‘Ah, you know, this brings something to mind for me. Have you ever been to Cairo?’ Loukas shakes his head, looking puzzled. ‘Well it is a big city and a noisy one,’ says Miltos. ‘I was there once. I couldn’t have been much older than you. How old are you? Twenty-four, twenty-three?’

  ‘Twenty-five,’ Loukas replies.

  Miltos nods and examines the young man’s face before looking out over the beach. The sunbeds are empty. There is only an old man left and he is gathering up his towel and bottle of sunscreen. With a bent back he heads towards the hotel on skinny, sun-reddened legs, his round stomach forcing the waistband of his trunks over. The sand is taking on pink hues as the sun begins to sink into the sea. The water is almost purple, darkening to black, and the tips of the wavelets glow orange.

  ‘What were you doing in Cairo?’ Loukas settles again.

  ‘Do you know, I’m not sure.’ Miltos chuckles, a slow burbling sound. ‘I was in Rhodes, visiting someone I met when I was doing my national service, and I have a feeling that when I was leaving I got on the wrong boat. It’s possible – not that I can really recall now.’

  That is the way he has always told it, but a little nugget of truth inside him knows that, really, he had no place to go, nowhere to be. Cairo was as good as anywhere and if he was to be alone then he also wanted to be lost. At the time it felt like there was some romance in that, which seemed to matter.

  ‘Anyway, the boat landed at Haifa, in Israel, and I stayed in a kibbutz for a while, but I got bored of that and I left and hitched all around, saw the place a bit, and at one point I went across the desert to Cairo. I can remember that I arrived late in the day and I needed somewhere to stay.’ He can still remember the noise of the streets now. He takes a handful of the cashews and crunches them as he continues. ‘With very little money, I began to wonder if I had done a very rash thing to go there. Cairo itself was such a mix of old and new. High-rise blocks, twenty storeys high, so much traffic and everyone using their horns, and then suddenly there would be a donkey pulling a rickety cart half full of fruit, the animal running along at full speed and the driver almost in rags.’

  He lifts his bottle, but it is empty so he pushes it across the countertop towards Loukas, who drops it with a rattle into a crate and then points to the fridge, where there are more.

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Miltos says. No glass is offered this time. After a slug of the cold nectar and a moment to watch the sun, which is now half submerged in the rapidly darkening sea, he continues his story.

  ‘So, the man I hitched a lift with stops driving and points to an alley where he says there are many cheap hotels. I ask the first person I come to which is the cheapest hotel of them all, and as he points the call to prayer begins. There are speakers attached to the buildings and the sound is coming from everywhere.’ He takes another swig from the bottle. ‘Well, blow me, but the street begins to fill with men and each man has his own prayer rug and they lay them down, carpeting the street. It was the most amazing sight – the street a rainbow mix of colours.’

  Loukas has been watching Miltos’s face as he talks. Just now, Loukas breaks off to top up the bowl with nuts and then becomes still again, waiting for the tale to continue.

  ‘But I digress. I was looking for a hotel and I found the cheapest of the cheap. It was on the third floor of this grand old building that had seen better times. It was hot, so I took the ancient lift that creaked and groaned its way up. I could have walked faster … But then it stopped and I hesitantly pushed back the metal doors to stand in the corridor. It was called the Nefertiti Hotel, and there was a statue of the ancient queen there in the hall, badly made and with one eye missing. If I remember rightly it was painted gold, and the paint was peeling off, and the whole thing was lit by a series of lights, half of which didn’t work, and around it was a moat of stagnant water that gave the impression that at one time it flowed and gurgled … Ha, ha, there I go again, off course. But I just wanted you to get a feel of the hotel. At the other end of the corridor was an enormous pile of sheets, and in front of me a reception desk that was cluttered with papers, old cups and overflowing ashtrays.

  ‘I waited for a while, but no one came, and then I called out, and there was a noise from the half-shut door behind the reception desk. I called again but no one came. I was tired, and so, with a little desperation, I stepped behind the desk and knocked on the door, which swung open. Inside was a large bed with two men about my age lounging on it, with a dog, and the air was rich with the smell of the marijuana that had leached the life out of these two individuals.’

  Loukas gives a knowing snort.

  ‘They invited me in and the herbal cigarette was passed to me. I was alone in a country whose language I do not speak, with very little money, no prospect of food and nowhere to stay. Anyway, I took the cigarette, took one puff and looked around to find somewhere to sit down. The herb was strong and my legs instantly needed to be relieved of my weight.’

  He pauses his narration to watch as the last sliver of sun sinks into the water and the sea turns inky black. The sky now lightens to a softer blue where the orb was. Loukas flicks a switch and lights come on along the raised paths to the hotel; there is also one on each of the tables, one between each pair of sunbeds, and a stripe of soft lights above the bar.

  ‘Well, my noble hoteliers eventually got around to showing me to a room. Most of the rooms were full of boxes and discarded furniture, and one was full of dirty sheets. Apparently the washerwoman had given up on the place. One room was so dark I could see nothing, and then they turned the key to a bright room that was so big it had a double bed and two singles in it as well as a shower in the corner. The windows went down to the floor, and they opened onto a long, carved stone balcony that looked down on one of the major streets. It was noisy.’

  Miltos clears his throat.

  ‘There were no sheets or pillowcases. Not even any blankets, and the mattress was swarming with bedbugs, so I laid out my sleeping bag on the floor.’ He pauses to clear his throat again and takes another swig of beer and a handful of nuts. Loukas takes another bottle of beer from the fridge and they drink in silence for a while as the darkness gathers. The sound of goats bleating and the dull clonk of their bells drifts on the soft air from behind the hotel.

  ‘Did you leave the next day?’ Loukas asks.

  ‘No, not exactly the next day. You see, I had enough to stay one night and I had enough to eat for one day but then I would have been broke. So I made the suggestion to the two men who ran this hotel that, perhaps, for a room and a plate of food, I could help them out. They were very happy at the idea of lolling around all day, never to be disturbed by a lost tourist or a tired Egyptian, and they were happy for me to man the reception desk. And of course, to celebrate this new arrangement they rolled a herbal cigarette, and I took on the running of the hotel!’

  Chapter 5

  ‘I started my wo
rk at that hotel with enthusiasm, cleared the corridor of the sheets, stuffing them into the room that was already full of dirty linen, and tried to find out how many rooms were available. There was only one other room that was suitable for guests, apart from mine, so in one way I felt I had fallen on my feet. Managing one room was not too much to deal with, but on the other hand, if it was so little work why would these two characters be hiring me?’

  Loukas becomes a little more alert, perhaps sensing that the story has some relevance to him.

  ‘So I decided I would make myself indispensable. I cleaned the corridor, I got bug powder for the beds, I tried to fix the lift, I replaced the stagnant water around the statue – and I tried to get the pump working to circulate it but to no avail. Oh, and I managed to locate some toilet paper for the one toilet.’

  He shifts his weight on the bar stool, turns slightly to Loukas and drops the pitch of his voice. ‘Someone had plumbed in a very thin copper pipe from under the rim of the toilet to the centre of the bowl where it bent upwards. The result was that when the toilet was flushed, water shot out of the end – you know, so you could clean yourself. I believe that is the way in Eygpt, but can you imagine an American or a British woman being faced with that?’

  He leans back again and assumes his normal voice.

  ‘So I got the toilet roll and waited for someone to arrive. But of course, who would find us, tucked away down that narrow street, with no sign? So I went out onto the streets and touted for business. I looked out for tourists, and the first day I talked a pair of backpackers into staying. Italians, a lovely couple. They left the next day but I was on the streets again and I found a really nice couple from Holland, and the day after that, a fun group of Americans. The characters who owned the hotel seemed very pleased with the sudden flow of money and each time I handed over the takings they celebrated with a herbal cigarette, encouraging me to share.’