Out on the balcony I sat and let the stillness of the rooftops, the crags and the valley below with its well worn pathways become my consciousness. A little further along from the balcony was the building they call the school, and if I leaned out I could just see the gates and across part of the playground to as far as the building they bravely used for classes. A riotous game of football was in progress and the air was filled with catcalls and the excited cries of the opposing armies.
A ball curled through the air over the fence and bounced in front of the young priest striding towards the gate. As quick as lightning, he lifted his cassock, trapped the ball and made a perfect lob over their heads to bounce the ball in front of the goal. The kids were astonished at this remarkable performance. They give him a cheer and applauded. He smiled and bowed in recognition of his audience and turned into the school building as though it happened every day.
I thought of Aristethes telling me how much they needed a proper school in which to educate their children. But what if they don't get one? What then? Where would the young people go? And earlier I'd dreamed of something that still lit the very edges of my imagination, something about a school but as usual, the more I tried to bring it back the more it melted away. Then from the playground came a cheer, loud and strong, and I guessed the game was over. From downstairs came the aroma of fresh coffee.
An unexpected happy downpour with warm drops as big as grapes, made everybody grin and laugh like kids. During the shower, anything that could took cover; the people, the cats and dogs, the donkeys, the sheep and goats, the kids, everything - even the spiders and the insects - everything, except me. I spread my arms, raised my face and let the pure sweet bubbling rain wash me head to toe. Nikos was right - down came the rain.
Just then someone called my name. It was Alessandra sheltering below under the branches of a tree. 'Having fun? Hey, I was wondering, if ever you're sane again, perhaps you'd like to meet me in the Kafeneion Antonis about seven o'clock? My treat?'
'Seven o'clock it is. See you then.'
Dry and dressed, I descended the staircase two at a time and landed in the kitchen rubbing my hands together in gleeful anticipation. In front of our two-burner stove was Alexis, wearing a smudge of coffee grounds on his top lip, like a rather fey moustache.
'Yassas boss. How are you? You sleep right through lunch! You must be very hungry.'
'Yassas Alexi. I think I had a bit too much sun this morning. Still getting used to it. OK now, but yes, I'm ravenous.'
'So, how you like your eggs?'
'Dippy please,' I kept a straight face and watched the wet evaporate.
'Dippy. Dippy? What is dippy?'
'Not over-fried. So's I can still dip that new fresh bread in the yolk. Thanks.'
'Mmm. Dippy. OK, you dippy, me dippy.'
The eggs were big and the yolks were a happy yellow and flooded the plate with goodness. Alexis licked some from his moustache and grinned, too busy now to speak. He always ate without hurry and even closed his eyes to savour every taste. As soon as he was finished, he wiped his mouth with his hand and announced, 'Today the village starts to prepare. OK. Tomorrow, as you know, is the concert your father always organised so in a few days, many, many people come here for the festival of the Virgin. Do you want me to tell you what will happen? OK, so drink your coffee but don't interrupt.' This arrangement was not for discussion. I gave him full attention because he seemed the sort who, when enthused, would not tolerate interruption, 'On 15th August, it is the birthday of our Goddess Athene. Also, it is the day when the Mother of Jesus went to Paradise. On this day they listen to our thoughts so this will be a special day for everyone because we reunite with family and friends who have moved far away, very important. Our bishop will celebrate a service in the basilica and all the leaders will be there. There is the procession of the virgins in honour of Athena, the kissing of the holy icon and the walking to the doors of the chapels, even those on the edge. After the blessing of the village, the leaders sit at tables on the plateia and take a small libation. You know Aristethes, our post office man, well he and his son play the music all of the afternoon. The music is a tradition and there is a song. One by one the people at the tables add a verse that they have made up on the spot. It is called a mantinada. We put candles on the graves for the ones who have left the village, like Mr. Pantelis, and then we dance the slow dance in meditation until morning. And I mean, all night.'
I put up my hand and opened my mouth but Alexis slapped the table and held up his hand for silence. 'No! Not you. Please. Now I will talk straight. Mr. Godfrey, no one really knows you in the village yet. Yes, they see you in this house and they think you look a bit like your father and that's OK, but it does not mean you are him. It takes time. You must be patient. You come to us and do not expect we to come to you. Understand? You can watch the feast but maybe do not eat it yet, OK? Good.'
'I wanted to ask you if you knew of a woman called Alessandra. I met her at Verginas yesterday and I think I saw her at the funeral too.'
'Alessandra? Er … yes ... we are friends. Why?'
'I have to meet her later today.'
'In the Antonis. I know.'
I don't know why for sure but that's when I remembered another dream. I see myself as a child kneeling in my room, prising up a couple of floorboards. I look underneath where, to my amazement, there's nothing to see but stars. Everywhere - stars. I drop through and tumble over and over and over through the void. Not caring which way is up, I just float about in space, utterly content.
One of the photographs on the kitchen wall was missing. An empty space where it used to be. It's the one of myself and my father on the fence near the gate. Alexis was whittling a piece of wood in the yard, so I went out to him. 'Did you notice one of the photographs is missing?'
'No boss, I never look at the photos - it's bad luck. Sorry. '
To better pass the time until 7 o'clock I set off on a little walk along the moistened pathways or maybe to get lost and so see a different side of Sophia. Mikri followed from a distance, sometimes catching up but when I reached the end of the lane, he stopped, watched me for a little, shook a paw, then turned and plodded back to the house. He was a picture of peace and good sense and I had to admit I was growing very fond of him. I felt the same about Sophia. Her little coloured houses offered care, rest and refuge. Through the narrow paths I trailed my fingers over her stubborn old walls just like I do at home, feeling for connection and warmth. Both villages share a life not without its perils and not without its sweetness but there the similarity ends. In our village at home, gardens and fences separate one home from the other while here in Sophia there were no such divisions. One life lived by sharing. The whole mountain was a garden and its very inaccessibility was its garden fence. Any harvest was everyone's harvest. They had interdependency without intrusion, until now. But why should these people have to suffer an assault on their lifestyle at all? Why should arrogance destroy their freedom?
I wondered if they recognised the raider at the gate.
The wind was sharpening now so I shoved my hands into my pockets and quickened my pace, darting about and skimming round the corners and making good headway till I turned a corner and almost ran into a large woman chopping wood right in my path. I think it was my sudden appearance that startled her and her sudden axe that made me jump. She was a solid, sturdy lady wearing the local no-messing headscarf, boots of leather and layers of heavy clothing. No wind or man be bowling that one over. She smiled a toothless grin and stood back, letting me through her yard. She might have been a Mongolian herder standing outside her yurt for all I knew. I didn't stop, and covered the next set of steps like a salmon shooting waterfalls.
But the community chain was fragile, of that there was no doubt, and without successors it would break. More than half the houses were empty already and there were no new buildings at all. No wonder Aristethes had described it as a living museum that was dying; he could not have been more literate.
At the communal village oven in the open air, another local lady in her ankle length skirts and headscarf was busily shovelling out pastries from the oven with a long-handled hoe onto a wide wooden tray on a table standing freely in the road. Across the square from her stood a small, noisy group of men wearing maroon waterproofs, sniggering and generally being rude and making fun at her expense. She did her best to ignore them and wished me good day as I passed. It was then they started taking photographs and mimicking her every time she cursed her burned fingers or spat on the ground. She studied her critics from beneath her eyelashes as she worked and exchanged glances with me. I looked down at my sandals, avoiding confrontation even though they were taking advantage of their number and her sex.
I don't think they saw her fling down the shovel into the gravel or understood the curses she invoked, but certainly they felt the sting of the grit that flew from her hands and showered them like nettles. They shouted and complained, swaggered and jeered as they sailed on past, but at least after that they'd leave her alone. She was livid and I was a coward. She resumed her baking and my anger grew. I could see the similarities in what had happened and what was impending, and I'd let it. If these opportunist thugs had designs on the village, very few would stand in their way because of their festering arrogance.
Coming through the back lane to the villa, I found the missing photograph on the ground. I could still make out the heel mark in the shattered glass. This meant someone had entered our house, selected a particular photograph and tried to destroy it, and I had a good idea who. A coolness blew through the pass and all around the houses. The day was calming down and the light was growing amber on the ground. From somewhere behind the windmills came the usual jangling of goat-bells and shrill voices of the women, homeward bound. It was almost seven.
Right in the corner of the main square, was a small stone building, something like a cafe - not that there was any indication. Two or three long-haired senior men with grey, bushy moustaches, walking sticks and long boots sat outside at tables nodding towards sleep. No other signs or advertisements gave a clue as to what was inside but it looked like somewhere interesting and my curiosity peaked again. I squeaked open the door a couple of inches, pushed aside a beaded curtain and peered inside.
It was the kind of a bar room you always hoped to find before you died; untidy, smokey, humming with conversation and familiarity, local music and the singular intimacy of back streets in old towns - a thoughtful room; at first a dingy room with seven or eight tables scattered over a warm brick floor but then a public room with framed family and photographs cluttering the green waxy walls. I eased inside.
At the far end the word 'Kafeneion' had been painted across the wall in Greek letters and underneath, in much smaller letters, 'Z. Antonis'. On a sideboard, the kind you'd see in anyone's home, sat a Bakelite radio relic just like grandma used to have. After a short time, a tall, pleasant man in shirt and tie came over and greeted me with widespread arms, 'Yassas. Welcome to my kafeneion. I am Zacharias Antonis. Please sit down.' His hair was slicked, grey and shiny. His gums were bare.
I took a seat in the corner. The men on the nearby table weighed me up, mumbled acknowledgement and returned to sipping their fancies. There was a newspaper in front of them and every now and then, one of them would point at it, raise an angry voice, slap his hand down, they'd all mumble, and then fall silent again. At another table a man sat bemused in peaceful meditation, working some beads between his fingers. I was soon to discover this tiny kafeneion was the unpretentious soul of the mountain village; the workers' bar, the centre for gossip and trade in the village - a place to while away the time over a single cup of coffee that you might sip for hours.
Opposite my table, near the door, sat two men arguing and grumbling in loud, swaggering phrases and gesticulating with their drinks. They looked familiar even without the maroon. Every now and then, they would drop their voices in conspiracy and skim the room, ignored by all.
When he came to my table, Mr. Antonis smiled and put a warm hand on my shoulder, 'Don't worry, Mr. Godfrey, the evil eye is on them now. Let me bring you something to satisfy the thirst.'
I wasn't quite sure what to have so asked for a mineral water. One of the brick-heads snorted at my choice. The old man returned with something I didn't expect - a side plate with pieces of fish in batter, one of those dolmades vine-leaf parcels, some local bread, a few olives and a glass of something that didn't look like water to me. He transferred them from his tray and gave me a wink, 'One Nerantzaki for the mind and one mezedes for the body. Good health, my friend.' The mezedes was a feast in a saucer - delicious beyond words. I closed my eyes and swilled the merry textures with my drink. The moaning wind outside raised eyebrows and comments and sniggers in the room. I watched a hat bowling down the street. Zacharias leaned over, 'You know, we measure the strength of the wind by the chaos it makes. I mean a hat wind, or a chair wind or a table wind. It passes the time.'
The door gusted open and in stepped Alessandra making my smile widen a mile.
'Hello, Mr. Godfrey. Caught you red-handed. Nice to see you enjoying our kafeneion.' She smiled and politely inclined her head towards Zacharias before sitting down and making herself comfortable at my table. At this, Zacharias came with a drink for her and left us to talk. She lowered her voice. 'I'm sorry I didn't have more time to spend with you at the funeral, but at least we were introduced yesterday at Verginas. And I think we might even have arrived here from Athens on the same plane.'
'Really? I didn't see you.'
'You didn't know me then.'
'Well, er, no. What were you doing in Athens?'
'I start college next month - Anthropology. One day I want to be a guardian of the village, like your uncle. Also, I bought stuff for my shop, new ideas, you know.'
'Alessandra, you worked with my father, so I have to ask, have you any idea what happened to him the night he died?'
She began to answer, and then noticed the two men on the next table who were plainly intrigued. She leaned a little closer and lowered her voice, 'You have seen these men in the village, rude and dangerous? They seem to appear whenever you turn a corner?'
'Yes, I thought it was just me being paranoid. I've had several brushes with them already. What are they doing here?'
'They are the foot soldiers of an organised syndicate who snatch irreplaceable and priceless archaeological artefacts from Greek islands and sell them to a covert circle of collectors and dealers prepared to pay millions for these unique and incomparable treasures.' She raised her voice a little, changing the subject. 'And how do you like our Alexis? We went to school together. He works very hard, but he can be a little bit too deep sometimes. It comes from too much thinking when he's alone with the goats.'
'I like him a lot. He's found his own freedom. He shrugs off his load at the end of the day and gets on with his life. He's shown me the village as his home, not just a place on the way to somewhere else. I like that.'
'He will have to move out when you sell the house, won't he?'
'Not something I want to think about right now. In fact, between you and me, I don't want to sell the house at all. It's his home. I'll see what my auntie thinks.'
Alessandra frowned. 'Dear Alexis. Papa thinks he just hangs around the village. But that's not true. He's not wasting his time. He has become a peaceful man with very few needs, that's all. I like him very much. Well, er, everyone does.' We sipped our drinks. She lowered her voice again and let her hand touch my arm. 'Your father discovered some of these criminal activities were happening on his own doorstep. These vipers have created an atmosphere of fear and have all the necessary influence and arrogance of power to do what they want. He found out that they were storing some of their plunder in the beloved ruins on our own little island of Faria. It's uninhabited and they have made it their base. It's where these scavengers crate their spoils ready for distribution. They use the island because there's very little passing traffic. As a man in a village of many old people, there was nothing your father could do against their irrepressible intimidation except collect pieces of evidence and bide his time.'
'I thought Faria was just a barren rock.'
'Not from what Alexis has told me. From the sea the islet of Faria looks almost unapproachable because its rocky shoreline offers no safe place to land. But to those that know, it seems there is a narrow channel that leads to a deep lagoon and this lagoon washes the gradual sloping beach of a small bay. Surrounding the beach have been found Dorian ruins and a sixth century church. I'd love to see it. It must have been blissful in the past. It has a little wild life but not much. The beach lies at the mouth of a gorge that leads up and up to high plateaux either side.'
'Has it always been uninhabited?'
'During the Middle Ages Faria had a thriving community and became a haven for pirates. The high plateaux are impenetrable except by way of the narrow gorge and they say you can still see the ruins of houses and the chapel looking down onto the beach, a perfect watching place. Nowadays it is all but abandoned which makes it an ideal place for a cache. Those that do land there don't stay long. It is too eerie and desolate.' Things started to make sense. 'As I say, some time ago Pantelis got wind of what was going on and over a period of time he collected his evidence: names, numbers, times, photographs, dates, recordings; a comprehensive list of villains, including prominent public figures, involved one way or another in the smuggling and acquisition of priceless cultural objects. This list is a time-bomb, but I've no idea what happened to it. He saw a way of saving the village and was about to do a deal with the government which meant names would emerge in the near future. He was prepared to give evidence in any trial bringing the traffickers to justice, as long as it guaranteed financial independence for Sophia.'
'So you think he may have given his life for the village?'
She took a thoughtful sip from her cup and glanced at the clock. 'In some way, of that I feel sure. Please excuse me a moment.' She crossed the room to pay our bill, side-stepping a man trying to block her way.
'Hello princess, let me take care of that and then I'll buy you a drink.'
She ignored him until she was on her way back when she leaned on his table within inches of his eyes and said in a firm, low voice so all could hear, 'Listen to me, moron. I'd knock you off your chair right now if I hadn't just washed my hands.' And everyone heard but no one made a sound. Old Zacharias looked on, helpless and shook his head, glaring at the men.
Alessandra came over and picked up her rucksack. She smiled around the room then, in a light and breezy voice, said, 'Sorry about that, Mr. Godfrey. I have to dash away but I'll be in touch again very soon.' She shot a glance at the men, 'And take care Mr. Godfrey, take care.'