I’m sitting outside the bar “working”, it’s early season, hot and it’s the start of the Siesta hour.
Georgeos and Maria taverna has a few lunchtime guests. I am drinking soda water with a fresh lemon squeezed into it, rebuilding my strength as I embark on another 12 hour working day, three at the bar and the rest, later, at the newly opened Windmill restaurant. I am determined not to drink alcohol until after the shift is over.
George, from the taverna, comes past, stops, says: “One wine for me, one beer for you.” There is no arguing and refusal would offend. He nips next door to Lefteris’ kafeneion, three steps up to where Nicholas the cobbler eventually brings him a pair of sandals from his shop. The shoes are tried on over a glass of ouzo while the wine I have poured turns warm on the table. Serious footwear negotiations ensue.
The last of the day-trippers who made it up the steps to the village for a quick look and some lunch, finish their double Greek coffees and head on down, buzzing with renewed energy.
Damianos calls in to check out the Greece Vs Australia friendly football score but the TV is off – it’s probably for the best.
Soft Greek music from the kafeneion next door, wood pigeons in the distance, shoe talk continuing.
A lone tourist, young, blonde, pretty – somehow separated from the herd, is drawn into the shoe mêlée but refuses a drink the old men try to press on her. A general, cross-generational and one-way flirting session ensues, much to the young things’ bemusement. And when George starts singing to her, her confusion and embarrassment mounts.
Memories of the Italian (and other nationalities’) occupation come in useful to the two older men as they fall into less flirtive chat in Italian, and some English, and a few Greek words thrown in for good measure.
She leaves. They leave. The wine remains undrunk and I’m in the beer trap, just having another small one, when Yianni – the teacher who lives upstairs – comes and sits bringing fresh chick peas for us to nibble on.
We start reading our books in the quiet of the siesta hour and the square becomes a library.
Shhh. |
