Same Beach, Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank

Author:Dorothea Benton Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

chapter 13

corfu

It’s so strange what I remember. When I was a child and visited Greece with my mother, we always flew to Athens and took a ferry to Corfu. I had never experienced an aerial view of the island. But now I had booked myself straight through to the airport right outside of Corfu Town. As we circled to land I looked through my window and marveled at the mountainside filled with little white stucco homes with red clay roofs. I recognized the white convent on the tiny islet of Vlacherna. And I recognized the sparkling blue water of the Ionian Sea. I remembered that someone had told me that Corfu had over three million olive trees. That’s a whole lot of olives. But I did not remember that Corfu was so green, even in winter.

The Aegean Airbus touched down gently and my own odyssey in the land of Homer was about to begin. It was around seven o’clock in the evening and the end of a thirteen-hour journey. I was bone tired and feeling pretty alone in the world. I felt like I didn’t belong in Charleston, at least not until things were right between Adam and me.

Kiki’s last e-mail said she would meet me in the baggage claim and bring me to her home in Dassia. I hoped I would recognize her. I had not been here since I was maybe seven or eight years old, and that was a very long time ago, never mind how many years.

I had cleared customs in Athens, so when we landed on Corfu it was very uncomplicated. The first thing that struck me was the delicious smell of strong coffee coming from a kiosk that sold cold water and a mountain of loukoumades, the Greek version of Krispy Kremes. I stopped to look at them. Then I realized that I resembled the woman selling them and also the majority of the people around me in the airport. It made me laugh and think to myself, Well, here I am in the land of my people. Like Moses in the Promised Land. Of course I looked like them. I was one of them. This was a good omen.

I made my way to the baggage claim area and to my astonishment, I recognized Kiki right away.

“Kiki!” I think I probably shouted her name a little too loudly, because people turned to have a look at me.

“Eliza! Welcome!”

She threw her arms wide open and hugged me hard. I was so excited to be there and to have found her. It was a marvel to me that in less time than it took the earth to take a spin on its axis, I was almost on the other side of the world, in a completely different culture.

“Oh, my! I can’t believe I’m really here!”

“Look at you! You’re beautiful! You look so young!”

“Thank you! You too! And I saw your face and knew it was you! I can’t believe I recognized you after all these years.”

“My God! How old are you?”

“Fifty-three, but don’t tell anybody,” I whispered.

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