The Last Dance and Other Stories by Victoria Hislop

Author:Victoria Hislop [Hislop, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781472201898
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2012-11-07T16:00:00+00:00

One Cretan Evening

THE TOURIST INVASION was over now. The shop that made its living through sales of pink lilos and cheap bikinis from Taiwan was now shut until spring, its windows firmly boarded up. Roadside tables now groaned beneath mountains of grapes, and olives steadily ripened, ready for harvesting in December. The passing of summer brought new fruits, welcome rain and, for local people, this was the loveliest of seasons. They were alone again and the clear, sweet air allowed them to breathe.

The real machinery of this Cretan village continued to run well beyond the departure of the foreigners. The zacharoplasteion still baked its daily quantities of sweet pastries and the best of the tavernas remained open even though the owners of the others had now gone to their winter homes. The priest conducted his services in the tiny chapel on the water’s edge.

Life resumed its quiet, ordered ways. Widows in black dresses, their fabric as densely ebony as the day they had begun to mourn, sat on their doorsteps, away from the men, who entertained themselves with backgammon. Dice gently tick-tacked against the side of the board as the players whiled away the hours, moving counters from one triangular space to the next. Counters clicked together in conversation, more talkative than the men themselves.

Their knowledge of each other’s lives went so far back into earliest memory that these septuagenarians had little to say to one another. They almost breathed in unison. They would discuss some piece of local news, perhaps the election of a new deputy mayor or a birth or death, but the wider events of the world at large, a crisis in the money markets or an earthquake in Peru, did not touch them even for a moment. Their universe was this small seaside village, this square, the same one where their fathers and grandfathers had sat before them.

Only the elderly lived here now. Most young people had long since deserted, escaping to the bright lights of the island’s capital or Athens and only returning with the tourists for a week or two during August to remind themselves of where their ancestors had once lived.

Even now, with night falling, the men carried on playing and drinking their raki. There was a stillness in this moment. All day long, shadows of trees had danced against the pale faded walls and now the curtain had been drawn across their stage. Afternoon became night, as though a candle had been snuffed.

For the men outside the kafenion the transition of daytime into night went unnoticed. The tossing of dice, the refilling of small tumblers of the clear, syrupy fire water, the silent communication between them continued as before. Light or dark. It was all the same to them.

In spite of its almost noiseless arrival they were all immediately aware of the arrival of the taxi. For a moment their game of tavli ceased and they turned to stare as it passed. More lovingly cared for than a millionaire’s limousine, the vehicle’s polished chrome wing mirrors reflected the gleam of the dim street lamps.

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