The Devil Takes Half by Leta Serafim

Author:Leta Serafim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: greece
Publisher: Coffeetown Press
Published: 2014-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Unfading are the gardens of kindness.

—Greek proverb

Patronas swerved to avoid a pedestrian as he drove through the old Turkish quarter. The deconsecrated mosque had once been a museum, but had been closed for over a decade in deference to Turkish religious sensitivities. The ancient busts and sarcophagi, most dating from the time of Caesar, still littered the courtyard. Dead leaves covered the pavement and collected in the rusting iron fence in front. The old baths were still there, too. Against the sky, he could see the silhouette of the burnished metal domes, an old Turkish cemetery behind them, the headstones shaped like phalluses, narrow with bulbous tops. As far as he knew, there were no headstones for women or children, and he’d often wondered where the Turks had buried them. Jutting out over the street were the large wooden rooms where the wives of the Ottomans had once been housed, watching the life in the street from their second-story windows. The quarter was one of the poorest on the island. The high wooden doorways of the buildings were in need of paint, and the limestone walls were covered with political slogans and ripped posters advertising cheap cellphones and local nightclub acts. The road forked at the end of the quarter. Taking the left fork, he drove toward Campos.

* * *

Marina Papoulis was standing outside, watering the bougainvillea at the front of her home.

“Papa Michalis is coming from Athens today,” Patronas told her. “I tried to reach you, but you must have been outside. They want me to meet his plane.”

She let the hose drop and turned off the water. “Where’s he going to stay?”

“I don’t know. I can’t take him back to Profitis Ilias. He’s on crutches. He’d never make it up the path.”

“How about bringing him here? He’ll be more comfortable, and I can look after him. It’s no trouble. We have plenty of room. While you pick him up, I can air out the guest room and put out clean towels. I’ve already cooked.” She touched his arm. “We’ll have a ‘welcome home’ party for him.”

“Are you sure?”

He’d been worrying about where to put Papa Michalis ever since he’d received the call from KAT. When Patronas had called the Archdiocese, Bishop Gerasimos had suggested Psarra, saying Papa Michalis’ fellow priests could look after him, but Patronas hadn’t wanted to do that to the old man. He wanted him to be able to stay on Chios, near his friends and a hospital, and he was relieved when Marina Papoulis offered to take him in.

She nodded. “It will be my honor.”

* * *

The passengers from Athens were already disembarking by the time Patronas reached the airport. After everyone had exited, two flight attendants appeared at the door with Papa Michalis. He was standing on crutches, a tight expression on his face. He looked shrunken and old.

When he saw the chief officer, he raised one of his crutches in greeting. A pick-up truck was moving toward the plane, towing a wooden flatbed trailer.

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