Weekend in the Country (Part 1)

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Saturday

Mena is extremely worried about Kostas. Her nerves are raw, her stomach is all knotted up so that she has trouble eating very much, and she is on a short fuse, naturally.

In spite of that, she has been functioning as our Social Director, and an expert one, too. Who else could persuade us to keep such un-American hours? We have been leaving our house for hers each evening at around 9 p.m., meeting friends there, and going out together until sometime after midnight. Then we catch the bus home and get to bed around 1 a.m. And in Greece, that’s what old fogeys do! The younger set hardly ever begins before 10 p.m., and their partying hardly ever ends before 2:00 a.m. at the earliest.

Saturday, we went with Mena and Kostas to their summer home in the village of Nea Syllata. We stopped on the way to have a lunch of bougatsa at Kallikrateia (see map and click on appropriate place marker).

Kallikrateia was having some sort of holiday. There were flags out and there were races and other events taking place, including some kiddie carnival rides.

It was also market day; we had a lot of fun browsing among the shops. We also enjoyed our bougatsa, at a table overlooking the water. The sea was deepest blue, dappled with gold. Demetrios and I walked out along the pier (see placemark). The water was clear all the way to the bottom; I could see every rock, seaweed, and sea urchin.

And, of course, who should we meet wandering through the market but an Old Friend of Demetrios! It was Maria, to be exact, who lives across the street from us and chats with us from her balcony, the one Demetrios has known since she was a grade school girl. She and her husband, Kostas, have a summer house in Kallikrateia. They hope we will come there one day with them.

Then, on to Nea Syllata (which isn’t marked on the map, probably too small to mention) and their traditional style house, designed and built by none other than Christos.

It’s unfinished. Mena and Kostas took out a loan to finish it, but then he had his bypass surgery, some ten years ago, and he and Mena elected to spend the money coming to America to see us. There was some fear that Kostas might die, I think, and he wanted to see his old friend once more first. Now they can't afford to finish the house while their daughter is still studying in Paris.

As a result, there is no plaster on the wall and there are very few tiles on the floor. Everything is concrete. As you walk in the front door, the kitchen is on your left, living room on your right. Ahead is one bedroom; behind the living room is another, and behind the kitchen is a bathroom.

Along the far wall of the living room is an enormous table of such dark wood it must be ebony or something, having very fat, curving legs ending in claw feet, with elaborately carved chairs. In the corner is a fireplace with the traditional Greek chimney. It’s inside the house, and it narrows as it climbs toward the ceiling. There are chairs and a futon and a television. There is an assortment of rugs on the floor, ranging from one that looks like Art Deco to one that looks vaguely Navaho and a third that looks like needlepoint roses, distinctly Greek. There is also a tapestry on the wall above the dining table, white background with red roses and green leaves.

The guest bedroom has twin beds set up as one king bed; there’s also a child’s bed, a wardrobe, and a chest for blankets. There’s little room for anything else but a coat stand.

The windows are all mullioned, with real, wood mullions. The shutters are of dark wood, and they, too, are real; they are closed at night for privacy and opened in the day. The only curtains are lace.

One end of the bathroom is a shower. There is no stall, no curtain, just a spigot, faucets, and a hand-held shower head. The water goes wherever it will; makes no difference because everything is waterproof, and flows down a drain, toward which the entire floor slightly slopes.

There is a flag-stone deck outside the kitchen door, with wooden balustrades. They call it a balkoni, as it is slightly off the ground. That is where most of the living is done in the summer.

After our naps, Mena made us crepes for supper.

At eleven o’clock (yes, that’s 11 p.m.) we got in the car and drove 10 or 15 minutes to visit Elias and Myrta in Nea Moudania (see map). Elias is, of course, a high school friend of Demetrios’. They are the ones who live in that gorgeous triplex I so wanted to buy the end unit of. It has been sold to someone else by now. The house sits in a gorgeous, exotic garden with palm trees and other tropical plants. There is an olive grove behind it and a private chapel on the property. The view out the front windows is of the sea, and on clear days, of Mount Olympus!

A large dog greeted us and I fell in love. I usually don’t like big dogs, but this one was so unusual. Almost as big as a German Shepherd, he had curly, wiry hair like a terrier, and a tightly curled moustache all around his nose. He wouldn’t let us pet him, but he jumped all over the place with glee at seeing us.

“We’ve been quarreling,” said Elias, mournfully, as we entered the house.

“Over his smoking,” added Myrta.

Well, should the arrival of good friends interrupt such a great quarrel? Of course not. We all continued it. Of course Elias ought to quit. No, psychotherapy probably wouldn’t be necessary. Demetrios held forth on the virtues of the nicotine patch. And of course halfway through all this, Myrta lit up her own cigarette.

That sort of ended the discussion, that and the arrival of the next-door neighbor, Nellie. The conversation turned to the dog who had greeted us. Everything had been tried, everything had failed. They had tried to shoo the dog away; he wouldn’t go. They had tried frightening him away; he was brave. They had tried to trap him; he was too clever to be caught. They had tried to poison him; he had vomited it up. They had tried twice more to poison him, but he had learned his lesson the first time and wouldn’t touch the stuff. Imagine how my admiration of the creature grew as I listened to all this! I’d adopt him in a heartbeat if I could! But by now he is established there, and although they wouldn’t say so, I know they have been feeding him, because I had noticed his bowl as we were walking from the car to the front door.

We left shortly after midnight, our excuse for leaving at such an unheard-of hour being that we were going to church in the morning.