In the beginning of his fifth book of “Histories” (named ”Terpsichore” by the Alexandrians), the great Herodotus describes the customs of the various tribes of Thrace. He mentions, among others, the tribe of Trauses, who lived in the southern slopes of Mount Rhodopi in today’s northern Greece. They have a curious custom: When a baby is born, all the relatives and family gather around it and lament for the multitude of pain and disappointment that the new human will have to endure during his/her life. They enumerate all the bad things and ills that are possibly going to happen and the whole occasion is that of a real mourning. On the contrary, when someone dies, the same gathering takes place but there is rejoicing, and the burial is a celebration since the dead person is now free of pain and sufferings and does not risk any more to have bad things happening to him. They have a big feast to celebrate this happiness.

These people obviously believed that the dead would continue existing in a different form of life than that of our human existence, which, in their perception, was not to be recommended.

A pessimistic view of things, although, unfortunately, realistic. We humans of the 21st century do not seem to be better off than the Trauses in this respect. This might explain our constant quest for a way to escape, find a refuge and a “paradise” which could offer an illusory protection (or at least the “Lethe,” or forgetfulness) from the facts of life. A real place with an artificial character, having subjective qualities recognisable mostly by ourselves (and maybe by some other individuals sharing the same illusions).

This is the role of our Cycladic island. The grey lines of its mountains as they emerge in the sea mist carry this absurd promise of the place that offers Lethe. This offer is recognised only by the happy few who share the illusion. It is not recognisable by many others who maybe live permanently on it or visit for professional reasons, or even for pure entertainment. The happy few are a relatively small number and mostly know each other. Many of them have built or own houses on the island, which they consider their escape depositories.

It is a ridiculous situation but entirely true. A piece of land in the middle of the sea appears to provide a metaphysical shelter and becomes a symbol of freedom and of a reconciliation with oneself. The Trausian life is considered to be beyond the waves and can only be reached by ferry.  When one is on this island, one lives in a sort of protected eternal cocoon, despite television and the Internet.

In the winter months, when there are no crowds, this feeling takes over completely. It is even reinforced in times of bad weather when the ferries cannot sail and one feels cut from the rest of the world. Such secret happiness, even if it is temporary! Missing connections with the Trausian world might be a big problem for some, but is a blessing for the happy few who sit watching the gale force winds and waves sipping their ouzo in the single open and badly heated taverna of the harbour. They are full of internal comfort and recognise their blessings of happening to be there at that moment.

It’s when we talk of the “magic” of the island. The miracle of following the overgrown paths and sinking in the sand of the deserted beaches. As long as the magic is still on, we are somewhat safe from the Trausian life.

This illusory feeling is particularly strong when we are away from the island, in the grips of the everyday existence. We imagine our island houses beckoning and inviting us from afar.  We also imagine the magic moment of boarding the ferry in Piraeus in the buzz and hustle of the harbour.

And look forward to this moment.

In the middle of the winter, the spring again. After a second cold spell with freezing winds which brought the temperature down to around 2-3 degrees centigrade in the night, the wind drops and the next day the sun shines and warms up everything to a point of exaggeration. The island is totally green with yellow patches of small spring flowers, which open when the sun is out and close again at sunset. The result is that you have different landscapes depending whether the sun is out or not. As if a painter puts yellow colors with a brush on the green fields during the day, and takes them out after sunset.

The white churches in the middle of all this greenery look even whiter.

A lot of gossip is going around about people I know or have just met. There is a complicated story about a bizarre Italian-British woman whom I met in October.  She was about to buy a piece of land in Polydendri, so I introduced her to Thaleia and Fanis for possible advice and potentially using Thaleia as an architect. I now learn that she has a local boyfriend, a drunkard who drives a Toyota half-truck like a madman (on it is written with red letters: ANTISTASIS which means RESISTENCE; to what, only he knows) and who is about to die of cirrhosis of the liver. While this is supposed to be a doctor’s secret, the whole island is au courant. The woman is also accusing a Greek-Australian woman named Claire who came to the island from Australia to teach English (whom she spent Christmas with her parents somewhere in the Peloponnese) to have stolen her bankcard and all the money in her Greek bank account. It is all very confusing, and both women are accusing each other of a coup monté.  They are to appear in court shortly. I can just imagine the faces of the policemen and the judge of a small provincial town in the Peloponnese having to confront and decide about all this. It could be the subject of a film of the fifties made in Italy starring Marcello Mastroianni.

But it turns out that both women might be compulsive thieves. Brigitte tells me that she let the Italian-British woman have the keys of her house while she went to Florida, so that she can watch TV; when Brigitte came back, there were some valuable materials missing, as well as some expensive art books. In the meantime, the woman went back to Italy or England and left in the Brigitte’s house two suitcases, one open and one locked. The locked one is very heavy, and Brigitte thinks it contains the stolen stuff. But the woman is away in the Bahamas with Joan and Theo, and will not be back until the end of March.  So the suspense continues and the drunkard drives around the island madly resisting …

I also spent almost a week with Petros and Lilian, the secretive Athenian millionaires, who bought a piece of land above Ammoudari and can’t get permission to build because it is a classified “forest area”. They tried to bribe the authorities but things are still not clear. They came to the house several times for drinks, and Petros was very optimistic, making plans about their future house and getting inspiration from our own. They left for Athens full of love for our sublime island and self-congratulating about their luck to soon be owners and part of the select society of this island.

Last night however, I was invited for dinner and “biriba” (a Greek card game) by Thaleia and Fanis. In front of the roaring open fire, we sat sipping ouzo and whiskey and discussing Petros. Thaleia is furious. She thinks he is so clumsy and childish that he ruins all the patient work she has done to try and obtain a building permit for him. It is still uncertain whether the permit will be obtained, and he just bought another adjacent piece of land containing a half ruined building/animal shed, which he plans to convert into a garage and storeroom––all this in an area where they have recently found Mycenean tombs of the 12 century BC. When we visited his land, as we were walking, I spotted a stone which was obviously carved by hand. I told him, “This looks ancient”. “I don’t want to know!” he screamed, terrified. If they find antiquities in his land it will be “the mouse in the soup” as we say in Greece. Thaleia looked at me straight in the eye and said, rather terrified herself: “How can this man have been a senior economic adviser to the Minister of Economy, dealing with Ministers and Prime Ministers? He is incapable in managing simple economic operations in everyday life!”
No comment.

I went to Thaleia’s house at 8, “early” because we were to play biriba. Knowing their habits I ate a substantive lunch quite late, about 4 o’clock, in order to be able to stand it until dinnertime. We actually ate about midnight and continued to play until 2 o’clock in the morning. When we were eating we discussed these new people I met through Petros and Lilian. They are both teaching in Stanford, are semi-retired and now about to spend several months of the year on the island. Thaleia said she cannot stand her singing. “What singing?” I asked. “She sings in the water!” exclaimed Thaleia in her Louis Armstrong voice, almost suffocating with protest. Apparently the couple are also members of the select Rocky Beach social club and go there swimming every day in the summer. Apparently, the lady, who is also a qualified opera singer, starts singing arias when she hits the water and does not stop until she has swam to the opposite little promontory and back, to the annoyance of everybody else. So she is not in Thaleia’s good books. I didn’t dare ask if she sings well, at least.

Talking of gossip, nobody can beat Rickey, the Canadian retired professor who came to the island fifteen years ago and learned the language and mixed with the locals in an intimate way. He has an absolute knowledge of all family relationships of practically all the 2000 resident islanders (a highly complicated and confusing task with the same few names being repeated over and over again as a result of intermarriage and in-breeding over the centuries). He also appears to have a good knowledge of most non-family relationships, sexual inclinations and preferences and past passions and related stories. If you happen to be sitting with Rickey at a table in the little café of the main square under the vine, being bitten by mosquitos and scratching your legs below your shorts, while sipping your ouzo, he will point at passers-by and give you a thorough genealogical construction of the passer’s family as well as recent events such as adulteries, divorces, romances with happy or unhappy endings, as well as other dramas or blissful events. Rickey looks completely like a local, growing a small grey beard and a moustache with a sunburnt face and old-fashioned baggy trousers. He lives in a tiny house that he bought almost for nothing when he first visited the island, twenty years ago. It has a splendid view and is packed with literary reviews.

Rickey’s informers are mainly fishermen with whom he is very close as he goes often fishing with them. This also gives him an advantage in getting good fresh fish even during the high tourist season when restaurants and tavernas pay gold for such produce.

Herodotus also liked gossip, although he presented it properly dressed as a historical investigation and a scientific quest for truth. He relished the passions, mistakes and other human characteristics that compose the unending human romance and drama. He only wrote a few paragraphs about our island. He was obviously not very impressed.

Yesterday morning, Brigitte rang.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked. She had cancelled an evening out before because she got sunstroke and she was feeling miserable because Mike is now here spending his August holidays with her.
“Much better. We are going with Mike to a photography exhibition this evening. Would you like to come? We could go and have dinner somewhere afterwards.”

O.K.

I arrived around 20.00 at her house. She was dressed in red with red shoes and a sort of reddish silk shawl/jacket and white bandana.
“You like it?” she asks. “It’s handy and I can keep warm later.”
There has been a serious drop in temperature the last few days, it is still blowing a gale and the evenings are fresh. When Mike is there, she always looks better. Mike was moving around, undecided on how to dress. As we were waiting for him, she said:
“I had an idea but you’ll not like it.”
“Go ahead!” I said.
“I think Jane, your beloved wife, and I should open a restaurant. With our cooking talents we can make a lot of money and have fun too!”
I laughed politely.
“I knew you will be against it,” she said.
“Ask her,” I said, avoiding any comment.

We drove down to Stavros. The exhibition was in the old cinema at the bus stop next to Nikiforos’ café-patisserie. The building was illuminated, inviting the public to visit the photography exhibition. It now belongs to the Lelos Foundation “St. Irene”, the same who owns the splendid church and house on the rocks at the entrance of the harbour that Mabel is renting for 3 years for a ridiculous sum. It is managed by the Municipality.
The photographer is a local islander who lives in Athens. In his early forties, short and dark, he was welcoming the rare visitors, his young pregnant wife sitting at the desk. They both spoke good English. They reminded me a bit of the Blondin but younger.
The old cinema was atrociously illuminated, with strong lights overhead distracting the focus on the photographs. These were all in colour, stuck on poles around the big room. Nice photographs without any originality with rich colours. They could be used in one of these calendars you can find at the airport.
“This is my island,” the photographer said. “I concentrate in the variation of three main colours, essential elements of this island, white, brown and blue.”
The titles of the photographs on the list were melo-poetic, rather corny, reminding me a bit of this year’s exhibition in the monastery of Panteleimon. I shook my head with false appreciation. Brigitte was ecstatic and Mike said he liked them. I was surprised by Mike’s appreciation. As a good painter he usually has also good taste. The exhibitor is obviously a professional photographer but he is not an artist.
His pregnant sweet wife was offering glasses of mineral water and Coke with some almond cakes. Suddenly, the Mayor arrived with a kind of deputy. The photographer got very excited and rushed to him with gratitude as if the Prime Minister had walked in. The Mayor, a tall chap in his late forties, was talking into his mobile phone. He shook the photographer’s hand, rushed around the exhibition in one minute and disappeared always talking to his mobile phone. His deputy stayed behind to represent him and study the photographs with leisure.
Some more visitors were now pouring in. We left shaking the hands of the photographer and his wife who were all gratitude.
“What does he do for a living?” I asked Brigitte.
“He is making photographs for advertising agencies in Athens. Did you like them?”
“Some,” I lied.
“Let’s go for an ouzo!” said Mike. “What about that old traditional ouzeria opposite the ‘Department Store’ shop in the main street?”
“Splendid idea!”

We walked in front of Laki’s super market and into the main street. It was now 21.30 and there were still relatively few people around; you could walk more or less normally. As we started climbing the main street we encountered Nikos the composer with his wife Hannah. Greetings and effusive salutations. They were also going to the same ouzeria. Nikos and myself dropped a bit behind while walking up.
“I tried to buy some of your music in Athens,” I said, “but I couldn’t find any.”
He shook his Trotskyish head: “Very difficult.“
“Why? Are there any CDs?”
“No CDs. They make CD’s of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis and all that crappish modern hits but not my music. But there are recordings.”
“Where can one find those?”
“I don’t know, try the Megaron, they must have recordings of my music. They are of good quality, like the one you listened the other day. Ask them, they will require that you sign a paper promising not to make commercial use.”
The bars right and left of the narrow main street were blasting out music and were already filling up. It was a brilliant summer evening, joyful as a soirée de fête. Many young people around, talking loudly and laughing.
“Surely it must be possible to buy some of your music somewhere,” I insisted.
“There is,” he said. “Its a voluminous edition of Modern Greek Composers by the Ministry of Culture but it consists of many CDs. There is a piece of mine in that but you are obliged to buy the whole lot and most of it is crap. It’s a waste of money. Better find some recordings.”

Not very modest, old Nikos.

The little ouzeria was chock full. Remue ménage. Nikos and Mike, who know the owner, convinced him to put out a new table pushing around some less prominent customers. We settle around a tiny table next to the wall.
“This will be my round!” declares Nikos in a loud voice, and barks at the imperturbable owner who waits with a little writing pad in his hand: “Two peasant sausages, two fried cheeses and two tomato salads and a small bottle of ouzo Mini.” Brigitte will drink beer. I shake the hand of Hannah. A beautiful woman in her mid sixties, very classic features, slim and soberly dressed. I had met her once before in one of Brigitte’s parties two years ago. She speaks good Greek. She has just come back from Sweden, she says, and she wants to visit the Panteleimon exhibition. A discussion followed about that and about this year’s disappointment.
“I told her it’s mostly crap,” exclaims Nikos.
“They asked him to participate the first year with his music,” says Hannah, “but he refused.”
“Why?” I enquire. “Your music would be ideal with this type of show.”
“My music will make all these people run away!” Nikos insisted.
“Not all of them!”

Passons.

“I’m sure I have heard your music when I went to see ancient Greek plays in my youth, in Herodion and in Epidaurus,” I say.
“You have, says Nikos. “You see I’m very interested in the ancient theatre. I’m convinced, and it’s almost certain that the plays were also musical pieces almost like mini operas. I have done some research trying to correspond the long and short syllables of the language with music notes and it gives amazing results. It’s fantastic!”
“Has any of this music survived?” I ask.
“Not the music accompanying the plays, unfortunately. Other ancient music yes. It has even been sung by … It is very similar to old Greek traditional village songs.”
The ouzo arrived with the plates of food and we started drinking and munching. The ouzo glasses were traditional, tiny, you either drink it neat or with little water. No ice. The first bottle went fast.
“This is nice this type of evenings,” said Nikos gulping back his glass over his little grey beard, “no planning, just enjoying.”
“Yesterday I was passing by here and what do I see?” says Mike, “The prime minister and his wife were sitting in the New York bar, all alone but surrounded by discreet athletic young men (security guards) who were also pretending to be customers of the bar. Otherwise the usual crowd.”
“The prime minister is a great friend of mine,” says Nikos, “I know him for 30 years before he became Minister or Prime Minister. Everytime he comes to the island we meet and discuss various things. He has a mind like a razor, he is very sharp and he is not populist, no rhetoric, only to the point. We met two days ago. He talked about his trip to Moscow. He was very favourably impressed by Putin.”
“Did he say anything about Bush?” asks Mike with a big smile.
“Nothing,” says Nikos. “Better say nothing about Bush, it’s more prudent.”
Laughs all around the table, the little eyes of Nikos blinking with satisfaction behind his Trotsky glasses. He gulps another glass of ouzo.
“We’re dry!” exclaims Mike.
“It’s my turn,” I say and order more ouzo and food. Do they do anything else than sausage, fried cheese and tomato salad? Not really but they can do a little omelette. Let’s have it as well. Euphoria is established on the table.
A couple of elderly people burnt black by the sun and looking almost African pass by and greet effusively Nikos and the rest. It is an unmistakably British accent.
“Have you fixed your water pump?” asks Nikos.
“Yes! Can’t you see we’re clean?” They disappear in the now thickening crowd.
“Their water pump went bust and they had two days without water,” explains Nikos. “Its this British diplomat, our neighbor, they have an enormous antique house with a main living room so big you can give concerts in it. In fact I suggested to them to give Chamber Music concerts. Monteverdi would be ideal, not Vivaldi. I hate Vivaldi.”
“Everybody doesn’t hate Vivaldi,” says Hannah. “Maybe Ion likes him.”
“I like some of his works,” I say, “De gustibus et de coloribus non disputantum est. I also like Monteverdi. I remember seeing Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria in a magnificent all wooden theatre in the forest in the Swiss mountains. They had dressed the actors as modern Greek fishermen and the boat was a kaiki. Unforgettable evening.”
“I saw the same opera in Munich,” says Nikos, “the whole play took place inside a trireme.”
There were no triremes at Homer’s time, I thought. They came much later with the advanced shipbuilding technology of the Athenians––but I preferred not to comment, it made no difference anyway.
“I love opera,” said Nikos, “I have written an opera for the Bacchae of Euripides.”
“The Bacchae?” I said. “I didn’t think you were dionysiac enough.”
“I’m a crypto-dionysiac,” said Nikos smiling cunningly and caressing his wife.
“I must really find your music,” I said, “My wife also asked me to look for it.”
“Has your wife by any chance metaphysical qualities?” asked Nikos suddenly.
“Why do you ask that?” I was genuinely surprised.
“Because I think she has.”
“I believe she thinks she has but she doesn’t like to talk about it,” I said prudently, and did not pursue the subject.
“We must get together when she comes late September,” said Nikos. “We shall do that, we shall have another ouzoposia in our place.”
“Or in our place,” said Hannah.

More ouzo arrived. We talked about modern Greek literature; apparently Nikos has met everybody that counts, particularly the celebrated 30’s group. We also discussed Politis’ Eroica that Nikos considers the masterpiece of the masterpieces. I am also very fond of Politis, so we were happy agreeing and striking our ouzo glasses in brotherhood. Brigitte and Mike had never heard of Politis. Probably many young Greeks don’t know him either.

The main street was now gorging with people, walking in front of our table with difficulty and studying each other. We got up and started going down, pushing slightly our way among the crowd. We accompanied Nikos and Hannah to the square and we said goodbye, kissing each other effusively. Nikos kissed me on both cheeks, obviously tipsy. “It’s been a great evening, let’s do it again!” We promised eternal fidelity.
“Let’s go to the New York bar for a drink now” said Brigitte after they left. We started back uphill again pushing ourselves through the crowd and the eager faces, under the bougainvilleas, but this is another story.

As agreed the previous afternoon, we set out to Hora to study the full moon in relation to Tom’s next installation project. Brigitte was waiting in front of her house dressed in black, wearing sandals but no bandanna. She insisted that we take her old jeep, “as it is such fun to drive in an open car”.

I reluctantly agreed.

“The whole of the island will now say that we are lovers,” she said, “there is no use trying to hide it in your car”. I murmured that I didn’t give a damn about that, but I did not tell her that I had doubts about her car’s trustworthiness. It really makes awful disquieting noises and I don’t know when it has seen a garage lately. Seeing me grabbing the handle in front of the passenger’s seat, she said: “Funny, you do exactly like Mike when I drive, are you nervous?” Of course not, etc., etc.

Tom, an habitué of the Moonrise bar, got an idea last month as he was sipping his ouzo and watching the enormous orange moon rise from the distant mountains of the island across the channel. It was such a majestic experience that he thought that one could enrich it further by having original music playing as well as giant video installation projections on the opposite side of the valley. He speculated that the show could be repeated 3 times every summer month: the night before the full moon; the night of the full moon; and the night after. Spectators would sit all around the side of the Moonrise bar watching the moon, accompanied by appropriate video and music. The project could be financed through various cultural funds and offered free of charge to locals and tourists, thus boosting the island’s attraction to visitors.

The moon came out at about 20.15, still broad daylight, as we were driving to Hora. It came out of a mist and was not imposing at all. It is far too early to start a show at moonrise. Being still daylight, it completely spoils the effect. At Hora itself I noted that, going up the drive that ends to the bus stop and the old school, you cannot see the moon. So Tom’s idea of having people sitting along there does not fly if intended for moonrise. You can see it about half an hour later, but not then. In general, the moon rises in the middle of the bay, but moves to the right (SW) as it goes higher, and at about 23.00, it is totally on the side.

The Moonrise bar was packed. Lefteris the barman had inaugurated new comfortable folding armchairs and they were all taken. From the bar, the view across the sea is superb and the clientele was sipping their drinks while watching the almost full moon––mostly young Greek tourists. “Buenas noches compañeros!” screamed Lefteris, shaking a cocktail. We looked around and we were about to ask him where to sit when a noisy and obnoxious French family with two screaming kids got up and left, leaving the best place for us just below the bar. Brigitte had brought three CDs with her and she gave one to Lefteris to play it. He did not seem very happy. The loudspeaker was screaming the “Evita” piece, which he obviously cherishes.  One could now hear it after the departure of the wailing French. Typically Brigitte bullied him into playing HER record, a certain Loreena McKennit from Ireland. She said she was in love with the way this woman sung, she had heard her in a concert in Lycabettus last year and cannot forget her. She is not bad.

A continuous va et vient of parading people in front of us composed a strange scene with the moon and the sea in the background. Brigitte didn’t stop talking about herself, as usual. The moon slowly became more silvery and bright and a silver river formed on the waves. It was much more beautiful now, an hour later after moonrise, and it was completely dark. Tom’s idea to coincide with the moonrise is not good, unless tomorrow the moon rises later and it is darker. The wind did not seem to affect us as the site is quite protected. There is a need to study all this very carefully when designing a possible installation and show.

The crowd going up and down the steps in front of us thinned a bit as the night progressed. Among the young couples an old round fat woman with a stick was painfully going down the steps and paused in front of us. Seeing that I was looking at her with sympathy she said, “It’s the old age, the old age!” And before I had time to answer she added: “It’s not true, it is the fat!”

“You must go on a diet!” I told her.

“Yes I should.” She shook her head in doubt.

“There are too many temptations,” I said.

“Too many!” she agreed and went on with her stick. I thought that she might only be ten years older than me perhaps.

Towards 22.00 Lucille and Albert stood in front of us. Lucille like a shrivelled old woman. They had gone for dinner to a fish taverna down on the little beach and they came up to catch the bus. I invited them to have a drink with us as they still had half an hour. I asked Albert about his writing and he said that he had published a second novel in January. Lucille said that it has been well received. Maybe we should read it.

Then we talked about Lefteris, the owner of Moonrise. He looks after goats during the day and opens his sophisticated bar at night. In the winter he only deals with his goats. According to him, he is also the proud companion of Che Guevara. “C’est un phénomène!” said Albert. “Il prend conseil des jeunes gens branchés et il a monté ce superbe bar“. I told them I did not think he has ever been outside Greece, and they think he might have not even been outside the island. Typical Greek genius, the bluff that works.

We all agreed that this year, the island’s art exhibition in the monastery of Panteleimon was disappointing. Albert said that it had accomplished a circle: that either it’s the last year of this type of exhibition, or something new will have to happen. We told them about Tom’s installation project and Albert thinks that such sophisticated artistic endeavours might alter the island’s basic character, even if they are well done. I said that the island’s basic character is more in danger from tourism and the locals than from culture.

Brigitte said it would be silly to go back to her house to eat her salad and I agreed, thankfully. At about 23.00, after having sipped two enormous ouzos and munched some pistachios, she suggested we go to eat in Loukas in the square of Anomera. As we have not eaten there for years, I agreed to try it. The place was packed as usual, but we found a nice table in the back against the wall, under the bougainvillea. There was a pleasant breeze and one could see the clear sky packed with brilliant stars. Brigitte started talking about Lucille. Apparently she has been coming for many years to the island with a girlfriend, Fernande, before Albert appeared on the scene. Fernande had a daughter from a first marriage but she had later been living with a Bedouin in Burkina Faso, with whom she had another child. She still works in Burkina Faso but comes to the island from time to time. She is now here with her 13- year-old franco-bedouine daughter. Lucille comes from a well-known family of university professors, from Lille. We both agreed that we don’t like her as she is very false.

As we were picking at our mediocre food, a little silver car stopped in front of the restaurant and out stepped the Andreadis couple. It was about 00.30. Pavlos saw us first, and said loudly, shaking his finger to us: “I won’t say anything!” meaning of course to our respective partners, but only semi-jokingly. I’m sure the Ioannides, among others, will know that I take Brigitte out to dinner and… who knows? I understand that poor Brigitte must have a hard time from that point of view. Mike is only there occasionally, and the imagination of the locals is over-fertile about a woman alone. She told me this is one of the many difficulties she has to face here. She loves Mike but suffers from solitude (another one) and she is now afraid of getting old and ending up in an old people’s home. Apparently her daughter and her son assured her that they will not let this happen to her, but she is depressed and confused. And she doesn’t think Mike was right to go to Australia for his father’s 80th birthday and leave her alone here.

How can one explain to her the contradiction?

As we arrived back to her house, the mountains were bathed in silver moonlight and the air was light and fresh. She handed me the three CDs and instructed me to listen to them putting the sound to the maximum, watching the moon playing with the sea.

It is six o’clock in the afternoon, the sun is setting and the moon, almost full, is already high in the sky. These are not the full moons of the summer. They must rise in midday. Today, anyway, it would have been impossible to see anything because there has been an incessant rainstorm with gale force south winds. No boats. The island is completely wet. All during the day I could hear the cistern on the roof filling with rainwater. The storm has now stopped and the neighboring island is lit by the last rays of the sun. It has become quite cold. I would have built a big fire but I’m invited for dinner by the Gristedes who arrived yesterday just before the gale started.

It has been a frustrating day. I stayed mostly in, worked a little, read a bit of Alexakis, watched the storm, listened to the news. Yesterday and the day before I went for a long walk in the mountain paths and I would have liked to have done the same today, but it has been impossible, and it’s too late now.

I have to leave soon for Athens and I’m already getting depressed by the idea. One week here is not enough. I feel so relaxed, it is another reality. I can’t explain this feeling of “être bien dans mon assiette” here. One day I shall try to analyse all this. Not now — no need to destroy the illusion.

Yesterday about this time I went to visit Beatrice. For her, being here is a mix of exhilaration and frustration. She made an important choice, and she discovers that she suffers from solitude. She also complicates her life enormously, never stops talking and never asks questions about others.

As we (she) were talking drinking jasmin tea, the telephone rang and somebody invited her for dinner. Very generously, she suggested to bring me along. So we went for dinner at Simonides’ house in the south beach. An event out of Dickens, Papadiamandis and Kazantzakis. Maybe more out of the latter.

The house of Simonides belongs to the Church, which was donated by a rich and excentric Athenian who built it in the twenties as a hunting lodge. It was then the only building in the bay, apart from the little monastery of at the top of the hill. It has a splendiferous view facing the bay due west among olive trees and other vegetation. From outside it looks enormous, but in fact it has only two bedrooms and a very big kitchen, with very high ceilings. The best part of the house is its big balcony, high above the ground, from where the view is magnificent. It was dark and already blowing a gale force south wind with the waves breaking furiously on the beach. A spectacular sight.

We entered from a side door in the kitchen which is at the back. Beatrice had forwarned me but despite that, I was impressed by the incredible mess and dirt reigning in there. Simonides is a kind of an educated Zorba who speaks relatively good English and who retired to the island about 20 years ago. I think he might be my age, maybe a bit older. He was a civil engineer in Athens who decided to get away from it all by going to the remote beach to live a “monastic” life. He claims to be the only real, year-round resident. He rented this house from the Church 18 years ago for a ridiculous sum. He tries to project an image of the sauvage séduisant and apparently he has a lot of women parading through all the time. He has an interesting face, all lined from the outdoor life and a nice smile.

The atmosphere was warm from a self-made “soba” (an old barrel with a hole burning olive wood), and the delicious smell of a lamb with potatoes in the oven. Michael the philosopher from the States was also there with his mild ways and his antique face. In a corner, among the trash and next to the fire, a little dog was stretching happily. There was a plastic bottle with local white wine which looked and was undrinkable. Luckily I had brought two bottles of decent red with me. Simonides drank only fruit juice (perhaps a former alchoholic?). Beatrice found a clean tablecloth, which she spread over the dirt of the big table and the whole setup looked less repulsive. Simonides brought the leg of lamb from the oven, cut it in four and served it with potatoes to each one of us. It was good and greasy. As we say in Greece, “it pulls the wine”.

The conversation was centered only on Simonides’ court case with the Church. They want him out and he will fight until the end. I learned a few things, but at the end it became boring. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening. We said thank you and good luck and drove away in the windy night, Beatrice to her atelier-house and me to my bourgeois villa. The clouds were speeding in the sky and the moon, on and off, was almost full and silvery. No need to put the garden lights on.

I’m still not sure whether all this is sincere or du genre. Basically, I don’t care. It was nothing but a picturesque entertainment, a change from the Gristedes. It might be interesting to get to know Michael the philosopher better; I remember I spoke to his much younger New Yorker wife at Beatrice’s autumn party. She is enchanted by living in Greece and writes poetry.

Computers are so predictable! I sent you the same Valentine card you sent to your mother. The only consolation with these machines is that through e-mail we are geared to writing letters again, something almost démodé with the modern telecom technology. But think of the literature that correspondence has created since the ancient times! We have letters of Plato and Plutarch as well as of Saint Paul and many others, most of them enriching and some moving from our dead parents, etc. Letters remain in a drawer as a proof of life passed. La vida breve.

You see, the island is inspiring corny thoughts, but that is how it is. Rimbaud was not corny in his poetry, but he almost had a corny end in Arabia. Nobody is perfect. Oscar Wilde thought he was, and it is true, he wrote Salomé, for me a masterpiece–didn’t he write it in French? I’m sure you‘ll have no problem with old Oscar, you like him too much and rightly so, he was almost hundred years ahead of his time. And he had a sense of humour. I visited his tomb in Paris.

The island looks almost like an English landscape, all green with the blue sea around, but it is full of flowers already, yellow buttercups (or something like that) covering the fields everywhere. Also beautiful mauve ones. I don’t know the names, I’m hopeless. Rousseau, when he got older started getting interested in plants and flowers. Is it a sign of old age? I’m not that interested as yet. I remember I read Rousseau’s Confessions in a sunny hotel room in Casablanca, thirty years ago. From my window I could see a balcony opposite with a tortoise in it. I don’t know how these thirty years have passed. You must learn to carpe diem.

Today I bought a laurel to plant to remind me of the old house in Athens and to dry the leaves for cooking. I’m also planting two fig trees. The old ones died years ago and no Greek garden is conceivable without fig trees. One is supposed to produce white figs and the other, black ones. But the big event is the homage to Dionysos, by planting the vines. They will produce dark red wine (not to be confused with the wine dark sea of Homer.) Unfortunately I will not be here during the planting, because George the Albanian who is going to plant them has gone back to Albania to renew his visa for Greece. The prosaic reality destroys romanticism, although I have not yet visualised George as a Dionysos disciple with a vine crown on his head.

The same birds seem to be around as in the summer. They go about their daily affairs crowing unconvincingly. The nights are cold and there is going to be a full moon on Saturday, my last night here. They predict bad weather as from tomorrow but I hope it will be clear on Saturday. If it is, it will be a good omen. I’m going to build a fire in the fireplace anyway, to celebrate the passing of another winter. And so life flows. Amen.

Have just finished a plate of magnificent grapes I brought from Athens. It is the first day that the sun has come out since I arrived here but it is blowing a gale, south westerly, the boats are not sailing and the locals say its force 9 gusting to 10. Apparently it will turn to the north wind tomorrow, less strong but colder.

It has been very mild until now, 22 degrees during the day but I didn’t go to walks as it was raining on and off. I might go this afternoon. I have been mostly reading and doing odd little jobs in the house.

The basilic is thriving still but of course has gone to seed. It is enormous. The hibiscus in the patio is covered with beautiful flowers and there are still new roses coming up. These must be the last of the season. The third bougainvillia on the terrace, the one that had remained small has suddenly shot up with a tall branch covered with deep pink/purple flowers, a different colour again. Each plant has a different colour, various shades of red and pink.

The social life has again taken off. On Saturday dinner I met a new client of my architect, an Athenian whose name I didn’t catch, who has bought an old mill and its surrounding land near the road on the way to the northern beach, just after the new petrol station. He wants to build a house next to the mill and renovate the mill itself. His view is panoramic, I saw it today. The main question is how to build the house without spoiling the beauty of the old mill etc.

On Sunday dinner chez Brigitte. We were eight people. Apart from Jane and a Greek American whom I had met at her last party the others were new. A Greek chap who lives in the northern beach, ex boatbuilder from Piraeus who found his happiness in this beach before the new road. A bit primitive but quite funny with an interesting face. A Swedish woman living in Greece since 1972, married to an Athenian-islander (again missed the name) and who has a house in the south of the island, not far from the house Peter could buy. She now lives here the whole year. I get the feeling she is part of the Athenian grand bourgeois circles. Finally, the new German woman assistant who spoke no English and didn’t talk the whole evening

Talking of houses, the one of Peter’s is extremely charming. It has a magnificent view, much better than his land, there is not a straight line in it, has a grown up little garden and with some minor changes it could become extremely livable. The cost of these changes would be low. There are some fine pieces of old furniture in it. It is 6-10 minutes walk from the main road, about the same as his land but it is at the end of the village, very quiet and a bit “wild” as Peter likes it. There is no possibility of closing his view because it is high above the road and the lands in front of it are much lower. I would go for it but he has to bargain hard for the price which I think is a bit steep. Apparently it is booked for renting the whole next season by the people who were there last year. Also Simon has seen it and rent it for a week but finally did not come due to urgent political problems. I think Peter has to come and see it soon and make up his mind.

Last night we ate with the architects in the port, good fish, magnificent sweet cabbage, delicious frites. All the products local including the olive oil. Apparently you can now get chez la vieille first class cauliflowers, cabbage, beetroots, lettuce and other winter goodies.

I am so relaxed here, I can’t explain why. Maybe the fact that I’m away from the “real life” which is Paris and even Athens a bit. I could stay here again much longer. There is no pressure at all. In a way the weeks I spent at home are like a sad dream. Here I am free from all that and I meet people who are looking for the same. I am never bored. I’m comfortable. The air is fantastic. The sea a continuous “spectacle”.

]]> http://cycladicpolyphony.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/arrival/feed/ 1 greek123