The Vineyards

It was a warm early evening in Athens - about 6h PM, local time. We were hungry, so we followed upstairs into a nice little restaurant. Very cozy, had a familiar feeling to it. The owner, a pretty lady in her mid-thirties, greeted us in Greek and in a broken English. She looked a bit tired, but happy. Her husband came from the kitchen to greet us as well, said he always liked to be visited by foreigners. Very friendly couple.

The house was higher than most buildings nearby, and the terrain was inclined. Because of that, we could see the sea from the window by which was our table. I picked the menu and browsed through the names in Greek, following them by the English translation by their side. It was fun decyphering the Greek characters. I love Greek and Russian (Cyrillic, that is) mainly because of the different characters.

Among the very pleasant patrons who formed the group I was a part of, there was a friend proud of his Greek origin, with whom I always wanted to have a certain conversation. He pointed to a name in my menu. "This is the true Greek Salad, much better than whatever you ate back home that was called Greek Salad. This will even beat your favorite Caesar Salad." So that is what I ordered, curious about his certainty. Then I chuckled at the problem with the lamb, the order of the pretty lady who sat across the table from me. "Ternero!", the owner insisted, in Italian. "Lamb!?", she asked. They were saying the very same thing, yet could not comprehend each other. The friend of Greek origin intervened and solved the problem.

My salad arrived, I waited for the other dishes to follow before eating. Then I asked the friend of Greek origin that which I had wanted to ask for a very long time: "Why are you a communist?". I must say he is the only person I know is very smart who claims to be a communist. I was always very curious about that. The lady across the table giggled at the question and made a small disapproving motion with her head, but more in the sense of "You are impossible!" than anything more serious.

The friend of Greek origin was surprised by the question, but found it funny. "No one ever asked me that." "No worries, I will not try to change your mind. I am truly just curious." I looked out the window again, noticed how the color of the sea matched the eyes of the lady across the table - at least for that moment. She noticed me looking and smiled. It marvelled me it was still so sunny outside in spite of the time. It also marvelled me that we were eating so early - I always refuse to eat early.

So he started. "You see, I believe..."

Then the bell rang. Twice. And twice more. And I heard clapping. And the bell rang again. And more clapping. And calling, "Hey, at home! Hey!" More ringing, more clapping, more calling.

Athens crumbled, the Mediterranean vaporized, the Greek Salad turned to ashes, the pleasant company vanished. All that was left was my pillow, the clock, and the ringing, the clapping, the calling.

"Package from Reader's Digest to..."

"Yeah, yeah. Hand it over, let me sign.", said a very sleepy and ultimately angry me.

I will never forgive Reader's Digest.

Posted by Etienne at October 28, 2003 01:34 PM