Having settled into village life, I found my way to Kastoria and even located comfortable albeit not super economical Internet access I was silly enough to think that I could switch off the parts of my brain that i had become accustomed to using to absorb and analyse events, people, places spaces etc and just relax for a while. But the big guy who pulls the levers of life figured one more “point of interest” on the calendar of my travels wouldn’t be inappropriate as it would make me realise that even in relatively small towns, shit doth happen and it happens fast.

On one fine Tuesday morning i had spent about 2 hours digging into my email inbox, amidst the offers to sell me viagra, without pain or weights lengthen my penis, allow me to collect prizes that have been waiting for me and informing me of the fact that 10 billion US dollars was about to be forwarded to my bank account, there was also the odd messaage from bona fide human beings whom i have actually met… imagine my surprise.

When suddenly! My phone rang, OK maybe that jump cut was a bit harsh as in this day and age a phone ringing isn’t necessarily worthy of fanfare, if i was some kind of viking up to my neck in a pillage and i suddenly received an SMS then yes,.. but the phone did ring suddenly as they often do. and as I had only acquired my Greek phone number a day or so ago, and due to the fact that nothing at all can ever possibly happen within 24 hours in Greece I was pretty well confident that I was about to receive my first Greek wrong number… oh my god how wrong was I… hmm yeah i did it again there didn’t I? The reference to our Lord and saviour’s old man was probably again inappropriate, i apologise if I offended anyone, I don’t know what posessed me.

I answered the phone in the traditional manner, albeit in greek, but greeks have traditions too and these extend to communications via telephonic device. A conversation took place, to save time i have translated it rather cleverly into a language we all claim to understand.

“yes!”?
“cousin?”
“ahh yes, who is it?”
“its your cousin Aryiri cousin, how are you going,.. where are you?” Aryiri is my first cousin, his mother is my father’s sister and he is the oldest male cousin on my father’s side of the family in the village. We share a grandmother, you get me?

Yeah well… him calling me out of the blue or… suddenly as i previously erred, made me immediately shift my thoughts to my grandmother, more specifically her life or possible lack thereof, which although would have been sudden may not have been out of the blue although the expression ”I didn’t even know she was sick!” would have definitely been appropriate. With this in mind i continued the conversation.

“whats happening cousin, is anything wrong?”
“No cousin, don’t worry, nothing is wrong, for once i have some good news to share.”
“Bravo aryiri, these are the sorts of things i want to hear, tell me” this is actually a really nice expression in greek but translates rather cheesily, shame.

“Yes chris, I’ve had some good luck and I want to share it with you today”
“what do you mean? Do i need to bring a bottle of champagne?”
“Yes why not, I’ve never had champagne, it’s probably good… cousin I won some money today in a lottery and I’ve called all my friends here today and I feel empty without you here knowing that you are so close by.. I want you to come here as soon as you are able.”
“Great news cousin, i’ll come as soon as I find a bottle of champagne”
“come, come soon cousin, i’l be waiting.”

The conversation ends with me hurriedly ending an email and wondering where i would find a bottle of bubbly in this town. Fortunately the consumption of alcohol has always been a national pastime and something appropriate was bound to pop up. A fine bottle of Asti Ricadonna was purchased for a ridiculous amount of euro and the “nice lady” at the super even had a recycled piece of blue cellophane to wrap it in, ah yes. Clutching my cliched wog bravo bravo gift I bounced into an awaiting cab and headed back to the village.

Aryiri lives across from my first cousin Diamandi’s home and taverna, Dianandi is the hub of village knowledge and as I was in need of a fresh bulletin i ducked behind parked tractors so the amassed well wishers in Aryiri’s front yard wouldn’t spot me… like hell they didnt!… and walked into Diamandi’s kitchen to get the scoop. The details he passed onto me didn’t differ greatly from what Aryiri himself told me over the phone, no amounts were known, but the expression “a lot of money” was used.

I crossed the street and entered Aryiri’s front yard, about 6 tables had been arranged on the 2 grassy rectangles in front of his family home, people from the village some of whom I knew, others whom knew me and others who i didnt know from a fence post were all sitting around sipping beers, eating food acquired from one of the many tavernas that occupy this part of ambelokipi and generally wishing it was them.

Aryiri stood to greet me, he looked like he had just won the lottery *note to literary critics, this is not a cliche if it relates to an event that actually happened.

“cousin, its good to have you with me today”
“aman cousin, im glad to be here, congratulations”
“dont congratulate me cousin, we have all won, im going to share my treasure with everyone”

Oh did you hear that? yes… those bells,.. not church bells, not jingle bells, not as foreboding as hell’s bells.. just plain old alarm bells, yes folks alarm bells they are ringing but when I look around me and see people sitting around when they should be working, eating food and taking in a bevvy smiling in the face of adversity it looks like I am the only one that hears them. and then he says, actually thats a lie… he whispers to me.

“Cousin, sit and let me offer you something to eat and drink before you go, i know you have to go back home to see our grandmother but I want to talk to you … alone… ok?”

I nod, take a seat at one the tables knowing full well that nobody has won a red cent and waiting to see what cousin Aryiri has in store for us.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, didn’t know whether to stand up amd knock over a few tables and tell people to get the fuck out of here. I looked acros at his wife and children obviously believing that their painfully poor existence had come to an end, his sons had already devised new and interesting ways to spend money and even had a roster as to who could come and play on their playstation 2. But my hunch was still nothng more than that, so I sat there, riding the wave of happiness that everyone else was surfing along hoping that I was just being a sour old fart and that my hunch, sparked by the look in my cousin’s eye and the words that fell from his mouth immediately after was nothing more than that.

We sat for several hours in the front yard, he used phrases like “this treasure I want to share with you all”, “this gift has been given to me and no figure can be put onto its worth” each double meaning cutting into my concsience. My cousin Diamandi had arrived and was sitting opposite me, he reached for one of the souvlakia on the tray between us, i grabbed the other end of the skewer and caught his eye, he laughed thinking i was stuffing around until he saw the expression on my face. Seconds later he announced to the crowd that he was going to get some more wine for the group and asked me to come and help him.

He shut the door to his kitchen after we entered, i didn’t even know the kitchen had a door, he realised something was wrong, he opened the conversation with

“tell me”
“i dont know whats going on cousin and I dont want to get you involved but… I don’t know Aryiri very well, I don’t know kind of person he is so I can’t be sure about what I am thinking but..”
“tell me .. what!”
“I don’t think he has won any money,.. i don’t think he has”
“how do you know?”
“he said something strange and he keeps saying these things that could mean anything” Diamandi’s hands blindly lit a cigarette, he walked away from me and stood by the grill looking into the glowing coals.
“what do you think diamandi,.. i’m sorry but I don’t know who else to talk to”
“no cousin you did the right thing, … yes… your cousin Aryiri, has had a lot of problems,.. you know them as well as I do.. and he’s capable of anything, a joke,.. but to his own family? I dont know…”
“no neither do I,.. he said he wants to talk to me alone, before I go and see my grandmother” Diamandi turns and looks at me, his daughter Hrisa opens the door and pokes her head into the room.
“alone? about what?” Diamandi asks.
“He didn’t say, he said something about family and sharing and how he needed my help with something important”
“Be careful cousin” and as soon as the words left his mouth I realised that yes, yes I had to be careful as if he was lieing and was quite happy with deceiving his own children and wife then what he had in mind may not be totally logical,.. or safe.

I was scared, it was a strange feeling, one i didnt expect to have to deal with within the boundaries of my parents little village.

Diamandi told me exactly what had happened when Aryiri walked into his kitchen and announced what happened. Aryiri was holding a “laiko” lottery ticket, told them he had it for some weeks but hadn’t checked the number, he was waiting in a supermarket queue this morning and saw the ticket in his wallet, he checked it in the newspaper and knew that he was holding the winning ticket as he turned the pages. he had no idea how much he had won, and would find out later tonight.

I walked back to Aryiri’s house holding 2 large jugs of red wine, Aryiri stood as I approached the table cleared some room to allow me to put the jugs down, announced to the group that he had to take me back to my grandmother’s house and that they were to “treat his house as their home” until he returned.

Aryiri doesnt own a passenger vehicle, his family move between villages on the tractor and the platform that it tows “like gypsies” as he says. He had borrowed the keys to a friend’s car, I sat in the front next to him, he asked me to switch off my mobile phone before we drove off, he asked me for my bag got out and put it in the boot of the car, he returned, told me how much he hates mobile phones and drove off.

I looked around me thinking, wow, could this be it? Is this as B grade and straight to video cheesy as things get? As we drove off I saw my cousin Diamandi sitting in the front seat of his car and realised yes… yes it does.

“they can hear you through them you know” Aryiri whispered to me, i couldn’t answer but did manage to look in his direction.. I awaited more information “your phone… even if it’s off, they can still hear what you are saying”
“they?”
“eh they… you know who I mean… the government”
“why would the government want to listen to what i say?” I added.
“why? because they can… and they want you to know they can”
“it wouldn’t surprise me and i don’t really care… they can come over for lunch if they want”
“you’re right cousin… a clear sky isn’t afraid of lightning”
“you said it”

Aryiri drove straight down the guts of the village… slowed down at the old town square near my grandmother’s house but didn’t come to stop, he turned the steering wheel full lock and allowed the car to do a few laps crunching the gravel on the shoddily paved road. “where should we go… we need to talk about some things cousin”. He released the steering wheel and we dizzily drove through the back of the village and down the hill towards the river.

Next to the old bridge crossing the river stood a small church, this wasn’t there when i visited in 1978, it was a small shrine type construction… barely cat swinging room inside. Aryiri pulled over and got out, i hesitated but followed.

“do you believe cousin?”
“in God?” i replied, a question he didn’t enjoy hearing
“yes… in God, why else would i ask you if you believe”
“I believe in something… ” he interrupted
“wrong” Aryiri had moved towards the back of the church and was looking inside another small shrine in the wall, this resembled your typical roadside type windowed shrine with a few icons and an oil lamp.
“faith is more important than anything cousin” he takes out a small icon, crosses himself, kisses it and hands it to me as he reaches for another larger icon. He was watching me, I figured that I have done a lot worse to avoid offending people, crossed myself kissed it and placed it back into the shrine, we repeated the same process with 2 more icons.

Whilst this was going on Aryiri spoke of how his faith in the Lord had kept him alive and helped him to stay aware of what he needed to do the right thing by his family, wife and children.

He spoke to me of how my faith must have manifested in various ways I wasnt aware of, “eventhough you don’t go to church” he said, “your interest in, knowledge of and thirst for knowledge of greek history, and the fact that you can speak the language well were all evidence of a faith. I suggested it was more evidence of the fact that my old man had belt he wasnt afraid of using should I skip Greek school classes.

We walked to a small bench near the church, a simple fountain had been placed behind the bench drawing water from the river, there was some off cuts of pvc pipe laying across it, i picked them up and placed them behind the fountain so they couldnt be seen and then cleared some dried leaves from its concrete floor. I turned and Aryiri had raised his palms towards me and was crying, smiling..

“You see cousin,.. you see… you have faith, you believe”
“yes, i believe that there shouldn’t be junk lying around”
“yes, but each day you walk past junk in the street and you dont stop to clear it up… ”
“how could i… i wouldn’t have time to do anything else”
“yes,.. but here… in this place you found the time, you moved and cleared the area, made it more respectful” i started getting a little annoyed, the whole do you believe argument had been forced down me a few times before and although i dont think people who call themselves believers are fools,.. I dont think I am somehow lacking because I don’t count myself amongst them

“Aryiri, listen, i believe in a power, a strength, a source of hope etc, but i really believe that this is human spirit, I respect this space because you obviously do and I want to show you that I respect you” Aryiri listened to the words as they came through my lips and reached for my hand, he twisted our arms together, his hands were rough and dark never knowing a day without work, mine soft and white 35 yaers old but brand new.

“My cousin our lives are very different, you live in a world surrounded by thought and knowledge, I live in a world where taking time to think about things means that there is something wrong with you.” I guess he was speaking relatively when he referred to my intellectual world, so i let that one go through to the keeper.

“You are greek, I am Greek and we are blood, you cant deny that and you cant find anything stronger, we all live today because of what our family did in the past, and what makes us the same is that we have the same people to thank for it.”

This notion of a weight of gratitude for what happened in the past, what my grandparents and parents had to endure to simply make it possible for me to walk the earth was something which i had been unable to avoid during the short time i was back in town.

“We both have strengths, i am luckier than you in one way, one big way” I didnt see his next sentence coming. “I knew our grandfather, the man whose name you have,.. you never met him”

Speaking to the old timers is alsways something I enjoy. I like listening to the stories they care to share, the way the say them and I simply enjoy watching the way they go about their daily shit. I had been soaking up any tidbits of information about my grandfathers, neither of whom I met.

I am a fairly proud individual and believe that I try and do what’s good not just for myself but for others, I always consider what impact my actions will have on other people and whether to my credit or detriment have made changes and decisions based upon the fact that doing otherwise may hurt, disappoint or upset those around my life.

My Grandfather Chris was such a man, but he makes me look like a sinister swindler in comparison to the deeds he regularly performed for strangers. My father inherited much of this, I have also, but walking down the street and having complete strangers stop you and say ‘your father built my house,.. we didnt know him, we had no money, he came here one day and built this!” … makes me realise where I stand in the global good samaritan rankings.