"Do you?" Having thrown the remains of the orange away, Daniela plays absentmindedly with her curls, while her eyes scrutinize the picturesque town in the distance. "You might have some difficulty to find a room, today of all days, since all guesthouses are closed, out of season. But I'll help you with that, don't worry. I can't invite you to my house... because I don't have a house! I have turned it into my restaurant, and I occupy the tiniest, if the breeziest, room in the building. You'll see."
I blush, interpreting that as an invitation to visit her room, more than her restaurant.
"Could I sleep in your car, if I don't find a place?"
She looks appalled.
"Why risk your life like that, darling? You see, I haven't cleaned it since I have bought it... many, many years ago." Still playing with her curls, she removes the other hand from my thigh, where it had been laying lightly, and taps the hood. "You know, things vanish mysteriously inside this car. I wonder if there is a snake living in it, Apollo's gigantic Python itself, feeding on-"
Suddenly, in great speed a car springs from the curve, almost hitting ours. The driver swears, waves and blows the horn as he storms by - but does silence when he seems to recognize Daniela. Still, he leaves behind an ominous cloud of dust and poisonous black smoke that engulfs us.
"Is everything alright?" Daniela inquires when she sees me kneeling on the floor, hiding behind the car. "Are you a fugitive, darling?" She is still coughing, while I am rubbing my hurting eyes. My sun glasses would have avoided dust getting into my eyes - but Daniela has them, now.
"Aren't we all?" I retort, climbing in the car to resume our drive down to the village of my dreams. As they turn into reality, dreams seem to draw more and more the attributes of fate - or the nature of doom?
*****
A loud bump, and the change in the quality of the pavement is noticeable where the road ends, and the town begins.
The village is actually more touristic than I have expected. Along the first beach I count two guesthouses, four souvenirs shops, a few taverns. All closed, like Daniela said they would be. She has also assured me I shall be the only foreigner in town - implying she no longer is a foreigner in Greece.
The beach itself is a disappointment, as I identify many dozens of tall sticks standing on the sand, that in the season turn into parasols. They remind me of a touristic cemetery - but it is of prisons I think as we storm through the streets around the small main square, where I catch a glimpse of the second driver, the one who left his car to chase me, sitting at a bench. I can't say it's him for sure, because he looks exactly like hundreds of other dark haired, mustached Greeks I have met. He'll probably be called Kostas, too, I think.
Daniela has turned the tape music on again - one of Schubert's rather dramatic piano quintets, she tells me. People turn their heads as we drive through town. Some salute Daniela, and she greets them back. Others just glare at her, like the man I think to have recognized, and she pretends to ignore a certain hostility hanging in the air. Is it because of me?, I have to wonder. But she seems intent on calling people's attention towards us - and that's what gets me thinking of prisons. They say newly arrived prisoners have to befriend one of the local bosses for protection - and I am guessing that is what Daniela is to me, in this forsaken village.
I want to help her unload the car, but she only wants to find a room for me. Above all, I wish to see where she lives. Have her directions, in case I have to run for my life.
"Never mind, darling. I will unload it slowly in the days to come, as I find the need for the things I have bought."
I think I finally understand the mess in her car. Daniela buys things, but she changes her mind about needing them, and they remain in the car, forever useless. That would explain the confusion of yellowed, dusty bags and boxes in the back seat.
She takes me to a house on the other end of town. It is the last building before the orchards start - and I'm a little disappointed to be as far from the sea as it is possible in such a tiny settlement. If I were on my own, I would have chosen to stay in the old town, right on the peninsula.
But Daniela must know better. Clapping her hands, she calls for someone, and after having introduced me and my name to an old lady who comes out of the house - that resembles a warehouse -, she explains I need a room.
"Endaxi." The lady, who looks to be a hundred years old at least, beckons me to follow her. She is dressed in black from head to feet, and has that look of suspicion aimed at foreigners I seem often to find in Greece.
And that's the moment of having to say goodbye to Daniela.
"Will I ever see you again?" My voice trembles with emotion. I am unsure myself why I am being so dramatic.
"Of course, darling." She caresses my hair - not like a beautiful woman should, but like my mother would. "I can't promise you anything about tonight... But tomorrow for sure!"
"Will your restaurant be open tonight?" I take her hand in mine, and pressing it slightly, hope she understands I don't want to let go of her.
"Not tonight, dear. Here-" She frees herself from me, to reach inside a shopping bag, taking an apple and a chocolate bar. "Take these for a snack. You might have difficulty to find a place to eat tonight. But tomorrow everything should be back to normal..."
I want to ask her why the full moon has such a strong and tragic impact on this village, but before I can articulate the best way to pose the question, she kisses my cheeks and jumps into her car and is gone.
*****
Past a door giving to a rustic kitchen, where I catch glimpse of a wooden stove, I follow the old lady up a rusty iron industrial stair. At least, my room is on the first floor, and I shall get a nice view from the orchards, I am thinking.
The stair shakes, and creaks, and I am worried that it shall fall off the wall at any moment. The old lady is so tiny and thin - my backpack might weigh more than her. I ask her if I should leave it downstairs, and make the gesture of dropping it cautiously to the floor at the feet of the stair. In a normal guesthouse I would check the room first, before taking it. But nothing is normal in this village, is it?
"Nein, nein." She hisses in German.
Climbing one step at a time, she explains in Greek, mixed with some words in German, things I don't understand at all. When she repeats the word 'Sonn', I am led to think her son might have fought in 'Deutschland' (she repeats that word too) in World War II - so old is she. Or maybe he is living there now. Nothing makes sense to me.
From her black coat smelling to burnt wax and coal, she produces a key. As she tries to unlock the padlock of the metal door at the top of the stair, I close my eyes. My knees tremble so much that I am unsure they shall sustain me much longer under the weight of the backpack. It is not vertigo I am feeling - I'm under the impression the stair is slowly descending every second, and about to collapse for good. To be honest, I am not calculating a strategy to save the old lady - just whether I should try to get rid of my backpack before or during the fall, or use it as a cushion to lessen the impact.
The lady does achieve opening the lock, and she invites me to go into a dark room. As we step in, I blink, trying to grow accustomed to the lack of light inside. I remain still until I am able to devise the walls at least, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, empty except for an occasional can.
From the old lady, only her skeletal face and hands remain visible, since the rest of her is camouflaged by darkness. Her hand seems to float in the air, detached from a body, as she waves me towards the next door, all the time speaking in her mixture of German and Greek sounding like cacophony to me.
I open the door she indicates, to a room immersed in thicker shadows. The smell of dust is so strong I immediately sneeze. One, two, three times in a row, my sneezes resound about the walls of both empty rooms.
The fourth sound, though, is the metal door slamming behind me.
Maybe it is the sudden engulfing darkness that freezes me on my feet, making me lose the precious moments that could have saved me from the trap.
When I sprint across the room, the old lady has already replaced the padlock.
I am locked in.
*****
(to be continued)
Where the road ends | Part 2
Start from the beginning
