Free The Golden Step by Christopher Somerville

No!’ expostulated Dimitri. A meal without meat – what is that? Nevertheless, rumbling like a subsiding volcano, he produced a gigantic salad. Then the raki bottle was planked down on the table. Out came Dimitri’s laouto , a beautiful old deep-bellied instrument with a fretboard inlaid with mother-of-pearl. We all had a go, and I discovered that the four pairs of strings were tuned like those of a mandola, an instrument I had hacked around on for years. Better still, a G key harmonica was one of the items I had retained during the Great Backpack Purge at Kato Zakros, some 70 miles back along the way. We made the dogs of Prina howl – something they scarcely needed encouragement to do. Dimitri abandoned the laouto to his guests and went out for his lyra. His stubby worker’s fingers, one of them bent from an ancient dislocation, flew along the lyra’s neck as he cradled it on his knee, the three strings keening against his fingernails, the short bow sawing back and forth in his other hand. My Greek was still far too embryonic to allow appreciation of the single-verse mantinades he sang. One featured a monopati , a footpath, and also a dromos , a road, and from Dimitri’s winks and nods in my direction I took this to be a compliment to the sore-footed stranger within the gates.
    â€˜For the oppression of the poor,’ said the Psalmist, when I sat on a rock just outside Kritsa to consult him the following afternoon, ‘for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.’ An enjoyable image to take with me, as I gave the katsouna a good stout swing and limped down the hill into Kritsa.

Upcountry Village:
Kritsa Interlude
    â€˜The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.’
    Psalm 16
    W e sit under Argyro’s tree, eating oranges – young and old, women and men, children, dogs and cats. Everyone in Kritsa knows Manolis and Argyro Tzanakis, and everyone in the place is bound to come down the road and into the Tzanakis garden sooner or later, for Argyro is one of those entirely open-hearted people around whom village life and social interaction revolve. Argyro sits in the leafy shade with a basket of oranges in her lap, a plastic bowl of potatoes on the table beside her, peeling and peeling, dispensing advice, lending an ear, giggling, commiserating, upbraiding. Scribbling opposite her, I imagine that the whole world will eventually drop in on Argyro for a cup of coffee or a glass of sweet spring water, if only one waits long enough under the lemon trees. I am trying out lines for a poem, one of a run that began back in Orino. It is as if the news from Rockingham Press has kicked open a blocked-up door and all these ideas are coming charging through.
    Although I arrived yesterday my feet still ache, and I have carried out a damage inspection of them. Left foot: bruise under little toenail (now blue); abrasion above Achilles tendon; blisters on inside front heel, on ball of foot behind second toe, on outside of big toe. Right foot: bigger Achilles abrasion (strip of Compeed plastic skin on this); four separate rub-marks round ankle; blisters on ball of fourth toe, on tip of third toe. Both feet rather shiny and red. Soles: yellow carapace forming, goat-scented, rubbery to the touch.
    Argyro peeling oranges
    Under a lemon tree Argyro peels
    oranges. Friends encircle her, leaning
    from blue chairs. Her little sharp knife pares
    circlets of oily skin. Lengthening curls
    of gossip swing. Efficiently she snips
    the pitted ends, strips white pith, laughs
    like a young girl. Now the talk digs
    down to the pips. The black knife chops,
    segments split onto the wicker tray
    to sweeten talk. Argyro rocks and nods,
    peels and shares, glancing from face to face,
    her tongue-tip in her lips, calm as a tree.
    I open my paperback book of psalms to see if the Psalmist is in tune with my mood of