Free The Explosive Nature of Friendship by Sara Alexi Page A

sleeves rolled up, missing teeth framed by happy smiles. Stella has turned the radio on and they are singing along to popular Greek songs. Mitsos thinks that on this particular recording the singer has a voice like rusty nails in a metal bucket. But the passion is strong. He sings of what he would like to eat, but with such an intensity that he could be singing about love. Mostly he wants fish, particularly red mullet, barbounia .
    Fish be damned, Mitsos would like one day of love, one evening, one hour, when he can release all the care he has to offer and be cared for in return. People do not recognise how lucky they are.
    The farmers sing with the same passion. In the corner sits a foreign girl. Her bag is on the floor beside her, and she clearly does not know what to make of the situation. Stavros is sitting at her table, pouring ouzo. The farmers stand to perform; they interlace arms, hands on shoulders, and dance in the tiny space. Stella moves chairs and tables out of the way, her sad eyes on Stavros who is grinning and flirting with the outsider. The girl looks slightly afraid.
    One of the farmers is full of life; the lunchtime impromptu singing has brought energy to his limbs. He is feeling good, he has kefi , an appetite for life, joy. His hair is greying at the temples and his hands speak of years of toil, the skin thick and hard. But at this moment he is alive, his heart is full, he wants to dance, dance like there is no tomorrow, no fields to dig, no olives to tend. To dance as if his life depends on it. He climbs on a chair and then jumps onto the table. It wobbles and threatens to collapse, and the other farmers and Stavros cheer. But it holds his weight and he dances with his head brushing the ceiling, his friends on one knee clapping to encourage him. Outwardly, he is blind; there is only the music and the movement.
    The girl claps self-consciously. Stavros shouts ‘Opa!’ The girl giggles.
    The man on the table pauses on its edge. He is a youth again, he crouches low and then springs from the table, completing a somersault to the floor with an unsteady landing, but he does not fall, and everyone cheers. No one looks more surprised than he does that he is successful.
    Stella spots Mitsos, but he is backing out of the shop. He does not want noise now, he needs to think. Stella nips across the room to him.
    ‘ What is it?’ she asks.
    Mitsos tries to rearrange his face, take off whatever expression has prompted Stella to ask such a question, to leave his countenance blank.
    There is always a chair outside the shop, for when business is slack and Stella just wants to sit and watch the world go by. She brings another chair from inside. The dancing and singing continue but the distance dilutes the intensity. The air is fragrant with goats. Somewhere on the hill a cockerel tells the time, incorrectly. Mitsos thinks it might be his bird. The damned thing crows all day long. He sits.
    ‘ So?’ Stella plops down and leans back in her chair, stretches her legs out in front of her and crosses them. She crosses her arms across her floral dress. It is the short dress with no sleeves. She is so petite she can wear such things and still look pretty, even though she must be in her late forties. Not, Mitsos thinks, promiscuous as some might look in such a skimpy tunic.
    He wants to ask about the blonde foreign girl inside but he has the impression Stella would rather be distracted than questioned. He pushes Stavros ’ behaviour from his mind.
    ‘ I just talked to Marina.’ Mitsos quietly relates the conversation. Stella is the only person who knows of Mitsos’ secret love. The many lunches and dinners he has taken here have, slowly, over the years, unintentionally, cultured a friendship. She knows his story from the moment he and Marina first met.
    He considers telling her about his visit to Juliet, about the letter. He could do with her wisdom on the best way to deal with it, but he does not trust Stavros, and after