Free Intimate Distance by Katerina Cosgrove

disappears behind the mountains, Pandelina crouches on the floor of her kitchen sifting grain for still more pie; we can see her from the terrace and avert our faces. Alcmene is also there, banished to the courtyard to pick through black-eyed beans from last winter, Pandelina’s rejected crop. She beckons to me with one hand, come and help, but I pretend not to notice.
    Now Zoi comes out of the house with our towels slung over his shoulder, still damp from yesterday’s swim. He pulls the door behind him and leaves the shutters open to catch the breeze. There’s no need to lock anything; we’re safe here, among family.
    â€˜I’m going for a walk,’ he says. ‘Through the gorge.’
    â€˜I’ll come with you.’
    On the path down through the village the heat is white, hurting our eyes, burning out every shady corner in its glare. I can feel it sizzle up through the soles of my sandals. Zoi leads the way down a back path to avoid as many people as possible. We’re both sick of smiling, talking, stopping, idling, exclaiming over nothing. Even so we make sure to wave or nod at each person, each open window or door, even if we can’t see who’s in the house, shrouded in darkness.
    â€˜A walk again? In this heat. You’ve become like a foreigner, Zoi. We see them all the time, trekking up and down the mountains with packs on their backs like donkeys – ’
    He laughs without conviction. The villagers are always incredulous when they see us on one of our walks. In Greece you only walk for a single reason: because you have no choice. We refuse all invitations to come inside for a glass of water, a saucer of spoon-sweets, a quick coffee. We refuse with differing degrees of courtesy and determination.
    â€˜Come, come, my children, new grapes from the vine.’
    It’s Pandelina. She frowns at me, examining.
    â€˜Are you in so much of a hurry you can’t spare a moment for an old aunt? And you shouldn’t be walking anywhere in this heat, Mara. In your condition. How far gone are you by now?’
    â€˜Thirty weeks,’ Zoi replies. ‘But she’s feeling very well, aren’t you, Mara?’
    I smile. Pandelina closes her mouth with a deliberate sound. Perhaps she’s learned something. She waves her hand at us, dismissive, and goes back into the coolness of her arbour. Zoi stops and considers, looking torn, before following me down the village steps. Pandelina shouts.
    â€˜Wait up, my boy.’
    She runs after him, thrusting two bunches of grapes into his hands.
    We walk down a twisting path, past pines and silence and resinous odours, the tinkling of bells. Closer. There’s a company of goats in the cemetery at the edge of the sea. Cool light and cast shadow here, cypresses tall and dark and watchful. We pass plain marble headstones from saner eras and the lugubrious angels favoured by families of the recently buried. The goats shy away from us in a rush, finally halting under the furthest tree. They’re still, except for the slight twitching of their faces.
    Once down in the gorge we’re alone. The sun beats in shimmering waves over rocks rising up on each side, pressing down on us. At our feet, pebbles crunch into splinters: glittering pebbles from the days when this gorge was a seabed and the steep cliffs rose from deep underwater. A bird whirls through, emerging out the other end. All around us the goats follow, silent as statues. At first I hadn’t noticed them. Then gradually as my eyes grow accustomed to the tricks of light and shade in the gorge, I can distinguish them from the colours of the pebbles. Now I see them clearly, staring down at me with their malevolent eyes, pinpoints of black. They hide in small patches of shade cast by overhanging rocks, balance precariously in crevices, surviving only by standing still until the noon heat is over.
    We’re almost there. We can smell the sea now, its salt breath,