Metaxa

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Martina knows what to expect. Except when she doesn't.
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SWinters
SWinters
30 Followers

Many thanks to the one who made this story possible, and the two who made it readable. Any lack of readability, or possibility, is entirely the fault of the author.

I shouldn't like Metaxa. I'm not really a brandy drinker, and I don't like dark liquor in general. Can't abide bourbon or scotch or anything that resembles whiskey, or rye. I don't even like liqueurs, except Frangelico--hazelnut anything is a big weakness of mine--so it makes no sense that I like Metaxa.

But I do. I love it. I love how it smells, how it lights up my sinuses, how intimidating it is before it even touches my tongue, how I always think I'll choke on that first sip and it burns and I should, but I don't. It goes down fast and hot and powerful and just a little bit painful and so, so good.

So I sip Metaxa and I smoke a cigarette even though I quit a long time ago, because while cigars go with brandy, a glass of Metaxa demands a cigarette. It just does--and what Metaxa wants, Metaxa gets, at least on a warm night in August in an open-air taverna on the caldera side of Santorini. I'm not exactly what you could call a world traveler, but I've spent enough time in Greece to know that you do not defy Metaxa in its native land. I haven't lit up in the States in fifteen years, but right here, right now, this extraordinary vessel of Dionysian fire requires a burnt offering and I am not about to deny it anything.

The mid-forties-ish owner of the restaurant is friendly and smart and looking for an American wife. He greets me by name, every evening, as beneficent and implacable as the Mediterranean sun. He doesn't remember, or else he can't quite believe, that I do not like ouzo, and only by ordering Metaxa just before I've finished my meal can I fend off the endless small straight-sided glasses of clear licorice-smelling liquor he would send me, with his compliments, over and over again.

I carry a lighter with me because, even though I only smoke one cigarette, I put it out and light it again four or five times before it's gone. I make it last for the whole glass of Metaxa. I bought the lighter after my first night here, when I bummed a cigarette from the proprietor and made the mistake of smoking it straight through, at which point the Metaxa demanded another, and then another. I awoke the next morning absolutely vile with nicotine hangover and owing Yiannis a pack of Marlboro Reds.

But Metaxa, while demanding, is neither unreasonable nor greedy. It can be satisfied by one drag for every three or four sips. I've learned to extinguish and re-light without losing too much tobacco in the process, and so manage to enjoy myself, pay homage to the exquisite infusion in my glass, yet wake in the morning feeling tolerably human.

It is a system of elegant balance and deep satisfaction.

And it's the sort of thing I enjoy ruminating over. Slowly. Lovingly articulating and arranging the thoughts. I lean back in my chair, watching the patrons in the taverna, the tourists poking their heads in the door before moving on. The people in the street below wander and greet one another, visible in the light washing out from the shops in the warm Aegean night.

I've asked the waitress for the bill, but she knows I'm in no hurry and will bring it sometime before the Metaxa is entirely gone. It's probably past ten-thirty already, judging by the crowded tables. It's the height of the evening-meal rush and my conscience is contemplating raising a polite hand to tell me it's getting toward time to release the table soon, but I'm feeling good and I have not yet passed the point at which it's plainly rude for me to keep sitting here. A lone tourist has just stepped in, looking around.

Yiannis approaches the man and they exchange a few sentences, which I can't hear above the cheerful stew of sounds made by fifty or so people talking, laughing, eating, arguing--yes, cheerfully arguing, as only Greeks can do--and flirting and drinking and ordering more of everything. I see Yiannis flash his Benevolent Host smile and begin to turn away, but the stranger speaks again.

Yiannis stops smiling. He shakes his head and waves a hand in that universal "no way" gesture. The man responds, lifting one hand out in the general direction of where I'm sitting, in the back next to the half-wall that opens the dining room to the air.

Yiannis shakes his head again, glancing briefly back at me; I catch his eye, raise an eyebrow, turn my hands up and mouth, "What?" Yiannis pauses, then glares at the man, who waits patiently, hands in the pockets of his loose-fitting linen trousers. After a moment, Yiannis walks to the bar, takes down the bottle of seven-star Metaxa, approaches my table.

He has the cork out and is reaching to pour me another before he's even quite close enough to hear me unless I shout. "Yiannis, I'm almost done here," but he's already refilling my glass. "Ianthe is preparing my bill."

"From me to you," he says, but there's a frown where his enormous smile normally resides. "What's up?" I ask him, and then, "What is going on?" Yiannis speaks English pretty well, but I try to avoid idiomatic confusion. When I remember.

"This guy, he wants to ask to share the table with you," he rumbles. "I said, no, he does not disturb you. He can wait for a table."

I reach over to pick up my notebook and pen. "I'm almost done here, I'll be leaving in a minute-a few minutes," but Yiannis picks up the glass of Metaxa and sets it down in front of me. "You don't go yet. Stay and enjoy. He will wait until someone is finished."

I look up at Yiannis, then over at the man by the door. He appears perfectly at ease, as though there were not a thing in the world he desired that he didn't already have.

"Is he wanting a meal? Or just to drink?" I ask, thinking that if he only intended to sit and drink, then I wouldn't be depriving the restaurant of custom by keeping the table to myself.

"He say--he says he wants to eat something. But look at him," Yiannis smiles at me, "he will not starve. He can wait." Yiannis is proud of his own physique. "English," he says dismissively, neatly summarizing all the man's deficiencies. I suppress a grin. The man at the door does not look like a slave to the Stairmaster. He is about Yiannis' height, maybe ten years older, and seems in reasonable shape to be walking around mountainous Greek islands, with perhaps a bit of softness showing beneath his shirt. A rumpled linen jacket is looped through one arm.

I pick up my cigarettes and slowly draw one out, thinking. I reach for my lighter but Yiannis whips his Zippo out of his pocket and lights it for me. I tap the back of his hand with one finger in thanks and lean back in my chair again.

"Tell him, if he can tolerate--if he does not object to cigarette smoke while he eats, he is welcome to share the table," I say finally.

Now, I have strong feelings about smoking while someone at the same table is eating. I just think it's abominably rude and I have never done it, even back in the U.S., in the days when restaurants still had smoking sections. But Yiannis has just bought me a drink, and I care much more about not being rude to him than to the stranger waiting at the door, and I know better than to defy the Metaxa. So I take a slow sip, and smile at Yiannis, who is frowning again. "It's okay," I reassure him, "he doesn't look dangerous. And you're here, right?" I stretch out my arms. "And everyone else. What can happen?"

Yiannis keeps looking at me for a moment; then he suddenly shrugs, that trademark smile coming right back into play. "What can happen?" he repeats, and laughs. "Okay!" Looking back toward the door, he waves Mr. Patience over.

I watch him navigate a course amongst the overflowing tables. He moves with graceful economy, an unhurried and sure-footed gait that brings him to us without once bumping into anyone or having to backtrack. I wonder briefly if he's a waiter himself, back in whatever place he calls home. Yiannis holds a hand out toward the empty chair without saying a word to his new customer, turning his back to him the moment the man's weight is committed to sitting. "I will be back, soon. You want something, you tell me. Yes?" he says to me.

"That's great, Yiannis. Epharisto."

* * * * * * *

I turned to smile at my new table-mate. He half-rose from his seat as he offered his hand. "My name's Thomas." I shifted the cigarette to my left hand and clasped his in my right. His hand was warm, and dry, and firm, and much larger than mine, which surprised me a bit. He wasn't such a large man that I would have expected his fingers to wrap all the way around mine, as though I were a child. "Hello, Thomas. I'm Martina." From his half-standing position, he was looking almost straight down at me, but his eyes met mine squarely and never wandered. Well, Thomas, I thought, points for not looking at my tits. This might not be unpleasant.

"Thank you for allowing me to share your table, Martina," he said as he sat back down. "For a moment, I thought the host might toss me straight over the wall."

I laughed. "Yiannis is looking for an American wife," I said. And smiled. Trying for enigmatic. Would he get the joke?

"Well, who isn't then?" he replied, without missing a beat. I was so startled I actually snorted. He laughed then, not too loud, but clear, and our laughter mingled and wove together for a moment like an improvised madrigal, drifting away somewhere above our heads along with the smoke curling up from my cigarette. Seeing it burning in the ashtray, I reached over to put it out.

"No, please, I don't mind," he said, but I shook my head at him. "I'll light it again in a minute. It's just to go with the Metaxa." I waited for a query, or at least a quizzical look, but he only nodded his head as though this made perfectly good sense.

I caught Ianthe's eye and inclined my head briefly toward the man sitting across from me, raising my eyebrows. Her eyes widened for an instant; then she beamed at me, mouthed "one moment," and continued on her way.

"Your first time here?" I asked Thomas.

"Yes," he said. "They recommended it quite highly, in a shop just up the street." He wasn't carrying any parcels when he came in. "What would you recommend?"

"Do you like octopus?"

"Haven't had much. It can be quite tough sometimes, can't it?"

"Not here," I said. "Start with the octopodi salata. It'll knock your socks off."

"All right if I finish with lamb?"

"You're in Greece, Thomas," I grinned. "You'd better."

"That's it then." A basket of bread descended on the table between us and I jumped slightly. I hadn't seen Ianthe arrive. Well, it was noisy in here. But why did I jump?

Thomas scanned the menu she handed him for about a nanosecond before closing it again. "Octopodi salata to start, and the braised lamb shank."

"No lamb shank. Out," she told him. I shot her a look, but she refused to meet my eye. "Ianthe," I said, but Thomas's voice overtook mine. "It's all right. What would you advise?" he asked her.

"Anything," she responded immediately. "Everything here is good."

"Of course," he replied, "but what do you especially like to eat?"

"I enjoy all of the food," she shot back, but sweetly.

"That's always a good thing to hear. It's quite busy in here tonight, isn't it? You must be working very hard."

Ianthe was starting to have difficulty masking her grin. "Working is good," she said. She positioned her pen above her bill pad. "What would you like?"

"Do you eat before you start working? Or do you take a break to eat something?" Thomas asked her. Oh ho, I thought, he's not so dumb.

"It depends. Sometimes, if I start to work around six o'clock, or seven o'clock, I will eat something. If I work longer, start earlier in the afternoon, I will take a break before it is busy, like this," she answered, waving her hand at the room.

Here it comes, I thought. "That sounds lovely," Thomas said. "What did you have to eat this evening?"

"I ate lamb shank," Ianthe answered. I burst out laughing. Thomas, for the first time, looked as though he didn't know quite what to say. Her eyes took on a gleam as she gazed down at him, but she lost her battle with the grin and it took over. Finally relenting, she told him, "There is taverna lamb, on the menu. Cooked the same way. Very good, you will like it."

Thomas took it like a man. "Right then, thanks."

"You like something to drink?" she asked him. He contemplated her for the briefest moment before answering, "Stella, please."

"Of course. I will be right back," and picking up the menu she spun around and disappeared.

The look he gave me as she departed made me laugh out loud again.

"Do I have to watch out for her as well? Think she might try to toss me over the wall?" he asked.

"Oh, no, no. Ianthe likes you," I told him.

"Really? What does she do if she doesn't like you?"

"Takes your order and walks away. Won't laugh no matter what you do. Got a very daunting stone face, that one. Trust me, she likes you."

"And the host? I suppose you'll tell me he likes me as well?"

"Um, no," I said. "Yiannis is not so susceptible to brown eyes and a bedroom voice."

Where did THAT come from? I picked up the cigarette from the ashtray and scanned the table, hunting for my lighter. Jumped slightly--again!--as flame leapt up before me. Saw the errant lighter, held in long, strong-looking fingers. Caught myself staring at the few, fine black hairs on the back of his hand.

I leaned forward slightly, touched the tip of the cigarette to the fire he held for me. His hands were rock steady. Mine were less so. I didn't tap his hand. "Thank you," I said, neutrally, I thought. Took a deeper drag than I had intended, blew the smoke toward the street. Found the Metaxa. Pulled up a polite and pleasant smile from somewhere and sat back, holding the glass. Glanced up, finally, to find his eyes on mine.

If there had been even the slightest suggestion of a smirk on his face, that would've been it for me. I'd have been out of there, the Metaxa be damned. But there wasn't. He looked exactly as he had when I first saw him: relaxed, waiting to see what would happen next, interested without presumption.

The Metaxa slipped down my tightened throat with practiced ease, the familiarity of the sensation comforting. For the space of two heartbeats my mind scrabbled about for a joke to make; then it suddenly just flopped down and gave up. I sat, bemused by the uncharacteristic relaxation of my brain.

I heard a chair scraping the floor and Yiannis was sitting down at the side of the table between us. "So. Everything is good?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him, and I laughed a little, I don't know why. "Everything is just fine."

"Fine, fine is good," he said. "So," to Thomas, "you have something to eat? Ianthe will bring you something?" and at that moment one of the boys set a plate of sliced octopus, dressed in olive oil and a little vinegar, with sweet red onions and diced cucumber, on the table in front of Thomas. "Octopodi is good," Yiannis said, "you like it?"

"It looks beautiful. Martina told me I must order it." There was a pause before Thomas realized that Yiannis was waiting. Like a yeoman into the breach, Thomas hefted his fork and put a big slice in his mouth. He held it on his tongue for a moment, slowly setting his fork on the plate, then very gently bit down, letting his teeth find the tension in the morsel, sinking further through the astonishing tenderness as the flavor began to spread. Yiannis and I watched him in silence. I sipped a bit of Metaxa.

His eyes closed briefly before he swallowed. Opening them, he looked at me in a way I didn't know how to read, exactly, although it made the Metaxa feel suddenly warmer in my belly.

To Yiannis, he said, "It's excellent. I had no idea octopus could taste like this."

Yiannis threw back his head and laughed, clapping the other man on the shoulder. "Good! It's good, yes?" "Very good," Thomas agreed, and began to eat in earnest. Yiannis laughed again and then turned to me. "You like something, Martina? I can bring a menu for you, bring you something?"

"No, no, I've eaten enough tonight for three Martinas," I laughed back. "Everything is all right?" he asked again. "Yes. Very all right. Don't worry," I said.

"No worry, never worry," he replied, standing up. "I am here. You want something, you tell me."

"I will, Yiannis, thanks."

After he left, I returned to the Metaxa and observed Thomas eating. The octopodi salad really was spectacular. I was gratified that he was enjoying it, but that wasn't the reason I couldn't look away from him. I like being right as much as anyone, especially about food, but the feelings beginning to shiver their way through me had nothing to do with gastronomical expertise.

"What shop?" I asked him. It came out louder than I meant it to. He paused to look at me. "What's that then?" he asked.

"You said the people in the shop recommended that you eat here. What were you shopping for?"

"Fabric," he said, applying himself to the salad again.

"Really?" I don't know why that was so surprising, except that it's not what most tourists shop for in Greece. I wasn't aware that Santorini was especially famous for its textiles.

"Yes," he said. "I've a lot of interest in fabrics, where they come from, how they're made, the micro-histories of local production in various places."

"I'd have thought most of the stuff here was brought in from elsewhere," I mused, trying not to sound quite as skeptical as I felt. "It is," he responded immediately, "most of it. Although the family that owns the shop does make a small amount of their own material. They became quite animated when they saw how fascinated I was. Had a fabulous long lovely conversation about it. Wonderfully friendly gentleman and his granddaughter. His English was not so good, and my Greek isn't quite up to following all he was willing to tell me, but the girl did a fair job of translating for us. She's the one who told me to come here for my supper."

"But you didn't buy any of it."

"No," he said. "I came at the wrong time. They have nothing of their own in the shop just now. It's too bad really," he shrugged, "but the conversation was worthwhile, all the same."

Ianthe brought his lamb. "Very good," she said. "You like it." She turned toward me as she departed, met my eyes for the briefest instant, and winked. Then she was gone. Ianthe and I are friendly, but she's never winked at me. I couldn't fathom what could have gotten into her.

"So what part of Britain are you from, anyway?" I asked.

One eyebrow lifted and a half-grin that made me feel suddenly flushed. "Have you been wondering that all this time?"

"No, not the whole time. Just since the first words I heard you speak."

He laughed, putting down his fork. "Where do you think I'm from?"

"I don't know. I can't quite place your accent. It's not London. Not RP. Not quite northern either, I don't think...but maybe... oh hell, I can't tell."

He continued to gaze at me. I resisted the cowardly urge to drop my eyes, but it was getting difficult to keep them on his. Much more of this and breathing would become an issue. What was going on with me?

"Wales," he said, finally. "I'm Welsh. Most people outside the U.K. can't tell the difference."

"And clearly, I'm one of them," I said. I picked up my drink again, sipping and looking into the glass.

"Hmmm..." he said. "What?" I asked. But he just smiled, and I took another drag from my cigarette, drank some more Metaxa while he ate. We talked about Santorini and some of the other places in Greece that we'd each visited, about what it was like to travel as denizens of a couple of colonialist empires; about writers we liked, foods we'd encountered, conversations we'd had with strangers.

SWinters
SWinters
30 Followers
12