The Cure

"Look at him, silly old goat. Ogling those girls like he's eighteen."

Sun-browned fingers scrabbled for glasses and eyes scanned the far side of the square. A half-smoked Karelia dropped onto the checkers board. They squinted against the weak winter sunlight that warmed their old bones and beheld the embarrassment.

"I mean, those jeans for a start," George mocked, "since when did a man of sixty-eight look good in lycra?"

Alex Papadopoulos's lean was nonchalant. At least he hoped so. Nonchalant appeared cool and girls went for that. Cool got you laid. Except he couldn't remember—well, much—leave alone who last joined him in the sack. You lived in hope, and you looked forward to the girl. Hope remained the force that kept Alex alive and chose his wardrobe.

"Hey, Lothario, it's your damn turn for coffee."

The words echoed around old walls. Legend says that the ancients designed them that way, to discourage discussion and dissent. A normal voice carried for twenty yards. Unless you addressed Stavros, who worked the engine rooms of the big boats out of Piraeus in the old days; now as deaf as his chair. He stared at the pieces, changing his mind back and forth but still slipping behind Nikos Karalis in a grudge match.

Alex sauntered over to the trio outside the cafe, a jacket slung over one shoulder. Five-and-a-half-feet of geriatric Greek chic.

"You old farts cramp my style, I did okay this morning—got a couple of smiles and a wink. That's where it begins."

"What begins?" Nikos asked without looking up, his king taking two of Stavros's men with a clatter.

"Romance, amour, love and sex." Alex threw his arms wide, as if he'd known Aphrodite herself.

George Demetriou, checkers coach, umpire, retired fisherman and professional layabout, hung his browned, hairy arms over a backwards chair and shook his head.

"That's the problem, though. It begins, but never damn well ends. At our age, we can't stay up."

"Speak for yourself, grandad," Nikos said, "no problems in that department."

"Don't make me laugh. I've seen yours; like a forgotten aubergine. Any drier, it'd fall off and get eaten by the pig."

No-one denied that life on Kalliopros changed in 2015. When the first refugees arrived in their ridiculous rubber boats and kids too young to have an even chance washed up lifeless on the beaches, tourists slowed to a trickle. At least, those with money. These days, the Cyclades Islands embraced obesity tourism. The obscene austerity British, with their demands for chips and beer at every meal and their women spilling out of ill-chosen supermarket clothes. The impoverished Russians, money sucked from their very soul by oligarchs, and the diaspora of 'New Europe', content for a cheap flight, crappy hotel, and piss-taking warmed up Turkish food.

Gone were the free-spending Nordic people, their blonde women of every age walking with unfettered breasts, and the wealthy, corpulent Germans, now too wary of meeting a brown refugee as they turned themselves brown on the beaches. Kalliopros today sunk to a European anachronism, dependent on the new middle classes of Nanjing, Shanghai, Chongqing and a hundred other unpronounceable places that no-one heard of ten years ago.

"What about you, Stavros, can you keep it up at all?"

"Washikton Deecee," he replied without hesitation. "A trick question, innit? Everyone says it's New York," Stavros chuckled to himself. George rolled his eyes.

Stavros married a younger woman in his youth. Slovenian or Slovak, from some place not quite Russian. He brought her home and was happy ever after until she ran off with a tourist. Ivanka didn't ask for money, cooked great food, never bothered him and opened her legs whenever he needed. Truth be told, though, the itchy rash became bothersome.

Stavros re-married and achieved relative satisfaction, on account of her being his sister. Or so they say. The couple never bore kids, but dogs that looked like him overran their place up the hill.

George's wife passed at fifty. In life, he hated her like the vegans who ate at his eight-room, self-built hotel loved the smell of George's steak. Now he missed her as much as life itself, but never admitted it. George wanted to fuck every woman that landed on his island—out of spite. He claimed success because he chased the old, single ones.

Spring bookings, already low, collapsed with the coronavirus ravaging China. This season now promised no flights, and no more new-rich tourists that rescued them three years ago. Kalliopros, with a population of three-thousand, faced extinction.

Nikos Karalis, the studious one, and the baby turned sixty last year. A degree in sociology and a doctorate in ancient languages made him an unusual candidate to squeeze existence from a vacation island. Nikos, the local hero behind painting boats in the harbor each spring and their thousands of Instagram posts. The white and blue lookalikes, made from plywood, that bobbed on the tide gathering seaweed and barnacles but never fished because of the EU inshore fishing quota.

When he married the most beautiful woman on Kalliopros, that promised a dream match of beauty and brain. It lasted twenty-six months until she walked out of his life for a Danish internet mogul. Afterwards, Nikos found love with a German modern language professor, but he left Nik for an Ethiopian male model. He stayed in emotional quarantine for a decade but remained unbeatable at checkers.

Five years ago he moved in with Pamina, who owned the boutique on Kalliopros, and all that changed. Pamina, at forty-three, knew how to dress. Saints above, did she ever? She chose clothes with care, an inch away from slut. Skirts a fraction too short, tops with enough tension and cutaway to make men salivate. Never too much makeup, or hair color, and a perfect shade of red for her toenails, Pamina showed off those tight, toned calves of mature women that spend all day on their feet.

Saturdays, she came out to play, hanging on Nik's arm, her heels clacking as they strolled the harbor after dinner at her brother's seafood place on the quay, calling at Spirodos's cafe for portokali liqueur and coffee.

Pamina didn't pay for her drinks. Local men hoping for a flash of thigh or panty hung around drinking until she left.

"Gentlemen, answer me, please," George continued, "a real problem, isn't it? Those blue pills—have you seen the fucking price?"

"Those I got from China gave me terrible wind." Alex said.

George smiled. "You told us before. In 2005."

"The thing is, we've forgotten so much the ancients taught us," Nik said, his king leaping in three different directions, decimating Stavros's defense.

"Shit!" Yelled Stavros, standing and sending his chair crashing backwards.

"Go on," said George with a shake of his head.

"The ancient Greeks. They found all these remedies that time forgot. Modern medicine is rediscovery—a lot, anyway." Nikos explained.

"I don't trust those ancient Greeks. Take my grandad—one crazy guy; died swearing the earth was flat, and the Turks did 911," Stavros said.

Nikos raised his voice, "I'm talking three-thousand years ago, not one hundred."

"Ninety-two, fell off his bike, never got to a hundred," Stavros corrected.

"For fuck's sake, Stavros. Nik, are you saying the ancient Greeks found a solution to erectile dysfunction?"

"Don't remember the details, but they fathered kids until they died."

"Yeah. At thirty-five," Alex mocked.

"You're wrong," Nik protested, "a pile of evidence suggests they lived to seventy. Slaves, a mild climate, good diet, active social life and exercise."

"That's as maybe," George said, "but how? What did they eat, or do, to keep hard at our age?"

The old clock struck an uneven eleven as Nik struggled into the square with a stained canvas newspaper bag over one shoulder.

"Fixing lights at Pamina's shop. Summer collection's on the way from Athens."

Under the table, loins stirred and legs crossed as they imagined the thin fabrics and tight shorts that hot days brought to Kalliopros when the sun rose high.

"Here you go," Nik said, dumping a pile of dusty books, almost upsetting the table.

They studied the spines—familiar letters. And yet not. Bookmarks ripped from cotton and polyester cloth samples hung from the pages. George frowned.

"I'll help you through the old stuff," Nik promised.

Nicotine-stained fingers traced the letters of an ancient language that most of them still recognized, getting stuck a few times on each line. Nik led them through the texts until they chanted in unison. Spiridos peered outside, confused.

'water of a maiden at bright midnight, when the blood flows'

"Come on Nik, this is a magic book, right?" George protested.

"No, no. This one, look," Nik said, dragging open another tome. "The Four Humors—Hippocrates."

"Blood, phlegm and the biles?" Alex asked.

"Yep. Only the damn father of modern medicine, right?" Heads nodded as Nik found the paragraph.

"They treated women different, see, and mixed it up sometimes." Nik continued, his finger jabbing at the page.

Heads craned over the words as if gifts from the gods.

'that softness of man be treated by drinking of a woman before heat as Selene is ascended'

"Who's this Selene?" Alex asked.

"Moon god," Stavros said. "Sea captains still worship her."

"Correct," Nik said, pulling open another bookmark. "Stavros isn't a daft as he sounds." He read aloud now, his voice ringing out around the square.

The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Ocean, and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men.

"So they drank piss to cure ED?" George checked.

"From women on their periods, at a full moon," Nik corrected.

"Well, fuck me."

Stavros, down by two games, claimed Nik cheated and wandered off to buy tobacco. Deprived of victory, Nik sauntered inside to discuss rates for the pretend fishermen who would mend nets near Spiridos's cafe in the summer, before remembering Pamina's remaining lights.

"Do you believe that stuff?" Alex asked George, sucking on a Camel, blowing smoke rings.

"Seems odd, I agree," George agreed, "but what's the downside? It's free and I read piss is sterile so worst case—it doesn't work."

"Yeah, but how? Hippocrates got a bunch of girls to hitch up their skirts, but where does that leave us?" Alex asked.

George turned to him with a smirk and heard the penny drop.

"Saints above. He owes us big time, too."

Friday, the final surgery of the week complete, Dr. Leonidas Psomas locked his door, slid across dead bolts and rolled down the shutters. The evening turned cool, and he owed himself a tipple before going home. He found himself several free tipples later, objecting to an outrageous scheme that would see him barred from practice.

"Think of it this way Leon, if Alex and me didn't give evidence, you wouldn't be here now. Four years for defrauding the EU. You'd still be inside, my friend."

"Don't remind me," he groaned at the memory of those medicines to treat migrants for everything from swine fever to leprosy that he'd sold on the internet.

"Besides, you get to be in on the cure."

"Me! Hah, you must be joking. What medical evidence supports such treatment? It's... well, quackery and nonsense."

"So you take blue pills, do you?" George asked.

"At those prices? No way. Not even with the doctor's wholesale."

"And Mrs. Psomas is happy with your performance, is she?"

"We manage."

"I bet you don't," said Alex.

They'd given him until Tuesday. The group looked up as he approached and Nikos pulled over another chair, scraping its legs over dusty cobbles.

"The problem is how the hell to arrange something so ridiculous," Leonidas protested.

"Nope. That's easy; we got that figured. The problem is you," George said.

Five heads engaged in animated conversation, only stopping to check around and drag on cigarettes. At eight, five seats clattered back, and the group split up, the square silent save the sound of Spiridos upending chairs onto tables.

Dr. Psomas waited until Diantha unlocked her desk, plugged in her phone, checked it for messages that arrived between her leaving home on the outskirts of the village and arriving four minutes later on her bicycle. After she arranged the photo of this month's boyfriend, he slid his serious glasses to the end of his nose and waved a random letter from his file.

"We've received another of these, Diantha. From the sexual health people in Athens."

Her face blanched. Last time she caught chlamydia, that entailed a ferry ride to the mainland. Dr Psomas waited for the gears to turn in her head.

"Sexually transmitted diseases are rising amongst women on the mainland, and they want the islands to check. To be honest, I don't understand what they think we are on Kalliopros. I'm tempted to claim lack of resources and enter no report again."

"Again, Dr. Psomas?"

"As I did before."

"Oh dear, did you?"

"What should we do? I can't remember the last time we treated a case here, except for the boat people. Screening is so expensive."

"Perhaps we should, doctor. I mean, just to be safe." Diantha said.

"You sure? Okay, please order twenty sterile urine specimen collection kits for the next boat and check if we can claim them from the Health Service?"

Within ten minutes, Diantha booked a hundred kits on that evening's ferry and her fingers blurred on her phone.

Leonidas Psomas poked his head round the door at twelve. "That the last, Diantha?"

"Next patient at three for afternoon surgery, doctor."

"Enjoy your lunch," he said, waiting for her to disappear.

"Um, doctor, this screening. Anyone can attend? No appointments?"

"Oh yes, must be. Only way. We'll screen women first. Afternoon and evening session, if you don't mind. I'll show you and leave. I'm sure our ladies won't want a man around. Tuesday next week?"

"Okay, doctor."

Diantha stuck numbered labels on tubes. She scrubbed out their single WC and set up the plastic spouted cups then made a laminated sheet with instructions. The drawing appeared pornographic, as if a child drew on a toilet door. Fresh soap and paper towels completed the task. Leonidas approved her work, making her blush.

Diantha never felt so responsible, handing out kits and entering a name against each number on her clipboard, as a stream of furtive women glanced around before ducking through the battered door.

Wednesday morning, Leon sampled the tubes, using Diantha's numbers. She came in after lunch and helped him pack up the smaller samples for collection off the boat in Athens.

"My goodness, we have a lot, Diantha."

"I expect people want to be sure, and since it's free..."

A week later, the results arrived. As he expected, a quarter presented with plasma. His finger ran down the other analyzes. Anemia; urinary infection; pregnant; high glucose—the usual findings which he'd have Diantha follow. Number thirty-seven's made him pause 'benign prostatic hyperplasia'. He checked Diantha's list. Mrs. Galanis—always something strange about her. He recalled her copious facial hair and deep voice.

In the back room, where he cooked lunch, indulged his hobby of homeopathy, and in winter, a little taxidermy all on the same table. Instead of boiling bark, leaves and nettles to syrup, he combined the samples with plasma into four tubes. A more futile task, he couldn't imagine. A fifth tube, labeled 'LP', he filled with water and food coloring. On a whim, he marked one 'N', topping off with a shot of #37. Calls himself an academic, does he?

"I can't do this," Alex protested, holding up his tube and looking at the others for support.

"Hah! No worse that the gut rot that Spiridos serves." George countered, jerking his head toward the cafe door.

"Ate locusts once, in Djibouti," Stavros told them.

"At this moment, I might fancy a nice crunchy fried insect," Nik said, turning his tube over and studying the color, "why's mine got a label?"

"First pressing, sort of," Dr. Psomas said.

"Okay, gang, I'll stand us a round of ouzo to wash this down. Let's get on with it," George said, calling Spiridos over for the bottle he kept behind the bar.

"Celebrating, are we?" asked Spiridos.

"Yeah, golden one," Alex said, hiding his tube in a fist.

Dank drizzle graced Thursday's dawn on Kalliopros. Two of its five remaining fishing boats rounded the breakwater with their night's catch, emerging from the sea mist like ghosts as Alex dry heaved into the toilet of his studio flat, overlooking the harbor.

"Gonna kill that fucker," he vowed to no-one and everyone.

George woke in cold sweats as he surfaced from a disturbed sleep, felt the familiar rumblings of his late wife's kalamarakia gemista, cooked with squid sold off cheap at the end of market, and rushed to the toilet. Five seconds earlier and he might have made home base. George wasn't so quick these days—he decorated the floor, seat and bowl and collapsed onto his knees, shivering, as waves of nausea gripped him.

Up the hill, in the olive grove, Stavros fed the chickens and the pig before demolishing a plate of bread sticks and spicy kopanisti cheese, finishing with honey, ridiculously strong coffee and a slap of his partner's ass.

Pamina rolled over to get away from Nik. She was sore and tired. Outside the window, drips signaled a wet morning, no customers at the shop so a lazy morning in bed. Except last night, Nik came home early and fucked her senseless. She'd been on top, underneath, doggy and reverse cowgirl. When she'd protested, he'd taken her in the ass, then once more during the night. By dawn, Pamina didn't have an orgasm left in her. When Nik tried to grab her, she rose defeated, and pissed a stream that stung her.

"Ow!" she winced, "for god's sake." Pamina worried Nik might outplay his body, but flattered herself that she still had what it took.

Spiridos waited until a watery sun broke through and warmed the square before unlocking the cafe. He yawned, stretched and dragged in the morning pastries and milk. He sat alone reading the paper until after lunch, when Dr. Psomas called for coffee.

"Where are your rustics, today?"

"They worry me, that lot. At their age they get too many daft ideas."

"Tell them I called," Leonidas said over his shoulder.

Friday, Spiridos became frantic. A paucity of tourists was one thing, but without the local color, you didn't get any customers. Saturday arrived before Spiridos lost his frown. And Pamina could walk.

"Where's that fucker, Nikos?" George asked.

"If you're talking about the bastard that poisoned us, he's taking dinner with his fancy woman," Alex told him, nodding at the quay.

"Nothing to eat for two days, how about you?" asked George

"Same. But I saw Stavros earlier, grinning like a politician."

"What the fuck went wrong?"

"We'll know soon—here comes the history man."

"Gentlemen, good evening," Nikos said, taking in their scowls, "you don't appear to be a happy as you should be."

"You've got some cheek, Nikos Karalis, prancing around here after what you've done to us."

Pamina glimpsed a friend at the bar, touched Nik's arm, made an air kiss and sauntered away.

"Tiring, I'll admit that, but what a difference," he said, watching Pamina's ass, "like I'm twenty-one again. Been hard longer than soft since Thursday."