A Song Amongst the Orange Trees (The Greek Village Collection Book 13) Read Online Free

unpainted walls. There would be five rough wooden tables at most, and a makeshift bar, the musicians crammed into a corner. If the sun was shining, the doors were folded back so the bar spilled onto the street, and in winter, they were pulled tight and the cavern filled with cigarette smoke and the heat of bodies. The other men, also in pointed shoes, long moustaches, and striped suits, acknowledged Antigone and Antoni’s entrance with a lift of a cigar, a raise of a glass, and he would feel so important simply by association.
    'We would eat all together. The music would play. Then after an ouzo or two, if the music took his fancy, Antigone would stand, and like a, how you say, a Spanish fighter…'
    'A matador,' Jules offers.
    'Yes, this, like a matador, his spine so straight it almost curved backward, he would reach out his hand to his wife. She would stand slowly, refusing his hand and circle him, each foot kicking out as she stepped and then they would dance.'
    'You Greeks, you like to dance.'
    The sun has moved and Sakis’ face is no longer in the shade of the umbrella, but the direct heat on his throat feels good, so he keeps his eyes closed and does not move.
    'Yes, we like to dance. But this was not like the dancing that is taught in schools, passed down from parents to children. This was improvised and had a menace to it, often a fight between the man and woman, for dominance.'
    The first time he saw such dancing, he was afraid. Its raw sexuality, the woman standing up to every move made by the man, scared him. In traditional Greek dancing, the onlookers often drop to one knee and clap in time to encourage the display. But with this dancing, the bar was silent except for the sound of the music and the pointed shoes and heeled slippers against the cobbles. They commanded the room. No one got up, no one entered. No drinks were served until they had finished. And all this time he sat, not daring to move, on a small, hard chair by the bouzouki player. As the player’s fingers moved and strummed, he would wink at Sakis and nod at his baba's friends, presuming they were his parents.
    The excitement he felt as a boy is in his veins again. Maybe he will return to his room and play his own bouzouki for an hour or two. But first, he must complete his story for Jules.
    'When they finished, they would be bought many drinks, but, the most exciting part for me, the musician would pull my stool in front of him, put the bouzouki in my lap, and reach his arms around me to guide my fingers. I would play, or thought I was playing, to cries of bravo and comments such as, “The boy’s a boy, but he's also manga ,” and I felt I belonged.'
    Sakis turns to Jules to see if he understands what he is saying, the importance of the excitement. Jules is smiling and scribbling furiously in his notebook.
    'Are you making notes on this?' Sakis asks.
    'Sure,' Jules say languidly and puts his pencil down to rest. Neither of them say anything for a while. Sakis’ desire to go and practice subsides as a stillness takes him over.
    'Nice spot, this,' Jules remarks and as Sakis looks over to him, he sees his eyes are closed.
    Sleep plays its usual trick and when Sakis opens his eyes again, the family of four has been replaced by a couple, and the man with the brown back is now three very pale girls with blond hair. A young woman is sitting at the beach bar and the bartender has hold of her hand and is leaning as far over the counter as he can to steal the occasional kiss. Sakis’ face pulses hot. He has caught the sun.
    'How you feeling?' the ever-vigilant Jules asks.
    'Not aching so much, but my throat is still raw.'
    'You want another drink?'
    'In a while. I just dreamt we were in a bar without air conditioning in Paris. Are you from Paris?'
    'They say I was born in a place called Etaut, up in the hills near Spain.'
    'How do you mean “they say”?'
    'Raised in an orphanage. Toulouse. Ran away and lived in Montauban, Limoges, Orleans, and