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

finally Paris.'
    'How old were you when you ran away?'
    'Don't know. Don't know how old I am now.'
    'What made you run?'
    'I met a group of traveling musicians from Germany. They were colourful and free. I became one of them, but I am not for playing music. My skill, they decided, was cooking and later, I decided, it was writing. I wrote a piece about them and sold it to a Paris paper. They were furious, but they drank the wine I bought with the money.' Jules clips his words. He is taking no joy from the memory. 'What was your papa like?'
    'Baba? He was bigger than life. So big that I felt I had to do something great to live up to him. I have felt this all my life. A pressure. He was a manga . A true working class manga from Pireaus, with the pointed shoes, the striped suit, the long mustachio, a wide sash belt to hide the knife he carried there. He would wear his jackets on one shoulder, leaving the other arm dangling like a cape or a shawl.'
    The only way to really explain his baba would be to tell Jules one of his exploits. But if he does, he risks over-shadowing all he, Sakis, has achieved, reducing himself to nothing more than his baba's son again. But maybe not. Maybe Jules has more insight, maybe he himself has outgrown all that now. Maybe this is a chance prove all that is behind him. After all, he has won! He is known worldwide now. Besides, there is also something very comforting in talking about his baba.
    'He was a big man, physically. His chest was so big, he had to get shirts made specially. He grew up diving for sponges. He could hold his breath the longest of any of the boys, so he got the bigger sponges and became known locally. By the time I was a boy, he was already diving on oil rigs, underwater welding.' There is not even a glimmer of awe from Jules, and this gives Sakis the courage to continue. 'The work he did paid well and the boy from a poor family became a man with money, but he never forgot his roots. He had no desire to spend his time with the wealthy. Like I said, his apartment was in a run-down area of Pireaus.'
    'It sounds like you admired him.' Jules turns onto his stomach to tan his back.
    'I did. But also… Let me tell you one tale.'
    'Okay,' Jules mumbles.
    'He was working on a rig off the coast of Africa and a group of them had shore leave. As it was too far to come back to Greece, he and his friends took a room in a coastal town. A town where a major river met the sea and inland was a network of marshes and tree-covered waterways. Tropical.' Sakis sits up to suck up the last of his drink and then he too lies on his front. The sun is so high, the umbrella is casting little shade.
    'So my baba decides it would be fun to rent a boat and explore the waterways. They took beer and food and the five of them got in a boat, Baba steering the, er, what is it called, oh yes, the outboard motor.'
    Jules has his head turned towards him, one eye open, listening.
    'They set up one waterway and it narrows to nothing, so they retreat and try another. After a while, one of the men declares that they are lost but my baba says he knows where they are. After another hour, the man who thinks they are lost is beginning to panic and he talks some of the other men into believing that they are lost, too. So Baba stops the boat to talk to them, calm everyone down. As he is speaking, the man who was panicking opens his eyes wide and he points, with his mouth hanging open but with no sound coming out.
    'Baba turns to see what he is pointing at and, swimming towards the boat, just visible above the thick water, are the spines of the back of a crocodile. The man who was pointing finds his voice and lets out a scream. One of the other men throws himself over the far side of the boat as the crocodile rears out of the soup and with an open mouth goes for the men. The animal lands half in the boat, snapping and trying to find its feet. Everyone is screaming. Another man has flung himself overboard and is swimming for the