excerpt
Today Eteo was walking alone because Ariana had spent a little
more time than usual with her mother. This gave him a chance to be
alone with his thoughts after the eventful afternoon with Rebecca the
day before. As always, his attention was attracted by the movements
of the sea swells as they broke against the rocks and turned them into
shining marbles. A faint smile appeared on his face, but his thoughts
soon ran in other directions. He thought about Richard’s problematic
drilling project, Mario’s new company, Nostra Ventures, Rebecca’s
beautiful body, and far on the other side of the globe his parents in
his beloved Crete. They had finally moved back there soon after Eteo
emigrated to Canada, selling their house in Athens where Eteo had
lived for more than ten years and building a new house in the village,
a small, functional house where the two of them could live the relaxed
life of retirees. His father had also bought a small boat, which
he used for fishing and to ferry tourists from place to place along the
Spatha Peninsula to earn extra money. They also took part in the
gathering of the olives and in that way earned all the oil they needed.
Eteo’s mother kept herself busy with traditional embroidery on a
loom, making beautiful articles for her grandchildren. And when
busy with her embroidery, Eteo imagined, she often thought about
the foreign land where her son lived and her eyes would fill with tears
and her heart with a tightness that could only be relieved by gazing
at the dark blue sea opposite her balcony and anticipating the day
when her son would come back home from that sea.
Imagining this, Eteo’s eyes got teary as he walked with the serene
waters of English Bay on his left, passing gently across the sand where
a few fishers worked their nets. He could see that they were probably
Vietnamese, new immigrants enjoying the warmth of the afternoon
and the smell of the sea while fishing for smelts, which were coming
near the shore to spawn. Eteo remembered how he used to do the
same back in his early days in Canada with his friend Zachary. Where
was Zachary now, he wondered.
On impulse he sat on a log and watched the fishers and their nets.
Suddenly he noticed that one net was shaking violently from one side
to the other as if a larger fish was caught in it.
Manolis Aligizakis 