Zorba's Taverna: The Trouble With Goats and Mayors, page 13
Alex and I learned this very early.
One of our first encounters with Dimitri involved birds. He arrived at our house and asked, perfectly seriously, “Do you like birds?”
“Yes,” I replied brightly. “I have a bird table in England. I feed them nuts and watch them from the window.”
“With a gun?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Just… with binoculars.”
Dimitri stared at me for a long time, his moustache bristling with confusion, then gave a slow nod. Clearly he’d decided this was some peculiar English ritual, best not to question.
“Wait here,” he said, disappeared to his truck, and returned with a string of ten freshly shot blackbirds. “These,” he said, holding them up like a bouquet, “are delicious stuffed with cheese.”
And with that, he left, presumably to shoot more.
So you see, in Telios, birds are not to be observed. They are to be roasted. Or at the very least discouraged from living.
Which meant nobody trusted the man with the binoculars. Not because he might be spying on the village, but because he might be wasting perfectly good birds.
By the third day, the notebook was no longer just a notebook. It was evidence.
Maria, who had taken to peering at it on her way past, reported that it contained diagrams – suspiciously detailed ones.
“Tables. Benches. Olive trees,” she said, flipping a page in her own notebook for emphasis. “He’s mapping us.”
“Mapping us for what?” I asked.
“Commercial development,” said Theodora, grimly.
She offered no explanation for how she knew.
This was how conspiracies start in villages: quietly, over coffee, and usually by someone who has been wrong about everything since 1994.
But once the seed is planted, it grows.
By lunchtime, the entire cooperative had declared war.
Claude volunteered for surveillance duty. He wandered past the man every ten minutes, “accidentally” dropping philosophical remarks like, “Ambience is such a fragile thing, don’t you think?”
Mary sharpened her sarcasm until it could cut glass. When the man asked for a straw, Mary handed him one, raised an eyebrow, and said, “We serve water. Not cocktails with umbrellas. But sure, live dangerously.”
He blinked, clearly not used to being challenged over hydration.
Claude, who had been eavesdropping with the intensity of a cat by a mouse hole, suddenly appeared with a spoon. “In case you want to stir your observations,” he said gravely.
Maria followed up by placing a napkin next to him. “For your tears,” she said, already scribbling “Telios Faces Straw-Related Spy Crisis” in her notebook.
Even Dimitri joined in, slapping a fish on the table. “This one has seen everything,” he said. “You can interview it.”
By now, half the taverna was watching. The man cleared his throat and said, “I’m only here for the birds.”
“Us too,” said Spiros from his bench. “Roasted. With oregano.”
Katerina wandered over, stared him down until he shifted uncomfortably, then stole the notebook clean off the table and trotted away with it.
“That settles it,” Mary said, dusting her hands. “If the goat doesn’t trust you, neither do we.”
Theodora, hearing about the situation, came out of the kitchen holding a spoon like a weapon.
“What is this?” she demanded, eyeing the notebook.
The man, to his credit, explained that he was “simply noting the flight patterns of the lesser kestrel”.
Theodora nodded.
“Eat,” she said. It was lamb stew.
He hesitated.
“Eat,” she repeated, louder, until he ordered something.
Theodora stood there until he took a bite, as though the stew itself were part of the interrogation.
By day four, the whole taverna had joined in.
Dimitri blocked the man’s view with fishing nets.
Eleni started humming loudly every time he opened the notebook.
Claude adjusted the lighting so his sketches came out crooked.
Maria began drafting a new headline: “Suspicious Stranger Thwarted by Culinary Resistance”.
Even Spiros got involved, by refusing to move from his bench so the man had to sit at an awkward angle to see anything at all.
And then, when we had all agreed he was a spy, a developer, a surveyor, and possibly a foreign agent, the man packed up his notebook, stood, and said, “Thank you for your hospitality. Your taverna has one of the healthiest barn swallow populations I’ve seen in years.”
He left money under the plate, tipped his hat, and walked off towards the bus stop.
There was silence.
The next morning, the cooperative held an informal meeting under the olive tree.
Claude suggested we hang a sign that read “Taverna: Swallow Sanctuary”.
Mary vetoed it.
Alex declared that any future “birdwatchers” must submit a request for seating at least 24 hours in advance.
Theodora, having already started prepping the day’s stew, simply said, “If they eat, they stay. If they don’t, they go.”
And just like that, the matter was settled.
The tables were back where they belonged.
The goat had stopped glaring.
And for the rest of the summer, the swallows nested undisturbed under the tin roof, singing above the lunchtime clatter, like a tiny feathered choir blessing the chaos below.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mary Makes a Move
The thing about Mary was this: she didn’t shout.
She didn’t fling plates.
She didn’t threaten to move to Athens or marry the first tourist who owned a functioning passport.
She didn’t cry in the kitchen unless the onions truly deserved it.
No – Mary simply… adjusted.
So when it became painfully, laughably, cosmically clear that Andonis was coming in person, Mary put on her best lipstick – the one that could charm a German accountant or silence a disruptive child with a single glance – and went shopping.
Not for a dress. Not for perfume. Certainly not for a wedding folder. No, Mary went shopping for leverage.
Her first stop? The elders.
In Telios, everything important is passed through three filters: gossip, garlic, and the opinions of pensioners.
If Mary was going to weather this storm, and come out dry, she needed the elders fed, flattered, and firmly on her side.
So she began the Baklava Offensive.
Small parcels, lovingly wrapped in foil. No note, no fanfare. Just dropped on doorsteps and plastic tables, accompanied by a nod that said: “You know who’s looking after you.”
Auntie Fotini declared Mary “a national treasure” and phoned her daughter in Athens just to say, “She’s too good for that smoothie boy.”
Word was spreading.
Next, she turned to the tourists.
Now, Mary had always been kind to tourists, that delicate mix of curiosity and confusion that wandered into the taverna every summer like polite, sunburnt cattle.
But this time, she launched a campaign. She complimented hats. She gave Greek lessons.
She quietly rescued a newlywed from buying a €9 keychain made in China, steering her instead toward Theodora’s homemade spoon sweets and a bottle of dubious but heartfelt olive oil.
Within 48 hours, the TripAdvisor page had a new headline: “The Mary Effect: Come for the sunsets, stay for the revolution.”
Two Australian couples promised to hold a sit-in if she was forced into a union without informed consent. Claude printed them leaflets.
Eleni made badges saying “just say no”. Dimitri took the badges as a personal slur on his original use of “herbal oregano”.
Her third stop: Katerina.
Now, Katerina had been many things: mascot, menace, minor influencer – but thanks to a mysterious overnight sewing effort, she now wore a sash that read: “INDEPENDENT WOMAN”.
Mary fed her pomegranate seeds like bribes and whispered, “You’re the only one I trust.”
Katerina responded by headbutting a tourist who asked if the goat was part of the dowry.
The village began to notice.
Theodora, bless her well-intentioned chaos, tried to stay positive.
She invited Mary for coffee and laid out bridal magazines like weapons on the table.
Mary arrived with her own folder. Inside: an employment contract for a summer beach bar in Santorini. Just in case.
Theodora blinked.
Mary smiled.
No words were exchanged. But the message came through loud and clear, wrapped in lace and paperwork.
Meanwhile, Alex, who had been watching everything like a crow perched above a war map, finally intercepted Mary behind the wine fridge.
“You’re plotting,” Alex said flatly.
“I’m surviving,” Mary replied, adjusting the wine bottles into alphabetical order.
“Same thing,” said Alex, handing her a pastry.
Mary was ready. Whenever “Andy” finally appeared, she would be ready.
She knew power. And above all, she knew how to win. Not with shouting. Not with sabotage.
But with quiet, precision-crafted grace. With a smile, and if necessary, with a goat in a sash.
Because when the village wrote its next chapter, Mary intended to hold the pen.
And she was already writing in capitals.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Manifesto That Wrote Itself
It was supposed to be a quiet evening.
A little gentle plotting under the lemon trees, a few plates of meze, and a discreet nudge to keep Spiros’s accidental candidacy shambling forward.
Claude had promised simplicity, “just a few friends,” he said.
An informal gathering.
A light civic exchange.
“Philosophical murmuring beneath the lemon trees,” he added, which in Telios is usually code for: brace yourself, someone’s going to end up dancing on a chair.
And sure enough, by the time the sun hit the horizon, Claude’s grand vision of calm, dignified politics had been flattened, trampled, and drowned in retsina by the village’s much louder, much drunker idea of political engagement.
It began, as most questionable things do, with Claude. He had arrived early, trailing the scent of aftershave and misplaced ambition, dressed like a diplomat on sabbatical, and sipping retsina from a teacup. He claimed the teacup was ironic. The linen suit was not.
Maria showed up next, clutching a shiny homemade press badge and a notebook already half-filled with imaginary quotes. Dimitri followed with a plank of wood repurposed as a campaign sign that read, “Spiros: Because Change is Exhausting”. It had glitter on it.
Then came Theodora, bearing a tray of koulourakia iced with the phrase “Vote Wisely”, and Eleni, who arrived with a clipboard and the quiet certainty of someone already filing the paperwork you haven’t agreed to yet. The final straw, however, was the podium: constructed from fish crates and decorated with a disco light from Kostas’s wedding. It flickered like a political fever dream.
Spiros, entirely unaware of the plan, sat in his usual spot with a cigarette in one hand and a growing sense of foreboding in the other. As far as he was concerned, it was just Thursday. The figs were disappointing. The moon was up to something. And there were far too many people arriving for anything wholesome.
It wasn’t until the microphone appeared – technically it was a karaoke machine from the kafenio, last used during a regrettable rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” at Theodora’s name day – that Spiros spoke.
“What is this?”
“A gathering,” Claude beamed, arms open as if welcoming a revolution.
“It’s a mistake,” Spiros said flatly, eyeing the crowd, which now included several curious tourists, a confused dog, and Katerina, wearing what looked suspiciously like a campaign rosette.
Claude began the evening with an announcement – grand, theatrical, and slightly misjudged.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we gather tonight to celebrate not just a man, but a movement. A figure of reluctant leadership. A prophet of potholes and patience…”
Spiros narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t want to be a candidate.”
Eleni ticked a box on her clipboard and said, “But you are now.”
That was the moment. The exact moment when the village, powered by retsina, boredom, and a deep, unspoken need for someone to blame for the bins, decided that Spiros, grumpy bench-sitter and professional pessimist, was their future.
Zorba, watching from his usual corner with a glass in hand and judgment on his face, gave a single nod. “Could be worse,” he said. And in Telios, that was an endorsement.
And so, it began.
Someone lit a lantern. Someone else uncorked more wine. Claude, inexplicably, began quoting Rousseau. Eleni distributed leaflets freshly printed barely five minutes earlier. Katerina bleated with approval and headbutted an old olive oil tin.
The night spiralled into campaign fever.
Alex arrived in time to witness the chaos and whispered something that sounded like “Dear gods, they’ve actually done it”, before joining the crowd with the weary grace of a woman who’s seen worse, but only slightly.
Spiros was asked to speak.
He stood up with the energy of a man returning a faulty appliance. His expression was part confusion, part indigestion.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, scanning the faces around him.
“You already sit down a lot,” offered Dimitri, unhelpfully.
“You’ve been angry for fifty years,” Maria added. “It’s practically a political career.”
Someone shouted, “Manifesto!”
Spiros looked skyward, possibly in prayer.
“I don’t want to be the one who arranges pothole repairs.”
Applause.
“I want the tax office to stop sending letters written by lunatics.”
Cheers.
“And I want to be left alone.”
Silence.
Then the chant began. Slowly. Softly. Then louder. “Spi-ros! Spi-ros! Spi-ros!” Even the goat joined in, in her own way – by chewing a corner of his bench.
He sat back down, lit another cigarette, and muttered, “Idiots.”
He still hadn’t said yes. But the village noted that he hadn’t explicitly said no, either. And in Telios, not saying no is as good as winning anyway.
By midnight, campaign posters were already being designed. Claude had big plans for olive-inspired colour schemes. Maria was workshopping headlines. Alex was already drafting contingency plans involving plausible deniability.
And Spiros? He finished his wine, looked at the moon again, still suspicious, and said to no one in particular: “If anyone wakes me up before ten, I’m quitting.”
But everyone knew the truth.
The candidate had risen.
And nothing in Telios would ever be quiet again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Cheese-Shed Incident
You should never trust Stamos, our resident builder, philosopher, and prophet of pessimism. Not with your tools, not with your secrets, and certainly not with your lunch (especially if he’s decided to “improve” it on the BBQ).
Hand Stamos a hammer and he’ll swear he’s “just fixing a hinge”, but somehow end up dismantling half your balcony, declaring it an “essential improvement” to “improve airflow” or create a “second deck level”. He’d likely leave you with a bill for his unsolicited efforts. Give him your fishing net to mend, and he’ll return it strung with bottle caps and perhaps even sea urchins, swearing it now “catches only the good fish”. He certainly has no intention of following any modern mending codes anyway. Once, someone asked him to watch their goat for an hour, and he brought it back with a haircut and a tattoo (well, technically paint, but it caused a scandal anyway). In all likelihood, he had probably also installed a swing for it.
Stamos has that special glint in his eye, the kind that says he’s about to solve a problem no one asked him to solve, or construct an entirely new structure out of thin air and spite. The last time he “helped” at Zorba’s, we ended up with a slightly crooked open-air seating plan, complete with columns like the Parthenon (which is impressive when you realise we already had one), and potentially a new third entrance “for good luck”. He once caused the bathroom to flood after “improving the plumbing” with an old snorkel and mismatched garden hoses.
He is charming, persuasive, and entirely unreliable – a dangerous combination in a man who owns both a toolbox (often filled with suspiciously rusted tools) and a collection of homemade fireworks. He enjoys setting fires for “ambience”, and once turned a lamb roast into a “pagan bonfire visible from the mainland”. He is truly a “tinkerer of doom” who genuinely believes any appliance can become a pizza oven.
And yet, somehow, we all keep trusting him. Because when Stamos is involved, things are never boring, as chaos is another form of craftsmanship in his eyes.
George, our village shepherd and semi-professional feta philosopher, had been meaning to fix his cheese shed for months. Or possibly years. Time, like his brine, was a flexible concept.
It was the same stone shed that used to be his uncle’s garage, or perhaps his cousin’s – the exact lineage was charmingly disputed by three different branches of the family and one lawyer who gave up sometime in the 1990s. The shed leaned slightly to the left, or to the right, depending on the wind, the moon phase, and George’s mood. Ask him about its structural integrity and you’d get a single, quiet “We’ll see,” which in George’s language meant, “Don’t rush me, I’m ageing cheese and excuses.”
The door was a masterpiece of rustic defiance: it only closed on Sundays, and then only if you swore heartily in dialect while delivering a swift kick to the bottom hinge with a properly soled boot. Tourists thought this was charming. Theodora thought it was grounds for divorce.
