Musical Chairs Why pay for a newspaper when epiphanies are free? A cappuccino each was in front of Marlena and myself as we played chess on a tiny-checked tablecloth in a tiny-table cafe in a tiny outdoors plaza under a waxing gibbous moon. Zephyrs of evening were ending the heat of the day, just as zephyrs of familiarity were ending the awkwardness of that dinner with Maria and Tassos. As different as we were in most every other regard, in chess we had found a common ground. She always won the game. I always won the memories. It was hard to concentrate during this match in the little cafe. Two men behind us were clattering through a hot backgammon match with furious hurls of dice. A tot of a girl two tables away burbled the cafe-thing-names she was learning on Mommy’s lap. A guitar and two Cretan lauto trioed in front of us, fingers like nightingales. The slithery sounds of a shaken tambourine. Teaspoons on a tin can. A quivering Greek love song in a voice like a sobbing mouse. The music was like porcelain and everything seemed in miniature. The balcony above was decorated with painted gourds like Christmas ornaments on an outdoor vine. Cruettes of vinegar and oil awaited the first salad. Indigo glass ashtrays. Fresh-picked flowers. Table lamps with amber-coloured oil. Potted ficus and oleander between the tables. Square stone pavings. A string of lights on a wrought-iron balcony. The two young musicians’ voices and cheer-laden mandolin echoed off the chasmy clapboard walls of the old Turkish houses three floors high. Climbing vines and wooden doors. Stone quoins on the corners. Thick-walled windows with flower pots on the lintels. Gloomy dark interiors beyond shutterless windows.
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