Читать книгу White Vespa - Kevin Oderman - Страница 18

Ten

16 June

Myles took the turns down into Yialós in lazy swoops, the Vespa idling quietly under him. The fire in Turkey was still on, but it had died down or the wind had shifted, because now the sky was only faintly discolored. It was early; Myles was heading for the open bakery to get a loaf of black bread directly off the baker’s wooden paddle. When he broke the loaf for breakfast, back up at his little house, he liked it to steam, then a swipe of butter, then a dab of local jam or peppery pine honey. Almost every morning. Some pleasures had more stamina than others.

The flat streets back of the harbor, so busy later in the day, had that ghostly look busy streets get when the people are gone. At the paraléia he leaned the Vespa to the right, his eyes out over the harbor, looking at the tied-up boats, bright paint reflected in slick water. He never got tired of looking at the small boats, another pleasure with legs.

Yórgos, standing fishing on the deck of a blue boat, a not so bright boat, spotted Myles and waved, spastically, flashing a bright smile, then feigning a loss of balance. Myles liked Yórgos, a good kid apparently impervious to the daily crush of tourists. So he braked.

“Any fish?”

And Paul stood up from behind the cabin, where he’d been sitting out of sight. “I haven’t got any. Yórgos has a bunch. He’s teaching me how to work a hand line, but not the catching-fish part, it seems.”

“Aha.”

Paul looked as if he hadn’t been to bed, not so fresh as the morning. “Stick around, be good for a laugh.”

Yórgos allowed he had twelve in his bucket. “Small ones, but we eat small ones.”

Myles laughed, “I know. Sometimes it looks to me like you’re eating the bait.” Myles could see Yórgos hadn’t got the joke, and he felt relieved. It had been mean.

An awkwardness settled over them. Myles wasn’t happy to see Paul. He didn’t like scenes or people hurt for sport. But now Paul was all charm, mangling a little Greek to put Yórgos at ease. Myles stayed longer than he meant to—the black bread was cooling on a shelf in the window when he got to the bakery.

Standing at the counter, paying for the bread, Myles listened to the music filtering in from a back room. The sound was scratchy, a record maybe. But it was the real thing, Greek music, old time bazouki, the sound of Asia in it. Asia Minor, Myles thought, so close, not even there, really, but here.