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you?”
    I didn’t really have the chance to answer as it appeared from our interactions so far that most of Kaliopi’s questions were rhetorical, so I smiled inwardly and allowed myself the luxury of soaking up the atmosphere, content to let her chatter away.
Within the space of forty -eight hours I’m sitting outside a café by the river on a gloriously warm September morning with a very interesting “local”,
I thought, gazing out to the river. I caught sight of a marble woman’s head poking up from the depths and pointed this out to my new friend.
    “She’s
Herkyna
. This area we’re in now is called
Krya
. Legend has it that
Herkyna
used to play here with her friend
Persephone
.
Herkyna
was holding a goose and suddenly it flew away into a cave.
Persephone
rushed after it, but the water suddenly rose, trapping
Persephone
inside it and carrying her to the Underworld. The marble head honours this legend.”
    The area we were seated in was beautifully lush and green—there was no mistaking the rushing sound of water—and to my right, just in front of the wooded area, an old mill with a waterwheel completed the scene of tranquillity.
    I tuned back to Kaliopi’s conversation. “I come from a small town by the coast in the Peloponnese. My father still lives there, but we have a place in Athens also,” she developed a faraway look in her eyes. “My mother died when I was young, leaving him and my two other sisters—I am the middle.”
    The subject must’ve been a sensitive one as Kaliopi changed it abruptly. Her distant look cleared and as she shook her head as if to clear it, snapping back to the present and said, “Why don’t you come to my Athens home this weekend, so we can escape this place?”
Seriously, I’ve just met this girl and she’s inviting me to her home? And she’s got two of them?
    “You must be incredibly rich.”
    “Pah! In Greece, many people keep their family homes in their village for generations and pass them on down the family line. They also have a place in the city where they move to work. Rarely do people take out these mortgage things. I am amazed to learn that in your country, people continue into their fifties to owe banks for their homes…the banks own you, can you not see that?”
    I guess I’d never really looked at it like that…I’d always seen taking out a bank loan to buy a house as the norm. Kaliopi’s father lived in the Peloponnese family home whilst she stayed in the Athens apartment, and it appeared they owned these outright.
    “I used to work in the city, but I changed jobs. I’m only in this hole from hell village renting a place because the bank I work for has no vacancies in my line of work in Athens at the moment, but they did here.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I need to prove to those
malakas
in Head Office that I am—how you say? Bendy, that’s it—I must work in this place until a vacancy arises back in civilization.” This exchange had been emphasized with a variety of gestures that ended with her ramming her index finger with finality onto the table and sweeping her arm around her.
She really doesn’t like it here…and what does she mean by being ‘bendy?’
I already understood
malakas
, thanks to my introduction with the teens yesterday.
    “Ah, Kaliopi, I think you mean you’re being
flexible
,” I stifled a laugh as I decided that now might be a good opportunity to correct her English.
    “Yes, bendy, flexible—what is the difference?” Kaliopi shrugged, regarding me with one eye closed against her cigarette smoke.
    “Well, bendy refers to a person’s suppleness and…” I smiled, deciding to let the matter drop. I didn’t intend to put my teacher’s hat on right this minute, and besides Kaliopi looked in danger of dropping off to sleep.
    We ate in silence for a while. “I need your advice,” Kaliopi suddenly perked up. “After all, you are a foreigner and not from the village, so you are sane and will have a more