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eventually end, Vespoula moved into the house anyway. Refusing to consider other men, she wore her widow’s black every day for the rest of her life. One day they erected a statue of Dimitri in the village square and she visited it in the middle of the night. Kissing it and holding it, she promised that she would wait until the end of her mortal life so that they could be together in the endless time that began at the final human breath. And wait she did, as age and time ravaged her body and mind, and she awoke each morning cursing the sun that she was still alive. Every so often she thought she saw him, Dimitri, from the corner of her eye, at the edge of a field, in the shadows outside her window at night. But he never came to find her.
    Not long into Oliver’s stay a group of old men in the kafenio had taken pity on this strange quiet young man who sat scribbling morosely into his notebook and looking like his dead uncle. They invited him to join them for cards and he had, hoping to stop his growing anxiety. Perhaps in their banter lay answers, or, at the very least, a story. One of them spoke a little English and introduced himself as Stavros.
    â€˜When your papou was alive we are enemies, but now he is dead we are okay,’ Stavros said by way of introduction and smoothed his thick grey moustache happily.
    Oliver soon learnt that when Stavros smoothed his moustache he was bluffing. The big overconfident smile was an unconscious giveaway that he was holding a handful of threes or fours. Stavros had hitched up his pants and pointed to the other three men at the table.
    â€˜Spiro – he is a teacher. Panayiotis – he is the café owner. And Mikelis – he is a drunk. You will learn cards from him.’
    Mikelis squinted at Oliver before patting the seat beside him unenthusiastically. Oliver sat down. He glanced at Mikelis, who smelt like he’d fallen into a barrel of beer. Mikelis gave him a fuzzy nod.

    Mikelis’s dream had been to get an education and leave the village. He wanted to be a writer like the greats; to write a new Odyssey, like Homer, who his father had read to him as a boy. But Mikelis was an only son and tied to this land. Over the years as he worked the fields, he wrote in private great volumes of work – musings on the state of the world, tales of adventures, retellings of classics with his favourite TV characters in the main roles, and reams of Virgilian poetry, full of babbling brooks like the ones that ran through the village and grass that seemed alive as it danced in the breeze. To allow himself time to write, he pretended to exist in a perpetual drunken state, washing his shirts in beer so everyone would assume he spent his after-work hours passed out somewhere. When he was an old man he planned to put down his pen for the last time and hide his life’s work in a crate so that one day after his death it would be discovered and at last the world would revel in the glory of his words.
    They played on in an amiable wordlessness punctuated only by the victorious cry of whoever took out each game. Panayiotis won most, then Stavros, then Oliver. Mikelis had won just once, after he fumbled his cards and the others saw he had a moderately good hand. They paused play while Panayiotis jumped up to serve a couple of lost British tourists who had stopped for directions and a bite to eat. Stavros shuffled the cards and cracked his knuckles as he looked Oliver up and down.
    â€˜You not married, Oliver?’ he enquired, though it was more of a statement than a question.
    â€˜No.’ Oliver shook his head.
    Stavros made a conciliatory face and gave a shrug.
    â€˜It’s too bad.’
    Oliver nodded. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜What you do?’ Stavros asked. ‘For work, I mean.’
    Oliver considered the question. Maybe he should tell them he was a mechanic. That would save him an explanation. But then they might ask him to fix