sweet lemons and gentle beasts
a little leonard cohen story from hydra
Dimitris meets us at the ferry port with an old white donkey named Pietro. Using a complicated system of bungee cords and pulley straps he fixes our cases on the donkey’s back as the beast stamps stares into the middle distance with tragic brown eyes. The boys, meanwhile, stroke Pietro’s velvet nose cooing over his cuteness, asking the donkey if he’d like to come back to live in London with us? Then they can keep him as a pet and ride him to school? Wouldn't that be cool? Pietro doesn’t flirt back or acknowledge their compliments, just stamps his left front hoof and looks forlorn in the way that only donkeys can.
“Twenty minutes,” Dimitris says of the walk to the cottage, gesturing up the cobblestone path with his thumb.
There are no roads on Hydra, only donkeys, horses, water taxis and the occasional bicycle. No traffic is the single sum total why I chose it of all the little Greek islands. Easy for kids. Not a lot of activities or stuff they’d nag me to buy. Dimitris is a tallish fellow, easy smile, dark and husky, bearded and broad across the belly. He manages a handful of holiday lets on the island. “Extremely communicative and helpful!” all the reviews say of him (including, eventually, my own).
What they don’t add is that he’s sort of guy who wears a fisherman’s vest with lots of pockets, not because he fishes but because he likes to have sweets on hand for moaning children and plasters in case of guests who he’s noticed are prone to blisters. The sort of guy, I imagine, who has a couple of lazy teenagers at home, an ailing mother-in-law, a deaf beagle, two cats, a turtle and a wife who rolls her eyes at him in a way that says, I love to you death Dimitris. Although we were very young and stupid, I understand now I was right to marry you. But for god’s sake lay off the potatoes.
He tells me he grew up on Hydra, as did his parents and grandparents in turn and on and on for as far back as people kept records of births and deaths.
What a thing that must be, I say.
He nods, doesn’t smile.
We walk in silence and I think how amazing it must be to be from a long line of people lucky enough to be born in such a specific, tiny and agonisingly beautiful place. I ask if he was ever tempted to leave?
Why? he says with a laugh, then adds that many do. It’s very expensive. Not many jobs.
The sense of history you must have, I say and immediately regret it. You sound like a patronising idiot.
Dimitris shrugs and says, It’s a life.
He asks where I’m from and I say I’m Canadian but now I live in London and my children are British.
I like Canadians, he says. Do you know the singer Leonard Cohen?
Of course.
I grew up across from his house, Dimitris tells me. I still have the family flat, I rent it out now on Airbnb.
Wow, I say. (Because what else can you say?)
A very nice man. Very gentle. We played together a lot, he adds.
You played music with Leonard Cohen? I say. Amazing!
He chuckles. No sorry I mean his son Axel, with Marianne. He’s same age as me. When they lived here we were best of friends.
Do you keep in touch?
No, not really.