Foreign lover

The summer heat clung to Kaisariani like a sweaty shirt. Myrto Zervou, dressed head-to-toe in black despite the weather, fanned herself with a folded newspaper as she watched the neighborhood from her balcony. Below, her son Aris sanded a wooden chair in his workshop, the rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape mixing with the distant hum of motorbikes.

Then the shouting started.

"Ela re, malaka! You think you can steal our women?" A thick voice, angry.

Myrto’s sharp eyes flicked to the street. Two men, Stavros, the butcher’s son, and a tall, blond foreigner, were squared off outside the kafeneio. The foreigner, lean and sunburnt, held up his hands. "I didn’t steal anyone," he said in accented Greek. "Elena is free to choose."

"Choose? Pou sta kala! She’s my cousin!" Stavros lunged, but the foreigner sidestepped, quick like a cat.

Myrto sighed. "Panagia mou, not again." She grabbed her cane and shuffled downstairs.

By the time she reached the street, a small crowd had gathered. Elena, a pretty girl in her twenties with defiant eyes, stood between the men. "Stop it, Stavros! Jens is my boyfriend!"

"Boyfriend?" Stavros spat. "Oloi tha mas lene poutanes!" Everyone will call us whores.

Aris appeared beside Myrto, wiping sawdust from his hands. "Want me to break it up?"

"Not yet," Myrto murmured. She stepped forward, cane tapping. "Re paidia, enough. The whole neighborhood hears you acting like goats."

Stavros scowled. "Kyria Myrto, this xenos thinks he can..."

"Think?" Myrto cut him off. "From what I see, you’re the one not thinking." She turned to Jens. "You. Swedish?"

"Danish," he corrected.

"Same difference," Myrto said. "You love her?"

Jens blinked. "Yes."

"And you, Elena?"

Elena lifted her chin. "Yes."

Myrto nodded. "Good. Then Stavros, pou na pas na gamithis." Go get lost. She smacked his shoulder with her cane. "Elena’s heart isn’t your business."

Stavros flushed. "But the family..."

"Bah! Family means happiness, not prison." She pointed at Jens. "This one works?"

"He’s an architect," Elena said.

"Bravo. Better than a butcher who smells like lamb guts." The crowd chuckled. Stavros fumed but backed off.

That evening, over bitter coffee, Aris smirked. "You’re getting soft. Last year you’d have chased the foreigner off yourself."

Myrto sipped her coffee. "O xronos allazei ton anthropo." Time changes a man. "But if he hurts her…" She cracked her knuckles. "Tha ton kano kima." I’ll make him a wave.

Aris laughed. Some things never changed.

The End