BARBA-VARIAS

The shade of the multi-storey across the road is once again dividing Barba-Varias’ joint into a bright and a dusky side, this afternoon.The narghile unprepared and the small jouras untouched for years hang on the wall below the dust-covered decorative fish-nets. These also are all dichotomized by the same dividing line drawn by the shade of the multi-storey across the road, this sultry summer afternoon.

Barba-Varias takes no longer care of his joint. Half his groceries are thrown away rotten, unused. He scarcely ever orders tsipouro. Spiders are more and more spreading their webs where walls kiss. He, ever blue and almost voiceless, sits in the shade leaned against the green wall.

Today all is the same as the door opens. He turns left.

“Not this nerd again” he thinks. “The hell with these bastards; they’ve flooded the world with their slime.”

– “Is there anything to eat?” asks the visitor, a bloke not more than thirty, well built. He stands up straight. He wears jeans and trainers. In his hands he is holding books. He also, is a student in that posh school, school of economics, that is.

– “No, we’re closing” replies Barba-Varias abruptly.

– “Oh, I don’t want anything fancy. Some bread only, a tomato cut in four, some olives and a glass of ouzo. A quick snack and I’m off” answers the young man.

– “There’s nothing left , bugger off” says again Barba-Varias louder this time and without even looking at the young man.

– “Why are you being so rude? I didn’t hurt you with anything, old man, did I? I simply asked for a mouthful of bread, and I’m going to pay for it”.

– “I don’t sell to your kind” barks Barba-Varias.”Nerds and phony moustaches I don’t serve. I won’t be disgraced. Go back to where you belong”.

Barba-Varias remembers this ‘black ship’ well. He remembers him since he took the small jouras without asking and disgraced it playing what he thought as a hashish song. He didn’t say anything then, he withstood it; but now he can’t take it, he nags him straight.

– “Listen here, old man, even we  worth something, you know” answers the young man, turning ferocious himself.

– ”Yeah, OK…  but now I’m closing. Leave!” says Barba-Varias in a disregarding manner.

– “Look here, old man, I only have respect for your age and I won’t be treated like this. I’m bearing the same soul as you do and…”

Before the young man finishes his sentence Barba-Varias replies even louder:

– “Same soul? What same soul? The hell with you claiming that we’re of the same kind, me and a nerd like yourself. Out! Go to…”  … “He stirred me now”.

The young man without loosing his temper, squeezes on the back of the straw-chair next to the door which is still open.

– “What do you think, old man, the world is lost with your generation ? You think that we feel less not doing joints? Different times then, different times now. But the woe’s the same. My grandma came from Turkey. My grandpa abandoned her to spend his days in the joints… But why am I talking to you now?  To you there’s nothing else than the rebetes”.

– “No, there isn’t…go now…Out! ”

– “Well Barba-Varia I think you are mistaken. Look at me well. I, yes, I  am Markos, and Batis, and Papazoglou, and Kavouras, and Salonikios, and Hadjichristos, and everything holly to you, all in one…And what is more, I come from Asia Minor. I don’t only listen to baglamas and bouzoukis, but also to santouris and liras and church singers and ‘amanes’ and Rumanian dances. I am all that and yet more; I was raised with it. I don’t only sing hashish songs. I also sing songs from Smyrni, songs by Papasideris, songs from Hepirus and Crete and Cyprus… and songs by Hadjidakis if you wish. Those buried under the marble tombstones, they are me. Your bitterness won’t let you see, but so be it… After all, you  seeded all that in me. You and your genre. I heard my grandmother’s sorrow and anger and here I am.  Let’s finish it;  I, Barba-Varia, am your apprentice. I am , whether you like it or not”.

On his way out, the young man drags the straw-chair down and slams the door behind him.

Barba-Varias cracked… The sun went down and the line of the shade of the multi-storey across the road now passes over him and ‘cuts’ him in two. He thinks of what he just heard with disbelief.

“Yeah, all right… Batis is risen”. He wakes up and walks to the door with uncertainty.  He opens the door. He leans forward and looks left and right… Nothing. The young bloke had disappeared in the crowd. He closes the door behind him and walks back into his kitchen. He takes out a tomato and cuts it in four. He sprinkles some salt and oregano over it and adds five-six olives. He  cuts two slices of bread. Then, he opens the cupboard where he keeps the ‘good stuff’ and drains the last bottle of tsipouro into a glass. Takes the tray and walks to the table by the door. Leaves the tray on the table and lifts the straw-chair that’s still lying on the floor. He stands behind the window where it still bright and murmurs to himself:

“Reborn he says...Papasideris…what Papasideris… Turkey he says… Hadjidakis… Who’s Hadjidakis?”

He bites an olive and takes a sip from the ‘good stuff’.

“His grandma came from Turkey… Go to…”

Barba-Varias feels like he is suffocating. He stands up and takes the tray to the kitchen. Leaves it on the bench, grabs his keys and his string of beads and walks to the exit. As he locks he murmurs:

“I don’t even know his name, God dam nit”.