You Like Shrimps?

We ended our 2004 trip the way we always did, dinner under the Acropolis after shoring up gifts. While I browsed a jewelry display, Bridget ducked into a souvenir store. I knew she had a fondness for this particular shopkeeper, but I had had enough of magnets and t-shirts. After ten minutes, ready for dinner, I attempted to extract her.

The souvenir shop was a claustrophobia of t-shirts, wall-hangings and Olympic paraphernalia. In my novel, I describe a similar store as a fire hazard waiting for an errant match. I joined Bridget at a t-shirt table, surprised to see three men at the counter sipping ouzo.

When we approached the register, Bridget introduced me to the man with a splotchy black and white beard. “This is Dimitri.”

I said reflexively in Greek, “Meh leneh Haris.”

Dimitri creased a smile. “Milateh Ellinika?” You speak Greek?

“Mathaino.” My standard response, I am learning.

“Bravo, bravo!” He steered us both to the counter. “Kathiste, my friends. Sit, sit!”

Though it was time for dinner, we knew better than to refuse Greek hospitality. After a flurry of introductions and ouzo toasts, Dimitri handed his son a t-shirt, Greek 101. “Ela, Christo, give Hari the test.”

Holding the shirt so I couldn’t see it, Christos started to read the column of English phrases, “Good morning.”

“Kalimaira,” I fired back.

  “Bravo!” Dimitri clapped my shoulder.

“Good evening.”

“Kalispaira”

Dimitri raised his glass and the four of us drank to my rudimentary fluency. “Yia mas!” Christos continued to pepper me with prompts and I garnered more backslaps and bravos. Every three questions, Christos’s friend, George, would lift his glass to me and we would drink again.

I don’t know what happened after that. There was laughter, there was linguistic mayhem. George didn’t speak English, which he made up for by refilling everyone’s ouzo. Dimitri spoke in machine gun bursts. He usually started in English until his emotions ceded to Greek and occasionally French. Christos was the only one who was truly bilingual, but he enjoyed letting the confusion play out. Bridget, fluent in body language, played the interpreter.

I’m not sure how we got out of there. We tried to pay for the souvenirs, but Dimitri kept slipping the odd shirt into our bag as a gift. What I remember most was the warmth and camaraderie. The feeling of belonging.

The next summer I wasn’t sure that Dimitri would remember us. When we poked our heads into his shop, he jumped off his stool. “Come, come, my friends, sit!” Even without the ouzo, the conviviality was strong. Rapid fire conversation in broken English and broken Greek. More laughter and backslapping. Again, it was impossible to offer a fair exchange for his wares. As we left, Dimitri insisted that next year, we go to dinner with him and his wife. When he heard that we would be bringing our children, he said he would take us all out.

I thought the best way to launch the family trip was to hike up  Acropolis, then go to dinner with Dimitri. The only problem was, in the midst of the bookings, I forgot to alert him. We just showed up. At seven in the evening with five jet-lagged teenagers. To my surprise, Dimitri’s son was minding the store. After I introduced everyone to Christos, I said, “Your father wanted to take us out to dinner.”

Christos looked at the seven of us, unable to hide his concern. He called his father on his flip phone. There was a lot of hushed back and forth. Christos repeated my name and the word, Ameriki. After a long pause, he handed me the flip phone.

“Dimitri?”

           “Hari, how many days you pass in Athina?”

“We go to Mykonos tomorrow.”

Another pause. Then muffled conversation on his end.

“You wait my store. I see you five minutes.”

While our children browsed the kitsch, yawning and leaning against one another, we made small talk with Christos. I was embarrassed to have put his father in this position. As sincere as Dimitri was, I knew Greeks tended toward hyperbole. I take you to dinner could easily mean It would be nice to see you again.

After a half hour Dimitri burst inside, “Welcome!” After he had greeted everyone, shaking hands and patting arms, he surveyed his shop, now filled to capacity by our family. “You want to eat?”

Our children nodded.

I added, “Only if it’s good for you.”

“Neh, neh.” The nay-sounding yes. “Come!” He windmilled his arm, then exited as abruptly as he had entered. “Quickly, quickly. She waits us. Nicole, my—“ Unable to summon the word ‘wife’, he defaulted to French, “femme.”

At the end of the pedestrian lane, two cars were backing up traffic, flashing their hazards. Dimitri pointed to the males in our party. “You, you, you, the white car.” He swept his hand over the three females, “All you, Nicole.”

In the back of Dimitri’s sedan, I searched vainly for a seat belt. I could see the two boys doing the same. Impatient with the pedestrians in the road, Dimitri rode up over the curb, scattering the ones on the sidewalk. At Hadrian’s Arch. we wheeled onto a major avenue, leaving rubber. Although I was accustomed to the madness of Cretan driving, I was alarmed by how fast we were going. Skating across four lanes of traffic, somehow Dimitri kept accelerating. I couldn’t convert the kilometers, 120, 130, 140. Forget that my son, Brace, was riding shotgun. I was seated beside Lucas, whom Bridget had shepherded through open-heart surgery as an infant.

As Dimitri careened up the far-right lane, I thought, ‘Bridget is going to kill me.’

I leaned forward. “Dimitri?”

“Neh.”

“We’re not in a hurry.”

He toggled his head. That confusing yes, no, whatever.

I tried my Greek. “The stomachs of the children will wait.”

“Dhen peirazei,” he said. No worries.

He took an exit without braking. “We are near.”

We made a few passes by the taverna. Dimitri circled the block, briefly considering spaces half the length of his car. Finally, he stopped in a no parking zone, clearly marked, and hopped out. Reminiscent of John Belushi in Animal House, he tossed a quick glance down the street, then rammed his shoulder into a heavy metal dumpster. Unable to dislodge it, he left the car jutting into the street at a forty-five-degree angle. “Come!”

Dimitri sat at the head of a long table. He made sweeping eye contact with our children, “You like feesh?”

No one answered.

“Shrimps, yes? You like shrimps?”

Brace said, “I like shrimps.”

“Bravo!”

I couldn’t understand everything that Dimitri ordered, but the waiters kept bringing plates. If Dimitri saw that someone was eating something, he ordered another serving. Or if someone wasn’t eating much, he ordered something else. As the plates accumulated on the table, anxiety gathered in my stomach. I felt guilty for taking advantage of Dimitri’s generosity. And I was worried that we would disappoint him.

Christos showed up near the end of the meal. I quietly asked him if I there was any way I could split the bill. He looked horrified. “You can’t even mention that to my father.”

I kept eating. Bridget too. Still, when everyone had finished, there was a lot of food left. Large servings of sardines, calamari, fries. A plate of giant shrimps sat untouched. I explained to Dimitri that our kids were still adjusting to the time change. I insisted we take the rest home for tomorrow (even though leftovers were unheard of at the time and they were destined for the trash). The disappointment on Dimitri’s face stays with me today.  

Writing this post made me sad. Though our bond never made sense, it was genuine, and I felt I had compromised it. I couldn’t remember visiting Dimitri after that night. I know we saw Christos several times. Then, once his family sold the shop, it wasn’t easy to find Dimitri. Eventually we stopped inquiring about him.

However, it turns out my guilt had overridden my memory. The other day Bridget found two photos that cheered me up. The first one was a group shot taken at the end of the dinner.  Though a plate of giant shrimps looms in the foreground, it looks like everyone did have a good time, especially Dimitri. There’s a satisfied smile showing through his panda beard. In the second one, dated two years later, Bridget, Dimitri and I are standing in front of his shop, our arms wrapped around each other. The photo reminded me that our bond did stay intact. I think it was that visit when Dimitri proposed we go to Mt. Athos together.

            “The sacred peninsula with twenty monasteries?” I asked.

            “Neh.”

            “Isn’t that reserved for men?”

            “Bridget can do the beach on Sithonia.”

            I toggled my head, not sure if he was kidding me.

            “Next year.” He clasped my arm. “We pass one week with the monks.”

            “What are we going to do there?”

            “Charge our battery, Har-ee.”

Footnote: When I realized how rude it had been to show up unannounced, expecting Dimitri to take our family out to dinner, I rationalized that I didn't have his contact information. However, I just found Dimitri's business card at the bottom of my Greek drawer (note the protruding sleeves). Inside, there are telephone numbers for his shop and warehouse, as well as mobile numbers for Christos and Nicole.