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The first person we passed in Vangelati,
an elderly man in a wool suit, studiously ignored us. The
next, a younger man, took
our slip of paper and, nodding, remarked, “Yes, of
course, Adonis Yiotis. He is the best one-armed rabbit
hunter in the valley! His house is just up a bit, the
first on the right.” Sure enough, as we approached
the neat, white-washed home of the Yiotis family, a
grizzled older man, missing his left arm, hurried to meet
us.
He had lost his arm, he said, in a farming accident quite
some time ago. He was a shepherd. And, yes, he was still
a pretty good shot with his archaic twenty-gauge shotgun.
His son Andreas, whom we had met in Athens, was to be
Bill's best man. Adonis was a small, compact fellow, spry
and quick to smile. He loved to roll his own cigarettes,
filled with tobacco he grew himself. A while back, Bill
had given him as a gift a little antique machine. Adonis
laid his paper and tobacco in the tiny silver box, closed
it, and out from the top popped a perfectly formed
cigarette. Ingenious, and I think he smoked more
cigarettes than usual while we were visiting just because
he enjoyed the look on our faces when he operated his
magic contraption.
We went up to the house and met Adonis’ wife, whom
we simply called ‘Yia Yia,’ grandma. A few
kids, some of the couple's grandchildren, scurried around
the compound. The house had electricity, of which Adonis
was justly proud. Water, however, was still fetched by
mule from the village’s common well. An outhouse was
shared by the family, the waste dropping not into a hole,
but, rather, collected and spread in the large garden
plot. The whole setting was idyllic, and Wayne and I
gratefully deposited our barrel of wine and sat down to a
freshly prepared meal of crisp tomatoes and pungent
onions, hard-boiled eggs, goat cheese, and yogurt so
strong it curled my toes. As we ate our supper, stars
appeared one at a time in the dark night sky.
The next day we awoke to the barking of dogs. The valley
was shrouded in a cool blanket of fog. Adonis was just
getting home, having departed at four o’clock to
drive his flock of sheep to the river to eat, as he did
every morning. The wedding and party were planned for
tomorrow, he said, when the Muslims would arrive from
Gorishove. There was much to be done. Just then, as we
drank our coffee in the shade of the verandah, a battered
and dirty taxi cab pulled up. Out stepped Rob, a good
friend of ours who had traveled overland from Greece,
crossing the border that morning at Kakavia.
After breakfast, Adonis directed us to the home of a
cousin, Sotiris. He owned a rusty old pick-up truck and
would take us in search of lambs for the feast, which
Adonis did not have just then in his own flock. We
jostled our way across the valley, following rutted dirt
roads. The sun rose and it grew hot again. The whole
village, it seemed, labored in the fields.
We stopped at a defunct army barrack that had been
converted into a makeshift barn. It was jammed full of
bleating sheep. The Albanian who owned the flock waded
out into the nervous, woolly ocean of animals. He grabbed
one small lamb, handing it to me, and another, handing it
to Rob. We named them Charlotte and Hazel. No money
changed hands, as Albanian lek were nearly worthless.
Rather, Sotiris must have struck a deal, bartering goods
he did not yet have in exchange for the livestock.
We arrived back at Sotiris’ place and he turned to
me, grinning wickedly, and said, “Mikalis, you will
do the cutting! It will be your honor to do the
cutting!” He took Charlotte from my arms and handed
me a cruel-looking knife.
“No, Sotiris, I do not know how to kill a
lamb,” I said. “I am sorry, but you must do
it.”
His grin widened as from behind the house lunged a huge
chained mastiff. It howled, smelling death, hearing the
crying of the lambs. Sotiris drew the knife across the
animal's neck and blood ran down his arm onto the
butcher’s block. The black dog howled all the
louder.
We next found ourselves sitting on the porch around a
table. Sotiris joined us shortly and his wife brought
plates and silverware. Within minutes she served lunch.
Fresh liver. Hazel’s and Charlotte’s.
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