them.”
Catherine stared at him, shocked.
“They had to send in federal troops from Athens to restore human government here.
It took almost a month.”
“How horrible.”
“Hunger does terrible things,” Count Pappas said quietly.
The sheep had crossed the road now. Catherine looked at the sheep dog again and
shuddered.
As the weeks went by, the things that had seemed so foreign and strange to Catherine
began to become familiar to her. She found the people open and friendly. She learned
where to do her marketing and where to shop for clothes on Voukourestiou Street. Greece
was a marvel of organized inefficiency, and one had to relax and enjoy it. No one was in a
hurry, and if you asked someone for directions he was likely to take you where you
wanted to go. Or he might say, when you asked how far it was: “Enos cigarou dromos,”
which Catherine learned meant “one cigarette away.” She walked the streets and explored
the city and drank the warm dark wine of the Greek summer.
Catherine and Larry visited Mykonos with its colorful windmills and Melos, where
the Venus de Milo was discovered. But Catherine’s favorite place was Paros, a graceful,
verdant island capped by a flower-covered mountain. When their boat docked, a guide
stood on the quay. He asked if they would like him to guide them to the top of the
mountain on mule-back, and they clambered aboard two bony mules.
Catherine was wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat to protect her from the hot sun. As
she and Larry rode up the steep path leading toward the mountain top, black-clad women
called out, “Ke-lee meh-ra,” and handed Catherine gifts of fresh herbs, oregano and basil
to put in her hat band. After a two-hour ride, they reached a plateau, a beautiful tree-filled
plain with millions of flowers in spectacular bloom. The guide stopped the mules and they
gazed in wonder at the incredible profusion of colors.
“This named Valley of the Butterflies,” the guide said in halting English.
Catherine looked around for a butterfly but saw none. “Why do they call it that?” she
asked.
The guide grinned as though he had been waiting for her question. “I show you,” he
said. He dismounted from his mule and picked up a large fallen limb. He walked over to a
tree and hit the limb against it with all his might. In a split second the “flowers” on
hundreds of trees suddenly took to the air in a wild rainbow of flight, leaving the trees
bare. The air was filled with hundreds of thousands of gaily colored butterflies dancing in
the sunlight.
Catherine and Larry gazed in awe. The guide stood watching them, his face filled
with a deep pride, as though he felt responsible for the beautiful miracle they were seeing.