“ No,” smiled Larry.“ She’ s quite an expert climber.”
“ Then she will enjoy it. You’ re lucky with the weather. We’ ve been expecting the meltemi, but it hasn’ t come. Now it probably won’ t.”
“ What’ s the meltemi?” Larry asked.
“ It’ s a terrible wind that blows down from the north. I suppose it is like your hurricane. When it comes, everyone stays indoors. In Athens, even ocean liners are forbidden to leave the harbor.”
“ I’ m glad we missed it,” Larry said.
When Larry returned to the bungalow, he suggested to Catherine that they go down to the village for dinner. They took the steep, rocky footpath that led down the slope to the edge of the village. Ioannina consisted of a main street, King George Avenue, with two or three smaller streets on both sides of it. Off of those streets, a warren of tiny dirt roads radiated out to homes and apartments. The buildings were old and weatherbeaten, made of stone carried down by cart from the mountains.
The middle of King George Avenue was sectioned off by ropes, so that cars drove on the left side of the street and pedestrians were free to walk on the right side.
“ They should try that on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Catherine said.
At the town square was a charming little park with a high tower with a large, lighted clock in it. A street lined with huge Platanus trees ran down to the lake. It appeared to Catherine that all the streets in the village led to the water. It seemed to her that there was something frightening about the lake. It had a strange, brooding quality. All along the shores grew clumps of tall reeds that reached out like greedy fingers, as though waiting for someone.
Catherine and Larry walked down the colorful little shopping center, with shops crowded together on each side. There was a jewelry store and next to it a bakery shop, an open air butcher shop, a tavern, a shoe store. Children stood outside a barber shop, silently watching a customer getting shaved. Catherine thought they were the most beautiful children she had ever seen.
In the past, Catherine had talked to Larry about having a baby, but he had always dismissed the idea, saying that he was not ready to settle down. Now, however, he might feel differently. Catherine glanced at him as he walked at her side, taller than the other men, looking like a Greek god, and she resolved that she would discuss it with him before they left. After all, it was their honeymoon.
They passed a movie theater, the Palladian. Two very old American pictures were playing. They stopped to look at the display posters.
“ We’ re in luck,” Catherine joked.“ South of Panama with Roger Pryor and Virginia Vale, and Mr. D. A. in The Carter Case.”
“ Never even heard of them,” Larry snorted.“ This theater must be older than it