The wandering yaya in a housedress who is the only other person in the breakfast room here in Hotel Kouros and whose spinal cord — the top half of it, anyway — is LITERALLY parallel to the horizon just came over to give me a pillow because I guess she didn’t like how I was sitting in my chair.
And then she came back a minute later and gave me what I think is some kind of candy — a chocolate ball in blue foil? — and then put a finger to her lips, gesturing to the kitchen where the woman who is working breakfast is, and I’m fascinated, thinking about what the secret is.
Is it that I’m not supposed to have candy but she’s sneaking it to me anyway?
If that’s what it is, Brava, Yaya.
My other idea is that it’s actually like some medication she’s supposed to be taking and she’s like Shhhh, you take it instead, and don’t tell Euphrosyne.
(Euphrosyne is the fantasy daughter-in-law cooking in the kitchen in my mind. )
I wonder if I’m a surrogate in some memory she’s re-living.
Now she has just come back and given me a ribbon that matches the foil on the chocolate ball.
He said,
I like the stories you tell yourself.
I said,
And NOW
— get ready —
Yaya has brought me a clothes pin.
I thanked her in my limited Greek and clipped it to my knapsack.
She seemed satisfied and moved my bread basket and my salt shaker a centimeter each and went away again.
