The Gypsy's Dream by Sara Alexi Page B

pain he had granted her permission to let her suppressed feelings flow. But it was neither fear nor hate that gushed with her adrenaline. It was undiluted disdain that contorted her thoughts. A sad little man. A little man with the power to hurt her.
    She takes another sip of ouzo.
    A distant dog barks. It is answered by one behind the houses on the opposite side of the street. This starts another howling and for a short time the village is blanketed by the dogs’ choir until one by one they quieten down and nothing can be heard but the cicadas rasping their loneliness in the heat of the night.
    A light comes on over the bakery and goes out again. They will be up in a few hours. Stella finishes her drink and stands. She stretches, sways slightly, steadies herself, and turns to lock up. The glass is le ft on the pavement by her chair.
    Inside the shop the grill is reduced to ashes. She checks (again) that the chip cooker is off and screws the top back on the litre bottle of lemon sauce. Someone has left a tip of a euro on the counter. She leaves it and ex tends her arm to turn out the light.
    The bruise does not shock her so much as enrage her, drawing to her attention the empty, gnawing, panic feeling at the bottom of her stomach from which the ouzo has only just taken the edge. It reminds her of why she w as sitting out in the dark drinking in the first place. How dare he take away her safety?
    The mark is turning yellow in the centre.
    She lifts her other arm into the light, displaying a twin bruise, in the same position, the same colour. Twisting her chin over her shoulder to see down her back, she can just make out the edge of discolouration on her shoulder blade, where she hit the corner of the wall earlier but hadn’t noticed for the pain of her head on the coat hook. The twist hurts her neck. She switches off the light; the dark feels better. The moon her only illuminator, she steps back into the street and locks the door.
    Tears are forming before she is even aware she has felt the emotion: delayed fear. Her throat constricts and her body spasms in the fir st sob. Emotion overcomes her. Her lungs feel tight and she gasps for air, sending further spasms across her chest, her shoulders twitching in response.
    The night absorbs the scene, the darkness a cloak, allowing her privacy. Silently she shudders and he aves until her energy is drained. The feelings subside.
    But the thoughts remain. There is the hint of a belief that she deserves this. Worse things happen to ordinary people. Why should she be spared? She has no status to say she deserves better treatment . Her gypsy legacy tells her that perhaps this is just her lot in life, as it was her mother’s. Accept, don’t fight the tide, was her mother’s motto. Be insignificant and they leave you alone, she had said. Thinking like that makes this incident an unremarkable event. Her life, which until this incident she thought she had moulded as well as she could, suddenly seems pointless. Her future, whatever future she has, is distorted by fear until it is so twisted it feels impossible that it exists at all. She can see no way forward, no way out. Another wave of sobs rises unbidden but this time she sucks in air, lifts her chest and denies herself the comfort of succumbing.
    She stands for a moment, preparing to go home. Across the square the cold light of the moon c ontrasts with the warmth of the breeze. The heat wave Greece is experiencing feels like August has come early, when shops will close and people will not move in the heat of the day as the temperature saps all energy and lays low even the most energetic person. But that is not yet.
    With the thought of the future her head rises and her lips form a thin line. Determination invigorates her and she begins the unsteady walk home.
    Alcohol-fuelled feet take her, haphazardly, to the crossroads at the far corner of the square. She turns left by the corner shop and up to the paved area by the church. No