"Wedding"

By Paul Campanis

Irene is of course, my lovely cousin whom you met. The Carpathan's
tavern is just a door down from Alky's shop.

Tonight at the Carpathan's tavern
was a fiddler, a drum, an accordion
and a wedding..... a slow dignity
to the dance even though the fiddler
played crazy like a hillbilly.
Oldish- dirty handkerchief,
to his neck, money plate before him
What made it funny and mysterious
were all the lovely revelers,
little kids and just people
looking at the dancers.
I loved the music. After the hospital
it filled my shirt and Irene
and I went outside under
the big tree which has all the birds
and danced a bit. She's good.
The people had beer and tomatoes and little fish.
It was a real wedding. They sat
and looked the look of, It's a good one.
I'll remember it . The father of the bride,
Complaining, "he's no good," of the
fiddler. To me, he was good but
that wasn't my daughter I was
giving away.



My mother was very ill. The hospital a horror. This just came up when
I was going home to rest and I guess Irene was just there at the shop. The
Greeks mill. They always mill. They work off a different clock than other
more normal people do. They just seem odd to me. They cannot sit still.
They listen to the fiddler. Stand up and scratch their head, toast the
bride, kid around with a member of the wedding party, go next door to my
cousin's shop for some cigarettes, then wander past Socratou Street down to
the wedding in progress to see who's just arrived or left. Then stand at
the door, dumb but taking in the whole thing . The Greek is a master vcr, a
recording device who will turn the thing into a poem or a song or an email
or a video.

The wedding has got to be just a sliver of daily life. There is the
street, Socratou in this case and the big tree there with the birds and a
little old wedding is all. Then there is life in the street, people walking
by this weddng you see. There is a great Greek rule. One must not draw too
much attention to a thing or it will go wrong and collapse. The gods don't
like it when you make a big deal of thing. The roof will fall in or the
occupier of the country, whoever it is at the time, will send some soldiers
to shoot everyone and eat the food or some recondite saint will arrive and
to point out some error of hubris. So the Greek takes no chances and slips
the wedding by the gods in attendance at the Carpathan's that day.
God how exciting.
I don't know who's invited. If anyone in particular. My little cousin,
Irene, and I hold one another and with everyone else draw on the immortal
strengths the wedding conceals. It is momentous. The smells, the silver
fish, the noise coming from the strained musicians. The hell-hole of a
hospital where my mother is, fades and I feel alive for the moment.
Discordant, unplanned, atonal, confused. It never starts or ends. A
mix of people mill and the glasses witness.
I met a man at the hospital who had a wife in the place. I gave
something to him or his wife. Later at the wedding he came by. He stayed
at a pension around the corner that cost only a few drachmas or so. He was
a sweet man. He comes up to me, handed me an egg and disappeared before I
could thank him. Never saw him again.


The fiddler's bow cranks. He dips into the free drink before him. He likes
it like life. Shakes his hairy ear around a few notes. The accordion joins
and the drummer goes for the ride. The time has begun.
The waiters good-naturedly pass among the seated, dispensing snacks.
Not really servants for the affair, they are masters of motion, teachers of
footwork, savants of manners. The revelers look to the waiter to see if he
understands that major history is writ today. The waiter's hand curves
gracefully as he guides a roll to a seated guest. His gait is gracious as
he moves a bottle of something to another table. He scolds a little boy who
is supposed to clear crumbs and food pieces off the tables. The kid is
confused by all the noise and stands paralyzed until the waiter cuffs him
and then the kid moves quickly. The waiter has this look of "I'm sorry
folks but this idiot kid can't be allowed to mess up this wedding, this
joining of the island's two royal families." Then the waiter smoothes his
way to another table where a member of the bride's family slips him a few
drachs a tells him to tell the musician to play a song he has played twice
before. The waiter is not below or above those he waits on. He is a
servant, but he's not. This is another small mystery to me, how the Greek
can serve and dominate both.
My father waited tables. It is in a split and complicated role the
Greek excels. The docile waiter comes to be the leader of the band. It is
all but invisible.
The netherworld of a people who are small but huger in appetite, who
stand quiet, but take it all in , who wonder at things a lot, as waiters
bring more plates with god-knows-what on it. The Greek in no more apparent
than the glass of water on the crumb-strewn table, but just as
authoritative.
The waiter is a seer, a sony, a hamburg dispenser with a conscience and
soul. The waiter at that wedding joined the tables with silk threads. Had
the waiter been different the wedding would have gone bust. What is curious
to the foreigner is how the participants took the waiter for granted and
knew he would act right. The Greeks take so much for granted and they are
right all the time. The wedding was only a little thing but kind of a nice
time.

The wedding has got to be just a sliver of daily life. There is the
street, Socratou in this case and the big tree there with the birds and a
little old wedding is all. Then there is life in the street, people walking
by this weddng you see. There is a great Greek rule. One must not draw too
much attention to a thing or it will go wrong and collapse. The gods don't
like it when you make a big deal of thing. The roof will fall in or the
occupier of the country, whoever it is at the time, will send some soldiers
to shoot everyone and eat the food or some recondite saint will arrive and
to point out some error of hubris. So the Greek takes no chances and slips
the wedding by the gods in attendance at the Carpathan's that day.
God how exciting.
I don't know who's invited. If anyone in particular. My little cousin,
Irene, and I hold one another and with everyone else draw on the immortal
strengths the wedding conceals. It is momentous. The smells, the silver
fish, the noise coming from the strained musicians. The hell-hole of a
hospital where my mother is, fades and I feel alive for the moment.
Discordant, unplanned, atonal, confused. It never starts or ends. A
mix of people mill and the glasses witness.
I met a man at the hospital who had a wife in the place. I gave
something to him or his wife. Later at the wedding he came by. He stayed
at a pension around the corner that cost only a few drachmas or so. He was
a sweet man. He comes up to me, handed me an egg and disappeared before I
could thank him. Never saw him again.