Cat O'Nine Tales and Other Stories - Jeffrey Archer [75]
George must have shaken over two hundred hands, before the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Kulukundis was announced by a large group of the bridegroom’s rowdy friends who were firing pistols into the air in celebration; a Greek tradition which I suspect would not go down well on an English country lawn, and certainly not in the village hall.
With the exception of the immediate family and those guests selected to sit on the long top table by the side of the dance floor, there were, in fact, very few people George had ever set eyes on before.
George took his place at the center of the top table, with Isabella on his right and Alexis on his left. Once they were all seated, course after course of overladen dishes was set before his guests, and the wine flowed as if it were a Bacchanalian orgy rather than a small island wedding. But then Bacchus—the god of wine—was a Greek.
When, in the distance, the cathedral clock chimed eleven times, George hinted to the best man that perhaps the time had come for him to make his speech. Unlike George, he was drunk, and certainly wouldn’t be able to recall his words the following morning. The groom followed, and when he tried to express how fortunate he was to have married such a wonderful girl, once again his young friends leaped onto the dance floor and fired their pistols in the air.
George was the final speaker. Aware of the late hour, the pleading look in his guests’ eyes, and the half-empty bottles littering the tables around him, he satisfied himself with wishing the bride and groom a blessed life, a euphemism for lots of children. He then invited those who still could to rise and toast the health of the bride and groom. Isabella and Alexis, they all cried, if not in unison.
Once the applause had died down, the band struck up. The groom immediately rose from his place, and, turning to his bride, asked her for the first dance. The newly married couple stepped onto the dance floor, accompanied by another volley of gunfire. The groom’s parents followed next, and a few minutes later George and Christina joined them.
Once George had danced with his wife, the bride and the groom’s mother, he made his way back to his place in the center seat of the top table, shaking hands along the way with the many guests who wished to thank him.
George was pouring himself a glass of red wine—after all, he had performed all his official duties—when the old man appeared.
George leaped to his feet the moment he saw him standing alone at the entrance to the garden. He placed his glass back on the table and walked quickly across the lawn to welcome the unexpected guest.
Andreas Nikolaides leaned heavily on his two walking sticks. George didn’t like to think how long it must have taken the old man to climb up the path from his little cottage, halfway down the mountain. George bowed low and greeted a man who was a legend on the island of Cephalonia as well as in the streets of Athens, despite the fact that he had never once left his native soil. Whenever Andreas was asked why, he simply replied, “Why would anyone leave Paradise?”
In 1942, when the island of Cephalonia had been overrun by the Germans, Andreas Nikolaides escaped to the hills and, at the age of twenty-three, became the leader of the resistance movement. He never left those hills during the long occupation of his homeland and, despite a handsome bounty being placed on his head, did not return to his people until, like Alexander, he had driven the intruders back into the sea.
Once peace was declared in 1945, Andreas returned in triumph. He was elected mayor of Cephalonia, a position which he held, unopposed, for the next thirty years. Now that he was well into his eighties, there wasn’t a family on Cephalonia who did not feel in debt to him, and few who didn’t claim to be a relative.
“Good evening, sir,” said George stepping forward to greet the old man. “We are honored by your presence at my niece’s wedding.”
“It is I who should be honored,” replied Andreas, returning the bow. “Your niece’s grandfather fought and died by my side. In