Io in Thyatira

Life in a northern town.

Thyatira is a big town but not a city. It was a village during the Caballardo, and Provs troopers passed through some months and Caballardists some others, but they seldom stayed long. North of it, the land soon becomes only sketchily terraformed until you reach Antinoesis Deme, clinging to the skirts of the Upper Plateau. They grow cabbage up there, sugar beet, carrots, and such like. And dust. Lots of dust.

So I hear. I’ve never been. I was raised in Elbasan and love the trees, the hills, the red-roofed houses, the cuckoos calling, and the old native places and the deserts don’t call me. Neither does the savano, which starts a day’s walk east. It’s no people and lots of big animals until you reach the coffee plantaos: and those have an evil name among the indentured.

So I’ve gone as far north as I can possibly go, and still be someplace I feel comfortable.

I wear my hair long and my scarf up, and I work under the sign of the Rose, which is the last inn north of town. They call me Papilia Lanio, which has gotten me some odd looks, but I’m not good at making up names.

“Oi! Miss, there, get yer hustle over here, our table needs a pitcher!” a rough lorry-driver shouts by the windows. The shutters are open and sunshine is coming in and there’s butterflies floating around the potted amaryllis in the inn courtyard.

I get my hustle over. “What are you having, sir?”

I’m getting good at saying sinjoro, not sinjoromastro. They’re having beer, the average draught that the innkeeper’s wife brews, not the more expensive golden stuff from the barrels down cellar. I bring them the new pitcher, dodge a pinch and take their obol and move on. Someone else wants more bread, and someone else wants more meat. Outside the doors, Marnjo is running back and forth, where the men are sitting with their pipes and puffing. I can smell the sweet savor from inside and wish I was out there to enjoy it more, giving them little glasses of digestifo.

Back to the kitchen. “I need some skewers, Miss,” I call to the innkeeper’s wife. “Chicken and roast tomatoes.”

“Oi, more,” she said, pulling a fistful out of the rack of irons in the kitchen hearth and putting them on a board. “Where’s Mozeso? He should be doing this.”

“He’s down cellar drawing pitchers,” I say. I take the board from her.

“Run, run,” she said.

I run. I run all the time. It never stops. But I’m never beaten, either, so it’s like heaven, and every week I get my drachm, and I mostly squirrel it away because what have I to spend it on but tobacco?

Every week another drachm, money for my work, mine, that I keep, and I love that too.

There’s another big man at the empty table out there now, and he’s got a scar on his cheek, and he’s looking around him. I run the skewers and go to him. “What are you having, sinjoro?”

He looks me real close, like I don’t like, and nods. “I’ll take a beer,” he says. “Got good olives?”

“Black like my eyes, sinjoro,” I say.

“I’ll take that and cheese, and rice, if any’s ready, some bread, and herbs. Do I smell chicken on those skewers?”

“I’ll bring the lot,” I say, and I hurry away from him because I don’t like him.

I don’t like him at all.

“What’s your name, girl?” he asks my heels.

“Papilia,” I say over my shoulder. “I’m Papilia.”

And I go into the kitchen, and for a moment, I think about running out the back and running and running and running.