Secrets of the Blue Alley

After we were married, Spiro made me promise never to return to the Blue Alley.

“But that was our special place, our secret tryst!” I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing it again. “No longer. We have our own home now.” He was adamant.

After the babies were born, again he made me promise. “Our children must never go near the Blue Alley. It is dangerous. Forbidden.”

We spent most of our courtship on those deep stairs, hidden from the world. I smiled as I remembered him picking me flowers from the hanging pots. In that secret, cool stairwell, he proposed marriage and I accepted. There we kissed for the first time. There we vowed to be eternally true to one another. Why is our special place now forbidden?

“Dangerous,” he repeated, watching our sons at play.

When the boys were old enough, they accompanied me to the marketplace to sell our goat cheese and olive oil. Whenever we passed the entrance grown over with bougainvillea, I held my breath. But the boys were not attracted to flowers, just to mischief. They were more interested in playing practical jokes than exploring secret doorways.

Then the goat got loose. She zigzagged the streets, with Mitri and Timon shouting after her. I tried to keep up, but wasn’t close enough to stop them when they all three disappeared into the curtain of pink bougainvillea. I thought I heard wild laughter from within the hidden staircase, but when I parted the hanging flowers, I saw only a white-washed wall. No entrance. No staircase. No Blue Alley.

I ran home, screaming for my Spiro. The house was empty. No husband, no toys, no trace of our happy household. The table, set for four when I left, was bare. I ran into the street, clutched the arm of a passing neighbor, “Where is my husband? I have lost my sons!”

She looked at me with pity and fear, and whispered to her companion. “The Senorita is starting again the fairy tales.” They avoided touching me as they continued down the street.