‘Apart from the obviously healthy life they lead here,’ Maya observed, ‘they are also a spiritual people. The island’s history sees to that – those ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about mysticism.’
‘In a way, that’s the reason why most of us are here,’ Sylvie added. ‘To absorb the aura of this place and perhaps learn something valuable about life from its people.’
‘When I am on this island, I feel more connected with the cosmos than anywhere else in the world.’ Maya turned her eyes on Calli once again. ‘What about you, do you feel this power that emanates from here?’ she asked.
Calli had never considered such matters before. Spirituality or mysticism were concepts she had never dwelled on – she considered herself a thoroughly grounded and pragmatic person.
‘I am very excited for you to meet him,’ Sylvie said a few days later as they made their way to visit an old couple she knew, who had agreed to talk to Calli about her subject. Socrates and his wife Sophia lived close to the beach and Sylvie was now eager to introduce him to Calli; she had been helping him with his grape harvesting for the past few summers and had grown very fond of the old man.
‘He is a super amazing guy,’ she enthused on the way to his house, ‘you’ll see. Not only does he look twenty years younger than he really is, he has more stamina than I do sometimes.’
‘Did you know that, compared to Americans, two and a half times as many people on Ikaria reach the age of ninety?’ the old man told her when they met. ‘And I should know, I lived in Chicago for fifty years.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I’m eighty-seven and I don’t feel any different from how I was when I left Ikaria as a boy.’ He smiled broadly, showing a set of teeth that a far younger person would have been glad to own. ‘But when you get to my age – and I aim to live to be over a hundred – it’s time to return to your home.’
Calli and Sylvie were sitting with the old couple in their garden, shaded by a large walnut tree, drinking their home-made wine and feasting on black olives, village bread, ripe red tomatoes, freshly laid eggs and cheese. When Sophia was told they were having visitors she insisted with typical island hospitality that despite being unexpected they must stay and eat with them.
‘No one comes to my house without being fed,’ she told her husband and busied herself laying the outdoor table.
‘I know you probably think this is very late to be having lunch,’ Socrates told them, ‘but we don’t wake up early here, we don’t rush, we take our time with everything. We don’t even have a clock in the house. Who cares about time, eh?’ he laughed. ‘In America they eat their dinner the same time we wake up from our siesta.’ He spoke in English, his heavy Greek accent tinged with American, betraying the many years he had spent in the USA.
‘We like to drink some wine with our lunch every day,’ he told them, ‘and then of course we have our siesta; we always go to our bed, we never go without our after-lunch nap.’ He smiled and turned to give a mischievous glance at Sophia, who in turn leaned across, cupped his face with both hands and gave him a tender kiss on the cheek. That was something that Calli was to encounter often during her meetings with people on the island. Apparently a healthy sex life well into old age was normal practice on Ikaria.
‘See? What did I tell you?’ Sylvie said with delight after they left the old couple to their desired afternoon bedtime and made their way to a bar on the beach. There they had arranged to meet Maya, who along with Sylvie had taken a keen interest in Calli and her assignment.
‘They are the age of my grandparents, those two, and they act as if they are newly-weds! I never saw anyone that age behave like this in Germany!’
‘Could it be that that’s the secret of Ikaria?’ Calli laughed.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised! We should all be having more sex!’
‘It’s more like the Red Hot Zone around here rather than the Blue Zone!’ Calli added, smiling.
They met Maya sitting on a bar stool in cut-off jeans and blue T-shirt, drinking ice-cold mountain tea as she talked to Stavros,