38A week after Yiannis’ forty-day memorial service, a tall stranger in a long tweed overcoat and hat, smoking a pipe, stood in the middle of the square in Metsovo wondering where to begin. Deciding to start at Stahoulis’ pantopolio, he stepped inside, ordered coffee, and struck up a conversation with Stahoulis who, after he delivered the coffee, returned to shredding cabbage behind the counter. The man had been studying Greek just for this occasion and, between what he had prepared and Stahoulis’ meager English, he was able to tell his story. His name was Malcolm Ryder and he was an architect from Windsor, England, and he was looking for a woman in about her mid-twenties, who was a member of the underground resistance and had nursed him back to life during the war and with whom he had fall
