History of the Hut

March 6, 2008

At about 11pm there was a rap on our door.

“Hello, girls!”

It was Mr. Vardakas—in blue pajamas.

“I saw your light on, so I come up! I looked in the window and saw you weren’t sleeping, so I knock!” he says grinning enthusiastically.

The window he is referring to is right above my bed. It takes all of my willpower not to look at Huong. The image of Mr. Vardakas peering in at us while we were sleeping was comical enough, but I might just burst into laughter at the look of horror that was surely crossing her face.

He had given us food earlier that day and it was surprisingly good. A homemade version of spanakopita and then a shrimp risotto of sorts. Tomorrow he said he wanted to make us another dish.

He looked around the room and began to tell us about all the improvements he had made to it over the years. How he and his ex-wife had lived in the hut when they were first married. His eyes rested momentarily on his most recent contribution to the hut—my bed.

“You know,” he began, “one day I was on my boat—out at sea. There were no fish, but I see this log on the water…And, well, no one was around, so I stopped and pulled it up.” He pauses to laugh as he remembers and continues, “So then, when you came, I said, ‘Whatta I'm gonna do?’ and I thought, I make a bed with this log.”

“This?” I asked, pointing to the bed I was sitting on. “You made this out of a log you pulled from the sea?”

“Yeah,” he said shrugging nonchalantly, “sometimes freighters/Russian ships pass by, things fall off… Well girls, sweet dreams!”

With that, him and his blue PJs shuffled out of the of hut and back downstairs. Kind of nice, I thought to myself, being carried off to sleep every night on a piece of old driftwood.