Goddess of The Rainbow

Goddess of The Rainbow - by Patrick Brigham

CHAPTER 1 – The Author

It was a time of great need in Greece. Austerity had begun to bite and almost everyone Friedman knew was suffering the consequences. The winter had been long and very cold, especially in the north of Greece, where most people had been huddled around their log stoves for more than four long dreary months, worrying about their future.

Wondering why the Greek climate had changed so drastically, many now prayed that their precious fuel would last just that little bit longer. Cut from falling trees and carefully collected during the summer months, these life-preserving logs – piled high around most people's balconies – became fewer and fewer each day.

David Friedman lived in Zenia, a small village in Evros in the eastern region of Greek Macedonia, close to the borders of both Turkey and Bulgaria. Evros is also the name of the river bordering Turkey, which runs down south into the Aegean Sea.

Many people speculated as to why he lived there, and he would tell them that it was because it was quiet, a cheap place to live and that the locals, although very friendly, tended to leave him alone, which was fine by him as it left him time to think and write in peace, that being the master plan.

The Greeks are noble people and value academics, teachers – even writers of murder mystery novels – more than in many other parts of Europe. This was especially true of England, where he was born. As a Londoner, he greatly respected the hospitable Greeks for what they were – well-educated, and often bilingual – and despite the prevailing economic conditions, the doom and gloom, many of the local people had learned to speak English, even in the village supermarket.

'Good morning, Mr David; how are you today?' they usually asked him.

'Great,' he always replied, even if he was fed up or frustrated.

As a struggling writer, his dream was that one day he would finally become recognized and sell more books, because as the winter passed he too was feeling the pinch.

Whilst looking through his balcony window at the inhospitable landscape and the ominous gray skies above, David Friedman also wondered if he could survive the winter without a little financial assistance from back home. But then, quite suddenly, the weather changed, and the sun miraculously appeared in the sky, spreading a warm pink glow over the village.

Quite subtly, it also changed his view across the valley, especially the meandering River Ardas, which now gave him something new to look at and wonder about. Spring had finally arrived and soon the storks, swallows and swifts would reappear as if from nowhere, transforming this hardly known part of the Balkans – which he now called home – into a secret paradise.

Shifting from the previously bleak and foreboding winter landscape, in his mind's eye, he could imagine his surroundings changing, returning once more to the warm and enchanting agricultural community of busy farmers. Zenia was the home he had learned to love during five short years of Greek village life; he loved the silence and the seclusion.

As summer began, all was fine for a while, but then the sun decided to hide behind great billowing clouds, winds from the north began to blow, lightning flashed and thunder boomed overhead. The storm, which seemed to go on forever, circled around the Rhodope Mountains to the north, to the east and across the river to the looming Turkish city of Edirne. That summer, the cruel rain began in earnest and never seemed to stop.

The farmers didn't complain at first because the rain meant that they didn't have to struggle with their antiquated water pipes; by now the smart self-propelled watering systems were too expensive to hire. But in any case, it gave them time to repair their old farm machinery that they'd recently taken out of hibernation.