Olives

The mornings don’t start early. You have to wait for the morning dew to dry. Still, we gather by eight at the latest. The serious ones show up. Buckets, nets, rakes. No shaker, never, it would ruin the tree!

Three cars, two kids, only one trailer, because the other cars have no tow hook. Same story every year. We should have waited a little longer. The yield will be poor. We are not happy.

But there was no other way to get the days off. Not for any of us. We run around before and after work. For the kids, for the rakes, for the net, for the pots with lunch. Then we forget to eat, until the first of us feels their hands and knees begin to give.

The little one put an olive in his mouth. We didn’t film the face he made, but we will all remember it. A spider dropped onto auntie’s head, and she screamed. They heard her in the next olive grove.

’Til noon we are in short sleeves, and there is nothing to drink. Towards evening we drive home without a word. The kids sleep, the radio plays. The heater is on in the car, so nobody catches a cold. But our hands still tremble. Our backs ache, our eyes droop.

One rake we left untouched.

It wasn’t the same people harvesting this year. And the oil was more bitter than before.