The winter moved on; the lake froze over, and people lurked at the edge of the lakeside road, putting their fishing lines into holes they had punched into the ice, and carefully gathering the fish they had caught in baskets.

My rainy homeland seemed very remote. Kastoria was steeped in snow, which gathered on the roofs of the buildings. White threads weaved down to the huge natural ice rink stretching to the mountains around it. The lake was as quiet as a cell, its ice indifferent to the glance of the wind as it skated across its surface.
Sometimes, I huddled up to the radiator in my flat and watched videos. Occasionally, I visited Kastoria's one cinema and saw "Sneakers" and "Single White Female", the second with Despina. We also went to the basement club where they played Rembetika music. We talked and laughed, and she easily persuaded me to dance, in spite of my misgivings. I knew I'd end up doing impersonations of Zorba meeting the creature of the lake.
One day, bored with the lack of creativity and realising that Kastoria's beauty was easily capturable on film, I decided to to write a script to a short super-8 film I was planning to make, a kind of murder mystery in which I would involve my students, but in the minor roles. Despina, my obvious choice for the lead female role, though not shy when it came to telling a good story or dancing, was too shy to act in a film, even when it was obviously amateur. None of her friends spoke good English. My colleagues were too busy or involved with their families at the weekends. The Proficiency students who were old enough were again too busy. I wandered the streets of Kastoria trying to think who would be able to act, given that the lead roles would have to be played by people older than most of my students.
Yianna enjoyed the idea of playing a 'cameo' - a rasping ageing gangster furrier's moll who knows a lot more than she's prepare to let on, to my relief. Nikos' English wasn't good enough for the investigator. I met a few people involved with Kastorian drama, and initially they seemed to be quite enthusiastic, but they talked a lot more than they actually did.
One day, as I walked down Mitropoleos street, I went into a shop which sold bric-a brac like baskets and plastic clocks, little cushions and other such stuff. When he heard my accent, the man sitting down at the desk started to talk to me in English. He had lived in Canada for many years. His wife was a Greek Canadian, and they had returned . We chatted about Kastoria, he invited me to join him for a coffee there in the shop. We became instant friends. This was Steve, and we were shortly joined by his wife Julie. Not long after our first meeting, we met in a bar several times, and had a pizza back at their flat. I persuaded them to play the leading roles then. Jim, the man who had warned me about the lake, happened to be a friend of Steve's When he was asked, Jim could switch on the right combination of friendliness and menace, so he was roped in to play the villain.
Now that my main characters were established, I had to persuade my students to take part. Again, this was not as difficult as I had imagined. In principle, I had quite a large pool of people I could ask to act. It wasn't getting them to agree in principle; it was finding the time.
Spring was starting; the ice had melted, the flowers were starting to bloom. The weekend before I was due to start filming, I formally met Despina's parents (they had been at the village dance) and she and I set off in her car for a quiet weekend in Prespa.