The Road to School

 

(Part 3)

There is only one photograph of all three of Maria's children. Sevasti, the oldest, is around eleven; Eleni a year younger; and Nikolas, a baby, ten years behind them both. The photograph was taken at the Kalligeris studio on Stadiou Street, made specifically to send back to Kalymnos so that grandmother Sevasti could see all her grandchildren. They never needed another photograph, and they never took one.

You would expect all of Maria's children to have survived, born as they were in Athens hospitals, not like the old days when medicine was something that happened to other people. But Maria lost a baby — the most beautiful of all of them. A girl, third in line, named Katerina. The godmother had liked the name and had said: "Since you've already given your first two daughters the names of their grandmothers, let me choose the name for your third girl."

Godparents carried real weight in those days, because they gave the Christmas gifts and, more importantly, the Easter candle — along with shoes and dresses for school and presents for special occasions. There was no reason for parents to hurt their feelings. If godparents wanted to choose a name, their wish had to be honored. The godmother baptized the baby Katerina at six months old. She dressed her beautifully, took her to church, and gave her Holy Communion as tradition demands in Greece. But when the baby came home that same night, she died.

People said the baby had been struck by the evil eye — the influence of Satan, working through envious people, capable of bringing every misfortune down on a person. The Greek Orthodox Church even has a specific prayer to dispel it. Katerina had been a particularly beautiful baby, with an angelic little face that everyone admired. It would be no surprise if envy had killed her. No other reason was given for her death. Only the evil eye of jealousy could bring about such a tragic end. The baby was simply small and defenseless. Even the blue eye charm on her white dress hadn't been able to save her — she had been destined to die. At least she died after her baptism, and had therefore secured her place in heaven.

Perhaps Maria asked the godmother why she had chosen the name Katerina, perhaps she didn't. For parents, once the ancestors' names had been honored, any name after that was simply a name dedicated to a saint who would be the person's protector for the rest of their life. Many people, even those without the money to spare for an extra baby's gifts, wanted to become godparents for their own reasons — perhaps to honor an old man who had no descendants to carry his name, or to honor a brother or friend who had died young and childless. So many wars in this country had left so many names floating without bodies that these questions were sometimes beside the point.

Saint Catherine — wise and beautiful — had faced her torturers with courage and died in glory, betrothed to Jesus. Pure and redeemed. Exactly as one might wish a baby to die. Or even as a mother might wish her baby to die, if fate gave her no other choice. In the end, Katerina's death brought, by an unexpected turn, a certain relief to the family — a break from raising girls one after another, and a chance to try again. For a boy this time.

No family was ashamed of its daughters, but no family felt complete without a son. An heir to the father's name, a successor to the family business, someone who could go on making decisions for the people around him.

"Your first child should be a girl, so she can help you with the housework," the wise grandmothers of the island would advise. "She'll help you raise the ones that come after." The ones that came after could be boys or girls. But since older sisters had to be married off before their brothers, it wasn't wise for a family to have too many girls. A son had the duty to defend the honor and fate of his sisters, to find each of them a good husband, and to ensure their well-being in a new household. But what if one of them wasn't quite presentable enough, or was simply a little odd?

Poor little Katerina would no longer have to live in fear of not being beautiful enough, but her death by the evil eye breathed a different fear into the older sisters. Sevasti, at least — who had inherited her mother's beauty — decided to become sufficiently devout and to go to church often. With enough prayer, no evil eye would touch her. She wanted to befriend the priests, to become so pious that she might witness miracles herself.

The church mattered enormously to Sevasti. There was no rational argument against being faithful. The church allowed Sevasti to read books, to have a rich social life, to reassure herself that she was following the rules of society, and to have plenty of people on her side. Which relative would ever reproach her for leaving the house to attend the Sunday girls' catechism? Sevasti wanted to be saved, and she was not about to give up that salvation.

Sevasti had become devout in the first place because of her uncle. Uncle Stefanos — the enlightened brother of her father, who had spent his life praying for his nieces and nephews — was her mentor, her model in all things spiritual. "She could have been born from your uncle," Maria would often say to her firstborn daughter. "She's the spitting image," she'd add, noting the absence of anything in common between them. The other two children, Eleni and Nikolas, took more after their mother — not in looks, but in temperament. Maria wasn't particularly troubled by divine rules, as long as they left her in peace. She would follow them up to a point, but without personal conviction. Maria had never really known what personal desire meant. She was satisfied to have paid her human debt — to raise children.

"When I die, all of this is for you," Uncle Stefanos would tell little Sevasti. "All of this" meant books of saints' lives, sacred texts, leaflets from local churches filled with prayers and blessings. Most were written in katharevousa — the archaizing form of modern Greek, a language that had shaped the minds of all those who believed salvation would come through the values of the Greek Orthodox tradition. And so Sevasti, though she never had the chance to go as far as she wanted in formal education, always spoke in the manner of ecclesiastical texts, reaching for ornate words and sayings from ancient philosophers and saints.

When Uncle Stefanos died, Sevasti took all of it — and among his things she found a notebook of his personal reflections. His thoughts as he read the Bible. "My uncle was a holy man," she would say often, and she never shared his secrets. But she was determined to be more educated than he had been. After elementary school, she would go to high school.

Her first cousin, Andreas Kalymnios, was a philologist. A high school teacher of language and literature. He had gone to university, studied both ancient and modern Greek, and become an expert in grammar and all the major texts from antiquity to the present. Andreas taught at an all-boys high school near Sevasti's home for as long as the Dodecanese remained under Italian rule. When it became clear that Greece was preparing to bring the islands back in, he went quickly home — to his family and his beloved Kalymnos.

Sevasti's plan was to use the church and cousin Andreas to educate herself. It was her plan and her hope. Because as the first daughter of the family, she was expected to help with the housework, raise the younger children, and marry as soon as possible. She refused none of this. But her parents refused her request to go to high school. Elementary school was more than enough for a homemaker and mother.

Elementary school ran for six years, but children who intended to continue to high school could sit entrance exams at the end of fourth grade and go straight to first-year high school instead of fifth grade. Sevasti was only nine years old when she begged to sit the exams, but her father, thinking her still too young, told her he would allow her to finish through sixth grade, and that was his final concession.

The summer after she finished sixth grade, Maria took Sevasti by the hand and led her to a dressmaker — a Mrs Thalia. Thalia was a childhood friend of Maria's from Kalymnos, and an exceptional seamstress. She had studied in Paris. She had lived in France and learned her trade there. A true scientist of the needle, one might say.

"Thalia, I've brought you my daughter to teach her the craft," Maria asked as a favor. Thalia had no room for apprentices. "Maria, I don't have room for apprentices in my place — but for you, I can make an exception." Maria had told Sevasti that kyria Thalia was a smart, educated woman. The reason she had gone to Paris was that her brother was studying there to become a lawyer. The siblings had shared a small apartment, and her dressmaking had been what paid for his studies. Now this man was a lawyer in Athens, and the devoted siblings still shared a room.

Sevasti glanced around. It was a very small room, with no space for even an extra chair. She said nothing, of course. She respected the lawyer and understood that this compatriot might one day introduce her into some useful circle; and this woman was clearly refined and deserving of respect. She kept her head down.

But Thalia noticed that the girl had her head down and was making no eye contact at all. "But let's see — what does the girl herself want?" She came closer and asked an unexpected question: "Do you want to be a seamstress?"

Little Sevasti didn't raise her head. She didn't dare say no. But she didn't want to say yes either. She was ashamed to say no in front of her mother, but not so ashamed that she would let her education slip away from her that easily. She made a small sound instead — clicking her tongue against her teeth, the sound that means no.

Thalia turned to Maria. "This is where our arrangement falls apart. Even if she stayed with me a hundred years, she'd never learn the trade." Maria was mortified, deeply shamed by her daughter. Before the silence could settle, Thalia turned to Sevasti: "What is it you want, little one?"

"I want to go to school, but they won't let me."

"You want to go to school?" Now it was the seamstress's turn to be surprised. Perhaps she had expected the girl to want to be a singer, or to sell flowers. "No, kyria Maria — this is a crime. I can't take in someone who wants to go to school. If the child wants to learn, you mustn't stop her."

Maria could not change Thalia's mind. She was humiliated. She took Sevasti by the hand and they walked home in absolute silence.

When the father heard the whole story, his rage was volcanic — shouting and threats. Sevasti had been meant to become a seamstress, and it was not Thalia's place to decide the family's future. The daughter's defiance brought shame on the household. The mother was blamed too, for being incapable of controlling the girl. And so a beating followed, as was common enough in those days.

I don't believe Sevasti ever forgot that beating, however ordinary it was for the time. Nor do I believe it changed anything in her mind. Whatever happened in that room, her thoughts were fixed on September — because in September she would have a second chance to sit the high school entrance exams. The law gave her that.

Sevasti knew that her first cousin was a high school teacher. He was educated; he would understand. Cousin Andreas often stopped by her father's shop and drank ouzo with his uncle. But Sevasti didn't know where to find him — she had never been to his home. Still, Sevasti had always cultivated a wide circle of acquaintances, and she made a point of doing favors for them. So when she remembered that one of the girls from the neighborhood was related to Andreas's family, she asked her to take her to him, and the girl agreed.

"What a surprise!" Andreas hadn't expected to see his young cousin — alone, with only one friend, several neighborhoods from home. "Andreas, I need to talk to you. My father won't let me sit the exams for high school. He wants me to become a seamstress." She told him about the beating too. "Leave it with me," he said.

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The School Years

 (Chapter 4)

Author's Note

The text that follows is based on true accounts and memories, as experienced by a girl who grew up in a time full of contradictions. It expresses no political position, but captures the personal experience of a child who watched the world around her without fully understanding it.

My intention is to bring out the human dimension behind great events, and to illuminate one corner of women's experience in an era when the voices of girls and women were so often swallowed up by the demands of family, society, and history.

I hope the reader will recognize how grand ideological conflicts always intersect with small, daily battles for freedom, education, and dignity — the ones that quietly, in the end, shape civilization and History itself.

---

Sevasti knew that since her father wouldn't let her continue at school, she would have to find help somewhere else. Cousin Andreas, who taught literature at an all-boys high school nearby, understood when she came to tell him about the beating, and said: "Leave it with me."

The next day, Andreas stopped by Giorgos's shop. "Uncle, why won't you let Sevasti go to school?" Giorgos was angry, but his anger was difficult to let loose here. This was a conversation between men, and Andreas was a teacher. "That's enough, Andreas. You know she wants the moon right now, but in a few years she'll thank me for teaching her a skill that earns money. These days it matters that women contribute their share to the household finances. She needs some kind of work — not too much, though, because she'll have children."

"She can earn money even if she goes to high school. She can train in something and earn from that."

"My son will go on to study. I have three children. I can't send all of them. My son will have to make his way in the world, so he's the one who needs an education."

"Which son? The one who's two years old? You don't even know if he'll be able to study. It's Sevasti who has the gift. She's first in her class — all her teachers are impressed. If she goes to high school, it'll be nothing for her. As for your other girl, Eleni — she doesn't like studying. She didn't pass to sixth grade and left school because she wanted to become a seamstress. Don't compare them. It's easier to comply when someone tells you to do the thing you actually want to do."

"Sevasti needs to change her mind. Eleni is doing well as a seamstress, and as sisters they should help each other by doing the same thing. In time she'll come to enjoy the craft, just as she now enjoys school."

"Uncle, I respect your view, and this is your family. But I know Sevasti, and it breaks my heart to see what she could do and isn't being allowed to do. She can learn the seamstress's trade at any point — a few years' delay won't matter. But if you don't let her go to school, I'll take Sevasti into my home and teach her myself."

Andreas couldn't enroll Sevasti in his school, since he taught at a boys' high school — his plan was to tutor her privately. Giorgos saw that Andreas meant it, and that if Sevasti wanted to leave home and go live with him, that was exactly what would happen. He knew he couldn't keep an eye on her there, and he knew the whisper it would send through the wider family.

The silence in the house was deafening. Sevasti had put herself above the family. Were six years of high school worth the shame it would bring and the financial strain it would cause? Books were expensive, school uniforms were an added cost, and the family would see no income from Sevasti. When Giorgos finally told her she would be registered for the high school entrance exams, Sevasti couldn't contain herself: "Thank you, thank you, Father! And thank God!" The rest of the family wasn't entirely sure what God had to do with the whole ordeal. Things between them would not be easy again.

Sevasti paid the registration fee, but she would only buy books if she sat the exam and was accepted. She hadn't prepared for it specifically, though Andreas had told her a few things about what to expect. He also told her what he'd said to her father, and Sevasti was grateful that he had fought for her. She never could have managed it alone, or on the strength of a seamstress's opinion. It had taken a philologist to open the door.

Sevasti sat the exam in September and placed directly into second-year high school — as if she had never lost a year in elementary school. Her score was eighteen and a half out of twenty, and from the very first year she was top of her class. A tremendous achievement. For some years after that, Andreas was able to help her with questions about her subjects. Sevasti loved him dearly, enjoyed her visits to his home, and went often to thank him. But soon enough, her protector cousin left suddenly to return to the island, and Sevasti carried on at school entirely on her own.

Sevasti was sociable and well-liked, with many friends, and she thrived in school life — which meant she gradually drifted from her family, who were all absorbed in work and business. She believed that if her family didn't understand this part of her, God did. Who knows what else she might have achieved, had the high school not been cut short so abruptly when war broke out in Greece.

Sevasti's earliest memories were of school, naturally. It was from that point that she began to feel the fact of her own existence — when she left home for first grade. In those days children didn't start school until they turned seven. They learned the Greek language at home and went to school to learn how to write it and to study the rules of grammar. Before school, she had only a few dim memories, since she hadn't yet felt herself to be separate from her family — her first experience of that came with her first day of school.

Elementary school lasted six years, as did high school. During the Occupation the laws had changed and high school ran for eight years, not six. If a child was going on to high school, they left elementary school at the end of fourth grade and went straight into first-year high school, to avoid wasting time on elementary-level subjects and to arrive fully prepared. Sevasti wasn't among the lucky ones who transferred early; she sat through all six years of elementary school before she managed to persuade her father.

In elementary school, Sevasti's experience of education was colored heavily by personal connections and favoritism. The same teacher instructed children from first through fourth grade, and preferential treatment based on acquaintances or family ties was common. Many parents worked their connections to secure better treatment for their children. Sevasti had no one to advocate for her or ask after her progress. This changed when she reached high school, where teachers were more numerous and specialized, and where recognition was based on merit — something that gave her both satisfaction and a sense of vindication.

Sevasti's mother, Maria, was illiterate and felt ashamed whenever she had to visit the school. She usually went only when Sevasti pleaded. When a teacher praised Sevasti, Maria felt uncomfortable — as if she were the one being scolded — and would lower her head. Her father, though he could read and write, worked and couldn't come.

Maria was an island woman, introverted by nature, and the move to Athens had made her more so. She gave herself over entirely to raising her children, with no friends and no social life. Any neighbor who had come from her part of the world was living the same quiet isolation. And yet Maria was an exceptional homemaker, devoted to the care of the house and the children. All of them — both parents, three children, and the uncle — lived in a one-room house with a kitchen. Maria managed to keep the space clean and orderly despite everything.

Sleep was a nightly negotiation. There was a double bed where the parents slept, and two singles: one for the uncle, and one that was the subject of ongoing dispute between the two girls. It was settled that the younger one would sleep in the bed, while Sevasti, as the older, had to give up her place. And so every evening Maria would make up the floor mattress for Sevasti and her little brother.

Maria set great store by cleanliness — as people say, cleanliness is half of dignity. Many people, even those who couldn't afford fine clothes, made sure they always appeared clean and presentable. Maria would make pretty dresses for each of her daughters and liked to put large bows in their hair. Once a week there was laundry day. Even if the children had changed clothes the day before and their things were still clean, they had to change again on laundry day, because the laundry needed to be done.

When Sevasti was in fourth grade, a circular arrived at the school: all children were to be enrolled in the EON, the youth organization of the dictator Metaxas. In theory parental consent was required, but since this was a dictatorship, refusal wasn't really on the table. Sevasti's father was a democrat and bristled when he saw the document, but there was nothing he could do. In the end he signed, and both his daughters were enrolled in the youth wing of the dictatorship.

Sevasti knew nothing of politics. She hadn't heard political conversations at home, and if there had been any, she hadn't paid attention. Her dream was to be the best student in her class. She wanted to go out with friends, to socialize at parties and on outings. So not only was she unbothered by being a "Phalangist," she saw it as a chance to get out of the house.

Once enrolled, the officers took the groups of children to a location in Athens to collect their uniforms — a blue skirt, jacket, and a white tie — and the youngest were called "Little Pioneers." From time to time, the children of Athens put on their uniform caps with the double peak and went to various events around the city to receive what they already called "brainwashing." They heard about Metaxas and the necessity of his actions. Every morning they sang the national anthem, said prayers, and gave the fascist salute.

But Sevasti never felt like a Nazi. For Sevasti, the salute was something Greece had borrowed from abroad in its effort to become a modern state, but they had no love for Italy or Germany. Which was precisely why, when Italy one day gave Greece an ultimatum — surrender or fight, answer within three hours — the Greek people gave that historic "No."

Until then, Sevasti had seen no organized resistance to the regime, no strong political expression of any kind. Most people kept their opinions to themselves; there was no freedom of speech, and whatever was said was said in a whisper. Her father, like many then, had endured a great deal. He valued what he had without bitterness for what he lacked. Most people simply wanted to raise their children without persecution. Sevasti knew that only the communists expressed their ideology openly. There weren't many parties; citizens either accepted the dictatorship or they were on the Left.

In sharp contrast to the political silence, when the air raid sirens sounded and the church bells rang, when the few radio stations that existed called all military reserves to arms with martial music — the Greek people went with enthusiasm, as if heading to a village fair. The men left singing. The front had opened on the border between Greece and Albania, and it was waiting for them.

High school was suspended for a year when war was declared, and the following year students covered two years' worth of material in one. All three years of the German Occupation — 1941, 1942, and 1943 — life in Athens was very hard. Schools operated with constant interruptions, buildings were requisitioned, staff disappeared, and the students went hungry. It was only on October 12, 1944, when the Germans withdrew from Athens and the Nazi flag came down from the Acropolis, that Sevasti felt she might finally get to study in peace.

But barely six weeks later, on December 4th, the Civil War began — with gunfire coming from a checkpoint just two streets below her home. Only one year of actual schooling in all of that — with not a break in between. And so even once it was all over, Sevasti — who had fought against family expectations, hunger, and gunfire simply to go to school — could never quite understand certain things, and above all could never understand students who cut class or went on strike.

Sevasti was a child who grew up in the shadow of events she didn't understand and that no one ever explained to her in any coherent or honest way. In a country that had no shared historical narrative, the defining events of her era — the dictatorship, the war, the Occupation, the Civil War — marked her silently and permanently. She became what she had lived through; she was shaped by experiences she never had time to interpret. And if one desire stayed with her as a constant, it was the need for education — not just for knowledge, but for an understanding that never seemed to come. Her childhood eyes held many stories from that turbulent time: stories she had never told anyone, but that she would share with me.

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A Sunday in Eleni's Room

(Chapter 12)

Previously: Telemachos arranged the engagement and wedding of his sister Eleni, because he could not marry until she was settled.

A Sunday in the Courtyard and the First Date 

"When he came to visit his sister, he would sit with my father and they would talk. I believe that even then he had already decided to marry me. But he didn't know how to bring it up or say it, because his sister was still unmarried. Of course I was young too, and he had no way of knowing how I would feel about such a proposal — but the main problem was how he could possibly start conversations, make approaches to my father or my mother, while his sister was still a single woman living under our roof.

The rule was absolute: until he married her off, he couldn't marry either.

And don't imagine that his older brother having married earlier was the normal order of things — that simply had to happen because there was both an opportunity and money involved, since nobody had money in those days. Word spread through all the villages of the Peloponnese that Telemachos's brother had received a dowry of forty thousand drachmas. At the time, that was a significant sum, and it made him both rich and talked about. It came about because Aristi's uncle had sent the money from America for his nieces, so they could marry young and quickly.

Aristi was a very sought-after bride with a dowry like that, but she had one thing working against her for marriage — she had been born with an enormous purple birthmark covering half her face. She always arranged her hair from the left side to cover it, but it was hard not to look, and so it wasn't easy for anyone to marry her. But this family accepted her and Pagousos married her. Perhaps in those days something could have been done about her skin, but who thought about such things? Children grew up the way they were born — people didn't even deal with health problems, let alone anything cosmetic. She was still the same when she died. We never once discussed it.

Now, back to our story. After Eleni's engagement, she and her fiancé took to each other well, she was happy with the arrangement, and one day she simply got up and left. She locked the room where she had been living and went to stay with her fiancé at his mother's house, since the house being built on her dowry plot in Galatsi wasn't ready yet. Telemachos had taken full responsibility for both the wedding and the house — he built two rooms, put up a wall around the property, looked after everything for her. But beyond all these arrangements, Eleni had a deep bond with Telemachos and loved him very much. He was her rock, and she would have given her life for him. And he had a soft spot for her too — he was genuinely fond of her.

Now, both Aristi and I stayed well out of their family affairs and property matters. Whatever my father-in-law decided to do, he did, and no one said a word. When my husband said he was giving up his inheritance to take Aristi's dowry and marry off Eleni, it didn't concern me — I never even asked what he would have gotten. Those were men's business. Which is why I tell you that both women who married into that family were sensible, decent, and kept the peace. In other families, it goes the other way.

The upshot was that when Eleni left and vacated the room, Telemachos didn't clear it out. He left it furnished, and whenever he wasn't on duty he would come there to change out of his uniform into his civilian clothes. He slept at the station and could have stayed there in civilian clothes too if he'd wanted, but he kept paying rent on the room. This raised no suspicions in me or my father — if he was paying rent, why should my father care? But later I understood why he kept that room.

I understood on a Sunday in 1949. Ever since the Dodecanese had become Greek, my mother would take one daughter or the other — always with my little brother, because he was the youngest and she didn't trust leaving him behind — to visit Kalymnos. That summer it was my sister's turn, and she left me with my father and my uncle to look after them.

Every Sunday my father and uncle would go to a café in Plaka — a Kalymnian café, where they would meet fellow islanders and talk. It was summer and the courtyard was completely empty: one neighbor had gone to Markopoulo, and the other took her children to the sea every weekend. I was left alone in the yard with no one around, not a soul, nowhere to go and nothing to do.

My father had left me a little money, so I went and bought a popsicle. I sat outside, in front of the courtyard gate, and ate it slowly and enjoyed it. When it was finished, I had nothing to do, so I said to myself, I'll go and see Eleni, who lived a little way down the street where she was now with her fiancé. I set off. They were in their courtyard and when they saw me their faces lit up. Telemachos was there too, in uniform, having come to have Sunday lunch with them.

They asked me: 'What brings you here?' I said: 'I was on my own and didn't know what to do with myself, so I thought I'd come see what Eleni was up to.' Everyone was very glad to see me, and I think they even made me a coffee. When we'd finished, Telemachos said: 'Shall we go for a walk?' — meaning the three of us, me and Eleni, since Eleni's fiancé had to go work the taxi. And Eleni said: 'Take us somewhere!' Telemachos wanted to take us to a movie, in the center of Athens. As an officer he wouldn't need to pay for his own ticket, but he would pay for ours.

I had been to the cinema once before in my life — with this exact same group, as it happened. The previous Carnival, before Eleni got engaged, my mother had said to my father: 'Shouldn't we invite the children to come and eat with us?' She had a soft spot for Eleni and wanted to look out for her, and by 'the children' she meant both Telemachos and Eleni. My father had also come to respect Telemachos for the way he treated his sister, so he said: 'We should invite them.' The affection my parents showed those two was genuine — not calculating — because I was still so young that even they didn't know what might come of it. After the Carnival meal, Telemachos had taken us to the cinema as a way of showing his gratitude.

Now Telemachos said: 'I'll go for a moment and change, get out of my uniform and into something for the cinema.' And I said: 'If we're going out, I'll go and change too — I'm wearing an old skirt and an old blouse. I'll put on my good dress!' He left first, and I followed maybe ten or fifteen minutes later. When I came outside, a little way down the street, there he was, sitting and waiting, and I realized he had been waiting the whole time.

'You still haven't left?' I asked him.

'I ran into someone I know and got held up,' he said. In the end, we found ourselves walking together down the same street toward the same house.

On the way he said: 'What would you say to the two of us going for a walk — just us?'

'But what about Eleni?' I asked. 'Eleni is expecting us.'

'Leave Eleni to me,' he said. 'That's my business.'

'I don't know,' I told him. 'It's not that I don't trust us to go for a walk together. But it seems wrong — we said we'd all go together and now you're suggesting just the two of us. I don't know.'

'Please,' he said. 'I couldn't arrange it any other way. I want it to be just the two of us,' he said, with feeling.

'I'm thinking of your sister,' I told him.

'I told you I'll handle my sister,' he said.

'Well, if that's what you want,' I said, 'let's go.' Because I had begun to understand his interest, and the invitation had started to intrigue me.

Telemachos was a very handsome man — a man whose whole bearing announced his strength. These were qualities that were missing in my family. My father was a good man, but he lacked both that commanding presence and the tenderness toward his children. In those days people had children without really knowing why they were having them. So this man was not indifferent to me.

I wrestled with myself inside, because I kept thinking about his sister, but it wasn't that I didn't want to go. I also didn't want to offend him. I was a spirited girl — I had proved that since childhood — and I wasn't afraid, because I knew he was a decent man. So what would happen if I went out with him? Would he eat me alive? We would simply find somewhere to sit. I told him: 'Since you're taking responsibility for your sister, all right.'"

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The Time of Love

(Chapter 13)

Previously: Telemachos invites Sevasti and his sister Eleni to the movies, then maneuvers to ask Sevasti out alone. She hesitates, thinks of his sister, but agrees — drawn to his commanding presence and his evident interest in her.

The Tram and a 1952 Wedding

"I told him: 'Well, if you're taking responsibility for your sister, all right.'

When we got back to the courtyard, we each went to our rooms to change. I was ready in no time — just took off what I was wearing and put on my dress, ran a comb through my hair, not even any makeup, nothing. He, on the other hand, shaved and took an age to come out of his room — he wanted to freshen up properly and put on his good clothes. So I went to his door and said: 'I'm ready.' He said: 'You go ahead, walk a little way down the street' — and pointed out the direction — 'and I'll meet you there shortly.'

That's what happened. We met up on the street, walked together, and made our way from Neos Kosmos to Koukaki, where the only tram line ran along Dimitrakopoulou Street, the one that made such a racket. We stopped there and he asked me where I'd like to go. I told him I had no particular preference — I barely knew Athens at all. He said we'd go to the Alsos. The Alsos was a garden café in the Pedion tou Areos park, with Oikonomidis as the compère. We'd take the tram to Omonia Square and walk from there.

We went all the way from Neos Kosmos to the Pedion tou Areos because there was nothing comparable nearby — the Pedion tou Areos was legendary. Giorgos Oikonomidis was one of the finest compères around. A compère is a host — you'd take a little table at the café and he would present the program. It was a Sunday too, and all of Athens went there on Sundays; you could barely find a seat. But once you sat down you could stay as long as you liked, and he would introduce Danai Nikolaidou — he had the finest singers, performing the songs of that era. Those songs are timeless now, and those singers had real voices, not manufactured ones. Nikolaidou's most famous song was 'Two Green Eyes with Blue Lashes,' and later, after we'd agreed to be together, I learned it and used to sing it to him.

'All right, since you have no preference,' he said, 'leave it to me and I'll take you somewhere good.' We boarded the tram and he paid my fare but not his own. We didn't talk on the tram because we were standing — there was no room to sit. But from Omonia to the Pedion tou Areos, many questions came up. The first thing he asked was whether I had anyone. 'No,' I said, 'I don't.' Then he asked: 'What are your dreams?' 'I want to study,' I told him, straight out. He already knew that. In any case...

He was gathering information. He also put some tricky grammar questions to me, because he had heard I was the top student and he asked me about difficult words and their spelling. 'You're unshakeable,' he said. 'Your reputation is well deserved.' Once we sat down we didn't talk much more — when you're at the Alsos you either talk or you listen to the program. On the way back from the Pedion tou Areos to Omonia, though, the walk is long and we had plenty of time to talk. By the time we reached my door he hadn't said anything definite yet, but a little before we went our separate ways he asked: 'Would you like to do this again?'

I asked: 'For what reason?' And he said: 'Haven't you understood anything?' I answered: 'I understand something, but I can't make out what the purpose is. If you think you're going to play games with me, then no — let's not repeat this. I have other things on my mind, and even if none of them come to anything, the man I give my life to will be the man of my life. I can't be with someone one day because I like him and gone the next day because I don't. Put that right out of your head.'

He said: 'I know — the reason I'm asking for a second meeting is that I've already made up my mind. But I can't do anything until my sister's wedding is settled. I can't make anything official until she's taken care of. After that, we'll talk properly. In the meantime, if you want to see me again, I'll come to the room on Tuesday to change my clothes, and just as we met today, we can meet again.'

'All right,' I told him. 'But how do I explain to my father and my uncle that I'm going out? I don't usually go out on my own.' 'That part is a bit tricky, I understand,' he said. 'How did you explain it today?'

I had a close friend from school, Chrysoula — her family had money and rented a summer house in Faliro near the sea, and she often invited me to come for a swim. That particular Sunday — and everything about that day was fated, because instead of going to see Eleni I could just as easily have gone to Chrysoula and never crossed paths with Telemachos — that Sunday I had left a note for my father, knowing he would come back from the café and not find me, saying that I was going to Chrysoula in Faliro for a while. I lied to him because from the moment a man had suggested we go out alone, I had started to feel guilty. It was the first lie, born of guilt.

I wrote: 'Papa, I left at such-and-such a time. I'm going to visit my friend Chrysoula in Faliro. I'll be back in a few hours. Don't worry.' When my father came home and saw the note, he wasn't surprised — I had genuinely been to Faliro with Chrysoula before. He would have thought: she was here on her own, she got bored and went out.

For the second time we met, I quickly dashed off a letter to my mother who was in Kalymnos, told my father I needed to post it and that the post office was in Koukaki. That second time, we didn't spend long together — just long enough to talk a little and say goodbye. We sat somewhere in Koukaki, not even on a bench, so he didn't keep me long.

After my mother and sister came back from the island, I told my sister everything. She was working by then, an apprentice dressmaker, taking orders for house robes from the neighbors — she had started bringing in a little money. I told her that he wanted to meet me once a week and I didn't know what to do. She said: 'I'll cover for you. I'll send you to clients for fittings, or say I need you to pick up materials for me — I'll account for the hours you're away.' I said: 'Fine, but don't tell anyone yet, because he'll let me know when the time comes to tell our parents.' My sister had nothing against Telemachos. Everyone in the yard thought well of him, including my parents, so even if they found out, there wouldn't be a problem.

The second time we went out, Telemachos opened up a little more and told me about his plans. He mentioned the plot of land he had bought in Galatsi for his sister and how he had hired a contractor to build a second room. He said that once the room was built, his sister's wedding would take place, and then we could talk about our own future. We didn't meet regularly until the wedding, but when it happened, they invited all of us — including me and my father — to the church of Zoodochos Pigi.

At the wedding, he was personally handing out the wedding favors. When I came forward to take mine, there wasn't a shadow of doubt in my mind. He had already told me during one of our meetings: 'We are heading toward marriage. You are spoken for, as far as I'm concerned. You're not a girl I'm just passing time with. But right now I can't act — I'm also in debt.' 

I went up to him and said the traditional wish for unmarried guests,  'And at ours — with an eta.' But altered a single letter in Greek —an eta instead of an upsilon in spelling— and this way I changed the meaning from 'may it happen for you' to 'may it happen for us.' Now, I don't know whether the people behind us heard or not, and I doubt they would have caught the word ours or the significance of it having an eta rather than an upsilon — but he understood, and he smiled.

After he had married off his sister, he came one day and handed the keys back to my father, saying: 'Kyrie Giorgos, I'll be giving up the room. There's no reason to hold onto it anymore. I sleep at the station.' 'As you wish,' my father answered, and from that day he no longer came to the courtyard. But we had agreed to meet once a week and we continued to do so for six months.

One afternoon he said to me: 'Can you ask your father to come to such-and-such a café tomorrow afternoon at six o'clock?' 'Yes,' I said — I understood exactly what he was going to say to my father. All the time we had been seeing each other I hadn't pressed him, for two reasons: first, he had told me he had debts, and second, I was young and in no hurry to marry. And all the while we were going out, we were learning each other's character. It was a good thing we had the chance to know each other properly. By now, though, everyone knew — including my parents, since my sister had told them. But everyone kept quiet, waiting to see how things would unfold. In any case, my sister no longer needed to cover for me. My mother knew where I was going and I had told her exactly where I'd be — besides, winter had set in and it was cold by then, and mostly we were going to the cinema.

When they sat down at the café, he said to my father: 'Kyrie Giorgos, you know why I asked you here. I love your daughter and I want her to be my wife, and I want you to know it.' 'And does she love you?' my father asked. 'Yes, she loves me too.' 'If the two of you have found each other, what do I have to say? The only thing I have to say is that I am a poor man. I have nothing to leave my child.' 'I didn't ask you here to tell me you're poor. I know very well what you are. I asked you here to let you know and to have your blessing.' 'You have it.'

From that moment on, he began to come to our house more formally. But whenever he came, my mother — being an island woman, and island people are very hospitable — started going all out for him. Whatever money we had or didn't have, she would go to the butcher and buy lamb chops and light the fire, spending money she didn't have, wearing herself out. He found it excessive and stopped coming. When I asked him why, he said: 'Because I don't want to put your mother to all that trouble. Since we can meet when we go out, there's no need for me to visit you at home and have your mother kill herself over it.'

A long time passed. After his sister's wedding, she had her first child, and thirteen months later, her second. When she had her second child, we had been married two months. We married in 1952, three years after our engagement. The wedding was very simple, with no extravagance of any kind. It took place at Agios Panteleimonas in Ilissos, my home parish.

My wedding dress came from Australia, from an acquaintance who had gone there. She had had an elaborate wedding and made a vow about the dress — that it should be worn by brides, to bring luck into their lives. I was only the second bride to wear it. It was a heavy bridal gown, and I wore a small hat with it. The one luxury I had was that the hairdresser from Syntagma came to my house to do my hair. He was the uncle of my friend Chrysoula, and he had promised us both — said that when the time came for me to be a bride, he would do my hair. He was known for styling the hair of the very top of Athenian society. He made my hair beautiful — though I wore no makeup at all on my wedding day.

That is how I married, after three years as an engaged woman, because we had no money and Telemachos was in debt. The money came to him later — and you can't imagine how. I always save the best for last."

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