“How do you know I’m English?” I asked.
“Please. Have you looked in the mirror? Have you compared yourself with people around here? You at least look like you have…some style…” she paused. “I am not stupid, you know.” She tossed her head and gave a snort, turning her attention back to the task in hand: taking me for coffee.
I got the impression she didn’t rate the local population very highly, and I guessed that like Mrs Stella, Kaliopi wasn’t a lady you said “no” to. Deciding to fall in line with this new turn of events, I followed her down the narrow, cobbled street.
Passing the butcher’s—huge carcasses of pigs hanging in the window with their heads still on—and baker’s shop—delicious smells of bread wafting out to greet us, along with the whistling baker, I almost expected to find a candlestick maker’s as well. It felt very quaint.
We passed several small haberdasheries with old women dressed in black crouched low behind the counter, but no supermarkets that sold everything under one roof. It was part of this small town’s appeal—the giants of capitalism hadn’t appeared to impose their presence and wipe out local trade. And there were no Golden Arches to spoil the view either. Instead there were small cafés selling their own chicken and pork dishes as well as home-made burgers. And apart from the narrow high street for cars, the side streets were all cobbled. It literally felt as if I’d stepped into a Dickens novel.
“Don’t worry,” Kaliopi glanced at my face, “There’s a Lidl at the edge of town. I go there sometimes to shop, so we can go together from now on.” Ah, so not entirely free of the supermarket giants, then. Apparently it was easy to make a new friend here, not forgetting the old man and his oil shop. I almost expected to find the Greek equivalent of five “Bridesmaids” by the time the day was through.
At the end of the village the small main road led off to the right, heading out of town, but Kaliopi led me to the left, away from the shops and through a different part of town—an area that resembled a small nature reserve that boasted a gushing river, several cafés and a cobbled pedestrian walkway that meandered first into a wooded area and then up to a ruined castle. We found a small café with tables outside and in. “Here—sit here in the sunshine. I know that you English people love to get your skin all brown and wrinkly for some reason.” She ordered from the waiter as she moved her chair into the shade of a large tree: tea and a large piece of baklava.
“I have also requested you some milk, as I know you English love to milk in everything,” she said in her mixture of formal and Pidgin English. “And on third thoughts, you don’t look ready for our coffee,” she sniffed, giving me the once over.
“And for you?” I asked, relaxing into my surroundings and choosing to ignore her strange comment about Greek coffee. Maybe it was this odd girl’s sense of humour. I didn’t want to presume to correct her English. I wasn’t there to teach her, and besides, she was a bit scary!
“Me? Oh nothing, I took my breakfast this morning, after I returned from my six a.m. three-kilo run.” Kilometre, it’s kilometre—but I didn’t correct her. I must have responded with a look of horror, because Kaliopi added, “I walked most of the way. And now I have the opportunity to show off to a foreigner what little there is to do in this hole from hell, and also to practise in my English. This is perfect for me! Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to be joining me on the runs. I know how unfit you British are—you always eating the fatty things for breakfast. Frying with the vegetable oil bread and eggs and those sausage things…what is wrong with you?”
I didn’t really have the chance to answer as it appeared from our interactions so far that most of Kaliopi’s questions were rhetorical, so I smiled inwardly and allowed myself the luxury of soaking up the atmosphere, content to let her chatter away. Within the space of forty -eight hours I’m sitting outside a café by the river on a gloriously warm September morning with a very interesting “local”, I thought, gazing out to the river. I caught sight of a marble woman’s head poking up from the depths and pointed this out to my new friend.
“She’s Herkyna. This area we’re in now is called Krya. Legend has it that Herkyna used to play here with her friend Persephone. Herkyna was holding a goose and suddenly it flew away into a cave. Persephone rushed after it, but the water suddenly rose, trapping Persephone inside it and carrying her to the Underworld. The marble head honours this legend.”
The area we were seated in was beautifully lush and green—there was no mistaking the rushing sound of water—and to my right, just in front of the wooded area, an old mill with a waterwheel completed the scene of tranquillity.
I tuned back to Kaliopi’s conversation. “I come from a small town by the coast in the Peloponnese. My father still lives there, but we have a place in Athens also,” she developed a faraway look in her eyes. “My mother died when I was young, leaving him and my two other sisters—I am the middle.”
The subject must’ve been a sensitive one as Kaliopi changed it abruptly. Her distant look cleared and as she shook her head as if to clear it, snapping back to the present and said, “Why don’t you come to my Athens home this weekend, so we can escape this place?” Seriously, I’ve just met this girl and she’s inviting me to her home? And she’s got two of them?
“You must be incredibly rich.”
“Pah! In Greece, many people keep their family homes in their village for generations and pass them on down the family line. They also have a place in the city where they move to work. Rarely do people take out these mortgage things. I am amazed to learn that in your country, people continue into their fifties to owe banks for their homes…the banks own you, can you not see that?”
I guess I’d never really looked at it like that…I’d always seen taking out a bank loan to buy a house as the norm. Kaliopi’s father lived in the Peloponnese family home whilst she stayed in the Athens apartment, and it appeared they owned these outright.
“I used to work in the city, but I changed jobs. I’m only in this hole from hell village renting a place because the bank I work for has no vacancies in my line of work in Athens at the moment, but they did here.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I need to prove to those malakas in Head Office that I am—how you say? Bendy, that’s it—I must work in this place until a vacancy arises back in civilization.” This exchange had been emphasized with a variety of gestures that ended with her ramming her index finger with finality onto the table and sweeping her arm around her. She really doesn’t like it here…and what does she mean by being ‘bendy?’ I already understood malakas, thanks to my introduction with the teens yesterday.
“Ah, Kaliopi, I think you mean you’re being flexible,” I stifled a laugh as I decided that now might be a good opportunity to correct her English.
“Yes, bendy, flexible—what is the difference?” Kaliopi shrugged, regarding me with one eye closed against her cigarette smoke.
“Well, bendy refers to a person’s suppleness and…” I smiled, deciding to let the matter drop. I didn’t intend to put my teacher’s hat on right this minute, and besides Kaliopi looked in danger of dropping off to sleep.
We ate in silence for a while. “I need your advice,” Kaliopi suddenly perked up. “After all, you are a foreigner and not from the village, so you are sane and will have a more open mind and not judge me, since you’ve just met me. I had a man spend last Friday night at my flat in Athens. Then on Saturday, my other male friend came to stay. Was it impolite for me not to change the bed sheets after the first man?”
Spluttering on my drink, I wondered if the question was once again a rhetorical one, or if it actually required an answer. The dilemma seemed to resolve itself as Kaliopi continued, “I think in future I must change the sheets when this happens. I cannot have them smelling of different men; it is not the proper way for a young lady to conduct herself.” I glanced at her; she was in a world of her own, quite content to be open and frank with me, despite the fact we’d only known each other for an hour. I was rapidly discov
ering Kaliopi’s boundaries were vastly different from mine, yet I found this refreshing…I wonder if this is a Greek thing or a Kaliopi thing?
My second day at school went surprisingly well. Maybe my spirits had been lifted by my chance encounter with Kaliopi that morning. I hadn’t seen Konstantinos or his entourage again, but a new group of kids in their early teens had been decidedly quieter than yesterday’s classes, yet still keen to ask questions.
“You have seen the Big Ben, Kyria?” asked one boy.
“We don’t use the definite article in front of ‘Big…’” I started to explain, and then stopped and smiled…plenty of time for teaching verbs, and it was my first day with this particular class.
“Yes, I have. Big Ben is in which city?”
“The London in the England” a young girl proudly stated. I’m going to have my work cut out for me, I thought, but at least they weren’t chewing gum and their geography’s good.
“That’s right,” I said, and I gave them homework to write a small paragraph about what they knew about London and the UK.
I also seemed to develop a better rapport with the teachers today; “I live just around the corner from you,” Manos said after a discussion in the staffroom. It turned out he was Greek Australian and had moved back to the motherland to be with his elderly parents. “I’ll give you a lift back in the evening, save you waiting for a bus.” He also introduced me to spanakopita—feta cheese and spinach pie.
“Just wait here, I won’t be long.” School had finished and we were on our way home. Manos gestured for me to stay sitting in his car as he stopped at a little roadside place at the edge of a cotton field, conversed with the owner for a few minutes and purchased something in a brown paper bag. Is this some sort of inner Greek town mafia-style drug deal? No, it’s my imagination running riot again. It was merely a spinach pie. For some reason, I felt a little let down.
“Get that down you,” Manos said in his slight Australian twang, tossing the paper bag onto my lap as he climbed back into the car. “It’s the best around here.”
He was right—I savoured the softness of the cheese, the slightly bitter tang of the spinach and what tasted like spring onions and yes, I certainly did get it down me: mostly the front of my shirt as the filo pastry crumbled everywhere.
Later, in bed, I rolled over and eyed the clock—midnight. I’d been home for two hours and made the mistake of making my first Greek coffee about an hour ago. Kaliopi’s comments made me feel that I needed to prove her wrong, that I was ready for Greek coffee. Judging by the slight tremors in my hands, I didn’t think it was a sign that I was going crazy (yet), nor that the spanakopita contained some sort of drug—rather that Greek coffee shouldn’t be drunk so late at night.
Lying flat on my back with one arm bent over my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling and contemplated my day; delicious food and interesting characters. Bring it on.
I’d finished work around seven that evening. “I’ll take the bus tonight,” Manos wasn’t due to finish until nine.
“Have fun,” he’d responded, grinning as he looked up from his marking. I gave him a questioning look, but he wouldn’t elaborate further…I soon understood.
The small village where the school was located had the main highway to Athens cutting through the middle of it. I say ‘highway’—this consisted of only two lanes. Outside a periptero—a small yellow kiosk found everywhere in Greece selling newspapers, magazines, cigarettes and sweets, the newsagent’s equivalent—was a small shelter, a sign with a crudely drawn bus attached to it. This, I assumed correctly, was the bus stop.
Once on board, I saw most people were sitting on the aisle seat with their belongings stacked next to them, occupying the otherwise empty window seat. Surely they’ll just see me and move their things to make room, I reasoned, but no, it seemed that Greek bus logic was different. I began to feel uncomfortable after standing beside a middle aged lady for half a minute, and the bus was on its way already. She showed no signs of moving or even acknowledging my existence, so I cleared my throat, pointed to the window seat beside her, and smiled. She slowly tilted her head in my direction, placed her sunglasses on top of her head and making direct eye contact, she snorted and indicated the row behind with a jab of her thumb. I glanced at the alternative suggestion, but the aisle seat next to the empty window seat was occupied by an Orthodox priest. Is it taboo for a female to sit next to a priest? I knew it wasn’t allowed in Sri Lanka, so I once again pointed to the spare seat next to the woman. She responded by crossing her arms, closing her eyes, and pretending to fall asleep.
It was time to get down and dirty. I was fed up by this point, so grabbing the woman’s belongings, I placed them in the overhead rack and squeezed myself into the seat next to her. I contemplated treading on her foot, but didn’t, yet braced myself for some sort of retaliation, given my brazenness. I was surprised when she shuffled slightly to allow me to manoeuvre past—albeit with lots of tutting and muttering, but nothing worse. Clearly she didn’t begrudge me doing any of her work and so, having won that particular round, I mentally licked my index finger and drew a ‘one’ in the air, smiling as the bus trundled through the growing dusk to the village. Mastered the art of dealing with the locals on buses; don’t take any rubbish from them.
After a 15 minute ride, the bus pulled up outside a taverna in my village—this was our bus stop. Here I found Kaliopi standing in jogging pants and running shoes. I grinned at my new friend, who was bouncing up and down on the spot. She grabbed my hand, “Come. I’ve done another six kilo run and need a coffee and baklava…you’re joining me.”
“Kilometre Kaliopi, it’s Kilometre” I decided her English education would start now.
“Yes, you and your bendy/flexible/kilo/kilometre…whatever. ‘You say tom-ah-to, I say tom-ay-to’ blah blah…let’s just go get coffee.”
“Go and get coffee…” I started, but stopped yet again with an internal shrug of my shoulders. Plenty of time to correct my bombastic friend.
Settling into our riverside spot with the refreshments, Kaliopi shook out a crumpled cigarette of some indeterminate local make, lit it with a disposable Bic and held it between her manicured fingers, attempting to blow a smoke ring, frowning as she failed to.
“A cigarette...after jogging?”
She patted my knee and blew smoke from the side of her mouth, “My dear, you haven’t been in Greece long enough to know that everything about this country, including its people, is contradictory. Give it time; you’ll see. Now, how was your second full day at school?”
I mentally rehashed my day:
“Kyria Rachel, thank you for saying not a thing to Kyria Stella, she likes to pull the ear” Konstantinos had said that afternoon. I hadn’t had time to ponder if this was an exaggeration, a mis-use of the phrase ‘pull my leg’ (highly doubtful as I wouldn’t have put Mrs Stella down as one to joke with her students—actually, not anyone come to that) or if it was possibly true—and I wouldn’t put it past her. I didn’t get time, however, to investigate if this was indeed the case because a few minutes later I’d had to separate Konstantinos and Dimitra—she’d been about to start throwing punches. Apparently Konstantinos had made an inappropriate comment about her mother.
My classroom looked out onto the back garden of the school, still filled with summer flowers, a little overgrown but with a delightful lemon tree in the centre, I’d taken them by their wrists into the area and demanded, “OK, fight it out like proper adults then. Come on! What are you waiting for?” The other students all looked out of the window, eagerly awaiting the result. And was that a few Euro notes being swapped between a couple of people? Maybe they were placing bets. My ploy had worked though; I’d realised the situation could have gone either way—they would either simmer down, or fight, albeit verbally. Fortunately they chose the former. Looking at me as if I was slightly mad, (they’d still not recovered from the cow incident), Konstantinos and Dimitra had slunk back into the room, the rest back to their
chairs (Euros exchanged back) and settled into an uneasy silence. I’d figured that the best thing was to beat my students at their own game. When working in a mental asylum, best to behave as if you’re madder than the inmates, right?
Having (at least for the moment) defused the tension, and in the light of the near fracas that’d occurred, I’d proceeded to change the lesson plan. The class would discuss what attracts men and women to each other and then as a homework assignment, prepare a Personal Advertisement in English.
“I think two of my teenage students, who appear to detest each other, will end up getting married and having kids,” I now told Kaliopi, “and I think that my boss doesn’t like me.” This was based on Mrs Stella’s general demeanour.
“Ah,” she said, dragging heavily on her cigarette and closing her eyes in bliss as she inhaled, “you are too sensitive. You have yet to toughen yourself to the Greek way of being. When we have something to say, we say it…unlike you British, who take an hour to come out with what they really want to say. Look at our language structure by comparison. Let’s suppose you want to know the time.”
“Ok then, ask me like I’m a stranger” I was intrigued.
“We’d simply ask you what the time is. You Brits use so much language! For example, ‘Excuse me, but would you happen to have the time, please?’ If you said that to a Greek, he’d probably reply, ‘Yes, I do,’ and then you would have to ask a follow up question, asking him to tell you what the time actually was. You people are so caught up with being polite and false and fake and nice to each other that you never get down to the point at hand. Your boss, it’s that Mrs Stella woman right? Yes, she’s known around these parts as being cold-hearted…I hear things at work…but she’s also probably just being her normal self. I mean, she doesn’t dislike you, how can she? She doesn’t know you well enough yet to have formed an opinion. And if she doesn’t like you, at least she’s being honest to your face about it.” Kaliopi said all of this without pausing for breath.
Girl Gone Greek Page 4