The barb about being too sensitive had stung—rather proving the point at hand. I grimaced slightly, but Kaliopi hadn’t finished.
“Yes,” she continued, “we here in Greece, we fight—how you say, like cat and mouse? —but at least we get it over and finished with. We scream. I tried to scratch my sister Stavroula’s eyes out once,” she reflected rather flippantly, her own eyes clouding at the memory. “We throw things, but then it is finished. You people? You let things build inside of you for months on end. You hold—how you say, grudges—you know these grudge things that are unhealthy and ultimately lead to cancer?”
I desperately wanted to point out that the little white tube Kaliopi was dragging on as if her life depended on it was more likely to cause cancer, but I was starting to get a feel for my friend’s character now—passionate about any topic she spoke about—and I didn’t want to interrupt her flow. I also didn’t have the energy at that moment to correct her English and tell her the expression was to ‘fight like cat and dog.’ Besides, I wondered if Kaliopi had a point: Do we hold onto things for too long? I had to admit that in my short time here, I’d certainly observed people blowing up at each other one minute, only to be friends the next—Konstantinos and Dimitra were a perfect example, as were the two men I’d observed that first morning from my hotel balcony in Piraeus.
We finished up our coffee (tea for me) and baklava, and then I meandered through the darkening streets of the village, back up the steep, steep hill to my little flat. Although it was growing dark, I didn’t feel in any way threatened. People of all ages were still sitting outside cafés at tables on the pavement laughing, smoking, playing tavli. Kids as young as nine or ten years were running around. This is nice. Young and old seem to mix all together. And I don’t see many people ordering alcoholic drinks either. Unlocking my front door I let out a gasp as I realised something; I’d been so caught up in the adventure of arriving and starting school, I’d neglected to call Dad and let him know how I was.
“Yes, Dad, my boss is fine. A bit cool, perhaps, but I’m beginning to get the hang of her.” Restraining any comments about Stamatis, his pervert friend, I assured Dad that my arrival in Athens had gone without a hitch. “Yes, he collected me and took me to the hotel,” was all I said.
“Your boss probably has very strong political views,” replied Dad. “They all do in Greece.”
I rolled my eyes and thanked God this was a voice and not video chat. Dad had always loved politics, and the phone conversation spared me a lecture about the history of Greece and how it shaped its present generation, which would no doubt have taken place if this were a face-to-face discussion. Quite how Mrs Stella’s coolness transmuted in my father’s mind to a strong interest in politics was beyond me, but anyway…
My mind wandered back to the conversation. He was reminiscing about his experiences with the Greeks and their culture. Occasionally I had to bite my tongue: they weren’t ‘real’ everyday Greeks…these were Greeks in the shipping world—the very rich who had a worldview quite different from that of the everyday citizen. I’d have loved Dad to meet the old man with his tea and honey down the street.
“Rachel love? What do you think?”
“I think I might like it here long term, Dad. I’ve met an interesting woman who I go for coffee with; she’s helping to educate me in all things Greek.”
“I thought you might,” he observed. “Keep in touch sweetheart, and don’t let the students get to you too much.”
Autumn
My time in the village began to settle into a routine. Every second Wednesday a laiki, or Farmer’s Market came to town in the morning and took over the entire street at the bottom of the hill. If the village hadn’t already made me feel as if I was far removed from British culture, the experience of this fortnightly event made me feel almost Mediterranean, even if I didn’t need to buy anything, I looked forward to meandering through the stalls just to hear the cries of the fruit and vegetable sellers, marvel at the different products for sale—from fresh fruit and vegetables to lace lingerie. Elderly ladies dressed in black from head to toe came to haggle with the stallholders whilst they in turn chased off young gypsy children trying to steal an apple or two.
Once the students at school became accustomed to my unorthodox methods, they soon settled and knuckled down to studying and learning.
The lesson following Konstantinos and Dimitra’s fight proved interesting. They’d created their own personal advertisement (minus their names) and described themselves in a variety of ways: “Like disco” —I discovered this was Dimitra, “Like eating rabbit” —Konstantinos handed this to me with a wide grin. I pinned these up at the front of the classroom, divided into boy and girl sections and asked the girls to each choose a boy whose description sounded intriguing, and vice versa. Konstantinos and Dimitra picked each other, supporting my theory that they would, indeed, eventually marry and have many children.
“No Miss!” Dimitra wailed when she found out that the rabbit eater was her arch-enemy. She threw Konstantinos a look of disgust, which Konstantinos returned with interest.
I soon became aware, though, that they lacked any meaningful knowledge of the outside world.
“Paris is a great country city” I corrected a sentence in an essay from Litza. She could’ve just made an English language mistake, but it was best to set the record straight.
The next time Konstantinos and his motley crew came to class I’d pinned a world map to the back wall with a red coloured pin in the UK and a blue one in Greece.
“Where’s France, Litza?” I handed her a white pin. Litza wandered up to the map, umm-ed and ahh-ed for about a minute, then stuck it in the correct place.
“And what’s the capital…anyone?”
“Paris, obviously Kyria.” Litza chose to answer. She looked very pleased with herself.
“Well done! Yes, obviously, but be sure to double check your homework in the future for any mistakes.” OK, I’ll let the matter drop then. At least she’s got it correct. Taking care not to boast, I then started to reminisce about my worldwide travels.
“Miss, call out the countries you’ve been to, we’ll find them and place a pin on the map” said Konstantinos, taking the initiative for once. Soon the map became an interesting array of colours and I began to see my role not only as a teacher here, but also to help broaden their horizons and stimulate an interest in other cultures. The class was a great success, and I decided to do something similar with the younger children. Bettina and her group chose to pair up to research various countries. By the end of the week, there were a variety of colourful posters on my classroom walls with pictures ranging from Spaniards dancing the flamenco to the mountainous beauty of New Zealand.
While I was popular with the students, I still felt unwelcomed by the other teachers. Although Manos drove me home from work and would often stop by the roadside café to purchase the renowned spanakopita, Helena, Eleni and Alexandra still acted cool. I’d tried to initiate discussions with them in the staffroom, but I’d had no joy. They’d smile politely, then Eleni would then stick in her headphones and Helena and Alexandra would pop off to buy a coffee together, never asking if I wanted one.
On the other hand, Mrs Stella was acting much more warmly. She’d occasionally call me into the office to ask my advice about particular students—what did I think of so-and-so and how was so-and-so’s behaviour in my class.
Maybe this is why they’re funny: she seems to talk to me more than them.
“And Konstantinos, he is behaving himself, no? He knows he’s attractive, and I fear his ego gets in the way.”
“I’m finding ways to keep them out of mischief.” I smiled at the memory of Konstantinos’s face when he discovered his preferred date was Dimitra. I wasn’t going to be sycophantic, but Mrs Stella was the most important person for me to get along with—especially as I was living in an apartment in her house. I was enjoying teaching the kids and having Kaliopi as a friend. She certainly made lif
e interesting! I knew I couldn’t be liked by everybody, so I was just going to have to stop trying so hard. It was a good principle to live by, but maybe I should also think about applying it to my relationship with Kirsty?
At Kaliopi’s insistence, I agreed to join her in Athens on the last weekend of October.
“You have been in my beautiful country for over a month and still have not been to its capital city. An important weekend in Greece’s history is coming up, and Athens will be the perfect place to experience it. Besides, you need to get out of this hole of shit. You are becoming like one of them, a local.”
I smiled. I didn’t see the village as a “hole of shit”. She might, but I hadn’t tired of its rugged mountains and quaint shops yet. But Kaliopi did have a point: I hadn’t been to Athens and had no idea what the weekend of 28 October meant in Greek history. What better way to find out than with my Greek friend?
That was how, on Friday night after school, I found myself standing with Kaliopi at the village railway station, waiting for the last train to whisk us to Athens.
“Ah yes, this is an important weekend. Go! I will cover your remaining class of the day; you need to make that train. Go and learn!” Mrs Stella had been uncharacteristically generous and enthusiastic. I wondered what, exactly, I might learn this weekend?
“We’ll be arriving in the capital pretty late, eleven p.m.” I said, eyeing the quaint station, complete with its stone cottage railway house with an incongruous-looking thatched roof.
“Don’t be silly” snorted Kaliopi, who was wearing what could only described as a clubbing outfit of black high heels, a navy blue sequined skirt, red vest top with a pink rose pinned over the left breast her black jacket only just covered. “You have surely been here long enough to understand that it is not until 1 a.m. that things start—how you say? —‘hotting the up’ in Greece. But of course,” she patted my hand in sympathy, “you have been stuck here in this hole of shit the whole time, so you are turning into a Hillbill.”
“Hillbilly,” I automatically corrected as I looked down at my jeans, Marks-and-Spencer t-shirt and trainers. I suddenly felt under-dressed and far too plain in comparison. I smiled at my friend’s skewed English but,
reflecting on my own dress sense of late, I thought: Maybe I am turning into a hillbill.
“We will go out straight from the train and meet some of my friends. You will get an education this weekend, my dear, a lesson about our history and a lesson on how genuine Greek people really are—not these hillbills.” Kaliopi had a habit of not really paying any attention to the English corrections I made. That—and the fact I was becoming increasingly aware that it was quite rare for me to actually get a word in edgeways around my friend—made me wonder if she ever really listened to me at all.
“Are you like this with everybody?” I asked her.
“Actually, I have complaints from my sisters that I talk too much, is that what you mean? Come to think of it, my other friends tell me the same. Is it true? Do I talk too much? It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your friendship.”
I was saved from answering as a growing rumble from the tracks announced the approaching southbound train. We were the only ones on the platform.
“Come along” yelled Kaliopi above the noise of the screeching brakes. She boarded the carriage and held out her hand. “Let us leave this Railway Children station for the lights and the action!” Smiling, I allowed myself be swept along by her current high.
“What do you know about The Railway Children?”
“I watched it when I was younger, and this station always reminds me of it. Probably the only nice thing about this shit hole.”
“Hey! You said it right.”
I settled into a big, comfy seat whilst Kaliopi wandered off. So, not quite the old Soviet-style carriages I’d been anticipating, then, I thought. The train was more spacious than the trains in the UK, and cheaper given the two-and-a-half-hour journey. Kaliopi tottered back with two steaming cups.
“Coffee for me, and of course, the tea for you.”
Ahh, Athens. I drew in a deep breath of air, and started to cough.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kaliopi advised. “You’re not in the village now. Athens has been labelled as the smokiest city in the world.”
“Smoggiest. And what about Beijing?”
“So, I have changed my mind,” Kaliopi continued, once again ignoring my correction and question. “We will go to my apartment, get you something else to wear,” she gave me the once over “and then we shall go out about one a.m. to meet Dimitrios and Nektarios. Oh, and probably Melanthi and anyone else that turns up.” I stifled a yawn. How does she do it? And I didn’t start my day until about two p.m…she’s been up since 6, probably running too!
“Come, we need to get the trolley to my apartment. And be careful around here—there are some strange people.”
“Stranger than you?” I joked with her. This time she reacted.
“Yes, believe it or not, I am one of the tamer Greeks.”
She was right about the strange people: on the way to the trolley, whatever the hell that was, we found ourselves walking through a crowd of young Greeks with black scarves wrapped around their faces, wielding steel baseball bats. Kaliopi cleared a path straight through the middle of them and they parted like the Red Sea.
“Kaliopi!” I hissed. “Shouldn’t we cross over to the other side of the road?”
“Eh? Don’t mind these idiots,” she said, a little too loudly for my liking. “We are the ‘right colour.’ Just hold your head high and they will leave us alone. Besides, they are probably admiring your English rose complexion, despite your jeans and that awful t-shirt.” I was left to ponder the remark about “being the right colour,” but decided not to push the matter further. I’d discovered, in my limited time in Greece, that one of its drawbacks was a significant lack of tolerance towards immigration, rather like British attitudes back in the 1950s.
As we stepped through the small gathering, I did indeed notice that they were paying me no attention whatsoever.
“So what exactly are they doing, casually hanging around on the street corner with baseball bats?” I asked her, once we’d passed.
She stopped and turned to face me, causing me to bump into her.
“Rachel, I don’t know the workings of the minds of stupid people. We’re not in a particularly ‘nice’ area of Athens, the train station never has been. Maybe they feel they’re protecting the area…a Greek vigilante group? If you’re that intrigued, go and ask them.”
“I think I’ll give that a miss, thanks.” Despite her frivolousness, I felt safe around Kaliopi. I allowed her to lead.
Suddenly, “Quick, run!” she yelled, grabbing my hand and tugging me into the road.
Oh God, we thought we were safe, but they’re after us! I glanced back. But no; they were still just hanging around, some smoking, others chatting, drinking frappes from plastic cups—all looking bored. Up ahead, I saw a yellow “bus” pull up, with antennae on its roof attached to two parallel overhead wires that were dangling over the road. It was towards this that Kaliopi was dragging me.
“Ah, that is better,” she sighed after sinking into the seat. “These dashes for the trolley always leave me short of the breath. Now then, we will get you into my flat, re-dress you, and you will be ‘as rain as right’ as you say in your country.”
Ninety minutes later, I found myself sitting in a cosy bar, sipping hot chocolate. I was increasingly enjoying evenings in Greece as I realised the people had a much more civilized approach to a night out: no-one seemed to give a damn that I didn’t want an alcoholic drink…there was no pressure. I was squeezed between two of Kaliopi’s friends—Nektarios and Dimitrios—having first shoehorned my upper body into what can only be described as a black boob tube. It turned out this was the only item of clothing Kaliopi had that fitted my larger frame, and it went well with my jeans and trainers.
Nektarios was tall, wi
th a strong, square jawline and short-cropped black hair. He wore black cargo trousers and a black t-shirt. He’d nodded at me, but seemed a little moody. Trying to be polite and remembering my students’ enquiries into my own black clothes, I asked him if anyone had passed away in his family lately. “What have you been teaching her there in the countryside, Kalipoi?” Nektarios looked at me quizzically. OK then, I thought, it’s just his dress sense. Clearly it fits his Mr Darcy image. I smiled, a little embarrassed, not least because it was rather difficult not to stare at him.
By contrast, Dimitrios was only just slightly taller than Mr Ilias. He wore colourful trousers, a bright purple t-shirt and had the loveliest smile that touched his eyes, in contrast with Nektraias’s smouldering moodiness.
Moving on from my comment about black clothing, they started in on my education: the significance of the next day; the 28th of October.
“It’s ‘Ochi Day’”, Nektarios began. “‘Ochi’ means ‘No’ in Greek. It’s the date in 1940 that our Prime Minister, Ioannis Metaxas, refused Mussolini’s ultimatum to surrender to Italy. We entered the Second World War on that day—we said ‘OCHI!!’ to that asshole,” Nektarios finished loudly by raising his fist in the air. OK then, moody yet passionate, I concluded.
“Ochi!!” shouted the occupants of several tables around them who’d heard this exchange, again with the raised fist. “Ochi!!” yelled an elderly gentleman, raising his fist as he passed by outside under the open windows of the bar.
“Wow, that day certainly has significance and support around here. Unfortunately kids in our country don’t pay much attention to significant historical events. And I’m sorry, I don’t know the exact date Britain entered World War Two,” I admitted.
“Er… Rachel,” said Dimitrios, “I don’t want to sound critical of your nation, but you all seem a little apathetic and appear to neither know nor want to learn about important events that shaped your country. This is a shame; it makes your people appear shallow and uneducated, which clearly you are not.” He finished, beaming that smile of his, dissolving any insult I may have felt.
Girl Gone Greek Page 5