Nikos would not remember the wedding or the birth of the first two children, but the baptism of John’s and Vaso’s third child would stay etched in his mind like the memory of a first kiss. He had been a young boy waiting at the church gates for the baptism to begin so that he could slip away unnoticed. Church events were not his favorite.
The nifi’s brother from Athens arrived with his children. Nikos was awestruck by the vision of their 1964 black Mercedes sports coupe, crawling through the donkey-sized streets of the village, a village that, until that moment had seen only a handful of cars. The most memorable was a 1958 Mercedes sedan which had ended up an empty shell on cinderblocks after the owner sold the parts and abandoned it near the preschool, its body transformed into a clubhouse by Nikos and his friends.
But that day, the sports coup approached the village square with the sun reflecting off the windshield, blinding anyone that tried to see within. And Nikos watched, mouth agape, his eleven-year-old eyes wide with wonder as the car rolled to a stop within the walls of the church yard and a young red-headed girl emerged from the back seat, her breasts pushing out of a tight blouse, her hips swiveling inside what much of the world was learning to be a mini skirt, and music coming from the open windows of the car, not clarinets or bouzouki, but The Beatles wafting like the scent of juniper into the air.
“. . . Ooh, ooh. . . I saw her standing there. . .”
The music stopping abruptly as the car engine cut, and Nikos was changed forever with that slight breeze of the outside world that had blown into the church yard and managed to open the door to the valley ever so slightly.
CHAPTER 7
Why had I left Long Island to spend a summer alone in a foreign country with two small children? I would tell people, that I thought it was important for Nikki and Thomas to see where their father had grown up, and that was true—partially. Our life back in the U.S. was so difficult, the prospect of being alone in a poor remote area of the world where I could not communicate, alone with two small toddlers, one not yet toilet trained, seemed like it might be a refreshing relief from the daily grind of survival back home.
The 1980s in the U.S., according to history, were an era of prosperity. For Nick and me, it was the beginning of a two decade long struggle that would cement our alliance in our fight for a future. At that point I was the wife of a Greek immigrant who was working as a cook in a diner. And as I acquired the knowledge that went with that role, I learned also that without health insurance, the medical profession wanted cash only. The birth of our first child had taken every penny we had saved. But that first hospital bill, with its fifty dollar aspirin and the full day charge for a hospital room that I had checked into only a few minutes before midnight, prompted us, as I went into labor with our second child, to throw some pain reliever into my overnight bag, and then to sit in the parking lot of Smithtown General Hospital, practicing Lamaze-breathing with every contraction until the clock on the dashboard safely passed into the morning of the next billable day. For immunizations we needed cash. Doctor visits: cash. In those days, pharmacies were not the enormous one-stop shopping that they are today, but I could use my credit card there for medication, as well as diapers, shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries. Using a credit card in a supermarket, though, would not become customary for many more years, so I would put a few food items on the belt, calculating with fingers crossed, asking the cashier for a subtotal after each item.
The debt grew and so did the frustration. I longed to be the television mom of my youth, but I was back at work within weeks after Thomas was born. I worked late nights, waiting on tables, and then dropped into bed not much before Nick was waking to start his twelve hour day, and the children were still too small to sleep past dawn.
Some might have seen futility in our struggle, but they couldn’t have known how we came together in stolen moments of plans and promises, supporting each other like the rock-hard cement of the foundation beneath out home. And slowly the delicate tendrils of our dreams began to grow, reaching out to one another through time, sustained by hope, eventually becoming one thick vine moving upward, nourished in the light of the sun.
So knowing the routine that awaited me back home, I approached that summer's adventures with optimism. After the OTE phone call in Igoumenitsa it was determined that we needed to continue on to our destination: Margariti. So we drove in Christos’ tiny green car, packed to the brim with Vaso in the front, one child on her lap and I in the backseat with the other three wedged between our belongings. Car seats and seatbelts were not even a remote thought.
The car whined as it bottomed out on the rocks embedded in the dirt of the hill that would eventually be called a driveway, and then it cried to a stop in the courtyard between the main structure and the small house.
Chevi sat with another woman in the shade of the big house at the bottom of the stairs. She put a pan of onions aside and came to the car. The other woman had been spinning a line of shredded sheep’s hair onto a small hand-sized piece of round wood—making yarn. She placed it carefully on the steps and followed Chevi. At the sight of the children, as they piled from the car, the two older women called to them in delight and began kissing, hugging, grabbing, and chattering loudly between themselves and then to Vaso while Christos removed our belongings from the car. And then the other woman grabbed little Thomas.
“Thomooli!” she cried, and before he thought to escape, she had his head in her hands.
“My name’s Thomas!” He tried to speak as loudly as he could with his mouth pushed sideways by the hands that sandwiched his face, kisses being planted on his cheeks and forehead, his grimace ignored.
The three little girls, Nikki and her cousins, heard his distress and banned together singing, “Thomooli, Thomooli, Thomooli. . .”
“My name is Thomas!”
It was characteristic of his reaction at times in the U.S. when someone would call him Tom or Tommy assumingly, and he would yell, “My name is Thomas!” which would result in laughter from the adult who had unknowingly threatened to alter his identity. And that is what happened then, in the yard with Chevi and her friend.
Thomooli, meaning little Tomas, is what the villagers would call him until he became taller than his grandfather. But at that time, he never accepted it and would correct anyone who made the error, “My name is Thomas!”
I looked around as I helped empty the car. The area seemed to have fallen into further disarray since my first visit. I wondered about the bathroom since municipal water lines had been connected to each house. Eventually, I would see a haphazardly constructed room with a square in one corner, made from mismatched tiles, the shower head, laying at the end of the snaking hose on the floor which Nick would alter to have coming from the wall, American-style, when he arrived the following month. There was a dwarf of a sink and a toilet—a working, flushing toilet. It was all a wonderful sight! And it was on the ground floor. I would still have to walk across the courtyard if I needed it at night, but at least it wasn’t up the uneven stairs. The long distant phone calls between Chevi’s children had also resulted in a roof on the big house and with it, the memory of the fire faded further. A kitchen was also created next to the bathroom with a working sink, a gas stove and a small refrigerator standing along one wall. All were welcome improvements.
Vaso and Christos spent the day with their children and left the next morning. Nikki and Thomas stayed glued to my side for the first week. We often walked down to the farm with Chevi. The children would feed leaves to the goats and run around with the dog until they were brown with the dry summer dust that settled on everything. We’d go back to the house, wash up and go out for an evening stroll into town. Fotis had acquired a café, so that was usually our destination after a brief stop at the preschool playground which consisted of a small metal push-carousel and some monkey bars. After our evening out, we’d walk back home and sit and look at the starlit sky.
“Look at that moon.”
Both children
sat on my lap on a wooden chair in the yard, their heads bent upward, resting on my shoulder.
“Let’s blow a kiss to it,” I’d say as I put a hand to my lips and blew my kiss and they’d do the same as they mimicked me. “That's the same moon that Daddy sees. He'll be looking up at it too and he’ll get our kisses and send us back some!”
I missed Nick intensely.
I don’t remember how I figured it out, but I eventually realized the bus to Parga made a stop around ten in the morning every weekday out on the main road. So one day, we went and stood at the spot where Nick and I had been dropped off a few years before. Sure enough, people began to gather on the opposite side and seeing our beach garb, they beckoned to us, so we crossed the hot asphalt and waited with them. The bus came. I was able to read the destination in Greek letters. Parga. The ticket writer would not take my money. He handed me the tickets and pointed to an older couple at the back of the bus. Chevi’s neighbors, Cochos and Cochina were there with three of their grandsons. I understood their smiles. I waved and smiled back at them and when the bus stopped on the corner near the high school on the outskirts of Parga, we disembarked and I followed them, my two children hand-in-hand beside me, to the beach named Piso-Krioneri which means behind-cold-water, but I had wanted to go to the heart of town where the main beach was, but I was too unsure. I gladly accepted their coaxing gestures, following them like a duckling to the water and we would be beach companions for most of that month.
Nikki was very wary of the water and wanted to sit on the towel or walk in up to her knees, but Thomas jumped in and splashed, laughing and screaming. He wanted to go out further but Nikki’s protests stopped us.
After a few hours, Cochina would begin collecting the towels, yelling to her grandchildren. We’d walk to a café, the same one everyday, where Cochos would talk with the proprietor who would bring us into the kitchen and show us what had been cooked that day, and after much conversing between them and with his wife and his grandchildren, food would be ordered.
“I’m starved!” Nikki would say or Thomas would point, “I want that,” as we passed a table with food.
I had mistakenly believed Cochos to be an old villager with limited funds and could not bare to be a burden on him—but my children were hungry. I would wave off his frequent and fervent offers as he pushed plates of fried potatoes, chicken, colorful salads toward me, eyeing me with frustration as I picked at the food insuring that what had been ordered would satisfy all the little ones. I didn’t understand the importance of accepting his offer of food, the underlying offer of friendship, but also the grave responsibility that he felt, that he was unable to express to me:
“Your mother-in-law is our neighbor. Our friend. A kind of family member. We know the stress you feel in a place you cannot speak. You are young. Your children need food. Let us care for you.”
The green beans, the okra, the garlic and yogurt sauce all tried to convey that message but to no avail, as my children and the others at the table fed their ravenous appetites. I would learn later that Cochos had worked many years in Germany, had brought his Greek-speaking wife and children there for a time, but during that summer he was enjoying retirement and the fruits of that labor with a generous pension that converted drachmas into a restful life on the Greek countryside.
But, those excursions did teach me the process for getting food in those old-time cafes and after a while, I found my courage and ventured away from Margariti alone with the children, spending every day in Parga—swimming, eating, hiking up the steep stairs to the castle and back, napping in the cool shade until the evening bus dropped us, toasted and salty back at the Margariti roadside.
One morning, Nikki decided she had had enough of the beach.
“I don’t wanna go!” She stood with her hands on her hips, “I wanna stay with my yiayia.”
Her yiayia was Chevi and I knew that Chevi was still attending to her dying father.
“C’mon, Nikki, we’ll come back on the earlier bus.” I was shoving beach towels into a large black canvas bag that was set on the table under the grape arbor.
“No, I’m staying,” her lips folded into a pout.
Well, I certainly did not want to drag a crying child to the bus stop.
Chevi rounded the corner of the house with a basket of wet laundry. She listened and watched as she began hanging the damp clothes with pins on the line.
She sensed the conversation between us and walked over to where we were standing. With much gesturing and a few Greek words and phrases, we arranged to have Nikki stay with her while Thomas and I went to Parga. I brought Nikki into the house and showed her the clock.
“When the little hand is on the two, we’ll be back.” I worried that she would change her mind once we had left, but she seemed unfazed.
I spent an uneasy day at the beach with Thomas and came home on the first bus, eager to see my little girl. As it turned out, she felt the lucky one, having remained in Margariti.
“I goed up a mountain and yiayia gived me cookies and I helped papou Tomas clean my shoes,” she proclaimed with the breathless joy only a child can produce.
Actually, she had accompanied Chevi on the steep trail to her father’s house and had been distracted with a box of cookies while Chevi tended to her father. Then, on the way back, she had run onto the newly tarred road and had gotten clumps of black goo all over her sneakers. In her three-year-old mind, she had been on an exciting adventure.
Soon after that, there must have been a funeral because I know that John died that summer, but I do not recall seeing or hearing anything that indicated it. I’m sure Chevi and her daughters went to great lengths to keep that information from us.
I learned so much Greek in that month before Nick arrived. I was so lonely for adult company, if someone invited me into the yard as I walked past, I’d accept. Mostly, I just sat and nodded my head in agreement to whatever was said, “uhuh, oh yes” and they would talk and talk and I would smile without understanding a word, but I felt energized by the boldness of it.
But then Cochina came from across the street and took me to her house for coffee. I froze as I entered her doorway. Stunned. And then slowly I proceeded, looking around at the beautifully tiled floors, polished wooden ceilings, modern kitchen with: counters, cabinets, appliances, even a dishwasher! The lace curtains caught in the breeze and blew inward as we sat on her sofa and looked at family photo albums. She served us sweets on glass plates that looked like crystal. When I left that house, I was completely downtrodden. With a heavy sigh, I realized that I had not—in those two visits to Greece—been experiencing authentic rural life, but rather one family’s misery. As I walked back to the house, I began to understand Chevi’s reason for the animals, her daily escape from the squalor as she stopped to visit with friends on her way . . . and then I secretly hoped that she had found some kind of love on those walks down to the farm. As I climbed the driveway, and the disarray came into view, I began to see Margariti life through different eyes.
A few weeks later we met Nick and my parents at the Igoumenitsa port. Through Fotis, we had reserved a hotel room in Parga for my parents as I wasn’t sure they would be ready for the shock of the family house.
That night, I melted into Nick’s arms, inhaling deeply, feeling myself strengthen. After that, no one looked my way. Information was passed through him like a strainer. In the rare occasion where someone tried to speak to me, the gears that brought their words inward to be meshed with the English in my brain, appeared to grind too slowly, as the speaker would look toward Nick for his answer before I was able to pull the words out in my broken Greek. I felt it a small price to pay, to have the company of someone I could converse with.
My parents took a side-trip to Italy to visit my father’s relatives and they returned in time for Thomas’ baptism at the local church.
* * * *
Under the brightly painted icons, I moved toward my small son as I caught his wide eyes fixed on mine.
&
nbsp; “Mommy!” Thomas screamed as his fourteen-year-old Godfather, Akis, tried to disrobe him but in the panic, arms and legs became entangled in sleeves and pant legs.
“Mommy!”
“It’s okay; Akis won’t hurt you,” I said as I reached for him.
I helped Akis gently lift my son from his mangled clothing. Thomas liked his adolescent Godfather very much, as he was someone who always seemed to have time for fun, but that unwelcome new activity was now creating a scowl of distrust on Thomas’ face.
“No! go out.” His little finger pointed to the church door, but he was quickly whisked away and was being carried up to the caldron of holy water near the altar, his cries escalating, “mommy!”
I kept one hand on his warm back as I tried to keep pace with the others.
“I’m here honey . . . I’m here.”
“Hey! What are you doing to my brother!?” Nikki grabbed at the priest’s robes as he took the screaming little boy in his arms. She was ready to execute some kind of rescue as she pulled back her leg for a kick, but Nick scooped her into his arms. And I wondered at the wisdom of subjecting small children to such a ritual.
The relatives stood about with wide smiles, talking and pointing at Nikki as she continued her efforts.
“Hey!” From Nick’s arms she lunged forward to grab for the priest as he submerged Thomas up to his chest, and then she looked at me in wonder. “Mom!?”
“It’s okay . . . okay.” I held her hand. Her anger remained.
There were prayers and chanting between loud angry protests from Thomas. Water laced with olive oil was poured on his head. He sputtered and continued his cries. More praying, more oil, more water and after an eternity passed, it was over. He grabbed for me and I enveloped him in my arms, wrapped in a towel.
The Nifi Page 7