“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I whispered, my lips brushing his face lightly, “shhh, okay now,” and he was quiet.
The celebration was only a few steps from the church in Fotis’ café. The adults ate and drank and talked; I had my parents to talk to. The children ran around the giant tree near the café and played in the dirt beneath it, laughing and enjoying the common language of play.
* * * *
The following summer arrived with an empty bank account and the realization that there would be no Margariti-distraction from our daily grind in the U.S. We continued our grueling work routine, leaving our children in the care of family members on weekends, evenings, and holidays—all times that I ached to be with them—while we worked the back-breaking hours that were required. Nick and I talked often of alternative plans, searching for an answer. It was decided that he would find time in the evenings to go to school. He was much more knowledgeable than I about most subjects, so after his twelve hour shift in the diner, my parents watched the children as he went off to night school to get his GED—a high school diploma. He was frustrated by the language, and the instructor recommended something called ESL—but that would take so much longer. After much discussion and some gentle pushing from my youngest sister, Joanne, I decided that I would enroll in the local community college.
At that time, Joanne was enrolled in a university, on her way to a Bachelor’s degree. To the discomfort of my father, she had left her job at Grumman Aerospace, one he had taken great trouble to secure for her. As it happened, my parents, like many others of that time, saw the wisdom in encouraging their sons to further their education but did not see the reason to waste a girl’s time when her final destination was marriage. They did not have the foresight to realize that if marriage had been their only goal for their three daughters, then college would have provided a well-stocked dating pool. But soon after Joanne started the job in Grumman's personnel department, she was given a task that required her to enter employee salaries into a file. As she looked over the data, she suddenly realized that those with a college education were paid twice that of those without. That was the first secret she uncovered. The second one, which she tried to convey to me after completing her first semester, was that there were an awful lot of dummies at college and the “you’re not college material” that we had grown up with, did not seem to hold water. But I was in no way convinced. I had already walked down that road and seen for myself that I wasn’t smart enough to cut it.
Several years before, having left home to free myself from, what seemed to me to be oppressive parental rules, and to find my own space away from my younger siblings, I had moved to a basement apartment one town over and was waitressing in a diner. My brother, Jim, had convinced me to go to the community college by paying for it and persuasively suggesting that he was making a great living as a computer programmer and so could I. So I enrolled in Accounting Class and Cobalt Computer Language in the evenings. I played with the idea of taking an English class but then rejected it as others had told me that English would be too difficult. It had lots of reading and writing and talking about literature which sounded fascinating to me, but I knew I couldn’t trust my judgment; I just wasn’t smart enough. It turned out that I was right in that regard: I hated both classes and I squeaked by with a mediocre grade and then didn’t go back. I wasn’t college material.
But a few years later, with Joanne’s convincing, I thought that maybe a college course—just one . . . with no math or computers—could be an escape from the drudge that was pulling heavily at my psyche and possibly it might make waiting on tables bearable. So that summer I enrolled in Freshman English at Suffolk Community College which meant that Nick would have to work one more day, a full seven to pay for the class and make up for my decreased working hours.
At the end of six weeks, I stood in the kitchen of the apartment that my parents had added onto their home and I held my grade report for that semester.
“Oh no,” I looked at the rectangular paper and slowly ripped each perforated edge until it was open.
“This is it,” I whispered. Only Thomas was in the room, playing with toys on the tiled floor. He looked up when he heard me speak.
I slowly pulled the paper apart.
My scream startled him.
It was an A.
I picked him off the floor and threw him into the air. The ceiling fan almost clipped his head as he squealed in delight.
“An A . . . an A!”
One tiny printed letter—a work of art. I couldn’t stop looking at it.
I whispered to no one, “A,” and my lips curled to a smile. I giggled.
“An A.”
I was hooked. I wanted more of those.
So, I would continue on, working at night and going to school during the day as Nikki started kindergarten that autumn and Thomas came with me to the day care center on campus. I was the older woman in the class, ruining the grading curve. I was obsessed with being college material and eventually, I would go on to graduate cum laude with a Bachelors of Arts in English and then finish up with a Masters of Arts in the Speech and Hearing Sciences. In the end I would have certification and licensure for teaching secondary English, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), teaching the speech and hearing disabled, and working as a speech pathologist.
In those early days though, I would wake up at three in the morning to do my school work, then get Nikki and Thomas off to school before driving to my classes, and then home again before the afternoon school bus came. Then I was off to the restaurant to pick up dollars off tables. It was grueling but the alternative was worse. And I remember the wife of one of the restaurant owner’s saying to me, as I waited on her and her mother, “I could never do what you are doing; it’d be too unfair to my children,” her words scraping deeply at an open wound that would never heal.
But Nick remembered what he had been told long ago by the father of his friend, Vangelis.
“Someone has to lie down in the dirt, in order for the others to rise.”
It had been in response to a question Nick had asked about the success of that man’s children when all around seemed so poor.
So that year, Nick lay down, face first in the muck as I began my slow ten-year walk unsteadily across his back. At times I had to hold my arms out for balance as he rocked back and forth, in danger of drowning in the shit that was thrown at him, but he simply opened his mouth to swallow it and then settled into stillness, in an effort to make my trip smoother.
CHAPTER 8
In 1963, John’s new wife gave him his only son, Chevi’s half-brother, Costas. He would be the only one of John’s three children with Vaso to suffer from the skin disease—sentencing him to a lonely life in the village. The ouzo with which he medicated that loneliness would bring his life to an end forty six years later. But at that time, the status quo continued in Margariti. The men, the women, and the children all had roles well defined.
Several months before Costas’ birth, one day in the beginning of autumn, Chevi’s life and the lives of her children were once more dictated by the incompetence of those with power.
Intense heat seared through Anastasia’s skin. Escape was impossible. Her screams—the only tool she had to alert them—grew louder, but no one came to her rescue. It was burning the side of her face, melting her skin, making her head feel like the charred wood coals of the fourno which she did not yet know existed, but—because she was not a son—would soon become acquainted with, as she grew and learned to be a good wife. But then, she was only a small infant trapped in a cradle with narrow wooden sides. It had been place, earlier in the day, next to an empty unlit fireplace. Earlier, she had gurgled happily, waving her hands, watching the children play around her—unaware—as the fireplace walls became alit with burning twigs. But when the flames grew, and the heat rose and blazed within the fireplace, she became desperate for relief from the hurt that seemed to singe every nerve in her body. She was the newest addition to the fa
mily, baby Anastasia, waiting for rescue—her wailing unheeded, the pain, the heat, the side of her head throbbing.
Nikos and little Vaso were fascinated by the flame and might have been too young to understand its danger as it licked the outside of the fireplace wall, up past the mantle. In fact, they were fascinated by the result of each new piece of wood they threw in, maybe even a little competitive, seeing who could carry the heavier piece, who could throw from the furthest distance in the room as sparks burst in all directions.
From his yard across the dirt path, Miti heard the cracking wood beams and popping roof tiles, as flames shot through the top of his cousin’s house. He would never remember how he got to her front yard, or how he took two steps at a time, scaling the stairs to the entrance of the house on the second floor, shouting.
“Get out! Get out! Fire! Chevi! Tomas!”
Nikos and Vaso were sufficiently startled by the urgency in his voice, and they ran for the door and past him, as his hulking body filled the space. At the bottom step, Nikos looked up and saw the red tiles falling into themselves, the roof collapsing as Miti, his face gray with smears of smoke, appeared again, struggling through the door frame with a cradle in his outstretched arms. Behind him the sound of tiles falling to the dirt inside the house and on top of one another—breaking like glass—mixed with baby Anastasia’s cries.
Smoke in the village was not uncommon, as it was the tool for cooking everything and for disposing of any garbage that the chickens and goats would not eat, so no one paid attention until the cloud became larger and blacker than usual. Then slowly, people began to sense something different—an odor in that particular mountain smoke that made them stop, sniff, turn their heads.
Chevi, was on her way home from Parga, her market profits tucked tightly in the hidden pocket of her under garment. Little Eftihia toddled next to her, as they crested the dirt path at the top of Senitsa with the expectation of a short visit to gossip with some friends before heading home, but instead, Chevi saw the smoke in the distance across the valley. The barren landscape showed her a gray cloud rising from somewhere near her house. Fraught with worry for her neighbors, she scooped Eftihia onto her back and continued on toward home.
“Did Cochina’s husband try to burn those branches?” She remembered that he had been pruning his fruit trees the day before, but he usually tossed them into a pile to be burned later in the rainy season. To burn anything then, at that dry rainless time, she knew would be risky. And Cochos was a responsible person. He took care of his family and worked hard to feed them.
“No,” she thought, “it must be something else.”
She was in a hurry but she was also anxious to see that the beans had been picked, and she was just passing by the farm. She knew how the children might be slowing down Tomas’ work. But the beans had not been picked at all and Tomas was nowhere to be seen. Her heart began to race; uneasiness swallowed her and she continued toward home.
What she did not realize, however, was that Tomas had been called to the cafenio for something of great importance, shortly after she had left for Parga that morning. He had planned to stay for one small drink and be away for only a short time. But when he got to the cafenio, Pavlos had called him to his table, and as he sat there he heard talk of the possible issuing of a new coin—a thirty drachma coin, commemorating something about which he wasn’t quite sure, but Tomas felt—as did many other men in the village—it warranted a deeper discussion over a glass of ouzo . . . or several. Now, sometimes when such discussions got a little intense, or if more participants arrived during the heat of it, one could lose track of time. It could happen to any man, at any time—getting lost in the plethora of ideas in such a consortium as this one had been. And though it is not well known, but it is absolutely true, even Plato—the great philosopher—used to get so wrapped up in his discussions about caves and shadows, that he could spend days at a time, in any given taverna until his wife would come and pull him home by the ear, reminding him that the crops had to be harvested. So, Tomas was with the best of them, when faulted for losing track of time, in a hot discussion at a cafenio, and that is where he was when Miti’s father found him.
Chevi, trotted up the hill to the house with Eftihia holding her neck, bouncing with each step. The fact that it was her house burning, was not yet fully realized, as Chevi was not completely registering the scene her eyes were taking in, still clinging to the hope that Tomas was with Nikos and Vaso, if not at the farm, then somewhere else and that baby Anastasia was with Cochina, as Chevi had suggested before leaving that morning. Finding the beans unpicked, moments before, had not produced a sense of alarm but rather something more like frustration. And when she had turned toward home, there was that uneasy feeling, born among the bean plants and growing as she hurried along the familiar rocky path, a feeling that she did not examine but felt stirring in her stomach and rising into her throat, pulling at the knowledge of having—for her husband, her master, her legal guardian—a man who never wavered in his incompetence, always producing very little that was useful to the family and much disappointment. But those thoughts simmered below the waters of her consciousness; she would not allow them to surface, as it happens sometimes when the need to survive surpasses the desire to examine that which cannot be changed.
She saw Cochina, the air thick with billowing smoke as she ran toward Chevi clutching a bundle—a baby—and briefly in the periphery of her vision there were Nikos and little Vaso, half hidden behind her cousin Miti and she knew her attention needed to be on this bundle that was coming closer, then thrust into her arms. The weight of Eftihia disappeared, and she saw Anastasia, her baby, the side of her face oozing and then she heard the cries and then the voices.
“Chavos! Chevi, we need Chavos!” And she turned to run to town, to find the person who could fix the screaming child. The healer, Chavos Bakis. He had ointments and herbs and he knew about the stars and the spirits. Chevi, with her baby pulled to her breast—ran. The child’s skin smearing on her bodice. She was acutely aware of people running with her, people joining the moving group as they passed villagers questioning the commotion. She ran past the preschool, past the mill, up the steep incline of the cobbled main street, some blurred vision of Tomas among the faces, Pavlos pushing him forward.
Chavos Bakis rushed to meet Chevi. The news of the burned child, as with all village news, had its own speed—like the flash of light before a rumble of thunder—and it preceded the mother and child as they reached him. So Chavos grabbed tiny Anastasia and began his work even before he got to the entrance of his shop. He pushed through the crowd that had closed around him. With Chevi at his side, Tomas being swept to them by hidden hands, the three adults entered the dark room, closing the crowd behind them.
As Chavos attempted to alleviate the child’s pain with a sticky ointment of mysterious leaves soaked to softness in olive oil, Chevi soothed her child with cooing sounds and a smooth touch to her arms and legs. And Tomas, as he slowly sobered, met his wife’s accusing eyes with a gaze dripping in guilt. The fact remained however—and he was reassuring himself of that very fact at that moment—that he was the master of that family. He was the one who by nature of his sex, owned the house and had custody of the children, including that one whimpering in the arms of the healer. And if he, as the master of the family, had chosen to attend to business of whatever nature he saw fit, before going to the farm that morning, then that was the priority of the day. He had left Nikos and Vaso to watch the child. They were the culprits in this. They were irresponsible, especially Nikos, the man of the house when his father was not present and he would teach him to guard that responsibility. Tomas was thinking of the stick he would use for the beating—one that any parent would condone because, after all, children must be taught to be responsible—when Chevi broke his thoughts.
“Tomas, we need to take her to the doctor in Parga.”
But to take her to the doctor, to take her anywhere but back home to the roofless stones
, would be to invite the accusing looks of his neighbors, to admit the need for a cure to this mishap that had befallen her on his watch, when none was needed. The healer had done his job and now he would take his family home, to his house. Niko would answer for this and it would be done.
“No doctor,” said Tomas without explanation.
Chevi did not understand his response but knew she was powerless to change it.
* * * *
The house, an empty stone structure that looked like the remnants of a bomb blast, stood with its tall walls—two stories high—and large windows staring blankly out from a spiritless shell. It still contained one small room with a sagging roof, somehow spared by the fire. The family’s meager possessions—sheepskin blankets, a black pot for soup, two round pans for pies, the dishes that Chevi had taken from her father’s house, the wooden chest containing seasonal clothes and random kitchen utensils that she had started collecting in anticipation of her future nifi—were all piled along the walls of that room. And that is the room where the family would sleep on the two beds that were in the house when they moved there, large creaking metal frames with thin foam mattresses sagging with the memory of their former occupants. Tomas slept in one bed alone, for he needed as much undisturbed sleep as possible. Chevi slept in the only other bed with Anastasia and Eftihia snuggled against her while Nikos and Vaso slept on mats between the beds which they preferred, especially when an infestation of bedbugs sent the others into a frenzy and Chevi had to drag the mattresses outside and pour boiling water on the foam pads. The small black bugs would drain off and then the heavy water-laden foam would be put out to dry. For the sleeping mats, if needed, new reeds were collected from the swamp, stripped of their leaves and weaved tightly together.
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