The Greeks Have a Word for It

by Barry Unsworth

  ‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Kennedy said.

  ‘It has not been opened yet, officially. I am still searching for a reliable person. Difficult to find in Greece, Mr Kennedair. People are often not honest.’ Melas shook his head sadly. ‘I was five and a half years in England,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What will you take? Pepsi-Cola?’

  ‘I don’t want anything, really.’

  ‘Please, you will take something. From the new canteen.’

  ‘All right, thank you. I’ll have an orange juice.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Mr Melas. ‘Certainly.’ He went behind the counter and poured out a Fixe Orange into a glass. Orange juice,’ he said, beaming, handing the glass to Kennedy. ‘Cheerioo!’ He watched carefully while Kennedy was drinking. ‘Good, haw?’ he said. ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘What do you think of my accent, Mr Kennedair? Very British, haw?’

  ‘Very British, yes. Coming back to the question of my position, I believe you said earlier that you were needing instructors?’

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘How much would you be offering?’

  ‘Well, of course, old chap, you will appreciate my position, I am only at the beginning. I have had a lot of expenses. You have seen the lavatorairs, the canteen. …’

  ‘How much,’ Kennedy said, ‘in round figures?’

  ‘I could offer suitably qualified instructors twenty drachmas an hour,’ Melas said.

  ‘But that’s only five shillings. I mean, at that rate, I’d have to work forty hours a week to make ten pounds.’

  ‘I could not promise you forty hours,’ Melas said. Oh dear no, haw, haw.’

  ‘That’s absurd,’ Kennedy said. He felt cheated. He had paid his dues of admiration to the Melas establishment and was, it seemed, to get nothing back except the sweet taste of orange juice still lingering in his mouth.

  ‘Think it over,’ Melas said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I have to go out now,’ he said. ‘You have not seen my car, have you? Did you see it when you came in? Perhaps I can give you a lift?’

  ‘All right,’ Kennedy said, somewhat moodily. ‘If you are going anywhere near Kolonaki Square.’

  They descended in the lift together. At such close quarters Melas smelled of after-shave lotion and garlic. He asked Kennedy what he thought of the lift, and Kennedy, who had been expecting the question, said that he always distrusted German machinery, which, while often presenting a superficial appearance of efficiency, nearly always turned out to have radical faults. This kept Melas quiet, except for a ‘haw’ or two, until they reached the car, a primrose-coloured machine, parked round the corner from the institute. Without this time waiting to be asked, Kennedy related one or two unfortunate experiences friends of his had had with this car.

  ‘British car,’ Melas said, reproachfully.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kennedy, ‘but they don’t make them like they used to.’

  Inside, before engaging gear, Melas put a hand on Kennedy’s knee. ‘I could show you Athens by night,’ he said. ‘All floodlit.’ He gave the knee a slight squeeze.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Kennedy said.

  Melas deepened the exultation, or possibly anguish of his smile. ‘I can help you a lot in this city,’ he said. ‘Any time you want any help …’

  They skirted Constitution Square and turned left along Academy Street. Whatever confidence Melas had lost when Kennedy criticised the lift and the car he soon regained while driving. He was a very showy driver, one of those drivers whose hands register awareness of their own dexterity. When he changed gears his hands followed through, rather as though he were making strokes at ping-pong, and returned to the wheel with a flowing, omnipotent gesture. And he kept up a running commentary on the ineptitudes of other drivers: ‘Did you see that felloo cutting in there, Mr Kennedair? No signals at all. And look at that beastlair rotter over there, he thinks by sounding his horn to make a way for himself. Haw, I remember your splendid Highway Code.’ His right hand detached itself from the wheel and made circular gestures. ‘The Greek people, Mr Kennedair, are not yet accustomed to the automobile. Look at that felloo there, I ask you.’ He leaned over to point out the offender.

  ‘Look out!’ Kennedy said urgently. The traffic lights at the corner of Kanaris Street had changed while Melas was looking away, causing the car in front, a Citroën, to pull up quite suddenly. Melas was able to reduce speed but was still travelling at ten or fifteen miles an hour when he collided with the rear of the Citroën. Kennedy had seen the accident coming, so was able to brace himself and avoid being thrown forward against the windscreen. He saw at the moment of impact something, some fitting from the car in front, go flying across the road and at the same time the head and shoulders of the driver were suddenly jerked rather grotesquely forward and upward.

  Melas for some moments preserved a complete silence. The driver of the other car, white-faced and evidently furious, had emerged and was shouting and gesticulating fiercely towards them. Cars behind had stopped. People were already beginning to gather.

  ‘Vlacha,’ said Melas, rather snarlingly. Then, remembering his passenger, he said, ‘Did you see how the rotter cut across me, Mr Kennedair, haw?’

  ‘No,’ Kennedy said. ‘As a matter of fact, old boy, I didn’t.’

  Melas descended from the car slowly, and Kennedy followed. Melas addressed himself magisterially to the crowd. The dignity of his manner was marred, however, at the end, when he spat dangerously close to the other driver’s shoes. Cars behind were hooting. A policeman appeared and began pushing his way through. Melas, whose behaviour seemed to be deteriorating, spat again, more copiously, and began shouting and waving his arms. The policeman looked unfavourably at Melas. It seemed to Kennedy time to be going. He edged his way out of the crowd, and walked rapidly away up Kanaris Street in the direction of Kolonaki.

  Not far away, in Jennings’ office, the fortnightly staff meeting was proceeding.

  ‘It was good of you to come,’ Jennings had said, making urbane shapes with his mouth. Then he had lowered his gaze to the papers on his desk and sat in silence, waiting for the shiftings of his audience to subside into the receptive hush which after long experience of articulating he had come to recognise as his element. He enjoyed these meetings, which were held every second Saturday; always, in fact, marking the day with a white carnation in his button-hole. ‘I have your remarks here in front of me,’ he said, still without looking up. ‘I found them most interesting.’ His plump white hands lifted papers, allowed them to fall again. ‘It helps us all, I think,’ he said, ‘to pool as it were our resources. And it seems to be particularly valuable at this stage, with the examinations approaching, to know your general plans for revision. I must assure you, of course, that you have by this time covered all the material required for the examinations. …’ He glanced from face to face as though seeking confirmation of this. Mackintosh was nodding gravely, but none of the others made any sign. Jennings paused for some moments to twitch his features, establish their sensitive mobility.

  ‘What I wanted,’ he continued, ‘was a more or less general statement of your intentions, but one or two of you have seen fit to go into some detail.’ He picked up one of the papers. ‘There is someone in our midst,’ he said, ‘who shall remain nameless, who intends to revise what he calls the Past Progressive Tense. He will point out, he says, that this tense is used for an action initiated in the past, not necessarily completed, extending over a period of time. He will illustrate this with examples.’ Jennings paused, smiling, teeth improbably white. ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘is this really true? Can we really talk about language in that way? I think that person would be embarrassed by some of the questions I could ask him.’ He was silent for a moment, then said suddenly with a deepening of intensity: ‘All the time I was staying with my aunt, I heard the sound of the sea! There you have a strange, indeed a baffling, conjunction of tenses, simple past an
d continuous past. Yet the actions are co-extensive. When we are faced with such illogicality there is nothing for it but to accept.’ Jennings raised his hands, palms upwards, in an oriental gesture of acceptance.

  Willey cleared his throat. His face was rather flushed. ‘It appears,’ he said, ‘that you are referring to me. I realise that there are exceptions, of course. But the rule covers nine cases out of ten in my opinion.’

  Jennings continued to finger the paper. ‘I do not think,’ he said, ‘that rules as such will get us very far. Language is behaviour, it is meaningful activity. Anything we say about language will be largely irrelevant. What confronts us, on every hand, is usage. The essence and the existence are one.’

  Willey knew it was rash of him to prolong this discussion; he should never in the first place have emerged from the anonymity which Jennings had intended for him, but the unfairness of the thing had disturbed his judgment. Also, he hated, intensely, the manner Jennings assumed for such pronouncements, the blandness, the spurious philosophical poise. He forgot for a moment Olivia, his desire for a permanency, the plot of land in Ekali he hoped some day to buy. ‘That won’t get us very far in the classroom,’ he said. ‘We have to teach particular groups of people to use English, communicate in English. We see them for six hours a week, sometimes only four. We have to use rules valid in the great majority of cases. The students must acquaint themselves with usage in their own time.’

  ‘If I may be allowed to intervene at this point, sir,’ Mackintosh said. He leaned forward alertly, his face shining, protuberant eyes under pale lashes looking deferentially at Jennings.

  ‘By all means, Mr Mackintosh.’ Jennings made one of his courteous unfolding gestures.

  ‘Well, I must say I disagree with Mr Willey. We must relate everything to a natural context, it seems to me. As you yourself have pointed out quite frequently, sir, it is the language as it is actually used that we must teach. Too much language teaching these days’ — here Mackintosh glanced briefly round and smiled at Willey — ‘is completely divorced from context. In a void, so to speak.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Jennings said. He nodded approvingly at Mackintosh. ‘I liked your suggestions for the drills inculcating particular usages,’ he said. ‘There is this one for the use of the distinguishing relative.’ He referred to one of the papers. ‘Yes, here it is. That is the moon. Which moon? The moon we see every night. That is the sun. Which sun? The sun we see every day. Yes, very apt, I think, Mr Mackintosh.’

  Mackintosh smiled modestly. ‘Not too rapid an extension of vocabulary,’ he said. ‘Each usage embodied in a key phrase …’

  ‘But on what conceivable occasion,’ Willey said, ‘and among whom, could such conversations about the moon and the sun be conducted? Such words could not be uttered by dwellers on earth. They are more unreal even than the examples we used to get in the old textbooks, things like “my cousin is deaf and lame but my uncle is a hunchback”. At least those contained some vocabulary …’ He was aware, while he was speaking, of people turning to look at him: Miss Watson, earrings swaying; the dark remotely frowning face of Drakakis, the translation teacher. ‘I must confess,’ he said, ‘that I cannot understand what you mean by context, if those are your examples.’

  ‘A certain divergence of opinion,’ Jennings said, smiling steadily at Willey. ‘I see that we are not altogether agreed. A sign of health, perhaps.’ His head pivoted smoothly away from Willey. ‘I found your remarks concerning prepositional usage extremely interesting, Miss Watson,’ he said. ‘Would you like to, ah, elaborate a little?’

  Damn them all to hell, Willey said to himself some time later, as he was walking from the meeting. He felt depressed. His foolish argumentativeness had served only to advance Mackintosh. To object to the latter’s examples when Jennings himself had specifically approved them, that had been utter folly. What in the world had possessed him to do it? Suddenly he felt that he needed a drink rather badly. He paused on the pavement wondering where to go. The ‘Lykis’, outside which he was standing, was on the sunny side and all the tables under the awnings seemed to be already taken. It was too hot in the direct sunlight, and he was already turning away when he heard his name called. Looking over, he saw Kennedy alone at one of the tables under the awning, smiling and waving.

  ‘Come and have a drink,’ Kennedy called.

  Willey crossed over to him, feeling for some reason delighted at the meeting.

  ‘Did you get fixed up at Kitty’s?’ he asked, lowering himself into the seat beside Kennedy.

  ‘Oh yes, thank you very much,’ Kennedy said, smiling broadly. ‘There was a room vacant because of this American fellow who had to leave because of disgusting behaviour. I haven’t found out yet what he did.’ The sunshine had brought out the freckles on his nose and cheek-bones and his fair hair was in the same dishevelled state that Willey remembered from their first meeting. The cuffs of his tweed jacket were frayed. He was sitting at his ease, legs splayed out across the pavement in front of him. ‘What will you have?’ he said. ‘I’m having this ouzo stuff, I rather like it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Willey said. ‘I’ll have ouzo too.’

  ‘I’ve had a bit of a fruitless morning, this morning,’ Kennedy said. ‘I’m just recovering from it, as a matter of fact; learned a bit, though.’

  He told Willey about his adventures of the morning. The story of the accident amused the other considerably. ‘So he reverted to Greekness under the stress?’ he said. ‘There ought really to be a verb in English “to Greekle”, to behave in a Greek way. As “they stood there Greekling”. It would be a great enrichment. I know this Melas slightly. He is widely regarded as consummately British. His institute should do well.’

  ‘He didn’t seem too keen to employ me. He showed me round the place, but he hedged when it came to a job. And when I asked him point-blank he offered me twenty drachmas an hour. Twenty drachmas, that’s only five shillings!’

  ‘I shouldn’t think he wanted you to work for him at all. He would have to pay you too much, a native English speaker. There are plenty of Greeks who would jump at twenty drachmas an hour. What you ought to try is private teaching. You can get up to a hundred an hour for that and no tax to pay. No qualifications needed, you only have to be English. And now is just the time that people are getting panicky about the exams. I have a couple of prospects, if you’re interested. No time to do it myself.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Kennedy said. ‘I would be very grateful. Let’s have another drink. This same Melas could seem to be something of a twister,’ he added. ‘In fact there’s trickery in the air of this city. That’s my impression anyway. Trickery and antiquities and the old drachma going clickety-click.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Willey said. He was beginning to feel a pleasant muzziness. ‘It is a commercial nation. Sharp practice is condoned here — more than that, admired. I sometimes think that in Athens chicanery rather than virility has become the measure of a man. No, I am exaggerating, of course. Anyway, I don’t mean illegal practices necessarily, though many laws here seem curiously lacking in definition. I mean taking short cuts, getting one up on people.’

  Willey paused for a moment smiling. Of course,’ he said, ‘they are so personal, when they conduct official business of any sort, they always try to breach the hierarchy at some point of personal acquaintance. What in the Army used to be called the old-boy net. They are intriguers by instinct. There’s a permissiveness towards all forms of deceit, and that’s what often outrages the Anglo-Saxon.’

  ‘It doesn’t outrage me, old boy,’ Kennedy said. ‘And you seem to get along with it all right?’

  ‘Well, my principles have been eroded over the years,’ Willey said.

  ‘You’ve been here for some years now, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Athens is my home, really. I haven’t any other.’

  ‘You don’t go back to England much then?’

  ‘I don’t go back at all.’

  ‘I see,’ Kennedy said.
There was silence between them for some moments. Then Kennedy said casually, ‘Spot of bother perhaps?’

  For a moment Willey was disposed to be annoyed. He looked sharply at Kennedy. But in the smiling face of the other he could detect neither sympathy nor complacent insight — only a sort of careless geniality. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You might call it that,’ and he smiled slightly. Kennedy’s own obvious rascality removed it from anything like a confession.

  ‘I’ve been in spots of bother myself,’ Kennedy said. ‘At one time or another. Let’s have another one.’

  ‘My turn.’ Willey clapped his hands for the waiter.

  ‘You must like it here then,’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Willey paused, oppressed by the difficulty of expressing his feeling for the city, the whole country. He wanted, with the ouzo working within him and the spot of bother conceded, to convey something of this to Kennedy. But his emotion was distilled from many particular moments, a complex blend, not now easily expressible: the sum of evenings when Hymettos bloomed before dying and the moon stared at the sun across the flushed city; the sanctity of dusk in the streets, unsullied by contacts or deliberations; the constant interaction between the animate and ephemeral and the ageless, pulseless; red anemones on the hill of Pnyx, cropped children squabbling on the marble steps of the theatre of Dionysus,’ songs of fishermen and their bright nets on Homer’s sea, at Delphi the slow song of a bird near the temple of Apollo, cicadas round the Portico of the Athenians, white dust and olive groves, an eagle flying high; everywhere the throb of continuity, in the grass between stones, the eyeholes of statues dredged up from the sea, the green of the sea-bloom still on the bronze. … None of this was communicable to Kennedy, not because of difficulties in language really, but because this was his own Athens, his own Greece: like a loved person she depended on a recognition of her qualities which none but he could accord; and he had accorded it early, when his own pain and loneliness compelled the sort of attention that shapes things for ever. …