November 13
Tonight walking toward Kolonaki Square to shop for groceries, I saw a crowd gathering along the sidewalks of the narrow street. I was told the king67 was going to appear, and I waited with the rest.
Police—the handsome, young Athenian men—in their shining, crested, stainless-steel helmets, stood in front of the crowd of Kolonaki residents who waited, dressed to the teeth as usual, in almost total silence. After about ten minutes a tall, young-looking man in a dark suit came out of a building and stepped into the driver’s seat of a waiting black car. As he did so, the crowd broke into polite but enthusiastic applause. They continued to stand and clap as Constantine’s new wife got in. He waved, the way the Italians do, with his fingers pointing to himself, opening and shutting his hand. He smiled broadly and started the car. As he drove off, I saw the blond, young woman inside smiling and nodding. Three cars drove at high speed after the royal car and the applause ceased; policemen dispersed.
As I went about my shopping along the dark street, I tried to place the feeling I had had as the first gentle wave of applause swept through Kolonaki and I stood holding my bag with my hands at my sides. I realized, with surprise, that my feeling was one of mild revulsion. I am surprised to see how American my heart is that it cannot abide adulation of someone simply because he was born. The polite crowd was dispersing and I went into the store where every day I buy yogurt and milk.
“Thilo parakalo yiaourti,” I said.
The man looked at me impassively and handed me the two containers without a flicker of recognition.
November 15
The song—Ben’s song—Hopa nina nina nai, has long since become a kind of joke when we feel bitter. When I’m cheated for the fifth time in a day, or Arno has been struggling with the bureaucracy, or it has taken three hours to get the “Instant Photos.”
Arno will come in fuming: “That S. O. B. cab driver just rode off fast without giving me a buck’s worth of change—hopa ninny ninny.
“That’s hospitality. He didn’t want to keep you waiting,” I comfort him. “Besides, you’re pronouncing it wrong. Say clearly after me, Hopa nina nina nai,” and he is ready to throw something at me, and we laugh.
We don’t think we’re particularly funny, but it keeps some of the edge off our frustration.
Oh Ben, damn your boy on his white horse who sang in the morning one sparkling day that lived for you, and which we tried, mistakenly, to make live for us. I think we have finally learned—it has taken half a year, from North Africa through Western Europe, and now here—that you can neither appropriate someone else’s fantasy, nor for that matter, fall for the kind of group fantasy that is one country’s myth about another.
Once or twice every day, a hurdy-gurdy, lurid and gaudy, passes up our street playing Never on Sunday. That is its full repertoire. It stops, gasps, and falters, then goes gamely on. The purpose of this hurdy-gurdy is totally mysterious to us. It seems to earn neither money nor applause. Perhaps it has been sent by unknown powers to remind us all—WHAT?
As it goes up the street playing the familiar tune, I get a great feeling of participation in something. (Perhaps it is Greece?) It is probably what an underpaid extra in a worthwhile film feels when he leaves the set each day. Anyway, whenever it plays, life seems very near.
November 29
Where food is sold the little lambs hang naked from their flayed dainty hoofs with their terrible bloody skinned heads and dark, surprised-looking eyes. I never get used to that sight no matter how often I see it, and I see it on practically every block, because the lambs are in all the grocery stores. The symbol—of spring, of softness, of faith, and, closer to me, of infancy—turns inside out in a grisly parody.
November 30
I read, write, nurse the baby, wash clothes. I am often glad for the chance to be alone with the baby. No advice, good or bad, from relatives. No interference. And no help, either. But it is strange—I am so on my own and so dependent on my instincts that it is like being the first mother.
Chapter V
The Visit
IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER, AND TIME FOR OUR SIX-WEEK CHECKUP AT Madame Kladaki’s. Frieda and Katie and I had not seen each other since the babies were born, and we agreed to make our appointments at the same time. I had often spoken to them both on the phone, but it had always been frustrating, especially with Katie, who invariably said in her precise way—abruptly, in the middle of a sentence, even one of her own—“Well, Frances, I must go now. I will call again.” Bang would go the receiver, as though she had departed in great haste. I could never decide whether her dress was turning to rags as she ran, or a windup key had fallen out of her back.
When the day came for the examination, I had to take Josh with me, as Arno, who felt helpless with him now that he had rejected the bottle, was reluctant to stay alone with him for any length of time. We took a cab, and once again I mounted the flight of stairs. The cook answered the door. She was a large, chesty woman who had always seemed taciturn or irritable. But she beamed when she saw us, grabbed Joshua out of my arms, crushing him to her breast, while he squawked and wriggled in distress.
Katie and Frieda were already there, and we greeted each other with hugs and squeals, then sat and gossiped in the waiting room with its familiar dog-eared magazines and plastic flowers, like alumnae at a class reunion. It had the familiarity and remoteness of places revisited, places where one’s business is finished.
Both girls commented on my figure, and I saw how plump they remained. Frieda, who was wearing a too-tight fuchsia knit dress, complained that she weighed fifteen pounds more than she had before her pregnancy. None of her trousseau, which she had barely worn, fit her now. I suggested the light exercises I had been doing for about five minutes a day, exercises so unenergetic that I did not have to leave the bed. She wrinkled her nose and sighed.
“Never,” she said. “It would not work. It is all over. Now I will be fat.”
I remembered these girls as they had lain tucked up in their beds a few weeks ago, placidly wearing bed-socks, gowns, robes, and quilts against the hot Athenian autumn. I thought of the pastries their families showered them with and their terror of fresh air, their huffing and puffing and wailing during pregnancy. I remembered what I usually forgot—Greece is not Europe. Not even the Greeks consider themselves Europeans, and they themselves speak of “going to Europe” for a vacation.68 This is half the Balkans, half the Middle East, dominated for centuries by the Turks. I got a sudden vivid picture of Frieda and the other girls (except perhaps Katie, with her copy of Jane Austen) in gossamer bloomers reclining on harem couches, giggling and eating Turkish delights. I knew Frieda was right. Of course one could only sigh and say, “Now I will be fat.”
When my turn came, Marina took Joshua with a chuckle and sat hugging him and playing with him so that I could see Madame. It was good to see her again. As she examined me, she looked alternately pleased and troubled. First she said with great pleasure, “Madame, you are like a young girl!” There was a pause. “Mais—votre mur est tombé!” I stared at her. It sounded as though she had said “Your wall has fallen!” with a kind of Henny-Penny distress. Sounding like Cocky-Locky I echoed her and must have looked what I felt—totally puzzled and rather horrified, waiting for comprehension, explanation, something. “My wall has fallen! My wall has fallen? Whatever can I do?” What did it mean?
Laboriously, she tried to explain to me in French. I could gather only that a fallen wall was not too terrible. It would, she said, be fine in about a year or so. Then she beamed at me. In my head I wrote a hysterical letter to Doctor Wingheld back home in the States and mailed it special delivery.69
But her smile did reassure me. “Maintenant, des questions, Madame?”
She had already told me that my husband and I could resume our relations sexuelle. “What about birth control?” I managed to say. By some miracle she understood me and took a quick measurement with eye and hand and gave me a pessary size.
Quite a feat, considering the great care and precision tools American doctors use; but perhaps, I thought rather dubiously, she’s some kind of expert.
When we were all examined and ready to go, Madame came out to the waiting room. As I was holding Joshua, the blanket fell away from him, revealing some skin on his belly between diaper and shirt. To my surprise, it was Madame herself who jumped forward and cried out in alarm like any of the girls, “Oh! Oh! Hurry! Dress your baby!” She took him from me and pulled the heavy wool blanket around him, then she smiled and kissed him.
We said our good-byes and left. Katie went one way with promises to call and meet me. Frieda and I walked together under the orange trees, past the Archeology Museum, to the bus. With unusual directness, Frieda said suddenly, “Tell me about birth control.” When I explained how a diaphragm works and about the pill,70 she listened and said, “Mostly the men wear—uh—the rubber things. In almost all cases. I do not like them.” I remembered uneasily Madame Kladaki’s virtuoso measurements.
She came home with me. “Congratulations!” I told Arno at the door. “Your son brought down his first wall. You had to name him Joshua?”71
Frieda stayed several hours. She went over each detail of Joshua’s layette, which had finally come, along with our winter clothes, from America. She fingered everything without saying much. The baby nursed while we talked. When he fell asleep in my arms, I put him down on his stomach in the crib. Frieda broke off her sentence and rushed over. “Oh, don’t do that!” she said. “He will smother if he lies like that. How can he breathe?”
I told her he always slept like that; in fact, most American babies are put to sleep on their stomachs rather than their backs or sides. It helps them to burp if they have to and prevents them from choking if they should spit-up—at least according to Dr. Spock.72 I showed her my book, which was beginning to come apart.
“Is it translated into Greek?” I asked, knowing it had been translated into many foreign languages.
“No, I have never heard of it. We have no books that I know of like that.” As she left, I handed her a small, red-and-white shirt and a pair of tiny red tights, as well as one of the new bottles with the breast-shaped nipple that my mother-in-law had sent. “Come and see me next week,” she said, pressing my hand. I will call and give you instructions how to reach my home.”
The following week, when I got out of the cab at the big suburban house, Frieda waved and called to me from an upstairs porch. I carried Josh up the long flight of concrete stairs. Her mother- and father-in-law were home and we recognized each other from the clinic. They greeted me cordially and introduced me to the grandparents and a great-grandmother, an ancient woman who looked ninety, dressed entirely in black. They studied Joshua intently as he lay quietly in my arms. “He’s big,” they say. “And only six weeks! How much older he looks.” Stella was sleeping, so we put Josh in her carriage and wheeled him out on a front balcony. There was a small table set up, and Frieda served Nescafé and pastries for the two of us. The house was on a hill. It was cool and serene up there. The wind blew crisply, and Athens lay in the distance. It seemed far away as we sat high up with the big trees all around and watched the clouds, and, in the distance, the purple, naked hills. This day in December was like October at home. There were loud voices indoors. “My husband is here,” Frieda said. “He came home last week from Austria. He could not stay away from Stella and me any longer.”
Frieda’s husband stepped out on the balcony. He looked very American at first, with casual clothes and a shorter haircut than most Greek men wore. I realized he looked more North European, dressed probably in Viennese fashion. He stayed for a short time, then left. He seemed unconnected with Frieda and with the household. He gave the subtle impression of belonging to another world, far away and up north. Frieda said that he was going to sleep, because since he’d been home, Stella had cried night after night. Nothing would calm her, not even camomile.
“So what do you do for her?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “We let her cry. Once, she cried for twenty-four hours, but she is a girl, so it is not so bad. It will develop her lungs.” And she gave a shrug, closing her eyes wearily.
“Would it be bad for a boy?” I asked.
“Boys must not cry! Oh no! They can get a hernia, so we must comfort them. But even though I know it won’t hurt her, still I cannot bear to hear her cry on for so long. And the whole household has been without sleep for days at a time. We have no idea what it is. She has a rash now, however. Perhaps the rash is causing the crying. The doctor was no help, either. He says there is nothing to be done—sometimes a baby just feels like crying.”
I felt certain it was colic. “Does she try to suck when she cries?” I asked.
“Oh yes! Constantly. But what can she suck? She has her bottle and she is not hungry.”
“What about a pacifier?” I asked.
“They are very bad for babies. They dry out the throat.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone knows it. And the babies suck all that air. No. They are very, very bad.”
“What about sucking her finger?” I said. Frieda’s mother-in-law, a handsome, black-haired woman with an intelligent face, wearing a black suit and crisp white blouse, stepped onto the balcony. She sat for a few moments, and Frieda translated our conversation.
“My mother says that the baby drinks her bottle and that is enough. She asks why should the baby suck?”
Warily, I found myself deep in an explanation about sucking as the basic urge of infancy, colic, etc. There was laughter and head-shaking, which left me frustrated and angry.
Suddenly, a small cry from a bedroom, and we went in to see Stella; parents, grandparents, great-grandmother crowded around, grinning and cooing. She was the first grandchild and the darling of the family. The baby lay in a bassinet decorated with pink curtains, white lace, bows and loops, satin and velvet. The curtains extended upward, almost to the ceiling. I had never seen anything like it, except long ago in a color illustration of the baby in Sleeping Beauty. Deep inside, lay Stella on her back. She was lifted out by three pairs of hands and placed on a sofa, a head emerging from a cylindrical wrapping I had not seen since I’d left the clinic six weeks before. Exquisite. Absolutely. No wonder they looked at Josh and made polite remarks about his size. Next to her he looked bald, eyebrowless, lashless, pale, and huge.
Stella had long, black hair; it had been combed into curls at the sides and top of her head. Her cheeks were round and very pink and her eyelashes were the longest I had seen; her mouth was strong and distinctive. At six weeks, she was a ravishing beauty. I swallowed, feeling like the mother of the ugly duckling. The feeling was fleeting and subliminal, and I answered myself, subliminally, that he was a fine, masculine baby. As I oohed and ahed, they set about unwrapping the swaddling clothes. Just to see what answer I would get, I asked Frieda why she was wrapped.
“She waves her arms so, she would scratch her eyes,” she said.
The swaddling sheet was removed from her arms. Then the one from her legs was taken off. It was soaked. Underneath, held in place by the tight leg wrappings, was the triangular diaper. Since the legs could not move, no pin was needed. The baby lay completely immobile in the beautiful pink bassinet. And screamed. Sometimes—Frieda had said—for twenty-four hours.
I noticed that everything the baby wore had to be changed. “You don’t use rubber pants?” I said.
“No,” came the answer. “They are very bad.”
We looked at Stella. “Yours seems so old, compared to her,” said Frieda. And she was right. Joshua had been kicking and waving for six weeks while Stella had lain immobile. Her legs and arms looked undeveloped as those of a newborn baby. Now that she was free for a few moments she continued to lie with her arms and legs in fetal position, a moist, wrinkled bud. The mysterious, troubling rash looked like a light case of prickly heat to me.
Her grandmother brought in the bottle. “Come,” sai
d Frieda. “They will feed her this time. Let’s go out on the balcony. I think I hear your son.”
Out on the balcony, I rocked the carriage. “Frieda,” I said, “I don’t know all that much, but I do know that when your baby cries she probably has pains in her belly and wants to move her arms and legs and suck. She can’t do any of those things.”
Frieda jumped up and looked around rather furtively. “I will call my doctor. He studied in America. You talk to him.” We went to the phone. After a few moments of conversation in Greek, Frieda handed me the receiver.
“The baby,” I explained, “seems to have colic. Shouldn’t she be allowed to suck?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Well, can she have a pacifier?”
“No. We think they dry out the throat. Let her suck her thumb.”
“How can she suck her thumb? Her arms are all bound up.”
“They are?” he sounded surprised. “Oh, I did not realize,” he said, barely covering irritation in his voice, whether at the family or me I didn’t know. “Tell them to unwrap the baby.”
I gave the phone to Frieda. When I turned around, all of the family had gathered in the hallway and were looking at me. I knew I was meddling. I knew that to them I was probably a nervy American woman who ought to mind her own business, and yet, when he said “unwrap the baby,” I was convinced that Frieda and I had won a decisive victory and I felt pure, gloating, triumph. Frieda hung up. “We must unwrap her,” she said. No one answered. We all trooped back to the room where she lay in her bassinet. A compromise was made. Her leg sheet remained, but on top she wore her first clothing, a beautiful pink sweater. The little arms, encased in pink wool, waved above her head. “Now she looks like a little girl,” said Frieda. “Your son looks so like a boy because he’s dressed like one. We will have to make her some clothes!”
A Room in Athens Page 13
