The Lace Tablecloth

by Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis

  It was a true resurrection, a patriotic revival: the beginning of a new era free from bloodshed, fear, hunger, humiliation and deprivation, something inconceivable to Tasia who had never before experienced such a fantastic life. But all the grown-ups knew the significance of this day because they were joyfully singing and dancing out in the streets. Friends and enemies, regardless of the language they spoke, hugged and kissed each other indiscriminately. Like one body, one soul, joined up together, they ran to the churchyard to celebrate this joyful occasion: the end of the war, the end of occupation and the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity.

  After the service in the crowded churchyard, the teacher waved to the schoolchildren to come closer, prompting them to sing with loud voices the patriotic songs he had taught them. The enthusiasm of the crowd was overwhelming. Some couldn’t stop crying from joy. And then the blue and white Greek flag — waving majestically — was raised up a flagpole in the belfry.

  It was the first time Tasia had seen the flag. She felt a deep, almost primitive quiver take hold of her body, filling her lungs with uncontrollable sobs. Her emotions were common, shared by all those present. A toothless old man came forward out of the crowd and began to sing with a trembling but very strong voice ‘Christ has risen from the dead’ making all the others, even the priest join him.

  Tasia’s heart beat fast; it was as if her chest could no longer contain it. Something strange was happening deep inside her as if a primordial memory pertaining to her people had awoken. She could see an interminable chain with its beginning lost in the haze of prehistoric times. This chain passed through her, and continued on to evaporate in the immenseness of an indefinable future. Every ring of the chain represented a piece of history of the whole nation with its myths and legends, deeds and dreams, heroism and sacrifices: the history of the past and of what was still to come. She felt she was an irreplaceable link in that chain, or perhaps a molecule of a link that joined her with all that had gone and all that was to come. She too, was a Greek: the daughter of a country with a long and glorious history, whose children’s intellectual ingenuity and integrity chased away the darkness of ignorance, recognised the value and the rights of every individual human being, gave birth to democracy and set the foundations of today’s civilised world.

  From a small platform, her teacher was addressing the large assembly with a voice full of emotion, making reference to the same concepts passing through her mind: Greece’s glorious past, her legacy to the civilised world, justice, peace and freedom from fear, oppression and exploitation. And as the first large drops of rain began to fall, every filament of Tasia’s body vibrated, loaded with patriotic verve and pride.

  Winter left as hurriedly as it came, and spring arrived, fragrant and luxuriant. Nature was dressed up in its most brilliant attire, generously embroidered with all the colours of the rainbow: lush green, red, yellow, pink, blue, white. Hills and mountains, plains and ravines were clad in green. Out of their winter pens the sheep were left free to graze on fresh grass. Their bell-chimes — in tune with their bleats — filled the place with a heavenly melody.

  Like ants, the farmers poured out into the fields, the vegetable gardens, the vineyards and the orchards, to plough, to plant, to prune. And when the heat became unbearable, when the ripe wheat was waiting to be reaped and the lower leaves of the tobacco plants were ready to be picked, the school finally shut its doors behind Tasia. It was probably about time, since the messages she was getting from the people in the village, some implicit and others explicit, was that she had bypassed the boundaries of accepted behaviour for a girl of her age. The words of Marika, her closest friend and neighbour, shocked her.

  ‘You know I love you, my sweet Tasia, and want to be your friend for life, but I’m afraid of my father. He told me the next time he sees me talking to you he’d break my legs.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Tasia.

  ‘You know why. Because you went to school and learnt how to read and write.’

  One evening at the water tap Dora pretended not to have seen her, and began to tell Despina that she wanted to keep her daughter under her very eyes rather than have her waste her time at school.

  ‘My husband would chop off the head of my daughter with an axe rather that let her go to school,’ replied Despina.

  ‘It’s the foreigners that changed things. The refugees. Like that Pontisa Olympia …’

  It was obvious they were referring again to Tasia’s mother.

  ‘Oh! There you are!’ they exclaimed as if they had just noticed Tasia standing there.

  It wasn’t the first time she had heard the women at the water tap mention her mother’s name, as though they were superior by far. It infuriated her but it also filled her with doubts and shame. It was true her mother had nothing in common with the other women. She was different. She didn’t dress like them. Instead of the long woven dresses and aprons, she wore dresses she made herself from material Tasia’s father bought in the market. Instead of hiding her hair under a wimple, she combed and arranged it in a beautiful way like a garland on top of her head. She never stopped by the neighbours’ houses to drink coffee and gossip. She was usually silent but gentle and always found plenty to do at home. She also worked hard in the fields next to her husband.

  She was different in other ways, too. One day when Tasia went with her mother to their vegetable garden, her mother suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her behind a shrub to hide. From their hiding place they could see Lela, a haughty and self-promoting neighbour, in their garden filling up her basket with their vegetables. Tasia was wild with anger and disgust.

  ‘Why don’t you go over and tell her off, Mother?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to humiliate her, my child. I don’t want to hurt her pride,’ she replied, leaving Tasia surprised and confused, unable to understand if her mother was indeed a very exceptional person or perhaps simply timid and indecisive.

  The only close friend her mother had was from the upper neighbourhood: Aunt Antigone, as Tasia used to call her, even though she wasn’t her real aunty. She dropped in frequently to see them, usually only staying for a very short time and leaving in a hurry like a thief to avoid her mother-in-law — a cranky old lady always looking for any excuse to start a fight — finding out about her visits.

  If Tasia happened to see warm and vibrant Aunt Antigone coming their way, she’d tumble down the stairs full of excitement and welcome her out in the yard. The moment she’d enter the house, her mother would change as if by magic. She’d become happy, relaxed and talkative. They spoke in Greek but in a strange way, using many words Tasia didn’t know.

  She’d understand their general drift and felt transported to past times and beautiful distant places where comfortable and luxurious lives had changed rapidly to unbearable misery and pain. It was as if the minds of those two women were trapped in that place; they could still see the belltower of St Nicholas, the neighbourhood of Kokari, and the blue waters of the Helespond in beautiful Kerasounta, a place rich in history, culture and wealth. The two women had spent their early childhood years there surrounded by adoring parents, siblings and grandparents until the day their paradise had turned into hell with burnings, hangings, slaughters and uprooting.

  ‘Your mother was from a noble family,’ Aunt Antigone told Tasia many times. ‘Her house was like a palace. Your grandfather and great-grandfather were the top men in Kerasounta.’

  ‘Yes,’ her mother continued. ‘Your grandfather was a captain. We had our own ship. My father sailed all over the world carrying hazelnuts to London, Cairo, Alexandria and many other places.’

  ‘That’s why their house was full of European art: paintings, porcelain figurines, and many other beautiful things,’ said Antigone.

  ‘And what’s left of all these now?’

  Her mother sighed deeply.

  ‘Then the pogrom started. The men of Topal-Osman came to Kerasounta, and gathered all the prominent Greek men together with your grand
father and your great grandfather. They hanged all of them in front of the Town Hall.’

  ‘Let it be, dearest Antigone! Stop telling Tasia about all these horrible things! She’s still too young to understand,’ her mother protested.

  But Tasia wasn’t that young and she could understand many things. The events the two women spoke about were not as yet written in the school history books. However, her teacher, who was also a refugee from those far-off places, had spoken to the class with a lot of pain and passion about the savagery of the Turks, about the massacre of the Hellenes of Pontos and Asia Minor, about the movement of populations, about the pain and suffering of the refugees, as he himself had lived it.

  Hearing about the hangings and slaughter Tasia’s heart felt the terror and agony of all those people, as if she were one of those waiting to be hung. She knew about human cruelty because she had lived through the German occupation, but she still couldn’t understand how some human beings could slaughter other human beings, except of course, if some people were savages, like wild beasts, capable of every brutality and every crime under the sun.

  With a pained heart, she would let her imagination take her to this strange Kerasounta, and walk on the fantastic and dreamy streets of her mother’s childhood. But since she was from the mountains, she had never seen the sea or boats except in a picture: a sketch of a trident in her history book in the pages describing the naval battle of Salamis against the Persians. But her mind was free to create its own images. And since she couldn’t enter her mother’s mind to see for herself what she had seen, she imagined that magic distant city Kerasounta to be surrounded by green hills and have cobbled streets identical to the ones around her village.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine the faces of her grandparents, because there was not a single picture to prove they had ever existed. Apparently, this wasn’t a problem she alone had. One day she heard her mother lament to Aunt Antigone that even though she was trying desperately, she couldn’t bring to memory the faces of her lost people: her mother’s, her father’s and her grandparents.

  ‘Well, that’s life,’ answered Aunt Antigone. ‘I, too, have to look at the photographs I’ve brought with me to be able to remember what my people looked like. But let’s change the subject. All along I wanted to ask how you managed to bring that beautiful tablecloth with you. I remember how much you loved it. Tell me how you managed.’

  ‘I’m not sure. When my father and grandfather were hanged, I was too young to understand. Then, after a day or so my mother also died. I heard people saying she took poison.’

  ‘Yes, I heard the same thing.’

  ‘I remember things as if in a dream. Ahmet, our gardener, dressed me in his daughter’s clothes and took me to his home in the Turkish neighbourhood. I had to hide under the bed every time someone came to the house. Then, one night, they spirited me away on a ship sailing for Greece. They lifted me onto a small boat that took me to the big ship. There, in the small boat, they gave me a bundle with bread and cheese all wrapped up in this tablecloth. I remember something like that but it could be different.’

  ‘I remember Ahmet and his wife, Aisa. They were nice people,’ interjected Aunt Antigone

  ‘Yes. If it hadn’t been for them I may not be alive today. And because of them I have something that connects me directly to my mother. I always think about them and wish them well.’

  ‘Such is life, my Olympia! Most ordinary people are good and compassionate. It makes no difference if they are Turks or Greeks. The rulers in charge poison the hearts of ordinary people. They use fanaticism to make us play their game, to squabble and kill each other.’

  ‘True. True. Some of the Turks, even though they were our enemies, took pity on us. What can you say about the Greeks, our brothers? From the moment we arrived here as refugees, they haven’t stopped calling us wretched and miserable,’ said Tasia’s mother.

  ‘We came here famished and dressed in rugs and God knows what they thought. Maybe they thought we lived in caves rather than houses.’

  ‘What would they know, living all their lives in these craggy hills, cut off from the rest of the world?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. But I live with them every day and have come to understand them,’ replied Aunt Antigone. ‘We have to see things from their side too. My father-in-law is worried because the government has given land and houses to all refugee families, and papers to indicate the property is theirs. The locals don’t have such papers and are concerned they may lose what was always theirs. Then there are some others who say the refugees were given land that belonged to the locals. “The savages came and chased away the decent ones” my mother-in-law complains day and night. How I can bear her, God alone knows!’

  ‘You’re right, Antigone. Let’s not forget some of our people are no better. You’ve heard what crazy Aristidis did. He flattened the tobacco plantations after the poor people had finished planting. He galloped all over the fields on his horse singing “What do the Bulgarians want in Macedonia, what do the barbarians want on Greek soil?” implying that whoever is not a refugee is a Bulgarian. Even those who speak Bulgarian are not Bulgarians. My husband speaks Bulgarian but if you called him a Bulgarian, he would kill you.’

  ‘What can you say, my dear Olympia! Unfortunately, madness doesn’t go to the mountains but to the people! Still, let’s not complain. We have good husbands, even though they are not Pontians. We have good families; what more do we want?’

  ‘To live like a human being. To have my dignity. That’s what I want. To bring up my children, to educate them. I was left illiterate because of the bad times. But I want a better life for my children. That’s what I want — nothing more. Is that a lot that I’m asking for, my dear Antigone?’

  S

  o what? Tasia thought to herself when she found she had passed her exams and graduated from primary school. I wish I hadn’t finished. I wish I had never gone to school. At least I would have friends! And people wouldn’t talk and make fun of me behind my back.

  She didn’t even bother to go and get her certificate on graduation day, obliging the teacher to bring it to her home a few days later. He arrived late in the afternoon and spent some time behind closed doors talking to her parents, while out in the yard Tasia marched restlessly up and down. Finally, her father came out and called her to join them in the room.

  Tasia sat shyly next to her mother.

  ‘Tomorrow morning you’re coming with me to Kailaria,’ he announced in a tone that didn’t allow any quibbling.

  She remained there with her head bent, confused and mystified, unable to understand what was hidden behind her father’s words. Her teacher entered the conversation.

  ‘I’ve requested your parents let you sit the entrance exams to high school. You’ve got nothing to lose. It may be worth your while, even just for curiosity’s sake. More than three hundred children from the whole province will sit for about one hundred places. I’m telling you that because I don’t want you to get disheartened and upset if you don’t pass. Even if you pass though, you’re not obligated to go.’

  Tasia was shaking inside. Tomorrow was going to be her first big life adventure. She had always dreamed of going to Kailaria ever since she had heard her father speak about it. At school she learnt its official name was Ptolemais, and built on a tableland about six hundred metres above sea level in the middle of a plateau surrounded by mountains. It had a population of about six thousand people and was the administrative centre of Eordea province, a region known since ancient times by the same name. The province included the town of Ptolemais and all the close and distant villages nestling in the foothills and mountains. In prehistoric times, the whole plateau on which the town was built had been an immense forest. Later, a lake had covered the forest, changing the timber of the trees to coal. There were rich underground deposits of coal to be found everywhere. It was mined and sold to the people of the town to burn in specially designed stoves for heating in winter and for cooking.
The town had a post office, a courthouse, two banks, two chemist shops and the renowned weekly Wednesday market, drawing people from all over the province. Despite the fact that Tasia’s father had nothing positive to say about the town, in her mind she could imagine Ptolemais as a large city, enchanting and bewitching, but at the same time confusing and frightening.

  They left very early, the morning stars still trembling in the milky sky. She was trying to catch up, almost running after her father who was striding with his big and steady steps. The unimaginable joy and terror she felt during this, the first big journey of her life, was overwhelming. The only things she had seen until this morning were the gentle slopes of the nearby hills, the thick forest and the water grooves scarring the mountain slopes. Further in the distance she could see the mountaintops framing the sky above, defining her horizon. An exception was a small opening on the north-eastern side of the village, but a tall house opposite her window had obstructed the view. Tasia had been outside the village before when she was very young. Her parents had had to take her with them to the nearby fields where they worked because they had no one to take care of her.

  She loved to go with them, work next to them and now and then look far to the small valleys and villages formed between the hills and the foot of the mountains. But some small hills to the east obscured the bigger picture and Tasia had never found the courage to climb up a high hill and look beyond. Consequently, her known world was confined to the narrow cobbled streets of her village, the stone houses, the small streams that gurgled continually, the gentle slopes, the mountain air fragrant with linden, oregano, sweet basil, freshly baked bread and fried onions. Now, as she was climbing another hill with her father, her curiosity had reached its limit. She hoped it would be the last summit from where the big picture would be revealed.