Something inside always made her feel shame and disgust in her body, forcing her to try to subjugate her instincts, including the most basic natural needs such as thirst and hunger. She was successful to a considerable degree, and was proud of that because she believed the mark of a civilised human being was the ability to bridle the animal instincts in order to ascend to a higher intellectual plain.
Despite all this, her mind, full of contradictory thoughts, resembled a seething cauldron ready to explode. She felt secure only when there were clear-cut and unambiguous directions to be followed, like the school’s rules and regulations: rules that stipulated even the length of the girls’ uniforms and the way they ought to have their hair, rules that forbade the use of auxiliary books and prohibited any contact between boys and girls, at any time.
Tasia blindly followed these rules and regulations feeling relieved because she wasn’t left to make her own decisions, unguided and with insufficient or contradictory information. That’s what she had missed as a child: strict and clear directions. She couldn’t remember either of her parents ever telling her what to do or not to do and how to behave.
The teachers, as mature and professional people, knew how to protect and guide their pupils towards what was best. Tasia believed their knowledge had the stamp of absolute authority, that it contained the indisputable truth. That’s why she didn’t like to hear students criticise the teachers or make fun of them. She didn’t agree with some students’ comments that the school was using arbitrary control and its rules were oppressive. She appreciated the boundaries set by the school as they stipulated for her the limits of her absolute freedom.
Her life became simple and uncomplicated, requiring little thought or major decisions. She’d go to school in the morning and then dash home. In the evenings, after completing her homework, she’d prop an open schoolbook on the windowsill and sit by the window to read. At the same time, her skilful hands would move the wool over her knitting needles automatically and without looking. She had never used the forbidden auxiliary books used by most students. Her school marks were good because, in her opinion, she was diligent rather that clever.
S
omething wasn’t quite right. You could feel it in the air, sense it in people’s sullen faces — the whispering voices, the suspicious glances. The joyful optimism that had followed the end of German occupation was gradually being replaced by hate and fanaticism. It was as if some invisible hand, some bad omen was spreading the seeds of dissent and hostility among the people. At the kiosk where she made it a point to stop every morning and read the newspaper headlines, Tasia read about fierce fighting breaking out in many places, about bloodshed in the heart of Athens, about agreements between political leaders that were signed and sealed but not honoured. There was reference to a new guerrilla war, to men and women once again taking to the mountains, not as resistance fighters against some foreign invader, but in the name of universal brotherhood and equality, in the name of communism and of close alliance to mother Russia. As she couldn’t read the details Tasia was not sure what exactly was happening. But everybody else knew including the women at the water tap who stated their position with great passion.
During breaks at school many students surrounded Sonia, a senior, eager to hear her speak with great passion about a universal human struggle inspired by the revolutionary ideas of a group of intellectuals and idealists with gentle hearts. They blamed capitalism for all human oppression and exploitation. Their goal was to eliminate cruelty, poverty and injustice. Their aim was to bring about decency, equality and universal brotherhood to all people from China and Africa, to India and Europe.
Sonia was two years Tasia’s senior. She was exceptionally good-looking, very bright and a charismatic speaker. Her words stretched Tasia’s way of thinking beyond the parochial and the mundane. She found herself thinking about a larger universal humanity and about ideas that excited her heart and bewildered her mind.
On the opposing side, Athina from Sonia’s class talked with the same eloquence and passion about what it meant to be a Greek, about loyalty to one’s country, about patriotism and freedom, about Christ and king. She proclaimed her willingness to die in order to defend the land, the traditions and principles threatened by the surge of communism.
However, the school maintained a total silence on the emerging situation which made Tasia think the best she could do was to remain uninvolved and neutral. Besides, she wasn’t sufficiently informed to decide which ideas were right or wrong. She resolved to listen carefully to both points of view and keep quiet so no one could classify her as royalist or as communist, the two opposing factions that had divided the whole community.
That the school was not willing to deal with the current historical events mystified her. Her favourite subject was history, particularly ancient Greek history which made her very proud of her heritage. She had learnt about the incredibly creative spirit of the ancient Greeks who lit the first bright light amidst the darkness of ignorance. Greece, she had learnt, was the first country to recognise the worth of each individual as an independent unit of existence rather than as the property of a king or a despot. Greece had given birth to democracy, creating free and proud, spirited individuals, capable of asking questions and expressing their ideas and their creativity. Greece had given to the world Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Praxiteles and Phidias, Alexander the Great.
Yes, she was proud to be a Greek because, as she had learnt at school, Greece was the cradle of western civilisation, the foundation stone for the ascent of humanity, the mother of humanism. She could still recall how moved her primary teacher became when he spoke about the conquest of Constantinople, the holy city of the Greeks. Later on he had spoken with utmost reverence about the Greek heroes of 1821 who gave their life in order to liberate the country from the Turkish yoke after five hundred years of slavery. He had had a lot to say about the Friendly Society and Riga Fereo, and about the deep-rooted need of Greeks for freedom. To prove the point, he recited with enormous passion from the verse of Riga Fereo:
… ‘καλύτερα μιας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή, παρά σαράντα χρόνια
σκλαβιά και φυλακή’.
(… better to live for only one hour in freedom rather than forty years slavery in dungeons.)
After all, he had said, which other country’s national anthem was dedicated to freedom?
Come to think of it, she was not well-informed about many aspects of human history, for example the First World War which she assumed had indeed happened, since she had lived through the Second! But she couldn’t find anything about it in her school books and, as far as she knew, there was no other place in town where she could borrow books.
There was no information in her history book about the Macedonian freedom fighters either. She learnt the name Paulos Melas from a folk song ‘σαν τέτοια ώρα στο βουνό, ο Παύλος πληγωμένος …’ (A time like this on the mountain, Paulos was lying wounded), a song that always brought tears to her eyes and a deep trembling inside, as she felt one with the hero, and lived his agony of impending death. Only in popular stories, myths and legends had she heard names like that of Elefterios Venizelos.
In primary school she had heard her teacher telling them about the pogrom and the uprooting of the Greek populations from their homes in Asia Minor, Pontos and Eastern Thrace where they had lived for thousands of years. But that wasn’t an official part of the school curriculum. The teacher was only sharing some of his experiences similar to those of Tasia’s mother and Aunt Antigone. For some reason, these monumental events in the history of her country were not as yet written in the school books, creating the impression they were irrelevant or, perhaps, without any educational value.
Tasia remembered now how surprised she had been to see so many crippled young men the first time she walked on the streets of Ptolamais. Some had one or both arms missing and others were walking on cru
tches.
‘They are our war veterans,’ her father had told her, ‘disabled while fighting the invading Italians in the mountains of North Epirous and Albania. Most of them became crippled not from enemy bullets, but from frostbite.’
In the entrance to the market place she also saw a young man with no legs at all. He only had arms and a sturdy torso. Something like a leather cushion covered the part of his torso that came in contact with the ground, but he was moving with amazing agility. He would steady his muscular arms on the ground on the small, specially made pieces of wood he held in his hands, lift his torso and propel it in the direction he wanted to go.
She was first drawn by his strong voice advertising his meagre merchandise arranged on a rug in front of him: threads and needles, hairpins, strings, shoe cords, matches, lighters, and other such small things. She looked down, expecting to see someone sitting and was confronted by the tragic figure of a smiling and good-humoured man trying to sell his goods in an effort to make a living. She stood there feeling an unbearable pain in her heart, with a deep sense of shame and guilt, as if she were responsible for the wretchedness of this man, as if it wasn’t fair this young man had given both his legs for his country and was now struggling to survive, while she, with all her limbs intact, was complaining about the harshness of her life! As she was trying to cope with her emotions she was amazed to see him call after an old lady who had forgotten her change, and then she saw another old woman haggling with him on the price of the hairpins. Tasia was numb with pain and couldn’t bear to witness the scene any longer. She was overwhelmed by a feeling of compassion, not only for the crippled young man but also for the destitute old woman, forced to bargain for what little she wanted to buy.
Tasia planted a seedling of sweet basil in a rusted can she had found on the street, and placed it on her windowsill to nurture it.
The late afternoon hours would find her sitting in the dim light at the foot of the bed by the open window, knitting and watching the passers-by. From further down the lane she could hear the voices of children playing hide-and-seek, tsaliki, and other games she had lost interest in long ago. She couldn’t remember ever being a carefree child. From as far back as her memory could stretch and close to her sixteenth birthday, she had lived in constant angst, confusion and concern. Her sky had always been full of black clouds covering her horizon and obscuring her sun.
The same dark clouds now covered most people living under a clear blue sky and a bright hot sun. It was close to four years since the end of German occupation. The joyful delirium of Greeks — whose hearts were beating in unison four years ago — had now turned to discord. In a treacherous and sinister way the crowd was plagued by two opposing ideologies, each side defending its beliefs with zeal and passion.
People like Sonia believed in a new, utopian society: a society free from oppression, exploitation, discrimination and corruption — an egalitarian society, full of justice, solidarity and brotherhood. She had no qualms about taking up arms and fighting high up in the mountains, to kill or be killed for her ideals and convictions. People like Athina, on the other hand, were fervently defending the status quo and were also ready to die defending king, country and religion.
One day, the beautiful and clever Sonia — the top student and flag-bearer at all school functions — sent a message from the mountains. She had left school to join ‘… the honest fighters striving for human brotherhood, for justice, for the dignity of every poor person, for all the poor and exploited human beings in every corner of the planet …’
‘Traitor! Red bonnet! Communist!’ shouted Athina. ‘Bloody communists! They are not human. They have no patriotism at all.’
The anger twisted Athina’s beautiful face making it appear grotesque and vulgar.
‘Just imagine. They want to bring communism to Greece and to annex our country to Russia, Bulgaria, Albania and other such backward and hostile countries. And they have the insolence to call themselves Greeks! Disgraceful, unscrupulous murderers and traitors!’
Caught up in this whirlwind, Tasia’s mind reeled relentlessly over a bottomless abyss. She honestly couldn’t understand all this insanity, all this wickedness. Soldiers were killing guerrillas, guerrillas were killing soldiers. They were all Greeks, all born of Greek mothers.
‘Did you hear the latest news?’ said Katina one evening to the other women at the water tap. ‘In a village in Peloponnesus the army had two young men executed because they refused to join the army.’
‘Shame! Shame on us! They’re not soldiers. They’re murderers!’ Aliki rushed to condemn.
‘Don’t believe all you hear. It isn’t possible for the noble boys of our royal army to commit such crimes. This is communist propaganda,’ argued Maria.
But propaganda about the savagery and brutality of the guerrillas was also widespread, with reference to kidnappings, lay courts and arbitrary executions.
‘Death to the bastards, the Bolsheviks, the traitors,’ some people shouted.
Tasia wished she could understand what was happening. Why were people killing each other? What were their differences and what did each one of them want? Who was right and who was wrong? Who were the traitors and who the heroes? She was confused and couldn’t understand the fine details. She chastised herself for being so stupid and so indecisive, unable to reach a conclusion. Even the women at the water tap were absolutely sure as to what was happening and how they were feeling about it, but not Tasia.
One day Aliki arrived at the water tap wearing a red kerchief.
‘Get lost, you stupid communist! Bulgur! Traitor!’ Maria scolded her.
Aliki called her names too and before Tasia could figure out what was happening the two women had come to blows, all the time screaming and swearing. At last Aliki manage to free herself from Maria’s grip and, in her effort to assert herself, started singing loudly and obstinately ‘κάπα κάπα έψιλον! Κούκου, κούκου έ!’ (Hurray for communism), to which Maria responded ‘ελιά, ελιά και Κότσο βασιλιά’ (Olives, olives and Kostantine the king), something that made the other women shake their heads in amazement.
The population of Ptolemais was divided into two enemy camps, the left and the right, with total absence of respect and trust between the two. Straight after sunset people hurried to their homes, and the streets were deserted. By nightfall an eerie silence fell over the town which seemed dead, abandoned. Those still out at dark anxiously increased their pace to reach home and safety.
Tasia continued to sit every evening by her open window, taking in the loneliness of the night. And then one night she saw George pass in front of her open window. He was tall, slim, with an impressive gait and a spring in his walk. The moment she spotted him in the dimness of the light, she felt her heart skip and then beat wildly. It was the first time he had passed in front of her house. She wondered if he lived somewhere close by or if he was visiting someone. She knew him as a final-year student from school, two years her senior, but well-known to most other students because he was the school captain and flag-bearer.
Tasia remembered the time when the two of them had almost collided when they tried to avoid each other on the street but moved in unison towards the same side not once but twice. They had paused for a split second. Tasia’s heart had lost its rhythm and her knees had turned soft like butter as he looked amused and smiled warmly at her before changing direction. For days afterwards, she kept wondering why she had felt that way, since she had no business with that young man, or with any other man for that matter. She had taken the decision not to allow any matters of the heart to upset her already precarious existence, and had no time for all the romantic outpourings that seemed to be the main concern of the other school girls. As he wasn’t her classmate, she forgot this encounter until the moment she saw him pass in front of her window again. Despite her wild heartbeat, she wanted to convince herself she wasn’t interested in his whereabouts and she wasn’t sitting there each night with a jitter
in her heart hoping to see him pass again.
Tasia didn’t go to the village the following Saturday because she had to go to church on Sunday morning with the whole school. This had happened several times during the school year. On this occasion they went to the metropolitan church of Holly Trinity in the middle of town. She climbed up the stairs to the area reserved for women. The space was already crowded, many hanging over the banister to hear the sermon from above. It was stifling hot and the thick incense made her feel dizzy. Tasia seated herself on the wooden floor, resting her forehead on the cold wall and allowing the sound of the psalms inspire and relax her.
She never felt comfortable in church. Maybe it was because it wasn’t part of her upbringing and she had not developed that deep religious faith so dominant in most people’s lives. Instead of allowing the chanting to mesmerise her, she was listening carefully to the messages contained in the psalms and read-ings, trying to interpret them and make sense of the liturgical concepts. The Sunday’s bible reading was that of the paralytic, prompting her to wonder why an omnipotent, charitable and all-loving almighty God would send his angel only once in a while to disturb the waters of the pond where thousands of the infirm were waiting, so that only one lucky person, if he were quick enough, could be cured. She also asked herself how the man in the parable, who had nobody to push him into the moving waters of the pond to be cured, had managed to live for thirty years. Who was taking care of him, feeding him, bathing and taking him to the toilet? She would catch herself having these unholy thoughts and feel panicky. Because, if God was indeed as mean and selfish as he was presented, he most certainly would punish her for her insolence. It was a blessing nobody else could read her mind and discover how uncouth and different from everybody else she was, she thought.
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