The Lace Tablecloth

by Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis

  ‘Look, I know just now you’re going through a severe crisis and it’s natural to wonder if there is some order in the universe and some purpose in life. And I’m telling you there is purpose. And this purpose is specific to each human being, irrespective of God’s existence or not. Each person has the capacity and the duty to consciously select and devote himself freely to a specific course of action, accepting full responsibility for that action,’ said Olga.

  ‘I would like to know how many people in the world have the capacity to think and to act freely. Everything we are and everything we know was passed down to us by others: our teachers, our parents and our community. You said just a few minutes ago that if I were born in another society I would have learnt to worship different gods and not Jesus Christ. Whatever we are, our ideas, our principles and our way of life came to us from someone else, even our social convictions. Just think. People who have nothing to do with you come and tell you what your convictions are. How can you rely upon yourself and develop free will when one tells you one thing and someone else another? You can’t even rely on your parents because they lie to you, too!’

  ‘Come, come, don’t you be so harsh! If your parents didn’t tell you about something, maybe they had good reason. In any case, I suspect there’s some mistake. Maybe the papers got mixed up or some malevolent person gave them the wrong information. You just wait and see. I’m sure your father will explain everything and in a week or two you’ll have in your hands that notorious certificate.

  ‘I was afraid something like this might happen,’ her father said, deeply alarmed. ‘When my mother and my two brothers left for Sofia, I was very young and remember it almost as if in a dream. It was such a long time ago. I can’t see what relevance it now has to our lives. I never had any contact with them and I don’t know if they are dead or alive. You see, the day after they left, the borders between Greece and Bulgaria were closed and not even a letter could get through. I’m not sure why they bring up these matters and reopen old wounds.’

  Tasia was looking at him, not believing her ears.

  ‘Cursed, miserable, dreadful times …’ her mother’s murmur came like an echo.

  She had rested her knitting on her lap for a moment and then took it up again and continued to knit with increased speed as if in fury.

  ‘Why didn’t your mother take you, too?’ Tasia asked.

  He first finished carefully rolling a new cigarette before answering.

  ‘Let’s say, that’s how it was meant to be. We were ready to go when all of a sudden I got very sick — I don’t know with what. I was left in the care of my aunt, my mother’s sister, until I got well. But in the meantime the borders were shut and we couldn’t go. I was left here and lived with my aunt till the day she passed away, God bless her soul. The house we are now living in was hers.’

  ‘Well, why were you leaving Greece? You were Greeks, weren’t you?’

  ‘Greeks to the bone, despite the fact my mother spoke Bulgarian. In those times whoever spoke Bulgarian was called a Bulgarian and was considered an enemy by some government officials serving in the provinces. People were treated as second class citizens and couldn’t get jobs to feed their children.

  Whoever had relatives in other countries — as your grandmother had in Bulgaria — left to stay with them.’

  ‘What did your father — my grandfather — do? Didn’t he go with them?’ asked Tasia.

  ‘My father was a local man, a genuine Greek. He was a shepherd working for a big landowner. But one day he was found in the forest stabbed to death. It was said he was killed because he was married to a Bulgarian woman. I was then only a baby. My aunt told me that a few days later, the big landowner kicked my mother out onto the street: a young widow with three small children.’

  ‘Heartless people, damned harsh times,’ her mother interjected, staring over the horizon with vacant eyes.

  ‘And so my mother packed up and left for her brother’s place in Sofia.’

  He took a deep puff from his cigarette and let the smoke escape slowly from his tight lips.

  ‘Some people with relatives living in Bulgaria were getting news about them through friends or relatives in Canada. That’s how I also found out three years ago that my older brother, Vangelis, was killed in the war and that my mother had also died. What has happened of my other brother, Tony, I have no idea.’

  ‘Is that what makes you — the rest of us — a communist and a traitor,’ Tasia exclaimed, dumbfounded.

  ‘Well, not only that. There’s more. Today, people are divided: monarchists and communists, nationalists and traitors. If those in authority don’t like you for whatever reason, even for sending your child to school, they are ready to name you as undesirable. You can try if you wish to find justice but if you’re named, that’s really the end of you. They’ll find ways to annihilate you.’

  ‘Is that the reason no one gives you work any more?’ Tasia wanted to know.

  ‘Yes,’ her father answered. ‘You have no idea how we try to survive. There is no compassion any more, no respect for human dignity and no justice.’

  Tasia’s godfather was a very influential man. He was a public figure with a big network of important contacts throughout the province and beyond. A single telephone call could have changed the course of Tasia’s life. But when had he ever shown any interest in her and her family? Even if they happened to meet by chance in the street, he most likely wouldn’t recognise her. How then could she approach him and ask him to help her? How could she approach him to ask him to intervene on her behalf and help her? She would rather starve to death than beg for something that was rightfully hers. She was too proud to ask for favours, dismissing the common saying that it’s ‘who you know’ that counts. She was convinced that using someone’s influence to get her out of her current pressing predicament would be the start of her moral and spiritual decline.

  With these thoughts in mind, she suddenly saw her parents’ behaviour under a different light. There was a time when she didn’t want her fellow students to meet her parents, afraid they would see them as crude and ignorant peasants, as bitter failures. She was also used to feeling uncomfortable, almost ashamed about their passivity which she had interpreted as evidence of their subservience and resignation.

  Now she saw her parents’ behaviour as a sign of uncompromising pride and dignity. She saw them not as the pathetic victims of a dreadful situation but as true heroes, as dignified fighters, bringing up their children under the most difficult conditions, trying to create for them the best chances they could have in life. Yes, she was very lucky to have the parents she had, she thought, with enormous respect and pride.

  Only now Tasia became aware they were managing to survive from one day to the next. Her father was rarely engaged as a hauler of goods and since there was nothing left over from their own produce to sell, his weekly visits to the market of Ptolemais became less frequent.

  For the first time the loom stood idle in the corner, because no one gave Tasia’s mother paid work. She couldn’t weave things for their own use either, as they didn’t have any wool. However, her parents were not giving up and were taking things in their stride. Tasia was amazed to see how self-sufficient, inventive and brave both her parents were.

  Her father would collect fallen brunches from the trees in the forest and then go to Ptolemais to sell them, taking whatever the very few buyers were willing to give him. Her mother would prepare meals to feed the whole family with very few ingredients. With two eggs, some nettles, a little feta cheese and some flour she could make an omelette, big enough to feed four people.

  Following the old dictum ‘want is the mother of invention’ both of her parents were nimble and inventive, capable of standing on their own two feet and surviving on very little. From two yards of soil they grew ten tomato plants, enough for the whole year. Her mother would cut and place all the leftover tomatoes out in the sun to dry, or make them into tomato paste. From the small and still-green tomato
es after the plant had exhausted itself, she made pickles. She did the same with the peppers. Not a thing was wasted; not a thing was thrown away. Her mother would take apart old knitted garments, select the still good wool and make new ones, colouring them with dyes made from skins of onions and other leaves.

  Her father was also skilful and inventive. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He knew all he needed to know about working the land and taking care of the animals, but had also worked at building sites, in forests. He would turn a thick piece of wood he happened to find in the forest into wooden clogs, spoons and bowls. He also knew how to repair their shoes, how to glue the holes in their rubber boots, and a million other things.

  Both her parents were hardworking, capable, honest and proud. They faced life head-on and responded to its challenges without complaining. With patience and perseverance they were finding practical solutions to everyday problems, without using mathematical equations and theoretical models. If her mother didn’t know the Euklid’s elements or the Pythag-orean theorem, she nevertheless knew how to make the best salty brew for her pickles, knew which weed growing on the slopes and the stream banks was edible, how to bleach the pillowcases and handkerchief with ash, and a thousand other things.

  However, the hardship was evident in their wrinkled faces, their faded eyes, their hair turning grey. Her parents were a little over forty years old but looked much older. Every time Tasia stood next to her mother, she was surprised to find herself taller. In reality, her mother was a diminutive figure, carrying all the traumas of her early childhood and coping with all the tragedies and the difficulties of her life. She was there, responsibly playing her part, and ignoring the wear and tear of time.

  With no knowledge of the forces that determined the big historical events of their times, her parents continued with courage and dignity to walk their one-way path to its inevitable end. Tasia admired them because she could now see they were no longer the bitter failures, the crude and ignorant peasants she had thought, but proud and dignified winners.

  Tasia’s two full-day attempts to find a job in Ptolemais proved futile. Full of despair and pessimism, she returned to the village and waited for some miracle. Time was passing slowly as her melancholy deepened. Things got even grimmer as the time for Olga’s departure for Salonica grew closer. Olga had to stay in Salonica for few weeks to attend compulsory English and housekeeping classes in preparation for her migration to Australia.

  ‘I must attend some classes,’ she told Tasia,’ because I’m not going as a midwife but as a servant. And that’s because Australia doesn’t want professional, educated migrants. It wants uneducated people to work in heavy and undesirable positions. Fortunately, I was warned about it and I lied about my line of work. Otherwise my application would have been rejected.’

  ‘What do I have to do to go to Australia?’ Tasia asked.

  ‘You’d have to apply to the relevant authorities and then wait to be called. But I’ll search and I promise you I’ll find a quicker way. If there is any chance at all I’ll move earth and sky to get you out of your impasse. As I see it, the biggest obstacle for getting a passport would be the lack of that certificate. But let’s not lose hope. I’ll do all I can to help you.’

  Olga left soon after, leaving Tasia with a pile of books and her radio. But without a battery or electricity, the radio was left silent on the small table to collect dust and kept reminding Tasia that humans were not content to have only a full stomach. They had the ability and the desire to beautify their environment, to refine their lives by creating fantastic things like this radio which transmitted divine music to every part of the country.

  She started reading the books Olga had left her, enchanted by the stories, unable to put a book down till the end. The books were opening new worlds, new ideas, and were generating new questions inside her.

  Books by Russian authors made her aware of the sumptuous-ness, the greatness and the refinement of the Russian aristocracy, but also of the arrogance, the pettiness and the moral decline. In a historical novel, she read about the frivolity and the hedo-nism of the French aristocracy and the struggle and revolt of the poor French people. Kazantzakis’ Zorba, with his childlike spontaneity, his inventiveness and his natural intelligence was an affront to her indecisiveness and her timidity. She loved the protagonist’s agility, his wild intoxication with life, and his philosophical integrity.

  Her reading opened up new horizons, and broadened her thinking. She reached the conclusion that books were the most valuable treasure in the world. They were the most precious cultural legacy passed from older generations to the new generations. If she ever managed to have any spare money, the only thing she’d spend it on, would be books.

  She read about idealism and altruism, about greed and callousness, about hope and despair. She read about refinement, beauty, manners, and about ignorance, meanness and cruelty, about people who had too much money while others lived in hovels and were deprived of even the most elementary dignity.

  As she read she found herself confronted by many moral dilemmas, queries and uncertainties that upset and disturbed her. There were times when Tasia felt she was reading her own ideas and feelings put to paper by somebody else.

  The grape harvest was over and the must was slowly fermenting and changing to wine within the wooden barrels. The smell of must custard and molasses thickening in the pots filled the air. The days started to get shorter, warning the trees and vine leaves to change their attire and colour. The days continued to be hot, but late at night and early in the morning the cold was noticeable.

  Tasia had finished all of Olga’s books. Her initial desire to follow her mother around day by day, and learn all the things she was capable of doing, evaporated.

  Insidiously, Tasia slipped back into her previous lethargic state, an ennui that supped all her energy and took away her initiative. How long is it going to last? There is only one lifespan. Sooner or later it has to come to an end, she was thinking bitterly and slothfully. There were times she’d liken herself to a bull tied with a rope to a central pole on the threshing field, moving lazily in the midday sun, first one way till all the rope was wrapped around the pole, and then unwinding it the other. She felt like the mythical Sysiphus, pushing a heavy boulder up the hill, losing it and having to start all over again.

  The lowland was changing its looks. Flocks of migratory birds were speeding towards the south, and white clouds were crowning the hilltops. Winter was approaching swiftly and people were preparing in earnest. The common greeting was ‘have a good winter’. The passing carts were loaded with bales of straw or big wooded logs. Some men were repairing their rooftops; others were cleaning the sheepfold and filling up the trunks with fodder.

  Tasia had just come out of the chicken pen holding the two eggs she had found. The chickens were no longer laying regularly. She somehow managed not to drop and break them when she saw Olga opening the gate and stepping into their yard.

  ‘Welcome! But … what are you doing here?’ she asked with surprise.

  ‘Didn’t I promise you to try my best to take you with me? Well, I’ve found a way.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ Tasia exclaimed, not believing her ears.

  ‘Let’s sit down and I’ll explain,’ Olga suggested.

  They sat outside on the terrace.

  ‘I must make it clear from the start you are not going to be obligated in any way. I want you to listen to what I have to say and then you can make up your mind. We are only taking advantage of a given situation. A young man living in Australia has sent a paid ticket to his girlfriend, expecting her to go and marry him. But at the last minute the girl changed her mind and is not going. She wrote to him and explained her decision. I found out about it and asked if he would agree for her to give the ticket to another girl willing to pay him on her arrival there. To cut it short, he agreed and here we are! Look, the ticket has her name but I know someone who can change it. And that’s the photograph of the man.’
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  Tasia looked at the picture. He was neither handsome nor ugly. How was it possible to understand a man’s character by looking at his picture anyway? How could you touch his soul? Perhaps that had no relevance. How many people married because they felt a psychic connection? Most marriages were arranged with the couple hardly having time to get to know each other, even if they were engaged. Marriage was a social contract and had nothing to do with the naive romantic notions of an ignoramus like her. Look at her own mother and father for example. They had got married, under who knows what conditions, and were living together, not because there were many common points between them, but because it was the duty of every sound person. In their struggle to survive they didn’t have the luxury of choice, didn’t have the wherewithal to aspire to something better. If every human being waited to find their twin soul to get married and have children, humanity would have ceased to exist thousands of years ago. Of course Tasia would have preferred never to get married. Ever since she had seen George appear out of the blue and, without recognising her, rush over to his pregnant wife, she had decided never to get married.

  Her parents gave her their blessing and they left two days later. She had put her very few personal things in a small suitcase at the bottom of which her mother — despite Tasia’s protestations — placed the folded lace tablecloth, the only thing she still had from her own mother.

  ‘My flesh, my little bird, I have nothing else that’s mine to give you,’ she insisted.

  They cried, embraced, kissed and said goodbye behind closed doors to avoid people talking. If Tasia was crying, it wasn’t because she felt pain. In reality she was feeling neither pain nor joy. It was as if she had no skin wrapped around her soul to keep it exclusively hers, separated from every other soul. Without a wrap, her unbound soul was getting mixed up and amalgamated with every other soul and the tears running down her cheeks were for the pain and the desperation of others.