The Lace Tablecloth

by Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis

  Before Tasia could respond, Olga opened the cabin door and entered, calling loudly,

  ‘Good morning to all! How are you? Did you sleep well?’

  She wore a dressing gown, and her wet hair dripped on her shoulders. She was carrying towels and a bag of toiletries.

  ‘I enjoyed the shower but I had to queue for hours. You’d think they’d have more toilets and showers for the crowd they’re carrying. By the way, my name is Olga. I guess by now you’ve all got to know each other. That’s Tasia up there,’ she said and turning to Tasia asked, ‘How are you, my girl? Did you sleep well?’

  Yes, that’s Olga all right! Head and shoulders above the rest, Tasia thought, feeling irritable. Who the hell does she think she is to call me ‘my girl’? She always had to be the centre of attention and monopolise every conversation. Otherwise she’d explode. That’s exactly what had happened last night with John, the young man who had at first spoken to her. In two seconds Olga had taken over and left her completely out of the conversation as if she weren’t there: as if she didn’t exist.

  ‘We have to hurry,’ Olga continued, as she started to get dressed. ‘We’ll be called to breakfast any time now.’

  ‘I’m going nowhere. If you like, you can bring me a piece of bread to eat here,’ requested the toothless old lady.

  ‘That wouldn’t do,’ Olga objected. ‘We’ll all go together or we’ll all stay and starve to death. What do you think, girls?’

  With a deep sigh of resignation the old woman stood up and put her hands in her apron pocket, searching for something. She pulled out her dentures wrapped in a white kerchief. She carefully placed them in her mouth.

  ‘That’s how one ends up,’ she commented apologetically.

  ‘Why don’t you wear your dentures all the time?’ Olga asked.

  ‘Because they hurt me, that’s why. I really have no need for dentures at my age. But what alternative did I have? “You get rid of your rotten teeth and have yourself fitted with dentures, or you are not going to Australia” they told me.’

  ‘Is that so? Tell me, what should we call you? Yiayia or something else?’ asked Olga.

  ‘Despo is my name. I want you to call me Despo.’

  ‘As you wish! But tell us, Yiayia Despo, why are you going to Australia? We’re young and want to make a better life for ourselves. But you’re a bit older. What takes you to Australia?’

  ‘I’m not just older. I’m old! They have me as sixty on the papers but I’m telling you I’m sixty plus. What can I say? That’s how it was meant to be. My son asked me to go over and take care of his children. That’s why I’m here. His wife is sick, mad-crazy; they have her in a mad-house. He has two children, very young, still babies. What can he do? Someone has to take care of them while he goes to work. In any case I was alone at home, like a dead log. My other boy is in Canada; he has his problems too. His wife has left him and their two children. But what can you expect? He married a foreigner. They’re not like Greek women. They don’t care about their family.’

  ‘So, you have two boys and both are overseas,’ said the girl from the upper bunk, who had come down and stood with her hands on her hips before the old woman.

  ‘I had four,’ she answered. ‘Four boys, big and strong. They were tall up to there.’

  She indicated the top of the wardrobe.

  ‘Two of them I lost in the same year during the civil war. One was a soldier, the other a guerilla. I lost my husband from cancer the same year. In one year I buried three men. Come. Let’s go,’ she said abruptly and opened the cabin door, leading the way to the dining room.

  It was huge, full of long tables arranged in rows as far as the eye could see. They sat at the first empty chairs they could find. On the table were carafes of red wine, glasses and plates, and so many pieces of cutlery, Tasia was confused about which ones to use for what. Very soon waiters brought big, steaming platters full of spaghetti, bowls of boiled eggs, containers of grated yellow cheese and other smaller platters, containing sliced salami and other sausages.

  Sitting in this big hall sharing a meal with tens of other human beings — co-travellers on this incredible adventure — made Tasia very emotional. She felt an infinitesimal unit and yet an inseparable part of this human throng on their inescap-able, one-way path from here to eternity. Whatever happened in between time, she thought, from birth to death, was meaningless and inconsequential. Dreams, aspirations, toils, successes and failures had only one basic purpose: to fill up the intervening time. There was nothing more and nothing less. Each and every one of these people, including her, had only one life. Whatever each one did, good or bad, constructive or destructive, positive or negative, the life of each person would come to its end. Like this journey that will finish at its destination, each life would reach its final destination, too.

  The dining room was full of noisy young men and women. People of Despo’s age could be counted. Looking around, Tasia could see tired but happy faces — the result possibly of late-night celebrating. At the same table, Sofia, the young girl from their cabin, was sitting opposite Tasia, talking to her companion, a girl of the same age.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Tasia heard her say. ‘We have no reason to complain. We are incredibly lucky. My cousin put her papers in three months before me and she is still waiting. But I didn’t let it rest. I chased it up. I just had to leave. There was no future for me back home —’

  ‘Me too,’ the other girl butted in. ‘We didn’t have a rag to put on, but my father wanted to have a son so my mother had a baby just about every year. She had six babies and all of them girls. Fortunately, she got a women’s sickness and that put an end to her breeding. My father is still fuming because of not having a son. You would think he had a big property to leave! We have nothing. He is only a shepherd.’

  ‘Listen, Maria.’ Sofia took over. ‘Work doesn’t scare me. I’ve worked all my life from six in the morning until midnight ever since I was eight years old. I was given to a rich family in Kala-mata to be a servant. I was treated worse than a dog. I didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. And I never got any money. At least now I’ll be working for pay.’

  ‘I don’t mind what work they give me.’ Maria said. ‘I’ll work wherever they send me: servant, cleaner. Whatever they want me to do, I’ll do. It’s not only for myself. I have responsibilities. Do you think I’m going to leave my little sisters hungry and barefooted? The more I think about them, the more my heart aches.’

  Tasia listened to the two girls with admiration and tenderness. She thought she had a difficult life. Well, there were far worse cases. The elevated voice of an animated young man sitting on her side of the table caught Tasia’s attention.

  ‘I’m telling you, all the village used to call him lazybones. But after only two years in Australia he came back a millionaire,’ he was saying.

  ‘That’s because he is a Greek. Greeks are crafty. They may not like to use their hands but they know how to use their brains. That’s why they are successful wherever they go. What was Onassis? He was a clever and hard-working Greek. He was a poor boy without a family, name or education but managed to make more money that anybody else,’ replied his companion.

  ‘Well, nobody aspires to be an Onassis. We only want to earn our keep and from what I’ve heard there’s a lot of work in Australia and lots of money. You only have to want to work,’ added someone else.

  ‘We’re going to Australia to work and save. In two or three years we’ll go back to our own place and live like kings. To tell you the truth I love my country. I don’t want to leave my bones in a foreign land. But the way things are now, Greece hasn’t enough bread to feed everybody. We’ll work over here and we’ll give a hand to our people back home. That way we’ll be helping our poor country to recover.

  Wherever Tasia turned, she saw in people’s faces unrestrained enthusiasm and optimism. Whatever they said was full of dreams and hopes. Could it be that, quite by chance, she was going to a paradise on earth, to th
e proverbial Promised Land? She recalled how she felt when she saw some pictures in a number of foreign magazines in Salonica when she was waiting to go through the compulsory medical examination. She thought the magnificent houses, the superb gardens, the luxurious cars, the tall and beautiful women in fabulous gowns, the men looking like the god Apollo were fake, or scenes from some other planet. Was it possible such luxury, such lavishness, such prosperity existed, and she was going to find herself in the midst of all this at the end of her trip?

  With their stomachs full, their dreams alive and a bit tipsy from drinking the red wine so early in the morning, the crowd gradually left the dining room. Sofia and her girlfriend, Maria, left arm in arm. In an unusually pensive mood Olga was scan-ning the big hall. With her head bent like a shy little girl Yiayia Despo didn’t let anything pass unnoticed. She had had two serv-ings of spaghetti, one boiled egg and then, pouring two glasses of red wine, had invited Tasia to join her in a drink.

  Out on deck the day was glorious. A brilliant Aegean sun lovingly caressed the waters of the ocean. The coquettish sea, dressed in blue-rich satin, sparkled in her shimmering jewels, playfully forming a stream of white froth at the aft. Petrified by the swaying of the ship, Yiayia Despo clung onto everything she could grasp with one hand, all the time holding tight onto Tasia’s arm with the other. When the two arrived eventually on deck, Yiayia Despo drew Tasia aside to a wall as far away from the rails and the water as possible, and they curled up there on deckchairs. Bit by bit she got used to the noise and the swaying of the ship. She became bold and began to observe the people all around with great interest.

  ‘What’s that, my daughter? I’ve never seen anything like that. I’m from the mountains. My, my, my. What things to see in my old age! Oh my God! Did you see that? What shamelessness! That girl is running around almost naked. Her pants don’t even cover her bottom. Well, I never. Look. Look there. That couple are kissing on the mouth — in broad daylight and in front of all these people! If she were my daughter I’d have her head chopped off with an axe! No wonder God would pour fire on us. In my day a girl wasn’t allowed to leave the house alone, and look at them here. The world has gone mad. These people ought to be wearing straitjackets.’

  Tasia made an attempt to leave Yiayia Despo and move around, but she wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Stay here and let me tell you what it was like for a girl in my time. After both sets of parents agreed to who I should marry, my mother had me serve drinks to a gathering of both families. I felt so embarrassed I couldn’t lift my eyes to look at their faces so the first time I really saw my husband was after the wedding. What’s the difference? We had a good life, my husband and I. If there hadn’t been that damned war … and then the horrid sickness … Well, what’s the point of talking about that again and again?’

  She took out her dentures, folded them carefully in her handkerchief, placed them in her apron pocket and turning her head to the side closed her eyes. That gave Tasia the chance to escape and move aimlessly around the deck.

  As the ship was Italian, the majority of passengers were ξένοι (non-Greeks), exposing her right from the start to unfamiliar behaviours. The Greeks were on the whole modestly dressed, the men in long trousers and shirts and the women in dresses, skirts and blouses. The foreigners wore swimming suits or shorts and were running around in public without shirts, while many girls wore revealing dresses and provocative swimwear. Yiayia Despo was right. Decent girls didn’t dress or behave like that.

  Tasia was amazed when she saw a young girl go and sit on the naked thighs of a young man and started kissing him. A meticulously dressed middle-aged couple passed in front of her with a haughty air that made Tasia feel inferior, even subhuman.

  ‘There you are! At last I’ve found you,’ Olga exclaimed appearing from nowhere and sitting down on a deck chair next to her. ‘You know,’ she continued after a while, ‘you shouldn’t have left us so early last night. John is a very interesting individual. We kept talking till three o clock in the morning.’

  ‘I know. I heard you coming to bed.’

  ‘He is amazing, I’m telling you.’

  ‘You don’t say! Is that so?’ Tasia mocked, with obvious spite.

  ‘He is a very interesting person, civilised, dynamic, genuine and well-read,’ Olga continued with enthusiasm.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with him already!’ Tasia teased her.

  ‘Well, what’s the matter with you? I just wanted to tell you I found him very remarkable and captivating,’ Olga said, giving Tasia a surprised look.

  ‘Well, okay, if you say so. That’s how he must be. He comes uninvited between us and then starts demonstrating to us how clever he is!’

  Tasia moved disconcertedly in her seat.

  ‘What’s come over you, Tasia? You talk as if he were your biggest enemy. What has he done to you?’ Olga asked mystified.

  ‘To me? Nothing. I don’t even know the man. Tell me then, what makes him so remarkable? What does he do?’

  Tasia tried to appear interested.

  ‘I have no idea. I haven’t asked him. I doubt if he’s finished high school, but he talks like a university professor.’

  ‘Then why do you say you doubt if he’s finished high school?’ Tasia asked with increased interest.

  ‘I’m guessing from everything else he’s told me. He has no parents and grew up in an orphanage. Later on in his life he searched and found out his mother committed suicide straight after giving birth to him. He couldn’t find anything about his father, nor did he manage to find any of his mother’s relatives.’

  ‘A beautiful fairy-tale’. Tasia mocked again. ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘My, my! You’re seething! I’ve never seen you that way. I’m telling you what he has told me and you say I’m telling you stories. I’m not sure if I should continue.’

  Olga couldn’t hide her annoyance.

  ‘Oh, yes, continue. I find it all very interesting.’

  Olga took a beep breath.

  ‘He was in an orphanage until the age of ten. Then he was given over for adoption to a couple from the country. But instead of adopting him, they sent him to take care of their sheep. One day he ran away and returned to Athens.’

  ‘And then?’ Tasia appeared genuinely interested now.

  ‘I really don’t know. The night ended in a strange way. To tell you the truth I got a bit scared. He appears as a strong and confident man, but in reality he’s very vulnerable. When he spoke about his mother he burst into uncontrollable sobs. He said many other things in a way I couldn’t follow, for example, he said he was a criminal and a scamp because his own mother had preferred to kill herself rather than take care of him. Just an eighteen year-old-girl! Then, he got up and left. I thought I’d give him time to get hold of himself, but as he didn’t come back I left and came to bed.’

  ‘He’s a bit strange, then. And now, where is he?’ Tasia wanted to now.

  ‘I have no idea. I’ve searched but couldn’t find him,’ Olga answered with obvious concern.

  ‘You think he jumped into the sea?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem that mad,’ Olga reassured her.

  They remained silent for a while, watching the distant horizon.

  ‘Well! Talk of the devil. Just look. There he is,’ Olga said suddenly waving her hand excitedly and calling, ‘John, John! Here!’

  Yes, he is very handsome indeed, Tasia thought, when he stood before them. He was the type of person you would single out among the crowd, not only for his looks but also for his general demeanour: tall, slim, broad chest and manly face, strong jaw, large and expressive brown eyes. He had a dark complexion with full and beautiful lips and wavy brown hair.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them. ‘I went to bed at 6 am and slept in,’ he continued by way of an excuse.

  ‘Why did you get up then? You really needed the sleep,’ Olga advised.


  ‘You’re right. I’m suffering from lack of sleep because I haven’t slept at all for the past three nights,’ he agreed. ‘Getting ready for this trip has taken its toll. I was very worked up and behaved in a most inexcusable manner. I hope you can forgive me,’ he said looking at Olga. ‘I can’t believe I could be so stupid as to leave you as I did and walk away. Please, tell me you forgive me,’ he pleaded.

  ‘That’s alright,’ Olga reassured him. ‘Of course I forgive you. I understand.’

  It’s time for me to go, Tasia thought, feeling like an intruder, and got up to leave.

  ‘Don’t forget to come to the library in twenty minutes for English lessons,’ John called after her while studying his watch.

  Tasia moved aimlessly around the deck, unsure what to do next, how to fill in her time. She walked aft and leaned against the rails, watching the long line of frothy water trailing behind the ship. Nearby, a group of middle-aged men in white knee-socks, white shorts and white short-sleeved shirts were fully absorbed in playing a strange game: they were hitting some wooden discs with a wooden hammer onto some white-lined squares drawn on the floor of the deck. She sat on a nearby bench and watched for a while rather absent-mindedly and with no great interest. Then, on recalling John’s words, she got up and left in a hurry, determined to find the library.

  By the time she entered the small oblong room the lesson had begun. A balding short man in shorts and sandals was in the process of lifting one by one a number of objects from the table in front of him and saying their English name several times with a strong and clear voice. The students were repeating with him: a cup … a cup … a cup … a saucer … a saucer … a saucer …

  A young foreign lady got up and began to write the name of each object on the blackboard with Latin characters, before the teacher announced it. A young man at the next table pushed a piece of paper and a pencil in front of Tasia and she turned to wave ‘thank you’. He was a foreigner, Tasia thought, not because of his attire but because of his blond hair and blue eyes.