“Dita, I am not worried about the baby. I am thinking about you,” he said wide-awake while looking at her.
“I’m okay.”
“Dita, I know I am not home a lot, but you are a good wife, and I want you to know that.”
“Thank you, Stavros, but you do not need to say these things.” Dita liked it in Athens and didn’t care that their families were far away. She had a lot of responsibilities but knew when Stavros completed his degree life would be easier for them.
Moving to Athens had been a godsend. The first three years on Kythnos were backbreaking. She had to accompany her mother-in-law everywhere without complaining while learning the trades of Stavros’s people. From wheat to goats to figs, from picking, to cooking, to cleaning—there was never a free moment. And it only got tougher when Dita got pregnant right away and had to still do everything with a protruding belly, swollen feet, and endless nausea. When a family friend offered their small apartment, rent free, in Athens, Stavros was able to return to the mainland and continue his studies—and his wife was finally afforded a moment to breathe. His family did not understand why he wanted to attend university but supported him nonetheless; he had left them once before when he was a teenager to go to high school in Athens since no secondary schools on the island existed. His voracious desire to study troubled the villagers, but Stavros’s gentle, yet persuasive, manner allowed him to garner the support of his family time and time again.
When he told them he was bringing home a Greek girl from Egypt to marry, they were not happy because they had already chosen a local girl for him. But he knew how to apply his oratory skills on his unlearned family, and so his new wife received a warm-enough welcome when she arrived. And he had chosen well. Dita was strong, willing, womanly, and though he greatly desired her, his tempered personality normally kept his passion at bay. But not that night.
Lying there close to her, looking at the mother of his first child, who was now carrying his son, he felt vulnerable, his love transparent.
“Dita, life will get better for us. You will not have to mend other people’s clothes, and one day we will be able to go back to Kythnos for the holidays. Maybe we will even have two houses! A nice apartment here in Athens and a summer house on the island. Just you, me, Lena, and our new son! It will be wonderful.”
Through the darkness, he almost illuminated the room with his pride; his delight secondary only to anticipation. He had been talking about this unborn son now for several months; not normally superstitious, he had believed his mother when she had told him: “Agori! Agori!”
Dita’s mother-in-law had come to Athens from the island for a short visit, and one evening, in front of her son, she pulled a long hair from Dita’s head, asked for her wedding ring and slipped the hair through it. Then she hung it over Dita’s round belly and waited for it to start moving. Slowly, but surely, it did move, and when the gold band circled to the right, her mother-in-law was ecstatic. It was a boy! The baby would be a boy because circling to the left would have meant a female, another little girl. It was this ritual that left Stavros with a deep sense of satisfaction that his family would soon be complete. And his excitement was contagious; his utter joy that night made him look at his wife with such intense emotion that something in her stirred. God, she said, please let it be a boy.
Under the covers, with his fingers perfectly intertwined in hers, she felt so close to her husband. Dita felt something so strange. Was this love? Was this what it felt like to be completely content in the world?
But the feeling did not last. The next thing she felt literally took her breath away: a sharp pain traveled through her as she yelled with all her might. Then the bed was soaked. It was time.
Twenty-three hours and seventeen minutes later, Dita held her baby. A baby girl. She looked at the perfect little thing in her arms and felt nauseated. She had never feared her husband; in the last four years, he had been nothing but good to her. He had not romanced her, never brought her anything, never told her she was beautiful, but he provided food at the table, was a good father, and made love to her regularly. He often talked to her and even kissed her tenderly. But as she held this child, for the first time since their wedding night, she was nervous because Stavros wanted a boy so much. He loved baby Lena, but a son would be his greatest accomplishment. He had said that over and over since that ill-fated night with his mother. Why had that stupid village woman put such an idea into Stavros’s head?
She was a stunning baby, jet black hair and eyes; eyes that were wide open, too open, too expressive, too alive for a newborn. Dita held her tight, irked that this child was not a boy, yet loved her more because she wasn’t.
Stavros walked into the room with the force of an army, moved toward the child with heavy footsteps. Though weak, Dita’s first instinct was to hold the baby tightly to her chest, not wanting her husband to touch or see her. Stavros’s face was pale, his fists drawn.
“Let me see the child!”
“Stavros, please. She’s innocent. Please, we can try again.”
“Let me see it.”
Where had the gentle husband she had gotten to know for the last four years gone? Who was this man standing before her? Was he Chronos, the father of the gods, the beast who would devour his own children?
She feared for her baby girl.
“No! I will not let you have her …”
He pushed his way towards her, grabbing the child from Dita’s embrace.
“Stavros!”
He held the baby in his shaking arms and pulled the blanket off to look at the genitals. It was indeed a girl. He was ready to throw the baby back to her mother when something entirely unexpected happened. The baby looked at him, deep into his eyes with her ebony stare, and he seemed to be momentarily mesmerized. Not gently, but mechanically, still in a haze, he rewrapped the blanket around the baby and gave her back to Dita.
He said only these words before he left: “The next one will be a boy.”
He walked out of the hospital that day and continued to provide for his wife and daughters—and son, the one who was born two years later. He got his coveted son, a premature baby who had feminine features and was always a bit sickly; Stavros got his degree, became an engineer who owned two houses, one in Athens, one on the island; and he remained married to a woman who was strong and self-sufficient until death did them part.
But the illuminated man who lay beside Dita the day before Phaedra’s birth never returned.
10
Early July, 2000
Every cobbled path, every olive tree, and every red tomato on Kythnos made me think of the woman who had raised me every summer for seven consecutive years. Yiayia was a complicated woman, not understood by many. She rarely hugged me, never told me she loved me, but actions do speak louder than words. On my summer visits, she would labor endlessly in her garden to serve me fresh vegetables; she would wink at the passing fisherman, and we would always end up with at least two fresh fish for lunch. We were two women living together harmoniously for three months of the year. From September until the following summer she lived alone, smoked her cigarettes, and watched American soap operas and the Greek news. She had occasional visits from neighbors, but she was not a social woman. At least she was not a social old woman. I think she missed her daughters, but she would never admit it, not to me, not to them.
The summer I was twenty, my mama finally decided to go to Greece with me. I had never seen my grandmother cry, but the tears she shed when she saw her daughter after so many years, I will never forget. Even my mother broke down, the two sobbing, holding each other tight. But it was a brief lapse into sentimentality. The rest of the time, Yiayia and my mother were constantly bickering—and not in the loving, Greek way. First it was light: Yiayia’s food was too salty, Mama’s skorts were too short, then:
Life was tough.
Why you divorce if you love American so much?
Dad should have forgiven me.
You should reach to your
Babba more.
This place is falling apart.
Me, Thair, love this house.
When Mama finally left, I sensed Yiayia was sad but relieved; I saw the same emotion on my mama’s face when bidding adieu to her mother. Neither realized that they would never see each other again.
I think about all this while I make my way down to the cove below on my rented moped. As I lie on the beach rereading Kundera’s Slowness, two little girls start playing in the sand in front of me, both topless, with sunburned bellies and bright red cheeks. They can’t be more than two years old and look like twins. I listen to their precious voices; they are at that tender age when they have just started talking, squeaky voices with long pauses between words. I watch them for a few minutes. Behind me, I see a woman wearing dark sunglasses. She keeps wiping her eyes. I assume they are watering because she’s sweating, but then a hirsute, bloated-bellied man walks over and throws himself beside her. The conversation becomes too loud and too personal: the mistress, the drinking, the mistress again. I try not to listen and refocus on my book, but her voice is too hurt, his too strong, and my quiet is disturbed, so I get up and leave.
I hop on the scooter and gas it up the hill. When I arrive, I see Tang waiting for me. He rubs himself on my leg. I bend down and wrap him in my arms, bringing him inside. I grab a piece of ham from the fridge and feed it to him as his raspy tongue licks my fingers. When he’s done, I set him on the floor. I take a plastic chair and my fluffy towel and go outside on the balcony.
I am trying not to think about the conversation I heard at the beach, too reminiscent of a time in my life I don’t want to remember. The man’s angry words ring in my ears, her tearful sobs cut into me, and suddenly I am no longer thinking about two strangers fighting; instead, I am back in my mother’s home. I’m listening to my parents’ vicious voices as they resonate throughout the house. And I am seventeen all over again.
Lying on my rosy comforter, feet stretched out, I gazed up at my frilly canopy. My eyes darted around my bedroom. The pink curtains, the pastel prints, the Pink Panther—after years of cotton candy bedrooms, I learned to hate the color pink.
I swung my feet off the side of the bed, peeked out from my room, and saw my father stumble down the hallway, women’s perfume encapsulating him. A coffee mug flew across the room, my mother hurling it at him with intense passion. Her mascara tears complemented the brown stains on the wall. I closed my bedroom door, placed my fingers on the volume button, cranked up the stereo; Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumors” attempted to drown out my mother’s high-pitched wailing.
“Just leave, why don’t you? Just leave!” she yelled. Then her sobbing started again. I couldn’t stand to hear my mother cry, so I did what most troubled teenagers (who are lucky enough to own a car) do: I grabbed my keys and fled suburban hell. In my black Honda, with the wind blowing in my hair, I was free. With one hand on the steering wheel, my other hand searched through my purse. I found my menthol Virginia Slims, pulled out the pack and lit one. Tightly forming my mouth around the filter, I inhaled all the impurities that made me feel so good.
My father used to tell me when I was a little girl that if I concentrated hard enough, the world would become a land with sugar mountains and lollipop trees. He said that there would be a chocolate ocean with peanut butter at its very depths.
Just thinking about Gordon Wright’s words, even today, I get angrier and angrier. My heart races now like it did then. I remember speeding around corners, heading towards the beach. I couldn’t handle another minute of the land-locked suburb, mountains all around me, suffocating me, and I loved the beach, the infinite expanse of blue. Being by the coast reconnected me to my other life. My Greece. My sanctuary. My yiayia. Every summer when school was out, I would quit my part-time job, buy a ticket, and go visit my grandmother. For those glorious months I would reconnect to my roots, reconnect to a stronger, healthier version of myself.
I pull out my laptop and read everything I have written. Did Yiayia ever really love Papou? For that, I never got a clear answer. Agape was a word she avoided. The day she told me about her Englishman was the same day she told me about her engagement and about her life on Kythnos. But he a good man, Thair. I asked her repeatedly if she was “happily married.” Her answer was always the same: Yiayia gets married, have children, and now cooks fish for you. Finish.
So, her story ends there. I guess I will never know exactly how she felt, about the Englishman, about the South African man who, she said, took something special from secret pocket of your yiayia. I think I have concluded that she was a product of her time. In my mind, she was a feminist without knowing it, a woman who did not have the support of the movement to grant her choices but did the best she could. My only hope is that she did have moments, months, maybe even years of core happiness, though I will never be certain if she did. And I will never know if these moments were because of, or in spite of, my grandfather. Because she told me so little over the years, her tales always forced, always in fragments, I filled in the gaps with my imagination. How close had I gotten to her real story?
I reread the last part again: But the illuminated man who lay beside Dita that day never returned. Yiayia told me that with the birth of my mother, her life with my grandfather was finish. “What do you mean it ended, Yiayia?” It finish, you no understand? Just like story now: it finish! And she refused to say more.
I close my eyes and see her so clearly—it’s as if my yiayia has come back to life and is here with me. I can hear her voice, her laugh; smell her scent; sense her stubbornness. It’s a mix of emotions, but after ten long years, I wrote Yiayia’s story as I know it. Now I will begin my mother’s. And this one will certainly be more difficult.
Phaedra’s Story
Athens, Greece
Mid June, 1964
The Hilton had just been built. From the balcony of Phaedra’s home in Nea Smirni, she could see the Parthenon—but she never went outside to look at it. Instead, she walked ten minutes in the humid summer weather, paid less than one drachma, squashed herself into a bus with sweaty, foul-smelling old men and women, and rode standing up for twenty minutes to go and visit the Athens Hilton. When she reached the modern structure with its fourteen floors surrounded by hills of grass amidst a city of cement, she always lost her breath for a few seconds.
After neatly rewrapping her thick black hair under the round hat that was perched on top of her head, she looked directly at the doorman. With an air of confidence, she glided through the entrance, immediately reveling in the air-conditioning. Because of her chic Jackie Kennedy look, from matching black pumps to handbag and hat, she was allowed to linger in the lobby without being questioned. There was an area to the left that had large, comfortable couches and, to the right, a small bar.
“Hello,” she said to the bartender in polished English that she had learned in school.
“Yasou, Phaedra.” He always responded in Greek. He knew her name. She never had to tell him because Greek men always knew the names of young, pretty girls.
“A Nescafe, sweet with milk,” she said without looking into his dirty eyes. She made her way over to the couches, slid her hands behind her bottom to make sure her skirt didn’t wrinkle. Crossing her long, slender legs, she reached over and grabbed a magazine and began to flip through it. Despite her eyes facing down, she was completely aware of everything and everybody around her.
An ancient woman ambled over and sat next to Phaedra. She looked about seventy, so, so wrinkled. She was wearing hot pink, an outfit much like Phaedra’s, except Phaedra’s wasn’t an obscene color. A respectable Greek woman would never wear pink. She must be an American, Phaedra thought. In America you can do whatever you want. The woman dug into her miniature purse and pulled out a silver lipstick case. She popped it open, her hands shaking. There was a mirror on one side. She looked into it, smacked her dry lips together, then proceeded to cautiously apply the lipstick to her cracked lips, smacking them every time she put on a
layer. The outer parts of her lips were covered in fuchsia, a pitiful attempt, Phaedra thought, at trying to make her thin lips look luscious. Smiling at Phaedra, she acknowledged her presence. Phaedra smiled back. An elderly man came from the elevator and walked over to them.
“Ready darlin’?”
He grabbed the woman’s elbow to help her up as she gently, lovingly, hit him on the arm, but took his help anyway. They looked at each other with a warm exchange and moved away, her arm wrapped through his.
Phaedra could see Dimitri across the lobby. He was the day manager. In three months, she had met all the managers, all the assistants, anyone who mattered. They were all men. They were all married. And they all had tried to bed her. She played the coy game, let them sit on the couch with her, put their nasty hands on her thigh, stare at her with lustful eyes. She usually told them she was bored with Daddy’s money and wanted to work. They sat closer, leaned in further, reeking of heavy coffee and cigarette breath, slightly brushing her chest when they reached over to get their drink from the table beside her. Phaedra would just smile sweetly. After a few visits and making the necessary connections, she was finally hired as a receptionist. It was not the position she desired, but it was a step in the right direction. She was tired of studying Ancient Greek and mythology. No more Homer, Socrates, Hera, and Zeus for her. She wanted air-conditioning, not ceiling fans; carpeting, not parquet. She wanted rock and roll, not bouzoukia. To toast champagne glasses, not to throw plates. She wanted big cars, diamonds, Hollywood. And most of all, a big house with air-conditioning.
After a few months of working at the Hilton, Phaedra was even more certain of what she didn’t want. She didn’t want the German businessman who would only take her across a few European borders, the Arab sheik who would stick her in his harem, or the wealthy Greek tycoon who would move her from Nea Smirni to Voula. She wanted to cross the Atlantic. She wanted to go to America.
The Greek Persuasion Page 5
