party.
“Greece is for the Greeks. I’ve nothing against foreigners, but they should go back to their own homes.” The driver was enjoying his easy prejudices and I didn’t have the heart to get into an argument as I usually did, asking whether or not his own parents or grandparents had not done a spell as immigrants in Germany, America or Australia (they usually had). I just thought: “Fair Greece! Sad relic…” and was relieved when he dropped me off on the corner of Sophocles Street. As I walked my spirits lifted a little. Nikitas had loved this area, where old Athens meets new; the town hall and the central fish and meat market, Pakistani cafés, Chinese clothes emporia, old men wheeling barrows piled high with cheap socks, bankers and businessmen striding along barking into mobile phones, East and West, forgetting and remembering. The streets are named after the ancients: Sophocles, Socrates, Euripides, Sappho, though they are now filled with groups of immigrants, cheap prostitutes and home-grown junkies. You don’t really want to walk there at night any more, Nikitas advised.
Nikitas’ office was in a modest version of the many arcades that snake under and between buildings in this part of town, each with a different character. The shops in this one looked too modest to stay in business, yet had remained there for years: the sign-engraver, with its dusty selection of bronze name plates and stick-on symbols for public toilet doors; the translation and photocopy office; the coin and stamp collectors’ shop; the tiny key-cutting business, with its basil pot outside the door. I moved slowly, remembering how often I had come over here in the early years of our marriage. I usually met Nikitas down the road at Diporto , his favourite taverna – a smoky hole down some steep steps, with whitewashed walls, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and a row of massive wooden barrels filled with pine-scented retsina. Fellow diners were mostly market workers who were offered a few simple dishes cooked in the corner – chickpea soup, salads with cracked olives and small fried fish; there was no menu. Nikitas talked to me about the significance of the classic Athenian basement taverna and how it represents the subconscious, the Dionysian celebrations of wine, food, music and open conversation, far from the constraints of work, family and logic.
“So long as the women are back home doing the real work,” I’d snipe amiably.
“Maybe, but it’s like Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, a dark place where emotions replace reason, where outsiders are welcome, where the normal rules are let go. It’s where a simple, working man can feel moved to dance and is transformed into a god during that time. Nobody can stop him. To a people who have so often lost everything, this is important.”
After lunch we would wander back to the arcade (a cool retreat from the baking afternoon streets), up the stairs and along to the end of the first floor walkway that overlooked the internal courtyard. Nikitas’ office was dark and peaceful, despite its uncompromising mess of newspapers, ashtrays and unwashed coffee cups. He would draw the ugly orange curtains, inherited from the previous occupant, and undress me. We lay on the wooden-framed daybed, with its rough, village blanket. Nobody would disturb us.
I hesitated after fitting the key into the lock. I had never been inside alone before and even though Nikitas was gone, I did not want to spy. I often caught glimpses of his former life when I went there: the lengthy Before-Me era as opposed to the shorter With-Me one, was how I thought of it. Whatever our marriage was, I never doubted that I was loved. Nikitas retained an almost old-fashioned gallantry with me, complimenting me on my appearance, helping me negotiate the day-to-day problems of Athenian existence, buying me little presents from the stores selling hardware or herbs on Athenas Street. I was never ignored, but
“Greece is for the Greeks. I’ve nothing against foreigners, but they should go back to their own homes.” The driver was enjoying his easy prejudices and I didn’t have the heart to get into an argument as I usually did, asking whether or not his own parents or grandparents had not done a spell as immigrants in Germany, America or Australia (they usually had). I just thought: “Fair Greece! Sad relic…” and was relieved when he dropped me off on the corner of Sophocles Street. As I walked my spirits lifted a little. Nikitas had loved this area, where old Athens meets new; the town hall and the central fish and meat market, Pakistani cafés, Chinese clothes emporia, old men wheeling barrows piled high with cheap socks, bankers and businessmen striding along barking into mobile phones, East and West, forgetting and remembering. The streets are named after the ancients: Sophocles, Socrates, Euripides, Sappho, though they are now filled with groups of immigrants, cheap prostitutes and home-grown junkies. You don’t really want to walk there at night any more, Nikitas advised.
Nikitas’ office was in a modest version of the many arcades that snake under and between buildings in this part of town, each with a different character. The shops in this one looked too modest to stay in business, yet had remained there for years: the sign-engraver, with its dusty selection of bronze name plates and stick-on symbols for public toilet doors; the translation and photocopy office; the coin and stamp collectors’ shop; the tiny key-cutting business, with its basil pot outside the door. I moved slowly, remembering how often I had come over here in the early years of our marriage. I usually met Nikitas down the road at Diporto , his favourite taverna – a smoky hole down some steep steps, with whitewashed walls, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and a row of massive wooden barrels filled with pine-scented retsina. Fellow diners were mostly market workers who were offered a few simple dishes cooked in the corner – chickpea soup, salads with cracked olives and small fried fish; there was no menu. Nikitas talked to me about the significance of the classic Athenian basement taverna and how it represents the subconscious, the Dionysian celebrations of wine, food, music and open conversation, far from the constraints of work, family and logic.
“So long as the women are back home doing the real work,” I’d snipe amiably.
“Maybe, but it’s like Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, a dark place where emotions replace reason, where outsiders are welcome, where the normal rules are let go. It’s where a simple, working man can feel moved to dance and is transformed into a god during that time. Nobody can stop him. To a people who have so often lost everything, this is important.”
After lunch we would wander back to the arcade (a cool retreat from the baking afternoon streets), up the stairs and along to the end of the first floor walkway that overlooked the internal courtyard. Nikitas’ office was dark and peaceful, despite its uncompromising mess of newspapers, ashtrays and unwashed coffee cups. He would draw the ugly orange curtains, inherited from the previous occupant, and undress me. We lay on the wooden-framed daybed, with its rough, village blanket. Nobody would disturb us.
I hesitated after fitting the key into the lock. I had never been inside alone before and even though Nikitas was gone, I did not want to spy. I often caught glimpses of his former life when I went there: the lengthy Before-Me era as opposed to the shorter With-Me one, was how I thought of it. Whatever our marriage was, I never doubted that I was loved. Nikitas retained an almost old-fashioned gallantry with me, complimenting me on my appearance, helping me negotiate the day-to-day problems of Athenian existence, buying me little presents from the stores selling hardware or herbs on Athenas Street. I was never ignored, but
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