The Magic Island (or The Law of Communicating Vessels)

It took me many, many years to realise that there was something wrong with my favourite island. If I am to be completely honest, I must have known that there were things unusual and specific to this place from early on, but I was not prepared to look even one bit into them; so taken was I by the beauty and uniqueness of the island, that even if someone had spelled it all out for me then, I would have completely ignored them. What made my encounter with the place even more amazing, is that I was completely unwilling to go on a holiday that year (as recounted on TV Dozing), I arrived there with a completely negative attitude, no expectations whatsoever and with an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be in my own house in Athens. I can only describe my immediate attraction to the place as a kind of "love at first sight" people sometimes talk about, one that takes you by surprise and hits you over the head when you least expect it, and I guess as such, my whole attentions and all my senses were focused on experiencing the place and all it's details, as I was seeing it and as I wanted to see it, blocking out everything that might have distracted me from my vision of it. And so the years passed and my connection to the island grew deeper and stronger every year, but so did everything else, and now slowly slowly as my step became less quick and my gaze lingered, I could no longer miss the ever growing plights of my beloved island.

My biggest attraction to the island was always connected to its landscape and its atmosphere. I realise that this is a very difficult notion to convey to someone else who might have never experienced a physical and mental attraction to a place. I have often been told that it is the people that make a place, therefore I must be really connected to the people there and not the place itself. I myself believe that it is the place that makes the people as much as it is the other way around, and people can and do behave differently in different places. From my experience and observations I have seen places "moulding" and "shaping" people as much as people do to their land and surroundings. The uniqueness of the landscape of my island is something that I had never and I am yet to experience anywhere else. There is no dramatic views and high hills there; no great peaks and no intense colours in the land. But instead there are low, rolling, soft hills, like waves on land, the colours pale and velvety, the land dry and sweet and the harmony, mellowness and tranquillity of the earth and sky are completely unique to the place. The smells and the atmosphere at night is more or less magic, the lights tremble, the sea whispers and the air smells of eternal summer. I knew the first time I was there that if I ever were to build or own a house anywhere, this would be the place. I have never felt like settling down anywhere but there. And how hard could that be, for this is such a remote place, so cut off from the popular tourist destinations, hidden in a corner of the Aegean sea that sees one boat a week in the summer and one boat a month if lucky, in the winter. All I ever dreamt of was a tiny plot of land there. One day I could build a little house on it.

Greek people are a very funny bunch when it comes to their own country. They have travelled the world and migrated to the ends of it, and yet Greek tourism within Greece did not exist till more or less the beginning of the 21st century. The main reason for this is that most people originate from a village or an island, so that during the holidays if they live in a city, they would go there. Each family has one "village house" or "island house" from the side of their mother and one from the side of their father, so they would alternate their holidays between those two places. In the worse case scenario they only have one "holiday house", basically the grandparents' house. When my mother, my Grandmother and I travelled in the Greek islands each summer in the 80's and 90's, we very seldom came across any Greek tourists, unless they originated from the island we were visiting. Instead we met many, many foreign tourists who had come all the way to these remote places from their own, most commonly Northern countries. My island did not have any Greek tourists then, it does have a few now, but it had an overwhelming number of Italian tourists. The Dodecanese islands were under Italian rule during both world wars and that might be a reason as to why. Many Italian tourists must have felt about the place as I did, and already by the time I first arrived there, there was a substantial number of Italian tourists who had built houses on the rolling hills surrounding the one and only settlement of the island, overlooking the port.

The houses built by the Italian tourists were so beautifully made, in total accordance with the local traditional architectural style of the region, that they were jewels on the hills of the island.  The shutters of the windows were on the inside as is the old tradition, the sea-blue colour on the windows just right, the double stone walls as thick as the locals used to make them, with a quick-lime washed exterior, small size rooms and low ceilings. Even the gardens were as they should be, full of local plants, trees and herbs. Some have gone as far as to maintain the red-earth rubbed exterior of old farms, if they had bought one and renovated it. When I first laid eyes on the hills of the island no one could have convinced me that these houses did not belong to local people. The Italians with the beautiful houses slowly bought the land surrounding their properties, seemingly to stop anyone else building near and blocking their view, or in order to maintain their privacy and extend their gardens. I soon realised that the land of my beautiful island had a price, just as everything else does. Its rolling hills with the low stone hedges dividing them into sections now had a different meaning. Every year the land was carved up, its sections up for sale according mainly to their view and proximity to the village. I felt it like the land and its markings were a butcher's map of a cow, some cuts more expensive than others, but up for sale nevertheless, the cleaver falling on the bench, faster and louder each summer.

It still did not bother me that much, that the land was sold to the Italians, I guess because they seemed to respect it and build on it like they loved the place. On top of that some of them were my close friends by then. When it did start to bother me, is when it started to affect me in person. It became clear very soon after one started to dig just a little, that it was almost impossible to buy anything there if you happened to be Greek. Not any land or an old collapsed side building, or an abandoned farm; you could not even buy an olive tree. Nothing was sold for a normal price for Greece. Not even for a premium price for the Greek standards. The prices of everything when it came to buy anything that touched the land were set by the standards of what a rich Italian tourist was prepared to pay. That was the minimum price, and that price was way out for any ordinary Greek person, even a wealthy one. "Why sell my land in it's real value, when I can get three times that?" a Greek man told me, "what the Italian pays me for it, that is the real value".  And a few men that refuse to sell to Italians for their own reasons, just don't sell at all because they feel they will be "ripped off" if they did. And so the island not only survives financially, when most of Greece is in darkness, but apparently flourishes. But yet again it is with external help and resources that this Greek crumb of land thrives, coming from the good taste and affluence of some middle aged, aristocratic neighbours. And I am here contemplating how maybe that is what Greece deserves for not having paid attention to its remote inhabitants, having forsaken them in cold winters, have never visited them in the long summers, have left them with no boats bringing water and no doctors or teachers placed there for months. Why then should the locals reserve their land for sale to someone who was never there? Especially when someone who took the trouble to get there from further away was offering so much more....

And it all comes back to me that long time ago, in the end of the 80's, the government was offering incentives to people to go and teach or work there. They offered free accommodation, free boat fares, double pay, paid relocation costs, for any teacher, doctor, pharmacist, dentist who needed a job. But no one went, and if they did, they only stayed for a few months. If one was willing to buy their first house there or permanently relocate there, then the government offered a special mortgage, more or less paying two thirds of the price of a house (real price, not Italian price). But no one went. And so my island was thriving in the summer, with its aristocratic Italians cleaning and taking care of their beautifully built houses from June to September, the atmosphere sweet and festive with local red wine and boats docking in from around the Mediterranean, fish glistening in the moonlight and children taking over the square. But by November all that is gone, the island disappears from the map, like it was never there, the population goes back to half a thousand, the beautiful Italian houses are shut up for the winter and the local people stay in behind their double glazed windows, of their city-like, three-storey houses which they have built with the Italian money, standing out like nails, in the sores on the low hills.

I know all this now, and for some years, and I also know that I will most probably never own a house on my island. Knowing all this makes me feel angry and sad at the same time, with many different things and people, but not angry and sad with the place. The place feels like the recipient of the actions of others, their victim in a way, and as such it has not lost any of its allure to me. It is the fortune of having fallen in love with a place, that it bares no responsibilities, for it can take no action. When I go out painting and walk on the hills and look back towards the port and village, I see everything, the old local traditional (Italian) houses, the big city-like dwellings, and I think they all co-exist in such a bizarre way. They wouldn't exist without each other. Would the locals have all left if it was not for the Italian tourists? Would the island re-emerge as if by magic from the sea every summer when they arrive, as it does now?  Or would the locals have been forced to find another solution? I am approaching the house of my dear friend, an Italian who owns one of the first Italian houses built here, on top of a hill with a majestic view. His life has been entangled with the island so much and he has been here for so long, that the locals have given him an honorary citizenship. We sit in silence and drink some ouzo looking down at the hills, the houses, the village and sea. This is a place I love and I could have lived in this house forever. My friend says suddenly, "I'm sick of all these Italians and the way they have built up the island like this!" pointing down all the way to the sea.


                                  

Fantasmataki (Little Ghost)

I arrived at the island port in the small hours of the night, my hair all sticky with the sea spray from the boat and wearing an old, stretched out blue sweater to protect me from the sea breeze. Passengers rushed out holding suitcases and bundles, an exuberant mood of welcoming and embracing all around the tiny port that gave me a hot, stuffy and lonely feeling; I was searching around with my eyes to spot the lady Eleni, who would be my guide, translator and helper in this place. I stopped in the middle of the port amongst all the people to take off the sweater, as the stillness and heaviness of the air on land was making me breathe rapidly and sweat. The cars were coming out of the boat now and started beeping at me, so that I had to pick up my equipment and suitcase, and move out of their way. I saw the lady Eleni further back, chatting loudly with two other ladies while in her left hand she waved a cardboard panel with my name printed on it. My name was dancing up and down, twisting and fanning with feeling, and as my eyes followed it, my head followed the movement in turn, so that as I walked towards her I must have looked like a foreign lunatic.

She was so friendly, extrovert and excitable, that although I was initially taken aback by this overwhelming familiarity, I have to admit that I felt relieved to know that someone would be looking out for me in this remote corner of the world. She insisted on carrying both my equipment and my suitcase and no matter how much I protested, it was impossible to get them back from her. She was a round, strong woman, with a shiny, rosy complexion, always smiling, or rather laughing, with a pair of dark laughing eyes to go with it. Her English was excellent, but with a mixed accent; a strong sound of American was definitely detectable, mixed with some kind of reminiscent local dialect. She walked fast and talked fast, and said that she would get me straight to my room, which had a bathroom, t.v, cooker and small fridge and balcony and a terrace with a great view. She would come back again in the morning to check on me, but not too early after such a long journey that I had, and show me around the island. With all this energy and enthusiasm that Eleni was showing I had not payed much attention to the surroundings; the sky was pitch black, we had walked along the marina, climbed some wide stairs and before I knew it we were climbing some more stairs up to the second floor of a small island house.

On the top of the stairs I saw a small boy, not more than five years old, who surely should have been in bed by that time. He was holding a stick and digging around the top step, before stopping and looking shyly and indirectly towards us. The owners of the room were suddenly behind me, a lovely elderly couple who did not speak much English, but who were as friendly and welcoming as Eleni had been. They unlocked the door to the room and let me step in first. I was immediately hit by a horrific smell; it was impossible to tell what the smell was, but as the three of them were talking amongst them, catching up and laughing, opening windows and balcony doors, I assumed the smell was a foreign version of stuffiness, a closed-up-all-winter-space smell, that the open windows and exuberant mood would wipe away. They said they had a bottle of water for me, the tap water was not drinkable, and some grapes of their own in the fridge. They were rushing to leave me alone to rest, key left on the outside of the door, and before I knew it they were all gone. The small boy was not there anymore either.

But when they were gone all that was left was a heavy still atmosphere, humid and hot, the air was stagnant and smelled of that horrible thing that I could not put my finger on. I slept in a sweaty muddle of unconsciousness, having nightmares about the boat sinking and then I woke up from a strong ray of light hitting me on the face and immediately I felt my nostrils burning with the heat and acidity of that smell. I got up and got out of the room into the terrace. My eyes shut from the intense sun. I had never seen light like that, it was so bright and clean. The view was breathtaking. I could see all the way down to the port, the marina and along the seafront where fishing boats were tied. The shops further back, were tavernas and ouzeris and a bakery and a small grocers. The place was tiny! I tried to look back in the other direction, but the view was blocked. I felt much better and decided to go back in the room and sort out the smell. The room was recently cleaned and painted bright white. Everything looked as it should. No visible problems in the bathroom drainage or underneath the kitchen sink. But the smell was everywhere. I was at a complete loss. I opened both windows and the door and secured them with chairs so that the draft would clean the stale air up.

Outside the elderly woman had climbed up the stairs and brought coffee and some ripe figs on a plate. She kind of bowed and smiled and shook her hand. She was asking if everything was alright from what I understood and I said yes and smiled back. The small boy of yesterday climbed up the stairs holding a small plastic ball, without looking at me and went to the terrace. He sat around holding the ball and I caught him a couple of times throwing quiet, sideways glances at me. I was thinking what to do while sipping my sweet hot coffee; I was not going to spend much time in the room, it was more or less just a place to sleep in. Also I would be on this island just for six nights, one of which had already passed. So I decided to put up with the smell and get on with my work. Just as I was thinking this, Eleni appeared on the top of the stairs and asked me how I had slept and how I liked the view from my place. I said all was great, but it had been a hot night. She laughed and said, it was one of the good ones. Then if I was ready we could drive around and see the whole island and the bits of the land I was to measure and survey. And off we went.

The island was very different from any other place I was sent to before; it had low hills, which blended one into another, rather like small waves. Although the landscape was dry, its colours were soft and earthy and the thorny bushes seemed velvety from afar. From the very top of the island you could see all the way around. I liked it straight away. But working under the hot sun was no fun, and I soon realised I needed at least a hat, bottled water and a mat to place under a tree for my breaks. Eleni left me at my destination and picked me up at an arranged time. I felt very strange, as if I was measuring not just land, but the private, very intimate part of somebody's body. Like a surgeon or more like a seamstress, about to measure and cut a very precious piece of some rare, luxurious fabric. I had the uncanny impression that I was being watched while I was doing something unethical, something intruding. What was I really doing, a sent foreign agent, measuring land for sale abroad, on this intimate, remote little place? I thought the sun was making me far too queasy and I started making measuring mistakes, when I heard Eleni's horn.

Back at the room, I unlocked the door and at once the smell hit me hard and made my eyes water, if possible it was even stronger than before, despite the hours of airing the room earlier. I took a long cool shower and felt much better for about five minutes, before I became sticky and sweaty again. I tried to sleep till late afternoon, as the locals did, but I found that the smell came in whirls from everywhere; from under the bed, from the furniture wood, from the curtains even. Some minutes passed when I lay still and could not detect it and then woof, like a huge wave it would hit me again. I felt still queasy from the sun and hungry at the same time and decided to go out and grab a bite to eat. As I walked by the seafront I heard dragging, light footsteps and turned to see the little boy following me from a safe distance, looking down at the road, his arms dangling awkwardly by his side. The sun was so hot, I could feel my forearms blistering. I ate a salad and bought a straw hat and a six pack of bottled water. I carried it back to the room and as I opened the door the smell hit me again, just as I had forgotten about it. I sat on the bed and the tiredness, heat and nausea made me want to wail and scream and curse, but all I did instead was to sit there still and trembling and furious, with exactly what I did not know, as the smell enveloped me and took me into a dreamless sleep.

I stayed out that night for as late as I could, dragged the table and chairs to the terrace and Eleni joined me for a glass of local red wine. The old lady that owned the room came up again and brought some small fried fish. She smiled and talked to Eleni, I guessed checking that I was happy with my stay. The small boy was hovering around, no one seemed to acknowledge his presence, he was one minute on the stairs, the next on the terrace, playing with some pebbles he had on a leather bundle. I was half contemplating bringing up the smell issue with Eleni, but then wanted to stick to my decision and put up with it. The night was hot and humid and heavy and I decided to sleep with the door and windows open. Every time the faintest of breezes entered the room, it seemed to bring with it a wave of the smell, as if it was now coming from outside too. As dreamless as my short afternoon nap had been, this night sleep was full of nightmares, huge heavy scissors cutting wrongly and derailing on a beautiful velvet fabric, the screeching noise like nails dragging on blackboard, woke me up shivering. Then I was trapped in a wet grave, in the belly of the boat, choking on the smell of rotting death rather than water. I woke up gasping, waving my arms and shaking my head, and then I knew I had to talk to Eleni about it, or I would go mad and leave my sanity on this island.

Before Eleni came to find me the next morning, the old man who owned the room climbed up the stairs slowly. He waved good morning and was holding a plate with big, juicy looking peaches. He came and put them upon my table in the room and as he passed next to me I detected the same smell of the room on his clothes. That made me take a step back and I felt a great sense of sadness; this was the smell of their house and clothes and ultimately of themselves. The man took out three photographs from his shirt's pocket and showed me what looked like his children. There were three of them with their mother in one photograph, her looking unrecognisable and young. The other two photographs were of two of the children, now grown up, taken in New York, if I judged correctly from the background. I nodded and smiled and he seemed very pleased he had showed them to me and a bit teary. I felt suffocated and guilty and could not wait for Eleni to come. The boy was sat again on the top of the stairs, his ball under his knees, looking shyly at my shoes and my legs, but his gaze did not venture any higher. Eleni came and I blurted it all out, how the smell was impossible to live with, even for another night, how I had really tried, really I had, but could not put up with it, it was making me sick. She nodded slowly, taking it all in, the first time I had seen the laughing retreating from her eyes, she understood, I should have told her earlier, she was going to take care of it, find another room for me, today if possible. She told me to pack and leave my things ready in the room and that I could go to the taverna and wait for her there.

I left like a thief, my hat pulled down to my nose, a grown man behaving like a boy who had been put to shame, unable to even say goodbye to my hosts, to thank them at least for their hospitality. I almost stumbled on the boy who was now sat on the bottom step. For the first time he looked up, and I saw two huge black eyes, with long thick eyelashes, like those of a baby cow I once saw at my grandfather's farm in the moors, and his gaze was startled, incomprehensible and urgent, so that I did a spasmodic movement with my hand, lifting and re-positioning my hat as a gesture of acknowledgement. I sat in the table at the taverna, half turning my back to the direction of the old couple's house, waiting for Eleni, my saviour, to come and fetch me and lead me to my new room. I was aware that I had lost one morning's work, only my second day at work there, but it felt like I had been there for so long, the time was hot and long and stretched and never ending.

True to her word, Eleni was back within two hours. She took me to my new room; a room in a large house that had a family home downstairs and four rooms that tourists rent in the summer, upstairs. Here, in contrast to my first room, everything was more professional and organised. A board on the inside of the door stated the prices according to the holiday season, there was a rack for the washing after coming back from the beach on the balcony and the key ring had an attachment with a magnet, which you had to put in a special socket for the electricity to come on. I could not believe myself, how this change of scenery and of course the lack of the horrible smell, made me instantly forget all my earlier feelings of guilt. I was so relieved to be outside that room, that when Eleni showed me into the new room, my stuff already brought up, I hugged her tightly and lifted her up, before I realised how inappropriate this could seem and started apologising. She smiled and laughed and told me not to worry, she was glad I was happy with my new room. We agreed to meet extra early next morning so that I could make up for the lost time. But I could detect some of her sparkle was gone, at least around me and she never came again to sit with me socially, to drink wine or chat, but only picked me up and brought me back, as was her job to do.

That afternoon was bliss. I had forgotten all about the smell and the old room. Had made my peace with my guilty feelings, as those of a middle aged sentimental fool hit by too much sun. For reasons of hygiene alone I had to get out of that room; why I had not been able to do that with dignity and talk as an adult to my hosts about the issue of the smell, did not occur to me. That I had escaped a situation like that without solving it personally, but had let the problem fall on the shoulders of somebody else, did not seem to bother me. Had the language barrier been the problem? of course, I convinced myself. The familiarity of such actions in my past failed to surface to my consciousness. Instead, I sat underneath the shade of a wonderfully fragrant pine tree, on a wooden bench underneath my new place, sipping fashionable shaken iced coffee, the other tourists coming in and out with their children and beach bags, everything looking very familiar and comforting. For a moment I thought I was on holiday myself. And then that night, as I was coming back from the taverna, slightly tipsy on lethal ouzo, the smell of aniseed and salty octopus on my breath, I saw the small boy sat on the bench underneath the giant pine. I rubbed my eyes in a gesture stolen from films, the boy still sat there staring straight at me. I thought I saw the faintest of smiles on his lips, but then did not wait to see more, but rushed and climbed fast up the steps, three by three, knocking a terracotta pot of basil down, not stopping to put it straight and collapsing on my bed, my face deep in a soft pillow, smelling like fresh, sea-breezed laundry.

The next day I was determined to stick to the schedule and work the whole day. I got picked up really early as planned and by half past ten I had covered the missed work from the previous day. During my break under the shade of a sycamore tree, I tried to think of nothing but my work, closed my eyes and imagined what the British tourists would do with the land I was marking out. What kind of a house would they built and would their house eventually acquire the smell of my first room. The cicadas were so loud above my head, they covered all thoughts, so that I was forced to go back to my measuring. I worked flat out till three o'clock and although I had bouts of breathlessness and dizziness, I did not stop. My half full bottle of water was long emptied and I could feel my thirst taking over, my mouth dehydrated, my tongue inside feeling like sandpaper. I got picked up and was in my room by four o'clock. I did not have the strength to shower, but instead went to the kitchen and drank water directly from the tap. The refreshing feeling was instant, but when I lay down in bed, I felt nauseous, yellow and white lights flashing in front of me, even when I closed my eyes, dark spots flying around, a killer headache emerging from nowhere, everything around me moving. I started to sweat again, although it was cool in the room and I felt my skin and forehead burning. Laying in the bed I could feel my heart beating fast, could see my chest palpitating like a wild animal's, sweat beads on my skin. Suddenly I felt sick and rushed for the bathroom, vomiting in the toilet.

I spent all afternoon and evening in a great state of agitation. I had a high fever alternating with cold sweats and shivering and I was drifting in and out of sleep. I could not keep down anything and was in and out the toilet vomiting. In that state of half consciousness, I saw in front of me the little boy, he had walked in the room quietly, holding his ball in outstretched arms towards me, but when I sat up in bed to take it off his hands, I caught a sniff of him smelling just like my old room. I jerked my hands and threw his ball away, wiping my infected hands on my sheets. The boy looked down and said, I just came to tell you not to drink the tap water, it is not safe for people, only plants. But I was not listening, only covering my ears and screaming, telling him to get out, I could not stand his smell. The boy started banging his head on the wall, or was it the ball he was throwing at the wall that was banging, I could not tell. The banging got louder and the smell took over the room and then I was back in the old room, Eleni standing at the terrace, out of ear shot looking at the port, her back to me, the old man and woman that owned the room closing in on me, the boy banging his head on the wall and everything coming closer, the faintest of smiles on their faces and then I screamed and screamed, but Eleni could not hear me and I sat up on the drenched bed, someone was knocking loudly on the door and Eleni was shouting, are you alright, please open the door, I am opening the door now! And that is the last I can remember.

As it turns out I was suffering from heatstroke and poisoning from the tap water. I was somehow taken to the local clinic and was put in an ice bath. I remember coming around shivering and feeling like I was being embalmed, stark naked in a metal tub. They made me drink a water mixture with salt and sugar which I vomited several times. By that night I was back in my room, I was given the remote control to the air conditioning and they told me to keep the room dark. I was to stay out of the heat for at least the next day. Eleni was visibly concerned and asked whether she should contact the agency back home. I said that I would be okay and would catch up with work in the following days, it would be alright. The truth was that I was still confused and agitated and in that state I asked her where the little boy that was hanging around was. She said she had not noticed any little boy hanging around. I had no strength to argue or explain and went back in my room thanking everyone for their help. In the darkness I lay there looking at the ceiling thinking that the old couple must have sent the boy around to my new place to make me feel guilty about leaving their room. Surely they lost out on a week's rent from the agency. That made me feel so angry, that they would use the little boy to get back at me. And why was it that since I had moved rooms everyone was looking at me differently? They were whispering, their eyes darting in my direction. What had the old couple told everyone about me? That I cheated them? Robbed them of their promised money? Possibly for no reason at all? In such a small place I was now pointed out, picked out not only as a foreigner, a land measuring and cutting foreigner, but also as a dishonest and cunning crook.

As my anger rose in waves, just as the smell had done only a few days before, I noticed that the room was not really that dark. High up above the door two round yellow lights were on, as part of a security light. If the electricity was cut out, I assumed the light would be turned on bright. But now, within the rectangular glass case, only two low, yellow, round light bulbs were on, like pale ghost eyes staring at me. I tried not to look at them, but they were staring straight at me, getting brighter by the minute it seemed, so that eventually I had to get up on a stool and throw a sheet on them. That did not really work, so I tried some underpants, a shirt and a towel and then I felt so dizzy from getting on and off the stool, I lay down on the bed again, out of breath, my heart beating fast. The eyes now had a body, more like a ghost than before, so that I could not stop looking at them. The slight draft from the air conditioning gently moved the towel, and the ghost was brought to life, kindly looking at me from above. That night I dreamt that I walked to the bakery, the weather was cool and breezy, and I bought some nice round local marzipan sweets, covered in sugar. They were in a lovely pink box with lavender coloured flowers, just like a box my nana had for her threads, and I was also  holding some wild anemones, a large bunch, and I was walking up the old couple's stairs, three by three, but in slow motion, as if I was on the moon. When I reached the top the old lady was there, she was smiling and I apologised immediately and I said I was sorry, there was a smell in the room I could not get used to, here were some sweets and flowers for her to say sorry for leaving without saying thank you. She smiled and called her husband who brought figs and an album of more photographs to show me. I asked them about the boy, placing my palm flat by the side of my hip to indicate his height, but they both laughed and smiled at me without understanding.

The next day I spent it under the pine tree, sipping cold drinks all morning. Eleni came to see me, brought me some home made iced lemonade, but did not stay. I thought of actually buying some sweets and visiting the old lady, but I genuinely had no strength. In the evening I went for a little stroll by the seafront, the moon was large and bright, the smells of cooking food were making me a bit sick, so I sat on a bench and just looked out towards the colourful boats. It just occurred to me that I had only really worked two days and the other two I had not, for one reason or the other, and that made feel like a failure. I was aging fast, my body not as strong as it once was, not responding to demands as it used to. On top of it now I was high maintenance. A little smell bothered me so. Had it really been that bad? Why had Eleni not noticed it? While I was thinking this, I felt someone sitting on the other end of the bench, the weight shifting, the metal bars shrieking. The little boy had sat there, kicking his legs and looking out towards the boats. His plastic ball was next to him. I stared at him, tried to understand him, to observe him better. He was a boy like all the others I had seen on the island. Scuffed up bonny knees and old battered shoes, shiny black hair and tanned skin. He turned and looked at me with questioning eyes, pleading for something I did not understand. As I was about to speak to him, he got up and kicked his ball and did a trick, but missed and went running away to catch his ball again.

I slept well in my air conditioned, yellow-eyed, ghost infected room, and went to work early the next day, and paced myself, drinking lots of cold water and energy drinks and pissing every twenty minutes. It worked well, and I caught up with the work again, so that I was back under a cold shower by two o'clock. I went back to work in the afternoon, from six till eight to finish off all the remaining measuring and to double check some numbers. I had one more night on the island, and then I was off back to Piraeus and then London. I spent that night sorting out all my papers under the light of the taverna table. I was told to stay off alcohol after my heatstroke, but I could not resist some red wine. I looked at all the children playing out in groups till late at night by the seafront, an old-fashioned freedom long lost in London, really young kids looked after by older ones, a gang of twenty of them, from three years old up to fifteen, all playing together, with bikes, balls, skipping ropes and hoops. I looked out for my little boy, but could not make him out anywhere.

I never said sorry, or thank you or goodbye to the old couple. I still avoided passing near their place. I looked out wearily always for their figures, ready to turn around and leave the moment I caught glimpse of either one of them. Eleni sorted out all my bills as instructed by the agency, so that I had nothing to do on the last day, but fax my papers, pack up my things and wait around for my mid afternoon boat to come. I was wandering around the marina, looking at the golden shimmers on the blue sea, when I heard a deep call: Eii! I turned around and saw a small man sat on a shady table at a little ouzeri tucked up at the back, reserved only for the local men. The mustached man waved his hand beckoning me to approach. I looked around to make sure he was referring to me and approached apprehensively. When I got near, to my immense surprise I saw the little boy sitting on his lap, one hand behind the man's back. The man had a plate of boiled potatoes in front of him, drizzled with green olive oil and sprinkled with chunks of sea salt. Next to it was an oval dish of fresh sardines with chopped parsley. The man was drinking retsina and before I had a chance to speak he poured me a glass and with his free hand pulled a chair out for me to sit. He was feeding the boy a large mouthful of potato with a piece of sardine on it from the edge of a large fork. The boy opened his mouth wide like a chick in its nest and ate the whole contents of the fork up in one go. You are The English Man, the man said. My san talks about you a lot. I was at a loss of what to think. The boy had a father who cared and fed him, and I was almost thinking the boy was not even real. Yes, I am, I told the man and smiled despite myself. The boy carried on eating and looking at me. He is not abandoned! He is not alone! I thought. He is so happy you are an English Man...it is his best football...he sees it in the television in the winter...he wants to play for you...F o o t B a l l !, the man annunciated. At that I burst out laughing, at the absurdness of it all; I have never liked football and was a terrible player, even as a kid. He stretched his arm and offered me a large mouthful of potato and sardine from the same fork, and I was so high that I stretched my neck and ate it. We sat there eating the sardines and potatoes, drinking the retsina, waiting for my boat, while the little boy was doing tricks with his ball amongst the deserted ouzeri tables.

The boat left on time, the lovely horn echoing as it turned around, the voice of a living creature almost, hands waving away, boys jumping into the port, diving and swimming to follow the boat as it went, and me leaving, just like the Englishman I was when I came, only taking something away with me from the island, something more than just the measuring of its lovely land.

For little Alexandros, who was a Fantasmataki on the island this summer 

Wolf Bellows

Wolves were once abundant in Greece, but their numbers declined dramatically in the twentieth century and they were officially declared extirpated from the Peloponnese by the end of the thirties, mainly due to hunting. However, there was a legend that between the two high mountains of Kyllini and Chelmos in the northern Peloponnese, one last pack of wolves remained late into the forties. The pack was still active and observed by locals in the beginning of that decade and the wolves' final distraction is said to have taken place during the Civil War (1946-1949), by which point they were all shot during the adartopolemos (a Greek version of a Guerrilla Warfare). The adartes (rebels) had taken over the small villages on the two mountains, driving the families away to towns and other villages towards the shore, and used the houses, churches, sheepfolds and all resources for their cause. The rebels and the members of the army would locate the wolves by their howls and would shoot them on the spot while they were howling. According to the legend, the wolves became wiser for it, as they heard howl after howl followed by shots, so that the last few remaining wolves are said to had become a silent lot, moving around like shadows, creeping to uncover some morsel of food, unwilling to communicate with each other, so that they finally became solitary, detached from their fellows and behaved in uncharacteristic ways, defying their nature.

Kir.Vassilis lived in a small village on the mountain of Kyllini and he made his living by cultivating the land. He was mainly growing the typical produce of the area, walnuts, apples and cherries. He would exchange these or sell them at the markets in the villages by the shore once a month. He cultivated in small quantities his own onions, garlic, strawberries and potatoes. When he exchanged his produce, he was able to get oranges, tomatoes and cucumbers from the producers of the villages by the sea shore, which he turned into jams and pickles for the winter. With the money he made at the market, he bought olive oil and hard cheese. His brother was a shepherd in the same village and so he was often presented with off cuts of meat for stocks and occasionally with whole legs of lamb, which he dry cured in his larder. Kir. Vassilis had built his small house with the help of the other villagers, as was common at the time. His toilet was a small wooden structure outside the house, as were all toilets in the village. The villagers had dug out a square hole, where all the waste would go into, and that was the last thing they did after the main house and toilet structure were built. Kir. Vassilis had thought at the time that the latrine was far too small, so he had dug a second squarish hole by himself next to the first one, with the intention of joining them when the time came. This digging had caused him to suffer from a very stiff back for the next week and his wife had been very unhappy to find him in such a condition when she moved into the new house. Kir. Vassilis and his wife had two children born in that house.

When the rebels reached the village in autumn 1947, the locals expected to be robbed of their shot guns which they had for hunting and maybe of their food resources. Many locals tried to hide or offer (depending on their convictions) their guns and most hid their food resources in their attics. Kir. Vassilis used his second, still empty latrine near the outdoors toilet to hide two large tins of oil, a cured leg of lamb, four small heads of hard cheese and numerous jars of jam and pickles. He covered the hole with a wooden panel and then replaced the shoveled turf to hide the latrine. When he did this, Kir. Vassilis believed that he would be recovering the food items within hours, as no one thought the rebels would be stopping in this small village for long. In reality the rebels took over the village the same day they arrived, throwing the people out of their houses and establishing themselves within them straight away. People had to make their way on foot, downwards towards the shore villages, with only what they were wearing on them, leaving behind livestock, food, guns and their households. The rebels used the houses for a bit to begin with, removed all food and all necessary items, and then moved deep into the mountains, from where they often returned to the village to re-establish themselves and fight with the army members, who were by now after them.

The situation at the villages by the shore was saturated. Many other mountain villages faced the same luck and people's relatives and friends took them in. But the food soon run out and was not enough to feed everyone. The fishing in the winter was hard and there was not enough fish to go around. Soon the kids got weaker and the smaller ones ill. Kir. Vassilis often thought of the second latrine and was sure all food was still in it. It pained him to think of his kids and nephews going hungry, when there was enough food in the latrine to last them a month. He talked to his wife about going to retrieve it one night, but she would have none of it. It was too dangerous and risky and there was no guarantee the food would even be still there. Kir. Vassilis thought of nothing else each night, and the more his stomach ached the more his determination to go back to the mountain grew. One night he got up and using his candle, tip-toed out of the room they were sharing with eight more people and went to the outdoors toilet. There he put together a bundle using an old blanket, with a rope inside, a flask of water, bread and a small gun of his brother in law. He hid this outside behind a bush. His heart was pounding and he could not get back to sleep that night. The next night Kir. Vassilis stepped out with his candle, retrieved his bundle and using the house's only torch, left for the long walk up to the mountain.

By this time there was only one wolf remaining in the mountains. The wolves had been shot while howling as they were so hungry they were approaching too close to the army and the rebels. The final few turned skeletal and silent and were found dead and frozen, curled up like small puppies in ditches. The last wolf standing had once been the leader of this remaining pack, he was a large animal, with broad shoulders, tall, strong legs with prominent, bony joints and a loud, deep, echoing howl. Despite his size he had a very light and silent padded walk like that of a cat's, and although both rebels and army had caught glimpses of him sniffing around the village, he was gone into thin air by the time the rifles were lifted to take aim. The night Kir. Vassilis was climbing the mountain to reach the village and his house, the wolf was lurking about. Even after months had passed, the wolf was still able to smell the sheep and the goats and pigs and the faint odours of food being prepared, stuck around the house walls and coating the rocks where animal fur had rubbed against. But however strong the smells were, the wolf was unable to find anything to eat. Kir. Vassilis reached his house completely exhausted from his walk, his calves trembled and his feet had swollen in his boots. Despite that he was overcome by a great thrill, his house was quiet and dark, there was no one around, and in the dark it could almost be like any other old day when he went out to use the toilet. The turf on the latrine looked completely undisturbed and the ground was covered with a thin layer of ice.

He looked by the corner wall where he kept his rake, shovel and forks in a large empty barrel. They were not there. He used an old roof tile that was lying around and tried to lift the frozen earth as neatly as possible. The ice and ground cracked like porcelain and echoed sharply into the night. Kir. Vassilis looked at the bright moon above that shone on the ice and lit the back of the house. When he reached the wooden panel his hands were frozen and his fingers stayed bent and crooked. He put them in his pockets, he blew on them and tried to rub them in frustration. He finally moved the panel and looked inside the hole. Everything was exactly as he had left it, the white cheese heads were illuminated like pearls by the moon and the oil tins shone gold. And he felt such a divine relief and gratification, he wanted to jump in the hole and hug all the things. He had to choose what to take with him. He took out two heads of cheese, three jars and one of the large tins of olive oil. Anything more and he would risk not being able to return safely. He replaced the wooden panel, he replaced the turf and only then did he stop and breathe, realising he had been holding his breath and clenching violently his jaws. And then Kir. Vassilis froze. There was someone behind him and he could hear, or rather he could feel their breath. A warm sensation reached the back of his neck, his hair stood up and he stopped breathing again.

He tried to prepare himself for a shot. The shot did not come. Then he remembered the gun which was still in the bundle that lay out of reach. Then he turned his head very slowly, his left eye straining out of its socket and from that owl's head position he saw a wolf. The wolf was showing his teeth in a menacing, horrifyingly silent, stuck in time, eternal growl, his head was lowered between his over sized skeletal shoulders and his orange eyes burnt deep into his. His front legs were slightly stretched forwards and Kir. Vassilis thought that he was going to jump on him and tear him apart at any given second. But the wolf remained in that position. Kir. Vassilis twisted his body to bring it slowly around where his head was, and with very shaking movements brought the bundle closer to him. The wolf still remained at his position. Kir. Vassilis took slowly the gun out, but was unable to bring himself to lift his arm and shoot in case the noise brought the rebels or the army to him. He thought of using the blanket of the bundle as a silencer and was about to start folding it when the wolf moved a step closer. Kir. Vassilis took a piece of bread that he had for himself out and opening the oil tin, spilled some oil all over it and some fell to the ground. His eyes burnt as he saw the oil spill on the frozen ground and he cursed his luck louder than he had intended. He took one bite of the oiled bread and felt such a warmth down his throat and belly, he felt as if his strength had instantly returned. Then he threw the rest of the bread to the wolf. In his amazement the wolf ate the bread at once and locking his gaze with Kir. Vassilis' eyes he moved even closer, lowering his head to the ground.

Kir. Vassilis saw at once that the condition of the wolf was not good. He ribs stuck out and he had sores on his back. His fur was falling out in patches and his gums were white. His eyes were still burning and were so intense that he had no other choice but to give him more food. He left all of his remaining bread covered in the oil and he also broke a piece of cheese from one of the heads. He threw them to the wolf and sat there watching. When all was gone the wolf still remained at the same position. Kir. Vassilis felt a welling sensation rising to his eyes and did not want to give anymore of the precious food to the wolf. Daylight was breaking and he had to leave now or risk getting caught. He slowly sat up, and in a semi crouching position wore the bundle with the rope over his back. Without looking back, he took small steps and slowly moved away from the house and reached the path he had taken to get to the village. He was prepared for the claws on his back, for the enormous weight pushing him to the ground, for the ice sticking to his face and for the sharp teeth digging in his neck, but the wolf never moved from his position, only looked at him leaving, licking his jaws with his white tongue.

Kir. Vassilis was afraid of his wife's reaction when she saw the food and realised that he had gone to the mountains despite her objections, but after a halfhearted pretend at anger, Kira Vassilena was so overwhelmed by the new-brought supplies that she did not question him at all. No one commented at the chunk of missing cheese, as they assumed he had eaten it after his long walk. He did not mention the wolf to a living soul and although he did not think of him during the day, at night he felt his eyes burning at his back and turned abruptly in his bed as if hit by a current, only to headbutt his wife who grunted in her sleep. The food only lasted a week. This time there was no protestation from his wife and Kir. Vassilis found himself preparing his bundle in broad daylight. As soon as night came he was once again on his way. When he was approaching the path that led to the back of his house, he felt his heart pounding at the excitement of seeing the wolf again. To his immense surprise, the wolf was sat a few meters away from the latrine, by the toilet shed, in the shadow of a cedar bush. It almost felt like he had never left the back of his house for a whole week. The wolf sat up, stared at Kir. Vassilis, lowered his head and then sat down again. Kir. Vassilis tried to ignore the wolf and approached the latrine. He used the same roof tile to remove the turf, lifted the wooden panel and took out three more jars, and the cured leg of lamb.

The wolf was staring with the same burning eyes, but was not moving. Kir.Vassilis fancied he saw a deep shame in the wolf's eyes or more he felt the shame himself, for how had a creature like that ended up in such a condition if it was not for people like him. Immediately as he had made this thought he felt a new cold wave of shame, for how could he be thinking of a wolf when his fellow men were killing each other, brothers killing their brothers, fathers their sons. At that thought, he made up his bundle, secured it with the rope and without stopping to eat his bread or looking back, he head for the path back. The wolf was blocking his way. His front legs spread apart, his immense shoulders sticking out, his head lowered between them. The most excruciating silent growl was produced by his jagged jaws, his teeth shone in the moonlight, his lips trembled and his eyes spat fire. How he had moved and found himself in front of him, Kir. Vassilis had no idea. He sat down on the spot. He thought that he was going to lose control of his bladder. The cold found a way in, and his elbows gave away, dropping the bundle to the icy floor. Locked in that confrontation for what felt like hours, Kir. Vassilis eventually moved and undid the knot to the bundle. He took out the leg of lamb, looking at the wolf the whole time. The wolf remained in his position, silently growling at him. Kir.Vassilis used a piece of broken slate to cut a small piece of meat. He threw it to the wolf. The wolf ate it and resumed immediately his position. He cut one more piece and threw it. Then one more. Now one third of the lamb leg was gone. Kir. Vassilis started to cry, silently in the beginning, but then heard his own sobs as loud as screams in the frozen night, he dropped the lamb leg on the floor and hit his head on his bent knees repeatedly, digging his nails around his neck. When he looked up, ages after it felt, the wolf was gone.

When he reached home he was in a bad way. He was soaking wet, his joints on his arms and legs were sore and stiff, his eyes swollen and he was overrun by a fever. No one questioned him about the missing piece of lamb, but he thought he saw sideways glances and small murmurs surrounding his person. Kir. Vassilis felt that he did not want to go back to the mountain at first. Anyway, the food he brought back seemed to last much less than he had anticipated. The more they ate they more they seemed to be needing to eat the next time. Within ten days there was hardly any food left. But by that time, Kir. Vassilis had only one thought in his mind: what could he take up with him for the wolf to eat next time he went to the mountains. He took in his bundle some salted dried fish, which he had first soaked in water and rinsed well. He also took the lamb leg bone and rock hard, dried bread. He hid all that in his bundle and was off to the mountains to retrieve the last remaining items. The night was warmer that usual and he arrived to the back of the house with greater ease. But as soon as he reached the outdoors toilet he saw a faint light in the house. There was someone inside; rebels or army he could not tell, but then he also noticed a very fine line of smoke coming from the front chimney. The wolf was not there. Kir. Vassilis felt lost; he did not know what to do. He sat under the shadow of the cedar bush where the wolf had sat less than a forthright ago. He eventually crawled to the latrine and very quietly dug at the turf with the roof tile. He removed the wooden panel and took out the last tin of oil and two remaining cheese heads. He took the wolf food out from the bundle and for a moment was undecided as to what to do; leave it out for the wolf to eat could attract unwanted and fatal attention. Taking it back was impossible as it did not fit in the bundle. Scattering it around on the way home, could be a solution but was leaving everything to chance, which Kir. Vassilis detested doing. He decided, to leave the wolf food into the latrine, soaking the bread and fish with oil and cutting a chunk of cheese off before replacing the wooden panel. On his way back he looked around for the wolf but did not see him.

A great sense of urgency overtook Kir. Vassilis after that. His heart was beating fast all the time, he sweated and was unable to focus on anything. Almost straight away he lied to his wife and said that there were more jars and more cheese in the latrine; he needed to go back. He fretted and rushed about and was on his way back to the mountain within a week. The night had no moon when he set off and he climbed in such a hurry, he slipped and fell repeatedly, the rocks scraping him through his clothes. The faint light was no longer there, but he thought he could see a trace of smoke from the front chimney. The thick darkness was so impenetrable, at times he had to stretch his hands in front of him like a blind man. He felt him before he saw him. He stared at him for minutes till his body started to stand out from the night. When his eyes had adjusted on his form, he moved and started opening the latrine. The wolf's eyes sparkled and then not, and Kir. Vassilis wondered whether he was blinking. He took the food out and placed it on the broken tile. The wolf ate it all, but took his time, his eyes sparkling and then not, as if he was closing his eyelids with the pleasure of eating. Kir. Vassilis watched him and felt his own hunger rise and subside in waves, in tune with the wolf's jaw movements. That night on his way down, Kir. Vassilis felt a satisfaction and a completeness such as he had never experienced before, through his marriage or work with the land, and because of that state of euphoria, he felt light and ethereal so that when the shot hit him on the back, for a moment he thought he had stepped on frozen ice, cracking fine porcelain that echoed in the silence, and had gone flying into the black velvety night. The same night the last remaining wolf was heard all the way to the sea, as he bellowed with the most horrific voice from the rock in the middle of mount Kyllini, his howls heard by hundreds of people and followed by shots.

~

Not for flat feet!

In my father's family there is a long history of having flat feet. Almost every single person in that family demonstrates this trait and has suffered from having flat feet in one way or another, going back many generations. Some of the male members of the family suffered such severe consequences for not having an arch in their feet at all, that they were exempt from compulsory army service. For most, their feet got very painful and although many were very active in sports, they became tired very quickly, especially after running and jumping or after prolonged walking. Female members of the family were unable to wear high heels or completely flat shoes, like sandals, and as a result always posed in a very funny way in the old black and white photographs, leaning sideways, backwards or forwards, supported by or clinging on to someone else, while their feet remained completely out of shot, hidden in an unnatural angle behind someone else's dress or trousered legs.  

The treatment for flat feet varied enormously through the years, from doing absolutely nothing, to being advised on what shoes to wear, to wearing metal foot braces. My father had to wear metal insoles on his specially made boots for all of his childhood and adolescence. I remember when I was taken to be tested to determine how severe my flat-footedness was, I was made to step into a special ink pad and then to walk on a long piece of rice paper so that the doctor could see how much of an arch there was. There was hardly any and my footprints were not immediately recognisable as the ones you normally see on the sand on a beach made by people, but were more like long egg-shaped ones, with five round toes, that might have belonged to an oversize baby-toy. I also remember one of the doctors saying that the best thing I could do was to walk barefoot in the summer on pebbles.

Determined not to wear metal braces or metal insoles, I walked barefoot on small gravel-size pebbles, on sand and on scorching hot big pebbles every summer for days on end and resisted wearing the fashionable sandals of transparent plastic that everyone else had and which allowed you to walk in and out of the sea undisturbed by the pebbles on your feet. I remember that it was really uncomfortable and at times painful to walk on pebbles like that, as they turned and changed position so that you lost your balance as you tried to lift one foot after the other. By the end of the summer I had feet soles that were so resistant to heat and pain that I think I could have walked on hot coals. I also did wear insoles in special boots in the winter (not metal ones though, but leather ones instead), so I cannot be sure which of these things did the trick, but I started developing an arch on my feet so that I had a nice, recognisable on the sand arch, by the age of seventeen.

Aretousa also has flat feet and I was soon to find out that the treatment for flat feet has moved on again. There is a longer wait recommended for a child who demonstrates flat feet to develop arches naturally, so nothing much is done before the age of five. Meanwhile, shoes with a small leather arch are recommended and boots with laces are also supposed to be beneficial. The children are encouraged to walk on tip-toes and to do other exercises, like picking up a pencil with their toes. One of the podiatrists told me that the best exercise for her is to walk barefoot on pebbles. That advice obviously has remained the same and is valued in at least two different countries, so as it possibly helped me, and definitely did not harm me in any way, I thought that I should make use of it for Aretousa in some way.

Of course, the ideal way to be exercising the soles of the feet with pebbles would be by walking on a real beach. Even more ideally if one was to do that without really realising they were doing it, so through casual walks along the beach or while playing. Preferably the beach would include different kinds of pebbles, so that you could walk on sand, wet and dry, smaller pebbles and gravel-size pebbles, as well as the large ones, as all of these would require different movements by the feet in order for the body to balance properly and retain the walking motion; in theory different kinds of pebbles would exercise different muscles. Also walking in shallow water would provide additional resistance. This image of kids playing on the beach (now detached from its original purpose to exercise the soles of flat feet), came to me very fast and alive and reminded me of the last summer, when Aretousa and myself spent most of our days by the sea. The prospect that this summer this experience might not happen was almost unbearable to me to contemplate and I felt such a longing for the sea (and for the beach in its capacity to lead to the sea), that if I closed my eyes I could hear and smell it as if I was just a breath away from it.

I am unable to say whether my real motivation was to create a way for Aretousa to exercise her feet, or if I urgently needed something to touch and feel that was sea-related, but in any case I created three panels containing three different textures in them: sand, gravel-size pebbles and large pebbles. For practical reasons these are contained within trays so that they don't escape everywhere in the house, and so that the walls of the trays provide resistance when walking on and so that I did not need to get large quantities of each material. I have seen different equipment used for children during physiotherapy to help them with muscle tone, movement control and balance and often these are created to resemble play-tracks/courses with elements such as stepping stones, tunnels, rings, step ladders, balance bars, wobbly plastic cushions, air-filled elements and inflated balls, all for walking on, stepping on and off, jumping, balancing, standing or sitting on. The fact that two of the trays I have used (the trays are from window sill pots) are narrow and long, makes the walking on them harder, as you have to deal with staying within the narrow tray as you put one foot in front of the other, while also trying to balance on the sand and small pebbles as they move below your feet. The third tray is a wooden one, as something stronger was required in order to contain the large, heavy pebbles. On this one you need to step on it and make small steps to rotate your body on the spot and then step off it again.

These exercises proved much harder than I had first thought, and Aretousa was very excited to try them out. The hardest ones were the sand one and the one with the large pebbles. Of course after the exercises are finished, she also wants to play with each material, so that by the end of the session I often lose some of the sand and smaller pebbles. One evening I forgot the three trays on the living room floor and saw them first thing in the morning when I was still not properly awake. I found them so depressing, lying there on the laminate floor, completely out of place, bits of something else detached from its whole, cut out as if with scissors into rectangular shapes and arranged in a line, not leading to the sea at all, but to a tall window pointing at an iconic cityscape of a foreign capital. Suspended on the top of a tower, miles away from my beloved sea I looked at the blue city below and I felt tears running at the back of my eyes and thought of how much I had missed the sea and what I wouldn't give to just feel it for a second, for a long blink of my heavy, longing eyes.  

But as cut out as I might have felt myself at that point and completely misplaced, so it appears did my work. Not doing it at all would initially disguise itself as a relief and a gain of extra time, but soon would lead to restlessness, irritation and a feeling of utter futility shouldering madness. Trying to fit it in, time and money wise and physically in the given space, could very well work out just fine one time and then lead to a disastrous sequence of events affecting everyone, the next. Anyway, what place does a work of art which is made on a tower and stays there have in the world? Is it not as detached from its supposed external audience as those pebbled trays are from the sea? And is it worth all the desperate, inevitable, soul retching effort to fit it in, when it will be either packed up, bubble wrapped or hidden before it is seen by a dozen eyes? The conclusion is, that if it is still impossible for me not to do it, then it has to be done, even if its purpose is undefinable and its definition blurry.

For some time now I have been collecting empty chocolate trays with the intention of casting them in a mixture of sand, cement and plaster to create a wall panel. I have always been very intrigued by the design and shape of goods' packaging, including boxes, trays and protective material and by what negative spaces or new shapes they can create once discarded and what new "life" they can take on. Once I had found the time to cast the trays and they were set, I placed them on the floor in different arrangements till I came to a combination that I liked. The idea was to fix them onto a panel which would then be able to hang from the wall. While the panels were still on the floor unfixed, Aretousa took off her socks and started walking on them saying that she was doing her exercises. Then I heard the improbable phrase coming out of my mouth "No, that is mummy's art, it's not for flat feet! get off!". I could not quite believe what I had said and justified it in my head by thinking that since these cast shapes were solid and not able to move around like pebbles, they surely were not as good an exercise for flat feet as the three trays that I had made originally containing sand, gravel-size pebbles and large pebbles. I quickly retrieved them for her and we resumed the exercises there. But in real terms how is this panel of solid empty chocolate tray casts more useful in the world: hung on the wall in a tower for the aesthetic pleasure of a dozen eyes or used by a child to improve their foot arches? And the conclusion to that would have probably been to be used for flat foot exercises, but since the trays with pebbles and sand were designed specifically for this purpose, the panel is allowed to hang on the wall. Or be put in storage in due course, most certainly.

And so I have found myself to be missing my work, as I am thinking and imagining it to be, as I have been found to be missing and thinking of the sea, and the reality of both has become small fragments and pieces designed to keep me sane while they have slowly crept and taken on a strange life of their own, steadily claiming their place in my day to day life, catching me completely oblivious to their rooting aspirations, so that I am starting to dread that I will be thinking of them when I am on a boat, on a breezy day on the blue sea, one evening.

[Fish] to be seen...

When I was about to go back to Athens up to a few years ago, I always felt a great sense of relief, one that usually accompanies anyone returning to their homeland. This feeling of a weight being lifted and of a deep relaxation emerging, was a very welcoming state to be in for me, especially after having spent a whole winter away. Athens is a very big, overcrowded and noisy city, but it had always felt like one of the most hospitable places to be and that was mainly down to the attitude of its inhabitants. Very few people actually originate from Athens itself, (it is said the families could be counted on the fingers of one hand), most people having come to it from villages, islands, as refugees and ex-patriots, but everyone without fail who lives in Athens is proud to do so and claims to originate from Athens. The attitude of the people of Athens to bend backwards to help and accommodate anyone at any given time was often so overwhelming, that Athenians have been said to still carry some traits of their slavery status remaining from the days of the Ottoman Empire.

The people of Athens were unbelievably genuine, and in their openness made one feel very at home, whether they were a local or a visitor. I remember the fish mongers telling my Grandmother who asked for the sea-bass, "Don't take the sea-bass today Mrs, it's not as fresh as the sole, buy that instead, it's the best catch today". Then at the restaurant they would say, "Moussaka was cooked yesterday but the pastitsio was cooked this morning, so go with that, it will be best". That might not be the best way of making business, but it was the best way to make anyone feel very safe, taken care of and valued and it was a great place to grow up. Every single neighborhood had a vibrant, distinctive and caring pulse of its own and all together they surrounded protectively the centre of Athens, the main heart of it with the Acropolis, Monastiraki and Plaka, the old jewels and pride and joy of the city and of its inhabitants.

I was always very proud of the youngsters and of children in Athens too, who had an inbred and natural respect for their elders, and particularly for the growing number of elderly Athenian inhabitants, who have always constituted a large percentage of the population. Children would naturally get up and offer a seat on the bus for example to an elderly passenger and that would happen almost by default, without a please or a thank you, because that was how it was and there was never any other way. Elderly people had priority for everything, to the extend that the city seemed to belong to them and to children. They could jump long taxi queues, make the bus stop wherever they wanted it to and get anyone to carry anything for them every time they went out shopping. The children too were kings, as children are almost everywhere in Greece, and they could eat with the adults, sleep when the adults did and go to the cinema, to the cafes and to the theatre at all inappropriate times, as the adults did. The combination of an elderly person caring for a child and seen accompanying one in Athens, was a passport to all heavenly things and privileged treatment, and my Grandmother and I were definitely at the receiving end of it for all our years together. Athens was a great big playground, where you felt very deeply that you were part of your neighborhood -and thus part of the city- and that as far as it was within anyone's capability who lived there, you were taken care of as best as possible.

The incident that always jumps to my mind to describe the spirit of Athens when I was growing up, happened to me and my mother in 1987. My mother had got us tickets to go to the prestigious and state of the art at the time, Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus, to watch a performance of dancing on ice. We had been waiting like mad for that night, because it was going to be the first time we went into the stadium and the first time we ever saw dancing on ice close up. We got a taxi from our house and chatted with the driver all the way there, as people did with taxi drivers in Athens. But when we arrived there, my mother realised to her horror that she had forgotten her purse. The tickets were loose in her bag, but her purse was not there. I remember how red she got on the face and how embarrassed she was and I think my face just dropped at the prospect that we had to go all the way back with the taxi to pay him and subsequently miss the performance. The taxi driver gave us enough money to get back with another taxi and enough money for treats for the interval and for an emergency. My mother was so happy, her eyes were watering. She gave the taxi driver her work address and phone number and the taxi driver collected his money and fare a week later. And the performance was the most magical one I had seen as a child.

But the last few years, every time I returned to Athens, I noticed a considerable change upon its inhabitants' behaviour. In the beginning I thought I was just witnessing one-off events, but as the time went by I started to observe an overall pattern emerging. People seemed very tense, on edge and deeply unsettled. There were sharp and abrupt conversations in the streets, fights being started out of nothing and offense been taken by mere misunderstandings. People were ready to attack like tightly wound up springs. The saddest to me occurrence, was amongst elderly people in buses, who in their deep panic and despair, raised their voices and shouted at youngsters for not been acknowledged and helped, before the youngsters had even had a chance to put one foot on the bus. After their outburst and receipt of attention, they would proceed to lower their heads and mumble something with shaking limbs, sat bent on their reserved seats. This type of behaviour had no doubt been building up during my absence, gradually, but as I was only observing it annually or so, it appeared to me as if it happened overnight, so that the whole city was turning into an arena of desperate and wounded dogs, fighting each other with growling teeth, while their tails hid and legs trembled.

The strains and the financial circumstances that had been affecting Athenias and later all Greeks for years, had finally reached a point where they manifested themselves in people's everyday behaviour. And when that occurs it no doubt means that the situation has reached a point where something will have to happen, one way or another. So now I had found myself in the unnerving position of watching every single person I came across outside, to see signs of their state of mind, looking them in the eye, but not for too long in case I provoked a reaction, as if they were fish to be bought, trying to tell whether they were safe or starting to rot and prone to snap at any given opportunity. My fellow Athenians from my childhood had now become an experiment, people-guinea pigs, fish in a bowl, while the world observed to see how long they would last and the way they would decline into nothingness or led to cannibalism. In my shame that I found myself on the outside of the bowl, I started to avoid looking anyone in the eye, and rather rushed around the city streets spasmodically, bumping into people and mumbling something when they cursed, pretending I was one of them once again.

But the last couple of times I went back to Athens the outburst that I had been expecting had not happened. The people had not exploded and there was no revolution in sight. Instead an even more eerie atmosphere lurked about the streets. The fighting and anger had ceased; the snapping and nudging had eased; now there was an air of total abandonment, of surrender, of defeat and catatonia. Everything was uncharacteristically quiet in the streets, the people that were there dragged their feet slowly, they all looked down and they avoided talking altogether. Hidden between the hollows and darkness of empty shops and buildings, the shadows of the former Athenians moved and breathed almost invisibly, just like they were pushed into invisibility at the back of the world news. Was this the quietness and calmness before a storm? Or is this the permanent state of people who have endured such a prolonged financial leeching and morale bashing? This comatose state of anemia was even more unbearable for me to witness than the fighting had been, making my selfish guilt rise even higher and making me unable to even search anymore for the watering eyes of the elderly to look into.

I have chosen the word Ψάρι (Psari), meaning Fish, for the letter Psi,Ψ, for the Greek alphabet we are making with Aretousa. It is a short and easy word for a child to learn, but fish has also another name in Greek, the ancient Greek name of Ιχθύς (Ichthus). It is very common in the modern Greek language to see some ancient words slowly been phased out, like Ιχθύς being replaced by Ψάρι, while they are still present in composite words, such as Ιχθυοπωλείο, literally Fishshop. Sometimes it is very obvious where the newer word originates from, but many times it is a mystery. The word Ψάρι in this case has no etymological connection to the word Ιχθύς, so the roots of the words are not related. But a little research into the matter of how it came about that the newer word was created, leads us to the Byzantine times and to fish street sellers who were wandering around calling out their catch. The fish street sellers called out Ιχθύς Οψάριος, Ichthus Opsarios, (Οψάριος being the participle of the future tense of the irregular ancient verb Ορώ, meaning to see). This participle does not exist in the English language, but it more or less meant Fish to be seen, or Fish for viewing, or Fish going to be seen. As the day drew to an end and the fish sellers got tired of shouting, they would only now shout the last bit of the phrase, ...Οψάριος, ...to be seen, and then even abbreviate that further, so that now the only bit of the phrase that reached people's ears from the fish sellers was ....ψάρι....So just a bit from the phrase Ιχθύς Οψάριος, Fish to be seen. And so a word was created for fish without it actually meaning fish at all.

This is the kind of transformation that I believe in my wild dreams would save the Greeks from their situation; a complete transformation of the state of affairs, a reinvention of their status, so that they are still who they were in essence, but they now have a totally renewed attitude towards their problems and are able to finally assert the dormant control and power over their internal issues and over those issues that have been imposed and created by years of foreign intervention.

For Greek speaking readers refer to the short video below for an explanation of the creation of the word Ψάρι. (Non Greek speaking readers will also be able to get the gist of the video, as it uses visual aids and my explanation above is based on it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EStaTG-jq5Q