Living in Greece, Part 07

Thursday, 09 September

At last I feel I have the house in hand. I’ve scrubbed, on hands and knees, both the kitchen and bathroom floors with hydrochloric acid, which whitens the grout.

I’ve laundered most of the lace curtains and they are many shades whiter than when we arrived. Some of them are easy, as the curtain rods can be lowered via pulleys. But in the master bedroom, I have to stand on tip-toe on the top of a stepladder and reach up as high as my arms can go, to insert all the hooks into tiny loops a the top of the curtains. And each curtain has about 25 loops. Never again!

I’ve vacuumed the oriental rug and all the upholstered furniture. Yes, I know, never vacuum an oriental rug. Tough! The days when I would move all the furniture, roll up the rug, haul it outside, drape it over the clothesline, beat it, then carry it back indoors and move all the furniture back – those days are forever gone. Besides, I don’t think this is one of those rugs. It’s almost certainly machine-made.

I’ve even washed my bottle collection. I save or buy bottles that grab my fancy and some that don’t until I decorate them; I put them atop my kitchen cabinets, to hide some copper pipes that run across. I have about 50 bottles, so washing them all was no small chore. (I need about half a dozen more to complete the collection.)

I’ve laid all the crochet lace or embroidered runners and doilies on the tables and set out the vases and other decorations, and the house looks nice.

The only remaining non-routine task is to wash all the windows and doors.

Having done so much work, I could even begin to imagine myself virtuous, if it weren’t for the crankiness amid which it was accomplished! I’m beginning to relax now and have fun. No more crankiness.

Yesterday and the day before, I was listening to some boys playing in the little park, and I had to smile when I heard some of them calling, “Achilles, Achilles!” So Greek boys still play Trojan War, I said to myself, just as Demetrios did and as every generation of Greek boys has done for four thousand years!

That was a misapprehension, however; Achilles turns out to be the boy’s real name! How do I now? I heard his mother calling him home for dinner. (Does he have an Achilles’ Heel? Sure; he has two!)

But one kid the other day really did say, “I’ll be Hercules!”

About 8:30 at night, we met Mena and Kostas at a café, where Pelagia and George later joined us.

Pelagia and George both have quite fierce expressions. They’re both retired teachers and Mena says it’s their schoolteacher demeanor. Anyway, they are by no means fierce, but lively and kind. They invited us to go with them next weekend to their seaside summer home, from which they only returned today. They’ve invited us before, but again, it has never worked out before; perhaps it may this time. The only trip definitely on our schedule is to Corfu, where we are to be reunited, briefly, with David and Julia. It’s a stop on a cruise they are about to take.

The good news us, Mena’s daughter Elpida, who has an 11-month old girl, is expecting again in April. Liana, the elder daughter, has at least graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in law. She works in her father’s office as an apprentice and is preparing to pass a battery of exams to be admitted to the bar in Greece.

The bad news is, Mena was robbed yesterday. While she was standing in a tightly packed bus, someone with a razor knife cut into the side of her handbag, made a hole more than big enough to insert a hand, and removed her wallet. She never knew anything was amiss until she got off the bus and the remaining contents of her handbag began spilling out. She’d been carrying 160 Euros. And credit cards. So the first thing she did was go to her bank and cancel all those cards.

The rest of the conversation was about politics. We women had very little success turning it to anything else. Almost every time we tried, one of the men thought of a political angle. It must be some sort of disease. But it did occur to me to wish I could have seen Kostas in court, arguing in his deep, resonant voice, with such passion, such almost Italian gestures, such oratorical flare.

I’d like to see his colleague, Iannis, in court, too, because whatever anybody says always reminds him of some Psalm. Once when Mena and I were with him, he was trying to park his car and somebody else took the spot before he could. Mena shouted at the other driver, “You beast! You animal!” And Iannis sang, “There dwell all creatures great and small.”

There was a street brawl tonight just outside our café tonight. It grew from shouting to punching, and we began worrying someone might get hurt. Three police cars came, plus two police motorcycles. The young men involved had fled by then, but before the police had realized that, we watched them put on flak jackets. Oh, my!

The brawlers returned once the police had left. It was nearly midnight by time they had dispersed. We sat in the café another half hour, then walked home with George and Pelagia, who live near us. It was the first time I’ve ever felt just a tad uneasy walking in this city at any hour of day or night.