Read Online A Dead Man in Athens by Michael Pearce - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Pearce
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beside her.
‘You know about these carriages? They’re like taxis. You pay ten lepta a seat. You only find them in Stadion Street, but they’re handy for me coming from the School of Medicine.’
‘You’ve been in the lab this afternoon, have you? Not working on the Bl´eriot?’
‘Yes, I’m there most afternoons, actually. I only told my father I was in the workshop so as to provoke him.’
‘And are you really thinking of changing faculty?’
‘Not really. There’s not much working on actual engines in the engineering faculty of Athens University, I can tell you! And my father would be so disappointed. He’s set his heart on me becoming a doctor. Why, I ask him? Doctors are two-a-penny in Athens. Listen, he says, you’ve got to think of your future. What happens after I am gone? Oh, I’ll marry some rich man, I say. You’ll be lucky, he says: rich men can afford to be discriminating. Anyway, I say, there’ll be more money in becoming a Bl´eriot mechanic than in becoming a doctor. They’re in much shorter supply. And they’ll be greatly in demand when the war comes and we get more machines. No, they won’t, he says, not after the machines have crashed. Which they’re pretty likely to do if you’re the one who is servicing them.’
She laughed, then sobered up.
‘Actually, my mother doesn’t like that kind of talk. And she likes it still less now that Andreas is getting –’
She broke off.
‘Getting?’
‘Getting involved, you might say. Certainly he’s very excited. All the young men are. My father gets very angry. he says that war is stupid. The rush of the Gadarene swine, he says. And my mother says it’s immoral.’
‘And what do you say?’
She shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s both, of course: stupid and immoral. But maybe it’s inevitable. That’s what everyone is coming to feel. My father says it’s the politicians. You know, Venizelos and his “Great Idea”. He says it would be a greater one if Venizelos led us in exactly the opposite direction. But the politicians are leading us all astray, he says. Especially the young, who don’t know any better. He says.
‘I’m not sure about that. There’s a lot of talk about it at the university, with people arguing on both sides. But my brother, Andreas, isn’t really interested in all that, the ideas, I mean. He’s just – excited. They all are, all the aviators – that’s what we call the ones that fly. They’ve taken to going over to the army base every afternoon. There’s a new man there who knows a lot about flying machines, an Englishman, an engineer, named Stevens. They talk a lot to him and he says that war would be a great opportunity for aviation. It would bring it on immensely, it always does. It would make aviation really big, he says, and that would change the world.
‘It seems unlikely to me. But he’s very enthusiastic and they listen to him. It appeals to them, both as young men and as flying men. And it does to Andreas, too. He see himself as a sort of flying hero.
‘It makes my father very angry. “You see yourself as a flying Hercules,” he says. “But remember the story of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus built wings so that man could fly. And he went up with his son, Icarus, to show them. But they flew too near the sun and the wax holding the wings on melted. Icarus fell into the sea and was drowned. And Daedalus, who had thought it all up, landed safely. Venizelos will be like Daedalus and land safely. But you bloody won’t.” Says my father.’
When they reached Constitution Square, the carriage stopped and everyone got out.
‘I am going to find my father,’ said Aphrodite. ‘Why don’t you come with me? He will be glad of masculine reinforcement.’
The square was now full of people. Every table outside the caf´es was occupied and often there were people standing beside them chatting. Everyone was chatting. The cab drivers dismounted from their carriages to join
‘You know about these carriages? They’re like taxis. You pay ten lepta a seat. You only find them in Stadion Street, but they’re handy for me coming from the School of Medicine.’
‘You’ve been in the lab this afternoon, have you? Not working on the Bl´eriot?’
‘Yes, I’m there most afternoons, actually. I only told my father I was in the workshop so as to provoke him.’
‘And are you really thinking of changing faculty?’
‘Not really. There’s not much working on actual engines in the engineering faculty of Athens University, I can tell you! And my father would be so disappointed. He’s set his heart on me becoming a doctor. Why, I ask him? Doctors are two-a-penny in Athens. Listen, he says, you’ve got to think of your future. What happens after I am gone? Oh, I’ll marry some rich man, I say. You’ll be lucky, he says: rich men can afford to be discriminating. Anyway, I say, there’ll be more money in becoming a Bl´eriot mechanic than in becoming a doctor. They’re in much shorter supply. And they’ll be greatly in demand when the war comes and we get more machines. No, they won’t, he says, not after the machines have crashed. Which they’re pretty likely to do if you’re the one who is servicing them.’
She laughed, then sobered up.
‘Actually, my mother doesn’t like that kind of talk. And she likes it still less now that Andreas is getting –’
She broke off.
‘Getting?’
‘Getting involved, you might say. Certainly he’s very excited. All the young men are. My father gets very angry. he says that war is stupid. The rush of the Gadarene swine, he says. And my mother says it’s immoral.’
‘And what do you say?’
She shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s both, of course: stupid and immoral. But maybe it’s inevitable. That’s what everyone is coming to feel. My father says it’s the politicians. You know, Venizelos and his “Great Idea”. He says it would be a greater one if Venizelos led us in exactly the opposite direction. But the politicians are leading us all astray, he says. Especially the young, who don’t know any better. He says.
‘I’m not sure about that. There’s a lot of talk about it at the university, with people arguing on both sides. But my brother, Andreas, isn’t really interested in all that, the ideas, I mean. He’s just – excited. They all are, all the aviators – that’s what we call the ones that fly. They’ve taken to going over to the army base every afternoon. There’s a new man there who knows a lot about flying machines, an Englishman, an engineer, named Stevens. They talk a lot to him and he says that war would be a great opportunity for aviation. It would bring it on immensely, it always does. It would make aviation really big, he says, and that would change the world.
‘It seems unlikely to me. But he’s very enthusiastic and they listen to him. It appeals to them, both as young men and as flying men. And it does to Andreas, too. He see himself as a sort of flying hero.
‘It makes my father very angry. “You see yourself as a flying Hercules,” he says. “But remember the story of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus built wings so that man could fly. And he went up with his son, Icarus, to show them. But they flew too near the sun and the wax holding the wings on melted. Icarus fell into the sea and was drowned. And Daedalus, who had thought it all up, landed safely. Venizelos will be like Daedalus and land safely. But you bloody won’t.” Says my father.’
When they reached Constitution Square, the carriage stopped and everyone got out.
‘I am going to find my father,’ said Aphrodite. ‘Why don’t you come with me? He will be glad of masculine reinforcement.’
The square was now full of people. Every table outside the caf´es was occupied and often there were people standing beside them chatting. Everyone was chatting. The cab drivers dismounted from their carriages to join