Read Online The House on Paradise Street by Sofka Zinovieff - Free Book Online
Authors: Sofka Zinovieff
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much, I thought I knew what she meant, with her kind expression and genuine smile. She brought out a syrupy lemon preserve, placed a thick coil of yellow peel on a saucer and poured me a glass of cold water from a bottle in the fridge. They seemed like eternal gestures of welcome to the stranger.
I carried the tray back to the sitting room and while Alexandra poured the tea, I looked at the silver-framed photographs placed here and there. One showed a family in what looked like the 1930s, with three children standing outside the house in Paradise Street. The father was sleek as a seal, in an elegant dark suit and waxed moustache; the mother graceful in pale silks, with hair styled into an angular bob. They looked content, though none smiled in the manner of modern photographs.
“This is me. The oldest.” Alexandra pointed to a girl of about twelve in a white frock with curling, light-coloured hair. She had an authoritative air and was holding the hand of a pretty young boy in shorts and white ankle socks.
“My brother and sister were lost years ago. Markos was such a darling. He died so young. A terrible waste.” She didn’t tell me anything about the serious, dark-haired girl leaning at an angle on the other side of the parents.
I also met Alexandra’s husband that first day. He came into the sitting room with the jaunty air and freshly combed hair of a man who has just woken from a long siesta. Taking in his sharp-creased trousers and slackening jowls, I guessed he was a well-preserved seventy.
“Spiros Koftos.” He introduced himself and I caught a blast of his aftershave as he squeezed my hand too tightly, and leaned in towards me. Alexandra told him about me in Greek and he looked me up and down, nodding in approval, as though inspecting a prospective purchase.
“English? Very nice. Very good,” he said to me in heavily accented English. “Welcome to Greece.” Spiros told his wife he was going out and swung around, leaving in military fashion, not quite clicking his heels.
“He’s going to the coffee shop,” Alexandra explained. “All his friends go there – in the morning for coffee and newspapers and in the afternoon for a little whisky and cards. At least it keeps them out of trouble.” She laughed, shaking her head slightly, as if the male sex were a conundrum it was not necessary to solve. Then she told me about her business – a clothes shop in Kolonaki called En Vogue (she pronounced it like “envog” and it was only much later that I realised what she meant). She was still involved, she said, though she no longer went in every day.
“I started off using my father’s old premises. Perifanis was known for making the best women’s clothes in Athens before the war and when we re-opened in the 1950s, it made sense to use the name, but in the ’60s we started bringing in ready-to-wear from Milan and Paris and when we moved to a better location I changed the name. We have a loyal clientele and we’re still making money.”
I liked Alexandra, though I couldn’t imagine what this comme il faut Athenian lady saw in a scruffy English student. With her tailored clothes, perfect manners and forthright opinions, she was not like anyone in my social circle. I was accustomed to doubt and questioning. Perhaps that is why I appreciated her certainties. She invited me to visit her several times, the last occasion being one morning shortly before I was due to leave for Thasos. Alexandra wanted to give me a tome about folklore in the Aegean written in the undecipherable formal Greek that was now defunct. It had fuzzy, grey photographs of men dressed up as goats with bells hanging from their clothes and women in headscarves gathered in circular threshing floors, performing obscure rituals.
Chryssa handed me a bulky, oily package containing pieces of cheese pie and a jar of sour cherry preserve, to keep me nourished in my island exile. She was just kissing me goodbye, when I saw a man’s face
I carried the tray back to the sitting room and while Alexandra poured the tea, I looked at the silver-framed photographs placed here and there. One showed a family in what looked like the 1930s, with three children standing outside the house in Paradise Street. The father was sleek as a seal, in an elegant dark suit and waxed moustache; the mother graceful in pale silks, with hair styled into an angular bob. They looked content, though none smiled in the manner of modern photographs.
“This is me. The oldest.” Alexandra pointed to a girl of about twelve in a white frock with curling, light-coloured hair. She had an authoritative air and was holding the hand of a pretty young boy in shorts and white ankle socks.
“My brother and sister were lost years ago. Markos was such a darling. He died so young. A terrible waste.” She didn’t tell me anything about the serious, dark-haired girl leaning at an angle on the other side of the parents.
I also met Alexandra’s husband that first day. He came into the sitting room with the jaunty air and freshly combed hair of a man who has just woken from a long siesta. Taking in his sharp-creased trousers and slackening jowls, I guessed he was a well-preserved seventy.
“Spiros Koftos.” He introduced himself and I caught a blast of his aftershave as he squeezed my hand too tightly, and leaned in towards me. Alexandra told him about me in Greek and he looked me up and down, nodding in approval, as though inspecting a prospective purchase.
“English? Very nice. Very good,” he said to me in heavily accented English. “Welcome to Greece.” Spiros told his wife he was going out and swung around, leaving in military fashion, not quite clicking his heels.
“He’s going to the coffee shop,” Alexandra explained. “All his friends go there – in the morning for coffee and newspapers and in the afternoon for a little whisky and cards. At least it keeps them out of trouble.” She laughed, shaking her head slightly, as if the male sex were a conundrum it was not necessary to solve. Then she told me about her business – a clothes shop in Kolonaki called En Vogue (she pronounced it like “envog” and it was only much later that I realised what she meant). She was still involved, she said, though she no longer went in every day.
“I started off using my father’s old premises. Perifanis was known for making the best women’s clothes in Athens before the war and when we re-opened in the 1950s, it made sense to use the name, but in the ’60s we started bringing in ready-to-wear from Milan and Paris and when we moved to a better location I changed the name. We have a loyal clientele and we’re still making money.”
I liked Alexandra, though I couldn’t imagine what this comme il faut Athenian lady saw in a scruffy English student. With her tailored clothes, perfect manners and forthright opinions, she was not like anyone in my social circle. I was accustomed to doubt and questioning. Perhaps that is why I appreciated her certainties. She invited me to visit her several times, the last occasion being one morning shortly before I was due to leave for Thasos. Alexandra wanted to give me a tome about folklore in the Aegean written in the undecipherable formal Greek that was now defunct. It had fuzzy, grey photographs of men dressed up as goats with bells hanging from their clothes and women in headscarves gathered in circular threshing floors, performing obscure rituals.
Chryssa handed me a bulky, oily package containing pieces of cheese pie and a jar of sour cherry preserve, to keep me nourished in my island exile. She was just kissing me goodbye, when I saw a man’s face
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