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Authors: Sofka Zinovieff
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with his theme. “You can see this German influence all over Athens.” He sounded as though they had done it to insult him. “They called it neo-classical and mixed ‘Greek’ columns with Germanic pitched roofs.”
I told him I thought they were so pretty, these few remaining family houses, like his aunt’s in Paradise Street, with their elegant facades.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But my grandfather had a clever architect who understood about the Greek climate, about having terraces and courtyards for shade. Most of those Bavarians just ignored vernacular styles that had evolved over centuries. And we were left with a tradition that is both fake and foreign. Nobody knows what ‘Greek’ architecture means any more.”
When we reached the First Cemetery Nikitas bought me a bunch of anemones from a stall. I didn’t know how to react to the gallantry. Perhaps it was partly his age, which was about the same as my parents’. But it was also his gaze that made me feel he knew something about me that I didn’t. I was pleased and intimidated, eager and wary.
“Are you hungry? Can I take you to lunch? We’ll go somewhere nobody else will take you, however much time you stay in Athens.” It was a challenge. I noticed the old woman who had sold him the flowers, observing the scene.
He led me through a monumental white entrance that was like something Mussolini might have built.
“I think you’ll like this place – the best ouzo and mezédes .” It sounded like a joke as we skirted a group of mourners waiting for a funeral and then turned sharp right along a covered marble walkway. At the end of the arcade was a diminutive café filled with cheerful, noisy customers who looked like cemetery workers – rough-handed grave-diggers and groundsmen, but also some pall-bearers in black trousers, white shirts and shiny shoes. The men were drinking ouzo, and eating plates of fried meatballs and other snacks. We sat on rush chairs at a table outside the door and Nikitas greeted the woman behind the bar by name, making a joke I didn’t understand and ordering ouzo and a “selection”. She laughed as she stirred something sizzling in a pan, while at the other end of the walkway, a funerary procession went by. It all looked intensely foreign to me. I was the outsider peering in, trying to understand.
Nikitas poured ouzo from a small bottle, clouding the clear spirit by adding ice and water.
“So, a toast to you. And to your research. I hope you find us very interesting and that you stay a long time.” The aniseed taste was strong and unfamiliar on my tongue and the alcohol went straight to my head. I tried some of the mezédes – oily fried cheese cut with lemon, strips of cucumber, a few wrinkled black olives.
Nikitas drank much more than me and paid me what I took for alcohol-fuelled compliments.
“Did you always have those little flecks of brown in your eyes? It’s the first time I’ve seen blue like that. And such pale skin – like a beautiful spirit from the woods that only emerges at night.”
Nikitas told me parts of his story. Later, I often heard him recount it to other people, usually in Greek, but it always had the same tone it had that first time, when it was in English. He was droll, but distant, the phrases codified and fixed as flags strung on a far-off boat anchored in quarantine. He enjoyed the shock on people’s faces when he said: “I was born in prison.” And I remember the jolt it gave me the first time, imagining this man – so confident and physically powerful – as a small boy locked away.
“After the war, you only had to say the word ‘communism’ and they’d throw you in jail. My mother was sentenced to life. And that’s how I came to be Greece’s youngest prisoner in 1946. My greatest achievement.”
Nikitas described his difficult relationship with his Aunt Alexandra, how she and Spiros adopted him when his mother went into exile – they couldn’t have children, but they
I told him I thought they were so pretty, these few remaining family houses, like his aunt’s in Paradise Street, with their elegant facades.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But my grandfather had a clever architect who understood about the Greek climate, about having terraces and courtyards for shade. Most of those Bavarians just ignored vernacular styles that had evolved over centuries. And we were left with a tradition that is both fake and foreign. Nobody knows what ‘Greek’ architecture means any more.”
When we reached the First Cemetery Nikitas bought me a bunch of anemones from a stall. I didn’t know how to react to the gallantry. Perhaps it was partly his age, which was about the same as my parents’. But it was also his gaze that made me feel he knew something about me that I didn’t. I was pleased and intimidated, eager and wary.
“Are you hungry? Can I take you to lunch? We’ll go somewhere nobody else will take you, however much time you stay in Athens.” It was a challenge. I noticed the old woman who had sold him the flowers, observing the scene.
He led me through a monumental white entrance that was like something Mussolini might have built.
“I think you’ll like this place – the best ouzo and mezédes .” It sounded like a joke as we skirted a group of mourners waiting for a funeral and then turned sharp right along a covered marble walkway. At the end of the arcade was a diminutive café filled with cheerful, noisy customers who looked like cemetery workers – rough-handed grave-diggers and groundsmen, but also some pall-bearers in black trousers, white shirts and shiny shoes. The men were drinking ouzo, and eating plates of fried meatballs and other snacks. We sat on rush chairs at a table outside the door and Nikitas greeted the woman behind the bar by name, making a joke I didn’t understand and ordering ouzo and a “selection”. She laughed as she stirred something sizzling in a pan, while at the other end of the walkway, a funerary procession went by. It all looked intensely foreign to me. I was the outsider peering in, trying to understand.
Nikitas poured ouzo from a small bottle, clouding the clear spirit by adding ice and water.
“So, a toast to you. And to your research. I hope you find us very interesting and that you stay a long time.” The aniseed taste was strong and unfamiliar on my tongue and the alcohol went straight to my head. I tried some of the mezédes – oily fried cheese cut with lemon, strips of cucumber, a few wrinkled black olives.
Nikitas drank much more than me and paid me what I took for alcohol-fuelled compliments.
“Did you always have those little flecks of brown in your eyes? It’s the first time I’ve seen blue like that. And such pale skin – like a beautiful spirit from the woods that only emerges at night.”
Nikitas told me parts of his story. Later, I often heard him recount it to other people, usually in Greek, but it always had the same tone it had that first time, when it was in English. He was droll, but distant, the phrases codified and fixed as flags strung on a far-off boat anchored in quarantine. He enjoyed the shock on people’s faces when he said: “I was born in prison.” And I remember the jolt it gave me the first time, imagining this man – so confident and physically powerful – as a small boy locked away.
“After the war, you only had to say the word ‘communism’ and they’d throw you in jail. My mother was sentenced to life. And that’s how I came to be Greece’s youngest prisoner in 1946. My greatest achievement.”
Nikitas described his difficult relationship with his Aunt Alexandra, how she and Spiros adopted him when his mother went into exile – they couldn’t have children, but they
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