Ακούγαμε το δεύτερο πρόγραμμα, και μου λέει, ‘Αυτή δε μ’ αρέσει. Είναι ‘φίρμα’, τάχαμου μάγκισσα, αλλά μου φαίνεται φτιαχτή’. Ήταν μια τραγουδίστρια που έσφιγγε στους λάρυγγές της το ρεμπέτικο, μια αγριάδα και μια φωνή, κι ένας τσαμπουκάς. Εξευγενισμένα, αλλά παρόλ’ αυτά, με τη δύναμη του ‘βόα συσφικτήρος’, που θά’ λεγε κι ο πατέρας μου.

Κατάλαβα τί εννοούσε. Οι μάγκες οι πραγματικοί, μου φαίνεται κι εμένα, δεν έχουν τσαμπουκά. Είχε τσαμπουκά ο Τσιτσάνης;

Νταής είναι αυτός που βάζει τις φωνές για να μην ακουστεί η πίκρα του που παραπάτησε. Τόσο πολύ βουίζουν τ’ αυτιά του απ’ αυτή, που νομίζει ότι ακούγεται παντού, ο  κακομοίρης.

Γεννήθηκε η Στέλλα, κι ήταν ευθύς εξ αρχής μια ‘συνέπεια’. Προτού προλάβει να γίνει κοριτσάκι, μωρό, ήταν μια ‘συνέπεια’. ‘Η συνέπεια των πράξεών τους’. Εκεί τα ουσιαστικά τέλειωσαν, μπήκαν στην ουρά τα επίθετα.

Ασυνεπής ο πατέρας, αρνήθηκε τη δική του ανάμειξη. Για να παραδεχτεί ότι είχε αυτός κόψει την κόκκινη κορδέλα της αφετηρίας, δικαστήρια.

Ετυμηγορίες ξάπλωσαν πάνω σε άλλες ετυμηγορίες. Η ετυμηγορία ότι ένας καινούριος άνθρωπος γεννήθηκε, η ετυμηγορία ότι από κάπου ήρθε αυτός ο καινούριος άνθρωπος. Οι απαραίτητες σφραγίδες και χαρτόσημα. Των πέντε, των δεκαπέντε, των εικοσπέντε. Κουδουνίζουν τα τάληρα στο τραπέζι.

Τόση φασαρία για ένα επίθετο. Και να ψάχνουν και οι τρεις άλλα επίθετα στην πραγματικότητα: ο 35χρονος πατέρας το ‘ελεύθερος’, η 17χρονη μητέρα το ‘αγαπημένη’, το νόθο παιδί το ‘αναγνωρίσιμο’. Αλλά βέβαια ελλείψει των άλλων, κάτι πρέπει να γίνει, ένα κάτι να ‘τεθεί επί‘ του νεογέννητου. Μια αποζημίωση για την έλλειψη, ένα ‘τουλάχιστον’ για τους αδυνάτους. Αυτό το ‘τουλάχιστον’ που, κάτω απ’ το μαξιλάρι τους τους ταράζει τα όνειρα, όπως ταράζει, τα φωτεινά καλοκαίρια, ένα παιδί το θαλασσινό νερό ν’ ανακατευτεί με την άμμο στον πάτο.

Άμμος στα μάτια και λίγα κλάματα, και στην αρχή, της μικρής μητέρας όλα της έφταιγαν. Και μετά, στην υπόλοιπη ζωή της, όλα της έφταιγαν επίσης. Αν έλεγες κάτι καλό για κάποιον, εκείνη θα σου έλεγε το άσχημο, αληθινό ή φανταστικό. Πάχυνε κι ασχήμηνε, και το βλέμμα της κάπνιζε, όπως το στόμα της, σαν την κάνη του όπλου.

Ποιος να φταίει – αφού εκείνον τον άντρα τον αγαπούσε, η θάλασσα έφταιγε. Όπως ο Ξέρξης, προχωρούσε και μαστίγωνε τη θάλασσα, για τις δικές της ήττες, και σ’ έπειθε με τα λόγια ότι εκείνη δεν πονάει, πονάει το νερό. Χωρίς να ομολογεί ότι είμαστε, οι άνθρωποι, 70 τοις εκατό νερό.

======

Η γενική πτώση

Ένδειξη της πτώσης των ηθών, λέει.

Αγνώστου πατρός, γνωστού πατρός, γενική. Στα συνήθη επώνυμα των γυναικών στην Ελλάδα, που όλα παραπέμπουν στον ‘πρώτο’ ‘κατέχοντα’. Λένε οι ψυχολόγοι ότι χρειάζεται κάποιος το αίσθημα του ανήκειν, αλλά δεν εννοούν τη γενική πτώση. Καμία πτώση, κανένα πέσιμο, ξεπεσμό σε άψυχα υλικά, έπιπλο, καρέκλα τραπέζι αντικείμενο. Δεν μπορεί να εννοούν ιδιοκτησία.

Θα μου πεις, και στο χωριό όταν σε βλέπουν γριές και γέροι στο δρόμο σε ρωτούν ‘τίνος είσ’ εσύ παιδί μου;’. Να σου εξηγήσω, εννοούν, τίνος ευθύνη είσ’ εσύ. Κι έπειτα, δεν είσαι γι’ αυτούς μόνο του Δημήτρη (‘Τάκη’ στο χωριό). Είσαι του Τάκη της Αργύρως που πήρε τον Ψιτ (παρατσούκλι: ο πατέρας του παππού μου, τραυματισμένος στον πόλεμο, άκουγε μόνο στο ‘ψιτ’, στις χαμηλές συχνότητες, και δεν άκουγε αν του μιλούσες). Είσαι ολόκληρη ιστορία, και μανάδες και πατεράδες και θείοι και θειάδες, ουρά από συγγενείς που όλοι σε λένε δική τους, κι ούτε ένας να πρέπει ν’ αναγκαστεί.

Στην πόλη, που δεν τολμούν οι γείτονες να βγάλουν παρατσούκλια – αυτό θα ήθελε και μεγαλύτερη φαντασία και περισσότερο παιγχνίδι – το επίθετο τελικά της Στέλλας ‘εναποτέθηκε’ πάνω της, άλλαξε το περιεχόμενο της γενικής πτώσης και η Στέλλα έγινε του κυρίου τάδε. Πήρε το βάρος του πατέρα της σε ‘όνομα’, θαυμαστή μονάδα μέτρησης.

=======

‘Του πατέρα σου έμοιασες!’

Αθώα αγανάκτηση μητέρας, πρώτη φορά (ίσως πρώτη φορά, ίσως και πολλοστή), τόσο δηκτική.

===

Βρέθηκε μια νονά, που δεν ήτανε νεράιδα ακριβώς.

Δεν είμαι καθόλου σίγουρη ότι εδώ μόνο είναι τόσο περίεργες, τόσο γεμάτες με συμπτώσεις, σαν πετραδάκια σε λασπωμένο επαρχιακό δρόμο, οι ζωές των ανθρώπων. Υποψιάζομαι ότι σε όλες τις γειτονιές τυλίγονται και παραπατάνε οι ζωές πάνω σε ίδιες πέτρες, σε ίδια προβλήματα και παρόμοια λάθη. Πάντως κάθε μια από αυτές εδώ τις ιστορίες φαίνεται τόσο απίστευτη, τόσο απίθανη, που μόνο η αλήθεια γελάει με τέτοιο γέλιο.

Θυμάμαι στη Βρετανία τα κυκλικά παράθυρα, bay windows, [παράθυρα-όρμοι (;)], που δεν είχαν κουρτίνες. Αυτή η παράδοση άνευ όρων, νόμιζα εγώ, της ιδιωτικότητάς τους, μου φαινόταν παράξενη. Με προσκαλούσε – αλλά, σε ξένη χώρα, μη όντας σίγουρη ότι δεν υπήρχαν κάποιοι όροι, κάποια ψιλά γράμματα που δεν είχα δει, μόνο φευγαλέα ήμουν αδιάκριτη, μόνο φευγαλέα κοιτούσα μέσα περνώντας το δρόμο. Θυμάμαι έναν άντρα να φέρεται σαν να μην περνούσα, σαν να μην ήταν το βλέμμα μου εκεί, και πόσο ξένο αυτό μου είχε φανεί, πόσο διαφορετική θα ήμουν εγώ σε περίπτωση που η δική μου ιδιωτικότητα υπήρχε περίπτωση να έχει σκιστεί σε μια γωνιά. Κι αυτοί άνοιγαν ολόκληρες τρύπες, μέσα απ’ αυτά τα παράθυρα μπορούσες να δεις τα πάντα, έχασκε η ζωή τους μέσα απ’ τα σκισίματα…

Η δική μου παιδική ηλικία πέρασε μέσα από παντζούρια. Η μητέρα μου είχε μία υστερία με το να μην τη ‘βλέπουν’ (κι ήμαστε και στον τρίτο όροφο, κανένα διαμέρισμα απέναντι, ποιος ξέρει ποιος την έβλεπε… Νωρίς, μου εξηγούσε, στο γάμο της, είχαν πιάσει ένα διαμέρισμα στο Λόφο Σκουζέ, κι ήταν απέναντι ακριβώς η Αστυνομία. Και τους κοιτούσαν, κι είχε φτάσει να έχει κάτι σαν φοβία. Μόνο στην κουζίνα άνοιγε τα παντζούρια όταν ήμουν παιδί, αλλού στους κοινούς χώρους απέφευγε. Τη θυμάμαι, πρέπει να ήμουν εννιά χρονών, καλοκαίρι, να ζεσταίνεται και να είναι στο μήνα της και να γδύνεται και τα πανζούρια να είναι κλειστά. Είχα σκανδαλιστεί, καλυμμένη από την ‘ηθική’ του πατέρα ήδη από νωρίς, που από τη ζέστη είχε γδυθεί κι είχε ξαπλώσει μπροστά μου, η αδερφή μου ήδη σχηματισμένη μέσα της, και να υποφέρει από τη ζέστη και το βάρος του παιδιού. Εγώ ήμουν απλώς ένα έπιπλο, που μπορούσε να της φέρει κι ένα νερό. Οι γυμνές φωτογραφίες των μεγάλων σταρ σε ενδιαφέρουσα που παρελαύνουν τώρα στα περιοδικά, δεν ήταν τίποτα μπροστά στη μαμά μου. Μία σκληρή μα πανέμορφη γυναίκα.

Σήμερα μου λέει, ‘εγώ ξέρω τί πέρασα με τον πατέρα σου’. Μου φαίνεται όμως πάντα, τη γυναικεία της φύση την κουβαλούσε όπως ο Ηρακλής τον τελευταίο του μανδύα, που είχε κολλήσει πάνω του με δηλητήριο. Μου είχε πει κιόλας, όταν ήμουν μικρή, ότι δεν ήθελε να γεννηθώ κορίτσι, λέει, γιατί οι γυναίκες περνούν τις ζωές τους πιο δύσκολα απ΄ ότι οι άντρες. Είχα χαρεί με αυτά τα λόγια, μεγαλώνοντας, έλεγα μέσα μου, η μαμά μου είχε κοινωνική συνείδηση, όχι παίζουμε.

====

Παρόλες τις παχιές κουρτίνες, σ’ αυτή τη γειτονιά καμία ιδιωτικότητα δεν υπήρχε. Λίγο η νονά μου που ερχόταν στη γιαγιά μου κακήν κακώς κάθε μέρα με το φλιτζάνι στο χέρι, να της πει αν θα την παντρευτεί τελικά ο Στέφανος, λίγο τα κατάξανθα βαμμένα μαλλιά της Τασούλας που κουνάμενη σινάμενη γελούσε φωναχτά με τ’ αστεία του παντρεμένου γείτονα, λίγο και οι αθυρόστομες καρακάξες-μαιτρ της ηθικολογίας από την Πόλη κι από τη Σμύρνη (συνήθως οι πιο αυστηροί κριτές είναι αυτές οι γυναίκες που είχαν ‘ακουστεί’ στη γειτονιά, θες γιατί θεωρούσαν ότι άδικα τις κατηγορούσαν, θες γιατί ήθελαν ν’ αποδείξουν ότι αυτές είναι υπεράνω, θες γιατί ήθελαν να εκδικηθούν τον κόσμο όλο που τις είχε ήδη κρίνει και βγάλει και την ετυμηγορία), τέλος πάντων, ουδέν κρυπτόν υπό τον ήλιον, ακόμα κι αν συνέβαινε αφότου ο ήλιος είχε πέσει. Έτσι όλες οι κουρτίνες ήταν κατ’ όνομα μόνο κουρτίνες, στην πραγματικότητα ήταν ο αέρας ο ίδιος, που σου έλεγε τί συνέβαινε μέσα. ‘Η Τασούλα είχε βάλει τις καλαμωτές, γιατί ήθελε να κρύψει όσα γινόντουσαν στην αυλή της’, έλεγαν με σιγουριά οι ένορκοι. Έτσι, αν δεν γδυνόσουν μόνος σου δημοσίως, τότε σιγουρεύονταν οι κουτσομπόληδες ότι είχες βγάλει εξάνθημα…

Does it all mean that without a stamp and without any locks, the laws don’t recognise that a child has been born? Or is the mother not enough to make the law bend and bow? Well, in a nutshell, exactly that. And to think it was the early bloody seventies, in this god-forsaken place, the country of morality and virtue, where both these qualities could not live outside the inverted commas. Not the right lungs for the air outside.

But the child was born, and the mother was not someone you would mess with. She often addressed the ‘moral’ people who judged her harshly for not being married when having her daughter, saying she was proud not to have had an abortion.You couldn’t argue with that, and you really, couldn’t argue with her. She had become a harsh person, in looks and the way she talked, to prevent you from doing exactly that. Besides, she knew all of your little secrets too, and the rest she imagined, so don’t mess with her.

It’s interesting that those little and bigger secrets, in this neighbourhood in the sixties and seventies, had all to do with men. The women were looking for a man, and what the neighbourhood was actually ‘accusing’ them of, was failing with that search… So if a man had left you pregnant and left, well that was your fault. Another one was getting ready for her wedding, and the man again did not show up. So that was her fault… Of course there were also the ‘home wreckers’… All the men involved were absolved, and when they were not seen as ‘children’, something more insulting to the women was at hand: a ‘feeling’ of, ‘of course he left her at the alter, who would want her?’.

But Stella’s mother wanted the father, very much. The truth is, that she had Stella also because she loved, so much, the man who had fathered her child. With all his unacceptable behaviour, she always managed to accept it and him, and find, or invent, ways in which he was a kind man. According to her, the court was able to make him marry her, but she refused. She didn’t want to be married to him because there was no other choice. She had already ‘inconvenienced him’, by having his baby.

Love could be exactly that. Some sort of pity for your shortcomings, a stubborn refusal to see the ways in which you are unforgivable.

I mean, what other magnificent compliment is there, than for someone to have your child? To have your child against all odds, to have your child against you even, so that she would see you in that child, even when you refused to see her? And then let you go by with your life, let you go and only claim the minimum for the baby. How spoilt this man must have been to have someone love him like that. Legitimacy, is overrated.

You were supposed to have moved on, but, as though someone called on you to turn your face to take a picture, you stop your thoughts from moving and look back. No real smiles, but interest. Say ‘Cheese’, a little bit before it goes stale. Interest about the smell of stale cheese… And there, where you’re setting your glance, is feeling for the people you grew up with, parents and siblings. Once more. What do you feel about them, for them?

Yes, you grew up with them, but how many times haven’t they tried to stop your growth…?

So let’s pretend you are in the Southern France, right at the time of the year when cows are separated from their little calves, in that part of the country. And for a few days, the animals, those huge strong animals that whenever you’ve seen from close have been a shock merely standing there, only moving their tails, cry so hard that it touches you and you can’t sleep at night.

Never so little convinced about some fish having very little memory, you are sometimes tempted to suppose that only the human kind is capable of not loving its children. It takes some effort, some intellectualising, an ideology, and there, your offspring is a liability.

I remember what I considered strange, as a Greek, in the UK: it seemed to me that the windows of most houses were without curtains. In my country you need your curtains, to protect you from the reigning sun. But in the UK you could often see inside, I guess you would have to be discreet, but you could get ‘full glimpses’ of someone else’s moving within their own space. I was unhappy when in the short time that I was ‘allowed’ to see, as a passer-by, nothing seemed to be going on. And the simple move from the table to the desk of an occupant, would make me like them. They were using their life for my sake, it felt like they were performing for me, in a well-arranged stage.

In our family home early in my life, I can only remember the kitchen window open and light. My mother always seemed to have a preoccupation with not being seen from outside. I remember with dread those shutters  in the living room, always drawn, and living in the dark for the sake of this amazingly needed privacy, for which curtains were a compromise and not enough. Her excuse used to be that it was too bright for her – I could always open the shutters in my own room.

I guess since Britain, it’s never too bright for me.

Her father was playing, and in the course of the game, there was an accident. Playful as ever, he could say ‘I didn’t do it’, and that would be it.

Stella is playful with the feelings of others. A bit like a sick child with an agenda to rule the world, right out of a thriller movie. You talk about the weather and she’ll find whatever can be bad about 20 degrees. About vacation, and Mitilene will lose all its dreamy light of the time you were there, and become banal and humid. About something you have and she hasn’t, she’ll use up all the time you can play with your coffee cup, to say how lucky you are, so much so that you’ll be sick of that thing you have, and it’ll seem a liability rather than a gift.

Could it be right, the impression that she needs to feel that she can destroy, in order to feel at all at ease? It’s a constant revenge, because she feels she had been done wrong by god, the powers that be, or what have you. Easier, of course, than to personify all this to her dad.

To her dad who has avoided playing dad with her. Her mum was 16 when she got pregnant, and he only recognised paternity via a court of law. No laws could make him present after he created another family. Instead, he has been a champion of promising and never delivering. I’ll do this for you, and that and the other. But please, don’t call me.

How are we supposed to deal with being the descendants of a person we certainly and mostly and absolutely don’t like? How do we deal with it when we cannot even respect them of feel for them? When their behaviour, the line they drew with their lives even, is so bad that we’d rather it was a circle?

There aren’t any guidelines. We are taught that they are our family, and that’s that. I suspect that our family is found elsewhere. And although blood relations have some sort of right to hurt us, to make us feel for them, love is another matter. I dare not say it, and yet there, I say it, love is another matter.

I guess it’s a sort of exercise. An exercise in compassion. When you have lived close to someone, when you have learnt things about them that needn’t be known, how they wake up in the morning and how they refuse to wake up at all times, then, it must be that you have no choice but to feel for them. Seeing their little tragedies, and the little hooks that don’t let them swim away, like caught fish.  The real catch is making sure you swim away.

And you know, perhaps also realise, calm and collected, your family is not your family. All this fight, lawyers and money, to have his name, and really, why was it that you wanted it again? Can one give it back?

I’m quite attached to that little ‘o’, the way reality is attached to fiction – the way reality seems so fictitious it becomes unbelievable.

Even when we were children, I used to be afraid of her. I think I still am. Nowadays I fear that any encounter with her will be unpleasant. I fear this attitude about life, that ‘takes’ everything around you that is wonderful, from the bees and the birds, to the people, and renders it commonplace and ugly. ‘No, the island where we went I didn’t like. No, my job, my home and the world, they are all nasty and I need to hate them’. But she hates them in a strong way, like she knows how to hate them and not feel pity for herself. Does that make sense? I’ll try and make it evident later on.

So she makes faces, and I turn my face away. When I’m in a good mood about it, I reackon she’s like one of those very old people that used to live in villages, that were very decided upon telling you, laughing and happy, and making faces: ‘- Yes, the whole world will be destroyed in 1983. Yes, My grandmother had predicted that, an old monk had trusted her with that information’. And then you would say, ‘- For God’s sake, why are you laughing, 1983 is so close!’ And they would just laugh and make faces… What kind of an end were they foreseeing, what kind of a beginning were you allowed to make, under their circumstances, under their rules. I don’t know. What I do know, is that your being upset gave them a great, unspeakable but evident joy. And if you asked them if they actually believed what they were saying, and made the point that they couldn’t, they would insist and come up with more stories – quite cinematic, devoted to thrillers and foggy stories, caves that wouldn’t cave in. ‘I’ll decide, me and my grandmothers and greatgrandmothers whether you can make plans for the future!’

What about those people set upon telling you your fortune? How much power have they got, over poor little questioning you? They have the answers, and drill them on to you. Whe you are, for example, my poor male friend, devoted to being told that they woman whom he loved would eventually be with him. And the fortune tellers he paid to tell him so were so much like a totalitarian regime, that wouldn’t let him believe his own experience.

But why do I like her, to the extent of using her name? A cynic has always been a reason to distrust people, for cloudy me (‘- Her mind  is always in the clouds’, that’s how a ‘practical’ friend would describe me). I mean, apart from her being one of the strongest people I know. Hard, and quite set  not to like anything in this world, but still, utterly strong. She has had one or two tragedies in her life, and dealt with them as though they were normal. I respect that about her. A lot. The good side of always expecting the worst, I guess – but not quite, that alone would be too cheap.

No, there have been a few ‘expensive’ things surrounding her life. For example, being raised by her grandmother, and being spoilt as much as a girl can be spoilt. In the beginning of her life she shared home with the great-grandfather, her grandmother and her mother. The grandfather and the father were absent, didn’t really get themselves involved with their children (that should be enough to put one off men, I’d say). But the grandmother and the great-grandfather (don’t get confused on me now), (they were all having children and getting married quite early in their lives, in those days), adored her. These people were crawling around her like dogs, and saying please, please step on me – and she would, and she did. She did love them, I suppose, but I still remember her, when we were both children, as the master (mistress?) of that universe…!

That seemed strange and out of this world, for me – a child that had no ‘power’ in the family. But then again we had a ‘king’ as a father (and ‘present’, in a few important ways I guess), and were quite used to male dominance. The whole home would bow  ‘yes master’, even the walls. And we all danced to that tune, and our mother was even more the demanding father. I used to dread her. No love, no respect and no self-respect can flourish in such dread. And I had a brother too, (another male figure) so what could have been left? I had three hard and cruel men in the home. (School of course, but that was no place for power, it was a place like home, for me and my teachers in my mind. Really, that was the refuge, not the other way around).

It is an ill time when power can be measured with the amount of cruelty one shows, but that’s how it was, or, rather, let’s be fair and say that’s how I remember it. In my home, and in Stella’s.

Back to why I’m choosing her, there’s the fact that, now, a century or so later, she found a man in her life, whose form speaks of lack of cruelty. He seems, to the trained eye, a kind and sweet guy, absolutely nice and calm. And he absolutely changed her, for starters outwardly. In her early thirties, from a grumpy old person with a bow on her back, to a beautiful face crowned by the eyes she has always had and are evident, even shown off at her best, at last. So you see she represents for me, the changes that can come forth, with only a little good fortune, with only a little love. A drop, dropped, casually, at the right moment, after decisions have been made. ‘-Yes, I’ll say yes to him’. No matter if you give that love back, irrelevant of whether it’s fair or unreasonable. Within her cynical skin, which is slowly shed these days, she is the proof that one does not need a cynical skin.

Another reason, should one need another, is that I think it’s a beautiful name, and quite soulful,  more common in the lower classes I think, when I remember the famous Cacogiannis film and some analyses of it. A name outside social confinements, in my mind.

And then Carouso. Well, I really thought it sounded nice… I really like rs and ls, those two ‘liquid’ consonants, we call them in Greek, and I can sense the water in the word, running through it and cleansing it, and me when I utter it. Then there was that man, Caruso, like whom, it seems, there has never been another. And I really want my heroine to ‘sing’ well.