Girl Gone Greek (12 page)

Talking of ‘blah-ness,’ I was looking forward to catching up with Kaliopi the next day, and was the first to arrive at our usual café haunt.

Standing up to embrace her as she jogged up 10 minutes late, she flopped into a chair and immediately lit up her trademark cigarette.

“Back here, again. This year is the year for change. I must get out of this hole from hell,” she looked around her. “Anyway, enough about our collective problem that is this place, how was your father and Christmas?”

I filled her in, feeling strangely comforted by Kaliopi’s trademark disgust and moaning about her current living and work situation. It felt good to be back, it felt familiar.

“Ah, Miss Rachel,” Mrs Stella cornered me at school one mid-January evening during a break. “I have had a phone call from the local examining board, asking if any of my teachers are interested in becoming oral examiners for the May exam season. I told them that you are a native teacher and that you will be. You will go to Athens this Sunday and attend their one-day training course,” she concluded.

Eh? What’s an Oral Examiner? And why does Mrs Stella automatically assume I would want to become one?

“Oh, er, thanks.” I realised Mrs Stella’s opinion that I was worthy of becoming an Oral Examiner was probably a compliment.

“Good, now off you go back to class and I will give you the details later.” She gave me a not very gentle shove in the direction of my classroom and swept back into her own. I smiled as I acknowledged that, despite warming to her, Mrs Stella still needed to be in charge.
And she wouldn’t look out of place with a cape draped round her shoulders and a pointy hat. Maybe I should buy red patent buckle shoes.

“What’s an Oral Examiner?” I figured the teens would know, so I asked my next class with Konstantinos, Litza and Dimitra.

“Oh Miss,” they became visibly excited. “That’s really good. You get to examine the speaking part of our exams. This is great—you can tell us what’s going to be in the exam!”

Part of the seniors’ English examination process was testing in listening, reading, writing and speaking skills. So, it would seem I had been selected to be trained as the Speaking/Oral examiner. “No, I can’t tell you that, but I can give you ideas, and be in a better position to help you study in class and look at relevant topics.” I watched their faces as they processed this information: that the English
Kyria
wasn’t going to tell them outright what to expect, but get them to do some thinking for themselves.

“Just think how much better you’ll feel, knowing you’ve passed an exam due to your own ideas, vocabulary and imagination!” I tried again. Nope—their faces still looked at me like I was stupid.

“I’ll give you twenty Euros if you’ll tell us what’s on the exam,” offered Dimitra, lightly tapping her pen on the table, her head inclined as if ready to bargain.

“No! Have I taught you
nothing
about ethics?”

“Well, how about fifty then?” this from Konstantinos.

I took in the sea of expectant faces with growing despair, but also some amusement. I realised these kids had been brought up in a society that believed that everybody and everything had a price.

“Clearly I still have some work to do with you regarding morals. I cannot be bought—you should know this by now. You’ll feel so much better passing this exam through your own skill and hard work, trust me. I promise, though, that I will give you an idea of what topics you can expect to cover, for which you’ll need a wide vocabulary.”

Later, on the drive home, Manos and I continued to discuss the training.

“It’s quite a compliment that she’s put you down for this, since it’s only your first year, and you’ve not even been teaching a full year yet,” he mused. “They like native teachers to do the examining; they’ve got greater clarity with words. I’m also an examiner, being half Australian and all.”

“Well, you have questionable speaking skills yourself,” I goaded, smiling.

“Hey, watch it otherwise no
spanakopita
for you tonight,” he lightly whacked me on the head.

“Only
tyropita
I’m afraid.” We’d stopped the car at our usual spot and Manos passed me the paper with pie inside. “It’s a delicious feta cheese pie, good for a change, otherwise you’ll end up looking like Popeye.” Manos winked as we continued the drive back to the village.

That Sunday I took the early bus to get to Athens in time for the start of the training session. I’d thought about going the night before and staying with Kaliopi, but decided instead to enjoy a day to myself. Besides, she’d tried to discourage me throughout the week:

“My ex is coming to visit again this weekend,” she’d casually mentioned during one of our visits to the café.

“Not the Italian with the yacht?” I had images of him trying to throw her off the balcony, given her last experience.

“Eh?
Ochi
, not him. This one’s French.”

Truly the international, my friend.

“Well you’d better change your bed sheets then,” I gave her a knowing smile, she reciprocated with mock surprise and blew smoke in my face.

I arrived in Athens at nine, allowing myself enough time to metro hop to the training venue. Emerging onto a main thoroughfare in the Centre I stood scratching my head, baffled at the Orthodox Church towering in front of me. Looking at my map, I could see this was the right place, but surely we weren’t going to have an Oral Examiners’ training seminar in a church?
Oh, wait a minute—what’s this? I should’ve realised by now, Athens is full of twists and turns.
There, tucked away behind it stood a smallish building in a tiny alleyway with a crude sign stuck to the church’s wall: “Oral Exam training, this way.”

I trod carefully down a narrow stairwell, settled down in the basement lecture theatre, and glanced around. My watch read 09:28, but only four people were present. We were supposed to start at 09:30.
Oh well, maybe it’s going to be a small session. That’ll be good—I can expect almost one-to-one attention.
This turned out not to be the case as Doris, the trainer, clarified.

“Hi everyone,” her accent had a slight American twang. “As we all know, this is Greece, so I doubt we’ll actually get started until about 10:00–10:15, especially since I’m expecting at least another sixteen of you. You might as well go get a coffee.” Not wanting to be so terribly British and the one to point out that it took me two hours to get here and I’d really like to get started, I was relieved when a very large Greek lady chewing gum did this for me:

“Eh, you think we want to stay here all the day, wasting our Sunday? If the others they cannot to get here on the time, then tough on them. Let’s get started now. The sooner this rubbish is over, the sooner I can go home.”

Well, we’ll call you Godzilla from now on, and you’re an Oral Examiner with that level of English?
I glanced at Doris, waiting for her reaction…but it seemed this affable trainer was either Greek-American, or had been in the country long enough to not get offended any more. She smiled good-naturedly as she agreed and proceeded to hand out the day’s schedule and training booklet.

People came in dribs and drabs and by the time 5:30pm rolled around, I was ready to return home. I felt exhausted, my mind buzzing with all the new information. I had to remember to “keep to the script” so as to be fair to all candidates. As a first-timer, all my examinations would be recorded to ensure consistency. I had to be strict with my time limits, making sure I gave enough talking time to students being examined, whilst at the same time paying attention to what they were saying: their grammar, vocabulary, and relevance. I learnt that my students may need some knowledge of the economic crisis, and to be able to discuss in depth their current and future plans.

Blimey
, I watched the apartment blocks of the city melt into open fields,
I don’t know if I even fully understand the economic crisis. How can I expect my teens to?

Doris had been very cheerful and supportive, despite Godzilla’s continued deep sighs, eye rolling, and huffs and puffs throughout the day. The woman was a teacher at a
Frontesterion
on the island of Evia, approximately two hours from Athens and near enough to the mainland to be connected by a bridge, so she’d driven to the training session. Despite wanting to get started on time, it was also Godzilla who wanted frequent cigarette breaks.

“Maybe we’ll finish a little earlier if we skip the next break and work through?” I ventured at one point, only to be stared down intensely enough for me to add a mumbled “But of course, we don’t have to.”

As we rounded a bend in the road and the view of Parnassos signalled the impending arrival into the village, I picked up my things from the aisle seat—yes, it appeared I was slowly adopting Greek habits—and let out a loud yawn. Today, I’d learnt how to be an Oral Examiner, picked up some important tips for my students and gained yet another comical insight into the Greek psyche. Not a bad day in all. The bus lumbered to a stop outside the
kafineo
, and there was Kaliopi, sitting on the bench, puffing away on a cigarette and scanning the passengers for my face.

“There you are! I’ve come out to meet the last two buses, in case you were on them.”

“I thought you didn’t come back from Athens until Monday morning?”

“Yes, but the ex never showed at my place, so I didn’t get any sex this weekend,” she offered by way of explanation.

“And so you thought you’d come back early and seek out my company?”

“This hole of shit is known for its meat. I know you’ve had gryos in Athens before, but eat this—it will be better than anything you’ve had in the past. At least this place is good for something” Kaliopi led me to a different café by the river, pointedly ignoring my remark. “Now, how was this oral day?”

Munching on the
gryos
, which didn’t taste any different to me (I kept that to myself) I told Kaliopi about what I had to do as an Oral Examiner. Her eyes glazed over again, so I mentioned the Godzilla lady. This perked her up.

“I bet she was constantly chewing gum like a masturbating cow,” she said.

I choked on a piece of meat, smiled, and corrected her. “It’s
masticating
—to chew like a cow,” I grinned. “You’ve got sex on the brain.”

Ignoring me, Kaliopi continued, “These people who live in island villages—they have no class. Does she think she can examine with a mouth full of gum?”

I was reminded of my first day in class, back in September with the teens. “Well, I need to make the ‘no-gum’ rule clear to my kids too,” I said. “I manage to get them to remove it before class, but they’ll also need to remember to do so before the exam. They’re always moaning to me because they say it helps them concentrate.”

After finishing our food, Kaliopi wanted to go to a bar, despite the fact it was nearly ten p.m. “No,” I stated firmly. “You’re the one who starts work at 8:30 tomorrow. I don’t start until two and can sleep in, but I’m knackered! It’s no fun going up to Athens and back in a day, and having to sit through training.”

“Stop moaning, you English person” Kaliopi nudged me in the ribs (a little too hard). “But go on, I understand. You are tired and must sleep. I will see you soon.” We parted ways at the bottom of my hill, with a
kali nikta
and kiss on both cheeks.

January morphed into February, meaning I could start looking forward to Easter. Unlike the UK, Greece didn’t have half-term breaks, and despite enjoying working with the kids and never suffering a dull day, I was becoming worn down and looking forward to the two-week-long Easter break. Manos had told me that Greek Orthodox Easter follows the Julian calendar, whereas Catholic and Protestant Easter follows the Gregorian one. “So Greek Easter, therefore, falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but basically Greek Easter isn’t at the same time as in the UK.

“Look love, I’ve decided. I might not have long left on this earth, so I’d like to come back to the country I call my second home and pay you a visit.” I’d been on the phone to Dad earlier in the week. It was good that he was coming to visit me, but I wish he hadn’t thrown so much doom and gloom in there too! Mrs Stella had suggested I go to the local (and only) hotel in the village and book him a room.

“Tell the man at reception you are a colleague of Mrs Stella and you will get a discount. He can’t stay with you in your place, it’s too small,” she said. I bit my tongue in order not to voice my inner thoughts:
So you do recognise that it could do with a little more furniture and decoration then?
I’d seen the local hotel from the outside—and if I could just get rid of the Eagles’
Hotel California
in my head, I’d go and check it out as soon as possible.

“Book my flight for me, using that internet thing,” my father decided, and after I got him a good deal, I emailed Stamatis, letting him know Dad would be visiting. I groaned when I read the reply:

“Give me Yianni’s flight details, I’ll collect him from the airport and drive him to your village.”
I hope he finds the drive long enough to catch up with his “dear old friend” and doesn’t want to hang out with us all through Easter.
I didn’t want to begrudge Dad the opportunity to meet his old friend, but I felt rather proprietorial towards him, and besides, I didn’t trust that Stamatis’s version of catching up with “my good friend Yianni” didn’t involve some strip club full of Eastern European hookers. There weren’t any here in the village, but he might take him out in Athens to one.

“Oh, but I will be in my village!” exclaimed Kaliopi when I told her about Dad’s impending visit. “Can’t you come there?”

“No, sorry. I’ve made arrangements for us to visit Meteora.” We were discussing our Easter plans over coffee one evening. Kaliopi reacted in her usual excitable way by bouncing on her chair when she heard my father was visiting.

“That area is beautiful, not even
I
have been there. The monasteries, those rock formations! It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Did you know that a James Bond movie was filmed there some years ago?”

“Yeah, I think it was
For Your Eyes Only.
” I was looking forward to going. I also felt somewhat relieved that Dad wouldn’t get to meet Kaliopi. I loved my friend dearly, but I’d no guarantee that in her wide-eyed innocence and penchant for openness, she wouldn’t tell Dad an inappropriate tale about a recent sexual exploit.

I popped into the hotel on the main village thoroughfare and spoke to the manager, mentioning Mrs Stella by name.

“Ah yes, I know her husband well. We can do you a discount rate of 60 Euros per night, including breakfast. Come, I’ll show you a room.” We went up to the first floor and I was shown an en-suite room with double bed.
Pretty small for 60 Euros, and that’s with a discount. The view is of the main street, but what choice do I have? And besides, he’s not going to be living in here.
I thanked the man and reserved the dates.

I waited anxiously by the phone on Thursday evening. Dad was due to arrive anytime soon and the next day was Good Friday. We’d started and finished the school day earlier because the children’s state school had already broken up, meaning we didn’t have to teach in the evening. I went back to the “Hotel California” to ensure his reservation was OK, and tidied my small place up… not that
that
took long.

Finally the phone rang. I jumped on it: “Yes?”

“Where’s your bloody father?” boomed Stamatis’s agitated voice. I sighed inwardly. I’d repeatedly reminded Dad to bring his UK mobile phone and remember to switch it on, and that yes, it
would
work in Greece. Stamatis had clearly tried to call ‘his good friend Yanni,’ to no avail.

“His plane’s landed, I’ve checked. And I refuse to park my car and pay airport parking fees. So I told him I will be waiting in my 4x4 outside in the waiting bay in Arrivals, and to l
eave his phone on!
”

“It’s OK, Stamatis,” I placated him. “Give him a few minutes—he might still be waiting for his luggage.”

Just before Stamatis hung up, I heard him yell, “Eh, Yianni! There you are, you bloody fool. I have been waiting here for over one hour. Where the hell were you? Did you not listen to me…?”
Thank God for that,
although I felt mildly sorry for Dad since he’d have to endure a car ride with his old friend huffing and puffing.
And what a welcome after more than fifteen years of not seeing one another.
I smiled as I replaced the handset and went upstairs to inform Mrs Stella. Her sister had prepared some meat and salad for us, which I brought down and stored in my small fridge. At 12:30a.m. I received a call from Stamatis again. “We’re in front of that bloody hotel. Come and get us, will you?”

I ran down the hill in my excitement to see Dad again. I hugged him hard and made the effort to do the same to Stamatis, noticing that he was
still
giving me the eye! I glanced over at Dad, who seemed not to notice; he was taking in the surroundings, albeit in the dark.

“This is where you’ll be staying, Dad,” I pointed to the hotel. “Let’s dump your bags and then we can walk up the hill to my place to eat. Stamatis,” I turned to him, struggling to maintain a neutral expression, “won’t you join us?”

“No way!” he exclaimed. “Look at that place, it looks like a shithole! Yianni, why do you insist on staying in shitholes when you come to my country? And you” he turned his attention to me, “take after your
patera
, obviously intent on coming to shithole places—just like your father.” I wondered if he was related to Kaliopi. They both think this place is crap and are happy to vocalise it.

Dad and I exchanged a look, but he smiled and clapped his excitable old friend on the back. “Ah, it’s just good to see you again, Stamatis old man.”

After another round of embracing, back-clapping and making arrangements for when we arrived in Athens, Stamatis finally drove off. We wandered to the hotel to dump Dad’s bags and headed up the hill to my place.

“Was the journey OK?” I asked. I was puffing from the exertion of the hill and trying to keep up with Dad—he was obviously fitter than I was at approximately two paces ahead of me.

“Ah, Stamatis is a typical Greek I suppose, he spent the first fifteen minutes bellowing at me for not

leaving my phone switched on, getting angry and hitting the steering wheel, telling me he feels responsible for me and was worried you’d be angry with him. I just let him get it off his chest. Afterwards he was fine.”

I was itching to point out that in my opinion, Stamatis was an exaggerated version of a “typical Greek.” But clearly Dad was pleased to see him again, so I kept quiet.

“Anyway, this place you’re staying in is a little sparse isn’t it?” Dad puffed slightly as he entered my flat—
maybe he’s not so fit after all.
“I mean, it’s a good size, but it could do with a sofa or something to make it a bit homier,” he looked around, trying to find somewhere to sit. I pulled a plastic garden chair from the kitchen.

“I know, I know, but don’t say anything when you meet my boss, I have to work with her. And at least it’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Plus we’ve got some great snacks…she figured you’d be hungry.”

We spent an hour catching up and eating the food, then Dad meandered back down the hill to the hotel. We planned to spend Easter in the village before heading off to Meteora. Even Kaliopi had advised me to stay in the village during Easter because of its way of celebrating, with lots of meat. “Oh the meat!” she’d exclaimed. “You will find that on Easter Sunday, everyone has stopped being depressed because their Christ has risen again and the skies are black with smoke from the outdoor fires used for roasting the lamb on the spit.” It was the first time she’d ever said anything nice about the village.

Despite arriving late the night before, Dad was up by eight the next morning. “There’s a lovely river here, with a statute of a woman’s head in it!” he exclaimed when I met him at Reception at 10am.

“You’ve discovered where I go for coffee, Dad. It’s a beautiful area, you’re right. And that woman’s head is the nymph Herkyna, or ‘Krya.’ I go there a lot to drink coffee with Kaliopi. How did you sleep?”

“Well, the bed’s pretty soft, but I did my back exercises this morning, so that helped.”

“Morning, John.” An Englishman strode through Reception, greeting Dad with a clap on the back.

“Oh hi, I hope everything goes well for you today,” Dad called as the man exited the hotel via the revolving doors.

“What happens to him today?” I asked as we made our own way in the April sunshine along the main street back to my place. Checking to make sure the man wasn’t within earshot, Dad explained.

“His ex-wife’s Greek; he claims she’s crazy so he wants to get custody of his little girl. But she comes from a big family, so he has to battle the family in court. He’s stuck here over the Easter period, allowed access to his daughter for a few hours each day, and he’ll stay until the custody battle is over.”

“And he just volunteered this info to you?”

“Well, yes, he sat down at my table at breakfast and just opened up. Maybe it was nice for him to have someone English to speak to. It sounds quite messy and dramatic to me.”

“Yes, welcome to Greece,” I replied as we arrived at the flat and puffed our way upstairs to make the introductions to Mrs Stella.

The door was opened, just as I muttered “Now
please
be appropriate Dad, she’s my boss, OK?” Dad shot me an ‘Am I anything but?’ look as Mrs Stella shook his hand and led him to the sofa.

“Your daughter is constantly referring to you, Mr John. It is a pleasure to finally meet the man himself.” Mr Ioannis, meanwhile, seemed eager to chat about football. The combination of his limited English and Dad’s lack of Greek didn’t seem to matter one bit as he smiled widely when Dad exclaimed, “Liverpool!” This seemed to start off some sort of weirdly-understood conversation about the sport. Mr Ioannis, it turned out, loved Manchester United, so I left them to it.

“We don’t eat meat until Easter Sunday, it’s the tradition” Mrs Stella told us. “I’ve booked a table for later this evening in a local
taverna
. We’ll go to church, light a candle and “feel sad,” she dismissed this sentiment away with a wave of the hand. I remembered Mr Ioannis’s comments back on the Epiphany day in January: “You know she doesn’t like religious celebrations.”

“We don’t usually attend church,” admitted Mrs Stella in a lull in the conversation between the two men, confirming what I already knew, “but tonight we will make an exception, so as to accompany you and be hospitable.” She seemed to expect some kind of gratitude. Dad must have picked up on this too: “That’s really very kind of you, thank you. We’ll look forward to it.”

“Can we go back to that river area?” Dad asked. We were left to our own devices for the afternoon.

“She’s quite distant, your boss, unusual for a Greek woman,” Dad was tilting his head, cat-like, into the sunlight as he sipped on a Greek frappé.

“I know, it took me a while to get used to her, but she’s actually very fair in the work environment.”

“So long as you’re happy love,” he reached over to give my hand a squeeze, “and you certainly seem happy.” We headed back, needing a siesta.

At eight o’clock we walked further up the hill to the church, accompanied by Mrs Stella, Mr Ioannis and their two teenage daughters—home from Athens for the holidays. Melina, the youngest, pushed her way through the throng outside the church to get us all a small candle.