Rebellious Daughters (12 page)

When did I first become a rebellious daughter? When did I wilfully flout my parents' expectations, snub their culture and way of life to assert my independence? The immediate answer is after high school and starting at Melbourne University in the early ‘80s. My new world was far removed from my traditional Greek upbringing and Baba's strict rules: no parties on weekends, no socialising after school, basically no fun. These were frivolous distractions that interfered with my studies.

While I started conventionally, enrolling in a Commerce degree as dutifully expected, I soon realised I couldn't stomach the rugger-bugger private school boys in my economics classes. I gravitated to the student theatre department where I found my kin on the stage of the Guild Theatre. Tutorials on the Keynesian model of national income determination were no match for the dazzling, kaleidoscopic life in student drama. I banded together with the other misfits and renegades to form our own theatre company, an enterprise that occupied
my every waking hour. The trajectory my parents had planned for me before I was born – a tertiary education, a white collar profession and a good Greek marriage – began to veer off course as I found my own orbit in a universe the antithesis of theirs.

Lectures became irrelevant and I spent my days either backstage or in the upstairs cafeteria with my fellow refugees from the halls of study. The occasional sweet scent of dope permeated the air as we hunched over our strong espressos, deep in conversation, dissecting the latest production we'd seen at La Mama. In deference to my young nephews, I shall simply say I puffed on the occasional reefer but never inhaled. But I smoked unfiltered Gauloises, mastering the art of the drawback and blowing perfect smoke rings. Whenever I was flush with cash, I bought Sobranie, black Russian cigarettes tipped with a gold foil filter. These I saved for parties where I wanted to be anything but the good Greek girl from Caulfield.

I began to cast my own identity, including how I looked. My flowing curls gave way to a number 2 buzz cut which my mother hated. Once, freshly shorn from the barber, I had to knock on the front door of our house as I'd lost my keys. My mother took one look at my stubbly scalp and slammed the door in my face with disgust. She also disapproved of my new look fashion: ripped Levi 501s, a black t-shirt and workman's boots.
‘Why don't you wear a dress anymore?' she'd complain. I couldn't tell her yet that the dresses she wanted me to wear weren't for me, just like boys weren't. I'd look out of place in a flowery dress at the women only dances I went to in San Remo Ballroom or in lesbian bars like Penny's where I began to explore my sexuality. Coming out to Baba and Mama as gay felt fraught with danger and I wasn't emotionally prepared for the inevitable Greek drama nor the consequences of their hurt.

And then there was Carlton – magnificent, free-spir-ited, seedy Carlton, even more of a reason not to go home. Good Greek girls were expected to live at home until they married and I was destined to live with my parents until I summoned the courage to leave in my third year of uni. While living at home, I escaped the polite silence of eating with Mama and Baba for a bowl of
penne amatriciana
at Tamani's (now Tiamo) before catching a screening of
A Clockwork Orange
at the Carlton Bughouse. Together with my theatre mates, I consumed alcoholic beverages at any number of watering holes like the Albion or Stewart's. Our pub of choice was the Clyde on Elgin Street, scene of marathon drinking sessions that started at lunch time and continued until the barman called time. When the pub closed, we simply de-camped with a couple of wine casks to a nearby student household, usually a poky terrace furnished with beanbags, milk crates and makeshift book cases made of planks of wood and bricks.

After drinking till the wee hours of the morning, I staggered to Twins, an all-night greasy takeaway joint, for half a dozen fried dim sims and a fizzy lime soda to sober up. Going home smashed was out of the question as, more often than not, Baba was waiting for me no matter what the time, and that's when the slanging matches started about how I disgraced the family. I tried to steel myself against the insults, deflecting them against an imaginary shield I carried home with me, but every now and then, some cruelty pierced the shield, and my heart. I accepted Baba's angry tirades as the price I had to pay for my newfound freedom. Occasionally he locked me out of the house and I'd sleep in the car, the smell of riesling and fried fat exuding from my pores.

Some nights, I didn't come home at all after an all-night bump-in in the Union Theatre. It was a badge of honour to stay up until morning, rigging lights and hanging scenery. We celebrated our endurance with a breakfast stubby of beer before fuelling up on a carbo laden brunch at Genevieve's. On these occasions when I returned home, there wasn't any shouting, just icy silences and crushing looks of disappointment.

While this was the heyday of my rebellion, its roots can be traced much earlier. A seed was planted in 1975, when I was 13, in what became known as ‘the Greek coffee incident'. It was the first time I didn't blithely accept the mantle of being a good girl.

There's an art to making Greek coffee (
Ellinko kafe
). First you need a
briki
, a small copper or stainless steel pot narrow at the top and wider at the bottom. You then add a demitasse cup of water into the
briki
together with a heaped teaspoon of finely ground Greek coffee and sugar if needed. A coffee with no sugar is called
sketo, metreo
has one teaspoon of sugar and a
glyko kafe
two teaspoons.

Place the
briki
over medium heat and stir briefly. You have to watch carefully as the coffee brews; when it comes to the boil, foam will rise and you need to remove the
briki
at the exact moment to garner the maximum amount of foamy crema (
kaimaki
). If you leave the
briki
on the stove for a fraction too long, the coffee will boil over. Carefully pour the
kafe
into a demitasse cup to preserve the
kaimaki
, sip and enjoy.

As a child I watched my
yiayia
make her ritual
kafe
every morning. She padded out in her blue flannel dressing gown and men's corduroy slippers from the bedroom we shared. Sitting at the kitchen table, she crossed herself before drinking her coffee with a breakfast of rye bread, tomatoes and olives. Occasionally, it was just bread and a raw clove of garlic with salt when she wanted to ward off a cold. I waited patiently for
yiayia
to tip a small mouthful of
kafe
into the saucer which I slurped with relish. So began my love of coffee.

When visitors came, Mama served
kafe
in the
saloni
together with an ice cold glass of water. She brought the
drinks on a sterling silver tray decorated with a lace doily and always in our best china and glassware which were kept in a walnut display cabinet. Everything in the
saloni
was reserved for special occasions. Sometimes the
kafe
was accompanied with a small dish of Mama's
glyko tou koutaliou
, homemade sweet preserves of quince or cherries. Other times, the
kafe
came with a plate of
koulouria
, an orange scented butter biscuit traditionally baked at Easter. Mama made so many we ate them for months afterwards. If
yiayia
was in the
saloni
with the visitors, she surreptitiously dunked a
koulouri
in her
kafe
and slipped me the biscuit when no one was looking.

And please, when you are with Greeks, never ever refer to
kafe
as Turkish coffee. While purists will tell you they are one and the same, Greeks have claimed the brew as their own since 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus and nationalism rose to fever pitch levels. The truly zealous patriots will also lecture you about 400 years of Turkish occupation and the Greek rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1821 to claim Greece's independence.

According to Baba, Lambros Katsonis was my great, great, great, great, great uncle. Hailed as a revolutionary hero, Lambros was a Greek naval admiral in the 18th century when the Ottomans ruled Greece. He enlisted in the Russian Imperial navy and joined the revolt of 1770 which preceded Greece's War of Independence.
Russian empress Catherine the Great honoured him with the Order of St. George, the highest military decoration for his bravery during sea battles. But when the Russians called a truce with the Turks, Lambros assembled a Greek pirate fleet of about 20 ships to continue the fight against a Turkish navy at least double his might. The Ottomans destroyed his fleet and Lambros escaped to Russia where he was granted an estate by Catherine the Great. It is rumoured she then took Lambros as one of her many lovers.

With such a lineage, perhaps I was destined to rebel.

My father drank his
kafe metreo
style, with one sugar. He came home from work every day at five, carrying his battered brown leather satchel and the afternoon edition of
The Herald
rolled under his arm. Sometimes he'd conjure my favourite chocolate bar, a Kit Kat, from his satchel before laying out the newspaper on the kitchen table. He then brewed himself a
kafe
which he savoured as he read the paper. It was a half hour of quiet respite sandwiched between the rigours of a working day and the clamour of family dinner.

Baba migrated to Australia from Greece in 1957, the year after Melbourne's Olympic Games and the introduction of commercial television. He followed Mama in order to marry her as she had arrived a year earlier to join her mother and two brothers in what the eldest
described as the land of milk and honey. Opportunities abounded in
Afstralia
for Mama, Baba and their unborn children, while economic hardship blanketed Greece after World War II and the subsequent civil war. The influence of the European migrants descending on Melbourne had yet to be felt. When my parents arrived here, it was the time of the 6 o'clock swill and the most exotic meal available was a mixed grill with not a lamb souvlaki in sight.

Baba took up the panel beating trade, learning how to hammer dented car bodies and twist them back into shape, before spray painting the duco as new. He eventually opened his own workshop in the back streets of Richmond. I loved visiting Baba's workshop, not just because it was opposite Ernest Hillier's chocolate factory where the kindly ladies fed me samples. Baba looked so worldly sitting at the desk in his cramped office, satchel at his feet. Often there was an olive green accounting ledger spread out in front of him, his fingers tapping on an adding machine as he tallied the daily accounts. No wonder Baba wanted me to enrol in a Commerce degree.

In the main workshop, air compressors thrummed, spray guns hissed and hammers clanged as cars were restored to mint condition. I stood in the middle and inhaled deeply, the intoxicating smell of paint and thinners making me giddy. Like Proust's madeleine, to this day the scent of a freshly uncapped texta instantly
transports me back to Baba's workshop where the brilliantly hued tins of paint were laid out like coloured Smarties.

One day, when I was 12, Baba broke from his usual afternoon routine at home. ‘
Ella etho
, Maria,
mazi tha fiaksoume kafe
' (Come here, Maria, together we'll make coffee.) He proceeded to teach me how to make a Greek coffee, step by step. I followed his instructions precisely and when I poured the
kafe
with just the right amount of
kaimaki
into his cup, Baba exclaimed ‘Bravo!' and gave me a five-dollar note. Five dollars, what a fortune! I could buy my next record, Suzy Quatro's
Can the Can
or Skyhooks'
Living in the ‘70s
. I radiated pride when Baba pronounced the coffee as perfect.

The next day when Baba came home from work, he called out ‘Maria,
kafe
!' and I ran to the kitchen, this time making the coffee without any coaching. Baba smacked his lips with pleasure after taking the first sip but this time there was no monetary reward.

The next day Baba called out ‘Maria,
kafe
!' and the day after that and the day after that. Every day, week in, week out, the clarion call of ‘Maria,
kafe
!' resounded throughout the house, summoning me from wherever I was. The novelty of making Baba's
kafe
soon wore off and sullen resentment replaced my initial enthusiasm. Was I now destined to make my father's coffee every afternoon? The short answer was yes.

For a year or so, I complied like a dutiful daughter until the day came when I didn't want to make his coffee. It wasn't as if I had anything better to do. I was probably watching television, something like
The Brady Bunch
, perhaps the episode where Jan was forever complaining ‘Marcia this, Marcia that... Marcia, Marcia, Marcia'. I ignored the first ‘Maria,
kafe
!' as I switched on my selective hearing which I occasionally used at the dinner table when it was my turn to clear the dishes. After a few minutes, I also ignored the second more insistent, ‘Maria,
KAFE
!' Up until now I always responded after the second call. The third ‘MARIA,
KAFE
!' had a dangerous undertone as if to say ‘Ignore me at your peril'.

I dragged my feet to the kitchen, seething with anger. Why did I always have to make the coffee? It wasn't fair. As I banged the tin of coffee on the kitchen bench, Baba scowled. I reached into the cupboard for the jar of sugar and that's when I saw it: Mama's cooking salt in an almost identical jar.

A heaped teaspoon of salt followed the coffee into the
briki
and I stirred the mix with satisfaction. Placing the brewed
kafe
in front of Baba, I hurried away to busy myself at the sink so I wouldn't be looking directly at him when he took the first mouthful.

‘Phtt!!' he spluttered, spitting it out. ‘
Ti eine afto
?' (What's this?).

‘I don't know what you mean Baba,' I said, feigning
innocence.