Afternoons in Ithaka Read online

  I join my ‘cousins’ John and Peter, Tina and Arthur; we are distantly related through marriages that happened in Dad’s village a few generations ago. John and Peter are older than my brother and me and have exciting things in their rooms: an electric guitar, a tape recorder, a football. But soon even these things bore us and we move outside to play hide and seek in the back yard. In the twilight, I can hear snatches of conversation …

  ‘That bastard boss; he doesn’t even let you go for a piss unless you’re on a break,’ says Dad.

  ‘The union should do something.’

  ‘What can they do? Pfft. Nothing!’

  They talk about the royalists and leftists in Greece, about how you can’t get a job there unless your political party is in power. Even though they work hard here, in dirty workplaces, they agree there are more opportunities in Australia – especially for their kids.

  The women are putting the final touches on dinner: chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, plates of olives and feta, a mound of bread. The platter of meat arrives and we each grab a plate. The men take their food first, then the kids, and, finally, the women.

  It’s late when we leave. Mum takes the jar of grapefruit.

  ‘Drop in next Saturday if you like,’ she says to Theia Tasia, kissing her on both cheeks.

  Dad has some cucumber seeds wrapped up in a napkin, the ones Nick brought back from Greece in the bottom of his suitcase.

  As we make our way home to Collingwood, Dad says, ‘I’ll plant these seeds next year. Maybe my cucumbers will grow as big as Tasiopoulos’s …’

  ‘I hope so, my husband, I hope so …’

  VLASIOS ON DRYING SEEDS

  For many years, eighty-year-old Vlasios Tzikas, the father of my close friend Katerina, worked in takeaway food shops, selling steak sandwiches and hamburgers to make a living. He raised four kids.

  One look at Mr Tzikas’s garden and you realise that in another life, he could have been an engineer. His garden houses a massive covered water-storage area that he has dug into the ground, into which storm water drains from the down pipes. A homemade electric pump pushes water up an incline into the lush garden. He has built a wood-fired oven to a design of his own devising, using clay and twigs from his back yard.

  Mr Tzikas saves seeds from most plants. The process below works best with ‘wet’ seeds that are embedded in the damp flesh of fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, marrows and cherries.

  Leave the largest, healthiest-looking fruit on the plant. When the fruit ceases to grow, or the rest of the plant has died off, harvest it. With clean hands, break the fruit open and scoop out the seeds. With smaller fruits or berries, you can crush the fruit into a pulp.

  Wash the seeds in a bowl of water, agitating in order to remove the ‘wet’ membrane around each seed. Discard any seeds that float to the top, then throw away the water and repeat. This helps to stop the seeds fermenting in their own wet skins.

  Place the seeds onto kitchen paper, leaving 1 or 2 centimetres between each. If it is not easy to separate the seeds, spread them as smoothly as you can onto the paper. Put the sheets of paper in a warm, well-ventilated spot such as a window ledge.

  In a few weeks, when the seeds are completely dry, cut up the kitchen paper so that each seed is on a little bit of paper. Store these in an airtight glass container in a dry, dark place until you are ready to plant them (paper and all) in the appropriate season.

  The good grape

  He who drinks on credit gets twice as drunk

  Greek proverb

  The sticky, ruby-red juice oozes through the gaps between my toes, rises up around my feet, and sinks back into the wooden vat. The smell that wafts up is sweet, almost sickly.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough, Spirithoula.’

  Dad let me get up first, humouring me, but now the men mean business. Reluctantly, I take Dad’s hand. He helps me down onto a crate and back onto the ground. He hoses my feet and then washes his own with soap. He steps up to take my place.

  The glistening juice squishes through his toes at a great rate. He presses down with one foot, then the other, working up a rhythm. I watch, mesmerised. The sack beneath his feet is plump with muscatel grapes, filled to the brim and then sewn tightly shut at one end. It has been placed in a vat that has a hole in one corner. The juice from the grapes drains out through the hole into a clean bucket. When the bucket is full, its contents are poured into the covered oak barrel in the small corrugated-iron shed. And so goes the annual wine-making ritual.

  My uncles take it in turns to press the grapes. When the juice is spent and the sack is flat, they open it up. They remove the grape must and give this to my mother. She will boil it down, adding cornflour and semolina to make moustalevria, a jelly-like sweet. Nothing is wasted.

  The men fill the sack from a few of the twelve boxes of grapes that are stacked up in one corner of our yard. As always, there has been careful deliberation about where to buy the grapes. Sometimes they come from the Preston or Queen Victoria markets, or from roadside vans piled high with crates of sweet-smelling muscatels or sultana grapes. Our Italian neighbours always know where to find these. Word spreads like wildfire about which supplier has the best and cheapest fruit. Dad wishes he had enough grapes from his own yard to make wine. While the bunches on the vine above us are full and lush, there are not enough to make a whole barrel. This year Dad bought the grapes from a farmer who drove his truck around our neighbourhood, spruiking his wares through a loudspeaker just as I heard gypsies do in Greece.

  Although it’s only eight o’clock in the morning, it is already hot. The men work quickly in a bid to avoid the heat.

  I run off to play with my cousins Kathy, Georgia, Dimitra and George. Our mothers are busy, and Kathy and I need to keep an eye on George, who climbs our high fence and runs out onto the road on a whim. My cousins are here on holidays, down from a small NSW town called Narrandera, where they now own a fish and chip shop. It’s exciting when they come to visit.

  ‘Mama, can I take these?’ I hold up a bag of large black bin liners.

  She nods without looking at me, preoccupied. She’s filling tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants and zucchini flowers with rice to make yemista. I furtively take the dishwashing liquid, and a pair of scissors. My cousins and I cut the bags down the side and spread them out along our concrete drive. It’s just like the Slip ’n Slide we’ve seen on television. We squirt the bags with dishwashing liquid and spray them with the hose. One by one, we slide along the drive. We have to push one another, as there’s no slope. As the morning progresses, we get braver, tumbling and sliding, slipping and slopping our way even more energetically. Tomorrow we will have bruises, but today our laughter can be heard all the way down the street. We are sopping wet in our shorts and T-shirts when we finally go inside to ask for food. Mum produces a tub of Neapolitan ice-cream and we fight over the last of the chocolate.

  By early afternoon, the boxes of grapes are empty. The men’s sticky feet leave marks on the concrete. Mum hoses the yard and we sit down under the grape vine to a tray full of yemista and salad. I mop my plate with bread to make sure I get all the oil. Everything tastes delicious after the activities of the morning.

  ‘It’s going to be a good one this year, Panayioti. The grapes are sweet, very juicy …’ my uncle says.

  ‘Makari,’ Dad says superstitiously. May God grant it.

  Finally, Dad and my uncle tie the empty, washed vat onto the top of my uncle’s car with thick ropes. Tomorrow, we will be at his place, doing the same again.

  A few weeks later, when I open the door of the shed, the smell of fermenting grapes is sweet, yeasty. Dad has plastered the plug at the top of the barrel down so that it doesn’t burst out. I can hear the juices bubbling wildly as if desperate to escape. Dad has lovingly placed a small heater in the shed to help the fermentation process along during the colder autumn mornings.

  When my uncles come over, they turn the tap on the barrel to try the wine, knowing fu
ll well it’s too early. It won’t be ready for months.

  ‘You shouldn’t leave it too long, Panayioti.’

  There’s no risk of Dad leaving it too long – he is like a child with a toy, pulling it apart to see what makes it tick. He descants his wine well before my uncles do.

  I am allowed to have a sip. It smells and tastes awful. But clearly I lack a suitably refined palette. Dad and my uncles are so proud of their creations, exchanging bottles, comparing colour and flavour. Invariably, each claims his is the best. The women look on, amused.

  Chrysoula’s yemista (vegetables stuffed with rice and herbs)

  Serves 6 to 8

  This recipe is superb when there is a glut of summer vegetables – tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, zucchini flowers. If you prefer, you can make it using only one type of vegetable. It’s a great one for larger groups and it’s worth making a lot.

  Ingredients

  5 large tomatoes

  5 medium capsicums

  5 medium zucchinis

  5 small eggplants

  4 cups long-grain rice

  2 or 3 onions, finely chopped

  5 or 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

  5 or 6 sprigs mint, finely chopped

  1 bunch parsley, finely chopped

  1 cup olive oil

  250 ml passata (or 1 cup freshly grated ripe tomatoes, skins discarded)

  1 cup water

  Salt and pepper to taste

  2 cups boiling water

  Method

  Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

  Slice the tops off the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon, leaving a hollowed-out shell approximately 1 centimetre thick. Put the tops back on and place the tomatoes into a deep baking dish. Do the same with the capsicums and zucchinis. Roll the eggplants on a hard surface to soften them, then remove the seeds from the middle as with the other vegetables.

  In a large bowl, combine the rice, onions, garlic, herbs, oil, passata, 1 cup of cold water and salt and pepper.

  Fill each vegetable with the rice mixture and replace the vegetable ‘lids’. Pour any remaining liquid into the pan, but discard any leftover rice. Place the pan in the preheated oven and raise the heat to 250ºC.

  After about 30 minutes, when the vegetables start to brown, add 2 cups of boiling water to the pan (this will help to cook the rice). Rotate the eggplants and zucchinis. Continue to bake until the vegetables are soft and have crispy skins (around 1 hour). If the rice starts to look dry, add some more boiling water to the sides of the dish.

  Serve with a fresh green salad and homemade bread.

  Pubs and pedals

  Wine and children speak the truth

  Greek proverb

  ‘Don’t tell Mum,’ he says as I sit beside him, struggling to get my feet off the sticky carpet and my bottom onto the tall stool.

  ‘What’ll it be, Peter?’

  ‘The usual, John. A pot of VB. And lemonade for my daughter.’

  I look shyly at the bartender with the handlebar moustache, but he doesn’t take any notice of me. Nor do the men sitting alongside us – bum cracks and potbellies showing over Hard Yakka shorts as they down a few quick ones before going back to nearby worksites. The beer is set on a soggy placemat and Dad downs it fast. He orders another ‘for the road’, drinks it and we are off.

  The pub is a few streets away from our house. We walk past tiny weatherboards, a factory that makes cookware, and a few newer, brick-veneer homes. When we get to our house, Mum is waiting at the door.

  ‘You took your time at the milk bar.’

  ‘Dad let me buy chips, Mama,’ I say quickly.

  Dad scurries into the garden. I can tell Mum wants him to get a job again, fast. The unemployment benefits don’t stretch far, what with the middle-of-the-day visits to the pub. But he keeps changing jobs; he gets bored, or has disagreements with the bosses. Luckily, factory work is plentiful and it shouldn’t be too long now. It’s nice having him home when I get back after school. When I’m sick, he brings me potato chips and lemonade in bed. I like the feel of his cool palm on my forehead, even the worried look on his face. It means he loves me.

  Maria from next door and her family have moved away to a big house in Bulleen. Mum says we will visit her sometime, but that sometime doesn’t come around. I miss jumping the corrugated-iron fence to visit, and playing cards on her laminated table. Now a new family has moved in. They have a daughter my age, Bella. Her parents are often out, and she asks to sleep at our house one night when they won’t be home. As we squish into my single bed, she tells me she sleeps without undies on. I am intrigued. In our family, everyone sleeps with their undies under their nightwear.

  It’s not long before we hear arguments next door. Our wall is two metres from theirs.

  ‘Fuck you! Get out of my house …’

  ‘Piss off, bitch! It’s not your house. If anyone’s going to get out, it’s you …’

  Dad looks at Mum and turns the TV up.

  One night, Bella’s eight-year-old brother comes to our door. He has red freckles, a downy splash of golden hair and a scared look in his eyes.

  ‘Can I use the phone? Mum won’t wake up. Dad’s not home.’

  I watch as he rings the ambulance. I can tell the operator doesn’t believe him, thinks it’s a prank call.

  I grab the phone. ‘Please can you come? This is not a prank call. His mother is sick,’ I say in my most mature voice.

  Later, we hear that they pumped his mum’s stomach; she had downed fifty aspirin. Within days, she is back home. The arguments continue.

  My godfather, who works at a bike factory in Clifton Hill, brings me a bike for my birthday. He has kept me in wheels over the years, from my first small red trike to the bike with the white vinyl seat and colourful tassels that he steers down the drive now. I can barely contain my excitement. I love the feel of the wind in my hair, the power of the muscles in my legs pumping the pedals. I love how strong I feel. I strain at the inclines, whizz at dizzying speed down hills, splash through puddles after a big rain and ride up and down the bluestone gutters.

  On my bike, I wind my way around Collingwood. Past the community youth centre, where kids are sniffing glue out the back. Past Theia Georgia and Theio Vassili’s house, friends of ours who have no children of their own and who spoil my brother and me with lollies and excursions into the city. Every adult who is a good friend of my parents is a theia, aunty or a theio, uncle. Every time Theia Georgia sees me, she holds me tight against her generous bosom and I turn my head to avoid the moles on her face.

  More often than not, I cycle past the house of my friends, two sisters who live in the street around the corner.

  ‘Pop-py! An-gela!’ I call in a sing-song voice.

  Angela’s head appears in the doorway.

  ‘Come out and play.’

  ‘Wait there. We’re coming.’

  I’m not encouraged to go into the girls’ house. Their mother has white carpets. She lays clear plastic sheeting over them so they don’t get dirty. We have vinyl on our floors and Mum doesn’t care who steps on it.

  Poppy brings out a few dented tennis rackets. We hit the ball back and forth over the hot bitumen of the road. The buzz of traffic on Hoddle Street is buffered by the row of houses on our street. We move onto the footpath when the odd car comes by. More kids join us. Our game of tennis morphs into a game of cricket and we don’t stop playing until our mothers call us in for dinner.

  One day, I’m riding back from the milk bar and I see a bundle of clothes on the footpath. I approach slowly and realise it’s Bella’s father. I think that maybe he’s drunk, sleeping it off on the street. But then I notice blood on his T-shirt. I run in to tell Mum. Soon an ambulance arrives. And a police car. When the paramedics have carried Bella’s dad away, the police knock on the door of his home.

  ‘Mum’s getting dressed. You can’t come in,’ says Bella.

  But they make their way in anyway, and find a knife buried in the
back yard. Later, my parents whisper when they think my brother and I can’t hear: Will she go to jail? What about the kids? But Bella’s dad decides not to press charges, and within weeks her parents are back together again. I know without asking that my parents prefer I don’t play with Bella anymore. They are not a ‘good’ family.

  But there are times when we make our own noise through the walls, when Dad can’t control his drinking and Mum is fed up. At times like these, my brother Dennis and I retire to our bedroom; we stare at each other across the small space between our beds. Dennis nervously makes a hole in the plaster with his finger and we both watch the dust fall onto his nylon bedspread.

  One day, Dad’s anger is out of control. Mum gets us out of the house before I can even get my shoes on. I can feel the burn of gravel on the soles of my feet as we hurry along in the dark towards Theia Georgia’s house. There’s no freeing wind in my hair, no pedals underfoot, just the rush of adrenalin as we hurry along in case Dad decides to follow us out onto the street.

  My mother pushes me forward. I feel her distress in the pressure of her hand as it steers me by the elbow. We are heading towards the safety of Theia’s lit porch and her understanding ear.

  I imagine Dad, back at home, still throwing chairs across the kitchen, drunk. Or perhaps he will be sitting on our vinyl green couch, his rage spent. With a cigarette in his hand, listening to the empty sounds of the house. The clock ticking, the lino creaking as it contracts in the cold night.

  The following day, he is repentant. Says he can’t remember what he said. He promises it will never happen again. But the next time we walk to the milk bar together, I pull at his hand. I don’t want to stop at the pub for lemonade.