Afternoons in Ithaka Read online

  In the meantime, we are given work experience placements. I am allocated to the Migrant Women’s Learning Centre, housed in the old Collingwood Technical School down the road from my high school. This is where the tough boys used to go to become electricians, welders or petty criminals. Now, a cavernous room below street level houses a learning centre for more than a hundred women from around the world: elderly Italian, Greek and Yugoslav women retrenched from the manufacturing industry; single mums hoping to enter the hospitality trade; and doctors, psychologists and nurses who can’t get their qualifications recognised in Australia and so must start again with certificate courses.

  The raucous, colourful atmosphere excites me; when I sit at my little brown desk, dozens of different accents serenade me. The women bring out the voyeur in me – I love listening to their stories, tales about their homelands, about why they came to Australia and the challenges they face here. They tell of fleeing war or poverty, and of families reunited after long separations. They are all trying to make a better life here in Australia. English and work skills will be their tickets to survival.

  I feel very young in the presence of these women, but they welcome anyone who can help them. And they show their gratitude with food, bringing in treats for the teachers and tasty little morsels for me. Food is a common currency. We bond over Minh’s chicken dumplings, swoon over Rosa’s crème profiteroles and rave about Gisela’s empanadas. We exchange recipes and trade family secrets: how to get a sauce just right, how to make gelato set. At lunchtime, the smell of their different cuisines wafts through the centre. This aromatic cocoon is an escape from the students’ day-to-day lives, a space just for them. It is a refuge for me too – a place where I can escape my home life, where things are coming to a head.

  My anger is finally spilling over. I realise I can’t wait for freedom to be delivered to me; I have to take it. And so on weekends, I arrange for friends to pick me up and I go out. Most times, it is my old high-school friend Kathy, who arrives in her white Camira, usually wearing an impossibly short spangled mini skirt. All of my father’s anxieties are reflected in the fabric of that skirt; its sequins represent moral decline and sexual depravity. And, of course, this is contagious, like a disease. What he has long feared has finally happened; his little girl is on her way to becoming a fully fledged slut. He seethes as we leave the house but he is powerless to stop me. I push headlong into my freedom, confident that it must be done. After all, I now know conflict is a part of life.

  Crème profiteroles

  Makes 12 large profiteroles

  A friend’s mother who grew up in Tuscany says her favourite profiterole recipe comes not from her region of origin, but from The Australian Women’s Weekly circa 1986. Profiteroles are often associated with Italian cuisine, but their origin is French. They use choux pastry (meaning ‘cabbage’, as they are round and plump) and crème or crème patisserie.

  Ingredients

  For the pastry

  75 grams unsalted butter, cut into small, even pieces

  1 cup water

  1 cup plain flour

  4 eggs, lightly beaten

  For the crème patisserie

  6 egg yolks

  ¾ cup castor sugar

  ¼ cup plain flour

  2 cups milk

  ½ cup thickened cream

  2 tablespoons vanilla extract

  For the pastry

  Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

  Place the butter and water into a saucepan and stir until the butter is just melted. Bring to the boil over high heat. When the mixture is at a rolling boil, add flour all at once. Stir vigourously over the heat until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. The mixture should be hot enough to cook the eggs when they are beaten in.

  Transfer the mixture to a small bowl or electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until the mixture is smooth and glossy.

  Drop tablespoons of the mixture about 5 centimetres apart onto a lightly greased oven tray. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until they feel light when you pick them up and are golden brown.

  Using a sharp knife, cut the hot balls in half. Using a teaspoon, scoop out and discard the uncooked mixture from the middle. Put the balls back together and return them to the tray, cut side up. Bake for a further 10 minutes, or until they are crisp and dry.

  For the crème patisserie

  Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until thick and creamy. Beat in the flour.

  Put the milk into a saucepan and bring it to the boil, then remove it from the heat. Gradually add the milk to the egg mixture while beating with the electric mixer at medium speed.

  Return the mixture to the saucepan. Stirring constantly, heat it until the mixture boils and thickens, then remove it from the stove. Cover the surface of the hot custard with greaseproof paper to prevent a skin from forming. Leave it to cool to room temperature.

  Beat the cream until soft peaks form. Fold the cream and the vanilla gently into the custard.

  Just before serving, use a teaspoon or a piping bag to fill each pastry puff with a dollop of the creme, then place the ‘lid’ on top.

  These are best eaten on the day of baking when they are crisp. If they soften, they can be dried by placing them in a warm oven for 5 minutes.

  Hope the voyage is a long one.

  May there be many a summer morning when,

  with what pleasure, what joy,

  you come into harbors seen for the first time;

  may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things,

  mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

  sensual perfume of every kind – as many sensual perfumes as you can;

  and may you visit many Egyptian cities

  to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

  Constantine Cavafy

  Athens adventures

  Blood doesn’t turn to water

  Greek proverb

  The man who greets me at the airport is like a younger, sunnier version of my father. I haven’t seen Dad’s brother since I was seven, fifteen years ago. Theio Spiro is a bit plumper than I remember, has a few grey hairs around the temples, but I recognise him instantly. He’s like a life buoy in a choppy sea of Greek-speaking humanity. Everyone is jostling, carting trolley-loads of suitcases and electrical goods, gesticulating and craning their necks to look for relatives.

  ‘Yiasou, Theio.’ Hello, Uncle. We embrace and both wipe away tears. He takes hold of my luggage and ushers me expertly along, out into the hazy Athens afternoon.

  ‘How is my brother? Chrysoula? My nephew Dionysios? The last time I saw you, you came to my waist. What have you been doing since then?’ He fires away with questions, so many that it’s hard to answer in any detail. ‘Everyone is well. I have been at school, then uni,’ I say. My life is boring, I think. I ask about his wife, the kids.

  ‘They’re well. You’ll meet them soon.’

  We whizz down a main arterial road, Leoforos Vouliagmenis, in Theio’s little Fiat. I am struck by the light outside, which is whiter than that in Melbourne, with a washed-out quality to it. Everything seems to be covered in a fine dust – the buildings, the footpaths, the shop fronts. Motorcycles push through impossibly small gaps between cars. Every lane is crawling with traffic, including the emergency lanes, and overcrowded buses spew diesel fumes everywhere I look. It’s siesta time, Theio Spiro explains, and so the roads are quiet. I balk.

  We make our way towards central Athens. Theio turns into a side street and wedges his car snugly between two others parked on the footpath.

  We enter the foyer of his apartment block, our footsteps echoing on the marble floor. We try to cram my suitcases into a tiny elevator but give up. Theio goes up with one case and I wait downstairs with the other. In the meantime, three heads pop out from a door upstairs. This must be my Theia Eleni and, peeking from behind her legs, my first cousins
Semina and Aki.

  ‘Ilthe, ilthe,’ the kids whisper in well enunciated Greek. She has come, she has come.

  ‘Kalos lithes.’ Welcome. When I finally make it upstairs, we embrace. I am nervous.

  My suitcases crowd their two-bedroom apartment. Theia Eleni has made up a fold-out couch in the children’s room, where I’ll be staying for the next couple of weeks.

  We sit down at a table that takes up most of the space in the kitchen.

  ‘How was your trip?’

  ‘Good. Very long.’

  ‘Do you want to rest?’

  ‘No, I’m alright.’

  ‘The family, how are they? Your father?’

  ‘They’re good. Well, you know Dad, he complains of being sick – one minute it’s this, another it’s that. But he’s okay.’ As soon as I have said it, I feel like a traitor. I can hear Dad’s voice echoing in the background – ‘Ta en iko mi en thimo’ – an ancient Greek saying that means ‘Do not expose your house affairs in public.’

  ‘Is he still complaining? Some things never change,’ Theio says good-naturedly, but he casts an apprehensive glance at his wife, who looks away. ‘So, what do you want to see? I have Sundays and Mondays off from the shop, so we can show you around.’

  ‘Don’t worry too much about me, Theio. I don’t mind exploring by myself. I know you are busy. Perhaps tomorrow I will go into town.’

  They look surprised, but Theio explains how to buy public transport tickets and which trolley to take.

  The next morning, I make my way to the main street. I try to brave my way onto a trolley, a peculiar vehicle somewhere between a tram and a bus, but people push past me and I don’t make it on. When the next one comes along I am ready and muscle my way on like everyone else. I get off at the city centre and try to get my bearings.

  The first thing I need to do is exchange my Australian traveller’s cheques for Greek drachma at one of the banks skirting Sindagma Square. I enter the bank and find myself in a large, smoke-filled room. When I finally make it to the front of one of the many queues, the teller takes a puff on his cigarette.

  ‘Oriste?’ he says gruffly. May I help you?

  ‘Thelo va alaxo auta ta … ta … cheques.’ I can’t remember the word for cheques. My hands get clammy.

  ‘Apo ekei.’ Over there. He points dismissively to another queue and looks past me to the next customer.

  I look at the queue for ‘miscellaneous transactions’, with its line of scruffy tourists. They are waiting patiently. There is no teller at the counter. It’s going to be a long morning.

  Half an hour later, I have my drachma tucked safely in a pouch around my waist. I buy a juice, a map and some yaridakia from the periptero, a street booth selling staples like newspapers, cigarettes and chocolates. The yaridakia taste exactly as they did when I was a child. I feel comforted. I am famished after my adrenalin-soaked ride on the trolley and the wait at the bank.

  I try to get my bearings again, but I am disconcerted. The city stimulates all my senses at once: the smell of diesel and pollution; the honking, screaming drivers; the men who eye me with open interest. I vow to get some sunglasses as soon as I can so that I don’t feel so exposed.

  A businessman in a smart suit getting his shoes shined catches my attention. The quick back and forth movement of cloth on leather is mesmerising. I remember this little ritual from my childhood trip to Athens, the satisfying transformation from dusty surface to gleaming shine. As I walk, other memories come flooding back: the tourist shops selling leather sandals, along with miniatures of the Acropolis and komboloia, worry beads; the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the guards with their pompom shoes and stony faces. I put my map away and rejoice in getting lost, discovering unexpected squares, silent dead ends and hectic archeological sites. The chaotic Sindagma Square gives way to quiet cafés overhung by vines, secluded culs-de-sac lined with Cypress trees. I look up to see the Parthenon looming in the distance. It is so familiar, an image I have seen countless times in miniature in my Greek school books and reproduced in the trinkets brought home by relatives. But I am taken aback by how magnificent it looks. Its stately proportions are beyond anything I could imagine. I am tempted to visit today, but I have time; the Parthenon will wait.

  I wander around the flea markets of Monastiraki, passing stalls selling brass trinkets, carpets, leather jackets. There are gypsies sitting on street corners. One holds out her palm as she cradles her limp, sleeping baby in the other arm.

  ‘Parakalo, kali mou, mou deineis liges drachmes yia na fae to paidi mou.’ Please, my good one, give me a few drachma for the child so that he can eat.

  After giving to the fourth gypsy, I realise there is no end to the need and put my purse back in my bag. There are other beggars, too: a legless man with the hems of his pants folded up over his leg stumps; an elderly woman in a black headscarf, holding out her hand outside a Byzantine church on busy Ermou Street, a Mecca for shoe shoppers.

  I come across a small tavern with a dark, cool interior. It’s still too early for Greeks to lunch, but I am famished yet again. I sit down and order. My Greek seems so much slower than that of the locals, provincial now to my ears. The waiter is efficient, brusque. I’m going to need a thicker skin if I’m to cope here. When my moussaka arrives, it is too oily. And expensive. I feel ripped off. It’s time to go back to the safety of my uncle’s apartment.

  Theio is home from work for a late lunch. He wants to hear my impressions of Athens. I tell him it’s like a city on steroids; I think I like it but can only cope in small doses. I will go back again tomorrow for another onslaught. He laughs. He thinks I am a sucker for punishment. He avoids the city at all costs. He hasn’t been to see the Acropolis since he took our family there fifteen years ago.

  We all lie down for a siesta. I listen to cars honking in the distance, a mother on the balcony across the street calling her child, a baby crying. Then all is strangely quiet as most of Greater Athens’ three million citizens lie down to rest.

  Later, when my uncle returns to work, I play with the kids and try to help them with their homework. I quickly realise that my seven-year-old niece has a better grasp of Greek grammar than I have. I resign myself to reading her an English book I have brought for her. She goes to English classes after school and is keen to impress me. Her brown eyes are sharp, and I recognise the thirst for knowledge I had at her age.

  My aunty potters around making dinner, a goat, pea and artichoke stew that we’ll have with crusty bread from the neighbourhood bakery. It smells delicious, but we won’t eat until nine o’clock when my uncle gets home again. By the time we sit down to eat I am nearly delirious, dizzy with jet lag and hunger, but this is the normal dinner time. Another thing to get used to.

  The following evening, my first cousin Stathis comes by on his motorbike to take me out. The last time I saw Stathis, he was a skinny twelve-year-old running around barefoot in the village. Now he is tall and ruggedly handsome. He lives with his girlfriend and her poodle, both of whom I meet when we swing by their minimalist, modern apartment. They take me out for drinks. I find myself tongue-tied, worried that my Greek won’t make the cut. But they are kind; they want to know about my life in Australia. When we’ve exhausted that topic, they discuss current affairs, the education system, the merits of one brand of sneakers over another, in colourful, profanity-laden Greek. I listen, entranced. We drink frappe, a cold, shaken coffee, then move on to boutique beers with a wedge of lemon stuck in the neck of each bottle. Every drink comes with a small plate of nuts. Around us, young people are talking and smoking, nursing their drinks for hours on end. Stathis works with my uncle Spiro in his book and stationery business; his girlfriend is a physical education teacher. They go out most nights each week, catching up with friends over coffee and drinks.

  On the weekend, Theio’s family and I take the funicular tramway to the top of Mount Lycabettus, where there are still remnants of snow. We order overpriced desserts in a hote
l café and enjoy the spectacular view over Athens. The Parthenon is laid out in front of us like a glimmering jewel, surrounded by a sprawl of white buildings extending outwards as far as the eye can see. My uncle doesn’t let me pay for anything. All the while, there is a running commentary about Athens, family, politics – everything is passionately explored, discussed, parodied.

  The following week, Theio takes me to Marousi, a leafy outer suburb of Athens, where I will be staying with my father’s sister and her family. Here the streets are lined with Cypress trees, their pine scent a refreshing change after the inner city. We turn into a smart street lined with new two-storey houses. We pull up outside my aunt’s house, which is a squat, single-level building. A barking dog greets us from behind the high wire fence. My aunt comes to the door, buxom in her apron. She has Dad’s strong nose and dark eyes but she is fairer, plumper.

  She embraces me firmly. ‘Kalos ilthes.’ Welcome. ‘Pinas?’ Are you hungry?

  Theio Spiro smiles. ‘All you’re going to do here is eat, Spirithoula. Good luck.’ To his sister he says, ‘Yiasou, athelfi. Hello, sister. I’ll have a coffee and be off. I’ve got to get back to work.’

  She shows us to a tiny parlour. A massive petrol heater takes up one corner of the room and, as if to compensate for this ugly necessity, my aunt has set out neatly ironed doilies on the coffee table and over the arms of the couch. We make our way into the small kitchen. The table is laden with so much food, there’s barely room for plates and cutlery.

  For the next week, my aunt plies me with food. When she is not working at the nursing home at night, or cleaning houses during the day, she is cooking: trays of potatoes and meatballs, mounds of spaghetti, bean casseroles and oversized salads. Her husband and my two cousins come in at all hours from their work, open the fridge and help themselves to plates of each offering. Despite the food, they are reed thin. They say little, but my aunty talks non-stop – she wants to know every detail about our family and tells me all about hers.