Omonia Square
Excerpt from Coming out Even
What is a place, but a memory?
Do you remember how the spray from the fountain at Omonia Square felt on our faces? How the tall drops of water from above would waft in the wind seeking our faces, as we stood, my hand clutching yours, on the busy go around in the center of Athens, staring at the plume of water gushing, shooting up, as cars whizzed around it? Dad and Mom, Americans in 1960 in a sea of Greeks, were busy readying the restaurant at the end of the chaotic block filled with cascades of unfamiliar looking people. They let the two us, six and eight years old, travel to the end of the block, dodging people whose language we didn’t understand at the time, as long as they could see us when they poked their head out of the store. The smell of the coffee shops overpowered the gasoline from the cars and filled the enormous boulevard with the aroma of unfamiliar Turkish coffee, a smell I yearn for even now. Waiters crossed the street with round brass trays bursting with exquisite pastries and steaming brass pots of coffee, delivering mid-morning delicacies to stores in the neighborhood. The flower shop next to our restaurant filled the sidewalk with the sweet odor of blooms we had never smelled before. The kiosk catty-corner to our store burst with newspapers from all over the world, and delightful candies, gum and chocolates we would slowly discover.
Remember how we stood and stared through the large glass window of the less fancy cafe at the end of the block? We were mesmerized by the older men playing backgammon, and we listened for the click of the dice, the cluck of the tongue because of a bad move, the mumbled curses over a lost stone. How shocked we were by the dark-haired, unkempt gypsy women, begging from store to store in low wheedling voices, with their poorly dressed, sickly children swaddled in their arms, cruelly shooed away by the shopkeepers.
Do you remember, at another smaller round-about at the end of the block, the tall, proud policeman dressed in his crisp uniform with shiny epaulettes and white gloves, directing traffic, or attempting to control by hand signals and a high-pitched whistle the screeching, braking cars on the insanely busy street where we didn’t dare set our toes? Drivers would often stop traffic to settle the score over a gesture misinterpreted, a missed turn — an opportunity for a crowd to gather and exercise their democratic rights by loudly voicing their opinions, bringing the intersection to a standstill. How we wandered those two blocks, staring wide eyed at all the newness, then laughing as we ran hand in hand back to the store, proud of our freedom. Do you remember?
Mom and Dad would shepherd us in for lunch, their faces flushed with excitement over the restaurant they were creating. The street quieted for the three-hour lunch and siesta break. Dad would close the door to the restaurant, its windows painted white so people couldn’t see the prize they were building, and we’d sit, with the help they’d hired who would later become like family, and we’d all eat on makeshift tables, amidst the construction and stucco and wires sticking out of the walls. We sopped up the rich Greek food: lamb chops, fresh salad, fried zucchini and eggplant, plentiful bread and olive oil. How it smelled in there, dusty and new and exciting, scary and vibrant, yet comforting because we were all there together. Mom would insist that one of the maids, a teenager who had escaped her village during the great flight from the country in the 60’s, bring Peter, just a baby, to the store for lunch. Dad complained that it was dangerous with all the loose wires and current and no care for regulations to keep everyone safe, but Mom waved his fears away. She would press her face against Peter’s soft skin, kiss him and then reluctantly send him back home for a nap.
But you and I were allowed to stay, and as they continued to work, Dad would also spend time with us trying to explain the Greek alphabet, which you got quickly but I struggled with. Sometimes he would throw us a few drachmae to buy comic books from the silent but kindly man with the glasses and big nose who was perched in his kiosk amidst a sea of print, lottery tickets, worry beads, notebooks and other items which kept us entertained. You liked Superman and the adventure ones, I liked Archie and Betty and Veronica, and we read the comics head to head while the construction roared on around us.
Eventually the restaurant took shape, but it was forbidden to open without the blessing, the Eugenia. We all got dressed up for the special day, and Mom and Dad called the newspapers and all the employees and our relatives, who brought in the Greek priest dressed in an imposing black gown, his tiny bun gathered behind the official pill-box hat. Then there was much confusion, as the priest intoned and sang, waving the lighted incense in the brass container with the long chain that reached out around him in an arc, whipping the incense in whorls so the smoke filled the store, while his assistant pulled out a live squawking chicken from underneath his robe and bludgeoned it with a small sledge hammer. Its neck crooked and limp, the chicken screeched, until the assistant beheaded it with a sharp knife, the blood spraying everywhere. We retreated in horror, the sounds of the chicken drowned out as the priest sang louder, the Greeks praying and crossing themselves furiously. Dad, with a twinkle in his eye, was delighted, saying that this that would bring us Greek luck. You turned away, crying, and ran into the tiny kitchen, full of dead chickens on spits ready to be carried to the roaster. I followed you, and we hugged each other and stayed there until the scent of the incense died down and the incantations stopped and the popping of the flash bulbs from the cameras were silent, and the people had filed out.
You couldn’t remember, or know how I felt when you were a teenager, and would leave the house to go to a party with your friends in Athens, the Beatles Help album tucked underneath your arm. I felt like such a child when you left, and I knew that the few years that separated us at the time meant more to you than to me. You preserved that distance fiercely, as you sat in cafes with your group of boys and girls, ignoring me if I happened walk by. But when we were home, you let me come into your room and listen to your records.
One night in those last months in Athens, after I had fallen asleep in my bedroom near the kitchen, I heard you and Mom talking and laughing. She must have been waiting up for you to come home from a friend’s house. The ice box door opened and slammed, and I could tell from the clanking of dishes and pans that she was cooking something for you, maybe an egg fried in olive oil. Once or twice I heard Dad come into the kitchen too, but he never joined the two of you; he growled that it was late, and I had to strain my ears to hear Mom whispering that it was fine, you were just a boy, out with his friends. I put my pillow over my head to drown out Dad’s heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway to their bedroom.
Do you remember our last Easter in Greece, when we went with several families to a taverna in the countryside? Easter was the holiest of days that marked the end of fasting and cool weather and the start of unending, clear blue skies that seemed to smile upon all of us. It was a grand event, a feast in the countryside, lamb on the spit we all helped turn, the lamb recognizable with a head and eyes, and legs. No part of the lamb went wasted: the organs were liberally spiced, speared on a spit, and wrapped in the lamb’s intestines — kokoretsi. I can feel on my mouth today the crisp coating of the intestines and the soft, seasoned insides. It was a glorious day, and after we stuffed ourselves with plates of moussaka, pastitisto, kokoretsi and lamb, the men started kicking a soccer ball around, and a few of us went for a walk. The fields nearby were a sea of vibrant red poppies dotted with specks of black. Do you remember how we ran through the fields, the poppies tickling our legs, until we crashed to the ground, laughing in the open fields that stretched forever? How dazzling the sky meeting the red and black looked? Do you remember?
How about the day we left Greece, remember how quiet we all were? The plane to JFK was almost empty, and you moved a few rows up from the rest of us. You looked out the window for most of the flight, while Andy and Peter slept, I read and Mom and Dad spoke in earnest whispers in the row behind us. Do you remember what you were thinking then, about how our lives would change, what we would each become, how we would handle moving thousands of miles away from what we knew? Did you have a sense, then, that the plane barreling through the air would break our barriers, undo us, dash what we were — or thought we were — as a family?
The images keep shifting as I move these memories around, trying to make sense of them. They overlap, reflect one on the other and change shape, before I can discern what they really mean.
What about the spring day, in our little house in New Jersey, the day after we had a big party and got in trouble, and no one else was home, and we got high and decided to clean up the house, probably out of guilt for having the party. We cranked the radio and opened the windows and smoked pot. We cleaned one room, then stopped to have a cup of tea and a cigarette, talking and giggling. Then we tackled another room. Do you remember how we laughed together over anything? When an early release of “Ruby Tuesday” came on WNEW, we turned the song louder and listened. We were quiet after that, and moved into the last room, mine, without talking.
As you were dusting my bureau, you came across, behind all the make-up containers and cheap perfume bottles, a family picture. You stopped and plucked it off the bureau, pushing your hair out of your eyes. I watched your long thin fingers cradling the picture, your intent expression as you stared at it. I stopped making my bed, came up behind you and we looked at the picture together. It was of the six of us, the last picture we had as together as a family. You and I were somewhere around nine and ten, which would make Peter and Andy three and four. We were seated on a bench in the park that had been near our house in Athens. Mom and Dad leaned comfortably into each other. Mom was staring past the camera with a dreamy, contented expression. Dad’s head slanted sideways, towards her; he was smiling too, a proud look on his face. Andy was on Dad’s lap, looking up at him, his hand on Dad’s cheek. Dad’s hand covered Andy’s shoulder in an easy, affectionate way. Peter was sitting on Mom’s lap; he had probably been fidgeting, because his legs were in midair, and Mom had both hands around his waist. You and I, like bookends, were on either side. I was staring directly at the camera. Your gaze was directed upwards, distracted perhaps by a butterfly, or the sound of a bird swooping by, or the scent from the powdery pink blossoms of the mimosa trees that abounded in that park. We stared at the picture without saying anything. Then you took the rag you were using as a duster, and slowly wiped the picture frame, the glass, and the back of the picture before putting it carefully on the bureau. You kept staring at the picture. “Well.” You frowned. “That was that, wasn’t it?” you said, your voice low and gravelly as you turned to leave the room. I kept cleaning, but I heard the front door close gently, even over the loud music from the stereo. Do you remember that day as well as I do?
I remember the day we were at the beach at the Jersey shore, the summer we returned from Greece. How you loved the ocean. Any water, really, the spray of the spume thrown at you by the wind, the grit of the sand on your feet, the hot sun warming you all over, the sharp edge of a shell on your knee as you come close to the shore riding a wave, the thrill of standing at the point of the shore where the waves could either knock you down or allow you to ride them, diving with your whole heart, reappearing in the most unexpected places, then swimming out deeper and deeper. You were looking for the perfect spot we talked about so much, you and I, the spot you said mermaids beckoned from and blessed. I remember watching you from the beach, while you lolled in that zone, immersed in the water, floating, diving, staring out to sea, occasionally recognizing me on the shore and waving wildly at me.
And there was the day you didn’t come with the family to the neighbor’s rented bungalow at the beach. Two night before, I’d dreamt that you’d taken too many drugs, that you were not well, that you were in grave danger, and in my dream, I called out, warning you, telling you to beware, begging you to be careful. But when I woke up that morning, I did nothing. I went to a lake in Bear Mountain with my boyfriend, and left the next day to go to the shore with Dad to meet Mom and the boys, thinking you’d join us later, my dream forgotten and no thoughts of you on my mind. The two families, all but you, sat lazily on the beach the entire day, moving in a haze from the heat and the sun.
Until we got that call from the police department, saying that you’d been taken to the emergency room after taking some drugs at a party. That you hadn’t made it. It had been an accident, they were sure of that. No matter how many times Mom yelled out Dad, who was holding the phone, to ask if they were positive, absolutely positive that you weren’t alive, they said yes, they were positive.
You were no more. It is only in my memory, not yours, the sound of Mom screaming and the look of Dad’s grim face, while our neighbors tried to console them. I was directed to hush Peter and Andy and rush them out of the tiny beach house, take them down the street, to the ocean, the howling and sobbing in my ears, in my heart, coursing through my veins.
I ran to the shore, where the early evening sun shed long shadows on the sand, the surf deafening in its loneliness. At the water’s edge, I dropped to my knees. The waves washed over my thighs, numbing them. Tears streamed down my face, mixed with the salt from the spray of the water. I scooped up water with my hands, splashed my face, coughing with sobs. I doubled over, pounding the water again and again with my fists, as the water engulfed me.
Then there was the service at the Catholic church we’d stopped attending, when David got up and spoke about a boy going fishing, the boy with his hair swept backwards by the wind, casting his net into the depths of ocean from the shore, staring at the surf, waiting until there was a tug on the line. He pulled and reeled until he got his catch. When David said, that boy goes no more, the church collectively drew its breath and all was silent as we left the church. Outside, on the curb, Mom and Dad stood next to each other, broken like figurines with gaping, empty holes and jagged, painful edges. Broken.
Nor would you remember the afternoon I found Mom on her knees in her bedroom, hunched over the bed, her hands in her face. She was praying, she said, just like she had gotten on her knees and wept and prayed when you told her you were going to Vietnam. She would keep praying, she said, though she didn’t know why anymore. And I knelt down beside her and we prayed together until it got dark.
Or the evening, when from my window, I saw Mom and Dad sitting on the lawn chairs on the tawdry cement slab in the backyard. Dad was crying, his face wrinkled up like a child’s. Mom looked at him for a long time without saying anything. Then she got up and walked inside. I saw her head shake lightly, no, as she closed the screen door gently.
When I went back to the beach a year later, after I getting my license, it was late fall, and no one was there. I parked the car and walked to the shore against the strong wind blowing sand in my eyes. I took off my shoes and socks, and even though the water was cold, I waded in and looked across the water. I thought of the crazy party in the Hamptons we had gone to as a family, when you and I had hooted and hollered, playing together in a wild game with the waves. Now I stared out into the gray water, where small white-caps crested peacefully. My eyes wandered to the spot we always tried to swim to, that spot which we never stopped searching for, the spot beyond the breakers, before the wild deep of the ocean, where the waves have no power, but carry you in a giant caress, where you can rest and float, free of all weight. There, you can daydream under the endless blue sky, without keeping your eyes trained on the next crashing wave.
I strained my eyes, looking for that place, sure I’d see you bobbing and weaving peacefully, in the safe spot.
Do you remember, how the spray from the fountain in Omonia square felt on our faces as it blew from the gentle Athens breezes — do you?
