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Elias
Papadimitrakopoulos
The
Mite (Title of the original: O
Οβολός)
Translated
by Vassilis C. Militis
My
mother cleared the table from the empty plates.
Have
you enjoyed the meal? She asked.
You
buy the best things, I replied.
I
call up Kostas from across the street, and when he has a yearling,
he delivers me neck and shank.
As
I was taking my leave at the front door, she fumbled in her dressing
gown pocket – just as she used to do of old when she saved some
money and gave it to us for spending.
There
were three mass transport tickets. I realized the meaning of her
offer: my mother drove it home to me that she could not get on a bus
any longer.
Indeed
that spring she fell ill and she suddenly died at dawn.
We
had all traveled down to Pyrgos, where there was our family grave. We
were walking after the preceding bier.
Until
the hour of the burial service, I took to roaming about the
graveyard. On the fringe of the olive groves, by the railway tracks,
I was surprised to see red anemones, which I could not remember that
they had ever existed when in our childhood we used to live on the
nearby farm.
I
even went as far as the far. Nothing remained of it, naturally. We
had sold it during the Nazi occupation and it had now ended up into a
gypsy settlement, already out of the city plan. A bulldozer was
opening still another road.
I
proceeded to the place where our homestead had been. It was midday
and there was a strange stillness, perhaps because everybody was
taking their siestas or simply they were not in. I found my old house
so altered with additions of cinder blocks and aluminum doors that I
could hardly recognize it. No trace of the trees and the garden
remained.
Suddenly
I saw a tangerine tree! In all this chaos, it had managed to survive.
Old, almost centenarian, its bark worm eaten, its boughs leafless, it
still preserved several fruit, some tiny tangerines, same as those it
bore when I used to clamber on it in spring to pick its fruit.
In
the heat of summer it suffered much. I had done my utmost to keep it
alive. The water was scarce but I had been able to carry a couple of
buckets to water it and quench its thirst.
Stirred
with emotion I approached it being almost remorseful for the years of
its aridity wondering how it survived after so many summers
unattended. I had not seen it for half a century and during this time
not once did I think of it.
I
ate a couple of tangerines, put some in my pocket, caressed it and
took my leave. I hurried to the cemetery, where the church bell was
tolling mournfully.
During
the service I was watching my mother’s face and thinking of all
those things of old. I had drifted in thought, and it was my wife who
prompted me:
I
approached. I left her a small bunch of red anemones, slipped in her
hands the three bus tickets and petting her cold cheek, I whispered
in her ear:
Courtesy:
"Ο
Οβολός και άλλα διηγήματα",
NEFELI,
Athens
2004.
Elias
Ch. Papadimitrakopoulos
was born in Pyrgos of Peloponnesus in 1930. He is an essay and short
story writer. After his father’s death in 1943 he experienced hard
times and he had to study Medicine at the Military Section of the
Thessaloniki University, as it was free. After he graduated in 1955,
he served as a military doctor in Kavala. He has also been engaged in
literature writing under a penname in different journals and
magazines. For many years he served as a managing editor of the
magazine Armed
Forces Medical Review.
He was retired in 1983 with a high rank. His work belongs to the
after-war Greek literature and is characterized by a subtle irony and
tender nostalgia of his difficult years of his youth as well as by an
austere style. He received a wide recognition when he was awarded as
an excellent short story writer by the magazine I
read.
Many
of his short stories have been translated in French.
See
also Wikipedia.
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