Читать книгу Greek Girl's Secrets - Efrossini AKA Fran Kisser - Страница 5

When he was seventeen he noticed a young lady running down a hill in the sun shine with her long shiny chestnut brown hair, with reddish highlights. He was struck by cupid and he fell in love with Malama, my mother. That is how he described it to me. From that day on, they were inseparable. She was only 15 years old. She took him to her family and there at last, he found a real home.

In a few months they got married and he became the man of the house. Malama’s father had died many years ago in the earthquake back in Constantinople. His mother-in-law Zafiro loved him as much as Malama. Everyone knew or heard of him since he was six years old. They knew him as the Germanaki, the little orphan boy, the good looking blonde, blue eyed little German boy. He was a local legend.

At this Serres house, they all rolled up their sleeves and enlarged Malama’s mother’s house. There, Achillea and Malama had Carollina their first baby girl who only lived just a few months and then, she died. They described her as one beautiful blonde, blue eyed, baby doll. They had named her after Achillea’s Austrian mother.

Two years later Nikolaos was born. They called him Niko. He had dark wavy hair with one green eye and one blue. He was named after the maternal grandfather who died in the earthquake.

Every two years Malama would have a baby. Next, was Sultana (Soula), another blonde, brown eyed this time, baby girl. She looked like a doll, also.

When Soula was just 2 years old and Malama was pregnant with Carolos, the grandmother Zafiro received an invitation to go to America for a visit. She was an upper middle-class lady in Constantinople. After all, her husband owned a fleet of merchant ships that sailed from Greece to the Black Sea delivering the foods that Greece produced. Zafiro yiayia had traveled on those ships. She loved sea voyages. She accepted the invitation and she courageously went on the ship for the long voyage to New York. My mother did not remember the name of that ship but she knew it was in the 1930’s. Back then it took weeks for the ship to reach America.

In New York, yiayia Zafiro stayed with her oldest daughter Efrossini and visited her oldest child Manolis (Emanuel) and the other daughter Fotini. Both of her daughters outfitted her with the latest fashions in hats, clothes, shoes and purses. They entertained her, and they visited all the sites, including the world-famous Radio City Music Hall, in New York City. She had enjoyed herself immensely.

After a while Zafiro kept on saying she missed Malama, her grandchildren and son n law Achillea. Her stay was three months long in America. She became homesick and could not wait to get back on the ship for another long voyage. She just had to come back to her beloved younger children and family. Here she was needed.

Her three children that had immigrated to America were doing well with their businesses, and that made yiayia very happy.

On the long trip back to Greece, yiayia told Malama later, there was very bad weather on the ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The waves were tall enough to swallow the big ship. The ship staff would hang dark velvet cloths on the passengers’ cabin windows and at the open public areas, so the passengers could not see the violent waves.

My yiayia was a curious woman. She lifted the cloth and saw the violence. When she arrived at Serres and to her home again, she was not well. It seemed her heart was affected by her curiosity and in just a few days she was moaning in her bed at night. My mother said, it took almost the entire night for her to die. There was nothing to do for her.

The doctor had said her heart was in shock and very weak. Yiayia was not even 50 years old, when she died. The Atlantic Ocean did take her life. She had raised seven children during three wars, as a widow by herself after the earthquake, in another country, Greece. When they came to Greece, as Greek refugees from Turkey, they were involved in an exchange. As refugees they received no handouts, no welfare or food stamps. These things did not exist.

She was able to build a crude little house with her jewelry (mementos from her dear departed captain husband) and even sent off her three older teen age children to America to seek their fortunes again with the remainder of her golden jewelry and years later she even traveled to the new world called, America.

Zafiro had become a strong woman, such a courageous woman, a fearless woman. They were all, so amazed her heart had such a shock!

Before yiayia died, my mother said Soula the two year old baby girl went to her yiayia and asked her like a big person these words: Ti kanis eki yiayia? (What are you doing there yiayia?)

That was the first time Soula put a whole sentence together. It was amazing! So, the oldest children did have a yiayia. I was not so lucky. I was named after yiayia’s mother, Efrossini. My mother had seven children Niko, Carolos, Soula, Roula, Demetrios (Taki), Stelios, and Panayiotis while they lived at the Serres house.

At the beginning of World War II while the Germans and Bulgarians were occupying Greece and the troops were outside their doors they had an early curfew. They would close their heavy drapes my mother had made, and my father would read books with a kerosene lamp. My mother would constantly remind my father about his reading, that it would get them in trouble. He claimed he was always very careful.

My father was drafted later, even though the family had six children. The oldest one, Niko had gone to Athens to find work. He did well and sent money to my mother on a weekly basis, which helped a little, through the war. He was only fourteen years old.

My father ended up being a Jeep driver in the war. He was gone for a long time my mother had told me. He did not tell us many war stories or the way he called them horror stories, only that he had suffered with his feet in the winter months. He never wanted to upset his family unnecessarily.

While he was in the army, my father learned Bulgarian. This was his fourth language on his resume. My mother had taught him Turkish.

When finally, the war ended, my father came home, and soon Panayiotis was born. My father sold the Serres yiayia’s house and he moved his family to Thessaloniki where four years later in 1948, I was born. Four years after that my sister Anna was born.

The oldest and first son Niko, who had gone to Athens to work, had gotten married and his wife had a baby boy. So, in 1948 my mother had me. My nephew was 8 months older than me, and he was named Achillea. People then, named their children for their parents and grandparents to honor them out of respect, and to keep the family’s names going.