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37 breaths in Plaka

I don’t remember what I am called. One can forget one’s name after having lived 37 winters on the sidewalk – of course, one can never forget this counting. It is the only argument when asked by myself or rarely by someone else

“Why are you smiling?”

“Where is your right ear and the ring finger of your left hand?

“Why don’t you commit suicide?”.

Because for 37 winters now, ladies and gentlemen, I can deal with it. I survive. And during the days that more food comes to my hands and my feet can bear me and the world looks easygoing and bright albeit unfair, these days my happiness is not a fake creature so that I don’t lose my mind – no. These days, I take my tin and my cap that perhaps doesn’t look like a cap as it has dissolved under the rain and the exhaust, and I go to Plaka.[1]

Oh, how I enjoy strolling in Plaka. “How picturesque!” I hear the young couples and the families giggling. I silently agree with them and if it happens that one of them throws a few coins in my tin, I salute him making one of the curtsies in the same way I have stealthily seen the knights bending to the princesses, on the screen of a summer cinema in Thisseion[2]. “May Acropolis[3] bless you” I tell them and I send them on their way, although many of them do not understand our language.

It is not the shadow of Parthenon and the tiled narrow streets that attract me to Plaka during the days that I feel alive. It is not even the wandering musicians with their bouzoukis[4], violins and accordions and street organs that fill the night with melody, the passers-by with smiles and my heart with hope.

All these are wonderful, but not enough.

That which I love and that gives me a feeling of completeness is the past that still dominates this neighborhood; the illusion that when I will have enough pictures and melodies, I will go to Monastiraki[5] and there will be no cars, no crimes, no black smoke – only people.

Plaka lulls the pain and the hunger that will grasp me again tonight. Plaka is the most beautiful and convincing liar. I breathe the air, and with every breath, I return one year back, to the era when all houses in Athens looked like these in Plaka; when I used to have my own home; when cement and tile and not blankets and newspapers were protecting me from the rain, and I was sleeping on a mattress and not on planks.

When it is time to return to Solonos street, I remind myself not to insist on these contrasts. Every step I take, Plaka becomes distant and I start counting again: 37 winters alive. Who knows? Perhaps, next time that I will walk on Areopagitou street[6], 37 breaths might be enough so as to escape.

I might even remember my name.

 

[1] Translator’s note: Pláka is the old historical neighborhood of Athens clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis and incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture.

[2] Translator’s note: Thisseio is the name of a neighborhood in downtown Athens, northwest of the Acropolis, 1.5 km southwest of downtown; its name derives from the Temple of Hephaestus, also known as Τhisseio, as it was, in earlier times, considered a temple of Theseus. The area has cafes and meeting points, which are most crowded during summer

[3] Translator’s note: The Acropolis of Athens  is an ancient citadel located on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and containing the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon.

[4] Translator’s note: Greek string instrument with a pear-shaped body and a long neck, played with plectrum

[5] Translator’s note: Monastiraki (literally little monastery) is a flea market neighborhood in the old town of Athens

[6] Translator’s note: Dionysiou Areopagitou Street is a pedestrian street, adjacent to the south slope of the Acropolis.

Artwork

Artwork credit: 
杨晓溪, Beijing Film Academy

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Flash Europa 28 is organised and run in cooperation with the Delegation of the European Union to China, the embassies of each of the 28 EU member states, The Bookworm, Literature Across Frontiers, and social media platforms in China.