Free by Free (retail) (epub)
Author:Free (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
12
A LETTER FROM ATHENS
SOMETIME IN JANUARY 1991, before the first free and fair election, my grandmother received a letter from Athens signed by someone she had never heard of, a woman called Katerina Stamatis. Before we opened it, we brought the envelope to show our neighbours. A small crowd gathered in the Papasesâ house. Donika, who had worked in the post office all her life, was handed the letter. She stood in the middle of her living room, surrounded by curious faces, their gazes fixed on the thin, creamy paper, where Greek characters written in ink lined up like hieroglyphs of the future.
I knew that Donika could not read Greek. Only a few weeks before, she had asked my grandmother to translate the list of ingredients on the back of a bottle containing a yellow liquid. It had been brought to her as a present by a cousin who had recently travelled to Athens. She had washed her hair with what she assumed was foreign lemon shampoo, then felt an unusual tingle which made her head itchy. My grandmotherâs translation revealed the cause to be an exotic, previously unknown substance called dishwasher liquid.
Donika studied the envelope quietly for several minutes, inspecting the front and back. Her solemn pose cast an expectant silence over the room. Only the sound of wood crackling and burning in the stove could be heard. She put the envelope under her nose and sniffed it in various places, each sniff followed by a deep breath out. She shook her head, then clicked her tongue with disapproval. Then she inserted her index finger under the flap, holding the outside part under her thumb. She dragged both fingers along the edges of the envelope, with a slow, sullen movement and a frown of concentration, as if the act of sliding caused her a pain she was obliged to contain. Once the inspection had been concluded, she looked up with an expression of dismay that, as she began to speak, slowly converted to anger.
âItâs been opened,â she announced, looking towards the door. âTheyâve opened it.â
The silence in the room transformed into a collective murmur.
âBastards,â my mother finally came out with.
âThey havenât just opened it once. Several times,â explained Donika.
âYes, obviously,â her husband, Mihal, retorted. âItâs not like theyâve hired new people to work in the post office. They just do what theyâre used to doing.â
Some neighbours nodded. Others disagreed.
âPost office workers should be instructed to stop opening letters,â Donika replied.
âPrivacy,â my mother said. âPrivacy is so important. We never had any privacy before.â Then she suggested that nothing would happen before the post office was privatized. Only privatization could respect privacy.
Everyone agreed that privacy was important. âNot just importantâitâs your right. Itâs a right,â Donika explained, her voice charged with all the wisdom and authority she had accumulated during the many years spent opening envelopes.
After that, my grandmother was invited to read the letter out loud, translating it word for word. The sender, Katerina Stamatis, claimed to be the daughter of Nikos, a business associate of my great-grandfatherâs.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Kathy Andrews Collection by Kathy Andrews(11323)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8393)
Paper Towns by Green John(4796)
Spare by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex(4786)
Industrial Automation from Scratch: A hands-on guide to using sensors, actuators, PLCs, HMIs, and SCADA to automate industrial processes by Olushola Akande(4598)
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson(4582)
Be in a Treehouse by Pete Nelson(3647)
Machine Learning at Scale with H2O by Gregory Keys | David Whiting(3618)
Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire by J.K. Rowling(3608)
Never by Ken Follett(3523)
Goodbye Paradise(3446)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro(3135)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer(3129)
The Cellar by Natasha Preston(3077)
The Genius of Japanese Carpentry by Azby Brown(3037)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King(2945)
Drawing Shortcuts: Developing Quick Drawing Skills Using Today's Technology by Leggitt Jim(2938)
120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade(2936)
The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman(2807)
