Girl Gone Greek by Hall Rebecca

Author:Hall, Rebecca [Hall, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: travel, Contemporary, greek, rebecca hall, greece, girl
Published: 2015-06-12T07:00:00+00:00

Winter

At school, the topic of Konstantinos and Dimitra was on everybody’s lips. They had now fallen out again. Konstantinos had been caught with Litza, the intelligent copella I’d encountered on my first day. I kept her behind after class to ask about this development.

“Litza, you are an intelligent girl. Why are you becoming involved in a love triangle with Konstantinos and Dimitra?” Litza gazed at me with eyes that at first seemed to beg me not to take this conversation further, but then her expression turned to confusion.

“What is this triangle of love you talk about?”

“Well, in Greece you have many tragedies about love, with many people falling for one person,” I replied. “So the concept of a love triangle should be easy for you to understand. Just don’t get into something you can’t handle.” Litsa gave me an unhappy nod and trotted off, glancing behind her as she went. Konstantinos was waiting for her at the door and I just caught her whispering to him: “Kyria Rachel thinks that love can be understood through mathematics and trigonometry.” I smiled and pretended not to hear as I realised this was for my benefit—why else speak to him in English?

I missed Kaliopi at the weekends. Because of her feelings about the village she would, more often than not, escape to Athens on Friday night, returning by train early on Monday morning to go straight to work. I found these times best for exploring the village: the remains of a small castle, the enjoyable—albeit rigorous—walk to a church set into the hillside and the amphitheatre that Kaliopi assured me was no longer used for plays. “In a place like this, are you kidding? That would mean these people were actually cultured. They aren’t, as I keep telling you.” I was used to her barbs about the village by now and had learnt to let her comments float over my head.

But there was only so much exploring of the village I could do. “Come with me to Athens,” she encouraged when I admitted I missed her company.

“I wish I could, but not every weekend…it’s not possible. I have student essays to mark and lessons to plan, sorry.”

One weekend in December, however, Kaliopi decided it was time to educate me again, therefore she returned to the village on a Saturday night.

I was watching the Greek version of “Pop Idol” when I heard a rap at the window. Thinking it was Mrs Stella, I turned the TV down, the light off and pretended to be asleep… I didn’t want to deal with anything she might have to say, particularly if it was work-related. The disadvantage of living in the basement of your boss’s property was that you could never tell with Mrs Stella—she might be coming down to tell me she’d decided to stage a Shakespearean play at school and wanted me to direct it, or she might be bringing me a plate of chicken. The knocking grew louder and more insistent until I heard a familiar voice; “I know you’re in there.

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