Hector’s Position Masturbabantur phrygii post ostia servi Hectoreo quotiens sederat uxor equo Martialius To my Lou May 10 1972 At night Andromachi cries alone in the palace with the night nightingales and silence is the great battle. The spear of her mate shines during the day and in his arms the city cuddles like an ant. His eyes are left on the deserted bed and on the other side just sadness in her memory. The tree of love blooms exquisitely in absence death incises his name in the towers of Troy.
and such religious items. One comment, “Ask Professor Henry Smith about oil painting,” was interesting especially since it had received a check mark with a big “Yes!” written beside it. Smith was one of the American riverboat passengers—a faculty member whose specialty was art history. Her scorn seemed to waver for a moment, and she asked, “Did you look inside?” He nodded. She kicked the door shut behind her and glanced at the intercom speaker, noticed that it was hanging by a wire. “Then I’ll tell you.” He sat down heavily. She spoke more softly than before. “I can’t be friends with a thief…” “Yeah, yeah, but I’m sorry.” “…you can’t know how worried I was. This book is very important to my family.” She took a deep breath. “You know that I’m Jewish.” He nodded again. “You saw that there were names and addresses—those are Jews living here in the Soviet Union. They’re survivors of the prison camps, people who have already seen so much misery in their lives. My parents and my grandmother want me to visit them…” She fell silent. “That’s it? Just visits?” “Yeah, visits…and to give them encouragement, send them love and hope that they’ll some day leave for Israel.” “Send them love,’” he repeated. “So why does that have to be a big secret?” “Okay, send them money, too,” she whispered. “That’s the illegal part—I was supposed to report how much money I brought into the country and I lied. I brought lots. So please don’t say anything.” “Oh, I see,” replied Hank but he didn’t. The story was thin. Also Lona had forgotten that, one day in Moscow when he had bumped into her on the street, she had introduced him to a man whose name he had noticed in the book. He remembered because the man’s name was Krov which meant blood in English. He had been the kind of particularly ugly, bull-headed, Russian type that Hank would have avoided on a dark night. The man was a thug and no more Jewish than Santa Claus. Besides, he was too young to have been in the war. “Yes, well, I’m sorry once again I interfered. We’d better get going.” Hank was suddenly very nervous. Her story was uncharacteristic of her. There was no doubt that she had been meeting with some of these names in the book—several people had sighted her around town with …
It is the winter of 1955, and their mother has finally received news about the whereabouts of her husband from a good friend who has somehow learned that he is living in Salonica and wants them to join him. The boys are eight and ten now, old enough to get excited at the idea of travelling by ship from Souda, the harbor in Chania, all the way up to Salonika in the north of Greece, a trip that will take two whole days. Over the next few February days their mother hurries to do all the necessary preparations and one good Wednesday morning they take the bus from the village to Souda, where a ship called Kadio is waiting to take them to Salonica. They boarded and sailed northward to Piraeus, the port of Athens, where the Kadio docks in the evening and stays until midnight, loading and unloading passengers and goods, before sailing again. All day they have sat on deck as near the ship’s exhaust funnel as they can, to enjoy the heat it exudes on that cold February day. Another passenger jokingly asks Eteocles to sing a Cretan mandinada, a four-liner customary in Crete, which the boy doesn’t shy away from but gives it his best melodic rendition. Even during the long dark hours when the ship spent is docked in Piraeus, they are still warm since the engines keep on humming. Early the next morning, the Kadio reaches the harbor of Volos, where it unloads some cargo, takes on new cargo and then sails straight for Salonica, which it reaches late in the afternoon. The boys stand at the deck railing with their mom looked at the workers on the busy dock going about their various task. Then their mother’s glance falls on a man Eteocles and Nicolas barely recognize, and she calls out in joy. The man is waving at them. Their father is there waiting for them. The father they haven’t seen in almost two years is there. He hugs them tightly as soon as they disembark and step onto the strange Macedonian soil. His eyes are full of tears, …
Hellenic Canadian Literature 