A CONFESSION

A CONFESSION

That day Dobrin Suvogorski wandered aimlessly around town and then decided to go back to his relatives in Lerin.

Seeming like his mind was at ease from his concerns, he stood on platform number one, holding his diploma as a Greek teacher which he received a year ago from the academy in Solun, while being flogged by the dry sea wind. He climbed aboard the train car, which was divided into two classes, and sat by the window in the direction of travel. Suvogorski traveled from town to town all throughout Greece looking for work. Now he was returning to his father’s homeland and everything felt better, including the wind that was blowing hard on him. The space up here was wider and more beautiful but also trampled by everyone. At the same time it seemed like he was looking at it with alien eyes. It looked strange and gloomy, and everyone seemed like they were carrying the souls of others. Most of the passengers in second class were squeezed next to one another and the situation made some to go to first class. A 33 to 35 year-old man wearing a khaki coat with medals and other badges pinned on it arrived on the opposite side of Dobrin and was about to sit down. “Not even the King can make me move from here…” said the man through his teeth, voicing his determination.

The man clumsily dropped his tired body on the car seat, which made his medals flutter and reflect light all throughout the car, receiving funny looks from the other passengers. At the same time a villager with a penetrating look in his eyes arrived and sat opposite to him. He said:

“Hey, you! Are you still wearing those good-for-nothing royal medals when there is no king or government left in power in this country? You can piss on them now...”

Dobrin smiled with a hidden smile. There was an outburst of laughter in the crowd.

“It is well-known, people! The sheep wear bells and men wear medals, but now my friend, people wear five-pointed red stars or swastikas but you, you decorate yourself with medals from a

frightened king. There he is hiding in Cairo and the people here...? Listen to me friend! If you get on the nerves of some Prussian he will rip them out like ripe plums…” said the villager.

“I earned them, I fought against the Germans when this country had a king and an army!” angrily replied Manolis Ladas while adjusting the medals pinned on the left side of his chest.

“My good man, it is now 1941 and have you heard what the Reds are saying? They are saying that we now have to fight against the Germans, but our victory will turn us into communists. Then you will have to toss your medals, along with your coat and you will become a different person, the same as the rest of us… we will all be the same...” said the villager, advising the man.

There was strange, loud laughter. “Is that you?!” chuckled Vangelitsa, from the public house “Eros”, who was traveling to the neighbouring city and, as manager of the house, was looking to recruit new young ladies for her establishment because she and everyone like her was feeling exhausted from the arriving Fritz (German).

“I saw this honey yesterday, decked out like this in front of ‘Eros’, skulking around with no money to pay...” said Vangelitsa out loud while giggling.

“When the Fritz’s were not here you knew me very well, but now what can I tell you Miss Vangelitsa. You should know one thing: your glory today is actually the death of your happiness...” said the man with the medals.

The train had left Solun station a long time ago, perhaps a few hours ago. Suvogorski, sitting by the window, kept looking outside. He recognized a few places. The stations he passed through were very busy, filled with beggars, hungry children hopping from car to car… Greater Greece was falling apart… the same was asserted by the man with the medals. While looking at Sugororski’s peaceful face, he kindly said:

“You are a gentle and intelligent man. I am Manolis Ladas, captain of the royal army and the son of a colonist in this region.

You… you look like a native (endopios) of this region… you understand, I bear the pain. You see I still wear this outfit, which makes me ugly, but I wear it so that they can swear at those who made me wear it and sent me on this path to my destiny... Because when I think of the past, I feel as though my happiness returns. My father appears to me in a dream unshaven, tired and weak, with bleary eyes and his cheeks and forehead are always wrinkled. But his smile makes him humane and gentle, as if he is the only person in the world with a big heart. His back is bent and he constantly coughs. He wanders around… his is happy when he is moving. I sometimes see him in my dreams clumsily wandering around wrapped up in his big old coat, looking happy watching us, his children playing in the cobblestone yard and growing half hungry. He was a good and honest man willing to do good work… Now, and now that he is unruly and a refined egotist who only loves his own enjoyment, he is darkening my thoughts.”

“I am sorry, sir… I am so ashamed! Only the devil knows what is happening to our people… what makes us hate one another… especially when we are told ‘different blood runs in us’… My father found his good in someone else’s evil… He did not understand that one cannot protect himself by insulting others...” replied Dobrin.

The man with the medals angrily spat on the floor. Dobrin noticed that his tongue was dark red… probably from the wine. Dobrin thought the man was going to stop talking. A strong gust of wind blew and shook the partly opened window. Air rushed in and blew the man’s hair. Manolis nodded his head and continued:

“A few individuals, including my father, had a desire to seek their fortune in this end of the country, on this soil here, which we Greeks have acquired, only by a ‘foggy concept’ derived from many myths about Alexander the Great and about you Slavs. They told us that you are barbarians and bad people. This world is strange... Politics! Politics! Sir! But only the weak love themselves… the strong carry all nations in their hearts…The people in this land are gentle people. My father should have thought of that… of his humanity… But

instead he became wild… but from what? What made him do that…? Sir…? What…? My father once said to me: ‘If I die, you continue my work. Here is your life… here is your power...’ Do you see the legacy he wanted to leave me? I, Manolis Ladas, am a teacher by profession. My story is a family secret. My father carried it and lived it. I was going to inherit it. That curse was also supported by law. People could be given happiness and it was easily taken away. But you know, sir, one day his luck ran out… it could no longer carry him on its shoulders… It dropped him on the spot… like it did you and now me… sir…” said the man with the medals as his head slumped forward.

Dobrin looked at Manolis who was now sunk in deep thought. He watched him as Manolis slowly began to unwind his accumulated sadness, looking for an exit… to talk about everything that was life...

“My father, old man Ladas, initially thought that he would stay only a few years and when he had amassed a sufficient amount of wealth, perhaps, he would forget about returning to his native Epirus. He had no nostalgia for his home to attract him to return. This was after the Turks left and after 1913 when Macedonia was divided and given to several masters. That’s when the Greek government summoned old Ladas and made him an official. He gladly accepted the appointment. He wanted to feel the taste of wealth and to forget the winter time which tormented his life; of constantly having to sleep in a hut dug at the foot of Murgana. He was weak. His wife Melpomena lay with him under a blanket. She did everything during the long winters so that they could eat less. The government gave him this position because he believed he was entitled to it. He believed he would live a good and carefree life.

The man who brought him to the village and introduced him to the villagers had no hair on his face. He had a yellowish dark complexion and deep wrinkles. His eyes were small, dark, sunken and full of hatred. He was the representative of the new Greek government here. My father, Ladas, was his representative because this man thought he could make him an obedient clerk, who would lead the birth registry and other things that the government required.

The first mistake that Ladas made, after finishing his mini course in diplomatic training, was during an intimate lunch when he wanted to express his view of things, namely, that the people here were good-natured and not believed to have bad intentions. He stood up because he felt that he would be more authoritative if he stood up and was ready to say something…

When he opened his mouth, the man from the government looked at him with curled eyebrows and Ladas swallowed hard and sat down. The man had Ladas trained like a puppy dog.

In Epirus, our birthplace, my father was depressed and desperate. He used to say ‘we live here waiting to die...’

But somewhere along the way he changed. Now, he could punish and forgive people in the name of his position. It is easier for him to express his thoughts now.

After that lunch the man from the government took him aside and said: ‘Mr. Ladas you must always remember that a different kind of blood flows in the veins of these people… one more thing… It is a terrible thing to be self-confident. It is the same as making your life bitter with some trinkets. You must bash the snake on the head… leave the body alone… let it squirm. You Ladas, as a politician, you must have a thick skin and a fat belly...’

Ladas, with his head bowed down, stood in front of the man, looked at him in the eyes and hung onto every word he said.

Ladas quickly realized that what was required from a government representative was to be able to hate and to act with instinctive diplomacy... But deep down, Ladas was sure that to rule one had to rely on knowledge, power and will. A man needed to have these things.

And because of this he fell into despair and his empty head began to collect plenty of thoughts. He began to sink in his own thoughts, seeming that he could not come to peace with himself. He existed for days away from himself and mumbled: ‘Ladas, you are not alone; everyone in the government is like that… This is how your

life is now; you can only taste wealth if you are crude and rude to them. Don’t forget that glory and peace can’t exist together. Yes, yes. To live is to run through droplets of sweat… This is eternal wisdom. Everything else is a farce, fraud! A trap!’ He would stop talking and start running… ‘oh, God forbid, someone might be listening to me’ he would think. He also had this imbedded fear that someone might be reading his thoughts... He thought he needed to be alone… far away... But then, suddenly he thought of himself a cunning, wise and clever man, ready to rule... He thought that this was the shortest path to prosperity. He was nothing yesterday, as the gentleman from the government had told him, and now the entire government is hiding behind him!?

They gave old Ladas a uniform and he became like a general who saw things with alien eyes. He eventually lost the calluses on his hands and became fat, with his belly hanging down, looking like the belly of a pregnant mare.

He was missing a couple of front teeth, he had no other faults but when he spoke he stammered especially when he read his condemnations of Slavism. Trying to paraphrase, he would lose his order of words and would feel humiliated. He then would angrily hit his papers with his fist and say: ‘This is what it says, just like I read it! And like it says in this letter!’...” concluded Manolis and stopped talking.

Manolis was a little boy when he first arrived and met the children with whom he was going to share a school bench. They were cheerful and kind. They liked him. He grew up with them. He learned their language and many of their customs. He also spoke their language, the same language which his father hated, forbade and punished people for speaking. For years he shared his pencil and eraser with a girl named Bisera Rumenova who sat with him at the same desk. The older he became the more he established what was going to be free, spiritual, true, strong and eternal traits. Perhaps since then his love became strong for such things. Bisera grew up to be a solid and beautiful girl. Manolis… he was already aware of many things. His father, with so much influence, could have done anything for him. But all old Ladas did was send his son, at public expense, to study to become a teacher. Good for him, he succeeded

in doing what no native had the right to do. The natives had no “kinonika fronimata” (social beliefs) or they needed to be Greekophile to the bone to achieve even that.

So one day Manolis, with a sad heart, was separated from the children whom he loved. Bisera was there when he was leaving. He wanted to say something but he held back and just blushed. He was not happy in Athens. He was preparing for exams and lived on a special government allowance. Now many times he came into conflict with his father. The old Ladas made all sorts of accusations against people who were not guilty…

Manolis looked at Dobrin and said: “You are a lucky man and that’s why, sir, you can’t understand the pain of others. What kind of villain do your think my father was to these people, who he served, you are naïve and good-natured people, you don’t know and you will never know our family secret, and what do you think, that my father invented this discrimination?

He was not capable, sir, his mind could not grasp all the work he was expected to do, but he did manage to separate me from Bisera… to prohibit our love. Perhaps it was because of Bisera that he sent me so far away. But I wrote to her...”

Manolis remembered last spring, when his and Bisera’s loved flourished wide at the same time the lilac trees were flowering. After completing his first and second year, they would not allow him to return home. But Bisera waited for him. When they finally met Manolis was overwhelmed by her beauty. He was elated with a feeling that he finally would have his beautiful and gentle woman. He thought there was no need for him to explain anything to her. But then she said:

“Manolis, your people don’t want me!”

Manolis was crushed. He embraced her with a sense of guilt and wanted to say: “I love you. I want you and I deserve you. You are the woman whom I love… and no other...”

His heart was filled with joy but he could not get the words out of his constricted throat. He became obsessed with a sense of uncertainty and tears began to flow freely.

Bisera’s heart was delighted, her love floated like a flame. With her blonde hair, teary eyes and embroidered shirt, she looked like a wounded bird. When Bisera went silent Manolis began to whisper his love for her. He never talked much, perhaps because he did not know that he doubted their love. He wanted to swear but then he said things which brought tears to his eyes and made his heart beat joyfully. He noticed Bisera, with her fragile body, come closer to him, open her mouth slightly, smile and raise her eyebrows. Slowly, still timid, but with boundless trust...

Manolis began to talk again. He said: “And so I left and she was left there alone with nothing... I simply said: ‘Let it be born… there will be joy for it too…’

Then I returned to Athens to graduate. Meanwhile my father talked to the authorities and made sure I was immediately drafted into the army. He assumed that love had its own time...”

Manolis looked at Dobrin… they were both sunk in their own thoughts. Dobrin was thinking of his own childhood, of the time when his mother and father had visited him in Solun, carrying colourful bags filled with things, wide-eyed and joyful dressed in the most beautifully embroidered Macedonian folk dresses. They waited for him outside the entrance. He was ashamed to receive them because he was afraid that his friends and classmates would find out his background; that he was an “endopios” (indigenous). He did not want anyone to know his roots. Only his teacher knew about that, who after a long upbringing had Dobrin reborn as a man who separated himself from his own kind and had accepted a Hellenic consciousness and convinced him that he would be a pillar in his homeland in the hellenization of the natives. Dobrin remembered how he had loathed his own parents because they had Slavic blood. He loathed and mocked them, especially when they spoke Greek because they sounded so unnatural...

These memories were painful for him. Every time he thought of this, pain began to surface from the depths of his soul, a pain he could not get rid of. “I loved something I did not understand... A person cannot uncover himself from his own actions…” Dobrin thought to himself while looking at Manolis. He began to hate Manolis for uncovering his truth. “Yes, nothing offends as much as unjust politics,” Dobrin thought to himself. The bad language he tossed at his parents was like mud which has now dried on their faces, which he wants to quickly wipe off. He felt like getting off the train and going on foot. He was afraid his faith would abandon him.

His homeland and his mother whom, before his eyes, he had lost a long time ago he now wants returned to his heart. Dobrin remembered what his mother had told him: “Go, let it be that your father and mother are foreigners (non-Greeks), but no matter how far you go, remember you are one of us, your roots are from here, you belong to this nation of ours… try and show some interest in our dead generations. This is the only way to be merciful to us living here and have less difficulty understanding our history, our Macedonian misfortune...” Now his understanding is torturing him so much so that lately he has been unable to sleep all night, looking for ways to apologize to his mother who gave him birth. The war has created a different view of the hellenization he so desired. He joined a progressive organization in the people’s movement and there they proposed to him that he become a representative of the nation, which he yesterday had not appreciated and looked at it as simple and backwards. Now he wants freedom in the same way his ancestors wanted freedom. But this wish has begun to slowly conflict Dobrin Suvogorski because in his soul he still carrieed the lie of Hellenism which stunk like rawhide and sometimes tortured him so much so that he found no joy in living. He now admits to himself that: “No one is unhappy without fault… Only in his work can a man find himself… The only one who truly grieves is the one who mourns all alone and without a witness...”

The train moved slowly through the train station signals in Voden and then rushed through the lush fields of Lerin Region. He remembered Tsveta Kostencheva who was madly in love with him and who suffered for it.

He wanted to have a big bunch of flowers, seemingly without purpose, but maybe now Tsveta will accept such overdue flowers.

Dobrin wanted to do this to free himself from the yoke of anxiety and from that which, the entire time in Solun, he failed find a girlfriend. So he thought: “Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I will truly start to live...” but now he was left wishing that the train would reach his destination when it gets dark...

“When a man dies he leaves his name behind. When a cat dies it leaves its skin behind.” said Manolis with a painful look on his face as he adjusted himself on the seat. “And that’s what happened. But many things changed over the years. The entire village knew. My father was angry and overwhelmed by thoughts of how to get rid of Rumena’s family and avoid conflict. Then, a little later, Risto Rumenov was denounced and sent to exile where he died after being tortured,” concluded Manolis.

He then paused, looked at Dobrin and said: “Yes, sir, I have lived long enough and I have looked hard for the differences in our people… for our mutual hatred… and I have found that it actually does not exist...”

At that time, the war had already started and was raging on. Life became difficult for everyone, especially for the Ladas family which had no roots there. As before the land fed the peasants but the Ladas had no land and depended on the market for their food. But when the market ceased to function they ate whatever they could find on the ground and mostly begged the people to give them food. Then one day the Ladas family had nothing to eat. They decided to go to Epirus. But on the long way there, under the bosom of Mount Zmoliaka, old man Ladas said to his wife Melpomena: “Close your eyes and don’t look at me… this way I can die faster. The gods of our end have caught up to us… there is nothing to see in this desolate place… we have seen everything there was to see…” He died… more of what plagued him and less of his hunger.

The war ended and people returned. Manolis knew nothing. For years he dreamed of such a meeting. He kept Bisera in mind and burned with love. After he arrived in the village, no one recognized

him. Rumena’s house was empty. The only person left there was old man Nedelko with the round head.

“You?! What are you doing here?! Your father crushed us all here! You came to do the same? To inherit his deeds?! Bisera killed herself… she jumped off the rocks… Did you not know that?”

Manolis took off his hat, wiped his face with his handkerchief and said nothing.

“A long time ago we lost our freedom and have no power…” said old man Nedelko.

“Do you understand, Mr. Ladas? That’s why our customs are stronger than your laws. We had a festive funeral for Bisera. We all sang songs and danced the heavy dance. When your son was born your father called her a whore! He abused her... You, what do you think? Do you think Bisera was a whore? asked Nedelko angrily.

“A mother, she became paralyzed. Now you have an empty house... when a person meets people he needs to be human, Mr. Ladas…!” added old man Nedelko.

Looking for some sort of justification Manolis quietly said: “Well, the times were like that...” Angrily the old man said: “It was not the times that were like that... the people were like that... evil... A good person would be ashamed of even thinking like that, even in front of a dog… but your father…?”

But before old man Nedelko was finished talking, Manolis interrupted him and asked: “What about the boy…?” At that very moment a young child got into the conversation and asked:

“Are you looking for the orphan?”

“Yes, yes I am looking for him…” said Manolis.

“Come he said,” and then screamed out: “Hey everybody, have you seen the Greek boy?”

“Come with me, sir...” the boy repeated.

“We followed a whole pile of children asking them where he was,” said Manolis.

“There he is…!” yelled one of the children. “I remained stunned. We looked into each other’s eyes, seeming like in that very moment we were looking for the culprit who caused us this misfortune… I did not have the heart to ask: ‘Where is your mother?’ The child ran away from me frightened,” said Manolis.

“I contemplated committing suicide but then I thought how would my death solve this problem? I never did try to catch him, and so I thought I had lost him... I left and went back to my Epirus, looking for a new life, but my thoughts were constantly with him. I said to myself: ‘Manolis, a man must never stop hoping; eventually he will get to know you and will love you...’ I want to take all the blame and I hope it will bring me some peace from which no one can distract me. That is why I am going back there; to look for him. I would love to hear him call me father,” said Manolis.