Monday, 8th November 1971
I am in the third class now. My only friend at school is Tonia, a quiet, obese girl, who is repeating the same class for the third time. During the breaks we usually play jacks.
Unfortunately, this year I happen to be sitting at the same desk with Lisa: she is a stocky, cunning girl, who does nothing but make fun of me all the time. “If you don't give me your pen, I will tell the teacher that you talk smut!” she threatened me this morning. I didn't respond immediately, so she put on an air of anger and raised her hand ostentatiously. I had no choice but do her the favour immediately before she told the teacher, who usually believes Lisa's lies and whacks me with the ruler.
Wednesday, 17th November 1971
This morning we went on a school treat to the nearby mountain. I was playing quietly by myself, since Tonia was absent today, when I was suddenly surrounded by a gang of children. Shouting and giggling mockingly, they destroyed the little house I had just built with stones, and then they went away laughing. A little later, as I was wandering aimlessly among the pine trees, I found a small wallet on the ground. I was naive enough to show it to a boy. He took it from me by deceit, telling me that it was he who had lost it. And I believed him.
A little later I saw Anastasia, a corpulent girl from my class, coming towards me weeping. She was accompanied by a rabble of vociferating children. Full of wrath and threats, they accused me of having stolen that wallet from her! Then they grabbed me all together and dragged me to the teachers, as if I were a criminal. I was crying all the way, telling them that I had found the wallet and given it to a boy, because he had said it was his. Nobody listened. Before even realizing it, I was standing before the teachers, who immediately scolded me “Where did you soil your your hands like that?”, while the bawls of the rabble were ringing unintelligible in my ears. Anyway, due to lack of evidence, I was finally acquitted by the “court”, although Anastasia and her friends still insisted that I was a thief.
Friday, 19th November 1971
As soon as we entered the classroom and sat at our desks, Anastasia came to me and apologized because, as she had discovered in retrospect, she had forgotten her wallet in her schoolbag. “Well, never mind” I told her. Anyway, I don't think that Anastasia herself had thought of blaming me. In all probability, it was somebody else's idea to accuse me of stealing, because they wanted to cause me a problem.
When I returned home, my mother informed me that she had had a bad quarrel with Mrs Lemony this morning. In fact, mum accused our neighbour that she has been flirting my father for months now and this was confirmed by an anonymous phone call last night. “If only it were true!” said Mrs Lemony to defend herself. In any case, I believe that this woman is jealous of us because my father is a captain while her husband is only a fisherman.
Starting from tomorrow, and for many years to go, we will often find broken eggshells dyed dark purple, right outside our front door...
Monday, 22nd November 1971
This morning the teacher announced something peculiar: “A number of cholera cases have recently been identified in northern Greece; therefore, all Greek children must be vaccinated against this disease! And the vaccination will take place here, at school, tomorrow morning!”. Once I heard it, I spontaneously had some queries: Why, indeed, is it necessary for all Greek children to get into this trouble, just because of a few cholera cases? Besides, as far as I know, cholera is curable nowadays, isnt' it?
However, I have a bigger problem than that: Ever since I was a small girl, I have always been terrified of injections and needles. Whenever my mother takes me to the doctor for a blood test, I cry my eyes out, I make a din and it takes four nurses to hold me and get the job done. In this case, however, acting like that is out of the question.
Tuesday, 23rd November 1971
When the time came, all pupils lined up in threes in the school yard, each one waiting for their name to be heard and go into the teachers' office. Normally I would have already started crying, but this time I had no other alternative but keep my temper at all costs. Woe is me if I dare scream or cry in front of everyone: Right from the next moment, I would become the laughing-stock of the whole school.
However, what impressed me most was the fact that none of the other children looked scared. As I was waiting for my turn, full of anxiety, I kept observing all faces again and again, expecting to detect a sign of fear in anybody's eyes. Nothing. All the pupils looked carefree, as if nothing was going on. Only when short Lucy entered the teachers' office and got injected, I heard a classmate shouting: “Look! Lucy is trembling!”. Many children laughed. The girl was obviously trembling of fear but she didn't dare make a sound.
When my turn came, I clenched my teeth and kept my temper perfectly. So, nobody got wind of my being afraid. Fortunately, the needle was very thin and didn't hurt at all. Moreover, I was surprised to see that there were hundreds of ejections, one for each child -an unprecedented luxury in those years.
Tuesday, 30th November 1971
This afternoon I had a strange accident: I was studying in my room, when suddenly I heard a voice calling me from the yard. I thought it was Gregory, so I stood up and got out of the house at once, leaving the door of the kitchen open. The weather was cold and the wind was blowing hard. As I was passing by the shut window pane of my room, it suddenly broke into a thousand pieces and some of them were hurled against me. A sharp glass blade hurt the side of my right leg, opening a deep wound, while smaller pieces scratched my calf. It took us a long time to stop the bleeding. In all likelihood, it will leave a scar. Anyway, no serious damage was done; I suppose this could have gone a lot worse...
Monday, 6th December 1971
On the way to school this morning I met Martha, a blond girl who comes from Sweden. She is in the fourth class and happens to be a real ignoramus, since the highest of her marks is 6. We were talking calmly, when she suddenly spat out: “Yesterday I met Urania and she told me that she doesn't want to play again with you and your sister, because you are both stupid!”.
I was taken aback because Urania had come to my house on Saturday afternoon, we had played for many hours and we had had a nice time. So, where was the problem?
Yet, that was not all: As we were walking past the church of St Tryfon, which is opposite our school, Martha glared at me and said:
“You are not a Christian!”
“Why do you say that?” I wondered.
“Because you don't make the sign of the cross!” she roared and crossed herself in an ostentatious manner, to show that she was a Christian. I felt obliged to do the same.
Tuesday, 18th January 1972
It's hard to say why but, for a few months now, whenever it rains I'm seized with fright! That's because I fear that the slightest rain might end up in a cataclysm! Perhaps I have been overly influenced by religion. If the rain lasts more than an hour, I start crying wherever I am.
It has been drizzling all day today. Yet, as I was returning from school early in the afternoon, the drizzle became a downpour. I really tried to contain myself but it proved to be impossible for me. Finally, I started weeping in the middle of the road. The other pupils wondered and I had to explain:
“I don't like the rain! What if it becomes a cataclysm?”
“You don't need to be afraid Yvonne, because the rainbow always comes out after the rain. This is God's promise that there will never be another cataclysm. Don't you know that?”, Tonia reassured me and I felt better immediately. From that moment my phobia started to fade away, until it disappeared completely after two or three days.
Saturday, 29th January 1972
I have another problem too, which first appeared about a month ago: I have a strange feeling that my parents don't love me and that they intend to kill me! “I was told to slaughter her in the backyard!” I heard my mother confess to a neighbour the other day, and I was scared stiff. A couple of days later, I was really relieved to learn that she meant one of our hens, which had cackled like a cock -a bad omen. “You will die!” dad told me this afternoon because I didn't want to eat my dinner. That spoilt my appetite completely. Fortunately, this obsession will not last longer than a few more days.
Saturday, 18th March 1972
This evening aunt Wilma and her mother paid us an unexpected visit. The strange thing is that they came from Piraeus without uncle William, who is her husband and my mother's cousin. Then, something even more peculiar happened: While mum was in the kitchen making coffee, the two women grabbed a large decorative doll we had on the couch and pulled it apart! They took the head, the legs and the arms off and then they threw all the pieces out in the rubbish bin, on the grounds that the doll was too old! While this was happening, the two women were bantering and screaming like frenzied. I was just looking at them puzzled and did nothing to stop them.
Friday, 21st April 1972
It's been exactly one month since the day my youngest sister, Jasmine, was born. Everybody says she is a very beautiful baby -like all spastics are. Due to the indifference of the staff in the maternity hospital, my mother was left all alone in a room for several hours. In the meanwhile, the umbilical cord broke and hang out of my mother's body for more than an hour, but nobody got wind of it. As a result, the baby was left without oxygen and eventually she was born with quadriplegia: Her whole body is paralyzed and she suffers from mental retardation too. Since she was thought to die soon, she was hastily baptized in the maternity ward. Her godmother is a Mrs Melina, who will never put in an appearance again.
When my dad first went to the maternity hospital, he came back very angry and said that the baby had a strange sag on her head, which means that it had been bumped! He wanted to sue the doctors, but everybody dissuaded him from doing so because “there is no way you can get to the bottom of this, there is no proof; let alone that doctors always back up each other, no matter what!”
Sunday, 16th July 1972
My cousin Annita has come from Cefallonia and she will stay with us for a couple of weeks. We usually get along well, but she keeps saying that I am in great danger of being killed by the police!
One day last summer, when I was in Lixouri, I dag a hole in her garden with my toy spade. According to her, lots of water came out of the hole and flooded the whole island, and ever since the local police have been looking for me, with the intention of killing me! “If they find you, they'll shoot you to death!” she says with a grim face. I am a little scared, because I can't rule out the possibility of her telling the truth…