Dimitra Mantheakis - Melina Breaking Free

The group of youngsters, decimated by the absence of Sarantos, Dina and Paulina, felt like someone who was slowly but steadily losing their limbs, one by one; losing parts of their childhood, one by one. First there was Mary, married now, who couldn’t share in their life and limited herself to meetings for a coffee at her house, or at birthdays and holidays, then Sarantos, and now Dina and Paulina. Those left behind were Iakovos, Urania, Sofia, Melina and Mary, who, as soon as her friends’ taxi was out of sight left for her home because she had to cook lunch for Anestis, her husband. Sofia told the others that she was starting work on Monday at the Town Hall. The Member of Parliament who had been approached by her father had kept his promise to him for fear of losing votes and the young woman would from now on have a secure job and an assured, albeit small, wage and would not have to worry in the future.

Urania, on the other hand, was in constant conflict with her father, the headmaster. Despite the fact that she had finished high school at the top of her class, she stubbornly refused to sit her university entrance exams. The only thing she wanted was to marry for love and have a family. She didn’t want to work anywhere. Her parents were driven to distraction by their disappointment, but for hard-boiled Urania it was all just water off a duck’s back.

“However much you insist, you won’t get anywhere! I am going to live my life as I want and not as you have planned!” she declared after their last argument the previous evening. Her father was so incensed that he threatened to throw her out of the house.

“I’m not prepared to have you in my way, lazing and not wanting to do anything!” he shouted at her.

“I’ll look after the house, I’ll cook, I’ll help in the field, and thus mother will get some rest,” Urania answered back. With her mother Maria’s intervention, matters calmed down somewhat. Her father went to lie down with the bitter certainty that a worthy and cultivated brain would go to waste and would limit itself to mundane, commonplace, working-class chores.

After Mary’s departure the four remaining members of the group stayed behind in the square to drink a coffee. Iakovos became the brunt of jokes by the girls because of the way he noisily and hurriedly sucked up his cold instant coffee through the straw, having to go and help his mother at their small haberdashery. He soon left and the three girls stayed behind, looking curiously around them at the faces of various unknown of people sitting near them and at the passers-by. The tourist season had begun and a number of foreigners had arrived at the attractive seaside town.

“Finally, we are going to liven up a little!” commented Urania, scrutinizing a good-looking Scandinavian tourist with interest. “I’m fed up with seeing the same faces again and again! Isn’t he a dish?” She asked her friends, pointing out the object of her admiration. They agreed and carried on commenting on every new arrival that passed in front of them.

Melina took little part in the incessant chatter. Her eyes were focused on a shiny expensive-looking sports car. The vehicle stopped a few meters away from the girls. Its driver, a handsome man of about thirty five locked it and went to sit at the next table, ordering a coffee.

“Cool guy!” whispered Sofia so as not to be heard by the man. Melina could not take her eyes off him. She was impressed by the flashy car and realized that she also liked its driver. It looked like the stranger was flush with money. At some moment the man turned and looked without interest at the girls making them hurriedly take their eyes off him. His gaze, concealed by his dark fashionable sun glasses stopped at Melina. Her unpolished, almost wild beauty impressed him. “Nice piece!” he thought. “I hope she also has a good body.” From where he was sitting he could only see Melina’s face. The rest of her was hidden from view by the torsos of the other girls.

Half an hour later the girls stood up and started for their homes which were in different directions. The man was waiting to see Melina stand up, to judge her as a whole. “She has a very feminine body!” he noted, feeling a wave of desire to possess the girl overtake him as it coursed through his veins. As soon as the young woman had gone round the corner he got up and quickly went to his car. He followed Melina’s passage from the opposite side of the street.

“I hope I can stop her somewhere to say a couple of words to her,” he thought. Ten blocks further on the girl turned left into an uphill dirt road. Stepping on the accelerator not to lose her the man approached and said to her “Miss, can I talk to you?” Melina did not reply, but smiled almost imperceptibly. The stranger pulled up the car at the side of the road and started walking next to her.

“Please go away!” Melina said to him. “My neighbours will see us and I’ll be in trouble with my family.”

“Tell me your name and when we can meet. My name is Paris and I’m from Athens…”

“Oh, so he is from the capital!” noted Melina. “That’s positive.” She turned and looked at him directly, studying his face. He had attractive regular features and when he smiled there was a flash of perfect white teeth. Paris lowered his sunglasses, resting them on his nose and his eyes, blue as the spring sky, fixed themselves playfully on her.

“Have I passed the test?” he asked her. Melina laughed. He was very cute and spontaneous. “I’m Melina,” she said.

“You couldn’t be called anything else, pretty and sweet as you are!” he teased. “When will I see you again?” he asked her.

Melina opened her mouth to refuse but his hand reached out and squeezed her elbow.

“Please don’t say no! I only want ten minutes of your time!”

The truth was that Paris had impressed Melina from the first moment. She told him she would meet him at sundown at eight where the beach ended and the rocks began.

“I’ll find the spot, Melina,” he saidblowing her a kiss as he entered his car and in a few moments he was gone around a bend in the street.

Melina looked around to see if there was a neighbour on a balcony or at a window. Luckily she didn’t see anyone. She went home and spent the next few hours until eight bringing back again and again the image of the stranger, impressed as she was not only by his appearance and by the expensive car that gave him more status in her eyes, but also by his relaxed manner and his easy ability to approach the opposite sex. Yes! She liked Paris and wanted very much to see him. Immediately though an unpleasant thought came across her. What would she wear for their meeting? She had such a limited set of clothes! She went to the makeshift wardrobe that contained all the family’s wear and started searching through the section that was hers. She looked at two or three items that were hanging there. As designs they were not worth talking about and were so worn by time that they would look as if they had come from a waste bin, even though they had just been washed. Her heart tightened again. How tired she was of not even having the essentials, how disgusted she was by poverty and its constant privations! It was so unfair that she couldn’t buy a new, even cheap, dress and to have to make do with hand-me-downs or clothes borrowed on special occasions from her friends and being dependant on others’ charity.

“When will this martyrdom, this humiliation, end?” she wondered for the thousandth time.

She found a T-shirt and a skirt that didn’t show signs of constant wear. She would wear these at the meeting that she was determined to attend. She washed her hair which gleamed when she let it down over her back. She would have wanted to have lipstick to brighten up her lips, but it was an item that was beyond her means.