Sophia Nikolaidou - The Scapegoat

Evelina looked like she might punch him. In the end she couldn’t restrain herself. The defender of the theoretical track of study intervened.

— Sorry for interrupting this little diatribe, she said. Our fellow student here seems to have gotten carried away by his own eloquence, when he spoke about Ancient Greek class. In order for this conversation to proceed on the basis of arguments and evidence rather than assumptions, I thought I should inform this student, who’s still only in his first year of high school, of some objective facts about the pedagogy and grammar of the Ancient Greek language.

When Evelina gets going, there’s no stopping her. She made a complete fool of him in front of everyone. Before the assembly started, she’d gotten the other seniors to agree to be totally ruthless with the younger kids. No way were the seniors going to get loaded down with absences just because some stupid brats wanted to play revolution in the cafeteria. The occupation had already lasted three days, and that was more than enough. The first-years had had their time in the sun. Basta.

The whole episode raised suspicions that the student council had made a deal with the administration, but Evelina had a solution for everything. She got the others to agree to floating one-hour meetings to take place during different class periods, so that the student representatives could keep track of the demands of the majority. Whatever stupid shit everyone thought up, they would bring before the teachers. The negotiations seemed to drag on forever, but in the end it was decided that the seniors would continue going to class. The younger kids could cling to the illusion that their demands had been heard. Meanwhile, the whole thing would blow over, since the one-hour meetings would diffuse the situation.

Spiros learned his lesson. Next year, though, Evelina would be at university, and there was no one else with her force and connections. He would just have to sit tight and wait.

— Well? she asked.

She was expecting me to congratulate her.

— You destroyed him.

— I’d have preferred a more generous description. I guess maybe hanging out with Spiros has brought you down to his level.

I wasn’t going to give her what she wanted. I’ve figured out by now that it drives her crazy when I don’t give in.

— Are we going to your grandfather’s? I asked.

— I’ve got homework.

— Me too.

— You’ve made your decision.

— So have you. What’s a few hours more or less at this point?

— It’s a matter of discipline, she insisted.

— Fine. Then we can go tonight, when you’re done. I’m sure he doesn’t go to bed at nine.

— He doesn’t sleep at all. He just sits in his armchair with glassy eyes. Dad says he’s afraid of death.

It’s exactly what Mom says about Grandma. She once went over to Grandma’s place first thing in the morning and found her on the sofa with the telemarketing channel on, still awake from the night before. Mom gave her a talking- to like you’ve never heard, like she was the mother and Grandma was the kid.

The older children get, the worse they treat their parents. I do it, too.

It was a pretty wild scene in the schoolyard. The cleaning lady and the biology teacher, a fat little ball of a woman, were standing there, rattling on about the shocking indifference of parents and teachers, who haven’t stepped forward to nip this in the bud . The cleaning lady told the teacher what she’d found at the sit-in, she was hoping word would get around, most of all to those oblivious parents. She’d picked three pairs of panties off the floor of the girls’ bathroom, which meant that some girls had gone off with their parts uncovered . She’d found condoms and torn porn magazines. She mentioned cigarette butts, too, she apparently had no idea people were smoking pot, she couldn’t tell the kids were all sky high, for her the problem was nicotine. She shook her head, God will burn us for this, he’ll burn us all .

Some angry neighbors called the principal to inform him that kids had been drinking beer in the schoolyard the previous night, they could hear cans popping from their balconies. Those who lived in top-floor apartments had found a new pastime: sitting on their verandas, watching everything we did. Skateboarding, guitar-playing, basketball, singing. They found us fascinating, even better than the Turkish soaps on TV.

— They organized a concert, Evelina told me.

— Who did?

— The younger kids. It’s tonight. To go out with a bang. That was their condition for ending the occupation early. They say they’ve got a band. I’m sure it’s some awful cover band, she added dismissively. They’re bringing backup, too, seniors from some private school in Athens.

In other words, Spiros didn’t accept unconditional defeat.

Evelina weaved her way down the aisle between the lined-up desks.

— Come on, she called back at me. We’re going to Grandpa’s. We’ve already lost the whole day, I guess I can study later.

Like most girls, Evelina is totally unpredictable. She’s practically manic-depressive. Some people can’t stand it, but I kind of like it. With her I never get bored. The more I want her, the more I tease her. The more I tease her, the smaller the chances that we’ll ever actually hook up.

Child, you’re courting disaster , Grandma would say if she saw me this way.

I trailed after Evelina like a stray dog. I gave her ass a good look and decided it was more or less a perfect fit for my palms. It lifts gently and sways as she walks. As if there were a wind, 3 or 4 on the Beaufort scale.

— We’re not staying for more than an hour, she declared.

— That’s 3600 seconds.

— What?

The elastic band on her thong was red. Tomato red.

— I broke the time down into smaller units, so it would last longer.

— Show-off! she cried, and picked up the pace.

I caught up with her and pulled the elastic band. It snapped back against her skin.

— Are you a complete moron? What are you doing?

— Playing.

— I’ll show you what to play with, she said, pressing the buzzer for her grandfather’s apartment. But words apparently didn’t suffice: she spun around and flicked me with her finger, right where she meant.

Elena was waiting for us at the door to the apartment.

— Sorry we didn’t call ahead, Evelina apologized. There’s a sit-in at school and we thought we’d come here instead.

— Your grandfather will be happy. He saw you coming with his binoculars.

Evelina told me the other day that her grandfather has a soft spot for Elena. He’s pretty harsh with his family, though. He banned all bad-tempered people from his home, he says he has no use for grumpy faces.

— Grandma was always griping about something, Evelina whispered, so when she died, he told us all to leave our problems at the door. Of course he only remembers that rule when it suits him.

Grandpa Dinopoulos was sitting in his armchair. Elena had opened the curtains wide and sunlight streamed in through the windows, warming the old man’s bald spot. Life wasn’t too bad up there, in one of the prized penthouses on the square. The realest of real estate , as Grandma Evthalia sometimes says, who values nice things and nice places as much as Mom does. Up there you need sunglasses all day, even inside , she likes to say. The only nicer apartments to be found are the penthouses along the waterfront, where you feel like you’re living on the deck of a ship. You wake up and see the sea, but you’re stepping on solid ground .

Grandma’s house is on Prasakaki Street, just north of Agia Sophia. It used to have a view of the sea, too — if you pressed up against the balcony railing and twisted your head just right. Now it looks into the bedrooms across the way. Dad calls it seventh heaven , because it’s on the seventh floor. But to this day Mom can’t stay in that apartment for longer than an hour. The walls start to close in on her. She says it all the time, but she can’t understand that I feel exactly the same way about our house. Our house has no oxygen. Sometimes I can’t breathe, just sitting there in the living room.