URSABLOG: Good Friday

April can indeed be the cruellest month here: there are no lilacs to bloom out of the dead land, and cold northerly winds with the power to surprise and chill gust out of nowhere, just when you think we have turned the final corner into summer. Tourists doggedly wear shorts and T-shirts while us residents still wrap up against the capricious elements, experience having taught us to wait longer until we change over to our summer wardrobes. At least the orange blossom is coming to perfume our evenings.

Not that I would have been able to smell anything in the past week. I have been ill with a heavy cold which caught me by surprise with its severity. I decided – foolishly – that I would try and work through it on Tuesday, but of course by going to the office I made it worse, not only by delaying my recovery but also by making sure that those of us in the office that had not already been lain low would be. It was an act of selfish stubbornness that was rewarded by two days of frustrating immobility. Unable to work, even from home – unable even to read more than three lines – I moved between bed and sofa drifting between sleep and self-pity. I hate being ill, I hate being unable to think quickly, I hate not being able to read. I also hate self-pity, but there was no-one else there to pity me. Thank God for those that checked in on me; regrettably I was not very eloquent in my gratitude.

Resurfacing this morning, with the light-headedness that often accompanies convalescence, everything seemed clean and new; the fresh shoots of the plants on my balcony had been lit by the green fuse powering them to flower. My olive trees are budding profusely, the bay tree – δάφνη – is pushing out rose tinted green leaves, a new crown above the duller if more fragrant leaves below. I examined in detail each new growth with a muted wonder. And I sat, and finally, “April arrived in my bones and the air opened like a blossom of fire.”

Reluctant to breath the stale and musty air of my flat any longer, I decided to take a walk outside, and even perhaps to find a café and absorb this beautiful day with a coffee and a book. But I craved a different environment from the narrow concrete lined streets around me; I wanted to walk amongst trees and listen to the birdsong fluttering between them. But I also wished to avoid the crowds of Easter tourists around the Acropolis, and Zappeion seemed too dismal with its dull evergreens to let the April light penetrate too deeply. Instead I was led – I am not sure I could have fought against this impulse – to the First National Cemetery at Mets.

It is Good Friday, and the bells of all the many churches around me have been intermittently tolling, mourning the death of Christ. Inside the cemetery – a beautiful and peaceful place of marble and cypress trees, an oasis of melancholy calm – I was ambushed by memories. I remembered the funerals of those I had attended, some out of affection and respect for others and their loss, some out of affection and respect for those who I had known. Each funeral has its own story, not only in the death of the mourned itself, but what came before, as well as in the farewell itself. Two funerals in particular came to mind, both of which I was closely involved in.

The first came with the death of Carol, a book lover who I had met online via an expat Book Club I used to lead many years ago. Too ill to leave her squalid and dirty flat near Victoria Square, on a side road off Acharnon, confined to a wheelchair, cared for – if you can call it that – by listless paid helpers, and a feckless, suspicious and devious husband; the depths of his cupidity and stupidity, not to mention his greed and dishonesty I would only find out later.

Carol was in her sixties, and had been incapacitated by a serious stroke. She had reached out to me firstly to wonder whether we could have our meetings online, but this being the days before the pandemic, I was unfamiliar with the technology required to set up such a meeting, and reluctant to try. However she kept asking, so as a compromise I offered to visit her once a month to discuss the book we had read with her. I asked her whether she needed help in sourcing the book; she told me not to worry.

The flat she lived in was filthy beyond words, even for an Englishman. It had not been cleaned thoroughly for years. The windows let in no light; I could not tell if this was because the shutters were closed, or because of the patina of grime inside and out. I refused a glass of water from her husband – I had seen the kitchen – and sat perched on the edge of a decrepit and stained armchair. I saw one or two cockroaches nonchalantly traverse the walls, knowing that if you see one or two, there are thousands waiting in reserve. Nonetheless I sat and discussed the book with Carol for as long as I could bear the smell and her husband. Sometimes I managed two hours, many times – to my shame – it was less.

Carol was an extremely intelligent and well-read woman. She was surrounded by bookshelves full of an eclectic and diverse collection which could only mean a curious and hungry mind. Our discussions only failed when her stroke-maimed brain got confused – rarely – or when my irritation with the squalor and the whining interruptions of her distrustful husband drove me away. What could I do to help further? I asked one time, out of earshot of the husband. “Nothing more, Simon, I have made my bed so I must lie in it. Except one thing: I want you to take away some of my books – if you want them – I will not read them again.”

And so when I visited Carol, I went with a big empty bag, and took as many books as I could carry with me when I left. They were good books too: some Balzac I was missing (and had been looking for), not to mention my collection of Colette – who I now adore – that I owe to her, as well as many Simone de Beauvoir. But this is only the French ones, I should also mention Doris Lessing, Henry James, John Updike, Philip Roth, Tolstoy, Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Sachs, Hannah Arendt and many more.

As time went on, I was urged to take more and more, as though she had to release them from a prison, liberate them before her powers left her. And – as I found out one day from a mutual friend, another member of the Book Club that also visited her – they did indeed soon leave her for good. I was told that she had died, of another, final stroke. I asked to be kept advised of the funeral arrangements.

After a couple of days I had heard nothing – which was curious, because funerals happen here very quickly – and so I called my friend to enquire what had happened; I did not want to miss saying goodbye. There was apparently a problem: Carol was Jewish, and there was difficulty in finding the right people and the right place. I started calling around people who I thought could help, and I came up against some invisible walls. Carol had not been part of the Jewish community, and although I could find someone who could come and say some prayers over the grave, there was no way I could arrange for a Jewish burial so quickly, if at all.

But this was not, it turned out, the real barrier. The barrier was her husband, and his desire to get as much money out of Carol’s American family as possible. She had been receiving money from a trust fund over a period of time, but how much of this money ever reached her was debatable. She received no money from the Greek state – she was still a US citizen – and this was the middle of the crisis when money for everyone was scarce. The carers, of African origin, and probably without full legal residency, were not blessed with duty and attentiveness, and no wonder. It all began to make sense. By now she was dead for a week, in a fridge somewhere, waiting for the dignity of a burial whilst money was being extracted from rightly suspicious relatives. It turned out Carol had been estranged from them a long time ago. I got to work again: I arranged and paid for the funeral myself, and told my friend to tell as many people as possible the time and date.

We made a strange mourning party that warm noon in June. Not only was I the only man there – the husband was nowhere to be seen – I had the duty of following the simple coffin from where it was resting to the grave, leading the mourners, the women who had known her and cared enough to say goodbye. I was burning up, not only by the midday sun, but also with a fire of sadness and pity fed by the white heat of fury, tempered only by the logic and dignity of tragedy. This was a tragedy that could only surely be found in the books that were devoured by Carol during her sad and lonely life, but here it was, and not only was I watching it, I was living it.

And this was not the end of the story. The husband should have had at least the shame to keep well clear of me after that, but he invited me back to the flat to get the last of the books explaining he was too ill to attend the funeral. I should have ignored him, but my big, kind, warm, forgiving and stupid heart gave in, and I went. He did his best to wheedle his way into my affections, but every time I started to ask questions he pretended not to understand English. My Greek – such as it was then – was ignored. I left, cross and rude, but I doubt he noticed. He was waiting with his final coup de grâce: he got a friend to call me and ask me for the receipt of funeral as “proof to the family accountants.” I was not that stupid, I knew he was claiming the money from them for himself.

I debated with myself for a while, whether I should refuse him, out of principle. But my big warm stupid heart won the day. I had paid for Carol’s funeral because someone had to do it, and I was in a position to do so. I did not think at the time that I would be recompensed. I did not want Carol’s memory to be squabbled over for the sake of money; money is not that important, not to me at least. I told myself that this was the best closure – including getting rid of the husband – with as much dignity – for Carol, for me – as I could expect. So a taxi driver friend of his came to my office to collect the receipt, still fresh in its false leather folder. I gave it, not expecting a thank you, which was just as well: I heard nothing from the husband again.

I had not thought of this for many years, but passing through the gates at the cemetery brought it back, and I wondered idly where her bones were now. No matter; I still have her books.

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Whenever I arrange to have drinks with clients or friends in the southern suburbs, I always suggest meeting at Cava Vegara. Not only does it have a marvellous selection of wines from around the world, and excellent service, it is not the wine bar around the corner, the wine bar where my friend Tony fell backwards from a bar stool to hit the back of his skull on the pavement far below, a fall that led to his eventual death when a few days later they turned off the life support machine at the hospital where he spent his last, unconscious days.

I cannot go there, not just because I still carry the memory of his tragic death with me, but because the wine bar has not changed a thing to stop such an accident happening again. It is not my wine bar, and no doubt they can point to other reasons for his death (ones that I would never countenance): that he was drinking, that he did not take proper care and attention, that it was his fault. But if it was my wine bar, I could not bear having his death on my conscience. But that’s the problem with having a big, warm, soft and stupid heart: I have a conscience too, and sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Tony was a friend of mine, and one that I was proud of. He was a good, honest, loving, caring man, loyal – to a fault perhaps – to those that had earned it. I had it too, but I was never entirely sure what I had ever done to deserve it. He was that kind of man.

Tony was English, but had been brought up in South Africa, and it was from there that he came to Greece as a young man, alone, to work in shipping, and work he did, and hard, fiercely loyal to his employers and partners. His personal life was unsettled when he died, and whilst this didn’t make things easy during those difficult and painful days before his death, or during the preparations for his funeral, it did not matter to those of us who knew Tony well, in fact it made us admire him, and miss him, all the more.

As I wandered around the cemetery this morning, I tried to remember where we had buried him, but Mets is a confusing place. New graves have sprung up since, and I am not sure if his is still standing. But I felt odd words from the gospels after the crucifixion whisper to me: Who are you looking for? He is not here.

No, Tony is not here. But his kindness, his loyalty, his friendship – and my realisation of his sadness, and loneliness which I failed to alleviate when he was still alive – is here, in me. And if I cannot find his gravestone it does not matter. I can always look on MarineTraffic and see where the ship named after him is (laden and en route to Ghent to discharge since you ask).

I left the cemetery gates behind me, deep in thought, enveloped with sadness, tragedy, memory and loss. And as the bells of the churches of Athens continued to toll in mourning, I mentally included Carol and Tony in their lament.

I reached the café and ordered, but too lost in thought to read I wondered why those deaths in particular mattered to me. Maybe it was simply that books and ships matter to me too? Maybe it was because I was soclosely involved? No, that was too simple, and shallowly dishonest. So – as we surely do when faced with death – I allowed myself to think about myself. (I didn’t need much encouragement). I wondered whether it was because they – like me – were foreigners here, and they were buried a long way from where they came from, as I expect to be. Maybe they – like me – in some way consciously self-exiled themselves, but they, having – in Carol’s own words – made their own beds, now laid in their final ones, here. May they rest in peace, wherever they are.

But turning away from myself, I understood that it was that Carol’s and Tony’s legacies that matter to me, and live beyond them. Many of the books that I liberated from Carol’s flat are now freely wandering around the city and beyond – some taken by those of my friends that wanted them, the rest given to secondhand bookstores and charities – being read by those who never knew Carol. And whenever Tony Smith turns up in open lists, or appears on voyage instructions at ports of loading and discharge, there will be some who will surely wonder who Tony was. I hope they ask the question and that somebody who knew him will answer.

As I sat there, with the April light dripping its fire through the trees onto me, I felt the force of new, renewing life. Spring has come – regardless of our wounded dreams – and life, everywhere, not only goes on, it is bursting forth with a reviving power. It is a time – whether you are religious or otherwise – not only for remorse but for forgiveness, not only for regret but for renewal, not only for fear but for hope. And above all it is a time for joy, the simple joy of celebrating life, new life. April need not only be cruel, it can also be the start of a new beginning. To what? To where? To our legacy, and the one that we will truly deserve.

Simon Ward