19 - A Year in the 'Cold Trough': Last Days

 Mother’s appointment to the primary school of the Cold Trough was announced by the ‘Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs’ a year after the establishment in power of what was labelled in European media circles as the Colonel’s dictatorship (or junta). Greece’s parliamentary democracy, according to the 1967 coup d’etat leader Col. Georgios Papadopoulos needed to be ‘plastered’ and then placed on the ‘operating table’ to be treated from infestations by anti-national, anti-patriotic elements and pro-communist tendencies in political life; in short, to ‘save Greece from anarchy and chaos’. No one in the school, the streets and cafes of the village, and even in closed family circles referred to the regime as a dictatorship. Life carried on was as if it had not happened. Nothing was mentioned in a context that could pique a child’s curiosity and lead to uncomfortable questions, even if what was said and happened at that time within the sphere of politics was beyond my comprehension. To the ordinary folk the political situation looked exactly as it was propagated by official or brutally censored media: a kind of ‘revolution’ led by the army and a group of enlightened officers, supposedly dutybound to undertake the salvation of the country from its enemies, internal and external, and the sceptre of anarchy and communism. Anyway, within a year from the pre-coup political anomaly and tumult, and the trepidations from the weeks of military rule the followed, life was seemingly back to normal and climbing steadily the uphill path (demanding, as always, sacrifices from common people) to progress and prosperity.

Of course, I could not have grasped what was all about, even though in schools the anniversary of the military coup was commemorated via stimulating and fostering a sterile nationalism, mandated by history and compulsorily imposed. Thus, the ‘Revolution for National Salvation’ of April 21st was celebrated each year with lengthy solemn patriotic speeches, but devoid of essence and coherence, military marches, church liturgies, portraits of heroes of the war of independence hanging alongside Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary on school walls, omnipresent artistic versions of junta’s emblem, which featured a soldier in front of a phoenix rising from the flames, and flags- a lot of flags, banners with incomprehensible propagandistic slogans (such as ‘Hellas of Christian Hellenes’ or ‘Fatherland, Orthodoxy, Family!’); that is, fabricated non-sensical bunch of odds and ends without ideological foundations, and no more than reactionary fantasies, in short a political aberration devoid of substance -fascism in a word. Nonetheless, state propaganda, children education, and nationalistic paroxysms in national and religious holidays, the latter (at least!) persisting not much altered even today, have managed to inflate the souls and minds of many compatriots with an own idea of a gifted nation to whom humanity owes the lights of civilisation.

After the first anniversary of the ‘Revolution’ on the 21^st of April of 1968, a week after the Greek Easter, we were counting the remaining days leading to the end of the school year. The lessons became lighter, the days and school breaks were extended, the May light spread abundantly over the school and the village. The dull, cold winter was behind us, day-trips to the countryside, our want and joy, multiplied. In the schoolyard, older children set up kick-abouts with whatever ball or kickable object they could find. The strict rules of conduct loosened and the discipline relaxed. In one of those sweaty and dusty football matches, in the heat of early June, to my excitement, I was promoted, for a little while, from spectator to participant, despite being too young.

The very last day of the school year before the summer break, was marked, as it was then customary, by the ritual of gymnastics demonstrations, showcasing to the village president, the policeman and the priest of the village, and, foremost, the beaming parents, the work teachers had done towards the spiritual and physical development of their pupils and achievements in that respect. Boys and girls, dressed in all-white uniforms and sneakers, gathered in the courtyard, recited poems and sang, then lined up in different group formations and paraded and performed, holding balloons and sticks and little flags synchronized exercises, whatever they had painstakingly rehearsed in the previous weeks. A professional photographer was hired to take commemorative photos of each class with their teacher. As the child of one of the school teachers, I was afforded personalised snapshots. One showed me paired with an older brunette girl for some sketchily choreographed movements as part of the demonstration. In the other I was standing next to the same girl in front of a eucalyptus tree by the fence of the school yard, looking awkward and tired, but certainly happy -most definitely inside me, like most: ‘The school was out for summer!’

For Mother another school term was concluded with everything was completed according to the plan prescribed from the onset. Smiles of satisfaction and pride were painted on the sweaty, sun-drenched faces all teachers and parents, especially Mother, for the extra reason of our impending return home and to family and the sea. The children were naturally more tired than anyone from their gymnastics in the heat of the late June morning, but two whole months without school beckoned, an elixir of joy for everyone, barring perhaps the hard-working housewives and mothers of the village and their husbands working in their crops.