On grandmother's floor, at the other end of a narrow corridor, was the door of the L_s and next to it that of Mrs. Evangelia’s. A plump lady Mrs. Evangelia was, past her reproductive years; a simple uneducated housewife with a heart of gold, who at every opportunity displayed a special fondness for my little brother, the youngest creature in the building. She went on to look after the toddler he was for a while, for the pitiable fee child minders in petty-bourgeois neighborhoods command (a thousand drachmas or so per month) during the days when both parents were at work. Grandmother was disinclined to take care of him; understandably so, after tending an all-male family (and myself for a short period) for the best part of her life. I and my younger first cousin were also thereabouts, and required some supervising. To Mrs. Evangelia’s doting cries ‘Oh! My little love! My little sweet love!’ and her juicy kisses on the cheek, after she lifted and grabbed him in a tight embrace, little Brother retaliated with insults (in incredibly colorful language for a toddler, must be said), pushing her face away or turning his away in disapproval, and on occasions even delivering blows. In her tiny kitchen, on school mornings, I used to eat quietly my breakfast: a bowl of milk, mixed with a cocoa powder to moderate the taste of boiled milk with a skin I found disgusting, with crumbles of Papadopoulou biscuits or a slice of bread with butter, sprinkled with sugar. I left for school, after a brief stop at grandma’s apartment, whilst Brother, upset and angry from being left alone with Mrs. Evangelia, was crying for his mum. A similar breakfast and her son’s more agreeable attention would have eventually calmed him down.
Mrs. Evangelia’s husband, was one of those toilers struggling for a living: a peddler who roamed the cafes and tavernas and squares of the city selling lottery tickets. His meagre income was complemented by that of his son on part time jobs whilst also attending an evening technical college. Their lives, however, were transformed one day, when they won the lottery from one of the husband’s unsold tickets. They bought a property in Kalamaria, the relatively more affluent, middle-class suburb of eastern Thessaloniki. Since then, only a couple of times did I see again Mrs. Evangelia; without the everyday apron she used to wear when she looked after my brother, but in a flamboyant dress. She was visiting grandmother, her next-door neighbour for years and daily companion in morning coffee sessions, chatting over the rails of their adjoining kitchen balconies. I heard from Mother that they behaved like nouveau riche. Then again, I had no idea then what it meant to be such a person and whether it was something bad or good. It sounded derogatory, but I found later that change in human behaviour and lifestyle is perfectly natural to those who, following a smile from Lady Luck, experience a steep social ascendancy, shaking off a seemingly predetermined miserable existence, and out of the blue finding themselves wealthy. Eventually, the family distanced themselves from the social circles of their poor old neighborhood, where the city’s relentless development and expansion to the suburbs were deteriorating quality of life. Mrs. Evangelia and her lottery ticket seller husband disappeared in the richer edges of the city and they must have concluded their own book of life in a better way than the one that might have been extrapolated from the morning experiences in Mrs. Evangelia’s kitchenette or the coffee-drinking sessions in their small balconies at the unseen from passers-by, dark rear of our building.
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