The old lady had never learned anything else in her life except to drop blessings from her lips, as if the blessings sustained her.
Her eyelash colour faded, her face was a mass of wrinkles. ” Daughter, give me the votive candle so I may light it, and may you reign like a queen one
day”.
On Sundays, in the courtyard under the vine, they’d turn on the radio.
“Daughter, bring the radio, and may you pick up soil and have it turned to gold
in your hands”.
I clamber down the stairs to Argiroupole metro station, heading to work, in central Athens. She’s sitting in one of the benches there, dark-skinned, dark-haired, probably a Roma, in her twenties. A long, limp pony tail, a shabby, red T-shirt, a flared, flowery skirt, tattered flip-flops. An equally scruffy two or three-year-old boy is wringing out of her grasp.
‘I know you and dad wanted something else for me but- Yeah, a rich, pot-bellied prince. You think mine is a frog, eh? He loves me to bits, mum; he really cares, that’s what matters.’ Sonia punches the pen’s tip fast against the notepad on the coffee table, peppering the white sheet with inky dots. ‘We’ll find something to eat. He’ll get a job.
Μετάφραση του έργου του