Diary of a Human Target (Book One) - Tainted Youth

Sunday, 10th September 1972

  This afternoon Alice quarreled with an older girl in the playground. “I will tell my big sister!”, she moaned and pointed at me. I was on a swing, when I suddenly saw that girl standing beside me, waving her hand before me threateningly, as if she were about to hit me. “Who do you think your sister is? If I give her a slap, she will fall to pieces!” she yelled at Alice. My first reaction was to blink in surprise; then I decided to stand up for myself, so as not to be called “stupid” or “coward”. There followed a battle royal, then the other girl ran to fetch her older brothers and I fetched my mother. I didn't really understand how, but we finally made it up.

  Tuesday, 7th November 1972

  Well, the above bully was meant to become my best friend during this school year. We happen to be classmates, her name is Barbara and she is already well known at school as a liar and a thief. Constantly trumpeting forth that her family is destitute, she has already fooled many children into giving her various things: stationery, clothes, shoes, toys, even jewellery. According to what they say, if she is not given anything, she steals it with dexterity. Everybody warns me about her but I don't pay much heed, maybe because I need her friendship; apart from boring Tonia, Barbara is the only child at school who is willing to keep me company. Besides, we do have fun together...

  Wednesday, 15th November 1972

  During the first months of her life, Jasmine didn't look any different from a normal baby, so I was not particularly concerned about her. Besides, I like to believe that when she grows up, she may overcome her problem. In fact, until recently Jasmine's health showed a steady improvement: She had already started to lift her head, she was also about to sit like a normal baby. The doctors who saw her were very pleased. However, about a month ago, she ran a temperature of 41.5º Celcius that wouldn't go down. The doctors diagnosed brain fever, which lasted for days and broke her once for all: She will never lift her head again, she will never sit; from now on, she will always be lying in bed.

  As about my mother, she is not only devastated but she often receives malicious comments as well:

  “It seems you have many sins, that's why God gave you this child; he wanted to punish you,” aunt Domna told her the other day.

  “Is this your daughter's baby?” she is often asked by other women, whenever we go to the playground.

  “If I had such a child, I would kill it!” said aunt Penelope, my sister's godmother, when she visited us yesterday afternoon.

  ... As time passes, Jasmine's disability will become more and more obvious, while hope will be waning day by day. Soon we'll start taking her to a center for spastic children, where she will have kinesitherapy; in my opinion, this doesn't bring much result. But I always love my little sister, I take her in my lap, sing her songs and hope that some day she will get well, perhaps by a miracle.

  Wednesday, 6th December 1972

  Growing up, I feel it is not right to shun others and always retire into my shell. So, I often push myself into groups of children, even if their behaviour sometimes confuses me: When I avoid them, they call me silly; when I approach them, they make fun of me. I do my best to be friendly and pleasant, I often ignore teasings or I respond with a smile of understanding. I even do them occasional favours so as to become more likeable. Yet, I can see that this strategy brings poor results. Furthermore, I must admit that I am still very timid and I don't dare oppose anyone -maybe because I'm always alone against gangs of bullies. “Yvonne is stupid, she doesn't understand what she is told!” says Nora, the star of the class, again and again.

  Unfortunately, this year I happen to be sitting at the same desk with Anna Harrisis, a corpulent girl who takes pleasure in terrifying me, using her large size and the high number of her friends. She always tries to be clever, she steals my things and derides me all the time, just to show how smart she is.

  Yesterday I agreed to exchange my rubber jumping rope for her fancy pen. Today, during the first break, Anna suddenly appeared before me together with the horde of her lumpish friends. In her hands she was holding the rubber rope, which had now been reduced to a dirty rag full of knots. I really wondered, how she had achieved that so quickly!

  “I want my pen back, Yvonne! And here is your jumping rope!” she said and stretched it before me in an ostentatious manner. “This is your rope, Yvonne!” she repeated pompously.

  I tried to protest but I shut up quickly when I faced the angry looks of the horde. So, I returned the pen and got back the useless rope.

  “You see how dumb she is? She always does what she is told!” I heard Anna saying mockingly, as she and her underlings were moving off. I just stood behind alone, feeling sad and humiliated -as usual.

  Friday, 12th January 1973

  Since the beginning of the school year I have been collecting cards that depict various characters from animated cartoons. I find them in certain chocolates, I'm very fond of them and I have almost completed the entire collection.

  However, there is a problem: Alice always wants half of whatever I have. She has often asked me to give her half of my cards too. This afternoon she grouched and grouched, so I decided to give her the cards I have in double. They are quite a few, but obviously not enough for her. She demanded to have exactly half of my basic collection and she wanted to choose which ones! I refused, we had a row, Alice turned on the waterworks (as usual) and mum came immediately to see what was wrong: “Give half of your cards to the infant, you big one!” she shouted angrily. I disagreed, Alice kept on wailing like a siren, and mum found it right to tear as many of my cards as possible, totally deaf to my entreaties and blind to my tears. Finally, something broke inside me and I tore myself all the remaining cards...

  Tuesday, 20th February 1973

  Early in the afternoon, at about 4:00 o'clock, I happened to meat Anna Harrisis on the road. She was going to the baker's to buy a loaf of bread. We walked there together, but we found the shop closed, since it was due to open at 5:30 again, like every day. “And this means that I must return home empty-handed? No way!” she growled.

  Without hesitating at all, Anna made for the baker's house, which is right behind the shop, and rang the bell many times until the whole family got out of bed and answered the door. To my surprise, not only were they all smiles to her, but they also opened the shop before its time for the countess to buy half a kilo of bread.

  Friday, 9th March 1973

  As soon as I got into the classroom this morning, I noticed a big bunch of flowers lying on the first desk. Almost immediately I was informed that one of our classmates had been killed in a car accident two days before.

  “Who is it?” I asked to know.

  “Fotis Armaos!” answered Mary, who sits in front of me.

  I was staggered at the terrible news. Fotis had been absent from school for two days, and we all had assumed he were ill. And he had always been my first love, ever since we were in the first grade.

  We didn't have a lesson today. All the pupils of my class lined up in threes and we walked to Fotis' house, where we saw his black-dressed mother crying and sobbing, just before the funeral started. We followed the hearse to the local cemetery and we attended the burial rites. I was feeling a deep sorrow, like something sinking inside me. In all, I don't think it was a good thing that the class attended the funeral. In my opinion, this was not good, either for the children or for the dead boy's parents.

  Tuesday, 13th March 1973

  Almost every day Barbara coerces me into giving her various objects, such as pencil cases, drawing colours, pens, rubbers etc, taking advantage of my fad about the cards of animated cartoons. She has promised many times to provide me with rare cards that I don't have, or numbers over 150, which only she has and no one else. “I have just lost the cards, but I'm sure they are somewhere in my house. As soon as I find them, I will give them to you! Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow!” she always says. Deep inside I know she is lying, but I need to believe her. Anyway, I can't be angry at her, because
her family is very poor indeed.

  This afternoon, while we were going to the grocer's together, she showed me her mother's purse with two drachmas in. “You see? This is all the money we've got!” she told me sadly.

  Friday, 16th March 1973

  Barbara's demands are increasing day by day. I can hardly anticipate her wishes. No longer contented with school supplies, she keeps asking for more and more of my clothes: blouses, skirts, jackets, shoes, gloves, hats, even embroideries!

  This afternoon my mother lost her patience completely, as soon as she saw that my beautiful new shoes were gone. And not only that:

  “My gold medallion has also disappeared from the drawer, where it was locked! She stole it!” shouted mum, fume and fret at me.

  “Barbara never takes anything unless I give it to her!” I protested.

  However, my mother was adamant: “Listen well! If I ever see her in our house again, I will kick her out and I will beat you black and blue! Got it?”

  So, I have to make up my mind and start keeping Barbara at a distance. Anyway, she will soon make herself scarce, as soon as she realizes that she isn't going to get anything else from me.

  Sunday, 30th April 1973

  Gregory and I were playing quietly in his yard this evening, when Martha and a friend of hers passed by. It was Gregory's idea to start teasing them; soon we started calling each other names. All of a sudden, aunt Pauline rushed out of the house, complained about the fuss and took her son inside, slamming the door in my face. This means that I was left all alone in the yard, against the two Swedish cows, both older and bigger than me. “You are a nitwit! Why were you laughing?” roared Martha, with her arms akimbo. I sought to blame Gregory, he had started it anyway, but Martha wasn't listening to a word I was saying. She just pushed me down violently and shouted: “Get out of here now, you idiot!”. Then, the two lumps got away laughing. I ran home at once and didn't stop crying until late at night.

  Wednesday, 3rd May 1973

  Once again, mother demanded that, right after lunch, I should eat two slices of bread, spread with butter and sugar. That's because, according to her, I never eat enough. After many quarrels about this, I have finally figured out what the right thing to do is: I don't argue with her anymore; instead, I take the two fatty slices of bread eagerly, then I go out to the yard and throw them into the adjacent building plot. Mother suspects nothing and we are all happy.

  Food has always been a settled stress for me: Since my early childhood, I have always refused to eat my meals, usually saying “I don't want any more” after the first spoonful. As a result, I often got spanked. One day, when I was four, I got so much spanking that I cried myself to sleep; mum was worried and vowed never to beat me up again -because of food.

  As long as I can remember, mum has always been stuck in the kitchen, incessantly cooking and cramming our mouths with food, for fear of our being undernourished. I reckon that just like most of her peer women, my mother suffers from the “postwar syndrome” (my term!), that is constant fear that the German Occupation might return any minute. Whenever I refuse to eat some disgusting dish, macaroni with chopped cuttlefish for instance, she frowns at me and says: “Eat up your food! Thin people don't survive an Occupation! What will you do if the Germans come again?”.

  In general, mum is convinced that if someone wants to be healthy and happy, they should eat lots of meat, lots of fat, lots of oil, lots of butter, lots of bread, lots of pasta, lots of milk, lots of everything, all the time.

  Wednesday, 12th September 1973

  This summer proved to be the happiest of my life. I spent three wonderful months playing on the road with old friends such as Gregory, Urania, Tassos and others. From time to time a friendly neighbour, who used to work for a travel agency, invited all the children to get on his coach and took us to the Diamond Beach, in Glyfada.

  Every day there were about fifteen children in my neighbourhood, especially outside my house, playing football, volleyball, rackets, the soldiers, hopscotch, hide-and-seek, tag, the apples, etc.

  We all stayed out till midnight, and during all those hours the whole place reverberated with cheerful voices, songs from radios, or thumps from balls and rackets.

  I do enjoy our street being full of life; nevertheless, I find it a little strange that in the rest of the city you will seldom see even one child playing out on the road. As if there were no kids in other neighbourhoods...

  Chapter 6: Class E Junior