Because we are all shaped by our past, and understanding it deeply can forge our future…
Do you remember, Uncle?
One summer, when I was 13 or 14, at the “Chara” fish taverna… your life, as you used to say…
A Saturday night… me, an assistant waiter working with three waiters… “the boy from the village” who came to spend his summers beside you… to learn… “to be seasoned by life… at your age I was breaking stones,” you would tell me… and later, “you may have got into university, but the best university is this one… the university of the street”… How right you were, Uncle…
An evening packed with people… more than 30 tables that I had to serve at the same time as an assistant waiter… supporting three waiters… you see, I would put out a few ice cubes… the “Mytilene” ouzo, which was on promotion at the time and had to be sold so that we could make a bigger profit… the bread… the cutlery… the tablecloth… all of it on one tray… often setting three or four tables at once just to keep up…
That evening I also served table G3… a lovely couple, the gentleman having a problem with his vocal cords… as I served him the Mytilene ouzo, he said through the distinctive device at his throat that made his voice audible…”Boy, please, a Tsantali ouzo…”
And I thought what a shame it was after all the effort I had made… you see, the restaurant covered three stremmas beside the beach in Nea Krini, with sweat clinging to you because of the heat, the still air and the humidity…
“Right away, sir,” I replied, and went back to fetch a Tsantali ouzo to replace the Mytilene one…
A little later, the waiters were calling again: “Dimitris, one beer for G1… one Georgiadi retsina for B2 and one ouzo for G3”… I rushed to put the order together again and, in the sequence of events you might expect, served the gentleman at G3 the Mytilene ouzo. As expected, he asked me to replace it with a Tsantali ouzo, while I apologised a thousand times… so I went back to replace it; you see, we were extremely busy and it was more than 38 degrees Celsius, even though it was already evening…
Fortunately, things were quiet the next day, Sunday… one waiter and me as his assistant… no more than 15 tables to serve all evening…
The now-familiar gentleman with the voice problem came in with a woman, and they again sat at the same table… this time I eagerly ran over to serve him… saying, “I know, I know — one Tsantali ouzo,” only for him to reply in panic, in that distinctive voice, with the device almost falling from his hands… “But… but what are you talking about? One Malamatina retsina,” visibly shocked…
“Right away,” I said, and suddenly I saw him get up and come over to you, my uncle, inside the kitchen… the two of you talking… and you telling me, “go to the other side of the restaurant until they leave”… then leaving the kitchen and going over to the couple’s table in your distinctive cook’s apron to tell them that “the boy has come from the village… he doesn’t know; he gets things a little mixed up”… you see, you had to make me look a little foolish so that you could explain how the previous evening he had come to eat with his “lady friend” at the secluded table G3, and the next day had returned with his wife to the very same table (!) — effectively exposing what he had been up to…
This episode, like so many others, is tucked away in my own “chest of memories”, occasionally stirred up for no other reason than to understand the flow of real life… the continuity of the journey… and that, my uncle, although you may have “gone”, full of experiences, some things forged my soul…
Thank you for everything, my uncle Giannis Mavromatidis (the “Charas”)
Your nephew @Dimitris Mavromatidis