Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
One summer at Carelas' farm, I fell in love with Kyria Ekaterina (Lady Katherine), my Lady. I was eight years old. My Lady had a sympathetic smile, a well-tanned, light olive complexion, dazzling white teeth, light-brown hair, blue eyes and, I learned, a lovely figure, as best an eight-year-old could judge. She must have been in her mid- to late thirties, was married, and was kind and gentle to me. I had begun to stammer that year, and she made me feel comfortable around her.
Kyria Ekaterina was a little aloof from the rest of the women at Carelas'. She read a lot and spent hours knitting quietly while sitting alone in the shade of an expansive tree. Sometimes, when I looked for her to deliver my gift, she was nowhere to be found.
My Lady loved fresh, warm chicken eggs, and they were my gift to her. I would creep around the chicken coop and scoop up an egg just as it was laid, when its shell was still soft. I rushed it to her. She greeted me happily when I brought her the prize. I watched her use a safety pin to punch holes into the egg and then suck out its still warm, raw contents with one or two efforts. This would ordinarily have revolted me, but when my Lady performed the act, it was great art - beautiful.
Often, I would go on one of my solitary missions into the woods, creeping behind trees and walls, pretending I was a soldier fighting the Germans or a pioneer escaping from a band of Indians. The trees of the forest provided shadows that moved with the wind and created as many enemies and pursuers as my imagination could conjure.
On one morning, I ventured far into the wood that led to Mr. Schoonmaker's pastures and farmhouse. Stealing along a fieldstone wall, I spied over it hoping to see a woodchuck or a deer, or a German machine-gun nest or an Indian inching up to attack me. What I saw was my Lady far from any road or home, stretched out on a blanket in the tall grass, reading a book. She was naked - totally, completely, naked. I stared at this vision for no more than three seconds, but it seemed like hours. I was sure that she had seen or heard me, and that my mother was watching me from a few feet away.
I slumped to the ground behind the rock wall for a few moments, recovered my composure, or at least some of it, suppressed my guilt, and slowly peeked over the wall again to be sure that I had seen what I thought I had seen. Yes, I had! For several breathless minutes I studied every mysterious detail of this goddess' body, then slowly crawled away along the wall and turned into the wood until I had gone far enough to be sure that I would not be seen. I never again returned to that spot in the forest.
Carelas treated his boarders to a hayride two or three times each summer. Dinner on those nights consisted of barbecued hot dogs cooked by the river at the great fireplace that we used to roast lambs in the spring. We children devoured a dessert of roasted marshmallows, cookies, and ice cream. At twilight, two or three horse drawn wagons filled with loose hay would arrive on the scene. We climbed aboard them for a long ride - men, women, and children. Carelas seemed to plan the dates of the rides on the availability of a full moon and a clear sky.
There was always someone along with a mandolin or guitar; sometimes, there were two or three amateur instrumentalists. As the horses pulled us slowly along country roads, men and women would sing Greek songs, tell stories, and laugh in the light of the moon under the dome of a star-studded sky. The song I remember most was about Barba Ianni [old John] and his papoutsia lastika (rubber shoes). My sister and I would eventually snuggle close to Mom and fall asleep. There was a very warm feeling about these rides. We traveled in a circle, a journey that brought us home and to bed.
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