supporting British archaeological research in Greece, which also accepted a few anthropology students. The place was like a bizarre parallel universe. Outside the stone walls was fashionable Kolonaki, with its expensive boutiques and restaurants and the spill-out from the neighbouring Evangelismos Hospital – white-coated doctors smoking and groups of gypsies waiting on blankets by their vans. The school itself, however, was an Anglophone oasis with scented shrubberies, grand olive trees and tennis courts. Old stone buildings stood defiantly amidst the cement city’s impermanence. Redolent of boiled vegetables and waxed parquet, the school was home to visiting scholars with tight, bookish features, who spent hours in the panelled library amongst busts of bewhiskered dead men. It felt like a cross between an English boarding school and a Greek convent, and was rumoured to be a hotbed of undercover agents – the glamorous Minister of Culture and former actress, Melina Mercouri, had called for it to be shut down.
My days were divided between reading in the library and attending Greek classes. One evening, having nothing better to do, I attended a lecture on an archaeological dig, followed by drinks at the director’s house. I was introduced to a soignée Greek woman in her sixties, who spoke good English and wore pillar-box red lipstick that conjured up stars of the 1940s. She had a long association with the School, she explained. At the end of the party, she asked me to tea the next day and gave me a visiting card. Alexandra Koftos , it said, in swirling copperplate. Odos Paradisou 17, Mets, Athina . “I adore English tea.” She smiled conspiratorially , as if admitting some more sinister vice.
The following day I arrived in Paradise Street at 5 o’ clock as instructed. The road was quiet and tree-lined with pastel-coloured houses of varying ages and styles – quite different to the apartment blocks that dominate Athens. Number 17 was a solid, neo-classical building, painted cream, with dark green shutters, white pilasters and pretty terracotta roof decorations in the shapes of women’s heads and two female figures at the corners. Alexandra greeted me like a friend, kissing me and asking me not to call her Mrs Koftos as it reminded her of her long-gone mother-in-law. She drew me in through a shadowy hallway and into the ground floor apartment. I looked around, admiring the spacious proportions and the combination of light and solidity. The floors were covered with shiny, dark-red stone containing the pale remains of fossils (that years later, fascinated Tig: “ammonites and belemnites” she learned to chant when she was small).
“My parents built this house,” said Alexandra. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
We sat in the formal sitting room, with windows shut and layers of beige curtains thwarting sunshine and curious passers-by. The furniture was an inconsistent mix of heavy wooden pieces that Alexandra had inherited from her parents and the gilded reproduction Louis XIV that she preferred. Silver ornaments shone from dust-free occasional tables and cut-glass bowls were filled with Gioconda chocolates. It is still the same, with its aroma of polish and floor cleaner mixed with lemon sauce and cinnamon. She told me how she liked the English, indeed had a little English blood herself, from a grandmother.
“We owe a great deal to the English,” she said, as though I had contributed in some way. “After the war, they saved Greece. If it hadn’t been for them, we’d have ended up under the thumb of the communists. We’d have become a Soviet satellite like Bulgaria – God forbid!”
Alexandra led me through to the kitchen by the back courtyard to help her prepare the tea. A round-faced woman in a dark cotton dress sat at the table crocheting, not watching the small television that blasted out a religious programme featuring an aged priest. Chryssa spoke in Greek and though I didn’t understand very
My days were divided between reading in the library and attending Greek classes. One evening, having nothing better to do, I attended a lecture on an archaeological dig, followed by drinks at the director’s house. I was introduced to a soignée Greek woman in her sixties, who spoke good English and wore pillar-box red lipstick that conjured up stars of the 1940s. She had a long association with the School, she explained. At the end of the party, she asked me to tea the next day and gave me a visiting card. Alexandra Koftos , it said, in swirling copperplate. Odos Paradisou 17, Mets, Athina . “I adore English tea.” She smiled conspiratorially , as if admitting some more sinister vice.
The following day I arrived in Paradise Street at 5 o’ clock as instructed. The road was quiet and tree-lined with pastel-coloured houses of varying ages and styles – quite different to the apartment blocks that dominate Athens. Number 17 was a solid, neo-classical building, painted cream, with dark green shutters, white pilasters and pretty terracotta roof decorations in the shapes of women’s heads and two female figures at the corners. Alexandra greeted me like a friend, kissing me and asking me not to call her Mrs Koftos as it reminded her of her long-gone mother-in-law. She drew me in through a shadowy hallway and into the ground floor apartment. I looked around, admiring the spacious proportions and the combination of light and solidity. The floors were covered with shiny, dark-red stone containing the pale remains of fossils (that years later, fascinated Tig: “ammonites and belemnites” she learned to chant when she was small).
“My parents built this house,” said Alexandra. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
We sat in the formal sitting room, with windows shut and layers of beige curtains thwarting sunshine and curious passers-by. The furniture was an inconsistent mix of heavy wooden pieces that Alexandra had inherited from her parents and the gilded reproduction Louis XIV that she preferred. Silver ornaments shone from dust-free occasional tables and cut-glass bowls were filled with Gioconda chocolates. It is still the same, with its aroma of polish and floor cleaner mixed with lemon sauce and cinnamon. She told me how she liked the English, indeed had a little English blood herself, from a grandmother.
“We owe a great deal to the English,” she said, as though I had contributed in some way. “After the war, they saved Greece. If it hadn’t been for them, we’d have ended up under the thumb of the communists. We’d have become a Soviet satellite like Bulgaria – God forbid!”
Alexandra led me through to the kitchen by the back courtyard to help her prepare the tea. A round-faced woman in a dark cotton dress sat at the table crocheting, not watching the small television that blasted out a religious programme featuring an aged priest. Chryssa spoke in Greek and though I didn’t understand very
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