— Grandpa, this is my friend from school, Minas Georgiou. He’s writing a research paper about Manolis Gris. He wants to ask you some questions.
— I see, said her grandfather.
Evelina kicked my shin.
— Say something, she hissed.
— Mr. Dinopoulos, I’d be interested in interviewing you about the events of the trial. I would want to record our conversation, to make sure I get everything right. Of course you can check the final text. It’s a student paper about the Gris trial. I’ll be presenting it at our school at the end of the quarter. And if you’d like to attend, you would be the guest of honor.
As I spoke, the old man pulled a magnifying glass out of his vest pocket and started examining me through it.
— You remind me of someone, was his response.
Now it was my turn to kick Evelina.
— Grandpa, she coaxed.
— I’d be very interested in recording your opinion of the events, I plowed on. You’re the only person involved in the case who never made a public statement.
— What’s done is done. Water under the bridge, last year’s sour grapes, the old man said, seeming bored.
— That’s not true, as you know better than anyone, I tried to challenge him. What matters is that justice be served.
— Evthalia, Evthalia Mitsikidou.
The old man was drumming his nails on the arm of his chair. He’d brought the magnifying glass back up to his face and was scrutinizing me again.
— If you didn’t have that silly ponytail, I never would have made the connection, he said, laughing with a kind of a snort. The devil take me if you’re not Evthalia’s grandson. Your face is like hers, and the way you move your head when you talk. How is Evthalitsa these days? he asked.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, calculating. The Gris affair could wait. For the old man, Grandma came first.
— Grandma, do you know Mr. Dinopoulos, Evelina’s grandfather?
Grandma was frying eggs in margarine. She put them on a plate and poured the extra melted margarine over them, then diced an onion for the salad. She sprinkled it with water and salt to take out the worst of its sting.
— We were neighbors. We lived across the street from one another, she answered, without pausing in her task.
— I went to see him yesterday, Evelina took me. About Gris. I told you about my project, right?
She crumbled feta over the salad with her fingers.
— He guessed right away that I’m your grandson. He says I look like you. He seemed kind of strange.
Grandma smiled.
— Well, he was a very well-respected lawyer in his day. Gris accused lots of people of intrigue, but never Dinopoulos. They had some kind of a friendship, or at least that’s what the newspapers claimed. Dinopoulos used to go and visit him in prison, even after the verdict.
— What’s he like? As a person, I mean?
Under different circumstances, Grandma would have put down the olive oil and the oregano. She would have sat me down at the table so we could talk vis-à-vis and face-to-face, as she likes to say. Grandma believes that people shouldn’t talk without looking one another in the eye. I watched the hunch in her back rise and fall nervously. She fished in a jar for olives, took out some spicy pickles and went on decorating the salad.
— I couldn’t say. I knew him when he was young. People change.
— Come on, Grandma. You’re always bragging about your infallible instincts with people.
Grandma wiped her hands on a dish towel and started setting the table. When she answered, she seemed almost out of breath.
— He’s very bright. Worked like a dog. Was never accused of the slightest irregularity. A family man, with traditional values. Talked a big game, but always followed through.
She served the food. She had no intention of continuing that conversation. Whatever else she had to say on the subject, she was already saying on the inside.
— Did you know our grandparents knew one another?
Evelina shrugged.
We’ve been hanging out for the past week or so. Her mother apparently considers me a good influence. When we were eight years old, Evelina told her mother, I always have the best conversations with Minas. He’s the smartest kid in our class.
— Just look at our little grown-ups, her mother said to mine, back then. Mrs. Dinopoulou also told Mom that Evelina was the one who put that valentine in my bag in first grade, the paper heart that said, Minas, will you marry me? on it.
At some point, though, we sort of stopped having anything to do with one another. Evelina hung out with more popular kids; I didn’t meet her requirements. It bugged her that I always got the better grades, always scored just a few points higher than she did. Last year she finally got what she wanted and calmed down. The fact that she’s in charge of the attendance book this year is proof that she finally beat me. After being runner-up for years, now she’s getting ready to be flag-bearer at the school parade.
Evelina’s one of those people who needs constant validation. No amount of praise is ever enough. She dopes herself like a race horse. She thinks she knows the truth just because she knows how to pick the right answers on exams. Which isn’t all that great an accomplishment, if you ask me.
There will always be someone who’s better. Someone is always going to know more. Evelina is a right-answer machine, as long as she’s already learned the answer from one of our textbooks. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for her to deal with Soukiouroglou — because he’s unpredictable. He asks unexpected questions and accepts bizarre answers, as long as you support your position with evidence. Souk doesn’t test our knowledge, he takes it as a given. What he cares about is how we think. His mind doesn’t work like other people’s, he’s full of incendiary ideas and loves to provoke. The atmosphere in his classroom can get pretty tense. Not everyone can take it, and not everyone is interested in supporting a position. If it’s in the answer key, that’s good enough for them. Souk doesn’t even read answer keys. Which is a big problem if you’re in a hurry to find out the answers.
THROUGH OTHER EYES
— Sir, I read the pages you recommended.
Minas’s tone was one of mild despair.
— So, I need to quote others’ opinions and cite my sources properly.
He didn’t know what else to say.
— You think that’s enough? Soukiouroglou asked. Just cite some sources and you’re through? That sounds like an easy way out.
— But, sir, I’m going to discuss the events, too. I’ve been investigating the causal relationships.
Minas couldn’t remember precisely where he’d heard that phrase, but it seemed to suit the occasion, so he went ahead and tacked it on.
— Investigating the causal relationships? Where on earth did that come from? Someone less well-disposed might call your language borrowed.
He gave Minas a look and decided the conversation was worth pursuing.
Years earlier he had spent a semester of unspeakable loneliness in Bristol. The historians at the university there, or at least the ones he met, were all provocatively postmodern, and avoided mentioning events. They preferred to talk about the narrative construction of history. Some wore moth-eaten sweaters and ragged slacks, but others wore bow ties to class, men of privilege with no need to prove anything to anyone, who considered power dynamics the sole driving force behind history.
— Historical events arrive to us already interpreted, they’re trickier than we think, he remembered one graduate student saying, a young man with a bowl cut, wire-rimmed glasses, and a healthy dose of self-confidence. The historical continuum has no beginning, middle, or end, he proclaimed. The ideology of periodization is way out of date. It’s time we recognized that. We can’t just divide history into neat slices. History is a construction. Narrative would be the best word for it.