An Australian Story - by Dorothy Poulopoulos
AN AUSTRALIAN STORY
I am Vassili
I never got to finish any age
because suddenly the door would swing open
and my brother and I would be flung outside…
It started early in Pylos, Greece,
where “The Guns of Navarone” were set.
Joy was cut short before Peter and I saw the light of day.
Born in 1934, Peter’s mother had died while giving birth to him.
Born in 1937, our father became paraplegic in an accident on the way to hospital for my birth.
They say that a childhood that does not start cannot end and so it seemed for us…
…our father- a learned man, spoke 3 languages and
taught us how to read and write
while our mother tried to solve maths problems like,
“How many pieces do I need to cut this loaf of bread into
If I want to feed 4 mouths over 7 days?”
My brother and I would hold out our hands…
And then put them back into our pockets.
We shared our hunger
and we swallowed the lump in our throat.
We were children without bread
We were children without dreams
but we were children with each other
and friends like Niko, Elia, Antoni, Vassili ,
Riga and Marini.
We mapped secret paths through orchards that weren’t ours
for a pear that was worth its weight in gold
and played games with marbles
that got us used to the idea of taking chances.
Then, before I turned five, Dad died.
Mother cried, Peter cried and I cried.
and we became… poorer…
Until... World War ii landed on our doorstep.
The “enemy” set up headquarters in the house facing ours
and I would knock on that door for a piece of bread
or a tin of corned beef in exchange for 2 eggs.
It was always the same soldier who would open.
He would point the gun to my face
through the crack of the door
until he could see who was on the other side-
trying to keep a handle on his life,
as we tried to keep a handle on ours.
Once he realized it was me, he would welcome me in,
pat my head and warmly greet me
with:
“Piccolo, Piccolo…s’accomodi.”
He offered me a seat where I would wait
while he searched for some bread or a tin with some food inside.
HE WAS A NICE MAN.
Six months later, mother announced that
she was getting married again, to a cobbler this time
whose first name and surname were the same as my father’s
but he, was of a different bloodline.
Mother danced, Peter laughed and I cried and cried and cried.
“Don’t cry” Peter would try and say comfortingly.
“He will bring us some figs and he will make us some shoes. We will have shoes, just think of that! Shoes…”
But I knew he wouldn’t.
I had watched him long enough
And he hadn’t taken a second look at us.
HE WAS THE WRONG MAN.
Before the week was up,
Peter disappeared.
The Wrong Man tried to explain.
“Peter had to go. I am not his father and your mother is not really his…So he’s gone to an orphanage in Patra to be with other kids just like him”.
Towing the tears, my knees buckled
In the freezing cold , as I left for school.
The snow on my bare feet now held the temperature of Peter’s absence
And the marbles that rolled away
Now held the colour of his eyes.
I wanted to find him but didn’t know where to look.
Life lumbered along… and I found solace in study until I was nearly twelve
when suddenly mother said “you’re going to Thessaloniki tomorrow…
there are better schools there and my brother will take good care of you.
He has lots of money and owns various shops. You’ll be better off”.
When I got there, there was no school waiting for me to attend.
I worked in a butcher’s shop and carried a carcass on my back for most of the day…that could have been my own.
In return, I got pocket money--
I used it for bean soup
and slept on the couch. There were no wages.
Not enough money to leave…
Until one day, at Christmas, in 1954,
a brown envelope arrived for me.
“I am in Bonegilla, a place in Australia,
35 days away from Greece. There are a lot of other people here too
and flies that sound like the army jets racing through.
We are served pastry with soggy meat and a side of soggy potato
that is as pale and as formless as my identity
in this foreign land. It’s stinking hot and
as you can surmise, the food is not great!
but there’s plenty of it to go round…
I’ll let you know as soon as I get work and my own place.”
My brother was alive and found…
And his letter unfastened the latch of the trap
That I had been set in Thessaloniki…
In 1956 another letter arrived:
“I have rented a room at 26 Mitchell Street, Northcote, and I have bought you a bed.
My boss at Arthurstone Press says he has a job for you as a feeder when you get here. You will need to go to Athens before month’s end.
Dad’s friend, Adonis Doulamis who works in Social Security will meet you there. He will have some passport papers for you to fill in, to leave”.
There was no need to ask if I wanted to leave. We all did back then.
We detonated ourselves on home ground
and looked for the pieces on foreign land.
I packed my mission brown suitcase and £20 (pounds) and boarded The Tasmania at Piraeus Port on the 11th of September, 1956.
34 days later, on the 15th of October, 1956, The Tasmania pulled into
Station Pier in Melbourne at 10 am.
Suddenly, the door swung open and the ship was transformed
into a giant fallopian tube with myriads of people racing through
like Spermatozoa looking for the eggs to connect and fertilize all over again.
I stood, bereft of a compass in “a sea of faces”- My eyes darted right, left and peripherally but I did not know how to recognize my own life’s blood.
I hadn’t seen my brother since I was a child…
Almost everyone had left the ship when I heard a couple next to me say:
“He hasn’t seen him since he was a little boy”.
A McRobertson’s bar of “Old Gold” Chocolate lands at my feet
and a voice from afar …
“Poppy…Thanassi, that’s him!
He’s my brother!
Vaassssiiillliii!!!”
©Dorothy Poulopoulos