A Modern Greek Tale

A Short Story

Alex entered the cultural center as a young man with a troubled past looking for a future in what he saw as a rich country.

"I stole at home when I was teen", he said once he took me into his confidence." But that life is over and now I have to Canada to make something new for myself".

"You are hopeful Alex but this isn't a land of riches any more. People are in debt here too and now youth has increasing debt more than ever before! "And that was my comment on his idealism, expecting perhaps a windfall here. I was thinking of the mounting credit card debts that kids like Alex getting in all too quickly.

He was looking for opportunities to share his culture but it looked like he really didn't want to give up much information. Was there something to hide? Maybe he was still coming to terms with his past.

At first it looked like here was a youth who wanted to forget his culture, instead I think of it as an opportunity to meet someone who coming from Greece, is probably looking for a way his country can survive or even thrive in the new century. He is aware of the difficulties of the state having been coaxed into accepting money from Germany. Now that the money is not free, there have been debts to pay.

So you see Germany as the "enfant terrible"? I was talking to Alexander who had visited from Greece several times before. We had met on an on-line math club and he was curious about Montreal.

"I think it's even worse than Germany in the Second World War," Alex started off. " Then there was the German military occupation and one could see the enemy today the enemy has become the crippled Greek economy fostered by a central European hegemony that has been dictating how Greece should pay its debts when it is a poor state and has been thrown into debt without concern for the people who have created families."

Alex came to Canada on a seminar to give a lecture for his PHD. On the side he wanted to get some experience with the Canadian work ethic but spoke little of himself except to say that Greece is an unwilling victim to the European Union.

"And how are your relationships, now?"I asked.

"Well I don't like women he said, they are manipulative." Well then I thought there was an analogy between Greece as a victim of Germany's extortion and he being a victim of relationships gone sour. Maybe I shouldn't judge for I too have been influenced sometimes badly by women thinking rather too emotionally on the one hand and unemotionally the next. Men haven't fared any better when it came to negating their commitments. It has become a selfish world or it has I always been selfish? "How could Alex ever find social contentment," I thought. Maybe it was actually I who yearned to be content socially but instances kept me distant from being satisfied socially. I felt emarginated too.

"I met a student doing his PHD in mathematics, I told my mother. He talked about the economic difficulties induced by the Eurocentric central powers."

My mother now aged had no idea how the new economy of Europe had favored more the Germans and the French through their associations then the "PIGS" those coming from Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The underbelly of Europe still had its weaker economies and has been threatened by bankruptcies for years. Greece was not alone. What a terrible way to associate those cultures to an acronym of that sort.

"Remember what I told you years ago, my son, that money is your best friend," she reminded me.

"Not when it's being horded by the rich," I thought thinking about Europe central banks.

So the European banks have been pressuring Greece to pay up its debts and wanting the country to face austerity. This made Alex think of them as fat rich pigs who were eager to get richer :"There is nothing piggish about their wanting to resolve their hardships!"I told him the next day.

"No and what is worse since middle class families have now lost money owed to the German banks, more and more people have been committing suicide."

"I can't believe you!"

"What would you do if at first you had a house and then have of it would be lost and then the other half could only be rented. You lose your property and your pride!"

Such were the conversations of the student who came to Montreal.

Little did he know that he already attracted some attention, at the student hotel where he stayed. It was as if they held something suspect about him, I observed when he returned for the night.

The next day while offering up a Canadian Greek cuisine in Park Extension, I asked if he noticed anything strange and he was a little uncomfortable.

"Can't even talk about what ails the country in a place like Canada?"Then he brushed he question aside as if it was secondary to his visit. And really he didn't want to appear too political to his friends anymore than he wanted just to talk about politics.

"Now you know why so many Greeks emigrated here after the Second World War," I said.

"But his is not the same...we had a nation that could defend itself here the enemy is invisible!"

And again I was told that with the advent of losing their property Greek owners would sooner take their own lives then continue to live in debt, and spend the rest of their lives paying back "foreigners."

"Maybe the English wanting to withdraw from a united Europe will fuel the others to do the same and end the German dream, once and for all!" Alex commented and then he added, "Because it isn't that the other southern nations want this unity. They want out too! "

Time passed as the dark skinned boy would continue drawing anything but pleasant, I thought but I didn't have the courage to be judgmental so I told him the drawing was good. Every figure looked somewhat devilish and he reveled in that. " Well you know people do have their dark side" .he would say to some who thought that he should just continue portraiture of his friends with pleasant smiles on Greek beaches.

The final straw came when Alex decided to steal from a cultural center he belonged to. Beatrice the custodian told me when I asked about whether she had seen him lately; he was going to help me post some of my art on-line.: "He's had to leave the center and now I think he wants to go back home to Greece."

"Why did he do that?" I asked amazed at hearing how a trusted assistant could actually become a rogue over night.

" Well he has been stealing little by little and we haven't suspected him because he seemed so honest and he was always arguing about having been shamed as a Greek coming to Canada, being referred to as someone who could never pay his debts".

Yes he was always sensitive about foreign demands on his native country. But stealing is not an answer. I remarked.

Beatrice replied that it wasn't and that they felt it their duty to inform the authorities of his misdemeanor. He was in Canada on a student visa after all and permanent stay hinged on whether he kept away from committing any more crimes.

So the young man went back to his country where he started working at a school tutoring kids. He was working as an educator while continuing his studies and found a notice on the door one day. 'Present yourself to the nearest police station as soon as you read this', it said and he had no idea what the police would want with him.

"Have you been fomenting trouble," abroad said the commander.

"I don't live in a communist state, do I," Alex asked rhetorically.

"Now you will have to give up what you own," the man interrupted almost as if he had become militaristic in his demands.

The next day would see headlines of dissidents arrested in Greece for the spread of "disinformation" it was quoted as saying. And there was picture of the man being carted off in a paddy wagon with the caption of "If you are thinking of degrading the society that nurtured you", think twice". It looked like Alex with his head tuned to the side in consternation.

Alexander felt like a trapped animal. After all his was just an academic visit to a foreign country that welcomed his countrymen. Now that country would be taking away their right to speak as well as the homes they worked so hard to create.