Peasants & Masters, the first in the
Greek Chronicle by
Theodor Kallifatides,
explores the tensions in
Greece between the common person and his
German occupier
in the midst of
World War II. It is set in the town of
Ialos, which can
be
translated as "shore", one not visible from an
inland town. (25)
Perhaps this distinction is intentional, for the
narrator notes that while
those by the
shore wait for the
boat, those inland wait for the
bus. The
boat pulls away slowly, allowing time to say goodbye to those aboard; the bus is
"merely
depressing", since there is no
image to remember. (21) This
depression is indicative of Ialites, since they seemingly have nowhere
to turn except themselves in need. Ialites, as it turns out, are too
schizophrenic to help themselves.
Kallifatides creates vivid
characters inclined to
ribald humor and a
love of
sexuality and its after effects. Take, for example, the example
of the
confectioner who
hanged himself in shame after being accused of
homosexual behavior. Kallifatides opens his
novel hinting at his
deeds, only noting that he hanged himself from a
chestnut subsequently
known as the "hanging chestnut". (13-14) Only later in the novel does the
reader learn what the confectioner actually did. It turns out that the
confectioner made
loukoumi, a type of
jelly roll popular with
children but considered the mark of the
gay man. Since the art of
loukoumi was developed in the city of
Petra, Petra was considered the seat of
pedophiles
and men bent on seducing other men with a "few trembling bills". (137)
The confectioner married against
protocol, yet he, his
wife, and
children were relentlessly
harrassed, his shop covered with
graffiti and
mocked (though heavily
patronized). In a show of
Greek ambivalence towards
the
Turkish, some Ialites called to import
policemen from
Turkey,
since according to local legend
Turks were very skilled at detecting
homosexual men. (138) Ultimately, his wife took a secret lover in the form of a
distinguished general, driving an already shamed man to
suicide. (139)
This story is a
foil for Ialite ambivalence about
Hitler, viewed
as
effeminate, and his army. As ambivalent the Greeks were towards their
neighbors, they were more
confused by the Germans, whose
kurt style and attempts to bring the Ialites
into line merely resulted in mockery from the laid-back,
jocular villagepeople.
Perhaps the only person most villagers took seriously was David Kalin,
the village's only
Jewish person. Few villagers truly understood his
fear of the
Nazi occupation, since few in town had any realization of
Hitler's intense
hatred of the
Jew. Yet the meek
schoolteacher took
David's children after the Germans spread
anti-Semitic propaganda. Even then,
the schoolteacher's son Minos developed an infatuation with David's daughter
Reveka. (91 - 4)
Ialites are contradictory to the end, purporting to love their masters, yet
never becoming the peasants. Continuously living within their
snow globe,
they can't get anything right. Loving when told to hate, humorous in times
of seriousness, Kallifatides gets one thing right: he pierces two-dimensions,
adding
time and
depth.
From my own work, notes included for convenience. 2001