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Doina RuSti
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come to leave. With two
of his cousins, his father
bought a second-hand boat.
A wreck. Anyone could tell
that they wouldn’t be able
to catch fish in it. This ruin
of a boat would crash into
the rocks one kilometre
off the port. That was it.
That was its role. Ioanis
and his second cousins
would already be aboard
Lambros’s galleon, dressed
in fustanellas and wearing
tsarouhia
on their feet. All
three in a row, nose to nose,
that unmistakable nose of
Milikopus, sometimes broad
like the blade of a scimitar
and at other times suddenly
swollen like an ocarina. Of
the heirlooms that he didn’t
like, this nose was the very
first. Especially when he was
upset, all his anger went
into his nose, making him
look like a raven.
The
perspective
of
becoming a warrior was
dire, clouding his future,
which up to that point was
all milk and honey.
Careworn by the upcoming
departure, he went to his
teacher’s doorstep.
Okimon had taught him to
write. He had given him The
Balavarani, with the story of
Barlaam and
Josaphat. He wasn’t a true
Greek, but half Sephardi,
and this helped him greatly.
He knew lines by heart from
the
Iliad
but he also read
parables from
Me’am Lo’ez
.
Ioanis expected the best
advice from this man.
Okimon believed that the
father’s decision should be
respected. No other action
would have been better