ANTONIS WAS TIRED OF WAITING for his grandfather. Even though he knew he was never on time, he just couldn’t accept it. Every night when he said goodbye, his grandfather would tell him: “Tomorrow at five to five past five,” but he never showed up before half past five. Now it was twenty to six and his grandfather… nowhere to be seen. “Let’s see what excuse he’ll come up with this time,” Antonis thought. He knew that his grandfather was a big liar. Just like Baron Munchausen. Munchausen had become famous all over the world for his lies. But his grandfather was neither a baron, nor would he become known to the ends of the earth for his lies. The strange thing, of course, was that the stories he made up often turned out to be true, and so Antonis was forced to believe him. But the one who always believed him, no matter what he told her, was Larisa, the Russian housekeeper who came to their house, but also went to his grandfather’s house.

Larisa adored him. She called him “Mister Grandfather,” and he called her Lara, like the heroine of Doctor Zhivago, a movie with a Russian story that he liked very much. Some of the things grandfather said had happened to him were written in the newspaper the next day or shown on the news on television. Not exactly as he had told them, of course, but so similar that everyone believed grandfather had lived them. Like that time when he was very late and arrived with a band-aid on his head. For a moment, Antonis thought he had put it on on purpose to justify his lateness. But underneath, you could see dried blood. But even that could have been from a red marker—one could expect anything from grandfather.