My father… Kyriakos Zisimatos… I remember him through the haze of the many years that have passed. Back then, he would laugh and shake the whole earth, and his laughter, strong and joyful, with a hint of childhood innocence, would carry everyone around him. Everyone says I resemble him, and they are not wrong. A black-and-white old photograph bears witness, faded by time and with a gentle yellowish tint around the edges. I want to believe, however, that our resemblance goes deeper than the surface and reaches to make us alike as people. I am his true continuation…
With my father, we had a code of communication that would exclude everyone else, especially my mother, who would get angry and shout. Like the time when I was five years old and my father lifted me onto the tractor and made me drive it. When she found out, she had a fit^ she shouted and pulled her hair. His explanation, that the large steering wheel of the machine was held steady by his own firm hands, fell on deaf ears and was not the first time, but my father would smile calmly. And when my mother had said everything she had to say and left, he turned around, looked at me, and whispered: “Women! First they shout, then they listen, and then they understand… if they want! What can you say? Trouble, but also the salt of the earth, my son!” I didn’t understand what he meant then, but now I do.