Once upon a time there were Alexandra, Evanthia, and Aliki. Evanthia wanted to become an actress. Alexandra wanted to be a dancer or a singer, she wasn’t sure. Aliki didn’t know. She was a dreamy little girl, shy, who cried easily and laughed even more easily. Her mother called her “Attic sky.” She had even once been awarded a scholarship at the Athens Conservatory; she wanted to become Maria Callas, she said. But she got scared and ran off.
She started doing various jobs (assistant to a psychiatrist, apprentice perfumer, personal secretary to a legal adviser in a shipping office, and many others), traveling, falling in love, short trips, great loves, small loves, great journeys…
At some point, in the middle of a void, she read an advertisement. They were looking for new voices in the choir. She started again… Many years passed… She crossed mountains, plains, rivers, and suddenly she met Evanthia again.
And Alexandra? Perhaps one day she will manage to dance.
Today I woke up with a feeling of loss. I had returned from a long journey, and what I felt was that I was missing a garden. I wanted to get up and devote myself only to my roses. To cut the dry leaves, to turn over their soil, to put my fingers deep into their roots and guess their needs. With that thought I went out onto the balcony and looked sadly at the few little pots that remained from my last move. Three geraniums, three ferns, a small jasmine, a philodendron, three gardenias still growing, a Zakynthos, a Volos, a Trieste. I usually called them by the name of the city where I had found them or the names of the people who had given them to me, because in any case I never remembered their real names.
Excerpt from the book
