Fatherland

A short story - My first attempt in fiction






My father was born in 1938. It was a difficult birth, both for the mother and the country. The country was struggling to feed all these newcomers of 1922, who landed unwashed and unclothed seeking a new home and doubling the population. The country do the best it could to offer at least basic survival needs to all of them, but it did not guarantee them an easy life. The mother, being one of the unclothed, gave birth to one short-lived child after the other, she worked hard and made herself important in her small community. She was the midwife of the village. When the country was already deep into yet another dictatorship, comprehending slowly the local breed of fascism the mother gave birth to the eighth child, hoping that this time she would see the baby grow.

My father took his first insecure steps when the Germans marched proudly across Europe. The country only bothered with the later. My father brought so much happiness to his family. The only boy who survived child mortality. As the country suffered, he learned to speak during the German occupation. The country and his belly were hungry, the country and his limbs where numb and cold.

When liberation came he thought it was the beginning of the happy times. The whole country was out and about celebrating and cheering. But one day in the fields, he found his dad half dead. Sun-stroke and daily life struggle taxed him. He tried hard not to choose, but when he was forced to, he chose death and left them alone to struggle. A small loss among the many. The long and bitter civil war taxed many fathers, sons and daughters, pushing the country into darker times. My father was lost and scared, he was going through his own dark times. The fight could not last too long, like a bad illness it forced for a decision to be made. The country belonged to the West, the war finished, and my father went to school for the first time. Few years too late. Just like the country entered the post-war era few years too late.

The country was a good student of the Western powers, did its homework and got rewards. My father was the brightest child at school. He was not left to herd the village sheep, he did his homework, he got rewards. The church, herding souls and politics, offered him a scholarship to herd his mind towards more education. The country slowly but steadily re-build itself, under the supervision of Western Powers and its very own Church. My father builds himself slowly but steadily, walking to the closest town with a high school, even in the snow storm without much of shoes, to get education under the supervision of the teacher and the bishop. The country begs its allies for money to build industry, my father begs his mother for two eggs to buy a notebook for calligraphy.

Early sixties, the country wakes up to more social demands. My father demands higher education. The workers movements become stronger. The tobacco workers are a strong union and are supported by the pivotal agrarian party. My father is a tobacco worker child. They ask for more education, he gets their scholarship. The country feels too old and rigid to pass more socialist leaning legislation. My father feels too old to follow his dream and study medicine. He goes for the useful, economics.
The country experiences a huge wave of urbanization. My father moves to the city. Student demonstrations, money to education not to the monarchy! My father studies and shouts. The country balances financially. My father has a full belly. Just as the democratic left makes it into parliament my father graduates. He is now an economist. The country is still a democracy. Joy all around.

The country cannot feed everybody. Many have already left to countries with grey skies and more jobs. They also have better universities. So my father, without speaking anything but Greek, heads to Germany. The country, without speaking anything but Greek, heads to a period of political turbulence.

He struggles to learn the language, to earn money, to make friends. The country is put in plaster to get cured. The dictatorship starts. My father becomes a fashionable émigré of an abused country. He organizes awareness events, resistance speeches, and when the country experiences the worse oppression he becomes the chairman of the émigrés. As the tanks attack the Polytechnic, he is in divided Berlin protesting. He is on hunger strike.

The country wins over its oppressors. My father gets his PhD. The leader returns, monarchy is abolished. My father returns home and reunites with his family. It is a period of great joy. Everybody wants to help to rebuild the country. The air is full of ideals, happiness and democracy; all the big words. The country builds its democracy. My father is determined to help the country and his roots: the refugees of 1922, the tobacco workers, his village. He finds a job, he becomes important. The country joins all the international organizations and eyes the European Communities.

The big 1978 earthquake of his city shakes all the citizens. It also shakes his world. He meets his future wife, gets married. The country is experiencing a new era. The time for change has come. The moment is the elections of 1981, when the socialist government takes over for the first time ever. The whole country is in joyful frenzy. His daughter is born, the year of the change. Joyful frenzy in the family too. The country joined the European Communities.

Glorious times for the average citizen start, as the socialist government can offer something to everyone. Glorious times for my father, as now was the time he could offer. The youthfulness of the country provoked hope and joy. My father’s ambitions grew bigger and so did his child.
At the end of the eighties politics became a difficult game to play. But my father had ambitions, and ideals and people to help. So he played along. With every change of government the public sector enlarged, making a bigger whole in the national debt. With every electoral campaign my father gave a new blow to the family budget, which looked similar to the national debt. As corruption creped in the government, lies and mistrust solidified the silence between my father and his wife. The financial scandals left many things better untold, for the country and my father.
As the country joined the common European currency my father’s daughter embraced her European future.

The country was dancing in a European music, imposing itself to an illusion of prosperity with borrowed money. As the country covered with loans the public deficit, the citizens fed their consumer needs with credit cards. The country was promoting democratic ideals for public consumption and my father was fighting to give his dreams a last chance. Public finances got out of control. My father’s budget got out of control. Corruption dressed as democracy became the rule in the country. Corruption dressed as charity blinded my father. He gave too much, he could not afford it any more.
Now the country woke up to its bankrupt future. Those who believed in it revolt. Those who love it despair. Nothing can be the same any more. My father, just like his country, woke up to the same dead-end, frightening those who believed in him, despairing those who loved him. Austerity and insecurity faces both.
The country and my father always had a parallel life. The country and my father cause me always the same feelings. Pride, love, sadness, despair, fear, insecurity, pain.

That is why it is called Fatherland.