The Lost Eye

She had an eye, and a hole. Half-blind. No eye on the left side; just a hole. The right eye was looking at me with the power of two. It was like a singular green light was bathing my soul with wisdom.

Her name was Fotika which means the one who brings the light. Light has a dark side. It sometimes burns the one who is very near. Fotika and I became friends, although I was 19, and she was 68. I was working at a radio station, and she was calling to ask me to play her favourite songs. We had good communication. Every time she was inviting me to her house, and one day I visited her.

Her house was located in a traditionally poor neighbourhood of Thessaloniki. Her house was old, but well preserved. She came into the door, opened it, hugged me, and pulled me into the kitchen. She was not alone; her husband was there. He was not moving, or looking at me; his eyes were down at the floor. I accepted his presence and I ignored him. Greek society is matriarchal. It is difficult to acknowledge this if you belong to another culture, but it is very true.

Fotika had all my attention. I was so happy I was there.

She soon felt the need to apologise for the lost eye; for what she thought I was seeing in her face, which, by the way, I did not notice, until the time she started speaking about it. ‘She is not feeling good enough with the missing eye’, I thought.

-Do you see that I have a hole on my left side?, she sadly asked.

I saw it.

-He is responsible for this, she said pointing at him.

I was in the middle. She was preparing the coffee, and he was sitting at the dinner table. I was sitting on the sofa. We were almost aligned inside the room if one could join the dots. I turned my head on him, and he was not moving. He was like a living statue with no possibility of physical change in his posture. She was still, and only the light of her green eye was fluctuating.

She was looking at him, and he knew. He knew that his torture was about to start. I am sure that it was a familiar method of torture for him, and he was accepting it. Her story explained to me why.

It was about humiliation. One more person was about to hear what he has done to her. This person would certainly feel afterwards disgust and disdain for him. She wanted that.

‘One day’, she said ‘I had an unexpected visit; a cousin I had more than a decade to see. He went with his family to live in Germany. It is a long story. His father lost his job and his house. I was crying for one month. He was my favourite cousin, my best friend. You can imagine my overwhelming feelings when I saw him that day knocking at my door. I let him in. Then, we lost time in conversation. He still had so many things to say, but it was time to go. I said, ‘stay to meet my husband’. He said, ‘not today, I must leave’. I said, ‘okay’.

We warmly hugged and kissed in the backyard, and he left with a promise to visit me with his wife and his kids. He left and I was still smiling and daydreaming when I felt my husband grabbing my body violently and throwing it into the whitewashed wall of our yard just like an octopus.

-You little whore…you had your lover inside…he was doing his job…inside our house, my husband was yelling at me, without giving me the time to explain.

I was face to face with the wall. The wall had rough edges. I see it coming. In front of me was a rough edge like a long nail. ‘My eyes’, I screamed.

He did not stop. He was not listening. The long nail of the wall minced my left eye. I was screaming. The neighbours came for help. They thought it would be fun. They told him that a man is in our house with me for hours.

-You are working, and your wife has a good time with a man, they told him.

One of them came and asked me to forgive him after I left the hospital. I could not. My mother asked me not to speak to the police; to lie about the incident. I had small children to raise. I obeyed. She was a wise woman. ‘I told you not to marry him’, she said. I was in love with him and I listen to my heart, not her. While I was at the hospital she told him about my cousin; she told him that if he ever touches me again she would kill him slowly and painfully. He was never violent again.’

Fotika stopped her narration and took a deep breath. The past was there. She was forever trapped.

I was very young to understand. It was too much for me. I was feeling angry. I did not want to be in the same room with this man.

-Why didn’t you leave him? I whispered. Why did you stay with him?

-Life, my child… Life, she replied.

I looked at her. I needed some decades of life to understand the meaning of her words.

Life left her with a single green eye staring at the world. I felt burned. I left. She was so right about life.