Never Forgotten

Never Forgotten

Athens Airport 1993

Aleks is already winded, running as fast as he can with a garment bag and carry on weighing him down!  A repeat mantra going through his head I will make it I will make it ..  His flight was late leaving Kennedy. It’s early April. Spring, but exceptionally cold in New York, they were delayed over an hour on the tarmac, the weather creating a domino set of delays.   

Athens by comparison is a furnace,  by the time Aleks makes it through security, his shirt is completely soaked sticking to him. Sweat is dribbling down his face stinging his eyes as he slumps drained finally arriving at the gate for Corfu.  Composing himself, he grabs some tissues off the airline counter to wipe his face.

“Don’t worry Mr Biba. We’ll assist you,” the Olympic Air rep tells him. “Just follow me” and motions for him to hand her his luggage. 

Aleks, still panting, is grateful to be taken in hand, but is perplexed when he’s ushered  into a first class seat! Huh?  The Institute had booked the cheapest seats all the way out of Jacksonville and back.  No time to think, the plane immediately readies to taxi, he has to settle down and buckle up. Straight away Aleks closes his eyes, monitors his breath yoga-like and calms his heartbeat right down, a lifesaver technique he’s had down since he was a young teen. His last conscious thought is I need to get back into shape. That run had me puffin’.  

By the time he comes to the plane is steady in the air, seeing the fasten seat belt signs off Aleks heads into the bathroom with a change of shirt.

Refreshed he returns to his seat, pops up the leg rest to stretch out and sips on the ice cold glass of bubbly placed on his tray. He sighs. The champagne is premium quality and deliciously cold. He can relax now.

“Nearly miss the flight did you?” his window seat companion asks him raising his eyebrows in enquiry. “My name is Dimitri Petropoulos. Yassas!”

“Aleks Baba” responds Aleks offering his hand to Dimitri to shake. “This is the last flight to Corfu today. I couldn’t miss it. I have an important rendez-vous”.

Dimitri’s eyes twinkle “A special love interest maybe ..”

Aleks smiles. “No! But. It is a love story in a way …”

Dimitri is waiting, “I’m intrigued now, you have to tell me more”

“It would take a while” Aleks tells him.

Dimitri looks at his watch “We have about 3 hours. Time enough?”

Aleks considers Dimitri:  he’s easy to talk to you, and feels comfortable with him. Why not? 

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Nodding Aleks savours another swig of champagne and launches into his story.

“My earliest memory is being forced to march round and around repeatedly in the orphanage yard. We were given mock swords, the focus was on us keeping in time with each other so our legs were goose-stepping in unison. We were little, 2 or 3 years old. Basically as soon as we started walking, we had to march.  Early programming. Even at that age it felt unnatural, I didn’t like it” 

Aleks throws a nut in his mouth in contemplation.

“It was hard.  Very rigid. A military type environment. You could only speak when spoken to. You were forced to grow up quickly. We were pushed to be in competition with each other, and penalized if we didn’t play that game.”

Aleks takes a moment remembering.

“Then at 16 we were sent to a youth military training academy. Really tough, not every kid made it. Some .. they killed themselves.”

Dimitri eyes Aleks with compassion. “It all sounds horrendous.  Where was this” he asks “and why do you think you made it?”

“Albania. South West.  Why? I’ve always been searching for something, hungry for … I don’t know what… For my life to make sense” Aleks shrugged “Life had to be better than what I had.  I was motivated”.

Dimitri nods, understanding.  “You live in America now then, how did you end up there?”

“ I escaped! I smuggled my way over on an old cargo ship ! Planned it.  Worked on improving my English. That military training made me tough. Once I arrived in New York, I slept on the streets, in alleyways, no problem. You can’t imagine what it was like for me: the contrast. So much food in the shops, the freedom people had. I let my hair grow just because I wouldn’t be punished!  

For months, I’d just wander around looking spellbound at everything. It was as though I’d been living in dull monochrome and I’d discovered vibrant flashing color.

Then, I met some very kind Albanians who helped me get on my feet”.

Dimitri holds his glass up to the hostess for champagne refills.

He then gives Aleks a penetrating look. 

“My new friend. I seems like you’re on a quest. May I ask what year were you born?”

“I’m registered as 1948. July 22^nd. Probably the day I arrived at the orphanage”.

Dimitri nods. “I’m Greek. Whether it was the year of your birth or your arrival, the civil war was still going strong in 1948. The KKE, the communist party, abducted many young Corfiots to train them as military communists in Albania. And in other Eastern Bloc countries.  Sounds as though this is your story too”.

Aleks is flabbergasted! What are the odds that he should be sitting next to this man who has basically outlined HIS, Aleks’ story! A synchronicity. Some kind of mystical intervention ….  After all how DID he end up in first class ..

Alex eagily grasps Dimitri’s arm. “Yes yes that’s right. I believe that’s exactly what happened to me.  Are you from Corfu? How old were you then?” Questions are spilling out of him. 

“Gentlemen, we’re serving dinner!” the Hostess interrupts. She lays out a linen cloth on their generously-sized tray tables, and offers a small greek salad or a plate of greek appetizers – hummous, tsaksiki, and taramasolata - everything looks freshly made. 

They both choose the salad, settling back Dimitri continues “Yes I’m a native. Born in the North not far from Paleokastritsa. I was very young but I remember something of the civil war. It tore our community apart. Neighbors, lifelong friends turned against each other.”

“I know a few people on the island who have told me about attempts to trace the kidnapped children, what happened to them. They also talk about compensating the families in some way. How do you compensate a mother and a father for having their children taken away?” 

Aleks is nodding his head non-stop, marveling - they’ve talked non-stop!  “I believe this connection, you and me” with his right hand Aleks points to Dimitri and himself “to be one of the most important in my life … I’ll be right back."

In the bathroom, Aleks runs through this revealing conversation with Dimitri.  The folks in Jacksonville told him he was whacko to take this trip. Travel door-to-door was over 24 hours, 3 different planes.  Dimitri was some kind of sign. And Aleks believed in signs.  

After freshening up, Aleks eagerly heads back to his seat but finds Dimitri fast asleep, lightly snoring. Dang! They’ll have to pick it up later.

Aleks pushes the seat back, and closes his eyes. What he hadn’t yet got to in his story is why he’s now travelling to Corfu.

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Back in New York, Aleks gets turned on to more Albanians visiting from Tampa, Florida, and decides to move there. New York has too many distractions, Tampa has a slower pace, time to get serious. Aleks puts himself through college, studying European History and Greek language, working evenings in an Albanian restaurant. He spends any spare time at the renowned Greek Institute in the city, attending the Greek music and art soirees and over time clocks up many hours in the impressive international library. Talking to a visiting Medecin Sans Frontier representative a couple of years ago, he’s switched on to an organization specializing in tracking Greeks who lived in Corfu especially those who disappeared possibly abducted during the Greek Civil War. He’d start there, Corfu was the closest island to Albania, just 30 minutes by boat, right where he grew up.

How could he track who is parents were? He asks the rep.  Well DNA apparently!

Things move quickly. Aleks meets with the official Greek-Albanian Repatriation group committed to reuniting the kidnapped victims with their families. Since DNA was often the only means of identification and early days for DNA testing generally, the committee had established a legit testing site within the accommodating Tampa University’s science department. Aleks immediately has a sample taken and his DNA logged. 

Bingo! When cross-checking the database the tech brings up a 99% match with an elderly lady in Corfu! Since the end of the civil war, she’s had her name on the Institute’s list to find her family, and once DNA testing became a hard-fought way to trace those missing, she willingly gave a sample in the first trial. In the notes, she describes her daughter, her son-in-law and their young son, still a babe in arms. The little boy disappeared on July 15^th 1948. 

The institute has organized and funded this visit.  And now Aleks is just hours away from meeting his mother’s mother: his grandmother! Melina! She still lives in Kouloura so close to Albania you could almost touch it. Melina lives simply in the same traditional house her husband built, just one kilometer from the beach up in the hills. She always refused to move in case any of her lost family should return. 

Aleks may be in his 40’s and considered a tough dude, but he’s jazzed up like a young kid at the prospect of meeting someone from his family. Family. Something he thought would never happen. 

His musings are interrupted by the plane readying for its final descent, he can see the sea shimmering below welcoming him. They cruise to a halt. Like many island airports,  people walk on the tarmac to the small airport entrance, so the downstairs steps were being wheeled to the forward door of the plane.  Dimitri wakes up, gathers himself, and hand Aleks his card.

“Please come to a small tavern I go to.  You can finish your story”. Dimitri shakes Aleks hand, nods to him as though transmitting encouragement, and swiftly leaves the plane.

Walking through baggage claim Aleks is on the look-out for a 40ish year old guy with a moustache, a cousin of the family, who is to drive him across country to Melina. But ALL the men have moustaches here! As he’s searching, his eyes lock on those of a sprightly older woman standing stock still looking keenly at him.  She knows who he is. It’s clearly Melina.

Like a movie, she starts running towards him, yelling in Greek.  Aleks is riveted to the spot, his emotions overwhelming him. Then shaking himself he starts to run too thinking "She’s 90, she’s running, I don’t want her dying just as we meet!"

Melina shouts “I couldn’t wait. Not a moment longer. I had to come!" she’s laughing and crying non-stop spurred by her love for her long lost Grandson, her prayers finally answered.    

And now she’s hugging him, looking at him, kissing his cheeks, his forehead, studying him “Thee mou. You look just like them. Look, look” – she presses the black and white photo to Aleks” babbling in a mix of Greek and English. Looking at the couple in the photo, he’s unquestionably his parents’ son. He has the same eyes and high cheekbones as his mother, the same strong proud chin as his father.

Overwhelmed Aleks starts weeping too, a mixture of grief and joy.  

Melina wraps him up in a fierce loving hug. Years of feeling abandoned,  mistreated and unloved pass through the racking sobs he can’t and no longer wants to contain. Melina holds him tight tight, never to let him go. He has so many questions but for now he just wants to languish in the firm loving embrace of his Grandmother, feel her stroking his hair, he feels like he’s come home. 

“Endakse endaskse agape-mou. It’s okay now, you’ve found your roots. And we’ve found each other”.