When I lived in Greece in the 80s, strays were part of the landscape. They were ever present, sleeping in the shade where they could find it or sitting while watching you patiently with big sad eyes as you ate at a sidewalk taverna. Occasionally someone would toss them a tidbit, they would wag their tails in thanks and slink off somewhere to enjoy it far from prying eyes. Back then Greeks looked upon dogs as serving a purpose. They were guards dogs and hunting dogs, living on the food their masters discarded. During the famine in World War II dogs were a coveted source of food, disappearing for a time from the Athenian landscape. Even in the best of times Greeks didn't keep dogs indoors and they certainly didn't sleep on their sofas or beds. Keeping dogs as pets was just coming into vogue yet even those kept as pets weren't dressed up in cute costumes nor did they receive healthcare services on a par with humans. If they were lucky they had a courtyard as their kingdom, sometimes they lived on high Athenian balconies, spending their time pacing back and forth or barking at some percieved intuder. A few were chained up on invariably short chains, often in the blazing Mediterranean sun with an empty water bowl to keep them company.
Needless to say, many escaped. Who could blame them? Some were turned loose to fend for themselves when their owners tired of them. They were forced to wander aimlessly the streets and neighborhoods of Athens. Survival hinged to a great extent on intelligence, those that didn't make the cut ended up dead on the side of a road, the victim of some speeding motorist in a hurry to get to his next destination. More than once I watched marveling as a stray waited patiently at a busy corner, until the humans there decided it was safe to cross the throughfare and the stray crossing safely with them. These strays, despite being the victims of man's cruelty or at best indifference, had a gentleness about them. They were wary of humans but never held a grudge against them it seemed to me. They realized that survival was dependednt on these strange two legged creatures with whom their wild ancestors had forged an unbreakable contract thousands of years ago around some campfire surrounded by the forbidding darkness beyond. If man broke that contract now and then, there was always hope that another one would come around the next corner and make things right once again.
They wandered all over the city of Athens, from the fashionable districts, a stones throw from the center of the city, to the ever expanding suburbs dotted with apartments in various stages of constructions and dirt roads still waiting to be paved. I lived in one of those suburbs called Anovoula in a little first floor apartment which I found when I arrived in Greece. The apartment building was owned by a Greek gentleman who had spent his youth making his fortune in South Africa and had only recently returned to Greece. He had a teenage son and daughter, so like all good Greeks he had built an apartment building with three floors, one for himself and his spouse and one each for his children when they married. And like any good Greek he thumbed his nose at the law that prohibited first floor aparatments. He proceeded to build one under the very noses of the municipal authorities which he promptly rented to the first American serviceman, pockets bulging with American dollars, he could find.
It was there in Anovoula that I began my first experience of life in Greece, being the first person in my "Greek" family to actually live within the borders of the modern Greek state. I worked in an office building near Syntagma Square across from the stately Grande Bretagne. Heady times. Every afternoon I would arrive home, change and go out for a run. It was my way to blow off steam, more importantly it was essential to staying in shape since I would eventually return to the real Marine Corps with its emphasis on physical fitness. Running up and down the surrounding hills of my neighborhood, I received more than my share of surprised looks. Greeks didn't go jogging and certainly not in the afternoon heat, that was only something some crazy amerikanaki did.
It was on one of those runs that I first met a yellow female mutt which I named Kukla, in memory of a beloved family dog that I grew up with. Kukla means "doll, " and so she was, on the inside and out. I had seen her more than a few times meandering through the neighborhood during my daily jaunt through Anovoula. I started carrying a treat or two with me and when I would see her I would motion to her and call her new name. At first she would approach warily and sit about 20 feet or so from me, watching me intently. I'd throw her a morsel and she would smell it and lick it a few times then gobble it up. For weeks, each time I'd throw something to her the distance between us became shorter until eventually she trusted me enough to let me feed her from my hand. She would follow me home at a distance and I would get her a bowl of water and feed her. Then we would sit for a while and enjoy the sun dipping slowly into the sea below. I would pat her on the head, that was her signal to leave and off she would go into the night.
So it went. We became dependent on one another. We both satisfied an important need in the other, the need to be wanted and loved by another creature. I was far away from home, living alone and Kukla was without an owner, someone to feed and pet her. She became a regualr visitor to the street I lived on, I could always depend on her being nearby when I pulled up in my car. I'd whistle and she would come running at full speed to jump on me repeatedly as if she had found a long lost friend. We had become inseparable, a common sight together. She had begun to put some meat on her bones and was no longer covered by engorged ticks. She would sit quietly and allow me to pick each tick off with tweezers depositing them in a can. Kukla had become a neighborhood fixture, so much so that the locals were calling her Kukla as well.
Kukla began following me on my daily runs, sticking dutifully at my side, even when it appeared she was having difficulty keeping up, falling further and further behind. I'd slow down a bit and she would catch up, not to be out done. Once a ferocious looking German Sheperd came out of a walled garden barking furiously at me, baring its teeth, the terrified owner running after him trying to get to him before he got to me. I looked around for a rock to throw when Kukla came out of nowhere lunging at that hulk of a dog. She latched on to his ear biting down hard. It was obviously not the first time she had been involved in a dogfight, quickly gaining the upper hand. The German Sheperd yelped in pain and it was over. She let him go and he scurried away tail between his legs but not before his owner put a well placed kick in his hind quarters to add insult to injury. That night we shared souvlakia together until we could eat no more, their aroma like the sweet smell of victory.
Despite our friendship Kukla was always a free spirit. She would spend time with me but I think she instinctively sensed that our time together would come to an end. Eventually I realized Kukla was carrying puppies and her time was nigh at hand. For the first time she came to my door scratching at it, something she had never done before. When I opened the door, she walked right in, found a corner and plopped herself down. She was going to give birth in my apartment, as if she knew this would be the safest place to do so. All I could think of was a brood of yelping little puppies running all over my apartment and my landlord screaming bloody murder. I set to work building a makeshift whelping box, setting it up in a corner of an empty lot. I put a blanket in it, laid a water bowl next to it then went back to my apartment where I put a makeshift leash on Kukla to take her away. I will never forget the way she looked at me with her accusing eyes while I put the rope around her neck.
I stayed by her side that night until she gave birth to three puppies who sucked eagerly at her tit. Two eventually died and I buried them side by side together, wrapped in a cloth. The remaining white and yellow puppy thrived. One of the neighbors, a Greek-Australian came over to pay Kukla a visit and see the new puppy with his seven year old son, who immediately fell in love with the little ball of fur. Eventually they took the puppy away from Kukla and it was saved from a life on the street. A few weeks later I came home one night and whistled for Kukla. It went unanswered, again the next day and every day thereafter. I searched for her everywhere however, I never found out what happened to her. She had left my life as suddenly and without warning as she had enetered it.
Kukla is just a memory now, like many of the other animals that have graced my life. Sometimes I wonder if they go to heaven. Could there be a better place for God's own creatures that love us unconditionally even when we are less than kind to them? Shall we meet all our loved ones in the afterlife? If so, I hope it includes all the four legged companions that I have loved and who have loved me. May they all come running when I whistle, once again.
01 La Luna
με την ερυθρά ημισέληνο, αλλά η καρδιά μου θα είναι γαλάζια με σταυρό..
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