43
Birth
Thessaloniki, April 1972
Dinos left her at the crossroads, just before the square red-soiled alley which her family’s second-floor flat overlooked. It was the closest he could get without becoming visible from the balcony, where no doubt her mother would be sitting inspecting the late-morning happenings in the neighbourhood. By this time the lorry drivers had usually left for their next shift and the pre-school children would be out in the alley, their shrieks and giggles rising high in the air.
Nefeli looked at the alley, almost as if wanting to verify the landscape she was expecting; but whatever was there, she did not take it in. All she knew was that everything looked so familiar and so alien at the same time. She was almost dragging her suitcase across the alley. It was s
