44
The beginnings
Thessaloniki, May 1972
Leonora’s steps took her to the hospital.
‘You are back, Mrs Hatzi, at last’, the porter exclaimed. They always had a good rapport, the two of them. He often gave her sneaky lifts home when it was too hot or too cold to walk back pleasantly, leaving temporarily the boy from the canteen to watch over the hospital’s entrance. She had also used him occasionally as a handyman, given Dinos’s inability to fix anything in the flat. She had always tipped him well, despite his insistence that he did not want any money from her.
‘Not quite, Christo. I am not quite back yet’, she mumbled, and she proceeded quickly before he had time to ask her any more questions. Her legs were driving and she was merely following. She went past the hospital’s lower garden
