THE MIRACLE A True Story Paleologos, but to Byzas, who built the city (then called Byzantium) in 650 BC, and these roots could not be severed. Now my father saw that things were not quite as his father had said.    He quickly closed his shop and hurried towards Pera. Our house was near the Church of St Constantinos and the primary school that I had attended. As soon as he entered the house, my mother realised something was seriously wrong.    "Wife, the time has come. We must pack up and leave for Athens. I have to appear at the police station tomorrow morning."    My mother began to sob. My sister and I watched in stunned silence.    My father did not sleep that night. He spent the night worrying that our whole family could find itself in the position of starting out again from scratch. Our financial situation in Constantinople, while not particularly prosperous, was certainly satisfactory. My father had his business, we had our house and my sister was attending the Convent School. I was in my second year at the Zographion High School, right in the centre of Pera. Almost every summer, my father would shut up his shop for a month and take us to Greece for a holiday. Chios and Athens were our favourite destinations.    Yet the family had no savings to speak of. My mother, ever the more provident, frequently urged my father to purchase some property in Athens, even if this meant taking out a small mortgage. On one of our trips, he was offered a splendid plot in Hiera Street. The year, as my mother recalls, was 1952 and my father was on the point of buying the land when at the last minute my mother's brother, Uncle Iannis, made him change his mind.    "What will you do with land over here?" he said. "It would be useless to you. You'd be much better keeping your money and investing it somewhere else."    No further words were needed to fuel my father's indecision, to my mother's immense disappointment.    Now, quite out of the blue, we stood at a critical turning-point in our lives. The uncertainty of the future loomed before us like a dark avenue full of potholes and hidden dangers. My father, who had been born and raised in Constantinople, was suddenly aware of the void that our unpredictable future presented.    That Tuesday night will remain etched in the memory of every member of the family. The numbness from the unexpected blow, the impending change in our lives and the fear of the unknown served to heighten our senses and we were all very keyed up.    The next morning my father reported to the General Police Headquarters (Müdüriyet). The stark and uninviting building was draped in Turkish flags as if to make quite sure nobody forgot the power wielded by the Turks. Under its roof the most obnoxious individuals had been assembled, all characters with a marked disposition for hatred and spite, who took daily pleasure in destroying the Greeks of the city, both psychologically and economically, and imperceptibly transmitted to you their frustration at not being able to wipe them out physically as well.    Where the Greeks in Constantinople were concerned, the Turks had not succeeded in indulging in their favourite pastime of slaughtering civilian populations - which was the Turkish national heritage and had received repeated glorification in the twentieth century with the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians and the extermination of an even greater number of Greeks, Pontians and Kurds - whose massacre went on for decades under the indifferent gaze of the "civilised" world. More "refined" methods, 25 and 26 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (27th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.