Daughter of Odysseus: Ithaka Calling

By Vasiliki

Daughter of Odysseus: Ithaka Calling is the first in the Daughter of Odysseus trilogy.
Teenage Christine stands at the threshold of adulthood. A first-generation Australian of Greek descent, Christine has always been indifferent to her heritage: Greek school is a bore; her father’s patriotism is uninspiring; and the people around her deride Greeks as subhuman.
Then Christine is betrayed by those closest to her, and she plunges into deep depression. From the abyss of despair and nihilism, something stirs within her: a deep desire to reclaim her heritage and find meaning and fulfilment through the tradition and spirituality of her ancestors.
Paralleling the great Odysseus’ journey home, Daughter of Odysseus is not merely a story of homecoming; it is a story of hope over despair, of adventure and love, of needing to belong and a yearning to escape from mundanity; of deep spiritual yearning in a post-Christian world.
Christine learns and grows with every step in her journey. And she can’t help but wonder: Is it the destination or journey that truly matters in life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vasiliki
• Release date: Sep 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780648146407

Vasiliki

I was born in Australia of Greek heritage, a first generation Greek-Australian and strongly shaped by my Greek cultural heritage as well as my Australian upbringing.I am a person of the Diaspora; a member of an ancient community forced to leave a homeland due to economic instability. The quest for riches in the New Land was too great a temptation for my people; many left land and kin for the better life.Whether they obtained this better life is, of course, highly subjective.Grief, depression and creativity are inextricably connected for me. I started writing fiction as a form of therapy—to help me deal with that nihilistic agony that plagues me. Writing is my voice in a world that doesn’t seem to care and that engages in the superficial and the trivial. Well, certainly in my eyes.I have a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor and Honours of Theology and a Diploma of Education. I entered the chaotic world of high school teaching and, after many fruitful and maddening experiences, left it. For good? Only time will tell.My fiction and non-fiction writing reflect my Greek-Christian heritage as well as my love for poetry, literature, theology and history in general.In the last ten years, I have been working on a novel that traces a young woman’s journey back to the motherland (Greece) and is largely based on my experience.This novel will now become a three-part book series, with the first two parts--Daughter of Odysseus: Ithaka Calling— AND Daughter of Odysseus - Searching for Ithaka - now available.

Book preview

There he is, lying in great pain in an island where dwells

the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go;

and he cannot get back to his own country,

for he can find neither ships nor sailors

to take him over the sea.

(Homer’s The Odyssey, Book V, Translated by Samuel Butler)

- 1 -

‘There’s Antonio! Let’s go—hurry—QUICK!’

‘That’s Antonio Ricardo from Rambero? Wow, he looks different in real life. I didn’t recognise him.’

‘Yeah, he’s sooo hot. Oh my God, is he wearing leather? I wish Ricky were here with him! Oh my God. OK, let’s get his autograph…. Oh, damn it. There’s a fucking line up.’

‘Yeah, I know—and he was not even the talented one of the pair!’

They ran towards Antonio as the Rambero hit ‘Girl, You Rock’ walloped in the background. It was not often that international stars visited the bar, and the second half of the now split-up (and already obscure) boy band Rambero was good enough for the Melbournian crowd.

Christine took a good look at the throng surrounding Antonio. Sure enough, people were clamouring for his autograph. Sure enough, he was wearing tight leather pants and a loose white shirt unbuttoned to reveal a smooth, tanned chest. And sure enough, he was hot—that, she could agree on.

A pair of women with permed hair teased and lacquered to perfection pushed their way through and screeched in Antonio’s ear how much they loved him and that his new song, ‘Sweat’, was brilliant.

‘People say he’s not talented, but I think he is,’ a young woman behind Christine yelled, and proceeded to sing the lyrics to Antonio’s latest song:

I’m going to make you sweat,

Make you sizzle for more.

I’m going to make you sweat.

Oh yeah, girl….

‘Do you want to go up, get Antonio’s autograph, Christine?’

‘Oh yeah, sure,’ she yelped with heavy sarcasm and then chortled at her cousin Michael.

‘OK, I guess not. He certainly was not the talented one of the two. Let’s go. I think Bill’s here.’

Michael dragged her through the dense mass of people. Hair, hair and more hair: the whole bar was populated with people with big hairdos, women with bright red lipstick and men with black leather jackets. Fashion still clung onto the eighties in the latter part of 1990, although Christine could see a hint of a ‘70s revival. Bright floral maxi dresses and platform shoes competed with oversized tops, tight-fitting trousers and cowboy boots.

Christine looked down at her camel-coloured stirrup pants, a poor relic from the eighties. Utter awkwardness rippled through her.

A woman with slithery bleached blonde permed hair and heavy make-up pushed roughly against Christine and snarled, ‘Watch where you’re going!’

‘Urgh, sorry,’ Christine muttered as she gawked at the woman. The woman was a Madonna-wannabe in a tight black miniskirt made of spandex. The material clung to her, revealing round, firm buttocks. A racy black lace bra peeked through her see-through leopard-print blouse.

Christine pulled at her oversized top with its abstract design and bright colours. ‘It’s the latest in fashion,’ the retail assistant had purred as she’d helped Christine with the buttons.

‘Oh, really?’ Christine had asked. ‘Yeah, it’s great!’

She didn’t think it was great now; she felt utterly ludicrous. And why did she pair it with her camel pants? What had she been thinking?!

Perhaps she shouldn’t have allowed Michael to coax her into coming here. Perhaps she shouldn’t even have made the short trip to Melbourne. An aching sense of not belonging devoured her self-esteem.

Perhaps her attempts at starting again, of triumphing over the depression that had tried to devour her—perhaps all of this was in vain.

‘Go home Christine,’ a voice whispered. Icy, malicious and cruel, the voice often tormented her. ‘Go home,’ it continued as Michael introduced her to his friend Bill, as she agreed to another drink and sculled it, hoping it would drown out the voice. As she agreed to dance and pretend to enjoy herself; as she smiled and laughed and did everything that she was meant to do.

I’m going to make you sweat,

Make you sizzle for more

Till we’re rolling on the floor.

Make you wish for more.

You’re going to sweat….

Antonio sang live before the excited and half-drunk crowd, and she sang along—sang the lyrics to this awful song as she thrust her hips and pretended she belonged, with her camel pants and ugly shirt and hair tied up in an old-fashioned bun. Pretended that the last two, three years of harrowing depression had not happened, had not depleted her very being. Pretended that those close to her had not betrayed her.

Oh, yeahhhhh,

Make it sweat

Till you can’t take no more.

Sweat, have you begging for more.

Sweat!

- 2 -

Three years earlier …

‘They said there’ll be a cool change coming, perhaps tonight.’

‘Thank God. I don’t think I could bear another day of this muggy heat,’ Christine said. ‘Knowing our luck, it’ll most probably pour with rain as we head out.’

‘Well, there’s always Iceland. Or Tasmania.’

‘I think I’ll be stuck in Adelaide for the rest of my life!’

‘Well, where else did you want to go?’

Christine ignored her sister’s comment and continued to tease her hair; the bouffier and more voluminous the better.

‘Here, more hairspray—so much for the ozone layer,’ her sister Demi joked as she handed Christine a large bottle of super strong spray.

When her hair was rock solid, Christine looked at herself up and down in the mirror carefully, methodically: black pencil skirt, white crop top, new black leather belt and black stilettos. Large hoop earrings dangled from her ears, a gift from her sister who insisted she wear some jewellery. Demi had also insisted on doing her make-up, and Christine was caked with foundation and powders that made her feel and look unnatural.

She would never look like Demi. Demi was taller, more attractive, more elegant and stylish than Christine: make-up painted with meticulous perfection, large hazel eyes with a touch of green, red-dyed hair undulating down her back. The shiny red and very tight leggings Demi had just bought emphasized her long legs, and the oversized black diamante top that slung off her shoulder was so perfect that Christine felt a tinge of jealousy.

Demi changed the tape, her bangles clinking with every move. ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ blared from the stereo.

‘Where you’re going with lover boy?’ Christine asked.

‘Dinner, not sure. He wants to surprise me.’

‘Why don’t you come to the Greek Night later on? Just before it ticks over to Christmas Day.’

‘I don’t think so. I’m truly over those days. I feel like an old bag with all those sixteen, seventeen-year-olds running around. I have no intention of having a creepy sixteen-year-old drool over me. Thanks, sis.’

‘Maybe I’ll have a hot seventeen-year-old drooling over me.’ Christine grinned at her sister. She was in her element, on cloud nine, over the moon. She was all the clichés under the sun, the happiest she had been in a long time—perhaps ever.

Christine had just turned 17 and graduated with good grades from the prestigious Adelaide High School. As she was getting ready on this sweltering summer night, this Christmas Eve, she felt that the years of childhood were behind her, that adulthood beckoned. What better way to spend this night than with the people she cherished? Jenny, Irene, Sophia, Maggie and Athena.

She laughed as she remembered Jenny hiding in the school toilets from Mrs. Marshall. Irene, her dear Irene on the lookout and pretending to have stomach cramps. Irene and Christine were the eighties Laverne and Shirley with the same musical taste and love for Madonna and U2 and animal rights and … well, pretty much everything else.

Sophia—pretty, pretty Sophia, with her short dark hair and bright eyes and baby-doll features. Christine and Sophia had become even closer that year, but no one could compare with Irene.

Then there was Maggie, the beauty of the group, with long, black wavy hair, cat-like features of symmetrical perfection. She was the model, the actress; that’s how everybody knew her. Christine had not always got along with Maggie and, yes, there had been tension between Christine and the ‘leader’ of the group, Athena—Maggie’s best friend.

Those tensions had revealed malicious streaks in all involved: Athena and Maggie would deliberately humiliate and ostracise Christine, and Christine would retaliate. The battle had escalated throughout their last year of school, and Christine could only hope it would not surface again, ever.

Athena’s family had known Christine’s family for many years. They were practically family. Yet there were times when …

Christine pushed the thoughts out of her head.

The stifling heat was beginning to overpower her, agitate and inflame her senses. A mixture of erotic desire and nauseating anxiety swept over her. Taking a deep breath, she hummed along with the stereo and looked at the enormous poster of Madonna hanging over her bed: Madonna in her early days with her bleached hair unkempt and screaming seduction. Her come-hither stare, her painted red lips partly open, a glimpse of her tongue. Slender arms lifted above her head. A virginal white lace dress that revealed ample bosom and smooth underarms. A large cross necklace dangled just above a belt shamelessly labelling her ‘Boy Toy’.

This was the Madonna Christine had fallen in love with, and although the Madonna of 1987 had short, bleached blonde hair and a fetish for leather, and had unsuccessfully tried her hand at acting, Christine venerated the pop star as a demi-goddess. Hours spent in front of the TV imitating Madonna’s movements whilst wearing tight pink skirts and white lace stockings had made Christine an object of ridicule by her family.

That image, the hairspray that saturated the room, the smell of Chanel No. 5 and her sister’s nail polish, Madonna’s smooth white arms and smooth white laced gloves, her sensuous lips, a longing for something … Christine was drowning in images and smells and sounds. In a daze, she dabbed on deep burgundy lipstick. It accentuated her large, brown eyes, and she felt desirable, even attractive.

This night was symbolic, almost: the threshold to a new life. Although Christine felt a hint of apprehension about her future, she was full of hopeful expectations.

Work, future studies? She didn’t know. Right now, she didn’t care.

‘You’re a clever girl, Christine. Don’t waste it,’ her mother would tell her.

And Christine would smile and agree and tell her not to worry. It would all work out.

‘Have you heard from Irene? Wasn’t her mother going to take you home as well this evening?’

Her mother’s sonorous voice took over the room, and Christine espied a heavy frame with hands on hips. Her mother looked somewhat displeased, as always.

‘No, I told you I haven’t heard from her. I don’t know why. I’ve tried to call her the last couple of days, but she hasn’t been home. She might be busy. I think her mum will take me home. She always does…. On second thought, I think I’m going to have to let you know later.’

‘How?!’ her mother bellowed, her large olive eyes ready to bulge out of her head.

This was the look. Christine knew that her mother was furious with her and that she had absolutely no intention of waiting till the early hours of the night to drive to the city to pick her daughter up.

‘Irene needs to get her act together,’ her mother snapped, and stormed off down the hallway.

‘What’s her frickin’ problem?’ Christine wondered.

‘Same old, same old,’ Demi replied. ‘Age has wearied her; we have wearied her. And to think she was a stunner in her younger years! Don’t have children, ever. In fact, don’t get bloody married.’

It was no longer the heat that agitated Christine; it was her mother’s bad temper, her militant and derisive approach towards everything, and her scathing comments on Irene. Worse, deep down, Christine knew her mother was half right. Why hadn’t Irene called? She hadn’t heard from her for at least a week. In fact, she had only found out that the group would be at Greek Night from Maggie. It had all been so last minute, as if Christine had been an afterthought.

‘Stop being stupid,’ she mumbled, and sang along to the song now blaring from the cassette recorder.

‘Hey, calm down, princess,’ Demi ordered.

Genesis’s hit song screamed from the stereo, painting a picture of a doomed world with no hope, no future. The Cold War still raged, nuclear threat hung over the free world, and people remained imprisoned in labour camps in the Soviet Union….

Yet Christine sang with utter delight, glancing at herself one more time in the mirror. ‘Too many men … we have too many problems…. Oh yeah!’ she warbled.

Demi rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, let’s go. It’s party time.’

- 3 -

La la la la la Bamba

The bar was a sea of people surging in unison. Billowing, swirling, and roaring with the rhythm ‘La Bamba’—a wave of jubilance ready to crash upon anyone or anything that dared threaten its drunken euphoria.

People were deliriously happy. Cackling and slurping and shrieking and drinking and slurping. A tightly packed mass of sweaty bodies celebrated the birthday of Jesus Christ some two thousand years before. Alcohol loosened inhibitions, and tongues and hands intertwined with the tongues and hands of complete strangers.

It was not uncommon for Greek girls to lose their virginity on nights like these. Greek Nights, when the young Greek-Australians of Adelaide gathered at a designated bar to share in their Greekness, the latest hits from Greece played alongside traditional songs and created a bond. People joined hands and danced traditional dances in circles, as brothers and sisters sharing the same ancestral heritage. They were united … for a few minutes.

Christine relished these moments. Something within her stirred—she couldn’t quite put her finger on what. She had never given much thought to her Greek heritage. It was just something that was there, like air. Greek School was a boring chore to make her parents happy; Greek Dances were a time to dress up and admire young men from afar.

But hands joining to dance the Kalamatianós was akin to a secret magical rite.

LaaLaaLaa La Bubba …

The crowd chanted, getting the Spanish words all wrong, like mumbling mad people.

Christine looked over to the girl sitting opposite her at the bar table. The girl was a year younger than her, in Year 11, and Christine could not quite remember her name. Christine smirked towards her before quickly and illegally taking a mouthful of her whiskey and coke to keep up the pretence that she too was deliriously happy.

The girl on Christine’s other side must have been an older sister or cousin of the one across from her, for the family resemblance was striking: two sullen, eagle-like faces with masses of black curly hair were Christine’s only consolation and companionship.

The two stared blankly at the crowd of people. Do they even want to be here? Christine thought angrily. There was not a twitch, not a blink or a sign of life in them. They reminded her of robots with bad wigs and garish make-up: stiff, frozen in time, comatose.

Christine pulled her gaze away, as if continuing to stare at them would turn her into stone … would turn her into one of them.

They seemed so happy out there on the dance floor, singing and thrusting as one body: Jenny and Irene and Maggie. Peter sauntered over and joined them in a dance. Picking Maggie up, he slung her onto his shoulder and twirled her around. She shrieked, relishing the attention.

Maggie looked radiant. In fact, so did Irene, who was wearing a very similar outfit to Maggie’s—a tight-fitting dress of stretchy material with a matching bolero jacket. The hems of the skirt and the sleeves were flared and were embroidered with sparkling rhinestones. Maggie’s was black and white, Irene’s more olive, but the similarity struck Christine as odd.

Since when did Irene copy Maggie’s dress sense? she thought, irritated and disbelieving. Hasn’t she always been critical of the way Maggie flaunts herself? Calling her pretentious and fake, fed up with Maggie’s bragging about her latest shopping trips to Melbourne and Sydney while we are stuck wearing ‘rags’ from Adelaide?

Irene, frumpy Irene with her simple fashion and devil-may-care attitude was now a cheap caricature of someone else.

The dress doesn’t even suit her body shape, or lack of it. What the fuck is going on?

When Christine finally spotted Athena’s voluminous golden-brown hair from afar, her heart leapt with pain and confusion. Athena was with Sophia. They were dancing together, singing and laughing wildly as they punched their arms in the air.

Since when …? Christine wanted to rage. Since when are Athena and Sophia such good friends? For crying out loud, wasn’t it only the previous week that Athena made vicious remarks about Sophia to me and Jenny and anybody else who cared to listen?

‘Fuck, she’s annoying and slutty,’ Athena had said. ‘She lost her virginity on her trip to Greece. Did she tell you? No, of course not. I really can’t understand why she hangs around us anyway. What about Zoe? Aren’t they supposed to be the best of friends? Fuck, I can’t wait till the end of high school and all this bitchin’ is over.’

Christine’s friends went off, all five of them, into a separate section of the bar. Christine followed them with her eyes until they disappeared from her sight.

Forever.

- 4 -

The cool change came as she exited the bar. From stifling heat to bitter cold, how things could change so rapidly—in a heartbeat, in a millisecond.

The cold front swept over the city and brought with it the wind gods in all their blustering glory. They huffed and they puffed, determined to cast a glacial shroud over the city.

What a merciless contrast this was to the heat. The choking humidity, Christine hated, but this … this was punishment for a crime she hadn’t committed.

Christine wrapped her arms around her waist and crossed the road. The wind took bites of her flesh and the sky grumbled like an old man preparing to unleash its watery diatribe upon the whole of humanity.

From a grumble to a deluge: buckets of water cascaded from the heavens. Christine’s white top clung to her flesh. Relieved to find the streets empty, she hurried towards the telephone box and frantically searched her purse for spare coins.

Two men appeared out of nowhere and hovered around the telephone box, muttering something between them. Perhaps they were glad just to see a female form; perhaps they were waiting to make a phone call. Perhaps they were foreigners and had lost their way. Whatever the reason, Christine panicked and prayed that these men would disappear into the same abyss