Stone Walls

The wooden shutters, windows and doors of our house have all been replaced over years, but beneath decades of plaster and paint, the stones of the thick walls still lie in the same precise order they were stacked in two centuries ago.  I have often wondered about the people who were conceived, born, or died in this house, and wished that their stories could be summoned from the private conversations that the walls of this house have heard.

Two evenings ago there was a knock at the door and two polite Greek men introduced themselves and asked if they could step in and have a brief look around the inside of the house.  With the younger of the two men interpreting, George Tamvalis told us that he had been born in the house in 1945. At that time, the first floor of the house had been a cobbler's shop and his family lived upstairs.  George noted that a door, some windows and the staircase have been relocated.  Then he showed us where the shoe repair benches had been when he'd worked at them as a boy, "Everything seems so much smaller now."

In our upstairs bedroom George looked at the mantle above the fireplace.  "My mother held onto that when I was being born.  She delivered me on the floor in front of that fireplace."  He also pointed out a window and told us that during the first part of the Second World War, Italian soldiers occupied Samos and had ordered Greeks to turn in all of their fire arms.  There had been a search of the house, and a family member was hauled off to prison when an Italian soldier found a rabbit gun hidden behind a window curtain.  Details of the stories were sketchy and a little hard to follow. I wanted more information, but they were anxious to walk up to the Plateia and meet friends for dinner. I'll update the story if we hear more from them later.

 

'Joe' Thymianidis, 'George' Tamvalis, and Kathy