I have written extensively about the practice of classificatory kinship and the modalities that govern its rules and meanings in Athens (Panourgiá 1995). Katerina is a classificatory daughter of my parents.
- Chapter 7. 1967–1974: Dictatorship
- » A Mistake!
This particular man, Sotiris, had studied geology in Italy, where he met an old high-school student of my mother, Katerina. That is how we met him, through her. While they were studying in Italy, they would come and visit us in Athens, bringing all sorts of gifts: news of the Red Brigades, fishnet stockings, the music of Lucio Dalla, prosciutto, posters of Antonioni's films, glittery eye shadow. They were older than me and my sister, and much younger than my parents. But there was a closeness to our family, and they would spend days with us. They were almost the adopted older children of my parents.
When Sotiris finished his studies and came back to Greece, it was time for him to fulfill his military obligations. “Not to worry,” my mother's friend Eucharis told her, “we will arrange it so that he will be kept in Athens, close to Adam.” Adam was Eucharis's husband and the military director of the EAT/ESA. How can one go against the grace of power, especially when power holds the torture of torture in its hand? This was not the manufacture of consent, because there was no consent, there was sheer terror. Sotiris went to KESA, and for forty days he was tortured so that he would learn how to torture others. He came to our house on his leave, and I remember that man, over six feet tall, being unable to sit on a chair from the pain.
When time came for his release, Adam bestowed his grace again, and Sotiris was stationed at EAT/ESA, but at the moving violations office, where he had to investigate moving violations by soldiers. He kept a low profile, not revealing to anyone the particulars of how he had come to that place. Every so often, however, Theophiloyiannakos and Hatzizisis, the two chiefs of the interrogation unit of ESA, would ask him to name the names of democratic students whom he knew in Italy. He refused. He said he did not know any; he came from a poor family; he had to work in order to support himself and his brother, who was also studying there; and he had no time for socializing.
The pressure was stepped up until at one point, Katerina told me in the summer of 2005, “It became unbearable. I went to your mother and was crying, because they had become so hostile toward him that we had no idea what steps they would take next. As I was crying, Eucharis came for coffee. She saw me like this, asked why I was crying, and I hesitated to tell her. Your mother did not hesitate at all. 'They are asking Sotiris for names,' your mother said. Eucharis called Adam [Katerina started imitating Eucharis on the telephone], 'Loule [that was his diminutive], I am at Demetra's and Katerina is here and she is crying because they are asking Sotiris to give them some names from Italy.' We were looking at her, as Adam was talking to her. She took the telephone from her ear. 'Can't he give a few?' she said—apparently that was what Adam told her to ask. I motioned that no, he could not. She told Adam, 'No, he can't.' Adam said something to her. Again, she took the telephone from her ear. 'One or two? So that they'll leave him alone.' I motioned again no, he did not know any. Eucharis turned to Adam, again. 'He doesn't know any,' she said. He said something to her; she hung up and said, 'Tell Sotiris to go to see Theophiloyiannakos tomorrow to take his leave.' He went the next morning, and Theophiloyiannakos was beside himself. He started yelling at him, saying 'You thought that you were being smart? You know the Major so well and you had not said anything all this time? Then he took his revolver out, put it on his [Sotiris's] temple and ordered him out of his office. He signed his leave of absence.”
See also the accounts published in Haritos-Fatouros 2003.