THE SOUNDS OF NEW BEGINNINGS

I used to wake up in the mornings in those early years in Crete and sing my lungs out. I belted out songs in English…….whatever popped out of my head…….. from my dad’s favourite singers….Nat King Cole’s When I fall In Love…. Dean Martin’s That’s Amore….Frank Sinatra’s My Way….right down to the songs of the 80’s of Boy George…..` karma karma karma chameleon…’ I sang because there were no English radio stations and I missed the beat of that music in my life. My in-laws were tickled pink and my father-in-law, the ex-general, called me….` the nightingale of the East ‘…. No don’t get me wrong. I’m not gifted with a mellifluous voice……in fact quite the contrary. How would I describe it…..it’s somewhat low…..not the seductive husky low of female singers purring in dimly lit bars………more raspy and grating. I remember my first days in Standard One when I used to hang around my older sister and her friends at recess time. They let me tag along……probably felt sorry for me because I looked so lost……until one day when I was beginning to feel comfortable with them and actually opened my mouth to say something…… one of the girls said in surprise……` hey your sister’s got a man’s voice ‘…… I never kept company with them again…….I went off and found my own friends……That was a blessing in disguise because otherwise I would have never stepped out of my sister’s shadow. Then there were the auditions for the school choir. Sister Agnes hit the notes on the piano while Sister Cecilia went around listening to our voices. She actually cupped her ear next to each one of us and listened intently…… I never got chosen….. I think it scarred me for life. I always wondered what went awry in the assembly line high up in the sky……I must have been put together hurriedly and somebody forgot to tune my vocal chords.

But on Wednesday mornings I didn’t sing….not a single discordant note wafted out of our windows. Instead, I would pull out this thick hardcover exercise book from the shelf…. which looked more like a bookkeeper’s ledger…. and place it on the dining room table…..I also placed a sharpened pencil and a rubber next to it. Then I waited for the unmistakable thumping of thick heels on the cement yard….then the buzz of the doorbell. I would open the door and there she would stand in her dark suit, formidable and big, blocking out the sun. She appeared even taller because she heaped her raven black hair on the top of her head in a kind of a bun. Her lips were painted red, her nails an equally dripping red and she exuded a scent of powdery cologne. The only thing missing was a switch in her hand. She was my Greek teacher, a retired headmistress of a primary school and a friend of Yiannis’ aunt. She would spend the first half hour teaching me Greek and I would teach her English the second half hour. I won’t disclose her name because this is a very small town and all this might be traced back to her…… and would bounce back to me….. although she’s long gone……but people have relatives you know.

She reminded me a lot of Mrs Stags in primary school…..the persona of a typical teacher of those times of convent schools and rules…… powerful and imposing with a voice that could send you scuttling under the desk. To have a firm grasp of the language, the ex-headmistress said, I had to get my pronunciation right…..the ` r[s]’ needed to be rolled out until they trembled in your mouth and you sounded like an ancient machine…..` RRRRRRR ‘ she’d say and `r..r..r..r ‘ I’d go…..` Now run it into the word….` BO..RRRRO’ [can]  she’d say…..I ran it into the word, it lost steam halfway….and tapered off into a whisper of an `r ‘…… like in the word `reverie’. That wouldn’t do at all…..she scribbled out a rumbling tongue twister in my book…. to practice in my free time …….what free time?…..I taught at a private school certain hours in the morning and in the evening. Nevertheless, I did practice it………..` ti fove..rrrro ti trrrrome..rrrro pou then bo..rrrro na po to rrrro ‘…….which simply meant………` how horrible how terrible that I can’t pronounce the ` rrrr ‘. I rolled it so much that my tongue and palate tingled and itched and….. I gave it up.

Then it was her turn……she became the student and I the teacher. I commented that she was rolling  her ` r[s] like marbles and landing hard on her dental consonants……the ` d ‘ ` n ‘ and ` t ‘……` goo…de mo…rrrr…ning ‘ she would say. When I insisted a little too much, she came back the following week and said that she had consulted an ex-teacher of English who had initiated her into the English language….and she claimed I may be giving flawed instructions ……… Was it because I was from Malaysia…….a land of jungles and tree swingers?….Then I went on to the vowels. I decided to gently glide her into the elusive world of the English vowels…..slippery creatures, they’re never what they’re written out to be…… But how would I go about it?…… She was already convinced that [apple] was ` ahple’… ….[eat] was `e..aht ‘…. [is] was ` ees ‘…. [boat] was ` bo..aht ‘ and [orange] was` oh..rahnge ‘ and  she threw in the ` r[s]  once more and said………. `ah..rent ‘ instead of [aren’t]…… So in a moment of despair…..I decided to wipe her slate clean….bring it back to its original ` tabula rasa ‘……..start from the very beginning. I could imagine John Locke groaning in his grave and wagging his finger…..….no going back and erasing stuff…..can’t be done. But I thought I’d give it a try……..` Say vowel ‘ I said ……whatever for I don’t know…..I suspect I was just buying time…….` Say vowel ‘ I repeated…..and she boomed back ……..` AH……OOL ‘…..

In the next lesson, without any warning, she sputtered out the Greek consonant clusters…..the cause of untold suffering….` ps ‘ `kt ‘ `ks ‘…..they were non-existent in my phonetic range….. like mustard seeds bursting in hot oil…never could develop such accomplishments. ` Practice, practice, practice! ‘  she said…. and threw this dreaded tongue twister in my face …….` aspri petra kseksaspri kai ston ilio kseksasproteri’ ………` white stone all white and in the sun even whiter.‘……. sounds so pure and innocent in English….. Then we switched to English….she couldn’t say the ` sh ‘…..so I sprung my primary school tongue tripper on her….. ` She sells sea shells by the sea shore…..’ …. and the ex-headmistress sailed through it…..` see sells sea sells on the sea saw…’ We created quite a cacophony that reverberated off the thick stone walls of the dark little dining room….she…ah…ooling  and sss..ing  away and me spitting out ps[s] and ks[s] and kt[s].  The ex-general was passing by and stopped to listen. He then added `ah…ool ‘ which he much preferred to` vowel ‘ to his already expanding articulations in English.

Maybe they’re right….` you can’t teach an old dog new tricks ‘……even I…. the younger dog found it difficult to wrap my tongue around the new sounds. Come the following Wednesday just before the lesson…..I felt a trembling in my heart and a tremor in my throat….. I rushed over to the aunt’s house, flapped my arms and told her in a panic to cancel the lesson for me. She rang the ex-headmistress but the cleaning lady picked up the phone and said that it was too late….. she was on her way. I rushed back home and did what any sensible coward would do…….I ran to the furthest end of the house….. and hid…..behind the kitchen wall…..She rang the bell for almost ten minutes and then……. thumped away reluctantly.

The following week I went to the Goethe-Institute for free Greek lessons for foreigners. The teacher, a man, was a scholarly looking Greek philologist who spoke above our heads……the heads of the newcomers like me. The older students who had been in the country for ten years or so sat in front and nodded enthusiastically…….the rest of us sat behind and daydreamed. Come the third lesson the teacher didn’t turn up and the class was dismissed…..indefinitely.