The house on the cliff

scramble the two at our choosing. Nor will I hesitate to use foreign words where needed, or even where it suits me - it is in any case a habit of the Egyptian Greeks and part of my heritage. Neither will I baulk at words I know to be absent from any dictionary, provided their meaning is clear. I never stay in Greece for long, and all the going back and forth means I don’t have a precise sense of current slang, and some of my phrasing is downright passé. So what? Ánthimi Konstantínou Velissári Villa Ánthimi Maskouládes, Corfu. March 1980 PART ONE August 1949 The most momentous encounter of my life took place entirely unexpectedly, on an evening in the summer of 1949, not long before I turned fifteen. I had spent the day on the water, paddling in the coves of our secluded part of the shoreline in my boat, the Ducky , exploring the shallows. At midday I ate some limpets I pried off their boulders, and sea urchins; my father had taught me how to open them with my pen-knife and extract the eggs. I had brought a lemon with me, as well as a bottle of water and half a loaf of bread.