{"id":50335,"date":"2024-09-22T06:37:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-22T10:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/?p=50335"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:28:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:28:44","slug":"husbands-dream-my-nightmare-chapter-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/le-reve-du-mari-mon-cauchemar-chapitre-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Husband's dream, my nightmare - Chapter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In 1972\u2019s Greece, when a woman gave birth, she was required to stay at home for 40 days. On the 41stst<\/sup> sunrise, she would present her child to the \u201cpope\u201d, the parish priest. This marked the end of her quarantine. I\u2019d given birth to my third child in late June, and I was staying at home to care for my kids while Husband was ostensibly trying to find work to support his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krya Vrysi was so small that everyone knew each other. I guess Husband had forgotten that detail. That\u2019s how his secret spread like wildfire on the main street. He wanted to see the world, live in a big city where he could become a business owner. What would he sell? God only knew and the devil would\u2019ve bet money on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day when my friend Thanassis was enjoying a few cups of coffee on the main street, he quickly learned of my husband\u2019s plan: he\u2019d gotten it into his head to start selling flokatis, or traditional, handmade shaggy rugs that weighed at least 1,800 grams a square metre. The pure virgin sheep wool of these magnificent rugs was exquisitely soft, fluffy and warm. At one point, they were even a sought-after luxury item. However, flokatis were no longer popular in America, let alone Greece, likely because homes were making the switch to electric heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Husband finally decided to tell me about his new project, I replied that even his own mother and sister didn\u2019t keep flokatis anymore because they were too heavy to shake out, too difficult to carry and too expensive to replace. According to Thanassis, only the poor and the gypsies appreciated them because they\u2019d get the rugs for free from the well-off who no longer wanted them. I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but that project would end up in a dead end, like many of his muddled aspirations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 19 finally came around and it was my daughter\u2019s birthday. She shared her Greek grandmother\u2019s first name: Getsemani. Despina, my sister-in-law, had secretly made a cake using barely ripe cherries and topped it with 3 small pink candles. The village hairdresser had offered to cut the little one\u2019s hair by an inch so it would grow stronger and faster. Even Thanassis had bought a sweet yellow dress for the girl. Husband was obviously going to miss the celebration because he was in Thessaloniki. He\u2019d been going there more often now, and I couldn\u2019t help but wonder why. Was he still looking for a way to earn money? Or was he indulging in female company? He always had some secret project on the side, an excuse to leave the village regularly. In the meantime, I tended to the large garden and filled six or seven huge buckets at the well for our daily needs. Most of the village\u2019s homes didn\u2019t have running water and it enraged my mother-in-law. Couldn\u2019t her precious son fix the plumbing instead of wasting his time dreaming up plans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, his hard-working sister adored taking care of my children. Every morning, she\u2019d wash, dress and feed them, and bring me my baby to breastfeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, I proudly presented my baby to the village \u201cpope.\u201d I had to go back to the hospital in Thessaloniki for the routine postpartum exam at the end of my quarantine. Thanassis accepted to drive Husband and me there. I was in great shape; I hadn\u2019t gained a single pound although I devoured lots of bread each day and Greek delicacies dipped in olive oil. When we arrived, an old doctor greeted Husband, ordered me to remove my underwear and to lie down on a narrow table. The glove-clad man examined my breasts, belly and birth canal, which had almost completely healed. Then both men started talking in a foreign dialect I didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I only caught a few words and glimpses, but it was all I needed to understand that something wasn\u2019t right. The doctor left for a few minutes and came back with a syringe in hand. \u201cA small injection to calm you,\u201d he told me as he smiled. I didn\u2019t even have the time to ask Husband what was happening, I\u2019d fallen asleep. When I woke up, the old doctor was gone. The stretcher on which I was resting was stained with blood. When I saw the thick sanitary pad placed between my legs, I quickly realized why I\u2019d been anaesthetized against my will. I was afraid and crying. Husband, who\u2019d run off to the pharmacy to get the two tablets prescribed by the doctor, which I was to swallow without chewing, returned and helped me get dressed. He took my arm to help me down the stairs and we left the hospital without exchanging a single word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TO BE CONTINUED\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cora
\u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1972\u2019s Greece, when a woman gave birth, she was required to stay at home for 40 days. On the 41stst sunrise, she would present her child to the \u201cpope\u201d, the parish priest. This marked the end of her quarantine. I\u2019d given birth to my third child in late June, and I was staying at home to care for my kids while Husband was ostensibly trying to find work to support his family. Krya Vrysi was so small that everyone knew each other. I guess Husband had forgotten that detail. That\u2019s how his secret spread like wildfire on the main street. He wanted to see the world, live in a big city where he could become a business owner. What would he sell? God only knew and the devil would\u2019ve bet money on it. One day when my friend Thanassis was enjoying a few cups of coffee on the main street, he quickly learned of my husband\u2019s plan: he\u2019d gotten it into his head to start selling flokatis, or traditional, handmade shaggy rugs that weighed at least 1,800 grams a square metre. The pure virgin sheep wool of these magnificent rugs was exquisitely soft, fluffy and warm. At one point, they were even a sought-after luxury item. However, flokatis were no longer popular in America, let alone Greece, likely because homes were making the switch to electric heat. When Husband finally decided to tell me about his new project, I replied that even his own mother and sister didn\u2019t keep flokatis anymore because they were too heavy to shake out, too difficult to carry and too expensive to replace. According to Thanassis, only the poor and the gypsies appreciated them because they\u2019d get the rugs for free from the well-off who no longer wanted them. I didn\u2019t know it at\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":50338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Chapitre 3 : en Gr\u00e8ce, en 1972, une nouvelle maman devait rester 40 jours \u00e0 la maison. Mme Cora raconte ces traditions et ce qu'elle a v\u00e9cu.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"class_list":["post-50335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50335"}],"curies":[{"name":"WP","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}