Sur le chemin du retour entre l\u2019h\u00f4pital et le village, ni Thanassis, ni mon mari et moi n\u2019avions prononc\u00e9 un tra\u00eetre mot. Un \u00e9pais malentendu d\u00e9chirait l\u2019atmosph\u00e8re. La mare de sang dans laquelle je m\u2019\u00e9tais r\u00e9veill\u00e9e sur la civi\u00e8re et les deux pilules que j\u2019avais d\u00fb avaler d\u00e9passaient mon entendement. J\u2019avais quand m\u00eame sorti de mon corps un magnifique poupon \u00e0 peine plus de 40\u00a0jours auparavant et voici que le sang coulait encore entre mes cuisses. Ce vieux docteur m\u2019avait ab\u00eem\u00e9e, charcut\u00e9e, avort\u00e9e. \u00c0 ma premi\u00e8re grossesse, mes beaux-fr\u00e8res avaient convaincu l\u2019homme de m\u2019\u00e9pouser parce que j\u2019\u00e9tais la premi\u00e8re qui lui refusait de se faire avorter. Parce que j\u2019\u00e9tais enceinte, je m\u2019\u00e9tais mari\u00e9e oblig\u00e9e, comme on disait dans le temps. Mais cette fois, on ne m\u2019avait m\u00eame pas accord\u00e9 le droit de prendre la d\u00e9cision.<\/p>\n
J\u2019avais soif. Sur la banquette arri\u00e8re de la vieille bagnole du boulanger, mon corps se tordait de douleur. \u00c0 l\u2019avant, le mari, fumant comme un d\u00e9fonc\u00e9, s\u2019amusait \u00e0 retenir la fum\u00e9e dans ses poumons le plus longtemps possible. Dans son empire du silence, il m\u2019ignorait totalement. Je regardais mon ami Thanassis dans le r\u00e9troviseur et \u00e7a m\u2019encourageait. \u00ab\u00a0S\u2019il te pla\u00eet, Thanassis, ouvre une fen\u00eatre. Ma bouche est compl\u00e8tement dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e. J\u2019ai besoin de boire de l\u2019eau.\u00a0\u00bb Le mari continua \u00e0 m\u2019ignorer et \u00e0 avaler de la boucane jusqu\u2019\u00e0 ce que nous nous arr\u00eations \u00e0 la seule station d\u2019essence situ\u00e9e quasi \u00e0 mi-chemin entre la grande ville et le village.
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Sortons nous d\u00e9gourdir les jambes\u00a0\u00bb, clama l\u2019\u00e9poux.
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Bonne id\u00e9e\u00a0\u00bb, r\u00e9torqua Thanassis.<\/p>\n
J\u2019ai ouvert la porte arri\u00e8re et tent\u00e9 de m\u2019extirper de la bagnole. En avan\u00e7ant d\u2019un pas, je m\u2019aper\u00e7us que j\u2019avais tachet\u00e9 ma robe et la banquette arri\u00e8re et que de minces filets de sang d\u00e9goulinaient sur mes jambes. \u00ab\u00a0Thanassis, s\u2019il te pla\u00eet, demande \u00e0 quelqu\u2019un un morceau de tissu mouill\u00e9 pour me rafra\u00eechir. S\u2019il y a une femme dans la baraque, je veux lui parler.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Une grand-m\u00e8re assise dans un coin l\u00e2cha son tricot et s\u2019avan\u00e7a vers moi. Elle avait tout compris en voyant mes yeux apeur\u00e9s, mon visage bl\u00eame et mes jambes coll\u00e9es l\u2019une sur l\u2019autre. La vieille femme essuya le sang sur mes cuisses, me tendit des d\u00e9coupures de tissus bien propres en me conseillant de m\u2019\u00e9tendre un peu pendant qu\u2019elle nettoierait la banquette arri\u00e8re. Elle me mena donc au fond de la b\u00e2tisse. C\u2019est \u00e0 ce moment que je d\u00e9couvris que la station-service abritait une petite pi\u00e8ce secr\u00e8te o\u00f9 la vieille dame servait d\u2019infirmi\u00e8re et parfois d\u2019avorteuse pour les femmes du village. Elle m\u2019installa sur son lit de fortune couvert de vieux draps.<\/p>\n
Enfin revenue au village, j\u2019ai tout de suite racont\u00e9 \u00e0 ma belle-s\u0153ur Despina qu\u2019apr\u00e8s l\u2019examen post-partum habituel, on m\u2019avait endormie sans demander mon consentement et retir\u00e9 l\u2019embryon d\u2019un nouvel enfant. \u00ab\u00a0Les hommes n\u2019ont aucune id\u00e9e de ce que les femmes endurent. Moi la premi\u00e8re, je me suis bien mari\u00e9e et j\u2019ai accouch\u00e9 d\u2019un petit gar\u00e7on mort-n\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb, me dit-elle. Apr\u00e8s quelques larmes, je lui ai parl\u00e9 de la vieille femme du garage. Selon Despina, c\u2019\u00e9tait un secret bien gard\u00e9 que tout le monde connaissait, mais dont personne ne parlait. \u00c0 mi-chemin entre la grande ville de Thessalonique et les quelques villages avoisinants Krya Vrysi, les jeunes filles engross\u00e9es illicitement visitaient la femme du garage qui s\u2019occupait d\u2019expulser l\u2019avorton et de recoudre l\u2019hymen. Ainsi, la jeune fille redevenue vierge pourrait se marier.<\/p>\n
Un souvenir du temps o\u00f9 je demeurais \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al me revient en t\u00eate. Mari\u00e9e depuis quelque deux ans, j\u2019avais le ventre quasi pr\u00eat \u00e0 accoucher de ma fille, mon deuxi\u00e8me b\u00e9b\u00e9. Un bon ami du mari nous avait invit\u00e9s \u00e0 son mariage. J\u2019\u00e9tais tr\u00e8s contente qu\u2019une belle-s\u0153ur me pr\u00eate une robe de maternit\u00e9 qui m\u2019allait. N\u00e9e au Canada de parents immigrants grecs, la jeune fille de 17\u00a0ans travaillait avec son p\u00e8re devenu restaurateur sur l\u2019avenue du Parc et parlait parfaitement anglais et fran\u00e7ais. Croyez-le ou non, la coutume \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque consistait \u00e0 d\u00e9florer la future \u00e9pouse un ou deux jours avant la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie du mariage pour que le mari puisse \u00eatre convaincu de sa virginit\u00e9. Cependant, cette magnifique promise ne l\u2019\u00e9tait pas. Lorsque la m\u00e8re du futur \u00e9poux apprit ce qu\u2019il s\u2019\u00e9tait pass\u00e9, elle annula la noce. Le futur mari, qui aimait sa promise comme un fou, se retrouva le bec \u00e0 l\u2019eau et le c\u0153ur en miettes.<\/p>\n
Mais revenons au lendemain matin de notre visite de suivi \u00e0 l\u2019h\u00f4pital. Le mari \u00e9tait r\u00e9veill\u00e9 et tenait le tout petit dans ses bras. Il lui faisait des guili-guili pour me faire rire, je suppose. C\u2019\u00e9tait mon troisi\u00e8me b\u00e9b\u00e9, mais c'\u00e9tait vraiment la premi\u00e8re fois qu\u2019il prenait un de nos enfants dans ses bras.<\/p>\n
Voulait-il \u00eatre pardonn\u00e9, excus\u00e9, graci\u00e9? Voulait-il me faire croire que c\u2019\u00e9tait un service qu\u2019il nous avait rendu la veille? Tout son comportement m\u2019exasp\u00e9rait. C\u2019\u00e9tait un homme peu \u00e9duqu\u00e9, paresseux, ignorant, imbu de lui-m\u00eame, irresponsable, illogique et impr\u00e9visible. Ce dernier qualificatif m\u2019effrayait au plus haut point. Pensait-il encore que la vie en Gr\u00e8ce \u00e9tait beaucoup plus facile qu\u2019en Am\u00e9rique? Lui-m\u00eame, depuis plus de six mois, n\u2019avait trouv\u00e9 aucune opportunit\u00e9 valable pour gagner sa vie. Mais avait-il vraiment cherch\u00e9?<\/p>\n
Ce mois-l\u00e0, le jardin d\u00e9bordait de l\u00e9gumes que j\u2019avais ramass\u00e9s et entrepos\u00e9s au deuxi\u00e8me \u00e9tage de la maison. Nous avions r\u00e9colt\u00e9 tellement d\u2019oignons que j\u2019ai d\u00fb enseigner \u00e0 ma belle-s\u0153ur Despina comment les confire. Un jour, j\u2019ai coup\u00e9 le cou d\u2019une belle grosse poule blanche pour notre souper. Les petits se sont bien amus\u00e9s avec les plumes de la poule qu\u2019ils allaient manger. Le plus vieux adorait les cuisses de poulet avec des frites allumettes cuites dans une grande po\u00eale en fonte. Mis\u00e8re, les petits chercheront le ketchup! Que vais-je faire? Il m\u2019a fallu \u00e9crabouiller quelques tomates bien m\u00fbres et en faire une \u00ab\u00a0pur\u00e9e maison\u00a0\u00bb comme l\u2019aurait dit notre c\u00e9l\u00e8bre Jehane\u00a0Beno\u00eet nationale.<\/p>\n
Fin septembre, j\u2019ai commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 avoir peur. Constatant que le mari ne travaillait toujours pas, le boulanger me donnait le pain de la veille et quelques brioches invendues pour mes enfants. Les poches du mari \u00e9taient-elles si vides? Je n\u2019avais aucune id\u00e9e de ce qu\u2019il poss\u00e9dait. Au caf\u00e9 du village, tout ce dont les hommes parlaient, c\u2019\u00e9tait du manque flagrant de travail bien r\u00e9mun\u00e9r\u00e9.
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0O\u00f9 pourrions-nous aller?\u00a0\u00bb
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Peut-\u00eatre en Allemagne?\u00a0\u00bb, murmura Thanassis. \u00ab\u00a0Une grande majorit\u00e9 d\u2019hommes grecs y sont d\u00e9j\u00e0, travaillant dans les usines, sur les fermes agricoles ou dans les restaurants\u00a0\u00bb.
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0L\u2019Allemagne, le Canada ou les \u00c9tats-Unis, c\u2019est du pareil au m\u00eame!\u00a0\u00bb, grogna l\u2019\u00e9poux lorsque j\u2019ai voulu t\u00e2ter le terrain.
\n\u2014\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Hambourg, Munich ou Cologne, \u00e7a te tente? Tes deux fr\u00e8res au Canada vivent comme des rois avec leurs restaurants. Leurs familles ne manquent de rien. S\u2019il te pla\u00eet, retournons au Canada. Demandons le passeport du b\u00e9b\u00e9 et partons. D\u00e9p\u00eachons-nous!\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00c0 SUIVRE\u2026<\/p>\n
Cora
\n\u2764\ufe0f<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sur le chemin du retour entre l\u2019h\u00f4pital et le village, ni Thanassis, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":50587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"acf":{"img_en":"","contenu_en":"On our way back from the hospital, neither Thanassis, my husband or I said a single word. The unease was so overwhelming, you could feel it in the air. I had woken in a puddle of blood on the stretcher and was asked to swallow two pills; I was in a state of shock. I\u2019d given birth to a lovely baby just a little more than 40 days ago and now blood flowed between my thighs once again. The old doctor had damaged, butchered and aborted me. When Husband got me pregnant with my first child, my two brothers-in-law had convinced him to marry me because I was the first one of his conquests who refused to go through with the abortion he wanted. It was a shotgun wedding. I\u2019d agreed to it then, but this time, I wasn\u2019t even given a chance to voice my wishes.\r\n\r\nI was thirsty. On the backseat of the old car the village baker owned, my body was contorted in pain. In front of me, Husband smoked like a chimney and entertained himself by trying to keep the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible. In his empire of silence, he completely ignored me. I looked at my friend Thanassis in the rear-view mirror and my mood lifted.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cPlease, Thanassis, open a window. My mouth is completely dry. I need to drink water.\u201d\r\nHusband continued to ignore me and swallow cigarette smoke until we stopped at the only gas station between the city and the village, located almost at the halfway point.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cLet\u2019s get out and stretch our legs,\u201d Husband said.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cGood idea,\u201d replied Thanassis.\r\n\r\nI opened the backseat door and did my best to get out. As I took a step, I noticed that I\u2019d stained my dress and the backseat and that blood was trickling down my legs.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cThanassis, please ask someone for a wet cloth so I can freshen up. And if there\u2019s a woman around, I\u2019d like to talk to her.\u201d\r\n\r\nAn elderly woman seated in a corner dropped her knitting and approached me. She understood the situation immediately when she saw my frightened eyes, my pale face and my legs glued together. The old woman wiped the blood from my thighs and handed me clean strips of fabric and suggested I go lie down while she cleaned the backseat of the car. Once inside, she led me to the back. That\u2019s when I discovered that the gas station housed a small secret room from which the elderly lady provided nursing services as well as the occasional abortion for local women. She helped me onto her makeshift bed covered in old bedsheets.\r\n\r\nWhen we finally made it back, I immediately told Despina, my sister-in-law, that after the usual postpartum examination, I\u2019d been put to sleep without my consent and that they\u2019d removed the embryo of another child. \u201cMen have no idea what women go through. I was happily married and I gave birth to a still-born son,\u201d she told me.\u00a0 After a few tears were shed, I told her about the old woman at the garage. According to Despina, it was a well-kept secret that everyone knew, but never talked about. Halfway between Thessaloniki and the few villages near Krya Vrysi, young girls who ended up pregnant illicitly visited the old woman at the garage. She\u2019d remove the unwanted package and sew up the hymen so the young girl would be eligible for marriage again.\r\n\r\nThis reminds me of a story from the time I lived in Montreal. I\u2019d been married for just over two years and my belly was almost ready to deliver my second baby, a daughter. One of Husband\u2019s good friends had invited us to his upcoming wedding. Mercifully one of my sisters-in-law lent me a maternity dress that fit me. Born in Canada to a couple of Greek immigrants, the 17-year-old bride worked with her father who\u2019d become a restaurant owner on Park Avenue. She spoke English and French perfectly. In those days, believe it not, it was customary for the future husband to sleep with the bride-to-be a day or two before the wedding so that he could be certain of her virginity. Unfortunately, in this case, the promised girl wasn\u2019t. When the groom\u2019s mother found out, she promptly cancelled the wedding. The future husband who loved his bride dearly, ended up with empty arms and a broken heart.\r\n\r\nBut let\u2019s get back to the day after my follow-up visit at the hospital. Husband was up and he was holding the littlest one in his arms. He was tickling him to try and make me laugh, I guess. It was my third baby, but he was holding one of his children in his arms for the very first time.\r\n\r\nDid he want to be forgiven, exonerated, pardoned? Did he want me to believe that he\u2019d done us a service the day before? Everything about his behaviour exasperated me. He was an uneducated, lazy, ignorant man who was full of himself, irresponsible, illogical and unpredictable. The latter terrified me the most. Did he still think that life in Greece was a lot easier than in America? It had been over six months, and he hadn\u2019t yet found an opportunity to make a good living. Had he even actually looked for work?\r\n\r\nThat month, the garden was exploding with vegetables. I\u2019d harvested and stored them on the second floor of the house. We\u2019d gotten so many onions that I had to teach Despina, my sister-in-law, how to make preserves. One day, I dispatched a big white chicken for dinner. The kids had fun playing with the bird\u2019s feathers. The oldest loved chicken thighs with shoestring fries prepared in a cast iron pan. The kids would ask for ketchup! What to do? I pur\u00e9ed a few ripe tomatoes and made homemade ketchup.\r\n\r\nAt the end of September, I started to worry. Seeing that Husband still wasn\u2019t working, the baker gave me day-old bread and a few unsold buns for my kids. Were Husband\u2019s pockets truly that empty? I had no idea how much he had. At the village coffee shop, the men were all talking about the terrible lack of good-paying jobs.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cWhere could we go?\u201d\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cMaybe Germany?\u201d whispered Thanassis. \u201cMost Greek men are already there working in factories, on farms or in restaurants.\u201d\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cGermany, Canada or the US\u2026 it\u2019s all the same!\u201d barked Husband when I tried to test the waters.\r\n\u2014\u00a0\u201cHow about Hamburg, Munich or Cologne? Your two brothers live like kings in Canada with their restaurants. Their families want for nothing. Please let\u2019s return to Canada. Let\u2019s ask for the baby\u2019s passport and go. Let\u2019s not delay!\u201d\r\n\r\nTO BE CONTINUED\u2026\r\n\r\nCora\r\n\u2764\ufe0f"},"yoast_head":"\n