{"id":50586,"date":"2024-09-29T06:27:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T10:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/?p=50586"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:28:45","slug":"husbands-dream-my-nightmare-chapter-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/le-reve-du-mari-mon-cauchemar-chapitre-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Husband's dream, my nightmare - Chapter 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I 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.
\u2014 Please, Thanassis, open a window. My mouth is completely dry. I need to drink water.\u201c
Husband 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.
\u2014 \u201cLet's get out and stretch our legs,\u201d Husband said.
\u2014 \u201cGood idea,\u201d replied Thanassis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I 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.
\u2014 Thanassis, 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.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When 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. Men have no idea what women go through. I was happily married and I gave birth to a still-born son, she told me. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 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.
\u2014 \u201cWhere could we go?\u201d
\u2014 \u201cMaybe Germany?\u201d whispered Thanassis. \u201cMost Greek men are already there working in factories, on farms or in restaurants.\u201d
\u2014 \u201cGermany, Canada or the US\u2026 it\u2019s all the same!\u201d barked Husband when I tried to test the waters.
\u2014 \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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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. I 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.\u2014 Please, Thanassis, open a window. My mouth is completely dry. I need to drink water.\u201cHusband 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.\u2014 \u201cLet’s get out and stretch our legs,\u201d Husband said.\u2014 \u201cGood idea,\u201d replied Thanassis. I 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\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":50587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Chapitre 4 : sur la route du retour de l'h\u00f4pital, un lourd silence s'installe. Mme Cora poursuit le r\u00e9cit de ses ann\u00e9es en Gr\u00e8ce.","_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-50586","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\/50586","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=50586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50586"}],"curies":[{"name":"WP","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}