Unlike past, voter preferences out in open
Giorgos shakes his dice to try and change his luck and looks at me suspiciously. «I don’t know why you’ve come here,» he said. «Do you think you’re going to use me to make a living? If you do, then you can pay me for every answer I give you.» Something about his expression tells me he isn’t joking. «Don’t pay any attention to him, he’s bitter,» said his opponent Dimitris. «Backgammon has made him bitter.» The others hide their smiles. «Do you think the Communist Party will have the same economic policy if they win, Giorgos?» someone teases him, adding, «If you were from the Avgi newspaper, which he always buys, he’d sit down and tell you the story of his life.» At this same cafe two or three decades ago, the same people would have been found sitting here – but the climate would have been totally different. Today it has «run out of steam,» according to Dimitris, whom the others call «president.» «He is president of the Youth Center,» explained Nikos, as Dimitris adds: «I was elected by 75 percent of the vote, if you please!» «Now we’ve become civilized, we don’t fight anymore,» he said. «I remember when we used to come down from the villages by the coach-load and people would throw stones at us from the overpasses to try and stop us from voting,» remembers Nikos. Naturally, politics is still the favorite topic of conversation, but not current politics. One man tells a story of how during the occupation, (Constantine) Mitsotakis saved a teacher from the Germans; another remembers that when Andreas (Papandreou) won the elections in 1981, the first thing he did was abolish school uniforms. Someone at the back of the room said something about (postwar prime minister Nikolaos) Plastiras. The voices are almost drowned out by the clicking of the backgammon pieces on the boards. Naturally, there is not a woman in sight, only men who won’t look up from their backgammon games for a minute to talk. «Oh, yes, women come here,» said one. «In fact, once two women came in and played backgammon. I think it was last year.» An elderly man came in and stopped in front of the mirror to straighten his cap. A short man with slicked-down hair watches him and laughs: «Are you looking to see how handsome you are?» Nikos shakes his head. «You see that fellow,» he said, indicating the short man. «He comes here from the other side of town – I don’t know how – to have a coffee and get some peace. He has six grandchildren, and a pension of just 600 euros. So at the beginning of each month he hides 20 euros in his sock, and gives the rest to his wife.» Everyone here knows everything about everyone else – including how they vote. Not that anyone is hiding it. As they open up, only Nikos remains quiet, shaking the dice as if to shake off bad luck. The rest explain their initial discomfort when I first walked in. The cafe owner, they tell me, is «all green» (PASOK) and until recently would launch into passionate Socialist tirades; customers from rival parties would keep quiet so as not to become persona non grata at the cafe. «So is the cafe a green one?» I ask. Vangelis leans toward me and says in confidential tone: «No, my girl, we are in the majority. Even if we don’t talk a lot.» Vangelis said he has only voted once for PASOK. «Back in 1981, for Andreas!» he said. When we asked him if he had been convinced by PASOK’s slogan of the time – «Change» – he was surprised. «What change? An old friend was a candidate, so how could I not vote for him?» he said regretfully, as if he had committed a crime by voting for Papandreou. «That’s how everyone votes,» says Nikos, «for their friends and acquaintances. How’s the country supposed to get ahead?» The «president» shakes his head. «Oh, the country’s doing just fine. In the villages everyone is complaining, but they all have deep freezers in their homes. Ever since I can remember, people in this country have been complaining, just in case there is something more to be had.»
