excerpt
It seemed that the dean had learned this
speech by heart and repeated it like a parrot, irrelevant what was the
country’s current situation.
Hermes sat next to Eleni, feeling bored and angry: under the
junta, things were not good at all, and they wouldn’t get any better
any time soon; and the graduates were not going to do better than
the previous ones. If nothing was done, things were only going to
get worse. Hermes tried very hard to be attentive, and when his name
was called, he got up and walked slowly to the dean, who smiled and
shook his hand before handing him the “holy” paper.
Hermes nodded his head and smiled politely at the dean and
the rest of the officials, as well as his professors. Deep inside him,
Hermes felt the urge to stand up in front of them and give them a
real piece of his mind, but he knew it was not his time yet, so he went
back to his seat. His head throbbed from the tension, which Eleni
sensed as she also sensed that he was absorbed in his own world, so
she asked,
“Are you okay? You look like you don’t like being here.”
“I have this bad headache. My head is really hurting.”
“This thing is just about over. We’ll go soon.”
He nodded, and indeed the ceremony was quickly over, and
the people started to disperse. He and Eleni rose from their seats and
walked toward the exit.
At the door, George, a clerk from the secretary’s office, stopped
them.
“Again, congratulations, young man,” he said to Hermes.
“Oh, thank you, George.”
“The dean would like to see you before you go.”
Surprised, Hermes left Eleni and followed the secretary in the
long hallway to the dean’s office. He knocked at the door and entered.
The head of the university welcomed him and praised him for all the
good work he had done. After all, Hermes was the student with the
highest marks in his class.
Hermes waited for the dean to get to the point.
Manolis Aligizakis 