Excerpt
…at their destination, and they should fasten their seat belts. Hermes
looked down from the window. It was a cloudless night. He had a
superb panoramic view of the city, full of lights flickering in the dark.
He could distinguish the streets and the tall buildings as the aircraft
slowly descended.
They landed, and Hermes got up to take his carry-on bag from
the overhead compartment, stepped off the plane, and said goodbye
to Tom. An airline official led Hermes down the long hallways to the
baggage area. He found his suitcase from the appropriate carousel
and made his way to the arrivals area, where people waited for their
friends and family members. Happy voices were everywhere; people
embraced one another, kissing, laughing, and crying. He turned
around as if to see someone he knew. There was no one there, he knew
no one, and this was his first bitter moment of realization that he was
so far away from people he loved. He wished Magda were here. He
then sat on a bench and wondered aloud,
“And now, where are you going, Hermes?” A question justified
under the circumstances, a question he had no answer to, only the
sense of loss, of abandonment, of forlornness, and fear crept into his
heart. Then, as if from the great source, he felt he heard a voice that
whispered to his heart, not to his ears. And it was the voice of his new
motherland that said,
“Welcome, Hermes, you are here in Vancouver now, go out
there, find your way to do your studies and get your diploma. Your
folks are waiting for you, back in Greece. They look forward to seeing
you back. Your diploma is your goal and nothing less…” were the
words he felt he heard, and the voice wasn’t any other but the voice
of Canada, his temporary motherland, which, like a mother, took
another orphan off the streets and gave him a chance.
Suddenly, the fear he had just felt vanished, and a jolt of enthusiasm
took over his senses. Hermes stood up. His eyes ran around the
space of the large airport hall when his glance met the old woman
whom he had helped in Montreal; she saw him too. At the same
time, a very tall man with a good-looking woman approached…
Manolis Aligizakis 