“Thanasaki,” he said finally, “this can’t go on. You’ve been borrowing money from me since you got your law degree five years ago. You’ve never been able to make ends meet. You thought the girl you married came from a wealthy family and it turns out her father’s textile plant was mortgaged to the hilt, was then taken over by the National Bank and is now being ‘denationalized’. Your father-in-law has absconded to Evian where he lives with his mistress on the money he stashed over the years in a Swiss bank; your mother-in-law has to work to earn her living and your wife doesn’t have a drachma to her name. I’m not saying your marriage is a complete failure, but a smashing success it certainly isn’t.”
“But Baba,” Thanasaki protested, “we’ve been through all that before. If it hadn’t been for the lawyers’ strikes these past two years, I would have made a go of it. I’ve got three good cases that may come before the courts in sixteen months’ time.”
The veteran politician snorted and said:
“You must face the facts, my boy. You’re a failed lawyer and your only recourse is to do what failed lawyers have always done since time immemorial in this country. It’s what I’ve been telling you to do these last six months and you just won’t listen to me.”
“But, Baba, I can’t go into politics. I’m just not cut out to be a politician. I’ve never made a speech in my life and I just couldn’t manage the wheeling and dealing you’re so good at. Nor could I change from one party to another at the drop of a hat as you’ve been doing these past twenty years. Also, I simply can’t bear those peasants who are your constituents. They’re nothing but a bunch of cunning rogues who only vote for you because of the favors you can wangle for them, such as getting their blockhead sons or daughters a lifetime job in the civil service or 36 helping them get away with some nefarious, money-making scheme that breaks more laws than Al Capone ever did.”
The father looked at his son through narrowed eyelids.
“Thanasaki, my boy,” he said, “I will not allow you to run down my career or my honest, hard-working constituents without whom, whether you like it or not, you would never have been able to lead a comfortable life and spend ten years at university to get a law degree. If you want your own children to have a decent upbringing, and a proper education, you have no alternative now but to follow in my footsteps and go into politics. You’re too old to do anything else.”
“But, Baba, I told you I’m not fit to be a politician. It just wouldn’t work.”
The father sighed, dunked the second half of his rusk in the coffee, and said:
“You don’t have to be fit to be a politician. All you need is an initial push, the spark that will get you going, and you have the good fortune, like quite a few others before you, to have a father who can give it to you,” he said. Thanasaki looked puzzled.
“What others before me?” he asked.
The father sighed again. ‘He really is a dumb-dumb,’ he thought inwardly. Aloud, he said:
“Just to mention only some recent examples, how about George Papandreou, Andreas’s son; or Andreas himself for that matter. He has talent, undoubtedly, but d’you think he’d have managed such a meteoric career without the head start his father gave him? And then there’s Achilleas Karamanlis. Where would he be without his elder brother and what would Dora Bakoyianni be doing today if her father hadn’t become prime minister?”
“I see your point. But what can you do for me? You never became prime minister. And if you hadn’t switched to PASOK in 1981 you wouldn’t be in the opposition now and you might have become a minister in the present government,” Thanasaki argued.
“Aha!” the father exclaimed. “But we were in front for eight years and this crowd will be sent packing after only four years in power. Can’t you see what’s going to happen a year from now? Andreas, may the good Lord preserve him, will come in again on a landslide, the economy will be on the upswing and we’ll all be sitting pretty.”
“And how does that help me?” Thanasaki asked.
The father patted his hand and said:
“Look, my boy, I’m getting old and it’s time I retired. You shall be the PASOK candidate for our constituency next April and you’ll be sure to get in.”
Thanasaki looked at his father in surprise.
“But Baba, you’re only eighty-four. Why would you want to retire?”
“Ah well, my boy. Normally I wouldn’t. But I will do it for you. You’re my flesh and blood, after all. And you need the money.”
Thanasaki, who was slowly getting used to the idea of a career in politics, grasped his father’s hand and said:
“Baba, I don’t know how to thank you. At one stroke you have solved all my problems – although I don’t know how I shall be able to convince our constituents that I am the one they should elect.”
“It’s not the constituents you have to convince, my boy,” his father replied, “it’s Andreas. He’s the one who needs to be convinced that you should be on his ticket.”
“And how do I do that?”
“I believe you are on friendly terms with one or two shipowners and a few of our leading industrialists?”
“Yeees,” Thanasaki admitted, hesitantly.
“Well, you get them all to make hefty contributions to your pre-electoral campaign…”
“Wait a minute, Baba,” Thanasaki interrupted. “They’re all conservatives. They’ll never…”
“Yes they will. As soon as they see which way the wind is blowing. Don’t worry about that. When they give you the money, you’ll keep some for your campaign expenses and the rest you’ll put in a big box and take up to Ekali as your contribution to the party.”
“Just like that, and then I’m in?”
The father nodded.
“Only be careful about one thing. Don’t use a Pampers carton. Andreas is rather sensitive on that point.”
