Before I set out on my first visit to Greece, a philhellene friend said, 'You'll fall under the spell of the old.' I rather thought she was talking about the Ancient World, but she was talking about old people: she had lived in a Greek village for some years.
She was right: the spell worked. I became very attached to my husband's four uncles: Evangelos, George One and George Two, and Philopoemis. All had the relaxed charm of survivors who have struggled through hard times, but have ultimately achieved their goals, the most important of which involved doing their best by God and the Family.
They had also retained great vitality and humour: sometimes, after hearing their tales of the past, of war, poverty and death, I wondered how.
For them I had the value of novelty, as I was the first foreign woman they had ever met.
My relationship with old women, particularly that with my mother-in-law, the redoubtable Aphrodite, was often more complex. But I was still in a fair way to be magicked, and now I am sorry that the old people I became so fond of are no more. I miss them.
But then last Christmas I met Yiayia Iphigenia, my daughter-in-law Katerina's grandmother, and was enchanted all over again, by both name and person.
Anglophones regularly make a hash of this beautiful name, the correct pronunciation of which is Ifeeyainya. But the ones I know are intrigued by the mythological character, who was ill-fated, to say the least. In one version of her story, she was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon in order to ensure fair winds to Troy
In a scarcely more palatable account, the goddess Artemis whisked her away, leaving a sacrificial deer in her place. Artemis then decreed that Iphigenia should be an acolyte at one of her island temples, where her specific job was to kill any man that set foot on the beach. Of course one fine day her brother inevitably happens along. Lots of pity and terror then ensue.
I learned that there had also been ample sorrow and trauma in the life of the modern Iphigenia.
It was a bright winter's day when we visited Yiayia Iphigenia in her village. She was sitting outside in the sun, as the old anywhere love to do. Long widowed, she was dressed in black, and was meticulously turned out: headscarf, apron, the whole traditional outfit.
Iphigenia is not sure how old she is,