This anti-description, for want of a better way of putting it, had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition: while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline,

So we stayed here for three weeks, and because we weren’t meant to be here I felt that we became, in a sense, invisible. We didn’t see anyone or speak to anyone except each other in all that time, though I had friends in Athens I could have called. But I didn’t call them: the feeling of invisibility was too powerful.

inured

Perhaps, he said, we are all like animals in the zoo, and once we see that one of us has got out of the enclosure we shout at him to run like mad, even though it will only result in him becoming lost.

There was a great difference, I said, between the things I wanted and the things that I could apparently have, and until I had finally and forever made my peace with that fact, I had decided to want nothing at all.

‘The parts of life that are suffocating’, Angeliki said, ‘are so often the parts that are the projection of our parents’ own desires.

tantamount

‘what are you saying? That your children emigrated because their parents got divorced? My friend, I’m afraid you’re mistaken in thinking you’re that important. Children leave or children stay depending on their ambitions: their lives are their own.

And so my daughter has gone to America,’ he said, ‘like her brother before her, both of them getting as far away from their parents as they possibly can. And of course I’m sad,’ he said, ‘but I can’t pretend I don’t think they’ve done the right thing.’