However, she seemed a bit distant, as if the last worry that had left her had taken with it all her interest. In things I asked her about, her own, everyday matters, she would respond absentmindedly, or shrug her shoulders: "I don’t know either?" while she really couldn’t not know. And when I asked her if she bought something for herself in Thessaloniki, she looked me in the eyes thoughtfully and then said: "I bought one." "What?" I asked her. "One, what's it called?" "What?" I insisted. "One of those, you know, that we put...". "Okay, tell me next year," I said, laughing. "Come on, get dressed so we can go out." But even when we went out, Elias made some gestures to me that Aura had her mind elsewhere. "Leave her? She's tired," I told him. But unfortunately, Aura wasn’t tired. At least, it wasn’t fatigue that kept her away from her life.
With this new book of hers, the only Greek author awarded the Grand Prize of the French Academy, Akakia Kordosi, whose stories French academics have paralleled with those of Chekhov, enriches Literature with two more forms: Angeliki Chatzimeri and Aura. Both of these fictional heroines, like most of Akakia Kordosi’s characters, entered “life” with quiet steps (the first out of humility, the second to conceal the wound of her heart from her first love) and no one heard them; however, they will remain in Literature and we will hear them forever.
The underground music of their internal lives, escaping through wisely chosen openings by the author (seemingly insignificant events and details), captivates us, just as Jacqueline de Romilly aptly noted about the stories of Akakia Kordosi.
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