Harry Potter and the Ominous Shadow and Joseph's Seven Fat and Seven Lean Cows by Constantine Gochis

So, again, today, I am going through Dad's short stories, and found the one that follows. Since the protagonists are Dad's parents I put before you a very old and fading photo. I never knew my Grandfather who I believe died in 1948, but Grandma lived to the ripe old age of 90. We weren't particularly close. I didn't know her very well.  For some reason, likely the usual family antipathies, I had commerce mostly with the Irish side of the family, my mother's side. To the extent that I did have interaction with Grandma Gochis, my impressions were of a short (about 4 foot 11 inches), plump, toothless (she never seemed to be wearing her teeth when I saw her and her upper lip touched her Italian nose as if they were one), woman who would only ask me if I went to Church on Sunday. She was the Catholic side of the family; Grandpa was the Greek Orthodox. My father was nothing I could ascertain until at the age 0f 85, mostly to make my life easier (related to burial and the like), he became a Catholic.  As you can see, like most pictures in New York of the era, this photo was taken on the roof of whatever apartment building in which they then resided.



Dad's Story:

I cannot say that I do not believe in ghosts.  I will not walk under a ladder, and when a black cat crosses my path, I worry considerably. I am troubled especially when my left eye twitches.  It is all part of my heritage, of my childhood, in a big house, gas lit with flickering jets that cast playful shadows on spacious walls; where the cellar staircase creaked at the lightest footstep.  Eye twitching was serious business.

Papa expressed it in his own idiom.  Papa was a Greek immigrant.  He used to say, "my eye shakes" and his tone reflected foreboding. 

I did not have to ask "Which eye?"  Everyone knows the left is the sinister side of things.  Everyone, certainly, that is of Mediterranean derivation.  Similarly, it is common knowledge that when your left palm itches, you are in danger of losing money.  I do not know if the converse is true.  In any case itching of the right palm was never, to my recollection, reported.

Papa's left palm always itched and he frequently lost money.

Still, he searched patiently within the lore which was thousands of years old when he was born,
Divination, a practice still popular in the small Aegean village from which he came.  Divination, from wic he sought some augury of good fortune.

On occasions such as Easter, or Christmas, or Thanksgiving, when the traditional large bird is sacrificed, Papa would make one of his traditional prophecies.  He would examine, with critical attention, the carcass of the now denuded offering, with stern expression, certainly consonant with that worn by some ancient oracular priest in some Orphic Temple. He would announce:  "We are going to have a good year!"

We generally did not.

Mama, whose ancestry stemmed from the sunny Italian south, was concerned with the Malocchio, The Evil Eye. 

This was not peculiar to Italians.  The Greeks call it Ta Matia, which simply means "the eyes".  Among the Hebrews, the phenomenon is called Kenohoras for which I have no literal translation.  But it is said to be an equally troublesome force in any language.

In any case, Mother thought of this phenomenon as sinister.  She maintained, volubly, to Papa's great discomfiture, that the greatest potential source of danger from this malevolence resided in the machinations of her two sisters-in-law. 

These ladies were, as Mama phrased it, "imports from Greece".  Both my uncles married natives from their village of origin.  Mama asserted further that the boys were inexpert in their choices.  She said, that "they picked lemons from the Garden of Eden." 

I was present, as a child, when the great ship docked in New York with my arriving aunts.  Mother allowed me to go to greet them with great reluctance. "Il Malocchio", she expostulated.

The cry was reminiscent of the cry of the hunchback courtier of the Opera Rigoletto, "La Maledizzione" in Act One.  Mama uttered her imprecation as dramatically as any opera star.

Papa was obdurate.  His son would accompany him to greet the arriving bridegrooms and brides.  Mama's objections to my attendance had made his eye shake.

I must admit I was protected with appropriate amulets.  Mama put salt in my pockets and a necklace of garlic around my neck.  These are powerful deterrents to the Malocchio she was certain.

They were not.

I developed Scarlet Fever.