"My, my, you're getting huge, Anna!" remarked a doctor at the Evangelismos Hospital.
"Is it going to be a boy or a girl?" Anna smiled proudly, stroking her abdomen.
"Anna looks even prettier now!"
"It's going to be a girl," insisted a nurse.
"Wrong, wrong, it's a boy!" concluded the doctor.
"I see what you mean," said another doctor, looking at Anna's pointed belly. They all laughed heartily, Anna along with them.
"I will be the first to know" came the unwelcome voice of Dr. Tsipras as he approached. "The family has chosen me to deliver the baby." The shocked Anna raised her hand in protest, but was overwhelmed by the doctor's quick speech. "And I will baptize the baby. The next best thing to being his father."
Anna quickly excused herself and rushed into the bathroom, the palm of her hand over her mouth.
"How this man ever passed the medical board is beyond me," remarked one doctor to another. "A disgrace to the profession and totally unworthy of the Hippocratic oath." "That is what happens when you know powerful people in high places. You must have noticed that lately he acts like he is running this hospital ..."
"Actually, he is," said his colleague and turned his head to the approaching Melpomeni Bouras.
At the insistence of her mother, Anna met with her in Dr. Tsipras' office.
"Look at you!" Melpomeni shrieked. "Just look at you! A deformed pearl! How can I show my face anywhere now? My daughter! My own daughter carrying the seed of a Turk! Who is going to marry you now, Anna? Who?"
"I am not getting married, Mother," Anna responded firmly.
"Nobody will ever marry you anyway with a little bastard at your side. A marked child, who will hang around like a heavy chain around your neck." Melpomeni paused to reload. "You didn't think of the consequences when you ... I can't even say what you are! You know what you are? Yes, you do! You are a little tramp!"
"Tramp? You're a fine one to talk! You'll sleep with anything that walks! Man, woman, it doesn't matter!" Anna stood right next to her mother. "You are not worthy of being called 'Mother.' You were never fit to be one!"
"You, you, putana!" Melpo spat back.
With that, Anna raised her hand and struck her mother across the face. "I don't ever want to see you again, Melpo, never! Do you understand me, never!" Anna started to rush out of the room, when Dr. Tsipras walked in.
"Oh oh, my dear Doctor Vassili ... I am so glad … " purred Melpo. "I'll see you later, my dear daughter," she called out to Anna, who had walked out of the room slamming the heavy door behind her.