Cartes Postales From Greece

by Victoria Hislop

  Two girls, best friends in the fourth grade, are engrossed in imaginary games with their dolls. Both are dressed in candy-coloured sweatshirts and jeans, with trainers that flash as they run. Two boys, who go to the same school as the girls, ride their bikes round and round in circles, their wheels almost touching. They are squealing with delight, veering closer, closer, closer, until suddenly, in a tangle of metal and gashed shins, they collide. They are too proud to cry, but limp off home in opposite directions, wheeling their dented bicycles.

  There is only one person in Platia Syntagmatos who sits alone. With his glass of clear tsipouro as company, he observes the scene with his heavily hooded eyes. Rolling a cigarette without looking down to see what he is doing, he smokes without pleasure and repeats the process again and again. An ashtray overflows in front of him, a sprinkling of grey across the table. No one bothers to empty it, though from time to time a waiter brings him another glass of fire water.

  Akis Adamakos looks up towards the church of St Spyridon and inhales, pulling tar deep into his lungs. Every Saturday between four and six he sits in the café for two hours precisely. The time has dragged today.

  This is a ritual he strictly observes. He relives the afternoon twenty-five years earlier when he arrived in a shiny grey wedding suit outside the church. He glances up and sees the stairs that lead up to St Spyridon, remembering his younger self, nervous, but ready to hand a bouquet to his bride.

  The church and the narrow street in which it stands had been full of family and friends. Many had travelled a good distance, from the southern tip of the Mani, where the Adamakos family were from. The bride’s relatives lived in or just outside Nafplio. The noise from the chatter and laughter of more than three hundred people was immense. People who had not seen each other for some time were reunited, and their faces were animated by the exchange of news and gossip. When the priest arrived, the volume dropped and the congregation became more reverential, but the conversation never ceased to flow. Older family members perched on the few wooden seats, but most people milled about.

  The guests were expecting a party that would go on until the early hours of the following day, so nobody so much as glanced at their watch.

  Everyone was happy and relaxed, with the exception of two people: the groom and his koumbaros, the best man. They heard the tolling of the bell in the clock tower. It was now five, and the bride had been expected at four. Detaching themselves from the crowd, the two men walked a little way down the street, pausing at the top of the steps that led into the town square.

  ‘Something might have happened.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘I’ll find a telephone.’

  Nikos, the koumbaros, made a call from a nearby kafenion. Listening to the phone ringing in the bride’s home, he stood and gazed at the television that hung high up on the wall over the bar. He half expected to see news footage of a terrible accident, shreds of bridal gown, a wrecked car, but instead there was a black-and-white comedy on, starring Aliki, the nation’s sweetheart.

  Akis tried to continue in light-hearted conversation with a few friends but stopped when he saw his koumbaros returning.

  People had begun to drift out of the church for fresh air, to see what was going on, to look around, to light a cigarette.

  Nikos took Akis to one side.

  ‘There’s no answer,’ he said close to Akis’s ear. ‘I think we should go. Right this minute.’

  The congregation, mostly outside the church now, watched the receding figures as they walked purposefully to the end of the street and vanished round the corner. The volume of chatter dropped as news circulated, both inside and outside the church, that neither the groom nor, indeed, the bride were now there. The atmosphere became suddenly subdued.

  It was a ten-kilometre journey out of Nafplio and up a narrow, winding road into the hills to reach the bride’s village. Nikos was a fast driver even under normal circumstances, but today he drove recklessly to cover the distance. Neither of them said a word.

  Everything in this village was concrete and newly built in the past twenty years, but the paint was stained and flaking. The bakery, general store, kafenion, school and oversized municipal building were uniformly off-white, and a row of trees had recently been planted in an attempt to soften the harsh lines of the street.

  The bride’s home came into view. It was the same colour. The creeper that grew over a pergola outside was dead and the olive tree next to the house was leafless. Outside, there was a car, borrowed and freshly polished, ready to bring the bride to church. It was blood red, the same colour as the roses that Akis still held in his hand, his fist locked around their stems.

  A man of around sixty was standing outside. On his left was a young man, on his right a girl. They were the bride’s father and her siblings. They were dressed up, the cheap fabric of the men’s suits slightly shiny even on this cloudy day, the starched collars of new shirts cutting into their necks, narrow shoes pinching their feet. The men had no spare flesh on them, but the girl was puffy and overweight, something accentuated by her figure-hugging, acid-yellow dress, which was several sizes too small. Stains of sweat from under her arms were spreading down the sleeves and her eyes were swollen with tears. All three of them were colourless, drained of life.

  Akis strode up to the father and looked him straight in the eye. They were the same height. Neither man spoke. Protectively, the son moved towards his father, and the daughter gripped his arm.

  From the house came the muffled sound of a woman crying. The mother.

  The father was visibly trembling and made a slight movement with his head, indicating the direction up the road and away from Nafplio. The road through the village continued northwards.

  Nikos spoke.

  ‘She’s gone to Athens?’ he asked sharply.

  With a slight nod, the bride’s father confirmed it. The children moved in closer still to protect their father. Even if they had wanted to speak, nothing would have emerged from their parched lips.

  Akis felt the light touch of Nikos’s hand on his arm and stepped back. Both of them suspected that Savina had not gone alone. Nikos had heard a rumour the previous week but had chosen not to mention it to his friend.

  The father’s eyes shone with fear, and Akis could see it. He looked at the older man with disdain. A father should be able to control a daughter.

  He dropped the flowers at the feet of his never-to-be father-in-law, turned his back on the trio and calmly walked away, with Nikos at his side.

  They got into the car and looked straight ahead as Nikos drove at speed out of the village. Both of them were silent. Five minutes into the journey, Nikos pulled over.

  ‘We have to decide when,’ said Nikos.

  ‘If, not when,’ said Akis quietly.

  ‘There is no if, Akis. There is only when.’

  The two men looked at each other. Both were from the Mani. Vendetta was in their blood.

  ‘I can take my brothers back there tonight,’ said Nikos. ‘The father and son at least …’

  ‘No,’ said Akis thoughtfully. ‘There is greater revenge than that.’

  ‘Greater than shooting someone through the head?’

  ‘Yes. Fear. Fear of when that bullet will come. This family will live in fear.’

  Akis stared out of the window. He looked out over the landscape, saw the sea in the distance, wondered how far Savina had got, if she was in her pearly white nifiko, or whether she had ever even put it on. He struggled to control the jealousy that was raging inside him that his woman was now with someone else and that tonight she would be in the arms of another man.

  He turned to his oldest friend and spoke slowly and with conviction.

  ‘Savina will always be waiting for a call. Wherever she is, she will fear the ringing of the telephone. Her family will never have peace. Not one of them.’

  ‘And you’ll go to back to that church … and confront the crowd and face that humiliation? You’ll turn the other c
heek? Are you insane, Akis? Are you out of your mind?’

  Akis did not answer. He understood revenge better than his friend.

  They returned to the church, where everyone was now outside in the street.

  The women moved slightly away, and the groom’s friends gathered around him. Akis was happy to leave the explanation to his koumbaros.

  The bride’s family and friends were as shocked by the news as anyone, but fearful, too. They soon made their way out of town, except for those who lived in Nafplio, who went to their homes and fastened shutters and doors.

  All those who remained around Akis pleaded with him to take immediate action.

  ‘No,’ he said to them. ‘Not yet.’

  This evening, in the square, the clock has stopped. Perhaps the man in charge of winding it is sick. The hands point to one minute before five, and do not move. At this moment, all those years ago, Akis had still hoped. He had still been certain that his bride would come.

  At this moment, he notices a boy of around eight years old running towards the two girls in pink, weaving around and between them as they play near the fountain. They don’t seem bothered by the way he interrupts their game, hardly appearing to notice him.

  The boy is wearing a light grey wedding suit. His patent shoes make no sound on the marble slabs as he runs. Aside from Akis himself, he is the only person in the square who is unpaired, unpartnered.

  Akis has been drinking more and more tsipouro as the years have passed, and perhaps he doesn’t trust his eyes. What he sees is a vision of himself, innocent and carefree. He feels a lump in his throat and tells himself not to be sentimental.

  The child, who is dressed like a man, looks at the man who cries like a child. He ducks away from the girls and skips up the stairs.

  In the fading light, with the hands of the clock and the night air still, Akis leaves the usual clutch of coins on the metal table and follows him.

  The child turns left at the top of the steps, towards the church.

  By the time Akis gets there he sees no sign of the boy, but when he reaches the church the door is wide open.

  It is twenty-five years since Akis has been inside. Passing the bullet-hole in the wall, he goes in. The door swings shut behind him. The church is solemn, its walls entirely covered with dark icons. He walks down the aisle, stands in front of the altar and looks up at the cross above his head. It rests on a golden skull with two bones crossed together, and the empty sockets seem to stare at him, holding his gaze so that he cannot look away.

  Akis turns and sees the boy in the shadows at the back of the church. He is looking straight at him. The boy in the silvery suit is challenging him. As the child opens the door again, his suit is sharply illuminated by the light from outside. And then he is gone.

  By the time Akis gets out into the street, there is no sign of him.

  He passes the square to get to his car, and as he does so he hears the clock strike five. It has started again.

  Akis has kept a gun in the car for a quarter of a century. The time has come. It has been a long wait for them all.

  I asked the couple what happened next on that day. Apparently, Akis drove back to the village outside Nafplio that very evening and killed the father and brother, leaving the mother and sister to live. He did not track Savina down, but her grief and guilt must have been worse than death. She did not come back for the funerals, even though Akis Adamakos had been arrested on the day of the murders. Perhaps she feared that the best man, Nikos, might finish the task.

  The couple in Nafplio were not to know about my situation, so they could not have appreciated the irony of telling me the story of a jilted man.

  I am angry about what you did, but not enough to kill.

  Even if I had been brought up with the culture of revenge, I wouldn’t have had the energy to lift a gun, let alone to fire one, sorrow weighed me down so heavily.

  Perhaps murder would bring some kind of catharsis, but I really don’t think I will ever know.

  Loss of his woman (or was it loss of face?) consumed Akis Adamakos for a quarter of a century. Even then he did not kill Savina. Presumably, he is languishing still in prison today, wondering where she is and with whom. I can imagine being consumed by similar thoughts until the end of my days, trying to picture you, where you are, who you are making love to.

  The couple told me that there are still many marriages here that are semi-arranged between families who want to be linked together. Perhaps Savina’s marriage to Akis was one of these. I still wonder about the bride’s state of mind just before she climbed into that car and fled towards Athens – it must have been a powerful infatuation that made her do that. I wonder what it was that happened in your life and stopped you getting on that plane to meet me. I assume it was a lover. It strikes me now that you never had a gap between one man and another. You are not someone who could survive on your own. There would always be someone else.

  I left Nafplio after a few days to explore other places in the Peloponnese. One afternoon, I passed a sign that read: ‘Arcadia’. It’s a word that conjures up a vision of utopia but until then I hadn’t realised that our idea of a heaven on earth comes from an actual place. This region has been so idealised that I had never considered it could be a location on a map.

  Suddenly I was there. In Arcadia itself.

  Nearly three thousand years ago, the poet Hesiod wrote about life in Arcadia: ‘The people there lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief … when they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the gods.’

  The Arcadian shepherds were blessed by nature itself, and this was not hard to imagine as I drove through Arcadia that day. I even saw a shepherd with his flock and imagined him as Pan, the god of the mountains who, according to myth, lived there and had the legs and horns of a goat. He was renowned for his virility and prowess on the flute.

  From one moment to the next, I felt I had passed from reality into the landscape of mythology, across a line between the real and the unreal to the best of all landscapes and lives, and sweet smells and honey, the sound of birdsong and the scent of flowers, a vision of pastoral harmony. It was a place so far from any city that people there were considered to be pure and noble.

  I have never seen a landscape in Greece that was more deeply green – dense with leaves and flowering trees, with mountains and waterfalls. Its beauty was accentuated by the perfect sunny day. From time to time I caught sight of a slate-roofed cottage clinging to the side of a hill.

  In a painting by Poussin that hangs in the Louvre (one day, perhaps, we would have gone there), shepherds are gathered round a tomb in Arcadia. The truth has dawned on them – death is always present, even in paradise. Maybe this was on my mind as well as I travelled through this idyllic landscape. My eyes were feasting on its beauty, but at the same time I had a feeling of unease. I know now that it’s not possible for heaven to exist on earth, but writing this reminds me of how complacent I had been about us, and how my happiness had been an illusion.

  I drove through a few villages with stone-built houses and stopped in one of them: Kosmas. Its square’s general deadness sent a strange chill through me, so I decided to drive on. An hour or so later I arrived in Tripoli.

  Still a little drunk on the beauty of Arcadia, I was relieved to find myself in a pleasant but more ordinary place. I noticed a bar tucked away in a sidestreet, between two abandoned industrial units. Every wall in the vicinity was covered with graffiti – bold, artistic, sometimes grotesque drawings, slogans and phrases. The place suited my angry, restless mood.

  It was around six o’clock, and a girl was sullenly wiping the tables. She hardly bothered to look up when I entered. Perhaps she didn’t even hear me come in, as there was music playing loudly. Her sleeveless T-shirt revealed shoulders and arms covered with tattoos; she had a nose ring, ears with a dozen piercings each and a
half-shaved head. The hair that remained was purple, the colour of a fresh bruise, and I saw a criss-cross pattern of scars on her forearms.

  After a while, she came across and took my order for a beer. I was her only customer, so we struck up a conversation. She had a really exquisite face but seemed angry at life itself and the very ground she walked on. More than anything, she was furious with her country, with Greece. Like millions of young people, Eva felt she had been let down.

  Two years before, she had dropped out of university. ‘There was no point,’ she said. ‘The majority of my generation are unemployed, so what does university do? Send me into the world with qualifications that nobody needs. It’s all futile.’

  I could feel Eva’s intense frustration. It was obvious from the way she talked that she was intelligent and passionate. She was talented, too – the interior walls, as well as the exterior, were densely graffitied, and all her own work. The complex paintings were beautifully executed, and I complimented her.

  ‘They aren’t just random,’ she said, with a note of challenge in her voice. ‘They tell a story.’

  I looked more closely. Following the curves of the strange, scarcely human figures and shapes, flowed black, spidery handwriting. She was right. The words and pictures together told a story.

  By the time I had finished it, I knew I was not the only person who felt a strange contradiction in the Arcadian landscape between its potential to offer an ideal life and a harsher reality.

  For Eva, this Arcadia, this place that could have been paradise, represented a nightmare vision of Greece itself.

  ET IN ARCADIA EGO

  ‘EVEN IN PARADISE, I AM THERE’