We agreed that this mentality will probably never change, but that it does reflect something very appealing in Greek society: the strength of the family. Everything has its pros and cons.
‘I’m twenty-eight years old, but in the eyes of my father I will always be a child,’ she reflected. ‘Ultimately, though, it’s my life. I have to live it.’
I told her what I did for a living, and for the first time confided in someone the reasons for my recent travels. I had not shared any of this before. She didn’t react or judge or give advice. Her eyes showed that she sympathised with what I had gone through. For both of us, Delphi was a turning point.
Athina had a plane to catch that evening and needed to pack, so we exchanged email addresses in case I should be in Athens at any time in the future. We paid our bills at the same time and, though she resisted the gesture, I carried her bag out to her car. A few hours later, I was on the road, too.
The weather was perfect now, with clear skies and temperatures that were comfortable rather than enervating. I wanted to read through the whole first draft of Cycladic Sculpture and Modernity and visit some islands before my travels ended. My money wasn’t going to last indefinitely. It meant going back towards Athens but, within a few hours, I was in a queue for the ferry at Rafina, ready to take the ferry to Andros.
The moment of departure on a Greek ferry is one of great anticipation. I had experienced it so often, but the moment when the last car has driven on, the ramp is pulled up, the chains are loosened and the stern pulls away from the dock always thrills me. That Friday late afternoon, there was a party mood on board, hundreds of passengers looking forward to reaching a common destination, sharing a journey over the sea. The Aegean was very calm that evening, and I sat on deck with the salty breeze enveloping me like a second skin. Two hours later, we were back in our cars in the fume-filled hold. We had arrived. Everything happened in reverse, and soon the ferry was chugging back towards the mainland, sounding a lonely farewell with its horn.
Whatever preconceptions I had about Greek island architecture (small, whitewashed houses, modest stone cottages by the water’s edge), they were quickly dispelled. The first thing I noticed when I reached Hora, the main town, was the large number of enormous mansions: houses of such grandeur and elegance that they looked out of place, almost absurd. Many had pillars and loggias, some were pink or other pastel colours, others would have looked at home on the Grand Canal in Venice.
On an island where the population nowadays does not even reach ten thousand, it was intriguing that such wealth had once existed there. It was a striking anomaly. As well as the houses, there were impressive public buildings. A friendly shopkeeper, who knew every detail of the island’s history, boasted that its economy had been based on huge maritime wealth and that Andros had been second only to the city of Piraeus in numbers of ships registered there. I noticed a very grand building (a hospital for the elderly) which had been given by one of the Embirikos family, who owned the largest steamship fleet in Greece. An inscription described the benefactor as ‘Traveller and Returner’, so it appears that the seafarers of Andros always came back to their modest but lovely island, even after long periods of travel.
I also discovered an inspiring contemporary art museum, built by the Goulandris family. It was an unexpected treat on this small island, with some stirring sculptures by Mihalis Tombros, an artist born on Andros, as well as some magnificent paintings. I was sitting outside on a wall, looking at the view of the sea and rereading the catalogue, when a woman stopped to talk to me. I realised that she was the person who had sold me a ticket, though I hadn’t really noticed her then. She asked me if I had enjoyed the gallery and I told her how impressive it was to find such great art on a small island like this.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but one of the best Andriot artists is not displayed.’
She told me that she was referring to a female artist all of whose work (including a portrait of her own parents) had been lost.
It was obvious that she wanted to tell me what had happened and I was more than willing to listen, not least because she was strikingly beautiful, like a painting herself.
THE LONELY WIFE
The marriage was a matter of practicality rather than passion. Antigoni was nearly thirty years old when her father accepted the proposal on her behalf. Her younger, prettier sister, Ismini, was already in demand, but tradition dictated that she could not marry first.
Down by the waterfront of Piraeus one spring afternoon, when the two women were out for a stroll, they stopped in a zacharoplasteion for coffee. Antigoni noticed a stocky, middle-aged man walk by and glance in their direction. Not once, but three times. She assumed that Ismini was the object of his attention.
Christos Vandis did not want a flighty, pulchritudinous bride whom he could not trust while he was away. A wealthy ship owner from Andros, he spent long periods at sea and was looking for a reliable wife, someone plain but not unattractive, to run his household. Jolie-laide would suffice. He passed through Piraeus fairly often, and this was not the first time he had seen this young woman with her fashionable short, dark hair and pronounced nose. He was now forty-five, his parents had both died and he had inherited their property. He must find someone to marry, and his time for the search was limited since he would soon be back at sea. A few discreet enquiries allowed Vandis to discover what he needed to know. The girl’s father was a port manager. That would do. Christos wasn’t looking for wealth.
Antigoni accepted the proposal more for her sister’s sake than her own. She knew that she was a barrier to Ismini’s fulfilment (her younger sister yearned to leave home and be married). Things might have been different if Ismini had not been flawlessly pretty, with light green eyes, fair silky hair, a radiant complexion and just the right number of freckles across her (small) nose. She was koukla, in other words, ‘like a doll’, constantly an object of male attention.
While Ismini was always thinking about the future, Antigoni was happy with her life in Piraeus. In the mid-1930s, it was a fast-growing city, with a population close to two hundred thousand and plenty of culture. There was always something new on at the theatre or cinema, and often an exhibition of art. Since the death of their mother, when Antigoni was fifteen, she and her sister had known great freedom in a place that pulsated with life.
Antigoni read a great deal and regularly sat at their open French windows and painted the view, usually a boat or one of the city’s grand neoclassical buildings with the sea in the background. Occasionally, she sketched people in the street, and then in the privacy of her house applied colour. ‘You should teach!’ said Ismini, and she had started to do so, thereby giving herself a little income and independence.
The years were passing, however, and the vision of herself as a schoolmistress, unmarried and living with her father for ever, was another factor in her decision to marry.
She knew there would be sacrifices to be made in becoming the wife of Christos Vandis, and that his wealth would be little compensation. In Piraeus, Antigoni had enjoyed the unbroken continuity of many friendships from childhood to adulthood. At her wedding to Christos she saw all the familiar faces but, when the day ended, she realised that this had been a farewell party.
Afterwards, she and her husband spent two days at the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens before returning to Piraeus and setting sail immediately for Andros. Her father, sister and three close friends were there to wave them off and, as the boat moved further and further away and they were reduced to tiny, faceless figures, she began to doubt whether the small shapes at whom she was looking were even people she knew, or just strangers.
Antigoni was glad that her new husband had gone to the bridge. Her chest and throat tightened as she watched everything she knew and loved – the people, the buildings and the ships still in dock – vanish from view. The handkerchief that she had been using to wave like a flag was now used to dab her eyes. Never had her feelings for Piraeus been stronger. Her heart was heavy.
She knew it would be a long time until she saw her city again.
Her first sighting of Andros as the boat came into dock in Gavrio was through a porthole. She was lying on the berth in her cabin, wracked with nausea. Only when the boat was completely still could she open her eyes. She saw a blue sky above her. Then, as her stomach ceased to churn, she was able to sit up. There were green hills and a row of houses by the water’s edge. She steadied herself before drinking a glass of water that someone had thoughtfully put on the ledge above the bed, then looked at herself in a small mirror on the back of the door. A grey, waxy face looked back at her. Purple shadows ringed the eyes. She combed her hair and quickly applied some lipstick and rouge.
There was a sharp knock on the door. At the same time, the knob was being turned, then Christos walked in.
‘Ready?’ he said, oblivious to what she had suffered in the past hours. ‘There’s a car waiting to take us to Hora. Someone will collect your bags.’
She forced a smile and then followed him along the narrow, wood-lined corridor and up a polished ladder to the deck.
There were two significant similarities between the port city of Piraeus, where she had grown up, and Andros: sea and boats. In all other ways, Andros was entirely different from her old home. Christos talked continuously as they motored along the winding coast road. He was in the front with the driver and Antigoni sat quietly in the back. During the two-hour journey from Gavrio, her nausea returned and twice she had to ask the driver to stop.
As the car wound its way around the twists and turns of the road, Antigoni gazed out of the window, occasionally making a noise to show she was listening to Christos, who was telling her about the society into which she was moving. Through the haze of dizziness that kept enveloping her, she heard lists of names. Who was who, who was a relative, who was married to whom, who to like, who to avoid. It sounded to her as if the only people she should associate with were the wives of other shipping families.
By the time they drew up, outside an immaculate, cream-coloured, double-fronted mansion with fluted pillars and ornate wrought-iron balconies, she felt light-headed, as though her mind and body were disconnected. The chauffeur opened the car door for her and could see she needed to be supported. Christos had already gone inside the house, so the housekeeper and the maids’ first sight of their new mistress was of a sickly looking woman leaning heavily on the driver’s arm. This image would remain with them.
Many of the older Andriots had not travelled to the wedding, so the following week a reception was held in the mansion’s large dining room for her to meet them. Under the oil-painted gaze of her husband’s ancestors, Antigoni shook hands with a hundred well-dressed strangers. Some of the old men she met had faces that resembled those in the more austere portraits, and she wondered if they were relatives of her husband.
Over the next few days, with more of Christos’s instruction, Antigoni was in no doubt over which of the eccentrics and mavericks of the island were to be avoided. Her husband clearly wished her to be safe, but she had the feeling that his real motivation was for her to be stored away, kept refrigerated for his return. It sounded as if he would rather she did not leave the house at all.
In late July, three and a half weeks after the wedding, Christos Vandis left for North America. Even with good sailing conditions, he expected to be away for a year. Antigoni felt a sharp pang of abandonment and loneliness. She was far from home, exiled.
The weeks went by and, without his portrait in the hallway, she would not have had any recollection of her husband’s features. The memory of his touch had long gone, and the only thing she could evoke was his smell. She did this by going into Christos’s dressing room and breathing in the scent of his suits, on which still lingered tobacco and cologne – or when she passed a kafenion where the men all smoked. A modicum of attraction had grown between them during the brief period that they had spent together, but for her it was now fast evaporating.
The summer months passed with temperatures that slowed life down. Her daily activity would usually involve a visit to (or a visit from) one of the other shipping wives. She rarely spoke to anyone else. Even her interaction with the maids was largely to tell them what she would like to eat, and that was very little during these weeks. Antigoni was lethargic, but her lack of activity bothered her less than she had imagined. The heat was enough to silence the streets and almost to stop the clocks. Languid days turned into sleepless nights.
As the days grew cooler and summer turned to autumn, Antigoni’s energy returned. She could not stay inside, occupied with the management of household accounts. One of the things that she had brought from her old life was her easel and paints. On the first of October, she got up at sunrise and walked into the hills, her satchel thrown across her shoulder. On the way out she picked up a flask of water, a piece of cheese and a few tomatoes from the kitchen. The maid watched her silently. She had never recovered from the damaging effect of the first impression she had made on the servants. They saw her as weak, and as an outsider. Antigoni had no way of knowing what they did when her back was turned, and while she was away from the house it was impossible for her to know. All she knew was that the furniture was always thick with dust, and she imagined they breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her leave. It did not bother her.
Her paints became her company and a reason to explore this island. She had never painted such landscapes before, so it was an adventure, leading her to discover the network of ancient footpaths that criss-crossed the island, the pretty stone walls, the unexpected waterfalls and streams. It was an enchanting place.
She often completed a painting while she was up in the hills, liberally splashing deep green strokes across her landscape to represent the sharp spikes of the cypress trees and adding a little white church, a windmill or pigeonnier, to give the painting a focus. She never tired of domed churches in front of a blue sky, or the ruins of a castle silhouetted against the sunset.
By mid-November, although the days were bright, she could feel the cooling of the air. One afternoon the rain came and fell in such torrents that every brushstroke was washed away. Her charmed days of painting on the hillsides were over.
She returned home and spread the work she had done so far on to the floor in the dining room. Painting had chased away her loneliness, but now she needed new subjects. As she put some of the landscapes away in her portfolio, a picture of her sister fell out of it. She missed Ismini so much and the image brought her vividly to mind. Antigoni was critical of her own work but knew that her real talent lay in painting people’s likenesses.
Emboldened by the sight of her sister’s portrait, she set off the following morning to find a subject. The sour-faced maids would not do.
She wandered out towards the sea rather than away from it, as she had done in past weeks, glimpsing the little church and the ruins of the castle that had appeared in her work so many times. She found herself walking past a painted door that was built into a rocky cliff. It was bright blue and just like the door into a house, but this was a door into a cave.
As she was walking by, it flew open. A woman rushed out towards her, screaming and waving her arms.
‘No! No! No! No!’
Antigoni froze. The woman stopped dead right in front of her and stared. Her eyes were as bright a blue as her door and her sodden, matted hair as dark as granite.
Both women stood still for a moment. The wild-eyed woman instilled terror in Antigoni. Then she repeated, but more quietly: ‘No, no, no, no …’ and her voice died away in a whisper. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry. It must have been a bad dream.’
Antigoni shook her head to reassure her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, taking a step back.
Christos had warned her about the ‘wet witch’ who lived in a cave that reached far into the rocks. The island was so well endowed with water that moisture literally oozed from its stones, poured out of the earth and left the walls of houses dripping. The floor of this cav
e was a puddle, and it was said that no liquid ever passed the witch’s lips because she absorbed all the moisture she needed through her pores. She dripped, her transparent clothes clinging to her, and there was often a cluster of schoolboys hanging around outside her door, hoping to see the contours of her bottom and breasts. People said that she was able to deliver a cure or a curse, and to live on raw fish that she scooped from the waves with her hands. Most people kept well away from her; all except a handful of fisherman who knew that fish were too wily to be caught by hand and often took her the tiny marida that they could not sell. They hoped that in exchange for these they could come in to the cave for an hour or so. It was rumoured that she sang before and after making love to them in a pure, tone-perfect voice.
The woman was no longer tormented with her nightmare, and Antigoni could see that her face was chiselled and every feature in perfect proportion.
‘Is this where you live?’ she asked her, though the answer was obvious.
The woman nodded.
‘You’re new here?’ she asked Antigoni in return.
‘Yes, quite new.’
‘I thought you must be,’ she said and, after a moment’s pause, added, ‘Not many women stop to pass the time of day with me.’
I didn’t have a choice, was Antigoni’s thought, but instead she said: ‘Well, it was nice meeting you,’ and walked on.
All day a vision of the woman’s face haunted her. It was so strong and so wild. She wanted to paint her.
The following morning, she went by at around the same time. A man was emerging from the cave-house. After a moment or so, she plucked up courage to knock on the door and, from inside, she heard a voice.
‘Go away. I don’t need fish today.’
Through the closed door, Antigoni explained who she was and what she wanted. After a while, the woman was coaxed into opening her door just a crack.
‘You can come in, but not for long,’ she said. ‘I don’t like sitting down.’
Cartes Postales From Greece Page 20