Cave of Silence

by Kostas Krommydas

  He paused at the door of the mill and stood before his beloved. She fell into his arms, kissing him, begging him to take her with him. He pulled back with great difficulty and pulled out the pocket watch she had given him. He placed it in her palm. Eleni stared at the watch, disoriented. He gave her the photo of them at the port. She shoved everything into her coat pocket and burst into tears. Before she could ask him again to let her follow him, three soldiers jumped out through the door. They had been lying in wait inside the mill.

  They were shouting and one of them raised his gun toward Nikos, who immediately turned around and starting galloping away. He heard the gunshots but did not see Eleni push the German away to save him. Another soldier smashed the handle of his pistol against her head and she fell to the ground, unconscious. She had bought Nikos enough time to reach the trees and vanish.

  Manolis kneeled over Eleni trying to revive her, but the same soldier pulled him up by the hair, placing the muzzle of his pistol against his temple. The other two went back to the mill, and doused the floor in petrol. They came back out carrying the radio, and then one of them turned, lit a match, and flung it inside. They smashed the radio and threw the pieces over the stone wall, into the ditch behind it.

  Manolis could not believe he had walked into an ambush and felt like a trapped animal. His breath came hard and labored. He did not care about dying. The thought that Eleni would meet the same fate drove him crazy and he blamed himself for listening to her, for taking her with him to the mill. He should have left her at Kryfó and come here on his own. Now, it was too late.

  The two Germans seemed to be arguing, then pulled Manolis and shoved him toward the path that led to the port. Not wanting to leave Eleni alone on the ground, he resisted wildly. They beat him unconscious.

  The third German stayed behind with Eleni. He saw his two comrades leave, dragging Manolis behind them and when they were out of sight he took aim, ready to kill her. Something seemed to stop him. He raised his gun above his head and fired a shot into the air. He cast a furtive look around and then walked off to catch up with the others.

  Eleni lay still beneath the lone olive tree in the courtyard, her breathing intermittent and shallow.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Michaela had pressed the third-floor button and watched the doors of the hospital elevator close. She was holding a large bouquet of red flowers and the tablet she had brought from home. She had rushed back to the hospital as soon as Rina had called to let her know Eleni had woken up and was lucid. She couldn’t wait to show her mother the photos Anita had sent from Greece.

  Having failed to make any more sense of the items she had found in the box, she intended to press her mother for answers. She felt that, even at this late stage, it was important that the past become known. More than anything she wanted to see her mother’s reaction to the striking resemblance between the man in the photo and Dimitri Voudouris. She suspected that her mother had had a love affair before the war, one that she could not forget but had never spoken about.

  The doors of the elevator opened and she stepped out into the corridor and walked to Eleni’s room. Through the glass panel on the door, she saw a doctor with her. Eleni was propped up on the bed, connected to various tubes and wires. The moment she saw Michaela, she smiled and weakly beckoned her to come in.

  Michaela opened the door and placed the tablet on the table by the bed. She kissed her mother cheerfully and handed her the flowers. Eleni sniffed the roses with a happy sigh.

  “How are you, mother?” Michaela asked.

  “Much better now that you are here. I had asked you, though, not to bring me to hospital,” she complained.

  The doctor turned to Michaela and said, “Your mother is strong, a true survivor. She surprised us all today, very pleasantly.”

  “When will we return home, doctor?”

  “We’ll see about that,” he replied sternly, then smiled. “As soon as you have a moment, pass by my office.” He patted Eleni’s hand and left the room.

  Rina got up from the chair by Eleni’s bed and took the flowers, then left to find a vase and leave mother and daughter alone.

  Michaela warmly grasped her mother’s hand and said, “You look so well, Mamá. I can’t believe it!”

  “Why can’t you believe it, Michaela? I’m still a young girl!” Eleni joked.

  They both laughed. It had been a while since her mother had seemed so lucid and cheerful, so like her old self. Michaela was puzzled, but happy.

  “How is Anita?” Eleni asked when the giggling had stopped. “Is she well? When is she coming back?”

  “She is great! She sends all her love and lots of kisses. We’ll call her later so you can talk to her,” Michaela replied in a vibrant tone, wanting to prolong her mother’s liveliness. Eleni, however, seemed to tire and sink once again into her own world. Michaela realized that this might be her last chance to ask all the questions that were bubbling up inside her.

  “Mother, I found some things in the house that make no sense. I need to ask you some questions.”

  Reading her daughter’s mind, Eleni interrupted her. “Listen, Michaela. You are wondering about why I was so worried about Anita going to Greece, about who the man in the photo is. I heard you talk about it, but I couldn’t speak. You must also be wondering about the box in the attic I asked you to bring down. Did you open it?”

  Michaela was impressed her mother remembered everything. “Yes, I did. I found a key in the desk drawer. I didn’t know if you’d come round and I wanted to know why you needed it.”

  “Did you open the letter?” Eleni asked suspiciously.

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Don’t. Not before I…” Eleni said, her eyes welling up. She sighed. “I know the time to say goodbye is nearing. This letter is about a part of my life. The part that is missing.”

  Michaela was surprised. The part that is missing? What could all this mean?

  “When Anita comes back, we’ll open the letter,” Eleni said, “the three of us, together. Anita can read it out in her fine voice, like a fairytale. That part of my life was a fairytale with an unhappy ending. I wanted to tell it myself, but I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

  “I am your daughter, mother. Anita is your grandchild. Whatever happened in the past, you should have told us. Why carry the burden of an unhappy secret all these years on your own? Why not share it with us, who love and understand you?”

  “Come now, Michaela. Let’s not talk about this any longer. All will be revealed at the right time. Be patient. Let’s call Anita now, shall we? I want to hear her voice.”

  Michaela resisted the urge to press her mother any further. It was clear she did not want to talk about it. She pulled out her phone and dialed Anita. After a few rings, the call went to voice mail.

  “She must be working, but she’ll call back when she sees the missed call.”

  “It’s Sunday. Do they work on Sundays?”

  Michaela laughed. “I think they work every day.”

  “What was the name of that island?” Eleni fretted.

  “Do you want to see a photo and see if you can guess? I have a feeling you may know.” Michaela reached for the tablet and switched it on.

  Eleni looked puzzled and shifted in her bed. Michaela sat down beside her and placed the screen on her lap. The first picture was the beach at Galazia Petra. Eleni pulled back with a grimace of surprise and fear. Then she picked up the tablet and brought it closer to her eyes.

  “It’s a beach on the island where she is. Isn’t it beautiful? Does it remind you of anything?” Michaela asked.

  Eleni looked at her daughter with despair. “When was this photo taken?”

  “Yesterday, I think.”

  “Anita is there?”

  “I’m not really sure if she is exactly there.” Michaela picked up the tablet. “You’ve painted this beach, Mamá,” she whispered, “on the box. How can that be? They are identical. Have you been to this island
?”

  Eleni sighed. “I was born there.”

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Thomas had just finished telling the story Agathe had been unable to finish, and I felt bruised and battered at the end. Anita was equally crushed. Pain and disgust raged inside me, now that I knew what had happened to Manolis, my grandfather, my grandmother and everyone else. How could that woman have betrayed them like this? I wished she’d met a similar end.

  How much did my mother know, I wondered as I tried to join pieces of the puzzle together. Nikos obviously knew everything and that is why he had never spoken about it. He had snatched his sister and run, managed to escape.

  Thomas told us Agathe had managed to survive, making it to the mountains with a few of the others in the chaos that ensued. That was where she saw the woman who had betrayed them all, leaving in the arms of the German with the camera. She had flung stones at the traitor in outrage, but they were too far away. The couple disappeared from her eyesight and the Germans left the island the following day. They did not see the woman leave with them and searched all over the island to find her, to punish her. To no avail—the traitor had simply vanished.

  The island was abandoned after that. No one could carry on living there, with the guilt of Manolis’ murder. Because they had all been forced accomplices. They had all cast the stones that killed him. The survivors of that day and their descendants never spoke about it. It was as if everyone had taken a collective oath of secrecy, including my uncle. I was almost certain that my mother did not know about the stoning. Her brother had hidden that part of their story from her. And she had chosen not to share with me the little that she knew.

  I was reeling from this encounter with the darkness that lurked in human nature, the barbarous way in which it had been unleashed. I gripped Anita’s hand, glad that she was here with me, drawing strength from the fact that she was beside me, sharing these tragic revelations with me. I wondered how she felt about the crimes the Nazis had committed in this place. Did she feel some kind of collective guilt, was she uncomfortable being here? Everyone knew she was half-German.

  Thomas went back inside and came out holding a large, framed photo. It was the same photo as the one that had hung in my room, a group of people gathered at the port in 1938. I remembered that I had left it lying face down on the sofa in my room.

  He placed the photo before us and said, “Thekla keeps one of these in every room. It’s a special photo for us and for you Dimitri. It’s the only photo of Manolis Reniotis. The woman who betrayed him is there with him, in his arms. Her name was Eleni Dapaki. That’s them,” he pointed at the couple. “She left for Italy that day, to study. How could he know then that she would cause his death?”

  I was stunned when I realized he was pointing at the same couple I had been intrigued by when I had looked at the photo in my room. I would never have imagined that the man was my relative, that the woman who snuggled happily against him would later betray him to the Germans. Even the most imaginative scriptwriter could not have dreamt all this up. Life was once again proving stranger than fiction.

  I turned to Anita to share these thoughts with her and saw her staring fixedly at the photo. She had stopped breathing. Her hand had turned cold and began to shake. She turned to look at me and I saw terror in her eyes. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost.

  Perplexed, I stroked her hair and asked, “Anita, what’s wrong?”

  She did not reply. She just kept staring at that photo. Everyone else had now noticed something was amiss and was looking at her curiously. I made another effort to snap her out of her trance. “Darling, what’s the matter? Talk to me.”

  Finally, she reacted. She pulled her hand free and slowly placed her index finger on the glass, beneath the woman’s. She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her gaze was still fixed on the photo, eyes wide open.

  I reached out and gently turned her face toward me. Speaking slowly and clearly, I tried once more. “Please, tell me. What is happening?”

  A tear ran down her cheek. She turned back to Thomas and asked in a trembling voice, “You said this was taken at the port, here? Are you sure that it’s not someplace else?”

  “Someplace else?”

  “Italy?”

  “No, of course not. Look, it’s the same horizon in the background. And look at the shape of the harbor. It hasn’t changed much since then. It was taken here, on the island. Why do you ask?”

  I looked at Anita too, puzzled by her questions. What did it all mean?

  “This photo cannot be accurate,” she said and took another look at it, still doubting her own eyes. “The same photo hangs on the wall in my mother’s house, in Germany.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “There can be no doubt. It’s the same photo.”

  She looked distressed. I rubbed her shoulders trying to soothe her. “Even if it’s the same photo, Anita, why are you so upset? Maybe someone gave it to your mother. It’s not the only copy.”

  Anita shook her head no and looked down at her lap, hiding her face behind her hair.

  “Who brought it to your house?”

  She ignored my question and looked back at Thomas. Her voice was still shaky and low. “You insist that this woman betrayed them and is morally responsible for everything that happened that day?”

  “If she hadn’t betrayed them, they wouldn’t have been caught. The massacre would have been avoided, I am certain. I hope she burns in hell for what she did.” He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the water glasses.

  Anita recoiled as if she’d just been slapped, but regained her composure and asked, “Do you know the name of the German officer she ran off with?”

  “No, but I can find out. His name was in some archives the Germans left behind. It’s in that book Antonis wrote. Let me go get it.” Thomas ran back inside the house.

  I could not bear to see her like this. I hugged her and said, “My love, what does all this mean? Who brought this photo to your house? Please tell me.”

  She pointed at the woman and simply said, “She did.”

  For a moment I wondered whether she had been so swept up in the story we’d just heard that she was imagining things, thinking the faces were familiar. One look at the conviction in her eyes made me dismiss that thought. She meant every word she said.

  I instantly remembered the crazy thought that had crossed my mind the first time I saw that picture—that Anita looked like the woman in the photo. At the time I’d thought that my mind was playing tricks, that I was projecting my longing for Anita everywhere. Now, I was not sure what to believe. So much information to process in such a short space of time was making it hard to think. I decided to clear things up, there and then. “Anita, that’s incredible. How could this woman have brought the photo to your house? How do you know that?”

  Thomas reappeared holding a book. I glimpsed the title on the cover: Our History. He put it down on the table and started leafing through it.

  “I know, because…” Anita paused and looked at everyone around her, her gaze stopping on me. “I know, because… that woman is my grandmother.”

  Her words struck our hearts like a thunderbolt and we all stared at her in disbelief. A deadly silence ensued, broken by a single word.

  “Alexander—” Thomas stopped short, his face darkening. Anita’s chair fell to the ground in a dull thud as she jumped up and ran upstairs, crying.

  The Island, April 1945

  * * *

  Alexander was running toward the mill, hoping to find Eleni. He had told her he would be waiting for her and prayed that she would come. He had not seen her anywhere else and feared she may have come to harm. He was shocked at what had happened in the square; at the events he had been forced to film.

  He felt repulsed by his countrymen’s brutality. He had been forced into this war against his will. His father, a fervent follower of Hitler, had joined the party and forced him into the Hitler youth and then the army.


  He had managed to be posted on this island. A friend from medical school had been stationed here and had told him that things were calm and the locals peaceful. That was what Alexander wanted—a quiet spot to sit out the war and return to Berlin and his family’s antique shop.

  Just a day before it would all be over, disaster had struck. Alexander had never realized the evil that was lurking in the Commander’s heart. He had been asked to film it all so they could show Hitler when they returned that the people he admired for their Ancient Greek heritage were nothing but a tribe of savages. If they truly were like their ancestors, they would have chosen to die with honor than slay one of their own.

  Alexander had decided to leave the island that evening with the doctor and two more officers on a fishing boat. He did not want to leave with everyone else the following day. Had it not been for Eleni, he would have deserted days ago.

  He had fallen in love at first sight with her on the night he had rescued her at the school. He had tried to spend every moment with her, fallen under her spell. He had never met someone so strong and mild at the same time.

  He could tell her heart belonged to her fiancé but would not give up. After Manolis’ brutal death, would she follow him? He was prepared to do all he could to persuade her.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Approaching the mill, he saw a body lying in the shade of an olive tree. He could not tell if it was a man or a woman. An alarm bell went off in his head and he sprinted to the mill.

  He froze when he realized it was Eleni. Her face was bloody and she looked lifeless. He turned her onto her back and felt for a pulse. Her breathing was shallow and irregular.

  He raised her head and she seemed to come round. She opened her eyes and looked at him, her pupils dilated. He removed his white scarf and wiped the blood carefully, then tied it around her wound.