One August Night

by Victoria Hislop

  On that particular July afternoon (I remember very clearly that it was excessively hot), there were complaints all round when I announced the day’s outing. In the guidebook, I had found a small island that had once been a hospital for leprosy patients. It did not appeal to them. At all. But with the promise of a boat trip and ice creams, we set off along the winding road towards Elounda.

  The drive took forty-five minutes or so, and eventually we arrived in the quiet village of Plaka (one small café, a few tavernas and no shop), where we were to take a boat across to Spinalonga. It was already after four o’clock, and we were just in time to catch the last one leaving for the island.

  With ice creams in hand, we embarked. The boat journey was short, and for the first time that day, thanks to a welcome breeze, I remember feeling relief from the intense heat. Within a few minutes we were approaching the rounded walls of the imposing Venetian fortification and disembarking.

  What had attracted me to that entry in the guidebook was a date: 1957. This was the year when an effective cure for leprosy was discovered and the entire population of the island departed. For me, this scarcely seemed like history. It was only two years before I was born and for this reason especially piqued my interest.

  Like most people, I knew very little about leprosy, and what I did know turned out to be wrong. For a start, I thought the disease had been as contagious as the plague and that it could mutilate the sufferer beyond recognition within days. I also thought it was a disease of the biblical era and had not existed for millennia. It was only as we were getting close to the island that I realised none of this was true. One of my holiday companions was a doctor, a dermatologist, and he was quick to give me some of the key facts: leprosy is a dermatological disease; it can be very slow to develop; and in the late 1950s it became curable. He was also keen to tell me that it does not always result in the kind of disfigurement many of us imagine (as shown in the film Ben Hur, for instance).

  The boat was tethered and the captain told us to be back within an hour. We quickly bought our tickets and walked through the dark tunnel that led to the interior of the island. There were no guides to take us around and no books on sale, leaving us free to wander and imagine. I realise now that this was key to my experience of Spinalonga that day.

  I have a strong recollection of the moment when we passed from the darkness into the light and emerged into what is effectively the island’s high street. It was a transformative moment in every way. I could not help putting myself into the shoes of someone who found themselves standing at the end of this road for the first time (sufferers were sent there from 1903). Most patients arrived knowing they would never leave.

  Its beauty was a surprise. I had expected somewhere that looked more like a prison than a friendly Greek village. There were pots of geraniums, wild flowers, sunlight on warm stones. It had a real romanticism about it that I had not expected. There was even a cat. Restoration works were going on at the time, and I am sure the amiable tom was making himself useful by keeping the mouse population down. He definitely added a friendly touch.

  I began to walk around. At that time, the buildings were in a greater state of disrepair than many of them are in now. I peered inside some of the small houses (built during the Ottoman period) and spotted signs of ordinary life that I had not expected: tiny shreds of curtain material still pinned to window frames; patches of bright blue paint on the walls; and shelving still in the recesses of interior walls. Occasionally a shutter creaked, moved by the wind.

  The high street was just like that in every other Cretan village, complete with a little church, a bakery, shops and so on, and even this infrastructure surprised me. Venetian water tunnels were still in good condition, as useful in the twentieth century for collecting vital rainwater as they had been in the year of their construction three centuries earlier. High above, I spotted the large building used as a hospital, and at the top of the street saw a derelict apartment building where patients must have lived.

  The island had a remarkably warm and happy atmosphere, and, having anticipated a place of misery and despair, the environment seemed paradoxical. I realised that patients had gone there not just to die, but to live.

  At that time, I was writing about travel for various major British newspapers and magazines. The obvious thing would have been to come up with a short article on Spinalonga with a title such as ‘The forgotten leper colony of Crete’. I quickly dismissed the notion. With my mind bursting with ideas and inspiration, it seemed entirely inappropriate to encapsulate this remarkable place in a factual 800-word piece. There was something much more emotional and imaginative that I wanted to express, something that had no place in a piece of journalism.

  The walk around the perimeter of the island took less than an hour, but it was enough to fill me with impressions and questions. As we arrived back at our starting point, I already had an idea in my head.

  My dermatologist friend had already made it clear to me that leprosy did not destroy the face and body of every sufferer. And even when such a result did occur, it could take decades. So I had the beginning of a story in my mind even as we were walking around, and this scenario became the core of the novel I would go on to write.

  The notion was this: suppose a female patient exiled on Spinalonga falls in love with the doctor who arrives with medicine for her incurable disease. And then he cures her. Such a situation would contain a central conflict. Treatment would bring her freedom from disease and captivity on the island, but would also bring her the heartbreak of losing the man she loves. This one central idea drove the story of the novel, but of course it needed to be expanded further.

  We were back in Plaka by six o’clock, and we swam off the pebbly beach opposite the island. The waters there are astonishingly clear, and I remember feeling tingly and refreshed as I dried off. Later we met up with our friends again and ate in one of the tavernas, sharing a huge dish of lobster spaghetti. I remember it vividly, as if all the experiences and memories of that day had a particular poignancy. I also remember that my mind was elsewhere.

  Nowadays, Spinalonga is sometimes lit up at night, but in those days, as the light faded and night fell, the island simply disappeared, vanishing into the blackness. As we enjoyed our dinner, my mind kept returning to this place and the impression it had made on me. I resolved to come back the following day when it was light; not to go across again, simply to see it once more from a distance.

  Back in Elounda the next day, I bought two small guidebooks (the kind that are more photographic than textual) and read them as soon as I returned to the apartment. They told me very little, merely describing the buildings and the three different phases of Spinalonga’s history: Venetian, Ottoman and then finally the twentieth century, when it was used to isolate the leprosy patients. I was slightly disappointed. I had hoped for more. But I think this was when and why my imagination began to take over.

  The lack of facts available to me could have been an obstacle, but instead it spurred me to creativity. I hadn’t intended to work on this holiday, so I did not have even a small notebook with me. All I had was an envelope that had contained some instructions from the owner of the apartment (how to operate the hot water system and the cooker, no toilet paper to be flushed, recommended tavernas, best beaches, etc.). I covered it with my scribbles. Over the remaining days of our holiday, I experienced a sense of contentment. I felt I had something. I couldn’t determine what it was exactly, but I knew there was a story I wanted to tell. This excited me. I had not written a fictional story for more than thirty years (not since school, in fact). I had read and studied plenty of other people’s, but I had not told one myself.

  My first task was to talk to someone who knew about leprosy. A letter to the world expert based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was immediately and gratifyingly answered. Dr (now Professor) Diana Lockwood not only gave me her time, but also lent me some of her precious textbooks from the 1930s and 1950s. They gave an aut
hentic voice not only to how people treated leprosy but also to how they thought of it in the period I wanted to write about. I read each line very carefully, locking these valuable and almost unique books away each night in a fireproof filing cabinet. I learned everything I needed to know about the disease.

  The following spring, I went back to Plaka and rented a room opposite Spinalonga. I took my mother with me, and her presence allowed me to sit and while away the hours in cafés and tavernas. Being alone would have attracted attention, but this way we simply looked like the two women we were, enjoying our time in Crete. I spoke not a word of the language, which gave us a kind of valuable unapproachability. It also meant that I did not have the opportunity to ask questions of local people or find out anything about life in the village back in the days when Spinalonga was still functioning. I simply absorbed the atmosphere and observed people.

  Each day while I was staying in Plaka I took the first boat across to Spinalonga. The boatman must have thought I was strange. He smiled as he sold me a ticket but asked no questions – and on several occasions did not even ask for any money. Perhaps they thought I had a long-lost relative who had been on the island. The lack of language was definitely an advantage here.

  Each visit enriched my love for this unique place and furnished me with more characters and ideas about how the story would run. The proximity of Plaka never stopped making an impression on me, and the fact that you could see small figures moving about on the opposite shore gave the novel that was evolving in my mind an extra intensity.

  I wrote a very detailed outline, having two key historical dates in my mind: the German invasion of Crete, and the eventual cure for leprosy. I also wanted to create two generations of sufferers in one family, along with a subsequent generation from whom the presence of leprosy in their past is hidden.

  The synopsis was written, along with a sample chapter, and sent out to a number of British publishers. It was rejected by several. They liked the idea of a love story set on a Greek island, but leprosy was considered not only an unlikely subject but also an uncommercial one. By chance, the proposal then fell onto the desk of a young editor who immediately understood not just the content but the mood of the story. Flora Rees, who has since edited all the novels I have written, spent much of her childhood in Africa because her father was a doctor of tropical diseases. She vividly recalled the days when he went to visit leprosy patients, and the anxiety it still caused, in spite of the fact that this disease was curable. Flora, like many who had a close connection with leprosy, appreciated that people react strangely even to the mention of the disease.

  Within a year or so, I had finished writing and the novel was published in the UK – and soon after that in Greece, Norway, Israel and eventually more than thirty-five countries. A year or so after publication in Greece came an offer from Mega Channel to turn it into a twenty-six-part television serial. There had already been many other approaches from producers and directors in various countries around the world, but I had declined all of them because of a lack of trust in their ability (and desire) to portray leprosy sufferers with the respect that I felt they deserved. I was afraid they might appear as monsters. However, Mega allowed me full involvement with the production and the two years it took to create the series were immensely exciting, with a result that was both beautiful and moving.

  The local people gave the production their full support, and many of the older ones, who remembered the real stories of Spinalonga, found themselves playing roles in the fictional version. We even had the full involvement of one particularly special person. Eighty-six-year-old Manolis Foundoulakis, who had once suffered from leprosy himself and now lived in a village above Plaka, provided extraordinary insight, wisdom and friendship to everyone who worked on the production. He appeared in the final scene on Spinalonga itself, when all the patients are cured and leave the island. He was a man cured of leprosy, playing the role of a man cured of leprosy.

  Victoria Hislop with Manolis Foundoulakis

  Art and reality came together in a way that is almost impossible to describe. I believe this fusion of the two is what gave To Nisi, the serial, its magic, and is the reason the Greek public responded to it in the way they did. As well as leaving the streets eerily silent each Monday night at ten o’clock, the transmission time, it achieved the highest ratings for a television serial on record.

  Writing the novel brought many new opportunities to me, not just as a writer. I became an ambassador for the charity Lepra, which works to relieve the suffering of leprosy patients around the world. Unbelievably, there are still more than 300,000 new cases each year, mostly in India and Bangladesh. I help Lepra raise funds for research and treatment.

  More recently, a hugely exciting event took place in my life. In July 2020, I was awarded Honorary Greek Citizenship by the President of Greece. In the official announcement it stated that this was for promoting modern Greek history and culture, including the history of Spinalonga.

  Novels sometimes have a life of their own, and readers interpret the meaning and content in their own way, bringing their personal hopes, fears and emotions with them as they read. Even as a writer, you are often left with the question ‘What happened next?’ So much in most novels is, and should be, open-ended. In The Island, there is a single devastating event on a night that is meant to be the occasion of a huge celebration. It changes the lives of several people for ever. The characters I have picked up on in particular are the three men connected with Anna, as well as her sister, Maria, who is faced with a huge dilemma at the end of One August Night.

  Writing this new story has shown me that, unless there is a happy-ever-after ending to a story (or almost everyone is dead, like in a Greek tragedy), it is always exciting as a writer to open a door that has been closed for a while and to step through it once more . . .

  A final note: my knowledge of Greek language and culture has deepened over the years since I wrote The Island, and the eagle-eyed among my readers will notice that for the sake of accuracy there are some subtle changes to the spelling of Greek names and words.

  Victoria Hislop

  October 2020

  Note on Leprosy

  Leprosy in the 21st Century

  Leprosy is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium Leprae. It can lie undetected and unnoticed for between one and twenty years before becoming apparent. Leprosy affects the nerves of the hands, feet and face and can reduce and remove the sensation of pain and the ability to move fingers, toes and eyelids. This results in many of those affected becoming prone to burns and injuries leading to serious infections and ultimately the loss of fingers, toes and eyesight. In addition, immunological leprosy reactions often cause severe pain and disability. These reactions can occur before, during and after treatment.

  Although leprosy has been eradicated in Europe, it is still a major health problem in developing countries. Hundreds of thousands of cases continue to be diagnosed every year. Many of these are not officially recorded, as people affected by leprosy are subject to widespread prejudice and discrimination including from their own families and communities. This prejudice makes those affected fearful of coming forward for diagnosis, despite the available antibiotic treatment being free and effective. Unfortunately, the later the diagnosis the higher the chance of serious disability.

  Lepra

  Victoria Hislop is an Ambassador for Lepra. Lepra is an international charity working to beat leprosy and the prejudice it draws. They work directly with those affected in Bangladesh, India, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, where all together two-thirds of the world’s cases occur.

  Lepra works to treat, rehabilitate and amplify the voices of people affected by leprosy and is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject.

  They are a secular charity, open to every faith and those without faith.

  Lepra introduced Dapsone, the first cure for leprosy, and since 1924 has campaigned to keep those affected by leprosy with their communities rather than in colonie
s or isolation.

  Today, Lepra is needed more than ever. Their skills to diagnose, treat and support the disabilities of those with leprosy remain in high demand.

  It costs just £20 to train one village doctor to recognise the symptoms of leprosy; vital to ensure accurate diagnosis and guarantee that people are given guidance and the correct treatment as soon as practicable.

  Please donate £20 today to support Lepra by:

  Making a donation online with a credit card, debit card, or PayPal at www.lepra.org.uk

  Calling us at 01206 216700

  Texting LEPRA followed by your donation amount to 70500

  Sending a cheque to Lepra, 28 Middleborough, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1TG

  Using a CAF account, or by donating directly via a bank transfer, please ask us for details

  www.lepra.org.uk @LepraUK @leprauk @LepraUK

  Patron: Her Majesty The Queen

  Charity No. 213251 (England and Wales) SC039715 (Scotland)

  Lepra is a company limited by guarantee,

  registered in England and Wales.

  Registered Number 324748