Themis shrieked.
Panos had no time to brace himself and his body hit the floor hard. His head seemed to bounce as it made contact with the tiles. Within a second Themis was kneeling down beside him.
‘Panos . . . Panos . . . Can you hear me?’
She looked up at her grandmother, who was vigorously crossing herself.
‘He’s dead, Yiayiá,’ she whispered through her tears. ‘I think he’s dead.’
Kyría Koralis was soon calmly soaking a piece of rag to dab at the cut on her grandson’s face. A purple lump was already appearing.
After a few seconds of unconsciousness, the boy began to stir.
‘He’ll be all right, agápi mou,’ she said, caught between her love for her grandson and her loyalty to his father. ‘Don’t you worry.’
For Themis, it was a moment of lost innocence. She glared at her father. How could he have done such a thing?
Panos came to, without the slightest idea what had taken place. Even now, he did not know that a hand had pushed him, and certainly not whose. His father had left the room.
Kyría Koralis knelt on the floor to nurse her grandson and tend to the cut on his head.
‘What happened?’ he said weakly. ‘My head hurts. It really hurts.’
‘You fell,’ his grandmother answered simply.
He closed his eyes and Kyría Koralis made a gesture to Themis, a forefinger held tight against her lips, which instructed the child to say nothing.
Themis understood. The violent action of her father must not be revealed, not to anyone. She must say nothing.
Having established that his son had survived the fall, Pavlos Koralis crept out of the apartment without saying goodbye. He returned to Piraeus from where his ship would be leaving the following day.
When Margarita and Thanasis returned from their EON meeting, dressed in their smart blue uniforms, they found Panos in bed with a bandaged head. Once they had learnt the story of his ‘fall’ and reassured themselves that he was already on the mend, they gathered at the kitchen table to eat dinner. A plate was taken in to Panos, but it was not touched.
Margarita was full of news about a parade that she had just taken part in.
‘I was put right out in the front!’ she gushed, rigidly holding out her right arm to demonstrate her ability to hold the salute. ‘I was one of the leaders!’
‘That’s wonderful, darling. You’re doing so well,’ enthused Kyría Koralis.
‘I did something new today as well,’ Thanasis interjected, not wanting his sister to be the centre of attention. ‘We were taught how to hold a gun.’
There was a note of triumph in his voice, as if he had won a battle.
Themis chewed her food silently but could not swallow. Nobody ever expected her to say much at the table, so it was easy for her to keep her thoughts to herself. She would have to join EON soon but the only reason she might want to be part of such an organisation would be to learn how to use a gun. That sounded interesting and useful. Nothing else about it appealed.
She looked from Margarita to Thanasis to her yiayiá, overwhelmed by the sense that Panos had been betrayed.
Anger, fear and shame mingled inside her. In a short space of time, a crack as invisible as the one in Panos’ skull had divided her from the rest of the family.
Chapter Three
FOR SOME TIME after, Themis felt a distinct sense of isolation. With five people living in such close proximity this should have been impossible.
It was more than half a decade since they had moved into the Patissia apartment, and in these years the children had grown and now filled the space almost to bursting point, the boys with their lanky adolescent limbs and Margarita with curves and self-assurance that developed by the day. At the generously sized table, they now elbowed each other to snatch second helpings, even though their grandmother cooked three times as much as when they had first moved in.
Relationships between the children were as volatile as those between politicians in the outside world. Panos and Thanasis never stopped arguing and wrestling with each other in an endless fraternal power struggle. In addition to the new scar on his forehead, Panos had a few others, such was his brother’s superior strength. It was not only between the boys that battles raged. Margarita and Panos constantly squabbled over everything and nothing. Between Margarita and Themis there was no obvious argument, but the older girl never missed an opportunity to be spiteful. This made life behind the closed door of their bedroom a torture for Themis. Margarita commanded all the space in their room, twisted her little sister’s ears until they hurt, careful never to leave a mark, and kicked her so hard that she often ended up sleeping on the floor or creeping out into the living room. Instead of the quiet space Themis craved, she was then kept awake by the eerie sound of her grandmother grinding her teeth. The youngest child of the family was too proud to cry or complain, knowing that doing so would only invite new and cunning cruelty from her older sister.
The place that had felt so secure and homely when they moved in was now full of conflict and discomfort. Themis had no refuge within the home. School became her sanctuary, an environment where she felt safe and free. The high white walls of the schoolyard seemed like a prison to some, but for Themis they were like a warm embrace from her very first day. As autumn approached, Themis looked forward to the new term.
The schoolroom itself was austere, with rows of wooden desks, hard chairs and nothing on the walls but a cross and an image of the Virgin Mary. The focus of the room was the teacher, Kyría Anteriotis, on her raised dais, and the blackboard behind her. There was no choice of seats. The surname that fate had dealt her determined that Themis should sit between two boys, Glentakis and Koveos, who teased her whenever the teacher’s back was turned. Regardless of their intentions, they failed to distract Themis. Their endeavours only helped her to develop superlative powers of concentration. For the first few years of school, Themis had little competition in the classroom apart from a rather shy boy who occasionally got his hand in the air before her, and whether they were learning algebra or grammar, she rarely gave a wrong answer. She focused her attention on lessons, and had little awareness of anything but the tac tac tac of chalk on blackboard.
One day, a few weeks into the term, when the teacher had scratched an equation on the board, and then looked over her shoulder for the answer, it was neither Themis nor the timid Giorgos who was invited to provide it. Another voice called out the solution. Someone else had solved a mathematical problem before either of them. It must be someone new.
Themis looked round to see who it might be.
Past the familiar faces of forty other classmates, she could see a head of dark hair and a pale forehead. Themis craned her neck to get a better view.
Not only was the girl’s voice unfamiliar, but she had a strange accent. Themis turned back to her desk and wrote down the answer she had given.
As soon as the bell sounded for a break, all the children poured out of the room. The new girl was already at the far end of the yard by the time Themis got outside. As she approached, Themis saw that the newcomer was engaged in a careful process of picking the needles off a pine cone, fallen from a tree that grew by the wall.
Themis made her way towards her, dodging all the other children who were engaged in skipping routines or games of chase. The girl was alone, but there was nothing lonely in her demeanour. She looked around her as she dismantled the cone, surveying her classmates, contented in her own company, as if she was not even expecting anyone to speak to her. Themis’ heart was beating faster than usual, sensing even before they spoke that she would be her friend.
It was autumn, so the girl was wearing a woollen coat. It was dull red, frayed at the hem, with sleeves rolled over several times to reveal her hands. Themis herself was wearing an old brown jacket of Margarita’s that was slightly too large for her, but this girl’s coat looked like one that she would never grow in to. Just like Themis, she had dirty socks but her foot
wear was even more scuffed.
From time to time this new girl fixed her eyes on someone, not bothered by how they might interpret her stares. She exuded the confidence of someone older than eleven.
Themis stood a few metres away, leaning nonchalantly against the wall, looking down at her worn, dusty boots. She needed a moment to gather the courage to approach the newcomer.
She loitered like this for some time and then the bell rang. It was time to return to the classroom. Themis grabbed her opportunity, falling into step next to the girl. As they reached the main door, Themis saw her hesitate. Left or right? There were classrooms on either side.
‘We go this way,’ said Themis, confidently, taking the stranger’s sleeve and pulling her in the right direction.
Both girls hung up their coats on the same peg at the back of the classroom and, as they were walking in, there was just enough time for Themis to ask her name.
‘Fotini,’ came the proud reply.
A moment later the teacher entered and the next lesson began. By the end of the fifty minutes, Themis knew with certainty that someone even more studious than her sat a few rows behind.
When the bell went again at the end of the school day, Themis could not pack her books fast enough and was soon pushing her way past her classmates. She stopped at Fotini’s desk and found her still lining up pencils in a wooden box and carefully packing her exercise books into an old satchel.
Fotini looked up. She had blue eyes, very fair skin and almost black hair arranged into two thick plaits that hung down like mooring ropes on either side of her face. She gave Themis a broad smile.
The girls already felt familiar with one another, since they had both spent the afternoon vying for the teacher’s attention. Kyría Anteriotis had successfully given them equal chances to answer her questions.
They unhooked their coats, left the classroom together and walked across the yard to the gates. It appeared that they were going in the same direction.
Themis rattled off her questions and Fotini dutifully answered.
‘Where are you from?’
‘What’s your family name?’
‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’
‘Where did you go to school before?’
When the interrogation finally ended, it was Fotini’s turn to find out about Themis.
‘And where do you live?’ she asked eventually.
They had been walking along the main street for ten minutes and had reached a corner.
‘Just up here,’ Themis indicated. ‘At the end of this road is a square. And we live in the square.’
Fotini smiled.
‘We don’t live so far away from you,’ she murmured.
They said their goodbyes and laughed at their simultaneous chorus of ‘See you tomorrow!’
That evening, Themis was bubbling over with the excitement of having a new friend.
‘She’s so clever,’ she told her grandmother.
‘What, cleverer than my little Themis?’ teased Kyría Koralis.
‘Surely not possible,’ said her older sister sarcastically.
‘Anyway, she is called Fotini, she has no brothers or sisters, she’s two months older than me and her family comes from Smyrna.’
‘So they’re refugees?’ interrupted Thanasis, suspiciously.
‘Why do you ask that?’ challenged Panos.
‘She just moved to Athens. And before that she was living in Kavala. And now she is my friend,’ said Themis emphatically.
‘Well, that’s nice for you,’ said Margarita, cattily. ‘You need a friend.’
The evening meal continued with plenty of teasing, some of it kind, some of it less so.
Themis could hardly wait for the next morning. Her brothers and sister went to school in the other direction, so she walked alone. That day she almost ran in order to be in the yard before Fotini got there.
As she turned into a sidestreet, she caught a glimpse of a faded crimson coat. Fotini was ahead of her and her walk turned into a run.
‘Fotini! Fotini! Wait for me.’
The other girl spun round.
‘Hello, Themis.’
They clasped both hands like friends acquainted since birth and then strode together into the yard.
There was no question of Fotini moving desk to be nearer to Themis. She had joined the class after the start of the year and would stay in the back row. Both girls waited eagerly for the breaks between lessons. Sometimes they joined in with skipping games, and sometimes when the sun shone, bringing unexpected winter warmth, they sat on a bench and shared their stories. Their respective portraits of the past were formed from a mixture of what they had been told by adults as well as sensory recollections of their own. Both of them had experienced dust, hunger, tears, tiredness and loss, but it would not be until later on that they shared the details of these.
‘So why did your parents move from Smyrna to Kavala and then here?’ asked Themis with the curiosity of one who had never left the city of Athens.
‘My parents didn’t want to leave Asia Minor,’ Fotini said. ‘But they had no choice. They stayed in Kavala for a few years because my father had always been in the tobacco industry and there was plenty of work there.’
Themis knew about the Asia Minor Campaign. After all, she had grown up hearing people argue about it and the million or so refugees who had arrived with little more than they stood up in. Most of them were poor – and she remembered her father’s resentment at how it had changed his city.
‘There’s a reason they call it the catastrophe,’ said Fotini firmly. ‘Because it was. They were happy and then suddenly everything changed. Everything that was good just vanished.’
‘And is that why you have no brothers and sisters?’ asked Themis.
A puzzled look passed across Fotini’s face. It was something she had never thought of before.
‘They were hungry a lot, so I suppose it might have been worse if there were more of us to feed . . .’
‘So what happened after Smyrna?’
‘They were taken by boat to Kavala. And one of my aunts was already there so they all lived together. I liked certain things about it.’
‘Such as?’
‘It was by the sea. A beautiful city. With a huge aqueduct running across it, like a giant bridge. And it had an old castle. And lots of old buildings and little streets.’ Fotini’s eyes shone as she described it. ‘It was nothing like Athens.’
‘Do you like Athens?’
‘Not yet,’ she answered. ‘But I hope I will, in time.’
At the point where Themis would go one way and Fotini another, the two girls stopped and sat on a low wall. They hardly paused for breath.
Themis began to share her own family ‘catastrophes’: the collapse of the old house and the departure of their mother. She admitted to Fotini that, since her parents’ wedding photograph had been put away, her mother’s image had faded.
‘I can’t remember her face now,’ she said to her friend. ‘But Yiayiá once told me that I look a bit like her.’
‘You have your father, though?’ said Fotini.
‘In a way,’ she answered, saving that story for another day.
The following week, as they walked home, Themis told her more about the mansion that had fallen down.
‘I’ll take you to see the ruin one day,’ she said. ‘I think it’s still sitting there.’
‘There were mansions in Kavala too,’ said Fotini. ‘But they belonged to bad people who owned tobacco factories.’
‘Why were they bad?’ asked Themis.
‘Well, the owner of the one that my parents worked in . . .’
‘Your parents? Your mother as well?’
Themis did not know many people whose mothers worked. Staying at home, as her mother always had, was common even in humble families, where extra money would have been welcome.
‘Yes. They worked together. My mother says that they sat together on the sorting floor. Men and women to
gether, Christians and Muslims. Separating the good leaves from the bad and grading them.’
‘But . . .’
Themis was open-mouthed as Fotini continued.
‘I think it was all right sometimes, but their hours were very long. And they seemed to get longer and longer.’
Fotini paused. ‘Didn’t your mother have to work?’ she asked.
Themis hesitated.
‘When we were in the mansion she worked all day long in the house . . .’
Themis then casually dropped in that her father was mostly away at sea, so she and her siblings were looked after by their grandmother.
Themis’ mention of her father prompted Fotini to talk about hers.
‘My father is dead,’ she said. ‘That’s why we moved to Athens.’
Themis did not know what to say. At least her own mother was still alive somewhere, and her father did make an occasional appearance.
‘I didn’t see my father very often either,’ Fotini went on. ‘He always came back late at night from meetings and even when he got home he and my mother carried on talking and writing his speeches.’
‘What speeches?’
‘To the workers. At the factory. He had big black shadows around his eyes and he never stopped reading newspapers and books. He was always up until late at the kitchen table.
‘But then one night, my aunt was looking after me and my mother was even later home than usual. For some reason I couldn’t sleep so my aunt made me a cup of warm milk. She seemed anxious too. A bit later I heard the sound of a key in the door. My mother.’
Themis leaned forward. In suspense.
‘Her face was dirty and even in the dim light I could see that there was a graze on her cheek, as if she had fallen over.
‘She was trying to speak but not getting any words out. Once she calmed down, she told us everything. There had been a demonstration. Workers wanted more pay and better conditions to work in. The police had attacked them. Some had been injured.’
‘And your father . . .?’
Those Who Are Loved Page 4