The temperature soared in late July and throughout August. Flies swarmed around the camp and hovered in clouds over food and latrines. Some of the women had dysentery, malaria and even typhus, and almost all had coughs and skin lesions. There were several qualified doctors and nurses among the detainees, but they had no medicines at their disposal and all they could do was attempt to diagnose and offer advice.
On this desperate filthy island, nothing was ever clean. Skin, clothes, bedding, cooking utensils were constantly grimy and it was a miracle that bacteria did not annihilate them all. At night they took turns to guard for scorpions and snakes, and even if tales of rats coming to chew their toes at night were anecdotal, they still kept some of them awake and watchful.
In those sweltering summer months, the heat induced lethargy in the guards as well as the women and for several hours a day the captives could follow their own pursuits. The soldiers continued to harass them to sign dílosis but even their bullying was sometimes half-hearted in the heat. Occasionally someone relented and for a few days the guards left the other women alone.
The older village women, even if they could not read, had skills that had been passed on from a previous generation. They gathered dry grasses, separated them into different shades and deftly wove them to create hats with varying sizes of brim and crown. Now they had something with which to protect their heads from the burning midday sun, but the hats were also things of beauty too. With the shorter pieces, they made fans so that women could cool themselves at night when the air was still.
A group of younger ones found a fallen olive tree, hacked off small pieces and began to carve them: spoons and dishes for daily use, as well as small sculpted human figures, which would be lovingly fashioned before being carefully hidden.
Others made dyes from the flowers that grew on the hillsides and with fine tips of wild grass they painted on flat grey pebbles that were found in abundance on the beaches of Trikeri. They reproduced in miniature Arcadian landscapes, birds in flight, sometimes even cartoons. Like the needlework on Makronisos, each artistic creation was an act of subversion, but as the weeks went by and liberation seemed ever more remote, each woman needed a way to keep her spirits from sinking. Aliki, when not feeding Angelos, had her charcoal constantly in hand. She worked quickly, the accuracy of her likenesses achieved with extraordinary speed, and slipped the finished result inside her dress as soon as it was done.
While they were engaged in these activities, they often sang quietly: songs of revolution, mostly, and an often repeated verse composed by one of the captive women:
On this harsh island where we strive,
The sun beats down, our souls survive.
They crush our hands and make us blind,
And steal our lives, but not our minds.
Themis had resumed her sewing. She had finished her hearts and began a new project. Making use of scraps of rag, sometimes from the discarded clothes of the executed, she made puppets to entertain the children.
‘I used to hate sewing!’ Themis joked to Aliki.
‘That’s hard to believe,’ Aliki smiled. ‘You look like a professional seamstress.’
Together, the two friends constructed a little wooden theatre and the children crowded round. The innocence of their expressions and the delight on their faces brought light to Trikeri.
Intellectual pursuits gave them strength too. Very discreetly, the more educated gave lectures on such subjects as the Greek philosophers and the principles of Marxism. They all needed to refresh their minds on what exactly it was that had brought them to this place and why they were prepared to suffer for their beliefs. Sometimes they forgot.
Tranquil times could suddenly be interrupted by the announcement of a trial or an execution. The terror of these always hung in the background, never allowing the prisoners to be complacent or to have nights that were undisturbed by nightmares.
Themis watched Aliki breastfeeding her baby and knew he would not have survived without her. Her reliance on her friend became even greater when she was paralysed by stomach pains. Suspected of typhus, Themis was isolated and, during the many days of fever, she sometimes hallucinated that she was once again in solitary confinement on Makronisos, living in a twilight between life and death, senses unstimulated by sound or light.
When she recovered, Angelos was pink-cheeked, giving his first smiles and with a tooth in bud. Aliki smiled when Themis took him in her arms for the first time in many days and exclaimed at how heavy he was. Their love for this child was shared.
Though he had not been baptised, women and other children made a fuss of Angelos when his first Saint’s Day came in November. There were no gifts but they sang and played games, and it helped to allay the otherwise overwhelming sense of futility that lay over them like dust.
One cold December morning, when life seemed to have settled into a routine, albeit a harsh one, everything changed. Themis was the first to emerge from the tent, with Angelos in her arms. The ground all around was white and her immediate thought was that the first snow had fallen. Soon she realised her error. Dozens of pieces of paper had been spread out on the ground, and taking a closer look she realised they were Aliki’s drawings. She turned round to warn her friend but Aliki was right behind her. Both of them were being scrutinised by the two guards standing either side of the tent flaps.
For many months, Aliki had kept her stash of sketches hidden between two rocks but they had been discovered. The forty or so women, including Themis, whose portraits she had drawn were easy to identify.
Ushering everyone into a huddle with the butt of his rifle, one of the guards issued the warning that unless the artist came forward to identify herself, all those whose likenesses now fluttered on the ground would be executed.
Their breath came out in white clouds in the icy air and Themis, holding Angelos so tightly he began to cry, shivered with fear rather than cold.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Aliki stepped forward. She understood what they accused her of. She had shown the reality of the torment endured by these women and her drawings clearly criticised the violation of their rights. Highlighting such abuse was a crime in the eyes of the authorities.
‘You are the criminal,’ announced the guard. ‘Not the State. And to imply otherwise is punishable by death.’
Aliki was allowed one last day and night. Neither she nor Themis slept, even for a moment, passing the hours sorrowfully in whispered conversation.
Themis promised her friend that she would do everything she could to find her child and, when she did, she would bring him up as her own and love him as Aliki had loved Angelos.
Holding back her fear and grief, Aliki handed Themis a piece of folded paper. The drawing of her own son was the only one that had escaped the guards’ vandalism.
‘There is a lock of his hair inside too,’ said Aliki. ‘I hope he still has his curls.’
At five o’clock that morning, a female guard appeared at the entrance of the tent and Aliki stood up. Themis also got up from her filthy mattress, holding the sleeping Angelos in her arms.
Aliki planted a kiss on the baby’s head, breathing in the sweetness of his skin for the last time. The two women then briefly touched hands, before Aliki turned towards the guard and walked slowly from the tent.
Moments later, as Themis stood looking out towards the trees, she heard the dull and distant sound of a single gunshot. At close range, the guard did not need to waste more than one bullet.
Themis closed her eyes but tears pushed through her lashes and rolled down her face and on to Angelos’ cheeks. When she finally stopped weeping, there was a new question in her mind. For Aliki’s sake, and for both their sons, should she now sign the dílosi?
Chapter Eighteen
FEELING THE ABSENCE of the woman whose scent he knew so well, Angelos would not be pacified during the following days. The figure whose arms had reached out to him so many times was missing and he cried inconsolably.
Themis co
uld do nothing except weep with him and retreated into the olive grove to hide from her fellow captives as well as to avoid the guards.
After that, Themis lay awake for many nights with the question going round and round in her mind. She knew that the signing of the dílosi was the ultimate failure, but could she deny her own son his right to a proper life? His own bed? A chance to meet his family? To eat her grandmother’s food?
Winter now settled in, with longer nights and several centimetres of rainfall most days. The colder climate brought different diseases from those that had afflicted them in the summer.
Threats that Angelos would be taken from her were now a daily occurrence. One morning she was raking a piece of stony ground, which the prisoners had been told they could cultivate in the spring, and had the child dandled on her hip. He was teething again and whinging a little. Themis tried to suckle him a little, but even this was not enough to soothe him and the sound of his crying was getting on the nerves of a nearby guard.
‘There are plenty of women who can look after him. Real women,’ spat one of the guards contemptuously. ‘We’ll be putting him in better hands soon, just you wait.’
The realisation that Makris had betrayed not just her, but another woman, haunted Themis more now that Aliki had gone. The man whom she had worshipped as a hero, a warrior against the forces of the right, had proved himself a traitor.
Makris’ duplicity was not the only reason that her idealism waivered. When the guards recounted to them a thousand crimes committed by the communists, she knew that she could not disregard every fact and figure. Some of the atrocities were irrefutable. The conflict in which she had fought had seen cruel and shameful acts on both sides.
A few months after Aliki’s execution, Angelos became ill. It was then that Themis truly questioned her own judgement. Could the communists retain her loyalty at the expense of the life of an innocent child? Many women had developed coughs and several had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. When Angelos became feverish one night and woke with eyes and nose running, Themis knew that she could no longer procrastinate. She agonised over the decision but with Angelos’ temperature rising, she realised there could be no further vacillation.
It was time. She would sign. In doing so, she would not only save his life, but she would fulfil her promise to Aliki too and begin her search for Nikos.
Two sheets of flimsy, lined paper were shoved into her hands.
‘Write!’ ordered the guard, giving her a pencil.
Angelos played in the dirt next to her as she sat on the ground with the guard standing, looking over her shoulder.
‘And get on with it,’ he barked, prodding her in the back with the butt of his rifle. ‘I haven’t got all day and nor have you.’
Themis had submitted to cruel treatment, endured such pain, eaten bread that was crawling with grubs, scorched her skin in fire and sun. All of it would end if she filled these pages with sentiments of regret and repentance and promised allegiance to the government.
She rested the paper on her knee and began, well aware of the expected tone and format. With some detachment, she watched her hand gripping the writing implement and guiding it fluently left to right.
It was a familiar sensation, having to express something that she did not believe. She had been doing it since the EON days. Knowing that it was a means to an end and, this time, the key to her freedom, she effortlessly faked contrition, submission and apology.
The tone had to be oleaginous and exaggeratedly subservient towards the authorities and she found herself wondering how anyone would be convinced by such a document. It seemed ridiculous, knowing as she did her inner beliefs and commitment.
Themis felt the eyes of the soldier on her back, but also imagined the distant and approving gaze of both Fotini and Aliki, urging her to take this chance for herself and two other lives.
Within ten minutes, she had covered four sides of paper with self-flagellation, with promises, with assurances, impressing herself with the expressions of false sincerity and humility that she had conjured up.
She read it through again for spelling errors and took a last glance over the lines, knowing that sooner or later it might be read out in public somewhere close to Patissia. Shakily, she added her signature, saving herself and hating herself all at once.
The guard stubbed out a cigarette underfoot, snatched the sheets from her and cast his eyes over the text.
‘You and your brat can get ready to leave,’ he snapped and walked off.
Themis got up and took Angelos into her arms.
The little one playfully pulled on one of her ears and she smiled and kissed his cheeks. He deserved this sacrifice of hers and she felt light, as if her whole body was floating. All her regrets vanished.
Three other women had signed a dílosi that day. For the first time since she had arrived on Trikeri, several of the guards smiled at Themis. She did not return the gesture. In an hour’s time the boat was coming to take them to the mainland.
She hurried back to the tent. Several of the women who had been her friends turned their backs on her. They regarded her as a traitor to the cause and one of them spat at the ground near her feet.
Another gave her a look of sympathy.
‘Take care of the little one,’ she said. ‘May he always be blessed by such love.’
Then one of the youngest whispered into her ear: ‘Don’t forget us, Themis. God is on our side.’
Themis held back her tears. She was grateful for forgiveness, even if it was only from these two women. To sign a dílosi was a betrayal and an abandonment of her fellow prisoners. She could not deny it to herself.
She must gather her few possessions. From beneath her mattress she drew out her embroidery. It represented a past love but also a present one. Then there was the small line-drawing of Nikos, along with the single, dark curl of his hair, wrapped within it. She had sewn it into the hem of her blanket for safety and now quickly undid the stitches, pulled it out and stuffed it into her pocket.
Then she took Angelos and hurried down to the quay where a boat was waiting. She ignored the resentful stares of the other women who looked up as she passed. Word travelled fast around Trikeri.
Themis could not suppress her sense of excitement. She had no idea what life was going to bring but as she stepped gingerly on to the boat she wanted to shout out with joy.
It was a fine spring day, the sun was reluctantly giving out its first warmth and the breeze was sweet. As the boat chugged across the water, the two guards smoked and chatted as if they were on a pleasure cruise. The three other women on the boat played a clapping game with Angelos as he sat on his mother’s lap and moments later they reached the mainland.
Near a decrepit army truck, a few soldiers stood waiting for them, cheerful, sardonic, perhaps, in their offers of congratulations to the women. One of them put out his grubby hand to pinch Angelos’ cheek, the gesture implying that both he and Themis were now his kin. Themis drew away, disgusted. Her signing of a dílosi had given him no such right in her eyes.
For Themis, life had altered beyond measure since she had travelled this road all those months earlier to reach Trikeri. Between the slats in the side of the vehicle she noticed all the changes in the landscape that had been made by the civil war. Not only had many hillsides been denuded of trees, but every town and village they passed through bore the scars. Buildings had been destroyed, and whole communities lay deserted. Many people had fled from their villages to seek safety in the towns, often simply to avoid being caught up into the communist army.
She looked away and began humming the lullaby that had so often soothed Angelos to sleep but the swaying of the vehicle had already worked its magic, simulating the rocking of the cradle he had never known. For many hours he slept soundly on her chest and as temperatures fell, she could feel his warmth and the easy rhythm of his breathing. His cough had not developed and his pink cheeks indicated good health rather than fever. He stirred in her arms, his ey
elids fluttering as if he dreamed.
On this dark road, looking out into the blank space of the night, she felt the pure and deep ache of love for her child.
At one point, Themis lay Angelos on the seat beside her and dozed off, resting her hand on his back to make sure he was safe. Her otherwise unfriendly companion did the same. The child drew affection even from strangers.
Many hours into the journey, the driver stopped and one of the other soldiers took over. One of the women Themis had shared the journey with got out. They were close to her home town and she would walk from here. Her farewell to Themis was without emotion. Throughout the journey they had hardly spoken a word and Themis’ attempts at conversation had been met with no response. The woman seemed empty and broken with a blankness in her eyes.
At dawn they had reached the edge of a city. As if by instinct, Themis woke. Green mountains had long since been replaced by grey buildings, and trees by lamp-posts. They were in Athens.
Themis was fully awake and alert now. Her throat was dry, not just through lack of water but with anxiety. She was excited and at the same time full of trepidation about seeing her family. Who knew what the reaction to her might be? To Angelos? Had her grandmother suffered because of her imprisonment and her politics? Had Panos returned? Margarita? How would Thanasis treat them? These past months she had given little thought to any of these questions and suddenly she must confront them.
On the corner of Syntagma Square with Stadiou Street, the truck stopped. A moment later she was standing on the pavement. She had no memories of such crowds, except during demonstrations. People passed her without a glance, all of them purposeful, perhaps hurrying to work or a rendezvous. It was as if life had carried on as normal and the country had never been at war, either with another country or with itself.
Those Who Are Loved Page 26