‘Please,’ she whispered, holding the letters to her mouth. ‘Please bring back good news.’
Many weeks passed and there were no replies. It was even more agonising than the period when she was waiting for Thanasis to find news of Anna. Luckily, Angelos provided plenty of distraction, learning to walk, saying new words and eagerly experiencing new tastes.
Day after day, Themis watched from the balcony, following the postman’s progress as he went round the square. When he reached their building, she would run down to the ground floor two stairs at a time to see if there was anything for her and often there were several letters lying scattered on the floor. They were always for the other apartments and, swallowing her disappointment, she put them in the appropriate pigeon-holes before ascending the stairs once again.
Every day, her grandmother tried to encourage her: ‘I’m sure there will be news soon.’
Eventually, there was. The first letter came after a month or so.
‘We regret to inform you that we have no one with that name staying with us.’
It was a very dark day for her, and became more so when she heard that Belogiannis had just been executed.
Over the following months, other similar letters followed. With each one Themis’ spirits sank a little.
As the leaves began to turn, Themis realised that it was a year since Thanasis had given her the news of Anna’s death. In those twelve months, Angelos had changed from baby to toddler and she tried to imagine what Nikos would be like now and how their first meeting might be. He would be capable of expressing his views and saying what he wanted.
Her mind was jumping ahead. First she had to find him and still there was no positive response from any of the homes.
One fine late autumn afternoon, she took Angelos out for a walk. The latest negative response from one of the children’s homes had landed on the mat earlier that day and only three possibilities remained. Themis needed to distract herself and she took Angelos to Fokionos Negri, where he liked to run up and down the square. He was two and a half now and there were always plenty of other children there for him to play with, and even the statue of a dog, which he loved to go and pet.
While Themis waited on a bench, scrutinising him closely as he played with the other children, she was aware that a man was watching her from a café on the other side of some trees. He was alone, drinking coffee, and she noticed that he regularly glanced up from his newspaper and, almost without shame, stared at her. She began to feel uncomfortable.
‘Angelos,’ she called out. ‘Angelos. Come, darling. It’s time to go home.’
The little one was enjoying himself and made his mother chase after him, squealing with delight as he repeatedly ducked to evade her grasp.
Themis was agitated. The man’s eyes seemed to burn her back and his scrutiny to pierce her like a blade. Stories were circulating that people who had previously been imprisoned on an island were being taken in again by the authorities. The signing of the dílosi may have won her release from Trikeri, but true peace of mind would never be hers: the stigma of being a convicted leftist would always be there.
It was rumoured that all those who had signed were still watched. She had never believed it before but now she changed her view.
With sweat pouring down her back and her heart almost bursting through her chest, she grabbed Angelos firmly by the arm and pulled him away from his new playmates.
‘Come on, Angelos, we’re going. Now,’ she said firmly.
It was the first time that the boy had heard such a tone in his mother’s voice and the shock of it made him cry.
‘Óchi! Óchi! No!’ he wailed, aggrieved by this sudden change in her and the firmness of her grip on his chubby arm.
His crying only made Themis more agitated and drew the attention of the man, who had now put his paper to one side and was openly staring at them. With a mixture of embarrassment and fear, she picked up her child and hastened, as fast as she possibly could with the struggling weight in her arms, back to Patission Avenue and towards home.
‘Please, Angelos. Please!’ she pleaded to the now squalling child. Only as they climbed the stairs to the apartment did his crying subside.
Kyría Koralis had seen them approaching from the balcony and was standing at the open door.
‘Agápi mou,’ she asked. ‘What on earth has happened?’
She set Angelos down and he stood holding the edge of his great-grandmother’s skirt, looking up with some bemusement at the two women. Kyría Koralis was now holding Themis in her arms, comforting her as she sobbed.
‘What has happened? Tell me, mátia mou. You’re safe now. You’re home and safe,’ she said gently.
The little boy had wandered off to the corner and was finding something to play with in his toy box. After a few minutes, Themis managed to control her emotions.
‘Sorry, Yiayiá. I’m sorry,’ she said tearfully. ‘Come here, darling. I’m so sorry, little one.’
Angelos approached her cautiously and when he was close enough, he allowed himself to be drawn into her embrace. His mother ruffled his curls and he snuggled into her, happy that they were friends once again.
Later on, when Angelos was asleep, Themis explained to her grandmother the reason she had behaved with such uncharacteristic roughness towards her child.
‘I panicked, Yiayiá,’ she said. ‘For all I know, this man, whoever he is, might have been watching me for months. And these people need no excuse if they want to arrest you.’
‘But you have done nothing, my darling,’ responded the old lady gently.
Thanasis had already come in and was in his bedroom. Their voices were loud enough for him to overhear.
‘You were on the losing side, Themis,’ he reminded her, as he came out into the living room. ‘And you are right to wonder who is watching you.’
‘Thanasis! That’s such a cruel thing to say to your sister.’
‘It’s true, Yiayiá,’ he said. ‘And my sister should be aware of that.’
He spoke almost as though he was doing Themis a favour in giving her the information. She was still worried and afraid, but her greatest fear was not even for herself: it was that they might take Angelos from her.
When Thanasis had gone out, she confided in her grandmother.
‘If they take him, Yiayiá, I don’t know what I will do.’
‘They won’t take him, glykiá mou. They can’t.’
Themis was not convinced and for a few days she did not leave the house and kept Angelos inside with her too.
The furthest she went from the apartment was downstairs to the hallway in order to check on the postman’s latest delivery. The sense of time passing only grew more intense with her growing disappointment and anxiety.
Kyría Koralis tried to persuade her to leave the apartment.
‘It’s not good for you,’ she said firmly. ‘And it’s not good for Angelos.’
‘I feel we’re safer here,’ Themis said. ‘For the moment.’
She was stubborn and for the whole winter remained within the walls of the apartment building. Angelos was taken out each day for a walk by his grandmother.
Then one morning, spring suddenly announced itself. For the first time, the rays of the sun touched the square, and trees that had looked lifeless suddenly had a haze of green over them. Kyría Koralis persuaded her granddaughter to take a stroll.
All three of them put their coats on and went out, but Themis kept glancing behind them.
‘Try not to worry,’ said Kyría Koralis. ‘I think we all deserve a little treat, don’t you, Angelos?’
Reluctantly, Themis agreed that they should go to a café in Fokionos Negri. She had been past it a few times and noticed the pastries and, after a decade when even a gram of sugar had been hard to come by, it was still a novelty to see such things. The unexpected early burst of sunshine had brought everyone out that day and the streets were busy. Angelos held on tightly to his mother’s hand on one side and his
grandmother’s on the other as they approached the café and went in.
The three of them sipped their drinks and Themis looked out of the window. For the first time in his life, Angelos experienced the taste of ice cream.
Suddenly Themis almost dropped her cup.
‘There he is!’ she whispered to her grandmother.
Kyría Koralis turned her old head round to see.
‘Don’t stare, Yiayiá!’
‘You mean the one in the grey jacket? With the blue shirt?’
The café was busy but Kyría Koralis had immediately spotted the person that Themis was staring at. Most of the clientele was female.
‘Yes, but please don’t let him see we are talking about him. What am I going to do?’
‘Nothing, agápi mou. He seems not to be taking the slightest interest in you, or anything else for that matter, apart from his newspaper.’
Themis, who had a clearer view, knew that her grandmother was wrong. He was staring at her just as he had done the previous time.
‘Theé kai kýrie, he is coming over here. Yiayiá, I think we should leave. Now.’
Themis was flustered. She struggled desperately to get Angelos’ arms into the sleeves of his coat.
‘Angelos! Just do what you are told!’ she entreated.
The child began protesting loudly. The small bowl of chocolate ice cream that his great-grandmother had been carefully spooning into his open mouth had been snatched away and he began to make a scene. The effect of the sugar itself and also having it taken from him was beyond endurance and his flailing arms made him uncontrollable. One of his hands caught the edge of the bowl and it smashed on to the floor, spreading dark brown sludge over the tiles.
‘Angelos! Se parakaló! Please!’
The child’s tantrum had brought the café to a standstill. The eyes of everyone in the room were on them and all conversations had stopped.
‘Themis,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Themis Koralis?’
Themis was frozen with fear, her mouth so dry that she could not answer. She stopped struggling with Angelos and he stopped crying. They both looked up at the man.
‘You are Themis Koralis? Or am I . . . m-m-mistaken?’
The man suddenly seemed covered in embarrassment.
‘R-r-really, I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m so sorry. I must have made a mistake. I thought you were s-s-someone I knew. My mistake, my m-m-mistake.’
He turned to walk away.
The man’s awkwardness was endearing and Themis now realised that it was she who had made the mistake.
Hearing his voice, she suddenly realised who he was. She had been at elementary school with him and had sometimes bumped into him when she was a teenager. He had the same dark brown eyes she remembered from over a decade before, but, apart from the voice, the rest of him had changed beyond recognition.
‘Giorgos . . .!’ she said, without hesitation. ‘You’re Giorgos! Giorgos Stavridis!’
He turned round immediately and smiled.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Themis. ‘You must have thought we were so rude.’
Both of them soon overcame their embarrassment.
‘Can I . . .?’ asked Giorgos.
‘Yes! Sit down. Sit down with us!’ Themis replied as they began to converse.
‘I’m so s-s-sorry that I didn’t say hello before, but you were always hurrying away.’
‘I’m sorry too, Giorgos. I didn’t realise it was you. It’s so long . . .’
‘Yes. I don’t know why you w-w-would recognise me.’
Themis laughed.
‘Or the other way round!’
Themis touched her hair, still self-conscious about its length. Shorter styles had become the fashion, but she was suddenly nostalgic for her long plait. The last time Giorgos saw her it would still have been running down her back.
The waiter had taken more orders for coffee. None of them was in a hurry to leave now.
‘I think you look just the same,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re being kind.’
‘And Angelos? How old is the little man?’
He knew the child’s name, as did everyone in the vicinity. It had been shouted out by his mother so many times just a few minutes before.
Angelos was sitting on his great-grandmother’s lap and had calmed down now. He was watching the floor around them being cleaned by the waiter.
Giorgos smiled at the child, who was enjoying another small scoop of ice cream. Everything was peaceful again.
Conversation was friendly but superficial. Both Themis and Giorgos knew that there were many invisible lines and neither knew where they were drawn. She remembered that Giorgos’ father had been a schoolteacher, but this was not enough to tell her what his politics were and even then it would not necessarily indicate what his son believed.
She glanced at his newspaper to see if it gave a clue to his political leanings but it was tightly folded in his pocket so she could not be sure.
The two of them stayed on safe ground and reminisced about school days and the people they had known. Occasionally they shared some snippet of information (‘Ah, yes, Petros Glentakis, he went off to America’ or, ‘Vasso Koveos became a teacher and now has two children’).
Themis remembered Giorgos as the most studious boy in the class. Most boys had been rebellious and noisy, but he had been a keen student, almost unnoticeable. Sometimes she and Fotini had walked home with him when the day ended, knowing that he would be spending even more hours studying than they.
Giorgos mentioned Fotini. It was so long since Themis had talked to someone who remembered her best friend and it led them, of course, into talking about the occupation.
‘T-t-terrible days,’ said Giorgos. ‘Terrible days.’
No Greek would ever deny this.
‘It changed all our lives, didn’t it?’ said Themis, to provoke another comment.
‘And r-r-ruined them in some cases,’ said Giorgos.
Even now, she did not know how to interpret what he said.
She stared at his well-trimmed fingernails and took in his neatly trimmed hair and oiled moustache. He was smartly dressed, his jacket perfectly pressed and his shoes polished. A civil servant, a lawyer, a doctor? He was so clean and scrubbed, without a hint of unpredictability or violence in his manner. She thought of various men in her life in these past years: her father, Thanasis, Makris, the men on Makronisos and on Trikeri. From every one of them, there had been something to fear.
Having exhausted talk of long-past school days, she hesitated to ask him what happened in the period that followed. It did seem natural, however, to ask him about the present. Knowing what he did might give her a clue as to whether he was on her side, or if he had avoided taking any side?
Finally, she plucked up the courage. His answer was immediate and unashamed.
‘I work for the tax office.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
The fact that he was a government employee did not surprise her and confirmed that he probably did not sympathise with the left.
‘That’s a nice steady job to have,’ said her grandmother.
‘My f-f-father got me the job,’ he said, almost apologetically, glancing at Themis.
Angelos had finished his ice cream and the sugar had taken its effect once again. His grandmother was having trouble keeping him in his seat.
Giorgos then talked for a few minutes with Kyría Koralis, who remembered his parents, while Themis took Angelos on to her lap.
‘We must go,’ she said after a while. ‘Angelos needs a sleep.’
The three adults rose simultaneously. Giorgos was already paying the bill.
‘Even for the ice creams?’ exclaimed Themis.
‘I insist,’ said Giorgos, smiling.
As they stood on the pavement there was a moment of hesitation.
Angelos was tugging at his mother’s hand and Themis held out the other to Giorgos.
‘It w
as so nice to see you,’ he said, taking it. ‘P-p-perhaps we can meet again . . .?’
Themis smiled. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled. ‘We must go now. But thanks for the coffee – and the ice cream.’
Giorgos headed in one direction and Themis, Kyría Koralis and Angelos in the other. After a moment or two, Themis could not resist glancing over her shoulder. To her disappointment Giorgos had already disappeared.
Her grandmother was chatting idly.
‘He seemed nice enough,’ she said.
‘Yes, Yiayiá,’ she responded. ‘Just like he was when we were at school.’
‘Perhaps you’ll see him again?’
‘Perhaps . . .’
For a few days, Themis found herself looking for Giorgos’ face every time she left the house. More than once, she took Angelos for a walk past what she had assumed was his regular café, but there was no sign of him.
‘No,’ she said to Angelos firmly each time. ‘There’s no ice cream today.’
Themis was thinking of Giorgos one day the following week when she saw some letters lying fanned out across the hallway floor. She had begun to hope that he might put a note through their door. It was decades since their occasional walks from school but might he have a dim memory of her address?
She went to pick up the envelopes. One caught her eye. It was an official-looking letter, with a Thessaloniki postmark and the name Kyría Kouzelis typed on the outside.
It was so long since she had written under this pseudonym, and several months since she had received the latest reply from one of the paidópoleis. There were only two homes that had not yet responded and she had begun to resign herself to the idea that Nikos could be elsewhere and a new search might have to begin.
Themis took the letter, along with one for her grandmother with a German postmark, and climbed the stairs.
Angelos was cheerfully playing with Kyría Koralis. Small wooden bricks were laid out on the floor and they were building shapes together. Thanasis was yet to come home from work, so the scene was peaceful. When his uncle arrived, Angelos would want to play more boisterous games.
Those Who Are Loved Page 30