Finally, she was to meet Aliki’s son.
Themis could scarcely keep up with the secretary as she marched down a series of long corridors. They passed a huge refectory where the children were eating, a series of classrooms and a laundry before reaching the dormitory. Here, Themis saw rows of closely packed bunk beds with a grey blanket neatly folded at the end of each mattress. There were neither curtains nor blinds. It was unwelcoming, uncomfortable, and reminiscent of the camp at Bulkes. It lacked even the subtlest hint that it was a place for children to sleep. Her mind travelled to the colourful quilted counterpane and the toys that lived on top of Angelos’ little cot.
What Themis had not noticed when she walked in was a small figure in the shadows beneath a bed.
‘Nikos!’ said the secretary, in a tone that combined kindness with threat. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
The boy cowered further, hiding his face in the crook of his arm.
‘Come on, Nikos,’ the woman said more sternly. ‘That’s enough. Come out now!’
She bent down to pull the child out, dragging first one skinny leg and then another, slapping his thigh hard when he resisted.
‘You’re leaving!’ she said with a note of triumph.
With these words, he immediately stopped struggling. It seemed to Themis that this news suited both the child and the staff.
As he was dragged into the light, Themis found herself looking into two dark pools of the deepest brown. She suppressed a gasp of recognition. The lack of hair somehow accentuated the magnitude of his eyes. They were his father’s and her reaction to them was visceral. He reminded her of Makris but, more importantly, his features strongly resembled Angelos’.
To Nikos, she was a total stranger, but to Themis, Nikos seemed like someone she had always known.
She had to resist the urge to take him in her arms and instead got down on one knee so that they could look each other in the eye.
Nikos stared at her with a boldness she had not expected. It was somewhere between defiance, insolence and curiosity.
‘We’re going to live in a new city together,’ she said, resisting the temptation to introduce herself as his aunt. ‘I’m taking you to live in a nice place with your great-grandmother and uncle too.’
She did not want to tell lies, but a little fabrication was essential.
The child did not speak.
‘Collect your things,’ said the secretary.
‘I haven’t got any things,’ he said sullenly.
‘Your clothes, then,’ the woman snapped back, casting a friendly smile at Themis in case she might be giving the wrong impression of herself.
Nikos reached under the bed, pulled out a small metal box and opened it. There was a woollen pullover inside which he took out and tied round his waist. It was obvious that he had been disciplined to do this. To Themis, it made him seem very grown up.
Themis asked him if there was anyone to whom he wished to say goodbye but he shook his head. It appeared that he had no friends and no affection for the staff.
To her relief, the child willingly left this place that had been his home for several years. Without emotion and without hesitation, he took Themis’ hand and walked with her along the marble corridors, to the main entrance and out through the gates. As they left, the director gave them a cheerful wave through his window. He then drew the curtains to protect his furniture from the sun.
Themis had already checked on the bus times back to Thessaloniki and they had an hour or two to kill, so she took Nikos for something to eat.
The child was quiet. She had not expected him to be otherwise but all that mattered to her now was that he held tightly on to her hand, full of trust, full of confidence that she was taking him to a better place. His willingness gratified her and soothed her anxieties.
They sat in a small restaurant where he hungrily devoured some stuffed vegetables, his face bent over his plate as if someone might snatch it away.
Themis chatted to him and for the first time mentioned that he would soon be meeting his little brother.
Nikos did not react to anything she said and it was hard to tell if he was even listening. Occasionally, the large brown eyes looked up at her but seemed to register very little. Soon he had finished eating and they got on the bus towards Thessaloniki.
Between their arrival back in the city and the departure of their train to Athens, they had another hour and Themis spotted a department store close to the station. She wanted to get him out of his baggy paidópoli uniform and into his own clothes.
The child became more talkative once they were in the shop.
‘These aren’t really mine,’ he said, tugging at his pullover. ‘Every week they leave something clean on the bed. Sometimes my clothes are tight, sometimes they’re too big.’
Themis had noticed that he had to keep hitching up his shorts. They were obviously made for a much bigger boy.
‘Well, let’s get you something that’s meant for you,’ she said. ‘Do you have a favourite colour?’
The little boy shrugged. There was not a huge amount of choice, but they found some trousers that he could roll up for now and a few shirts in different colours that fitted him. On the way out of the shop, Themis discreetly left the old clothes in a bin.
For the first time that day, Nikos looked afraid when they reached the station.
‘It’s a monster,’ he said, clinging to Themis with fear. The train was belching out huge clouds of steam.
After some persuasion, he believed Themis’ promise that he would be safe with her and allowed her to lift him up on to the step. They quickly settled in their seats and moments later they were on their way. It was early evening and almost immediately Nikos fell asleep.
Themis studied his face. With his long lashes touching his cheek, he reminded her so much of Angelos. The main difference was his hair. It was closely shaved, just as the heads of all the boys back in the paidópoli. She could not resist stroking the soft pelt and the child did not stir. For many hours he remained curled up beside her, like a contented cat, with her hand resting on his back. Little Nikos.
When it got light, Nikos spent much of the time looking out of the window. He seemed interested in everything they saw: horses, cows and even goats were creatures that he had only seen in books until now.
When the moment seemed right to Themis, she brought up once again the notion that he was going to have a brother. He looked at her almost blankly. Perhaps until they reached Patissia this was beyond his comprehension so she decided to let the matter rest and reached into her bag. Before leaving home, Themis had found some of her favourite fairy stories from childhood and now read and then reread them at Nikos’ request. He was eager and excited about being told a story and after a while, she began to make them up, so hungry was he for more tales of gods and goddesses and mysterious creatures of the deep. By the time he fell asleep again, she was beginning to get to know this strange and beautiful little boy.
It was very late at night when the train drew into Larisis Station in Athens. Nikos woke up disorientated, as if disturbed from a bad dream, and began to cry inconsolably.
‘Where am I? Where am I?’ he screamed, thrashing his arms against Themis. ‘I don’t know who you are! Take me home! Now! Take me home!’
He shrieked as if he had been kidnapped and other passengers on the train began to look at Themis, some with suspicion.
‘Nikos, calm down, agápi mou,’ she said gently, fending off his flailing arms. ‘I’m Themis, remember?’
The boy’s tears subsided a little.
‘And we’re going home to meet your little brother. We’re nearly there, in Athens.’
The child sniffed loudly, wiping his tears on the sleeve of his new shirt and catching his breath again as his sobs subsided.
‘Do you remember? We left the paidópoli, and now we’re going home . . .?’
Themis held her breath for a moment. One couple in particular was glaring at her. The spe
ctre of child-snatching was not uncommon, especially after the twin controversies of some children being taken into communist countries and others being unwillingly put into the paidopóleis. Themis well knew that this was on their minds.
Nikos seemed to recall the situation now and let Themis put a protective arm around him. It was time to get off and Themis threw their bags down on to the platform, stepped down herself and then held out her hands to help him jump.
‘Bravo, agápi mou,’ she smiled. ‘Not far to go now.’
The last bus across the city had left and there was a single taxi waiting outside the station, which she hailed. It was a first for her, as well as for Nikos.
Nikos pressed his nose right against the window and then turned to Themis, amused at the way the glass had steamed up. At last, she thought, he is smiling.
The fare finished every last drachma that Kyría Koralis had put in Themis’ purse and, in the early hours, she put her key in the lock. She and Nikos were ‘home’.
She noticed him looking around almost with suspicion and realised that the apartment must seem small and dark after the large, high-ceilinged spaces of the paidópoli.
Not wanting to wake anyone, she sat Nikos down on one of the armchairs and warmed up some milk. She tucked a rug around the child as he sipped from a cup. Within the next few hours, there were new encounters for him to face and she had real anxieties about them all.
Angelos was sleeping with her grandmother and she did not want to disturb them so she and Nikos went to sleep on the couch.
At around six in the morning, a door banged and Nikos immediately sat up.
Thanasis limped into the room. Without his stick, his gait was even more lopsided and, in the half-light, with his twisted body and misshapen face, he instilled terror into Nikos.
The child’s scream woke Themis.
‘I’m so sorry, Thanasis,’ she said sleepily. ‘I didn’t expect you to be up so early.’
‘What difference does it make?’
He walked over to the stove and clumsily began making himself coffee, feigning indifference to the strange child sobbing in his sister’s lap. As he poured the foaming liquid into a cup, he turned round and spoke to Themis again.
‘So you found him?’
The question did not require an answer but Themis wanted to introduce Nikos properly.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Come on, Nikos. Let’s say good morning to your Uncle Thanasis.’
The past few years in the paidópoli had given Nikos the experience to recognise modulations in the adult voice. It was in his interest to do what he was told when he heard certain tones, so he put aside his reluctance and faced the man who had terrified him just a moment ago.
Thanasis stared at the child with undisguised disgust. Nikos was a wisp of a child, pale and almost bald.
‘So you’re the new one?’ he said with contempt. ‘Let’s see how Angelos takes to you, shall we?’
Themis clung to the hope that Nikos might not understand the implication behind her brother’s words. He addressed the little boy as though he was a stray dog, a mongrel, a ‘bastardaki’. She managed to contain her rage and held tightly on to the boy’s hand.
‘We’ll be meeting Angelos as soon as he wakes up,’ she said cheerily to the child. ‘It won’t be long now.’
She cast a look of scorn at her brother, who was slowly stirring his coffee.
‘I’m sure they’ll get on well,’ she said to Thanasis, adding under her breath, ‘Better than some siblings, anyway.’
Kyría Koralis came in a moment later and the tension was immediately defused.
‘So this is little Nikos!’ she said with enthusiasm, scurrying over to take a closer look at him. ‘I’m so happy we found you!’
Nikos smiled, sensing her genuine kindness, and the two women formed a protective wall around him, as if to keep him safe.
Thanasis left for work soon afterwards and Kyría Koralis went to wake Angelos.
Holding Nikos’ left hand and Angelos’ right, Themis put them face to face.
‘Angelos, this is your brother, Nikos. Nikos, your brother, Angelos.’
Nikos understood the idea of brothers and sisters. There had been several boys in the paidópoli who had them and this special connection was something he had envied.
Angelos, on the other hand, did not really understand what his mother meant, but he sensed that the arrival of another boy was going to change his life.
The boys looked at each other silently and suspiciously.
Angelos tried to hide behind his mother and for a few days his constant chatter stopped. He did not want to eat.
‘What am I going to do?’ Themis asked her grandmother despairingly.
The change came when Nikos created a game. When Thanasis was out of the house, the women gave the older boy the freedom to play how he wished, remembering that he was accustomed to the expanses of the paidópoli. One day he created a game with a secret hideaway. It was constructed with a rug and a sheet and both boys disappeared into the camp with Angelos’ toy cars. Their muffled chatter and laughter continued long into the afternoon. Kyría Koralis delivered a small picnic to what Nikos called their ‘cave’ and both women were delighted when the game continued the next day and the one after, and the camp became a semi-permanent structure in the living room.
From that moment, the boys were firm friends.
Even Thanasis begrudgingly admitted that Nikos was a welcome addition to the family. ‘He keeps the little one entertained, doesn’t he?’
Early one evening, Themis was drying the dishes. She watched with near disbelief as Thanasis settled the boys on either side of him on the arms of his chair. Both of them were giggling and excited. Within a few weeks of leaving the paidópoli, Nikos’ hair had grown and corkscrew curls had begun to emerge. The two little boys had never looked more like brothers than at this moment.
Thanasis began to read to them. Filled with something close to joy, Themis left the room and watched through a crack in the door.
Chapter Twenty-One
1954
THE FOLLOWING YEAR, Nikos began school and they all walked together, there and back each day. It was the same institution that all the Koralis children had attended, but over the years it had become even scruffier than before.
On the way home, each morning Themis took a route through Fokionos Negri so that she could go to the laikí agorá, the vegetable market where produce was sold by the farmers coming in from the countryside. One day, she saw a familiar figure: Giorgos Stavridis. With the arrival of Nikos, he had slipped to the back of her mind but now that she saw him again, she recalled the warmth of their last meeting more than a year before.
Giorgos was sitting at a table outside the same café where they had drunk coffee together that time and, suddenly feeling bold, she approached him.
Angelos trotted behind.
‘Themis!’ Giorgos cried out with pleasure and surprise. ‘And little Angelos! H-h-how he’s grown!’
‘Can we sit for a moment?’ asked Themis.
‘Of course, of c-c-course! And what can I get you? I know what the young man would like!’
‘But it’s . . .’
Themis was about to say that it was too early for ice cream, but Giorgos had already ordered. The coffee was on its way too.
‘So h-h-how are you?’ asked Giorgos, leaning forward. ‘Themis, tell me h-h-how you are.’
Themis felt slightly uncomfortable beneath the intensity of his gaze. The way he asked was not in the style of someone simply passing the time of day.
‘I . . . we . . . we are all well, thank you,’ she answered. ‘And how are you? It’s been so long.’
Giorgos did not hide his pleasure at seeing her.
‘I have been h-h-hoping to see you. Ever s-s-since that last time. I h-h-hoped I would see you again.’
Themis was flustered and felt the need to make an excuse.
‘We haven’t been taking many walks,’ she said. �
�And even now, we’re just walking through on our way home from school.’
‘But your little f-f-fellow is too young for school, isn’t he?’
Themis had not intended to introduce the subject of Nikos, but now she would have to. In any case, she found herself questioning the idea of keeping any information back. The kindly Giorgos seemed genuinely interested in the answers to his questions.
She sent Angelos off to pat the stone dog and from where they were sitting she could keep an eye on him as he ran about with another small boy. Themis told Giorgos of the latest development in her life, but followed the same story that both Nikos and Angelos would be told: that Nikos had been taken from her some time before his younger brother had been born. Themis could see that Giorgos made no judgement of her.
As soon as the ice cream was served, she called Angelos back to the table and told him to eat it as fast as he could. She had realised that she was going to be late home. She must get to the market, go back to the apartment, do some chores and return to collect Nikos from school. The time had flown.
‘Themis,’ said Giorgos with a hint of urgency in his voice, ‘I r-r-really must meet you again.’
The timid child had grown into a shy man and Themis could see that it had cost him a lot to express this. She realised that she wanted to see him again too, and this time she gave him her address.
‘Goodbye, Giorgos,’ she said, hastily putting on her coat. ‘Thank you again for the coffee. And for the ice cream, of course.’
They shook hands rather formally and, as everyone did, Giorgos patted Angelos on the head. Nobody could resist the urge to touch his profuse and bouncy curls.
A week went by before a handwritten note addressed to Themis appeared in the Koralis pigeon-hole. It was from Giorgos suggesting that they go to the cinema. His proposal was a film starring a newly popular actress, Aliki Vougiouklaki. There was an early-evening showing, which meant that they would have time for a coffee afterwards.
For many months Themis had done little but play with the boys and do domestic chores, so she accepted with alacrity.
When the day arrived she got ready with great excitement, admitting to herself that it was more than just the change of routine that she was looking forward to. She brushed her hair carefully and Kyría Koralis came into her room with an old powder compact and some rouge of Margarita’s that she had kept. Very cautiously, Themis applied it to her cheeks before leaving to meet Giorgos.
Those Who Are Loved Page 32