The film lived up to both their expectations. The light-hearted plot and the freshness of the delightful, bubbly actress, who was already the talk of the town, took Themis’ mind away from everything but the present. When they parted company that evening, they agreed that it would be lovely to meet again soon.
A few months went by and they met several times, often going to the cinema or theatre. They enjoyed each other’s company but never allowed conversation to reach too far beneath the surface. One day, Giorgos suggested that they meet for dinner in a central Athens restaurant. It was April, and the excuse he used was that it was his Saint’s Day.
Themis had no hesitation in accepting but as soon as she got home, she fretted.
‘Yiayiá, I have nothing to wear!’ she said. She realised that she wanted something special.
The shops were beginning to fill with summer dresses and, the following day, with some drachmas pressed into her hand by her grandmother, Themis went to a local shop and bought a sapphire-blue dress. The colour of the fabric with the reddish hue of her hair was a striking combination. The sales assistant assured her it suited her, but she was not the only one that thought so.
When Giorgos saw Themis arrive for dinner a few days later, he almost gasped at the sight of her. On the other occasions when he had seen her, including several when she had not even been aware of it, she had been dressed in worn, dowdy clothes that might even have been her grandmother’s.
The blue dress transformed her but it was not just what she was wearing that captivated him. It was the smile she gave him as she approached.
Once the greetings were over and they had chosen what they were going to eat, Themis accepted the offer of a glass of wine. She hoped it would calm her nerves.
It was the first time that they had several hours to talk face to face and Themis had decided that she had to trust this man and tell him more about her past few years.
She did not conceal from Giorgos that she had fought in the communist army and was open about her period of imprisonment. She even found herself explaining her beliefs, proud of what she had done for her cause. If this man disapproved then their friendship would have no future in any case.
She was pleased that he listened with rapt interest to everything she told him and accepted without comment that Themis was bringing her two boys up alone.
The waiter came and went and, each time he approached, Themis was careful to lower her voice. There was still a great deal of stigma attached to ‘people like her’ (as Thanasis so often pointed out). Her record was held somewhere on file, just as Anna Kouzelis’ had been.
‘There m-m-might be things in my past that you won’t like, Themis,’ said Giorgos, just after the waiter had cleared their plates.
Themis was aware that Giorgos’ family had not supported the left (how else would they all be civil servants?) and leaned forwards. It was her turn to listen now.
‘I was c-c-conscripted into the government army,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘And I fought on Grammos.’
It was hard to imagine Giorgos, this mild, gentle person, fighting in the vicious final battle. Thousands of leftists had died in the course of it, among them her own brother Panos.
There was a moment’s pause.
‘We all have a past,’ Themis said eventually, for want of something else to say. ‘And it can’t be changed.’
Themis’ hand lay on the table and Giorgos reached out to cover it with his own.
‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘We can’t change history but we can try to move f-f-forward.’
‘That’s easier for some people than others,’ said Themis, avoiding Giorgos’ gaze. ‘I feel I lost so much.’
‘Yes!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘But look what you g-g-gained!’
She knew immediately what he meant. Life without the two boys would be unimaginable now. Without the events of these past years they would not even be sitting in this restaurant, at this moment, with the cheerful chatter around them, the clatter of crockery, the chink of glasses. Nothing would be as this.
Giorgos, perhaps never bolder than at this moment, grasped Themis’ hand so tightly that she almost winced.
With resolution, his stammer momentarily gone, he spoke even more earnestly than usual.
‘Themis, I must say something to you. It cannot wait . . . I cannot wait.’
Giorgos hesitated for a fraction of a second before continuing with ever greater haste, his words spilling out more fluently than Themis could ever have imagined.
‘I want you to be my wife,’ he said. ‘Will you be my wife? Will you m-m-marry me?’
Themis was dumbfounded. The proposal was so unexpected that she could not for a moment even speak. She had already admitted to herself that she liked this man a great deal, but she had not dared to hope for reciprocal feelings on his side. Why would a man from such a family wish to connect himself so publicly with someone like her? Marriage had seemed an unlikely prospect, but to such a kind man, impossible.
As soon as she had regained her composure, she said the first thing that came into her mind.
‘But you haven’t even met Nikos!’
As soon as she said it, she realised that this was a minor obstacle and immediately qualified her words.
‘But we can meet you after school tomorrow. Or whenever is convenient for you.’
Giorgos smiled. Themis had acknowledged, without even being conscious of it, that she had accepted the proposal.
As they left the restaurant, Themis took Giorgos’ arm. It felt nice to lean on someone, albeit subtly, and beneath her fingers she was aware of the fine wool fabric of his suit.
A few days later, when Giorgos could arrange to have some hours off work, Themis walked through Fokionos Negri with Nikos on their route back from school. Without telling her why, she had asked Kyría Koralis if she could leave Angelos with her. The old lady had her suspicions but said nothing.
Themis and Nikos stopped at what they already called their ‘usual’ café. Giorgos was waiting for them.
Nikos was sullen. He did not like a departure from the usual routine of walking straight home for lunch and would not grant Giorgos even a cursory greeting.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Themis mimed to Giorgos, embarrassed by the child’s surly behaviour.
‘D-d-don’t worry . . .’ said Giorgos, before turning to the child. ‘N-N-Nikos, d-d-do you like numbers or letters best?’
‘Numbers,’ answered the child sulkily.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘S-s-so do I.’
Once they had ordered something to drink, Giorgos produced from his pocket a pack of playing cards and laid a few out on the table. Nikos began to take more interest.
‘Now p-p-pick a card,’ said Giorgos, fanning out a dozen of them, face down.
Nikos slid one out and studied it before returning it to Giorgos as instructed.
‘Remember that c-c-card, won’t you?’
Nikos nodded.
The card was duly replaced in the main body of the pack and Giorgos splayed them all out again, this time face up.
‘C-c-can you see it?’
Nikos shook his head, glancing up at Themis.
‘I wonder where it is,’ she responded, joining in with the conspiracy.
Nikos shrugged.
‘Take a look in my p-p-pocket.’
Nikos leaned towards Giorgos and there in his breast pocket he spotted the Jack of Diamonds. Giorgos pulled it out.
‘That’s my card!’ said Nikos, totally bemused.
Giorgos performed several more tricks after that, impressing Themis as much as the child. She was immensely touched, knowing that he must have brought the cards specially to entertain the boy. He had, of course, brought them to woo her too.
Nikos was enthralled. This man in a smart suit, whom he had never met before, was a magician and he was performing just for him, every sleight of hand more extraordinary than the one before.
Within half an hour, the child was jumping up
and down with excitement, squealing with delight each time there was a ‘reveal’.
‘More! More!’ he cried, when Giorgos paused to drink his coffee.
‘I c-c-can do one more,’ he said. ‘But we must ask your mother first.’
‘Just one more,’ said Themis, smiling. ‘But after that, we must go home.’
‘Why?’ he protested.
‘Because Angelos will be waiting for us, agápi mou.’
Giorgos performed a final trick and Nikos was allowed to keep the Queen of Hearts. She had been the key card.
‘You l-l-look after her,’ said Giorgos. ‘And let me have her b-b-back the next time we meet.’
Themis looked across at Giorgos and realised he was smiling at her.
When they got home, Nikos reported with excitement what had happened and showed Kyría Koralis the card. Then, as they often did, the four of them sat round the radio and listened to a story from ‘Aunt Lena’. As always, the popular broadcaster read with a blend of magic and innocence and lulled the children to sleepiness, one boy wrapped in the embrace of his great-grandmother, the other curled up against Themis. It was the most peaceful hour of the day.
That evening, when the boys had gone to bed, Themis told her grandmother that she was going to get married.
‘Mátia mou, this is wonderful news. To that lovely man Giorgos? I am so happy for you,’ she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Thank you, Yiayiá,’ replied Themis. ‘He will make such a good father to these boys. He was so kind with Nikos today . . .’
‘I gathered,’ smiled the old lady. ‘He talked of nothing but Kýrios Stavridis today.’
There was a small pause before Kyría Koralis added: ‘Perhaps one day you’ll have a child together?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Themis. ‘At this moment it seems a miracle to have found someone to love the ones I have.’
They had not heard Thanasis come in. He was usually home before the boys went to bed but tonight an excess of paperwork had kept him there late.
‘Your sister is getting married!’ Kyría Koralis blurted out with excitement, before Themis had the chance to restrain her. ‘To a very nice man, I must tell you!’
Thanasis, for so long starved of such love and deprived even of its shadow, had to congratulate his sister. As he did so, his true thoughts and fears came spilling out.
‘The boys . . .’ he said, with undisguised sorrow. ‘Will I lose the boys?’
Themis suddenly felt unutterable sadness for her brother, a man who was unlikely ever to have children of his own.
‘Of course you won’t lose them,’ she reassured him. ‘I don’t even want to move from here . . .’
‘I will miss them if you do,’ he said almost pleadingly.
Themis was surprised that her brother articulated such a thought. It was so unlike him to express any emotion other than anger, though even that was less frequent these days. As she lay awake that night contemplating the future, she realised that Angelos and Nikos accepted their uncle in a way that no one else did. Only on first sight had they reacted to his scars and wounds, but now to them he was simply Uncle Thanasis. Her brother’s political views annoyed her as much as ever, but his affection for the children had done much to reconcile her to him.
Themis was adamant that she and the boys should stay in the square. She did not want to leave her grandmother and Thanasis. A solution was easily found. An apartment on the floor below, next to Kyría Papadimitriou, had been empty for several years. The owner had five adult children and none of them wanted it. The boys could each have his own room there.
Giorgos needed no persuading that this should be their home. His sole desire was to please the woman he loved. With minimum redecoration, they made it their own and in no time the apartment on the second floor was almost indistinguishable from the one on the third, with similar solid, dark furniture, lace table-coverings and traditional rugs. Kyría Koralis insisted that they take the big mahogany table as she and Thanasis would not really need anything so large, now that there were just the two of them. Everything was made ready so that they would be able to move in as soon as they were married.
There was no reason to delay the wedding, apart from a few more introductions to members of Giorgos’ family: firstly his widowed father and then his sisters. Themis knew that they did not approve of their brother marrying someone who already had children, but Giorgos dismissed their questions about the boys’ father, which was easy, given how little he knew himself.
‘Themis is a widow,’ he told them. ‘And once we are married they will become my children.’
Within a month of Giorgos’ proposal, the date for the marriage was set. As she prepared for it, she felt very lucky that she had met such a man and that her sons would have a father to bring them up – not just any man, but a kind and loving one. The boys adored him and she could see that he would be the perfect father. Of course, she loved Giorgos too – and appreciated the affection and security that he offered to them all.
It was October and a fine, sunny morning when they set off to the nearby church. Themis wore a teal-blue silk dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a crown of white roses in her hair. Giorgos had a dark suit. The boys, both with unruly mops of dark curls now, wore silver-grey suits and white shirts. Nikos refused to wear the jacket except when the photographs were being taken.
Kyría Koralis told everyone that it was the happiest day of her life and wore a turquoise dress to celebrate it. She remembered the day of her only son’s wedding and how he had come to her on the morning and sobbed in her arms. He knew that he was doing the wrong thing. He did not love Eleftheria. It was too late to stop the wedding and she assured him that in time he would love her and that such financial security was not to be thrown away. As she looked at her granddaughter now, glowing with happiness, and the smart groom who stood next to her, she knew that this was a very different kind of couple.
Thanasis was the koumbáros, the best man, a gesture that touched Themis very deeply, and her brother carried out his duties with immense diligence and pride. Giorgos’ father, Andreas, was a little stiff at first, but enjoyed talking to Thanasis and eventually relaxed, as did his Uncle Spiros. Both his sisters and their families came (the children were told, under no circumstances, to stare at Thanasis) and a few of his colleagues from the tax office. They also invited Kyría Papadimitriou and she attended with her sister. There was no reply to the invitation sent to Margarita, and Themis assumed it had never reached her. After the formalities were done with, they walked to a taverna in Fokionos Negri. One of Giorgos’ brothers-in-law was from Crete and played the lyra, so at midnight there was singing and other people in the taverna joined in with some dancing.
Immediately after the wedding, the four of them moved into their new apartment. The balcony was directly below Kyría Koralis’ so they even knew when she tended her plants, as the water dripped down on to theirs. They would call up to tease her and then the conversation would continue. The boys still had free rein to go in and out of their former home to play with Uncle Thanasis and spent plenty of time running up and down the stairs.
Giorgos began the process of officially adopting the boys as his own. His father had been in the civil service so he was able to expedite this through former colleagues and he asked Themis no further questions about the father, regarding his ignorance as a benefit.
Once paperwork was in order, then anything could become fact, and history could be rewritten. In some situations, Themis would have disapproved of this, but where her sons were concerned, she was grateful for it.
On one of their first evenings together in the new home, when the boys were both asleep, Themis and Giorgos were eating at the old table. Conversation turned to the past in a way that they had avoided before.
Giorgos admitted that he had hated fighting next to men who boasted of their former collaboration with the Germans.
‘We were r-r-resting one night after a long march and this old v
eteran showed me something that made me retch. On the inside of his uniform he had p-p-pinned a Nazi badge. He said he had traded it with a German officer for some tsípouro towards the end of the occupation. He was p-p-proud of it, Themis, but I tell you, the s-s-sight of that swastika so close up, and on a man I was fighting with, was a shock. But what c-c-could I do?’
‘We all have things in the past that make us ashamed,’ Themis reassured him, putting her hand on his. ‘I try not to think of the first time I killed . . . how young he was . . . whether I could have avoided it . . .’
Giorgos could hear the catch in his wife’s throat. It was not the last time they would quietly share such things.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ON THE EVENING of their first wedding anniversary, Giorgos pushed a small package across the table towards Themis. He watched as she released the red satin bow, and removed the paper and carefully opened the jeweller’s box. It was a watch, the first she had ever owned, and Giorgos wound it for her and then put it on her wrist.
Giorgos told Themis that at the moment when he spotted her after so many years in Fokionos Negri he had felt that time stood still.
‘I was certain even then that I was meant to marry you and look after you.’
Themis kissed him.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’
This man was her plátanos, her plane tree, and she felt lucky to have such protection and shade. Sometimes when she looked at the wedding photograph that stood on the dresser, it seemed that a miracle had happened.
She had something she wanted to tell him too. It was the news that she was expecting their first child.
‘That’s the best gift you could ever give me,’ said Giorgos, taking Themis into his arms.
Anna was born in the summer of 1957 just as the school term was ending. Angelos had completed his first year and was a bright and eager pupil. Nikos, on the other hand, was being very rebellious and refusing to do his homework.
Those Who Are Loved Page 33