by Nadia Marks
14
The second night Calli spent in the village and in the old house was probably the first time that she had spent alone with her aunt without a crowd of relatives and friends around them. They sat at the table under the olive trees breathing the fragrant air which blew down from the hills mingling with the salty breeze from the shore and ate what Froso had prepared – Manolis’s freshly caught barbouni, fried in shallow oil just as Calli liked it, with thickly cut potato chips and served with the ever-present mixed salad of seasonal leaves.
‘These rocket leaves are so peppery, Thia,’ Calli said with her mouth full. ‘And these potatoes are just like Yiayia used to make them.’
‘How else did I learn to cook them, if not from my mother?’ her aunt replied, visibly pleased as she refilled Calli’s plate. ‘Your mother always loved them too when she was small. So happy that you are enjoying them, my girl.’
‘I’m not sure what size I’ll be by the time I leave here, but I’m very happy you cooked them for me,’ Calli laughed.
‘Would you like to go over and see Costis and Chrysanthi now?’ Froso asked after they finished their meal and cleared up. ‘It might be more fun for you there with the children than here with me.’
‘We are both going to see them all tomorrow, Auntie,’ Calli replied. ‘Tonight it’s just you and me, so let’s get the raki and some of your delicious glyko out now, please!’
The two women sat caressed by the evening breeze, enjoying the cool that comes with nightfall under a sky filled with more stars than Calli thought could be possible.
‘I always forget about how a moonless sky looks here,’ she told her aunt and took in a lungful of air.
Suddenly Thia Froso reached across the table and cupped her niece’s face with her palm. ‘Your mother has told me about what happened this past year, Calliope mou,’ she said, looking into the young woman’s eyes. ‘I am so sorry about what you have gone through, my beloved girl.’ Her aunt’s unprompted words and loving gesture caused a surge of emotion to rise in Calli’s throat. She swallowed hard and reached for her glass of raki.
‘Yes . . .’ she struggled to say and took a sip of the hot liquid, feeling it slide down her throat, releasing the tightness.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Froso asked gently.
Calli of course knew that her mother would have discussed the events of the past year with her sister but given the nature of her relationship with her aunt and the lack of communication with her, Calli herself had mentioned nothing of her troubles as yet. In many ways since leaving London she had hoped to escape from the sadness and had managed to do so despite the rush of emotions that had floated to the surface in Ikaria with Maya. However, Calli was beginning to understand that to face her sorrow was not the same as to wallow in it. She had found that out during her sessions with a therapist, realizing that the talking had actually encouraged the process of healing.
As Calli began to speak and her aunt sat quietly listening to her, she concluded that this was not unlike her therapy back in London. The only difference now was the warm night air and the several glasses of raki she was consuming, which were making her open up and talk more candidly than usual. She spoke of her worries that she might never have a child, and of the joy in discovering that she was pregnant, of James and his harshness, of her decision to keep her baby, and of her parents’ support and her grief after losing her baby girl. ‘We were going to call her Eleni, you know,’ she said, fighting back tears.
When Calli fell silent, Froso stood up and took her in her arms.
‘Oh, my girl,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Oh, my girl . . .’ she said again and sat heavily back in her chair. ‘There is no end to what we women have to suffer at the hands of men.’ Froso let out a deep sigh. ‘Eleni told me about what you went through but hearing it now from your mouth breaks my heart further.’
Calli looked at her aunt and wondered how many women she had known in her life who had gone through experiences like her own. ‘Life has always been hard on a woman,’ Froso repeated, ‘no matter how many years come to pass the story gets repeated.’ She sighed again and opened her mouth to say more, but changed her mind and remained silent.
‘What? What, Thia?’ Calli asked. ‘What were you going to say?’
‘Eh . . . no matter, another time,’ Froso said and started to get up. ‘The tune of the lament is always the same,’ she said, looking at her niece, ‘it’s only the words that differ.’
Calli reached for her aunt’s hand. ‘Thank you for listening,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘Life is upsetting, my girl,’ her thia said, picking up their glasses and plates from the table and placing them on a tray. ‘There is life and there is death but there is also joy, we must never forget that.’ She gazed at Calli fondly and started to head towards the kitchen door with the tray.
‘Tomorrow will be even hotter,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘so you must go for a swim, Calliope mou. You missed it today.’
Once again Froso was right; the sun had only just risen when Calli woke the next morning, yet the temperature seemed already higher than the day before. Did her aunt instinctively know what the weather was going to be like each day, she wondered, or did she consult her radio in the kitchen? Whichever it was, Froso was proving to be a good meteorologist.
Leaping out of bed, Calli threw open the wooden shutters, stretched her arms to banish sleep from her limbs and took a deep breath. No time today for her usual morning reverie; she would run straight to the sea for an early swim.
She dressed quickly, wearing her swimsuit under her sundress, and headed down the path towards the beach. This early hour was her favourite; people were hardly starting to stir in their homes and the few summer tourists from mainland Greece or from Heraklion would still be tucked up in their hotel beds. She walked unhurriedly towards the seafront, trying to decide if she would just take a dip or stay out for the whole morning. If she was going to spend the day at the beach, Calli preferred to continue along the shore towards some rocks jutting out into the sea. Climbing over them, she would reach on the other side a small secluded little enclave of a beach almost like a lagoon. Most people couldn’t be bothered to make the extra effort in the heat, preferring to take the easy option of lying under an umbrella belonging to the two or three cafes in front of the long beach. Once Calli made her way to her private enclave, she would spend the day undisturbed, swimming, reading, sunbathing, and even do some of the yoga moves that Paolo had so expertly taught her. Although at first she was uncertain about partaking in the yoga ritual of Ikaria, Paolo’s coaching and influence had changed her mind. From now she decided that each day she would dedicate a short time to doing her stretches. This morning, because of the early hour, the shore was deserted so she decided to stay closer to home; besides, the prospect of her aunt’s breakfast would soon be beckoning her back to the house.
She plunged into the cool refreshing water and swam vigorously for several minutes, then, covering her face with her straw hat, she lay back on her towel and surrendered her body to the early morning rays of the sun. The previous evening’s conversation with Thia Froso came to mind and she berated herself for not taking the opportunity to show more interest in her aunt’s health. She had called her mother to say that the situation was evidently not urgent, much to the relief of Eleni, who had been fretting about not being there. ‘Your dad’s gone and sprained his ankle and I really should stay with him,’ she told her daughter anxiously. ‘It’s OK, Mum, everything is under control,’ Calli reassured her, ‘no need to rush here.’ But all the same, despite her aunt’s reluctance to talk about herself, Calli still thought she should ask about Froso’s state of health. Last night would have been the time to do that, she told herself and made up her mind to raise the subject when she got back.
‘There you are! You are even more of an early bird than your mother,’ her aunt said as Calli walked into the kitchen. ‘Ready for some
eggs now?’ She pointed to the table laid out with breakfast.
‘There wasn’t a soul on the beach today,’ Calli replied, pulling up a chair. ‘I had it all to myself.’ She looked at her aunt and started to spread some butter on a slice of thickly cut bread.
‘The heat will drive them all out there soon enough,’ Froso replied, pouring out the coffee. Calli reached for her cup and breathed in its revitalizing aroma. ‘You are really spoiling me, Thia,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘You must let me do things for you, too, while I’m here.’ She glanced at her aunt over her cup, gauging if this was a good time to find out about her health.
‘I hear you haven’t been so well,’ she began. ‘But you look more than fine to me,’ she added quickly.
‘I am well enough, my girl, and even better now you are here,’ she replied and reached for her coffee, too.
‘Yes, Auntie, I am here!’ the young woman replied cheerfully, ‘and I’m not going anywhere for a while. I’m here to help you, and if you ever want to talk to me about anything, I am here for that too.’
‘I will, my girl. There is plenty of time for that – but now don’t forget we have things to do this morning after you finish your breakfast,’ she replied, reminding her niece that they had some obligatory visits to pay around the village.
Calli knew that on arrival in Crete one always had to spend some time paying visits to various relatives, calling from house to house. In the past, her mother told her, when a visitor arrived at the village the locals used to compete with each other on who should offer the most hospitality to the newcomer, even insisting on putting them up for the night, and would sometimes be offended if the visitor refused.
Although her cousin’s wife had arranged a big gathering that evening in her honour, Calli knew that there was no avoiding the individual house calls too and the last thing she wanted was to cause offence. By the time the two women returned home from their social rounds it was almost time for the midday meal.
‘What would you like for lunch?’ Froso asked Calli, who was stuffed with as many sweet delicacies, cups of coffee and home-made lemonades as she could endure. All that she could possibly manage or wanted now, she told her aunt, was to collapse into her bed for a long, well-deserved siesta.
The gathering at Chrysanthi and Costis’s house was a crowded affair with not only many of the relatives she had already visited that morning but also quite a few people she had never met.
‘Costis wants to show you off to some of his friends,’ Chrysanthi told her. ‘He is so proud of his talented cousin.’ She smiled broadly and ushered Calli towards a crowd of men tending to a fire in a stone-built barbecue at the edge of the garden. ‘They are getting ready to cook the pagithakia, the lamb chops.’ Chrysanthi pointed to a pile of meat ready for the hot coals. ‘Come, let me introduce you. Your cousin has been boasting about you, he’s even shown his friends your website.’
Should she be embarrassed, irritated or touched by Costis’s enthusiasm? In the end, Calli opted to ignore it.
As expected, Chrysanthi had gone to great lengths to prepare a feast for the party, and all the women and girls were busy laying everything out on long trestle tables under the vine canopy. Once again, more food was brought along by many of the guests and Calli thought that not since she was a child had she seen such a marvellous family celebration – but then again it had been so long since those days, perhaps she had forgotten.
‘Your cousin thinks highly of you,’ Michalis, one of Costis’s friends said after Chrysanthi introduced them. ‘I believe your work takes you all over the world. It must be very interesting.’
Standing in her cousin’s garden in the early evening light with a glass of chilled white wine in her hand, making polite conversation with a man she had never met before, talking about herself and her work, struck Calli as incongruous and amusing. Her memories of such events were always dominated by older relatives, parents, grandparents and old folk from the village who had known her from childhood. This was an altogether different crowd: much younger, around her age, men and women, some with young children who had all come to meet her.
‘I saw you walking to the beach today,’ Michalis continued as they stood by the barbecue. ‘Do you always go for a swim so early?’
‘The place was completely deserted this morning,’ she replied, surprised, having noticed no one apart from a couple of dogs and some cats out and about on her way to the sea.
‘I was just getting into my car to go to work, so you wouldn’t have seen me,’ he explained. He too liked to be up with the dawn, he told her, and would often start his day with a swim.
‘You’re so lucky to live in a place where you can plunge into the sea whenever you want to, especially before going to work,’ she said, remembering with distaste how she would often push herself to visit her gym’s chlorine-infused pool before starting her day in London.
‘I agree,’ he replied. ‘I feel that I’m blessed to live on this island. I wouldn’t change it for anything.’ He turned to gesture around him. ‘I used to live in the village over that way when I was a boy.’ He pointed to the mountains behind them. ‘That’s where I was born, but the sea beckoned me, so now I have the best of both.’
They were indeed blessed, Calli thought, those who lived on Crete: mountain or sea, you are never too far from either.
‘When did you move to the coast?’ she asked, her curiosity aroused.
‘First I moved to Heraklion, got a job there,’ Michalis replied, ‘but it didn’t suit me – too many people, too many buildings, not enough nature.’
She tried to guess what he did for a living. Chrysanthi had said that a couple of Costis’s friends had their own business and she tried to imagine what that might be. She observed him as he talked and decided he was handsome in an earthy sort of way: muscular arms, sunburned skin and wiry black hair – so different from Paolo with his slender suntanned limbs, yoga-honed body and smooth silky hair.
‘I’ve travelled a lot,’ Calli told him, ‘but this island, this landscape’ – she turned around to point towards the hills as he had done – ‘the people, the culture, are locked in my heart. If I was writing about Crete and I hadn’t been here before I think I’d be describing it as the land of mountains and canyons, sea and olive groves!’
‘It’s true, though don’t forget all those ancient sites too.’ He smiled. ‘But, yes, I’d agree. In fact, these olive groves are my passion and my life’s work.’
His passion, he told her, was his acres of olive plantations. His work, he explained, was running his small but prolific olive-oil distillery near the village of his birth, some twenty kilometres from the sea. ‘My father and grandfather had a few olive groves and we used to produce oil just for the family. Then I decided to come back and take on the business and develop it further. Cretan olive oil is the best in the world, you know,’ he said with pride. She didn’t disagree; she knew that Greek olive oil was superb, and if Michalis considered his island’s to be the best then so be it. ‘I always bring several bottles for your thia, when we make the first pressing; she says my oil is the only one to her liking.’
‘I know she loves her olive oil,’ Calli replied.
‘I bring a bottle to all the friends in the village when we do our first pressing but for Kyria Froso I bring more.’ As he talked, Calli could see Michalis’s pride and pleasure written all over his face and in his eyes. His eyes, she thought, were as deeply black and bright as those beloved olives of his.
As it was a Saturday evening with no work the next day, the party continued until the early hours of the morning. Once the eating was finished and the plates and food had been cleared away, the tables were moved to one side, the musical instruments were brought out, and then the singing and dancing began.
‘Who is going to feel like getting up for church tomorrow?’ one of the old uncles called out, laughing raucously as he poured himself another shot of raki.
‘You will!’ his wife said, snatching the bottl
e away from him, ‘because I’ll be getting you out of bed whether you like it or not.’
Calli, who had learned some of the traditional dances, was able to join in with the women. Linking arms, they danced in a circle to the tune of an old Cretan melody and the intoxicating combination of drums, laouto – lute – and the unmistakable sound of the Cretan lyra. Some dances, Calli knew, could traditionally be performed only by men; one of these was the Pentozali, a very old dance which was said to hark back to ancient times when it had originated as a war dance. According to one myth, it had been performed by the war hero Achilles, who danced around the funeral pyre of Patroclus, his beloved friend and wartime companion. Another story she was told about the dance was that it symbolized the five attempts of Cretans to liberate their island from the Ottomans, hence the dance’s name Pentozali, which translates as ‘five steps’. Calli had always loved these ancient myths and legends, learning about such stories, and as she watched the men follow the intricate steps of the dance with its athletic, acrobatic moves she could easily understand why it should be considered a war dance. The men, standing boldly in a line and holding one another firmly by the shoulders, oozed raw combative masculinity. They stood upright and proud, following the music with intricate foot movements – apparently a warning to the enemy – progressively picking up speed, becoming more hectic as they kept up with the pace of the instruments. Michalis was among the dancers and Calli watched him as he took his turn to move to the front of the line to lead the dance, his limbs and body gyrating to the frenzied rhythm of the music by leaping and jumping in an impossible show of fitness.
Once again, as she stood watching among the other onlookers, Calli felt a sense of belonging, a sense of place. She was filled with gratitude to be able to immerse herself in the joy of the moment, without the niggling sense of responsibility when someone she was with was not having fun. Smiling to herself, she looked across the room at all the faces, young and old, family and strangers, breathed a sigh of relief, and joined in with the rhythmic clapping of the bystanders.