One Summer in Crete

by Nadia Marks

  Over the blue waters of the Aegean sea,

  Where the dove-white islands lie

  Rose petals fall from the sky

  With each flutter of their wings

  As the Angels fly by.

  She lay in bed for a little longer, softly singing along with the music that drifted through the window as her mother’s and aunt’s voices had done earlier that morning. This time, though, she didn’t hesitate to go downstairs to join them; on the contrary, she looked forward to being in their company.

  ‘Yiasou, Calliope mou!’ Froso called, the first to greet her again as she came through the kitchen door to join them in the garden. As before, the two sisters were sitting over their coffee, refreshed and cheerful after their afternoon sleep.

  ‘Sorry if we woke you with the radio, but if you slept any longer you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight,’ her mother told her.

  ‘I think I woke myself up,’ Calli smiled. ‘I was singing in my sleep, would you believe!’ She gave a little chuckle and bent to give her mother and aunt a kiss. ‘I do believe the angels are circling above us in more ways than in the song,’ she said and pulled up a chair next to Eleni.

  ‘How was your day, Calli mou?’ her mother asked eagerly. ‘Did the guys give you a nice time?’

  ‘Yes, Mum . . . they did . . .’ she replied with a certain hesitation. Giving a long sigh, she leaned back on her chair.

  ‘Want to talk about it?’ Eleni asked and reached for her daughter’s hand. She had been concerned about her since that morning. She knew her girl well: Calli wasn’t usually one to avoid talking about whatever preoccupied her and her earlier evasive behaviour was uncharacteristic.

  Calli sat in silence for a while. Then she reached for the jug of water on the table, poured herself a glass and took a sip. She looked in turn at her mother and aunt.

  ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’ she asked them.

  Froso’s reply came back immediately, a little too loud and with no hesitation or pause. ‘Yes!’ she said, causing Eleni to turn to her in surprise.

  ‘What about you, Mum?’ Calli asked.

  ‘I do too!’ she replied, her eyes still fixed on her sister. ‘I believe it’s real.’ She turned to look at her daughter. ‘The minute I saw your father, I knew he was the one. In fact, I knew before I saw him,’ she said, alluding to her psychic qualities.

  ‘So, my girl . . .’ Froso said leaning forward to reach for Calli’s hand. ‘Are you in love?’

  ‘I think so, Thia . . . I’ve never felt this way before, it’s so unexpected.’

  ‘But evidently not with Michalis?’ Eleni added. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Was it that obvious?’ Calli asked, leaning her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

  ‘Yes!’ the two women replied in unison. ‘I thought you were so taken with Michalis,’ Eleni said, ‘and he with you . . .’

  ‘I was and I am, but not in that way . . . Oh God, I don’t know . . . it’s so confusing.’ Calli sat back and lifted her arms in the air in a gesture of exasperation. ‘I honestly thought I was falling in love with Michalis . . . Oh, why are we so complicated? Why, why can’t things be simple?’

  ‘Things are never simple, my girl,’ Froso replied, ‘because we are human and because our heart tells us the truth, and because when Eros strikes we are done for!’

  ‘Does Nicos feel the same?’ her mother asked.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I only really know what I feel . . . but I believe so.’

  12

  Once Calli had spoken the words out loud, and acknowledged the true emotions that had led her in this startling new direction, she decided she had to find out if Nicos felt the same. As she told her mother, she was of the generation of women that didn’t have to wait for a man to declare their intentions, it was as much her right and responsibility as his.

  However, the next few times when they met it was, as always, in the company of Michalis too. What she longed for was time alone with Nicos, to be given the opportunity to assess and find out how he felt towards her. She found that being with both brothers at the same time was making her feel awkward, tongue-tied, confused, even disloyal towards Michalis. A niggling feeling was quietly nagging at her, telling her she had to talk to Michalis, that she owed him an explanation.

  The longer she spent in Nicos’s company the more her emotions towards him intensified, making her all the more anxious to know how he felt. She tried to judge what the main component of her attraction towards him was and why he was having such a strong impact on her in comparison to his brother. Michalis was just as attractive, she mused, just as charming and intelligent, yet it was Nicos who had got under her skin, or on her skin, she thought with amusement, remembering the way his touch was making her feel each time he reached for her. Her sexual attraction towards him, she acknowledged, was indisputable, but it wasn’t just desire that propelled her towards Nicos – she had fallen in love.

  ‘I’ve always thought I’d have a family,’ he told her one afternoon, finding themselves alone at last after Michalis had left to attend to some urgent business. ‘My brother and I, we were so happy growing up in the village, so much freedom to roam around the hills and countryside; I’m sure that’s when our love for cultivating olives began – we learned from our grandfather when we were quite small. I always imagined I would return home some day and have a family of my own here.’ He paused to look at her. ‘What about you, Calli, how was it growing up in London?’

  ‘It was happy,’ she replied. ‘My mother is a true Cretan, she brought us up with a strong sense of her culture. London is a multicultural city, at school we had friends from all over the world, and we still do,’ she replied. ‘My best friend is Caribbean, her family, especially her grandmother, always reminded me of my yiayia Calliope.’

  ‘Is London where you want to live and raise your family?’ he asked hesitantly, pausing before continuing. ‘Do you want to have children, Calli?’

  His question made her catch her breath. ‘Oh yes, Nicos, I do,’ she replied. ‘More than anything.’ She barely finished completing her sentence than her thoughts turned to Michalis; hadn’t she asked him that very same question not long ago?

  The time, she decided, had come to speak to him, she couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to explain to Michalis how she felt. But what to say? It wasn’t as if either had at any point made a declaration of love or a pledge of commitment to one another, yet she felt that an unspoken bond had grown between them and breaking it seemed like a betrayal. Her feelings towards him were tender and warm; since she suspected they were reciprocal and she had no intention of hurting him, she was duty bound to talk to him. Yet what would she tell him? Announcing that she had fallen in love at first sight with his brother would sound ridiculously fickle and immature. But she couldn’t help how she felt, she was following the laws of her heart, the laws of nature and of love, and it was important that she try to explain to Michalis, out of respect, that whatever her earlier fantasies, the affection she felt for him was a sisterly, platonic love, while it was his brother who had stirred earth-shaking emotions in her.

  All the while she was pondering about what to do, a sentence hovered in her mind: When my body thinks . . . all my flesh has a soul. The quotation came from Colette, the French writer she loved and admired. She had often questioned its meaning and now at last she understood: her own body, her own flesh, was showing her the way.

  Speaking Greek as she did, she was familiar with the observation that in the Greek language there are many ways to differentiate love, from the platonic to the parental, to friendship and the erotic. When she was on the brink of adulthood and starting to be interested in matters of the flesh it was the erotic love that caught her interest. It was Aphrodite’s love child with his love arrows that captured her imagination and intrigued her. Later, when she was older, Eros did strike her a few times but there had been nothing to equal the way Nicos made her feel. All she now needed was to find out i
f Eros had targeted him in the same way too.

  She had been sitting alone under the olive trees, eyes closed, lost in thought, deliberating what to do about Michalis when Nicos arrived at the garden gate. He softly whispered her name, reluctant to disturb her in case she was asleep, but the sawing song of the cicadas masked his voice. He stood silently gazing at her as she reclined on the faded deckchair, eyes closed, her arms folded behind her head, her skirt slightly raised above her knees, and his heart swelled with desire. This unusual woman, neither Greek nor English but a child of the world, knowledgeable and bright, wise yet innocent and fun-loving, had got under his skin. He had been unable to put her out of his mind since he first laid eyes on her and he too had a great need to know if she felt the same way about him.

  He stood motionless for a while, still gazing at her, when suddenly, as if she sensed his presence, her eyes snapped open. She saw a troubled look on his face: his brow was furrowed, his cheeks faintly flushed, yet his eyes were smiling down at her.

  ‘Oh! Nicos,’ she murmured, ‘where did you appear from?’

  ‘I fell out of the sky,’ he joked, ignorant of the significance of his words.

  ‘Were you circling above?’ she said and gave a little laugh. He gave her a perplexed look.

  ‘I was circling the village on my motorcycle,’ he said and moved a few steps closer. ‘I’ve come to take you for a ride if you are free.’ He moved still closer and took her hands in his, flooding her with delicious shivers.

  He parked his motorbike under the shade of a stand of eucalyptus trees and mimosa bushes and they made their way towards a deserted beach, so white and so blue they were blinded by its glare. Throwing their clothes off, they ran holding hands into the surf and plunged into the cool waters. She had no idea how long they swam, diving in and out of rocks, coming up for air, chasing fish with bright shimmering scales that she had never seen since she was a little girl, when Keith would take her into the open sea with him. Finally, exhausted and exhilarated, they waded out of the water and collapsed under the shade of the eucalyptus trees. She lay on her back, limbs heavy on the sand, and looked through the branches at the flawless blue sky, holding her breath in anticipation of his touch. Nicos turned on his side, one arm folded under his head for support, and looked at her. His eyes held hers for a long while before he spoke.

  ‘Calli,’ his voice was low and throaty, ‘do you feel it too?’ He didn’t need to say more; she knew what he meant.

  ‘Yes, Nicos, I do,’ she said and felt her heartbeat throbbing in her ears as he pulled her to him. She reached for him and her touch made him catch his breath, and when she ran her palm over his forearm, she felt the goosebumps rise on his skin.

  ‘Stop thinking so much, and listen to your heart,’ her friend Josie often used to say to her when she judged that Calli was trying to be too accommodating, too compromising. Michalis, too, had said something similar not long ago.

  Unable to ignore the clear voice of her heart and her friend’s advice, Calli was doing just that, listening, and not only to her own heart, but to Nicos’s too – apparently, he told her as they lay under the eucalyptus tree, their hearts were now beating as one.

  From that day on the two of them were inseparable; she had all the proof she needed that Nicos felt as she did – having that conversation with Michalis was now starting to be constantly on her mind. The intimacy that had developed between herself and Nicos in such a short time was obvious and she was sure Michalis must have picked up on it. She felt disloyal, she couldn’t imagine what he must think of her. If it was the other way round, if she had a sister and suddenly Michalis transferred his attentions to her, Calli was certain she would feel pangs of jealousy.

  The three would often meet up as before, although now Michalis seemed to only join them in the evenings leaving Nicos and Calli to spend most days together. What countryside and beaches she hadn’t seen in the weeks she had been on Crete, Nicos was showing her now by driving around on his motorbike. He left no secluded beach or hillside unexplored and the proprietors of most of the local tavernas had become their good friends.

  Nicos had not intended to stay for very long – he had come for a short break to visit family and friends – but after meeting Calli he postponed his return for a couple of weeks; soon he would have to leave, time now was of the essence, for both of them.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to return to Athens,’ he said to her one day while having a coffee at a beach cafe. ‘I need to go and deal with our business, but I will return.’ He looked anxiously at her. ‘I wish I could stop the clocks and turn back the time to when we first met that night, at the party . . .’ His voice faded and he shifted closer to put his arm around her. ‘When do you plan to leave for London, Calli?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she replied with a sinking feeling. ‘I have no reason to go back at the moment.’ She couldn’t bear to think that their idyll might be coming to an end so prematurely.

  ‘Will you stay, Calli? Will you wait for me?’ he asked, his eyes turning serious, and leaned in to kiss her on the lips.

  13

  The very next day she called Michalis and arranged to meet him at the little beachside cafe on the outskirts of the village. This way, she thought, after having a drink, they could take a walk and talk alone together, away from curious ears, as August was the month that the village saw some action from holidaymakers.

  She found him already there, chatting to a couple of elderly local men who were playing backgammon.

  ‘Yiasou, Calli,’ he called and jumped up to greet her. She looked at him with fresh eyes and registered once again how physically similar he and his brother were. She was nervous. All the way down the hill from her aunt’s house she had rehearsed what she would say to him, scolding herself for being so anxious. She had done nothing wrong, she insisted to herself, she must be herself, open and honest; yet her palms were moist and her face was flushed.

  They ordered coffee and ice-cold lemonade. Michalis was insistent that she try the delicious baklava that was freshly baked that afternoon, but she had no appetite to eat, thinking only of what she must say to him. They sat talking about nothing in particular, while the two old men at the next table joined in their conversation for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time. At last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, Calli stood up and suggested they take a stroll.

  They walked barefoot along the shore, their footsteps washed away by little waves as they sauntered towards the end of the long beach to some rocks. Along the way she started to tell him all she needed to say. She spoke in a small breathless voice, her eyes fixed on the horizon, avoiding his gaze. She told him that in the short time they had known one another she had grown very fond of him and that at first she had imagined, hoped even, that their relationship would develop into romance, but it wasn’t to be. She told him that she loved him like a brother and that he had become very dear to her, and that he had awakened her love for the island and the Cretan landscape, which she realized she had neglected and which now she couldn’t bear to leave. She told him that she wanted to stay until November and beyond, to help him and his family with the olive harvest.

  All the while she spoke, Michalis remained silent and thoughtful, listening to her. Then, when she had said most of what she had wished to say, she stopped and began searching for the right words to finally speak of the love she had for his brother. By then they were sitting on the rocks and the sun had started to travel west, the waning rays bleeding into the milky blue of the sky, swathing it in red. Her eyes resting on the straight line of the horizon, she took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then, exhaling, she began to explain about the thunderbolt that had struck her so unexpectedly and the effect Nicos was having on her. When she finished speaking, they both sat mutely gazing out to sea. After a long pause, Michalis looked at Calli, cupped her face in his hands and gently turned it towards him; she avoided his gaze.

  ‘Look at me, Calli mou.’ His voice was quiet
and tender. She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I want you to know,’ he began, his hands still framing her face, ‘that your friendship, and you, have been the best thing that has happened to me in years.’ He leaned towards her and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek before continuing. ‘My brother,’ he went on seriously, ‘is a lucky man to have won your love.’

  The expression that appeared on her face at that moment caused Michalis to lose his grave tone of voice and smile. She had not expected this response from him; she had anticipated at the very least some disappointment or regret, and his apparent approval caught her by surprise.

  Releasing her face, he gently stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I don’t blame you, and that I am not surprised.’ He smiled again. ‘What I am, is happy for you and for my brother. I only wish I was in Nicos’s shoes . . .’

  Michalis’s eyes suddenly clouded over, and it was his turn to turn away towards the horizon. When he looked back at her again, his expression was serious, his voice trembling a little. ‘You see, Calli mou, I am not like Nicos . . . my brother and I might look alike, but our natures are totally different.’

  He left the words to hang around them before saying more.

  ‘I would like nothing more than to be able to love you like he does,’ he said quietly, with a long sigh, ‘but I have never been able to love any woman like my brother does.’

  Later, back in her room, she wondered how it was possible that she had failed to pick up the signs that Michalis was gay. She had enough friends back in London, both men and women, personal and work associates, who were gay. But then again that was London, one of the most sophisticated places in the world: no one had to hide their true nature there.