The Silence of Scheherazade

by Defne Suman

  Last summer seemed a long time ago to Panagiota. So many things had changed in the autumn and through the winter, both in the world and in her own soul. The world war had come to an end and the Ottoman Empire had been defeated. While some of the uncles in the neighbourhood had got really excited about that, Panagiota’s father, Grocer Akis, had responded by pulling worriedly at his moustache.

  At any rate, defeat had come much earlier to their house. At Christmas in 1915, her two older brothers, who’d been sent to join a labour battalion, both died. The loss of the boys was so devastating that it no longer mattered to them who went on to win the war and who lost. While Smyrna’s Europeans and Christians were celebrating the arrival of British soldiers in the city, Akis and Katina ate cauliflower by the light of their kerosene lamp and went to bed early. Let whoever desired it rule Smyrna. There was no news in the world that could make Panagiota’s mother and father smile again. Four years had passed since that dire news and Katina had still not taken off her black mourning clothes. She had no intention of ever doing so. The mirrors in the house were still covered with black cloth.

  While Akis and Katina spent their days feeling numb and detached, as if cast in perpetual shadow, Panagiota was rushing into adolescence on the back of a crazy horse, with hormones tugging at the reins. Last summer a German family had gone into the sea at the Diana Baths bare-legged, where even the boys could see them. Everyone there – the girls, pushing and shoving each other in the water; the young men on the rocks; and even the mothers – had stared in wonder at the long, white legs of the women who raced into the sea as if they were swimming off their own private beach. It was on that day that Panagiota realized that Stavros, from the other end of the beach, was staring not at the half-naked women but at her. He was sitting high up on a rock, his eyes fixed on Panagiota’s suntanned shoulders and the black curls that had sprung free of her plaits. He had taken off his shirt like fishermen did, and his chest was bare. His gaze could have just been wandering, of course, but if that were so, why did he turn away so quickly when their eyes met? When he did that, Panagiota felt as if she’d inadvertently glimpsed something shameful.

  Since that day her heart had been besieged by emotions she’d never experienced before. Whenever she ran into Stavros, she felt as if she was being observed. Her own eyes searched for him everywhere – at the end of the school day, at the square in the evening, at church on Sunday mornings, at the bakery, at the ice-cream shop on the quay. On some made-up pretext, she would routinely extend her walk home from school and divert through Kerasohori where Stavros’s father had his butcher’s shop. Sometimes, very rarely, he helped his father in the shop or delivered meat to well-off customers in his bicycle basket.

  In spite of all this effort, if Panagiota did happen to encounter him, she would turn her head and pretend she hadn’t seen him. Of course, her friends Elpiniki and Adriana were aware of the situation. If kids who’d grown up together in the same neighbourhood stopped greeting each other on the street, this was either because they’d taken offence at something or because they’d fallen in love – or both. Since Panagiota kept admiring her reflection in shop windows, this was clearly a case of the latter and not the former. For a while now, Elpiniki had set her heart on the fisherman’s son, Niko. Minas the Flea was courting Adriana. Now that Panagiota was besotted with Stavros, the team was complete.

  ‘The fleet set out from Kavala yesterday. Tonight it’ll pass by Lesbos, they say. Tomorrow morning before dawn it’ll be in Smyrna. They’re coming to save us! They’re bringing us our freedom! Don’t say you haven’t heard?’

  Panagiota kept on turning the rope as if she were paying no attention. Again, she felt like she was standing in the centre of the world with everybody’s eyes upon her. Flames crept through her, from her heart to her temples. She held her head high, raised her chin. People seeing Panagiota that spring were surprised at how she had shot up so quickly. Even her legs, fingers and toes had got longer. Suddenly she didn’t know where to put her hands and feet, whose existence she had never previously considered. The sudden changes in her body were uncomfortable, but when old women like Auntie Rozi looked at her face and spat three times in the air – puh, puh, puh; when her mother attached Mother Mary brooches and evil eye pins inside her dresses; and, of course, when she registered Stavros’s glances, she realized it wasn’t only her height but other things also which had changed.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ shouted one of the wrinkled uncles sitting in the coffeehouse, rolling his prayer beads. ‘For months now they’ve been coming to save us and nobody’s seen their faces yet.’

  ‘What months are you talking about, vre? We’ve been waiting for them for over a century. Ha, ha, ha!’

  ‘I swear to you, they’re coming! We heard it from the British. Down on the docks everybody is talking about it. Fishermen have even seen the ships. Isn’t that right, boys?’

  The boys stood in the centre of the square and looked around. They were confused. They’d thought the news would be a cause for celebration. Why wasn’t everybody on their feet and hugging each other with tears of joy?

  ‘Stavraki, my treasure,’ shouted his mother from over where she was watering the red rose in her tiny garden from the jug in her hand. The soil had been baking all day. As the water was absorbed, it turned to steam and smelled like rosemary after rain. Red and purple flowers had opened on the bougainvillea that covered the whitewashed walls of the single-storeyed houses overlooking the square. ‘Ela. Come, change your shirt. You’re soaked with sweat.’

  Stavros glanced furiously in his mother’s direction. Was this the time to be worrying about changing one’s shirt? Panagiota bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. Minas, not having drawn the attention he’d expected, came to the front of the group, and, without taking his eyes off Adriana, who was still skipping, began to shout in a reedy voice. In one hand he was ringing a bell, like a town crier.

  ‘Foustanella soon in Smyrna,

  After that, Agia Sofia

  Back to Red Apple goes Turkos

  Zito zito zito Venizelos!’

  The other boys joined in the marching song. The toothless old women nodded as if they were listening to a pleasant folksong. The girls playing skipping ropes in front of the wall beside the police station poked each other and giggled. Adriana’s feet got tangled up and she almost fell over.

  ‘Sister, you’re out!’ yelled Tasoula, who was sitting on the wall. ‘You’re out. So out!’ She was the next youngest sister after Adriana. Then she started singing a folksong. Elpiniki’s younger sister Afroula, sitting next to her, quickly joined in.

  ‘Aman, aman, yaniyorum ben

  Aman, aman, seviyorum sen

  Tsifteteli yalelleli.

  ‘Oh, oh, burning, I am

  Oh, oh, it’s loving you, I am

  Tsifteteli yalelleli.’

  Elpiniki threw the rope to the ground and stalked over to the wall. Angrily, she pinched her sister’s calf. ‘Shut up or you’ll be sorry!’

  ‘Kita, kita! Look! Your fat one is over there, sister! I am burning for you, my Niko. Ah, ah, ah. Okay, I’ll shut up. You’ve made my legs go purple, mari! Just you wait till I show Mama this evening, then we’ll see who’s sorry.’

  Panagiota felt very fragile and alone in this new life dominated by her emotions. Sometimes girls could be more merciless than boys. What was happening to her? That morning, when she’d woken up, she’d realized that the melodramatic amanedes songs she’d always made fun of now burned her heart. Sometimes she couldn’t even tell whether what she was feeling was happiness or sorrow; sometimes when she was laughing with Elpiniki and Adriana she would suddenly feel like crying. And in the mornings before school she felt an unbearable urge to go down to the quay and just gaze at the blue of the sea for a long, long time.

  The rope began to turn again. The boys lined up like soldiers and, swinging their arms, paraded from one end of the square to the other. Dust swirled in their wake. Without stopping their mar
ching song, they passed the men in front of the coffeehouse, who sat there watching them, some with indifference, some with smiles on their faces. Then they marched around the bakery, with its smell of fresh warm bread, and reached the opposite side of the square, where the halva vendor was sitting idly beside the fountain. The coffee-seller’s apprentice was emptying water from a pail in front of the arbour. Stavros wasn’t at the head of the line, but he was among those singing the marching song. Just as they entered Menekse Street, a roar was heard.

  ‘What the hell is this commotion?’

  The cracked voices of the boys stopped as if severed by a knife. Only the fisherman’s son, Niko – Elpiniki’s chosen one – continued to chant from the back, ‘Zito, zito, zito…’. But soon his voice faded too, melting into the air. Panagiota let the skipping rope fall to the ground, almost causing Elpiniki, who was jumping, to stumble. From the top of the wall Tasoula and Afroula giggled. The old women nodded.

  Panagiota noticed none of this. She was watching her long-legged father striding over to the boys. Grocer Akis’s thick black eyebrows, which came all the way down to his eyes, were knitted, his fleshy cheeks were swollen, and his lips, hidden beneath his moustache, were drawn down like a distressed child’s. He cornered the retreating boys by the fountain. Catching hold of Minas, who was leading the pack, he bellowed once more.

  ‘Shut up this racket, you unruly brats!’

  Panagiota wished there was a hole she could crawl into. Abandoning the skipping rope, she dashed as far away from her father as possible, to the other end of the coffeehouse, where the black-gowned old women were sitting on chairs out on the street or on pillows spread out on their front steps. One of them – old Auntie Rozi – called out to her as she approached, looking embarrassed.

  ‘Ela, ela, koritsi mou. Come, darling girl. Sit beside me. Would you like a tangerine?’

  Just then, Stavros pushed the other boys aside and stood in front of the grocer. He was as tall as Akis and his tanned, muscular limbs were stronger than the other boys’, but he was slender and half as wide as Akis. Akis was both tall and stout. He’d been quite a wrestler in his youth, and one of his arms was equal to two of Stavros’s. Although he was past fifty, he didn’t have a single strand of white in his hair; the bushy eyebrows, the hair and the curly moustache were as black and glossy as the coat of an Afghan horse.

  ‘Kyr Akis, the Greek soldiers are on their way. This time the information comes from a reliable source. We heard it a little while ago from the British in front of the Sporting Club. Fishermen passing by Lesbos saw the ships with their own eyes.’

  A strong wind had picked up and the square filled with the scent of jasmine from Bournabat, mixing with the aroma of freshly baked bread from the bakery. The old women closed their eyes as if they were praying. Auntie Rozi raised her nose to the air and murmured, ‘Rain is on the way. See, cool air from the sea is striking my hand, my face.’ Panagiota’s stomach hurt the way it did whenever she ate raw dough from her mother’s rolling pin. Lowering her head, she looked down at the pink satin shoes they’d bought from Xenopoulo’s shop on Frank Street on the first of the month because her feet had grown so much. The shoes were sparklingly clean, with black ribbons and little high heels. But what good were they now? She was most distressed. She inhaled heavily. Auntie Rozi had peeled one of the last tangerines of the season and was handing it to her. Without a word, she took it, peeled off the white pith with her slender fingers, and began slowly chewing.

  Everyone in the square held their breath, waiting to hear what Grocer Akis would say. It seemed that if the grocer believed it, the ships really would come. The men playing backgammon in the coffeehouse held the dice in their hands and looked over to where the boys were standing. Afroula and Tasoula stopped making daisy chains; waterpipes stopped bubbling, prayer beads stopped turning. Even the peddlers who had wandered into the square left their trays and kettles beside the fountain and turned their ears towards Akis and the boys.

  ‘If they’re coming, they’re coming. What’s it to you? What are you making all this noise for – do you think they’re coming to die for you?’

  Suddenly the square began humming like a beehive. Since Akis didn’t deny it, maybe they really were coming. Minas elbowed Stavros aside and came to the front. He was a small, naughty boy. For some reason he hadn’t grown tall yet, and nor had his voice broken. Although they were the same age, he looked like Stavros’s little brother. The boys called him ‘the Flea’, and because he was so energetic, so little and so nimble, he was the star of the neighbourhood football games. Last month they’d beaten the Armenian High School thanks to him. Next week they were due to play the English School at Bournabat. Because everybody depended on Minas, he’d acquired a certain attitude; he even openly flirted with the beautiful Adriana, who looked like a big sister beside him.

  ‘Not for us. They’re coming to die for Greater Greece.’

  In the rosy hue of evening, even from the other side of the square Panagiota could see that the blood had rushed to her father’s face. His cheeks were crimson with rage. When her father was really, really angry, a very pale green ring of smoke encircled his dark head. Only Panagiota and Katina could see this smoke. Her mother had placed a mat on the sill of the bay window of their house above the grocery shop. Having shaken the breadcrumbs from the tablecloth, she was now leaning on the sill and watching the argument below, like everybody else. There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes in place of the usual vacant expression. At first Panagiota was furious; then she turned and looked at the old woman beside her as if asking for help. Auntie Rozi smiled a toothless grin and offered her another tangerine. The tension in the neighbourhood meant nothing to her.

  ‘Fools!’ roared Akis. ‘Fools! What “Greater Greece”, vre? Do your ears hear the words coming out of your mouth? What liberty? If they’re coming, they’re coming to bring disaster upon us!’

  ‘Kyr Akis, don’t say that. We are of the same blood,’ Stavros said.

  ‘Distant relatives, more like! You know, the ones you don’t want to see very often,’ called out someone from the coffeehouse. Everyone laughed at this. Evening shadows fell over Stavros’s face, and Panagiota’s stomach cramped. Curious about the continuing argument, the men from the coffeehouse moved to the other side of the square, taking their dice with them. The circle around Akis and the boys was growing larger.

  Akis looked into the face of each boy in turn. ‘My sons,’ he said quietly, ‘you must keep your wits about you. Don’t get tricked by this Greater Greece game; don’t get yourselves into trouble. Big guys play their games, but they always choose young men like you as pawns. You live in the most beautiful city in the world, one of your hands in butter, the other in honey. Does it matter who rules us? Do you think we’d see this abundance if we were foisted off on Greece? If you don’t believe me, go to Athens. Go and see if there’s one single part of it that can compare to our bountiful Smyrna. Then come back to your homes and give thanks.’

  The expression on Stavros’s bony face hardened. His green eyes were blinking like a cat’s in the dusk light. Panagiota’s insides were humming like an engine.

  Although his blood was boiling, Stavros managed to speak in a gentle, respectful tone. ‘Kyr Akis, how can you talk like this – have you forgotten what happened in 1914? Don’t you remember what tortures our people endured? Are we supposed to close our eyes to the fate of our people – for our own comfort? You yourself know that if we don’t do something now, it will happen to us one day. Even your own sons—’

  Seeing Akis’s face freeze in pain, he stopped. One of Panagiota’s hands went instinctively to her mouth. She turned anxiously towards the bay window of their house. Her mother had a sweet smile on her face and was looking at the moon rising like a brass tray behind the hilltop castle of Kadife Kale. Thank goodness she hadn’t heard Stavros’s last words.

  Realizing that he’d hit below the belt, Stavros changed tack. ‘Times are changing, Kyr Akis. There i
s no Ottoman Empire any more, as you know. The Committee of Union and Progress has dissolved itself and the Sultan has become a puppet of the British. This land will most certainly be parcelled out. Do you want Smyrna to go to the Italians? The freedom we have longed for for centuries is finally at our doorstep, and we Greeks will be in charge at last. The American president himself said so. It makes sense for our Smyrna to become a province of an independent Greece. Is there any other logical solution?’

  Akis responded with a bitter smile. They saw that the Sultan had become a puppet of the British, these boys, but they couldn’t see who was pulling the strings behind Venizelos. All of a sudden he felt exhausted. Being reminded of his sons, dead in the labour battalion, made him feel guilty, not angry. What if they had hidden their boys in the attic like other families had, or found some way to send them to Greece? If he’d known the goddamned war would end in four years, he could have hidden them for the duration, couldn’t he? Stavros’s elder brother had lived like a rat in the attic for four whole years, but at least he’d survived. And now he was able to walk the streets, to run down to the docks and greet Venizelos’s soldiers, whereas Akis’s sons had died in a cell worse than a shithole on the plains of Asia Minor. His insides twisted, like beans passing through a coffee grinder.

  At the other end of the square Panagiota swallowed the last segment of her tangerine and took a deep breath. The angry green halo around her father’s head had evaporated. Stavros’s polite attitude, and the hopes and dreams of the young men, all of whom Akis had known since they were born, must have softened his heart. He wouldn’t want to be ruled by the Italians anyway.