by Defne Suman
Seeing the children scattered across the street like grouse, the barker raised his voice. ‘Hello, hello, hello! The Wonder of Wonders acrobatics show will begin at exactly nine o’clock European time. Children, grown-ups, don’t tell me you haven’t heard about this? Come, ladies and gentlemen, come and see! See who has come to liven up our beautiful Smyrna – the world’s most famous tightrope walker, Kerim the Arab! He walks the rope with his hands held high, does somersaults in the air, and climbs down like a cat. Children, grown-ups, ladies and gentlemen, Kozmas the Crier does not lie. Oriste. Come see with your own eyes. Alongside him will be the famous hypnotist Dudu Sultan, and Chios’s velvet-voiced eunuch-boy Yellow Haralambis. Tonight, it is for you that we make beautiful Agia Triada merry. Gentlemen! Ladies! Gia sas! Gia sas! Welcome! Welcome! You bring delight with you. The performance begins at nine o’clock. Don’t say you didn’t know!’
With her hand in Stavros’s and her heart fluttering like a little bird, Panagiota stood on tiptoe to try to see the stage where the acrobats would perform through the crowd that was filling up the square in front of the church. The flames of the candles which had been placed along the wall encircling the church flickered in the wind, their shadows licking at her face. Inside, the priests walked among the wooden benches, sending out a cloud of scented ambergris and sandalwood which mixed with the street smells of burned sugar, lokum and salty crackers.
‘Stavraki, come,’ said Panagiota, tugging at him, ‘let’s buy some halva.’
Wow, had she just called him Stavraki? Up until now she’d only called him that in her dreams. Maybe now that she was getting more relaxed in his company, she could begin to act more like herself. Maybe it was the effect of the wine. She really wanted to dance.
Without answering, Stavros followed her. Was he a little withdrawn? Had she done something wrong? Maybe he considered her rude for childishly running after halva. Maybe he would prefer a mature woman, one of those European girls in Bella Vista who knew how to sit and stand properly even before they were thirteen. The melody being played on a passing barrel organ depressed her spirits.
‘What is your name, pretty girl?’ the halva seller asked, handing them slices of sesame-paste halva wrapped in paper.
‘Panagiota, sir.’
‘Poli orea. Bravo su, Panagiota, my child. May your life, like your name, be filled with light like that of the Holy Mother Mary. Young man, how lucky you are to have a fiancée so beautiful inside and out.’
A burst of happiness shot up Panagiota’s spine like a firecracker. If she hadn’t been wary of giving herself too cheaply, she would have hugged Stavros and kissed his cheeks right there.
‘Hronia polla, best wishes, children.’
‘Hronia polla, kyr!’
‘Come on, let’s walk along the beach,’ said Stavros.
The joy that had been rising in Panagiota landed – bam! – in her stomach. Were they going to end up kissing in a dark corner again? This was supposed to be a night when they would mingle with the crowd, behave like a real couple. The only thing she wanted to do was walk hand in hand, eating halva. But, afraid that he would withdraw his hand from hers, she said nothing. Without speaking, they headed for the beach where they’d pulled Niko’s father’s boat up on the sand. The sound of the barrel organ faded into the distance.
Stavros helped Panagiota climb up onto a rock behind the boats, then followed her and sat down beside her. Their hands had come unclasped. Rowing boats filled with young people kept approaching the shore. Some couples didn’t even make it as far as the crowded streets but hurried straight for the darkness of the beach. Panagiota kept her hands on her lap, on top of the frothy skirt of her pink dress, where Stavros could see them. Her knee touched his knee again.
For a while they stared out at the sea, lit up with the blinking of countless carbide lamps. Then Stavros began to speak.
‘Giota mou,’ he said, his voice muffled, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’
Panagiota closed her eyes. Her head was spinning. She breathed in deeply to take in the night, the moonlight, the stars, the cool wind smelling of jasmine, burned sugar and seaweed, the laughter of women, the music wafting from the houses. Stavros had called her ‘Giota mou’. My Panagiota! He’d never done that before. All those times they’d kissed in the darkness beside the wall of the British Hospital, he had never called her by name or whispered words of love in her ear.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw that her lover had taken a tobacco pouch from his pocket. Once he’d finished rolling and lighting his cigarette, he would surely take her hand in his free hand. She leaned her knee against his knee.
A new boat was approaching the shore, the lamp at its bow glittering. A middle-aged man with a thick moustache quickly jumped out, pulled the boat up the beach and then began to help the women to disembark, one at a time. When he made as if to embrace several of them, the women pretended to object. All of them had make-up on their faces and were wearing very showy hats. Their tight skirts fitted their slender waists perfectly, and their breasts almost jumped out of their frilly, low-cut blouses. These were the women Elpiniki had been talking about. People said they were gathered from various different neighbourhoods, even from as far afield as Aydin and Manisa, for the pleasure of the Greek and British soldiers. Generally, they rode around in motor cars parading up and down the quay in front of the grand hotels, but they must have wanted to come to the fair tonight like everybody else. Panagiota could not imagine these women praying to the Holy Spirit. What would the priest say if they went into the church?
Stavros waited until the women had dispersed into the village streets. His cigarette was half smoked and he had still not reached out to take Panagiota’s hand, which was lying patiently in her lap.
‘I haven’t told anyone else except you and I’m not going to.’
Panagiota’s heart again began to beat wildly. So, the moment had finally come; the moment she had dreamed of during all those nights spent tossing and turning in bed like a fish caught in a net. So, Stavros loved her. That air of indifference when he saw her in the square the day after he had stuck her on the hospital wall and kissed her, those bored expressions were because he was shy, nothing more. She breathed rapidly, licked her lips, rubbed her palms together, and checked one by one the pink ribbons her mother had tied in her hair.
She was so engrossed in her dreams that when she heard Stavros’s words, she almost fell off the rock on which they were sitting side by side. He reached out and grabbed her arm just in time. When he’d pulled her back up, he didn’t let go but wrapped his arm around her waist. Panagiota moaned softly, as if warm, sweet sherbet were pouring down her throat. She was just going to rest her head on his shoulder when she registered what he’d said.
‘You what? What did you say you’d done?’
‘I signed up for the army as a volunteer.’
From far away came the sound of the barrel organ again. Panagiota started trembling. The clock in the churchyard gonged nine o’clock.
‘Are you cold? Here, wear my jacket.’
Stavros took off his jacket and placed it over Panagiota’s frilly pink shoulders.
He was perplexed. He’d thought Panagiota would be thrilled by his news, would be proud of him. He again put his arm around her waist and tried to draw her towards him. She was as immovable and heavy as the rock beneath them. Her head was bowed and she was examining her white shoelaces intently. Finally she opened her mouth and spoke, as if in a whisper.
‘When?’
‘We’re setting off tomorrow. To Manisa first.’
He ran his fingers through his hair, which he’d rubbed with musk oil, pulled at the braces he was wearing over his shirt, and then, to fill the silence, said, ‘We’ll take Constantinople soon, makari, God willing. Then all of Thrace… We’ll bring liberty to our people.’
‘But you’re not old enough,’ Panagiota said, as if she hadn’t heard him.
Stavros smiled proudly. ‘I
told them I’d be turning eighteen at the end of the summer. Also, for two months now I’ve been attending drill twice a day, with other volunteers. The officer said he was very pleased with me.’
Turning, he looked into Panagiota’s eyes. His frowning eyebrows had relaxed, his hard face had become sweet, like a child’s. As he leaned forward to place a kiss on her cheek, she slipped from under his arm like a fish and jumped down onto the sand.
‘What liberty, vre Stavraki? Aren’t Smyrna and Aydin enough? Aren’t we liberated enough? What more does this Venizelos want?’
Stavros shook his head in amazement. All of their friends were talking about how the dream of a Greater Greece was finally going to be realized. What was wrong with Panagiota now? Ah, but, of course. She was Grocer Akis’s daughter. Stavros had not forgotten how the grocer had told him and the other boys off in the middle of the square that time they brought the good news that the Greek army was about to land in Smyrna. There was also a rumour that Grocer Akis’s father, Panagiota’s grandfather, hadn’t been able to speak a word of Greek when he’d emigrated from Kayseri to Chesme. It was even said that Akis himself only learned Greek when he started school in Chesme. Akis’s family were Karamanlis, Ottoman Greeks who spoke Turkish even in their homes. It would be no surprise if they were against the liberation.
‘How far is this war “to liberate our people” going to go? If they, say, go to Ankara, would you go too?’
He bowed his head and considered this, as if such a possibility had never occurred to him before. ‘I would do whatever is needed for Greater Greece.’
‘Oh really?’
Panagiota was standing on the beach, her hands on her waist, looking at him as if she was mocking him. In spite of the anger burning in his face, he managed to speak calmly.
‘Panagiota, you don’t understand. We must secure our borders.’
Stavros, all gangly arms and long legs, was stuck on the rock like a lobster. He clenched his fists. What a disaster this was! He had wanted to snatch a farewell kiss from Panagiota, a sweet memory to dream about while he was at the front, and perhaps even steal a touch of her soft flesh as well, if he was lucky, enough to linger on his palm. If not, the taste of her cherry lips would have to last until they returned home victorious. But the beautiful night had taken a turn he’d neither expected nor wanted. It was clear there would be no breasts, no lips. He would go to the front empty-handed. He looked around in desperation. The beach was empty.
When no further words came from Stavros, Panagiota raised her own voice.
‘What’s the Greek army to us – did we ask them to come? We were living peacefully. Did we lack for anything? And then they liberated us and now look at us: no street lamps lighted, no garbage collected – the city’s gone to shit. They’re hiring women now to collect the garbage. The streets are filled with refugees, gypsies, worthless people. Is this what you want?’
It wasn’t only Stavros’s face and ears that were aflame now, his muscles were also burning. Things were about to go too far. ‘Panagiota, se parakalo, I beg you – stop.’
Firecrackers were exploding in front of the hotels on the quay down at Smyrna, and floods of blue, red and gold were lighting up the sky above Agia Triada. Floating lanterns with candles inside them, called klobos, were bobbing on the surface of the sea. Young girls in white dresses were walking arm in arm with clean, pure-hearted soldiers just arrived from Greece. Children were competing with each other to see who could swallow a cone full of lokum the fastest. That war might break out in Smyrna that summer was a possibility no one gave a thought to.
As for Panagiota, she was not about to stop talking. If these officious Greek soldiers had not come to ‘save’ them, life in their beautiful neighbourhood would have continued. She would have married Stavros and planted geraniums, roses and bougainvillea in the garden of their home. Like her mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and all those before them, stretching back two thousand years, she would have lived a calm and happy life on that bounteous land. She would have raised children that swam in the turquoise waters like fish. But now a huge injustice had been done. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she began spilling out what she had heard from her father.
‘Are you aware of the conditions of the roads in Asia Minor? You won’t find a drop of water to drink. By the middle of summer the whole army will be in a state of collapse.’
‘That’s why I have to go,’ Stavros said quietly. ‘I am a child of this land. I am strong. When they fall, I shall fight.’
Panagiota stared straight ahead. Now she hated the silk stockings and pink, short-skirted dress she’d put on with such care a few hours ago. She sniffed back her tears.
Stavros jumped down from the rocks, stumbled through the sand and stood in front of her. Putting two fingers under Panagiota’s chin, he turned her face towards the moonlight. The wind had tousled her long black hair and her ribbons had slid down to the ends of her curls. She was more sad than angry, but Stavros didn’t understand that. He was too busy defending himself.
‘Panagiota, do you know what defeat would mean for us?’
‘Of course I know. It would mean the end of the Greater Greece dream. We’d be back under Turkish rule. But at least ships would come into the harbour again and men who sit all day in the corners of coffeehouses could get back to work. Everything would be the way it used to be. With the situation as it is, I would one thousand times over prefer to be governed by the Sultan or even Kemal than by bad-tempered Stergiadis’s men.’
In the darkness Stavros saw something making an arc in the air, but he didn’t realize that thing was his own hand descending with force on Panagiota’s cheek. Slapped full in the face, Panagiota sprang backwards, caught her foot on a piece of rock, lost her balance and fell onto the soft sand.
Stavros raced to her side and knelt down. How had he done such a thing? When Panagiota wouldn’t take her hands away from her face, he panicked. One of her eyes was closed. Had he hit her in the eye? Oh, God! He would never be able to save himself from Grocer Akis now.
‘Giota mou, I am so sorry. Sweetheart, please forgive me.’
Panagiota, one hand pressed to her cheek, was biting her cherry lips and staring fixedly at the ground. Her coal-black eyes had grown so large, they seemed to have taken over her entire long, thin face.
‘Panagiota, my sweetheart, forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. Please let me look and see if you’re hurt.’
She slowly removed her hand from her cheek and lifted her head. Nothing was visible in the darkness. Letting out the breath he’d been holding for some time, Stavros touched her cheek; it was burning hot. He leaned down and kissed the place where he’d hit her. Was she angry? Was she crying? Slowly he lowered his right palm, rough from the rowing, to her neck, towards the pink and white ribbons of the collar of her dress. Panagiota had closed her eyes again. She was biting her lips but was not objecting. A while earlier, when he’d thought things were going too far, this had not been in Stavros’s mind at all. He would not have even dreamed of doing this before getting married, except with the women in the Hiotika houses. Particularly not with Panagiota. He’d never considered doing anything more than kissing with her – never! But somehow he found himself on top of her.
The lanterns on the rowing boats pulled up on the beach had all gone out, their passengers lost on the streets of Agia Triada. The Wonder of Wonders acrobatics show must have started; they were alone in the darkness behind the rock. And Panagiota, her eyes closed, was lying under him, like a doll stuffed with straw.
‘Sweetheart, darling, Giota mou…’
Beneath the rough, paper-like taffeta that covered her legs, the skin was like cream. Even the legs of the silk-stockinged women of Hiotika were not as soft and smooth. And she had still not said no. Just then it occurred to Stavros, maybe for the first time, that there was a chance he might die soon, crossing mountains, passing through deserts. A soldier always had death on his mind, of course, but Stavros had
never until that moment considered it a real possibility. This thought released hundreds of sparks in his groin. He grasped Panagiota by her shoulders as she lay there on the sand, as if he were gripping onto life itself, and with all his strength he thrust himself deep inside her.
*
Moonlight was striking the dark waters of the bay. Katina was dozing in the window from where she’d been watching the street for her daughter. It was good she was dozing or she would have seen the diamond she doted on walking up from the square with her legs wide like a little boy who’d just been circumcised. She would have become very agitated. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep. The many tiny pink ribbons she herself had tied in Panagiota’s wild black hair had come undone, and she would have seen that several of them were torn. She would have realized from the way her daughter was walking that she was naked under the pink taffeta skirt, but it wouldn’t have occurred to her that the underclothes stained with blood had been dropped from the rowing boat into the dark waters when no one was looking.
If she had been awake, she would have seen Panagiota turning into Menekse Street without even saying goodbye to Stavros. She would have seen her leaning against the wall of the house across the street, crying, and then smiling through the tears streaming down her face when she caught sight of Muhtar. And maybe she would have noticed the startling resemblance between her daughter and the European woman they’d seen last spring leaning and crying against that same wall.
But Katina Yagcioglu, stretched out on the mat, asleep in the bay window, saw none of this.
The next morning, Katina woke at sunrise. As she was walking to buy katimer turnovers for her daughter from Zakas Pastry Shop at the quay, she heard the sad whistle of the Afyonkarahisar train. She didn’t know that the train was carrying Stavros away from the rose-scented city, never to return. Gazing at the green hills in the morning light of early summer, she spontaneously offered up a prayer. Golden dust motes poured through the open windows of the train speeding towards the mountains. The boys in the third-class compartment were restless on the wooden seats, their blood fired up with the dream of a Greater Greece.