‘I keep wondering about their parents and their older sister,’ Agata says. ‘Have they left the island yet? Have they reached their destination?’
‘We’ve no way of knowing,’ Georgiou says. ‘We may not even know for some time whether the Germans have left Corfu, whether this dreadful war has ended, or if the Allied forces come here. Once we are up there in the mountains it’s likely we’ll know even less than we did before. But we shall all be safe, even if we are ignorant.’
‘I’ve told them their parents are working hard, and so is Rebekka. I tell them that so they will have hope and so they will want to work hard too, when they are old enough. But I have such feelings of dread for their poor family and all of their people.’
‘I know, my dear, I know,’ Georgiou says, taking his wife’s hand and holding it to his lips. ‘But for now, we can at least protect their children and keep them safe.’
‘We will. And I’ve also decided that although they are very young still, I must teach them everything I know. Little by little I will show them how to sew, how to make bread and how to grind chickpeas and beans for hummus and fava. We must both make sure they can survive if we are no longer here. We don’t know if anyone else in the old village and around that region will help them. And we don’t even know yet if anyone else is still living up there.’
‘You are right, my love. And I will show them how to tend the garden, so they will always have vegetables and fruit to eat. As we learnt these skills from our parents and grandparents, so they must learn from us. You will soon have rivals for your cheese if you teach them how to milk the goats.’
‘Such a pity we will no longer be able to fish, though. You could have taken them out in your boat if we had been able to stay.’
‘There may not be fish, but up in the mountains I will show them how to set snares for rabbits and nets for small birds. We may also find dormice and tortoise. Our larder will be plentiful.’
‘You are a good man, Georgiou…’ Agata murmurs, as she finally closes her eyes and sleeps.
‘Aggie,’ Anna cries, tugging at Agata’s skirt. ‘I want a pet like Matilde.’
Agata shakes herself awake, stiff from her night under the trees. ‘What did you say?’
‘It’s not fair. I want a pet too.’ Anna turns and points to where Matilde is crouching by the twisted roots of an olive tree, dabbing at something with a twig. ‘She says his name is Tomas.’
Agata gets to her feet to look. There, in among the dried leaves and pine needles, is a large black scorpion arching its tail. It is not enjoying the game as much as Matilde, who pokes him once more with her stick.
‘Come away,’ Agata shouts, grabbing Matilde’s hand and waking Georgiou as well. She drags the child from the tree, ignoring her protests and those of her sister, who is clinging to Agata’s skirts. ‘You must never play with a scorpion. The sting could kill you.’ She knows it probably couldn’t kill a healthy child, but she is taking no chances and neither child is as strong as they would have been had they not been deprived of exercise, fresh air and good food for months. If they were country children they would have known about the dangers of the wild from an early age, but they were born in the town and have only feared the cobbler’s scattered nails, and the Germans.
She sits the children down near her husband and both girls cry. Not great gasping sobs, but with tears welling in their eyes. It is the first time Agata has had to admonish either of them. And she had not thought it would distress her as well as them, but she knows she must be firm for their own good. ‘There are many poisonous, dangerous creatures in the forests. You must never touch them. If you are curious, you must come and tell us what you have found right away. Do you understand?’
Both girls nod and sniff away their tears. Agata puts her arms around them. Her words are true – there are vipers, spiders and scorpions all around them. And they are not the only hazards. Their trek has exposed the girls to thorny bushes, scratching their legs and arms, stony paths grazing their bare feet and insects biting their dimpled flesh. Agata has anointed them with lavender oil, but they still have red bites swelling on their skin.
I will do my best to keep them safe, she thinks, but it will never be enough. I may be able to hide them away from the Germans, but I cannot shield them from every danger. But aloud, she says, in a very stern voice, ‘You must never play with a wild creature ever again. Never. What on earth would I tell your parents if you came to any harm?’
‘Sorry,’ says Matilde.
‘Can we have breakfast now?’ Anna asks, standing up and kissing Agata’s cheek.
‘When you’ve helped me milk the goats. Then we will have warm milk for our breakfast.’
Chapter Sixty
July 2008
Amber
I didn’t think I would be able to sleep down in the cellar, but after I’d made myself a makeshift bed on the hard cushions of sacks of flour and rice, I must have nodded off. I remember waking suddenly, thinking I could hear distant shouts and crackling. I tried hard to listen, but couldn’t determine whether I was hearing fire fighters tackling the blaze or the fire raging and gaining control. And it was almost totally dark in the cellar, although I was sure I’d left the lights switched on before I fell asleep.
I managed to get up, heaving myself to my feet with the help of nearby boxes and barrels, and find the light switch on the wall near the staircase. I flicked it twice, three times, but the lights still didn’t come on, so I assumed the whole village was blacked out because of the fire. I shone my torch up the stairs, but didn’t like to go up and open the door at the top. The fire might have crept inside the building and I was worried that opening the door could suck the flames in a devastating fireball down the steps. I just hoped that even if the whole restaurant was blazing, the cellar would still get enough fresh air through the air vents, and the old shaft originally used for the delivery of wine casks.
Then I checked my phone. It was still very early, not quite five o’clock, but I thought James should be awake. He usually set off around six to come back for breakfast and start preparing that day’s meals. I hadn’t received any messages, but then I realised I didn’t have a signal. Deep in the cellar there was no reception, so I had no way of contacting the world outside and James had no way of reaching me.
I told myself I had to stay calm. I must keep myself and the baby safe. I sipped some water, bit into a ripe peach and nibbled on a corner of cheese. I told myself that the cellar was the safest place to be; it was carved out of the very rock of the mountains and most of it ran underneath the flagstones of the outside terrace. If Agata and Georgiou’s little children could be brave enough to hide in a crevice in a wall, then I could surely find the courage to shelter in the cellar. Inge had not been able to tell me how often they had been hidden, nor for how long, but when I compared myself, a healthy confident woman, to two little girls, I told myself I could do this.
I shone my torch around, checking what else might be useful if I was to stay down here for a while. We used the cellar for our dry goods, large canisters of olive oil and crates of wine. I assumed it must have always been used for storage, and briefly puzzled over the purpose of some chalked marks on the wall near the light switch.
I wished I’d thought to bring candles and matches down with me in the night, as I needed to conserve the torch battery and I could barely see in the dim light. I heard a rustling over in a corner, behind some crates of beer, and when I shone the torch, hoping it wasn’t a rat, I found it was a toad, shrinking from the light, blinking. That’s a good sign, I told myself. A toad is a sign of good fortune. At least my mother always said so. I was about to switch the torch off and leave him to hide in safety, when I realised he was crouching over a grated drain, just below a tap. It was rusty, but it turned and clean water gushed down over the toad, which quickly retreated. So you are good luck, I thought. I have a supply of food and now I’ve found fresh water. Things could be worse.
I turned the tap off, and
that’s when it happened. While the tap dripped water into the drain, my own waters broke. It wasn’t like a flood of pee, I hadn’t even wanted the loo, but I thought I felt a pop, like a small balloon, and a warm wetness trickled all down my legs and over my feet. No, please not now, I begged. Not here, in the dark. That wasn’t good fortune; it wasn’t meant to happen for another two weeks. And then the first vice-like pain gripped me and I steadied myself against the rough wall until it had passed.
I didn’t have fresh towels, I didn’t have hot water and I didn’t have help. I’d expected the birth to take place in a clean hospital on a firm bed, wearing a white gown, with kind nurses and the best medical help available if needed, not sheltering in a dirty, cobwebbed cellar in a wet nightdress. I hadn’t even been to any antenatal classes, just done some research online. My friends back in England and my mother all told me I should have gone, but there never seemed to be any time during my months of pregnancy. The classes were in Greek anyway, and I was still far from fluent. James and the business had come first, not me and the baby.
If we hadn’t left London, I imagined I’d have had a nursery prepared, with tiny clothes, nappies, a cot and a changing mat. The little I had been able to lay by was in a drawer in my bedroom, and I didn’t dare leave the cellar to go back upstairs, as I didn’t know how much devastation I might find raging through the restaurant above my head.
I breathed steadily to calm myself. I tried to remember everything I had ever read or heard about the birth of first babies. How long could it take? Did labour normally begin immediately, once the waters had broken, and would I be able to give birth alone? I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions and I didn’t know how long I would have to stay in the cellar or whether I would even leave it alive, with a tiny baby in my arms. But I wanted to be optimistic and I knew I had to prepare for this as best I could.
It was cool in the cellar, compared to the heat of the raging fires and the dawning summer’s day outside. But while it wasn’t cold, I thought a newborn baby would find it chilly after the heat of my womb, so I folded my shawl and put it aside to keep it clean and dry.
In the torchlight, I looked around the cellar and found some empty paper sacks, which I laid nearby over the dusty stone floor and across the bed formed by the flour and rice bags. There were two buckets in a corner, so I decided to keep one to use as a toilet and the other one I washed out under the tap and filled with clean water. I ripped the damp hem of my long nightdress into rags, and then rinsed them for use later. Each task was accompanied by intense gripping pains, but I was determined to make these basic preparations. And then, when I had done all I could think of, I began to pace the floor, wondering what would happen first. A rescue, a birth, or death?
Chapter Sixty-One
July 2008
Amber
It wasn’t very painful at first. Not much worse than a really heavy period, but after a short while the contractions became more intense, like a vice tightening and squeezing the whole of my insides and bruising my back.
I tried hard to think of everything I’d ever heard of to ease the pain. I walked up and down, I knelt on my knees on the pile of sacks, I crouched on all fours and arched my back and I breathed slowly. If you’d paid attention, I told myself, if you’d gone to those antenatal classes, you’d have your favourite music playing and your husband would be reading you soothing stories. I tried singing, but found I couldn’t remember the words to most songs. I could manage part of ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music, but when I got to ‘warm woollen mittens’ I couldn’t remember any more and got lost in the tune, repeating the same words over and over.
I burbled the doggerel of nursery rhymes, asking the baby to bear with me, saying I’d do better when this was over, but no matter what I did, the whole experience was bloody painful. In between contractions I collapsed and sat or lay down, resting until the next agonising surge gripped my entire being.
Because the cellar was cool and quiet and I couldn’t see or hear the fire, I didn’t feel frightened by what must still be happening outside, to the village and to our home. I knew I could be in danger, I knew help might be a long time coming and the restaurant might be burnt to the ground, but it seemed much less relevant to me than the momentous event I was in the middle of experiencing. I was strangely exhilarated, and each time I entered that private world of pain, the life outside, the fire, the destruction of the restaurant, departed from my thoughts. I sipped water when I could and told myself that this is what my body was created for; This is what you have been waiting for. Soon your baby will be here and you will hold him or her in your arms.
After an hour or so in which the pains were spaced out, giving me time to recover between each spasm, they began to come a little more frequently and I found I had to crouch and concentrate on breathing steadily till the grip slackened. When in this intense, crushing vice, I was aware only of my body, but as I surfaced once more from the depths, I thought I could hear some shouting and possibly banging, outside the cellar. I wondered if it was the fire crew, finally reaching the cobbled street, turning their jets of water onto the buildings. And then, when there were more thumps and knocks, I began to worry that the restaurant might be collapsing above my head and the exit would be blocked.
But, as I stayed still and listened, I slowly realised that the noises overhead were actually heavy footsteps. I tried to concentrate until I was sure I was hearing steps above me. It could be the firemen or it could be James. Please let it be a fireman; a muscular, well-equipped fireman, come to swoop me up in his arms of iron and carry me off to safety.
He would be strong, he would be trained, and he would know exactly how to care for a heavily pregnant woman in labour. I’d be carried away to a waiting vehicle, maybe a helicopter, and whisked off to a clean hospital, with fresh sheets, warm water, pain relief and smiling doctors and nurses. I fantasised for a moment about reclining on white pillows instead of dirty old sacks, and then I was hit by another belt of pain, squeezing me so hard that I struggled to breathe. I shut my eyes and concentrated on counting and breathing and then, as the agony faded and I came out of that deep place, I heard a loud crash and realised that the cellar door had been forced open and someone was coming down the steps.
I struggled to turn round from where I was crouching on my hands and knees, panting, to see who it was in the dim light. It wasn’t a burly, uniformed fireman, and it wasn’t James, it was the last person I expected to see. It was Greg.
Chapter Sixty-Two
17 June 1944
‘Is this it?’ Agata looks around at the old village, now a ruin of tumbling stones and broken tiles, with bougainvillea sprouting from paving stones. She thinks of the clean, well-ordered house she has left behind, but chokes back her words and determines to make the best of what they are now facing.
‘It has been neglected for a long time,’ Georgiou says. He shakes his head. He too is disappointed at how much the village has deteriorated since he last saw it, maybe twenty years ago. The villagers he knew as a boy left for an easier life on the fertile plains below the mountains, to fish the abundant waters of the sea or to work in Corfu’s docks. Very few could endure the harsh winters and isolation of the mountains, nor make the thin soil productive. But through his disappointment he notices peach and citrus trees, cherries too, growing among the ruins. The birds have not left much fruit, but there is some. There will be enough for them to survive.
‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let us see how things stand with the farmhouse. It may not be as bad as the other houses.’ He leads the donkey forwards, down the cobbled street littered with leaves and tufts of weeds, past houses now inhabited by buddleia and birds. The children hold Agata’s hands as they stumble on the uneven path in their bare feet.
‘Are we there yet?’ Anna asks, looking up at Agata. Her dress is stained, her feet are black and she is tired from their long hike through the forests and along the rutted mountain trails littered with twigs and h
arsh thorns.
‘Nearly, my dear. We’ll be in our new home very soon. How exciting that will be. You and your sister can help me unpack, and then we’ll eat.’
It is early evening, the sun is beginning to drop behind the far hills and the soft light lends a golden glow to the waves of tall, dry grasses around the village. And then, in the stillness, above the clip-clop sound of the goats’ and donkey’s hooves on the cobbles and the trundling of the cart’s wheels, they hear the tinkling of bells. Not a triumphant peal, nor the deep solemn toll of a church bell, but the dull, uneven ringing of sheep bells. They all stop to listen. ‘Over there,’ cries Matilde. ‘I can see a lady with some sheep.’
Georgiou shades his eyes and sees a very old woman, bent over, supporting herself with a stick, leading a line of a dozen small, wiry sheep, all bearing brass bells around their necks, towards the village. He looks hard for a moment, then says, ‘I can hardly believe it. It looks like Zenia Vasilakis. She must be well over ninety by now.’ He hands the donkey’s halter to Agata. ‘I must find out if anyone else is still living here.’
He steps from the path and onto the scrubby grass. ‘Zenia? Zenia Vasilakis?’ he calls out. ‘It’s me, Georgiou Stefanopoulos. Remember? The boy who stole your cherries?’
The old woman lifts her head, straining to see him. As he draws nearer she drops her stick and raises her arms. ‘You have come to make amends, you bad boy?’ Then, tiny and bent as she is, she throws herself at him and squeezes him tightly to her. ‘You have come back? For good?’
Burning Island: Absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction Page 22