The Thread

by Victoria Hislop

‘Yes, he would, wouldn’t he!’ Dimitri responded. ‘Well, it’s the closest I shall ever get to being one. How is he?’

  Mention of Konstantinos Komninos brought an instant change of mood to the room, reminding them all that officially Dimitri did not exist.

  ‘Just the same,’ his mother replied simply.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘And, Katerina, tell me,’ said Dimitri, wanting to change the subject, ‘are you still making the women of Thessaloniki look like goddesses?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘My husband prefers me to be at home.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Dimitri. ‘That seems a waste. My mother said you were the best in the city!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olga. ‘It’s a huge pity. All Katerina’s talent is now locked away.’

  ‘When we were up in the mountains, the women fought alongside the men! As equals! I’m sure they won’t be following their husbands’ instructions any more . . .’

  Katerina smiled at Dimitri. ‘Well, I’m afraid most husbands still expect their wives to do what they’re told.’

  Dimitri turned to his mother. ‘You know I can’t stay in Thessaloniki. It’s not safe at the moment and I think it’s better for you if I don’t tell you where I am going either,’ he said.

  ‘You know what’s best, Dimitri. As long as we hear from you from time to time. I need to know you are safe,’ Olga replied.

  ‘I’d like to take a few of my things with me,’ he continued. ‘Some of my medical books. I want to begin studying again. There were so many things I wished I had known when I was up in the mountains. One day I’m going to qualify.’

  He stood up. ‘Katerina, come and talk to me while I pack,’ he said.

  She followed behind him.

  Dimitri’s bedroom was exactly as it had been almost a decade ago. All of his book were just as he had left them, in semi-disarray, some of them open on his desk, some of them propped against others. This was how Olga had instructed Pavlina to leave them. Everything was dusted, but very carefully so that it was all in the same position. There was a medical dictionary, a human skull that he had been so proud to own – some scientific but strangely beautiful anatomical drawings on the wall and a pen lying across a sheet of notes. Incongruously there were still some childhood objects arranged on a nearby shelf – an abacus and a catapult – and, leaning against the wall, an old hoop.

  Dimitri walked over to his desk and began to rummage while Katerina stood, feeling slightly awkward.

  Suddenly he turned around, one of the toys in his hand.

  ‘Do you remember playing in the street, all those years ago? You and me, Elias and Isaac, and the twins?’

  He was staring into her eyes, his own ablaze with passion and fury.

  ‘Of course I remember,’ she replied.

  ‘What changed everything, Katerina? What happened to those years? Those people?’

  Time and cruelty were part of the answer, but she knew that one thing had not changed. She had loved Dimitri then and she still loved him now.

  Holding her gently by her shoulders, he realised the same thing.

  Dimitri had seen so much destruction and wasted life, so much brutality, fear and violence. He had experienced a father’s hatred and had seen brother turning against brother. He had watched a whole country at war with itself and none of it made sense in the way that this embrace did.

  Katerina too had experienced her own internal civil war. From the moment she had set eyes on the list of innocent names betrayed by Gourgouris, she had been in a state of turmoil. As she felt Dimitri’s gentle touch on her scarred arm, she knew with certainty that she was loved. She found herself suffused with an unexpected sense of peace.

  So it was also with Dimitri. He felt the kindness of her lips and all the bitterness of these past years seemed to lift.

  Both of them had waited so long for such a moment and now, without the need for words, decided not to let it pass them by. What reason was there to resist such desire?

  An hour went by and, two floors below in the kitchen, Pavlina was busy packing up some food for Dimitri.

  Olga knew how Katerina felt about her son and was certain now she had seen them together that Dimitri felt the same. Knowing that he might not be able to return for the foreseeable future, she had wanted them to be alone.

  ‘He looks thin,’ said Pavlina. ‘Wherever he’s going to live, I hope he’ll be fed properly!’

  ‘I don’t think he’s eaten well for years, Pavlina,’ said Olga. ‘But it’s the same for half of Greece, isn’t it?’

  She watched Pavlina filling a box to the brim with packets of cheese, dolmadakia – stuffed vine leaves – tiropita – cheese pies – and dried fruits.

  ‘Are you sure he’ll be able to carry all that?’ Olga laughed.

  Eventually Dimitri came downstairs, with Katerina following him. With his slight figure and an old school bag filled with books slung across his shoulder, he looked at least a decade younger than his thirty-two years. It was as if he was off for a day at the university.

  ‘Dimitri!’ Olga said with a catch in her throat. ‘Are you going now?’

  Saying goodbye never seemed to become any easier.

  ‘Yes, I must. No one who fought with the Democratic Army is safe, but I promise to keep in touch. Nobody wants to be back here in this city more than I do . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do about your father,’ said Olga.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Dimitri. ‘Nor me.’

  Both of them knew that Dimitri’s real enemy was inside his own family, within his own home.

  Pavlina and Katerina stood back as mother and son embraced. Dimitri picked up the brown box that Pavlina had neatly tied up with string, kissed each woman on the forehead and went into the hall. He could not delay his leaving any more.

  Pavlina opened the door and looked out both ways.

  ‘You’re fine,’ she reported. ‘There’s nobody about.’

  With that, Dimitri left and did not look back. Two minutes later, Katerina set off in the other direction. It was time to start shopping for the evening meal.

  Tonight she planned to make egg and lemon soup, roasted aubergines with feta cheese, lamb shanks with cannellini beans and walnut cake with syrup. There would be loukoumi, Greek delight, to follow, which had been made the previous day.

  For many months now she had watched her husband’s expanding girth. Apart from the embroidery she did privately whenever he was not at home, the only other sewing she undertook was the alteration of the waistbands on his trousers.

  There was joy in her heart as she cooked. The meat was already marinading in its own fat and juices, just as Gourgouris liked it, and she set about the preparation of her dishes with enthusiasm. Eggs and fatty cheeses, sugar, oil and lard were innocent enough in small quantities, but in the proportions she used them, she was nurturing the perfect environment for coronary failure. At present the only apparent effect of these rich meals was to induce almost instant sleep but silently, by furring up the arteries, they worked towards another goal. Katerina told herself that she was only fulfilling her husband’s wishes.

  ‘I need to lie down before dinner,’ he said brusquely. ‘But have it on the table soon, will you, dear?’

  Slowly he hauled himself up the dark staircase, one step at a time. An hour later, dinner was ready and he came down ready to eat. He paused between mouthfuls and even lifting a fork to his mouth seemed to leave him short of breath.

  Katerina’s inward happiness did not leave her. Even when she went to see Eugenia and there had been no letter from Dimitri, she did not mind. She could tolerate the passing of time when she knew that he would one day return, for it was beyond any doubt that he would.

  Within six weeks of Dimitri’s visit, Katerina realised that, like her husband’s, her waist was also expanding at an alarming rate. Her breasts had increased in size too.

  ‘You must be pregnant,’ Eugenia
said. ‘I’m convinced of it.’

  ‘But Grigoris will know it’s not his,’ exclaimed Katerina. ‘We haven’t made love for months and months! He always passes out even before I get into bed . . .’

  ‘We’ll think of a way,’ said Eugenia, smiling. ‘But if I were you, I wouldn’t mention it to a soul. At least for a while.’

  During the next few days, Katerina’s own stomach for preparing meals decreased and nausea made her intolerant of everything but bread dipped in olive oil. In spite of that she continued cooking with increased determination. Spinach and filo pie, beef stuffed with haloumi and bougatsa, pastries filled with rich custard sauce, were all favourites of her husband, and she wanted to satisfy his appetite.

  One night, Katerina made a meal that was lighter in cholesterol than the usual fare. She served fish as a main course and omitted the potatoes. Even the pudding was dainty: strawberries with a light dusting of sugar and a fine wafer.

  ‘Have you put Grigoris on a diet?’ her husband asked, waving the biscuit in the air. ‘Do you think Kyrios Gourgouris is getting a little portly?’

  He was rubbing his enormous belly as he said this, but Katerina just smiled sweetly and said: ‘I just thought it would make a change.’

  When he went to bed that night, Gourgouris did not fall asleep with his habitual speed and, as Katerina took off her clothes in the dressing room, she could not hear the sound of snoring. She put on the nightdresses embroidered for her wedding night, came into the bedroom and, leaving the bedside light on so that he could still see the shimmer of pale fabric, climbed into bed next to him.

  She felt his hand pushing the silk up her legs and then, without conversation, he rolled over on top of her. Seconds away from suffocation, she could not even cry out. She did not have the breath. Then, at the very moment of penetration, the crushing weight went still.

  Realising that she was trapped by a huge lifeless body, whose dead weight made it all the heavier, she was seized with panic. A strong sense that she had everything to live for now empowered her with almost superhuman strength, enough to give Gourgouris one immense shove. She wriggled out from underneath.

  Her first thought was for the safety of the baby. Her second was for how she would conceal her joy that Gourgouris was dead.

  Once she had got dressed and composed herself, she went to a neighbouring house to get help. Within the hour, a doctor had arrived and confirmed Grigoris Gourgouris’ death. The cause was massive coronary failure, quite common in a man of his age and with such an excess of weight. His heart had been a time bomb.

  Katerina slept in the spare room for the rest of that night, underneath the beautiful quilt that she was embroidering in memory of her friends, and the following morning her late husband’s body was collected.

  Katerina did everything that she was expected to. She wore black from head to toe and received and replied to letters of condolence. There was a funeral attended by dozens of staff from the workshop, many of the customers and Konstantinos Komninos. Everyone commented on how stoical she was. It was a way of explaining to themselves why the widow did not cry.

  A few days later, the will was read. Katerina learned that Gourgouris’ nephew, who managed the workshop in Larissa, was to take over the Thessaloniki business. The will specified that the same nephew should also have the Sokratous Street house.

  The solicitor looked over the top of his glasses to judge her reaction. It was not unusual for a man to leave his property to a male member of the family if there was no son and heir, but he thought it was a little harsh that this young woman was to be evicted from her home.

  She seemed unperturbed, which he felt was very dignified.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘There is just one more thing here.’

  He was smiling at her as though she was a child who needed cheering up.

  ‘He’s specifying that his nephew should pay you an annual stipend based on the wages of a part-time modistra.’

  Katerina had an overwhelming desire to laugh at this display of meanness, but it was important to conceal her mood from this pompous man who was staring at her across his desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be needing that. How long am I permitted to stay in the house?’

  ‘One month from your late husband’s death,’ he replied, glancing down at the document.

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘I shall be out before the end of the week.’

  He was intrigued that this woman had been so shoddily treated, and yet she did not seem to care.

  ‘I think I must have been a very unsatisfactory wife,’ she said, sensing his curiosity. ‘But he was a very unsatisfactory husband too.’

  With that, she got up and left the room. By the end of the day, her suitcase was packed and the house in Sokratous Street was locked up. As well as a few dresses, she had taken the quilt and her Singer sewing machine. That was all she would need. With a lightness of step, she walked up to the main road and found a taxi to take her to Irini Street. Eugenia was there to welcome her.

  Although her pregnancy was now beginning to show, her nausea had passed and she had never felt happier or more full of life.

  ‘I wish I could put on something brighter to wear,’ she said to Eugenia. Her widow’s weeds felt rough and lifeless against her skin.

  ‘I think you should wear black for a while longer,’ advised Eugenia. ‘It will seem hasty otherwise.’

  Eugenia’s advice was sound. In such a conservative city, it was important that Katerina was identified as a widow. In that way there would be no questions raised surrounding the paternity of her baby.

  Katerina filled the final few months of her confinement sewing for her soon-to-be born: bonnets, bibs, vests, gowns, jackets, blankets. Everything was sewn by hand and personalised.

  When she was alone, she sang to her unborn child. Perhaps a thousand times the words of her favourite song drifted out across the air, given new meaning by her condition:

  ‘Wake up, my little one, and hear

  The minor key of dawning day.

  For you this music has been made

  From someone’s cry, from someone’s soul.’

  As soon as people noticed her changing shape, their sympathy and concern for her increased.

  ‘What a tragedy,’ they said, ‘to be a pregnant widow.’

  In the final few weeks of pregnancy, she spent many hours sitting on the doorstep with Eugenia, enjoying the gentle warmth of the early autumn in the quiet cobbled street. At their feet was a basket of different coloured cottons, packets of needles and some snippets of ribbon and lace. Both of them were intent on getting everything ready in time.

  Eugenia had woven a blanket in pale colours and was now crocheting a decorative edge.

  ‘All done,’ she said. ‘That should keep him snug. You know how damp these winters can be.’

  The younger woman put down her embroidery, closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun.

  In spite of her smooth, unlined skin, Katerina had shadows beneath her eyes that were as black as the widow’s weeds that shrouded her from head to foot. She picked up the little gown that was resting on her lap and resumed her task. With a length of blue thread she added the final touch to the motif on the yoke. It was a tiny butterfly, and all that remained to be done were his antennae. Then he would be perfect.

  ‘There,’ she said, with a note of finality. ‘I’m going in to have a rest now.’

  She gave Eugenia a knowing smile, one that overflowed with joy and anticipation.

  ‘Something tells me it won’t be long,’ she added.

  The following day, 5 September 1950, her baby was born. She named him Theodoris – ‘Gift from God’.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  KATERINA REJOICED, KNOWING that this beautiful, silky-haired boy belonged to the man she loved. Pavlina gasped when she first saw him.

  ‘He’s the image of his father,’ she said. ‘Exactly what Dimitri looked like when he was born!’

&nb
sp; During the statutory forty days she spent at home with her newborn, some of the modistras from the Gourgouris workshop called in to Irini Street to admire him and to bring gifts that they had sewn.

  ‘It’s such a shame,’ they said, ‘that his father isn’t here to see him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Katerina, with a smile as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s.

  Pavlina came too and brought gifts from Olga.

  ‘Isn’t even the birth of a grandson enough to bring her out of the house?’ asked Eugenia.

  ‘Sadly not,’ replied Pavlina dourly. ‘If you ask me, there will only ever be one reason for her to leave that house and it’ll be in her own coffin. But she sends her love, along with these gifts. And I know she is hoping that you will call on her as soon as you can.’

  Katerina enjoyed every moment of these days, when she had little to do but attend to the needs of her newborn. Whole days passed by during which she did nothing but feed and hold him, and when he slept, she sewed for him, embroidering his name on every garment. Eugenia, who still wove on her loom at home, was always there to help and provide company.

  They were together in Irini Street when Dimitri’s letter came. It had been written some while back and, as before, was addressed to Katerina, but this time without any spelling error in the surname. When she saw the address at the top, her heart froze.

  Makronisos.

  This was the barren island off the coast of Attica used as a giant prison camp by the government for Communist captives. It had a fearsome reputation for cruelty, and stories surrounding the barbaric treatment suffered by its inmates had been circulating for some time.

  Dear Katerina,

  I am so sorry not to have written before to let you know where I am. As you will see from the address on this letter, I was arrested some months ago. I have nothing to tell you except that I love and miss you and the image I carry of you in my mind is all that sustains me.

  Please can you break this news gently to my mother and give her and Pavlina kisses from me?

  Dimitri

  There was a tone of sad resignation in the letter. Everyone knew of Makronisos and the conditions that prevailed there. The government made no secret of how the island was used, because they wanted to make an example of the Communist ‘traitors’ who were sent there. They did not, however, publicise the lengths to which they went to extort confessions from its prisoners. Such details were only revealed by those who agreed to renounce their Communist beliefs and were therefore released.