Island of Secrets

by Patricia Wilson

  ‘Be still, pray to God!’ She shook me hard and kept a bruising grip.

  Our men and boys were silent except for the weeping of children and a few consoling voices from the elderly. I strained to listen for Petro but couldn’t hear him. Since war had broken out, only the disabled or those too old or young to fight remained in the village. Now they stood, bunched before us in a huddle of helplessness.

  The commandant reached into the horde and dragged out Pavlo Petrinakis. A young man of twenty-five, our local doctor. He slammed the poor doctor against the chapel wall. Another Nazi, standing to attention, translated the commandant’s barked words into faltering Greek.

  ‘Now, we make example. You all take notice of what happens when we are crossed!’ he yelled.

  I held my breath, straining for the sound of my son. I think most of the other women were crying, screeching, but they weren’t important to me. I wished they would stop their noise. I stretched up on my toes, trying to see who had Petro, hoping he would cry again so that I got a direction.

  We begged the soldiers to show mercy, prayed to the Blessed Virgin, crossing ourselves repeatedly in a futile effort to instigate divine intervention. I think all the women shared my emotional relief, better for Pavlo to die, rather than my own son. I remembered the man had a weak heart, failed the army medical, and now he would have immortality as our village martyr.

  Sickening remorse rose in my throat. I would lay flowers of guilt on his tomb. Every Nazi aimed his machine gun at the doctor. Pavlo’s wide eyes turned to heaven, his face gaunt as an El Greco icon.

  ‘Oh, Virgin Mary, make it quick.’ My head screamed with the horror of it all. Where were our soldiers? Where was our God? Where was my baby?

  The Captain yelled, ‘Name?’

  ‘Petrinakis.’ He gulped and shook violently, barely able to stand.

  My heart pounded in my ears. Time must stop. Wake me from this nightmare.

  The doctor searched our faces for his wife and child.

  ‘Katarina, come to the front!’ one of the women shouted, choking on the words, she as guilty as me – as guilty as the rest of us. ‘He needs you. Your husband wants to see you!’

  We parted, dragged her forward, bearing her weight and blocking her whimpering from our minds. She clutched their baby girl and shuffled through the women, stiffly reluctant, tears streaming. Older women, standing behind, wrapped their arms around her waist. Others were ready to grab the infant if Katarina collapsed.

  Old Kiriea Petrinakis, the mother of Pavlo, dropped to her knees and hugged herself. She rocked, her arms enfolding the belly that once contained her son. Her toothless mouth in a wretched salivating grimace.

  Pavlo nodded at Katarina. His thin face taut with anguish, yet he appeared to take succour from the line of eye contact. Their life together should not end like this. I remembered their wedding a year ago. We danced all night in the village square.

  The Nazis prepared to fire, pulling their weapons to their shoulders in unison. Our village priest, at the front of the men, led them in prayer, their eyes fixed on the young doctor.

  Get it over with, God have mercy. I must find my baby, take him home and suckle him.

  ‘Now, and at the hour of our death . . .’ the men sang in plainchant.

  The commandant shouted a three-word order in German.

  The soldiers turned on their heels and fired. The deafening rattle of bullets went on, and on, and on . . .

  Apart from Pavlo Petrinakis, every male fell to the ground.

  The hot Mediterranean air stank of gunpowder and dread.

  ‘Petro! My baby! No!’

  My body shrank with horror. A woman’s arms wrapped around me and mine about her – grasping at each other’s clothes in a kind of manic hysteria. Screaming. The endless screaming that only ceased with the need to breathe. Unable to turn away, my eyesight blurred and re-focused, each vision worse than the last. Cameos of death branded into my memory for eternity.

  They fell, wave after wave before my eyes. My friends’ husbands hunched over babies and infants in an effort to save them. Old men clutched adolescent boys against their chests. Familiar faces twisted with the terror of realisation.

  I caught sight of my grandfather, Matthia, my second son’s namesake. My arms stretched out towards him although he stood more than ten metres away. I had such a strong compulsion to embrace the gentle old man, to protect him. Yet the short space between us amounted to an abyss. He turned to me and nodded, bitterly sad. I saw his ribcage jerk forward in one violent movement. Disbelief flickered in his wide eyes as he sank lifeless to the ground.

  ‘No, Papoú!’ I shouted.

  And somewhere real or ethereal, my voice cried to the heavens.

  ‘My baby! Somebody save my baby!’

  I stared at the men intently as they fell, desperate to see Petro, afraid I would miss a glimpse of him, my mind blocking the inevitable. And then I saw with my own eyes, a flash of the bloody red nightgown of my son, clutched against the broad chest of the baker. He spun his back to me and fell to the ground, a puppet with his strings cut.

  Sick to my stomach, I knew with certainty that this was my fault – I let the soldier take my baby. As long as I lived, I would never forgive myself for allowing such a nightmare to happen. Why did I go into the grove that morning? Why didn’t I hide in the ditch with my children? We could have escaped. I had been stupid and irresponsible.

  Bullets rattled and crashed. In the deafening noise, pieces of flesh flitted and dropped like pale pink butterflies over the vibrating bloody mound of one hundred and fourteen men and boys.

  I knew all of them. I had taught most to read and write. I’d praised them for the smallest improvements and basked in the light of their grateful eyes.

  I stood on the ridge with the other women of Amiras, empty, bloodless. The life sucked from my body leaving only a shell, hot and dry like a long-dead crab. My baby, poor Petro. God take his soul. He’d come into this world, bloody and screaming only eight weeks ago and now he left the same way.

  Why had I always been so eager to put him in the hammock after suckling? I could have held him, rocked him against my bosom and told him about the father he had never seen.

  *

  When exhaustion brought a respite from the screaming, nobody spoke. The only sounds were shuddering sobs when somebody forgot to breathe and then juddered air into their lungs at the last moment. It might even have been me. A dog bayed in the lower village, its piteous yowl echoing from the mountainsides. The beast cried for us all.

  A wall of soldiers surrounded the dead.

  I stared at the devastation surrounding me. Many of my friends had collapsed having seen the murder of their children, fathers, husbands, brothers and grandfathers. Other women, on their knees, pounded the earth, or raked the skin from their faces with jagged fingernails in a terrible fit of madness. A few remained on their feet, tearing their hair out, beating their breasts and howling prayers to God.

  The soldiers forbade our approach.

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed the doctor had fallen to the ground. His wife and mother were trying to drag him away. Nobody helped them. Petrinakis, now cruelly ostracised for surviving.

  Occasionally, we saw twitching in the blood-soaked mound. Each of us hoped for a miraculous sign of life from one of our family. Prayers answered. But the Nazi commandant took out his pistol and fired into the skull of any half-dead man or child. An abomination or a blessed relief . . . who could ever know?

  Day bled into night, the sky turning deep red. We all waited, wretched, desperate to find our loved ones. I fretted about my two boys, buried in their dark earthy tomb at the house. Stavro and Matthia would be terrified, hungry and thirsty but, thank God, they were alive. A day seemed an eternity in the life of a child. I had to go back to them. Petro, dead, was beyond my help, I could do nothing. Even if, by luck or miracle, he had survived, I remained helpless. I could not stand to watch that final Nazi bullet. M
y baby’s feeding time had passed and my breasts ached, heavy with milk. What sort of mother would leave knowing her baby lay underneath that mound of bodies? But I knew I had to get home, rescue my boys, take them far away from the dangers of Amiras.

  Another pistol shot cracked the night. Ashamed and broken hearted, I turned away from my hysterical neighbours and started a fast walk to our house. I wanted to race back, but sensed I shouldn’t draw attention to myself. An explosion in the village caused the ground to tremble. Somewhere up ahead, flames leapt into the dark sky. Grit and small pebbles fell through the air. Were they blowing up houses? I broke into a run. Hardly below the ridge, a hand caught me and swung me around by my elbow.

  ‘Halt!’ a soldier barked. He pulled so hard I pirouetted into his grasp and found myself slammed against the grocer’s shop wall, staring into ice-cold Aryan eyes. He mumbled words that I interpreted as lustful and his obnoxious breath cloyed about my face. Another explosion sounded. I choked on panic. My boys trapped in the terracotta pot, Petro trapped beneath a mound of dead bodies, me, trapped in the grip of a Nazi.

  ‘No, please . . .’ I begged.

  Chapter 7

  Crete, Present Day.

  TEARS SHIMMERED ON ANGIE’S eyelashes. Maria’s shocking revelations were almost incomprehensible. Suddenly angry with her mother, Angie wondered why Poppy had never shared her grandmother’s history with her. She glanced around the simple living room that, as Papoú pointed out, had hardly changed since that appalling September day.

  Maria looked up, nodding, as if confirming the atrocities she had witnessed. Or perhaps she displayed nothing more than the doddery reflexes of her ninety years.

  Angie fought her emotions. ‘I’m so sorry, Yiayá. Mam didn’t tell me any of this. I had no idea . . .’

  Maria bowed her head and sighed. ‘Ah, poor Poppy . . . The past was terribly cruel to her too. She suffers in silence.’ A solitary tear rolled down her cheek.

  Angie, desperate to hear about her mother, noticed her grandmother was exhausted. She struggled to keep her voice even. ‘I’ve asked too much of you, forgive me? I didn’t realise, didn’t know . . . we can stop now if you prefer?’

  Maria lifted a bony hand with knuckles distorted by arthritis and patted her granddaughter’s thigh. The old woman’s golden skin, tissue-thin and dotted with brown freckles, bore vast white patches. Angie recognised the evidence of third degree burns and imagined the appalling pain. Wondering what had caused the disfigurement, she recalled her mother’s hands and the frantic scratching until they bled.

  Maria shook her head and said in a tremulous voice, ‘You need to hear the whole story.’

  Angie glanced across to her grandfather who sat in the corner, his worry beads still and his eyes shining. Maria turned to him.

  ‘Old man, I don’t want you here when I tell the next events to Angelika. You are too nosy and it’s women’s talk. Get yourself to the kafenion for your coffee and give us a little peace.’

  ‘I will.’ He pulled himself to his feet. ‘I’m proud of you, old woman. This story isn’t easy.’

  Vassili shuffled across the room and kissed Maria on the cheek. Before he straightened she whacked at him with the flat of her hand, nearly knocking him off his walking stick. He lurched backward, teetering to keep his balance while retreating from her assault.

  ‘Don’t start with your nonsense, you old devil,’ she yelled in her weak, high-pitched voice.

  Behind Maria’s back, Papoú turned to Angie and winked. ‘Did you see that, Angelika? My wife, she beats me! I’m a martyr.’ He grinned a set of yellow mismatched teeth before shambling out of the house.

  Maria kept the anger on her face until he had gone and then she took on a gentle, mischievous look. ‘Don’t let this man of yours become too familiar, koritsie. Men, they’re always trying to take advantage, no matter how old they get. You have to keep them in their place.’

  Angie nodded and offered a feeble smile, not trusting herself to speak at that moment. Yet she recognised the kindness of these elderly folk, lifting the weight of emotion from her. She scrabbled in her handbag for a tissue, dried her eyes and blew her nose.

  ‘Koritsie, I hope you never feel the torment I had that day.’ Maria stroked the white patches of skin on her hands. ‘But you know, if ever you need it, The Almighty will give you a giant’s strength and huge endurance to save the fruit of your womb.’ She held her hands out. ‘God gave me these scars to wear like a medal. Whenever I have a problem, they remind me of what I can overcome, and then my difficulty becomes dust – nothing.’

  Angie needed a break to collect her emotions. ‘Shall I make you a drink, Yiayá? All this talking, you must be thirsty.’

  ‘Yes, bring the iced tea from the fridge, Angelika.’

  In the kitchen, Angie noticed the silver larder-fridge rocked as she pulled the door open, and understood why it rattled every time the chiller motor started. Didn’t they know it had adjustable legs? She would sort it out before she left Crete. The thought of doing this small thing for them gave her an inexplicable amount of pleasure. She brought a couple of cans of iced tea into the lounge. Her grandmother pointed to a box of multi-coloured straws on a shelf.

  They drank in comfortable silence.

  Chapter 8

  MARIA SHOOK HER HEAD. ‘Whatever you learn while you’re here, Angelika, I want you to remember: the circumstances surrounding your mother’s wedding were not her fault. Poppy was completely innocent.’ She glanced at the icon again. ‘I realise you don’t understand, but be patient and everything will become clear.’

  Alert to a connection, but not understanding what it was, Angie nodded at the garish image. ‘It’s Saint George, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Agios Yeorgios,’ Maria said. ‘A Christian martyr. His parents were Greek; did you know?’

  Angie felt she had missed something. ‘My father’s name was Yeorgo.’ Saint George and the dragon, she thought. Was her mother the dragon, or her grandmother, or was she being ridiculous?

  Maria turned her face away. ‘Poppy wasn’t born until after the war. With girls, you must provide a dowry. It’s expensive and, in the end, you lose them anyway because they go and live with their husband’s family.’

  Angie only half listened, wondering why her mother had refused to talk about all this. Surely, as her grandmother’s story progressed, she would understand everything.

  Maria continued. ‘Every day at sunset, as the fierce heat weakened, I sat outside with the other mothers to crochet bed linen and lace.’ She smiled, closed her eyes, and seemed lost in her memories of warm summer evenings.

  ‘It must have been hard to find the thread after the war, Yiayá.’

  Maria nodded. ‘We kept silkworms then, and fed them on mulberry leaves. All the women worked together to produce the yarn.’ She dropped the needlework back into her sewing bag and crossed herself three times.

  ‘Let’s return to the story. I’m ashamed of the next event, koritsie. I know you want to hear, and you have a right to learn everything, but don’t judge me too badly.’

  Angie nodded and then shook her head, unsure of herself. Fearing she was about to put her lovely grandmother through more stress, and humbled by the old woman’s past, Angie waited. She found it impossible to imagine how Maria had felt after seeing her grandfather, and then her baby, so callously murdered.

  Maria closed her eyes and sat, trance-like, hands on her knees, palms up, like some unwritten yoga pose. Angie sensed her grandmother’s thoughts were returning to that evening of the 14th of September and her astonishing fight for the lives of her children.

  *

  Crete, 1943.

  THE NAZI IGNORED MY protests and overpowered me. He forced my arm up my back while his other hand snatched under my skirt. I tried with all my strength to push him away and remembered the folding knife I had used to cut weeds that morning. I could plunge it into his neck. Kill him the way we slaughtered the village pig.

&nb
sp; I pulled the knife from my apron pocket but the Nazi grabbed my wrist. He bashed my hand against the grocer’s wall until I let go of the weapon, then his knuckles smashed into my face. Pain blinded me. A second blow, under my ribs, knocked the wind out of me. My knees folded. My lungs screamed for air. I couldn’t breathe and collapsed to the ground.

  The mortifying shame . . . Tears stung my eyes and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. He mumbled something in German. At first, I tried to fight, but he seemed energised by my efforts to push him away. In seconds, he had my skirt lifted, his knees forced mine apart and he savagely took me.

  Some kind of bizarre grief, that I am unable to understand, made me cry out my husband’s name. ‘Vassili!’ At that moment, I hated my man for not being there to save me. Then I hated the grunting pig that rammed into me, painfully, too soon after I’d given birth. I cried for baby Petro, cried for my husband who had never held his third son, and I cried because of the terrible thudding ache below my belly.

  I cannot recall the end, only that I recovered my senses on the hard ground. I opened my eyes, tentatively, afraid he was there, but I discovered myself alone. Dirty, frightened, and fearful for my children. I loathed my body and still cried for my husband. Grief welled up and rolled through me in waves, each surge weaker than the last until eventually I struggled to my feet.

  I used the hem of my skirt to wipe away most of the blood and semen that ran down between my trembling legs. Crouching, I tried to pee, hoping to cleanse myself internally, but dehydration made it impossible. Using the sleeve of my dress, I wiped my blood-streaked face. The boys would be frightened enough. They shouldn’t see their mother in such a state.

  I staggered towards home, thinking of Petro, his little body, a life hardly started and yet so cruelly ended. Poor Papoú too, my gentle grandfather to whom I should have said many things but didn’t make the time. I never told him, ‘I love you, Papoú.’ How terrible to leave that simple truth unspoken.