Island of Secrets

by Patricia Wilson

  I hoped someone would bring them to me, or perhaps later the soldiers would go and I could return to the ridge. As I turned off the village road, a flash of blinding light illuminated everything around me. The following explosion vibrated the air. Ahead, sparks rose like red shooting stars against the night sky.

  The sickening smell of smoke grew stronger. I raced towards our house. Fire! My boys were trapped. They couldn’t get out of the urn without help. I didn’t know how much more of this atrocious day I could take.

  The incline leading home seemed steeper than ever before, yet my abused body found astonishing strength. I gathered my skirts and ran. The only flammable things in the animal room were the wooden spade and the herbs drying on the wall, and the roof. Then, I remembered the pithoi half full with olive oil.

  By the time I got there, the appothiki door lay on the ground and most of the ceiling had collapsed inside. Sparks fizzed and flew up in the hot air. My boys would surely suffocate in the urn. I wanted to scream their names, but the Nazis might hear me. Perpendicular beams blazed against the stone walls and a litter of twigs crackled and spat across the floor. Smoke rose in red swirls and twists.

  I ran to the appothiki doorway but shimmering heat pushed me away like the hands of a blistering spectre. The firelight projected demonic shapes that leapt about me. My mind flickered, returning to the devilish shadows in the olive grove. Yes, God had sent me an omen. Why hadn’t I acted on it immediately? Then I remembered the water barrel behind the house. I snatched the enamel pail that lay next to our trampled tomatoes and raced to the back plot.

  At the butt, I poured water over myself. Rigid and gasping from shock, I repeated the process until my dress and hair were drenched. Then I refilled the bucket and returned to the appothiki. The water slopped and my wet clothes slapped a hindrance around my limbs.

  A chunk of clay roof had fallen in one huge block. The slab had knocked the door off and jammed against the corner of the room, making a triangular space over my buried children. The layer of manure over the urn had baked white and the rising steam should have warned me of its heat. I raked it off with my bare hands, oblivious to the blistering of my scalded skin.

  ‘Stavro, Matthia . . .’ I called as loud as I dared, and I had almost loosened the wooden lid when the pain of my burns registered. Such agony, terrible, I submerged my fists into the bucket of cold water for a moment’s relief before emptying it over the lid of the urn.

  Clouds of hot, dung-stinking vapour billowed around my face. I could see nothing and heard only the crackle and splutter of fire, so loud it drowned the wailing of distraught women on the ridge. I scrabbled in the scorching manure. The water turned it into viscous bubbling glue that fried my hands.

  Gripped by the intense dread of finding Stavro and Matthia cooked alive in the terracotta pot, where I had put them, I fumbled for the edge of the jute olive sack. It tore the skin from my palms as I yanked it away. I wished I had more water but I would not leave the boys until I had removed the lid.

  My pathetic whimpering poured out like the bowels of a butchered lamb. Smoke stung my eyes and I could hardly see. Again, I jabbered their names, ‘Stavro! Matthia!’ My fingers found the ventilation holes and I pulled back with all I had. It cracked from the baked dirt. I hurled it aside.

  Blinded by the smoke, it was impossible to see inside the pithoi. I heard no sound from my children.

  I threw myself onto the smouldering earth, reached into the urn and touched hot motionless flesh. Grabbing a limb, I lifted and dragged Matthia up and out. I’ll never forget the feel of his little body against mine, his head lolling in the crook of my neck as I carried him. My burden felt so precious. I laid my darling boy on the cool ground under the olive tree.

  Please, God, spare me sweet Matthia. He is such a gentle child, only four years old.

  At that moment, I would have traded my life for his. That is the absolute truth.

  My tears fell onto his face. I felt his chest for a heartbeat but most of the feeling in my burned hands had gone. Sinking into despair, I knelt beside him.

  All alone on that dark night, with no notion of what to do, I wanted to scream for help but dare not. I was only an ordinary woman, but at that moment, I needed to be so much more. Stavro, still in the urn, might be seconds away from death, or dead already. Should I leave Matthia and give Stavro all my attention? Yet, I refused to accept Matthia had gone to God before his time. My mind snapped and the most appalling anger consumed me.

  What sort of Christ would allow this to happen? I thumped the ground with my raw fists. Gaia, Mother Earth, how could she let this abomination take place, the deity a mother herself?

  An explosion of pure rage went off inside me. I would fight the Gods and all their angels for the life of my boy! In my madness, I’m ashamed to say, I directed this fury towards my child. Uncontrollably angry that he had died, I pounded my fists against Matthia’s chest. ‘Breathe, in the name of Jesus, breathe!’ Years later, a doctor told me the action had possibly restarted his heart. Perhaps there is a God after all.

  I used the wet fabric of my skirt to wipe Matthia’s hot face, mortified by my own violence. I didn’t deserve to be a mother.

  Thinking he was dead, I opened his shirt to the cool night air and found it almost impossible not to cry out. I can’t describe the combination of joy and hope that coursed through me when he made a slight, fluttery movement of his hands. I pulled my cotton underskirt off and ran to the back of the house where I dipped it into the water butt. When I placed it over Matthia, he moaned. Then, in the light of the fire, I saw the rise and fall of his chest.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ I said through tears of relief, not knowing if he heard me. ‘Lie still while I rescue your brother.’

  I returned to the appothiki and reached inside the urn for Stavro. I tried to lift him out, but my burned hands combined with his weight defeated me. Weak and desperate, frazzled by heat so intense, in any other circumstance it would have been unbearable, yet I had to rescue him somehow. The extreme temperature quickly dried my clothes. I pulled myself to my feet, grabbed the pail and returned to the butt. After soaking myself, I filled the pail again.

  Racing back, I tripped and my burned hands lost their grip on the heavy bucket. Most of the water spilled over thankless earth. I dashed onward and threw myself down next to the pithoi.

  Lying on the floor with my upper body hanging inside the urn, the proximity of the burning roof felt as though it were searing the skin from my back. Courage left me. Exhaustion and the atrocities of the day took my last smidgen of fight. My baby dead, my grandfather too. Me, sullied by a dirty Nazi. And now my first-born son cooked alive because he did, without question, what I’d told him to do. All my remorse boiled up and I howled into the urn.

  ‘Stavro!’

  Bewildered and defeated, I let go of my boy’s arm. Water ran from my wet hair, dripping onto his hot body at the bottom of the pithoi. I just wanted to lie there and die but, as I breathed out, hardly able to inhale the searing air inside the urn, I felt the most glorious movement beneath my injured hands. Then, from somewhere behind me, I heard a mumbled word from Matthia.

  ‘Mama . . .’ he croaked weakly.

  His voice grabbed my heartstrings and an enormous sense of relief flooded me. I pulled myself away from the urn and staggered over to him. His eyes were open and, although dazed, he focused on me.

  ‘Thirsty,’ he said.

  I remembered they hadn’t had a drop to drink since daybreak. Torn between him and my eldest, I said, ‘I’ll get you some water.’

  I took my soaking underskirt from him, dashed back to the urn and dropped it over Stavro to cool him. My hands seemed to explode with pain as I drew closer to the burning cottage. At the butt, dizzy and muddled, I suddenly realised my own raging thirst. I slurped water from my palm. Bits of skin from my hands stuck to my lips like wet paper. At the urn, I splashed a little water over Stavro, promising to get him out soon, not knowing if he c
ould hear me. I returned to Matthia’s side, held him to me and scooped water into his mouth.

  ‘Lie still while I help your brother,’ I said, desperate to get Stavro away from the fire.

  A deafening crack, followed by a vroom, thundered the air. Red sparks streamed towards the night sky and a wave of heat rolled over me. Another beam had exploded into flames. More of the ceiling collapsed.

  Stavro!

  Just when I thought I had reached the pit of this dreadful day, things turned worse.

  A slab of fallen roof, jammed against the corner of the room, was inching down the wall. My insides seemed to drop too. What was I supposed to do? The chunk of clay was half a metre thick and three metres long. The slab would kill us both if it fell while I tried to get Stavro out. But I had no choice – and I had to act fast.

  Earlier, a fallen beam, jammed under the clay, had supported the heavy slab. Now, that length of wood had almost burned through and the charcoal crumbled under the weight pressing on it.

  I grabbed the bucket and threw myself at the urn, chucking the remains of the water down, dropping the pail inside and hauling my cotton petticoat out.

  ‘Stavro, Listen to me! We’re both going to die if you don’t do what I say right away.’ Acrid smoke burned my throat and eyes, but I no longer cared. Nothing could stop me getting Stavro out of there. ‘Take the bucket, turn it upside down and stand on it so I can pull you out.’ He didn’t move.

  The roof slid closer, now less than a metre above the urn, and closing.

  ‘Stavro, I love you. Help me to get us out of here.’ I reached down and yanked on his arm. He stirred. ‘Come on, son, Matthia needs you, I need you, be strong and stand on the bucket.’

  I pulled myself clear of the neck of the urn. The falling roof might flatten me over the urn, meaning Stavro would have no escape. I hunched over, on my knees, next to the rim. Perhaps there would be enough crawl space for him, made by my body, if the roof collapsed. I felt crumbs of earth and small hot stones fall on my back, stinging like little bullets.

  My mind went to baby Petro and I believed I would see him in heaven shortly. The intermittent scraping sounded like a saw through wood as the clay inched down the wall. The noise brought me back to the urgency of the situation.

  ‘Stavro, we only have seconds. You have to stand on the bucket. Do as you’re told, son!’ Through the smoke, I could see his hand reach the rim and hold on. ‘That’s a good boy, now step onto the bucket and I’ll help pull you out, quickly!’

  Another sliding sound and then the roasting clay touched my hunched spine. ‘Now, Stavro!’ The top of his head appeared. I reached down to grasp his belt and hauled with all my strength. He slid out of the opening like a cooked snail on a bent fork. The pressure on my back increased.

  ‘Crawl out, go!’ I cried, fearing I would not make it.

  The moment he escaped, I flattened my body and rolled through the space, now barely more than half a metre. I’ve never been so glad to see the night sky. A million stars blinked down at me.

  A loud smack and then dry earth filled the air. A dust cloud billowed over us. Grit clung to my nostrils and scratched my eyes and it took a few seconds for the shock to die down and the tears to spring up.

  I don’t know how long I lay on the ground under the big olive tree, perhaps I passed out for a while. I would like to say my children’s needs stirred me into action but, in truth, thirst got me up. I listened to the distant crying and wailing of the women still on the ridge, afraid of what else could happen on this dark night.

  Matthia wobbled to his feet. He must have given his big brother a drink. I don’t know.

  Several hours had passed when cold water splashed onto my face. I sensed the approach of dawn and opened my eyes. My sons sat at my side, dipping their fingers into the bucket and shaking them over my head.

  For a second I thought we had all died and gone to heaven, but then the disgusting state of us registered. We were certainly alive – yet the glory of our survival did nothing to slake the heartache of Petro’s death, the pain of my hands and the fresh burns on my back.

  To the west, a full moon seemed to have the face of a skull as it crept like a cowardly dog behind the village ridge. A row of wind-bent cypress trees, silhouetted witches’ fingernails, reminded me of the baby snatched from my breast and murdered. Fear shoved my grief to one side. We had to get away and find a place of safety.

  To the east, a hint of pink shone through the black gown of night and revealed Mother Earth’s gentle curves. I felt we had passed our darkest hour. We were alive, and dawn promised a new day filled with hope.

  Chapter 9

  Crete, Present Day.

  ANGIE PLACED HER NOTEBOOK and pencil on the low table. She tried to swallow, her throat hard and painful from halting sobs. ‘You have a wonderful way with words, Yiayá. You should write a book yourself.’

  ‘No time left, koritsie, you do it. Many years ago, I taught reading and writing in the schools of Amiras and Viannos, but my passion lay in ancient Greek, the poems of Homer.’ She smiled and broadened her shapeless bosom. ‘My father – a great scholar – gave me lessons. Girls were not usually trained to read and write, but my father had no boys so he educated me.’

  ‘Did you teach your own sons?’

  ‘I did, Angelika, and everyone in the village that wanted to learn.’ Angie caught the pride in her grandmother’s eyes. ‘I got Vassili reading and writing too, and he went on to be a teacher. Most adults were illiterate then, some old ones still are.’ She stared at Angie’s notebook. ‘Promise you’ll write my story, koritsie. I fear what happened will be forgotten. Only now, I realise the importance of our local history. We all want to forget. It’s understandable when many of us continue to grieve.’ She shook her head. ‘Young people don’t know the real pain war causes, and there’s great danger in that.’

  The door banged open. A short, wiry man, with a thick grey moustache and angry brown eyes, lurched through the strip curtain. His dazzling white shirt seemed oddly out of place. Sharp rectangular creases down the front told Angie it had come straight from the packet. He leaned on his bastouni and stared at the women.

  ‘Oh dear, now I’m in trouble,’ Maria said. She lifted her drink and sucked iced tea and air noisily through the straw.

  ‘Mama, who’s this?’ the intruder asked, holding out a stiff hand with fingers spread – first in Angie’s direction – then at her pencil and notebook on the table.

  ‘Calm down, Matthia. Show some manners to our guest. Angelika is your niece, Poppy’s girl.’ Despite the aggravation in her voice, Maria’s mouth softened with affection.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said. His brusqueness suggested the opposite. ‘I heard you were here.’

  Angie stood up and offered a nervous smile. ‘Hello, I’m pleased to meet you, Uncle Matthia. Your mother has told me so much about you.’

  He frowned for a moment and then peered towards the kitchen. Hope glimmered in his eyes and his voice softened. ‘Is Poppy here?’ He smoothed his shirt-front.

  ‘No,’ Maria replied gently, ‘your sister isn’t here.’

  ‘Humph.’ The asperity returned as he faced Angie. ‘Don’t believe anything the old woman tells you.’ He shook his walking stick and threw an icy glance from under a bank of frosted eyebrows. ‘She eats too much glystretha.’

  He scowled at bags and bottles cluttering the room and then turned like a white tornado, whacked the strip curtain with his bastouni and disappeared through the parting.

  ‘Eeh,’ Maria sighed, glancing at the ceiling. ‘Take no heed of Matthia. He still tries to pretend the past never happened, especially to foreigners.’

  ‘What did he mean, you eat too much glystretha?’ she asked, hoping the conversation would come around to her mother.

  Maria giggled. The vertical creases that pleated her face upended into hooked fingers of mirth, beckoning Angie to join in her amusement.

  ‘Glystretha is the local name for one of the wild sa
lad herbs. It grows in September. You’ll know it as purslane. The stalks are slimy inside. In fact, glystretha means slippery in Greek. When a woman talks a lot, the men say she’s eaten too much glystretha because it makes the tongue slithery fast.’

  Maria’s eyes flashed with pleasure and contentment where Angie expected to see bitterness. She found it humbling to listen as her grandmother recalled the tragic events. Silent with her thoughts, she waited for Maria to return to the morning of the 15th of September.

  *

  Crete, 1943.

  THE AIR, ACRID AND sour with the smell of smoke, held none of the pleasure of a fresh new day. The time had come to plan our escape while we had darkness on our side.

  ‘Who’s hungry?’ I asked trying to lighten the mood, knowing they hadn’t eaten for almost twenty-four hours. They both nodded. ‘Stavro, bring the goat and kid from the back plot, and don’t let anyone see you.’

  ‘Now we must eat as much as we can,’ I said to Matthia. His little face lit up. ‘We need to be strong, son. Fetch me the rusks and the honey from the food safe.’ He trotted to the outside cupboard behind the stone oven.

  The sky grew lighter by the second. I guessed it to be around four thirty and knew the importance of filling our bellies before we escaped from Amiras. I got to my feet and plopped to the ground again, dizzy from lack of sustenance. We had two choices: up the mountain, or down. Up, the safer option, would lead us to the plateau of Little Omalos, or even further to Lassithi. However, Omalos would be snowed in soon enough, making it safe from the Nazis, but would we survive without salt or vegetables?

  South, towards the canyon of Arvi, would be warmer, with food and shelter. But it carried the risk of discovery and death if the Nazis planned to stay in the area.

  Stavro returned and clumsily milked the goat, proud to demonstrate a hardly acquired skill. The creature stared over her shoulder, twitchy, unhappy to have her teats pulled by unfamiliar hands. My boys took their fill, drinking the warm frothing milk straight from the pan.