Island of Secrets

by Patricia Wilson

  ‘Are you up to it? You’re supposed to be taking it easy. We’re quite capable, you know.’

  ‘The doctor said no digging or lifting heavy stuff for a few weeks, so a nice bit of paperwork will keep me occupied. I’d like to do it – feel important.’

  ‘I want to tell you about my first day in Crete. I bought a lemon tree for Yiayá and when Demitri planted it Voula said I had to give it the first watering and make a wish.’ Angie glanced at the curtains, realised the storm had passed. ‘I wished that you’d find peace and return to Crete and your family.’

  ‘How sweet, we’re a superstitious lot, don’t you think?’

  Chapter 29

  Crete, Four Weeks Later.

  MARIA SAT IN THE SHADE of the big olive tree, near the cracked marble table. So, Poppy was coming home to Crete. She stared, blankly, trying to see into the future. Trouble would come, and wounds re-open. Bitter memories resurrected to torment them all, she sensed it. Maria realised Poppy was returning simply because Angelika wanted her to.

  In the end, Poppy would do anything for Angelika, just as Maria would for Poppy.

  But Angelika had no idea why her mother had left Crete in the first place. Or why, for very different reasons, she had stayed away all this time. Decades of tragedy. But each of those years held an empty space that belonged to Poppy. She thought of Yeorgo. Maria still missed him. What a powerful and handsome man, kind beyond words. Her eyes filled with tears. Such a terrible sacrifice . . .

  Maria’s daydreaming drifted towards Angelika. She had greatly enjoyed the glamorous young woman’s company, and admired her spirit. Maria recognised a certain amount of courage, to go against Poppy’s wishes and find her family in Crete. It proved Angelika had that stubborn and determined streak that ran through the Kondulakis bloodline.

  Despite painful memories, Maria had, in a strange way, enjoyed telling the story of her survival to Angelika. It took a minute or two before she remembered where she was up to when her granddaughter left for England and Poppy’s hospital bed.

  Poor Poppy and that precious heart of hers. Forty years had passed since it was so badly broken, so completely crushed. Maria always suspected it would never fully heal. How could it? Whose heart could ever recover from such an abominable revelation? Then, Angelika, close to her own wedding, had opened all the old wounds without realising it. She stared down at her hands and remembered how they would crack open, painfully, and then bleed. No wonder Poppy needed pills to get her to sleep and ended up in hospital.

  Ah, yes. Now she recalled their story. She had dragged the items from Andreas the shepherd’s cottage up the mountainside after the soldier had come so close to executing her and Stavro. What a terrifying moment. Stavro had saved her life. Her stomach still cramped to think of it.

  Maria allowed the horror to drift away from her and fade on the breeze. Over the decades, she found this was the best way to deal with the past. If she tried to forget, push the atrocities out of her mind, it seemed they were always lurking close by, or waiting to be bumped into around the next corner.

  Her memory returned to the moment when she had arrived at the big old tree on the mountainside and expected to find Matthia asleep with a pile of acorns beside him.

  Closing her eyes, she saw it all . . .

  *

  Crete, 1943.

  THE CLIMB BACK UP the mountain had exhausted me. My legs were trembling, and I could barely put one foot in front of the other. The ground seemed to undulate like a rolling sea beneath my feet and I kept losing my balance.

  Matthia had to be near; perhaps he had found a softer place to sleep. I dragged the stretcher under the tree branches. Stavro spread the sheepskins we had brought from Andreas’s cottage to make a soft bed. Darkness fell, and we were tired beyond anything I had ever experienced.

  Whether I collapsed or simply slept, I don’t know. My knees buckled and consciousness left me. When I opened my eyes again, dawn light filtered through the branches.

  Stavro lay asleep on the sheepskin. Why wasn’t Matthia snuggled up to him? It took a few moments for the realisation that he was missing to come back. I speculated about my son’s whereabouts and all sorts of terrifying thoughts came to mind.

  Could the Nazis have found him? Could he have fallen into one of the many ravines that raked the mountainside? What about wild animals? There were rumours of bears roaming the pine forests, released by Turkish buskers when the creatures grew dangerously large. I hoped he had simply wandered too far from the tree and lost his way. Perhaps the goat escaped and Matthia searched for it. After all, I guessed to a four-year-old, one tree looked pretty much like another.

  I scrambled from under the branches. What would make him take the goat and blanket and leave? I spotted a mound of acorns. Knowing how easily Matthia was distracted by bugs and butterflies, they must have taken over an hour to gather. In that case, it was getting dark when my boy left the tree.

  Although we called him a little devil, Matthia had always been a good child and usually did as I told him. I ran down to the ruin by the footpath but saw no sign of him. The goat would soon bleat to be milked. I strained to hear it and shouted, ‘Matthia!’ as loud as I dared. When my search proved fruitless, I returned to our tree and woke Stavro.

  ‘I’m going to look for Matthia. Stay here, under the tree. I don’t want to lose you too.’ He didn’t need telling twice, the poor exhausted boy. ‘There are rusks, oil, and water in the bundles, eat and drink, son.’ He lifted his head, nodded, and returned to his sleep.

  I raced up the mountain, following time-worn animal tracks through the vegetation, stopping to listen for our goat every few minutes. What could have happened? Soon, the trees thinned, their roots like broken fingers clutching crags of rocky ground. Surely he couldn’t have come this far, not in the dark.

  ‘Matthia!’ I called out; the cold thin air made my voice hard and clear.

  ‘Maria!’

  At first I thought I had caught an echo: ‘Matthia!’

  ‘Maria!’

  I swung around.

  Joanna, the baker’s wife, filthy and ragged, ran towards me through the trees.

  We fell into each other’s arms, weeping with blessed relief . . . and also with remorse for the slaughtering we had seen. I knew she had saved my life, keeping hold of me the way she did at the massacre. The Nazis would have murdered me too had I tried to rescue Petro.

  ‘Have you seen Matthia, Joanna?’ I said between sobs.

  ‘He’s safe, with my daughter, Martha, your goat too. I came looking for you. We’re in a cave near the dry waterfall. Where’s Stavro?’ She paused, staring at me. ‘Did they get him, Maria?’

  I shook my head, so relieved that I couldn’t speak. We walked down to the tree together, united by our ordeal. She told me about the murder of her youngest boy, Harry, her tears tripping on the words. She had seen him amongst the clutch of men; their eyes met and held, seconds before his seventeen years of life were so cruelly ended.

  ‘Another month and he would have been in the army, safe,’ she said.

  Her beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Martha, had escaped the Nazi cattle truck and was taking care of Matthia. I led Joanna down to the oak tree and woke Stavro. Together we dragged the stretcher up the mountain. Stavro, at the rear, did his best to cover our tracks.

  *

  By midmorning, we were safely hidden in the cave. I hugged Matthia so tightly he cried out and wriggled free. We shared the place with two other families, Stavroula, the blacksmith’s wife and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Kiki, who had seen the murder of her fiancé, and Eva, the beekeeper’s wife with her fourteen-year-old son, Stefan.

  ‘How did you manage to escape, Stefan?’ I asked.

  ‘My Papoú helped me, we were captured together. When they shot old man Philipo in the side street, Papoú said they were going to kill us all. He kissed me on the mouth and said I shouldn’t forget him.’ Stefan plucked at the front of his shirt and stared at no
thing. ‘My Papoú was crying, all silent. He told me to take care of Yiayá and Mama.’ The boy sniffed and thrust his young jaw out, grinding his teeth for a moment. ‘Papoú said I should bend my knees and walk lower and, at the first house we passed with an open door, I should duck in and hide up the chimney.’

  He struggled with images still fresh in his head. ‘I wanted to hug my Papoú, I wish I had, Kiriea Maria, because now I can’t, ever again. He was the best kite maker in the world.’ After a moment, he swallowed hard and said, ‘I’m going to learn how to make those kites.’

  We both stared at the ground for a beat before Stefan continued.

  ‘When the street narrowed, something happened with the women behind us. They were screaming and it distracted the guards. Papoú shoved me through a doorway but a fire blazed in the hearth and a pot of food stood in the grate. I thought I’d feel a bullet in my back. I glanced over my shoulder. Papoú did this quick nod thing towards the sky, and then he disappeared down the road with all the other captives.’

  Stefan gazed between the trees at the endless blue sky. ‘The window to the yard hung open so I leapt through, all the time I thought about Papoú. Why didn’t he come with me? We could have run away together.’

  ‘Just too old I guess, Stefan. Your grandfather was already at the end of his life, but happy to know that you escaped.’

  ‘I ran to the biggest olive tree, that one with the hollow trunk, and I hid. I heard the commotion, the gunfire and the screaming. It frightened me so much, I didn’t dare come out until the middle of the night.’

  ‘You were brave; your mother is proud of you.’

  Stefan looked up again, his eyes full of questions. ‘Do you think he’s up there, my Papoú?’

  ‘I’m sure he is, Stefan, and very happy that you are going to make kites like he did.’

  He smiled at the sky.

  We spent the day in the cave and I slept most of the time. When I woke, I discovered Joanna had taught Matthia to milk the goat properly. That evening we made a plan to try and find the road up to the highest plateau, Lassithi.

  *

  It took four nights, slogging along forest tracks, to reach Lassithi Plateau. We caught and killed a young sheep on the way. I wondered if the creature had belonged to Andreas. Was he watching over us? We also found an apiary – there were many in the pine forests but who would be foolish enough to try and open a hive? Eva was experienced, her hands permanently red and swollen from decades of bee stings.

  From a distance, we watched Eva use a smouldering rag to waft around herself, and then clear the bees from a heavy frame of honeycomb. We ate the lot, wax and all, in one go. It gave everyone great energy and the children loved it but several angry bees followed us, pestering with the threat of a sting for the rest of the day.

  ‘Why do you use the smoking rag, Kiriea Eva?’ Stavro asked.

  ‘When the bees smell the smoke, they think there’s a forest fire, so they gorge on honey in preparation for a long flight. You know how you feel when stuffed with food, Stavro?’

  The boy stared at nothing and licked his lips. ‘Yes, really sleepy, like now with all that honey inside me.’

  ‘There you are then. You’re not in the mood to pick a fight with anyone. Neither are the bees.’

  We walked on, unsure of where we were. The midday shadow pointed north, so we would choose a landmark in the distance, and head for it the following evening. I think it was luck more than judgement that kept us going in the right direction.

  Carrying enough water was a problem. By the second day, we had run out and the youngsters were thirsty. I remembered the shepherd’s advice and called everyone together.

  ‘Listen, we must look for small birds. They almost always lead to water.’

  This was against our plan of not travelling during the hours of daylight. We were terrified of coming across German troops on manoeuvres, every rustle or snapping twig made my heart leap. But we were parched and desperate to slake our thirsts.

  ‘Mama!’ Matthia cried. ‘Look, a bird!’ He pointed into the branches of a nearby pine.

  It took me a moment to find the little brown-speckled creature, and then I saw it swoop across our path and land in another tree.

  I waved everyone to come towards me. ‘Andreas told me that when the birds fly slowly from branch to branch, it means they are heavy with water. They already drank.’ Water had to be near. ‘We must keep an eye open for fast birds racing along in a straight line, close to the ground. They will lead to fresh water.’

  We spread out and moved cautiously on, until Stefan’s shout made everyone jump. ‘Hear! Hear! I saw them. There’s water!’

  ‘Bravo, my Stefan!’ Eva shouted, running up to him, whacking her boy on the back, and then grinning at us.

  He hooked his arm in the air and cried, ‘Over here!’ His voice echoing off the rocky terrain.

  ‘Shhhh!’ I said, nervous, afraid we’d be heard.

  We dumped our belongings in a pile and followed Stefan through the scrub.

  At a time in the distant past, someone, probably a shepherd or keeper of goats, had made a small deposit, about a metre square and half a metre deep, from cement. A spring, hidden on the mountainside above, had its water channelled along lengths of interlocking sandstone blocks. It babbled down into the trough and overflowed, drenching the lush vegetation. The magical sound of that water was music to us. We ran over squelching ground and drank greedily from cupped hands.

  The boys, mischievous, flicked water at each other. I suggested that we women should go back for our belongings, and leave the children to play together.

  On our return, we heard their screaming.

  Terror overcame me, forcing me to my knees. Joanna, Stavroula and Eva did the same, dropping the bundles and hitting the ground. My mouth had dried and I found speaking difficult. I fell so hard, the burns cracked open on my hands. Blood oozed from my wounds like a terrible omen of more suffering and death to come.

  ‘Go back and hide,’ I whispered to Kiki and Martha. ‘Stay together.’ I didn’t want the girls to witness any more horrors, and the further they were away from danger, the better.

  We women from Amiras Village crept along on all fours, through the undergrowth, unaware of sharp flints that cut into our hands and shins. My heart pounded so hard I feared I wouldn’t be able to focus on what might lie ahead.

  When we saw the boys, we rolled together, hugging each other, trying to stifle our laughter. The relief was enormous, yet we were reminded of how far our voices carried.

  Stefan, Stavro, and Matthia had removed every stitch of clothing and were playing in the water-deposit. Their nut-brown faces and limbs seemed to intensify the luminescence of their white bellies and buttocks. The children, stark naked and full of joy, frolicked and splashed in the dappled sunlight. The sight was truly beautiful for any mother to behold.

  As we watched, we realised Matthia, the devil, was the cause of all the squealing. He stood knee-deep in the water, holding his little penis and pissing at Stavro and Stefan.

  We four women rolled onto our backs, stared up at the tree canopy and giggled. Such a relief, to laugh. Eva told the boys to keep the noise down, and she put her son, Stefan, in charge.

  We gathered our belongings and the girls, and set up camp right there in the bushes. Food consisted of white-mustard plants, wild parsnips and dandelions that grew in the wet ground around the deposit. Drizzled with olive oil and eaten with the last of our rusks, they made a satisfying meal.

  When the boys were asleep, we took it in turns to go in pairs and bathe in the water deposit. Oh, that cold fresh water! Wonderful! Stavroula had a small block of green soap, what luxury. I hacked off a chunk of sheepskin, which we used as a wash cloth.

  We all washed our hair, and also our underclothes, which we hung on the bushes, hoping they would be dry by morning. I fell asleep that night, thanking Andreas for sharing his knowledge with us. Without his guidance, we would never have found that water. />
  Two days later, hungry, dirty, and exhausted, we stumbled out of a gorge between the mountain peaks. Spread before us was the plateau of Lassithi. The vast plain – 900 metres above sea level – was dotted with hundreds of white-sailed windmills. We saw clusters of houses, villages scattered among the patchwork of yellow and green fields. Uplifted by the picture-postcard view, we headed for the nearest community, Kaminaki.

  The locals welcomed us and were sympathetic, despite their own hardship. News had spread about the mass murders in Amiras and Viannos. We learned similar massacres had happened in all the other villages near to Amiras. More than 500 innocent people, our friends and neighbours, lay slaughtered, and many more were missing.

  The women and girls had left the area in a mass exodus, fleeing east, to the town of Ierapetra. They lived in goat huts and begged for food in the streets.

  The priest of Kaminaki sent us to three abandoned stone windmills outside the village. ‘Stay quietly, my children,’ he said. ‘We have not been free of trouble ourselves. Seven innocent local shepherds were executed because the Nazis suspected one was a rebel.’

  Again, I thought of Andreas and also wondered how many Nazis were in the vicinity. Would we ever feel safe again?

  Chapter 30

  London, Present Day.

  NICK AND ANGIE STOOD in Poppy’s bedroom doorway and admired their DIY work.

  Angie slipped her arm around Nick’s waist. ‘I love the colours; pink, lilac and cream. So pretty and feminine.’

  ‘Like you,’ Nick said before he kissed her cheek and ran his hand down her long hair. ‘Yuck, what’s that? Snot?’ he said, staring at his palm.

  Angie giggled. ‘It’s wallpaper paste, you twit. I just washed out the bucket. I’m going to shower and wash my hair.’

  ‘Right, while you’re doing that, I’ll go and order the carpet, if you are sure about the cream one?’ Angie nodded. ‘I’ll bring something in for tea, okay?’ he said.

  ‘Great. I love you,’ she said, heading for the bathroom.