by Sara Alexi
The wind whistled outside when they finally said goodnight, and Poppy jumped as the thunder crashed. She lay in bed, at first thinking about the English she was learning and trying to block out her feelings for Pantelis, which she could no longer deny. Then she tried not to think about the growing storm, and then, when a blaze of lightning lit up the whole room, silhouetting the olive trees against a stone backdrop in the grove behind the house, she was sure she saw someone half-hidden behind one of the trunks. She let out a shriek and then promptly muffled it with her hand. But she was scared, and she tiptoed up the narrow back stairs, through to the front of the house and along the rug-strewn landing, where she slithered down the wall and sat outside Pantelis’s bedroom. She felt a little safer there, but when the lightning struck next she shrieked again and Pantelis rushed out of his room in his pyjama bottoms to see what the matter was. The whites of his eyes shone in the dull light when he saw her sitting on the floor by his door.
'What on earth are you doing there?' he demanded.
'I was scared. I saw someone in the olive grove behind the house.'
'Really?' he said, peering out of the nearest window. 'I’d better take a look.'
She thought she heard a tremor in his voice, but he led the way down the back stairs anyway.
'Don't switch the light on,’ he warned, ‘because if someone is there they will see that we are awake and hide.'
He sounded very much in command, and she obeyed and stayed close behind him.
Outside on the terrace she saw robbers behind every tree. The thunder growled and then the rain began to fall, but gently at first. Then he bade her stay by the house whilst he went over the low wall and into the olive grove, to have a proper look around. She didn’t want him to go, because she was worried for him and scared to be left alone. But she stayed silent and watched as he disappeared between the trees. She tried to trace his progress but the rain was falling ever more heavily and the thunder rumbled constantly. As the rain soaked through her nightdress she began to shiver, but her trembling was more through fear than cold. It was late summer and the heat had not properly broken. She held her breath, made a little fist and counted to herself.
He will be back by the time I count to twenty, she told herself, and began to count, first in Greek and then in English, but he did not appear. The tension was almost more then she could bear when, lit up by a flash of lightning, she saw a figure running towards her. She screamed out Pantelis’s name and looked around for something with which she could defend herself, cursing herself for tidying away the broom and the mop. When she looked up again, the figure had leapt over the wall, and another scream rose to her lips.
'It's only me, Poppy.' A hand on each shoulder. 'Pantelis.'
And the lightning flashed again and she saw it was indeed him, and in her relief her head dropped forward onto his chest and his arms came around her shoulders and he led her back inside to sit by the embers of the fire, and poured them each a brandy.
'No, no, thank you.' She pushed her glass away.
'It is medicinal,' Pantelis urged, and so she sipped the fiery liquid and Pantelis stirred the embers with a poker to make them glow red, his arm around her shoulder again.
'You saw nothing, then.' Poppy eventually broke the silence. He took the rug that earlier she had neatly folded and placed on the arm of the sofa and wrapped it around her.
'Nothing,' he replied as he adjusted the thick blanket around her shoulders, his face so close to hers, and he looked into her eyes and she saw all her own confusion of feelings reflected back at her. There was surprise, a trace of fear, and a longing, but above all the purity of feeling, a look that transcended the cultural differences between them, the age difference and their relative social positions.
'Don't be scared,' he whispered, but she was not sure if he was talking about the thunder and the imagined robbers or reassuring himself.
Chapter 16
The following morning, waking in her own bed, she wondered for a minute if she had dreamt it all, but the rug from the arm of the sofa was still around her and she knew it had been real. Things had not gone further than was appropriate, had they? No, she was sure they had not, but his face had been so close – and the way he had looked deep into her eyes! It was as if she was falling into the softest silk, holding her weightless as she looked back at him, but they had not kissed. She had thought he was going to stroke her face or touch her hair, but he had not done that either and she had kept her hands by her side. But a line had been crossed and something had happened that threw the whole world into a new light, in which she could leap out of bed, get dressed in a dream and float on down the hall to the kitchen without touching the ground.
It was sheer joy to lay Pantelis’s breakfast out on the dining room table, and her heart missed several beats in the kitchen when she sat to eat her own, and recalled the details of the previous evening. She was still the housekeeper, after all, and he her employer. But as she poured her coffee at the kitchen table and spread quince jam on her bread, he came in with his own coffee and the plate she had set for him, and he sat next to her and let his shoulder touch hers. He grinned and munched away, but Poppy’s appetite disappeared completely.
Over the next few days, Poppy noticed other subtle changes. It was as if the unspoken rules that had defined their relationship up to that point were shifting, eroding, and the distance between them was closing. He began to help her in the kitchen, and he invited her to walk with him down to the port to collect his paper. Every evening now, he would light the fire in the sitting room and ask her to join him. He still taught her English, but now they also played tavli and he showed her how to play gin rummy.
Then he had to go to Athens for a few days, and the house felt so large and echoing without him. But it was as if he had left a soft, loving, protective bubble around her, and she no longer feared that thieves would break into the house.
When he returned from Athens they fell into each other’s arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and more invisible barriers were broken down.
Poppy breaks off her narrative to take a drink. 'Thank goodness, those painkillers have kicked in,' she sighs.
Juliet stares at her, mouth open. 'You can't leave it there!' she exclaims, which makes Poppy smile. Tactful Juliet, always so considerate of others, and careful in the way she words her sentences, has become so wrapped up in the telling of the love story that she cannot help herself. Well, that's how it had felt for Poppy too: she just could not help herself, not around Pantelis.
'Sorry, Poppy, but please, if you have the energy, you have to tell me what happened! Had he already declared his love by this stage?'
'Ha ha.' It seems like such a straightforward question. 'He said it in so many ways, in words that were not quite those three exact words. And in his actions, with trinkets and flowers, and consideration. There was no doubt in my mind that he loved me and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I loved him.
‘But he did not say it directly, and then he had to go away again. This time he went for a couple of weeks, and he did not say why or where he was going, and I did not feel it was my place to ask. Nothing had been stated, you understand, and to a degree we still kept up the pretence that he was my employer, and I the housekeeper. So I bid him a tearful farewell, and a letter arrived just three days later, and I read it and read it again. It said he was busy, that he had much to do, but he gave the date when he would return and asked if I would have a moussaka ready for him.'
A sigh escapes her.
Poppy read the letter over and over in the next few days, so that it became creased and worn. She tried to read between the lines to decipher what it meant, what he really wanted to say. She resolved to declare her love to him immediately on his return, if he did not do so first.
And when, finally, after long, empty days he returned, she blurted out her heart’s secrets without waiting to see if he would speak first, and he held her in his arms and they became on
e again and everything was perfect. But soon he said he had to go away yet again, although he had not been back even a week, and she cried and he wiped away her tears, and over the next few days she sensed another subtle change. He seemed to grow cool, and he had still not declared his love in words. The pain she was feeling now was as exquisite as her pleasure had been before.
He left without a word early one morning, whilst she was busy in the kitchen, and she knew that she must have done something wrong, and so she ran after him, from the house all the way down to the port, only to watch the ferry pulling away from the pier as she got there and taking Pantelis with it.
For the next week she was in misery, and then to her horror her time of the month came and all was not as it should have been. She fretted for three days and then cautiously ran a hand over her belly and imagined a child with his eyes, his ring on her finger and her life complete. Taking pen and paper from his desk, she wrote to him at his address in America, although she could not be sure that was where he was. The letters that Mr Kalopoulos used to send her took three, maybe four weeks to arrive, so she would need to wait at least that long – plus the same length of time for his reply. And of course, he would be shocked at the news, so perhaps she should allow a week for him to adjust to that. Certainly it would be two months at least before she would hear anything, if indeed he was at the house in America.
With no other option, she carried on as usual, sweeping and polishing and mending, and a little voice in the back of her mind questioned whether he would want her child after all. But she silenced the voice by busying herself with minor jobs that she had put off for years, replacing the latch on the pantry door and sweeping out the attic so the boxes and chests that languished there now did so free of dust. The windows shone with her polishing and the logs were brought inside and stacked by the fire to dry out for when Pantelis did finally come back.
Every evening she studied the English he had taught her, speaking out loud and conducting conversations as if he were there, and then, one such evening, four weeks after she had sent the letter, there was a noise outside the front door and all her fears of the robbers returned. There were still rumours in town, and they had still not been caught. The change in the hormones in her body infused her with a timidity she had not felt before and she hid behind the sofa, crawling on hands and knees to peek around, and trembling at the sound of the front door being opened.
‘What on earth are you doing down there?’ he exclaimed, and she leapt to her feet and ran to him. He dropped his bags and his arms were around her, only for him to push her away just enough to put one hand on her stomach.
'My clever, clever girl!' he said, and she knew that everything was all right.
'So have you seen a doctor?' he asked.
'No, of course not.'
'Why “of course not”?' He led her to the sofa as one would an invalid, and sat her gently down in the place that had always been his.
'Because I couldn’t. I am unmarried.' And she looked up at him expectantly, but no proposal came.
'Oh,’ he scoffed instead, rubbing her still-flat tummy. ‘That’s an old-fashioned idea these days. This is the nineteen-sixties! The old ways are just that, old ways.'
'That may be true in America, but we are not there,' she replied, looking down at her lap. She was surprised to find tears forming behind her eyes. Maybe he would ask her to go to America with him? In fact, he was sure to! He would want his child with him, and where the child goes the mother goes too – that is just the way life is! This thought of going to America thrilled her and she squirmed in her seat.
'You okay?' He looked concerned. 'I will call the doctor.'
'No, I am all right, and please don’t call the doctor, not yet.'
'It will be fine. I have a friend who visits the island who is an American doctor. I think he is here now, and you must get checked.'
No more was said about it that day, but next morning he went down to the port as usual for his paper and came back with his American doctor friend, who felt her stomach, congratulated them both and told her not to lift heavy weights and to get lots of rest. Pantelis seemed happy, and he wondered out loud whether it was a boy or a girl, and they spent the day trying out names. Pantelis cooked for her that evening and lit the fire, and they ate in the sitting room off their knees.
He stayed for three months, and they grew closer. To Poppy it was as if they were man and wife, but then he had to go again. He did not want to go, he insisted, but a man had responsibilities. He did not know how long he would be away, but he would be as quick as he could and he would write often. Before he left he spoke to the baker, the butcher and one of the fishermen and arranged for supplies to be delivered to the house each week so that she would not have to exert herself. The donkey man who would deliver these goods would check for letters at the post office on his way up.
'You have told them all I am pregnant?' Poppy could not hide her horror. There was still no proposal and no talk of taking her to America. When he was there, none of that mattered, but she did not want to be alone on the island with tongues wagging behind her back – that would be more than she could bear, and she wondered if she would dare to step out of the house.
'I have told them nothing. What business is it of theirs?' he replied, as if he would never dream of telling any of the local people about his life, and although Poppy felt relieved she was also a little sad.
He had only been away a week when the pain across her back immobilised her. She had done nothing that might affect her back, and she had no idea what was happening, but there it was again and she sank to the floor. The next pain was across her stomach and she immediately feared for the baby.
'No, no, no – whatever is happening, no!' she called out to the empty house.
'Hello?' a voice replied, and she recognised the donkey man, who must have been delivering her weekly goods.
'Please, help, get the American doctor,' she called as another pain swept over her stomach and her back. It was a pain like she had never experienced before. She could not move for the muscle spasms across her back and yet her arms and legs felt compelled to twist and writhe. The need to move propelled her, but she did not know why or where she was to go, so she crawled on all fours. With shocking suddenness, she felt wet, and her thighs felt sticky; she slumped, and was later grateful that she remembered little more of the events that followed.
The American doctor came, and he must have washed her and lifted her and put her in her bed. He kept saying how sorry he was but she did not know why he was sorry since the pain had gone now, and it was only after she had slept and woken to a new morning that everything that had happened and all the doctor had said registered, and she knew.
The doctor called to check on her every few days in those early weeks, but Poppy wished he wouldn’t, although she was at least glad that she could ask him to post a letter to Pantelis. If he returned so quickly when he knew she was pregnant, how much more quickly would he return when he heard of her ordeal and the tragedy of her – their – loss?
'So I waited, Juliet, and expected him with every new day.' Poppy turns the envelope on her lap over and back.
'How long did it take him? The same as when you told him you were pregnant, I bet. It must have been tricky back then. The transport was not as rapid as it is now.'
Juliet sounds sad. Poppy fears she has upset her with her tale. She didn't mean to do that, but if Juliet is to help then she needs to know it all.
Chapter 17
'As I said, I longed for him to come. In the first week, of course, I was unable to do anything but try to regain my strength. After that, I was on my feet but taking things very easy. The house had gathered a layer of dust, and the terrace was full of leaves and dirt. The windows were cloudy with a haze of that fine red sand that they say blows all the way from the Sahara. It certainly matched my mood. By the third week I felt more like my old self, physically at least, but that was when I became more fully aware of my loss. A c
hild had been growing within me, a part of myself forming separately, a piece of Pantelis to call my own, and now it was gone. There was nothing there, nothing physical to mourn, just the knowledge that it had happened, and I wondered what the doctor had done with the cells that had doubled and divided, and how big the baby would have been. It took about a month before I felt up to sweeping the terrace and there, in the corner of the garden, between the lemon tree and the low back wall, I saw a large flat stone that was new, with the soil around it freshly dug.'
Juliet takes a deep breath. Poppy is losing focus again, and she continues talking, seemingly unaware of her surroundings.
When she found the flat stone laid carefully beside the lemon tree, the pressure in her chest was such that she couldn't tell if it was expanding or contracting. Her heart was crushed, and her lungs filled with so much air they could fit no more. It felt like a mortal wound. The sensation was so real she looked down at herself, almost sure that she had been stabbed or had impaled herself on a branch. But her body was unharmed – it was all in her mind – and she sank to her knees and reached a hand out to touch the stone and cried for the little being with no name, whom she would never know. The sobs enveloped her, and, deaf to the noises she was making, she sank to the hard ground. The sensation of incompleteness was all-encompassing and it hurt more than she ever knew anything could hurt.
When she had initially lost the baby she had been scared, not knowing what was happening, and the physical pain had been a sharp and clenching spasm. But this pain was deep, right into her very marrow, and it tore at everything in her soul that tied her to the earth, severing her desire to remain. How strongly she wished she could let go and rise above what she was experiencing, but her body held her, rooting her to the ground. She wanted more than anything to follow her baby, and she was not without imagination. When had she failed at anything she set her mind to? A dozen ways came to mind. From the top of the garden wall down into the ravine would be a severe enough fall, and the fish knife was sharp. There were two bottles of whisky in the cabinet in the sitting room and all the sleeping pills the good American doctor had left. But her mind would not stay on her goal. The sense of woundedness seeped into her limbs as if she was blotting paper absorbing into every cell the horror that had become hers, and she considered that she was not worth killing, that she deserved to suffer because she had let this unborn being die and somehow that was her fault. Was it because the tiny child had been conceived out of wedlock? Or because he was a foreigner and their blood shouldn’t mix? Was it a punishment for tempting Pantelis?