So Long, Marianne

by Kari Hesthamar

  On board they met a big bear of a man by the name of Papa­dopoulos, who turned out to be a candy multimillionaire. Papadopoulos had founded the Papa’s Sweets factory in California and was eager to speak English. Axel and Marianne pumped him for information. Papadopoulos confirmed what they’d heard in Athens: “There are hundreds of islands in this sea and if you haven’t already decided where you’re going, you’ll never manage to choose one. So get off at the first stop. Hydra is the most beautiful island in the Aegean.”

  And so it was decided.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  HYDRA

  * * *

  It’s raining and cold, in the middle of January. The boat drops anchor far out in the bay. Along with the other passengers, Marianne and Axel are transported to land in small boats. The harbour is shaped like a horseshoe in which fishing boats painted blue and white are moored side by side, bobbing in the water. Small yellow oil-lamps glow in the windows of the whitewashed stone houses that climb up the hillsides from the waterfront. Marianne and Axel walk toward a cluster of lit-up buildings, looking out for a place to spend the night. A few Greeks hasten miserably homeward through the cold rain.

  After getting themselves a single room at the Hotel Sophia, they find a café that’s open and sit down. Three fluorescent tubes are suspended by wires from the ceiling. Outside the wind blows bitterly. Standing in the middle of the room is a scorching hot oven that looks like an old oil drum, with a pipe that goes straight up and then bends to exit out the window over the entrance. The oven vibrates with heat. A group of Greek men play backgammon and drink ouzo.

  One of the younger men is named Jimmy. He can speak some English. He strides over to Marianne and Axel and says, “Hello. Where are you from?” and “I know other English.” Marianne and Axel waste no time in arranging to meet Jimmy again the next day so he can direct them to the other English-speaking people on Hydra.

  Two small kittens mewl and beg for food among the tables. A man kicks one of the cats, sending it flying into the wall. Marianne jumps up and cuddles the skinny creature in her lap. Looking at her with incredulity, the local men gesticulate for her benefit — the kitten has fleas. The warning notwithstanding, Marianne and Axel depart the café each bearing a scruffy kitten. They settle into the whitewashed room on the second floor of the Hotel Sophia. Their toes cold in spite of their long underwear and sweaters, they slide into bed. They fall asleep lying close together in the little room, which has a balcony and view of the port, where the boats creak against one another in the waves.

  The next day Marianne goes to the pharmacy and buys pipettes with which to feed the kittens milk. But they can’t keep the food down. Their eyes big and round, the cats hiss and miaow for food. Together she and Axel decide to end their suffering. Down by the water, Axel knocks the mewing kittens on the head with a stone and throws them in the water. Greedy seabirds swoop down and grapple for the little cats.

  Later that day Jimmy shows up as agreed and escorts them to George and Charmian Johnston. Axel and Marianne aren’t met with an effusive reception, just a short “Welcome — we’re working, but we can meet you at Katsikas’.” Katsikas’ turns out to be a shop on the corner. The back room serves as a store-room and a café, furnished with four simple wooden tables and some uncomfortable chairs with woven seats. Barrels of strong retsina are stacked against the wall, nearly reaching the ceiling. Octopuses and sheep testicles hang to dry. In the shop at the front the ceiling bristles with suspended baskets, brooms, cooking pans and other essential household utensils. The walls are jammed with foods and tools of various descriptions, and on top of a heap of flour sacks a little cat sits cleaning its front paws.

  The Australians George and Charmian Johnston were among the first foreigners to settle on Hydra. A tall lean man, George used to be a reporter for Life magazine and now writes detective novels set in exotic locations under the pseudonym Shane Martin. Shane and Martin are the names of the couple’s oldest children. Their third child, Jason, was born on the island. Charmian also makes a living as a writer. She is dark and intense and quarrels frequently with her spouse. The Australian writer-couple helps the new Norwegian arrivals, putting them in contact with the island’s only real estate agent and giving them down-to-earth advice about starting life on Hydra.

  The island is inhabited by over two thousand Greeks and six expatriates. Besides Axel and Marianne and their guardian angels George and Charmian, the foreign contingent includes Nancy and Patrick Greer. He is Irish and a writer and has settled on Hydra to write. The little group begins to meet regularly, when the mail arrives around noontime and again in the evenings when the day’s work is done. Slowly Marianne and Axel are incorporated into the little circle of friends.

  * * *

  During those early days on Hydra, Marianne and Axel rented a tiny cheap house. The toilet — a hole in the floor and a bucket of water to flush it with — was in the cellar. They installed themselves with their few belongings and took the boat back to the mainland and the overgrown garden where the Volkswagen was parked. The old landlady peeked with astonishment as they ransacked the car of its furnishings, dragging the back seat and the two front seats to the boat. When they arrived back at Hydra, they carried everything on their heads up to the house. Thus they acquired a sofa and chairs. Now they lacked only a table.

  At the local café they had become acquainted with a well-off Albanian named Mimi Laozi. The population of Hydra was predominantly of Albanian, rather than Greek, origin. In the middle of the fifteenth century Albanian refugees came across from the Peloponnese and settled on Hydra. Mainly poor shepherds and farmers, they put down roots on the island and in the 1950s many Hydriots still spoke Albanian.

  Mimi had grown up in the Hydra Hotel, near the big pharmacy, and her cellar was full of old things that had been stored there for decades. Invited to poke around in the cellar to see if there was anything they could use, Marianne and Axel found two old taverna chairs and a wooden cable spool. The spool, which had washed up during a winter storm, could serve as a coffee table. They thanked Mimi and laboriously rolled the spool along the paving stones, satisfied with the day’s catch.

  The seats from the car, the coffee table of weathered grey wood and the bed and spring mattress were what they had in the beginning. They eventually acquired some straight-backed Greek chairs with woven seats and carved wooden backs. There was electricity for just an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. They burned kerosene lamps; water came from the communal wells at the top of the road.

  Axel wore out his fingertips writing. Marianne enjoyed the place and took pleasure in feeling the smooth-worn stones under her feet. She made vegetable stews on the kerosene stove and attuned her daily rhythm in time with Axel’s. Meat was a luxury; they ate mostly vegetables and lentils. She made stock from olive oil and herbs, and cooked with coal. The retsina tasted like cough medicine, but it was cheap and they soon grew accustomed to it. Retsina, which derived its special flavour from pine resin, had been produced in Greece for over three thousand years. Marianne and Axel bought three-litre wicker-wrapped jugs with handles, trading in the empties for full bottles at the shop. They ate feta cheese fished from barrels of brine. They adopted a pair of stray dogs and fed the scrawny cats that sniffed hopefully around the house. They were blessed with sun, a zeal for work and each other.

  Marianne felt free.

  * * *

  The port of Hydra is flanked by white houses that ascend the hills like seats in an amphitheatre, with the waterfront as the orchestra pit. Towering 590 metres above the sea is Mount Ere, the highest point on the island. Just below the mountaintop gleams the whitewashed monastery dedicated to the Prophet Elias.

  Socializing took place down in the arc of the waterfront, then as now. Katsikas’ and a few other coffeehouses were concentrated around the statue of the island’s great hero, Captain Koundouriotis. One of the most illustrious men in Gr
eek history, Pavlos Koundouriotis led the Navy to important victories against the Turkish fleet during the Balkan Wars and was later elected the first president of Greece. Turned to stone, he gazed out to sea, his back to the cafés where coffee and retsina were served. In one of the streets behind Koundouriotis lay the post office. Other than that the harbour had the character of a boatyard. The workshops stood cheek by jowl and steady hammering could be heard at the café tables.

  Once a base for the Greek Navy, Hydra was proud of its tradition of ship-building. Many distinguished captains came from the island. Their fleets had fought for Greece in several wars and had formed the foundation for Hydra’s prosperity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the 1950s the island’s former ship-owning and naval families still resided in their old mansions on the hillsides. Many of these estates later passed into the hands of foreigners; some were turned into museums.

  Most days Marianne saw little of the womenfolk. Passing doors that were ajar, she caught glimpses of mothers and daughters, in aprons and shoes with worn-down heels, as they scrubbed the floors on their hands and knees. Or she passed them as they stood outside their houses, whitewashing the walls with their long-handled brushes.

  Every Sunday after dinner the women emerged in their grandest finery. In high-heels and dresses fitted snugly at the waist and bust, they drank pastis and ate ice cream and cakes, accompanied by their husbands and their smartly turned out children. Perhaps there had been a child’s christening or another occasion that made them open the doors to the second floors in their homes. Seldom used, these formal drawing rooms were furnished with large bureaus topped by crocheted doilies, the drawers filled with the family’s finest bed linens, tablecloths and silverware. In the event of a baptism, wedding or funeral, the doors to the fancy parlour could be opened and the shutters pushed aside to allow the sunlight to pour in over the best furniture in the house.

  A death was marked by a great procession of mourners through the streets. If a woman died without having attained the status of wife and mother, her body was clad in bridal regalia. Instead of marrying the man her parents had chosen for her, she was married in the afterlife. Candles were lit around the coffin. Flowers, handkerchiefs and money were laid upon the deceased, who was embraced and kissed on the forehead.15

  When a person had taken his own life, however, the mourners bore a closed coffin and kept to the back lanes, their eyes cast down in shame. Some years later Marianne would witness the mourners of Mimi Laozi, who had given them their first pieces of furniture, as they walked with heavy steps along the back streets.

  An older man named Jimmy always took up a position at the end of the procession. Whenever there was a funeral, he followed the mourners through the streets. He walked with a rolling gait, a little splay-footed, and always dressed neatly in a dark suit and a flat cap. Jimmy made his living by selling the deceased’s possessions that were donated to him by the family. After the funeral, when the clothing and other effects had been sorted, Jimmy came down to the port to peddle the wares in his straw basket. “Do you need shoes today? Very good shoes!”

  Jimmy was one of the few Greeks who spoke a little English. He had gone to the United States after the war and had saved what he made peeling potatoes and washing dishes at a Greek restaurant. Returning to Hydra with his earnings, he went through all his money wining and dining his friends. Jimmy had been a poor man ever since.

  BUYING A HOUSE

  Marianne observed Greek daily life through her Norwegian eyes. It was like going back to another time. The foreigners who were there had made their way to Hydra in protest against the brassy commercialism of the modern world. Axel found the tranquility he needed to write, and when they were both certain that Hydra was the place they wanted to be, they decided to buy their own house.

  Axel had received an advance of forty thousand kroner — about six thousand U.S. dollars — from his publisher, and now they could afford to buy a little whitewashed haven for themselves. For about two and a half thousand dollars they found a house like an eagle’s nest, cemented into the steep contour of the mountainside, with a view over the houses below and the sea beyond. The house was in need of repairs. They drew up the figures in a notebook:

  House: 14,840

  Floor: 2,400

  Bricklayer: 6,000

  Electricity: 2,000

  Bathroom: 800

  Total: 26,050 kroner

  When all the expenses were paid they had just over two thousand dollars to tide them over until Axel’s next book was published.

  With their own address and a view of the blue sea, Marianne and Axel felt like royalty. The house consisted of a kitchen and a spacious living room on the first floor. They bought big straw mats to hang on the walls, which made it more cozy. A narrow set of open stairs went up to the second level, which was a single room. Francisco, the carpenter, made a worktable and Axel ensconced himself there on the upper floor, with his typewriter and his books.

  The house lay on Kala Pigadia Street, on the way to the large wells that in the old days had supplied the whole of Hydra with water. In the cool shadows of the large trees that surrounded the twin wells, folks gathered to exchange news and stories. It was an advantage to live near the wells on this otherwise dry and barren island, so the neighbourhood along Kala Pigadia was among the more affluent. The mayor lived a stone’s throw below Marianne and Axel.

  Kala Pigadia was transformed into a riverbed when it rained. High stone ledges flanking the street kept the water from rushing into the houses and served as sidewalks when it flooded, as it did now during the winter. The widest thoroughfares were constructed so two donkeys loaded with side-baskets could pass one another. The less trafficked lanes were wide enough for only one donkey at a time. In some places Marianne could stretch out her arms and touch the houses on either side. Outside the entrances to the houses sat old men with canes and their diminutive wives dressed in black.

  “Kalimera sas.” Good morning to you.

  “Yassas.” Hello.

  The streets were redolent of donkey shit, which people gathered up to fertilize their flowers and trees. With spindly legs and long erect ears, the animals toiled up the roads, bearing planks and schoolbooks, casks of retsina and roof tiles, and everything else that had to be hauled up from the port. The moneyed Hydriots resided high up in the town. The five monasteries on the island were also located high on the mountainside, as close to God as they could get.

  Packed closely together in the narrow lanes lay the whitewashed stone houses with their orange roof tiles. When a child grew up and married a new house was built against the old one on the family’s property. The new house had a separate entrance and as a rule the doors faced downward toward the port instead of straight toward the street. The buildings evolved in many irregular forms in this way. Struck by this architectural anarchy, Henry Miller rhapsodized over “this wild and naked perfection of Hydra.”16

  Marianne and Axel lived a good life, far from Norway. Marianne missed brown goat cheese and cold milk, but not life in the north. She had very little contact with her people back home. Mother sent letters expressing her uneasiness regarding her daughter, who had left against their wishes; she could scarcely believe that Marianne had a roof over her head. Preferring distance, Marianne didn’t reply. Liberation — wasn’t that moving to a Greek island and going barefoot, away from the watchful eyes of her parents? Marianne was well aware that for her this wasn’t just a quest for adventure, but also an escape from Oslo.

  Marianne had never before seen anything so beautiful. The island enchanted her, and she felt at home. At the same time she felt that she stood out and was noticed — that she was someone. It was almost as if her girlish daydreams had come true. Her body brown and her hair sunbleached, she walked shoeless on the smooth stones. This was freedom. This was how she wanted it.

  * * *

  There was little work to be f
ound on the island and very little money in circulation. When Marianne and Axel first came, Hydra’s women were clad in black. The local men pushed off at dawn to fish, long before the children went to school and the town awakened. In the morning the port was the commercial centre where the boats were unloaded, fish and vegetables were sold and donkeys hired for transport.

  Very little grew in the barren landscape. People were dependent on the fish they hauled out of the sea and the imported vegetables they purchased. Piped water had not yet come to the island and the soil wasn’t cultivated. There was just stone, stone, stone. Rainwater and kerosene lamps.

  The Greek community was so small that it took just a few months to establish a nodding acquaintance with almost every family. The expatriates didn’t mix much with the Greeks but knew of deaths and births. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  The foreign residents who had no income on Hydra were dependent on the cheques that arrived in the post. The ferry bringing mail pulled into the harbour at 11:30, drawing the expatriates to the port. After the letters and parcels had been sorted, they dashed to the post office — had a short story or a poem brought in some money? It was a ritual: first the post office and then shopping for food. After that, a glass of retsina. The wine made it easier to climb the steps of the steep hill homeward, heavy basket in hand.

  Putting up their house as security, Marianne and Axel had a one-year line of credit at Katsikas’. Sophia and Antony were a kindly couple who ran the shop. They took new expatriates under their wings, helping with the practicalities of life on the island and extending credit to those whose cheques came at long intervals. It was a relationship of mutual benefit and respect. The foreigners who lived there didn’t see themselves as tourists and didn’t dress in miniskirts or saunter around the port in bikinis.