Aphrodite's Tears

by Hannah Fielding

  ‘Surely, nowadays, with the advancement of diving technology, there are far fewer accidents?’

  ‘Yes, sure. But every year there are still two or three casualties, which is still too many. And you have to wonder if it is really worth the pain. Before the war, the sponge industry was booming and the island needed it, but today, with synthetic sponges flooding the market, it’s nothing like as lucrative as it used to be.’

  ‘Have you tried to change their minds? Encourage them to do something different, train for other jobs?’ asked Oriel.

  ‘Yes, of course, but to little avail. Traditions like these are almost indelible.’ Damian shook his head and gave a sigh. ‘To the romantic young, it naturally seems a grand thing to sail away every summer to the shores of Africa and to come back, pockets full of money, hailed a hero. They get a six-month holiday, after all, and have earned ample pay to keep their glasses topped up at the tavernas every night of the week. And so the custom continues …

  ‘I have seen young boys playing at sponge fishing: swimming underwater, wearing the sponge-fisher’s mask and carrying their spear, pretending to detach sponges from the bottom of the sea. An aura of heroism surrounds the profession, which for generations has been handed down from father to son.’

  Just then Oriel spotted Mattias, who was sitting against a low wall next to the steps leading up to the quay. He was talking to a man who was leaning on a stick, his weight on one leg. Damian and Oriel went over to the pair and Mattias made the introductions.

  ‘Tadeas has been telling me you might hire his son, Panayotis, is that so?’ the fisherman asked. Damian nodded and shook the man’s hand.

  ‘Have you been diving for sponges a long time?’ Oriel asked the man.

  Tadeas gave a brief nod. ‘My family’s been doing it for generations, Despinis. I lost my eldest brother ten years ago while he was fishing sponges on the shores of Malta. I’ve had some near misses myself, of course. My legs aren’t what they were. Sometimes the pain makes working difficult but I have a family so you do what you have to do. I dive where it’s not so deep.’

  At this Mattias clapped the man on the back. ‘You’re an addict for it, admit it, Tadeas,’ he said.

  Tadeas grinned at him, uncovering two rows of pearl-white teeth, and gave a shrug. ‘The sea is my second home.’ His expression then became more serious. ‘Ah, maybe you’re right, Mattias, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want something different for my son. When you, my friend, said that the Kyrios might be willing to hire Panayotis, I figured that might be the best thing for the lad. And anyway, the sponge business is not what it was. There’s little future in it now.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mattias, clasping the shoulder of his friend, ‘now’s your chance. If the Kyrios has time, he could have a word with the lad. He’s a fine boy.’

  Damian glanced at his watch and said he had just enough time to meet Tadeas’s son before he needed to join the procession, if they were quick about it. Oriel elected to stay with Mattias and perched next to him on the wall. Although she would have liked to discuss how reckless his friend’s attitude was, especially given the market for sponges was in steep decline, she refrained from giving her opinion. By the looks of it, Mattias seemed to approve of the tradition and the last thing she wanted was to offend him by undermining the sponge divers’ courage and achievements so, instead, she sat enjoying the late afternoon sun on her face. They had an excellent view of the proceedings from where they were positioned.

  About fifty brightly coloured achtarmádes, the boats used for sponge diving, bobbed and glinted in the sun, painted brightly in various combinations: orange and black; blue or carmine; blue and yellow and black; or just white, grey, purple and green. They formed the fleet that would be setting sail for North Africa, for its seven-month summer season, to bring back what they called ‘the golden fleece’ of the sea.

  Some last-minute supplies were being loaded on to the nearest achtarmádes, and Oriel watched the men carry heavy wooden breadbins aboard. Mattias explained that they would be full of the dry biscuits, hard as rock, called paximadi, which would be the divers’ main source of nourishment on the voyage.

  ‘Apart from paximadi, the basic shipboard food is chunks of pig fat, which are laid up in the locker with a few onions and potatoes. They live on next to nothing, these sponge fleets. They are men who suck their living from sponges as the sponges suck theirs from the tide,’ Mattias explained with that sense of the dramatic that always made Oriel smile inwardly.

  The taverna was open. A few men and women were drinking, but no one was celebrating. Oriel could feel the tension and sadness in the air, and the few bantering exchanges by the divers could not dissipate the cloak of sorrow and anxiety that had fallen over the island.

  A moment later, she felt a sudden change in the atmosphere – a flurry of festival spirit – as the divers began to be ferried out to their boats, lying at anchor in the middle of the harbour. Very soon, these wooden craft began to race up and down at full speed, sometimes coming directly at each other head-on, sometimes broadside, the boats missing each other by inches. This display of daring went on for more than an hour in full view of the quay, with the crowd whooping and yelling from the docks, cheering on the sponge gladiators.

  Then, just as abruptly, the show stopped and the divers came back to shore. Now the crowd turned its attention towards the top of the cliff behind them, from where music could be heard, and where a procession had just started making its way down to the port. It was led by the island’s police force – of three – on motorcycles, along with Helios’s coastguards. Bringing up the rear came a group of young choristers carrying banners, dressed in blue satin cassocks, with a large white cross embroidered in the middle of their chests. These were followed by a youth orchestra in Greek soldier evzone costumes. The sound of the clear young voices rising above the hollow beat of the goatskin drums, the strident noise of the trumpets and the squawks of the bagpipe-like tsabounas thrilled Oriel. There was something so archaic about the procession. She would hazard a bet that it must have been just the same two thousand years ago.

  The black-robed priest with his long white beard and quaint kalimafi stovepipe hat followed with Damian, who was surrounded by six young girls – the dove bearers – in long white tunics. It would be their task, Mattias told Oriel, to release the birds just as the flotilla of boats carrying the sponge divers headed out to sea.

  ‘Only the pure of heart, the young innocents, can be dove bearers,’ he told her. Then he gave a chuckle. ‘I heard that the one who calls herself the nightingale of Helios wanted to sing with them. Thought she’d stand next to the Kyrios, no doubt.’ He gave Oriel a nudge and another wheezing laugh. ‘She hadn’t reckoned on the priest thwarting her, eh? I don’t know what the Father said, but I can guess. Ha! Our nightingale was furious. She drove off in that fancy car of hers like some mad harpy. Nearly ran into Xander’s goats, that’s what I heard.’

  Mattias realized that Oriel wasn’t fully sharing in the joke and he paused, looking kindly at her. ‘Has that minx been giving you trouble?’ She gave a weak smile and shrugged. ‘Ah well, that’s how it goes. But you mustn’t mind her. She’ll be off again before you know it. The girl never stays long in one place, that’s for sure.’

  It seemed to Oriel that Yolanda didn’t look as if she wanted to go anywhere, not until she had secured her position as mistress of Damian’s household – and the island, of course. She gazed at Damian’s tall figure at the back of the procession, which had just reached the quay. As she did so, he glanced over to where she and Mattias were sitting and his eyes met hers with an almost burning intensity. Oriel gave a little shiver and her heart fluttered for a moment like the wings of the doves held captive in the hands of the white-robed girls.

  At the quay it was now time for goodbyes and the mood shifted again, almost as if a cloud had suddenly veiled the sun. The pain of leave-taking, the heavy weight of absence to be borne, the apprehension of dangers to be encounter
ed … the uncertainty … was imprinted on each of the swarthy features of the women. Mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts – every one of them dressed in black – now stood as still and undemonstrative as statues. From time to time, children holding the hands of their mothers or grandmothers would look up at them with troubled eyes, trying to guess at their emotions as if they wanted to make sure they knew how to copy the adults’ behaviour. Oriel felt the strings of her heart wrench for them in their silent despair.

  After the youths were all settled in their boats, the priest boarded a caique that took him to the centre of the bay.

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ asked Oriel, as she watched the old man dip his hand into some sort of dish and swing his right arm from left to right.

  ‘He’s holding basil leaves, and that’s holy water. See, he’s sprinkling the boats. Blessing them,’ Mattias told her.

  Then a bell tolled and all was silent. A moment later there was a flurry of white, and the doves took to the air and swooped above the ocean. This was the sign the sponge divers had been waiting for, and now a shout rang out and the lead boat started to churn and sway as its engine throbbed into life.

  The boats traced the sign of the cross in the harbour three times, then, one after the other, headed out to the open sea. As they did so, the whole quay filled up with song:

  The time to part and sail away is here,

  Our brave, courageous men stand jointly without fear.

  They sail away from Helios, these branches of the olive tree.

  You’ve burnt this heart of mine, oh cruel, stormy sea.

  It was sunset. The fiery red orb of light slowly sank beneath the horizon and threads of light lingered in the sky, mingling with the rolling clouds, dyeing the heavens first orange, then red, then dark blue, until all that was left was a chalky mauve. Like a Greek chorus, the islanders watched the boats slide gently away on the water with an unwavering gaze. Occasionally, a sponge diver turned back to wave, but not a soul moved in the group of figures standing on the quay; each one seemed as if he were already mourning.

  A few sobs were heard. Oriel caught a mother murmuring to her child as she pointed to the flotilla of boats outlined against the setting sun: ‘I thálassa ta dínei ki i thálassa ta paírnei, the sea gives them and the sea takes them back. You must promise never to become one of those sponge divers, my son. Money is not everything.’

  Now, as the last boat rounded the corner of the bay, a tall, white-haired old man stretched out his arm and waved. Immediately, in silence, all hands went up in a hieratic farewell and then all the islanders crossed themselves. The sun blazed out and melted away and a bluish light fell over the harbour as a stygian darkness took over the sky. A hush – such as might greet the ending of some great tragedy – enveloped the island. The long months of waiting had begun.

  Gradually, people began to move. Oriel remained with Mattias on the wall by the steps, while down on the beach, as the taverna slowly filled up with those who had been left behind, a group of men and women had assembled around five dancers. Damian joined Oriel and Mattias on the now empty quay.

  Mattias stood up. ‘Well, after all that, I, for one, need a drink,’ he said. ‘If that lot are all watching the Mihanikos, I might have a chance of getting served.’

  Damian told his old friend that they would join him shortly. ‘Oriel will want to watch the Mihanikos first.’

  Mattias nodded and wandered towards the taverna.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘The bends dance. It tells the story of a proud, handsome man who goes to sea, dives for sponges and becomes crippled after an attack of the bends. It’s also about his will to live, despite his disability.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’ve actually come up with a dance about it,’ said Oriel.

  ‘They’re keeping the myth alive.’ Damian gave a heavy sigh. ‘So you can see what I mean about it being at the heart of the islanders’ identity. Stavros thinks I should ban sponge diving, but it’s easier said than done.’

  ‘You could refuse to take part in the parade, at the very least.’

  ‘Greeks, and especially the ones from Helios, are a proud people. Their inherited skills, their traditions, mean everything to them. It would be a slight to everything they represent if I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Yes, but perhaps it’s up to you to show them a different way. It would be harsh at first, I suppose, but on the other hand …’

  ‘No! I could never do something like that.’ His tone brooked no argument and Oriel decided she would be wasting her breath if she tried. Perhaps she’d been a little too hasty to voice her opinion. She sensed, quite keenly, that a barrier had come up between them and she could almost hear his unspoken words: You’re not from Helios, you aren’t even Greek. You wouldn’t understand.

  The five men had begun to dance now, circling, swirling and kicking in the traditional Greek fashion. At first Oriel was drawn into the lively blur of sound, colour and rhythmic movement as they moved faster and faster. But then – like the whole strange event, it seemed to her – quite suddenly the mood changed. One of the dancers fell to the ground. Then, in a macabre and jerky mime sequence, he dragged his unresponsive, shaking and impotent legs along the ground, slowly and painfully struggling to lift himself up with the aid of a stick. Oriel watched as a host of exaggerated expressions passed over the man’s face: determination and willpower were replaced by anger, frustration and despair as his hopeless limbs refused to cooperate.

  Goosebumps rose all over her body as she listened to the desolate strings of the weeping violin, all the while watching the tragic progress of the grotesque dance. At this point Damian, sensing her discomfort, took Oriel’s arm.

  ‘Come, let’s go down to the taverna and join Mattias,’ he urged, and Oriel didn’t resist him.

  They spent an hour sitting at a table with Mattias. Damian began to look more relaxed, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed easily at the ankles, while he smoked his Gitanes and drank ouzo. The sombre mood of before melted away and he even began to laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners every time Mattias said something that amused him. Now and again, he would glance at Oriel to share the joke, a contented warmth flowing between them, and she wished it could always be like this … that he could always be like this.

  Mattias was in full party spirit too, his eyes twinkling mischievously in his nut-brown face. ‘So, that’s it then. Off they go to North Africa, leaving their womenfolk undefended from Algerian pirates sailing the other way,’ he joked.

  ‘Did the island suffer much from pirate raids in the past?’ asked Oriel.

  ‘Hasn’t the Kyrios told you about the island’s holy icons – the Martiatissa and the Mayitissa?’ Mattias asked her. ‘Our Lady of March and our Lady of May, the Virgins of Chora.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t,’ replied Oriel. ‘What did they have to do with pirates?’

  Damian settled back in his chair, the warmth of the taverna and the spirits he had drunk making him expansive. ‘Well, they’re two good stories, dearly loved by the islanders. The first happened at the end of the eighteenth century when Capitan Zacharias, a fearsome Spartan pirate, came in a galleon that sank at Lygaria, on the north-west shore. Forty pirates escaped. A farmer saw them from a distance, as they were drying their powder in the sun. The man ran to Chora and very soon the bell was sounding a warning from the church. Everyone retreated to the castro just in time. From the battlements, they held aloft the icon of the Martiatissa before firing at the Spartan pirates. And that was the end of them.’

  ‘The second story is even better,’ said Mattias, reaching for his tobacco. ‘This time it was a massive great fleet of Algerians.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Damian. ‘It happened on the first of May, some time before the raid of Capitan Zacharias. Eighteen Algerian pirate vessels were seen off the north-east point of the island, bearing for the shore. This time, the villagers took refuge in the church of the Panayia, while one brave islander sto
od on the cliff and held up the Mayitissa icon.’

  ‘And that was the end of the Algerians?’ laughed Oriel.

  Damian grinned. ‘Of course, what did you expect? A miraculous storm broke out and that was the end of their ships. Only one man survived, a Christian captive who had been held on one of the Algerian vessels. He told the islanders that a flash of lightning from the Panayia’s cliff had sunk the entire pirate fleet.’

  ‘It was a shame you weren’t here a few weeks ago, Despinis Anderson,’ said Mattias. ‘On Easter Day, the icons of Martiatissa and Mayitissa are taken from the church in a great procession and visit every house in the village.’

  ‘I would have loved to have seen that,’ agreed Oriel.

  Then the conversation moved to more serious matters. The business of running the island was never far from Damian’s consciousness, and now he and Mattias were talking about the harbour master and the coastguards, and whether they were doing a competent enough job. Damian drained his glass. ‘With work starting on the wreck, we certainly don’t want any smugglers or traffickers on our coastline.’

  ‘I think the men are working in much the same way as they always have,’ said Mattias comfortably.

  Damian looked thoughtful. ‘I saw a ship without its lights the other night. It didn’t bother me at the time but I wonder now if it was up to something. Have you seen anything going on?’ he asked. ‘You know I always rely on your eyes, Mattias.’

  ‘Can’t say that I have, but I’ll keep a look out for you, my friend,’ said the fisherman. ‘Has anything happened further with that business of Yorgos?’