by Nadia Marks
‘I need to bring your sister here too,’ she told Sonia as they strolled in Syntagma Square enjoying an ice cream. ‘Anita needs to expand her horizons.’
‘She is too involved with the struggle, she’s not interested in anything else,’ Sonia replied, making her way towards a bench under a tree for some respite from the early-morning sun.
‘I wish I could convince her to join you in Vienna … She is so young; I don’t want her to be giving up on life just yet.’ But Olga knew she couldn’t compete with Anita’s dedication to Mario’s memory and her beliefs, no matter how much she wanted her daughter to be as free as she had been in her youth.
The train journey from Athens to Vienna was another revelation for Sonia. Sleeping, eating, reading, and going to the lavatory, all as the train chugged along, delighted and amused her. Speeding through different countries, crossing borders, encountering landscapes she hadn’t even known existed and hearing languages she didn’t understand, was more thrilling than she had ever imagined.
‘It’s so wonderful, Mama,’ she told Olga the first night they climbed into their bunks to sleep. ‘We start our journey in one place and by morning we’ll be in another world.’
‘We are so lucky to be living in these modern times,’ Olga agreed drowsily, lulled by the hiss and rattle of the train as she drifted off to sleep.
Great-aunt Heidi was Grandfather Franz’s second cousin. She had been married and divorced three times, had no children and had been living alone for a good number of years, so she gladly welcomed Sonia’s arrival and the infusion of youthful zest into her previously solitary life.
‘From now on I want you to treat my house as your home, Liebling,’ she told Sonia when she arrived with her mother, and meant it. ‘You must tell her, Olga dear, that when you leave I will be your substitute; anything she needs, I will be here for her.’ She was a gracious and affectionate old lady, whose resemblance to Olga was striking and comforting to young Sonia. If there had been three other women living with them, she thought, then it would feel just like home.
Heidi’s spacious two-bedroom apartment was close to Stephansplatz, shaded by the gloomy gothic cathedral looming over the city. Sonia had to walk past this building every day on her way to the Academy of Music and Performing Arts where Olga had enrolled her.
‘This church,’ she wrote to Anita when she arrived there, ‘is the most depressing building I have ever seen – it’s so colossal it makes you feel insignificant and diminished. Not to mention how ugly it is! Sometimes I think I should enter and light a candle but it just doesn’t entice me. Perhaps if it wasn’t so dirty and black it might look better. But at least there are so many other pretty churches on my way to school that they make up for this one!’
Great-aunt Heidi’s apartment on Grashofgasse was on the second floor of a block that surrounded a delightful courtyard. An apple tree stood in the centre of a little garden, which the residents took turns to cultivate. In the spring, Sonia could gaze down from her bedroom window onto multi-coloured crocuses, snowdrops and tulips, and an array of roses in the summer. By autumn the chrysanthemums would be in bloom and then, when winter came, all would be covered in a blanket of snow. Sonia took delight in every season. It was a private and safe place to live – access to the courtyard was through two large wooden gates situated on opposite sides of the square, which at nine o’clock each evening would be securely locked.
‘You must make sure you are home in good time, Liebling,’ Heidi warned her when she first arrived, ‘or you will be locked out’: an ominous warning which made Sonia tremble at the thought of being left outside alone in the big city. For the first year she obeyed the rule religiously, never staying out later than the permitted time, but once her confidence and friendships with both boys and girls at the Academy were firmly established, it was much harder for her to keep to the curfew. Her first request to stay overnight with a friend was met with resistance by the aunt who felt responsible for her safety, but in time, and having been introduced to the friends, the old lady succumbed to the young girl’s pleas; after all, she remembered being young once.
Sonia’s sparkling personality and appetite for new experiences were qualities that attracted people to her. Vienna, even if a little sombre and austere, was still, in comparison to Larnaka, a city of wonders.
‘At the turn of every corner you come across a palace,’ she wrote to Anita and Katerina after a few weeks, in awe of the architecture all over the city which she had never seen the likes of before.
‘You cannot imagine or believe what I came upon yesterday as I was walking minutes from Aunt Heidi’s apartment! I came across a plaque on a wall of a house that said, ROBERT SCHUMANN lived here! Imagine! The great composer lived just round the corner from me! And that’s not all. I have seen dozens of plaques like it all over town. Believe me, Anita, this is the city of music! You, my darling sister, should be here with me!’
The two young women would read Sonia’s letters with excitement and her enthusiasm leapt off the pages to carry them to Sonia’s Viennese adventure. After they had devoured the letter they’d pass it on to Olga and Ernestina, unless Sonia had written something that was for their eyes only and instructed them to keep it secret.
‘I am going to tell you something, but make sure Nonna does not see this letter …’ She knew that her Catholic grandmother would have an anxiety attack if she learned what Sonia was getting up to. ‘After the concert the other night I went out for a drink, or maybe two … or three – I can’t remember – with a boy called Ludvik …’ The girls would read Sonia’s confessions, unsure if they should worry or just enjoy her perilous adventures from afar.
Living in Vienna, doing what she was born to do – the music, the flirting, the freedom – set Sonia’s spirit free to express itself. Every day at the Academy, learning, practising, meeting other students of her own age, was a pleasure no matter how hard she had to work. The Austrian capital was a universe away from where she had been brought up, yet somehow it also felt familiar, if not in physical terms then in spirit. The Viennese architecture, baroque, grand and opulent, was unlike anything she had encountered before, apart from photographs in the family albums, yet she felt as though she had always known it. Perhaps, she mused, it had been in some other lifetime. She was, after all, a descendant of the people living there. In a strange way it felt like a homecoming.
A place Sonia wanted to visit as soon as she arrived in Vienna was the celebrated Café Central. She had heard so much about it from Olga when she was growing up that she didn’t have to ask twice to be taken there. Olga not only wanted to introduce her daughter to the most fashionable place in town but also to relive some of her own youthful memories. Anita and Sonia had been brought up on stories of the glory days of Vienna by their mother.
Memories from Olga’s visits with her father were often recalled and narrated as bedtime stories for the girls. She would describe how Grandfather Franz would take her to Café Central before dinner, dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, Franz glowing with pride to be accompanied by his beautiful daughter and showing her off to the world. Olga would describe the excitement of spotting a famous artist or a legendary intellectual, and the thrill of drinking her first glass of champagne.
‘I felt like a real young lady,’ she’d tell her girls. ‘Papa made me feel so grown up, introducing me to his friends. Life was just beginning and I felt on top of the world. When the time is right I shall take you there too, my girls!’
True to her word, on arrival in Vienna Olga took Sonia and Heidi to the Café for an aperitif and then on to a fashionable restaurant for a sumptuous dinner.
‘I am too old for this sort of thing,’ Heidi had said, but rushed off with great excitement to find something in her wardrobe to wear.
Through her regular correspondence with Anita, Sonia had also been kept informed about her sister’s relationship with Costas – although the letter announcing her acceptance of his marriage proposal took Sonia by surpri
se.
‘I am really happy you are finally able to fall in love again, my sister,’ she wrote back, knowing well enough how hard Mario’s death had hit Anita, ‘and I can’t wait to meet this Costas who has managed to steal your heart.’
It was time for Sonia to make a return visit. She had been away long enough, and what better reason than a marriage celebration …
After the marriage, in Linser tradition Costas moved into the ancestral home.
‘Grandfather Josef must be smiling up in heaven,’ Olga told her mother, glancing at his portrait hanging above the sofa as they sat taking tea one afternoon some months after the wedding. ‘He built this house with all its rooms for a big family, so let’s hope our girls do him proud and fill it up with grandchildren.’
‘I hope to live long enough to see them,’ Ernestina replied, knowing that her waning health might prevent this from happening.
Anita’s greatest wish was for a baby. Every month she waited with a trembling heart to find out if she was pregnant. It was already nine months since the wedding and each time her disappointment sent her into a melancholic state. Twice she had become pregnant and twice she lost the baby within weeks of finding out she was with child. Her one distraction was her involvement with the struggle, but this was rapidly coming to a conclusion. Four years had passed since the night of the bombings and now a resolution with the British looked imminent.
‘We have all lived long enough with this uncertainty and worry,’ Olga told her son-in-law over dinner one evening. Costas rarely graced them with his presence, preferring most nights to go to his club for a game of cards. He had settled into living with the five women in his own way, which was to spend as little time as possible with them.
His job as an insurance clerk wasn’t very demanding and once work was over he’d come home, bathe, change his clothes and go out again. His presence in the home didn’t have much of an impact, but the women preferred it that way. Katerina gave him a wide berth and Anita’s main interest, after the first few months of romance and sexual dizziness, was in his ability to get her pregnant.
She didn’t regret marrying Costas, but once he moved into the house and she came to know him better she recognized that apart from their initial shared interest in politics, which he now seemed to have forgotten, they had nothing in common. She became aware that his intellect was underdeveloped; he wasn’t a stupid man so much as shallow and uninformed. Anita had been brought up in an atmosphere of culture and learning, but Costas’s education was limited, didn’t go beyond his six years at the village high school. He now seemed to have no other interests apart from cars, tailor-made suits, cigars and having fun with his friends. Olga heard alarm bells. She feared her daughter’s marriage might be mirroring her own.
‘So long as he doesn’t start frequenting the brothels …’ she said when Costas habitually started disappearing most evenings.
‘Please, Mother,’ Anita protested in his defence, trying to make the best of what she was secretly beginning to suspect was a mistake. ‘Not everyone is like Father. Costas might not be the most cultured of people but he’s not a bad man, and he doesn’t live off us.’
‘I know, I know …’ Olga replied by way of an apology. She knew that Costas earned a decent living and she was well aware that her prejudices had always been a source of irritation to her girls.
‘Mother,’ Sonia had scolded her more than once, when they were younger, ‘if you carry on like this about men, neither of us will ever get married, and as you know we both intend to – whether you like it or not!’ So Olga did her best to stifle her prejudice against certain kinds of men – mainly husbands. She wanted her girls to be happy, and if it meant they wanted to marry, then so be it. She’d have to curb her antipathy to matrimony.
One afternoon in late January Anita walked into the saloni to find her mother and grandmother drinking tea. The sun was pouring through the closed windows, heating up the room as if it was summer, and the two women were basking in its warmth. She sat quietly next to them and reached for the old woman’s hand.
‘Nonna,’ she said, her voice wavering as she looked at her grandmother, then at Olga, ‘I want your blessing.’
‘You always have my blessing, cara mia,’ her grandmother replied. ‘You know you never have to ask.’
‘I know, Nonna, but this is different,’ Anita replied. ‘You see … I have been keeping a secret from you both … and it has not been easy.’
The two women looked anxiously at each other and then at Anita.
‘Please don’t be upset with me,’ the young woman continued hesitantly. ‘It was very hard not speaking to you or Katerina about it, but Doctor Elias said I should wait …’
‘What? Why?’ Olga jumped in, interrupting Anita’s flow. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘There is nothing wrong, Mama,’ she replied, realizing that the solemnity of her speech had caused alarm. Relaxing her face and banishing the vertical line between her brows she gave them both a smile and continued, ‘I promise you both I am fine, everything’s fine … it’s just that … it’s just that I’m pregnant again! But,’ she blurted out, ‘but, this time,’ she took a deep breath, ‘Doctor Elias says I have passed the danger point and that is why I waited this long before telling you. This time,’ she reached across to take her mother’s hand while still holding Ernestina’s in the other, ‘Doctor Elias says I will keep the baby!’
Larnaka, 2010
Once again on that fateful night before Katerina’s funeral, Adonis, Eleni and Marianna sat silent and transfixed as if hypnotized, listening to Anita talk of the past. Some of the facts they already knew, family history passed down from generation to generation. They had some knowledge of their Austrian ancestry, their great-great-grandfather Josef, and great-great-grandmother Eva. A few of her botanic illustrations and many of her textiles and fabrics had been preserved and cherished. Some original drawings that she kept from sending to the museum in Vienna were framed and hanging in the library where the children used to sit to do their schoolwork. Adonis had spent hours looking at them and as he was a keen artist they had been a source of fascination and inspiration to him. Also, some events had been talked about, memories shared, by the women of the house over the years. A painting by an old family friend depicting a banquet in Lefkara always held great curiosity for the children and now its origins had been brought to light by Anita’s narration. However, the amount of detail the old woman was now giving them was almost too much to take in. Adonis was the first to break the silence. He was keen to know more about his father.
‘I didn’t realize how involved my father was in the movement for independence,’ he said, relieved to learn something positive about him.
Adonis had always had his suspicions that the lack of information about the men in the family had something to do with Grandmother Olga’s sense of betrayal and feelings of intense dislike for her husband, causing her to label most men as inadequate.
‘That’s how we met – he used to come to our meetings,’ Anita replied, eager to return to her narration. ‘So once Sonia heard that I was pregnant, she wanted to come back to Cyprus to see me. She had been offered a job teaching at the Academy by then and decided to remain in Vienna longer. I was missing her so much, but this was a great opportunity for her so we all encouraged her to stay.’ Anita was once again in full flow with her story.
Eleni got up and made Cypriot mountain tea for everyone, good for soothing and calming the nerves, and then they all settled back in their seats to hear more.
12
Sonia was delighted with the news of her sister’s pregnancy. At last Anita would have the baby she longed for, and Ernestina would have the great-grandchild she wished for. She felt a need to see her sister blooming after all she had gone through, and as Easter was approaching she took leave from the Academy and arrived back on an island on the verge of great change.
Anita had continued to send her reports of events, hoping to entice her sister back with prom
ises of an imminent withdrawal of British troops.
‘… perhaps now that things are calming down you might consider coming home,’ Anita wrote. ‘I miss you so much, Sonia mou; it’s not been easy without you.’
Each time Anita miscarried it was Sonia’s buoyant spirit that she longed for. Even if she had her mother, grandmother and especially Katerina to take care of her, it was Sonia she yearned to be with.
A less turbulent island was now more inviting for Sonia; besides, she admitted to herself that it was time she evaluated her relationship with Nicos.
‘We need to decide what we are both going to do with our lives,’ he’d written to her. ‘I love you and I am ready now to settle down, but I need to know if you feel the same.’
Of course she knew that Nicos was right; the time had now come to clarify their position. Nicos had joined his father’s successful import business and as the only child and adored by both parents, he was expected to take over from his father. He was solvent, secure, and life on the island was looking up, plus his father was pressurizing him to settle down.
‘I think it’s time you took yourself seriously,’ he told his son. ‘If you are going to take on more responsibility in the business you need to take on more responsibility in your life. Sonia is a good girl and from a good family – it’s time you married her.’
For Sonia, living in Vienna was fun, and now with her teaching post she was earning enough money not to live like a student any more. Plenty of young men had been interested in keeping her happy while in Vienna but none of these brief dalliances had amounted to much, and her infatuation with Hans, her old tutor, had long run its course. Once he became aware of Sonia’s crush on him he wasted no time in seducing her, until she discovered that not only was he married, but he also had a baby on the way.
‘My wife and I have an open marriage,’ he told her when she questioned him about the young pregnant woman she’d seen him kissing one day outside the Academy.