Calista nods. “Yes. Yes, that’s what it is. The misunderstanding with Papa. It is taking a long time to clear up. But we’re doing our very best.”
“Are you going to wait and see Omiros?”
Calista takes both of Imogen’s hands in hers. “Not this time, sweetheart. Maybe on my next visit. And you know that you must keep this a secret, don’t you?”
Imogen sighs. “Yes, Mummy. You told me already. And so did Aiya Maroulla. I know how to keep a secret. But Omiros doesn’t. He’s too small.”
“Exactly,” Calista says. “That’s exactly right. That’s why we’ve got to be careful.”
“So that Papa doesn’t make another misunderstanding?”
“Yes. We don’t want another misunderstanding.”
“Do you live far away now?”
Calista nods. “Yes. I live in another country, but I really hope to come back here someday. And until I do, I will come and visit you as often as I can. If I can’t visit, I’ll send you lots of letters and photographs. Aiya Maroulla will keep them for you.”
Imogen’s eyes are wide and solemn. “Do they have to be a secret, too?”
“I’m afraid so. Not a forever secret; just until we get everything cleared up.”
“Why can’t I come and stay with you?”
Calista grips her hand more tightly. “That’s not possible right now, sweetheart. It’s what I would love above anything, and someday we’ll make it happen. But right now, you’ll just have to trust me. Can you do that?”
Imogen nods, and at the same time she says: “Can it be soon?”
“I hope so, darling. I really hope so. It’s all I’m working for. It’s all I ever think about. Don’t ever forget that. One day we’ll make it happen, and we’ll be together in the same house again.”
Imogen wants to ask: “What house?” but Mummy has started to look sad again, so she doesn’t. Instead, she says: “Do you want to see what we’re doing at school?”
Calista smiles. “I’d love that. Show me. Show me everything.”
The hours disappear in a sunny haze of drawings, of books, of stories about playtime. Soon, too soon, Aiya Maroulla comes tapping on the door. “Calista,” she says, “it’s nearly time. Do you want something to eat before you go?”
“No, thank you, Maroulla. I’ll have plenty of time at the airport. Ten more minutes here and I’m gone.”
Aiya Maroulla smiles. “She’s a wonderful girl. Imogen is a very good student. Teacher says so, all the time.”
“Yes,” Calista says.
Imogen looks at her quickly. Her voice has cracked on the “yes,” and her chin is all trembly again. Imogen goes to her at once. “Don’t cry, Mummy.” She hands Monkey to her, smoothing down the bow tie, which has gotten a bit ruffled from all the hugging. “Here, take him with you. I promise I’ll be good until the next time you come. Really, really good. And I’ll help Aiya look after Omiros.”
Mummy almost crushes her with the hug she gives her; Imogen can barely breathe. “I know you will,” she says. “I know you will.” She bends down and kisses Imogen’s forehead hard. When she pulls away, Imogen tries not to show any tears. She understands that Mummy would prefer to stay, but she can’t.
She watches as Mummy puts Monkey back into her rucksack, throws it over one shoulder, and puts her arms around Aiya Maroulla. They both stand still for a while. Imogen can’t hear what they say—or if they say anything at all. The room is strangely quiet.
Then Mummy puts on her wig, ties the scarf under her chin, and slides on the big sunglasses. She pulls open the kitchen door, turns, blows a kiss.
The front door opens quietly, closes quietly a moment later, and then she’s gone.
Aiya Maroulla holds out her arms. “Come, child,” she says.
And Imogen goes to her.
pilar
Madrid, 1975
* * *
Pilar doesn’t like the man, but that hardly matters. She has chosen him for his anonymity above all. The more respectable private detectives she has met have seemed too smooth, too polished, too visible, in her opinion. Nevertheless, she dislikes the way this man is unshaven, his clothes sloppy, his shoes unpolished. That first morning, in his shabby backstreet office, he sees the way she looks at him.
“Don’t worry, señorita,” he says. He gestures towards himself, then brushes the flakes of cigarette ash and dandruff off his waistcoat. “Think of this as my disguise. It helps me disappear into the undergrowth, as it were.” He grins. “I’m a chameleon—I can don the appropriate fancy suits whenever I need to.” He pauses for a moment and looks at Pilar with frank admiration. “Foolish man, I say, your Dr. Antonio Suárez.” He lights a cigarette and regards Pilar through the blue fog of smoke as he exhales. “I wouldn’t have let you get away from me.”
Pilar ignores the bait. “I just want to know where he works,” she says. “I don’t care about a home address. Just search everywhere: hospitals, private clinics, public clinics. Start with the poorest areas of the city.”
The private detective looks at her. Disbelief is written all over his face. “Are you serious? Is this all you can give me?” He waves his hand in the direction of the piece of paper Pilar has handed him earlier. “Just a name? No date of birth, no previous address, nothing?”
“That’s it,” Pilar says. “Just the name of the clinic here in Madrid where he used to work. Look, are you going to take the job or not?”
The man—“Call me Juanjo,” he’d said earlier. “No need for formalities”—shrugs. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll telephone you when I have news.”
Pilar shakes her head. “No,” she says firmly. “I will come back here in two weeks’ time. I’d prefer to speak to you personally.”
He sighs. “Suit yourself.”
“What about your fee?”
“Cash or check?” he asks.
“Cash.”
“My retainer, plus travel expenses to San Sebastián, plus daily rate—we can work out all the details later—a deposit of ten thousand will do for now.”
Pilar counts out the notes. “There will be a bonus for you if you find this man quickly.”
Juanjo counts the notes slowly, deliberately. “And when I do?” He doesn’t look at Pilar.
She wonders what he is thinking. Then she decides she doesn’t want to know. “I only want to speak to him—to him and his wife,” Pilar says firmly. “I wish him no harm.”
Juanjo nods, considering this. “OK, then.” He folds the notes over carefully, then stuffs them into his trouser pocket. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Pilar waits.
“What?” he says.
“A receipt for the ten thousand pesetas. Please.”
Juanjo grins. He pulls a sheet of notepaper towards him and scribbles on it. “Will this do?” He holds it up for Pilar to see.
“Date and sign it, please.” It’s no protection at all, Pilar thinks, but at least it’s something.
Juanjo hands it over to her with a flourish. “Hasta la vista,” he says, and salutes.
* * *
It has taken six months, and Pilar is still no closer to finding Florencia or Dr. Antonio Suárez.
Juanjo has been to San Sebastián, followed by Bilbao, followed by a useless, expensive three days in Santander. Each lead has proved to be fruitless. “It’s as though they don’t want to be found,” he complained. “Could that be the case? Are they hiding from someone?”
“You’re the detective,” Pilar said coldly. “That’s what I pay you for. Why don’t you go and find out?”
Frustration made her slam the phone down on that occasion. It took six weeks before Pilar spoke to Juanjo again. Perhaps he was evading all his clients—if he had any others—but he seemed to have a sixth sense as far as Pilar’s calls were concerned.
Now
he has called her. Pilar feels hope leap inside her as she answers the phone in the portería.
“I think I’ve found them,” Juanjo says without preamble. He sounds excited. “Or at least, I’ve found where they’ve gone to.”
Pilar sighs. She can hear the triumph in his voice. He’s going to make her work for this. “Congratulations,” she says. And she waits.
“Don’t you want to know?” Now he sounds offended, as though his innocent best is no longer good enough. Pilar is clearly one of those demanding clients for whom nothing is ever good enough.
“Yes,” Pilar says. “Of course I want to know.” She pauses for a moment. “That is, after all, what I pay you for.”
Juanjo clears his throat. “I’ve tracked them down to Peru.”
Pilar thinks she has misheard. “What?”
“Peru,” he repeats. “You know, in South America.”
“I know where Peru is,” Pilar snaps. “And it’s a pretty big place, for Christ’s sake. Is that all you’ve managed to come up with, after all this time?”
“No,” he says. “Not quite. My contact is pretty sure that the doctor and his wife went to Lima. But she doesn’t know other than that.”
Pilar breathes. “Lima. That’s a pretty big place, too. Can we narrow it down a bit, do you think?” Pilar is determined to keep the spikiness in her tone. If she relents, she knows she will cry. All this time; all that hope; all the anxiety of waiting and not knowing, of longing and not having. “And who was your contact this time, by the way?”
“A nurse,” Juanjo says. “Someone who worked with your doctor guy a few years back and heard him making plans to work in the slums of Lima. He got a job in a clinic somewhere in the city, she thinks, but she doesn’t remember the name.”
“So what have you got, then?”
“I have the names and addresses of three strong possibilities—all public clinics, all in the poorest areas. That’s the best I can do. Addresses and phone numbers, so you can call them yourself if you want. Or maybe even write to them. I presume you don’t want me to go to Lima?”
Pilar thinks she hears optimism in his voice; whether he wants a paid trip to Lima or he’s hoping that Pilar will fire him right now, she cannot tell. She decides that their professional relationship has come to an end. “No,” she says, weary. “I don’t want you to go to Lima. I’ll follow things up myself. I’ll take it from here, thanks all the same.”
He does not demur, not even for the sake of appearances. “I’ll drop the addresses round to you,” Juanjo says, “along with my final bill.”
Nice try, Pilar thinks. “I will come to your office,” she says. “Tomorrow morning at eight thirty.”
“But I don’t start until—”
“Be there,” Pilar says, and hangs up.
calista
London, 1975
* * *
It is early March 1975, and Calista and Yiannis are sitting at the window of her flat, looking out onto her tiny London garden. They watch as the sun begins to go down. They are planning her next secret visit to Limassol.
At first, Anne and Aristides resisted her moving out. But in December, Calista had insisted. “You have more than enough to deal with,” she said. “Your house is full of refugees. You pay me well; my portraits are selling; your commissions are more than generous. It’s time I found my own place.”
They helped her find her new home. “This is how the Cypriot community works,” Aristides said. “Through a friend of a friend. You can find anything you want; it is important that we all look after one another.”
Right now, Calista’s eyes rest on the warm yellow bricks of her London garden. She has weeded the overgrown flower bed and already planted the poppies and narcissi and anemones that will remind her of the garden in which Imogen used to play, sailing her toy boats over the swelling seas to Troy.
“Omiros is still far too small to be trusted,” Yiannis is saying. “He wouldn’t understand the need for secrecy. I’m sorry, Calista, but I don’t think you should see him this time either—if we can, we’ll arrange for you to see him at a distance, but I feel wary of involving anyone else.” He pauses, his tone becoming more gentle. “And maybe by the next time, we’ll have gotten Alexandros’s agreement. Sometimes I think we’re getting closer, but he always pulls back at the last minute.”
Calista knows the games Alexandros plays. She understands how he uses hope to hook Yiannis and Maroulla in, time and time again. She had once been that willing fish herself. “Seeing Imogen is wonderful,” Calista says. “I miss Omiros terribly, of course, but I don’t want to jeopardize anything. I hate all this secrecy—it is so unfair to a little girl. The sooner we can get Alexandros to meet us even part of the way, the better.” She looks over at Yiannis. “I am so grateful to you and to Maroulla.”
He nods. “Maroulla is her own woman,” he says, with his sudden smile. “My father would be furious with her if he found out; he’d see this as a betrayal. He’d feel that my mother was disobeying him. Never mind what’s good for the children.”
“I understand.” Calista becomes aware that Yiannis is regarding her closely. “As for me,” he says, and his words are slow and deliberate, “no gratitude is necessary. None at all. I thought you already knew that.”
The room fills with silence as Calista’s eyes search his. Yiannis’s gaze does not falter. It is full of questions. This is the first opportunity they have had to be alone together since that day at Limassol Airport when Yiannis had pulled Calista into his arms. She has never forgotten that embrace, and she knows he hasn’t either. Until now, the war in Cyprus and his family’s needs have consumed Yiannis. He and Calista have met, hurriedly, in Anne and Aristides’s house on several occasions. They have always been surrounded by dozens of urgent people. Until now.
“You know I would never do anything to endanger your relationship with your children, Calista. But I need you to know how I feel about you. I cannot keep silent any longer.”
Calista allows a moment to elapse before she speaks, before she is able to speak.
“I don’t care about Alexandros for himself,” she says, struggling to find the right words, “but I do care about you. And your mother. It could be so dangerous . . . Alexandros would never let me see my children again if he thought . . . The whole world would crucify us if they found out, Yiannis,” she says softly. “You must know that: you, his brother; me, his wife. It would be beyond betrayal, beyond humiliation, in Alexandros’s eyes.”
Calista waits. Waits for what she hopes Yiannis will say, needing him to say it. The last seven months have been filled with a bitter loneliness. The soft evening air around them is suddenly suffused with her longing.
“I love you, Calista,” Yiannis says. His eyes never leave her face. “From the first moment I met you in my parents’ garden, I have loved you. Had my brother behaved as he should have, I would never have told you.” He reaches out and takes Calista’s hand. “I will understand if you say no.” He strokes her fingers. “But I hope you will say yes.” He pauses. “You are worth the risk. We will be careful. We are among people I trust. And London is very far away from Cyprus.”
Calista closes her eyes, overwhelmed at the tenderness of his touch. This is something she has never known with Alexandros. The light pressure of fingers; the gentleness; the freedom to say yes or no.
“I am all too aware,” Yiannis says, “that I am more than twenty years older than you are, and that has given me pause. But I have weighed everything up and down a thousand times and argued with myself over and over.” He shrugs. “No matter what I do, the answer is always the same. I have tried to keep away from you, but I have not been able.”
Calista turns to face him. She understands all that this might mean, and she has already lost so much. But he is right: this is worth it. Despite everything, loving this man is worth it. She waits until she can breathe again.
“I say yes, Yiannis. Yes, with all my heart.”
He stands up and pulls Calista into his embrace. They stand, looking out on the bright spring garden, arms wound tightly around each other, not speaking.
In the months that follow, they are careful. They rarely appear together in public. If they do, they leave Palmers Green separately, meeting up in Greenwich or Richmond or Kensington. Occasionally they have dinner at home with Anne and Aristides. Sometimes Calista catches Anne’s eye as she watches them, and she wonders. But if either of their friends suspects, they say nothing. They are, like so many others, distracted by larger events.
Love and war, Calista thinks.
It seems that each can make the other flourish.
imogen
Limassol, 1977
* * *
One morning, Aiya Maroulla does not come to wake Imogen. This is very puzzling; the first sight every day is Aiya’s smiling face at her doorway. First she comes to Imogen’s room; then she crosses the landing to Omiros’s. Omiros doesn’t need to be visited first anymore; he stopped his howling a long time ago now. He’s almost five, and Imogen is ten. Aiya says that they are both quite grown-up. After they get washed and dressed and Aiya changes out of her dressing gown and into her street clothes, they all go downstairs and have breakfast together.
This is what Aiya calls their routine; it only changes during the school holidays, when they don’t have to go anywhere early, and on the weekends. It also changes, of course, on the days when the secret happens and Mummy comes to visit, or Imogen is taken to visit her. Either way, the routine only changes for Imogen, never for Omiros. Omiros would never be able to keep such a secret.
But today is neither of those special days. Today is a Monday in February, and Imogen and Omiros have to go to school.
Imogen gets out of bed and makes her way across to the bedroom door. It is open, just a crack. Ever since the time she locked herself in, Aiya has insisted that Imogen leave her door open at night. Imogen does; besides, in all the houses, every single key that looked like the stick man with a big head had been taken away a long time ago. Imogen couldn’t lock herself in even if she wanted to. And she doesn’t want to; Mummy’s secret visits, and her letters and her photographs, have made it easy for Imogen to leave doors open. She wants to be ready to welcome whatever reminder of Mummy might come to visit her.
The Years That Followed Page 26