My Ikaria

by Tsintziras, Spiri;

  The last time I was here, we had taken my aunty with us, sat on the sand, eaten one of her oranges. Now my aunty has passed away. We only just visited her grave, placed flowers and lit a candle. I’d taken photos to show Mum. Smaragthi talks about how much she misses her mother. I think how lucky I am to still have mine. Since her stroke I am seeing her much more and I ring her daily. I appreciate her more now than I ever have before.

  After we get back from the beach I ring Mum and tell her about what a wonderful time I’m having seeing relatives, and update her on everyone’s news. Then I listen to Smaragthi talk with Mum on the phone, lovingly, reassuringly.

  ‘Now, I plan to visit you early next year, so promise me you won’t get sick before then. Spiridoula is well, we are looking after her. We’ll send her home safe and sound, don’t worry. I just want you to look after yourself!’

  I sit nearby, crying, touched by Smaragthi’s words. Though she hasn’t seen my mother since she was a child, she speaks to her as if she were her own.

  Afterwards we Skype with George and the kids. Dolores is cooking a chicken and chickpea curry, Emmanuel is doing his homework. George tells me proudly that tonight he is on top of the washing, he’s vacuumed and mopped the floor, and that everyone seems to be coping in my absence.

  ‘We miss you. I think we thought a month would fly, but it’s going very slowly.’

  ‘I miss you too.’

  I’ve only been eight days in Greece, but it feels like more, as if I’ve been travelling for months. Immersing myself in other people’s lives has helped me see my own life more clearly. While I’m enjoying being surrounded by my Greek family, it’s reassuring to know that I will return home at the end of the month.

  In the meantime, George and I keep sending each other snapshots from our day – he sends me a picture of the olive tree in our autumn garden; I, of the clothes drying on a rack on Smaragthi’s veranda, Kalamata’s rooftops in the background; he, an image of my mother serving the children a huge tray of pasticcio, a baked pasta and meat dish.

  Today, I am glad that we’re staying home, glad to give Smaragthi a massage to alleviate the pain she’s suffering from a migraine. It’s the least I can do to thank her for her hospitality.

  Smaragthi texts her adult children to tell them not to call, switches her phone off and sets soft music playing on the computer in the next room.

  ‘We’ll use balsam oil,’ she says.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘Your mum would know it. They used it on the soldiers in the war. It was good for healing wounds.’

  She places a cup of the resin-like oil beside the bed, it’s dark-pink hue luminous under the lamp light.

  ‘You’re my guest, I should have taken you to the beach, not have you give me a massage . . .’

  ‘It’s okay. I’d like to,’ I say. ‘Anyway, we went to the beach yesterday.’

  ‘Still, you came all the way from Australia . . .’

  Despite her words, Smaragthi lies down in expectation. I laugh. This is something my mother, her beloved aunty, would do. As I try and ease her migraine away with long smooth strokes, I think how good it feels to give something of myself to make someone feel good.

  A few days later, the time has finally come for my trip to Ikaria and I’m very excited. I am back at the Athens airport, this time to board a flight to the island. When I see Ikaria up on the digital screen at the terminal, along with a gate number, I feel a surge of excitement, snap a picture to share with family and friends. There’s no going back now.

  With a bit of time to spare, I wander into the airport bookshop. There is an eclectic selection of Greek-themed English language books: Homer, Durrell, Dessaix. My eye surveys the tomes. As is my childhood habit, I wait for a book to ‘choose’ me, to give me what I need now.

  I pick up Lawrence Durrell’s Greek Islands, first published in the late ’70s. Flicking to the index, I find there is a small reference to Ikaria. I turn to the page, and discover that Durrell visited the island on the way to the nearby island of Samos. He writes, ‘Unrewarding and rugged Icaria . . . has an unkempt air, as if it has never been loved by any of its inhabitants.’ He goes on to say that it’s as if the road system has been ‘thought up by a drunken postman’. I close the book quickly and put it back on the shelf. This is not what I need now.

  I spy a collection of Greek poets, Seferis and Cavafy among them. I choose Cavafy, who served me well on my travels to Ithaka several years back. Perhaps he will guide me in Ikaria too.

  But Durrell has tapped into a deeper fear. What if, after more than two years of waiting to visit Ikaria, I will be disappointed? I take the idea one fanciful step further: what if Ikaria doesn’t even really exist, like it’s mythical namesake, but is a figment of my overactive imagination?

  On the plane, I leaf through the in-flight magazine, play with my phone and eat the pasteli (honey sesame bar) they serve, which surprises me with it spicy aftertaste.

  After I’ve been on the plane for a while, I realise I might have a real live Ikarian woman sitting next to me. I make eye contact with her and say, ‘The pasteli is nice. It’s different. I wonder what the spice is?’ It’s an awkward question, but it’s a start.

  ‘Yes, I had it last time I flew.’ She reads the back of the packet. ‘I’m not sure what it is.’

  ‘Are you from Ikaria?’ I ask.

  ‘No, I work there.’

  I find out that she is doing her internship at the hospital, a requirement before she specialises to become a doctor. We talk a little about what she wants to specialise in, and what the job opportunities for doctors are in Greece. She tells me there is a list of doctors waiting to be placed, and her name will be added to it. It will likely be several years before she gets a job, on top of the nine years it has taken her to qualify.

  She tells me she is thinking about moving to Sweden to work, but she’s concerned about being so far from family. She says she is still debating it. I sense her dilemma – the push and pull of wanting a career, and financial security – and the need to be close to family and home. As we discuss her problem, I think about my parents and their own migration journey from Greece to Australia. I don’t envy the decision she must make.

  I ask if she sees many elderly people at the hospital. She smiles – they are her main clientele. She tells me that the oldest people she sees have the least serious ailments. Generally, they are issues you’d naturally expect to see with ageing, like arthritis.

  ‘The really elderly aren’t the ones with the most serious problems – it’s those under sixty-five.’

  I turn back to my pasteli, and ponder how much I have already learnt from Ikaria, though I haven’t yet touched down on her shores. In the next two weeks, I wonder what more I will learn from the island where people ‘forget to die’.

  Landing

  As the plane approaches Ikaria, I look down to see jagged craggy cliffs against an impossibly blue sea. I snap a photo for my children through the window.

  At the airport I am greeted by a statue of Icarus, his wings and arms stretched out as if about to take off. I can’t help but think that I too am about to embark on yet another adventure. I have arrived on this ancient island and I can’t stop smiling, even though there is no one yet to which I can direct my joy.

  I pick up my luggage and introduce myself to Urania behind the airport’s only kiosk. Via email a few weeks back, she kindly agreed to give me a free informal tour of the island, changing her plans to accommodate me – I’d acquiesced, on the proviso that she would let me buy her lunch.

  From the airport, we take a short drive to the nearby village of Faro. The road to the town is winding, the cliffs leading down to the sea spectacular, juxtaposed against a stony landscape. I am silent, hardly daring to breathe for fear that this may yet be a dream. But the rocks and sea and sky are so vivid. I really am here.

  Faro has several fish tavernas, a few rooms for rent, and an expanse of beach. We step into the leafy courtya
rd of Evon’s café, and Urania introduces me to the owner. When I remark on his Australian accent, Evon tells me he spent quite a bit of his young life in Adelaide.

  ‘Evon is an activist,’ Urania tells me, going on to explain that he organises volunteers to clear the beach and to help open old paths like the ones his grandparents used to walk. He’s also introduced recycling bins, waste bags for collecting dog faeces and ashtrays at the beach. She notes that change is not always easy and he often comes to loggerheads with the local establishment.

  Evon looks quite pleased when Urania says this as he takes our orders. His expression suggests that there’s nothing like a bit of conflict to keep you on your toes.

  I tell Evon I’ve come to Ikaria because I’m interested in what makes the elders of the island live so long.

  He doesn’t hesitate. ‘The secret is to work out how to be happy with not too much. Don’t stress. Do things slowly.’

  Petra and Martin, a German couple Urania spoke to at the airport, join us. I learn they have been coming to the island for many years, like many repeat tourists who visit Ikaria. Urania introduces them to Evon and they discuss how they can support his work. They talk about organising volunteers to clear paths and providing funds to help the process. Urania speaks to Petra and Martin in German, turns to me in a mix of English and Greek, then fires off quick Greek to Evon. My head is reeling with the sound of different languages.

  As the conversation ebbs and flows, I ask Urania to tell me a little more about herself. She says she originally studied economics, with a view to helping run the family tour business. When I say I can’t imagine her as an economist, she rolls her eyes and admits she mostly did it to please her father. But she always wanted to study art. She goes on to say that in her forties she managed to put herself through a fine art correspondence course with the University of Minnesota. Now she runs the tour business in the summer, paints in the winter. When I ask if she exhibits, she mumbles that her work has been shown in Athens, that there have been a few international exhibitions. She steers the conversation away from herself, back to the island.

  After a while, Urania’s brother Dimitris arrives with his partner Simone. A fair, fit-looking woman, Simone is from Berlin, where she worked as an actress and dancer, but now teaches yoga and mindfulness on the island. She takes the concept of being happy with very little to a whole new level, explaining that she is working on a project called ‘The Big Nothing’. It’s about having more faith in the intuitive, organic side of our lives, and connecting our heads and our hearts with the earth as if there is a string between them. We talk about how Western societies are often head-driven, lurching into work and making money and trying to be successful in a linear, more masculine sense.

  Our salads arrive, large bowls of rustic lettuce leaves, wedges of tomatoes, thick green olives and pieces of Kathoura, a local goat’s cheese. More people join us at the table and the conversation bubbles back and forth; there’s gossip about a new taverna that has opened up, talk about how the tourist season is likely to pan out this year and what Urania is likely to cook for dinner.

  As we’re eating, Thodoris, Urania’s partner, pulls up in a newly purchased tourist bus. He is a quiet, bearded man, contrasting to Urania’s garrulous energy. He takes a seat at the table, orders a burger. He’s been up early, driving the school bus, doing the run from one side of the island to the other, and is keen to go home and have a nap. I realise with a start that we’ve been at the café for a few hours already.

  We make our way out to the street and admire the new bus. Evon’s Mum needs a lift to the neighbouring town. We all climb on board.

  Urania slaps me on the back. ‘You’re our first guest for the season – I hope you bring us good luck.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ I say as I drop a few coins into a little compartment near the front seat. Making a monetary gift when someone makes a large purchase such as a car is an old Greek tradition, a way of wishing them luck. Urania looks at me with surprise, as if I’ve passed a test. Then she pokes at the coins and jokes that they will help pay for dinner.

  Thodoris suggests we stop in the main port town, Agios Kirikos, so I might see the mineral springs, and then wind across the southern side of the island and through the mountains, cutting across to the northern part of the island. This will give me a good sense of the rocky coast and the forested interior, as well as give the new bus a good test run.

  ‘Will you be okay with the steering on the mountain roads?’ Urania asks.

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ Thodoris closes the door, smiling wolfishly.

  I wonder what I’ve got myself in for.

  As the roads wind along the jagged, rocky coastline, I listen to Urania speaking, though my eyes are drawn ever-downward towards the sea, its majesty contrasting to the dark backdrop of the land. I mentally pinch myself – I’m here on this tiny island in the Mediterranean.

  At Agios Kirikos, we walk behind the port, where a small group of people are soaking in the warm springs cut into the rock face. Across the port, we can see the Fourni islands, where Urania is originally from. She tells me that the islands are noted for their mazes of rocks and secret passages, which were once a perfect hideaway for pirates, then jokes that her family is likely to be from pirate stock.

  She reminisces about cooking with her mother and other women in the village, gossiping about everything and everyone. With so many of their menfolk working as fishermen and sailors, the women worked the land, ran the family home, got an education. Urania proudly says that the Greeks on Ikaria, both male and female, are some of the most well educated in the country.

  After leaving Agios Kirikos we make our way across the southern side of the island, where we then veer to the right and cut across the mountains. The landscape changes suddenly, and we are in forests of pine and oak. Thodoris is a picture of concentration as he navigates the unfamiliar steering on the bus.

  Meanwhile Urania is noting important culinary landmarks: where to get the best loukoumathes (honey donuts), where to get the most delicious souvlaki, which establishment makes the most traditional Ikarian food . . .

  She points to a dark stone in the sea, says that it represents the tears of Daedalus, the father of Icarus, when Icarus fell into the sea. The white cliffs behind it represent his grief; the stone changing colour when he lost his son.

  Just as the sun starts to come down, we stop at the second, smaller port town of Evdilos on the northern coast of the island, where Urania shows me around the stately captains’ houses lining the port.

  She points out a plaque of Aristides Foutridis, a resident of the town, and tells me he was the first translator of Cavafy’s poems.

  ‘Have you heard of Cavafy?’ she asks.

  I pull out the small book of his poetry I bought at the airport, telling her that I used his famous poem ‘Ithaca’ to frame a memoir I wrote some years ago. I explain how this poem has come up at important intervals in my life, reminding me of the importance of honouring the journey, not the destination. Urania’s eyebrows rise in surprise as I talk, and I sense something shift between us: I am no longer a tourist, but a friend. We understand each other.

  As we walk around Evdilos, Urania talks about her own advocacy work to improve the island. She points out a disused space where the town might build a playground; a wall that could be beautified with some artwork. She talks about the need for progress and more sustainable tourism, while preserving the natural landscape and its wonderful traditions. Already, with more commercial harvesting of the herbs on the island, the beekeepers have complained that their bees didn’t produce the toffee-like white heather reiki variety last year. She says that the old people knew how to care for the land, taking only what they needed.

  ‘You love this place, don’t you? I say.

  ‘Oh yes!’ she replies enthusiastically.

  Back on the bus, I tell Urania about how I’d like to talk with some of the elders on the island, and seek her advice on the best way to do this. She s
ighs a little, as if I am yet one more in a long line of people wanting to talk to elders, mining them for their secrets.

  ‘Recently, I had a journalist here, one of the many who fly in, take their interviews and photos and leave again,’ she says. ‘I said to him I would organise an interview with a family friend, a widow, but he wasn’t to ask her how old she was, what she ate as a child or what the secret to a long life was. He had to agree to let me lead the discussion.

  ‘At her home we sat with her, and I held her hand. I asked her if she could go back to one moment in her life, what it would be? She said it would be to feel the touch of her husband’s hand in hers on their wedding day. A tear rolled down her cheek.’

  ‘It was the most poignant moment, Spiri. It led to so many stories and memories of the important things in her life. After everything is gone, life gets distilled into key moments. It’s these moments that frame our lives, that give us meaning.

  ‘You can’t just barrel in. These are real people, with real lives. You’re going to have to find your own way in. It might take time.’ She shrugs. She can’t help me here.

  I feel a little abashed: I’m no different to the other writers in my motivations. But everything Urania says makes sense. I realise I’m going to have to proceed with my plans differently. Be patient. Have faith that I will learn things from the island and its people gradually. And with any luck, I might be able to give something back.

  The roads are dark by the time Thodoris pulls up at Thea’s Inn. I look at my phone. It’s ten o’clock. Where have the nine hours since I arrived gone?

  Urania jokes that I have officially become acculturated to Ikarian time. She promises that we will catch up soon, and that I am to ring her if I need anything. We kiss each other on the cheek. I shake Thodoris’s hand, thank him for forfeiting his afternoon nap so that I should see the island.