My Ikaria

by Tsintziras, Spiri;

  Inside, the taverna is lively. I meet Thea, a tall woman with a shock of curly hair and expressive brown eyes.

  ‘Koukla, my doll, you’ve arrived. Welcome!’ she says in a strong American accent.

  She introduces me to her husband, Ilias, who runs the family farm and supplies their restaurant. An older man with a generous moustache puts his arm around me, jokes that he will take me up to my room. There is laughter all around. I feel nervous until I see that they are joking. I join in, and so my first day in Ikaria comes to an end.

  Drinking

  I wake to the sound of goats. From the balcony outside my room, I can see the three culprits who woke me, nimbly stepping over rocks and wild greenery to find their breakfast. The craggy rocks lead down to the sea, which is calm on this still morning. It’s a luxurious novelty to get up at any time I like, to know my breakfast will be laid out for me.

  Before I head downstairs, I try to video call my family, but I can’t get through. I feel a pang of anxiety. I’ve been unable to contact them since arriving on the island.

  As I step out into the bright morning light, I see that the town of Nas is little more than a handful of tavernas with a few rooms for rent. I also see why my video call wasn’t working; there are roadworks just outside the apartment and the electricity is down. I spot Ilias helping fix the lines, as is a gent who must be in his early nineties – while the older man is not digging himself, he appears to be giving advice to the workmen.

  At the Inn, I take a seat in the sun, as close as I can to a view of the sea. There’s a long table of young people having breakfast, their voices carrying over to the few of us who are sitting at smaller tables nearby. Thea is playing mother to the group, asking, Did you all sleep well? Who would like eggs? Have you had enough to eat?

  I order Greek coffee, yoghurt and honey from the waiter. While I’m waiting, I catch the eye of another patron, and we introduce ourselves. Gayle is from Minnesota, and is a long-time friend of Thea’s. She comes and stays with her every few years. She tells me that the young people at the neighbouring table are hospitality students on exchange from Kentucky in the US. I laugh and say Ikaria is no doubt a great place to learn how to be hospitable.

  As we talk more, Gayle tells me that she is planning to head up to Christos Raches, an inland mountain village, to buy some produce from the women’s cooperative there. She’s happy for me to join her, and we agree to meet later that morning at a neighbouring town a few kilometres away. I need the exercise after weeks of being chauffeured around.

  The walk is a feast for the eyes, as terraced fields and rocky hills plunge deeply down into the sea. Wild poppy flowers grow from unforgiving rock faces and whitewashed homes cascade down the hillside. I take photo after photo with George’s camera, though I didn’t really have time to learn to use it before I left. I wish he was here to take the photos, to do this beautiful setting justice. As if to emphasise my incompetence, I drop the lens cap several times.

  Soon, I reach the scenic village of Armenistis and come across a whitewashed blue and white church tucked away off a quiet road. Above its doorway is a mural of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors and travellers. I stop to take a photo, dropping the lens cap again, this time into a little enclosed yard a few metres below the road. I wind my way down a narrow path, unlatch a gate, and claim it from its dusty resting place. I tell myself that I must be careful, that no one will be able to find me if I fall in this isolated enclave. As I turn to make my way back to the path, I lose my footing and slip down the ledge, smashing my back against its concrete edge. I’m immobilised by a sharp searing pain, unable to breathe.

  I look up to the church and momentarily blame the saint for not protecting this traveller. But the saint’s gaze remains unchanged in the morning sunshine. I need to look to myself. It’s as if, by sheer force of will, I have turned my fear of getting hurt into reality. I slide myself up to sit on the ledge and breathe in slowly. The pain is intense. What if I’ve fractured a disc, or ruptured a kidney? I’m all alone here. I don’t dare get up yet. I reach slowly into my backpack, and pull out my phone to ring my mother.

  The familiarity of Mum’s voice brings me back to my senses. I describe the church in front of me, the beauty of the island, being woken by goats. She sounds worried and tells me she misses me, that she prays for the day when I get home safely. She assures me that the kids are well taken care off; George is doing a great job. She has been delivering pasticcio regularly to our home. George and the kids have been coming once a week to eat at hers. I know she thinks that if they are fed, all will be well. Like me, she shows her love through food.

  Talking to Mum helps distract me from the pain and I don’t tell her about my fall. When I hang up, I push myself up, inch by inch, and slowly shuffle to the café where I am meeting Gayle, each step resounding painfully into my back. It’s late morning, and the café owner is still setting up. He takes me through the menu; recommends the goat’s milk ice-cream with mountain herbs. Apparently, the goats outnumber the locals by four to one; goat’s milk is definitely on my ‘to try’ list. The owner comes back with the ice-cream, and a large book, simply titled Icaria, by Yiorgos Depolas.

  ‘I hope you have a good time on our beautiful island,’ he says after I thank him.

  As I wait for Gayle, I flick through the book and am surprised to find that Mikis Theodorakis, one of Greece’s most famous composers, was interned on the island in the late 1940s for his leftist sympathies. Theodorakis reflects, ‘My years in Icaria were full, heavy and intense and have been forever engraved in my mind.’ He writes of the beauty of the island and the warmth of the locals who risked their lives to be generous to the several thousand communist and leftist supporters who were interned here during this time. The islanders helped them to survive in harsh conditions, despite themselves being so poor. The interns, many of whom were well educated, helped build roads, taught locals foreign languages and gave free medical help.

  Gayle soon arrives, and I convince her to have the ice-cream; it’s good. As I order a serve for her, she admires my ability to speak Greek, lamenting that she must rely on others to translate for her while on the island. She wishes she’d learnt more in her years of coming here. It’s at times like these that I’m glad my parents made me learn the language.

  As we chat more, Gayle tells me that Thea and the island remind her about what is important in life. They help her ‘fill her cup’ and take stock after the stresses of city life. She runs a busy health club back home; while she helps others take care of themselves, she herself works very hard to manage it. Now in her fifties, it’s come to a point in her life where she needs to sell up, let it go. Her time in Ikaria is always a welcome escape.

  We make our way inland towards the village of Christos Raches, up winding mountain roads where we pass terraced ledges, oak and pine forests, a cemetery on a hill in the distance and rows upon rows of olive trees.

  Christos Raches centres around a small square with traditional stone buildings and wooden tables. Young children zigzag around the adults, their laughter ringing out.

  At the women’s cooperative, a little shop that specialises in local produce, I’m delighted to find wild bulbs steeped in vinegar, which were one of my father’s favourite foods. The tang of the vinegar tempers their earthy bitterness. I try delicacies that it would be hard to find in Australia: prickly pear jam, rose petal ‘spoon’ desert and seven-herb liquor. Gayle buys several jams and a few bottles of berry-infused homemade liquors. We stop to have one of the cakes, talking about our lives back home, about Gayle’s many trips to the island.

  Gayle tells me that her next stop is Afianes Winery, where she is meeting Thea and the hospitality students. She says I’m welcome to come. This is Ikaria after all.

  The winery is a few kilometres away, nestled in the tiny village of Profitis Elias. As we pull up, we are greeted by a young woman called Nicole, who tells us she runs the winery with her partner, Constantinos, who waves as he wal
ks past, busy setting up for the students.

  Nicole brings us books and brochures about the winery, pointing out the prizes it has won. She offers us one of their award-winning desert wines, Tama, telling us it’s made from the Fokiano variety of grapes, a special variety grown locally. It’s smooth, sweet, decadently fruity.

  Gayle asks Nicole how she came to be here. She tells us she is originally from Nafplio in southern Greece, where her parents grew oranges.

  She smiles wryly and says, ‘I fell in love with my boyfriend, the place and the vines – in a way that I didn’t fall in love with my parents’ orange groves! It was good for me psychologically.’ She shrugs, as if to laugh at her younger, more confused self.

  As I take the last sip of the Tama, I joke with Gayle that this is probably the secret to why the islanders live such a long time.

  The students arrive, and Constantinos shows us around the winery: the huge vat where grapes are pressed by foot; smaller clay vats dug into the ground, where the wine is steeped using methods employed for centuries. Nicole then shows us her favourite item in the one-room folk museum, the kerastari, which is a large communal terracotta cup with several spouts, designed to share wine. It’s also the name of the communal space set at the back of the winery.

  We make our way to a little amphitheatre at the foot of a low hill, and Constantinos regales us with stories of the history of wine making, ranging from the mythic to the modern.

  ‘Now it all started with Dionysios, the god of celebration, wine and orgies . . .’ The students titter, right on cue. ‘While we like to claim Dionysios was born in Ikaria, I have to admit to you that there are a few other places in Greece who also claim him.’

  From what I’ve read of Dionysus, he was the protector of those who did not belong to conventional society. He symbolises the chaotic, the dangerous, the unexpected; represents ritual madness and fertility. I can imagine him having a great time on Ikaria.

  ‘Pramnios oinos, or Pramnian wine, was mentioned in Homer’s “Iliad”,’ Constantinos continues. ‘His warriors drank a beverage made from wine, goat’s cheese, barley flour and herbs. They believed that this drink would make them strong and battle-ready.’

  I remember Urania saying yesterday that she has collected a similar recipe from elders in her family and marvel at how some traditions might be passed on, century after century.

  ‘This was not the first time wine was considered a healer – even Hippocrates used it as medicine. He cautioned that it should be drunk in moderation, and mixed with water. Many Ikarians still drink it with water today.

  ‘It is thought that the word “Pramnios”’ comes from the Ikarian mountain, Pramnos, where a specific Fokiano grape variety is cultivated. This is one we have tried to create as closely as those made in antiquity.’

  Constantinos serves us the same amber-coloured Tama wine we had earlier, and I can feel my head start to get light. The afternoon sun is bearing down.

  ‘At this winery, we are experimenting with technology and tradition. I’m not interested in making big money, I’m interested in extending the palate and doing innovative things. Most of the wines here are in very small production. If you like them, you like them; if you don’t, you don’t.’ He shrugs, laughing.

  The second wine we taste is a Begleri, which is cloudy, golden, and much richer that the lighter Australian whites my palate is used to.

  ‘I’m thinking about experimenting with biodynamic processes – all that that crazy shit about using the moon and the planets to guide growing and harvesting!’ says Constantinos, smiling almost apologetically.

  It doesn’t seem so strange to me. I remember my mother telling me they used the very same processes to grow food in her village.

  I feel a growing admiration for this amusing young man and his girlfriend, who are taking their family traditions and creating something new from them. It is a little like what I am trying to do with my own family traditions, moulding what my parents and grandparents have taught me into something that fits with my life right now.

  The final wine we’re offered is simply titled ‘Icarus Black’. It’s a deep purplish red colour. In the first sip, I can taste the minerals in it. There is an almost disturbing aftertaste of blood and earth.

  ‘In this wine, we are “drinking Ikaria”,’ finishes Constantinos, with a melodramatic flourish, signalling the end of the talk.

  I get up a bit lightheaded, Ikaria coursing through my veins.

  Sharing

  I am sitting having breakfast in Thea’s Inn with Isa, the ex-wife of my cousin, Dionysios, and her friend, Niki, who grew up in Ikaria and whose mother we will be staying with for a few days.

  A few weeks before leaving Australia, I’d Facebook messaged Isa to ask about the island, and she had surprised me by offering to accompany me for part of my trip and bring a friend along. She and Niki tell me they have always wanted to visit the island together, but life had got in the way – children, lack of money, work commitments. This is a sort of pilgrimage for them, a chance to reconnect with the island, and to have a break.

  Looking around at the sea across from us, the olive groves below, the whitewashed stones of Thea’s Inn, Isa says, ‘This is a moment of grace.’

  They tell me how when they arrived on the ferry late last night, their hire car had been left waiting for them at the port with their name scribbled on a piece of paper on the dashboard, the keys in the ignition. There was no need for deposits or licences, no suspicion that the car might be stolen. They laugh. It appears nothing much has changed in Ikaria.

  ‘You know we’ve come to help you discover the island. It was our obligation,’ says Isa, blue eyes dancing. In a strange twist of fate, it turns out that Isa worked for Urania during the few years she and Dionysios spent on the island. Ikaria is also special to Isa because it was here she was pregnant with their first child.

  ‘I’m not going to check my watch at all while we’re here,’ declares Niki.

  As single mothers, it hasn’t been easy for the two friends to leave their children and their jobs to get away for the week. They’re determined to make the most of having no responsibilities.

  Niki and Isa tell me about meeting in the southern Greek town of Kyparissia several years ago. There they discovered they had both lived on Ikaria at the same time. There is even a photo taken of them together at an Ikarian café, where they’d met by chance, though neither of them remembered the meeting. The photo has since been misplaced. It is clear to me as they tell the almost legendary tale of their friendship that they are very fond of each other.

  ‘We should take another photo at the same café, compare them when we finally find the original,’ says Isa.

  ‘Are you joking? There is no way I want to compare myself now to then. Let us remember ourselves as we were,’ says Niki.

  ‘I’m happy with myself as I am now,’ Isa replies, refusing to let her moment of grace be broken.

  Today, the only plan is for us to explore the island. They ask me if there is anything I want to do. I say I am in their hands.

  Even after only one day on Ikaria, I realise happily that I’m no longer worried that I might not find what I’m looking for. I feel more relaxed than I have in months, perhaps years. I’m willing to sit back and wait to see what the island offers up.

  I ring George after breakfast and he asks about my plans and whether I am closer to discovering the secret to long life. Have I arranged to meet any island elders?

  How might I tell him that this morning I was delighted to see a swallow cutting across a clear blue sky? A bee building a tiny hive the size of a coin on the step up to my room? That on my walk yesterday, the heady smell rising from last season’s figs underfoot filled me with an inexplicable joy?

  I hedge in response to his questions, feeling a twinge of guilt that he is stoking the home fires while I’m spending my days immersing myself in the sensual pleasures of the island. It’s hard to explain that I’ve already started to operate on Ikar
ian time, letting things unfold as they need to, having faith I will learn what I need to learn.

  Niki takes the wheel of our hire car, and drives the island’s winding roads confidently and fast, cigarette in hand.

  We drop in to Urania’s office so Isa can say hello to her. Urania is not there, but the woman in the office, Evanggelia, has heard of Isa. She turns to Niki, and after several minutes, they have established a connection. She knows people who know Niki, know who her family is, which town she grew up in.

  Back on the road, Niki asks why I have come to Ikaria. I tell her that I read about Stamatis Moraitis a few years ago and have had a fantasy of travelling to the island ever since. I talk about my desire to understand what makes the islanders live so well and so long into their old age, perhaps in a bid to live my own life better, and to reconnect to my own roots in some inexplicable way.

  ‘Did you hear what Evanggelia asked me?’ says Niki. ‘She said, “Apo poion eisai?” – “From whom are you?” Everyone belongs to someone, and I think you might find your answer there. Everyone is part of a family, part of a community here. They are part of something bigger than just themselves. No one is ever lost in Ikaria.’

  I let that sink in and listen to the happy banter coming from the front as the two friends reminisce. Every twist in the road is a chance for Niki and Isa to reflect: about the house Isa lived in; the strip of beach she walked from to get to the supermarket; the lettuce she craved while she was pregnant with her son in the thick of winter; and the excitement with which the supermarket owner presented her with the first lettuce of the season.

  ‘Everyone looked out for me, slowed their cars on the road to check that I was okay when I was walking, then sped up again,’ says Isa. ‘The islanders offered me so much food, you wouldn’t believe it. And every time I learnt a new word, people rejoiced, particularly if they themselves had taught it to me!’ Isa says.