The Island

by Victoria Hislop

  Maria had helped Anna get ready that morning. Her sister’s hands trembled so violently that she had to do up every button for her. She knew this was what Anna wanted and that she was achieving her ultimate goal. She was confident that her sister had rehearsed being the grande dame so often in her daydreams that she would have no trouble adapting to the reality.

  ‘Tell me it’s really happening,’ Anna said. ‘I can’t believe I’m actually going to be Kyria Vandoulakis!’

  ‘It’s all real,’ Maria reassured her, wondering as she spoke what the reality of going to live in a grand house would be like. She hoped it would mean more than fine jewellery and smart clothes. Even for Anna such things might have their limitations.

  The mix of guests made this an unusual event, but even more unconventional was that the pre-nuptial feast was held in the groom’s house rather than the bride’s, as was the tradition. Everyone understood the reasons for this. They did not need to be articulated. What kind of feast would have been on offer at the house of Giorgis Petrakis? The smart ladies of Neapoli tittered at the very thought, just as they had done when they heard that the Vandoulakis boy was marrying a poor fisherman’s daughter. ‘What on earth is the family thinking of?’ they had sneered. Whatever anyone thought of the marriage, everyone was there to enjoy the fine lunch of roast lamb, cheese and wine from Vandoulakis’s own crops, and when all two hundred stomachs were full it was time for the marriage service. It was a motley procession of cars, trucks and donkeys pulling carts that finally made its way down to Elounda.

  For Cretans both rich and poor the rituals of the marriage ceremony were the same. Two stephana, the simple marriage crowns made from dried flowers and grasses and linked by a ribbon, were placed on the heads of the couple by the priest, and then exchanged three times to cement their union. These crowns would be framed later on by Anna’s mother-in-law and hung high above the couple’s bed so that, as the saying went, no one could tread on the marriage. For much of the time, the words of the sacred ritual were lost in the chatter of the congregation, but when the bride and groom finally joined hands with the priest, a hush spread around the church. Now they performed a sedate dance around the altar, the Isaiah Dance, and the guests knew that soon they would be outside in the sunshine.

  Following the bride and groom, who rode in a carriage, everyone trooped back to the Vandoulakis home where trestle tables were laid out for another feast. People ate, drank and danced into the night, and just before the sun rose a volley of gunshots was fired to mark the end of the celebrations. After the wedding, Anna more or less vanished from life in Plaka. She visited once a week to see her father, but as time went on she began to send a car down to collect him instead, so her appearances in Plaka became very few and far between. As the wife of the future head of the estate, she found her social position much altered. This was, however, not a problem for her. It was exactly what she wanted - a disconnection from her past.

  Anna threw herself into her new role and soon found that her duties as daughter-in-law were as weighty as those of being a wife. She spent each day in the company of Eleftheria and her friends, either calling on them or receiving them at their home, and just as she had hoped, they all enjoyed a level of leisure that bordered on idleness. Her main duty was to help manage the domestic aspects of the Vandoulakis household, which largely involved ensuring that the maid had laid on a great spread of food for the menfolk when they returned in the evening.

  She longed to make changes to the two family homes, to relieve them of their dark drapes and sombre furnishings. She nagged Andreas until he took his mother aside to ask for permission, and Eleftheria in turn consulted the real head of the household. This was the way in which everything had to be done.

  ‘I don’t want the big house altered too much,’ said Alexandros Vandoulakis to his wife, referring to the house in Elounda. ‘But Anna can give the house in Neapoli a lick of paint if she’d like to.’

  The new bride threw herself into the task and was soon carried away on a wave of enthusiasm for fabrics and wall-papers, making endless trips to an importer of fine French and Italian goods who had a smart shop in Agios Nikolaos. It kept her busy and absorbed and Andreas benefited, finding her in a lively and buoyant mood at the end of each day.

  Another of her duties was to manage the panegyria celebrations which the Vandoulakis family threw for their workers. Anna excelled at putting on a show. At these feasts she would sometimes feel the eyes of Antonis Angelopoulos on her and she would look up to meet his steely glare. Occasionally he would even speak to her.

  ‘Kyria Vandoulakis,’ he would say with exaggerated deference, his bow rather too low. ‘How are you?’

  His manner made Anna flinch and her reply was appropriately curt.

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  With that she turned her back on him. Both his look and his manner challenged her right to be there as his superior. How dare he?

  Anna’s marriage brought a change not only to her own status; her departure also meant a change in Maria’s. The younger sister now clearly had the role of mistress in her own household. Much of Maria’s energy had gone into pleasing and pacifying her sister, and the fact that Anna was no longer there meant a lightening of her load. She put renewed energy into running the Petrakis home and now often went with her father to make deliveries to Spinalonga.

  For Giorgis, who could not lay flowers on her grave, each visit to the island was an opportunity to remember Eleni. He continued to go to and fro with Dr Lapakis in both fair and stormy weather, and on these journeys the doctor talked about his work, confessing to Giorgis how many of the lepers were now dying and how much he missed the visits of Dr Kyritsis.

  ‘He brought a hint of good things to come,’ said Lapakis wearily. ‘I don’t believe in very much myself, but I saw how belief can be a good thing, an end in itself. For some of the lepers, having the faith that Kyritsis might be able to cure them was enough to stop them wanting to die. Many of them feel there’s nothing left to live for now.’

  Lapakis had received some letters from his old colleague, explaining and profusely regretting his absence. Kyritsis was still involved in putting back together the damaged hospital in Iraklion and at present could not be spared to continue his research. Privately, Lapakis began to despair and poured out his heart to Giorgis. Most people would have prayed to God on bended knee, but in the absence of faith, Lapakis leant on his loyal boatman, whose suffering would always be greater than his own.

  Although people continued to die of the disease, for those with the less virulent strain life on Spinalonga was still full of the unexpected. Since the war finished, there had been two film showings every week, the market was better than ever and the newspaper thrived. Dimitri, who was now seventeen, had already begun to teach the five- and six-year-olds whilst a more experienced teacher took charge of the older children; he continued to live at the Kontomaris house, an arrangement which brought great happiness on both sides. As far as it could do, a general sense of contentment pervaded the island. Even Theodoros Makridakis no longer had the will to make trouble. He liked a good debate in the bar but had long since given up the idea of taking over the position of ultimate authority. Nikos Papadimitriou did the job far too well.

  Maria and Fotini were engaged in a pattern of daily tasks that took them through the next few years like a dance, with an endlessly repeated sequence of steps. With three sons, Savina Angelopoulos needed the help of her fit and capable daughter to keep the men in the house fed and looked after, so Fotini, like Maria, had domestic duties that tied her to Plaka.

  Even if Eleni might have wished for better things for her daughter than remaining in the village, she would not have wished for a more conscientious child than Maria. There was no question in the girl’s mind that she should be doing anything other than looking after her father, even if she had once entertained fantasies of standing, chalk in hand, at the front of a class, as her mother had done. Like the printed pattern on their old c
urtains, all such aspirations had long since faded.

  The two girls shared the joys and the limitations of this existence for several years, and in all the time they performed their duties it did not occur to them that they had any real cause for complaint. There was water to fetch from the village pump, wood to be collected for their ovens, sweeping, spinning, cooking and the beating of rugs. Maria would regularly collect honey from her hives on the thyme-covered hillside overlooking Plaka; it yielded such intense sweetness that for several years she had no need to buy even one gram of sugar. In the courtyards at the back of their homes old olive oil cans overflowed with basil and mint and pithoi, huge urns once used to store water and oil, provided a perfect home for carefully tended geraniums and lilies, when they became cracked and no longer of practical use.

  The girls were heiresses to a millennium of secretly evolved folklore and were now considered old enough to be taught the crafts and skills that had been handed down through generations without written record. Fotini’s grandmother was a great source of such lore and showed them how to dye wool with extracts of iris, hibiscus and chrysanthemum petals, and how to weave coloured grasses into elaborate baskets and mats. Other women passed on to them their knowledge of the magical benefits of locally grown herbs, and they would walk far into the mountains to find wild sage, cistus and camomile for their healing powers. On a good day they would return with a basket of the most precious herb of all, origanum dictamus, which was said to heal wounds as well as cure sore throats and stomach problems. Maria would always have the right potion to minister to her father if he was sick, and soon her reputation for mixing useful remedies spread round the village.

  While they were on their long walks into the mountains they would also gather horta, the iron-rich mountain greens that were a staple part of every diet. The childhood games they had played on the beach when they fashioned pies out of sand were now replaced by the more adult pastime of making them out of pastry and herbs.

  One of Maria’s most important jobs between late autumn and early spring was to keep the home fire burning. It not only provided the warmth which kept them sane while winter winds howled outside; it also kept the spirit of the house alive. The spiti - the Greeks used the same word for both ‘house’ and ‘home’ - was a divine symbol of unity, and theirs, more than most, needed constant nurturing.

  However onerous Maria’s domestic tasks might have seemed to anyone living in a city - or indeed to Anna, who now lived in some luxury - there was always time for chatter and intrigue. Fotini’s house was a focal point for this. Since idleness was considered a sin, the serious business of gossip was conducted in the innocent context of sewing and embroidery. This not only kept the girls’ hands busy but also gave them the opportunity to prepare for the future. Every pillowcase, cushion, tablecloth and runner in the house of a married woman had been woven or embroidered by herself, her mother or her mother’s mother. Anna had been an exception. Over the few years she had sat in a sewing circle with women older and wiser than herself, she had completed just one small corner of a pillowcase. It had been symptomatic of her continuous state of rebellion. Her stubbornness was subtle. While the other girls and women sat talking and sewing, her fingers remained idle. She would wave her needle around, gesticulating and making patterns in the air with her thread, but rarely pricked the cloth. It was just as well that she had married into a family where everything was provided.

  At certain times of year, the girls turned their hands to the seasonal tasks which demanded they should be outside. They would join the fray at grape harvest and would be the first into the troughs to tread the copiously juicy fruit. Then, just before autumn turned to winter, they would be among the crowd who would beat the olive trees to make the fruit cascade down into the open baskets below. Such days were full of laughter and flirtation, and the completion of these communal tasks would be marked with dancing and merrymaking.

  One by one, members of this carefree but duty-laden coterie of young women moved out of the group. They found husbands, or, as was more generally the case, husbands were found for them. On the whole they were other young men from Plaka or one of the neighbouring villages such as Vrouhas or Selles. Their parents had usually known each other for years and had sometimes planned the match between their offspring before they could even count or write their own names. When Fotini announced her own engagement Maria saw her world coming to an end. She displayed only pleasure and delight, however, quietly castigating herself for her feelings of envy as she anticipated the rest of her life spent on doorsteps with the widowed crones, crocheting lace as the sun went down.

  Fotini, like Maria, was now twenty-two years old. Her father had supplied the fish taverna on the seafront for many years, and the owner, Stavros Davaras, was a good friend, as well as being a reliable customer. His son, Stephanos, was already working for his father and one day would take over the business, which had a gentle flow of customers on weekdays and a torrent of them on saints’ days and Sundays. Pavlos Angelopoulous regarded Stephanos as a good match for his daughter, and the already established mutual dependence of the families was considered a desirable grounding for the marriage. The pair had known each other since childhood and were confident that they could develop feelings for each other which would add sparkle to what was, after all, just an arrangement. A modest dowry was negotiated, and once the engagement had run its usual course, the wedding took place. The great consolation for Maria was that Fotini would be living no further away from her now than she had been before. Although Fotini now had different, more onerous duties - working in the taverna as well as running the home and negotiating the minefield of living with her in-laws - the women would still see each other every day.

  Determined not to betray her dismay at finding herself the last of a diminishing group, Maria threw herself more enthusiastically than ever into her filial duties, accompanying her father with increasing frequency on his trips to Spinalonga and ensuring that their home was always immaculately tidy. For a young woman it was far from fulfilling. Her devotion to Giorgis was admired in the village, but at the same time her lack of a husband reduced her status. Spinsterhood was perceived as a curse, and to be left on the shelf was daily public humiliation in a village like Plaka. If she got any older without finding a fiancé, respect for her dutiful behaviour could quickly turn to scorn. The problem now was that there were few eligible men in Plaka, and Maria would not consider a man from another village. It was unthinkable that Giorgis should uproot himself from Plaka and therefore unimaginable that Maria would ever move either. There was, she reflected, as much chance of marriage as there was of seeing her beloved mother walk through the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  1951

  ANNA WAS NOW four years married and thriving on her new status. She loved Andreas dutifully, and willingly responded to his passion for her. To everyone around her, Anna seemed a faultless wife. She was aware, however, that the family was awaiting the announcement of a pregnancy. The lack of a baby did not bother her at all. There would be plenty of time for children and she was enjoying this carefree time far too much to want to lose it to motherhood. Eleftheria had broached the subject one day when they were discussing the decor for one of the spare bedrooms in Neapoli.

  ‘This used to be the nursery,’ she said, ‘when our girls were little. What colour would you like to paint it?’

  Eleftheria thought she was providing the perfect opportunity for her daughter-in-law to say something about her plans and aspirations for becoming a mother, and was disappointed when Anna professed a liking for pale green. ‘It’ll complement the fabric I’ve ordered to cover the furniture,’ she said.

  Anna and Andreas, along with his parents, lived for some of the time during the summer months in the family’s grand neoclassical villa in Neapoli, which Anna had now extensively refurbished. Eleftheria considered its fine drapes and fragile furniture very impractical, but it appeared she could not stand in this young woman’s way. In Septe
mber the family started to move back to the main house in Elounda, which Anna was also gradually transforming to her own taste in spite of her father-in-law’s penchant for the sombre style favoured by his generation. She often had herself taken into Agios Nikolaos to shop, and one day in late autumn she arrived back from one of these trips to see her upholsterer and check up on the progress of her latest pair of curtains. She rushed into the kitchen and planted a kiss on the back of the head of the figure seated at the table.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘How was the press today?’

  It had been the first day of olive pressing, a significant date in the calendar, when the press was used for the first time in many months and it was always touch and go whether the machinery would perform. There were thousands of litres of oil to be extracted from the countless baskets of olives that sat waiting to be crushed and it was crucial that everything went smoothly. The golden liquid that poured from press to pithoi was the basis of the family’s wealth and, as Anna saw it, each jar was another metre of fabric, another tailored dress to be hand-fitted to her curves, with tucks and darts that moulded the garment around her body. These clothes, more than anything, illustrated her separation from the village women, whose shapeless gathered skirts were no different now from those that their grandmothers had worn a hundred years before. Today, to keep the biting November winds at bay, Anna wore an emerald-green coat which hugged her breasts and hips like an embrace before falling away almost to the ground in extravagant swirls of fabric. A fur collar rose up her neck to warm her ears and stroke her cheeks.