by Lena Manta
She turned and found me standing there like a pillar of salt.
“Oh dear! I’ve turned you upside down!” she exclaimed, and her ringing laughter, as open as her spirit, filled the room. She sat down comfortably on the couch. “Are you going to offer me coffee? We both need it, and later, I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.”
“You know, I had another visitor recently.”
“I do know. Hecuba landed on you. My cousin told me, and that’s why I can understand that look on your face. When the first experience of your family is Hecuba, how could you not be scared! But fortunately, we’re not all like that. In any case, you owe my visit today to her. I had no idea that Smaragda’s daughter was here, and it was Hecuba who informed me about the ‘misfortune’ you’ve brought us! Don’t worry. She can’t do anything anymore. Is it really true that you’re named Chrysafenia after your grandmother?”
“People call me Fenia,” I clarified, and was annoyed because I felt like a little girl introducing myself.
“And you’re the spitting image of your grandmother too. You have the same eyes.”
The door of the dining room opened, and Karim appeared. This was another bombshell. Karim, who never even took out the trash for fear of being seen, now decided to make a big entrance. He was carrying a tray with coffee, cold water, and sweets. He set his offerings on the little table in front of the visitor and smiled at her.
“Heavens above!” exclaimed Melpo. “Who are you, young man?”
“Karim, madam.”
“Are you Syrian?”
“Yes. Madam found me and keep me.”
“Like a stray, eh?” She turned to me. “Don’t worry! I do the same, and my husband shouts at me and my children.” She tried her coffee and sighed with pleasure. “I feel right at home. That’s the way I make coffee. A Syrian taught me.” And then, as if something awful had passed through her mind, her beautiful eyes opened wide, and she asked me, “But Hecuba didn’t see him, did she?”
“No,” I hurried to reassure her. “This is the first time Karim has appeared, and it surprises me that he—”
“Thank God! That woman is a huge racist.”
“And you, why did you decide to show yourself?” I asked Karim.
“Madam, kind laugh. Came all the way to the kitchen,” he answered, and then, with a slight bow, he left us alone.
Melpo had already lit a cigarette and was enjoying her coffee, looking nostalgically around her. She gave me time to take a sip of the fragrant drink myself and light a cigarette, then she wrapped me in her green gaze.
“And now I’ll explain exactly who I am. Your grandmother, Chrysafenia, was the daughter of Fotis Ververis and Smaragda Kantardzis. She married Pericles Sekeris, and they had four children: Hecuba, whom you met; Fotini; Stelios, who was killed in 1973 together with your grandmother; and your mother. Do you follow so far?”
I nodded so as not to interrupt her.
“Your grandmother also had a brother, Nestor Ververis. I am Nestor’s daughter.”
I was silent while I absorbed this information, linking it with what I had read in the letters. Melpo was the daughter of Nestor, a good friend of Vassilis, who loved my grandmother!
“Apart from being cousins,” she continued, “your mother and I were also friends. The two years that separated us didn’t make much difference. We played together as little girls, we lived through the first changes together when we became young women, and we whispered to each other about our first crushes.”
“Then why did you lose touch? I never saw a letter from you. Did you cut her off like the others?”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know, Fenia. And I’ve come to explain them. But first, you must take something that belongs to you.”
She opened her bag and pulled out a small velvet box. I bent forward as I was opening it and froze in that position. On the white velvet lay a fine gold chain from which hung a small gold envelope. Melpo took it out of the box, opened my palm, and left it there. It was the size of my little fingernail, and on it, intricately engraved, was a stamp.
“Open it!” Melpo urged me, and I looked at her without understanding.
How could something so very small be opened? She helped me. From the back, the envelope opened like a real one. A tiny diamond was attached like a seal. When I unfastened it, a thin white metal sheet slid into my palm. On it, in fine calligraphy, the phrase I love you was engraved.
So this was the letter that Simeon Kouyoumdzis had designed for his beloved Smaragda, and that his son Vassilis had made for my grandmother. But how had it wound up in the hands of my aunt?
“I found some letters,” I told her softly.
“So you know what this is.”
“Lots of things are missing. I look at the photographs, and I don’t recognize faces. Aunt, I tried to find—”
“Forget the ‘aunt’ part. Here you were, not knowing I existed. I’d prefer for you to call me by my name.”
“Me too. Melpo, will you tell me—”
“That’s why I’ve come. Go get the album so I can start introducing you to your family.”
Like an automaton I got up, and when I returned, I was carrying my history. Before Melpo began, though, I asked her to fasten the gold letter around my neck. It had found its place at last.
CHAPTER 2
KANTARDZIS FAMILY
Constantinople, 1910
When Smaragda Kantardzis was born in 1910 in Constantinople—and, to be more precise, in Tarlabasi, the suburb where her parents lived—she didn’t bring her family any particular joy. After two older daughters, Anargyros Kantardzis was expecting his wife to give him a son, but God didn’t grant him that favor. Nor did He yield to the pleas and prayers of Anargyros’s wife, Kleoniki, who knew how much her husband wanted a male child to continue his name. Nearly every day, she went to church to pray, but they had no luck.
The family’s two-story house stood among those of dozens of other Greeks who had lived in the neighborhood for many years. This part of Constantinople was a transitional area between the opulent life of Stavrodromi and the simpler and perhaps homelier atmosphere of Tataoulon.
Tarlabasi was divided in two. In the upper part, there were buildings several stories high where the doctors and store owners lived, whereas in its narrow streets, bohemian types strolled nonchalantly. In the lower part, along the Tataoulon Stream, beside the disreputable gypsy neighborhoods, lived the petit bourgeois Greeks.
The Kantardzis house was exactly there. Anargyros’s work had been handed down from his father to him, and his surname was rooted deep in the past. Anargyros was a genuine artist. From his hands came scales, but also coffeepots, baking trays, saucepans, even lamps. Apart from having a son, his biggest dream was to be worthy of making a bell. A hard worker, he stoked his fire and started work before dawn, while Jemal, a young Turk who worked for him, carried out his duties as an assistant and also as a salesman. On certain prearranged days, Jemal loaded up as many goods as he could carry and went out into the neighborhoods to hawk the wares of his employer, returning only when his hands were empty and all the goods had found new homes. He handed the money over to Anargyros and later, just before it got dark, helped him close up their shop on the main street of Tarlabasi. In exchange, apart from the pocket change his employer gave him, he was allowed to sleep in the back of the shop, where, among the supplies, Kleoniki would set out food for the poor Turkish boy.
Anargyros considered saving money his highest duty. The family didn’t want for anything, but he watched every cent, because saving coins led to gold pounds, and those he kept in a place only he knew about.
He was a silent man, closed and unsociable. Kleoniki didn’t often hear his voice, and she preferred it that way, because when her husband did open his mouth, it was never good. He would either scold her or criticize her for something. He had married her not, of course, because he loved her, but because that was what her father had decided. Hers was a very po
or family from Kuzgundcuk, a fishing village called Khrysokeramos, on the Asiatic side of Bosporus. The wooden cottage housed a dozen people and the same number of stomachs that had to be filled; fortunately, there were enough fish that at least the family didn’t go hungry. The matchmaker who made the offer was from those parts, but she’d moved to Tarlabasi. She met Kleoniki on a visit home, and—who knows how—the woman got the idea to match her with Anargyros.
Nobody thought of asking Kleoniki if she wanted to marry the grim Anargyros, with his rough hands and even rougher personality. Besides, it was thought to be a very good marriage, since the groom was prosperous and an orphan.
“A big thing, that, my dear!” the matchmaker informed the girl. “Neither a mother-in-law in your face nor a father-in-law to boss you around. Lady and mistress of your own house!”
Kleoniki really wanted to say that it was useless to try to persuade her. If it had been in her hands, she would never have agreed to this marriage, but her parents saw in Anargyros a chance to unload one of the mouths that demanded food every day.
The marriage took place in 1906, and immediately after, the couple settled in Tarlabasi. The tall, narrow house with two enclosed balconies to the left and right of the entrance became her home. The young woman needed all of her stamina to fix up the dilapidated house, and in the evenings, she tried not to think about what awaited her in the double bed. Her mother, and even more the matchmaker, had tried tactfully to teach her “that” was a sacred duty for a married woman, but Kleoniki was quite certain that such a painful and exhausting procedure could not be sacred. She escaped for a while, however, when she held her first child in her arms. Her firstborn looked very much like her, and even though Anargyros didn’t seem happy with the female addition to his family, Kleoniki was delighted with little Dorothea, who had taken the name of the mother-in-law Kleoniki never knew. After a while, the nightly martyrdom with Anargyros returned, and Kleoniki wasn’t sure if it was due to his desire for her or for a son who would continue his name.
When 1908 brought a second daughter, Anargyros didn’t confine himself to a grimace of displeasure. As soon as the midwife left, having tidied up mother and baby, he unleashed his anger.
“Don’t you know how to make anything but girls?” he shouted.
“I didn’t want it, my husband—forgive me!” Kleoniki answered fearfully. “Anyway, it was the will of God, my Lord, so what have I, poor me, done wrong?”
“And what about me? When will I see a male? Is that why I married you? So you can line up one deserter after the other?”
Kleoniki hung her head in shame. She knew that they called girls that because their destiny was to follow their husbands and leave, while a son was another thing.
“Don’t distress yourself, husband, and you’ll see—the next will be a boy for sure,” the woman promised in order to calm him down.
The baby she had just given birth to had begun to cry, but she didn’t dare take it in her arms in front of her husband. With relief, she watched him turn around and leave.
It wasn’t only the birth of his second daughter that had irritated Anargyros, but also the things that were happening in the city, subjects that were not to be discussed in front of a woman. He hid himself among his furnaces and his bellows and tried to forget it, but his neighbor at the shop, also alarmed by the rumors, came to see him. Jemal was away, so the two men could speak freely.
“Have you heard anything, Moisis?” asked Anargyros as soon as the two of them had sat down behind the shop counter.
“They say Enver Bey has declared a revolution.”
“And what does he want?”
“To bring back the Constitution of 1876.”
“And do you know what the Constitution of 1876 says?”
“They call it Ottoman equality—so we are all equal, no matter what blood flows in our veins or what god we believe in.”
“Hey, that sounds good!”
“Anargyros, the Young Turks don’t like the Greeks. Anyway, the sultan, Abdul Hamid, hasn’t been standing around with his arms crossed. I heard he brought back that constitution by himself and that he’ll hold elections! He’s issued a mandate.”
“OK. I understand. So we’ll be the ones who’ll pay for his shenanigans.”
“That’s what everyone’s afraid of.”
The two men were silent and emptied the glasses of ouzo they had in front of them in one gulp.
A few months later, ignorant of the events taking place in Constantinople, Kleoniki realized with horror that she was pregnant again. This time, she made up her mind not to leave anything to chance. The very next day, she invited Mrs. Marigo, who lived next door, to come over, and entrusted her with looking after her girls.
“And where are you off to, dear?” the elderly lady asked her, full of curiosity, when she saw Kleoniki with her corset pulled tight and a hat on her head, twisting and untwisting the strap of her bag.
Kleoniki had not expected this question, and now she stood looking guilty, her breath labored.
“Really, Kleoniki, do you have secrets from me?” the woman asked, approaching her with half-closed eyes. “I don’t suppose you have a lover somewhere?”
The girl was shocked. “What are you saying, Mrs. Marigo? Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Indeed, those things are shameful! But what am I supposed to think when you sneak out as soon as your husband leaves the house?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears, and she collapsed into a chair. The other woman sat down next to her.
“What’s happened, my heart, that’s upset you so much?” she asked with genuine concern. “Pretend I’m your mother. Open your heart to me, dearie!”
“What can I tell you, Mrs. Marigo?” Kleoniki burst out hopelessly. “I’m pregnant again. And if it’s a girl this time, I think Anargyros will hang me upside down!”
“You silly goose! Is that all? You gave me such a fright. And where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“I heard there’s a gypsy in Dolapdere, in Tatavla. I’ll go and find her.”
“Are you looking for a potion, Kleoniki?”
“What else can I do? Anargyros wants a son by hook or by crook, and I don’t disagree with him, but how can I help it? So I said—”
“And do you know what you’re looking for?”
“No. But I’ll ask.”
“And why, girl, if you wanted something like that, didn’t you come to me? Goodness, don’t you have a brain in your head?”
“Can you help me?”
“Don’t talk too much now—let’s be done with it. You’ll go to Dolapdere and ask for the house of Mrs. Zeynep. As soon as you see her, you’ll tell her I sent you and then ask for what you want.”
Kleoniki followed Mrs. Marigo’s instructions to the letter, as she did those of Mrs. Zeynep, but the result was that she lost the child, and her health was affected by the miscarriage. Naturally, she didn’t say a word to her husband about what the gypsy woman had given her to drink, and an announcement about the lost pregnancy soon followed. The midwife told Anargyros as politely as she could to leave his wife in peace for a while, until she recovered her full strength, before he tried to make her pregnant again.
That evening, Moisis came into Anargyros’s shop in a great hurry.
“Are you alone?” he asked, and Anargyros nodded.
“What’s happened?”
“A terrible thing, Anargyros! I just found out now. Do you remember what I told you about Abdul Hamid, may he rot in Hell? He performed his miracle. Counterrevolution, he calls it!”
“What’s that?”
“He took up arms, closed the parliament, caught and did away with a few ministers, and now the people, supposedly indignant, are slaughtering innocent Armenians at Adana.”
“Slaughtering?”
“It’s a massacre, I’m telling you!”
“My God, what about us?”
“The Turks will love it if they find out that the army of the Young T
urks is marching this way, and the sultan’s dogs are cringing in their corners.”
“Do you mean we’re not in danger?”
“What can I tell you? Our heads are never secure with them, but for the time being, maybe we’re safe.”
Jemal returned with empty hands, satisfied with himself, but his smile stopped when he saw his boss’s dark expression. He handed over the money, and without a word went about finishing the work he still had to do. Moisis left, giving Anargyros a pained look.
The unrest didn’t stop there, and Moisis became Anargyros’s living newspaper. On April 12, 1909, the army took over Constantinople, and forty leaders of Abdul Hamid’s counterrevolution were hanged in the squares, while he himself was declared to have forfeited his rank and was deposed. The remaining leaders of the counterrevolution were imprisoned, and Hamid’s brother, Resat, was declared sultan and given the name Mehmed V.
“Now we’re in for it!” said Moisis wryly when he relayed the news.
“Isn’t he good?”
“Anargyros, this one’s never left the palace. They say he’s uneducated. A puppet. They’ll do whatever they like with him, and who’s to say what’s next for us?”
“OK, they can bite each other’s heads off one by one, but, my friend, who’s going to bother us? We have nothing to do with politics. We just look after our own work and don’t get mixed up in theirs.”
“Don’t you understand? They don’t want us Greeks. We’re a thorn in their side. And now that the Young Turks have risen up, God save us!”
Carefully and in secret, under their shirts, they both made the sign of the cross.
Around that time, Kleoniki found herself pregnant again. This time, she decided to place her hopes only in God and prayed and made entreaties, holding all-night vigils so that her longed-for son would come at last. Dorothea and Makrina were certainly her pride and joy, and she prayed for them first, but she also wanted to bring a lionhearted Kantardzis into the world.