The Gold Letter

by Lena Manta

  CHAPTER 7

  VERVERIS FAMILY

  Constantinople, 1940

  Smaragda realized something was wrong as soon as she sat down at the table that night. Neither her father-in-law nor her husband said a word. They ate so hurriedly she was sure they couldn’t have said what the dish was. Fortunately, the children’s chatter filled the gaps. Nestor, who was about to start middle school, had a lot to tell them every evening, and when he stopped talking, little Chrysafenia, still in elementary school, made them dizzy with stories about the teacher she worshipped. That evening, though, they didn’t manage to break the men’s silence, or even attract their attention. Smaragda glanced at her mother-in-law, who answered her with a similarly puzzled look. She waited patiently for the ceremony of supper to be over and for the four adults to be alone. Then Smaragda took the initiative.

  “Can you tell me what happened to make the two of you drink the water of silence tonight?”

  “Yes, we’ll tell you,” her father-in-law answered. “But you must keep calm.”

  The two women, nervous now, sat beside each other holding hands.

  “There’s war in Greece now—” Fotis began.

  “We know that already!” interjected her mother-in-law, but a light squeeze from Smaragda’s hand stopped her from saying more.

  Ververis frowned more deeply and continued.

  “Not long ago, since the Italians didn’t manage to advance through Greece as they’d hoped, Germany joined the fight to help its ally. As I speak, Greece is already under occupation.”

  “But Father,” his daughter-in-law dared to interrupt, “didn’t you tell us that Turkey was neutral?”

  “Correct, my child, if it doesn’t have to do with . . . Some rumors have reached our ears, and we don’t like them at all. As you know, Fotis and I have some Turkish patients, educated people who don’t discriminate against other peoples and religions. One of them, whose wife I saved from certain death last year, told me something about the Turks thinking of mobilization, something about the money Greeks would need to protect themselves. Half conversations. And he didn’t know for sure. But we have to take precautions. Fotis and I have taken all our money out of the bank and converted it into gold. We’ve hidden the gold in the laundry. I put a little cement down to cover it. I want you to be very careful these days.”

  “And the children?” asked Smaragda. “Should I keep them at home?”

  “No, for the moment there’s no need, but we’ll see,” answered her father-in-law. “I’m asking you to avoid speaking to anyone—the person may be reporting their conversations. Don’t forget that the Turks still see us as unwelcome guests; they’re just looking for an excuse to abuse us.”

  The old man was right. In the fires of a second world war that set the whole planet ablaze, Turkey saw a new opportunity to attack their “guests.” The mobilization exploded like a bomb in Constantinople in 1941. All young, non-Muslim men were sent to the depths of Anatolia to perform forced labor. It was a form of execution—slower and more agonizing. And if it hadn’t been for a disagreement between President Inonu and General Cakmak, who feared the consequences of another genocide, the men would have been cut down in cold blood.

  The shockwaves from the mobilization hit Smaragda’s house. However much they ran, however much they pleaded, Fotis had to go. She couldn’t process it. She felt her heart split in two; her hands didn’t want him to leave. She was sure she would never see her husband again, and there were so many things she wanted to tell him. And yet, for his sake, she wanted to look strong. She didn’t want him to leave with the image of her in pieces, to go to his fate worrying about his young children, shattered wife, and elderly parents. It was imperative that he leave calmly and concentrate on staying alive.

  She said good-bye to him without crying. Her eyes looked deeply into his, and her lips didn’t tremble as she told him: “I’ll wait for you to return, and I know you won’t disappoint me. You never have.”

  He hugged her tightly and breathed in her scent. He wanted to have it with him where he was going.

  Their house was plunged into silence. Her mother-in-law shuffled in and out of rooms, incapable of helping. All she could do was cry and pray on her knees for hours every day that God would protect her child. Smaragda didn’t have that luxury. She and her father-in-law now shared many responsibilities, and the children had to follow their routine without fear. She told them fibs about their father—that he was a doctor, so he wasn’t in danger—although she knew he was working as a slave. Dorothea’s husband had also been sent away, and her sister was inconsolable. News was slow to arrive, and letters were very rare. The only one that managed to find itself into Smaragda’s hands was a dirty piece of paper with a few words on it that made her cry bitterly. Her husband, with his even handwriting, only explained a little, but it was enough.

  My dear wife,

  I don’t know if this letter will ever find its way to you. You should know that I’m well, as well as I can be in this hell. We work from five in the morning until seven in the evening, often without food or water, and I still don’t know how I bear up, while around me, men I knew who were tough and strong are dying every day. In my ears I hear your last words to me. I won’t disappoint you, my Smaragda. I’ll come back. I swear it!

  Tell your sister that her husband is all right too, and we’re together. I look after him as much as I can. You see, my love, here you don’t have the right to be a man, only a wild beast that fights for its life. There are no cannons, or bombs, or bullets—just hunger and thirst. If we find a puddle of filthy water, we fall on it like wolves and suck in a little to get through the day. I won’t write you any more details. Know that I love you more than my life, and if I survive and come back, it will be because you ordered me to.

  I kiss you sweetly,

  Fotis

  She read the letter ten times to her mother-in-law, who never stopped crying, and the same number of times to her father-in-law, whose eyes also filled with tears. Afterward, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, filling her with embarrassment.

  “What’s this, Father?” she scolded him, flustered.

  “How else can I thank you, my daughter?” he asked, wiping his eyes. “My Fotis is depending on you, and if he returns, we’ll owe it to you.”

  “Fotis will come back, Father!” she assured him. “Don’t have any doubt about that. He’s strong, and he knows we’re waiting for him.”

  She left to go to her sister’s and share the news, hoping to give her some courage too. When she returned, a different and unhappy surprise awaited her, this time from her son. Nestor was a young man already, his voice fluctuating between the man’s that was coming and the boy’s that was leaving. He had heard about his father’s letter and asked her to tell him everything. Smaragda embellished the situation without downplaying the struggle Fotis was making to return to them.

  The boy looked at her critically before he spoke. “I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth, Mother.”

  “Why do you say that, my boy?” Smaragda said in surprise.

  “It’s not just my father who left. My friends’ fathers are there too. The news that comes from them is much worse than you’re telling me. My friend Vassilis’s father is nearly dead.”

  “Who is this Vassilis, my son? Do I know him?”

  “We share a desk. His last name’s Kouyoumdzis. His father is a goldsmith, and the Turks sent him to the work camps too. The day before yesterday, they got a letter from him, and he was practically saying good-bye to them. What they’re going through is too much to imagine. They don’t give them decent food, and they treat them like slaves, and even worse!”

  Smaragda could scarcely breathe. What game of fate was this? She looked at Nestor with a steady gaze that didn’t betray the tumult of her heart.

  “And you’re friends with this Kouyoumdzis boy?”

  “Brothers is more like it!” the child declared without knowing what pain his ans
wer provoked in his mother.

  “And what if I told you I didn’t want you to spend time with this boy?”

  “You’d have to tell me the reason, Mother, wouldn’t you? Maybe he’s not from a good family? Are his parents bad people?”

  Smaragda was silent. Her reasons were ones a mother could never admit to her son. She glanced at the sky, as if trying to understand what sort of trick this was, who had a hand in such a friendship. But no answer came, and Nestor was pressing her for more details about his father. Smaragda looked at him tenderly. Her son was growing up. The down on his upper lip had begun to darken, and each day, he was getting broader, growing tall and strong like his father. She threw her arms around him, and although Nestor usually resisted being treated like a baby, he hugged her back. Her eyes filled with tears, and when the boy saw it, he gasped. He had never seen his mother cry.

  “It’s all lies, isn’t it?” he asked. “Everything you tell me about Papa. You’re lying to me so I won’t be afraid.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” Smaragda admitted, wiping her eyes. “It’s what I tell myself so I can stand it. I try not to think about everything he’s going through. Otherwise, I’ll fall apart—and Grandma and Grandpa depend on me. He’s their only child, and they tremble at the idea that something could happen to him.”

  “Mother, you can depend on me!” her son declared with pride. “I’m thirteen years old now; I’m not a baby!”

  “Yes, son,” she told him proudly. “Now go and keep your sister company for a while, because she’s still young, and she mustn’t understand anything. Promise me you won’t tell her?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And remember, your father is strong and he’ll come back!”

  Nestor went to find Chrysafenia, leaving Smaragda deep in her thoughts. On the one hand, she agonized about her husband, and on the other, she was surprised by the news about her son’s friendship with the Kouyoumdzis child. Did Roza Kouyoumdzis know? Her thoughts traveled to the depths of Anatolia, where the youth of Constantinople was rotting. So Simeon was there. She went and lit a candle, asking God for mercy.

  The months went by slowly for all of them. Whoever received a letter from their man hurried to inform friends and acquaintances. The men always made mention of who else was with them so that the other families would know they were still alive. The atmosphere in Constantinople was numb. Over time, the newspaper headlines became worrying. The Turkish press launched an open campaign of fanaticism. According to the government, the cause of all the country’s troubles was ethnic minorities, especially those living in Constantinople. The president, Ismet Inonu, and his prime minister, Sarafoglou, weren’t content to exterminate Greek men in the concentration camps of Anatolia. They wanted something more. It was time to bring back a law passed by the Young Turks in 1914 for the development of the Turkish economy.

  On that cold evening at the end of November 1942, rain poured from the sky. Smaragda watched the lightning flash from her place at the window. Her father-in-law was visiting a dying patient, and she knew he would be home late. Over the past few days, they had discussed the developments continuously, and Smaragda had a permanent worry line between her brows as she tried to work out what all this meant. She had asked her father-in-law to use his contacts to find out whatever small details he could. She didn’t just have her own household to think of, but her sister and her parents as well. Fortunately, she’d prevailed upon them to sell whatever they could and turn the money into gold coins. Even her father, who had objected at first, had sold a piece of land they had in Chalcis. Dorothea, without telling anyone, had sold all her jewelry to some Turkish women and buried the gold coins in her mattress. Smaragda did the same. In complete secrecy, she went herself to some patients of her husband’s and sold all her jewelry, all stamped with the name of the goldsmith, Kouyoumdzis. She no longer wore it anyway, and she remembered what her father always said: “In this place where we live, only gold can save us.”

  A little before Christmas, the local Greek community suffered another wound: the Varlik Vergisi, or Fortune Tax. Two words that spread panic—a devious stab in the back. With no logical excuse but bigotry, people would now be divided into official categories to be taxed based on their race. No exceptions or objections were accepted. The lists of taxes were published, and the time allowed for paying them was just fifteen days. Once the deadline had passed, fines would be added.

  Smaragda looked wide-eyed at the paper that her father-in-law gave her. She couldn’t believe the amount they owed could be so large.

  “And if we don’t pay, what’s going to happen, Father?” she asked, her face deathly pale.

  “They’ll send me down the road my son took. And to pay off the debt, I’ll have to work for two or three hundred years!” the old man answered. He seemed to have aged ten years in ten minutes.

  “Christ and the Virgin!” she exclaimed. “But we do have enough, don’t we?”

  “We do, my child, and even a little left over—don’t worry. But imagine what’s happening with so many people who can’t pay. They’ve already begun to sell everything.”

  “I’ll go mad! I must find out what’s happening to my father, to my sister! What an evil thing this is! What have we done to these Turks that they persecute us so?”

  “There’s no reason, my daughter. We’re Greeks. That’s enough.”

  With her heart in her mouth, Smaragda ran to her parents’ home. She found her father pale and her mother crying.

  “Tell me, Father, do you have enough to pay the tax?”

  “I have some,” Anargyros answered, “but not enough.”

  “Don’t upset yourself, husband! We’ll sell our carpets and our silver,” said Kleoniki through her tears.

  “How much are they asking you for, Father?”

  “They want five thousand for the shop!”

  “That much?”

  “Yes, and next door at Orhan the cobbler’s, they only asked for five. Five! Just because he’s not Greek! The scoundrels can’t get enough of our suffering!”

  A few minutes later, Dorothea arrived, out of breath.

  “What will you do?” Smaragda asked her sister. “Do you have enough to pay?”

  “I’m a little short, but I’ll sell my rugs. As if I care about such things now! We nearly lost my father-in-law. He had a stroke when he saw what we owe. It’s not enough to take my husband, now my father-in-law might have to go to the camps too? We’ll lose him. What if I hadn’t sold things when you said? I’d be tearing my hair out!”

  “We would too,” admitted her father, “if we hadn’t listened and sold the land in Chalcis. We’re still short, but as we said, we can get enough if we sell a few more things.”

  “You won’t sell anything else,” Smaragda replied. “I’m here.”

  She shared the money she’d gotten from her jewelry despite their objections, and mentally thanked the wife of the French consul, who had bought most of it at nearly its original value.

  Though relieved that her own family was safe for now, Smaragda couldn’t help but be sad at what she saw happening around her. A huge bazaar was taking place in every neighborhood of the city. Everyone was selling rugs, silverware, jewelry, after they had already sold houses, land, even factories—anything they could. She saw families find themselves in the street and, sometimes, not even that was enough. As was to be expected, the price of all that treasure fell precipitously, and people were forced to sell their entire fortunes, the labors of a lifetime, for ridiculously little. Many couldn’t come up with the amount demanded, and even elderly men were sent to Erzurum, that remote province of Anatolia, to a town that became synonymous with their martyrdom: Askale. Many never returned.

  Smaragda had begun to lose her courage; her nerves had frayed with the waiting. Two and a half years had passed since she had said good-bye to her husband. Apart from that single letter, no message from him had reached her hands. Iakovos had written again to Dorothea and mentione
d that Fotis was all right, but that was eight months ago.

  Christmas of 1943 was approaching, and Smaragda wondered how they would get through the holidays. Her son, true to his promise, was a big support, but she could see that he too was struggling. His friendship with Vassilis Kouyoumdzis grew even stronger, and one day, young Vassilis appeared at their door. The tray nearly fell from Smaragda’s hands. The son was the spitting image of his father. The two boys shut themselves in Nestor’s room, and didn’t come out until Vassilis had to go home.

  Immediately afterward, Nestor turned to his mother and asked her a question she couldn’t answer.

  “Mother, I want to ask you something, but it’s difficult . . . ,” he began in embarrassment. “I didn’t want to say anything—you have enough on your mind—but I can’t keep it to myself any longer. Do you know why my friend’s mother won’t let me in their house?”

  Smaragda stood like a pillar of salt before him.

  “What are you saying, my boy?” she asked, stalling.

  “Vassilis,” her son explained patiently, “asked his mother if I could come over. Mrs. Kouyoumdzis said that no son of Ververis could set foot in their house.”

  “She said that to him?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. What went on between you, Mother? And don’t tell me nothing. I saw your face when you heard I was friends with Vassilis.”

  “Nestor, my dear, the facts are not for young children. The truth is that we don’t have a good relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Kouyoumdzis. Something happened a long time ago, but it’s not your business.”

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “I can’t, my dear. I’m not telling you not to be friends, nor am I forbidding your friend to come here, but that’s all.”

  Her expression was so grave that her son understood it would be useless to insist. Besides, since his mother had accepted his friendship with Vassilis even though she didn’t like it, he would have to accept her silence, however great his curiosity was.