Nights of Rain and Stars

by Maeve Binchy

  Thomas worked out how he should ask Vonni to sleep in the spare bedroom of her own apartment rather than in that terrible shed. He did not want to patronize her, just to make her see sense.

  David looked out at the families of children who waved at the passing bus. He wished he could have had brothers and sisters who would have shared the load. If he had had a brother who had trained as an accountant, a sister who had read law, and another brother who had not been academic but had gone into Dad’s business when he was sixteen and learned it from the ground up, then he, David, would have been properly free to go and learn about pottery somewhere like Kalatriada.

  He sighed as he looked out at the hills covered in olive groves. Instead of that he was here tortured with guilt. Last night Fiona had mentioned Catholic guilt. She didn’t even begin to know what Jewish guilt was like!

  Vonni taught English lessons to the children in the big room behind her craft shop. She suggested that she would teach them a verse of an English hymn which they could sing at the funeral. It might be a small consolation to the English-speaking relatives who had been arriving on every boat for the past thirty-six hours, coming to the scene of the tragedy. She might even find something in German too. She would inquire. Everyone thought it was a good idea.

  And it would distract the children too, take them away from weeping households for a while. The families were grateful to Vonni, as they had been for years and years, since first she had come to Aghia Anna as a young girl. She had grown older with them all, spoke their language, taught their children, shared the good times and bad. A lot of them could not even remember why she had come here in the first place.

  As Thomas went up the whitewashed steps to the apartment above and let himself in, he paused, unbelieving.

  He heard the voices of little children singing, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .”

  It had been a long time since he had been in church. Possibly at his father’s funeral. That was the last time he had heard it sung.

  He paused, stricken in the sunshine. This funeral was going to be even sadder than he had thought.

  Andreas and his brother Georgi stood beside the ferry. Shane avoided their eyes. “Is there anything you would like to do before you leave?” Andreas asked.

  “Like what? Like congratulate you on your legendary Greek hospitality for example?” Shane sneered.

  “Like write a letter to your girlfriend.” Andreas was curt.

  “I don’t have any paper or pen,” Shane said.

  “I do.” Andreas offered both.

  “What am I to say? That you and your gestapo brother threw me out? That’s not going to cheer her much, is it?” Shane looked very belligerent.

  “She might like to know that you are safe and well, and free . . . and that you’ll contact her when you are settled.”

  “She knows that.”

  The pen and paper were still in Andreas’s hand. “A few short words perhaps?” the old man pleaded.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Shane turned away.

  They blew a whistle to show the boat was about to leave. The young policeman escorted Shane on deck and came back to Andreas and Georgi.

  “It’s better he doesn’t write to her,” he said to the older men.

  “Possibly,” Andreas agreed. “In the long term certainly, but in the short term it will break her poor little heart.”

  David and Fiona walked with Elsa back to her apartment. “Look, nobody’s around,” David said. It was true: The streets which had thronged with press and bureaucrats were now quiet.

  “I wish I could stay longer, I just have to check that Shane is all right,” Fiona apologized as she went up the hill toward the police station. From down in the harbor they all heard the hooting of the eleven A.M. ferry as it left for Athens. At midday another boat would arrive, carrying even more people coming to attend the funeral.

  “Would you like me to stay with you here, Elsa?” David asked when they were inside.

  “Just for five minutes so that I don’t run away again,” she laughed.

  “You won’t do that.” He patted her hand.

  “I hope not, David. Tell me, did you ever in your life love anyone obsessively, foolishly?”

  “No. I never loved anyone at all,” he said.

  “I’m sure that’s not so.”

  “I’m afraid it is, it’s not something to be proud of at twenty-eight.” He was apologetic.

  “You’re exactly the same age as I am. Imagine!” She sighed.

  “You put your years to better use than I did,” he said.

  “No, you wouldn’t say that if you knew. I’d prefer never to have loved. Maybe I can get back to where I was before all this. That’s what I’d choose more than anything.” Her eyes were far away.

  David wished he knew what to say. It would be wonderful to be able to say the right thing, to make this sad girl smile. If only he knew a joke or a funny story to lift the mood. He racked his brains. He could only think of the golf jokes his father told. “Do you play golf, Elsa?” he asked her suddenly.

  She was startled. “A little,” she said. “Were you thinking of a game?”

  “No, no, I don’t play, I was actually thinking of a golf joke to try to cheer you up a little.”

  She seemed touched. “Tell it to me, then.”

  David sought the joke and sort of retrieved it. It was about a man whose wife had died out on the golf course. His friends had sympathized and the man had said no, it wasn’t too bad, the bad thing was picking her body up and carrying her on to the next hole as he played each shot.

  Elsa looked at him, waiting for the punch line.

  “That’s it, I’m afraid.” David was miserable. “You see, golfers are meant to be so obsessed . . . that he sort of carried the corpse rather than give up on the game . . .” He stopped, appalled at himself. “Look, I’m so sorry, Elsa, on the day of a funeral to tell such a stupid story . . . I’m such a fool.”

  She reached out and stroked his cheek. “No, you’re not, you are a dear, gentle person, and I’m so happy to have you here. Let’s make ourselves a little lunch together?”

  “Or I could take you out for an omelette—tria-avga . . . they love you to ask for that . . . you know, stressing you want three eggs.” He looked eager at the thought of it all.

  “I’d prefer not to be out there if you don’t mind, David. I feel safer in here. We could eat on the terrace and see without being seen. Would you hate that?”

  “Of course not, I’d love it,” said David.

  And he happily went to Elsa’s fridge to take out feta cheese and tomatoes and make them lunch.

  “Hello, I wonder if I could speak to the police chief, please.”

  Georgi stood up wearily. She stood there in a little blue cotton dress with a white wool shoulder bag. Her hair falling over her face didn’t hide the red mark and bruise. She looked frail and unable to cope with the hand that life had dealt her.

  “Come in, Kyrie, sit down,” he said, offering her a chair.

  “You see, my friend stayed here with you last night,” she began, as if Georgi ran some upmarket bed-and-breakfast instead of Aghia Anna’s jail.

  Georgi spread out his hands in front of him. She looked so eager to see this boy, so forgiving of what he had done. How did young pigs like that get good women to love them? And now he had to tell this girl that he had gone an hour ago on the ferry without a backward glance. He found it hard to select the right words.

  “Shane is very sorry; he may not sound it to you, but he is,” she began. “And in a way, a lot of it was my fault, I told him something all the wrong way instead of explaining it properly . . .”

  “He has gone to Athens,” Georgi said baldly.

  “No, he can’t have, not without me, not without telling me. No, no. It’s not possible.” She looked at him with a distraught face.

  “On the eleven o’clock ferry.”

  “Did he not leave me a note? Tell me where he’s
going? Where I should meet him? He can’t have gone just like that.”

  “He will get in touch when he’s settled, I’m sure he will.”

  “But where? Where will he write to me?”

  “He could write a letter here, I suppose,” Georgi said doubtfully.

  “No, you know he wouldn’t do that.”

  “Or maybe to the place where you and he were staying.”

  “No, he wouldn’t be able to remember Eleni’s house or where it was. No, I must go on the next boat. I’ll find him,” she said.

  “No, my dear girl, no. Athens is a huge place. Stay here. You have good friends here, stay until you are stronger.”

  She was weeping now. “But I have to be with him.”

  “There will be no more boats leaving today, because of the funeral. Please, please be calm. It’s better that he left.”

  “No, no, how could it be better?”

  “Because otherwise he would be in jail locked up. At least he is free.”

  “Did he leave me any message?”

  Georgi said, “It was all in a great hurry, you see.”

  “Anything at all?”

  “He did ask about you, wondered where you were.”

  “Oh, why did I go away? I’ll never forgive myself for the rest of my life.”

  Georgi awkwardly patted her shoulder as she sobbed. Over her shoulder, down at the foot of the hill he saw Vonni passing by with her little troop of children, and he got an idea. “Andreas tells me you are a nurse?” he said.

  “I was. Yes.”

  “No, you are always a nurse . . . Could you do something to help? . . . Do you see Vonni down there? She’s looking after the children during the funeral. I know she’d love you to give her a hand.”

  “I’m not sure I could help anyone just now . . . ,” Fiona began.

  “That’s often when we help best,” Georgi said. He called out something in Greek. Vonni called something back.

  Fiona looked wistful. “You know, if we could live here and have our child, we would learn Greek and be part of the place, like she is.” She spoke almost to herself but Georgi heard her and felt a lump in his throat.

  Thomas felt restless. He wished that the funeral would begin soon and end soon. There was a heavy air of expectancy hanging over the little town. He couldn’t settle until these people had been laid to rest. And indeed he was anxious that the television teams and journalists should leave. And things could go on like they had before. Well, not exactly as before. Not for the family of Manos and the other boys who had died. Some of the visitors were going to be buried here, some would be put into coffins and taken back to England and Germany.

  But it would be better for everyone when this day was over. He had promised to collect Elsa at her apartment and walk with her to the little church. He hoped that she would not see this man she was avoiding and seemed so afraid of. There was too much pain in her face when she talked about him.

  It would be very crowded there. Whoever the man was he might not see Elsa.

  “I’m Fiona,” she said to the tanned woman with the lined face.

  “A Dub?” the woman asked.

  “Yes, and you?”

  “I’m from the West,” Vonni said. “But a long, long time ago.”

  “And what are you doing with the children?”

  “Their families are all at the house of Manos.” Vonni spoke English with an Irish accent, but in a slightly foreign way as if it were her second language. It probably was, by this stage.

  “I thought we would go a little outside the town and pick some flowers on the hill. Will you help me?”

  “Yes, of course, but I’m useless, what will I say . . .”

  “They’re meant to be learning English. Keep saying ‘very good’ and ‘thank you.’ I think they’ve mastered that much.”

  Vonni’s lined face cracked into a huge smile that lit up everything.

  “Sure,” said Fiona, brightening up for a moment and stretching out her hands to two five-year-olds. They all walked together in a straggling line down the dusty road out of town to pick flowers for the church.

  Thomas saw the priests walk together in twos. Tall men in long robes with their gray hair tied back in little buns under their black headgear. They looked pale and solemn, and Thomas wondered what would make a young Greek man from this sunny island choose a life in religion. But then back in sunny California, he knew people even in the faculty, men who were in Holy Orders, that young priest who taught mystic poetry, the Methodist preacher who also lectured in Elizabethan literature. These men were strengthened by their faith. It could be exactly the same for these Greek Orthodox dignitaries.

  Thomas knew it was now time to go to the church. He went to Elsa’s apartment as he had promised, and was surprised to hear voices inside. Perhaps she had met her friend after all. He was disappointed, but cheered up when he realized that of course this guy wouldn’t be with Elsa, he would be out covering the funeral.

  He knocked on the door and was surprised when David opened it.

  “It’s only Thomas,” David called out.

  It wasn’t much of a welcome.

  “Well, I did tell Elsa that I’d walk with her to the church,” Thomas said huffily.

  “Lord, I’m sorry, Thomas, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, I can’t say the right thing to save my life . . . It’s just that we thought . . . we were afraid that . . .”

  Elsa came out to join them. She was wearing a smart cream linen dress with a navy jacket. She had dressed formally for the ceremony.

  Thomas had a tie in his pocket in case it would be appropriate. Now he realized that it would.

  “Thomas, I asked David to answer the door for me because I am so paranoid. I still think that Dieter will come calling. Forgive me.”

  “What’s to forgive?” Thomas was putting on his tie at the little mirror in the hall.

  “I should have gone home for a tie too.” David was worried.

  “No, you look fine, David,” Thomas said.

  “I’ll give you a scarf. You can wear it as a cravat.” Elsa tied it for him and they set out together, following the crowds to the little church.

  The people stood on both sides of the street winding up from the harbor. Their heads were bowed, the conversation low.

  “I wonder where Fiona is,” David whispered.

  “Probably up there at the precinct feeding lover boy biscuits through the bars,” Thomas said.

  “She does love him,” Elsa said, as if offering some sort of excuse.

  “You should have seen him hit her,” Thomas said.

  “If she’s up at the station, she’s there on her own. All the police are here,” David observed.

  Then a great hush came on the crowd and they stood in silence at the approach of the funeral party. Lines of men and women walked behind the coffins in a little procession. Their tearstained faces and black clothes seemed totally wrong for the bright sunshine, the blue sea, and the whitewashed buildings.

  Behind them walked the English and German families who had come so unexpectedly to this Greek village to bury their loved ones. They looked around them bewildered and confused, as if they were taking part in a play. A play where they hadn’t learned their parts.

  Every shop, taverna, and business in Aghia Anna had closed. The fishing boats stood idle, all of them flying a flag at half-mast. Bells tolled from the monastery in the valley beyond.

  The television cameras of half a dozen countries filmed the scene.

  There was not room in the little church for a tenth of the people gathered to sympathize. Crackling megaphones relayed the service to the people outside. And unexpectedly in the middle of the Greek prayers and music came the sound of children singing “The Lord Is My Shepherd.” The sound of the English people sobbing in the church could be heard. Thomas wiped a tear from his face.

  Then there was a verse of the German hymn “Tannenbaum,” and Elsa too cried openly.

  “That was
my friend Vonni who taught them that,” Thomas whispered.

  “Well, you must tell her that she’s done a fine job in breaking our hearts,” David whispered back.

  When the congregation came out of the church and prepared to walk the short journey up to the graveyard, Elsa spotted Fiona. She was with Vonni and the children, all of whom had armfuls of wildflowers. Fiona was holding tight the hands of two little boys.

  “Another day, another surprise,” Thomas said. “Who would have thought she would have got her act together?”

  “It’s probably to take her mind off him,” Elsa decided.

  Georgi made an announcement: the families would like to go alone to the burial service in the graveyard. They thanked people for coming to the church to sympathize, but now they wanted to be alone. They had asked the cafés and restaurants to open again and for life to carry on. They were sure everyone would understand.

  Reluctantly the television teams agreed. This was not a situation where arguing would do any good.

  The children marched with Vonni and Fiona toward the small graveyard. Open graves waited among the old stones and the crumbling walls.

  “This is an unreal day and we haven’t even lost anyone,” Thomas said.

  “I don’t really want to be alone just now,” Elsa said.

  “I could treat you to a glass of retsina and a little plate of calamari and olives down at the harbor. Look, they’re all putting out chairs,” Thomas said.

  “I think Elsa would feel happier out of the public eye,” David explained.

  “Sure, I forgot. Listen, I have some nice cold retsina in my place, you know, over the craft shop.”

  They were reluctant to leave each other; they thought it would be a good plan.

  “Is there a way we can tell Fiona where we are?” Elsa wondered.

  “It might mean involving who Thomas calls ‘lover boy.’ ” David was doubtful.

  “No, I’d say he’s still well locked up,” Thomas said. “So is that an okay plan, then?”

  “Very okay.” Elsa smiled. “I’ll just go back home and get a scarf for the evening breeze, then I’ll go get some olives from Yanni’s delicatessen on the way back and see you there back at your place.” She seemed happy with what had been arranged.