Cave of Silence

by Kostas Krommydas

  The driver’s honk, a rare sound in Berlin, brought her back to the bright present. As if suddenly remembering something urgent, she took her phone out and dialed a number. “Good evening, this is Anita Hertz…How are you?” she said in Greek.

  The driver, somewhat startled, stared at her through the rear-view mirror, but Anita ignored him, absorbed in her call as she was. “I’m flying to Athens in three hours…No, I haven’t received it yet…That’s fine, I’ll see you at my hotel tomorrow morning then. Thank you. See you soon.”

  She hung up and looked out the window to get her bearings. The driver’s voice brought her attention back to the car’s interior once more. “You’re Greek?” he asked in the same language, eyes firmly on the road.

  Overcoming her initial surprise, Anita smiled and answered politely. “My grandmother is Greek but has lived here most of her life. How about you, are you Greek?”

  “My father is. He immigrated to Germany forty-five years ago. He married my mother, who is German, and they had me and my sister. It’s a nice place, Germany, but not like Greece. Many Greeks came to work here.”

  “Yes, that’s true, many…” she agreed.

  “It’s a strange world. During the war, the Germans executed my grandfather, but my father came here and loved the country and a German girl… funny, isn’t it?”

  “Love is stronger than war. Nothing can stop it,” she answered with a knowing smile.

  “Your Greek is very good though.”

  “Thank you! I spoke Greek at home, both with my grandmother and my mother. My mother used to teach at a Greek school in Berlin. I went there too, and then studied Greek literature.”

  “And acting!” the driver added meaningfully, to show her he had recognized her.

  “Yes, acting too,” Anita replied with an awkward smile.

  The ringtone of her cell phone interrupted this rather uncomfortable conversation.

  “Hi, Mamá, I’ll be there in five minutes…Yes, in the taxi now. See you shortly.”

  She hung up, staring absentmindedly at the screen for a moment before turning back to the driver, who had been patiently waiting for her to finish the call.

  “Things are not easy in Greece at the moment, are they?” he asked with a sad nod.

  “Greece has been through a lot worse and everything will be fine,” she replied curtly, as if reluctant to discuss the matter any further.

  “Let’s hope so…” he replied, picking up on her mood and falling silent.

  A few minutes later the car pulled up in front of her mother’s house.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes and then we’ll head to the airport,” she said, slinging her laptop bag over her shoulder.

  “I’ll wait, kein problem,” he reassured her, still smiling.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Despite her seventy years, Michaela had a face as fresh and warm as the sun on a spring day. The resemblance between the two women was striking and anyone could easily guess they were mother and daughter.

  Thirty-five years had passed since she had met and married Anita’s father, a US soldier stationed in Berlin. By the time her husband announced he had been recalled back to his country the marriage was on the rocks, so she chose to remain in Germany and filed for divorce. Anita met her father rarely, whenever he visited Germany to see this distant daughter, and relations between the two of them were rather formal. Every time they met he would try to persuade her to leave Europe and try her luck in Hollywood, but Anita had no wish to do so. She was happy with her life as it was and wanted to stay close to her mother and grandmother.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Walking up the garden to the house, Anita saw the beaming face of her mother waiting impatiently at the door and felt a warm glow.

  Michaela greeted her daughter with a kiss and ushered her into the ground floor flat. In sharp contrast to Anita’s apartment, the room was heavily decorated and bursting with artifacts, the remnants of her grandmother Eleni’s antique shop. The business had passed on to Eleni when her husband’s family perished in the Battle of Berlin, just before the end of World War II.

  Anita knew very little about that time in her grandmother’s life. All she knew was that the antique shop was one of the few buildings left standing after the Soviet bombardment and that her grandmother had had a lucky escape. “God owed me that,” Eleni used to say, never giving away the full meaning of those words.

  Whenever Anita and Michaela pressed her with questions, hungry for more information, Eleni would change the subject, insisting that one should let sleeping dogs lie lest they wake up and bite. She would then purse her lips together as if determined to honor a vow of silence.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  “Did you take everything you need? Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anything?” Michaela asked with a frown of concern as the two women entered the apartment.

  “Don’t fret, Mamá, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m heading into the wilderness,” Anita said soothingly. “Yiayia?” she asked looking around the living room.

  “Your grandmother’s expecting you, Anita. She is better today, although overall she is getting worse every day. When she found out about you going to Greece, she wasn’t very happy. She’s not spoken a single word since.”

  Michaela put her arms around Anita’s shoulders and gently guided her toward Eleni’s room.

  They found the ninety-year-old woman propped up against a cluster of comfortable pillows on the large bed. Her neatly coiffed hair and pretty nightgown showed how eagerly she had anticipated her granddaughter’s visit.

  Rina, Eleni’s Georgian carer, was sitting in an armchair beside the bed knitting and keeping up a happy, aimless chatter. As soon as she saw them enter the room she got up, greeted Anita, and, wishing her a safe flight, discreetly exited the room to give the three women some privacy.

  Anita paused before the bed for a moment and glanced around the familiar room, which always transported her back to her childhood; back to those moments when she would lie by her grandmother on the big bed and listen to that tender voice tell Greek fairy tales, soothed by the melodic sound of words whose meaning she was still learning.

  Long white organza curtains hung from the ceiling, diffusing the daylight into a soft warm glow that filled the room. An old dressing table with a three-panel mirror stood by the wall on the left of the room, cluttered with knick-knacks. On the wall across the bed, a large frame was prominent: a faded sepia photograph of a crowd gathered at a harbor, cloth bundles and trunks littering the quay, waiting for the coming steamship that loomed large on the horizon, clouds of black smoke escaping its funnel, announcing its arrival.

  It was the only photo from Eleni’s youth. It was fuzzy and the faces were somewhat blurred, as this was a blow up of the original, small photograph and its sharpness had been sacrificed in the process. The original photo had been lost on the day Eleni had picked up the enlarged framed copy from the photographer’s. She had been terribly upset, crying for days. Clearly, that photo had meant much to her.

  She had told them the picture had been taken during her student days in Italy. The man holding her in his arms was a fellow student, who had been very much in love with her. Eleni claimed she had not felt the same way, but the photo told otherwise—she was leaning against his chest, eyes shut, enjoying the moment with all her senses.

  Anita bent down to kiss her grandmother’s wrinkled cheeks, the familiar, beloved scent of lemon and lavender a warm, welcoming cocoon. She was going to miss that scent when… She shook her head to chase the gloomy thought away. No morbid thoughts now that she was saying goodbye.

  Eleni opened her arms invitingly, with a tender smile and the lively sparkle of a much younger woman in her eyes. Anita sank into her grandmother’s affectionate embrace for a moment, and then sat beside her on the bed. “My beautiful grandmother, how are you?”

  “How do you find me, Anita?” Eleni asked in a playful tone.

  “You lo
ok wonderful, Yiayia. It’s nice to see you smile, it makes you even lovelier…”

  “You, my love, are beautiful. I think you take that from me,” the elderly woman joked.

  Michaela, who had been watching this tender exchange glowing with happiness, came and sat down on the other side of the bed; three generations laughing together, the eldest squeezing their hands tightly as if wishing to infuse them with all her warmth.

  Before their laughter had subsided, Eleni turned to Anita and sighed. “You are going to be away for quite a while, my love. Be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful, Yiayia, don’t worry! It’s only work, but I’ll be careful.”

  “Your mother said you’re going to Greece. Is that so?”

  “Yes, Yiayia, I’m flying to Athens today.” Anita took a deep breath: “I’ll stay there tomorrow and the day after I’m going to an island near Turkey. We’ll shoot most of the film there. I’ll be back in three months, and finish filming here…”

  The moment the words “island near Turkey” left Anita’s mouth, Eleni fixed her gaze on the framed photo on the wall and stared at it mesmerized, as if trying to see through the painting into the distant past, oblivious to anything else her granddaughter said.

  Unaware of the change that had come over her grandmother, Anita chattered on. “I’ll call and we’ll Skype, so we’ll be able to see each other…”

  Michaela, more used to the elderly woman’s lapses, stroked her hand and turned toward her daughter. “I think we’d better let grandmother get some rest. You don’t want to miss your flight…”

  Anita nodded and hugged her grandmother. “Yiayia, I’m going now. I love you, don’t you ever forget that.”

  Eleni’s eyes were moist, but it was hard to tell if she was saddened by the thoughts crossing her mind or because she had been staring at that photo unblinkingly for so long, still frozen after the mention of Anita’s journey.

  Feeling the weight of the young woman shift as Anita started to get up, she suddenly grabbed her arms and pulled her closer, until their faces were only inches apart.

  “When they come, you hide in the mountains so they don’t find you, you hear?” she whispered fiercely in a shaky voice.

  Anita, taken aback, was dumbfounded for a moment. Then, realizing her grandmother was in a state of confusion, she promised in a sad voice, “Yes. I’ll be careful. Don’t worry, I’ll be very careful.”

  Digging her fingers into Anita’s arms, Eleni spoke once more, in German this time. “I should have gone with him…”

  Her grasp weakened as if all her strength had been exhausted by that last sentence and she could not hang on to Anita any longer.

  It was the first time her grandmother had ever spoken to her in German and Anita was taken aback. She stood staring at her grandmother for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened. She kissed her forehead and stood up. “I love you Yiayia.”

  “I love you too, Anita,” Eleni replied, returning to the present for a moment.

  As she turned to leave, Anita’s coat belt caught on one of the drawer handles. Bending down to untangle it, she noticed a case on the dresser, an old hunter case pocket watch inside it. She had never seen the watch before and was puzzled to find it there. Already running late, she gave it no more thought and started moving toward the living room, followed by her mother.

  One more time, she turned toward her grandmother and waved goodbye, but the old woman remained unresponsive.

  Rina, who had been patiently waiting outside, rushed back to her place by Eleni the moment the two of them came out of the room.

  Noticing Anita’s sad expression, Michaela gently cupped her daughter’s face. “Don’t be sad Anita, my love; your grandmother is very, very old now. If only we are as lucky and live as long as she has.”

  “I know, but it’s hard seeing her like this,” Anita replied swallowing hard. Michaela stroked her daughter’s cheek.

  “Even so, my sweetheart, she is still with us and we should be thankful for it.”

  Anita nodded and pulled her hair back as if trying to shake off the sadness. “I have to go now, I’m late and the taxi is waiting… The driver’s Greek you know.”

  “Really?” Michaela smiled, trying to lighten up the mood.

  Still unable to brush off what had just happened, Anita turned the conversation back to what had just happened in the bedroom. “Why do you think she spoke to me in German? Who was she talking about when she said she should have gone off with him?”

  Michaela shook her head. “Your grandmother has been saying a lot of things I don’t understand lately. It’s as if she’s remembering something, but it’s all very confusing. I can’t make sense of any of it.”

  Anita raised her eyebrows quizzically. “What about the watch on the dresser, Mamá? I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I only saw it for the first time the day before yesterday. When I asked her about it she said “memories” and nothing else. Yesterday, I asked her again and she didn’t answer. You know how Yiayia is with all this old stuff. Her trunks are filled with it. Some remind her of something, others she just likes to have. Maybe it’s your grandfather’s. It doesn’t matter, go now or you’ll be very late.”

  Anita hugged her mother and gave her a kiss goodbye. “I’ll call you when I get there. I love you…”

  “I love you too, Anita. Take care.”

  Michaela reluctantly let go of her daughter and stood outside the front door, watching Anita get back into the taxi and drive off.

  »»»»»»»»»»»

  Very few people got on the ferry boat with me. It was only a local shuttle, connecting five or six islands in the area, and the locals had nicknamed it the “Titanic.”

  I laughed when I heard the name—even more so when I saw it. It was so old and so small it could barely hold twenty cars in its garage.

  “The Unsinkable” was its other nickname because in all these years it had never had any trouble at sea despite ferrying goods, mail, newspapers, the sick and the pregnant, winter after stormy winter. I gave a small prayer that its age would not catch up with it on my first crossing.

  Climbing the salt-encrusted stairs, I wondered how many people it must have ferried in all these years and what stories it could tell.

  No one asked to see my ticket, so I kept walking. Once inside the indoor seating area, I decided to ignore the locals’ advice and have a coffee on board. I had had so many pleasantly sleepless nights I desperately needed the caffeine. The much-maligned ferry boat coffee would have to do. It was a two-hour crossing and I had to keep my wits about me, so I headed straight to the bar. “Double espresso, please.”

  The bartender, a slightly funny-looking young man who appeared to be in his early twenties, looked at me with a puzzled and surprised expression. “Greek coffee and frappé only, buddy,” he said.

  “Double Greek coffee then,” I said, fumbling for my cash.

  “Sugar?” he asked, waving the small copper coffee pot in my direction.

  “None, skéto,” I smiled and he looked impressed, presumably at my ability to down such a bitter drink.

  While he prepared my coffee, I looked around at the seating area, taking in my fellow passengers. There had been barely fifty people at the port, mostly foreign tourists loaded with camping gear, who had headed straight up to the sea breeze of the upper deck. The rest, a few Greeks, were locals from the islands on the ferry’s route who were either visiting a doctor or friends and relatives. At one end of the room, a TV set was blasting the morning news at a volume that was hard to ignore. I turned back to the bar when I heard the bartender’s cheerful voice. “Here you go, my friend. Double Greek coffee, on the house.”

  I stood there with a banknote in my outstretched hand, trying to understand. A cheeky grin lit up the barman’s face. “You’re an actor, right?”

  I was taken aback and mumbled something that sounded like yes.

  “Thought I recognized you, I saw you in a play last
year. You look taller on stage …”

  The fact that he recognized me, had seen me in a play and was buying me coffee so generously, made me feel so embarrassed I did not know what to say. I was not used to it as I had never appeared on television. Getting recognized was a rare occurrence and never ceased to amaze me. I thanked him warmly and politely said that really, there was no need.

  He dismissed my objections with a brisk wave of the hand. “What are you talking about, it’s not often we get a celebrity on board.”

  He said this loudly enough to turn a few heads, which stared in curiosity, trying to spot the ‘celebrity’. No one seemed the least bit impressed, and looked away soon enough. I thanked him again and took the coffee cup. I lingered at the bar.

  “Are you from Athens?” I asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you go to the theater often?”

  “Not really. My girlfriend likes plays so we go once in a while. Are you going to be in anything this year so we can come see you?”

  “No, not as things stand at the moment. But it’s early days.”

  My hand was getting scalded by the hot coffee cup, so I made toward the armchairs to leave it on a table. He carried on in a louder voice, as if we were the only two people at the bar, “And you’re here for a film now, right? That movie.”

  That’s when I caught on to the fact that this guy was truly well informed, and I laughed. “Yes, that’s what I’m here for. You really are up to date, aren’t you?”

  He placed a newspaper on the bar with a smile. “I spend a lot of time on this boat, buddy, and read everything. You’d be surprised at the things people leave behind when they get off.”

  Unable to contain my curiosity, I moved back toward the bar. “Can I borrow this for a moment?” I asked.

  “Sure. It’s even got an interview with that German star, the one who is half-Greek. And a photo of you with her,” he winked, handing over the paper. “When I go to the bridge, I’ll bring you today’s paper. Even more photos in that one, but the Captain’s reading it now.”