Cave of Silence

by Kostas Krommydas

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded happily. “Will the weather hold?”

  “Not even a breeze forecast for the next few days.”

  They set off for the port, Anita happily chattering beside him. No one but Mihalis knew that she was going to meet Dimitri. The production team had not been too happy when she had announced her sudden departure, but they didn’t want to displease her either. They had only stipulated that she travel by a safer boat than Mihalis’ speedboat, which was not fit for long crossings should the weather turn bad.

  For the first time in her life, Anita felt any control of her feelings was beyond her. It was a frightening but also strangely giddy sensation. She’d decided to live this affair to the fullest whatever the outcome and was finding every passing minute away from Dimitri harder and harder to bear. She could not wait to find him, surprise him at the festival in the village square that evening. She felt he would be as happy as she was.

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  They arrived at the quay and Mihalis helped her onto a small yacht that was moored next to the speedboat that had carried them to the Cave of Silence.

  He switched the engine on, raised the anchor, loosened the ropes and they slowly exited the port, accompanied by some fishing boats going out to sea to cast their fishing nets.

  Anita settled down on one of the couches by the prow of the boat and stared at the setting sun and the kaleidoscope of colors tinting the water around her, letting herself daydream. Before Dimitri, she’d never allowed herself to get carried away by her feelings for someone. She had always prioritized her career, her image. Somewhere deep inside her she’d yearned for the one great love, the one that would change her life forever. Now that it was happening, it felt unreal, like a fairytale. Meeting someone who completed her, who felt like a missing part of her, was a bittersweet experience; a sense of wholeness when they were together, a gaping void when apart.

  Her musings were interrupted by the loud music coming from a passing fishing boat, an island song whose lyrics she could not make out. She turned and waved at the two fishermen who waved back and shouted their greetings.

  “They are an exuberant lot in these parts!” commented Mihalis from his post behind the helm.

  “What was that song? The tune was great, but I couldn’t make out the words,” Anita asked, eyes on the fishing boat that was sailing away.

  “It’s well known around these islands. They say a man wrote it after his lover left and never returned. He spent the rest of his days taking his fishing boat out at sea and singing his sorrow. When we return I’ll find the CD for you.”

  Anita always loved these stories, where no one knew which part was real and which part fiction. She remembered her grandmother’s tale of the prince on the black horse who had to leave his one true love. She used to feel that story so deeply, always crying in the end even though the prince returned to the castle and they all lived happily ever after. The characters loved one another so desperately in that story, faced all hardships together, and managed to reunite against all odds. That was how Anita imagined the man for her would be; and now she had found him.

  “How long before we arrive, Mihalis?” she asked impatiently, gazing expectantly at the horizon.

  “Soon. It won’t be long,” he replied sympathetically.

  They’d caught up with the fishing boat, and part of the refrain drifted into the yacht.

  The waves have come between us

  Keeping our lips apart

  I pray that you will keep

  A place for me in your heart

  The Island, November 1943

  * * *

  The port was bursting with activity. Two warships had just arrived, spewing forth German soldiers onto the pier. The speakers mounted outside the headquarters were broadcasting German military anthems, their cackling noise interrupted by the officers’ voices barking orders. The swastika had replaced the Italian flag on the mast.

  Mussolini’s fall in the summer had changed life on the island once again. It had now passed under Nazi rule and life for the locals had become harder. They watched their new occupiers arrive with a paralyzing sense of dread. News had spread of what was happening in other parts of the country that had succumbed to the Third Reich.

  Eleni and Yiannis stood on the paving stones outside a small church on the hill and watched the unfolding scene, lips pursed in a thin, grim line. Nikos, nearly a teenager now, was absentmindedly poking an anthill with a small wooden stick, casting furtive glances toward the port.

  All three were lost in their thoughts. Eleni was thinking of Manolis, dressed in black head-to-toe in mourning for her father. No further news had reached her. She held onto the thought that Manolis was still being held captive, that he would somehow survive and return to her. She drew strength from that thought to fill the void that was chilling her heart and starting to etch the first worry lines on her forehead.

  Whenever she would hear of someone’s return to the island she would search them out and ask if their paths had somehow crossed Manolis’. She had pondered leaving the island to look for him, but she did not know where to start. She had heard that many of the captives were being sent to concentration camps in Germany and other countries, but deep in her heart, she felt that he was somewhere in Greece. Eleni felt tormented by her impotence, stuck on the island as she was.

  These past few years, with her fiancé away, some of the Italian soldiers had tried to seduce her but she was quick to make it clear that she was not interested. Her forthright, brave manner, along with her education which seemed to inspire some kind of respect, discouraged her suitors.

  She made a living by giving drawing lessons to the officers who had brought their families to the island. Many of the locals had been quick to point fingers, accuse her of collaborating. Unbeknownst to them, she eavesdropped on conversations and went through papers in the officers’ house, gathering information that she then passed on through Yiannis to a resistance group that was forming on the island.

  She now felt his hand on her shoulder, urging her to move away. “You go ahead, Yiannis, I’ll come shortly,” she said, eyes still on the port.

  “Be careful, Eleni. The Germans are not ones to take hostages,” he warned her.

  “I will. Don’t worry. I’ll be over soon to see Maria.”

  Her beloved goddaughter had become like a child to her. She spent a lot of her time helping Anna look after the family, watching over the little girl. She yearned for Manolis to return, to have a large family herself.

  She watched Yiannis and Nikos leave, then brought her right hand to her lips and kissed the engagement ring Manolis had put on her finger at Galazia Petra. The day they had silently sworn to love one another forever.

  She closed her eyes as if in silent prayer, but the increasing noise from the port was distracting. She knew the arrival of the Germans was bad news for everyone on the island. She was seized by cold fear and an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

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  The house felt eerily quiet when Michaela returned from the hospital, leaving Rina behind with her mother. Eleni seemed to be doing better, so Michaela decided to leave her bedside for a while. All that time at the hospital and her constant worry over her mother’s health were taking their toll. She needed a brief moment of respite to gather her strength; a warm bath, a night in her own bed, and then she would return to the bedside vigil.

  She left her handbag on the living room table and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Then she walked up to the coffee table and picked up the wooden box she’d found in the attic, the one with the drawing of the beach on the lid. She tried to lift it open but remembered it was locked.

  In a sudden flash of inspiration, she grabbed her handbag and fished out her phone. Phone in one hand, box in the other, she moved to the study and placed both on the desk before her. She sat down at the desk, picked up her phone and began scrolling through the pictures on the screen. When she f
ound what she had been looking for, she sat in stunned surprise. The photo Anita had sent and her mother’s watercolor were the same. What a coincidence! She put the mobile down and started rummaging through the drawers. If her memory was not playing tricks, her mother used to keep every key to the house in one of them. She had noticed in the past that some of them did not seem to fit any of the locks in the house, but figured they must have simply been long-forgotten keys that no one had bothered to throw out.

  She started testing them one by one until she found the one that fit. Barely able to contain her excitement, she turned the lock and lifted the lid. Two pieces of thick paper were inside, rolled up and tied with string. She placed them on the desk and picked up the small, red velvet box that lay beneath. Opening it, she discovered a ring decorated with a small silver rosebud.

  The only other item in the box was a yellowing envelope, wedged at the bottom. She pulled it out carefully and turned it over. ELENI DAPAKI. To be opened after my death.

  A will? Michaela was stupefied. She leaned back in the swiveling chair trying to gather her thoughts and recover from her surprise. Still confused, she untied the string around the rolled up papers hoping that they might shed some light.

  The first one was another sketch of the beach, in greater detail this time. A man figured prominently in the picture, standing in the water. The colors were more vivid, livelier, and it looked even more like the photo Anita had sent. She could have sworn that the painter had sat looking out at the beach on the same spot as the photographer. The perspectives were identical. How could Anita be sending a photo that looked so much like a sketch drawn many years ago? Who was the man standing in the sea?

  The second sketch showed the inside of a cave, the faint light casting strange shapes on the walls. On one of the walls of the cave ELENI+MANOLIS FOREVER. TOGETHER. could be made out. The inscription at the bottom of the sketch read, Cave of Silence.

  Michaela’s head was spinning with all this new, inexplicable information. First, the pocket watch bearing the same inscription; then, the same man’s face on all the sketches up in the attic; now, the beach, the cave, the ring, and the sealed letter. How could they all be connected? How could her mother have kept so many secrets?

  She thought about calling Anita but then decided against it. Maybe she could find out a little bit more before sharing her discoveries with her daughter. She picked up the tablet that lay on the desk and went online. If she could at least identify the beach… She quickly entered the name of the island Anita was filming on. Predictably, the top results were about the film. Unable to resist the temptation to read about her daughter, she opened the first link and sprung up as if she’d just been stung by a bee.

  She ran up to the attic and then into her mother’s bedroom and returned holding one of the sketches and the watch. Back at the desk, her eyes flitted in astonishment between the image on the screen, the photo of the man in the watch, and her mother's sketch. She rubbed her eyes and looked again at all the pictures one by one, frowning hard. The resemblance was striking. The mysterious man in her mother’s sketches, the man in the watch and Anita’s co-star looked so alike she could have sworn they were the same man.

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  Maria sat on her balcony looking out toward the dark water. It was nearly midnight, but sleep would not come. She tossed and turned while Kostas obliviously snored beside her. She gave up and stepped outside to get some air.

  Seated among her beloved flowers, she held a photo of Dimitri and absentmindedly toyed with the small gold cross around her neck, a gift from her godmother when she had been christened at sea. She had few memories of life on the island. Most of her knowledge came from stories her brother had told her. All she remembered were burning houses and the two of them running away to hide.

  She wished fervently for something more like a photo of her family or her godmother, all dead at the hands of the Germans according to Nikos. No matter how hard she tried to extract more information, some kind of detail from him, he would slip from that conversation like an eel, claiming that he remembered little, that it had all happened too fast. All he had confessed was that the locals had betrayed their uncle, their father’s brother. And that was the main reason why they never returned to the island.

  She could sense there was more. That was the reason she had chosen to say even less to Dimitri lest he start digging into the past and discover something painful or shameful. The betrayal of her uncle, an active member of the Greek Resistance, and the execution of all her family must have been only part of the story. Survival became the primary goal after the war and it had not been easy. She had had no time or energy to deal with the past.

  Dimitri’s father had given her that sense of security she so craved. She loved him deeply and his loss was the darkest moment of her life. Had it not been for her son, she might have collapsed. Then, Kostas had come into her life, a good man, someone to share her twilight years with. She still thought about Dimitri’s father every day. She had met him in her teens, still a school girl, and he had been her only love. He and Dimitri had shared such a deep bond she could understand his rejection of Kostas. He could understand how important it was to have him in her life, her need for a companion, but deep in his heart he obviously perceived their relationship as a slight to his father’s memory.

  Out at sea, a sudden burst of fireworks lit up the evening sky. Maria smiled. A wedding. Her thoughts turned to Dimitri and Anita. She could tell from his few mumbled words that her son was in love and it made her happy. She had read everything in the press about Anita and felt that she already liked her. She came across as educated and down-to-earth and Maria could not wait to meet her. Dimitri had promised to introduce them once filming was over and they all returned to Athens for a few days. And she had promised herself that she would tell him then what little she knew about everything that happened toward the end of the war. She had a feeling that her brother’s death, the return of his ashes to the island, spelled the final chapter to that part of her life, some kind of closure. Little did she know that the cobwebs of that time on the island were about to be lifted and reveal the atrocities they had hidden from view.

  The Island, Christmas 1944

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  Torrential rain and a bitter northerly wind led the small fishing boats in the port in a frenetic dance and lashed the windows of the building housing the German command. A group of soldiers standing guard outside tried to shelter behind the portico’s columns as best as they could, a burst of merry singing and loud voices drifting outside to join the howling wind every time the front door opened to let out a drunken guest.

  Further away, in the island’s only classroom that had been turned into a storeroom by the occupiers, Eleni and ten young children sang Christmas carols, their breath visible in the cold air a coal stove was struggling to warm up. She had managed to get permission to celebrate Christmas and it felt like a small blessing, adding another ray of happiness to her already grateful heart. At last, she had received news from Manolis. He was alive and would be returning to the island as soon as the weather would allow. The letter had been hand-delivered by a companion he trusted and now lay snuggled, frayed, and smudged with tears of joy, close to her heart. No one must be told of my presence, he had warned. Let people keep thinking I’m dead.

  He confirmed that he had been captured by the Germans and been sent to a prisoners-of-war camp in Larissa, on the mainland. He had managed to escape after a few months and had joined the Greek Resistance, fighting against the occupiers. He was a wanted man and if he were captured he would be executed on the spot.

  Eleni had kept the letter a secret even from Anna, who sat next to her holding Maria on her lap, the toddler’s dark eyes and the tip of her nose peeking out from the blanket that covered her. A handful of other women were the only other audience. Most parents had kept their children at home, shunning Eleni once more for her relations with the Germans.

  The truth was, of course, that s
he loathed the occupiers but kept her feelings to herself. She would have gained nothing by expressing her feelings to the locals and did not want to endanger the lives of those close to her. Her outward stance was not uncommon. Many islanders loathed the Germans but kept to themselves, thinking of their families, their homes. Of course, there were others who had been happy to collaborate, to actively help the Germans. Eleni felt outraged at this treason, despised those who had sided with the Nazis as soon as they had landed.

  The news that had been arriving from Europe these past few months had raised the first timid flutters of hope. The war might be nearing its end. The men on the island, including Yiannis and the teenage Nikos, were in a feverish state, meeting in secret and discussing developments on the front. Reports of terrible battles and the work of the Resistance, who seemed to be striking blows at the mighty Third Reich, were reaching the island; maybe the tide was finally about to turn. So, Eleni had decided that perhaps this was a Christmas to celebrate, to give the children a taste of the normality that might be about to return.

  Suddenly, the door to the classroom flung open, slamming against the wall. The children stopped singing abruptly and stared at the two German soldiers standing in the doorway.

  One of the soldiers was waving a large bottle and could barely walk in a straight line. The men stumbled into the classroom shouting incoherently, shooing them out of the room. Hastily, the women started moving to the exit, shielding their frightened children. Anna and Eleni were the last to leave. Anna passed before the two men and Eleni made to follow her. She felt the strong grip of a hand on her shoulder. Anna, Maria still in her arms, hovered at the door, then stepped back in. Releasing his grip on Eleni, the soldier pushed Anna outside and slammed the door shut.