One August Night

by Victoria Hislop

  Once Giorgos had agreed to join the celebration for a short while, Anna seemed happy and moved away. She was ready to leave now.

  There was a brief pause while a photographer corralled the parents and godfather to be photographed on the steps of the church. Anna stood in the middle holding Sofia, Andreas and Manolis on either side. It was a formal shot, the one needed to mark the day. Immediately afterwards, Andreas drove Anna and the baby back to their home high in the hills of Elounda. It was a spacious and airy property, set in the middle of olive groves, with a view over some of the few thousand acres that belonged to the family. This was only a small proportion of what they owned.

  Since moving in, Anna had made significant changes, not only with interior decoration, but to the exterior too. At the front of the house she had flattened an area to create a terrace. This was where the party was to take place. Trestle tables strewn with flowers were set out in long rows, with bottles of wine and raki running down the centre of each one. Under nearby trees, goats were being turned on spits by a team of chefs.

  Guests were arriving in their hundreds. They stood about in groups and helped themselves to wine and copious quantities of food already cooked and waiting in dishes on a buffet. Many showed no restraint and ate greedily. Most had some kind of commercial relationship with the Vandoulakis family, and there was a sense that such a rich feast was their entitlement.

  As soon as they had returned from church, Anna had handed the baby to her nursemaid. The child was already asleep and there was no need for her presence during this part of the day.

  Giorgos was among the last to arrive and nervously surveyed the throng for anyone he knew. Maria’s best friend, Fotini, noticed him standing alone and hurried over with her brother Antonis. The two families were closely intertwined. Giorgos’s face lit up when he spotted them. He regularly saw Fotini in the family taverna in Plaka, but it was a while since he had seen Antonis.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked affectionately. ‘Even more handsome than ever!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fotini, poking her brother’s arm, ‘he’s too handsome for his own good.’

  It was not a matter of opinion that Antonis was the best-looking man at the gathering. Even from childhood, his huge brown eyes had held the attention of anyone who looked at him. They were the shape of almonds and the colour of chestnuts.

  ‘And too fussy!’ she teased. ‘We should be baptising a child of his by now. But he won’t even look at the girls.’

  ‘Fotini . . .’ protested Antonis good-naturedly. ‘That’s not true. I just haven’t found the right one yet, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re waiting for her, aren’t you?’ said Giorgos supportively. ‘Marry in a day and you’ll regret it for life.’

  A few minutes passed with Giorgos asking the younger man all sorts of questions about his work on the estate. It was a demanding job but clearly one that suited Antonis. He had fought with huge bravery for the resistance during the German occupation and returned with extraordinary powers of endurance and physical strength. Manual labour was almost effortless for him and, as Giorgos observed, made him seem more god-like than ever.

  Manolis sauntered across to chat with them. Over the past few years, he and Antonis had become best friends. Antonis had been wary of him at first, but the two men had eventually found that they had much in common, not least a great passion for music. They often played together, Antonis on his thiáboli, a wooden flute, and Manolis on his lyra.

  Giorgos congratulated Manolis on being the nonós. Like everyone who saw them together, he was always struck by the similarity between Andreas and his cousin. At just under two metres, the two men were both taller than the average Cretan. They had the same thick brown hair and high cheekbones. The only physical difference was that Andreas was slightly heavier about the jawline, but it was their contrasting demeanour that allowed even a stranger to tell them apart. Manolis had deep creases around his eyes, the result of constant smiling and laughter, whereas Andreas was dour, his seriousness showing even in the hunch of his shoulders.

  The musicians were striking up now, and the first tune was for the stately siganós, an eight-step dance that everyone could join. On Anna’s terrace there was an area big enough for a hundred people to form a circle, and this was what they began to do. Once the space was filled, a second circle was formed inside the first, and then another, until there were four concentric rings. There were ten musicians: two bowing on lyra, three strumming on laoúto, two on guitar, one on a fiddle, one drumming on a tabor and one on mandolin. They made a full and rich sound. Everyone knew the complex step pattern even for the next dance, with its fifteen beats, and small children who had been running amok until now slotted between the adults and confidently blended into the ebb and flow of the movements, never putting a foot wrong, as though they had learned these dances in the womb.

  Giorgos felt it was a good time for him to leave. After observing the dancing for a short while, he exchanged a few formal words with Anna’s in-laws, then slipped away unnoticed to make his way home.

  At one point, encouraged by Antonis, Manolis went to his truck to fetch his lyra. He took a seat, held the delicate three-stringed instrument in his left hand and drew the bow across the strings with his right. It looked so small in his large hands, but out of it he conjured an immense sound, skilfully sustaining the melody against the insistent strumming of the laoúto. The notes came tumbling out, faster and faster, and for an hour or more he played without pause.

  There was no end to the musicians’ stamina. The music flowed over the guests as if it was seeking escape into the hills around them. Manolis gazed into the middle distance. Though his seat was at the end of the row, he was at the heart of the music and the centre of attention.

  A well-known singer joined them around ten o’clock. It was the moment that ignited the evening and brought the spirit of kéfi, of almost frenzied celebration, to the occasion.

  Later, Manolis danced the solo zeibékiko. The audience gathered to admire his display of acrobatic turns and pirouettes, and it was clear that he was showing off rather than expressing the anguish that the dance usually conveyed.

  Andreas spent most of the evening moving between groups of guests to thank them for being there and for their gifts for Sofia. From time to time he caught a glimpse of his wife and noticed that she was smiling. It was the first time in almost a year that he had seen her looking happy and relaxed. At last, he thought, she is back to her old self.

  Once the dancing began, he lost track of her, but occasionally he spotted a flash of red. As the great circle revolved, he could see her face more clearly. She seemed enraptured, held captive by the spirit of the dance.

  It took many days to recover from such a gléndi. Autumn was coming and there was much work to be done on the estate, but all the workers were a little sluggish.

  ‘The boss only has himself to blame,’ Antonis commented to Manolis. ‘There was more raki than water.’

  ‘I think we drank every drop there was,’ laughed Manolis. ‘It’ll be time to make this year’s supply soon.’

  The grape harvest was starting in a few weeks and would eventually be followed by the distillation process, which would create the firewater that fuelled so much merrymaking on the island.

  The two friends were at the kafeneío in Plaka. The day’s work was over and Manolis had gone there to rehang his lyra on the wall behind the bar. This was where it lived. He often played it spontaneously and by popular demand from his friends in Plaka.

  ‘She is my only love,’ he often joked.

  Dancing next to Manolis at the baptism had fired Anna’s longing to be with him again. His lithe figure and the energy with which he danced and played his lyra filled her with lust. She set about constructing an opportunity for them to be alone, and two days later her desire was fulfilled in all ways.

  The nursemaid who cared for Sofia throughout the day had taken her for a long walk. The child was a restless creature, even more so dur
ing the days following the baptism, and only the motion and vibration of her pram lulled her to sleep.

  Anna was unrestrained in her pleasure that afternoon. The day was hot and the windows wide and Manolis clamped his hand over her mouth to muffle her groans. In ecstasy, and in the spirit of near-violence that sometimes characterised their lovemaking, she bit down on his fingers.

  ‘Anna!’

  He moaned with pleasure as she let out a final uncontained gasp.

  For a while they both lay still, the sheets damp and twisted beneath them.

  Manolis played with a strand of Anna’s dark hair that lay fanned out across the pillows and wound it round his finger.

  She turned her head towards him.

  ‘I can’t live without you,’ she whispered, only just loudly enough for him to hear.

  ‘You don’t have to, agápi mou,’ he said quietly.

  Chapter Two

  OVER THE FOLLOWING year, Anna and Manolis fell into a pattern of seeing each other several times a week. As godfather, Manolis now had even more reason than usual to call in at the house. Sofia created the ideal pretext, though he always timed his lunchtime visits with the child being taken out for a walk. He also had the advantage of knowing when Andreas had to visit customers in Sitia or Iraklion.

  Anna lived for the present. At the very most she thought two or three days ahead, or to when Manolis’s next visit was going to be. She did not want to be bothered by thoughts of the following month or year. All she knew was that she had never felt happier than now.

  One morning she was sitting contentedly flicking through a magazine as the housekeeper, Kyría Vasilakis, polished the furniture around the edges of the room. Anna was humming. The glossy pages featured fashions for autumn, and her dressmaker was scheduled to come that afternoon to measure her for some new gowns. There was a shape with a cinched-in waist and exaggeratedly full skirt coming into vogue, and she knew that it would flatter her, especially now that her figure was filling out again. The dressmaker would be bringing fabric swatches, and Anna had already planned to order three in the same style.

  She leaned over the back of her seat to show Kyría Vasilakis one of the images.

  ‘That will suit you perfectly, Kyría Anna!’ cried the housekeeper, giving the appropriate response. ‘And you’re looking better and better by the day!’

  Everyone had noticed the recent transformation. There was colour in Anna’s cheeks again, and her hair shone. She looked even more beautiful now than before her pregnancy.

  ‘Doctors can do plenty for us, but if you ask me, I think you’ve had the eye.’

  Anna often found her housekeeper’s home-grown wisdom and superstitions mildly annoying. Kyría Vasilakis was a great believer in the power of one person to cast a spell on another, usually on account of jealousy, by giving them ‘the eye’. In her view, everyone needed protection from the máti, the evil eye. She never ventured outside her own home without wearing her blue glass talisman, believing that it protected her from all kinds of woes and illnesses.

  On the subject of health in general, Kyría Vasilakis was in her element, and not to be deterred.

  ‘Ordinary medicine can’t treat everything, you know,’ she continued.

  Anna resumed her perusal of the magazine. She did not want to hear her housekeeper’s views on herbal cures and the human body. In order to be prepared for this afternoon, she needed to study pleats and gathers and necklines, and was becoming irritated by this intrusion into her concentration.

  ‘But there’s something those doctors never lose patience with,’ Kyría Vasilakis went on, ‘and that’s leprosy. They just keep trying and trying.’

  Anna sighed audibly. If only the woman would just go away.

  ‘And they say they might be making progress with it! Who would have thought? People have been dying of it for thousands of years and now they’re talking of a cure!’

  For a moment, Anna could hardly breathe. Her chest had tightened and she sat motionless, her sweating hands clutching the magazine until its pages crumpled within them.

  ‘You see, with some diseases, even I agree there’s no place for herbal remedies. They’ve been trying those for centuries – snake oil, cactus extract, all sorts. Nothing has ever worked. But it’s so nice that those wonderful doctors never gave up, isn’t? They just kept on and on . . .’

  The surfaces were thoroughly beeswaxed now. Kyría Vasilakis was never happy until she could see her reflection in them. She finished off by flicking her feather duster over an ornate clock, straightening the lace cloth on the dresser and plumping up some cushions. Anna sat frozen.

  ‘Can I bring you something, Kyría Anna?’ the housekeeper asked. ‘If there is nothing more you need doing in here, I’ll start the lunch. I can shake the rugs out later.’

  Anna shook her head. She just wanted the infernal woman out of the room. She had heard enough. Slamming the magazine down on the table in front of her, she tried to control her trembling.

  Kyría Vasilakis’s casual comment had thrown her into turmoil. The discovery of a cure for leprosy was her worst nightmare. It would mean the return of her sister Maria from Spinalonga.

  The man Anna loved with her whole being had once been engaged to Maria, and she was seized with terror that her own relationship with Manolis was now in jeopardy.

  When the dressmaker arrived with his assistant – it had taken them since early morning to travel by bus from Iraklion – he was told that the client was indisposed. Anna had announced to Kyría Vasilakis that she had a migraine, and had withdrawn to her room and closed the curtains.

  For the next twenty-four hours, she stayed in bed, tortured by the housekeeper’s words, but late the following morning, she remembered that Manolis had promised to visit. The thought of his arrival drove her to get up and into one of her favourite dresses.

  With her make-up carefully applied and a favourite necklace and matching earrings clipped in place, she dabbed some perfume onto her neck and went downstairs. The house was silent except for the sound of a ticking clock. Sofia had been taken out for a walk by the nursemaid, and Kyría Vasilakis had the afternoon off.

  Anna sat down at the kitchen table and read the front page of the daily newspaper. It was waiting there for Andreas to read when he returned from the estate. It was the first thing he did each evening. He was a creature of habit. There was little in it to interest her. A rise in the cost of fuel. The death of some politician of whom she had never heard. A tremor on some islands further north.

  She put a jug of lemonade, freshly made by Kyría Vasilakis, and two glasses on the table, and sat waiting. What seemed an age after the clock struck two, she heard the sound of the latch. Annoyed that Manolis was seven minutes later than she had expected him, she remained sitting, stiff and upright. Instead of a smile and her open arms, it was her back that greeted him.

  Manolis was familiar with Anna’s sulks. They never bothered him, because he usually found a way to dispel them.

  ‘Kaliméra, agápi mou,’ he said breezily. There was no reply.

  He saw that Anna was pretending to read the headlines, and stealthily pulled a flower from a vase on the sideboard.

  She felt a tickling on the back of her neck, but stayed stubbornly still. Manolis then leant forward and caressed her neck with his fingers, at the same time taking the flower and sliding it into her cleavage. Anna spun round, her resolve to remain angry melting away.

  As Manolis made love to her that afternoon, Anna reacted to his touch with great passion. Thoughts of her sister’s return made her responses even more explosive than normal, and she ran her fingernails hard down his back, feeling them penetrate the skin.

  For a short while afterwards they lay still, and Anna rested a hand on his chest. It was only a few minutes, though, before her fears rose once again. In very few ways was she capable of restraining herself, and she told her lover what the housekeeper had said.

  ‘So you think nothing will change?’ she persisted. Ru
mours of the cure had created an unease in her that she could not allay.

  ‘What do you mean, moró mou?’

  ‘You must know what I mean! Nothing would be the same if they . . . if they came back.’

  Manolis realised what was on her mind. What Anna really meant was ‘she’, not ‘they’. Rumours that a cure for leprosy might be closer had begun to circulate more widely, and he had heard the gossip that even the most deformed might soon be back and living among them. But Anna was thinking only of one person. Maria had been on his mind too, but he had suppressed any thoughts of her reappearance and how it might affect his life. He was reasonably certain that he and Anna’s sister had each relinquished any hold on the other when she left for Spinalonga, though there had never been a formal end to their engagement.

  Almost roughly, he pulled Anna towards him and gave her a lingering kiss on the lips. He could feel her relax beneath him.

  ‘Promise me you’ll stop worrying,’ he said softly. ‘Nothing is going to change between us. The little one’s nonós isn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘The little one’s father . . .?’ Anna responded.

  ‘Who knows?’ Manolis cut in. ‘She is my little vaftistíra, my little baptised girl. I am her spiritual father. That’s what matters.’

  Although they had tried to be cautious in their lovemaking, both Anna and Manolis knew that the question of paternity could not be absolutely certain. The child bore a resemblance to both the men in her life, and given the cousins’ strong likeness to each other, this was no surprise. Manolis had occasionally wondered, but preferred to put this doubt to the back of his mind. Anna, on the other hand, seemed to relish the idea that her lover was the father of her child.