One August Night

by Victoria Hislop

  Maria was eager to see Alexandros Vandoulakis. She wanted him to know how pleased his son was that he had finally begun to write to him. The following weekend, she and Sofia went to Neapoli to visit Megálos Pappoús.

  ‘He told me straight away,’ she said. ‘It means so much to him.’

  Alexandros Vandoulakis leaned forward a little.

  ‘I should have done it before, perhaps. But you’re the person who made me realise—’

  Sofia interrupted by running in.

  ‘Mamá! Kyría Hortakis has shown me how to make the biscuits. They’re in the oven now!’

  ‘That’s so exciting, agápi mou! Will you bring your grandfather one when they’re cooled?’

  ‘And one for you too!’ Sofia sang, skipping out again.

  Maria was eager to carry on her conversation.

  ‘And he’s been moved! He’s no longer in that dreadful crowded wing with six to a cell. He has one all to himself. And it’s clean!’

  Alexandros Vandoulakis gave a contented smile.

  ‘I didn’t have time to ask him why or when it happened. It’s right at the far end of the prison, so by the time I got there, it was almost time to leave again.’

  Sofia had come back in.

  ‘They’re nearly ready, Mamá,’ she said. ‘They won’t be long.’

  Off she went again, and for a few minutes, the elderly man and Maria talked about the ill health she had suffered. She was very careful to avoid any suggestion that it was a prison visit that had given her pneumonia.

  Before it was time to leave, the biscuits were ready to eat.

  ‘They’re delicious, moró mou,’ said Alexandros Vandoulakis to his granddaughter. ‘They’re the best biscuits I have ever tasted!’

  ‘Can we take one home for Babá?’ asked Sofia.

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ said Maria. ‘I expect Kyría Hortakis can even spare two. Will you ask her to wrap some up for us?’

  While Sofia went off to do this, Alexandros asked Maria when she would be going to see his son again.

  ‘Soon, I hope. It has to fit with Nikos’s shifts at the hospital. He has to take Sofia to school and collect her again when I go,’ she answered. ‘And I am starting a part-time job at the hospital next week, so my time will be a little more limited.’

  ‘Well whenever you go, please will you give him this?’ With a visibly trembling hand, Alexandros Vandoulakis handed Maria an envelope. They were both aware that prisoners were not allowed to keep letters. They had to read them and then hand them back. Unless, of course, they did not come via the prison authorities and the officers did not know that they had received them.

  She took it from him and silently slid it into her bag. It felt illicit even to possess it, but she could not refuse the old man.

  It was time to go now. Alexandros got up and bent down to kiss his granddaughter on the top of her head. He had several other grandchildren, all a little older, but none of them competed with Sofia in his affections.

  That evening, when Nikos and Maria had eaten and dinner was cleared away, Maria remembered the carefully wrapped package of biscuits that had now slipped to the bottom of her bag. As she put her hand in to retrieve it, her fingers felt the smooth surface of an envelope.

  She calculated that it would be a few weeks before she could visit the prison again. It was frustrating, but she knew that the days would pass quickly enough. For Andreas, though, every hour must be slow torture, with the future stretching ahead into nothingness.

  ‘What’s on your mind, agápi mou?’ asked Nikos, noticing that his wife was gazing absently at the ground.

  ‘Oh! Nothing, Nikos. I suddenly remembered that Sofia made these biscuits for you. She was so proud of them. Here!’

  He opened the little package and ate them enthusiastically.

  ‘They’re perfect,’ he said. ‘And did you have a nice time with Alexandros today?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He loves seeing Sofia so much, and we always have such a nice chat. He likes company and I don’t think his daughters go very often.’

  She did not mention the letter, and was very conscious that it was an omission on her part. She knew exactly what Nikos would say. It was strictly against regulations to take anything into the prison for one of the inmates and they both knew it. No doubt it would result in some kind of punishment for Andreas if it was discovered, and was probably a personal risk to herself.

  The envelope remained in her handbag. It was the safest place, but over the following weeks she was very aware of its presence. Every time she reached in to find her purse or her keys, she felt it. She would be glad when it was no longer in her possession.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ANTONIS SOMETIMES NAGGED Fotini for information about Maria’s visits to Andreas, but his sister was reticent. She still found her brother’s Schadenfreude over his old love rival’s fate very distasteful.

  Maria shared everything with her friend – how Andreas looked, what he said and what the conditions in the prison were like – but Fotini passed nothing on. She felt uncomfortable that Antonis gloated at the notion of this great man brought low by his crime. It was wrong in her view to give any fuel to her brother’s decades-old resentment. Antonis had so much in his own life. Several building sites, plans to build a hotel, two cars, a big house, a beautiful wife and a second child on the way. Andreas Vandoulakis had nothing. Not a drachma.

  Fotini was particularly cautious because she knew that Antonis was still in touch with Andreas’s cousin Manolis. No, she told herself, whatever Maria said about the poor man remained with her alone. She loved her brother, but on this subject she did not entirely trust him.

  Antonis had concluded that Manolis would never come to see him in Crete, so one weekend that year, he left his wife and child in Agios Nikolaos and went to Piraeus for a few days.

  Manolis arrived at the harbour well before the ferry appeared on the horizon, excited to be seeing his friend after all this time. The two men had missed each other these past years and embraced each other heartily with affection and friendly abuse.

  ‘Hey, maláka! You bastard!’

  ‘Gamóto! Fuck! How good you look!’ exclaimed Manolis, as he stood back to admire his groomed and handsome friend.

  Antonis looked like a man who had done well for himself. There was no dirt under his fingernails these days. His hands were well scrubbed and he wore a thick gold band on his right hand and a heavy gold watch on his left. He sported well-cut trousers and a jacket made to measure by a tailor in Iraklion; his hair and moustache were perfectly clipped. Despite his concerns of a few years back, he still had a reasonable head of hair, though nothing like his friend’s copious thick locks.

  Manolis still looked like a man who worked outside and used his hands for a living. His skin was very lined now, but he had not lost the looks that often turned heads. The clothes he wore were casual compared with Antonis’s, and his boots were dusty, but anyone who looked at them as they strolled along in the sunshine saw two tall and unusually handsome men, happily lost in each other’s company.

  They walked back to the pension and Antonis left his bag in Manolis’s room. Agathi appeared in the hallway as they were leaving again. She knew Manolis was expecting a friend and was curious to meet someone from his Cretan past. To this day, her lodger had never formally shared anything about his former life. All she knew of it was what she had deduced from her snooping.

  The pair of them spent the first night of Antonis’s visit drinking and talking. Manolis wanted to hear about married life and fatherhood. He also asked about Sofia, whether she was happy and what she looked like now. He was glad to discover that she was still best friends with Antonis’s nephew Mattheos.

  Antonis had plenty of questions about his old friend’s new life and wanted to know all about the boat he was working on.

  The following day they drove a long way down the coast in Manolis’s Alfa Romeo, and then inland to Athens. Antonis had never visited his country’s
capital city and wanted to see everything. They climbed up to the Acropolis and strolled the shopping streets of Kolonaki. He was enthusiastic about everything he saw, bought new shirts for himself and dresses for his wife and little daughter, and footed the bill for the enormous dinner they ate in Monastiraki.

  They had forgotten how much they enjoyed each other’s company and found their friendship untarnished by time.

  They ended up in Au Revoir, a popular bar in Patission that stayed open until the very last drinker left. There was only one moment in the evening when the conversation hovered over the night that had changed both their lives. It was around two in the morning and there was a whisky bottle almost empty on the table in front of them. It was that stage of the night when alcohol made them maudlin.

  ‘So,’ said Antonis, leaning forward a little lopsidedly, ‘you haven’t met a nice woman in all this time?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘All these girls around,’ said Antonis, waving his arm randomly around him. ‘All the girls in the whole of Athens. And you, Manolis Vandoulakis, you’re . . . you’re alone.’

  Manolis picked up the bottle and topped up their glasses with what was left in it. The waiter was there almost instantaneously putting another one down on the table.

  ‘No,’ said Manolis firmly, shaking his head. ‘There’s no one. There hasn’t been . . .’

  ‘Not since . . .?’

  The unfinished sentences were wholly understood by them both. The conversation quickly moved on.

  They arrived back in Piraeus around five in the morning. It was already getting light. A good part of the day was spent dozing in an attempt to recover from the excesses of the previous night, and at eight in the evening, they went to meet some of Manolis’s paréa.

  ‘Antonis! This is Giannis, Dimitris, Tasos, Mihalis, Miltos.’

  He introduced them with ease and affection and the evening was noisy and boisterous, with Antonis forming an ever clearer picture of Manolis’s new life. These men were as bonded as brothers, that much was clear.

  Stavros came by for an hour, only to be mercilessly teased by the others.

  ‘He’s not allowed out much these days!’ taunted one of them.

  ‘Not that he wants to come now he’s a happily married man!’

  It was true that amongst the rest of them none had a stable relationship; most just had occasional love affairs. These were men enjoying bachelorhood. In due course they might seek greater permanence, but for now, independence was the source of their contentment.

  It was late when they all went their separate ways. After a few hours’ sleep, Manolis drew the curtains back. Antonis groaned. It was already eleven in the morning and time for Antonis to leave for the lunchtime ferry. It would get in to Iraklion in the early hours of the following day, in time for him to be on his latest site that morning. En route, Manolis took him past the luxury yacht he was working on.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Antonis admiringly. ‘But don’t you dream of sailing somewhere on it?’

  Manolis shrugged. There was no time for such a conversation.

  ‘Will you come again?’ he asked as Antonis was about to board.

  ‘Keep me away, Manolis! What a time! What a place!’

  ‘It’s livelier than Agios Nikolaos,’ Manolis agreed.

  ‘I don’t think you’re ever going to come back, are you?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Manolis.

  ‘Ah,’ said Antonis. ‘That means I’ll be coming to visit you more often, then?’

  ‘Any time, my old friend, any time.’

  A few weeks later, Fotini told Maria that Antonis had been over to Piraeus.

  ‘They had a good time together,’ she said. ‘And it sounds as if Manolis is quite happy there.’

  Maria gazed out of the window of Fotini’s taverna towards Spinalonga. It was bathed in golden sunlight and, despite its proximity, felt a thousand kilometres away.

  She watched a boat chugging across the water. It was her father, and in his boat was another man. It must be the priest, the only person who regularly visited the island these days. The bones of several hundred people still lay in the cemetery on Spinalonga, among them, of course, Maria’s mother. The priest was required to observe the rites of remembrance.

  Maria had once asked her father if he remembered the day when he had taken her mother there. As soon as she had said it, she realised it was a ridiculous question.

  ‘I relive every moment of that journey each time I go with the priest,’ he said, his eyes filling with tears. ‘And the same for the time when I took you, too.’

  Maria had apologised for upsetting him.

  ‘But on the way back, I always remember bringing you home,’ he said with his sad old smile.

  Maria was lost in a reverie.

  ‘Don’t you want to know any more about Antonis’s visit?’ asked Fotini, who had expected a barrage of questions.

  Maria shook her head. She had no interest in Manolis Vandoulakis. She saw him as the catalyst for her family’s terrible loss. Whatever people had said at Andreas’s trial, she was now certain that he was not born to be a murderer. She was glad that Manolis had disappeared from their lives. She prayed to God to lighten the burden of this anger she still felt towards him. The most she managed was to keep thoughts of him to a minimum, and she was momentarily irritated by Fotini for mentioning his name.

  Giorgos’s boat was almost at the jetty now; he would arrive in five minutes or so. They would all eat together, including Sofia, who had been with Fotini for the afternoon. It was Monday, and the taverna was closed to customers today.

  While they were still alone, Fotini asked Maria if she had been to the prison recently.

  ‘I’m planning to go as soon as I can,’ she answered. ‘But it’s been busy at the hospital.’

  Fotini’s husband, Stephanos, appeared.

  ‘Ah, you sticky friends! You never run out of secrets to share, do you?’ he teased. ‘You’ve had your heads together for long enough. It’s time to eat now. I’ve called the children.’

  He was right in some ways. The two women, friends since birth, always had plenty to talk about, but for the first time Maria could remember, there were secrets she did not want to divulge. She knew how much her friend would disapprove if she confided about the letter secreted in the handbag at her feet.

  When the day arrived for the prison visit, Maria was visibly uneasy. Nikos noticed it.

  ‘If it worries you to go, then don’t go,’ he said, always hopeful that she could be dissuaded.

  ‘I’m fine, Nikos.’

  ‘Well, you know my views . . .’

  When she left that morning, there was a distinct chill in the air. It was late October, and she was glad to have brought a woollen scarf of Nikos’s, which she wrapped several times around her neck. Alexandros Vandoulakis’s letter had been in her bag for some months now.

  As always, her heart was thumping when she arrived at the prison. The trauma of feeling that man’s hands on her would always be there. Several women in the queue talked of similar experiences to hers, though almost without exception they had had items removed from their bags that they were trying to sneak in for a prisoner, after which they had been banned from visiting for six months. The prisoner they had come to see had then been deprived of all privileges. The officer relished his power, and Maria knew how much he enjoyed inflicting a little cruelty on the innocent as well as on the guilty.

  It was probably her imagination, but today the process of finding Andreas’s file, making a note of her visit, taking the dues and so on all seemed to take even longer than usual.

  ‘What’s that you have there?’ asked the guard, pointing at her side.

  Maria looked down. She had stuffed the scarf in her inner pocket and it was bulging. She pulled it out to show him.

  It seemed to be an invitation to further scrutinise her.

  ‘Take your coat off,’ he said. ‘I want to check if you’re hiding anything else. Put it on t
he chair, please.’

  Maria obediently did as she was told, putting her bag down on top of it. She had no option. Please, God, she prayed. Don’t let him touch me again.

  ‘Turn around slowly,’ he instructed. ‘Very slowly.’

  She followed the instruction. She completed two revolutions before he told her to stop.

  ‘You can put your coat on again now,’ he said, smiling.

  She managed to suppress her fury at this intimidation. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of the slightest reaction.

  The same young guard as usual was leaning against the wall. She wondered how many times he had looked on as his boss behaved in this way. No doubt he was waiting for the time when his own turn came.

  ‘Gamma 10,’ came the instruction.

  Clutching her bag to her chest, Maria left the room. She was holding back tears and her legs shook so much that she had trouble keeping up with the guard. The walk across the compound seemed longer than the previous time.

  Eventually they reached the building where Andreas was now kept, and Maria was admitted to his cell. He looked at her with concern.

  ‘Maria, something has happened . . .?’

  She brushed his question aside, but it was obvious from the look on her face that she was upset.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I was just worried about not getting in on time,’ she said.

  ‘Well I am very happy to see you.’

  ‘How are you?’ Maria was determined to put what had just happened to the back of her mind.

  Andreas looked as he had the previous time, similarly haggard, but clean, right down to his fingernails. His hair was shaved, as was compulsory here.

  One thing she had been wanting to know since the previous visit was why he had been moved here. She had imagined he was being punished.

  ‘It might look like solitary confinement,’ he told her, ‘but it’s not. Before I was moved here, I was with five others in a cell this size. It was terrible. I wanted to die in there. It was subhuman. Just the stench . . .’

  Maria tried to picture six men living in a space this size. It seemed a physical impossibility.

  ‘We heard that a new block was going to be built, and then the noise and dust of construction started and went on for a few months. There were rumours that all the prisoners from Iraklion were being moved to Neapoli too. We could see that we were losing one of the exercise yards and calculated that with all those extra prisoners and half the open space, we would not even be allowed out once a week to exercise. Plenty of people were losing their minds already. It was one of the reasons for the riots. I went on hunger strike.’