When he did not appear as usual for dinner one day, Themis sent Anna’s oldest up to check on him. He returned ashen-faced. Within seconds Themis was in her brother’s apartment but she could see immediately that he had gone. A catastrophic heart attack meant that he had not suffered. In death, she caught a glimpse once again of the good-looking boy he had been and knew that he was totally at peace.
Themis’ affection for Thanasis had grown immeasurably these past years and she mourned him deeply. Her brother’s unequivocal love for Nikos had swept away all other memories of their conflicts and differences. He was laid next to Nikos, and Themis made sure to tuck their mother’s embroidered handkerchief in his pocket before the burial. She had found it in his hand the day he died. For a second time, Themis took the bus each day to visit the nekrotafeío.
After forty days she stopped. She had to clear out Thanasis’ apartment. Her brother had few possessions, so it took only a short time. She left his old television where it was and the only thing she kept for herself was his stick. It had become such a part of him and now it stood in the corner of her living room.
Anna and her husband gave up their rented place in a nearby street and moved into Thanasis’ former apartment with their three children. The place was cramped but no more so than it had been when Themis was growing up there with her siblings. The children ran up and down the stairs to spend time with their grandparents and Themis cooked enough for them all. The doors were always open and there were tolerant neighbours who rarely complained about the noise. Anna was nursing full time at the Evangelismos Hospital and relied on her mother to keep her family filled with gemistá, and spanakórizo. Themis vainly hoped that if they were eating tasty food made with produce from the laikí, they would not be tempted to grab something from one of the fast-food restaurants popping up all over Athens.
Since suffering a mild stroke that had left him slightly immobile, Giorgos was unenthusiastic about going out and mixing with other people. Themis spent much of her time caring for him but frequently went out with her children and always sat at the head of any table. She was the matriarch and still full of energy.
These days, usually with one or two children under her feet and school collections to do, Themis had no time to read the newspapers and if she had the radio on, it was to listen to music.
One day in the summer of 1989, Anna came in to see her parents on her way from work. Giorgos was ill that week so she brought in some fresh spinach from the market, knowing that her mother had not been able to get out that day. Themis had mentioned that she wanted to make spanakópita, spinach pie. They drank some cold lemonade together and then Anna left.
It was a hot afternoon and the ingredients for the filo pastry stuck to Themis’ hands. Eventually she put a cloth over the mixing bowl and left it to rest before preparing the strong, green leaves that Anna had so thoughtfully purchased for her. She took them out of the newspaper in which they had been wrapped, put them in the sink and ran them under the cold tap, splashing her face with water as she did so to cool down. Once she had dried her hands, she picked up the scrunched front page of Eleftherotypia to throw it away. Something caught her eye. It was a word in the headline: Symmoritopólemos. Bandit war. She winced. It was an expression she loathed. Would she ever be able to put those memories behind her? Forty years on the word brought back the pain of being sadistically lashed, sym-mor-í-ti-ssa, 1-2-3-4-5. With each syllable a soldier had brought down his whip hard on her bare back. ‘Synmorítissa!’ ‘Criminal bitch!’
Leaning against the kitchen worktop, she ran her eyes over the article. Next to the word she hated so much, Symmoritopólemos, was another. Emfýlios. Civil war. This was the very first time she had seen those years of conflict described in such a way. In a gesture of reconciliation, the government had proposed a law to formally recognise those five years of vicious conflict in which her brother had perished and her comrades had died as something other than a ‘bandit war’. From now it would be officially referred to as a conflict between the government army and the communist army. Themis saw the drops of her own tears falling on to the page and smudging the type. After all this time, it had been recognised that she, Panos, Katerina and so many others had been soldiers, not brigands. This was a huge step towards the healing of old wounds and something she had never imagined could happen. A coalition that comprised both the centre-right and the Communist Party was currently in power and had proposed the change, and it was not going to be contested by other parties.
She looked across at Giorgos, who was asleep in his chair and wished she could share her joy with him but he would never fully understand, especially now. She sat down at the table and spread her hands across the page to flatten out the creases. There was something else she wanted to read and with almost total disbelief she took in the implications.
In a paragraph on the same crumpled page, the journalist referred to the files on communists and detainees. All these records were still held by the security services but were now to be destroyed. Themis knew hers had always been there, somewhere, gathering dust in a cabinet. All these years it had hung over her like the sword of Damocles.
Only the briefest details on this decision were given. For the next hour or so she occupied herself with cooking and soon the intoxicating smell of her spinach pie drifted out of the balcony doors, rose and entered the open windows of the floor above, summoning Anna’s hungry children down. All the while, Themis thought of what she had read.
For the first time in many years, she bought a newspaper each day and surreptitiously scoured the pages for more details. When there were none, she immediately disposed of the paper in the bin. In the following days, articles began to appear that reported some opposition to the impending destruction. Some believed it was a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness, others claimed it was the gratuitous destruction of a historical archive, others said that such an act protected all those who had collaborated or informed. The files were said to contain detailed notes on people’s comings and goings, eavesdropped conversations carefully transcribed and lists of every suspects’ acquaintances. It seemed that millions of people had been happy to exchange fragments of information for even a minimal fee. There were even some government ministers who were insisting that their own files should be located and saved. Themis was obsessed by the issue but said nothing to Anna, or to Andreas and Spiros when they called in to see her and their father.
It was 29 August, the anniversary of the final day of the Battle of Grammos, the last day of the civil war. More importantly for Themis, it was the date of the death of her brother. As she did each year, she went quietly and alone to light a candle in Agios Andreas.
There was no one in the church and she stood for a moment contemplating how it might have been to die on those mountains. Did Panos know at that moment that the war was lost? Did he die in pain? No matter how many years had passed, she always asked herself the same questions.
The temperatures were soaring that day and as she emerged from the semi-darkness she was momentarily blinded by the sunshine. She did not see old Kyría Sotiriou, who still lived in the neighbourhood, coming towards her. At first, she just heard her voice.
‘Kyría Stavridis,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Kyría Stavridis! Have you heard?’
Themis stopped.
‘Heard . . .?’ she said.
‘They’ve done it . . .’
The elderly woman was struggling to breathe and Themis realised that she was overcome with extreme emotion.
‘Do you want to sit for a moment?’ Themis asked, leading her to the bench just by the door of the church.
‘They . . . They . . . They’ve burned them. They’re all gone . . .’
For a moment, Themis wondered if she was talking about a forest fire. Some of them had been devastating in recent years, possibly started deliberately and, in this heat, trees could easily go up in flames.
With one or two more gasps, Kyría Sotiriou finally managed to get her words out.
‘All the files have gone. Millions of them. They’re gone.’
It was unspoken between them, but Themis knew that Kyría Sotiriou had her own reasons for celebrating this.
The older woman sat there, shaking her own head from side to side, as though she still could not believe herself what she had just heard. Themis could scarcely take it in either.
After a few minutes, Themis helped her up and they walked together to the corner where they went their separate ways.
As soon as she was back in the apartment, Themis put on the radio. Her hands were shaking so much that she could scarcely turn the dial from her usual music channel to the news. She knew that, on the hour, someone would read the headlines. It was ten minutes to two. She helped Giorgos to drink a glass of water and then sat at the table and waited.
Sure enough, the newsreader confirmed what Kyría Sotiriou had told her. Names, evidence, records had been incinerated. Eight million files had been destroyed in Athens and a further nine million in cities around Greece. A reporter gave a first-hand account from a factory in Elefsina just outside Athens, describing how truckloads of files had been loaded into the furnace. There had been protests from people wanting to retrieve their own files. For Themis, it was the ultimate act of forgetting. Her final release. It was almost beyond belief.
That night the temperature in Athens hardly dropped from the daytime high and Themis went to bed feeling almost feverish.
She had a vivid dream. She was standing in front of a huge conflagration. Fire was licking hundreds of metres into the air and men in overalls were stoking the pyre with armfuls of cardboard files, carelessly chucking them on to the flames. She could feel the heat as pages and pages with lists of names curled and rose into the air, disintegrating into small shreds of ash that were blown away by the wind. When she tried to catch a piece the fragments melted away. Then she saw an entire sheet rising into the air. It was a photo of Panos. He was in army uniform, smiling and strong, his hair made fair by the sun and his skin darkened by exposure to the elements. She wanted to seize it in her hands but she could not grab it in time and it floated out of her reach. Then she saw a drawing of Aliki. It was an exact likeness. She was radiant, just as she always had been. Both these images were lifted up higher and higher, dancing and twirling in the breeze, further and further out of reach. Finally the blaze died down and embers were all that remained.
Themis woke. It was still dark in the bedroom and she lay there for a moment before quietly getting out of bed to avoid waking Giorgos. Desperately needing some air, she went out on to the balcony.
Dawn was just breaking as she stood watching a brightening sky.
Epilogue
2016
NIKOS AND POPI were silent for some time. The young people found it almost impossible to take in what they had heard. Before today, they had known so little about their family. Most of all, their grandmother was not the person they had imagined. She was so much greater.
‘And all the time we didn’t think you cared about politics,’ said Popi. ‘I didn’t even know how you voted.’
‘I did get a little disillusioned with everything,’ Themis admitted. ‘I felt I had done my bit really.’
‘Your “bit”,’ Nikos said, smiling at her understatement.
‘At least they recognised it as a civil war,’ added Popi.
‘It was a big moment,’ agreed Themis. ‘I just wish Panos could have known it, and Aliki and everyone else who gave up so much.’
Nikos was particularly thoughtful. It was almost more than he could take in.
‘I knew very little about my Uncle Nikos,’ he said. ‘I’m really shocked. Yiayiá, you know we have a big portrait of him in our house.’
‘Of course I didn’t . . .’ she said with a smile that betrayed her surprise. She had not been to the US since Angelos’ wedding.
‘There’s a technique that can enlarge a photograph and make it look like an oil painting. So Dad commissioned one from a picture of Uncle Nikos and now it looks like something from an art museum. It’s the same image you have on your wall but transformed into something really grand.’
With his hands he indicated its size: almost one metre high.
Nikos could see that his grandmother was pleased by the idea.
‘It’s in pride of place. The “hero in the hall”, we call him,’ continued Nikos, smiling.
Both Popi and Nikos were full of questions about what they had heard.
‘How did you survive childbirth in those conditions?’ asked Popi. ‘My mother tells us it is the most painful thing a woman can ever experience . . .’
Themis shrugged.
‘There was no option, agápi mou. A baby has to come out somehow. And the support of other women kept me alive, as I told you.’
Nikos had a burning question.
‘So my grandfather isn’t really my grandfather?’
‘No, Nikos. But Giorgos brought those two boys up as his own. And he was the best father anyone could have.’
‘But Tasos Makris? Did you ever see him again?’ he asked.
‘No . . .’ said Themis with enough hesitation to raise a doubt in her grandchildren’s minds.
‘But do you know what became of him?’ asked Popi, detecting the smallest of cracks.
‘Yes, I do,’ Themis answered.
Makris was Nikos’ grandfather, so she felt it was unfair to withhold the truth, given that she had told them both everything else.
‘Your mother met him, Popi.’
‘Really? She’s never mentioned it,’ said Popi with bemusement.
‘That’s because she didn’t know it was him.’
1999
One September day, Themis was clearing plates after lunch and Giorgos had moved over to his usual chair to watch the new colour television. He had the volume high, which Themis would turn down as soon as he fell asleep. Suddenly she heard the almost musical sound of glasses tinkling together on the draining board. Then the door of the dresser fell open and a framed picture of Andreas’ family slid towards the edge. She ran over to save it from falling to the floor and automatically straightened the photographs of Nikos and Angelos that were slightly askew on the wall behind. She knew it was illogical even as she did it. Only when the windows began to judder violently did she react as she knew she was meant to. It was an earthquake.
In more than seven decades, living almost continuously in Athens, the regular vibrations of seismic activity beneath the city had become part of her life. She knew well that a small tremor had been enough to destroy the mansion where she was born.
Everything around her was vibrating now. It was like being on a train that was trundling through a station. The light fitting that hung from the ceiling was swaying and the television flickered, though Giorgos did not seem to notice.
Themis hurried over to help him from his chair and with great difficulty got him to move. Their building was constructed many years before engineers had found a way to defy the movements of tectonic plates but Themis took the standard precaution of getting them both underneath the dining table. It was a huge struggle but she knew this was the only safe place to be.
Anna had come running down to make sure they were all right. Her children were out playing in the square so she was anxious, but knew they were safer out there than if they had been inside. As long as they followed the standard drill to find an open space and stay there, they would be safe. She cowered under the table with her arms around her parents and waited.
They knew the movement might return either with a stronger or a lesser shock, so they paused a few minutes in anticipation and then agreed that for now the tremors seemed to have stopped.
‘I’ll go and stay out there with the children,’ said Anna to her mother. ‘If there is another quake, you must get back under the table.’
They both helped Giorgos back to his seat and then Themis put on the television again. The film that had been on had been replaced by a news report, showing early fo
otage of the damage caused by the quake.
Themis watched with dismay. There were graphic images of collapsed buildings and victims being ferried on to stretchers and taken away for emergency treatment. The epicentre had been close to Parnitha, a region north of Athens, and the journalist was listing some of the places most badly affected. Kifissia and Metamorphosi were among them.
When Anna returned with the children, she called in to check on her parents. It seemed that their neighbourhood was undamaged, but the screams of ambulances rushing up and down Patission Avenue were enough to persuade her that she should go to the hospital to see if there was anything she could do.
‘Reports are saying that there could be thousands injured,’ said Themis.
‘I’ll go right away,’ said Anna. ‘Will you give the children something to eat later?’
‘Of course, agápi mou. Don’t worry.’
Themis and Giorgos continued to watch the TV, mesmerised by the images of buildings that seemed to have crumbled like pastry, leaving ugly metal rods protruding in every direction. Distressed families stood about anxiously as firemen and soldiers attempted to lift slabs of concrete to find the missing.
Minute by minute, events unfolded in front of them. It was a real-life drama, not an artificial one, and happening not far away.
‘It’s terrible,’ said Themis. ‘Terrible.’
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