One Summer in Crete

by Nadia Marks

  According to Greek mythology, Icarus’s father Daedalus was a brilliant artist and a clever craftsman, who along with his son was kept prisoner by King Minos until he had constructed a labyrinth in which to retain his wife’s monster son, the Minotaur. As the myth goes, Zeus had sent a bull to seduce Queen Pasiphae, and the child she gave birth to was a creature, half-man half-bull, who had to be constrained.

  Their only way of escape, Daedalus decided, was by air so he used his ingenuity and artistry to construct the wings which so nearly took them to safety. Daedalus had warned Icarus to avoid flying too close to the sun as their wings were glued together with wax and would melt, but the boy in his haste and excitement forgot his father’s wise words and the inevitable happened, thus plunging him into the sea and to his death.

  Calli as a child had visited the site of Knossos with her parents and had been told this story several times, but in those days she considered it as just a fanciful fairy tale. Now, standing among those ancient ruins, she reflected on her Ikaria experience and the story resonated quite differently from those childhood days. Calli’s Ikarian story, as Maya had said before she left the island, had followed her. Everything she heard, everything she saw these days, seemed to offer a kind of symbolism: her encounter with Maya had opened her mind to concepts she had never considered or cared about before.

  Visiting Ikaria, meeting Maya, Paolo and all those others who had welcomed her with such ease and acceptance into their circle, had revealed a new side of herself that Calli hadn’t known she possessed. Until then she had lived a life full of preconceptions, full of self-defined rules and assumptions. To be creative, she believed, meant you had to be an artist, a writer, a painter, a photographer and so on; to be an intellectual, you must have a formal education with a degree or a PhD, be an academic, a scholar. To be successful, you had to be professional. Calli took a deep breath and looked around her. None of these rules applied anymore, and none of it mattered. What mattered was an open heart and an open mind.

  ‘Shall we have a cup of coffee somewhere?’ she heard Michalis say, snapping her out of her reverie. ‘I know a great little kafenio on the way back to the village that makes the perfect baklava!’

  ‘Now you’re talking!’ she said cheerfully and linked her arm through his as they made their way back to the car.

  ‘I really like your company, Calli,’ Michalis said rather unexpectedly, turning around to look at her. ‘I am so glad you came to Crete.’

  ‘Me too, Michalis,’ she replied and meant it. She found his comment touching and honest; they had only known each other for a short time yet she felt a warm affinity towards him as if he was an old friend. She leaned into him and squeezed his arm.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long time,’ he told her with a beaming smile.

  ‘I’ve never known anyone like you,’ she said and smiled back.

  During the course of the day, thoughts of her aunt Froso and young Kosmas kept intruding into her mind. If at any point she felt an urge to discuss with Michalis what she had learned, she dismissed it; this was her aunt’s business and no one else’s. If anyone was familiar with Froso’s story, she concluded, it would probably be her cousin Costis; she made a mental note to ask him about it the next time they met.

  By the time Michalis stopped the car at the house the sun had long gone, the mountain behind the village had turned into shades of purple and the sky into an indigo blue, while the first star was already hanging low and bright above the horizon. Michalis escorted Calli into the garden in order to greet Froso, who was sitting with her needlework at the wooden table.

  ‘Kalispera, Kyria Froso,’ Michalis called out cheerfully as she got up to welcome them. ‘How was your hospital visit?’

  ‘Kalispera to you both,’ she replied, smiling broadly, her pleasure at seeing them evident all over her face. ‘It was fine,’ she said dismissively. ‘Come, sit, what can I fetch you both?’ she added, already making towards the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing, Kyria Froso, I must be going,’ Michalis replied. ‘I start work early tomorrow. I will come and see you soon,’ he promised.

  While wishing to spend more time with Michalis, Calli needed to be with her aunt this evening; it was time for her to continue with her story. Besides, Michalis had arranged to meet her again very soon.

  3

  Crete, 1950

  Finding time to be together and alone proved to be extremely challenging for the two young lovers. Kosmas had to go to sea every day, fishing with his brothers and father, and Froso had her domestic duties. Other than the one or two mornings a month when the young girl ventured to the upper village for her books, she was never alone. For the most part they had to make do with seeing each other on Sundays at church. Their imposed segregation served to inflame their passion and each time they met, either standing in close proximity to each other during the Sunday service, if her mother didn’t insist she joined her upstairs in the women’s gallery, or accidentally touching when they met outside the church, their love and determination to find time to steal away increased.

  Once in a while Kosmas faked sickness at the quayside on a morning when he knew Froso was taking the bus to the school and would sneak off, having arranged to meet her in a remote place away from prying eyes. Those Sunday mornings in church were the perfect opportunities for making arrangements. A discreet note passed between them, always making sure her father was nowhere near, or a furtive whisper were enough to keep them going for days with the heady anticipation of meeting. Kosmas knew of a small ravine in the outskirts of the village with caves and hollows in the rocks, where they could be safe and private, and when he could get away, they would plan to meet there. Froso would first visit her teacher, collect her book, then instead of returning to the square to board the bus back home as she always did, she would walk in the opposite direction, hoping no one had seen her. She would then scramble down the hill and rush to meet Kosmas, who, as arranged, would already be there waiting for her. He would always make the journey on his bicycle, avoiding riding on the bus, thus ensuring that no one had seen him arrive.

  Their time together was short and precious; they could not afford to raise suspicion, because then Nikiforos would insist that Calliope must put a stop to Froso’s visits to the school. If, God forbid, they were caught together in the cave they would be punished and, worse, be barred from even speaking to one another, hence destroying any chances they had of her family accepting him as a marriage match. Froso also knew that such behaviour from a decent girl would mean ruin for her and disgrace to her family.

  ‘We could run away together,’ Kosmas told her one day as they held each other close in the cave. ‘We could go to Heraklio, or Chania which is even further away. No one would ask any questions there, no one would know how old we are.’

  ‘We must wait just a little longer, at least till my next birthday,’ Froso replied, ‘and then you can come to my father and ask for me.’

  ‘That’s not till the winter, it’s months away . . . and besides, I don’t think your father will accept me,’ he protested. The young lad was amorous, his love and passion overwhelming, but Froso was strong and determined to do things the right way. She would not bring shame to her family.

  ‘We can only ask him. We at least have to try. It will be worth waiting for,’ she appeased him and kissed him full on the lips.

  The two lovers were determined that soon no one could stop them from being together.

  During late summer, while the weather permitted, their hideout served them well, but as soon as autumn approached, and the rains began pouring down the ravine, reaching it became hazardous.

  ‘We must find another place to hide,’ he told her, his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her against him as they lay on the soft earth.

  ‘We will see each other at the church on Sundays,’ she said with a mischievous smile, knowing well enough what Kosmas would say.

  ‘I’ll go crazy if I can’t touch you.�
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  ‘You will go even more crazy if they stop us from seeing each other altogether,’ she told him. ‘Besides, just think how it will be when we are finally engaged, and we can be together whenever we want.’ Although sex would not be permitted before marriage, once the youngsters were engaged, they would be allowed to spend time together freely.

  That autumn the snow started to fall earlier than usual on the high peaks of the mountains and the road to the upper village became increasingly difficult to reach. Froso’s visits to the school became less frequent and scrambling to their hideaway hazardous. One day after rain had fallen hard in the night, making the ground sodden and slippery, Froso hurried to meet Kosmas for what they had agreed to be their last time in the cave. She had just left him, the boy still in the cave, and she was making her way surreptitiously towards the village square to catch the bus home, when she sensed someone behind her.

  ‘Kalimera, Froso,’ a male voice greeted her, causing her to catch her breath. She turned round to see Mitros standing several paces behind her. She knew who he was, she had seen him once in a while in the village; he always made a point of greeting her. ‘Where have you come from in such a hurry,’ he asked, ‘in such weather?’ A mocking smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Nowhere . . .’ the girl mumbled, the colour draining from her face and her knees trembling as she hastened her steps towards the bus.

  Kosmas as usual waited a while after Froso left him before clambering up the hill. Black clouds had gathered, casting their gloom and threatening a downpour. He was making his way towards the field where he had left his bicycle hidden in some bushes when he heard footsteps behind him.

  ‘Leave the girl alone!’ a voice hissed. ‘She is not for the likes of you.’ Kosmas turned to face his follower, but before he could respond he saw Mitros disappearing into the shadows.

  What neither Froso nor Kosmas knew was that the young man harboured a secret obsession with the girl and having already made his offer of marriage the year before, Mitros believed he had some unspoken ownership over her. Froso had come to his notice long before he sent word via his mother that he was interested in her. He had picked her out in the village during her last year at school, then observed her later during her subsequent visits to her teacher, and he kept a tally of her movements. He fancied that the girl was as good as his.

  A few years older than Kosmas, Mitros was running his late father’s butcher’s shop in the village and considered himself as something of a catch. If he wanted a girl for his wife, he would have her, and no girl would make a fool of him. The reply to his marriage proposal from her family had been that the girl was too young and if he was interested, he would have to wait. Well, if she was too young for him then she was too young for anyone else too. As far as he was concerned he had first refusal, and if anyone was going to have her it would be him.

  It was a wonder that Froso’s clandestine meetings before that fated evening had escaped Mitros’s notice, given how he made it his business to keep an eye on her. The incident terrified the girl, who would have liked to tell her mother about it, but dared not without betraying her secret.

  ‘I’ve seen him around, but I have never spoken to him.’ Froso tried to appease Kosmas when he questioned her about Mitros the next time they met at the churchyard after the service. The liturgy that Sunday morning had seemed unbearably long to her as she stood with her mother upstairs in the women’s sector of the church, looking down at the male congregation. She could see the back of Kosmas’s head and she was willing him with her persistent gaze to turn around and look at her. She loved playing that game whenever she wanted to attract his attention as she was ushered up to the gallery by her mother. As she stared, she saw him bring his hand to the back of his head as if he felt a touch, only to realize it was Froso’s eyes upon him urging him to turn to her. As the liturgy came to a close, she gestured with the faintest of movements that she needed to go outside, then, faking a dizzy spell, she hurried to meet him. There was to be a mnimosino that day and she knew there would be a delay before the congregation poured into the yard with their parcels of koliva from the priest, thus preventing any private exchange they might manage to snatch.

  ‘What business does he have with you?’ Kosmas muttered, his lips tightly set.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I promise I have never spoken to him,’ she pleaded, on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t know what he wants with me,’ she said again.

  ‘He wants you! That’s what he wants,’ he murmured as the congregation began to leave the church.

  Froso was at a loss. What should she do? She wanted to talk to her mother, but she dared not; she wanted to meet Kosmas alone, but she dared not. She was frightened to go to the village to see her teacher and collect her book, but she dared not not go, as her mother would want to know the reason.

  The only time the two lovers were able to see each other now was either at the churchyard or in the village square after the service, where it was customary for families to stop for a morning coffee before going their separate ways home on a Sunday morning. There was no objection to youngsters being seen talking together if other people were present, though for the two lovers, after having tasted the joys of their private hideout, it was less than perfect.

  ‘You can’t go alone to the school again,’ Kosmas told her.

  ‘If I suddenly stopped going after making such a fuss before, my mother would interrogate me.’

  ‘What if that creep starts bothering you?’

  ‘I’ll collect my book and then I’ll get on the bus and hurry home,’ she promised.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I have a bad feeling about this,’ he said, and a shiver went through his spine.

  4

  With trepidation in her heart yet determined that she would not let Mitros deter or frighten her, Froso braved the bus ride to the upper village once again, hoping to avoid an unpleasant encounter. Trying to recall all the previous visits to the library, she remembered seeing Mitros no more than half a dozen times and then only once or twice had he actually greeted her. Froso had paid no special attention to the young man nor had he made an impression on her. But for Mitros, Froso had become something of an obsession; an obsession that no one knew about apart from his mother, who had been his envoy to convey the marriage proposal to the girl’s family on behalf of her son as was the custom of the times.

  ‘She is not the only girl in the world, my son,’ his mother would tell him. ‘Look around at all the other good girls in our own village of marriageable age. Why her?’ But Mitros was consumed by an unhealthy fixation for the dusky young beauty from the lower village who treated him as if he didn’t exist. The fact that Froso had barely noticed his presence and been entirely unaware of his infatuation with her was irrelevant to him; he had simply been waiting for her to come of age so that he could take possession of her. Yet now it looked as if she might be slipping through his fingers. The consideration that the girl had no say in the matter, was of no importance to Mitros’s plan. Her first visit to the village after their encounter, which Froso made hurriedly with her heart beating fast, went smoothly with no unwelcome chance meetings. She caught the very first bus and arrived just as her teacher was opening the schoolhouse.

  ‘Why so early and in such a hurry, Froso?’ Kyria Demitra asked, surprised that the girl didn’t stay on a little while for their customary chat about the book she was returning.

  ‘I need to get home to help mother,’ she lied, wishing that she could have confided in her. Kyria Demitra was a good person, a young woman not long married herself, and Froso fancied her former teacher might have some advice for her, if only she could summon the courage to speak to her.

  The deciding factor to speak to her own mother arose when on her second visit to the village Mitros blatantly approached her as she waited in the square to board the bus. He stood in front of her, a smile more like a grimace on his lips, hands in his pockets, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and stared at her.
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  ‘If I see you again with that hobo,’ he hissed at last, grinding his cigarette under his shoe, ‘I’ll go straight to your mother and father . . . or worse.’

  That night in bed, frightened and disturbed, Froso tossed and turned, dark scenarios playing in her mind. Eventually she decided that if anyone was going to speak to her mother it must be herself. She had to take matters into her own hands: she would not be blackmailed or allow this stranger to terrorize her. She had always been able to talk with Calliope; they had been so close, more like sisters than mother and daughter, she tried to reassure herself. But even if her mother had always been fair, this was different, telling her that she was in love with a boy who she had been secretly meeting in deserted places was not going to be easy. Froso prayed that Calliope would be able to see that no crime was committed and that Kosmas was a decent boy from a good family even if they didn’t have much money. She would omit the part about the furtive kisses and embraces in the caves, which she knew would not be well received. She would tell her mother that she and Kosmas were in love and that he wanted to come with his father to ask for her hand. They didn’t have to marry just yet, but at least get engaged, make it legal, make it known, and deter this older man who was frightening her.

  Calliope sat silently listening to Froso speak. When the girl finally finished, she got up, picked up the bricky and started to make coffee.

  ‘Why didn’t you come and tell me about Kosmas earlier?’ was her first question to her daughter. ‘If the boy loves you, he should have asked for you. He should have done the decent thing.’

  ‘Because I knew you and father would say I was too young and . . .’ Froso’s voice trailed off. She knew that was not a good enough reason. She knew that the only reason she had not told her mother was because the young lovers’ lust for each other was not something that could have been expressed; she couldn’t risk her father’s wrath – it had to be kept secret. She also knew well enough how decent girls were expected to behave, and she had misbehaved. Love was one thing, it could be tolerated; lust was another.