One Summer in Crete

by Nadia Marks

  She stood looking for some moments longer, then crossing herself three times she leaned forward and kissed it. Seized by a sense of awe, she picked up a candle, lit it and plunged it into the sand with others which had been placed there before hers. Staring at the dozen or so candles as their flames rose towards the ceiling, she silently repeated the same plea she had made earlier that summer under a glowing blood moon.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Michalis’s voice shook her out of her meditation. He was standing close to her, holding a candle, ready to light it and no doubt to make his own prayer and wish.

  ‘This icon is very ancient,’ he explained in a whisper, moving closer. ‘Some of the nuns here still paint. They are famed for their work and have a little gallery of icons that we could go and look at if you wish.’

  ‘Do you want to have children, Michalis?’ Calli heard herself ask, seemingly oblivious to what he had just said.

  ‘Er . . . yes . . . perhaps, some day,’ he replied in confusion. He stood awkwardly, waiting for a moment, unsure if she would continue, before turning to light his candle and place it next to hers.

  After leaving the chapel, Michalis and Calli made their way towards the cloisters in search of directions to the painting workshop and gallery and towards some shelter from the now unforgiving late morning sun. The nun they came across in the courtyard, who so graciously invited them to join her for a glass of water and a cup of coffee under the shade of a mulberry tree, turned out to be none other than the elderly Mother Superior. Calli looked up at the canopy of rich green leaves from the tree that spread over them like an organic umbrella and wondered if the nuns kept silkworms. She remembered her grandmother explaining to her that mulberry leaves are essentially what silk is made of, since that is what the silkworms feed on.

  They sat talking with the nun for a while, her voice and wise words as welcome and gentle as the cool sea air that blew from the shore. She spoke of life in the convent and of the miraculous performing icons that they were blessed to house in their modest chapel, while the young novice they had encountered earlier brought them slices of orange glyko, coffee and ice-cold water.

  The visit to the convent had a significant impact on Calli. She had visited monasteries as a child with her parents, she had encountered monks and nuns over the years, yet this occasion had been a different experience for her. The simplicity and serenity of the nuns’ lives, the dedication to their faith and work emphasized how little anyone needs to achieve contentment; her own city life felt tainted and superficial.

  As they left the convent, Calli entered the chapel once more to light another candle below Raphael’s icon. This time her prayer was for her aunt Froso.

  9

  At last the phone call she had been waiting for arrived – though it woke her out of a deep and delicious siesta. Her mother was finally coming.

  ‘And about time too!’ Calli exclaimed in mock annoyance when Eleni told her she would be on the morning’s flight to Crete. She knew that her mother’s delay was due to Keith’s little accident but nevertheless she was glad she was now on her way.

  ‘I know, agabi mou, I missed you too,’ she replied, oblivious to what Calli might have alluded to, ‘but I had to stay with your father. I’m sure you’ve had a great time so far and we’ll soon be together. How’s my sister?’

  ‘She’s fine, Mum, she misses you, too,’ Calli replied. ‘We’ll pick you up from the airport tomorrow.’

  Costis offered to take the day off and drive them to Heraklion but Calli declined, preferring to borrow Chrysanthi’s car again. She thought perhaps Froso might be willing to chat to her on the way there if they were alone.

  ‘How would you like to do this, Thia?’ she asked on their way to the airport, gripping the steering wheel a little harder than usual. ‘Do you want to go through everything again with Mum, and would you like to be alone with her when you do?’

  ‘No! No, my girl, I don’t.’ Her aunt’s reply was emphatic. ‘I have neither the energy nor the heart to start all over again . . . Perhaps you can speak to her – would you do that?’ She gave Calli a pleading look. ‘I still have so much more to tell you both,’ she murmured and then fell silent. ‘But, please, my girl, please,’ she said after a while, ‘do me a favour. Don’t start on that just yet, not as soon as she arrives. Let’s have some time together to enjoy each other before we return to all that sadness again.’ Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the journey, each lost in their own particular thoughts.

  How was it possible, Calli asked herself again, that nobody seemed to know anything about Froso’s story, and how could such momentous events have been kept secret from the family? Calli longed to talk to her mother but for now she had given her word to her aunt to stay silent for a while longer.

  Searching the crowd for her sister and daughter, Eleni could feel her anxiety mounting. On the plane she had tried to distract herself from worries tinged with guilt about how she might find Froso. Calli said it wasn’t urgent, but I should have come earlier, cut the Lake District holiday short, she berated herself. Then she saw them both standing at the Arrivals gate, her sister looking much better than she’d feared, and Calli tanned, golden and more beautiful than ever.

  With a huge sigh of relief, Eleni hugged them both and reverted back to her usual cheerful self.

  ‘How are you, my dear sister?’ she said, taking Froso in her arms and kissing her noisily on both cheeks. ‘Who said you weren’t well? You look as perky as a daisy!’

  ‘Looks can be deceptive,’ Froso smiled and hugged her back extra hard, ‘but you are right, I am fine, especially now you are here with us!’

  ‘So, how have you two been getting on without me?’ Eleni joked, settling into the back seat of the car. ‘This is the longest the two of you have ever spent alone together.’ She leaned into the front seat to take a look at them both: ‘How did it go?’

  ‘It has been a joy and a pleasure having your daughter with me,’ Froso replied, turning round to look at her sister. ‘I have always longed to have her to myself, she is such a good girl, she is just like you!’

  ‘Good women run in the family,’ Eleni pronounced. ‘Just look at the two of us, not to mention our mother. It’s in our DNA!’

  The return journey to the village was as alive with chat and cheerful banter as it had been silent earlier on. Eleni wanted to know about all they had been doing and she in turn told them about news from home.

  ‘Alex wanted to come with me too, but I told him this was strictly a girls’ trip!’ Eleni laughed again. ‘I told him next time it will be his turn to come with Keith but right now he had to stay home and look after his dad.’

  ‘How is Dad?’ Calli asked, remembering her poor father.

  ‘He’s fine, it was just a sprain, but you know your dad – he’s such a baby when it comes to pain,’ Eleni jested.

  Mother and daughter woke early next morning but didn’t venture down to the beach until later. Breakfast was a generous spread: Froso produced all of her sister’s favourite foods, starting with eggs from the hens, chunky village bread and black olives. The three of them sat chatting in the garden until Calli suggested a swim. For the first time since she had been staying with her aunt, Froso came along with them.

  ‘My swimming days are over,’ she told them, settling down on a beach lounger shaded by an umbrella. ‘I shall sit here and enjoy watching you two having fun.’ It had been a long time since she had had the pleasure of being with Eleni and Calli together without any of the menfolk around. She wanted to make the most of their company before she turned to the hidden history which she felt compelled to share with them. Over the years she had considered confessing to her sister the secret of her past, but the whole family had kept silent for so long that it had become a way of life for them all and she couldn’t bear to upset those she loved. But now, with the knowledge of her illness and time galloping faster than ever, Froso burned with a desire to make the two most important people in her li
fe understand who she really was. The image by which they knew her – Froso, the woman who had lived a sheltered life, no marriage, no love, no children, no drama – was true, yet not true. She did not want to end her days carrying the burden of the past.

  ‘I think we should get you into the water one of these days,’ Eleni said, walking towards Froso and reaching for her beach towel on the chair next to her. ‘The salt and iodine will do you good, Sister.’

  ‘I did my share of swimming when I could. Now I’ll just stick to breathing the iodine,’ she chuckled. ‘I leave the rest to you, if you don’t mind.’

  The arrival of Eleni brought all the relatives together again in a fresh round of visits and parties. Calli was eager to introduce her mother to her new friends and above all to Michalis.

  ‘Honestly, Mum, he is one of the nicest, most genuine people I have met – you’ll see,’ she told Eleni one afternoon when everyone was invited to spend the evening in Froso’s garden for their usual get-together. ‘He grows olives and plays the lyra . . . How much better can it get?’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Eleni replied. ‘The Cretan men of your generation are different from mine: more open-minded, more relaxed, more well-travelled.’

  ‘Michalis hasn’t travelled much but he is certainly open-minded and relaxed,’ she replied, eager for her mother to meet him.

  ‘I suppose the internet has made a big difference to young people these days. All we had for information about the world was the TV, magazines and newspapers,’ Eleni said, as she sliced chunks of juicy watermelon into bowls to chill in the fridge before the evening’s gathering.

  ‘I really love it here, Mum. I can honestly say I’d happily stay forever.’

  ‘And I can honestly say I couldn’t get away quickly enough.’ Eleni smiled at her daughter. ‘That’s not to say I wasn’t happy – I had a great childhood, but by the time I met your dad I was ready to leave.’

  ‘That’s because you hadn’t been anywhere else and you were curious to experience the world . . . and you were in love, of course,’ she added. ‘We are all so perverse though . . . Do you think we always want what we can’t have?’

  She picked up a piece of watermelon with her hand and stuffed it whole into her mouth, the juice trickling down her chin.

  ‘You always liked eating melon the messiest possible way,’ Eleni chuckled, handing her a piece of kitchen paper.

  ‘I liked it best when Yiayia Calliope used to give me a whole slice with the rind still on and send me out into the yard to eat it where the mess didn’t matter . . . and I’d spit out the seeds and watch the ants drag each seed to their nest.’

  ‘You enjoyed your summers in Crete when you were little, didn’t you?’ Eleni said wistfully as memories came tumbling back. She was always grateful that she had been able to provide for her children some of her own childhood experiences. Growing up with a loving family in a village beside both sea and mountains, she had been free and unrestrained and was determined her own children would have a taste of what she had had, if only for the duration of their summers.

  ‘Oh yes, Mama,’ Calli replied lovingly, addressing her mother as she had when she was a child. ‘Our holidays here with Yiayia, Bappou and the family were great.’ Smiling, she reached for another piece of melon. ‘And you know something? Having spent all this time with Thia Froso, I have seen such a different side to her, she is quite wonderful. I feel sort of guilty now that when I was little I used to ignore her.’

  ‘I know, I always felt bad about that, but you can’t make children like someone if they don’t . . .’ Eleni replied. ‘I could never understand why you were so resistant to her.’

  ‘It’s not that I didn’t like her. I guess it’s because she used to try too hard and it irritated me . . .’

  ‘Well, I’m really glad that you found each other now. Better late than never, eh?’ Eleni said, giving her daughter a little hug. ‘She was such a good, loving sister to me, Calli mou, she was my confidante and my best friend even though she was so much older than me. When I met your dad, she was the one who talked to my parents and persuaded them not to stand in my way. My mother was fine but the men in the family were resistant. My sister stood by me all the way.’

  That evening’s gathering in Froso’s garden saw the usual crowd of relatives and friends arrive, including Michalis, bearing gifts of food and drink and the inevitable musical instruments. Eleni had been in the village for almost a week by now, most of it passed in a carefree manner, spending mornings on the beach, resting during the afternoon heat, then socializing in the evenings. Impatient though Calli was to continue with Froso’s narrative, she decided she must wait for her aunt’s signal to bring her mother up to date with the story. But Froso held back, apparently in no hurry to continue.

  That night, aside from Michalis, who Eleni was eager to meet, there was another person present that she was delighted to see again after many years, a man who throughout her childhood had been a constant presence, whom Eleni and her siblings loved dearly and called Thios. He was old, almost completely blind and had lived as a recluse for years, yet on learning the news of Eleni’s arrival, he made the supreme effort to join the party, wanting to see her again.

  ‘Come, Calli mou, I want you to meet someone very dear to our family.’ Her mother took her arm and ushered her towards their old guest. ‘This is Thios Pavlis’ – she turned to look at her daughter – ‘you might have met him many years ago but you were quite little, so you probably don’t remember him.’

  On hearing his name, Calli turned to look at her aunt. She instantly knew who the old man was even if she hadn’t met him yet. Froso had promised to take her to him but the old man had not been well so they’d postponed their meeting. Finally there he was, Kosmas’s eldest brother and his only surviving relative.

  Calli beamed with pleasure to finally see him. She reached for his hand and held it for a long moment, her throat tight with emotion, then bowed her head and kissed it.

  ‘This is my daughter,’ Eleni said, moved at the sight of such tenderness from her girl, assuming that her gesture was prompted by respectful regard for the old man’s advanced age and disability.

  Pavlis reached forward and touched the young woman’s head. ‘I give you my blessings, my girl,’ he said, his voice as weak as his touch. ‘If I had better sight I’m sure I would see you are as lovely as your mother – she was always beautiful, even as a child. May you live a long and fruitful life and bear many children to carry forth our Cretan blood.’

  Calli stood in front of the old man, unable to speak, emotion choking her, and as she turned to look at Froso, she saw her eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘Thia Eleni! Over here.’ Costis’s loud voice from the other side of the garden snapped them out of their emotional reunion. ‘Come, I want to introduce you to someone.’

  Michalis was standing under the olive tree with a bottle of olive oil as an offering to Thia Froso in one hand and his Cretan harp in the other. Eleni found him as charming as her daughter had suggested and even more handsome. In the course of the evening her imagination ran away with her and she had Calli and Michalis already married with a couple of babies living in the old house with Froso.

  ‘What a nice guy! I really like him,’ she told Calli in the kitchen, lifting the heavy bowls of watermelon out of the fridge. ‘How well have you got to know him? I mean, are you sort of dating or just friends?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Calli laughed. ‘We’ve been spending quite a lot of time together since we met . . . since I got here, actually. We are kind of dating, I suppose.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’ Calli laughed harder. ‘And nothing – we’re taking it slow, we are still sort of getting to know each other, no need to rush.’

  ‘You really are a different generation,’ Eleni laughed back. ‘In my day, if a man took you out twice, he’d be making his move . . . make his intentions clear.’

  ‘Mum! I could be making a move too,
if I wanted to. It’s not just up to him, you know, it’s not like that anymore. We get on, and we like each other . . . We’ll see. You and Chrysanthi, honestly – what a couple of old matchmakers!’

  ‘I’m just saying . . . that’s all . . .’ Eleni said as they left the kitchen to join the babble of the throng, carrying trays of fruit and drink.

  10

  ‘I like your mother, she’s fun,’ Michalis said a few days later when they met for their early morning swim. Calli had decided that Eleni and Froso needed to spend a little time together without everyone around them, so that morning she left them on their own. ‘We should invite your mum to come with us sometime when we go out,’ Michalis continued as they swam towards their private cove for a few minutes before he had to leave for work, ‘and Kyria Froso too.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual. I’m sure she’d love to,’ she replied – then thought that as much as she loved her mother, she could do without having her tug along with her and Michalis. ‘Perhaps next time we go out with Chrysanthi and Costis we’ll get Mum and my aunt to come too,’ she quickly added, with a twinge of guilt for her previous unkind thought.

  ‘Good idea. My brother is arriving soon so we’ll all go out together,’ he replied and reached for her hand to help her step out of the water, avoiding the rocks lurking at their feet. She loved the touch of his strong hand, making her own feel as small as a sparrow nestling in his palm.

  They stretched out on the hot sand, giving up their limbs to the golden rays for a short while. Michalis soon had to swim back to start his day, but during that short time Calli reflected as she watched him through half-closed eyelids that the more she came to know him, the stronger her feelings grew for him. She liked his strong yet quiet demeanour, she liked his simplicity and his love of nature, and above all she liked how comfortable he made her feel when they were together.