by Defne Suman
Knowing full well that he would not be heard above all the commotion, Avinash whispered, ‘We are all living on borrowed time, my love. And not one of us is aware that the day of reckoning is swiftly approaching. Happy New Year!’
Edith’s beautiful lips, which he never tired of kissing, were parted and she was snoring softly in his lap.
Part IV
COINCIDENCES
First Encounter
When she went down to the quay that Wednesday morning, marriage was the last thing on Panagiota’s mind. If anyone had told her that before the weekend was over she would be engaged to Lieutenant Pavlo Paraskis, she would have made a sour face as if she’d heard an unpleasant joke.
On her way to Fasoula she ran into Elpiniki’s younger sister, Afroula, in front of the new building being constructed at the Evangelical School. ‘Wow, so Pavlo has his eye on you,’ said Afroula playfully. ‘He says he’s going to take you to Ioannina and treat you like a princess. Congratulations!’
Panagiota whacked Afroula with her umbrella and then ran nearly the whole way from Agia Katerina to Fasoula. She was going to tell this Pavlo off! He’d put on airs just because they’d spoken two words at the meadow in Kordelio – and that was only because she’d had to. As if stopping her on the street and inviting her to the cinema was not enough, he had shamelessly begun to spread baseless rumours.
After she’d crossed Fasoula Street, turned onto Poyraz Street and was walking towards the sea, she began hurrying even faster. She grasped her umbrella tightly and held her chin high as she made her way through the twisting colonnades between the buildings used as warehouses. Whistles and ribald laughter from the drivers waiting at the head of the road followed her as she went. You had to remain strong in the face of such remarks from those good-for-nothing bums in the coffeehouses. Just as the gentlemen on the quay were notably modern and polite, so these men in the back alleys around Parallel Street were notably crude. Most of them were Maltese sailors who worked on the merchant ships, or seasonal fig pickers and packers from the islands. Ne’er-do-wells who, whenever they saw a young woman walking alone, felt they had a duty to make a comment and then laugh and brag among themselves.
‘Po po po… Principesa, look over here! Did your mummy feed you honey, yavri mou? What is your name, princess? Hello! Ciao, baby!’
She took a deep breath when she got to the quay. On this winter’s day the sea was shining like glass; the red, yellow and white fishing boats tied up ashore swayed in counterpoint to the porcelain-blue calm of the water. The front of the Sporting Club was still wet from the wild wind’s waves that had pounded the shore through the night. If only the rest of the city were as clean and orderly as the quay. Here, there were none of those swaggering catcalls from clay-faced bums; instead, gentlemen greeted ladies by touching the tips of their fingers to their hats.
More than a year had passed since Stavros had volunteered for the army. And now everybody else had gone to the war too. Last summer they’d rounded up all the boys and herded them out to the plains of Asia Minor. Only the fisherman’s son, Niko, remained in the neighbourhood. Stavros had never been an enthusiastic letter writer, not even at the beginning, and after the twenty-one-day Battle of Sakarya his letters had stopped altogether. If it hadn’t been for Minas’s letters to Adriana, Panagiota wouldn’t even have known if Stavros was alive or not.
Thank goodness, the letters Minas wrote without fail to his fiancée gave news of all the neighbourhood boys. Stavros had proved a tough nut, but Pandelis had come down with tuberculosis. The boys were in a dire situation, marooned in an arid region with no water and barely any food. The supply routes had all been attacked. Even before the battle had begun, most of them were worn down with illness and hunger. Communication had become more and more difficult as railways and telegraph lines were blown up. Minas begged Adriana not to stop writing. Tell all the girls they should write, he urged in one of his letters. Even if they don’t have a sweetheart in the army, they should reach out to their brothers. My Adriana, we are desperate for encouragement from the people we are fighting for. The Turks have a goal that inspires them to carry on fighting. As for us, we are losing faith from one day to the next.
Fighting back the tears welling in her eyes, Panagiota hugged the purple velvet coat with the astrakhan collar which she was wearing over her navy-blue school uniform. She had stuffed her hair inside her wide-brimmed hat, leaving a few strands that she’d secretly cut to just below her ears curled over her cheeks to give the impression of short hair. The light velvet coat had been a birthday present from her Aunt Lili, a seamstress. A European lady had had the coat sewn for her daughter who was studying in Paris, but the girl hadn’t liked the colour, so the coat had been returned to Aunt Lili. They didn’t even ask for any money back. Her mother had bought the broad-rimmed black hat with peacock feathers from Bon Marché. When Panagiota posed with the hat and coat like the girls on the pages of La Mode Illustrée, the women had looked around hurriedly for wood to knock on, she looked so stunning.
That morning the quay, with its grand coffeehouses, theatres, bars and wealthy homes stretching all the way to Punta, was empty and relatively quiet. Panagiota, breathing in the sea air, walked towards the north end of the quay. In the sleepy morning the restaurants and beer houses had not yet opened their doors. There was not a soul in front of the Lux, which was always packed full to bursting in the evenings. In front of the Pantheon Cinema an Englishman getting his shoes shined touched his fingers to his fedora in greeting to her. A horse-drawn tram was coming, and as it passed, its driver gave a light ring of the bell. Trying to put Pavlo’s invitation to the cinema out of her mind, she speeded up.
In the summer months, the quay was always very lively and a holiday atmosphere prevailed. Over the last three summers in particular, since the Greek administration had taken over the city and the male population had doubled, things had really hotted up; the girls positively smouldered, drunk on their newfound freedom. On every corner, they flirted merrily, indifferent to public opinion, competing with each other to get a front-row table at the cafés so that the wind could ruffle their hair and lift their skirts. They treated every passing officer and soldier to warm glances, smiling at them through thick lashes. The men were so overwhelmed by the girls’ beauty and friendliness, they didn’t know which way to look.
The neighbourhood boys thoroughly resented their girls ignoring them and focusing all their attention on the Greek soldiers. They said everything there was to say to the soldiers and to the infatuated girls.
Elpiniki had found herself an Athens lieutenant, in one night forgetting Niko, for whom she had burned a year ago. When she grabbed Panagiota and dragged her to the rural tea-house in Kordelio, she was all over the lieutenant from Athens, practically crawling into his lap. And what a coincidence: Elpiniki’s lieutenant had brought Pavlo with him. Panagiota had been forced to chat with the soldier who’d danced under her window last summer.
Compared to Stavros, Pavlo was rather naive and boring, but he was actually a well-mannered and educated young man. With his unexceptional clear brown eyes, his face couldn’t be called handsome, but his features were regular; he had thick, bony arms. One evening when Panagiota was sitting with her friends at the Café de Paris at one of the tables near the street, she saw him strolling around with a group of soldiers. She might have grinned too much, but she didn’t pull up her skirt or do anything ill-mannered like other girls did.
She decided to wait until she got home to think about his invitation to the cinema. The French version of The Three Musketeers was playing at the Lux, The Unseen Hand at the Pantheon. They were both cowboy films. Where was Red Love being shown? Elpiniki had raved about it. Out of curiosity, she walked to the Ciné de Paris. She would need to see if her father would permit her to go anyway. What was more, they didn’t show these films in their entirety; if she enjoyed the first half, she’d have to get permission all over again if she wanted to see the rest of the film the next day.
She walked back, bought a biscuit from Zakas Pastry Shop below the Hotel d’Alexandria, then leaned against a lamppost so she could spy on the Kraemer Palace. Seagulls were spreading their wings in the cloudless sky, ready to dive into the sea. In spite of the cool weather, Café Zapion had set up its tables outside and at one of them two European ladies were drinking tea and eating lemon cakes.
The hotel’s young doorman was pretending not to see Panagiota. He was dressed in a very showy black, red and yellow uniform, with a bowler hat on his head, like the British wore. Panagiota spent a while trying to catch his eye. Perhaps her beauty would have an effect on him, just as it had on the neighbourhood boys who used to serenade her, and he would let her in. She longed to go inside that magnificent four-storey building with its electric lighting, to walk on its soft carpets, take the lift to the top floor and gaze out at the horizon from its windows, drink tea in its café, sit at a table next to foreign women wearing the most intoxicating perfume, order a slice of torte.
Just at that moment a sharp sea breeze blew her short curls against her face and caused them to stick to the powdered sugar on her cheek. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she anxiously wiped the sugar from the corner of her lips and looked round at the hotel’s blue-shuttered windows to be sure no one had seen her.
The ‘Kraemer Palace’ sign on the front of the building had been taken away and a new sign, ‘Splendid Palace’, hung in its place. There was a new Muslim owner now. Was it the father of Niko’s Turkish girlfriend? The famous Panellinion to the left of the hotel had also changed its name to Ivi last year. She didn’t like it when the places she knew changed owners and names. It caused her inexplicable anxiety. She wanted the world to stay the same while she herself changed.
She turned her dreamy eyes to the hotel’s spacious balconies. Who knew how many high-ceilinged ballrooms there were inside! She pictured the scratches on the parquet floors made by the shoes of women waltzing or doing the foxtrot or the polka; the grand pianos and vast, gilt-framed mirrors; the lifts that opened directly into rooms, and the soft beds, diamond-beaded curtains and who knew what else in the suites fit for kings.
If only she could see inside!
Two officers in khaki uniforms with red epaulettes were coming out of the hotel. At their sides were a couple of heavily made-up women, the sort Panagiota had seen once or twice in closed-topped motor cars. They were dressed like European women, with skirts that ended just below their knees. The officers kissed the girls’ hands with exaggerated flourishes, and the girls continued flirting, right there in front of the door. Their capes, which only just covered their bare, narrow shoulders, looked like genuine rabbit fur. Panagiota had seen such capes at Xenopoulo’s shop on Frank Street but hadn’t dared ask the price. She’d made do with stroking the fur when the grumpy shopkeeper wasn’t looking. Seeing the goose pimples on the girls’ bare legs, she hugged her coat a little tighter.
After they had put the girls into a black motor car, the officers, laughing, crossed over to the sea side of the street, where Panagiota was standing. The tall officer with the carefully groomed handlebar moustache was talking nonstop, and the other officer, who looked like a little boy, with no moustache or beard, kept nodding. As if she wanted to crumble up the uneasiness that was troubling her heart, Panagiota began hurriedly chewing her biscuit. Her eyes watered as she tried to swallow the dry mouthfuls.
The tall officer was speaking in a loud, deep voice as if haranguing an audience from a stage. ‘I can promise you, Stefo, not a thing is going to happen.’ With one hand he gestured to the European fleet anchored in the harbour. ‘They’ll get as far as Afyonkarahisar, Aydin, but they won’t enter Smyrna. Forget about us, forget about the local Christians – just think of how many Europeans live here. And I mean rich ones! The banks are loaded with their bonds and they have many investments here – factories, agencies, railways, shipping lines. And see the Iron Duke, waiting over there like a gatekeeper? It’s had our back up to now; it’s not going to suddenly leave. And of course there’s our fleet. If they get this far, we’ll open fire on them.’
He seemed very self-confident as he cast a sidelong glance at Panagiota.
The one with no beard nodded yet again. ‘You’re right. We’ve been naval fighters for centuries. If only the war had broken out at sea, it wouldn’t have lasted so long. Instead of going to Ankara, we should have concentrated on Constantinople.’
‘That too will come, God willing. Makari. This Ankara business was a big mistake. They understand that now, but it’s too late. We should have sent our army from Thrace; Constantinople would have fallen in two days. As it is, our divisions have been waiting west of Sakarya for months. Hungry, starving. And it’s cold. The Turkish gangs control the supply roads, so not even a couple of mouthfuls reaches their bellies. How much longer can they endure?’
Panagiota was all ears. A carriage passed behind them. The coachman was standing upright, whip in hand, as if he were directing the whole world from up there.
‘The enemy is in the same situation. Maybe even worse. I wonder why they aren’t attacking. They’ve kept us waiting for months.’
The officer with the waxed moustache frowned. ‘I’m not sure. It could be that the Turkos are expecting ammunition from somewhere. I heard they’d reached an agreement with all the Allies.’
‘It looks that way. Even the Italians have retreated.’ The beardless officer had a high-pitched voice.
‘Oh, forget the Italians. Their problem is with us.’
‘Sure, but since they’ve retreated, somebody must have convinced them that this place isn’t going to stay in our hands.’
Forgetting even to wipe the powdered sugar from her face, Panagiota looked over at the officers fearfully.
The moustached officer put his hand on the boy-faced officer’s shoulder. His frown relaxed. ‘No need to be pessimistic, Stefo mou. The most powerful empire in the world has our back. Even if we’ve made a strategic error, I don’t think there’s any possibility that we’ll lose the war after all our victories. Come, let’s go inside. A man can’t enjoy a smoke in this crazy wind, and look at how rough the sea has become. Some coffee with cognac would go down nicely. What do you say, should we invite those ladies sitting in front of Zapion to join us?’
‘Do you know them?’
‘I noticed the auburn-haired one at a party in Bournabat. They’ve come from London – European ladies looking for officer husbands. How can they refuse us!’
Throwing his cigarette into the sea, he crossed the street.
The women drinking tea at Café Zapion examined the officers from beneath their lashes. Words spoken in a foreign language and laughter rang in Panagiota’s ears. She was trembling inside. Was it from the cold or something else? When she put her hands in the pockets of her coat, her fingers closed around a pebble she’d picked up last week at the Diana Baths. Although she knew very well that the pebble wouldn’t skip across the surface in such choppy water, she flicked it anyway. To hell with the Kraemer Palace, the officers, the stylish European women, the fallen girls with their rabbit fur!
The pinnacle-shaped waves swallowed the pebble. Putting her hand back in her pocket, she chose another. Gripping the smooth white stone between her fingers, she took expert aim, swiftly swinging her elbow to release it backwards.
A hoarse scream went up from behind her. ‘Ah! Slow down, little lady! Take it easy! Ah!’
A gentleman wearing a frock coat and a hat was bent double, moaning as if he were choking.
Panagiota covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh, I am so sorry. Signomi! I didn’t see you. Please forgive me. Me singorite. Mister, are you all right? Monsieur?’ In her fright she had forgotten the French she normally spoke when strolling along the quay.
The man slowly straightened himself into an upright position. ‘I am fine, fine. No need to worry. I hope in the future I shall never have need of entering into a disagreement with you, for you know very well where to strike a bl
ow. Your hand is quite forceful, mademoiselle.’
Frightened, Panagiota took her hand from her mouth and hid it behind her back. Hurled with all that anger, she threw her arm backwards and, as she was aiming, had hit the man’s testicles. Her face burned.
The man laughed, revealing a set of sparkling white teeth. ‘No, no, I was just joking. You see, I am fine. I was not looking where I was going. I was looking at this beautiful scene – the colourful fishing boats rocking in such pleasant harmony with the sea. Look at that yacht over there; it glides like a swan. A magnificent thing.’
Panagiota looked at the sailing boat sliding over the sea. It was flying a British flag. Let a north wind blow and then they’d see if the inexperienced captain could make it to shore!
‘Mademoiselle, could I have met you somewhere before?’
The foreign man – where could he be from? – was examining Panagiota’s face, squinting at her.
‘I don’t think so. Why do you ask?’
‘Your face seems so familiar.’
‘No, we haven’t met, I am sure of it.’
When he saw the girl raise her chin, a smile spread across the man’s face. His Greek was good, but he spoke with a strange accent that Panagiota had never heard before. ‘How can you be so sure?’
