Burning Island
Absolutely heartbreaking World War Two historical fiction
Suzanne Goldring
Books by Suzanne Goldring
My Name is Eva
Burning Island
Available in Audio
My Name is Eva (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Part II
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
My Name is Eva
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A Letter from Suzanne
Historical Note
For Paul and Jacky who first showed us the beauty of Corfu.
We owe respect to the living;
to the dead we owe only truth.
Voltaire
This is a work of fiction,
but the events it depicts in Corfu in
June 1944 are inspired by eyewitness accounts.
Prologue
June 2007
Amber
Now I know the truth, I can never look at Corfu with innocence again. For me it is no longer a place just of sea and sunshine, for everywhere in the cobbled streets and dark alleyways I hear echoes of the past. Looking out over the sea I can hear the pleasure boats and the laughter of holidaymakers, but I also see shadows of the slow, rotting barges, packed with the sobbing people of the Evraiki, the Jewish ghetto of Corfu, leaving their homeland for the last time.
But I know James will never see this island the way I do. He sees ripe peaches, fragrant lemons, glistening fresh seafood, all the tools of his trade and the secret to his successful restaurant, but never the sorrow at the heart of Corfu.
I look across to the ancient fort, crumbling on its rocky promontory on the edge of Corfu’s old harbour, then shade my eyes and look out across the sea. The mainland is but a shimmering haze in the distance, and that isn’t even Greece – it’s Albania. I try to imagine the journey of despair those people took so near to the end of the war and it makes me shudder. A journey they made in dread to the unknown, with just the slightest shred of hope, a journey that would be the last nearly all of them would ever make.
When I turn back towards the town, I pass rows of cafe tables draped with white cloths, shaded by awnings striped yellow and blue, filled with tourists drinking chilled beers and wine, eating moussaka and spiced meatballs with Greek salad. They know and care nothing of the hundreds who stood here all those years ago beneath the scorching sun that June, clutching their few possessions, fighting back their tears while the Germans issued harsh orders, scorning their pleas for rest and water.
And all around this beautiful island, when the Judas tree bursts into flower each spring, I cannot enjoy its blossom; its lurid fuchsia-pink flowers remind me of betrayal. Now I know the truth behind the lies, the facts behind the facade, I have to strive for truth everywhere. Wherever people seek carefree happiness and idle pleasures, there are shameful hidden stories, and this is just one of them.
Part One
THEY DEPARTED
Chapter One
7 June 1944
A young girl stumbles in the rubble of the bombed houses as she runs through the dusty cobbled streets of Corfu Town, while the sun begins to set behind the tall tenements. Rebekka Nikokiris, thirteen-year-old daughter of Isaac, honourable cobbler, and his wife Perla, devoted mother of three girls, hardworking housewife and seamstress, is very afraid.
She clutches a small package close to her chest. Although the early evening air is still warm, she hides her head beneath her shawl, so no one will see her dark eyes and long lashes. Her boots are too large for her and chafe her ankles. But you are lucky not to be barefoot like most children. That’s what Papa had said when he salvaged the old boots from the pile of uncollected pairs at the back of his shop.
The streets are empty, but she can still hear the soldiers shouting and laughing as they kick lemons across the road in a coarse game of football. The fruit is ripe, falling from the trees that line the squares, free to anyone in Corfu Town who needs a lemon for their avgolomeno lamb or to dress a salad. Some collect basketfuls of fruit to make limoncello, or preserve them for the wet days of the island’s rainy winters, but no true Corfiot has such careless disregard for the abundant golden fruit – no one plays football with the thick-skinned lemons, no one disrespects the people and the produce of Corfu like the greedy, heartless Germans.
Rebekka quickens her pace, anxious to put the cries of the callous soldiers behind her. Mama will fret if she isn’t back soon. She’s always worrying these days. ‘It was all right when the Italians were here,’ she’d complained that morning. ‘They may have been too friendly with our girls, but they didn’t really trouble our people. But now, with the Germans…’ She’d frowned and bit her lip. ‘The humiliation. The roll calls on the Spianada. Every week, they make us go there. Why can they not leave us in peace?’
‘Quiet, Perla, you’ll worry the little ones.’ Rebekka’s father always comforted her mother. He was not like some fathers. He was gentle and kind. ‘As long as we can keep them hidden, they will not be counted.’
Rebekka looks over her shoulder as she nears her father’s shoe shop. No one is following her today, but the other week a well-dressed m
an appeared with two soldiers as she went through the doorway and shouted at Papa, ‘Where’s your notice?’
‘Hanging on the door,’ Papa had answered, ‘right there in that frame.’ He’d pointed to the printed, signed poster, proclaiming his premises were ‘Jewish’.
‘You can’t hang it inside. It can’t be seen there. You have to put it out the front. You know it is forbidden for Germans to go into a Jewish shop and buy from you.’ They’d stood there till he had rehung the notice in the approved place, then they’d marched away.
Rebekka had cowered in a corner of the shop until they left. ‘That was our mayor,’ her father had said in disgust. ‘Mayor Kollas. He is responsible for this. He collaborates with them. See, his signature is on the notice. And it is even printed here, in Corfu.’ He’d hammered his fist on the workbench; once piled with shoes to be soled and boots to be nailed, it was now bare, just like her Mama’s sewing table.
When Rebekka opens the door to her home, she can hear soft murmurs from the family rooms above the shop. These days there is always muttering and tears. Before, the narrow alleyways and shops of the Evraiki had echoed with the tapping of the cobbler’s hammer, the trundle of the tailor’s sewing machines and the ever-cheerful cries of children’s laughter. Their businesses may have been poor, but they served their people and were appreciated by the Corfiots, who accepted them and their religion.
Rebekka runs up the stairs, brandishing her precious package and calling, ‘Mama, Kostas still had some chestnuts for us, maybe you can make your special stuffed cabbage tonight.’ But as she enters the family kitchen where they have always gathered and eaten together, she is not greeted with grateful smiles. Her mother is slumped at the well-scrubbed table, her head in her hands. Matilde and Anna, Rebekka’s little sisters, cling to Mama’s apron, their fingers in their mouths. They are thin and pale-skinned from months of hiding from the German headcount inside the house.
Papa is frowning. ‘It has come at last,’ he says in a quiet voice filled with sorrow. ‘From tomorrow we will not be able to leave the house, and I fear soon we will have to leave Corfu for good.’
Mama dries her tears on her apron and fetches plates of tomatoes and bread for their supper. Then she glances at her husband and, in a low steady voice, says, ‘Isaac, I think now is the time for you to call on Doctor Batas. He will be expecting you.’
Rebekka does not understand. First, her father’s announcement about staying in the house, now her mother is telling him to visit the doctor. Is he unwell? Or are her sisters ailing? They are both thin, but no thinner than many of the children in the town since the war began, and their heads have not been shaved like those of the homeless orphans that roam the streets. They have not ailed like the little ones her mother bore then lost before them; in spite of their hunger they look as if they will thrive. She wants to ask what might be wrong, but her mother hands her a knife and tells her to slice the tomatoes for the young ones.
Papa crams a corner of bread in his mouth, chews quickly, then kisses all three daughters on the head before kissing his wife on her cheek. ‘Be good for your mother, all of you,’ he says. ‘I will not be long.’ And he runs down the stairs and out into the street, locking the shop door below on his way out.
Rebekka looks at her mother and is about to ask a question, but Mama cautions her with a look and says, ‘It has been such a tiring day. I want all of you in bed early tonight.’
Chapter Two
June 2006
James
It was the start of the summer season, soon after the late spring storms had finally blown away, when the first visitors began arriving. As the days grew hotter, lemons were falling from the trees every day. There were lemons in the garden of the restored villa where Ben was letting us stay, until paying guests arrived, and more ripe fruit was scattered in the grounds of the properties we were helping to manage. Large, pitted, yellow lemons with thick skins littering the hard earth – we couldn’t bear to leave them to wither and rot.
‘The guests will never use all these,’ I said, throwing the ripe fruit into a bucket late one afternoon. ‘We can take as many as we want.’
‘But what will we do with them all?’ Amber asked, peering at the pile of unmarked fruit. ‘We can’t drink that many gin and tonics, however hard we try.’
‘We could make lemonade,’ I said, dusting the soil off one of the fruits and smelling the fresh scent of the peel. ‘It’s not difficult. And we could make sorbet and water ice as well. Just what we’ll need when the weather gets hotter.’
So we grated the tangy zest, squeezed juice and boiled sugar syrup to sweeten the lemons until we had jugs of cold lemonade in the fridge and iced boxes stored in the freezer. It became Amber’s principal task in the kitchen, as I was always experimenting with another new recipe, or preparing an unusual fish from the market which I hadn’t cooked before. We collected lemons whenever we could, so there was a cool drink waiting for us when we returned to the villa after a day of checking holiday homes for breakages and lost property and briefing new arrivals on car and boat hire.
‘I do hope we have our own lemon tree when we eventually find our house,’ Amber said one evening, moving the bottles of beer and wine in the fridge to make room for more freshly made lemonade.
‘Of course we will,’ I reassured her. ‘Have you ever seen a garden in Greece without at least one citrus tree? They’re everywhere. I went through the town the other day and the lemon and orange trees there were full of ripe fruit, free for the picking. I could have helped myself to bagfuls, right there on the street.’
‘But would you, though?’ Amber said, with a small frown. ‘I always feel we aren’t allowed to, as we aren’t locals.’
‘Don’t be silly. Anyone can pick up fruit on the street. They just fall and rot otherwise.’
‘James, it’s different when we collect lemons from the villas. They sort of belong to us then, don’t they? Out in the street, I wouldn’t feel entitled. I think they belong to people who were born here.’
‘Oh, they wouldn’t care,’ I said, kissing her cheek. ‘Anyway, you can get away with anything with your charm and cheeky smile. They all love you to bits.’
‘No, they don’t. Spiro’s old mother gave me a very funny look when I was getting bread in the shop yesterday.’ Amber pulled a face, biting her lip the way she always did when she was worried.
‘Maybe she thought your skirt was too short again. You know what these old women are like.’ The younger women were friendly, and many wore shorts and T-shirts to work in the local shops or go about their cleaning jobs, but I could picture how the older generation stared with their knowing black eyes in their wrinkled prune-like faces, as they sat, hands folded in laps, on their chairs stationed in the doorways of the family shops and tavernas, monitoring all who came and went. I was never sure what they were thinking, but when their eyes followed Amber in her denim shorts or tiny sundresses, I could tell it wasn’t good. The old men were all right. I knew what they were thinking as they watched me walk past, holding hands with my lovely wife, while they sat with their cronies, drinking ouzo in the shade. But the old women, the women in their black dresses and their black stockings, made me feel uneasy. I felt sure they were judging.
‘Maybe now I’m an old married woman I should dress like all the other old bags,’ Amber said. ‘Make them realise I’m perfectly respectable.’ She picked up a tea towel, folded it into a triangle, then spread it over her hair and tied it round the back of her head. ‘What do you think? Does it suit me?’
I burst out laughing. ‘Covering your hair isn’t going to make any difference when the rest of you is half naked.’
She looked down at herself. We had changed in a hurry when we came back from a long hot day of checking guests into their accommodation, and Amber had stripped off the sensible blouse and skirt she wore to work and was dressed only in bra and pants, starkly white against her dark skin. She laughed at my remark and turned round, still holding the
tea towel over her head, then wiggled in mock catwalk fashion through the doorway.
I threw a wet sponge at her back, then chased her upstairs.
Chapter Three
November 2005
James
We had talked about a change in lifestyle before, but I think it would be true to say it really began in November 2005. That’s when we realised we didn’t have to wait any longer to have a more satisfying way of life.
Burning Island: Absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction Page 1
