‘But Georgiou and Agata used a lawyer. I know they did.’
‘Huh, old Theodakis from the village? He’d agree to anything for a bottle of ouzo.’
There was more crying, and then I heard Marian speaking. ‘So what do you want us to do? You can’t reasonably expect us to clear out, not with Inge in her poor state of health. You can see for yourself how ill she is. And we have every right to consult another lawyer and receive a decent period of notice if you turn out to be correct in the end.’
‘Go on then, consult your lawyer. See if you can find one who understands Greek family law. You will find I am justified. This property belongs by right to the Barberis family. It was ours for years and should have stayed so.’ There was the sound of a thump and a crash, like a fist being pounded on the table, followed by more crying.
I peered through the crack between the door and the frame and saw Inge seated at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Marian was crouching down, sweeping up shards of pottery, then she stood up behind Inge and put her hands on her partner’s shoulders. With his back to me was the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Dimitri. I didn’t want him to see me, so I stepped back a little and carried on listening.
‘I give you just one month, ladies. One more month and then you must go. I doubt you will find a true Greek who will help two ladies of your persuasion.’
‘We’re not going to accept this,’ Marian said. ‘We’re fighting you every inch of the way.’
Dimitri laughed. ‘Fight all you like, ladies.’ He paused. ‘But be careful. I know how to get what I want. You have the other shop too, remember. Up there in the mountains,’ he shook his head, ‘so vulnerable up there. I hear the fires this summer have been a terrible problem for some people.’ He laughed again. ‘It would be a pity if all your hard work was wasted. Such an interesting property you have there. Maybe it would be better for you if you sold it to me now. I would make you a very good offer.’
‘Absolutely not,’ shouted Marian. ‘We’re not giving in to your blackmail. Now clear off and don’t come back.’
‘One month, ladies, no more.’ He turned away from them and, as he came to the threshold of the doorway, despite the dim light on the landing, he noticed me standing to one side. ‘Ah, and what have we here?’ he said with a smile. ‘Is this where you have been hiding? I wondered why you were not tending to your injured husband.’ He reached for my hand in his old manner, but I pulled away. ‘Oh, that is a pity,’ he said, still reaching out for me. ‘But, I see now, is that what has happened? You are no longer interested in real men? The ladies here, they must have converted you.’ He laughed and his shoulders shook.
‘You are disgusting,’ I said. ‘Is there nothing you won’t do or say?’ I tried to look as dignified as I could in my loose cotton dress, with wet hair and bare feet. ‘I heard everything that was said in there. I am a qualified lawyer and I am going to help my dear friends fight you for as long as it takes.’
‘You have such spirit. I like that.’ He put his forefinger under the point of my chin and tilted my face, murmuring, ‘Such a pretty little blackbird.’
I twisted my head away from his hand. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t you ever touch me.’
‘Ah, you really don’t like the feel of a man anymore, do you, my pretty one?’ He came a little closer and I stepped to the other side of the long flight of stone stairs leading down to the shop. And just at that moment, I heard Theo crying. I instinctively lifted my head towards the sound and Dimitri also looked upwards. A slow smile came across his face as he said, in a soft voice, ‘And you have a baby now. One more reason for you to be very careful, Kukla.’
I slapped his face, hard. As he put a hand to his cheek, he stepped forwards. But he wasn’t looking at the stairs, he was looking at me. He lost his balance at the top of the wide staircase and fell, tumbling downwards step after step, knocking pottery and urns aside until he lay in a heap at the bottom.
I stood with my hand over my mouth and turned to see Inge holding a broom, staring at the broken body below. ‘What have I done?’ I gasped, holding tight to the newel post at the top, as if I too would fall without its support.
Marian rushed down the steps and bent over his lifeless form. She touched his neck, then his wrist and then looked into his eyes. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she called. Then she ran to the front of the shop and I could hear her locking the door. As she returned to him, we could see blood pooling on the stone flags beneath his head.
‘He’s not dead, is he?’ I whispered in a shaky voice.
‘I hope so,’ Inge said. ‘He deserved it for all his threats and all the harm he has done.’
I turned to look at her. She wasn’t smiling, but there was an ethereal calmness about her.
Marian came back up to us. ‘I think he’s dead. I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be going anywhere soon or causing any more trouble.’
‘Leave him there till the morning,’ said Inge. ‘Then we’ll know for sure.’
‘But we can’t do that, can we? How would we ever explain it?’ I said, still looking down that long flight of stairs at the broken figure below.
Inge shrugged. ‘We are such silly, absent-minded women. Always so forgetful. Sometimes we don’t remember to lock the door at night. Someone must have come in to rob the shop and fallen on the stairs. We heard a noise after we had gone to bed, but thought it was the cats that have been getting in over the balcony. Such a nuisance, all these stray cats. Imagine our horror when we went down to unlock for the day and found we’d had an intruder in the night and the poor man had died without us ever knowing. Such a shock for all of us. Had we known, we would have called the police and an ambulance, of course.’
‘Of course we would. But he had only himself to blame,’ said Marian.
‘But it’s my fault. I made him fall.’ I could feel tears starting to well in my eyes and I was trembling.
‘No, you didn’t, liebchen,’ said Inge, standing to attention with her broom. ‘Don’t you remember, I pushed him? I’m sure I didn’t mean to, but I was sweeping and he tripped over the brush.’
Chapter Eighty-Three
25 June 1944
Agata has worked hard all day, cleaning and cooking, but now she has nearly completed the white dresses she has promised the girls, running her swift needle along the hems with tiny stitches. She rubs her eyes and yawns. The light is starting to fade, the children are fast asleep and she too will soon retire.
Ever since they arrived in the village, she has been scrubbing and washing, and now her bed and that of the children are laid with lavender-scented sheets, old and patched, but clean and cool nevertheless. Even up here, in the freshness of the mountains, the day has been relentlessly hot, as if they are nearer to the burning sun and further than ever from the cooling waters of the sea.
‘You should stop now,’ Georgiou says, patting the space on the bench beside him. ‘It would be wrong to strain your eyes. Come sit with me till the light has gone. We may see the fireflies again as it darkens.’
She sits by his side, leaning back against the wall of the house, warm from the heat of the day. She rests her head on his firm shoulder. The far hills grow hazy as the setting sun turns to soft pink. Geogiou is tired too. All day he has gathered wood, turned hay for winter fodder and tilled a patch for their vegetable garden. He is working harder than ever before, but they are both at peace, satisfied their labours have been worthwhile.
‘I’m very grateful to Zenia,’ Agata says after a moment of quiet. ‘She is so generous, but I worry about sharing everything with the children. She doesn’t know about their parentage, but is it right that they should always have the same food as us?’
‘I think you are worrying too much, my dear. All that matters is they grow strong and stay healthy.’
‘But from the little I know of their ways, I know that they are not meant to have milk, yogurt or cheese with meat. And I’ve already broken that rule
several times. So many of our traditional meals put everything in the kitchen into one pot! Moussaka, stifado, souvlaki – we use cheese or yogurt with everything. We even make dishes out of saganaki cheese alone! I had to stop myself adding cheese to the kleftiko the other day, just because my mother always cooked it that way. And what we’ll do when you’ve butchered that pig, I don’t know, really I don’t.’
‘Why, we’ll all enjoy eating it, of course. Why wouldn’t we? And why shouldn’t we share it with the girls? If that is the only meat we have come the winter, we shall all be glad of it.’
‘But will they be damned if they eat pork and ham and sausages? And will we be damned for letting it happen?’
Georgiou puts his arm around his wife and holds her tight. ‘My love, I feel sure that their parents, their community and, above all, their God, will forgive them and us if they survive these difficult times. They will not be condemned just for staying alive, as their family have been condemned.’
‘You mean, you think their parents and sister will not survive?’
‘I fear so. In fact, I think there is very little chance they will return. The rumours did not give me much hope.’ He is silent for a moment and they both sit still, watching as the light fades and the bats emerge from nearby roofs to flutter their night-time dance. ‘Whole communities,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Whole villages taken away because of their heritage and beliefs. And who knows what they are suffering now?’
‘How has it come to this? We have always been able to live together in spite of our different faiths.’ Agata sniffs and wipes her eyes with her apron.
Georgiou squeezes her hand. ‘My dear, if you feel you must avoid damnation, then go to the church to pray for forgiveness for yourself and the children, but add their family to your prayers, I beg you. I feel they are in need of them.’
Agata knows that the village church is still standing. She has knelt there briefly several times since they arrived. Its door is shut against vermin and birds, but not to the few people still living here. ‘I will go tomorrow morning and every morning after that,’ she says. ‘I will pray for us and for them.’
Chapter Eighty-Four
September 2008
Amber
I slept no worse than any other new mother does every night, after it had happened. Marian made us cup after cup of tea, we ate the last of Inge’s apple cake and we talked for at least an hour, until I felt calmer and more certain. Then Marian crept down the stairs to check again on our intruder and reported that he was quite cold and still, so we could safely go to our beds. I fed and changed Theo, fell asleep for a couple of hours, fed him again, slept some more and then woke with the sunlight. I could hear voices down below and when I went to the top of the stairs, I could again hear a male voice rumbling, interspersed with the voices of the two women. But this time it was not arrogant, it wasn’t hectoring, it sounded calm and sympathetic.
I carried my baby down the stairs in my arms, holding him tight to my breast, and found Marian and Inge seated in the kitchen talking to a tall uniformed policeman. He stood up as I entered and bowed his head, saying, ‘Kalimera, madam. If I may please have a moment with you as well.’
I must have looked bewildered, because Marian came and put her arms around me. ‘You’d better sit down, Amber. I’m afraid something simply awful happened last night.’
‘Something awful? Why, what’s happened?’
She sat next to me and, still with her arm around my shoulders and looking me directly in the eye, she gently said, ‘It appears we had an unwanted visitor last night while we were all asleep.’
I gasped and looked across the table at Inge, who was calm but looked even paler than usual. ‘Are you both all right?’ I asked, aware that I was breathing fast.
‘Don’t worry, there’s no need to look so alarmed. We’re both fine.’ She squeezed my shoulder, then added, ‘But the intruder isn’t. I’m afraid he’s dead.’
I concentrated on looking at Inge and not at the policeman. ‘Oh no, how?’
‘The thief must have slipped on our stone steps,’ Inge said. Her expression was hard to interpret, she always looked weary. ‘Poor Marian found him very early this morning when she went downstairs. Such a terrible shock for her, poor girl.’
Marian shook her head in self-recrimination. ‘I thought I heard a crash in the night. But I assumed it was those damned stray cats again. I should’ve got up to check.’
‘I’m very glad you didn’t,’ Inge said. ‘Just think, he might have turned on you and you could have been attacked and hurt.’
‘If he hadn’t already fallen down the stairs,’ Marian added.
‘Madam,’ the policeman said, focusing on me, ‘did you hear or see anything suspicious last night?’
I stared at him, blinking, then shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m so tired with the baby. He wakes in the night, you see. And as soon as I’ve fed him, I fall asleep again.’
‘Of course,’ he said. Then he turned back to Marian. ‘Have you noticed anything missing?’
‘Our takings are locked away every night, but I haven’t had a chance to check the stock properly yet or look around the house.’ She stood up, as if intending to go down to the shop immediately, but the policeman waved at her to sit down again. ‘All in good time, madam. Please do not distress yourself now. Stay here with your friends and I will check how far my colleagues have proceeded downstairs.’ He left the kitchen and we heard his boots scuffing the stone steps as he made his way down, along with the occasional crunch or tinkle of a shard of broken pottery.
We stayed sitting at the table, not daring to talk about the true events of the previous night in case he returned. Marian made coffee, we ate stale croissants from the previous day and Theo snuffled, and then began to squeal, so I fed him again.
At last we heard those heavy feet on the stairs once more and the courteous policeman was back. He stood to attention before us, then said, ‘He’s gone, madams. We have dealt with the matter. There will be no more questions.’
Marian stood to thank him and shook his hand, then, in the doorway, as he turned to go, in a quiet voice he said to her, ‘You may wish to deal with the mess down there without the mother.’ She nodded, then came back to us once he had gone.
‘Mess?’ I asked.
‘I can clear it up myself,’ Marian said. ‘It’s not that terrible.’
‘No, I want to help. I won’t faint, I promise.’ So I settled Theo in his basket, with Inge watching over him, while Marian and I carried pails of water and brushes down the flight of stone steps. We swept away the broken pots, then doused the pool of blood and brushed the stained water towards the side door and a nearby drain. Several buckets later, with the addition of bleach, the flagstones were relatively clean, glistening with damp, not death.
‘That’s enough, for now,’ Marian said. ‘If it’s still stained when it dries, we can throw a mat over it. No one will ever know.’ She stood with her broom upright, in a pose echoing the one Inge had adopted the night before. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked.
I was staring at the stones, remembering the broken figure that had sprawled there. ‘The other night, we joked about wanting him out of the way. We talked about how we could bump him off. But we never really meant it, did we? I never really thought we would get rid of him.’ I looked at her standing there, her hair and face damp with the effort of washing away all that blood. ‘But I keep thinking I did this to him. And though I’m glad he won’t cause trouble any more, I can’t be glad he’s dead.’
Marian propped her broom against the wall, reached out her arms and hugged me, holding me tight. I was shaking. ‘Shush. You mustn’t upset yourself. It wasn’t your fault. He tripped, didn’t he? And he had no regard for you or Theo. Always remember that.’
Chapter Eighty-Five
November 2008
James
On that stuffy train down to Cornwall, I thought long and hard about all that had happen
ed. There was plenty of time to think on that tedious journey. The train was packed. I had to fight for a seat and the buffet car was closed. Five hours is a long time without sustenance for a man like me, so I was in a foul mood by the time I got to the pub where I’m now working.
But I kept thinking, how important is it to tell the truth? I was prepared to tell Amber every last detail of every conversation, to admit I’d been wrong and hang my head in shame, if it would have put everything right, but I never did. She’s changed so much since that disastrous night and not only is she is preoccupied with Theo, but she’s also obsessed with the need to talk about what she calls ‘Corfu’s Holocaust’. She goes to the Old Fort with Inge at least once a week, saying they have to tell tourists what happened and that she will go with Marian when Inge is no longer here. I’ve tried telling her the past doesn’t matter, but she keeps going on about how the truth must be told, no matter how far back it goes.
We said goodbye at the airport. What it signified I’m not sure. Goodbyes can mean ‘see you tomorrow’, ‘let’s meet again soon’ or ‘farewell and good riddance’. I hate to think she meant the latter, but I fear so. She wanted to stay with Inge and Marian, helping them in the shop and in their mission in the town.
Theo was in her arms, chubby-cheeked, four months old. He looks more like Amber than me, with his dark hair and golden skin, and she looked so beautiful, my lovely Amber, my wife, mother of my first child, perhaps my only child. And how do I look to her? I know she still sees me as a villain, the destroyer of her dreams, and she is the saviour of the only good thing that has come out of this wretched mess – Theo.
We came to the island with such hopes and in the end our home and our business were destroyed, along with our marriage and any chance of living together as a family. I will never see my son’s first tooth, witness his first steps or hear him utter his first word. Isn’t that punishment enough? If I stay away from them, will I finally be absolved and forgiven?
Burning Island: Absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction Page 29
