The Thread

by Victoria Hislop

  ‘We’re almost there,’ the American said encouragingly to the girls. ‘Look, here’s the house and . . . here’s the key!’

  She produced it from her pocket like a magician and they all stood looking at the front door, its dark paint chipped and in need of repair.

  It took her a few moments of fiddling with the lock before, with a big ‘clunk’, the mechanism within it turned.

  One by one they followed the American over the threshold, Eugenia first, followed by Maria, Sofia and then Katerina. A match was struck to light the oil lamp that stood in the corner. Strange shadows danced about in the ochre glow.

  ‘Let’s get some daylight in here,’ said Eugenia brightly. ‘We need to see where we are!’

  She marched over to the other side of the room and pushed open the heavy wooden shutters. A shaft of strong sunlight slanted in, illuminating a table that was the central piece of furniture. The room seemed to breathe.

  Katerina stood very still. She had not been inside a house for more than six months and the solidity of the walls around her felt unfamiliar. She had got used to the flimsy living space of the camp in Mytilini. It had felt right to be somewhere so temporary when she woke every day in the hope of a surprise reunion with mother and sister. It was different here: wooden furniture, a stone floor and, on the table, a vase of flowers. They had been fresh many days ago but dry petals now lay in a circle round the base of the vase. The daisy skeletons were almost sculptural and cast a crisp shadow on the table.

  ‘Well, girls,’ said Eugenia, with unnatural cheeriness, ‘here we are. Home. This is home.’

  Not one of them spoke. It was beyond comprehension that a house could suddenly become a home just by being given the name, just by having a vase of dead flowers.

  ‘And look!’ she went on. ‘Here’s a letter for us!’

  On a shelf was an envelope and next to it a small book. Eugenia opened the letter with care.

  Inside was a single sheet folded in half. In the half-light, Eugenia blinked at the script that covered it.

  ‘Do you read Turkish?’ she asked the American.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t,’ she replied. ‘Not a word.’

  After a lifetime of hearing Turkish each and every day, Eugenia understood a great deal, but could not read a word of it. The script was unintelligible to her.

  ‘Well, girls,’ she said, returning the letter to its envelope and tucking it inside the book, ‘we’ll keep these safe and one day perhaps we will find someone who can read them to us.’

  Katerina was rooted to the spot. A stranger’s house, a stranger’s letter. A strange city. And – for the first time in many months, the awareness of it overpowered her – a strange family. Perhaps if she closed her eyes, everything would change back to how it had been.

  ‘Well, I shall be leaving you now,’ said the American, breaking the awkward silence. ‘Come back to the customs office later on and we should be able to help you with a small loan, but meanwhile I can get you some more clothes for the girls. We have had so many donations from America, it’s just been a matter of sorting them.’

  She was a woman with a mission and keen to get on with her next task. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees in exactly the same situation as Eugenia, and she was not to be held up with any further questions.

  ‘Thank you for all you have done,’ Eugenia said. ‘We really are grateful to you for this house. What do you say, girls?’

  ‘Thank you,’ they chorused.

  The American smiled and was gone.

  Maria and Sofia were full of excitement, running up and down the stairs, chasing one another, grabbing each other’s skirts, shrieking and laughing. Once they had got used to the idea of this place being their own, they dashed about, opening cupboards, lifting lids of boxes and shouting information down to their mother.

  ‘They’ve left a mattress!’

  ‘There’s a big trunk up here!’

  ‘It’s got a blanket inside . . .’

  ‘. . . and there’s a rug on the floor!’

  Meanwhile, as Katerina sat quietly in the corner on the floor, Eugenia was investigating every drawer and cupboard downstairs to see what the previous owners had left. She had acquired a few things on the way: metal drinking vessels and plates, and three blankets. Except for one, all her possessions, both workaday and sentimental, had been left behind in the terrifying haste of their departure. With a small prayer, she placed on a shelf her icon of Agios Andreas, which had once belonged to her grandparents. It was said in her old village that the saint had preached close by on the shores of the Black Sea and Eugenia had grown up under his constant gaze.

  Every cupboard contained some kind of eloquent remnant of the former owners. As well as pots and pans and plates and cutlery, there were bags of ground spices, a jar of oil, honey and herbs. There was a trunk that still held blankets and even an inlaid box containing some papers.

  The different scents of these residual possessions – the sharpness of the turmeric, the mustiness of the rug – seemed to spirit the previous occupants back into the house and filled Eugenia with unease. Who was to say that they would not return? Would there be a sudden knock at the door? Perhaps they even still had a key and were going to walk in any minute. She was full of trepidation.

  She told herself to be calm. There was no evidence of a scramble to leave, and the house felt ordered and warm from the owners’ presence. It was as though they had eaten a meal and quietly left, taking what they needed, but leaving carefully selected items for their successors. There were still crumbs on the table but these were soon wiped away along with the shrivelled petals.

  It was a long time since Eugenia had needed to keep a tidy house and the nikokyra, the housewife, readily reawoke in her. She found an old broom leaning against the wall and went to work with a vengeance. A desire to erase every trace of the previous occupants overcame her. One day, perhaps, she would even be able to replace the things in this house with her own: chairs, cupboards, cups and cushions. Though she had almost forgotten how, she hummed as she worked.

  Upstairs the twins had found a treasure-trove. Some abandoned clothes along with a fez, whose felt had been eaten away by moths, suggested a new activity and, with joyful hysteria, they appeared at the foot of the stairs draped in their voluminous robes. They began to march up and down like sultans with great solemnity in front of their mother, and all three of them had difficulty suppressing their giggles. Maria was wearing the characteristic Turkish hat and Sofia had wrapped her head in a silk turban.

  Katerina remained quietly sitting in the shadows. She did not have happy memories of people wearing such a style of dress.

  Beside her there was a drawing in the dust. With her finger she had outlined a boat, with a thumbprint for each of the occupants: a captain and two passengers. Her mother and little sister were never far from her mind.

  Chapter Ten

  ON THEIR FIRST night in Irini Street, they curled up together on the same mattress. So accustomed were they to the comfort and proximity of each other’s warmth and breathing, they would not have it any other way.

  The following morning, Katerina woke before it was light. She could see a silhouette moving about in the semi-darkness and sat up.

  ‘Kyria Eugenia!’ she whispered. ‘Is that you?’

  The shadow came back towards the bed.

  ‘I am going out to find us some bread.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’ Katerina asked quietly. ‘I can’t go back to sleep now.’

  ‘Yes, but you will have to be as quiet as a mouse. I don’t want the twins to wake up.’

  Katerina slid out of bed, put on her shoes and followed Eugenia out of the room.

  It was almost impossible to get lost in Thessaloniki and Eugenia followed her nose back to the port. The sea was at the foot of the hill, the old town was at the top and everything else was in between.

  By the time she got to her destination, the customs house, there was already a queue b
ut she was determined to remain there until she could speak to an official. She had four mouths to feed and needed to know if anyone could help her.

  Everyone involved with the refugee effort was doing so out of the goodness of their hearts, and the manner of the man in charge was kind and concerned. He explained that she should come each day with her family to receive hand-outs and to see about employment. There were plenty of opportunities in factories and in tobacco grading, he explained.

  Eugenia wanted to tell him that neither of those things would suit her. The prospect of sorting tobacco leaves made her heart sink. She did not know whether she had any rights to refuse such work but did not want to seem ungrateful for what was being offered. The most important thing for now was that milk and vegetables were being handed out just along the street, so they went to get some before hastening back to Irini Street.

  On her way back, they passed a row of little shops. One of them sold fabric, another every kind of upholstery trimming, and the window of the third was stacked from top to bottom with thread. Seeing the skeins of wool in every colour made her think, for the first time in many months, of the loom that she had left behind and she felt a surge of hope. She had been an expert weaver in a place that now seemed almost unbearably far away, but perhaps she could pick up that piece of her life once again? She stopped for a moment to feast her eyes, to dream, to fantasise about which colours she would buy. As well as the threads, she saw another image in the glass: a woman, twice her age, thin and ragged, with wispy, unkempt hair. She looked at her with sadness and disbelief.

  ‘Kyria Eugenia! Kyria Eugenia! Come and see!’

  Katerina tugged at her hand excitedly and Eugenia was willingly led from the reflection of the woman she had become.

  ‘Look at all those buttons! And all those ribbons! Can we go inside?’

  Eugenia knew that Katerina’s mother had been a seamstress and that the child already had her own passion for sewing and embroidery. The child’s excitement was almost as great as her own in seeing these displays of colour and luxury.

  ‘Not now, Katerina. But we’ll come back another day.’

  In the past hour or so the rest of the city had woken up. Several other people milled about in Irini Street, some sweeping their front doorsteps, others on their way to market or to their work. Eugenia knew she was the stranger and received, without embarrassment, the unabashed stares of the residents. The sight of her reflection in the haberdasher’s window had shown her how thin and ill she looked after all those months in Mytilini, and she was ashamed of her ragged clothes.

  At that moment, she wondered if it would have been a better option to go to the rural area outside Thessaloniki, where at least she would have been with other refugees, perhaps even with someone from her village. It might have been a great comfort to have the company of people who had shared the experiences of fear and flight. Instead of that she felt marginalised.

  Was the prickling sensation on her back caused by resentful eyes, or was it entirely in her imagination? She tried to catch the eye of one or two people as she passed, but received back nothing but blank looks. Even the presence of little Katerina by her side failed to arouse a friendly smile.

  A voice close behind her interrupted these thoughts.

  ‘Kalimera! Good morning!’

  Eugenia started.

  The owner of the voice caught up with her. She was holding the hand of a small boy, who kicked at the ground with his heel as they spoke.

  ‘Good morning,’ the woman repeated. ‘I think you are our new neighbours?’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Eugenia politely, for the first time self-conscious that her accent made her sound very different from the residents of Thessaloniki. ‘We’re living up there on the left.’

  Eugenia pointed at a house just up the street from where they stood and even now was slightly ashamed of its state of repair.

  ‘I’m Pavlina and we’re living next door to you, so if there is anything we can help you with . . .?’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Eugenia, smiling. ‘I’m sure there will be lots of things I need to know. We are trying to settle in, but it’s all very new to us.’

  ‘And what’s your little girl’s name?’ she asked, stooping down to Katerina.

  ‘I’m Katerina,’ Katerina answered. ‘But this isn’t my—’

  ‘I am sure you and Dimitri will be the best of friends,’ said Pavlina, interrupting.

  The children looked at each other with mutual suspicion. Dimitri continued to dig at the dust with his heel and Katerina retreated into the folds of Eugenia’s skirt. It seemed unlikely to both of them.

  It would take more than a few days for Eugenia and the girls to settle into their new environment. They had cleaned the house and rearranged all the objects they had inherited from their Turkish predecessors, but the smell of their dust and spices had infused the floorboards themselves. It would be many months before she forgot that the table, chairs, pots and pans had once belonged to someone else and Eugenia wondered how long it would be before she did not feel the presence of another woman in her kitchen.

  The curious looks from neighbours soon turned to smiles. The next day on her way back from collecting the daily hand-outs at the dockyard, Pavlina spoke to Eugenia again.

  Feeling bolder, Eugenia asked who the house used to belong to.

  ‘Didn’t they tell you that?’ asked Pavlina. ‘Seems odd to me that you don’t even know whose house you are living in.’

  ‘But the house isn’t theirs any more, is it?’

  ‘Well, they say they can’t come back. But who knows these days? Politicians say one thing one minute and then they change their minds. Mind you, it would be a long way for them to come . . .’

  She seemed happy to supply her with information, so Eugenia pushed her a little further.

  ‘What was their name?’

  ‘Ekrem. She was a lovely woman. He was all right, but he used to get drunk down at the kafenion sometimes, and you could hear him giving her a thrashing. And you know that Muslim men aren’t meant to drink! But she had a good soul. And there were three girls, all beautiful, with eyes as dark as coal. And do you know what, I think if they had been older, they would have run away rather than leave this city, so happy they were. It was a cruel business. I think they hoped nobody would notice they were still here. They went off to somewhere in central Turkey. She was dreading it; wept buckets the day they were leaving. She couldn’t stand the idea of going off to some town in the middle of nowhere to live with his family. Wouldn’t surprise me if she threw herself in the sea on the way. “You’ll drown in your own tears,” I said to her. “I’ll drown myself one way or another,” she said to me. Well, she started packing everything they had and then he said there was no point. They would have things in their new house. And she said she wanted to have her familiar things. And he said no. And on it went. With their windows open you could hear everything. You didn’t need to speak their language to know what was going on.’

  Pavlina would have been happy to keep talking but Eugenia had heard enough. The more vivid the image of her Turkish pre decessors became, the less she felt this was her home.

  A week after they arrived in the city, Eugenia got lost on her return home from the port and the family found themselves outside a small church. Like ducklings, the girls followed Eugenia through a gate and across the little yard. She pushed open the door and gradually their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Inside, an oil lamp flickered, dimly illuminating the face of the saint, whose dark, ovoid eyes gazed down at them. After a few moments, they realised that the ancient walls and ceiling were covered with beautiful frescos in deep earthy colours; dozens of saintly faces with pale halos seemed to hover over them.

  They took it in turn to light a slim, tapered candle and plant it in a trough of sand. Eugenia guessed that Maria and Sofia prayed for their father. She also made a request to the Panagia concerning the family in whose house they now lived. She hoped for their wellb
eing, but also that they would never return.

  It was easy to guess what Katerina prayed for. Her lips endlessly repeated the words ‘Mitera Mou’, confirming what Eugenia already knew: that Katerina’s thoughts rarely strayed from her mother.

  Their candles had given the church enough light for Eugenia to appreciate its size and beauty. A saint was portrayed performing various miraculous feats, and in this intimate space she felt as though a thousand pairs of ears might be listening to their prayers. Though she had brought with her an icon from her village church in the hope that a new one would be built in the name of their local saint, she now questioned if she would ever need such a church, when this perfect house of God was so close by.

  The four of them stood in a circle watching the candle flames dance. The warmth and atmosphere were so embracing that they had no incentive to leave. Perhaps they had been there for ten or even twenty minutes, when they heard the creak of rusty hinges and the church was suddenly filled with daylight.

  The huge man in black robes and a tall hat who entered seemed to fill the church. He boomed out a greeting, his voice too huge for the space, and they all jumped, as if caught misbehaving. It was the priest.

  ‘Welcome,’ he boomed, ‘to Agios Nikolaos Orfanos.’

  Eugenia crossed herself several times. She had not noticed the name of the church as they came in but knew that Nikolaos Orfanos was the patron saint of widows and orphans. All those months of uncertainty, and now she suddenly felt sure. Her husband, the father of her twins, must be dead, otherwise why would God have drawn them to this place? It must be a sign.

  In these past few years, so many women had been widowed and so many of their offspring orphaned. Greece was full of solitary wives and fatherless children, and she knew that the death of her husband was almost a certainty.

  ‘Good morning, Pater,’ muttered Eugenia, hastening past him and out of the church. The girls followed unquestioningly, sensitive to their mother’s change of mood.