The Thread

by Victoria Hislop

  When lovers and romantics went to watch the sunset at Sounion, the most inspiring and dramatic temple of their homeland, they found themselves looking across at a stretch of water towards a grey and rocky island, where nothing appeared to live or stir. This was the island of Makronisos.

  The landscape itself was almost enough to break the spirit of anyone sent there, many of them teachers, lawyers and journalists, who were unused to such conditions. Although the government claimed it was a correction camp for the misguided, it was a place synonymous with violence and torture. As well as hard labour, when the prisoners were made to undertake pointless and gruelling tasks such as building roads that would never be used, there was also systematised physical and psychological torture, from beating with iron bars and sleep deprivation to solitary confinement.

  The goal for the government in all cases was the extraction of a dilosei, a renunciation of belief, and to get what they wanted, they would use any technique of brainwashing or torture. It was no secret that the island was one huge rehabilitation centre with up to ten thousand former soldiers detained there.

  Sometimes people did not even last long enough to ‘repent’. With thousands of them living in makeshift tents, hungry to the point of insanity and with insufficient water, disease and illness often wiped them out first.

  The guarded tone of Dimitri’s letter was enough to indicate that it had been censored, but it told Katerina enough.

  ‘I must go and see Olga,’ she said. It was time to take Theodoris for his first outing into the outside world, and who more appropriate to visit than his grandmother. ‘Will you come with me, Eugenia? I might need someone else there when I break the news.’

  ‘Of course, my dear. Shall we go this afternoon?’

  At three o’clock they called at Niki Street.

  Pavlina was thrilled to have them there and cooed and fussed over the baby as though it was the first time she had seen him. The bulky perambulator was left in the hall and Theodoris was carried up the stairs with great ceremony to meet his grandmother.

  Olga clasped her hands together with sheer joy and held the sleeping baby in her arms for an hour, gazing at him and exclaiming at the family likeness.

  ‘Pavlina, fetch some pictures of Dimitri when he was a baby!’

  Although they were studio pictures taken when he was at least one and sitting upright, there was a clear likeness between Dimitri and the infant who slept in her arms.

  ‘He is so beautiful,’ Olga said, smiling at Katerina. ‘I wish we knew where Dimitri was. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to tell him?’

  Katerina exchanged glances with Eugenia, who was sitting opposite them slightly stiffly on an upright chair. She could procrastinate no longer.

  ‘I’ve had a letter,’ said Katerina, taking the envelope out of her pocket. ‘I’m afraid he’s been arrested.’

  ‘Arrested!’ exclaimed Olga. ‘And where have they sent him?’

  Katerina handed her the letter to read.

  ‘You know what they do there, don’t you?’ she said faintly. ‘They try to break them and make them renounce their beliefs.’

  ‘I know,’ said Katerina. ‘But at least we know he is alive.’

  ‘They’ll never succeed in making Dimitri sign a dilosei,’ she said firmly. ‘Even if he is there for the rest of his life, he’ll refuse. He’s the most stubborn person in the world. And he would see it as a victory for his father.’

  ‘He must do what he thinks is right,’ said Katerina.

  Pavlina had come into the room to bring them some mint tea and had listened in horror to the conversation.

  ‘There’s one thing that could change his mind, though,’ she suggested.

  The three other women looked up at her and Pavlina looked down at the baby.

  ‘No!’ said Katerina. ‘I don’t want him to know about Theodoris.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Olga. ‘Imagine the dilemma he would face. It would tear him in two.’

  ‘And these men who come home having renounced what they believe – they’re empty. The husband of a woman I used to know at the factory signed one and was released,’ Eugenia said. ‘But his wife says he’s not the same man. And he can’t get a job or anything, and sits around at home, angry at what he was made to do.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of Dimitri like that,’ commented Katerina.

  ‘Who would Dimitri be if he was stripped of his beliefs? I’m not sure he would be able to live with himself,’ mused Pavlina.

  ‘You must write and tell him that Gourgouris has died,’ said Olga. ‘At least that will give him something to hope for.’

  ‘Yes, I will do that straight away,’ Katerina said.

  Months later Dimitri received Katerina’s letter and he wrote back freely declaring his love for her. The censors allowed such letters, believing that relationships outside the prison might hasten the writing of a dilosei.

  He also described how he was working on the building of a miniature version of the Parthenon on Makronisos. ‘It represents the spirit of joy and adoration for the patrida which we all feel so strongly here,’ he wrote.

  Katerina always shared his letters with Eugenia, and they both winced at his sarcasm. They had read that the inhabitants of Makronisos were obliged to work on such reproductions of classical monuments as part of their rehabilitation. They knew that such activity would only make Dimitri despise the authorities even more.

  The exchange of letters was slow, but since neither of them could tell the truth they had little to say. A few months later, Dimitri’s letters ceased to come from Makronisos.

  We have been transferred to Giaros, a smaller island a few kilometres from Makronisos. There is little else to say. The conditions are the same as on the previous island. Prisoners and guards are the only inhabitants.

  When Theodoris was nearly two, Katerina resumed her career as a modistra, visiting her customers for dress fittings in the afternoon while Eugenia cared for Theodoris. One small advertisement had been enough to bring her old customers flooding back to her and, once again, her reputation as the best seamstress in Thessaloniki soared.

  ‘Why don’t you use my old house as your workroom?’ suggested Olga, whose home in Irini Street had been empty for some years. ‘There isn’t the space even for cutting fabric in yours.’

  Olga was right. With Theodoris to take care of, and Eugenia’s loom, the little house was very overcrowded. There was hardly enough room for Katerina’s Singer sewing machine on the kitchen table.

  On a warm, late summer’s day in 1952, Pavlina arrived in Irini Street with the key to number 3. Together they cleaned and dusted the little house, and moved furniture around to prepare Katerina’s workspace.

  ‘How is Kyria Komninos?’ Katerina asked as they worked.

  ‘She’s well, thank you,’ responded Pavlina. ‘But Kyrios Komninos is under the weather.’

  Katerina could not feign concern. It seemed hypocritical.

  ‘Kyria Komninos says it’s ridiculous for someone of his age to be working like he is. I heard her telling him last week. He’s eighty, you know, but he looks a hundred! “Well, it’s not my fault there’s nobody to take over, is there?” says Kyrios Komninos. And I wanted to say, “Yes, it is actually! It’s your fault that Dimitri isn’t here now.” But anyway. I didn’t. I kept quiet. But that man, he’s overworking, running himself ragged. He looks awful too. Pale as pale, thin as a pin. You wouldn’t even recognise him.’

  Katerina said nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  TWO WEEKS LATER Konstantinos Komninos had a stroke at his desk and died instantly.

  There was a huge funeral, for which instructions had been left in his will. Fifty stefania, huge wreaths of white carnations, stood propped against the outside of the church of Agios Dimitri with messages of condolence from the Mayor, the senior members of the City Council, Thessaloniki’s chief business leaders and many other city grandees. After a service executed with much pomp and ceremony he
was buried in the municipal cemetery between his father and brother.

  ‘I thought Kyria Komninos would only ever leave the house to go to her own funeral, but you know what? There she was at her husband’s. With everything that’s gone on, I always thought she would die first,’ Pavlina rattled on, ‘but something gave her the will to keep going, didn’t it? And you know what I think it was?’

  Katerina nodded. She understood the strength of Olga’s love for her son and now for her little grandson too.

  On Giaros, Dimitri received a letter from his mother telling him that his father had died. For a while he simply sat and stared at it. Leaving this godforsaken island might be one kind of release, but at this moment he experienced an even greater one. His hatred of his father had been a great burden, but that was now lifted from him.

  His decision to sign a dilosei was not taken lightly. He would always believe that the Democratic Army had fought for the right cause, but his urge to be reunited with the people he loved overcame any other issue now.

  Although thousands had already signed, the guards were surprised when Dimitri volunteered to do so. His was an unexpected recantation and not done under duress.

  He watched his hand pick up a pen to sign the declaration as though it belonged to someone else and his feeling of detachment grew as the nib moved across the page.

  ‘I was misguided by the Communists and deceived. I renounce the organisation as the enemy of the fatherland, by whose side I stand.’

  The one thing he feared was that his declaration would be published in the Thessaloniki newspapers. It was usual for the details of a dilosei to be published in the signatory’s local press. Given that everyone imagined he was dead, he was anxious about the effect that this would have on his mother and the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. As the ink was drying, he looked up and caught the officer’s eye. Dimitri remembered that the officer had been ill during an outbreak of typhus on Makronisos, when he had volunteered his medical skills to look after the sick.

  Although the officer had been delirious for many days, he still recalled Dimitri’s face as he re-emerged from unconsciousness.

  ‘So, you’ll be off soon,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s about time you were using your medical training properly.’

  ‘I won’t be able to do anything if you publish my details, will I?’

  ‘No, that’s true. It does tend to ruin a career, doesn’t it? Being a Communist.’

  ‘Or even an ex-Communist,’ suggested Dimitri.

  He could see the officer softening.

  ‘Where do you come from then?’

  These details would provide the information which would allow the government to publicise the declaration locally.

  ‘From Kalamata. Eighty-two Adrianou.’ It was the first address that came into his head.

  ‘That’s not what it says here,’ said the officer.

  ‘My family moved,’ replied Dimitri firmly.

  The officer glanced up at him and winked. He crossed out the existing address, scrawled the ‘new’ one on his file and then signed a form, which he passed across to Dimitri.

  As soon as he was back on the mainland, he sent letters to his mother and Katerina. He wanted them to have some warning of his return.

  A few days later he was back in his own city. Since his last visit, there was a new sense of prosperity. The pastry shops were piled high with the triangular shaped pastries, trigona, and the pavement cafés were full of people sipping mint tea and coffee. The scent of baking bread from the fournos and flowers from the market had replaced the smell of fear.

  He went straight to Niki Street and loudly rang the bell. There was no need for anxiety on this visit. Olga was overwhelmed with joy to see him. They talked for an hour and sat close on the sofa.

  ‘Isn’t it a problem,’ he said, ‘that my father told people I was dead?’

  ‘Well, there was no death certificate. And if we need to, we can always prove that the letter I received was a fake.’

  ‘I don’t want people treating me like a ghost for the rest of my days!’

  ‘We’ll say it was a joyous mistake,’ she said. ‘I think Katerina might be waiting for you, now. You should go.’

  Still weak from the poor nutrition on Giaros, he could not run to Irini Street as he wanted. All he could manage was a fast walk.

  It was now spring, the month for almond blossom, and he plucked a sprig of blooms just before he arrived. The door was open when he got there and he could hear the sound of voices.

  Stepping inside he was confronted with an unexpected sight: Katerina was sitting at the table next to a small, dark-haired boy whom she was intent on feeding.

  As soon as she saw Dimitri, she dropped the fork and got up. The little boy turned round to see where she had gone.

  ‘Hello, Katerina,’ said Dimitri, handing her the flowers.

  ‘Dimitri . . .’

  They spoke as if Dimitri was returning after just a few days away and as they embraced, the little boy got down from the table and began pulling at Katerina’s skirt.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you had a little one . . .’ Dimitri said.

  ‘This is Theodoris,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Say hello, agapi mou.’

  Dimitri was adjusting to the vision of Katerina as a mother. It was so strange of her not to have mentioned anything in a letter.

  ‘He must have been so young when your husband died.’

  ‘He hadn’t even been born then.’

  Katerina paused a moment and lifted the child up. Dimitri and he looked into each other’s eyes and then the little one buried his face into his mother’s shoulder, overcome with shyness.

  ‘Theodoris is yours, Dimitri.’

  ‘Mine?’ said Dimitri with stupefaction.

  ‘Yes,’ said Katerina. ‘This is your son.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘There is no doubt,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t be anyone else’s.’

  Dimitri’s bemusement turned to joy as he took in the news.

  Back at the kitchen table, with Theodoris on Katerina’s lap, Dimitri took her hand and they began to talk.

  ‘But you said nothing in your letters. Nothing at all!’

  ‘I was worried. I thought it might make you come back, before you were ready. So it seemed better not to,’ said Katerina.

  ‘Katerina mou. Thank you. I had to wait until my father died but if I had known about Theodoris it would have been much more difficult. You did the right thing.’ He was almost overwhelmed by the intensity of the love he felt for this woman, a feeling that was made all the deeper when he reflected on her self-restraint.

  Dimitri held Katerina’s hands but could not take his eyes off his son, who sat playing happily on the floor next to them. There was no denying that the likeness was a strong one.

  ‘And I couldn’t give him your father’s name. Theodoris seemed right,’ she said smiling at Dimitri, who was smiling at his little boy.

  ‘Gift from God,’ Dimitri replied. ‘It’s a perfect name.’

  For the next hour, they sat and talked of their future.

  The stigma of having fought with the Communists would hang over Dimitri for a long while, and he was reluctant to brand Katerina and their son.

  ‘Nothing you say will stop me wanting to marry you,’ Katerina assured him.

  ‘I won’t get a probity certificate. You realise that, don’t you?’ he asked.

  The Certificate of National Probity was necessary for state employment, and without it Dimitri would not be able to continue his medical training or work in a hospital. The right-wing government was not making it easy for anyone who had fought with the Communists to reintegrate back into society.

  ‘We will manage,’ said Katerina. ‘And I know your mother will help us.’

  ‘I can’t accept any of my father’s wealth,’ said Dimitri. ‘Not even one drachma.’

  ‘Well, I will earn enough to keep us then
,’ said Katerina. ‘And with the amount of work I have, we will be comfortable.’

  Two months later, when Dimitri’s identity papers were once again in order (the only occasion when he had to accept any money from his mother, so exorbitant was the amount required), the marriage took place.

  For the second time, Eugenia and Pavlina were guests at Katerina’s wedding but this time Olga came too. The koumbaros – best man – was Lefteris, Dimitri’s friend since university. Invitations had been sent to Sofia and Maria but they had both given birth recently and were unable to get there, and Katerina also wrote a letter to Zenia in Athens asking if she would come, but it had never been answered.

  Katerina had made herself an exquisite dress of crêpe de Chine and a veil edged with pearls, and a small white suit for Theodoris with a sailor collar. Dimitri could still get into the suit that had been made for him when he was eighteen, though Katerina had to tailor it to improve its fit. This small family unit made its way on foot to Agios Nikolaos Orfanos, where Katerina had prayed so many times. God had not answered every prayer, but standing in the church there that day she felt that a miracle had taken place.

  The tall-hatted priest was surprised when the entire party of seven arrived together and he watched patiently as they each took a handful of candles and lit them.

  The names of the Moreno family – Saul, Roza, Isaac and Esther – were whispered over and over again, and they all prayed for Elias, hoping that somewhere in the world he at least was safe and carrying on the family name.

  Katerina prayed too for the health of her mother and sister. One day, she would try to go to Athens to see them.

  Five minutes of silence went by. They needed this time to reflect on all that had passed. When everyone was ready, the priest began to chant.