A Saint for the Summer

by Marjory McGinn

  “I’ll arrange it for some time in the next few days. You can come with me and we’ll hit the reference library as well. Get some more info on the mountain villages.”

  I told him about Hector. He frowned. “I never thought he’d sell the land. It’s not really his. Everyone in the village knows the story of how Myrto was forced to sign the land over, but somehow I think they blame her and think she was bonkers to do it. Easy for them to say. Not easy when you’re a lone woman in this macho society, even today.”

  I was glad Angus took Myrto’s side, at least. What I didn’t tell him was that Myrto had also advised us to leave Mission Kieran well alone. Its opponents were beginning to stack up. Was the mission doomed?

  Chapter 12

  The custard muse

  The reference library was an elegant, high-ceilinged space in a public building on Aristomenous Street. Its collection of books about Greece, and Kalamata in particular, was said to be one of the most unique in the country. Angus waited to talk to a young librarian at the information desk who spoke good English, though it was not the contact he had used here before, a fact that seemed to disappoint him. She found some books for him on the mountain villages of the Mani, with photographs, and brought them over to the table, where we sat side by side.

  “If you have trouble understanding the Greek, ask me and I will help,” she said.

  “I doubt we’ll find anything specific in these books about allied escapees, but you never know,” he whispered. It was only 10am and I was certain we’d be here for hours, scouring these books.

  We’d had an early start that day, arriving for a 8.30am appointment with Dr Protopsaltis. This time I went into the consultation with Angus for fear he might try to underplay his problems. Angus’s blood test showed very high cholesterol that was a definite heart attack risk, along with high blood pressure. He was told yet again to give up smoking and to cut back on alcohol, and he had a script for several tablets to get things under control and protect his heart. The doctor wanted to see him in a couple of weeks.

  “If you don’t get all these things under control, you are walking a tightrope, my friend,” he said, and we knew what that meant: that a heart attack could be imminent. Ideally, he thought that in the coming weeks, Angus should go to a private hospital in Athens − it was much quicker than the overtaxed public health system − and have an angiogram to see what was happening to his arteries because he suspected they would probably be narrowed in places.

  Angus was not well pleased with any of it. “I’m cutting down on the bad stuff, more or less,” he said peevishly, as we walked back to the plateia beside Aristomenous Street. “But I don’t have time right now for tests in Athens. We’ve got to get a move on with Kieran.”

  On the way to the library, we stopped at a pharmacy for his medication. There were angry scenes inside the shop that day due to a shortage of some drugs, though thankfully not the ones Angus wanted. Some of those waiting were arguing loudly with the pharmacist. One woman was crying.

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  Angus shook his head. “There’s a woman here needing chemotherapy drugs, and there are none. Apparently, many patients are having to source their own chemo drugs because the oncology departments in many hospitals can’t provide the treatment. People are dying here now of cancer because of lack of drugs. The EU has turned Greece into a third world country.”

  Angus’s health prospects here suddenly seemed a lot grimmer. “Putting Kieran aside a moment, don’t you think you’d be better off coming back to Scotland with me, soon, to sort out your health problem?”

  “Och, that would be logical, wouldn’t it, and maybe it will come to that,” he said mournfully, “But I don’t relish the idea of resettling in Scotland with winter on the way. And besides, I love it here.”

  “I know, but this country’s falling to pieces.”

  “Och, let’s not talk about dreich stuff now. I’ll just end up feeling skunnered,” he grizzled.

  I smiled at the word ‘skunnered’. It’s an essential Scots word for being pissed-off and jaded big time, the way Scots are with their lot in life, their weather and their status as a small nation always having to fight its own corner. I imagined most Greeks were pretty skunnered as well, and it made me think, not for the first time, how alike the two nations were.

  As we sat in the library, Angus nudged my arm. “Look at this, Bronte,” he said, smoothing a page in one of the old reference books. “Pictures of Platanos.”

  Platanos in the late 19th century didn’t look all that different, apart from the fact there were people in most of the village shots, which made me realise how much of a ghost village it was now. The villagers were mostly gathered in groups, sometimes dressed in stout farm clothes, sometimes in crumpled suits, and the women in black, as if they’d just been to a funeral. In one shot, there clearly had been a funeral. It was a bizarre photo of around 30 people in the forecourt of the big church, with a coffin balanced on a kind of trestle table, with the lid off and the outline of a black-clad woman inside, her thick hair springing up above the rim of the coffin.

  Angus read out some of the information about the village, as much as he could glean with his Greek. The village had been in existence since the early 18th century as a farming outpost with some 25 families (a few hundred people) but its real attraction seems to have been its remoteness. The kalderimi track was not completed until the early 20th century, so previously it would have been a perilous journey for an interloper taking this route from below and in most respects the village was more or less cut off from the outside world.

  During the 400-year Ottoman occupation of Greece, although the Turks never dominated the Mani, it was subjected to regular violent incursions, but the local groups of kleftes, bandits, who traditionally hid out in mountain villages, waged their own guerrilla-style war on the Turks. One band of kleftes were said to have hidden out in Platanos and finally settled there after the end of the Greek War of Independence in the early 19th century. Angus was disappointed that there was very little to glean about Platanos in the 20th century. Despite the completion of the kalderimi, the village remained something of a remote outpost.

  When Angus returned the books to the main desk he explained to the librarian that he was keen to find some interesting snippets of information about the villages during the Second World War and the aftermath of the Battle of Kalamata.

  “I don’t think we have any more books to show you,” she said. Angus turned and gave me a dismal look, as if we had just wasted a whole morning. But then she added, “I do know someone who might be able to help you. He was a university professor, now quite old, but I think he has an interest in the battle. He lives not far away. I have his number. Would you like me to call him?”

  “Yes please,” said Angus, looking more perky than he had all morning.

  The librarian turned away to make the call. Angus whispered to me, “It’s a strange thing about life, how timing can suddenly change in your favour. I’ve been here a few times over the years to find books about the battle and my usual contact was very good. I never spoke to this woman before but she was obviously the only one who thought to mention the professor.”

  After a few moments the librarian said, “I have called him. He is happy to see you, even this morning if you want to go. The only problem for him is he is not sure if his English is good enough for you. He does not use his English much any more. He is old and has not been in good health. I know you speak some Greek. Will you manage?”

  Angus sighed. “My Greek isn’t that fluent and I might struggle a bit. But I’ll try, and thank you for your help.”

  “I hope you find what you want.”

  She gave Angus the name of the historian, Professor Adrianos Zografos, and his address, which was nearby, close to the Cathedral of the Ipapanti in the old sector, just below the ruined Frankish castle. As we left the library, Angus seemed to have a new spring in his step. He even got his mobile phone out.
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  “I’m calling a Greek woman I know in Kalamata. I think I’d like her to come with us and help with the Greek, in case the professor’s English really is bad.”

  “A friend?”

  “Yes, Bronte. Men and women can be friends, even here.” He gave me a withering look and dialled a number already in the phone’s contact list. So the mobile wasn’t such an alien piece of equipment.

  “Hi, Polly. It’s Angus. How are you? I wanted to ask a favour. Are you busy right now? I need someone to come with me to talk to an old Greek guy. Remember I told you I was thinking of going up to the mountain villages, all to do with Kieran, my father? I’ve been on a trip with my daughter Bronte. … Yes, that’s right, she’s over here at the moment. I’m trying to get somewhere with that research I was telling you about. …. Is that okay? Great!” He gave her the address and pinged the phone off.

  “Polly? Didn’t you say she was Greek?”

  “Short for Polyxenia. I used to teach her English years ago when I was giving the lessons I told you about. It’s a safer bet to take her along. I don’t want to give this old guy a hard time with his English. And I don’t want a struggle with Greek today.”

  It dawned on me that this must have been the Polly who gave him the Greek dictionary I found on Angus’s bookcase.

  “Polly’s very nice to drop everything and meet you at a moment’s notice.”

  “One of the things you have to learn about Greeks, Bronte, is that they are spontaneous …” he said as we trailed along various streets in the direction of the old sector. I felt one of his mini lectures coming on. “… Greeks don’t make arrangements for weeks ahead like we do. If you make an appointment like that to see a Greek socially, chances are they’ll just forget. But if you ring someone and say, ‘Let’s have a coffee right now’, they’re up for it. They live in the moment. I wish the Brits were more like that.”

  So he had his little rave as we walked along about Brits and Greeks and how refreshing it was to live in a place where one was constantly surprised. Before long, we were in the old sector. First, we made a curious diversion to a cake shop. It was a traditional place, with faded family photos on one wall, and a huge glass-fronted display case filled with mouth-watering cakes.

  “This is Skiadas. It’s famous in Kalamata and does the best galaktoboureko. It’s a kind of pie with crisp filo pastry on top and a thick custard layer inside.” He licked his lips. “I might as well make an occasion of this and buy one.”

  “What about the diet, the lipids?”

  “Oh fuck the lipids!” he said, raising his voice, just as an old guy, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, appeared from a back room, oblivious to these curses amongst the custards. Angus spoke to him in Greek and I could tell from their familiarity that this was a place Angus frequented. The old guy took one of the round confections Angus had described from the display, placed it in a box and tied it up with a great flourish of ribbons.

  We finally reached the plateia called 23rd of March Square, where the opening shots of the War of Independence had been fired in 1821. Nearby was a street of two-storey buildings in an older style to the ubiquitous apartment blocks, with elegant wrought-iron balconies on the upper floors. A woman stood beside a blue front door. She waved when she saw us, offering a big, exuberant smile. Polly was, I guessed, in her late 50s but young-looking and shapely, with shoulder-length black, wavy hair, probably dyed, but expensively so. She had sunglasses pushed back on her head. She was wearing jeans and a long top, with a sweater tied over her shoulders. When Angus introduced us, she kissed me on both cheeks and I caught a whiff of something expensive.

  “I see you’ve brought something very fattening with you,” Polly said, eyeing up the cake box.

  Angus laughed. “You know me.”

  She smiled, showing a set of very big white teeth.

  Angus rang the professor’s buzzer beside the blue door and it clicked open. While we were climbing the stairs to his first-floor flat, he suddenly appeared on the landing. A small man with thick grey hair and an infectious smile. He was wearing smart black trousers and a neatly pressed white shirt. He showed us in. The apartment had a sunny front sitting room with a balcony, from which you could see the dome of the cathedral. There were Greek rugs on the floor and old photos and maps on walls. It was every inch a Greek academic’s home, with a comforting atmosphere.

  Angus told the professor he had brought Polly along as translator because his Greek wasn’t good enough. Although the professor claimed the same for his English, he was being excessively modest. His English was very good and only now and then did Polly have to help him out with a difficult explanation.

  His eyes lit up at the sight of the galaktoboureko and he spirited the cake off to the nearby kitchen to cut it into fat slices, which we ate first, accompanied by tall glasses of lemonade.

  “Thank you, Kirie,” he said to Angus. “How did you know this was my favourite. But it is everyone’s favourite, is it not? My dear wife Dimitra, when she was alive, would buy this always for a special occasion. Many people you know have asked old Mr Skiadas for his family recipe but he won’t say. It is megalo mistiko, a great secret,” he said, chuckling. Then he turned to me. “This is the best galaktoboureko in Kalamata. Your father is very indulgent.”

  The room became silent as we ate the custardy confection. Angus devoured his slice with relish, as if this was the last lipid of his life. When he had finished I saw him wink at Polly and she smiled back, picking primly at her own slice. I didn’t know what was sweeter at that moment: the confection or that look they exchanged. Once the empty plates had been transported back to the kitchen, Angus explained the reason for the visit: the story of Kieran’s disappearance after the Battle of Kalamata, and how he may have fled to a high mountain village, like Platanos, for refuge. Adrianos listened quietly and when Angus had finished he shook his head sadly.

  “First of all, I am very sorry for the loss of your father. It was a very great sacrifice that the British and all the allies made to help us in that terrible time. Many Greeks lost their lives too, of course, but that battle was a desperate thing. So many allies trapped here and unable to be taken away to safety. There have been some stories from Mani of villagers helping these allies, even under threat of being shot by the Germans. Mostly, they were in villages closer to the coast. But I must say there is so much that we still do not know about this time. Very little has been written about the battle. I am afraid also our public records department in Greece has been very poor at collecting documents pertaining to the whole of the war and the German occupation.”

  Angus nodded in agreement. “Do you believe that some British soldiers could have made it up to a village like Platanos?” he asked.

  Adrianos shrugged lightly. “It is possible, I suppose. But I have not heard anything very specific on this, I am afraid, except for one story I heard many years ago. I was a professor of history at the University of Athens but I used to spend all my summers in Kalamata with my wife and children. We had a house near the sea then. My old family home. If I may digress … I was just a boy during the war but I do remember the terrible Luftwaffe raids and how the Stukas would dive-bomb the city with their screaming sirens,” he recalled with a shudder.

  “So, on the summer holidays, I used to collect information about 1941 and the battle. I had the ambition of writing my own book on the subject, but I did not manage it. Life has a way of distracting one. I had four children to amuse during the holidays. But I remember one of my son Andreas’s friends spending some days with us one year when they were teenagers. And the boy told me that his father was originally from one of the Taygetos villages, though not Platanos, I think. His father had said some soldiers, British, I think, had come to the village after the battle and had been helped by the Greeks. I think they stayed for many months. But what happened to them afterwards, I don’t know. There are many stories from the war that now seem rather vague, after so many years, and difficult to prove. So, my f
riends, anything is possible. But I am afraid none of this is very helpful to you perhaps. I am sorry I have no more to share, about the villages at least,” he said, looking at us with a mournful expression. Angus tugged on his ponytail and gave me a look of quiet frustration.

  “Your task in finding out about your father,” Adrianos said, looking at Angus, “will not be an easy one. There is still frustration over the past, and particularly over the civil war, when Greeks on the left and the right were killing each other, when the communists, who had fought to help free the country of the Germans, wanted to seize a greater role in post-war government. We have not forgotten these dark periods of our history. And now we have the crisis and Greeks once more feel occupied and pushed about. You are trying to uncover a shred of our history among so much.”

  “I agree. It’s an impossible task and we may have to give it up. There may be nothing to find out now,” said Angus.

  “Do you think, Kirie,” said Polly, who had looked pensive throughout the conversation, “that although most people in Platanos have moved away now to different places, or died, it is still possible to find someone, anyone now, who may have been in this village at that time, or someone related who knows more?”

  “You would be looking for someone quite old if they were there during the war,” Adrianos said. Turning to Angus, he added, “But I sympathise with your cause, and the degree of your difficulty, and the fate of your brave father. I know a great many people in Kalamata, especially the older ones, and a lot of the places where they still congregate: the kafeneia, and ouzeries where I used to go to drink in younger years.” He smiled and his eyes glistened with memories. “So, at least I can make some enquiries for you. And we shall see.” We all looked at each other and tacitly decided it was time to leave. He shook our hands warmly and said he would be in touch.

  “Well, that was a very pleasant meeting with Adrianos, even though we didn’t get any further with our research,” said Angus as we stood on the pavement outside the professor’s house.