Angus nodded. “I wish we’d thought to bring the photo of Kieran that’s on your chest of drawers, Bronte. I just never thought we’d get this far, but I’ve an idea,” he said, looking towards Polly, who sat quietly nearby, her hands clasped in her lap. “Polly, can you ask Orestes, if we brought a photo of Kieran here, would he perhaps recognise him as the soldier in Platanos?”
She spoke to Orestes, and the old man shook his head sadly.
“He says it wouldn’t do any good. It was too long ago and he only ever saw the soldier from a distance, and then after he was shot, when his face was covered in blood,” she said with a shudder. Orestes gave us a mournful look. Angus sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“I think he has blocked a lot of things from his mind actually,” said Polly, “but maybe we can bring the photo here one day if you don’t have any other success. We shall see. I must tell you, though, that Orestes definitely believes that someone in the village must have informed on the soldier and his whereabouts because the Germans searched the two houses below and then went straight up the hill to the cave, as if they had been told exactly where to go. Lucky for the two families, the Germans found nothing incriminating in the houses.”
“A village informer sounds highly likely,” said Angus.
“I agree,” said Polly, “and it’s well known the Germans put a bounty on the heads of the foreign soldiers.”
“Does Orestes know where the soldier was buried exactly?” I asked Polly.
“No. I already asked him that but he says that although Dimitris once showed him, he hasn’t been up that hill for decades and would be unsure where it was now. Panayiotis’s children would probably remember. In fact, Orestes says your only real chance of discovering any more about the soldier is finding them, if you can.”
“Where are they now?” Angus asked.
“America.”
Angus rolled his eyes. “Well that’s not very helpful.”
“Not necessarily. Panayiotis and his family left the village in the 1950s. They moved to Athens and then America, where the children still live. But Orestes believes that Dimitris, the younger son, still keeps the family apartment in Athens and comes back now and then. Panayiotis has passed away but Orestes said he once saw Dimitris, 15 or 20 years ago, at a summer yiorti in Platanos. He has not seen him since, but then Orestes does not go back to Platanos any more,” Polly explained.
“Perhaps someone in Platanos has a contact number for this Dimitris?” I said, rather naively. After our recent visit to Platanos, and our meeting with Pavlos in his pantopoleio, I must have had the notion that Pavlos kept a dog-earned record of contact numbers on his storyboard behind the counter.
Angus scoffed at my idea. “It’s unlikely that one of the eight or so people who still live there would have a contact number for Dimitris. But it might be worth going back to talk to Pavlos sometime.”
When we said goodbye to Orestes, he hugged Angus and said something a few times, which I took to be an apology because he hadn’t quite given us what we wanted, an identity, or so I imagined. Polly lingered a while at the door, talking to him. After a few minutes, Angus and I strolled back to the car.
“What were you talking about?” Angus asked Polly when she finally joined us.
“Ach! I asked him if he knew who betrayed the soldier. He said he doesn’t know. More than likely he just doesn’t want to say. Old customs die very hard. Village allegiances are strong.”
As we set off towards Kalamata, Angus looked glum.
“What a story Orestes told us – but depressing. I can’t bear to think the soldier might have been Kieran. What a shocking way to die. And the Greek family must have felt devastated after hiding the soldier, to lose him like that, and how incredible that they all put their own lives in jeopardy.”
Polly sat in the passenger seat, saying nothing, but biting softly at one of her cherry-coloured fingernails. As we got further from Evangelismos, Angus rallied.
“Well, I think we’re in need of a good lunch. My treat, Polly.”
“Oh, that is a such a good idea,” she said, turning towards me with a beaming smile that instantly persuaded me to like the idea as well.
“It’s the best I can do for the effort you put in today, Polly, and for your generosity to Orestes,” said Angus. She made a face. “I saw you slip a few notes into his hand at the front door. You didn’t have to, but I appreciate it.”
“I’m sorry, but I felt so badly for him,” she said. I was touched by Polly’s gesture.
“I think we should go to the Gorgona on the seafront, then I won’t have too far to walk home,” she said.
“Great idea,” said Angus. “I think we need to debrief in salubrious surroundings.”
Chapter 15
Polly, Bronte, Kalamata
We turned onto the main seafront road, right past the intersection where the taxi had stopped on my first day, across from the gulf. It seemed a long time ago now. The Gorgona, the Mermaid, was a traditional kind of taverna, much frequented by Kalamatans for its position overlooking a pristine stretch of beach and for its seafood. We took a table at the edge of the terrace. We ordered a carafe of wine to start with, and I never thought to chastise Angus for filling up his glass. He deserved a drink today, as we all did.
“Yeia mas. To our good health,” he said.
I turned to Polly. “Thank you for coming with us today and translating everything. Even if Angus probably understood quite a lot, it was helpful to me.”
“Oh, my dear,” she said, squeezing my arm. “I am very happy to help you both. This is such a big thing you are trying to uncover and, if I may say,” she glanced at Angus, who was staring out to sea, “it is not going to be easy. How much further you can go with it, I don’t know.”
“You’re right, Polly. We gained some amazing information but may have also hit a brick wall,” Angus said, sipping his wine, twisting the squat glass around between his fingers. “If we want to discover who the murdered soldier really was, it’s important to find the family of Panayiotis Maneas, particularly the son, Dimitris. But if he only comes now and then to his holiday house in Athens, how can we trace him?”
“There will be other relatives still living in Kalamata, I think, with that name, who might have a contact number for them. I can search through the phonebook for you and ask around. I know many people in Kalamata. But even if you found Dimitris, would he remember who this soldier was? He would be in his mid-eighties now,” said Polly.
“If they had somehow discovered the soldier’s real name, wouldn’t they have at some point later tried to get that information to the War Office in Britain, or give it to someone who could?” I mused.
Polly shrugged. “These were simple farming people to begin with, my dear. They spoke no English. Would they have known even where to begin? And then they left for America.”
“It’s hopeless, I know, but we have to push on now, don’t we, Bronte?” said Angus.
“Of course,” I said, but I didn’t feel at all confident, not with just the few weeks I had left.
Our meal arrived and it offered a welcome distraction. One plate was piled high with pieces of calamari, which were light and crispy on the outside and soft and delicious, not the rubbery rings I’d had on my first trip to Greece. The barbecued octopus was succulent. I ate with a good appetite. Angus smiled.
“I like the way you eat everything in front of you now, pet,” he said, as if he were an anxious parent and I was a 10 year old in need of bulking up. He just couldn’t help himself.
“This country gives me an appetite. And you’ve just called me ‘pet’ again!” I said with emphasis. Polly gave us both an inquisitive look.
At the end of the meal the waiter brought a small plate of fresh fruit: peaches and something else with a peachy colour and a strange texture.
“Persimmon; lotos in Greek. You must eat some. If you do, you will never go home again and Angus will be a very happy man,” Polly said, laughing gaily.
“Why is that?” I asked her, thinking it would take more than persimmon to make Angus happy.
“Have you read Homer? Do you remember when Odysseus was sailing around the tip of the Mani, near Cape Tainaron, on his way home to Ithaka after the Trojan War? His ship was blown off-course and he had to drop anchor at an island inhabited by the Lotus Eaters. They lived on this sweet fruit, which induced forgetfulness and oblivion. When the sailors ate the lotos they forgot their family, their friends and they didn’t care to go home again.”
“We’ll leave all the lotos for Bronte then,” said Angus, enjoying himself immensely with this tale, as was Polly.
In the sun, her face looked bright and relaxed and she seemed much younger than her 58 or so years. Despite Angus’s directive about not wanting a relationship, I felt he was very taken with Polly, as she seemed to be with him. Was this something that had only recently fired up because of Mission Kieran? I doubted that.
“Well, I’ll just pick at the lotos because, as you know only too well, Angus, I have to go back after my extended holiday,” I said.
Polly and Angus both frowned. However, sitting in the taverna with the gulf spread out before us, gazing at the lustrous water, the mountains towering in the distance, I felt completely relaxed and content, as if I’d already gorged on lotos fruit. I was losing my grip slightly on home, or rather on the things that used to obsess me. At the end of our long, leisurely lunch, I decided on a shopping trip and asked Polly where I could buy some tasteful beach gear.
“Well, it’s now siesta time in the city, but the shops will be open in a few hours. Why not come back to my apartment with me and wait a while and we will go out together. That will be fun, won’t it?”
Angus pulled a face. “Does that mean I’ll have to hang around while you girls go shopping?”
“You don’t have to stay. I can get a taxi home in the early evening,” I said. The idea of spending some time in the city without him, having some female company for a change, was very appealing.
“Good, then I can go out later with some of my village friends and get blootered without any lectures,” he said, with a teasing look.
Polly lived on the top floor of an apartment block just off Navarino Street. It was a large, elegant space with a wide balcony at the back that was high enough to have a clear view out towards the hills behind Kalamata. There seemed to be a small orange orchard across the road, curiously stuck between two blocks of flats, which helped to give the apartment a sense of space. She saw me looking at the trees.
“It’s part of an old orchard. The owner has kept it and sells the oranges. I hope it doesn’t change. This part of the city was all orchards once, olive, orange, figs, right up to the sea road.”
I remembered the cover of the book Angus had lent me about the Battle of Kalamata and its picture of olive groves, and it was hard to imagine that possibly this very apartment block was built on land where the allies had fought valiantly to fend off the German invasion.
In other ways, the apartment was a fascinating window into a different life than the one I’d grown used to in the village. This was the haunt of someone educated and independent. It was decorated with icons, old prints, Greek rugs and tapestries, and on one wall there was a fine built-in bookcase, heaving with Greek books, English books and a smattering of others. It was a space that was comfortably intellectual.
Polly was different from other Greek women I’d met, in that she didn’t want to talk much about her life, personal things, and all I gleaned about her was that she had divorced six months earlier and she had two daughters, one living in Australia, the other in Athens. We sat on the back balcony and she brought out a large pot of coffee and placed it on a glass-topped table.
“What do you think about my father’s quest to find out about Kieran?” I asked.
She exhaled air gently through her lips. Her big eyes looked slightly mournful. “Between us, I think it is a near-impossible task. It would take a while to locate Dimitris, unless you become very lucky.”
“I know. I don’t have much time now and Angus seems to do his best to ignore this fact.”
She looked at me over the over the top of her coffee cup. “I hope you don’t mind if I say something, Bronte, but as a student of Angus’s, I did get to know him over the years. I am sensing that you and your father have … some anxieties together, am I right?”
“You could say that.”
“I imagine you must be angry with him for being here so long; that you feel a little abandoned. I would.”
“It’s been difficult, yes. If I knew more about why he left Scotland, and why he stayed away, it would be easier. But he doesn’t want to talk about it.”
She put her cup down. “Perhaps he’s not sure himself why he left.”
“Is that what he says?”
“In a way.”
“I don’t go for that. He’s far too intelligent to do something mindless without a reason.”
She looked sympathetic, but I found it rather awkward talking about personal issues with someone I didn’t know well, and I resorted to my own fondness for turning the tables.
“How long did you have lessons with Angus?”
“For a few years. But not now. I had not seen your father for quite a few months until we met the other day at Professor Zografos’s house.”
Polly had what you would call a rather patrician face, a long nose, dark brown, almond-shaped eyes and a nice forehead. She must have been stunning in her youth. She had a face that was pleasant to observe, full of interesting angles that would probably never really age. She was also very smart, and had the shrewdness of a lot of Greek women I’d met. She knew how to change a subject as well as I did.
“So tell me, Bronte, what are you planning to buy at the shops. Clothes?”
“Mainly. I packed in a hurry. I need a swimming costume, a dress, sandals and so forth.”
She gave me a curious look. “But you are only here another few weeks, like you said. A summer wardrobe? Surely you don’t need it.”
“We are being invited to things, Angus and I. I have nothing to wear.”
“Village things?”
“Yes, and now Angus’s landlord has invited us out on Saturday for a drive down the Mani, lunch in some smart taverna, I think …”
Her eyes widened. “Leonidas Papachristou has invited you out?”
“Yes, but both of us.”
She whistled. “You will need to shop then.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am joking!” she said with an impish grin.
“I think you’re probably not joking, Polly, and I know what you mean. To be honest, I find him slightly intimidating.”
She pouted. “Yes, I have met him several times. He is as you say and proud perhaps. All doctors here are the same. They have a great sense of entitlement. But you must go. I can think of two dozen women who would jump at the opportunity to be in your place.”
“Including his girlfriend, the dentist in England?”
She laughed lightly and made a windmill of her arm that meant, in this instance, ‘so what?’
“She can’t be serious about him. A woman doesn’t go out with a man like Leonidas and then disappear to England,” she said, with another gesture that I had often seen, a kind of exaggerated grimace, palms held out at the same time, that indicated disdain or doubt.
I blushed. “I’m not looking for romance, Polly, I can assure you. I’m just being sociable.”
She wagged her elegant finger at me. “But maybe the romance is looking for you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She laughed. “It could mean that your moment in the sun has arrived. Either way, you need some clothes. I think we should go now, don’t you?”
I was ready to shop, apart from a quick touch-up to my face and hair in the bathroom. Polly went to change. While I waited for her, I looked at her bookcase, intrigued by her collection of books. Many of the English book
s were classics: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens. I was impressed. No doubt there was a copy of Wuthering Heights as well, if I could only find it. But I found a lot more in the bookcase of interest, particularly a framed photo tucked behind a few others. I wanted to know more about it, but I figured now would not be the right time to ask.
It was still hot when we left the apartment. Polly flagged down a taxi to take us up town. I had only been in a few shops so far on my trips to the city with Angus and I had found the saleswomen formidable. They followed you about like anxious puppies. Polly was no pushover, however. She knew the drill and deflected these over-zealous matrons with steely charm so that we were able to make some progress.
She took me to smart designer shops, where the price tags left me breathless. She had good taste. Her only flaw was in erring towards sexy creations, rather than the practical, as if she had already decided which way she wanted my social life to go. I bought a sleeveless summer dress in bright colours, and a soft knitted white wrap to go with it, a pair of blue linen summer trousers and a frothy sleeveless top. The swimming costume was trickier.
“I’m not having a bikini. I’m too white,” I moaned, as she plucked things from racks and pushed me into a changing cubicle with one hand, while holding a saleswoman back with the other. I chose an eye-catching, 50s-style one-piece that Polly thought wasn’t the least bit sexy.
“You have lovely curves, Bronte. Why do you want to smother them?” Whereas I was sure the cut of the swimsuit actually enhanced them, without showing too much flesh. Polly shattered all my illusions about prim, conservative Greek women. But what I knew about Greeks was so miniscule it would swim in a D-cup.
After the shopping trip, we stopped on the way home for a drink in a small bar in a side street. We drank ouzo and ate from a small plate of meze, appetisers, which was perfect after our big lunch.
“This has been such an interesting afternoon for me, Bronte. We must do it again.” We clinked glasses. Despite the dramatic start to the day, and the tormenting story Orestes had told us, I was feeling more and more content with my Greek sojourn. And I definitely liked Polly. She was modern, warm and open, except for one tiny thing: the image I had seen in that photograph on her bookcase.
A Saint for the Summer Page 16
