'It says here in the news they've found a new constellation,' he says.
'Uh-huh,' I respond distractedly, looking up from what I'm reading. 'Sorry, what? I didn't understand.'
We speak only Greek together and there's a big word I'm not familiar with. But instead of figuring out that it's probably the word that we don't use very often, 'constellation', he repeats and translates the most obvious word in the sentence, 'new'. Surely he knows after all this time that I am familiar with the word 'new'? When I'm frustrated or angry, I tend to lapse into Anglo-Saxon.
Stelios wants me to give him English lessons but it feels too much like work and I have no energy. We try to keep up the romance in the relationship; though now with my heightened, odd sense of smell thanks to pregnancy, the beard he insists on growing smells bad to me. We used to joke that he was a skantjokiros, a hedgehog, when he had a few days' stubble. Bring back the hedgehog! He gives up smoking since I've given up caffeine and alcohol, which is very good of him, but it makes him stressed and he flies off the handle when I say something that upsets him.
He is making plans to build a house on a piece of land, a horafi, belonging to his father. His father started building a house there years ago but abandoned the project, and now wants to give Stelios the land. A friend has drawn up a plan of how the shell of the small house could be expanded and completed. At first it seemed a wonderful idea. But I'm not sure I'd want to spend winter months on Tilos with a young child, now I've seen the difficulties. I start feeling trapped, worry about losing my independence and am concerned about our compatibility; Stelios puts it all down to the hormones, but I want to explain it's more than that. It would be hard enough to explain in my own language what I'm going through; it's hard enough to understand it myself.
Still, summer visits for a day or two at a time – afternoons where I can sit outside with bare feet, listening to the sound of the birds and the bees, or walk along Eristos beach with my feet in the sea. I potter in the garden, pulling up weeds and beetroots. When I explain to Stelios I need some space, he goes out to find asparagus, sparagia, searching the fields for the spiky bushes that yield its thin shoots, and cooks up an omelette with it. The flavour is very intense. In the evening, he is still outside in the garden trying to plant potatoes and onions in almost total darkness; I hear him on the phone to his cousin, asking if the eyes go up or down.
Everyone says they've never seen Stelios so happy. People have been asking if we're getting married, and are surprised when I say no, I don't want to get married. Stelios and I have only known one another for six months, and from the beginning we discussed this. It takes years to know for sure if you're in a good relationship; but I didn't have years to get pregnant. Still, it's clear he'll be a devoted father. And every day when I get out of bed, I am incredibly happy, thrilled with the idea that we are having a child. Stelios reassures me that I shouldn't worry about feeling trapped; we'll do our best, and if in the long run we can't stay together, we'll work something out. It's not a perfect situation in a conventional sense, but life isn't always like that. Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what you want, what you need. People say this has been the coldest, longest winter in memory; and it must be one of the saddest, too. The church bell starts to ring – a slow tolling, off-key.
At lunchtime on 10 March in Megalo Horio, hundreds of people stand in the square outside the church, around the dimos, the council office, and on the terrace of the kafeneion above in sombre silence, and the priests start chanting. Tasos Aliferis, the mayor, has died aged sixty-one after a battle with cancer. The tall, lanky doctor came to Tilos two decades ago from the Peloponnese and was a much revered and loved mayor, a visionary for the island and a friend to many. The island is officially in mourning; school is cancelled, the fishing boats rest for the day out of respect. Sadly, he didn't die in his adopted home; he was away seeking medical treatment in the US. On the night when his body is brought back here, lights are lit around Harkadio Cave and the football field and the helicopter pad.
Tasos will be remembered for many things, and I barely have an inkling of his influence. What I do know is he brought in the hunting ban that made Tilos a conservation area – a ban that went against the Greek constitution, as did the first same-sex wedding in Greece, which he allowed to take place on the island; and he allowed some of those first refugees from the Middle East to stay and integrate. Not all of his schemes were successful – the reservoir at Eristos was never used, nor was the recycling plant – but he was constantly fighting on the island's behalf, a strong force for the independent spirit of Tilos. In many ways, Tilos makes its own rules in order to thrive, and Tasos was part of that – what I like to think of as the People's Republic of Tilos.
In spite of the the sadness, every day I see something that reminds me how much I love this place. During breaks in the clouds I take gentle walks by the sea, drink in the smell of herbs after rain, notice leaves appearing on the trees, watch cormorants fishing off the dock, sit in the sunshine and listen to the waves. I love the wildness of this island – empty beaches, rugged hills, the changing, endless sea surrounding us.
Anna has escaped London to spend three weeks in Tilos, and I drive down to Livadia to see her. In late afternoon the bay is perfectly still, like a mirror, the shores of Turkey practically hidden by a haze. We sit in Mikro Kafe and catch up on news. At seven, as I'm leaving, a huge, bright full moon comes up over the headland.
Stelios spots what he thinks is my package of books in the post office – the order I've been waiting weeks for. It turns out the replacement postman, covering while the usual postmaster is on holiday, doesn't know who I am so he doesn't bother trying to deliver it. I ask Stelios to pick it up while he's in Livadia next day – and the post office is closed, for no apparent reason except that it's a Friday and most likely the postman has taken the ferry to Rhodes. Sometimes, sometimes the People's Republic of Tilos appears to take rule-bending too far.
Then good things happen all at once.
Chapter 14
Escape from Paradise
I want to move in to this hotel room. I could live in just the vast bathroom with its warm tiles and walk-in shower; a heated bathroom feels like pure luxury. Within an hour of arrival – after a ferry journey of over 16 hours – we are lounging around in fluffy bathrobes, and Stelios is forced to drink both glasses of the strong, clear spirit tsipouro they bring to the room to welcome us. I am happy enough seeing the Acropolis whenever I go outside.
After that long wintry month of February when we felt trapped on a storm-lashed rock with no reprieve, a change in the weather brought a wonderful gift from my mum: a cosy new duvet. Stelios also found me a hot water bottle at the pharmacy, so I went to bed warm at last. But then out of the blue I was commissioned to write an article about Athens that required a research trip. I was so excited. Stelios suggested we stay with friends or family out in the suburbs, but after last time, I insisted on staying in the centre in a hotel, to his bemusement. I needed a dose of city life.
We've been offered two nights for free in O&B boutique hotel thanks to the article I have to write. Most people in Tilos don't seem very interested in what I do for a living; since I work from home and it's not obvious, perhaps they assume I don't do very much. The same happened when I worked from home as a freelancer once before for a couple of years in France. It's hard to explain the different aspects of my work. I don't mind any of this – I've chosen to live in a place where people are judged for who they are, not what they do – but it's nice for a change to be reminded that my work has value and is appreciated. Sometimes, working at home in Tilos, I feel my identity and self-esteem slipping away. Life with Stelios is full immersion: good for learning, but difficult and exhausting. It's a bit like learning Greek dances; gradually, I hope I won't have to concentrate so hard. No wonder I enjoy just walking alone around the island at times.
After a few meetings in Athens and a morning of writing, I arrange to spend a few hours on my
own, and wallow in the pleasure of wandering the city. I realise that it is wonderful to be anonymous for a change. Nobody knows I'm pregnant, nobody tells me to be careful. I chat lightheartedly with friendly people in shops. It's important to remember that even freelancers in paradise need holidays, and although I love the island, it is a tiny place and it's natural to need breathing space from time to time.
In the evening, we walk to cafes and instead of boxed juice there are wonders like virgin ginger mojitos and fresh lemon juice and flavoured teas. The weather feels spring-like and we sit outside on the crowded steep steps in the Plaka in warm sunshine. In Psirri, around where we are staying, I marvel at more street art, walls playfully and skilfully painted with colour and imagination, and I'm happy to see a plot of wasteland reclaimed as a community vegetable garden. We eat so many different foods I hadn't dared to dream of while living on our tiny island in the winter – tabouleh and fresh coriander; strong salami; chocolate cake; marinated anchovies; fresh houmous and chewy, crusty bread – and all for reasonable prices.
Athens feels like a city people love living in. Though there have been riots against the austerity measures, they happened in a small area, mostly outside the parliament buildings; sensationalist reportage in the media affects people's livelihoods here unnecessarily – it's irresponsible. Of course there are seedy areas of the city; the area around Omonia Square feels unpleasant on a dark evening; but I've seen worse drug use on the streets in Germany, and there's none of the drink-fuelled violence of small towns in England. Greece is still such a safe place; on many islands, people don't lock their doors, and Athens remains for me a completely unthreatening city.
We dedicate an afternoon to exploring the Museum of Cycladic Art. I haven't visited for years, and we linger over the ancient artefacts from the central Aegean, especially the distinctive and mysterious female figures carved from marble in the third millennium BC. Then, as we're about to leave, we notice there's a temporary exhibition called 'Off the Beaten Track' – which includes Tilos.
Although we live within easy walking distance of important ancient sites in Tilos, excavated artefacts have been taken away for research and safekeeping, and little information is available except in the small village museum run by Stelios' mother. Harkadio Cave, where the skeletons of thirty-eight pygmy elephants were found – buried in the volcanic ash that probably contaminated all the food or water – is closed off until resources can be found to continue the work. The new museum there has stood empty for several years.
So it's fascinating to learn here that tools and pots made of trachyte, a durable volcanic rock from the neighbouring island of Nisyros, were also found in the cave, as well as pottery for storing, preparing and consuming food, believed to be from the fourth or early third millennium BC. This may suggest that humans co-existed with the elephants on the island. There are a few cups and jugs from around 1500 BC that show Minoan influence but were made in Tilos, found in an area called Garipa, near Megalo Horio.
The displays confirm that from the eleventh to eighth centuries BC, leading up to the time of Homer, a settlement existed on the steep slopes above today's village of Megalo Horio. It was a safe place to live, invisible from the sea and sheltered from winds, with two natural harbours nearby. Ancient graves have been found in the surroundings at Enousses, Pigi, Marmara, Ayios Apostoloi, Kena – names rarely used today. The graves were underground chambers carved into soft rock, one after the other in a tunnel formation. I've visited one in the Eristos valley with Charlie, an Englishman who has spent years exploring the antiquities of the island.
Fragments of pottery and carved stone suggest that Tilos was a flourishing settlement during the classical period, around the time when Irinna, the famous ancient poet of Tilos, lived her brief life; that the Tilos assembly approved an alliance with Rhodes in the third century BC; and in the second century BC, someone was honoured with a gold wreath by the dimos, the council or municipality of Tilos.
While pottery fragments and stone carvings are remarkable for the historical context they provide, the delicate gold jewellery takes my breath away. There's a gold diadem with intricate knots and winged cupid figures, dating from the classical period and found at Kena.
After the Roman poet Pliny referred to Tilos as Agathousa, 'the good', there were scant written references to the island for over a thousand years. In 1309, it's known that the island was conquered by the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, who called it Piscopie (the island is still known as Piscopi in Italian). In 1366, it was granted as a fief to Barello Assanti d'Ischia with the condition that he fortify and defend the island, and send hunting falcons and spoils from shipwrecks to the Grand Magister in Rhodes. That's when the castles were built, as were many churches. In the fifteenth century, after a deadly plague and Turkish raids, the islanders took shelter in Rhodes under the protection of the Knights, who gave them grain and forgave debts. In 1522, however, Tilos succumbed to the Ottoman Empire along with all of the Dodecanese, and would remain under Turkish rule until 1912. It was then occupied by the Italians for more than thirty years until World War Two, when German soldiers took over. It was finally incorporated into the Greek state on 7 March 1948.
Tough, resilient little Tilos, I think.
Then I hear a familiar voice behind me. There's a video playing as part of the exhibit, and Vicky is being interviewed. We feel very proud. Leaving, inspired by all I've seen and learned, I feel I've come alive again. It's good to get outside our little world from time to time – and to go back home.
On the last morning, we decide to buy an office chair for me and take it with us on the boat. Stelios thinks he can carry everything – since I'm not allowed to lift much these days – but I'm not convinced, and the kind man in the shop says he'll drive us to the port. Along the way, he says that business is so slow with the economic crisis, he's thinking of shutting up shop and moving with his Canadian wife to Montreal, where their son lives. But he sighs, thinking of it, arriving at Piraeus: nowhere has sea like Greece.
The sun is setting as our ferry pulls away from Piraeus for the overnight journey home. The last few days of sunshine have shown that summer is not far away.
I want to keep the positive energy I acquired while in Athens. In late March, I have my first quick swim of the year. The sea feels cold but energising.
I had no idea that exercise would be one of the things I'd miss during the winter on a little Greek island. I thought walking would be enough. But having regularly done boxercise and circuit training and body conditioning for the past few years, I'm missing something. So when one of the teachers starts to offer aerobics classes, I check resources online, which say careful exercise is not only fine but helpful in pregnancy, as long as you are used to it. Thanks to the international language that is aerobics, I actually know what I am doing – it's the first time I've been in a group of women in Tilos and not felt like an idiot. It feels good to move and stretch to music.
Rumour quickly gets around, and various island women tell me that I shouldn't be doing yimnastiki, or whisper behind my back as if I've done something terrible. Eleftheria in the shop tells me not to worry, however: she walked to Livadia and worked in the bakery when she was pregnant. There have been no signs of any problems, I tell her, and I cancelled the trip I was supposed to take to England for work. 'Good idea,' she says.
I buy some fresh eggs laid by Rena's hens, and feta cheese, and go home to cook what will turn out to be the tastiest omelette ever, with feta sprinkled all over it and a little sea salt and pepper. Sometimes the simplest things…
'Teenafto?' What's this? asks Stelios. But he's not talking about my omelette – he's pointing to the jar of Marmite.
'Afto – that?! Ah, that you won't like at all! It's something that only people who grew up in England can like – and some of them don't like it either…' I usually hide it away out of sight, but there it is beside the new toaster – and Stelios looks intent on tasting it. I try to explain this weird foo
dstuff. 'It's kind of like yeast, that you make bread with, and it has lots of vitamins in it!'
He tries a little on a spoon and doesn't mind it. Antecho is the word he uses, which means 'I can tolerate it'.
I think my Marmite supply is safe.
Perhaps he's getting used to my cooking, my different ways. The next day, when he's fishing at Eristos, he calls me on the phone. 'I'm thinking about that omelette you made yesterday… Can you bring me one?'
It gives me an excuse to get out of the house and drive to the beach for a walk. I cook an omelette and put it in a container with a fork and some bread. The sun is glinting on the sea as he rows to shore to pick it up.
The warm weather has brought out lizards: little ones that skitter across the path, feet barely touching the ground. The larger type, sometimes a foot long, is known as a savra – the 'saur' in dinosaur. They lounge on stone walls in the sun and when I change down into first gear to drive up the steep dirt track to our house, I see a savra's big tail disappearing through a crack between the stones.
An Octopus in My Ouzo Page 11
