by Nadia Marks
She could feel her friend’s anxiety, and reached for her hand to keep her company. Katerina was quite fond of Nicos but she loved Sonia more and she was irritated and disappointed to see him drunk again and fraternising with the likes of Petros whom she cordially disliked.
The two women sat silently watching as the men took turns to deal the cards. The cigarette smoke was thick around them and the bottle of whisky on the table almost empty. It was Petros’s turn to deal; Katerina watched him with disdain, his shirt sleeves pulled up to his elbows, shuffling the pack of cards and then divvying them out in that overblown, exaggerated way of his.
She had never observed him at such close range before, and as she did, she felt a sense of dread rising up inside her. I really do dislike you, she repeated to herself, surprised at the level of her antipathy. It occurred to her that he had a vague resemblance to someone she had known; someone unpleasant from her past, but she was unable to think who. Probably my father, she concluded.
The two women continued sitting side by side, chatting in a desultory way to each other and watching the men becoming more agitated as time passed. The longer Katerina looked at Petros the more unsettled she felt, until a thought started to take hold. It nagged at her dimly but insistently, refusing to take a clear form, stuck in some deep recess of her brain, like a flickering light. Then suddenly as if the light was switched on she was flooded with a clarity so sharp, so powerful she felt giddy. The thought made her gasp and retch at the same time. The taste of fear and disgust rose in her throat.
‘Panayia mou,’ Mother of God, she murmured, lifting her hand to her mouth to muffle a scream. ‘It’s him!’
How had she never recognized the truth before? she asked herself. Possibly because she could never bear to stay near him long enough to study him properly – his presence repulsed her.
Now the subliminal thoughts that had been bothering her ever since she set eyes on Petros had broken the surface. The continual animated gesturing and bravado; the arms and hands. Especially the arms, she thought. Now she couldn’t take her eyes off them. She had observed those arms and hands from that window in the school hall for long minutes. Those arms as thickly furred as an ape’s; the long fingernail on the little finger of his right hand and the signet ring; the memory of them was burned into her brain. She was sure now – or as sure as she could be, given that she had never seen his face. She swallowed the urge to scream and point at him, for everyone to hear and shame him. She knew she couldn’t, not yet anyway. Costas was still part of this family, the family she loved and would do anything to protect. She cursed the day Anita had agreed to marry him.
‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are!’ Her grandmother’s words came to her lips. The old woman was the only member of her family Katerina ever thought of fondly, or had cared about, but she was long dead. After her death there had been no one to protect her until Olga rescued her.
She sat as if paralyzed while the men continued to play; she was aware of people talking around her, but she heard nothing. A voice screamed inside her head: Traitor!
Just as the screeching in her head couldn’t get louder, and the urge to speak out became compulsive, Nicos sprang out of his chair and began yelling at Petros. The game was apparently over and Nicos had lost. A huge amount of money was at stake and now he was accusing Petros of cheating. The men’s shouting rose above everything else in the room. A chair was overturned, crashing with a loud thud on the floor and a full glass of whisky fell off the table, smashing into splinters over the floorboards. All faces turned towards them.
Sonia screamed at Nicos to stop, and then Olga stepped between them just as they started to push each other around, poised for a fist-fight.
‘Stamatate!’ Stop!, Olga shouted forcefully at the two men, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves!’ Turning to Petros she pointed to the front door. ‘Please leave!’ she commanded. ‘You are a guest in my home and this is not the way my guests behave.’
‘Your friend is a thoroughly unpleasant man who takes liberties,’ Olga told Costas after their guest had left, ‘and he is not welcome in this house any longer.’
That night Sonia refused to sleep with her husband and without speaking to him took herself to Katerina’s room.
‘He behaved like the irresponsible spoilt brat that he is!’ she said, her eyes filling up again. ‘Nicos never thinks of the consequences of his actions. If I didn’t love him, I swear I would leave him.’
Katerina lay silently next to Sonia, patiently hearing her grievances; meanwhile her own mind was seething with confusion and distress. She always listened to Anita and Sonia but who would listen to her this time? And more to the point, who could she tell? All night she stayed awake, her thoughts chasing each other round her head. By morning she knew that the only person she could talk to was Padre Bernardino. He would know what should be done.
‘How could you let that man lead you on like that?’ Sonia hissed at Nicos the next morning over breakfast.
‘Oh don’t be like that, agabi mou,’ he told her, trying to nuzzle his face into the back of her neck, ‘it was only a little fun, it’s only money!’
‘You might think it’s only money,’ she replied, pulling herself away from him, ‘but I can think of better ways to spend it than giving it to him. And it’s not only about the money, Nicos – how could you have a drunken brawl in my mother’s house? So humiliating for her.’
‘Oh don’t exaggerate, it wasn’t really a brawl, just a little heated exchange,’ he told her and leaned across to kiss her. ‘Besides, Olga told that man exactly where to go. She’s a regular sergeant major, that mother of yours!’
‘My mother never puts up with fools,’ Sonia replied, softening a little as she reached for her coffee.
Nicos always had the power to disarm her and make her laugh; she loved that about him. As much as she wanted to stay cross with him her anger never lasted long.
By the time they had finished breakfast that morning they had digressed into discussing their forthcoming wedding party, before making plans for the rest of the day.
‘I’ve just been listening to the radio,’ Olga said, walking into the dining room with Eleni in her arms. ‘They said it’s snowing up in the mountains.’
‘Excellent news!’ Nicos said, jumping up. ‘That’s what we’ll do today, my little rose petal, we’ll go for a drive to see the snow!’
‘Don’t we see enough snow in Vienna?’ Sonia protested.
‘Oh come on! Don’t spoil it, this is Troodos-mountain snow, not city slush.’
Sonia looked at her mother. ‘So long as you drive carefully it could be fun,’ Olga told them. ‘I always like it! Take my car.’
‘I prefer to take my father’s car, it’s bigger,’ Nicos replied.
‘Shall we take Eleni too?’ Sonia looked at her mother again.
‘Perhaps you should leave Eleni with me,’ said Olga, ‘she is far too little. Besides, the two of you can have some time alone.’
Sonia was reluctant to leave Eleni and the family and go off to the mountains with Nicos on a whim. But perhaps, she thought, her mother was right – they could do with some time alone, she’d been pretty harsh with him the night before.
They were ready to leave before noon. Nicos collected his father’s car while Sonia and Katerina packed a picnic lunch for them; there was so much food left from the last few days it was more of a feast than a picnic. They changed into their Austrian winter clothes, which they had worn for the journey over, and set off. Nicos, cheerful behind the wheel, didn’t seem to be suffering any effects from the previous night’s drinking.
Along the coast the weather was bright until they started the climb into the hills; although there was no sign of snow, the clouds looked dark and ominous.
‘Isn’t this great?’ Nicos said and leaned across to give Sonia a kiss. A faint smell of whisky lingered on his breath.
‘Have you been drinking?’ s
he asked, pulling back to look at him, alarmed at the early hour. ‘Didn’t you have enough last night?’
‘Just a little drop for the road,’ he replied laughing. ‘Here, have a sip.’ He reached into his pocket and fished out the silver whisky flask.
‘Nico!’ she yelled and pushed his hand away. ‘It’s not even lunchtime yet!’
‘Oh stop worrying, it’s fine, I won’t have any more … not yet anyway,’ he teased and stroked her thigh. ‘Isn’t it great to be out on the road, just the two us, like old times?’
‘Yes …’ she replied without too much conviction and tried to sit back and enjoy the journey.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll see snow until we get right up to Olympus peak,’ he continued chatting. ‘What do you say we push on now and stop and have our picnic when we arrive?’
The drive to the peak was long but relatively easy. Although snow had fallen heavily earlier, it had now stopped and visibility was good. The forest looked enchanting, a perfect Christmas wonderland, and Sonia started to enjoy it. By the time they arrived at the summit she was feeling jubilant.
They ran, and screamed, and played; they threw snowballs at each other like children until, exhausted and hungry, they decided it was time to stop. By lunchtime the snow had started to fall again and even if they could have found a picnic table without a blanket of snow over it, they had no desire to be in the cold any longer. Their only refuge was the little kafeneon in the square.
As they walked through the door, the heat from the roaring wood fire and the smell of fresh coffee welcomed them like an old friend. The proprietor was sitting alone in the empty room drinking coffee and listening to the radio. As soon as he saw them he stood up to greet them.
‘Kalos tous,’ Welcome both, he called with a big friendly smile. ‘Come in, sit by the fire. Dust the snow off yourselves.’
‘We brought a picnic,’ Sonia said apologetically, pointing to the picnic basket Nicos was carrying.
‘No place for a picnic out there,’ the man said with a chuckle. ‘You best eat it in here then.’
‘Do you mind?’ she asked.
‘Why would I mind? Come, sit down and tell me what you need …’
‘Do you have any whisky?’ Nicos asked.
‘No, but I have something better,’ the man replied, and walking to the back of the kitchen produced a bottle of homemade zivania.
‘This will warm you up like nothing else,’ he told them as he filled three shot glasses to the brim and handed them round. They drank together the strong clear spirit made from grapes, which Sonia always referred to as firewater, and they felt the colour return to their cheeks and the warmth to their freezing limbs. They shared their picnic with the man, who delighted in their company and entertained them with mountain stories.
‘It’s quite lonely up here in the winter. I only ever see the forestry workers this time of year,’ he told them as he poured another round of zivania. ‘People only come in the summer, no one is mad enough to come up here in this weather … apart from you two lovebirds,’ he laughed, and gave Nicos a slap on the back.
‘Do you live here all year round?’ Sonia asked.
‘Out the back,’ he said, pointing beyond the kitchen with his chin. ‘I used to be a forester myself. Retired now.’
Nicos reached for the bottle and poured himself another shot, which he drank in a single gulp.
‘Good zivania,’ he said, putting the glass down. ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘I make my own at the village,’ the man replied, refilling Nicos’s glass.
‘Will you sell me a bottle?’ He reached for the bottle again.
‘I think it’s time we set off,’ Sonia interrupted, before the man had time to answer back. ‘While it’s still light,’ she added, taking the bottle out of Nicos’s grasp.
‘We have plenty of time before it gets dark,’ he protested, ‘no need to rush.’
‘The lady is right,’ said the man. ‘If you go now you will be by the coast all in good time. It’s safer.’
They set off as the pale winter sun, faintly visible through the clouds, was sinking towards the west. The sky was relatively clear when they started the car, but by the time they reached the next village the snow had begun to fall again and darkness to descend upon them. The flakes came down thick and fast, clouding their vision.
The mountain road was steep and narrow, descending in looping switchbacks past cliffs of rock, hazardous at any time; on the treacherous icy surface in poor light still more care was needed. A sober and more alert driver might have foreseen a skid and steered through it on a sudden hairpin bend. But Nicos’s reactions were blurred and he lost control.
Sonia made the sign of the cross and held her breath as the car slid across the road and they plunged over the edge … The ravine was deep and strewn with rocks. A truck making its way to the peak missed colliding with them by seconds and the man raised the alarm by driving to the top to inform the kafeneon owner.
The snowstorm continued all night. Even though the search party was called they could do nothing till the next morning; there was a good deal of ground to cover and the hunt continued in relays for two days. Olga was distraught; she spent hours talking to the man at the coffee shop trying to establish what exactly had happened in the hours before the accident. She suspected Nicos had been drinking and this was confirmed by the coffee-shop owner; she knew her son-in-law well enough. After that day she never mentioned Nicos again – she never forgave him for causing the premature death of her daughter.
So that Christmas, when the two baby cousins met for the first time, was to be the first year of the rest of their lives, and neither of them had any memory of ever living apart.
Eleni let out a muffled sob. Marianna hastened to take her in her arms and Adonis sat motionless as if struck by a thunderbolt.
‘So you see, Eleni mou,’ Anita said, ‘you see? That is why we didn’t talk much about your father. It pained us too much. Your grandmother blamed him for the accident. Sonia of course was also to be blamed a little. She indulged him too much and he took advantage. He was selfish and above all irresponsible.’
When she was a girl Eleni had made up stories about her parents’ accident, and had a favourite scenario which she would only ever share with Marianna. They’d sit on one or the other’s bed, their legs tucked under them, and they would take turns to tell each other their story.
‘They had to go to a winter ball,’ Eleni would begin, ‘it was at a glamorous hotel in the mountains. It was Christmas time, you see, so there were so many parties. Mama was wearing a long red ballgown and high heels and smelled of roses and gardenias, and Papa was in a black suit with a bow tie.’ Excitement made the little girl’s cheeks flush as she talked. ‘I was not with them, you see, I was too little, I was left with Grandma Olga and so they had to come home to see me because they missed me. They left the party and drove in the middle of the stormy night because they were in a hurry to get home, but then the lightning came down and hit Papa’s car and they fell into a deep ravine. They both died with my name on their lips.’ When Eleni finished her story, she’d wipe her eyes dramatically, take on a tragic expression, and sit up and wait for Marianna to start her own tale about why her mother left her to follow her artistic career in dancing. Their stories might vary a little each time, depending on their mood, but they always involved glamorous clothes and dark stormy nights.
‘Your mama will come back one day to find you,’ Eleni would say mournfully once Marianna concluded her narration, ‘but mine can never do that!’
The adult Eleni infinitely preferred her childhood fantasy about her parents’ accident to the sordid act of drunken stupidity that had just been revealed to her. A wave of fury washed over her. I became an orphan, purely because my father was a reckless drunk.
‘We loved you very much, Eleni mou – we all took care of you,’ Anita said, reaching for her niece’s hand as if she had read her mind. ‘Especially Katerina, who took ca
re of all of us. Together we were strong, and those of us who were weak were held up by those who were stronger …’ Anita took a deep breath and exhaled in a long slow sigh. She looked across the room at her son.
‘You see, Adonis mou, the men in this family left much to be desired. Apart from your great-grandfathers – and you, of course – none were any good.’
How many more calamities, Eleni thought, can a family endure? She looked around at her cousin and Marianna. Adonis’s face was ashen. He sat speechless, trying to absorb this succession of family secrets that his mother had decided to reveal to them. His uncle had been a drunk, and his own father the friend of a traitor. How many more family skeletons would be brought to light tonight? It was as if Anita had collected them all and threaded them one by one onto a chain like a rosary. All three looked at the old woman, who was now sitting with her eyes closed, trying to regain her strength in order to continue.
‘Do you want to stop now?’ Adonis asked, walking towards his mother with a glass of water. He wanted her to stop yet he urgently needed to know more. So many questions were swirling in his head, all fighting to be asked, but glancing at Anita he held back.
‘You have been talking for too long now, Mother, perhaps you need to rest?’ He handed her the glass and waited.
‘I am fine, Adonis mou,’ she replied, sitting up ready to start again. ‘I can’t stop now, I have much more to tell you.’ She took a sip of water and sat back in her chair.
‘So … what happened to that man … the traitor?’ Adonis heard himself ask, unable to contain his thoughts any longer.
‘Was Tante right? Did they arrest him? I hope so!’ Marianna blurted out.
‘What about … Costas? I can’t bring myself to call him Father,’ Adonis asked. ‘He was clearly even worse than I was led to believe.’
The questions were being fired at Anita like bullets.
‘I am sorry, my children … you see I have jumped too far ahead with my story and I must go back to before you two were born and before we lost Sonia, but I’ll answer your questions first.’ Anita took in a deep breath and continued. ‘You see, my son, Costas was quite a pretender, really … he was what your grandmother called a chameleon, a man who changed his colours according to his whereabouts and what benefitted him. I worked it out in the end but it took me a while. When I first met him he was at a loose end with his life; he’d lost his job in Nicosia and so he tried his luck in Larnaka. He wasn’t truly dedicated to the revolution, he was just passing his time with us until he met his hateful friend who suited him better than us. We discovered later on that Costas used to pass on information to Petros in return for favours … that’s how Petros got him the job in Nicosia. But so many things happened before your mama was killed, Eleni mou, things which I must now explain. Things you must all know. Be patient – I will tell you everything I know.’
