“I remember, Jonathan, we named him Woody because he lived in the wood.”
And not Woundy.
“No more wounded names, Jonathan.”
“Woody came running to my feet. I emptied my pockets. He sat on his hind legs and began munching on a chestnut. We remained facing each other. Frozen Jonathan and Woody with the mark on his tail. There wasn’t a soul to be seen. It was ten below zero. The colorful city was protecting itself from the cold. I want to go to Greece, I said to myself for the first time. Woody ate one more chestnut, gave me one final glance and then ran off. January 8, 2013. Tuesday.
“Thank you for flying with Delta Air Lines. This has been our last flight to Athens. Please remain seated until the aircraft comes to a full stop.”
“I died, Jonathan, your sister has died.”
I never understood why.
“Don’t search for answers where there are none. Beauty is an enigma, and so is suicide.”
But why you, Amalia? She, Frosso Argyriou, Lale Andersen, whetever her name is, she’s the one who should have . . .
“Still afraid of words, Jonathan? Repeat after me, if only this one time, say it slowly and clearly, say it so you hear it, say, ‘M y s i s t e r d i e d.’ ”
Why you instead of her?
“Because no one in our family stayed in the same place till the end. We suffocate if we stay in the same place. We had our own way of loving each other, we’d switch names, roles, places, times, among ourselves.”
You left me.
“I left myself. One day you look in the mirror and see a stranger’s face. It’s a little like a death. You want to save yourself. Even if you’re going to die, you want to save yourself from that face.”
“‘M y s i s t e r d i e d.’”
“There. That’s better. I took the Lexington Ave. #5 subway line downtown, I got off at City Hall, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The day was breaking. For a moment I looked at the city spread out before my eyes. The view from there, Walt Whitman had said, is ‘the most effective medicine my soul has yet partaken.’ I didn’t need any medicine. My mind was made up. My body rose up, arched and then bent over and dove into the freezing waters of the East River. A splashing sound, and that was it. The water shifts, allowing the body to sink as much as it needs to. The river runs into the ocean.”
I was left on my own.
“You were left on your own so you could make this journey.”
Let me just hear the sound of your voice one more time.
“Jonathan?”
Yes, Amalia?
“I have a gift for you, Jonathan.”
I’m listening.
“Close your eyes and listen to the most magical rendition of my favorite song, just listen, after all these years:
My love, I came looking for you
In the dawn and on the moon
Amid the clouds up high
I looked for you and I was blind
But then came the winter and the rain
And your grace, so fresh and cool
My love, I came looking for you
For you were made of sky . . .
Jonathan, my voice has matured, listen to my low notes, notice the raspiness:
The south wind came, the north wind came
The waves will carry you off
My love you slipped away from me
For you were made of sky.”18
Your voice. It pierces me . . .
“Lale Andersen had a magical voice.19 During the War, the composer Manos Hadjidakis dreamed of her. For her, for her voice and without ever having met her, he wrote the song ‘The North Wind Came, the South Wind Came.’ Years later, he met her and asked her to sing it. She consented. The record went gold. She was a foreigner. She loved Greece.”
Lale Andersen? Is that why our mother chose that name? So it would sound foreign but hide Greece inside it?
“Nothing is what it seems, Jonathan, otherwise the world would be a very poor place.”
The light becomes amber again. The light from the land of Menelaos, the other Frosso and Erasmia and Anthoula and Seraphim. In a sinking land, the light is not lost.
“Sir, have you filled out the form? How long are you staying in Athens?”
“How long? I really have no idea.”
One’s passport and identity card: paper documents that can be so easily destroyed. You only need to use your hands to tear them up into tiny little pieces. I won’t do it. What existed doesn’t exist anymore. But you only die when you cease to remember the ones you love. You die when your homeland shifts places on the map. It’s a good land that waits for me there.
“It’s a good land that waits for you, Jonathan.”
I get up. In the plane’s toilet I change clothes. I put on a crisp white shirt. I go back to my seat and fill out the form. I hand it to the flight attendant.
“Welcome to Greece.”
“Welcome to Athens, ladies and gentlemen. The weather is mild. The local time is eleven thirty, ground temperature seventeen degrees Celsius.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Athens, Greece, Fotini Tsalikoglou studied psychology at the University of Geneva. She is the author of many celebrated novels published in Greece, including Eros Pharmakopoios, I Dreamed I Was Well, and I, Martha Freud. The Secret Sister is her English language debut.
NOTES
1An allusion to Freud’s visit to the Acropolis in September 1903. He had worn a clean white shirt and, in a letter to Martha Freud, he had written: “They say that the amber color of the columns at twilight is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
2“The Northern Star” is a popular song written in 1963 by Manos Hadjidakis to lyrics by the poet Nikos Gatsos.
3Smyrna was a cosmopolitan city with a large Greek population. Its destruction by the Turkish army in 1922 and the forced population exchanges that followed between Greece and Turkey marked the end of the continuous presence of Greeks in Asia Minor for 3,000 years. Seven-year-old Erasmia and her five-year-old sister were among the 1.5 million refugees who managed to flee to Greece.
4In the early 20th century, Talas, a town in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, was home to 2,500 families, of which 1,000 were Christian Orthodox, 800 were Muslim and 700 were Armenian.
5Hatırı, “favor,” ciǧer, “heart,” hediye, “gift,” canım, “my soul.”
6New Ionia is a suburb of Athens settled by Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
7After the end of World War II and the four-year German Occupation, Greece became embroiled in a civil war between the communists and the government forces which lasted until 1949. The polarization created by this war is still very evident in Greek society.
8Glory be to you, all-knowing God.
9In 1967, a coup d’état established a military dictatorship in Greece, which was overthrown in 1974.
10My soul.
11Now, tonight.
12Yes.
13I know, my heart.
14There is no other world.
15Mama, I’ve missed you so much, there is no other world, my heart pines for you.
16I’ll show you, as God is my witness . . .
17This lullaby, in an almost unknown language spoken in the Republic of Udmurtia, in central Russia, is sung in the documentary film Lullaby by Victor Kossakovsky on Europe’s homeless, which was made as part of the “Why Poverty” initiative.
18One of the earliest songs written by Manos Hadjidakis (1943).
19Lale Andersen was a German singer famous for her recording of “Lili Marleen” (1939), a song which became popular among both Allied and Axis troops.
u, The Secret Sister
The Secret Sister Page 7
