by Leah Fleming
Steven was from a large Catholic family with many brothers and sisters, and was expected to join the army soon, but so far he, too, was reluctant to return home. He and Penny got into a habit of lazy lunches and swims, and trekking into the hills. At first it was a companionable sort of friendship. But Steve was very serious, and when one day he clutched her hand, suggested she return to England to meet his family, and asked if she would consider becoming a Roman Catholic, Penny knew it was time to cool things down.
At least someone thought her attractive enough to declare himself, even if he wasn’t Bruce. She found those slate-blue eyes hard when he started spouting how marvellous Germany was in recovering from such an insulting treaty. He was pleased the Greek Minister, Metaxas, was following this Hitler’s lead, transforming their economy by instituting public works. It was as if he were standing on a platform giving a speech and it hardly mattered if she were there at all.
‘Don’t you feel excited at how Nationalism is rising up all over Europe?’ Steven argued, and she gazed out over the beach, wishing she was back in the pink villa reading a book.’I don’t know how you can hang around with all those types at the BSA.’ He dismissed her friends with a wave of his hand.
‘You were happy enough to let them buy you drinks,’ she snapped. ‘They’re my friends. What’s wrong with them?’
He shrugged. ‘They have all the attributes of decadent fops and mix with the wrong type of Greeks, Jews, dagos . . .’ And you are boring, she thought. She’d had not forgotten the Nationalist march and the terrible scene she’d witnessed. How could he admire such people?
This friendship was now a bore to Penny. They made an expedition to the great theatre at Epidaurus with its perfect amphitheater and acoustics. It was funny whispering down in the epicentre, knowing you could be heard right out on the periphery. It was a wonder of construction and Penny felt such pride to know her ancestry harked back to such ancient times.
‘How can you be so fair and yet be of Greek stock? I thought you were true English,’ Steven said one day when they were sunbathing.
‘I’m just like you are on my mother’s side, but who knows where we British come from?’ she laughed, but he was not amused.
‘I wouldn’t boast of anything other than your mother’s family, if I were you. Mixing races is never a good idea. It’s bad enough having a Greek name to live down. Still, we are lucky, it is always the mother’s blood that is truest,’ he sighed ‘So we are both safe there.’
He really said the silliest things, but his attention soothed Penny’s loneliness. They would climb the path up Mount Lycabettus to watch the apricot moon rise and the stars compete with the twinkling lights of the city. Steven made brief fumbling approaches, kissing her ardently, making her body flicker into life with unusual sensations, but her mind stayed distant and unresponsive. This was not what she wanted, not from him. She would have to let him down gently, but how could she throw ice on his ardour and walk away without hurting his feelings?
She began to make excuses to cancel their hikes and coffee meetings but he was not easy to shake off. He knew where she lodged and that she was related to one of the diplomats, that she gave English lessons to foreigners. He kept asking questions about who she taught, and also about Walter, and the staff at the BSA, especially about John Pendlebury, and where he was excavating.
‘I don’t know his plans, hardly know the man,’ she replied. The summer had not turned out as she had planned and now Steven was boring her with endless and rather intrusive questions. ‘Why do you keep asking me all this stuff? Are you spying on them all?’ she accused, but he laughed it off. She even thought of warning Walter about his curiosity but since their falling-out, she took great trouble to avoid him. She was still embarrassed by her flight.
As the summer heat grew more oppressive, so her spirits sank to their lowest. She was in her bedroom taking a siesta when the downstairs bell rang. If this was Steven coming to call again she was ready to give him an earful. Miss McDade was out, so Penny went down herself and flung open the door with a curt ‘Yes?’ to see a man shadowed by a panama hat.
It was her own papa on the doorstep. She fell into his arms, no thought of English reserve, just relief to see a familiar face. ‘Oh, Papa!’
He clasped her to his chest. ‘Penelope, at last! If the mountain will not come to Mahomet . . . Are you well?’
She burst into tears and he hugged her again. ‘Wipe your eyes. Whatever have you been doing to yourself? Put something decent on,’ he ordered, staring down at her bare legs in shorts. ‘I’m taking you out to lunch.’
They entered the cool, hallowed portals of the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Constitution Square. Penny was dressed in her Sunday silk dress with matching straw hat and sling-back sandals. She hadn’t worn anything so formal for months. They dined in style as if they were in London in the season. Papa was on a short cruise.
‘Now tell me just what has been going on,’ he asked. ‘I can’t get any sense out of your sister.’
Out it all poured about Evadne, the British School, Penny’s life in Athens, all the frustrations of months of being left on her own . . .
‘So you want to come home?’
‘No, not for a season and all that stuff,’ she confessed. She had never talked so openly to Papa before, and he was staring at her in surprise as if he was taking in how much she’d changed since she’d come to Athens.
‘You’ve grown into quite the young lady here. You are looking very Greek,’ he said, admiring her golden skin and hair bleached by the sun. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye.
‘How is she?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Is she very cross with me for bolting?’
‘Oh, she’ll get over it,’ he said, hungrily eyeing his soup. ‘As far as her friends are concerned, you’re still being “finished” in Athens. But she worries, we both do . . . Are you drifting?’
How could she reply to such a direct question? She nodded and then shook her head. ‘I know that’s what it looks like, but I feel I’ve just not yet found what’s right for me. I know I have something to do here but I don’t know what it is. I thought it was being an archaeologist. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the School and all the wonderful tutors here, but I’m not up to it, Papa. Drawing, yes, but the rest of my education is too thin.’ Penny paused, stunned by what she’d just said. All through the summer there’d been this growing feeling that she would never be like Joan or Mercy Coutts or the other dedicated women. Now she had spoken her fear out loud, but where did it leave her future?
‘And your Greek? It is good now. I heard you talking to one of the waiters.’
Penny smiled at the compliment. Weeks of bargaining in the shops and markets, finding the cheapest goods, arguing with noisy neighbours meant she had good street Greek now.
Papa’s face was suddenly still. ‘I have to tell you, Evadne isn’t returning here for a while. I’m afraid she’s lost another baby. There’s a man in Harley Street who hopes to sort out the problem. She’s coming back after she’s had a rest, to be with Walter. You two must make it up then.’
Penny bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose I didn’t help matters. I didn’t know she was . . .’
‘She says how you helped her when she was ill before. I know you’ll be kind. Walter is waiting to be transferred back home for good. The climate here does not suit Evadne. Please visit her and help her, Penny. I’m counting on you.’ He reached out his hand to her and she clasped it tightly.
‘War is coming, Penny. Chamberlain is trying appeasement but it isn’t working. I worry about you here. Not that Greece is much use to Hitler, but everyone is girding their loins. Zan has joined the Dragoons; his regiment is being stepped up. Who knows where it will all end, so you must promise me you will return; no histrionics when the time comes.’ He gripped her hand. ‘You always were a funny little thing with a mind of your own. Remember when you ran away on the lake in the dinghy, alone with all yo
ur toys in a pillow case, trying to make for the little island?’
Penny smiled. It was after a row with Mummy.
‘No amount of persuasion would bring you back until you dropped the oar and had to be rescued.’ He laughed and Penny noticed the pronounced dark rings under his eyes.
‘I’m a big girl now, Papa.’
‘Are you? I hope so. I’m counting on you to help Effy if . . .’ he paused, ‘. . . when the time comes. Don’t let me down.’
‘I know it sounds strange but I feel this is my home now. The Greeks are our people too. If they had to fight, I’d like to think I’d be here to help. I can’t explain, I’m sorry, but I promise I won’t do anything hasty. It’s been hard these past weeks, and I’m sorry about Effy, but I just had to hold on to my independence.’
‘I think I understand. I want to know you are safe and that you’ve found a life for yourself. You are different from the others. My grandmother used to say, “Your children will all wear their heels out in different places.” Your poor mother doesn’t understand you, but I do. I know you’ll make us proud of you.’
Penny wanted to cry but stopped herself in the grandeur of such a dining room. She’d always known her father loved her, but until now she didn’t know how much. He’d defied his wife, sought her out hundreds of miles from home, listened to her troubles and recognized something of himself in her heart. He never insisted again that she return, after that conversation. Instead, each day they toured the city’s sights and he proudly explained the history behind her Greek heritage. She cried when he left for his ship. She had his blessing and he trusted her to honour the family name. From that moment on she went by the name Georgiou.
2001
Somewhere a dog was barking in the field, stirring me back from those far-off days, rousing my thoughts as darkness surrounded me. Penelope Georgiou . . . I’d used that surname for many years. It saved my life on many occasions. Later, when the country was torn by political strife, I was advised to revert back to the English version.
How precious are the memories of that summer in Athens before war devastated its gracious heart and famine starved its citizens. It was only later I discovered that Papa was under observation for heart disease. If only he’d told me how sick he was, and that in coming to visit me he was in fact saying farewell, I would have gone home with him. I would never have insisted on my independence and my life would have taken a completely different path. I didn’t hear of his death in 1942 until it was too late. My mother never forgave me for not being at his funeral, but I was by then in no position to return, had I even known he was gone from my life. It weighs heavy on my heart to think how he let me go on thinking all was well with him, and I was so self absorbed in my own plans.
We had so little time together, but every moment of that visit is haloed in sunlight to me, a precious meeting of minds. His memory never leaves me and I weep to think how stubborn and self-centred he must have found me then.
But now, I know that true love is wide enough to encompass such failings, transforming them into strengths. Out of my furnace of stubbornness came courage and determination, perseverance and a strength of will to endure tortures of mind and body. How I needed these later in the dark years under occupation. But I’m getting ahead of my story here.
It was dark. I must have dozed longer than I thought, my arm was stiff but I sat back staring out of the window, reluctant to move. So many memories still whirling round my anxious mind. In that final year before the war I was drifting round the fringes of student society, flirting with archaeology until I realized I had neither the aptitude, discipline nor talent to stick to its hard course. I gave English lessons, attended church more for company than conviction, but couldn’t help noticing more uniforms sitting in the pews as 1938 drew to a close. The hotels, cafés, parties were full of strangers with stories of expulsions and escape. Steven Leonidis disappeared back to his family or into the army; by then he was of no interest to me. He’d been a pleasant interlude in a hot summer, a distraction from my own heartache.
One by one the British men left to join up and I knew that I must redirect my life into something purposeful. I had indeed been ‘finished’, but playtime in Europe was over and it was time for me to join the real world. Once again, fate took the decision out of my hands one afternoon in the spring of 1939.
Piraeus Harbour, 1939
It was hard for Penny to wave her papa off from the harbour. For a second she wanted to jump into the ferry taking him out to the liner in the bay, but the stubbornness that was making her feet refuse to move, forced her to turn her back and head uphill towards the city. Tears filled her eyes. Now she felt more alone than ever.
As she was walking back uphill from the harbour she noticed a crowd jostling noisily around what looked like a fight. Penny edged nearer. A young man was raining down blows on an older man’s head while some of the crowds jeered, though others were trying to drag them apart. Anyone could see it was an unequal fight. Under the onslaught the older man stumbled and fell, and there was a distinct crack of bone. As he screamed in pain, the crowd edged away, melting into the busy throng, leaving the injured man lying on the cobbles with only Penny to hear his cries.
‘He stole my money! Please . . .’ His Greek was heavily accented. He was gasping in pain.
‘Don’t move, don’t move.’ Penny bent down to see blood seeping from his trouser leg. The displacement of his leg was enough to show her that it was broken.
The man tried to rise, but fell back in a faint with shock and pain.
‘We must find a doctor,’ Penny said, glancing round for support, but there was no one listening. The crowd had dispersed. It was then that her old Red Cross lessons flashed into her head: Page 14: What to do with a broken limb.
She must bind the broken limb to the other leg and check to see if the bone was protruding. If she could make a splint out of a plank or stick . . . She looked around her. There was nothing to hand. She yanked up her skirt and unhooked her stockings from her suspenders; at least she had some stockings and the belt of her cotton dress that she could tie to his ankles, but she needed help.
She looked around again and saw a mother with two boys hovering, curious, and she shouted in her roughest Greek, ‘Ela! Come here, help me!’ Hearing Penny calling for help, a man came out of a shop holding a couple of broom handles, which she used to bind the legs into splints. It was the best she could remember of her knowledge. Keep the patient comfortable. Treat for shock.
‘Efharisto poli . . . despinis.’ The old man was slowly coming round ‘You are kind, despinis. He stole my money. He promised me tickets to sail to Egypt with my family. I came for the tickets and he laughed in my face. Now we cannot leave. I have papers and cannot leave.’ His distress was clear, the pain making his skin grey.
Penny knew they must find a hospital, and soon.
‘Kyrie, your leg is broken. You can’t go anywhere but to a doctor,’ she told him.
‘But I must,’ he whispered. ‘My wife, my daughter, they are waiting. We are leaving.’ He began to wail in a language she didn’t understand and, seemingly, nor did anyone around her.
‘Where do you live? I’ll find them,’ she whispered into his ear. He said an address in the poorest part of town. But first she had to find him transport, anything to get him off the dirty street before he passed out again.
‘Help us, please . . .’ She turned to the strangers. ‘We cannot leave him to die!’ What had happened to the famous Greek hospitality? This was supposed to be the land known for its kindness to strangers, famed for its courtesy, but no one wanted to get involved.
Then a shopkeeper and his wife, seeing the drama, shut their shop and offered their handcart for the old man to lie in. ‘Where is the hospital?’ Penny asked, but they shook their heads. They were immigrants with halting Greek. She asked again and someone pointed her up the hill to a doctor’s clinic.
It was hard work pushing the cart uphill. The man was short but stock
y, his constant groans of pain were distressing, but thankfully he kept passing out. The clinic was in a house, shabby and none too clean, but it was somewhere help could be given at least.
‘Are you a relative?’ the doctor who opened the door asked, eyeing Penny with interest after she had explained what had happened. ‘His name?’ Again she shook her head.
‘Pos sas lene?’ she asked the old man, smiling. ‘I will find your family for you.’
‘My name is Solomon Markos. Here see . . .’ He pointed to his passport in his pocket.
‘Another Jew on the run,’ said the doctor with a sneer in his voice.
Penny was incensed. ‘He was cheated. He bought tickets. His drachmas are no different than any others and here, look, he was born in Thessaloniki. He is as Greek as you are,’ Penny snapped. ‘All he did was come for his tickets and when the man refused to hand them over, Kyrie Markos protested and was beaten to the ground. I saw it happen with my own eyes.’
‘You don’t understand,’ the doctor said patronizingly. ‘Jews are not one of us. That is how it has always been. People want to leave, others take advantage. He will have to pay here. Does he have family? You cannot leave him without security.’
‘You have his passport papers. And I have my watch.’ Penny unstrapped the gold watch from her wrist, slamming it on the table in disgust. ‘But I want a receipt from you. That is my security, but you can also ring the British embassy. They will vouch for me there. Penelope Angelika Georgiou,’ she replied in her most imperious English voice.
‘I would have taken you for Greek, despinis.’
‘See to his leg and I will return.’ She was in no mood to talk to the doctor.
