by Leah Fleming
‘Here’s me thinking you’d deserted us or were dead, and you, thinking I’d gone over to the other side. How could you ever think that after what we’ve both been through?’ Penny laughed. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you and know you’re safe.’
‘So where are you now?’ Yolanda asked, tears of joy rolling down her face. ‘It’s been so long.’
‘In a convent. Can’t you tell, in my smart uniform?’ Penny whispered.
‘You’ve taken vows?’ Yolanda looked astonished.
‘Do I look the type?’ They both burst out laughing and it was only when they recovered that they noticed Sister Clothilde was standing only a foot away, eyeing them both with suspicion, her arms folded in disapproval at such displays of emotion in public.
‘Nurse, it’s time to leave. This has been a useless outing; let’s not waste any more time here.’ Sister Clothilde turned and made her way to where the novice nun was waiting for her, holding the empty shopping baskets.
‘If you want vegetables, I know someone who can find you a supply, but under cover of darkness,’ Yolanda whispered.
‘Black market?’
‘Not exactly. He relieves the Germans of their surplus, shall we say, supplies they stole from us. Let’s just call it reclamation . . .’
‘Oh, do be careful. If you’re caught . . .’
‘Not me, I’m too busy training up orderlies. Come and join us. I’m so glad to see you. Momma and Papa will be so happy to know you are safe. Come and have supper with us on Friday . . . Sabbath supper. We have rooms in Portou Street. It has a dark-green door, the street under the wall behind Kondilaki. It’s all a bit of a mess down there but our house still has a roof.’
Penny held onto her arm. ‘I can’t believe this. I thought you . . .’ she hesitated to repeat what she’d really thought. ‘I thought you were dead. I’ve so much to tell you.’
‘And so have I.’ Yolanda waved her farewell, her gold necklace glinting in the sunshine as she raced passed Clothilde and the novice down the street.
‘Did I see the Star of David round that girl’s neck?’ Clothilde snapped.
‘I never noticed,’ Penny replied. ‘She’s my friend from Athens, a Red Cross nurse. Oh, I am so glad she made it here. There were so many nurses drowned . . .’
‘Nurse or not, she’s a Jewess. We do not consort with such people.’
Gladly I do, thought Penny with defiance, but said nothing, taking her place in line for the walk back. She would love to see the Markos family again but first she must ask permission to leave the convent. For the first time in weeks she felt the constraints of her chosen refuge. Every choice had its price, she sighed.
On Friday morning, Mother Veronique sent for her in the playground where she was teaching the girls to play ‘In and out the Scottish bluebells’. They were dancing in and out of each other’s raised arms and Penny was beating time to the tune on an empty oil drum, everyone trying to sing in English, French and Greek, and making lots of happy noise. She was asked to go to the study where Mother Superior told her the visit to the Markos family would be allowed, under escort as far as the Jewish quarter, with strict instructions to be back before dark. Penny tried to explain that Sabbath would begin at sunset and this would not leave much time for her meal.
‘I fear you are taking advantage of our hospitality here,’ Veronique chided her. ‘Perhaps you should go and lodge with your friend.’
‘I’m sorry for causing inconvenience to you all since you’ve been more than generous to me. I’ve been used to my own freedoms, I fear.’ Penny reflected that nothing in her upbringing, or since, could have paved the way for a convent life.
Veronique nodded. ‘You are an unsettling influence on some of the younger girls. Sister Clothilde . . .’
Penny didn’t hear the rest. Poor plain petulant Clothilde was jealous, suspicious and bigoted. It was time Penny left the convent and joined Yolanda at her clinic or the hospital.
St Joseph’s had sheltered her when she had no address that would satisfy her captors. It had given her refuge when exhausted and confused, fed her and given her back confidence in her skills, as well as adding a few more. What was one nun’s spitefulness amongst such loving kindness?
She dropped on her knees for a blessing. ‘Mother, you’ve given me back my strength, my courage and dignity. Your convent was a rock to cling to and I’ll never forget such love, but you’re right. It’s time for me to go back out there and use my talents, not hide them away. I do know my Bible.’ Penny smiled. ‘I hope you’ll accept my deepest gratitude and forgive my impulsive ways.’
Veronique patted her head. ‘Get up, young lady. You’ve been a breath of fresh air wafting amongst us, scurrying about, teaching short cuts, dancing with the children. One day you will make a good mother. You have a big heart, Penelope. There’s much for you to do in this world. Go and see your friend and I will pray that the way forward for you will become clear. Stay with us until you see where that path takes you.’
With such a blessing ringing in her ears, Penny had a spring in her step as she made her way down the hill towards the ruined city with Sister Irini, who was taking some food to an old Algerian couple confined by sickness to their rooms.
On street corners, spilling out of the tavernas still standing were the troops in their distinctive olive-green-grey uniforms, cluttering the streets, three abreast, shoving locals into the road, loud, bragging, enjoying the sunshine and eyeing the girls.
Penny was glad to be invisible in her plain habit and headscarf, even if she was a head taller than her escort. No one would bother looking at her, and this sowed the seed of an idea as to how she might travel unmolested with the right papers. There was no doubt in her mind that the hills were calling. She had looked on them every morning with longing. They reminded her of Scotland and the freedom of stalking in the mountains. What must the view be from them?
She’d not forgotten Bruce’s challenge to her to go native and disappear. It was important that she could justify why she’d defied him and stayed on. It was in one of those moments in the bustle of the streets that she looked up and saw the snow tips of the White Mountains, even in the heat of summer, and sensed they were her next destination. How or when, she had no idea, only this flutter of certainty in her gut. It was time to move on.
It was a crush around the supper table, the sun had just set and Yolanda’s uncle’s house was full of lodgers who’d lost their homes in the bombing. The synagogue had lost its top floor but enough remained for a gathering for prayers. Now, as the candles were lit and the prayers around the table began, Penny sat in silence, the honoured guest at the humble feast. The chicken had had to be killed according to custom in secret because it was now illegal for animals to be slaughtered in the kosher way. There’d been an order to hand in all ritual knives, all knives from the Jewish residents, but, as ever, someone managed to hide or ‘lose’ theirs, and in a city famous for its knife making, there were always replacements ready to be cleansed and blessed for the purpose.
How different this was from their dinners together in Kifissia. Sara looked pinched and tired, her face drained of emotion. Solomon had aged, his hair now entirely white, and he had grown a long beard. Penny tried to follow what Yolanda was doing and listened to the Classical Hebrew coming from the lips of even small children.
There was talk of the new instructions, read out by their rabbi, that soon all their shopkeepers must place a large sign in their windows announcing: ‘This is a Jewish Business . . . Germans prohibited from entering.’
‘They will beggar us, for who else has drachmas but the soldiers?’ said Aunt Miriam, her eyes wary, looking round the table for support. People shrugged. ‘What can we do but obey?’ said another. ‘We heard the rabbi has to give a list of all the Jews of Chania with their addresses and ages to the Town Hall. What does it mean?’
‘It means we’re registered, that’s all, so calm yourself, Mother. A sign on the window, a name on a list means nothing.
If it was anything more, Giorgos would nod me the wink,’ Joseph interrupted. ‘We keep our heads down and do nothing to alert attention. The children are in school, they have good friends, as long as we stick together . . .’
‘You are wrong, Joe. We should be heading for the hills, away from places where we’re known, find a ship and leave,’ said a young man with thick glasses. ‘Don’t forget the old saying: “Drop by drop the water wears away the marble . . . One by one their laws will destroy us.”’
‘That’s defeatist talk, Mordechai, I’ll have none of that here. The Almighty One has spared us, we have life and we must live it as He ordains. The Jews have lived here in peace for over a thousand years. He will not allow His congregation to be destroyed.’
When the formalities of dinner were over and Mordechai made to talk to Yolanda, she grabbed Penny’s arm and made for the door. ‘Let’s get out of here so we can talk. I don’t want Mordo to get the wrong idea. I’ve seen how his mother and my mother are making plans.’
‘He looks a nice young man,’ Penny whispered.
‘Precisely, nice but with no spark,’ Yolanda smiled, and nudged her. ‘You know what I mean. Nothing happens when I look at Mordo.’ She patted her groin. ‘Nothing down there.’
‘Yolanda Markos, what’s got into you? You weren’t like this in Athens.’ Penny nudged her back and they giggled.
‘I hadn’t met Andreas Androulakis then,’ she whispered.
Then Yolanda told Penny all about her doctor friend, who was working for the freedom forces, she was sure, taking supplies to hidden soldiers who had escaped from the camps. There was such tenderness in her eyes as she talked of him.
‘Last week he came on shift late. He said he’d been to see a sick patient. I don’t know where he went but when he comes back his boots are filthy and he’s covered in blood stains. They say he’s gone into the hills to treat wounded escapees . . . When he does his shift his eyelids are drooping with exhaustion. He’s such a brave man. I wish he’d take me with him.’
‘What do your parents make of your young man?’ Penny asked.
‘They must know nothing about him. Father is treating me like a child. He’s changed since he came here. He has gone back to his faith and is far stricter. He’s afraid I will leave them. If he thought I was seeing a Gentile . . . They don’t understand.’
‘You are all they have, they need you,’ Penny replied, though she knew it wasn’t what Yolanda wanted to hear.
‘I know, but times are so strange now. I have to lead my own life. Who knows what will happen?’
Penny envied the passion she could see flaming out of those dark eyes, dangerous though it might be. When she thought of Bruce, she felt only frustration, anxiety, no longer any excitement or passion. That part of her life was over. She had no energy left for romance. She told Yolanda about her time coming to an end in the convent, how she missed the danger of the field hospital, even in those terrible conditions. ‘I must be mad to miss the caves, and all those hospital trains, but action gets in your blood. Now I feel numb and useless.’ She explained about the convent and the German captain’s interest in her.
‘I think he guesses I am not Greek but he’s said nothing. I hope he’s left Crete by now.’
‘Was he the man in the staff car? He looked terrifying – all Nazis do,’ Yolanda whispered.
‘He scares me, too . . . I don’t want to think about him. I’m so glad we’re friends together again. Knowing you’re safe and with your family is all that matters now. But it’s time for me to go.’
‘You can stay with me here; don’t go yet,’ said Yolanda.
‘I have to. My escort, Sister Irini, is waiting in the square. I think they fear I’ll be converted overnight,’ Penny laughed. ‘I must go inside to thank your family for their hospitality.’
She made her farewells and Yolanda walked her down the rubble-filled street.
‘You’ve set me thinking. I promised Bruce I’d go native, go into the mountains. It sounds as if I could be useful there but I need a guise, identity papers and somewhere to take me in. A stranger in a village is soon news. I haven’t even got a map,’ Penny confessed.
‘Let me ask Andreas when he returns. He’ll know what to do,’ Yolanda replied.
‘Bruce told me to dye my hair. How can I do that?’
‘Leave that to me, we’ll do it one night.’
They paused at the harbour end and hugged. ‘I envy you, Penny. You have the riches of freedom and choices, I have only this,’ she sighed, pointing to the broken buildings.
Penny shook her head and waved as she left. ‘You have a loving family, deep roots, a vocation and a lover in your heart. From where I’m standing, you are the wealthier one of us by far.’
2001
The market was emptying. Dogs scavenged for scraps among the litter. The smell of the pork souvlaki was tempting as I sat daydreaming of dear Yolanda and that last supper in Chania with them all. Finding her again kept me sane during that first hot summer. War had a habit of separating people, dividing families and friends, tearing lovers from each other’s arms.
Those who could, fled into the hills, took refuge in caves and stone huts like animals seeking shelter from the heat or the snow. Others, like the Markos family, huddled in basements undercover. There was safety in numbers – or so they thought . . .
‘Aren’t you glad you came back?’ Lois interrupted my thoughts. ‘Was that school you pointed out the one where you stayed in Halepa?’
I nodded. ‘It’s a college now. I’m glad it survived.’
‘Were you really a nun?’ Alex was looking at me intently.
‘Yolanda asked me that,’ I mused, still stuck in past thoughts.
‘Will we meet her too?’ the boy asked.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Alex could be so insistent.
I shook my head. ‘Let’s not talk about all that on such a lovely day,’ I said. ‘Take me home.’
Part 3
RESISTANCE
All the good things of the world are written in ink
But Freedom asks for a script written in blood from our own heart.
A Cretan mantinada from The Leaden-Sky Years of World War II, Kimon Farantakis, translated by P. David Seaman
2001
The taxi drove Rainer east along the old road to Heraklion and Rethymno, turning into the hills at Vrisses, climbing up into the mountain passes and onto the Askifou Plain along narrow winding metalled tracks gouged out of the rocky landscape. It was all so different from the mule tracks, dusty riverbeds and gorges that this old veteran had once struggled along. ‘You have to see the Kriegsmuseum in the hills,’ he was told in the hotel. ‘Georgos makes everyone welcome and there’s nothing like it in the whole of Crete.’
As they turned down the narrow lane from the village of Kares, he wondered just what he was coming to. It was indeed a unique war museum, judging by the rusting machinery cluttering up the entrance of the old house. A man in a black shirt and jodhpurs introduced himself as Georgos Hatzidakis, owner of a motley collection of weaponry and armaments.
He found himself in a small living space taken over with exhibits: posters and field equipment such as he hadn’t seen for sixty years, radio sets, medical instruments, binoculars, helmets of all nationalities, caps, guns; a collection that Georgos and his family had put together since 1941 when the Battle for Crete passed his door as a boy of ten.
They had watched the British retreat, the German pursuit and the capture of the remnants as they stumbled back over the mountains as prisoners of war.
‘Me see everything,’ he explained in broken English to a visiting English couple.
They all browsed among the memorabilia, stunned at the comprehensiveness of this collection: motorbikes, iron crosses, even a set of dental instruments, all sorts of hardware had found its way here. ‘This is my family and no favourites,’ the curator smiled as he gave them all thimble glasses filled with raki, and biscuits. ‘And yo
u, my friend, were here?’ he asked.
The veteran nodded. ‘Not during the evacuation. No, I was wounded,’ he said, slapping his hip as if to excuse himself from anything the man might relate of that time. ‘But later, yes. There were no roads then, just tracks down to the port of Sphakia and the south coast.’
‘It used to take two days for us to travel from there to Chania, now it’s just an hour. The island has shrunk, but memories are still long,’ Georgos said.
‘Many bad things happened,’ he replied: better to say this first.
Georgos shrugged in that Greek way. ‘Here we take no sides. These are just witnesses and I am a living bit of the history.’ He pulled back his sariki to show a big scar. ‘Shrapnel from a bomb. It killed my uncle and my brother . . . Boom, boom, out of the sky. Come, my friend, another raki and another biscuit. ‘Siga, siga . . . go slowly in the heat. Many soldiers come here to remember.’ He walked away, leaving the visitors to read the testaments on the walls, the newspapers and photographs, the tragic human detritus of such a hasty scramble for freedom. There was too much to take in at one sitting.
He felt the raki taking its effect and needed to sit down in the shade. His driver would be in the kafenion waiting for the return journey. As he sat on a bench overlooking the plain and the hills, memories flooded back again.
Kares looked so peaceful: fields of crops, neatly painted houses, gardens full of geraniums and roses. He must have passed by this spot in those early months, tense, uncertain, still shocked by their struggle to hold the island. It was an unsettling time; so many bad memories to settle. He looked across at the pile of rusting weapons, once gleaming with menace. Why does it always come to this?
1941
The late summer campaign into the hills was to flush out the stragglers, knowing many were being sheltered in the villages higher up in the White Mountains. How shocked Rainer was to discover the primitive conditions in which these proud Cretans lived: often in one room with an earth floor, cooking over an open fire, drawing water from deep stone wells underground. His men assumed they were ignorant peasants and treated them with contempt.
