The Girl Under the Olive Tree

by Leah Fleming

  I took flight from all of the memories by good works, to compensate, to pay back, to punish myself, even. I felt I didn’t deserve a normal family life. I had given into baser instincts. I had let my self-imposed standards down. Yet I was human, no better or worse than others. What happened between Rainer and me wasn’t a tawdry affair. It was beautiful and loving, shortlived, and I would not deny it ever again.

  Suddenly I felt cleansed. I’d been given the chance of reconciliation in coming back here and the renewal of friendship. I’d been given a gift to go back and see my younger self as others might see me.

  I was not always faithless, impatient, childless, ‘flaky’, as Lois calls people sometimes. The life I had found in Africa was useful and gave me a sense of proportion, for who cannot see such poverty and need, and not despise the current rat race? So no more agonizing, enjoy these precious days left.

  It was Lois and Alex’s last night and I was staying on. Sarika insisted everyone came for a final barbecue to celebrate the reunion and finding Bruce’s tin. We hadn’t worked out how to open it safely, having even soaked it in olive oil to release the rust, but the lid was fixed solid.

  It was a warm night and the full scents of the thyme and rosemary and mountain herbs filled the air. A table was spread under the pergola, lit with citronella candles. Lois arrived and Mack, all with long sleeves and laced with insect repellent. Across the valley the flickering lights of the villages below us made a marvellous backdrop. Somewhere out beyond lay the wine-dark sea of Crete.

  The women had cooked up a feast of dishes: pork steaks sizzling on the grill, long village sausages, lamb pieces, baskets of thick bread, jugs of oak-barrelled village wine, salads, a chicken and rice pilafiand then ice creams and fruit; enough food to feed an army. I did my best to do it justice and Alex mopped up what I was leaving so as not to offend.

  The music was playing in the background, the music of Crete, and the young ones got up to dance the pentozali steps and try the faster dances. Yolanda and I made a valiant attempt to join in but ended up just swaying in time to the rhythms.

  Just for one night our families were joined together, laughing, joking, toasting each other, ‘Yamas’. Their generosity knew no bounds, but why be surprised? Had I not received such a welcome in the midst of danger and starvation?

  It was Sarika’s husband who brought me the little tin. ‘We have to cut it, I’m afraid, with a can opener. It should be airtight after all these years. Or will you keep it as it is?’

  I didn’t hesitate. ‘Bruce left it for safekeeping for some reason. I think we should open it and I am curious. Let’s do it now,’ I said, feeling at peace with myself. Whatever it contained would be a link stretching over the years to me, a precious gift. ‘Just one thing,’ I called out to him. ‘I’d like to open it in private, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ he smiled, his dark features, so typical of Cretan mountain men, crinkling into a smile. ‘My uncle remembers Panayotis in the war. He said he was a brave palliakari.’

  This was a compliment indeed, linking him to so many brave men and women who fought so we could enjoy the freedoms tonight: freedom to complain, to demonstrate or strike, to live in our cultures without oppression. Long may it continue, I prayed.

  He beckoned me across into the workshop and his bench. ‘I’ve done it, here, take it.’ He’d peeled it back like a sardine can.

  Clutching the tin, I made for a quiet corner to open it further, my heart thudding with excitement. In touching the contents, I would touch a little of Bruce. Crammed inside the tin, doubled up, was a slim notebook. As I eased it out I saw it was a tiny diary with flimsy pages stuck together. It must be Bruce’s notebook of his adventures on the island.

  My hands trembled, not wanting to tear anything. The pages were covered in scribbles and little sketches. Bruce had kept a diary, strictly against the rules, of course. There were dates scribbled on the top but I would need a magnifying glass to read the sentences. How frustrating, not to hear him reach out to me over the years, listen to his accent in my head, but at the back there was one entry in darker pencil, just about legible. This would have to do for the moment.

  15 March 1944. Sitting in this bloody burial chamber again, wondering if it’s safe to pop my head over the parapet and head back south. Good to see my girl in Chania. She takes such risks, I worry she might be betrayed. Now waiting for wireless orders. Glad P. is safe where she is with N. for the moment. I never wanted ties with this job but she’s so much part of my life here, knowing she’s doing her bit too gives me strength. Thought it too risky to having feelings but it’s the opposite. When all this is over, I’ll buy her a ring.

  We fight for the right to have homes and families, to be safe from bully boys with guns, stealing what was never theirs. I’m fighting to get home and start again with the one girl I know will make me happy into my old age. She is so full of surprises. Never saw myself as one of the pipe and slippers brigade, but you can get mighty sick of eating grass and snails, smelling like a sewer pipe. Roll on home comforts one day.

  What is risky is carrying this around with me, too many names and places so it can stay here tucked in the can in case it rains in. God how it can rain here . . .

  The pages were blank after that, but slipped inside was a crumpled photograph. It was the one of Yolanda and me taken at the wedding. We look young and happy. I could hardly see for the tears in my eyes. Oh, Bruce, what might’ve been between us had you lived? Now I’ll never know, but to have this gift was a comfort of sorts. I clutched it tight while the healing tears flowed.

  So you loved me as I once loved you. In reading these pages there’s a chance to close the chapter on that unlived life we’d never had together. I’m glad you never knew how I betrayed you, but no more of that, . . .

  Tonight was for celebrating, dancing and friendship, and the years left to Yolanda and me to make up for lost time.

  There was no shame in keeping my own counsel. My secrets were my own to live with, not burden others. I made good use of our time here, made my pilgrimage, paid my respects to the dead, and now I must rejoin the living, savour the rich aromas of friendship renewed.

  I watched Lois, Alex and Mack attempting to dance to the film music from Zorba the Greek. All of us had been given a new lease of life by this visit, I mused, as I sat clutching the diary, smiling, knowing those chains of shame, fettering me to the past, were loosening. Now I felt free, free at last to return home to this special island.

  I may have lost my lover but I’d found again a place that would always be part of my heart. In the safety of Stokencourt, I would read Bruce’s diary and cherish his memory. Perhaps it was worthy of donating to some military archive when I was no longer around. But time now to look to the present and future. There’s always some pressing battle to face when you are old and the clock is ticking away.

  I could see a table full of Cretan pastries to savour, music and all the shadowing colours of Crete. It was going to be a long and noisy night, but it was so good to be alive to enjoy it, I smiled as I made my way back to the dancing.

  Chania Airport, 2001

  Rainer joined the queue for the shuttle bus out to the tarmac landing strip and the early morning flight to Athens. He climbed up the stairs, pausing to take one last lingering look at the hills, feeling the heat and scents already building up. It was time to return north to an empty house, correspondence and his grey life. He would miss the sunshine and the vibrant busyness of his holiday.

  The seat next to him was unoccupied, but to his surprise he was sitting across from the mother and boy whom he seemed to have been following all around the island on his jaunts. He sprang up to help them secure their hand luggage in the locker and she turned to thank him. The boy was soon plugged into his game console.

  ‘All good things end. You are returning too?’ he asked politely. ‘I think you were on the ferry out?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, it is over too quickly. Do you come to Crete every year?
So many do?’

  ‘No, just once before. It is very beautiful. Pardon me for asking but your mother is not returning with you?’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, you mean my aunt, my great-aunt, actually. No, she decided to stay on, changed her flight at the last minute. She found an old friend . . .’

  ‘That is good. But she lives with you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she laughed. ‘Heavens, Aunt Pen lives in the Cotswolds. We live in London,’ she replied, looking towards her son.

  Rainer was curious to know more. ‘My wife and I visited Stratford-upon-Avon and spent many happy visits near Chelten . . . ham, but I forget the names. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Penelope is lucky. Stokencourt is such a pretty village. We often go to stay there.’

  Rainer’s heart lurched. Did she really say ‘Penelope’? No, surely not . . . Would she have been sitting next to him if she’d returned? Could it possibly be that the woman who’d smiled across at him in the café, the woman on the deck at dawn, the woman standing by the grave was Penelope?

  He didn’t want to intrude, but to be so close and so far . . . He felt he was bursting to know more. ‘Excuse me, but I would like to ask. Your Aunt Penelope, was she by any chance a nurse?’

  The niece beamed at him. ‘Why, yes, all her life. She taught in Malawi, trained up nurses there. Do you know her?’

  ‘I’m not sure but she did remind me of someone. It’s a small world and we tourists seemed to end up in the same spots. How strange.’ He paused, taking a deep breath. ‘Do give her my good wishes.’

  ‘Who shall I say was asking?’

  ‘Doktor Brecht, Rainer Brecht, but perhaps she’ll have forgotten one of her patients. It was a long time ago.’

  The stewards interrupted, coming down the aisle checking seats as the engine roared into life for takeoff.

  Rainer stared out of the window, his heart thumping at this coincidence. Could it really be her? As they raced down the runway and up into the air, he smiled, thinking perhaps his pilgrimage was not over yet. A visit to England in the autumn was always pleasant. Was there just one more piece to fit in the jigsaw of his past before he could rest in peace?

  Author Notes and Acknowledgements

  The Battle of Crete was fought over 11 days, in May 1941. The island fell but never surrendered. Resistance continued until May 1945. I have tried to respect the timeline of major events and locations in this struggle. One British Red Cross nurse remained at her post until captured; Johanna Stavridi was honoured by the Hellenic Red Cross for her courage. Her story can be found in Eric Taylor’s Heroines of World War II (Hale) (1991) and Dilys Powell’s classic The Villa Ariadne (Efstathiadis group, S.A., 2003). The character and background of Penelope George was inspired by the stand made by the late Miss Stavridi, but this story is entirely fictitious.

  What happened to the Jews of Chania in June 1944 is recorded in articles and essays The Jews of Crete, Volume 11 (Etz Hayyim Synagogue, 2002). There was only one known female who escaped the round-up – the late Victoria Fermon. Yolanda Markos and her family are entirely my own creation and not based on anyone living or deceased.

  On board the Tanais were Italian prisoners of war, local resistance fighters as well as the Jewish community of Crete. No one knows the exact number of victims who drowned, but there were survivors, some of whom gave their account to an enquiry years later. I have tried to imagine the terror of surviving such a disaster. Some of Rainer Brecht’s wartime exploits loosely follow that of Einer von der Heydte whose account Daedelus Returned provided some useful information. Rainer, however, is a figment of my imagination. I have taken liberties with some timings, locations and events for dramatic purposes, but I hoped in doing so to capture some of the brave spirit of the Resistance Movement all over Crete. Any mistakes are entirely my own.

  I could not have written this without the help and encouragement of Reg and Daphne Fairfoot of Artemis Villas, Stavros. I also treasure the time spent with Nikos Hannan-Stavroulakis, Alex Phoundoulakis and Anja Zuckmantel at Etz Hayyim Synagogue and the hours we spent in their company as tour guides there. It was at the annual memorial service for the victims of 10th June 1944 that I first heard their tragic history and knew this was something that I must one day try to honour. I am indebted also to Trisha and Mike Scott of Kaina, the Kokotsakis family of Aptera, especially Androniki for her memories of occupation, and Sue Harris-Kokotsaki’s translation of Olympia Kokotsaki-Mantonanaki’s award winning poem. I would like to thank Dr Don Everly, former Curator of the British School in Knossos, for a wonderful guided tour of the world famous site, Manolis; Sofia and Marialena Tsompanakis, Jeff and Brenda Thompson again for their hospitality and Ann and Graham Bacon for showing us an ancient tomb chamber close to Stilos that made such a perfect hiding place. You will find many relations of “Uncle Clarence” among the ancient olive groves of N.W. Crete.

  It was the late Tony Fennymore who escorted us round Chania on one of his Saturday morning city tours all those years ago and unwittingly sowed the seeds of this story. His enthusiasm for all things Cretan was contagious. Once again I must thank my editor, Maxine Hitchcock, and copyeditor Yvonne Holland for their attention to detail and useful suggestions and my 500 Club confidantes, Trisha Ashley and Elizabeth Gill, for their support. Finally, love and gratitude to my husband David, my chef and chauffeur, whose practical encouragement and enthusiasm never wavers.

  Some Further Reading:

  The Battle and Resistance, Antony Beevor. Penguin. 1991

  Inside Hitler’s Greece, Mark Mazower. Yale University Press. 1995.

  On the Run, Sean Damer and Ian Frazer. Penguin. 2006.

  The Cretan Resistance: 1941-5, N A Kokonas. 2004.

  The Jews of Ioannina, Rae Dalven. Cadmus Press. 1990.

  The Cretan Runner, George Psychoundakis. Penguin. 1998.

  Fenny’s Hania, Fenny’s Crete Publications. 1999.

  Leah Fleming. Crete 2012.