Among the Lemon Trees

by Nadia Marks

  ‘You know perfectly well what the difference is,’ she hissed at him.

  Of course Max knew; Anna teased him often enough about it.

  ‘English is such a rich language,’ she liked to tell anyone who’d listen, ‘but in defining love, the Greeks have the edge.’ It amused her and made her feel smart to elaborate on the subject of love. The Greeks, she’d explain, have four words for love and each one describes a different emotion. Agápe is the big love, storgé, the tender mother love, philía friendship, and Éros sexual love. ‘Agápe,’ Anna would relate, ‘encompasses all the other loves in one big absolute and supreme emotion. Éros on the other hand, according to the Greeks, is the love that in English is referred to as falling in love. It’s all about passion, desire and obsession, it takes you over but ultimately it’s ephemeral.’

  So yes, Max should have known perfectly well what Anna was referring to. Her anger took hold.

  ‘Max! Max!’ she shouted. ‘What is wrong with you? Listen to yourself!’ She choked back her tears. ‘It’s me you’re talking to, Anna, your wife, remember?’ He stood rooted to the ground like a defiant child. He had no reply.

  ‘Do you still want to be with me? Do you still love me?’ she asked, after waiting a few moments for him to end the silence. She’d never imagined she’d ever have to ask that question of Max. He was her soulmate, her best friend, her lover, the father of her children. How could Max not love her?

  ‘I think so . . . I don’t know,’ came his noncommittal answer, spiking her through the heart.

  ‘You don’t know?’ she burst out again. ‘After twenty-five years of marriage that’s what you say to me? What about your children? What about Alex and Chloe, do you know if you love them?’

  ‘I need space, time to think. I’m confused,’ he mumbled.

  In the weeks that followed, Anna felt she was living in a bad dream. Max was still at home but unable to make any decisions about the future. The two of them tried to behave normally in front of their children and then in private Anna would explode, frustrated with Max’s inability to discuss or express his feelings. Time and time again she would catch Chloe looking at her quizzically.

  ‘Mum, what is going on, what is wrong with Dad?’ she had asked more than once, but Anna was determined to keep her children out of it until she herself was clearer about the situation.

  Every time she was on the verge of telling him to pack his bags and go, she thought of all the years they’d been together. If Max was out of his mind, then she had to stay sane. A few months of madness versus twenty-five years of a good marriage; she had to give it some more time, but how long?

  Determined that her life would not come to a complete halt, Anna tried to carry on as usual. She’d been walking down Piccadilly towards the Royal Academy of Arts. It was the final days of a major Monet exhibition and she’d talked herself into going. Thoughts of her life spinning out of control were clouding her brain. A concrete sky pressed down over the city, like a damp ceiling threatening to burst. As she walked along, all she could think of was: Is this it? Is this really how all these years of a good marriage are going to end?

  She must have been distracted. The pedestrian lights had turned green; she was quite sure of it. The girl standing next to her stepped off the kerb, so she automatically followed her. The motorbike came from nowhere. The screeching brakes and deafening sound of the horn jolted Anna out of her daze and back onto the pavement with a jump. But the girl ahead of her wasn’t quick enough and she took the vehicle’s full impact. She was now lying on the tarmac, her body sprawled across the road like a broken toy. Her bag, and one of her shoes, had come off and were lying by Anna’s feet. Anna looked at her in disbelief, her knees started to give way and she leaned on the traffic lights to avoid buckling over. Within seconds, a crowd gathered. A woman took Anna’s arm and guided her towards a bench. The biker, apparently unhurt, was frantic and hovered over the girl. A man ran over saying he was a doctor and people were calling for an ambulance. Time lapsed. Anna thought it was like a film in slow motion.

  The girl was still in the middle of the road. A pool of blood was now visible under her hair. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

  Anna sat on the bench in a kind of trance, the woman stayed by her side. People talked, paramedics did their job, police held back a gathering crowd of onlookers.

  ‘Are you OK?’ the woman asked softly.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ Anna said in a voice so weak she hardly knew it belonged to her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied and patted Anna’s hand. ‘I’m sure he was speeding. You were very lucky.’

  When she looked back at the girl again the paramedics were putting her in the ambulance; the blanket that had covered her earlier to keep her warm was now over her face.

  Anna sat staring into space. The crowd dispersed and she eventually collected herself and walked across the street to the Royal Academy. Heading straight for the ladies, Anna locked herself in one of the cubicles and burst into a torrent of tears. She cried silently for a long time. She cried because she was shocked and afraid, she cried for that poor wretched girl whose life had been cut down so suddenly and prematurely. She cried for Max, and for herself, and she cried because she knew how easily it could have been her now lying in a morgue somewhere. Locked in the cubicle in one of her favourite places in the world, Anna came to a realization. Enough was enough and it was time to try and take control again. If her husband was incapable of making any decisions, she had to do it. She would carry on, with or without Max.

  The day after her lucky escape Anna felt an overwhelming need to see her father. She’d been avoiding him, cutting her visits short since the crisis with Max for fear of upsetting him, not trusting herself not to break down and until she knew what was going to happen there was no point involving him. Since her mother’s death, she’d been left with a huge weight of responsibility, not only for her father but for everyone else in her family. As a daughter, a wife, a mother, and the sister of three brothers, Anna had, willingly or not, inherited her mother’s role as the matriarch in the family by always having someone to worry about. But if there was ever a time she needed merely to be someone’s daughter, it was right now.

  They met in the grounds of Kenwood, her father’s favourite walking spot. It was a sunny afternoon in May when the roses were in bud and the rhododendrons in full bloom and London looked its Sunday best. They walked arm in arm, Anna fighting back the tears.

  ‘I feel the time has come to return to the island, I want to see the family.’ Her father stopped walking to look at Anna. ‘This could be my last chance.’

  ‘What do you mean “your last chance”, Papa?’ she replied, feeling her knees go to jelly, fearful that there might be something wrong with her eighty-year-old father.

  ‘I don’t know, Anna mou,’ he carried on, speaking in Greek, which was always a sign that he was saying something of importance. ‘I have a premonition this could be my last summer. These days, time is getting short and I want to be there.’

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?’ The jelly feeling was spreading to the rest of her legs.

  ‘No, no, Annoula mou, there’s nothing really wrong. Not that I know of anyway.’ He smiled, sensing her panic. ‘I was thinking about things, and I just feel at my age it could be any time now, you know . . . I’m next in line. Remember what happened to your mother? Fine one day and then suddenly gone.’

  Such uncharacteristic gloom from her father took Anna by surprise. She’d been used to him being optimistic, strong, and full of vigour but his wife’s death had affected him badly.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Papa.’ She tightened her grip round his arm and carried on walking. ‘You’re perfectly fit and healthy, so don’t think such nonsense. Anyway, it’s a great idea. How long were you thinking of going for?’

  ‘Two, three, maybe even four months, perhaps the whole summer or more. I don’t know, I just don’t want to rush back.’

  ‘OK. Th
at’s good,’ Anna said slowly and immediately started to worry; four months was far too long for an old man to be on his own. ‘It’s a great idea, Papa,’ she tried not to sound negative, ‘but don’t you think that’s rather a long time to be there on your own?’

  ‘Why don’t you come with me then, like old times?’ He stopped walking again and turned to her. ‘The children are away this summer, aren’t they? Didn’t you tell me Chloe is going to America and Alex is travelling around Europe? Max won’t mind if you spend some time with your old father, will he?’ Taking hold of her hand, he looked his daughter straight in the eye. ‘You haven’t been back since your mother died, Annoula. Maybe it’s time?’

  Anna’s reluctance to return to the island had much to do with wanting to preserve the memory of being there with her mother and with feeling that she couldn’t face it without her. They’d all spent three blissful weeks together there that last summer, and then, two months after returning to London, she was gone.

  Her father’s unexpected wish to recapture the past stabbed Anna with a sharp nostalgia and a yearning to return to Greece. Her mother, she thought, had gone forever. There was nothing she could do about that, but her father was still here and he needed her. Besides, she was exhausted; she had spent so much emotional energy on Max in the last few months, she now felt totally empty and worn out. It was time to think of herself too.

  2

  The island was barely visible from the boat but Anna was already on deck, leaning out as far as she could, straining her eyes trying to see it. It shimmered in the far distance like a white dove floating on the liquid blue of the Aegean. Filled with the same happiness she’d always felt when approaching this place, she reverted to being ten years old again. Arms outstretched, hair blowing wildly in the breeze, face soaked by the salty spray, she screamed with joy, oblivious to anyone else around her. As they got closer, the rocky hills and mountains started to become visible and she could just make out the church of Agios Nikolaos high on a rock, glistening in the sunlight. This was their island and they were both returning after so much time.

  The instant Anna stepped off the boat and onto dry land, she was flooded with a sense of familiarity and well-being. This place always had the ability to make her feel nurtured, cherished and loved.

  When she was a small girl and they’d arrive as a family for their summer holidays, the entire village would gather at the little harbour to welcome them. That was the time before mass tourism, when visitors on the island were still a novelty. Anna always marvelled at how many people her father seemed to be related to in the village, and how much everyone who knew him from before he left loved him. People would rush to help with getting their luggage off the boat, and wish them a good stay. ‘Kalosorisate,’ they called out, the customary welcoming greeting. Anna and her brothers spent several glorious weeks running wild on the island and, when it was over, none of them wanted to leave the freedom and their friends to return to a captive London life. They felt genuinely welcomed and liked there. Philoxenia, hospitality, is a matter of national pride to the Greeks and when Anna was older she often compared how this philoxenia, this love of the xenos, the foreigner, contrasted to the fear and suspicion of the unknown, of the other, so often demonstrated by certain British people.

  The early July sun was already high in the sky and blisteringly hot when they finally arrived after the long boat journey from Piraeus. London had been wet and miserable and she stood at the harbour waiting for her cousin Manos to help with the luggage. The midday heat, beating down on her back, started to melt her English blues away.

  The local people from Anna’s childhood were long gone and there was no crowd to welcome them or to wish them a good stay, only Manos, beaming with joy at seeing his favourite uncle and cousin again. ‘Kalosorisate!’ he bellowed, hugging them both. The once sleepy harbour was now transformed into a buzzing little port, full of pavement cafes, restaurants and bars. The only place that remained unchanged was the old kafeneon – or coffee shop – in one corner of the square, where for over a century the men of the village would gather to play cards, smoke and gossip. As always, the men – young and old – were sitting in groups, playing with their worry beads, smoking, drinking and surrounded by a forest of chairs.

  Chairs are an essential part of kafeneon life. You would never see a Greek man drinking his coffee without a collection of them around him, it’s impossible for him to occupy only one chair at a time; the allocation per person has to be at least three – one to sit on, another to put his leg on, and a third upon which to lean his elbows, leaving his hands free to make elaborate gestures. A fourth chair, where the coffee and a glass of water would be placed, is optional depending on the presence of a table nearby. This chair ritual is a peculiar Greek phenomenon which Anna had observed very early on in her life. She would often ask her father about it but for him it was natural and logical – how else would a man drink his coffee and talk to his friends comfortably?

  The dusty road up the hill to the house, not too great a distance from the village square, was too far on foot with all their luggage. It snaked through vineyards and olive groves with magnificent mountainous views, the bay and the little harbour below. The sight of the house always gave Anna a thrill. The shrubs and trees her grandparents had planted so long ago were inextricably linked with her early years.

  The crowds hadn’t welcomed them off the boat earlier, but they made up for it by being at the house when they arrived. Her father’s first cousin, Thia – Aunt – Ourania, was there, along with a variety of relatives, waiting under the vine-covered pergola. It is possible, Anna always thought with amusement, that the Greeks have more relatives than any other nation. She had lost count of how many people she called auntie or uncle, and how many cousins she had. Strictly speaking, as Max never failed to remind her, no one is entitled to be called an aunt or uncle unless they are a sibling of one of your parents. But that is not the case in Greece; here on the island everyone is one happy family! The densely leafed vine, klimataria, twined and twisted over the wooden structure and covered the entire front of the house; it was laden with huge bunches of green grapes that would soon turn a deep burgundy and be ready to eat in a few weeks. The organic roof made the space beneath it feel like an outside room. A big wooden table had been laid out with food and drink, ready for a welcoming feast in true Greek style.

  Anna’s father, Alexis, was an only child and very fond of his cousin, and since her grandmother had died before she was born, Anna considered her Thia Ourania her closest surviving female relative. Ourania had never married so had no children of her own, yet she was extremely gifted when it came to dealing with them and her life’s work as a schoolteacher had been perfect for her. She loved her job, and the several generations of children she taught on the island loved her back. When she was young, and had first started teaching, there had even been a few youths who carried a lustful yearning for their pretty young teacher not so many years their senior. On some occasions, these young infatuations became troublesome, causing more than a flurry of gossip in the village.

  ‘What does she expect if she looks like that!’ tongues wagged accusingly. ‘It is Greek island blood that runs through the veins of those boys!’

  Her good looks were not Ourania’s fault and nor did she flaunt them, but at the same time she refused to act like the formidable teacher. However, over time, not wanting to offend or give fuel to the youthful fantasies and narrow minds, she was forced to conform. Her floral summer dresses were put away and her dark curls tamed.

  She was tall, taller than most of the women in the village, and her very name, Ourania – meaning the one from the sky – evoked in Anna’s young mind celestial images and heavenly powers. She had kind eyes, the colour of warm chocolate, and as a little girl, Anna remembered secretly wanting to snatch the comb that held her hair in that tight bun and watch it tumble freely over her shoulders. She could, Anna used to think, be almost as beautiful as her own mother, if she didn’t loo
k so severe. They were quite similar in many ways, those two; about the same height and build, good skin and a profusion of dark hair. But the biggest similarity was their eyes. They both possessed the same wide, intensely dark, melancholic eyes.

  Thia Ourania stood there under the shade of the klimataria with all the other relatives – nearly eighty years old, tall, handsome, and upright as ever. Even though her hair had now turned to silver, still pulled back in that severe fashion of hers, the eyes were the same as always: warm, deep and gentle. Overjoyed, Anna dropped her bags and threw herself into her auntie’s arms, the way she had as a little girl.

  ‘Welcome,’ Ourania said in Greek, kissing her niece on both cheeks and enveloping her in a strong embrace. ‘It has been too long!’ She turned round to look at her cousin. ‘You too, Alexis,’ she said, her voice breaking.

  It had indeed been far too long – over four years since they’d seen her, or any of the other relatives. It had taken them this long to make the journey back – a journey they couldn’t face without Anna’s mother. Until now.

  3

  Anna woke up to the distant sound of a dog barking. Within moments, a second one started up and pretty soon half a dozen more seemed to join in the chorus. This was not a sound you would hear in North London. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Anna slowly remembered where she was. In an instant she was out of bed and running barefoot through the house to the courtyard to find Alexis dressed, freshly shaven and sitting under the vine, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

  ‘Kalimera, Annoula!’ He peered over his glasses. ‘You must have been tired!’

  ‘Oh my God, Papa, what time is it?’ Anna tried to gauge the time by where the sun was.

  ‘It’s nearly noon.’

  ‘I missed the best part of the day.’ She slumped down next to him. Early morning on the island had always been her favourite time, before the sun was high and the heat started to numb the senses.