by Nadia Marks
Anna had started work on a botanical theme and had spent her first week in the garden with her father and Thia Ourania, evoking childhood memories of sitting in that same spot, with colour pencils and paper, her mother by her side. She’d been so busy with Manos and her new friends that she was hardly ever there, so Alexis too was delighted to have his daughter to himself, even for a little while.
‘Your mother loved to see you work, Anna,’ he told her the first day she laid out her crayons on the table under the klimataria. ‘You know she kept all your drawings since you were quite small.’
‘I know, Papa,’ Anna replied, her head filled with sweet recollections.
‘I think you might find the olive groves and fields around the house interesting,’ Nicos continued. ‘Maybe the flora and fauna is sparse this time of year, but don’t forget, Anna, I have a little menagerie in my back yard!’
It was an unexpected offer since Anna knew how much Nicos valued his privacy. His proposal was touching and flattering, yet, instead of eagerly accepting, she was hesitant. Her father’s inevitable disapproval was one reason for dampening her excitement, but then she realized there was also something else. The distance from Anna’s house to Elia was quite impossible to make on foot with her art equipment, especially in the summer heat, and she was all too aware that Manos or Antonis would offer to take her there by car. She’d had enough of being chaperoned and, besides, if she was going to work and be serious about it, having Manos, Antonis, or anyone else around wouldn’t do. She had to find another solution, a way of getting up to the studio on her own.
Finally, after much consideration, and to no one’s approval, Anna came up with the answer. She hired herself a little scooter. Everybody, including the baker and his wife and even old Costis the shepherd, was against the idea, insisting that it was a sure way to get herself killed. As always, the only person on Anna’s side was her Thia Ourania.
‘If you managed to drive a car and ride a bicycle in London for all these years, I don’t see how going up a few deserted hills is going to get you killed,’ she’d said one afternoon when her niece called round to see her.
The two were sitting in her back yard under a lemon tree laden with fruit soon to be ready for picking, and drinking her ice-cold lemonade made from last year’s crop.
‘I wish you’d say something to get them off my back,’ Anna begged, leaning back into her chair and taking a lung full of lemon-scented air. ‘You know you are the only one who can talk some sense into my dad.’ It was a rare treat to enjoy some time alone with her favourite aunt in her own home. The loving childhood memories connected with her house were numerous. Ever since Anna and Alexis’s arrival she’d been spending most of her time with them up the hill, cooking, cleaning and generally fussing over her cousin. Her back yard, which was almost an extension of the kitchen with its table and chairs under the lemon tree, led into a small orchard which, when Anna and her brothers were small, they used to call the secret garden. A swing made of thick rope that she’d put up for them, and then years later, for Anna’s children and others that followed, still hung there frayed and tattered. Two generations of cousins had passed through this woman’s home; this woman who bore no children herself yet treated them all as her own.
‘I miss their sound, Annoula mou, I long to hear their voices and laughter again,’ her aunt said, following Anna’s gaze towards the orchard. ‘Don’t the children want to come to the island any more?’
‘They do, of course they do.’ She was quick to justify their absence. ‘But they’re older now, Thia mou, they want to be with their friends. Alex has gone to France this summer and Chloe has gone to America. Maybe next year. . . but, you know . . . even if they were here you wouldn’t be hearing children’s voices any more.’
Alex’s deep tones had been for a while hardly distinguishable from his father’s and Chloe was very much a young woman now. If only she could turn the clock back just a few years. To be sitting under the lemon tree with her aunt and her mother while the children played around them, happy shrieks and laughter resonating from the orchard. She had hoped that her children would have joined her for a few days but not only had they decided not to, they’d both gone off on their travels with only the odd email from their various holiday destinations.
Who was it, Anna thought, that told her once that being a mother you had to learn to be forsaken? Perhaps it was her own mother round about the time Anna used to go off without even sending a postcard back home. But then again she doubted it; one thing her mother avoided was the guilt trip on her children, so perhaps she’d read it somewhere. Even if her London life was out of her mind her children were always there and Anna would have loved more contact with them, but she too was not into the business of guilt-tripping them. They would soon be together again and they’d be full of their travel stories as usual.
‘I know, Anna, the years pass . . . the children grow . . .’ her aunt said with a sigh. ‘Look at you, my angel. For me it’s hard to think of you as this grown woman. You will always be my little Annoula and your children are still babies to me.’
‘I guess that’s why my dad still treats me like a child.’ Anna smiled at the memory of her father’s disapproval of a few weeks ago. Ever since that disturbing little scene around the lunch table she had been very discreet about what she’d been doing, and with whom, in fear of another outburst.
Anna had made a decision not to discuss her life crisis with her father in fear of burdening him and altering his opinion of Max. Alexis loved and respected his son-in-law and Anna couldn’t bring herself to shatter his view of him. Not just yet anyway. Besides, she didn’t know what she’d say to him or how she felt. They hadn’t talked of divorce or even separation. She was hoping that the time apart which they’d given themselves would bring clarity to both their minds.
She wished she could have confided in her aunt, but Ourania too, like Alexis, considered Max an exemplary husband and held him in great esteem.
‘I’ve never had a husband myself, Anna mou, but from what I know of them your Max puts them all to shame.’
Anna’s idea of marriage, a blueprint she aspired to based on her own parents’ union, was one of love, loyalty and dependability. She knew that her father had met her mother in Italy during the war when Alexis was stationed there with the British army and that they had fallen passionately in love and that her mother’s family fiercely disapproved of the match. Once the war was over the lovers had no option but to elope in order to marry. Anna had mythologized her parents’ love story all her life; it was impossibly romantic and as magical as any Hollywood movie.
‘I’m very happy you and Alexis decided to come back, Anna mou.’ Ourania reached across and took her niece’s hand. ‘The island is not the same without him, you know. I think even the trees miss him.’ Anna knew that her aunt loved both of her parents, Alexis especially, who was like the brother she never had.
‘We all miss your mama, Anna mou,’ she carried on. ‘Rosaria was a good woman. It must be lonely for Alexis in London without her. I’m glad he’s returned home.’
Home, Anna mused. She’d often wondered about the idea of home. Did her father consider the island his home even though he’d lived away from it three times longer than he had actually lived on it?
‘Do you think Alexis considers the island more his home than London?’ she asked her aunt.
‘I feel yes,’ she replied, looking thoughtful. ‘I think the place you were born and spent your early years is where you truly belong.’
So, Anna wondered, is that what constitutes home; where your roots have been laid from birth? Maybe for some it is, but for others it might also be possible to pull those roots up and replant them somewhere else. Her mother seemed to have done just that. She started her life in Italy but was able to happily transplant her roots where her husband took her. Unlike Alexis, Rosaria apparently never yearned to return to her birthplace.
In Anna’s case, even though she was born in Londo
n and loved it, she decided that this island was as much of a home too; she always missed it when she wasn’t there, longed for it, dreamt about it. So, she pondered again, can there be more than one place we call home? Perhaps, she thought, through the journey of our lives we acquire many homes and maybe we don’t have to make a choice. Anna liked that idea a lot. The way she was feeling, she found it very liberating and comforting.
‘It’s possible that we can choose where that place we call home is,’ she said, thinking out loud. ‘My mother obviously did.’
‘Perhaps, Annoula mou,’ her aunt said, reaching across the table to take her hand again, ‘home doesn’t always have to be a place. For example, for Rosaria I think home was were your father was because her own home had been a difficult and hard place for her. So you see? Maybe sometimes what we call home can mean different things.’
‘I know very little about Mama’s home, Thia,’ Anna said, hoping her aunt might fill some gaps for her. ‘She never talked about it and I stopped asking. I think the fall-out with her family was too painful for her.’
‘I believe so, Anna mou,’ Ourania replied. ‘Maybe in time Alexis might tell you more. But Rosaria never talked about it, not to me, not to anyone and I never pried. Your father told me some things but he is the only one who really knows what happened.’
‘And for you, Thia? Where is home for you?’ Anna asked, knowing perfectly well that she’d never lived anywhere else apart from this island.
‘My home has always been here, Anna mou. I never left it for long; I chose to stay. There was no option.’
Anna thought that her mother on the other hand had been given an option for a new life, by her father, who came to her rescue at a time when the future in her country was hopelessly bleak. Italy at the end of the Second World War was a place of appalling devastation so perhaps it was easier to turn her back on it and follow the man she loved.
‘And what about you, Annoula mou? Is London your home? Is that where you feel you belong?’ her aunt asked, searching her face for an answer as if she’d guessed what was troubling her niece.
‘I don’t know, Auntie,’ Anna replied, feeling her throat tightening. If what her aunt had said was true then her family was what had always constituted ‘home’ for her but now, with the insanity her husband had plunged her into, she felt vulnerable and doubtful and in danger of losing her stability, her home. ‘Right now,’ Anna carried on, ‘London feels a very long way away.’ Not wanting to alarm her aunt but feeling she wanted to unburden a little, she continued. ‘At this moment, this, here, the island, is what feels like home to me. You, Papa, Manos, the house, my new friends all feel very much like home. It brings me closer to my mother too. I sense her presence much more strongly here than in London. London right now doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.’
‘I know I’m no substitute for your mother, Anna mou. But you are like my own. And remember that whatever it is you are feeling right now, whatever sorrow you have, it will pass; it always does.’
6
As it turned out, work was just what Anna needed. It infused her with energy and her creative juices began to flow again. Her day would start with an early morning swim in the bay, then breakfast with Alexis under the vine before jumping on her scooter to ride to Elia and work till late afternoon. Nicos would work in the studio and tend to his animals and land while Anna combed the surrounding countryside with her sketch pad in search of inspiration and shade. Every day the two would stop and have lunch together amongst the olive trees and inspect each other’s work, which could not have been more different. His was bold and abstract, broad expansive brushstrokes exploding with colour on giant canvases, while Anna’s sketches were delicate and organic in pastel crayons and pencils. In the evenings Anna would meet Manos and Antonis at the Black Turtle and gradually Nicos started to join them too.
Her new routine meant that she hardly spent time with her father any more, but he was far from lonely. Apart from Ourania, who was with him most of the time, there were all the other friends and relatives. Father and daughter were both happy; Alexis was spending quality time with the people he loved, which was what he had come to the island for, and Anna’s healing process was well on its way.
They’d all been drinking in the taverna for hours, a whole lot of them. The usual crowd, plus a couple of friends of Manos, called Rita and Giorgos, and some people visiting from Athens. Nicos was in the middle of an animated conversation about politics with a man sitting at the next table when the musicians began to play a particularly poignant melody, an old tune, a kind of Greek blues, guaranteed to stir the blood and move the soul. As soon as he heard it, he stopped talking, stood up, walked to the middle of the little dance floor and began to dance all by himself, oblivious to anyone around him. He danced a zeimbekiko, the ‘lone lament’, as the Greeks call it, which every man worth his salt and manhood had to get up and dance at some point in the course of an evening when the night wore on and the alcohol flooded the brain. Over the weeks that Anna had been on the island she’d seen them all do this dance in their own particular way, but she’d never seen Nicos take to the dance floor before.
The zeimbekiko is not a dance to be taken lightly. It’s serious stuff, it’s a man’s dance. The urge to dance is apparently not something you can suppress. It takes you suddenly, it leaps from the heart to the feet and propels you onto the floor almost beyond your control. Everyone has their own way of dancing and no two people move the same, because it’s not a dance that you learn; it’s a dance that you feel. Through the steps and moves, which are mainly improvised, you express your feelings, usually unrequited love, grief, sorrow and pain, depending on your state of mind when the urge takes you.
Anna sat in the smoke-filled taverna, watching Nicos dance for the first time. He was graceful, almost balletic in his movements, lost in the complicated rhythm of the dance. Arms outstretched, head bowed to the ground, he moved with fluid agility, in a sort of less harsh, less rigid form of Spanish flamenco. His movements were unlike others she’d seen; he displayed none of the usual macho bravado, peacock-like stances and proud acrobatics that boasted raw manhood. Yet he looked as strong and masculine as any of them. As Anna looked on she got a glimpse of Nicos that she never expected. She’d thought of him as cerebral and reserved, not earthy or sensual, but what surprised her most about his dancing was to see him dance at all.
He wasn’t showing off to anyone, he wasn’t dancing for an audience. He was dancing for himself, which in fact is the whole essence of the zeimbekiko – you dance away your pain, you exorcize your demons. He danced as it was meant to be – with a kind of introspection and modesty.
Nicos continued to rise and fall like a tidal wave to the soulful sound of the bouzouki, a song that talked of love and heartache. Anna was transfixed. She watched and wondered what pain and sorrow he might be exorcizing. Was it that of the frustrated artist, or perhaps the lost love of a Viennese show girl?
Éros
is ‘physical’ passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. Romantic, pure emotion without the balance of logic. ‘Love at first sight’. The modern Greek word ‘érotas’ means ‘intimate love’.
7
That night as Anna lay in her bed, images of Nicos on the dance floor flickered through her mind. The night heat that came through the open window fuelled her imagination and filled her with confusion. She hadn’t felt like that in years; she burned up with an intensity she recognized as sexual longing. For the most part of the twenty-five years with Max he had been the object of her desire, the one she yearned for. This was new to her. Through the open window she watched the August moon, with its thousand and one erotic promises swelling its way towards full. It hovered over the scented night, bathing the world in its glow. This time it was not an innocent flirtatious fancy she was gripped by, no child’s play like she’d had with Antonis. This was a raw sexual yearning which consumed her body like a flame for a man who, until a few hours ago, she’d considered just a
friend but whom now Anna apparently desired more than anything else. Flooded with erotic anticipation, and an intense sense of apprehension at what this full moon might bring, she stayed wide awake, unable to sleep and hoping that by morning her irrational feelings would have passed.
By five o’clock, as the first sun rays eased their way through the wooden shutters into the room and onto her bed, she gave up trying to sleep, got up and sneaked out of the house towards the beach. Still in its infancy, the sun covered everything it touched with a rosy blush, and only the faint chill in the air betrayed that this was dawn and not dusk.
This time, instead of diving from the rocks into the clear blue as she always did, Anna walked into the sea slowly, immersing her body in the cool water in an attempt to soothe her lust-induced fever. After a long swim she climbed up on the rocks and stretched out on the smooth surface. Surrendering her limbs to the sun, eyes tightly closed, Anna imagined it was Nicos who caressed her with his burning touch. The cool waters of the early morning sea had done nothing to diminish the path her brain and body had taken. Her skin tingled as the sun, now higher in the sky, banished her chilly start. She couldn’t tell how long she had lain there drifting in and out of a delicious trance when she was startled out of it by a familiar voice. For a moment, before Anna opened her eyes, she thought she was dreaming, then, squinting against the bright light, she saw Nicos standing over her dripping seawater in a puddle round his feet.
‘Kalimera, Anna,’ he said softly as he sat down on the rock next to her. ‘Isn’t this a little early for you?’
‘Nico!’ she said with a start, sitting up in a fluster, trying to rearrange her bikini. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘I was already in the sea when you came in,’ he replied, shaking his hair like a puppy-dog, releasing a myriad of water droplets which landed on her like tiny jewels.
