Among the Lemon Trees

by Nadia Marks

  Given she had no option, other than to remain at the mercy of Salvatore De Sio, Rosaria realized that becoming Alfonso’s wife was preferable to being the older brother’s plaything and whore. Alfonso spent much of his time travelling; he wouldn’t be there often. Moreover Rosaria was able, through pleading with Alfonso, to save her little sister, at least for the time being, from a life of childhood prostitution.

  He married her in a rush before he had to leave town again, in the church of Santo Agnello, which was famed for the many miracles that had taken place there. Apparently it was this very church that the king and his court used to visit annually to watch the royal barber shave the hair that had miraculously grown over the previous twelve months on the ivory head of Christ. If it was good enough for the king then the church was good enough for the De Sio family. The ceremony was attended by Alfonso’s formidable mother, father, two unmarried sisters, Salvatore, Luisa and a miserable Philomena with Sofia. Rosaria, wearing a white lace dress provided by the two sisters, stood wretched next to the groom, who held on to her hand with more force than was necessary.

  As soon as he married her, Alfonso moved his bride out of the brothel’s basement and into a small apartment by the port. Sofia and her Auntie Philomena would move in with her as her chaperones. Alfonso was satisfied with this arrangement; he would have access to Rosaria whenever he was in town and the rest of the time he would have his freedom. Besides, his main objective of taking Rosaria away from his brother had been achieved.

  Poor Philomena felt helpless and guilty for not managing to protect her girls better. Every day she lamented the fate that had been bestowed on her family. Luisa was lost to her, but at least the girls were still all right, and with her. All she could do now was to keep them close and pray to the Madonna to spare them from further hardships.

  After what they’d been through, living on their own in the apartment was a huge relief, but even if Alfonso was willing to provide a roof over their heads and contribute to Rosaria’s keep, his generosity didn’t stretch to the rest of them. Rosaria shared everything with her aunt and her sister but there were days when they barely had enough to eat.

  ‘We don’t want the De Sios’ charity,’ Philomena would tell Rosaria. ‘I’ll soon find work, I’m more than capable of earning our keep. I wish we didn’t have to accept their dirty money at all.’ But work was scarce, and coming across a decent, honest job was nothing less than a miracle, which is what the Madonna provided when after months of searching, Philomena finally found work at the Allied HQ.

  ‘You keep your ears and eyes open,’ Alfonso told Philomena when he first found out about her new job. ‘Good to have inside information. Any shipments, any news, about anything, you be sure to report back to me.’ Alfonso was more than pleased to have what he called a spy inside the Allied Headquarters.

  6

  Greece, the Aegean, 1999

  Anna sat gasping for air and shedding tears of grief and sorrow for all those who came before her. An amphoraful of unimaginable family secrets continued to spill out with such force she thought she would drown in them. In a state of shock she remained speechless long after Alexis finally stopped talking.

  ‘Why did neither of you ever tell us any of this, Papa?’ she asked once her power of speech returned.

  ‘Your mother was deeply ashamed, Anna, she swore me to secrecy. I could never break her trust.’

  Wiping away the tears with the edge of her shawl, and trying to regulate her breathing, she reached across and placed her hand over his. ‘At least about the hardships of the war, Papa, you could have told us that much.’

  ‘Where do you start, Anna mou?’ Alexis closed his eyes. ‘Where do you begin? When your mother was alive there was no way I could ever have spoken about any of it.’

  ‘And what about Thia Ourania?’ Anna asked, troubled by conflicting emotions again. Who was more betrayed, she pondered, her mother or her aunt? Did her father spend a lifetime loving two women equally in an impossible love triangle? How was that possible? Her mother apparently didn’t know about Ourania but how did her aunt feel about her mother? Ourania and Rosaria had become good friends over the years, how did her aunt cope with that? Anna’s loyalties were divided and in danger of projecting her own feelings of betrayal onto the three.

  ‘Who did you love more?’ she finally asked, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘There was never a question of more, Anna. No comparisons,’ Alexis replied without hesitation. ‘I loved your mother unconditionally, but I never forgot Ourania or forsook my love for her either, how could I?’

  ‘But you lived with my mother all your life, she had your children. Didn’t it make a difference?’ Anna insisted.

  ‘You see, Anna, it’s like this; I love you and your brothers in the same way. There’s no distinction, it’s the same. Love is love, my girl!’ Alexis took a deep breath and held it in for a long while before exhaling. ‘You see, Annoula mou, if you have real agápe in your heart it never leaves you. Life is not black or white. Life is not straightforward.’

  Holding her head in her hands, haunted by images of her poor mother, Anna continued to weep.

  ‘You see, Anna,’ Alexis carried on, ‘you see how hard it is to hear it all? How could I have told you before?’

  ‘Oh Papa, my poor mother,’ she said through her sobs. Anna had idealized her parents’ love and marriage. What she knew, what she had been told, was that their great passion withstood all obstacles, especially that of her Italian grandparents’ opposition to the love-match. How could she ever have imagined that her own grandmother was a heartless whore willing to sell her own daughters? The little girl in Anna was crushed, things she believed to be true till then, shattered.

  They sat in silence for a long time. Alexis lost in the past, Anna trying to find composure and put some order to her thoughts. She was now almost ashamed to have even thought of equating what she was going through to what her parents had endured. The similarities were so tenuous; the most you could have said was that there was a certain ‘love triangle’. If those people in her bloodline had managed to withstand such adversities, shouldn’t she be able to cope with what, in the scheme of things, seemed like a minor upheaval? Shouldn’t she be letting go of the anger? She considered her own marriage again. Until some months ago, she had to acknowledge it had been a solid one, her life a charmed one.

  Yes, Max could be intellectually arrogant at times but she also had to accept that she’d let him get away with it.

  ‘Mum, don’t put up with it!’ Chloe had said once or twice when she deemed that her father was being pompous. ‘He doesn’t have the key to all knowledge.’

  ‘Oh it’s OK, you know what he’s like,’ Anna would excuse him. ‘He has his students bowing to him so he expects us to do the same. He doesn’t mean anything by it.’ So Anna had to admit she enabled Max to be that way. But in the main, he was loving, caring, fun, a good father and up until now a good husband. There had been such happy days between them, when did it all go so wrong, she wondered? His betrayal had cut her deep, but his utter disregard for her feelings hurt the most.

  Not that long ago, Anna and a few friends, on a girls’ night out, had had one of their usual debates on the topic of infidelity.

  ‘I guess, if it happens you’d have to sit down, and together examine what caused it,’ Anna had said earnestly and true to her beliefs.

  ‘If I found out that Jack had an affair I’d cut his dick off,’ Angela, a divorce lawyer, declared, sending them all off into wine-induced giggles, ‘. . . and throw it out of the window!’

  ‘I don’t know, girls,’ Sam, Anna’s closest friend and fellow artist, replied, ‘what if it was one of us. We assume it’s only men who have affairs, but women do too . . .’

  ‘I know I wouldn’t,’ Anna said with conviction. ‘I love Max too much to betray him.’

  ‘Why is it a betrayal if it’s just a fling, just sex—’ Sophia, Anna’s sister-in-law, her brother’s wif
e, added and stopped in mid-sentence. ‘I guess it never is with us girls, is it?’

  ‘Yeah, if we have sex, we get involved, fall in love and it all ends in tears, whereas with men it’s mainly about the sex, right?’ another friend added, and so the discussion continued.

  So when Max told Anna of his affair, it was his ambivalence about his love for her and their marriage that shook her and her principles. She was sure that if he had been regretful of his actions and had asked for forgiveness, willing to have a discussion, she could have put her beliefs into practice. His indifference was intolerable.

  ‘You are right, Papa,’ she heard herself say after a long while, ‘I guess life isn’t that simple.’

  ‘Even when you think you’ve got it under control life has a habit of surprising you,’ Alexis replied, breaking his silence too.

  ‘Please carry on, Papa, I need to know more,’ Anna said, while understanding that perhaps she should stop pushing him so hard.

  ‘Patience, Anna mou, I’m not young any more, my breath is shorter than it used to be.’ He reached across to pat the back of her hand.

  ‘I know, Papa. I’m sorry,’ she replied, feeling guilty but still carrying on. ‘What happened during the war on the island? Were you in contact with any of them?’

  ‘Oh my girl, you can’t imagine . . .’ Alexis let out a big sigh, the painful memories visible on his face. ‘For a very long time I had no news at all and would go out of my mind with worry. Towards the end of the war, once in a while I’d receive a letter from my mother – your grandmother – which would eventually find its way to me and then I would learn some news of the family . . . and Ourania.’

  7

  In the meantime, back in Greece, 1944

  ‘When the war is over I would like to come and help you set up your village school,’ Michalis had said to Ourania when she first told him of her dream. ‘Of course, that is to say,’ he added hurriedly, ‘if you and Calliope would wish me to.’

  ‘I can’t think of a better offer,’ Ourania replied with genuine enthusiasm.

  Her relationship with Michalis had become very important to her and the two of them spent most of their spare time together. When he wasn’t visiting her at Kyria Ismini’s house, they were taking long walks on the beach, or sitting for hours in cafes exchanging views and making plans. Michalis made no secret of his love for Ourania, and soon, much to her surprise, she found that she too was starting to feel more than just pure friendship for him. Although her feelings never approached wholehearted commitment as they had for Alexis, she was nevertheless very attached to Michalis.

  Ourania was certain that Calliope would like him as much as she did and would welcome his help and knowledge; she was sure the three of them would make a great team. She had already spoken of Michalis in her letters, and Calliope was eager to meet the young man who had finally captured her sister’s interest.

  But the war was far from over, and it was obvious to both of them that any plans or dreams they had would have to be put on hold; the army needed all the able-bodied young men it could get, and soon Michalis, along with most of his friends, had to join up.

  ‘Let us hope that we will be together again before too long,’ he’d told Ourania when he came to visit her the night before he left. ‘Then our country will be free, and democracy will rule again.’

  It was a clear night and the moon was high in the sky, illuminating their faces. They’d strolled into the garden and were standing under a lemon tree laden with blossom. Earlier, they’d all eaten a farewell dinner cooked by Kyria Ismini herself, who, sad about Michalis’s departure, wanted to create a feeling of occasion for their last meal together. For this, she was even prepared to kill her favourite hen and set the table with her best linen and bone china, both part of her wedding trousseau. When the dinner was over she ceremoniously produced a bottle of brandy which she’d kept for special occasions and asked Michalis to open it.

  ‘Tonight calls for a toast!’ she’d said as she handed the glasses around. ‘Tomorrow, dear Michalis, who I have come to love as my own son, will leave us to go and fight, putting his life in danger for our sakes, so we must drink to his safety and send him on his way with our love.’

  They all agreed, and raised their glasses to Michalis and wished him a speedy return. Then, as it always happened, one by one the girls and finally Kyria Ismini went to bed leaving the couple alone.

  ‘Will you wait for me, Ourania?’ he asked slipping an arm around her waist to pull her closer.

  ‘Of course I will,’ she said softly, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand.

  ‘I will hurry and come back to you. I will come to the island and ask your father to let you marry me. Will you speak to your family about me, Ourania? Will you have me? Could you love me and will you be my wife when the war is over?’

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  Unexpected tears welled up in her eyes and the storm that his questions stirred in her took her by surprise. A bittersweet emotion rose up from deep inside and a single word, a name, came to her lips. She swallowed hard to push it back but the word stayed hovering on her lips, demanding to be spoken. Lexi! Desolation and sadness overwhelmed her. For long moments she hesitated and pulled away from him. Michalis, wretched, stood waiting, his face pale in the moonlight; rejection seemed inevitable. After a pause that seemed endless Ourania brushed away her tears, took a deep breath and regained her composure, reaching for his hand.

  ‘Yes, Michalis. I will,’ she said gently. ‘I will speak to my father and I will be your wife when the war is over, and I will love you, I promise.’

  Without Michalis, Ourania felt vulnerable and nervous. The news from Athens was starting to be troublesome and every day they heard new bulletins on the wireless; the German invasion of the capital meant that it wouldn’t be long before their presence would be felt on Lesbos too. Rumours were everywhere and Ourania knew she couldn’t remain there any longer. She had no option but to return home to the fold of her family and wait for events to stabilize. Thalia too was going back to her village where her parents were anxious for her, and the sisters also were returning home; Kyria Ismini would be left alone.

  ‘I wish I could take her with me,’ Ourania said when she realized they were all leaving at the same time. ‘What will become of her here all alone?’

  ‘I’ll ask my father to bring me into town to visit her sometimes,’ Thalia reassured her, ‘and she can always come and stay with us up in the village if things get really bad.’

  Kyria Ismini, the eternal optimist, was confident that things would soon stabilize.

  ‘What we have now is just a dark cloud and it will pass,’ she kept telling her girls. ‘We will have blue skies again soon and you will all be back to me to continue with your studies; you’ll see.’

  Of course Kyria Ismini couldn’t have been more wrong.

  When Ourania first arrived back home little had changed. Everything seemed the same; the effects of the war hadn’t yet reached the outlying islands and life continued almost as before. Calliope was over the moon to be reunited with her sister and everyone, including her Aunt Aphrodite, welcomed her back with open arms.

  ‘I’m so glad you are back home, Ourania mou.’ Calliope embraced her sister. ‘I have been so worried for you, we all have. You will be safe here with us now.’

  But the war left nothing untouched and their respite was short.

  As if in a dream Ourania heard the sound of motorbikes outside her window, followed by the shrill cries of Kyria Maritsa, the next-door neighbour.

  ‘The Germans are here! The Germans are here!’ she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Ourania sat bolt upright and looked at the clock on the wall – 5 a.m.; through the shutters she could see that day was just breaking. Shaking Calliope awake, she climbed out of bed and walked to the window. Through the slats she saw them, two by two, sometimes three, sitting together on the same motorcycle. They arrived with great speed in clouds of
dust, halting noisily in the village square. At first there were half a dozen bikes. Then came the army trucks. Soon the square was almost full of Germans, dusty and tired-looking.

  ‘Calliope! Calliope! Panayitsa mou! Mother of God,’ she called to her sister who was struggling to shift her weight to the edge of the bed. ‘They are here, and so many of them!’

  ‘Who? Who’s here? What’s happening?’ Calliope cried, still heavy with sleep. ‘Help me, Ourania mou, help me get out of bed.’

  Once they’d arrived, the first thing the Germans did was to take over the town hall as their headquarters and barracks for some of the soldiers. The rest, including many of the officers, were to requisition local houses. The undesirable task of informing villagers that they were obliged to play host to the enemy fell on the Mayor, who reluctantly went knocking from door to door, spreading the bad tidings. Ourania’s father was told that an officer and his batman would be billeted with the family. They required separate rooms plus the use of the kitchen, bath house and latrine.

  ‘Bastards!’ Andrikos raved when the stressed and embarrassed Mayor delivered the news. ‘I have a houseful of daughters! What am I expected to do with them?’

  ‘I don’t know why the evil sons of bitches didn’t choose to move into my house,’ his brother Costandis cursed when he found out. ‘It’s just me and Aphrodite living there. Yours is full to the brim.’

  ‘I think they got a whiff of female scent,’ Andrikos replied and spat on the ground.

  ‘There is only one thing to be done!’ Costandis thumped his fist on the table. ‘The girls have to move in with us!’