Among the Lemon Trees

by Nadia Marks

That night, before the Germans arrived, four of the five Levanti girls moved into their aunt and uncle’s house under cover of darkness. Asimina, the middle sister, who had given up waiting for Ourania to make her mind up about marriage, had accepted the previous year a proxenia and was now living with her husband’s family.

  Andrikos watched helplessly as their house was taken hostage by the two Germans who thundered about in their army boots, greeting each other with their hateful Heil Hitler, cooking their foul-smelling German sausages in his kitchen and shamelessly stripping down to their underpants when the sun was shining to wash themselves under the hose pipe in the back yard instead of using the bath house.

  ‘They are like animals!’ Chrisoula cried, horrified the first time she saw them. ‘They have no shame or modesty.’

  ‘I cannot tolerate this behaviour,’ Andrikos hissed under his breath, red in the face. ‘Can you imagine if the girls were here? Oh, the indignity!’

  In an attempt to avoid too much contact with the Germans, the couple soon retreated to just one room on the top floor of the house, surrendering the rest of their home to the enemy.

  The effect of the German occupation hit the island like a tsunami. Trade stopped abruptly, electricity was cut, censorship of the press was imposed and food rationing began. The new regime made itself felt instantly and the whole island was in a state of shock. Up until the Germans arrived, Costandis and Andrikos and the rest of the fishermen were more or less able to continue with their trade, but now it was proving very difficult. The Germans requisitioned food and provisions from everyone who had it or was producing it. Informers who were willing to rat on their compatriots for privileges and enemy money would pass information and point the Germans to the appropriate households. Soldiers would turn up on their bikes to search around and having established what was available would return in trucks and load them up with food and livestock.

  The Levanti family had always grown their own fruit and vegetables, produced their own olive oil and wine and kept a few goats, chickens and rabbits. With the fishing, they had enough food for themselves and even shared some of it with other families, until the Germans started seizing everything. The only way to survive this abuse and fend off starvation was to find clever ways to conceal a certain amount of provisions for themselves. The livestock had been taken, but there was still all the produce from the garden and orchard and the girls became creative at hiding it.

  They would keep food anywhere except the kitchen or the larder. They hid eggs and bread in a basket amongst their cotton reels and yarns for embroidery, milk and cheese in the washroom under piles of laundry, and vegetables in wash bowls in the bath house. They were clever too at distracting the blue-eyed, fair-skinned youths who were sent to carry out inspections. As much as the girls detested them, survival demanded that they do whatever was needed in order to divert their attention. The sisters were all pretty, and with four of them in the house it didn’t take much to create confusion and put the soldiers off their task.

  The only animal the Germans failed to take after their first search was a little brown hen which had developed an unusual attachment to Calliope, who had looked after her since she was a small chick with a broken leg.

  ‘Most people have a cat for a pet,’ Eugenia the youngest sister teased, ‘or a dog, or a nice yellow canary in a cage that sings. You have to have a chicken for a pet!’

  But when the unusual pet grew into a fat little brown hen with an impressive capacity for producing eggs, no one laughed any more. On the contrary, they all did their utmost to look after her and keep her hidden from German eyes. For her part, Kotoula, as Calliope called her, did her best to keep herself a secret too, as if she knew what was happening. The moment the army truck screeched to a halt outside the house, the hen would let Calliope pick her up and place her in a basket which hung from the arm of her wheelchair, topped with knitting yarns and needles. There she stayed, silent as a mouse, until the coast was clear. No soldier ever suspected anything and they all gave a wide berth to the strange crippled girl in the wheelchair.

  In her disabled state, Calliope would have normally been at risk from Nazi policy, which had no tolerance of the ill, insane or crippled, but due to an impossibly lucky break she was saved. One of the German soldiers who’d been assigned to inspect the Levanti family had a sister who after a recent car accident had also been confined to a wheelchair back home; the sight of Calliope induced in the soldier confusion and uncharacteristic feelings of sympathy towards the Greek girl, so she was left alone.

  During the German occupation education on the island was severally disrupted and most schools in the town and villages closed down due to lack of teachers. The young male teacher in charge of the village’s elementary school had signed up and left the island, and although the high school in the town was still open, few teachers were left to take classes. Transport was minimal and no one felt safe to travel, especially the children. Even Philipos had now stopped his daily pick-ups in The Eagle; the village felt very isolated.

  It was then that Calliope and Ourania came up with the idea of opening the village school again and volunteered to teach the children. The scheme was greeted with enthusiasm and pupils flocked back. Older children, now unable to make the journey into the town, also wanted tuition. Suddenly Ourania and Calliope found themselves very busy indeed.

  Traditionally the children were used to being taught sitting all together in one room, in rows of six, each row corresponding to a different age group. Each morning the teacher would start with year one, age six, and work his way up the age scale to age twelve. He would dedicate a period of time to each group and then once he had given them a task to perform he would move on to the next row, and so on. By the end of the day the teacher would have given some, but not much, attention to all six years. A laborious and time-consuming method of teaching.

  With the older children keen to attend school too, Ourania and Calliope were faced with a challenge. They had to devise a new method of teaching to accommodate all the different ages. Instead of teaching all six classes at the same time as before, they decided to divide the years into three groups of two classes. Years one and two on Mondays, years three and four on Tuesdays, and years five and six on Wednesdays. The remaining two days of the week would be spent with the older children. Since there were two of them to teach, Calliope would take one group and Ourania the other, thus spending a whole day each week with each year.

  The scheme was a success. The children were pleased to have an entire day of learning dedicated to them when they could ask questions and be given special attention, as well as having free time too. School had never been so much fun for any of them. The plan was effective; the girls worked very hard and managed to turn their own private dream into something that helped the whole community.

  8

  Naples

  What Rosaria told Alexis didn’t make him love her any less; her vulnerability made him love her more and long to protect her. Every time he saw her now he just wanted to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her troubles away. He wanted to help her, take her far away from Naples and the awfulness of her life. But how could he? Now, each night, instead of lying in his bed imagining he was making love to her, he lay awake trying to devise ways to run away with her. He wanted some advice and longed to talk to his pals Tim Anderson and John Simons to find out what they thought of the situation, but Rosaria had begged him not to.

  ‘People are not always kind, Alexis,’ she told him, ‘they pass judgement. I’m not a whore, but I am the daughter of one.’

  ‘The sins of your mother are not your sins, Rosaria!’ Alexis protested. ‘You have done nothing to deserve your life. I love you, Rosaria, and I want to help you.’

  ‘I love you too, Alexis, but you can’t help me. When the war is over you will go back to your country and I shall stay here.’

  ‘I want you to come with me! I want you to leave that monster,’ he said and felt the blood rush to his head.

&
nbsp; ‘This is a Catholic country, Alexis. Whether we like it or not, there is no divorce and even if there was, I’m married to a vicious criminal and I can never get away from him. Don’t you see, it’s hopeless.’

  ‘Then I will stay in Italy and we will run away together, hide somewhere in the north, change our names,’ he said, determined not to give up.

  ‘There is no way out. He’ll find us. Besides, I can’t leave Sophia; my auntie is still sick, who is going to protect my sister if something happens to her? How can I abandon them both?’

  Almost a year had passed since Alexis first arrived in Naples; a year full of life-changing events for him. He’d seen unimaginable human suffering and hardship, he’d encountered situations he couldn’t have believed, met new people, made good friends, and finally after so many years Alexis had found love again. That fateful day in Cardiff in Uncle Georgios’s kitchen, when the three friends first heard the declaration of war, was almost a distant memory now. In Alexis’s mind decades could have easily passed since then, and the day he’d left Ourania might have been a lifetime ago. But even if everything he’d gone through since then had left its mark on him, that innocent young man of long ago, full of passion, love and conviction was still somewhere in there. When Alexis stopped and searched, he knew he was still that same person. That same young man who never wished for more than peace of mind and to be with the girl he loved.

  After all the years of misery, finally the war appeared to be coming to an end and the peace Alexis so desired was at last on the horizon. A sense of hopeful anticipation was taking hold, yet contrary to everyone else he was gripped by fear of what the end of the war would mean for him and Rosaria. Things were changing very rapidly at the HQ and every day some new situation was thrown at them. The first thing to happen, much to Alexis’s distress, was the announcement that his friend John Simons had been instructed to prepare for departure. He had no idea where he was being posted or why, but they were all warned that similar orders could be issued to any of them at any given time. Alexis was in a panic; he wasn’t ready to leave Naples just yet. He couldn’t leave Rosaria, not like this, not before a resolution or some plan was in place for their future together.

  Despite Rosaria’s request not to speak to anyone about their situation, Alexis made up his mind to seek advice from his friend before he left, since he considered him the most equipped with the relevant experience and knowledge about life and matters of the heart.

  ‘That’s a bit of a jam you’re both in, Alexis, my old chum,’ John said after hearing the whole story, or rather most of the sorry tale of Rosaria’s life. For some reason Alexis had omitted to mention that Rosaria was actually married to Alfonso De Sio, instead implying that she was his common-law wife. Why had he withheld that information from his friend? He rather suspected it was because he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words married and Alfonso in reference to Rosaria without developing an acute pain in his gut.

  ‘These Camorra fellows are pretty vicious,’ John continued, ‘you don’t want to be messing around with them. What about the rest of the family, do they have anything to do with her?’

  ‘Apparently not. They’ve all been warned off, especially Salvatore, Alfonso’s elder brother, and she never has anything to do with her mother any more either. She now lives with her aunt and her sister.’

  ‘Listen, Alexis,’ John said, lowering his voice, ‘it looks as if we’ll all be out of here soon; things are changing very quickly, so there might be a way out for you.’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Alexis interrupted, ‘I don’t want to be out of here, not without Rosaria!’

  ‘I know, my friend, this is what I’m trying to tell you. Hear me out. I know you don’t want to leave your girl behind, which is why I think you must talk to the Colonel. He’s a decent man and he will understand the situation. I’m sure he’d be able to help you; both of you.’

  ‘What can he do?’ Alexis replied, shaking his head.

  ‘You’d be surprised; there are ways round this. One of them is for you to ask permission to marry Rosaria. You just told me this Alfonso is hardly ever in Naples, didn’t you? That means he doesn’t have his beady eye on her all the time. Presumably her aunt is on her side and would want to help her escape?’

  Alexis’s head started to ache. John’s words stayed suspended in the ether and danced tantalizingly around him.

  ‘Your main problem is dodging the boyfriend,’ John said, ‘and the wrath of the Camorra. I agree it’s not a small problem but I’m sure there is a way round it.’ A smile played on John’s lips this time. ‘You wouldn’t be the first soldier to go home with an Italian bride!’

  Marry her, and take her home! Alexis’s head was both aching and buzzing now. What a fantasy! For a few minutes he allowed himself to indulge in the pleasure of it. But how could he, and where would he take her? Home. The very word stabbed at him accusingly. Where was that? Even if it was possible to marry Rosaria, where would he take her that he could call home? The affirmation that he had no home to go to filled him with despair. The island was his home but he could never go back there, no matter how much he longed to return. He loved Rosaria and wanted to protect her but Ourania had never left his heart either, and the pain of her loss lingered on. In one of his mother’s letters he’d learned that Ourania was engaged to a young man she’d met at the Academy. For all he knew, by now she could be married to him and have his child. No, he couldn’t go back. The nearest such place he could call home was Uncle Georgios’s house, and the city of Cardiff.

  ‘So, Alexis, my friend,’ John continued, breaking into his fantasy, ‘how about talking to the Colonel? I’m sure he’ll be willing to help you find a way out.’

  The conversation with John Simons made Alexis think. What if he kept silent about Rosaria’s marriage; could he then marry her himself and take her to England where no one could find out about them? He hadn’t concealed from John that Rosaria was married to Alfonso in order to mislead him, but because he’d been living with the denial of it ever since he found out and couldn’t bring himself to speak of it; he’d never imagined that his friend would think marriage such a good idea. John wasn’t one for that sort of thing, Alexis knew that, he was happy to leave without a second thought for Concetta. So, what if he told the Colonel the same story he’d told John, and what if his superior officer approved the marriage? Could he pull it off? Could he actually marry Rosaria and be given permission to take her back with him? And would Rosaria agree to such a thing? Alexis knew well enough that even if she did agree to the deception, she would never contemplate leaving her sister behind, so could he perhaps organize a passage to England for Sofia and even Philomena too? The little girl was like a daughter to Rosaria, and he was extremely fond of her, and their aunt was the only mother the girls had. Their situation was so dire Alexis hoped that once he explained the circumstances, the Colonel would show compassion. The more he thought about it, the more he thought he had a chance of making it all happen. But first he had to ask for permission to marry her. It would be illegal, it would be fraudulent, a sacrilege in the eyes of the Church, it would make Rosaria a bigamist, but it would be glorious, and the only possible way out for them.

  He had no option but to give it a try. He made up his mind to talk to his superior officer, but not before presenting the plan to Rosaria and Philomena. He had no idea what the two women would think. He hoped Rosaria would agree, but he wasn’t sure about Philomena. Even if Rosaria found the idea acceptable, there was no way the plan could work without the aunt’s consent and help, and he feared that she might object on religious grounds.

  The two women sat motionless, listening while he talked. Neither of them said a word until he finished and even then they both continued to sit in complete silence. The only sound Alexis was aware of, for what seemed to him like hours, was the thumping of his heart. The early autumn sun made pretty patterns through the lace curtains on the old marble floor scrubbed and polished by the women. The room
smelled vaguely of disinfectant. He’d spent a sleepless night imagining their reaction, fearing the worst; the minute he could get away he’d rushed to the apartment to find them.

  Suddenly, Philomena leapt out of her chair like a mad woman, knocking over a footstool in the process, and ran towards Alexis. Arms outstretched, she threw them around his neck, pulling him to her while Rosaria followed behind her. Both women in tears stood clinging on to Alexis for dear life.

  ‘Bless you, my son! Bless you!’ Philomena cried, tightening her embrace.

  ‘I . . . I . . . was so nervous,’ Alexis stammered, and hugged them back. ‘I was worried . . . that . . . that you would think it was a bad idea . . . because of the Church.’

  ‘The Church!’ Philomena shouted, stepping back to look at him. ‘What do we care about the Church! Do you think it ever cared about us?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Alexis replied, still in some state of shock.

  ‘I would follow you anywhere, Alexis,’ Rosaria said through her tears, ‘married or not!’

  ‘I don’t know who sent you to us, my son,’ Philomena continued, ‘but whoever did, I will be thankful to them for as long as I live.’

  ‘You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, to all of us, Alexis,’ Rosaria said, tightening her grip on him. ‘I would gladly lie, cheat, or even kill to be with you.’

  Alexis’s heart soared with relief.

  ‘Thank you, my son, thank you,’ Philomena said again, finally letting go of him.

  ‘Do you really believe you can arrange for us all to come to England?’ Rosaria asked, looking up at him.

  ‘I don’t know, but I will do everything I can,’ he replied with conviction.

  ‘Can you imagine, Auntie? Can you even think of it? The three of us with Alexis in England, together away from here!’

  ‘I’m so grateful to you, my son,’ Philomena said and kissed his hand. ‘I will die a happy woman knowing my girls are being looked after by you.’