The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8)

by Sara Alexi

  The compressed track heads directly for the port and then straight down past the older monastery that has long since been re-designated for nuns. He will take it slowly, with Suzi finding her feet.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ his mama calls after him. He continues walking, raises his hand to acknowledge her without turning, and then bows his head as he lights the cigarette dangling from his lips as if it is windy, which it is not. There is not a breath of air. Just sun, heat, and lower down, the sound of cicadas.

  The scrub and the weeds have not all turned brown with the sun’s heat even on this, the exposed side of the island, but it is only a matter of weeks before the moisture will dry out in this heatwave, the air will become even stiller, the insects’ calls will grow ever louder, and summer will suck everything to a crisp.

  The donkey kicks up dust along the ridge. Yanni’s cowboy boots, softened with age, disturb little as he glides foot to foot with no hurry. The smallest threads of cloud hang very high up in the flat blue sky and Yanni walks for a while with his head tipped back, watching them shift and change, drawing on his cigarette without removing it.

  When he reaches where the land starts to drop more steeply, he watches his step. Small boulders buried in the hillside make good footholds. Suzi, alert now, takes it even more slowly, her haunches dropping and rising as they make their way. As the path flattens a little, they become less vigilant again and then the convent appears in the dip; an ancient stone building the colour of honey built around a courtyard. A tiny domed church squats as the centrepiece, flanked by spears of cypress trees that spike the sky.

  When Yanni was a boy, there were three nuns. Now there is only one, Sister Katerina.

  He watches the building as they descend. The shutters are closed, with only the Greek flag, barely moving, indicating the possibility of life. The only change over the years has been the height of the palm and cypress trees within the walls, each year pushing a little higher. The position is spectacular, its foundations tucked in a dip, but the windows of the cells must boast a panoramic view of town and sea and the mainland beyond. Yanni has only ever been in the courtyard, the church, and the dining hall from where you can see nothing of the outside world.

  As he draws closer to the large main door, there is the familiar smell of jasmine. Under a stubby tree, he loops Suzi’s reins on a hook that was hammered into the wall for that very purpose, Sister Katerina told him as a child, when he would swing from it himself. Yanni faces the door and turns the big cast iron ring, lifting the latch inside. He pushes it open with his shoulder. The scrubland is transformed within the walls to blossoms and roses, bougainvillea and dwarf trees. He has seen it many times before but still, it catches him unawares and he hesitates before crossing the threshold. The neatness and order attracts him but at the same time repels him. He feels he should wipe his boots every time he enters even though he is still outside.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Ah, there you are.’ Sister Katerina’s familiar, gentle voice puts him at his ease. He does not reply but smiles instead. He uses one hand to twist his moustache at either end and looks down at the ground to avoid her gaze, shuffling his feet. The first few seconds in her company always have this effect. Her calmness, her grace take a moment or two for him to feel, well, if he is honest, to feel he can just be himself. Truth be told, he feels like this in everyone’s company but he knows that with Sister Katerina, his discomfort will be short lived.

  Puffing, she straightens herself from bending over the flower beds and brushes her hands on her white apron, which she takes off as she walks across the courtyard, away from Yanni, who follows. They enter the cool stone building, with its low ceiling and dark wooden beams that support age-stained sticks packed with earth above, in the traditional manner. A long refectory table occupies the centre of the room with carved and uncomfortable-looking chairs standing stiffly down either side like soldiers, polished and waiting for nuns who will never come. Along the walls, at roughly equal intervals, are old, time-darkened icons but otherwise the room is bare, white, still. There is little the sister can do to make the room more homely. Up against a window, she long ago placed two wooden chairs on either side of a small, now well-used, table. On its polished surface is a vase of flowers.

  With a gentle gesture, she invites Yanni to sit, which he does, slouching in the chair until he is comfortable, his initial unsettled feeling forgotten. They have sat many hours across from each other like this, Yanni deep in concentration, his cheeks burning as he tried to learn, at his request, the letters of the Greek alphabet. But after mastering more Greek than the average school boy, his passion to learn, instead of being satisfied, seemed to grow. His determination did not illicit any question from the sister, of which he was glad, for although he had a reason to learn, he still could not understand the pleasure it gave him. After a couple of years of short systematic bouts of study, her surprise registered when he asked if she spoke English. He can remember the look on her face; he had thought nothing could disquiet her until then.

  ‘I will have to reassess who you are, Yanni. I have made the common mistake of presuming to know you and yet here you are surprising me again with your desire to learn,’ was all she said. She didn’t ask why he wanted to learn English.

  Over the days that turned to months and then years, Sister Katerina seemed to always be available whenever he wanted to learn. He’d pick up her list of shopping every few days and take it to be filled out by the supermarket when he went into town to hire out his animals. He brought her goods up to her on the way home. This would be the time when he would linger and conversations became lessons until, after years of patient repetitive work and much frustration for Yanni, who felt Sister Katerina must consider him slow, she sat back and said, in English, ‘Yanni, I have no more to teach you.’

  Excitement played in his stomach as he drove Dolly and Suzi homewards that day. He could not wait to find a suitable place to pull the donkeys to a standstill. He called the beasts to halt halfway up and balancing, leaning against Dolly, he drew out the book that Sophia had given him and let it fall open. This long-anticipated reward, he had reserved until this moment. This was his big prize.

  This was the day that he would read what Sophia had circled. Today he would understand the message she had left him.

  He heard his heart in his ears. He swallowed and prepared himself, for good or bad, whatever the words on the page were going to tell him. But maybe, just maybe, the words would give him peace, help him to let go, return to the contentment of solitude he had before he met her.

  He read, the words swimming in the excitement he could not contain. Then came the confusion and the heavy understanding that it made no sense as his heart sank and disappointment snuffed out his hope.

  It began ‘thus’, a word that looked simple, but which he had never come across. And then ‘lov’st’. He had never seen such grammar. What was ‘wilt’ in such a context? Flowers ‘wilt’, but in this sentence, there was nothing to ‘wilt’. The words began to smudge behind unspilled tears and he closed the book and hid it away. He stopped carrying it for a while and Sister Katerina remarked on his lowness of mood some weeks later. He had tried not to let it show but in her graceful company, he could lie in neither mood nor deed.

  She did not push, only supported in her compassion, and he surprised himself one day by confessing all: Sophia being in his class at school, her intelligence and uncreased clothes, her eager smile and her confidence. The teasing from the other boys that he received at first because of the smell of livestock, but later, when he had missed too many days of learning through lambing time, for being stupid. Sophia had stepped in, branded them all bullies in a way that no one could argue with, and bid him sit next to her in class. He had fallen in love. The boys teased all the more and he lost the confidence to speak up in class and then, eventually to speak in school at all. He avoided his peers and only spent time with Sophia. He confessed that he and Sophia had skived off school to play in the pine
forest and he confessed the day she gave him the book and said she was going away as she stared at him in a way that he could only interpret as longing. She put the book in his hand, opened to the page she had marked, and he had looked down and not understood a word and when he looked up again, she had gone, running down the hill towards her home. The next day, she had left the island leaving nothing behind but the indecipherable book, which was the reason for all the learning and now a source of great frustration.

  Sister Katerina listened as she always did, silently, attentively, and then she sat quietly.

  ‘May I see the book?’ she asked. Yanni held back the sacred tome from Sister Katerina’s outstretched hand. No human hand had touched it but his since Sophia had given it to him. She sensed his hesitation and withdrew her hand to her lap. Ashamed of his reluctance, Yanni laid the book on the table. It fell open at the page with the circled words. She leaned forward and studied the page before sitting upright.

  ‘Oh my!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is another language again … Shall we learn it?’

  ‘It is not English?’ Yanni asked.

  ‘Oh yes, but as different to the English that we have been learning as ancient Greek is to Modern Greek.

  ‘You know this language?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘No.’ She smiled so sweetly, her eyes shining. ‘But we can learn together.’

  Yanni feels heat rising to his cheek even now as he remembers, at that time, standing and leaving the sister without a thank you or a good-bye. For a while, he felt he had nothing to say to her. This new hurdle in his path seemed almost too great to climb. He stopped by for the shopping lists and dropped the things she needed back as usual until one day she asked him to go to the post office to check her mail. She had never asked such a thing before, but one shop or another, or the post office, it made no difference to him. A thick parcel was waiting. He glanced at it briefly to make sure it was for the nun and heard his own intake of breath. Both his name and Sister Katerina’s were typed on a label adhered to the brown paper. It was the second post he had ever received.

  He remembered the first all too well. It was a letter around his eighteenth birthday and he can remember feeling intimidated by how official it seemed. His name written by hand and the postmark over the stamp, those printed black lines had intimidated him. Reasoning with himself did not help. Even though he knew his birth had not been registered and he would not be listed in any official office, he felt sure it was draft papers for his military service. He looked again and again at the flowery handwriting on the envelope on the way home, but always his eye was drawn to the stamp, the official-ness of the black printed squiggles over it. He stopped to open it several times but he never quite managed it, his fingers freezing, rigid.

  He arrived home late that day to a concerned Mama.

  ‘Oh there you are, agapi mou.’ She looked years older when she worried. How much more worried would she be if he had to go away to the army for two years? He could never bring that amount of anxiety to her. He walked to her open-armed greeting and, with a sly movement, he let the letter slip from his fingers and down the well as he passed. He hoped and prayed nothing would come of it, and nothing ever did. In time, he forgot all about it until the parcel came for the sister and all those feelings of fear returned.

  He hoped a mistake had been made and that his name should not be there at all. It filled him with fear. He stuffed it into the sack on Dolly’s side and tried not to think about it. A letter was easily lost but a parcel, and one also addressed to someone else?

  The big, solid wooden door was open that day and she waited for him on the bench inside, amidst the pink roses, the orange bougainvillea, the purple wisteria, clusters of cultivated red poppies, and a many-petalled yellow flower he could never remember the name of no matter how many times she told him.

  He handed her the parcel.

  ‘Thank you, Yanni,’ she said and he turned to leave, the colours of her garden too big a contrast to his mood to remain. ‘Stay a moment,’ she said, so softly he thought he might have imagined it. He hesitated. She remained unmoved on the bench by the tiny church in the courtyard and patted the seat next to her. He felt like a child as he sat.

  She pulled at the package, but it wouldn’t be opened until Yanni offered his help. From his pocket, he took a small penknife that he used to clean the donkey’s hooves, wiped it on his shirt sleeve, and slit the string and tape that was binding the brown paper.

  ‘Look, Yanni, it has come, and we may begin our studies again.’ Her voice tinkled like water, a grin from ear to ear.

  Yanni was surprised at that moment to realise that Sister Katerina derived as much satisfaction from teaching as he did being her student. Her smile was generous, encompassing, and her eyes were alive, the skin around them crinkling in her pleasure.

  He looked at the contents of the parcel. Two books in her lap.

  ‘Look, a more comprehensive English dictionary and “Understanding and Explicating English Poetry”.’ She laughed, a laugh that fitted with the gentle, bright flowers of her garden. ‘We will need the one even to understand the title of the other,’ she said and laughed again. They began to study again and as they learnt, piece by piece, he told her more about Sophia and, over time, the situation became clear, allowing Sister Katerina to understand Yanni, the reason for the distant look in his eyes and her own place in his life.

  Chapter 5

  Sitting opposite him now, upright, poised, she picks up the pen. She continues to smile as she puts pen to paper. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

  Yanni shakes his head. Once in a while he drinks coffee, but generally he doesn’t. It makes him dizzy. And he hardly ever drinks anything stronger. Ouzo goes straight to his limbs, making him so relaxed, he almost falls over himself—or at least fall asleep.

  ‘Water? I will get you water.’ She stands and walks gracefully across the room in her long black habit, her black headdress wrapped around her face, cupping her chin so only her features show, her back a little bent. She disappears through an arch and returns with a metal jug and two matching beakers. Putting them on the table, she leaves Yanni to pour and takes up her pen again. He drinks and watches her as she concentrates on her writing. ‘Sister, have you ever been off the island?’ Yanni opens the conversation. Sister Katerina pauses before gently exhaling.

  ‘Well, I was born in Athens, so the short answer is yes. But I have been here since I was about thirteen so not really, not as an adult, and certainly not since I was ordained.’

  Yanni looks past her at a small icon hung on the wall at the end of the room. His eyes flick at his own internal snapshots of Sister Katerina in her habit hovering over imaginary city pavements. It is impossible to imagine.

  ‘People talk about the mainland as if the people there are so slick, they would have the shirt off your back and you would thank them for it before you have even said hello.’ It is a long sentence for him and he takes a moment before asking, ‘Do you think there is any truth in that—really?’ His features are unmoving. There is a slight tremor in his voice but he wonders if it is more something he can feel than something that can be heard.

  Sister Katerina’s calm is in her eyes, in the way she sits, the way she talks. ‘I think people are people the world over. They will treat you as you allow them to treat you.’ She takes a sip of water. A brightly coloured butterfly settles on the windowsill. ‘Most people describe their own lives in the way they treat others. Those who feel the world is harming them harm others in word or deed, and those who feel the world is a gift, who are grateful, treat others as if they are part of the gift.’ The words are soft as silk, spun from a compassionate heart.

  ‘Don’t those two sentences contradict each other?’ Yanni follows her gaze to the butterfly. ‘Either they treat you as you allow them to treat you or they treat you as a reflection of their own world. Can it be both?’

  The butterfly dances in through the open window, circumnavigates their heads, and flies out again.
They follow its swooping progress into the garden. It lands on a rose and stays there for a full minute before flying to the next flower, where it spreads its wings in the sun. ‘Maybe they can,’ the sister ponders. ‘The way people begin to treat you reflects them but when you respond, with kindness and love or otherwise, you draw your boundaries. People rarely want to hurt kindness or love, no matter how scared of it they are.’ She closes her mouth. Yanni looks over to her. Her eyes are flitting back and forth but she does not see the outside world, she is sieving through her thoughts. ‘Unless we are talking about people who are extreme, who block out everything. People who hurt so much and are so scared they presume there is no love in the world and attack as a form of defence.’ She pours more water.

  The butterfly closes its wings.

  ‘That is what I am asking—is that true of the people on the mainland?’ Yanni says.

  Sister Katerina waits before she answers.

  ‘No more so than anywhere else. But, you know, maybe their expectation of how their lives should be is different. There is a limitation to our comfort here on the island. Even for the rich, if their air conditioning breaks down, they know they must wait for the repair man to come from the next island. They know they will be uncomfortable for a day or two. It is a part of life; we accept it here on the island. But on the mainland with all the modern conveniences and the abundance of material wealth everywhere, maybe they expect that in their lives, there should no discomfort. Which appears to make any hardship worse, perhaps? But I am just guessing. Maybe we should study some psychology?’ The sister, not expecting an answer, nods over her reflections as they continue their observance of the flowers. A lizard scuttles into the open and remains motionless on the warm flags in the scorching sun.

  ‘I was not even two when I fed my first lamb,’ Yanni remarks.