by Sara Alexi
‘I think perhaps they need to be pruned from lower down. Not now, but in the autumn, or at the latest, the spring.’
‘I usually do it in the spring. Look!’ Sister Katerina slowly straightens to point out a blue dragonfly.
‘Beautiful,’ Sophia replies.
‘So are the builders there today?’ Sister Katerina asks.
‘Yes. They already had the roof on before I left the village. Babis, that’s my lawyer, has been most helpful. Although I’m sure he will charge me for every step. You know, I think he thought I was quite mad, wanting to renovate the old house.’
‘It will be lovely to have you up here, Sophia. Permanently, I mean.’
‘Well, I’m not sure how it will work out. There’s no water, you know. Well, I say no water; apparently the well dries up by about July and you have to wait for the autumn rains.’
‘Trust in God,’ Sister Katerina says. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to live up here.’ She puts her basket of deadheads down and rubs her back.
‘Sit a while, Sister,’ Sophia says.
‘You are kind, my dear. The convent outside Saros must have been very sorry to lose you.’
‘I’m sure the abbess filled you in,’ Sophia says with a sly look.
‘It’s what the abbess said about you that made me sure we would get on. She said that she had had to have a word with you on several occasions for laughing and encouraging others to laugh at most irreverent moments.’ Sister Katerina sits on the bench by the church with a small sigh. ‘And besides, we have a mutual friend.’
‘Do we?’ Sophia stops her weeding and looks up, interested. But Sister Katerina’s eyes are closed and she seems to have nodded off. Sophia leaves the weeds and goes around the back of the church to the vegetable plot, which has been neglected in favour of the flowers. The sight of all there is to do thrills her, and she re-canes the peas and digs around the lettuces before Sister Katerina awakes and wanders round to find her.
‘Ah, there you are.’
‘I was just about to dig up some potatoes and some beetroots. I can make some scordalia to go with the beetroots for dinner tonight. Does that appeal?’
‘You know, you are showing me how much I was neglecting myself. Too often, I would boil up a potato and make that do. Sometimes not even that: a lettuce and grated carrot. They are easier to get out of the ground.’ Sister Katerina still has her gardening gloves on, which are far too big for her hands.
‘It can’t be easy living up here alone,’ Sophia soothes.
‘But now you are here! Has this Babis of yours given you any idea when the house will be ready?’
Sophia straightens up and pushes loose hairs from her face that have escaped from her ponytail, whilst watching a tortoise who clicks up the path. ‘He’d better not be heading for the lettuces,’ Sophia exclaims.
‘He is always heading for the lettuces,’ Sister Katerina laughs. Sophia gently lifts the big old tortoise and turns him around. His head darts in leaving just a shell, and the shell sits there unmoving. First his head reappears and then his legs. Without hesitation, he turns himself around and continues his route to the lettuce patch.
‘I will have to fence them in,’ Sophia says.
‘It won’t stop him.’ Sister Katerina steps past Sophia, pulls up a lettuce that’s about to flower, and puts it down in front of the tortoise. His beak opens and he begins to tear it to pieces, slowly chewing and swallowing, his neck stretching, his head pointing to the sky as he does so.
‘In truth, Babis has been amazing. Last year, when I first left the convent and he started sorting out the will, I had no idea how my life was going to work out. But he was good to his word. He has transformed the house in town and it’s fully booked for this summer. Without that, I could never have even thought to do up the house up here.’
‘And in the same mysterious way, God will find a way for you to have enough water to live up here.’
‘Well, I don’t know how mysterious it all is.’ Sophia chuckles. The night she went across the road to Stella’s for supper with Juliet is a night she will never forget. Juliet was drinking beer. Stella left Mitsos to deal with the customers so she could join them, and she drank beer too. Was it Sophia’s evil streak or just curiosity that made her decide to try some beer herself?
‘Oh, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. It has a bitter aftertaste.’ But she took a second sip from Juliet’s glass to make sure. There was something strangely nice about it and so Stella poured her a glass of her own. She sipped it very slowly but as the evening grew into night, the beer made her giggle, which infected first Juliet and quickly Stella.
‘I think it’s sending me crazy.’ Sophia giggled.
‘Everyone is a little crazy,’ Stella replied.
‘Each in their own way,’ Juliet said.
‘No, they are all the same.’ Stella opened herself another bottle. ‘The government accuses us of stealing from them before we have even made a penny and they tax us in advance to assure themselves that they get their share. So what do we do? We do what anybody who wants to live would do. We find ways to hide what we earn and get more and more sneaky and more and more paranoid and it makes us crazy. We are crazy with paranoia and we sneak about and tell lies, to even our closest friends and family, about our incomes. Everyone I know lies and lies again about how they have not been paid and what they owe and how they do not have money until you wonder how they can eat. Yet they smoke two packets of cigarettes a day and drive a four-by-four and come out to eat chicken and chips and drink enough ouzo to sink a fishing boat.’
She took a breath at this point and swallowed more beer. ‘Listen to this, the latest gossip of the village. You know the photovoltaic field over there?’ She waves her hand around in the vague direction of the hill opposite Juliet’s, with the olive trees. ‘Well, there were only so many grants being offered and so there was a scramble by the farmers to get one. It all became the usual matter of who you know. Well, the man who has his field now filled with photovoltaic panels got the grant because his cousin worked in the government office that dealt with the applications. The cousin agreed to put his application to the top for a share of the income.’
Sophia took another tiny sip of beer, listening intently.
‘First the farmer had to pay for half of the installation. Then when the panels were working, he had to wait until the electricity they had generated paid off the European Union their half of the installation cost—in other words, pay back the grant. Then the cousin, who had also set up the bank accounts so they could be paid, took out all that was coming in to pay off the bribes he had had to give out to get the grant in the first place. And do you know what happened meanwhile?’ Stella paused for effect. ‘Two things happened. First, the electricity company took the signed agreements from all the fields they had made this deal with to the European court and reduced the amount they would pay the farmers for the energy, claiming they were in a state of national emergency. The people who signed the original deal had no say, and it cut their income by half.’ Stella paused before adding, ‘And secondly, because the farmer had spent all his money on the installation and the chopping down of his orange trees, he had no money and no income. His land was generating thousands of euros’ worth of electricity every month but between the company and his cousin, he saw nothing. Well, his electricity bill came to his house. One hundred euros. And this man who created the electricity in the first place could not afford to pay the bill and they cut the electricity off in his house.’ Stella knocked back the rest of her beer and slammed the glass on the table. The table shook and, as it was up against the tree with the fairy lights, they too shook, shadows bouncing for a moment.
Juliet shook her head, but it did not seem to be a surprise to her. Sophia was horrified and her mouth dropped partially open until Mitsos came out and asked if they wanted more beer. He had two bottles in his hand; he opened one and put it on the table. The other, he left with the cap on and put the opener
next to it. His hand trailed across Stella’s shoulders as he returned inside. A little gesture designed to help her relax, perhaps. She lifted her shoulders and dropped them and smiled the smile of the defeated.
‘So we are all a little crazy, but in the same way,’ she concluded.
‘I see a different craziness,’ Juliet raised her head, ‘amongst the ex-pats.’ Stella topped up her glass. Sophia put her hand over her own glass; one drink felt like more than enough. ‘When they first move over here, they are so full of themselves. After years of grey sky and rain, just the sun makes you feel like a king, makes you feel blessed. They arrive with their handfuls of savings and dreams for the future and they begin to live as if they are on holiday. Beer at lunchtime, afternoons on the beach, eating out every night.’
Stella raised her glass to this thought and Juliet admitted the irony of her words by raising hers in return.
‘But as the appreciative greetings fit for royalty made by the bartenders serving the lunchtime beer become normal, it loses its impact and as their savings begin to diminish, these ex-pat kings and queens start to buy their beer from the kiosk and drink at home. They no longer get their daily greeting as revered big spenders and their life becomes normal again. And here is the strange thing that I have seen happen over and over again: They begin to complain. They find things to complain about. They complain about the Greeks. After all, it must be their fault. Wasn’t it them and their country who made them feel so fantastic in the first place? So why are they not making them feel fantastic now? That is the first thing that happens. Then the second thing. They begin to grandiose what they have left behind. The house they left in the UK or France or wherever was so big, so new. Everything worked properly. Their families are grandiosed: they were so loving, so well-known. I have met a half-Austrian woman claiming pictures of Austrian castles she had postcards of were old family seats. I have met English people claiming their fathers and grandfathers were these great people who made huge impacts on the government and you think, “If all this is true, why did they leave? It doesn’t fit”.’ Juliet took a drink of her beer. ‘They spend their days talking about these things until they can talk about nothing else. It’s their own form of crazy.’
‘I have seen that,’ Stella agreed.
‘I was crazy,’ Sophia said, surprising herself. ‘When they said I had this demon in me. At first, I knew it was nonsense but then as time passed and more and more accusations were made and evidence was presented to me, I began to think I was crazy and I think I became a little mad. I watched myself from the outside in everything I did, watched to see any sign of the demon. But as I saw nothing abnormal, I began to interpret the normal as abnormal. Everything had a different meaning. Everything I said and did. I tried to hide myself from the other sisters. I found the vegetable garden a great place to be, away from everybody. So I stayed amongst the plants and the insects and the chickens until slowly, and I mean slowly—it must have been years—I saw I was not crazy and I began to quite like who I was.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ Stella clicked glasses with them both.
‘I think, and I am speaking from my own experience.’ Juliet put on a pompous voice as she said this last sentence, but something about the way she did it implied that she was also serious. ‘You have to find out where you need to be, what situation suits you best. In England, I felt I was struggling after my divorce from Mick. I was struggling to find a job and struggling to find a home. I don’t mean I couldn’t find these things, but it was my life and after years of Mick, it felt precious, so I was not about to short-change myself on a job I didn’t like or a home that felt like make-do.’ She turned her glass between her hands and looked up to the smudge of the Milky Way that hung over the village. ‘So I thought of all the places I had been and all the times that seemed the most precious and that was it. I knew I had to be in Greece.’
‘I did the same after my divorce,’ Stella said. Sophia looked at her quickly. She had assumed Stella had been with Mitsos forever. ‘I asked myself what I wanted most in the world, and the answer was I wanted to do business, big business.’ Sophia turned her head to look at the facade of the taverna.
‘Oh not this,’ Stella laughed, light and childlike. She seemed too small to run even the taverna. ‘No, this is just for fun now. I have a factory that makes candles just outside of Saros. I run it with an English friend. We make and distribute beeswax candles to the Orthodox churches all over the world and we make, you might have heard of them, “AromaLite” scented candles that people use as therapy. That is a growing industry.’ Stella didn’t seem so small as she talked. She had an air of authority that made Sophia reassess her.
‘So you need to know where you want to be, either geographically or …’ Stella did not finish her sentence. ‘Although if I was living at Juliet’s, I would not be sure if I would want to move. Did you put that swinging chair up on your front porch?’
‘Um-hm.’ Juliet grunted her answer. ‘It’s a thought, Sophia. Have you any idea where you want to be? That might be the place to start, rather than what you want to do. Not that you are not welcome to stay.’
There was no thought behind the image. The top of Orino Island came along with the feeling of peace and in that moment, with Juliet, who had rebuilt her old farmhouse, and Stella, who had built an international enterprise, she decided to rebuild the family house in its hundred and fifty stremas of land and live in semi-seclusion. She could think of nothing nicer. Occasional trips to the town and across to the village, Juliet and Stella and Mitsos to come to stay. The whole thing just slotted into place.
She shared her vision and Stella became very excited. She explained how she had started her candle factory in her baba’s old barn on top of her own hill. Juliet said she would visit for sure and the rest of the night, the three of them laid plans. No mysterious God, but there were one or two bottles of beer.
Chapter 29
‘To answer your question, we’ve had several completion dates, and it keeps getting pushed back ... But when he asked me to come and look, I knew the day to move in could not be far way.’
‘Well, I think it was very sensible of you to come and stay with me so you can keep an eye on things.’
‘It was very kind of you to invite me.’ Sophia realises she is not going to get any more digging done for the moment and so leads Sister Katerina into the shade, back to her bench by the church door; the most perfect spot to look over the garden.
Staying with Sister Katerina was the abbess’ idea. After Sophia left the convent, it was agreed that she would visit the abbess once a month, and it was at one of these meetings she voiced her plans to move back to her island. The old nun turned very thoughtful for a moment before taking a large key from inside her robe and unlocking the bottom door of an oversized dark wood desk from where she withdrew a piece of paper folded many times and bound in string. Carefully undoing the knots and unfolding the sheet, she slowly read through the contents.
‘This is a note from a fellow nun. I will divulge its contents, but you must keep complete confidence,’ she rasped.
‘Of course, Sister.’ Sophia was curious.
‘It is from Sister Katerina in the convent on Orino.’ She looked at the note. ‘She says that despite her prayers and God’s strong arm of support, she grows physically weak. Her vegetable garden is not producing enough to live on because she does not have the strength to do all the work that is necessary. In this note, she asks if I could send a younger nun to support her. Preferably someone quiet who will not get in the way.’ She paused before adding, ‘Those are my words, not hers, but I can read between the lines.’ She cleared her throat, re-folded the note, re-tied the string around it, and replaced it in the bottom drawer. ‘It strikes me that you are the answer to her prayers. You can stay with her to begin with, sort out all the major jobs she lists as being beyond her, and use your God-given talent on her vegetable plot.’ She crossed herself. ‘Then when your house is done, it will give her t
he space she needs if you were to attend her garden a few times a week. I think this is God’s purpose for you. This is what he would like you to do to recompense the church for all the years you lived here.’
The anger boiled in Sophia, rendering her speechless. But after a moment’s reflection, reason filtered through her wrath and she slowly realised that this presumption by the abbess could in fact be the answer to her living up on the top of Orino Island long-term without water to grow her food.
‘I will write to her, telling her to expect you.’ Sophia was dismissed and she walked once more from the convent wishing, hoping, that would be the last time she would ever see the abbess.
In the shade of the small church, Sophia sits by Sister Katerina’s side and they gaze over the garden.
‘Look what a difference you’ve made in just two days.’ Sister Katerina surveys her blossoms and blooms. ‘It is wondrous.’
Sophia checks over the lupins and the geraniums and notes several things in that area that she must attend to. There are weeds poking through here and there and behind them, the climbing rose by the front gate needs to be cut back to one or two stems to give it strength. It thrills her. The whole garden thrills her. There were so few flowers at the convent near Saros, but here, there is so much that is new, so much she can learn, and Sister Katerina has so much she can teach her, which she seems to enjoy doing in her own meditative way.
Her happiness is all but complete. She can ask for no more. If there is a God, a bigger, more real, more live, all-encompassing force of nature that governs the universe than the icon gods of the convent, then maybe that force has turned the wheels of her life, that force has moulded her steps to bring her out into her own garden of Eden and for this, she gives thanks, as she could not be happier.
Presently there is a tapping noise that breaks Sophia’s reflection.
‘Oh.’ Sister Katerina stands and her old legs seem to take on new life. ‘I have just thought of something I really must do inside.’
