by Lena Manta
“Look at her, wanting a wedding invitation,” her mother scolded.
“So, we won’t have any more lessons?”
All three of them turned to look at Smaragda, who had spoken in a voice plaintive with genuine sorrow.
Kleoniki approached her youngest with understanding. “No, Smaragda, dear. I know you loved your teacher and the lessons, but sweetheart, those things are over now. Whatever you learned, it was worth it.”
After what happened, she would not have dared to ask Anargyros for another teacher for the girls or to send them to school, despite the fact that it was her dearest wish, and she was sad because she knew how much her youngest wanted to continue. She jumped for joy when Mrs. Marigo found some old books of Olympia’s, which she gave to Smaragda. The girl’s face shone, and she hugged her mother with a daring she didn’t usually have.
In the years that followed, Olympia’s sin was discussed with horror and scorn in hushed voices at evening gatherings and tea parties. Even if some woman, deep down inside, understood the girl, she didn’t dare say so. Many romantic souls sighed secretly, calculating what a great love the girl must have felt to run off with her beloved, overlooking the fact that he was a Turk. For their part, the men didn’t try to put themselves in the shoes of the man who was probably ostracized by his family for loving a Christian and a Greek, especially in those times, when the Turks had to accept their defeat. From Mrs. Marigo, Kleoniki and Anargyros learned that the girl’s parents had been forced to leave Tarlabasi and had moved to Galata. In the aftermath of the event, their small community failed to notice when the Patriarchate, exploiting the strength it had acquired, banned Turkish in Greek schools.
A few months later, though, something new made hearts take wing. The herald for Anargyros, as always, was the well-informed Moisis. One day, he came into his friend’s workshop, and beneath his mustache he was smiling.
“Give me a coffee, and I’ll tell you the news!” he announced.
“If it’s good news, why are you talking about coffee? We’ll drink an ouzo. Kleoniki’s made me some salt tuna today that’ll have you licking your fingers!”
Anargyros left his bellows and fire, and the two men set themselves up with ouzo and snacks behind the tall counter.
“Tell me, then! What have you come to say?” Anargyros prompted him.
“A resolution was passed, brother,” said Moisis grandly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hey, just listen. A resolution was passed for the union of Constantinople with Greece.”
“You don’t say!”
Anargyros hastened to clink glasses with his friend.
“Do you think our torments have ended?”
“We won, Anargyros. That hasn’t changed. And it’s time for the city of Constantinople to be reborn Greek. Time to topple the minarets of the Hagia Sophia! Asia Minor will soon be ours again.”
“Do you think so, Moisis?”
“Just as I see you and you see me! Big things will happen, Anargyros. We’ll be rubbing our eyes out of disbelief!”
Moisis’s predictions came true, but not the way everyone in the Greek world would have liked. And even if, at the beginning, public opinion was clear, suddenly, as if some hand had intervened, the balance was turned upside down.
In May of that year, Greece landed in Smyrna. The Averof was there, and the Greek forces were received with an enthusiasm that bordered on worship. The news reached Constantinople quickly. Everyone breathed more easily; fear had disappeared, and hope took its place in people’s hearts, together with national pride.
A Greece of two continents and five seas . . . the “Great Idea” swept their wishes along with it—ignoring the 1453 lesson of the Kerkoporta Gate, when the last Byzantine emperor was overthrown by traitors who entered the palace through a small wooden door. It took three years to obliterate the dream—three years of smoke, ashes, blood, and cries of agony. The expulsion that had begun many years earlier and been interrupted by the Mudros Armistice resumed, and it was more merciless than ever. The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the events that followed put an end to the two-thousand-year presence of Greeks in that land. The reckoning was tragic. The politicians and military commanders’ dream of retaking the country was paid for with the blood of innocents, as is so often the case.
Anargyros couldn’t look Kleoniki in the eye after what happened. Everything she’d said back when he was so certain that Greece would remain victorious went on echoing in his ears. She didn’t understand, and wondered why her husband didn’t say a word in the house. At first, she attributed his behavior to the fear that had overcome them all over again. They bolted their doors as soon as the troubles broke out. Kleoniki didn’t open up even for the milkman, and gave the children tea even though they complained, not knowing the reason. Nor did she open the door for the egg seller or anyone else. But it was impossible to stay shut in forever. Timidly, like snails after the rain, the men began coming out to go to their shops, fearing that they’d find everything destroyed, but nothing had been disturbed, and they all took heart. Still, Anargyros kept his head down. One evening, long after the children had gone to bed, he ate yet another meal silently, and this was the drop that made Kleoniki’s glass overflow.
“My husband, there’s something you’re not telling me,” she began, nervously drawing shapes on the white tablecloth with her fingernail.
“What else should I tell you? Didn’t we both learn the news about the war together?”
“Anargyros, I’m not talking about the war now. Enough. Whatever happened, happened; ordinary people were killed and houses were burned, but not in Constantinople. Here, nobody bothered us. Why do you worry so much?”
Anargyros rolled a cigarette and lit it, and after he spoke, Kleoniki would have liked one too, to recover from everything she’d heard.
“I have a burden inside me, wife. You were right, and I was wrong. You told me we shouldn’t be in a hurry to celebrate because they could start another war and win. And it happened like you said. I scolded and mocked you. I thought, She’s a woman—what does she know about such things? But now you say they didn’t harm any of us, and well . . . I didn’t want to frighten you, but the Greeks are leaving Constantinople. A thousand or two every day. Our embassy has closed here.”
Silence spread through the room. On the one hand, Kleoniki was shocked by the news; on the other, in the sixteen years of her marriage, Anargyros had never admitted that she could be right and he could be wrong, and for him to do it at this moment meant that things were very serious. She dared to look at him. He was smoking with his head down.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” he asked.
“My husband, I am an illiterate woman who knows nothing besides her housekeeping,” she answered calmly. “But I think that, at times like these, the question of who’s right and who’s wrong is irrelevant. Just let the suffering become a lesson. That’s the best thing. I don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow, but here, where we live, we just need money. It was money that helped Myronas get his brother-in-law out of serving in the army, and haven’t we done everything that we needed to all these years by bribing people? So look to your work, and do whatever you can to be a good provider. And guard our money as you always have.”
“It’s in our room,” her husband confessed.
“I know,” Kleoniki said, surprising him. “I found it under the floor, between the floorboards.”
“You found it?” said Anargyros in wonder, sitting up in his chair.
“Ever since you brought me here as a bride, I’ve kept this house clean with my own hands. Do you think I don’t know every inch of it? Except that I wanted to tell you, my pasha, don’t keep it all in one place. A little here, a little there. It’s safer!”
Anargyros was thunderstruck. Was this his wife? Where had she hidden all this cleverness? Deep inside, he buried his shame about the way he had treated her for so many years. In his mind, Kleoniki was a slave who looked af
ter him and nothing more. He’d expected his wife to give him a son, and when she didn’t, he blamed her. An endless chain of thoughts and guilt, but he didn’t have the strength to acknowledge any more. Over time, Kleoniki would become aware of the changes in his attitude, and feel bitter that they’d come so late.
The next discussion between the couple was also about something unpleasant. Anargyros came home from the shop shivering. January of 1923, which had just ended, had seemed like the coldest month ever to him. His wife, who had watched the snow and ice from the window, greeted him with a robe she had warmed near the stove, and his slippers, which were piping hot. She gave him a brandy to warm himself up and then sat down to keep him company as he ate, as she did every evening. He drank his soup slowly, without any enthusiasm, and Kleoniki was surprised. Egg-lemon chicken soup, and Anargyros struggling to get through it?
“Maybe I didn’t make the soup right, my husband? Is it too sour?”
“The soup’s fine, wife—tasty as ever.”
“Then don’t you feel well?” She got up to feel his forehead. It was cool.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Kleoniki. Sit down . . . I want to speak to you.”
She looked at him with a frown. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?”
“Here, where we live, were you expecting something good? Moisis told me today that they signed a treaty.”
“What’s that mean, my pasha? Is it good or bad?”
“Probably bad. They will exchange populations, he says.”
“How will they exchange them?”
“Greeks from here will go to Greece, and Turks from there will come here.”
“Even if they don’t want to?”
“Yes, exactly. If they’d wanted to, they’d have done it. But now it’s compulsory. Our people will leave their houses and fortunes, and Turks will come to stay here. And our people will go to live in the houses of the Turks from Greece.”
“Just like that, everyone must leave what he has and go?”
“That’s what Moisis says.”
“Mercy, him again! He never has any good news to tell us.”
“Is it Moisis’s fault? Didn’t you say that he finds things out and tells me everything I know about what’s going on?”
Kleoniki began playing with the tablecloth again. “Just think, my husband. With this paper that you’re describing, the one they signed, have you considered that they seem to be punishing their own people too?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Look, husband. Even the Turks who live in Greece think of it as their country, like we do here in Turkey. They were born there, had children, grandchildren. They have friends, neighbors. How will they leave it so suddenly and be uprooted?”
“Are you in your right mind, woman, to think I’d pity the Turks?” Anargyros objected.
“They’re people, my pasha, people! There are big fish in the sea, but there are also little sardines. Even in the ocean, the big fish take what they want, but the little ones pay. And on land it’s the same. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of people who wanted it, but there are others who thought they’d end their lives in the place they’d learned to call home. When you are forced to uproot yourself, Turk or Greek, both feel the same pain.”
Anargyros began rolling a cigarette, trying to understand his wife’s words, and realized that she was right. But Kleoniki’s thoughts had run ahead of his.
“Anargyros!” she called out, surprising him. “Why did you tell me all that? Are they driving us out too? Is this your way of telling me we must leave our house? Mother of God! Our house?”
“Hold on a moment, my good woman. Where has your head gone? If it was something like that, would I be behaving this way? Would I be sitting, rolling a cigarette? The Greeks of Constantinople are not part of the treaty.”
“Praise the Virgin! You gave me a fright, Anargyros.”
Most of the news, the worst of it, Anargyros himself didn’t know. He wasn’t aware that more than thirty thousand Greeks, some of the richest in Constantinople, in fact, had left in the autumn of 1922, but the government didn’t want them to come back. Those who had Turkish passports returned, because the Turks couldn’t do anything about it. But they exploited the new law passed in April of the same year and confiscated the savings of the rest. There were rumors that the amount that passed to Turkish hands was between two hundred thousand and four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Suddenly, the Greeks of Constantinople, after the Treaty of Lausanne and because of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, had been transformed into a passive minority. And if they gained some “privileges,” such as the right to practice their own faith freely, and to teach Greek as well as Turkish in their schools, the word minority would characterize their future. A new period was beginning, with Kemal Ataturk sworn in as the first president of a now-united Turkey in 1923, while in the same year, the capital was moved from Constantinople to Ankara.
Kleoniki never forgave herself for not understanding right away, for not reading the signs that led to the family’s own catastrophe. She now believed those who said, “From one bad thing, thousands follow.” The beginning of the trouble was thought to be Makrina’s new friend, who’d moved to Tarlabasi with her parents. Nobody knew the origins of the Yiouroukos family, a couple with one daughter and two sons. Flora, the daughter, was the same age as Dorothea, but it was Makrina with whom she became inseparable. Kleoniki didn’t see anything harmful about this new relationship, although she didn’t take to the plump girl with the impudent look who often came to her house.
Even though Flora’s mother, Katina Yiouroukos, suggested that they spend time together, Kleoniki made it clear she wasn’t eager to advance her relationship with the woman. On this subject, Mrs. Marigo, who also didn’t care for the new neighbors, was in agreement.
“I don’t know, my dear, but there’s something I don’t like about them,” she said. “There’s a lot of Turks coming and going over there.”
“Because of work?”
Kostakis Yiouroukos was a businessman, but no one knew anything about his business. Some said he was mixed up in the spice trade, while others said tobacco.
“What work could that be, Kleoniki?” Mrs. Marigo objected. “Anargyros also sells what he makes to the Turks, but he doesn’t let them in his house.”
“Lord preserve us!” Kleoniki exclaimed.
“Dimitrios’s wife, Kalliopitsa, told me the other day that a Turk, a really dignified fellow, came with a car and picked them all up.”
Kleoniki shuddered and decided to speak to her daughter and extricate her from her relationship with Flora, but it wasn’t as easy as she thought. Makrina defended her friend with great fervor.
“You shouldn’t be saying what you’re saying, Mother,” she insisted. “Flora is my friend, and it doesn’t matter to me what company her parents keep. She’s not to blame for anything.”
“All I’m saying is keep your distance, in case anything reaches your father’s ears.”
“But what did Flora do to make you not like her?” said her daughter. “The poor thing thinks of you as a second mother!”
“Unfortunate for her, because she already has a mother! And if she has one, why does she need a second? You think you’re fooling me? Evanthia’s been coming here since she was a baby, and she never says things like that, but this Flora, who just arrived, says she thinks of me as a mother? Makrina, be careful! I won’t say any more.”
Makrina obeyed, grateful at least that she wouldn’t lose her friend. That spring, the girls went out together. The first time, it was to attend church for Good Friday, and the second time, they went to pick flowers and make wreaths for May Day.
Later, Kleoniki racked her brain trying to understand how she had allowed her daughter to go walking with Flora. Because, after these two outings, it became a habit for the two to go for walks in the nearby countryside. They never came home late, which gave Kleoniki a little comfort. How could she have imagined? How could sh
e have foreseen the disaster that was coming toward them? Her mind was constantly on her three girls. Dorothea was eighteen; the time was coming for her to get married—something that seemed difficult given her character, which got worse as she grew older and spoiled her beauty. Makrina was seventeen, while Smaragda, the only one of her children who gave her no trouble, was turning fifteen. She was proud of her girls, but she had begun to understand her husband, who had never wanted any. Kleoniki lost sleep when she thought about their future and the dangers they’d face if she didn’t stay alert.
The winter of 1925 brought Kleoniki some calm. Heavy snow put an end to the girls’ walks, and Flora was a regular visitor to the house. Smaragda and Evanthia would shut themselves up in one room, and Flora and Makrina would hole up in another, the former classroom. Only Dorothea stayed with her mother in the kitchen, and as always, the girl complained incessantly.
Nobody suspected that the writing Makrina had learned from Olympia would someday help her communicate secretly with her lover. And while her mother had been reassured when she stayed in the house with Flora, it was her friend who carried the correspondence back and forth. As soon as the weather improved and the two girls went for their first walk, trysts were resumed, vows of eternal love exchanged, and desperate measures agreed upon. No open road existed, and both of them knew it. Makrina would never receive approval for such a wedding.
Kerem was the son of a very rich family and had met Makrina on one of their visits to Flora’s house. They managed to see each other three times. As soon as she heard of Kerem’s visits, Kleoniki vetoed her daughter’s trips to the neighboring house, but the harm was already done. Flora helped her friend as much as she could. She took her for walks so the couple could meet, and when the harsh winter began, she took on the duties of a postman. Sometimes, Makrina swam in an ocean of happiness; at other times, she staggered through storms. On the one hand, she cared about her family; on the other, she couldn’t imagine her life apart from Kerem and his beautiful eyes. For his part, he had secured his parents’ permission, overcoming their initial objections. He’d made it clear to them that either he would have Makrina, or he would run away. Facing the threat of losing their only son, they agreed, but with one condition: the girl would have to change her faith for the marriage to take place.
