One Cretan Evening and Other Stories Part 5

The city had improved in the past few decades, with the laying down of some broad boulevards, which contrasted with the ancient pattern of winding lanes that snaked like the serpents of the Medusa's hair up the steep gradient towards the upper town. A handful of large stores had appeared but the majority of retailing was still carried out from small shops no bigger than kiosks, family run, thousands of them, all vying with each other for business and squeezed into the narrow streets. As well as the hundreds of traditional kafenions, there were European-style cafes serving Viennese beer, and clubs where people discussed literature and philosophy.

There was a density about this city. The volume of its inhabitants, and their containment in a s.p.a.ce enclosed by walls and water gave it a concentration of strong smells, vivid colours, and continuous noise. The calls of the ice-seller, the milk-seller, the fruit-seller, the yogurt-seller, all had their own distinctive pitch, but together made a pleasing chord.

Night and day, there was never a pause in the continual music of the city. Many languages were spoken here: not just Greek, Turkish and Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews, but French, Armenian and Bulgarian were also commonly heard on the streets. The rattle of a tram, the cries of the street vendors, the clashing calls to prayer from dozens of muezzin, the clank of chains as ships came in to the dock, the rough voices of the stevedores as they unloaded cargos of necessities and luxuries to satisfy the appet.i.tes of rich and poor all of these combined to make the city's endless tune.

The smells of the city were sometimes not as sweet as its sounds. A pungent stench of urine wafted from the tanneries, and sewerage and rotting household waste still flowed down into the harbour from some of the poorer areas. And when the women gutted the previous night's catch, they left the steaming, odorous debris to be devoured by cats.

In the centre was a flower market, where the fragrance of blooms still hung in the air for many hours after the stall-holders had packed up and gone home; and in the long streets orange trees in blossom provided not only shade, but the most intoxicating aroma of all. There were many houses where jasmine rampaged around the doors, its aromatic white petals carpeting the road like snow. At all times of day, the smell of cooking suffused the atmosphere, along with wafts of roasted coffee made on small stoves and carried through the streets. In the markets colourful savoury spices such as turmeric, paprika and cinnamon were shaped by the seller into small mountain peaks, and plumes of aromatic smoke curled up from narghiles, smoked outside the cafes.

Thessaloniki was currently home to a provisional government led by the former Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos. There was a deep division in the country known as the National Schism between those who supported the pro-German monarch, King Constantine, and supporters of the liberal Venizelos. As a consequence of the latter's control over northern Greece, Allied troops were currently encamped outside the city in readiness for operations against Bulgaria. In spite of these distant rumblings, most people's lives were untouched by the world war. For some, it even brought additional wealth and opportunity.

One such person was Konstantinos Komninos and, on this perfect May morning, he strode in his usual purposeful manner across the cobbled dockyard. He had gone to check on the arrival of a shipment of cloth, and porters, beggars and boys with handcarts steered out of his path as he took his straight course towards the exit. He was not known for his patience with people who got in his way.

His shoes were dusty and some fresh mule dung clung stubbornly to his heel so when Komninos stopped at his usual boot-black, one of a row kept busy next to the customs house, the man had at least ten minutes' work to do.

Well into his seventies, his skin was as dark and leathery as the footwear he polished, and he had been cleaning shoes for Konstantinos Komninos for three decades. They nodded a mutual greeting but neither of them spoke. This was typical of Komninos: all his routines were carried out without conversation. The old man worked at the leather until it gleamed, polishing both of the expensive brogues simultaneously, applying the polish, working it into the leather and finally brushing with sweeping strokes, ambidextrously, his arms flying left and right, crossing over, up and down, side to side, as though he were conducting an orchestra.

Even before the job was finished, he heard the tinkle of a coin dropped into his tray. It was always the same, never more, never less.

Today, as every day, Komninos wore a dark suit and, in spite of the rising temperature, kept his jacket on. Such habits were an indication of social standing. Going about one's business in shirtsleeves was as unthinkable as taking off armour before a battle. The language of formal dress for both men and women was one he understood, and one that had made him rich. Suits lent a man both status and dignity, and well-cut clothes in the European style gave a woman elegance and chic.

The cloth merchant caught sight of himself in the gleaming window of one of the new department stores and the shadowy glimpse was enough to remind him that he was due a visit to the barber. He took a detour into one of the side streets away from the seafront and was soon comfortably seated, his face lathered and every inch except his moustache closely shaved. Then his hair was meticulously clipped so that the s.p.a.ce between the top of his collar and his hairline was precisely two millimetres. Komninos was annoyed to see that there were hints of silver in the specks of hair that the barber blew from his clippers.

Finally, before making his way to his showroom, he sat for a while at a small circular table and a waiter brought him coffee as well as his favourite newspaper, the right-wing Apoyevmatini. He dispensed with the news quickly, catching up on the latest political intrigues in Greece before giving the headlines on military developments in France a cursory glance. Finally, he ran his finger down the share prices.

The war was good for Komninos. He had opened a second warehouse near the port to help deal with his new business the supply of fabric for military uniforms. With tens of thousands being called up for military service, this was a huge enterprise. He could not employ too many people, or deliver the orders fast enough. Additional quant.i.ties seemed to be required on a daily basis.

He drank his coffee in a single sip and rose to go. Each day he experienced a profound sense of satisfaction from having been awake and working since seven in the morning. Today he enjoyed the idea that he still had another eight hours in his office before leaving for Constantinople. He had important paperwork to do before his departure.

That afternoon, his wife, Olga Komninos, looked out from their mansion in Niki Street and gazed at Mount Olympus, just visible through a haze. The heat had been building up and she opened one of the floor-to-ceiling windows to let in some air. There was not a breath of wind, and sounds carried easily. She heard calls to prayer mixing with the clatter of hoofs and carriage wheels in the street below, and a ship sounding its horn to signal its approach.

Olga sat down again and put her feet up on a chaise longue, which had been moved closer to the window to catch the breeze. Since they had never been worn outside, there was no need for her to remove her dainty, low-heeled shoes. Being an almost identical match, her silk dress seemed to vanish into the pale green of the upholstery, and the blue-black of her braided hair accentuated the pallor of her skin. She could not get comfortable on this languid day, and drank gla.s.s after gla.s.s of lemonade, poured from a jug that her devoted housekeeper regularly appeared to replenish.

'Can I bring you anything else, Kyria Olga? Perhaps something to eat? You haven't had anything at all today,' she said, with gentle concern.

'Thank you, Pavlina, but I just don't feel like eating. I know I should, but today I simply . . . can't.'

'Are you sure I shouldn't fetch the doctor?'

'It's just the heat, I think.'

Olga sank back on to the cushions, her temples beaded with sweat. Her head throbbed and she held the icy gla.s.s against it to try to relieve the pain.

'Well, if you still haven't eaten anything later, I will have to tell Kyrios Konstantinos.'

'There's no need to do that, Pavlina. And besides, he is going away this evening. I don't want to worry him.'

'They say the weather is going to turn this evening. It's going to get a bit cooler. So that should help you a little.'

'I hope they are right,' Olga replied. 'It feels as though there might be a storm.'

Both of them heard something like a clap of thunder, but then realised it was the sound of the front door banging shut. It was followed by the rhythmic beat of footsteps on the broad wooden staircase. Olga recognised her husband's business-like pace and counted the standard twenty crochet beats before the door swung open.

'h.e.l.lo, dearest. How are you today?' he asked briskly, walking over to where she lay, and addressing her as though he was a doctor speaking to a simple-minded patient. 'You're not finding it too hot, are you?'

Komninos now removed his jacket and carefully hung it over the back of a chair. His shirt was transparent with sweat.

'I've just come back to pack a suitcase. Then I'll be going back to the showroom for a few hours before the ship leaves. The doctor will come if you need him. Is Pavlina looking after you? Have you eaten anything since last night?' Komninos' statements and questions blended together without pause.

'Make sure you take good care of her while I am away,' he said, directing a final comment at the housekeeper.

He smiled at his resting wife but she had looked away. Her eyes fixed on the sparkling sea, which she could see through the open window. Both sea and sky had now darkened and one of the French windows was banging against the frame. The wind had changed and she sighed with relief as a breeze caressed her face.

She put down her gla.s.s on the side-table and rested both hands on her swollen belly. The dress had been perfectly tailored to conceal her pregnancy but, in the final few months, the darts would be pulled to straining point.

'I'll be back in a fortnight,' Komninos said, kissing her lightly on the top of her head. 'You'll look after yourself, won't you? And the baby.'

They both looked in the same direction, out of the window towards the sea, where the rain now lashed in against the curtain. A streak of lightning cut across the sky.

'Send me a telegram if you need me desperately. But I'm sure you won't.'

She said nothing. Nor did she get up.

'I will bring some lovely things back for you,' he finished, as though he was talking to a child.

As well as a ship full of silk, he planned to return with jewellery for his wife, something even better than the emerald necklace and matching earrings that he had brought last time. With her jet-black hair, he preferred her in red and would probably buy rubies. Just as with tailored clothes, gems were a way of showing your status and his wife had always been a perfect model for everything he wanted to display.

As far as he was concerned, life had never been so good. He left the room with a lightness of step.

Olga stared out at the rain. Finally the intense humidity had given way to a storm. The darkened sky now crackled with lightning and in the slate-grey sea a frenzy of white horses reared and fought and fell into the foam. The street below the Komninos house was soon submerged. Every few minutes a great arc of water curled over the edge of the promenade. It was a tempest of exceptional fury, and the sight of the boats rolling up and down in the bay was enough to bring back to Olga the terrible nausea that had blighted the past few months.

She got up to secure the window but, catching the strange but pleasing odour of rain on damp cobbles, decided to leave it open. The air seemed almost fresh after the stifling heat of the afternoon, and she lay down again, closed her eyes and enjoyed the gentle breaths of salty air on her cheeks. Within a moment, she was asleep.

Now she was the lone sailor in a fishing vessel struggling with the rage of the waves. With her dress billowing around her, her loosened hair stuck to her cheeks and the briny water stinging her eyes, the sunless sky and the landless horizon gave her no indication of the direction she was going. The sails were filled by a powerful southwesterly wind that carried the boat along at an alarming speed, its steep pitch allowing the water to lap over its sides. When the wind suddenly dropped, the sails were left empty and flapping.

Olga clung on, one hand on the boat's smooth gunwale and another on the oarlock, desperately trying to keep her head clear of the swinging boom. She did not know if she was safer in or out of the boat as she had never been in one before. The water was already beginning to soak her dress and the spray on her face and inside her throat was starting to make her choke. Water continued to gush into the boat and, as the wind picked up again and filled the mainsail, a gust caused its fatal capsize.

Perhaps death by drowning would be painless, she thought, giving herself up to the weight of her clothes, which began to pull her down. As she and the boat began to slip steadily beneath the waves, she saw the pale shape of a baby swimming towards her and reached out for him.

Then there was an almighty crash as if the boat had hit a rock. The naked infant had vanished and now Olga's gasps for breath were replaced by sobs.

'Kyria Olga! Kyria Olga!'

Olga could hear a faraway voice, breathless and distraught.

'Are you all right? Are you all right?'

Olga knew the voice. Perhaps rescue was at hand.

'I thought you had fainted!' Pavlina exclaimed. 'I thought you had taken a tumble! Panagia mou! I thought you had fallen! It was ever such a loud crash downstairs.'

Covered in confusion and somewhere between the state of dreaming and waking, Olga opened her eyes and saw her housekeeper's face close to hers. Pavlina was kneeling right beside her, looking anxiously into her eyes. Behind her, she could see the huge floor-to-ceiling curtain furling and unfurling like a great sail, and even now the force of the wind was lifting the heavy satin drape and blowing it horizontally across the room. Its edge licked at a small circular table and swept across its empty surface.

Disoriented, almost giddy, Olga began to realise what had caused the noise that had woken her and brought Pavlina rushing into the room. She brushed away the strand of hair that had fallen across her face and slowly manoeuvred herself into a sitting position.

She saw the fragments of two porcelain figures scattered across the room, heads severed from bodies, hands separated from arms, thousands of drachmas-worth of objets d'art literally reduced to dust. The weight of the damask and the force of the wind had swept them to the unforgiving floor.

She wiped her damp face with the back of her hand and realised that she had not left her tears behind in the nightmare. As she struggled to catch her breath she heard herself cry out: 'Pavlina!'

'What is it, Kyria Olga?'

'My baby!'

Pavlina reached out and touched her mistress's stomach and then her forehead.

'He hasn't gone anywhere! No doubt about that!' she concluded cheerfully. 'But you're a bit on the warm side . . . and you seem rather damp too!'

'I think I had a bad dream,' whispered Olga. 'It seemed so real.'

'Perhaps I'll send for the doctor . . . ?'

'There's no need for that. I'm sure everything is fine.'

Pavlina was already kneeling on the floor gathering up pieces of china into her ap.r.o.n. Mending a single ornament in this state would have tested an expert, but the combined shards of the two together meant it would be an impossibility.

'It's only some porcelain,' Olga rea.s.sured her, seeing how upset she was.

'Well . . .I suppose it could have been worse. I really thought you had fallen.'

'I am fine, Pavlina, you can see I am.'

'And I'm the one supposed to be looking after you while Kyrios Konstantinos is away.'

'Well, you are. And you are doing a really fine job. And please don't worry about those figurines. I am sure Konstantinos won't even notice.'

Pavlina had been part of the Komninos family for many years longer than Olga, and knew the high value placed on such collector's items. She hastened over to the French windows and began to close them. The rain had made a patch on the carpet and she could see that the edge of Olga's fine silk dress was soaked.

'Oh my goodness,' she fussed. 'I should have come up before. We're in a terrible mess up here, aren't we?'

'Don't shut them,' appealed Olga, standing at her side, feeling the spray on her face. 'It's so cooling. The carpet will dry out as soon as it stops. It's still so warm.'

Pavlina was used to Olga's occasional eccentricity. It made a change from the rigidity with which her late mother-in-law, the older Kyria Komninos, had ruled the house for so many years.

'Well, as long as you don't get too wet,' she said, giving her an indulgent smile. 'You don't want to be catching a chill, not in your state.'

Olga lowered herself into another chair further from the window, and watched Pavlina meticulously picking up the pieces of porcelain. Even if she had been able to bend, Pavlina would not have allowed Olga to help.

Beyond the bulky figure of the kneeling housekeeper, Olga could see the wild sea. A few ships were out there, just about visible through the storm, occasionally illuminated by a flash of lightning.

The ornate clock on the mantelpiece struck seven. She realised that Konstantinos would have been at sea for an hour or more by now. Such weather conditions rarely held up the bigger ships.

'If the wind is in the right direction, then I suppose it might even speed up Kyrios Konstantinos' journey,' Pavlina reflected.

'I suppose it might,' answered Olga absent-mindedly, now only aware of the gentle stirring inside her womb. She wondered if her baby had heard the storm and felt himself tossed by the sea. She loved her unborn child beyond all measure and pictured him swimming effortlessly around in the clear liquid of her womb. Tears and sea water rolled down her face in equal measure.

The Island.

On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.

Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters, and a family rent by tragedy, war and pa.s.sion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip ...

'A vivid, moving and absorbing tale, with its sensitive, realistic engagement with all the consequences of, and stigma attached to, leprosy'

Observer.

'War, tragedy and pa.s.sion unfurl against a Mediterranean backdrop in this engrossing debut novel'

You magazine.

'Hislop carefully evokes the lives of Cretans between the wars and during German occupation, but most commendable is her compa.s.sionate portrayal of the outcasts'

Guardian.

'Wonderful descriptions, strong characters and an intimate portrait of island existence'

Woman & Home.

The Return.

Beneath the majestic towers of the Alhambra, Granada's cobbled streets resonate with music and secrets. Sonia Cameron knows nothing of the city's shocking past; she is here to dance. But in a quiet cafe, a chance conversation and an intriguing collection of old photographs draw her into the extraordinary tale of Spain's devastating civil war.

Seventy years earlier, the cafe is home to the close-knit Ramirez family. In 1936, an army coup led by Franco shatters the country's fragile peace, and in the heart of Granada the family witnesses the worst atrocities of conflict. Divided by politics and tragedy, everyone must take a side, fighting a personal battle as Spain rips itself apart.

'What sets Hislop apart is her ability to put a human face on the shocking civil conflict that ripped Spain apart for three b.l.o.o.d.y years between 1936 and 1939 . . . Stirring stuff'

Time Out.

'[The Return] should be required holiday reading for anyone going to Spain'

Daily Mail.

'Brilliantly recreates the pa.s.sion that flows through the Andalusian dancers and the dark creative force of duende'

Scotland on Sunday.

'Hislop marries an epic family saga with meticulous historical research, and it's a captivating partnership'

Easy Living.