The Island (24 page)
Authors: Victoria Hislop
‘Look,’ he said to Anna, ‘I have to go now, but I want to see you again. I’ll have a note delivered to you tomorrow. It’ll tell you when we could meet next.’
He spoke like a man used to issuing orders and expecting them to be carried out. Anna had no objection to that, for once realising that acquiescence was the right response. It could, after all, be her route out of Plaka.
Chapter Eleven
‘HEY! ANTONIS! HERE a minute!’ The summons was perfunctory, the voice of a master to his servant. Andreas had stopped his truck some distance from where Antonis was hacking down some old and now barren olive trees and was waving him over. Antonis paused from his work and leaned on his axe. He was not yet used to being at the beck and call of his young master. The roamings of the past few years, though endlessly tough and uncomfortable, had had a joyful freedom about them, and he was finding it hard to get used to both the daily routine and the idea that he must jump to attention every time the boss issued an order. If that was not enough, there was also a specific cause for resentment between himself and this man who stood shouting at him from the driving seat of his vehicle. It made him feel like planting his axe into Andreas Vandoulakis’s neck.
Antonis glistened. His brow was beaded with droplets of perspiration and his shirt clung to his back. It was only the end of May but already temperatures were soaring. He would not jump to attention, not quite yet anyway. Nonchalantly he pulled the cork from the hollow gourd at his feet and took a swig of water.
Anna . . . Before last week Antonis had scarcely noticed her, and he had certainly not given her a moment’s thought, but on that saint’s day night she had roused in him a passion that would not let him sleep. Over and over again he relived the moment of their embrace. Ten short minutes it had lasted, perhaps even less, but to Antonis every second had been as long and lingering as a whole day. Then it was all over. Right in front of him, the possibility of love had been snatched away. He had watched Andreas Vandoulakis from the moment he had arrived and seen him dance with Anna. He knew then, even before the battle lines were drawn up, who had won the war. The odds had been heavily weighted against him.
Antonis now sauntered over to Andreas, who was oblivious to the nuances of his manner.
‘You live in Plaka, don’t you?’ Andreas said. ‘I want you to deliver this for me. Today.’
He handed over an envelope. Antonis did not need to look at it to know whose name was written on the outside.
‘I’ll take it some time,’ he said with feigned indifference, folding the letter in two and stuffing it into the back pocket of his trousers.
‘I want it delivered
today
,’ said Andreas sternly. ‘Don’t forget.’
today
,’ said Andreas sternly. ‘Don’t forget.’
The engine of his truck started up noisily and Andreas hurriedly reversed out of the field, whipping the dry earth into a filthy cloud that lingered in the air and filled Antonis’s lungs with dust.
‘Why should I take your bloody letter?’ Antonis yelled as Andreas disappeared from sight. ‘God damn you!’
He knew this letter would seal his own misery but he also knew he had no choice but to make sure it was safely handed over. Andreas Vandoulakis would soon find out if he had failed in his task and there would be hell to pay. All day long the crisp envelope sat in his pocket. It crackled whenever he sat down and he tortured himself with thoughts of ripping it up, crushing it into a tight ball and hurling it into a ravine, or of watching it burn slowly in the small fire he had made to dispose of some of the debris from his day’s wood-cutting. But the one thing he had not been tempted to do was open it. He could not bear to read it. Not that he needed to. It was perfectly obvious what it would say.
Anna was surprised to find Antonis standing on her doorstep early that evening. He had knocked on the door, hoping not to find her in, but there she was, with that same broad-mouthed smile that was so indiscriminately flashed at whoever crossed her path.
‘I have a letter for you,’ said Antonis before she had time to speak. ‘It’s from Andreas Vandoulakis.’ The words stuck in his throat but he found a perverse satisfaction in disciplining himself to say them without betraying the slightest emotion. Anna’s eyes widened with unconcealed excitement.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the now limp and crumpled envelope from him, careful not to meet his gaze. It was as though she had forgotten the fervour of their embrace. Had it meant nothing to her? wondered Antonis. At the time it had seemed like a beginning, but now he could see that the kiss which for him had been so full of expectation and anticipation had for her been merely the grasping of a moment of pleasure.
She shifted from one foot to the other and he could see that she was impatient to open the letter and wanted him gone. Taking a step back, she said goodbye and closed the door. As it banged shut it was as though he had been slapped in the face.
Inside the house, Anna sat down at the low table and with trembling hands opened the envelope. She wanted to savour the moment. What was she going to find? An articulate outpouring of passion? Words that exploded on the page like fireworks? Sentiments as moving as the sight of a shooting star on a clear night? Like any eighteen-year-old girl anticipating such poetry, she was bound to be disappointed by the letter on the table in front of her:
Dear Anna,I wish to meet you again. Please would you come to lunch with your father on Sunday next. My mother and father look forward to meeting you both.Yours,
Andreas Vandoulakis
Though the content excited her, taking her one step closer to her escape from Plaka, the formality of the letter chilled her. Anna thought that because Andreas had enjoyed a superior education he might be masterful with words, but there was about as much emotion in this hastily scribbled note as in the dreary books of ancient Greek grammar that she had been happy to leave behind with her school days.
The lunch duly took place, and many thereafter. Anna was always chaperoned by her father in accordance with the strict etiquette observed by people both rich and poor for such situations. On the first half-dozen occasions, father and daughter were collected at midday by a servant in Alexandros Vandoulakis’s car, taken to the grand porticoed town house in Neapoli and returned home again at three-thirty precisely. The pattern was always the same. On arrival they would be shown into an airy reception room where every piece of furniture was covered with throws of intricate, ornately embroidered white lace and a huge dresser gleamed with a display of fine, almost translucent china. Here Eleftheria Vandoulakis would offer them a small plate of sweet preserve and a tiny glass of liqueur, waiting to receive the empty plates and glasses on a tray once they had finished. Then they all processed into the gloomy dining room, where oil paintings of fierce moustachioed ancestors glared down from panelled walls. Even here the formalities continued. Alexandros would appear and, crossing himself, would say, ‘Welcome,’ to which the visitors replied in unison with the words: ‘I am fortunate to be with you.’ It was the same on each occasion, until Anna knew, almost to the minute, what would happen when.
Visit after visit they perched on elaborately carved high-backed chairs at the dark overpolished table, politely accepting every course that was brought to them. Eleftheria did all she could to make her guests feel relaxed; many years earlier she had been through the same ordeal when she was vetted by the previous generation of the Vandoulakis family for her suitability as Alexandros’s wife, and she remembered the unbearable stiffness of it all as though it was yesterday. In spite of the woman’s kind efforts, however, conversation was stilted and both Giorgis and Anna were painfully conscious that they were on trial. It was to be expected. If this was a courtship, and no one had yet defined it as such, there were terms of engagement that needed to be established.
By the time of the seventh meeting, the Vandoulakis family had decamped to the sprawling house on the large estate in Elounda which was where they spent the months between September and April. Anna was now growing impatient. She and Andreas had not been alone together since the dance they had had in May, and, as she moaned one evening to Fotini and her mother, ‘That was hardly being on our own, with the whole village watching us! Why does it all take so long?’
‘Because if it’s the right thing for both of you and for both families there is no need to hurry,’ answered Savina, wisely.
Anna, Maria and Fotini were at the Angelopoulos house, supposedly being instructed on their needlework. In reality they were all there to chew over the ‘Vandoulakis situation’, as it was referred to. By now Anna was feeling like an animal at the local market being sized up for her suitability. Perhaps she should have kept her sights lower after all. She was determined not to let her enthusiasm wane, however. She had turned eighteen, her school days were long past and she had only one ambition: to marry well.
‘I’ll just treat the next few months as a waiting game,’ she said. ‘And anyway, there’s Father to look after in the meantime. ’
It was Maria, naturally, who was really taking care of Giorgis and who knew that she would remain in the home for some while longer, putting aside her own remote dream of becoming a teacher. She bit her tongue, however. It wasn’t a good idea to seek confrontation with Anna at the best of times.
It took until spring of the following year for Alexandros Vandoulakis to satisfy himself that, in spite of the differences in their wealth and social situation, it would not be a mistake if his son made Anna his bride. She was, after all, exceedingly handsome, bright enough and clearly devoted to Andreas. One day, after yet another lunch, the two fathers returned to the reception room alone. Alexandros Vandoulakis was blunt.
‘We are all aware of the inequality of this potential union but we are satisfied that it will not cause repercussions on either side. My wife has persuaded me that Andreas will be happier with your daughter than with any other woman he has ever met, so as long as Anna performs her duties as wife and mother we can find no real objections.’
‘I can’t offer you much of a dowry,’ said Giorgis, stating the obvious.
‘We are perfectly aware of that,’ replied Alexandros. ‘Her dowry would be her promise to be a good wife and to do all she can in helping to manage the estate. It’s a significant job and needs a good woman in the wings. I’ll be retiring in a few years and Andreas will have a great deal on his shoulders. ’
‘I am sure she’ll do her best,’ Giorgis said simply. He felt out of his depth. The scale of this family’s power and wealth intimidated him, reflected as it was in the size of everything with which they surrounded themselves: the big dark furniture, the lavish rugs and tapestries and the valuable icons that hung on the walls were all a manifestation of this family’s significance. But it did not matter whether he felt at home here, he told himself. What mattered was whether Anna could really become accustomed to such grandeur. There was no evidence that she felt anything but perfectly at ease in the Vandoulakis home, even though it was, to him, as alien as a foreign country. Anna could sip delicately from a glass, eat daintily and say the right things as though she had been born to do it. He, of course, knew that she was simply acting a role.
‘What is as important as anything is that her basic education has been a good one. Your wife taught her well, Kyrie Petrakis.’
At the mention of Eleni, Giorgis maintained his silence. The Vandoulakis family knew that Anna’s mother had died a few years earlier, but more than that he did not intend them to find out.
When they returned home that afternoon, Maria was waiting for them. It was as if she knew that this meeting had been a crucial one.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Has he asked you?’
‘Not yet,’ replied Anna. ‘But I know it’s going to happen, I just know it.’
Maria knew that what her sister wanted more than anything in the world was to become Anna Vandoulakis, and she wanted it for her too. It would take her out of Plaka and into the other world she had always fantasised about where she would not have to cook, clean, darn or spin.
‘They’re not under any illusions,’ said Anna. ‘They know what sort of house we live in and they know that I’m not bringing a fortune with me, just a few pieces of jewellery that were Mother’s, that’s all—’
‘So they know about Mother?’ interrupted Maria with incredulity.
‘Only that Father is widowed,’ Anna retorted. ‘And that’s all they’re going to know.’ The conversation was closed, as if it was a box with a sprung lid.
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