The Island (36 page)
Authors: Victoria Hislop
The table was set with embroidered white linen and fine patterned china. When they were all seated, Katerina lifted a splendid silver pot and a steady stream of hot black coffee filled the cups.
‘There is a small house next door which has recently become vacant,’ said Papadimitriou. ‘We thought you might like that, or, if you prefer, there is a room free in a shared flat up the hill.’
‘I think I would rather be on my own,’ said Maria. ‘If it’s all right with you.’
There was a plate of fresh pastries on the table and Maria devoured one hungrily. She had eaten very little for several days. She was hungry for information too.
‘Do you remember my mother, Eleni Petrakis?’ she asked.
‘Of course we do! She was a wonderful lady and a brilliant teacher too,’ replied Katerina. ‘Everyone thought so. Nearly everyone anyway.’
‘There were some who did not?’ Maria said.
Katerina paused.
‘There was a woman who used to teach in the school before your mother arrived who regarded her as an enemy. She is still alive and has a house up the hill. Some people say that the bitterness she feels for what happened to her almost keeps her going,’ said Katerina. ‘Her name is Kristina Kroustalakis and you need to be wary of her - she’ll inevitably find out who your mother was.’
‘First things first, though, Katerina,’ said Papadimitriou, displeased that his wife might be unsettling their guest. ‘What you need before any of this is a tour of the island. My wife will take you round, and this afternoon Dr Lapakis will be expecting to see you. He does a preliminary assessment of all new arrivals.’
Papadimitriou stood up. It was now after eight o’clock in the morning and it was time for the island leader to be in his office.
‘I shall no doubt see you again very soon, Despineda Petrakis. I shall leave you in Katerina’s capable hands.’
‘Goodbye, and thank you for making me feel so welcome,’ responded Maria.
‘Shall we finish our coffee and start the tour,’ Katerina said brightly when Papadimitriou had left. ‘I don’t know how much you know about Spinalonga - probably more than most people - but it’s not a bad place to live. The only problems come from being cooped up with the same people for your whole life. Coming from Athens I found that hard to get used to at first.’
‘I’ve spent my whole life in Plaka,’ said Maria, ‘so I’m quite accustomed to that. How long have you been here?’
‘I arrived on the same boat as Nikos, fourteen years ago. There were four women and nineteen men. Of the four women there are two of us left now. Fifteen of the men are still alive, though.’
Maria tightened her shawl about her shoulders as they left the house. When they turned into the main street, it was a very different scene from the one she had first seen. People came and went about their business, on foot, with mules or with donkey and cart. Everyone looked busy and purposeful. A few people looked up and nodded in Katerina and Maria’s direction, and some of the men lifted their hats. As wife of the island leader, Katerina merited special respect.
By now the shops were open. Katerina pointed them all out and chatted busily about the people who owned them. Maria was hardly likely to remember all this information, but Katerina loved the details of their lives and relished the intrigue and gossip that circulated. There was the
pantopoleion
, the general store that sold everything for the house, from brooms to oil lamps, and had many of its wares displayed in profusion at the front of the building; a grocer whose windows were piled high with cans of olive oil; the
mahairopoieion
, the knife-maker; the raki store; and the baker, whose rows of freshly baked golden loaves and piles of coarse Cretan rusks,
paximithia
, drew in every passer-by. Each shop had its own hand-painted sign giving the owner’s name and what he offered inside. Most important of all, for the men of the island at least, was the bar, which was run by the youthful and popular Gerasimo Mandakis. Already a few customers sat in groups drinking coffee, whilst their tangled mounds of cigarettes smouldered in an ashtray.
pantopoleion
, the general store that sold everything for the house, from brooms to oil lamps, and had many of its wares displayed in profusion at the front of the building; a grocer whose windows were piled high with cans of olive oil; the
mahairopoieion
, the knife-maker; the raki store; and the baker, whose rows of freshly baked golden loaves and piles of coarse Cretan rusks,
paximithia
, drew in every passer-by. Each shop had its own hand-painted sign giving the owner’s name and what he offered inside. Most important of all, for the men of the island at least, was the bar, which was run by the youthful and popular Gerasimo Mandakis. Already a few customers sat in groups drinking coffee, whilst their tangled mounds of cigarettes smouldered in an ashtray.
Just before they came to the church, there was a single-storey building which Katerina told Maria was the school. They peered in through the window and saw several rows of children. At the front of the class, a young man stood talking.
‘So who is the teacher?’ asked Maria. ‘Didn’t that woman you mentioned get the school back after my mother died?’
Katerina laughed. ‘No, not over St Pantaleimon’s dead body. The children did not want her back and neither did most of the elders. For a while one of my fellow Athenians took over, but he then died. Your mother had trained another teacher, however, and he was waiting in the wings. He was very young when he started but the children adore him and hang on his every word.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dimitri Limonias.’
‘Dimitri Limonias! I remember that name. He was the boy who came over here at the same time as my mother. We were told that it was he who had infected her with leprosy - and he’s still here. Still alive!’
As occasionally happened with leprosy, Dimitri’s symptoms had hardly developed since he had first been diagnosed, and now here he was, in charge of the school. Maria felt a momentary pang of resentment that the dice had been so heavily loaded against her mother.
They would not go in and interrupt the class. Katerina knew there would be another opportunity for Maria to meet Dimitri.
‘There seems to be a large number of children,’ commented Maria. ‘Where do they all come from? Are their parents here too?’
‘On the whole they don’t have parents here. They’re children who contracted leprosy on the mainland and were sent here. People try not to have children at all when they come to Spinalonga. If a baby is born healthy it’s taken away from the parents and adopted on the mainland. We’ve had one or two such tragic cases recently.’
‘That’s desperately sad. But who looks after these children, the ones who are sent here?’ asked Maria.
‘Most of them are adopted. Nikos and I had one such child until he was old enough to move out and live on his own. The others live together in a house run by the community, but they’re all well cared for.’
The two women continued on up the main street. High up above them on the hill towered the hospital, the biggest building of all.
‘I’ll take you up there later on,’ said Katerina.
‘You can see that building from the mainland,’ said Maria. ‘But it looks even bigger close to.’
‘It was extended quite recently, so it’s larger than it used to be.’
They walked round to the north side of the island, where human habitation ran out and eagles soared in the sky above. Here Spinalonga took the full blast of the wind from the north-east and the sea crashed on the rocks far below them, sending its spray high into the air. The texture of the water changed here, from the usual calmness of the channel that divided Spinalonga from Plaka to the galloping white horses of the open sea. Hundreds of miles away lay the Greek mainland and, in between, dozens of small islands, but from this vantage point there was nothing. Just air and sky and birds of prey. Maria was not the first to look over the edge and wonder, just for a moment, what it would be like to hurl herself off. Would she hit the sea first or be dashed against the serrated edges of the rocks?
It began to drizzle now and the path was becoming slippery.
‘Come on,’ Katerina said. ‘Let’s go back. Your boxes will have been brought up by now. I’ll show you your new home and help you unpack if you like.’
As they descended the path, Maria noticed dozens of separate, carefully cultivated areas of land where, against the odds created by the elements, people were growing vegetable crops. Onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots were all sprouting on this windswept hillside and their neat weed-free rows were an indication of how much effort and attention went into the process of nursing them out of this rocky landscape. Each allotment was a reassuring sign of hope and showed that life was tolerable on this island.
They passed a tiny chapel that looked across the huge expanse of sea and finally reached the walled cemetery.
‘Your mother was buried here,’ Katerina said to Maria. ‘It’s where everyone ends up on Spinalonga.’
Katerina had not meant her words to sound so blunt, but in any case Maria did not react. She was keeping her emotions in check. It was someone else who was walking around the island. The real Maria was far away, lost in thought.
The graves were all unmarked, for the simple reason that they were shared. There were too many deaths here to allow anyone the luxury of solitude in the afterlife. Unlike most graveyards, which were situated around the church so that all who worshipped were constantly reminded that they would die, this one was secluded, secret. No one on Spinalonga really needed a memento mori. They all knew too well that their days were numbered.
Just before they came full circle they passed a house that was the grandest Maria had seen on the island. It had a large balcony and a porticoed front door. Katerina paused to point it out.
‘Officially that’s the home of the island leader, but when Nikos took over he didn’t want to push the previous leader and his wife out of their home, so they stayed where they were and so did Nikos. The husband died many years ago now, but Elpida Kontomaris is still there.’
Maria recognised the name immediately. Elpida Kontomaris had been her mother’s best friend. The harsh fact was that her mother seemed to have been outlived by nearly all around her.
‘She’s a good woman,’ added Katerina.
‘I know,’ said Maria.
‘How do you know?’
‘My mother used to write about her. She was her best friend.’
‘But did you know that she and her late husband adopted Dimitri when your mother died?’
‘No, I didn’t. When she died I didn’t really want to know about the details of life here any more; there was no need.’
There had been a long period after Eleni’s death when even Maria had resented the amount of time that her father spent going to the colony; she had no interest in it once her mother had gone. Now, of course, she felt some remorse.
From almost all points on her walk the village of Plaka had remained in sight, and Maria knew that she would have to start disciplining herself not to glance over there. What good would it do to be able to see what activities people were engaged in across the water? From now on nothing over there had anything to do with her, and the quicker she got used to that, the better.
By now they had returned to the small cluster of houses where they had begun. Katerina led Maria towards a rust-coloured front door and took a key from her pocket. It seemed as dark inside as out, but with the flick of a switch the room was cheered up just a little. There was a dampness about it, as though it had been uninhabited for some time. The fact was that the previous incumbent had languished in the hospital for several months and never recovered, but given the sometimes dramatic recovery that could take place after even the most virulent lepra fever, it was island practice to retain people’s homes until there was no further possible hope.
The room was sparsely furnished: one dark table, two chairs and a ‘sofa’ against the wall which was made of concrete and covered with a heavy woven cloth. Little other evidence of the previous inhabitant remained, except a glass vase containing a handful of dusty plastic flowers and an empty plate rack on the wall. A shepherd’s hut in the mountains would have been more hospitable.
‘I’ll stay and help you unpack,’ said Katerina bossily.
Maria was determined to hide her feelings about this hovel and could only do so if she was left her on her own. She would need to be firm.
‘That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want to impose any more on your time.’
‘Very well,’ said Katerina. ‘But I’ll pop back later this afternoon to see if there is anything I can do. You know where I am if you need me.’
With that she was gone. Maria was glad to be alone with her own thoughts. Katerina had been well-meaning but she detected a hint of fussiness and had begun to find her twittering voice faintly irritating. The last thing Maria wanted was for anyone to tell her how to arrange her house. She would turn this miserable place into a home and she would do so herself.
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