One August Night Read online

  Manolis looked around at the faces of these trusted friends. Something held this team together like a magnetic force. From the night he had danced the zeibékiko, he had been accepted. It seemed that any man who had suffered pain, whatever had caused it, could become one of them. These men were like the brothers he had never had, all of them with their own reasons for ending up in Piraeus. Their camaraderie was precious to all of them, though they would never admit it.

  Giannis’s new contract was to repair a massive tanker. Five times larger than the ship they had been working on for the past months, it was owned by one of the ‘golden five’ owners, a group that also included Niarchos and Onassis, better known these days than the gods themselves. The commission was valuable to Giannis and rewards would be great if the team did a good job. Moreover, the work that could follow was potentially unlimited, such was the exponential growth in shipping.

  Manolis made a commitment to stay. His life in the pension was comfortable. Agathi was kind, her niece was sweet, his room was clean and the prostitutes on the floor above did not disturb him since, as she had promised, they usually worked there only in the day.

  Occasionally he glimpsed one of them but they aroused no interest in him. When he was in the mood, he went with some of the younger men in his paréa to a bar. He would dance with girls but no more than that.

  Occasionally one of the others would try to provoke him.

  ‘You like boys, Manolis?’

  He smiled. The suggestion did not bother him and he teased back.

  ‘Not for me, Petros. You help yourself, though!’

  There were plenty of young men hanging about, and he was never critical if one of his group occasionally paid them for sex.

  Even if Agathi proved to be right in predicting that one day he would find new love, he still held Anna close. He looked at her picture every night, and even if he no longer shouted out her name, she often visited him in his dreams.

  Chapter Eight

  FROM TIME TO time, Manolis had received semi-legible letters from Antonis. Through these he had heard of the death of his aunt and was deeply saddened. Eleftheria Vandoulakis had effectively been his mother for so many years, and it upset him that he had not been able to attend the funeral. And surely she was too young to die? He knew that the events of that August night would have been devastating for her. Perhaps this was the cause.

  Happier news was that Maria had finally married the doctor who had cured her of leprosy, and they had adopted little Sofia. As he had read this, his mind flitted back to his vaftistíra for the first time in a long while. Although Anna had implied he might be her father, Manolis had always dismissed the notion. They had always tried to be careful, but even so, he supposed a small chance remained. Whether or not he was, Maria and Dr Kyritsis now lived in Agios Nikolaos, and Manolis was glad that the little girl would grow up in a lovely town by the sea rather than in that forbidding Vandoulakis house in Neapoli. He had never liked the heavy oak furniture and the rooms kept in perpetual twilight by dense lace curtains and heavy drapes.

  Antonis wrote about his new work and boasted of the great rewards it gave him. He was making so much money from construction that he had built his own five-storey block and was renting out the lower floors. He could not help bragging to Manolis that, in addition to his truck, he now owned a Triumph Herald. It was the only one in Agios Nikolaos and the only thing he lacked was a road long and straight enough to reach its top speed. In every letter he told Manolis that there would always be work for him with his old friend.

  There was never any reference to a woman in Antonis’s letters, though he always mentioned his sister Fotini and her two children.

  Fotini was still the only one Antonis had ever confided in over one particular issue. No one else knew of his passion for Anna that had ended in what he regarded as humiliating rejection. There was a strong sibling affection between them that allowed their exchanges to go to the core.

  ‘Antonis, how long is it going to be?’

  ‘Fotini, I am not going to marry just for the sake of marrying.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean,’ she replied. ‘You know what I mean. When are you going to get over her?’

  There was no doubting who she meant by ‘her’.

  ‘You’ve even admitted you didn’t like her by the end!’ insisted Fotini. ‘And it’s so many years ago now.’

  Antonis knew his sister was right. He had lingered over a love that had long turned rancid. He admitted to himself that this bitter hatred of a dead woman and her ruined husband had become a habit. A habit that was slowly destroying him.

  ‘You’re wasting your life,’ concluded Fotini.

  ‘You sound like our parents,’ teased Antonis, trying to make light of what she had said.

  ‘Don’t you want children?’

  ‘I have yours to play with.’

  It was true that Antonis was very close to his nephews. He had just been outside kicking a ball with Mattheos, the elder of them. Fotini’s children loved their uncle, especially when he took them for outings in his new car and gave them exciting gifts for their saint’s days.

  It was something very simple that brought about a change in Antonis’s mentality. When he got up one morning, he noticed a few hairs on his pillow, and the next day a few more. A brief inspection in the mirror told him what he already suspected. His hairline was beginning to recede. It was his first intimation of mortality. In a few weeks’ time, it would be his birthday. His thirty-fifth. At the same age, his father already had a son of fifteen. The realisation gave him a jolt.

  A month or so later, Antonis turned up at Fotini’s taverna with a girl on his arm. Fotini glanced through the hatch from the kitchen and saw him walk in.

  ‘Look, Stephanos!’ she said, tugging her husband’s sleeve. ‘Antonis! With a girl!’

  Bringing a girlfriend to the family taverna was significant. Antonis introduced Anastasia proudly. She had just passed her nursing exams in Sitia and had come to work in the hospital at Agios Nikolaos. She was beautiful, sincere and a little shy.

  As soon as the couple had left, Fotini observed to Stephanos that there was only one characteristic that this girl shared with Anna. Her good looks. That was where the similarity ended. Anastasia was what Fotini described as aplí, meaning simple and honest, and from her this was the highest compliment.

  ‘She’s not the schemer that Anna was,’ she said bluntly to her husband that night. ‘You can just tell she’s a good sort.’

  Stephanos was a man of few words and simply nodded as his wife continued.

  ‘And I have never seen Antonis in love. Not properly, anyway.’

  ‘Well, as long as Ana-stasia doesn’t start shortening her name . . .’ quipped Stephanos.

  Fotini cuffed her husband round the arm and soon they were laughing together.

  A few weeks later, Maria was visiting Fotini in Plaka. Sofia and Mattheos were running about squealing and the two women were chatting over their coffee. Both of them had their backs to the road and were looking out to sea. Above the din being made by the children, Fotini failed to hear the distinctive sound of her brother’s car. He always drove into the village too fast and then braked hard.

  A moment later, he stole up behind Fotini, put his arms around her and planted a kiss on her head.

  ‘Antonis,’ she said, spinning around with delight, ‘what brings you here on a Wednesday afternoon?’

  Antonis greeted Maria warmly before pulling over a chair for himself. Both the women could see he was impatient to tell them something.

  He could not keep his news to himself for another moment.

  ‘We’re getting married!’ he blurted out, grabbing his sister’s hand. ‘Anastasia and me. We’re going to be married.’

  Fotini was startled. Even though it was something she had hoped for, it seemed very soon and she could not stop herself expressing her doubts.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ she said. ‘But you haven’t known her that long, ha
ve you? And isn’t she a bit young?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, Fotini! If your brother is in love, he’s in love!’ interjected Maria, who was, after all, married to a man much older than herself.

  ‘Maria’s right! I don’t care about any of those things.’

  Fotini was only too aware that Antonis had wasted years over someone who didn’t love him, but that could not be said in front of Maria.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ said Fotini, ‘then I am happy. When is it going to be?’

  ‘As soon as we can organise things. Three months’ time?’

  ‘And can we have the party here?’

  Antonis was beaming from ear to ear.

  ‘Anastasia doesn’t have a big family, just her father and a younger sister, so they won’t mind if it doesn’t happen in Sitia. I am sure they would all be happy to come to Plaka.’

  ‘Let’s tell Stephanos straight away! He’ll want to start planning the menu!’ Fotini hurried off to the kitchen.

  ‘Congratulations, Antonis!’ said Maria, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m really excited to meet her.’

  ‘I know you’ll get on,’ replied Antonis. ‘She’s a wonderful girl.’

  When the invitation to the wedding arrived in Piraeus, Manolis propped it on the ledge above his fireplace and contemplated going. What would people do? What could they say if he turned up? He was not guilty of anything in the eyes of the law. This exile he lived in he had imposed on himself. He had every right to return and would face up to anyone who suggested otherwise.

  The pros and cons, the what-ifs rolled around in his head for several days. He worked mechanically that week; his limbs moved but his mind was focused on his return to Plaka. Yes, he would go.

  When he eventually picked the card up to write his reply, he noticed the date for the first time. It was in much smaller type than the names of the bride and groom, the name of the church and so on. In small type at the bottom of the card he now saw it: 25 August.

  It was on that day that a lively gléndi in Plaka had been cut short. He assumed that Antonis’s bride knew nothing of what had taken place in Plaka, but there would certainly be many revellers who had it on their minds. He wondered if Antonis had consciously chosen this date in order to lay those bad memories to rest. Perhaps for him it represented an ending as well as a beginning. Or maybe it had not even crossed his mind. Manolis could not ask him, but his decision to attend was instantly reversed.

  It’s a very busy period on this new ship, he wrote to Antonis. So unfortunately they can’t spare me for even a day. I wish you both a wonderful day.

  Once the letter was posted, he had no regrets. The village of Plaka might be ready to dance again, but he was not.

  On the day of the wedding, Manolis marked the two-year memorial of Anna’s death by going into a church and lighting a candle for her. In Plaka, Maria and her father did the same.

  Antonis wrote a few months later to describe the nuptials. It seemed that everything had gone well. In the same letter he told Manolis that he and Anastasia were expecting their first child the following spring.

  One Sunday evening, not long after the birth of her niece, Fotini came over from Plaka to see the baby.

  Anastasia was looking exhausted and Fotini took the little one from her arms and rocked her expertly. After a bout of crying that had lasted several hours, she miraculously calmed down. It gave Anastasia an opportunity to rest and she left the room to sleep.

  Antonis could see that something was troubling his sister. It was unlike her to turn up like this out of the blue.

  ‘There’s something on your mind,’ he said bluntly.

  Fotini confided immediately that she had just called in to see Maria, who lived only three streets away. Nikos had gone to an international leprosy conference and would be there for a few weeks.

  ‘You will never imagine what she is planning to do, Antonis!’

  Antonis could not imagine Maria doing anything either shocking or perturbing.

  ‘She asked me if I would have Sofia for the day next week . . .’

  This in itself did not seem very surprising. Sofia loved coming to play with Fotini’s children.

  ‘. . . and can you imagine why?’

  Antonis shook his head.

  ‘She is going to see Andreas! In prison!’

  She was speaking in a hoarse whisper to avoid waking the baby, but the child could feel her aunt’s agitation nonetheless and was starting to cry again. Fotini stood up and rocked her.

  ‘I just don’t believe it, Antonis,’ she said. ‘He killed her sister.’

  Fotini herself was almost in tears now, and Antonis took the baby from her.

  ‘I don’t think she should go. And I told her so. I don’t think she should go and see her sister’s murderer.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Antonis. ‘But you can’t really stop her, can you?’

  ‘No,’ said Fotini. ‘It’s as if she is forgiving him. And I don’t see how anyone could forgive him. Do you?’

  ‘Is she telling her father?’

  ‘No, Giorgos definitely doesn’t know about it. Otherwise she would have asked him to have Sofia.’

  ‘I wonder what it’s like in there,’ mused Antonis.

  ‘She’ll tell me, I expect,’ said Fotini. ‘But I think we can imagine what Neapoli prison is like. Look, promise me you won’t tell anyone . . .’

  Antonis nodded.

  ‘I think it’s better for everyone that she does this discreetly,’ he said. ‘So of course I’ll keep it to myself. She has her own reasons for going, I’m sure.’

  The baby was peaceful again now.

  ‘Such sweet innocence,’ Fotini said affectionately, kissing her little head.

  Chapter Nine

  THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY, at around ten in the morning, Maria arrived in Plaka with Sofia. It was a warm early summer’s day and the little girl was bubbling with excitement to see her friends. She was nearly five, Mattheos was already six and Petros was almost three. The gang were as close as cousins.

  Sofia immediately ran off with the boys and Fotini and Maria had time for a brief conversation before the latter left.

  Fotini was taking the day off from the taverna and planned to spend most of it on the beach. In the shadow of the pine trees that went right down to the sea, they would make necklaces from shells and collect the smoothest, palest pebbles they could find. They would take these home and paint them in the late afternoon when they woke up from a siesta, and in the early evening, when they sun had gone down, they would go paddling. The day was all planned out.

  As the bus started its journey from Plaka towards Agios Nikolaos and onwards to Neapoli, Maria glimpsed the little group already on the beach. She thought of those endless carefree days of her own childhood with Fotini, and an image came to her of them skimming stones, splashing in the shallows and trying to catch fish. Her friend Dimitris Limonias was often there with them, along with Anna and Antonis. Spinalonga sat on the horizon, the sun caught the sparkle of the waves and a few old men sat in the kafeneío. It was all so familiar and yet her whole world had changed. It was two years since the trial, but the events of those months seemed like yesterday.

  As the bus trundled along, Maria had plenty of time to worry about what she was doing. The prison in Neapoli had a fearsome reputation. The guards were rumoured to be as tough as the prisoners, and she knew that women were vulnerable when they went in there.

  What she encountered was worse than she had imagined. The ordeal began before she even got close. The prison was a long way from the town, and it was a three-kilometre walk to the prison gates from where the bus dropped her. It was a daunting sight, even from a distance. The walls were high and forbidding and, as she got closer, Maria could see layers of twisted and rusting barbed wire running along the top. Even if a prisoner scaled the walls from inside, they would be torn to shreds by the wire, so she imagined that no one ever attempted escape.

  As she approached she c
ould see that there was a line of people outside. The queue hugged the wall for a long way. There were women of all ages, fifty or so ahead of her, and soon some behind too. They were ragged, mostly with scarves over their heads to conceal their faces. It reminded her vividly of being on Spinalonga. Several of the women were very bent too, and must have struggled to walk the length of the road that led to this place. All of them were thin, and there was little conversation between them. Maria noticed that the woman directly in front of her was feeding a baby beneath her shawl.

  Some of the women seemed to have baskets with them. Perhaps it was food. Maria had not thought to bring anything for the man she was visiting.

  As she got closer to the front of the queue, she could see why she had already been standing for an hour and a half. There was a heavy door built into the side wall of the prison. It had a metal grate. One by one the women had to stand on tiptoe and speak to the guard on the other side of it. If he was satisfied with the answer they gave, the door was unbolted and the woman admitted. Some were turned away.

  When it was her turn, Maria’s heart was beating furiously.

  ‘Name of prisoner?’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Relationship to prisoner?’

  ‘Proof of relationship to prisoner?’

  For the last question, she was meant to produce some kind of paperwork. She had her sister’s marriage certificate and her death certificate and passed them through.

  She heard the bolts being drawn back and the door was opened just wide enough for her to pass. As soon as she was in, it was slammed behind her. She shuddered. More memories of Spinalonga came back. She recalled the moment when she had entered the tunnel to go into the island and the sound of the gate clanging shut behind her. Just as then, she was full of trepidation.

  In front of her was a scene from hell. On the other side of a wire fence three metres tall were hundreds of men in ragged overalls. They were shuffling around the yard, treading on each other’s heels as they moved forward. Over their bowed, uniformly shaved heads she could see a man cracking a whip like a circus ringmaster. None of them looked up.