‘My name is Maya. Welcome to Ikaria, you will love it. The moonrise is a magnificent sight at this time of year.’ She cupped Calli’s hand with both of hers and held on to it for a long moment.
‘Of course she will!’ enthused Sylvie. ‘How could anyone not fall in love with this place?’
‘Do you practise yoga?’ Maya went on as Calli settled down beside her, taking off her sandals to feel the warm sand between her toes. ‘We gather here every day at dawn.’ The woman gave Calli a long persistent look. ‘Join us, you look as if you are in need of some sea air in your lungs and some colour in your cheeks.’
‘Erm . . . well . . . I haven’t done yoga for years . . .’ Calli mumbled, taken aback by the woman’s candour. ‘Pilates is more my thing,’ she added lamely, darting a glance at Sylvie for support. She was well aware that she looked pale and fatigued, she hardly needed a stranger to point it out. Then again it wasn’t a lie; she was indeed in urgent need of more than sea air in her lungs and sun on her skin and she had to admit that nothing was her thing these days; it had been a long time since she had done anything that resembled physical exercise.
‘That’s OK, Pilates is not so different,’ Sylvie chirped. ‘Come, you’ll enjoy it, no better way to start the day.’
‘Especially on this beach,’ Maya added, ‘you can feel the presence of the angels at dawn.’
Calli sat chatting with her new acquaintances for some time while they waited for the moon to rise and as they did so, she fancied that she was in the company of good friends instead of complete strangers. They talked and laughed and drank ice-cold beer as the waves lapped at her feet in the warm evening breeze. And as time passed, Calli discovered that this crowd in which she so unexpectedly found herself was a friendly gathering of men and women of various nationalities and ages, all with a shared love for this small Aegean island.
‘Christian and I come from Berlin,’ Sylvie told her. ‘We leave our busy city lives behind and come here to feel free . . . Enzo over there and Maya are Italian . . .’
‘Actually, I am partly Italian,’ the older woman protested, ‘my grandmother was Greek! I consider Greece my spiritual home . . .’
‘We don’t see each other from one year to the next,’ Christian took his turn to explain, ‘but in the summer months we all gather here, come what may. See the two guys over there?’ He gestured with his chin. ‘Bruce and Andrew come all the way from Australia . . . We try to keep in touch via email but even if we don’t, when we meet, we all pick up from where we left off.’
‘Early morning yoga on the beach,’ Maya went on, ‘is the one activity that we all like to follow together to keep mind and spirit healthy – meditation too, but generally speaking we mostly go our separate ways.’
The group came and went individually at different times over the summer months, Calli was told, occupying themselves with voluntary tasks such as working in the vineyards with the picking of grapes or assisting elderly folk in their gardens or fields. This year, Christian explained, they had agreed to gather at the same time in order to witness all together the lunar eclipse which was about to take place in a few days.
‘It’s the longest total lunar eclipse of the twenty-first century, and I can’t wait!’ Sylvie said with evident excitement. ‘It will be spectacular to watch it from the beach. Christian is an amateur astronomer and he has everything ready to capture the event on film, and a state-of-the-art telescope for all of us to use.’
‘It’s a very special event for us all. That’s why we are celebrating,’ Maya added. ‘This year most visitors have come to the island for this experience alone.’ She turned her eyes quizzically on Calli: ‘Is that why you are here?’ she asked.
To her embarrassment Calli had completely forgotten about this celestial phenomenon, despite having heard and read about it during the past few weeks in London. Her own concerns had been so all-consuming that everything else had an annoying habit of slipping her mind.
The moonrise that evening was breathtaking, equal only to one or two spectacular evenings she had witnessed