they could talk in privacy in the shade of the rocks.
‘It’s a great place to sit and think and sunbathe in peace,’ Calli told Eleni. ‘I’ve been coming here a lot since I arrived. It’s very private – we could even go topless if we wanted to, no one swims this far . . . only Michalis, but he’s at work now,’ she laughed.
All the while they were in the water Calli was rehearsing how to begin what she had to tell her mother. It was less than twenty-four hours since her difficult conversation with Michalis and now she was about to do it all over again.
Before Eleni arrived in Crete, her great concern had been how she would find her sister’s health, but since her arrival, to her great relief Froso seemed well enough or at least that was how she presented herself – calm and stoic. ‘I am not the first or last woman with breast cancer. Many recover. But if not, no one lives forever,’ she had said when Eleni anxiously enquired about her condition.
Now the story she was hearing from her daughter threw her into a turmoil of emotion greater than any she had anticipated. While she was in England Calli had led her to believe that Froso’s health, if not good, was stable; there was no medical crisis and her visit to Crete would be a pleasant reunion and support for her sister. What she now heard was far from the pleasant restorative get-together she had anticipated, and from what she was being told it seemed there was more to come. Eleni sat listening with overflowing eyes until Calli finished talking. Then she buried her head in her hands and wept.
‘Oh! My poor, poor, sister,’ she repeated, wiping a tear-streaked face with her hand. ‘How could this have been kept hidden for so many years, why wasn’t I told?’ Eleni whispered.
‘All I can think of is that there are some things that carry shame in this community,’ Calli replied. ‘Rightly or wrongly, the family decided you should be spared that knowledge and be protected from it.’
‘I can understand that they couldn’t talk of such things when I was young, but later . . . when I was growing up, when I met your dad . . .’ Eleni’s words faded; she wiped her eyes again with the back of her hand. ‘We were so close,’ she began again, ‘she could have told me then.’
‘I know, Mum.’ Calli reached for her mother’s hand. ‘I kept asking myself the same thing . . . We go through life assuming we know all there is to know about the people we love, and then, wham! We find all our assumptions were wrong . . .’
They found her as they had left her, sitting under the olive trees, a glass of water on the scrubbed wooden table by her side and her needlework in her hands – although Calli, looking closer, noticed that the work hadn’t progressed since they had left her there.
15
Crete, 1951
Froso had no idea how long she had been lying semi-conscious on the ground before her sight and faculties returned. Dragging herself to her feet, she stumbled towards Kosmas’s bloodstained body sprawled across the mouth of the cave. Howling, she threw herself upon him and hugged and kissed the lifeless boy. Then in a state of confused frenzy and terror, not knowing what to do next, she stumbled from the cave to the place where she knew he always hid his bicycle and hurried to her village to raise the alarm. She didn’t go home to her mother; instead she made straight for Kosmas’s house in the hope that his brothers were there, and beat on the door with all the strength that was left in her. At the wretched sight of Froso, Vangelio let out a piercing scream and collapsed on the cold tiles, causing Manolios and their two sons to rush to the door.
Soon a crowd gathered; angry voices and shrill laments echoed throughout the village. A group of men climbed into Manolios’s truck and headed for the ravine.
Froso had the strongest sensation that she was sleepwalking; her vision was blurred, and her hearing muffled. Her mother was found and came to take her home. She removed Froso’s torn, soiled clothes and threw them onto a bonfire that Nikiforos had started in the yard, bathed her and put her to bed. Calliope asked nothing more of her daughter; the girl had suffered enough.