Whilst neither Maria nor Fotini had ever been kissed, Anna had become a well-practised flirt. She was never happier than when she was in the company of boys and could toss her mane of hair and flash her engaging smile knowing that her audience would not look away. She was like a cat on heat.
‘Tonight’s going to be special,’ announced Anna. ‘I can feel it in the air.’
‘Why’s that then?’ asked Fotini.
‘Most of the boys are back, that’s why,’ she answered.
There were several dozen young men in the village, mere boys when they had left to fight with the andarte at the beginning of the occupation. Some of them had now chosen to join the Communists and had gone to take part in the struggle against right-wing forces that was brewing on mainland Greece, bringing new hardship and bloodshed.
Fotini’s brother Antonis was one of those who had returned to Plaka. Sympathetic as he was to the ideals of the left and the new campaign on the mainland, after four years away he had been more than ready to come home. It was Crete that he had been fighting for, and here he wanted to stay. During his time away Antonis had grown wiry and strong and was unrecognisable from the emaciated figure who had staggered back after those first few months in the resistance to see his family. Now he had not only a moustache, but a beard too, which added at least five years to his twenty-three. He had lived on a diet of mountain greens, snails and whatever wild animals he could ensnare, and endured extremes of heat and cold that had given him a sense of indestructibility.
It was the romantic figure of Antonis that Anna had set her heart on that night. She was not alone in that ambition, but she was confident of winning at least a kiss from him. He was lean and slim-hipped, and when the dancing began, Anna was determined to make him notice her. If he failed to, he would be the only man in the village who had. Everyone was aware of Anna, not only because she was half a head taller than most of the other girls, but because her hair was longer, wavier and glossier than all the rest, and even when plaited it reached down to her hips. The whites of her huge oval eyes were as bright as the dazzling cotton shirts which the girls all wore, and her pearly teeth gleamed as she laughed and chattered with her friends, supremely conscious of her beauty under the watchful gaze of the groups of young men who stood about the square, anticipating the moment when music would mark the real launch of the festivities. Anna was almost luminous in the dusk of this great feast day. The other girls were in her shadow.
Tables and chairs had been set out on three sides of the square, and on the fourth a long trestle table took the weight of a dozen dishes piled high with cheese pies and spicy sausages, sweet pastries and pyramids of waxy-skinned oranges and ripe apricots. The smell of roasting lamb wafted over the square and brought with it the mouth-watering anticipation of pleasure. There was a strict order of events. Eating and drinking would come later, but before that there would be dancing.
At first the boys and men all stood talking together and the girls stood apart, giggling excitedly. The separation was not to last. The band struck up and the swirling and stamping of feet began. Men and women rose from their seats and girls and boys broke away from their huddles. Soon the dusty space was filled. Anna knew as the inner female circle rotated that sooner or later she would find herself opposite Antonis and that for a few moments they would dance together before moving on. How can I make him see me as someone more than his little sister’s friend? she asked herself.
She did not have to try. Antonis stood in front of her. The slow pentozali dance gave her a few moments to study the pair of fathomless eyes that looked out through the black tassled fringe of his traditional headdress. The sariki was the warrior’s hat that many young men now wore to show that they had graduated into manhood, not just through the passage of time but because they had the blood of another man on their hands. In Antonis’s case, it was not merely one but several enemy soldiers. He prayed that he would never again hear the distinctive cry of surprise as his blade penetrated the soft flesh between the shoulder blades, and the strangulated gasp that followed. It never felt like victory, but it did give him the right to associate himself with the fearless warriors of Crete’s past, the pallikaria, in their breeches and long boots.
Anna flashed her broad smile at this boy who had become a man, but he did not return it. The ebony eyes had instead fixed on hers and held them until she was almost relieved when it was time for him to move on to his next partner. As the dance ended, her heart still pounded furiously and she returned to her group of friends, who now spectated as some of the men, Antonis among them, reeled before them like human gyroscopes. It was a dizzying display. Their boots cleared the ground by several feet as they leapt into the air, and the perfectly synchronised bowing of the three-stringed lyre and the plucking of the lute urged them on, giving the dance a breathless energy right to the very end.
The married women and the widows watched the acrobatics even though the performance was not being staged for them, but for the nubile beauties who observed from the corner of the square. As Antonis rotated and the music and the drum beat built to a climax, Anna was certain that this handsome warrior was dancing for her alone. The whole audience clapped and cheered as they finished and the band, with hardly a moment’s pause, launched into the next tune. A group of slightly older men now took the dusty centre stage.
Anna was bold. She broke away from her circle of friends and approached Antonis, who was pouring himself a glass of wine from a huge clay jug. Although he had seen her many times at his home, he had barely noticed her before tonight. Before the occupation Anna had seemed just a little girl; now a shapely, voluptuous woman had taken her place.
‘Hello, Antonis,’ she said boldly.
‘Hello, Anna.’
‘You must have been practising your dancing while you were away,’ she said, ‘to be able to do those steps.’
‘We saw nothing but goats up in the mountains,’ Antonis replied laughingly. ‘But they’re pretty nimble on their feet, so maybe we learnt a thing or two from them.’
‘Can we dance again soon?’ she asked, over the noisy strains of the lyre and the beat of the drums.
‘Yes,’ he said, his face now breaking into a smile.
‘Good. I’ll be waiting. Over there.’ she said, and returned to her friends.
Antonis had the feeling that Anna had offered herself to him for more than a pentozali. When a suitable dance began, he went up to her, took her by the hand and led her into the circle. Holding her round the waist, he now inhaled the indescribably sensual smell of her sweat, an essence of more intoxicating sweetness than anything he had ever breathed in before. Crushed lavender and rose petals would not compare. When the dance finished, he felt her hot breath in his ear.
‘Meet me behind the church,’ she whispered.
Anna knew that a stroll to the church, even during such wild celebrations, was perfectly normal on a saint’s day, and besides, Agios Konstandinos shared his day with his wife, Agia Eleni, making it a special moment to remember her mother. She made her way swiftly to the alleyway behind the church and within a few moments Antonis was there too, fumbling to find her in the darkness. Her parted lips immediately sought his.
Not since he had been paying good money had he been kissed like this. In the last months of the war he had been a regular in the brothels of Rethimnon. The women there loved the andarte and gave them a special rate, particularly when they were as handsome as Antonis. Theirs had been the only business that had thrived during the occupation as men sought comfort after long absences from their wives, and young men took the opportunity to develop sexual experience that would never be tolerated under the watchful eyes of their own community. It had, however, been loveless. Here in his arms was a woman who kissed like a prostitute but was probably a virgin and, most importantly, Antonis could feel real desire. There was no mistaking it. Every part of his being craved for this lascivious kiss to continue. His mind was working swiftly. Here he was back for good and expected to
marry and settle down in the community, and here was a woman eager for love who had been waiting quite literally on his doorstep, just as she had been since childhood. She had to be his. It was meant to be.
They separated from their embrace. ‘We must get back to the square,’ said Anna, knowing that her father would notice her absence if she was away for much longer. ‘But let’s go separately.’
She slipped out of the shadows and into the church, where she spent a few minutes lighting a candle before an image of the Virgin and Child, her lips, still wet from Antonis’s, moving silently in prayer.
As she returned to the square there was a slight commotion in the street. A large saloon car had drawn up, one of few on an island where most people still travelled on their own two feet or on the back of a four-legged beast. Anna paused to watch the passengers as they climbed out. The driver, a distinguished man in his sixties, was immediately recognisable as Alexandros Vandoulakis, the head of the wealthy landowning family that lived on a sprawling farm near Elounda. He was a popular man, and his wife Eleftheria was liked too. They employed a dozen or so men in the village - Antonis included - several of whom had only just returned after long absences with the resistance, and had welcomed them back with open arms. They were generous with the men’s wages, though some said, sarcastically, that they could afford to be. It was not just the thousands of hectares of olive groves that were the source of their wealth. They owned a similar amount of land on the fertile Lasithi plateau, where they grew huge crops of potatoes, cereals and apples, providing them with an all-year round income, and a guaranteed one at that. The cool climate of the plateau, 800 metres up, rarely failed and the green fields were verdant with moisture provided by the melting snows of the mountains that encircled it. Alexandros and Eleftheria Vandoulakis often spent the months of high summer in Neapoli, twenty or so kilometres away, where they had a grand town house, leaving the estate in Elounda to be managed by their son Andreas. Theirs was a fortune of rare magnitude.
It was, however, no surprise that such a well-to-do family should turn out to celebrate with fishermen, shepherds and men who worked the land. It was the same all over Crete. Every village member would turn out to dance and feast and the wealthy landowning families who lived on nearby farms or estates would come to join them. They could not throw a better party, however great their fortune, and they wanted to share in its exuberance. Both rich and poor had suffered and all had equal cause to celebrate their liberation. The soulful sentiment of the mantinades and the excitement of the energetic pentozali were the same whether your family owned ninety olive trees or ninety thousand.
From the back seat of the car emerged the two Vandoulakis daughters and finally their older brother, Andreas. They were immediately welcomed by some of the villagers and given a good table with the best view of the dancing. Andreas, however, did not sit for long.
‘Come on,’ he said to his sisters. ‘Let’s join in with the dancing.’
He grabbed them both and pulled them into the circle, where they blended in with the crowd of dancers, dressed as they were in the same costumes as the village girls. Anna watched. Some of her friends were in the group and it struck her that if they were going to have the opportunity to link arms and dance with Andreas Vandoulakis, then so was she. She joined the next pentozali and, just as she had done with Antonis not an hour earlier, fixed Andreas in her gaze.
The dance soon came to an end. The lamb was now roasted and being cut into thick chunks, platters of which were passed round for the villagers to feast on. Andreas was back with his family but his mind was elsewhere.
At the age of twenty-five, he was being pressurised by his parents to find a wife. Alexandros and Eleftheria were frustrated by his rejection of every single one of the daughters of their friends and acquaintances. Some were dour, some were drippy and others were simply dim, and although all of them would have been more than generously dowried, Andreas refused to have anything to do with them.
‘Who’s that girl, the one with the amazing hair?’ he asked his sisters, gesturing towards Anna.
‘How should we know?’ they chorused. ‘She’s just one of the local girls.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’d like my wife to look like.’
As he got up, Eleftheria gave Alexandros a knowing look. Her view was that, given the lack of impact any dowry would have on Andreas’s life, what did it really matter whom he married? Eleftheria herself had come from a considerably humbler background than Alexandros, but it had not significantly affected their lives. She wanted her son to be happy, and if that involved flying in the face of convention, then so be it.
Andreas had walked right up to the crowd of girls, who were sitting in a circle eating pieces of the tender meat with their fingers. There was nothing particularly remarkable about Andreas, who had inherited his father’s strong features and his mother’s sallow complexion, but his family background lent him a bearing that set him apart from all the other men at the gathering, except for Alexandros Vandoulakis. The young women were embarrassed when they realised Andreas was approaching them and hastily wiped their hands on their skirts and licked the fatty juice from their lips.
‘Anyone care to dance?’ he asked casually, looking directly at Anna. His was the attitude of a man confident of his superior social situation and there was only one response. To get up out of her seat and take the hand which was being offered to her.
The candles on the tables had guttered and burned out, but by now the moon had risen and cast its bright glow in the otherwise sable-black sky. Both raki and wine had flowed and the musicians, emboldened by the atmosphere, played faster and faster until the dancers once again appeared to fly through the air. Andreas held Anna close. It was the time of night when the tradition of swapping partners during the dance could be ignored, and he decided he was not going to exchange her for some matronly type with few teeth and two left feet. Anna was perfect. No one else would do.
Alexandros and Eleftheria Vandoulakis watched their son courting this woman, but they were not the only ones to do so. Antonis sat at a table with his friends, drinking himself into a stupor as he realised what was unfolding in front of him. The man he worked for was in the process of seducing the girl he desired. The more he drank the more miserable he became. He had felt less dejected when he was sleeping on an open hillside during the war, lashed by storms and stinging winds. What hope did he have of keeping Anna for himself when he was in competition with a man who was heir to a sizeable chunk of Lasithi?
In the far corner of the square Giorgis sat playing backgammon with a group of older people. His eyes darted back and forth from the board to the square, where Anna continued to dance with the most eligible man this side of Agios Nikolaos.
The Vandoulakis family eventually rose to leave. Andreas’s mother knew instinctively that her son would not want to come home with them, but in the interests of respectability and the reputation of this village beauty he had taken such a liking to, it was important that he should. Her son was no fool. If he was going to break away from tradition and have the liberty to select his own wife rather than be manoeuvred into accepting some choice of his parents, he needed them to be on his side.
‘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 pas
t 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.