‘She’s carrying on with the specialist, you know,’ she would say in a stage whisper. ‘You mark my words, she’ll be cured and off the island before any of us.’
It kept her going, this mission to stir up anger and discontent. She had tried - and failed - to do the same with Maria’s mother; now she would do her best to destabilise the daughter’s peace of mind. Maria, however, was strong enough to withstand such behaviour and enough in love with the doctor to make her happiness untouchable.
Maria’s course of treatment began that month. Her symptoms had been slow to develop since she arrived on the island, with the anaesthetic patches on her skin spreading only marginally during the past eighteen months. Unlike so many of her fellow islanders, she had not experienced numbness in the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands, which meant she was unlikely to be vulnerable to the sores and ulcers which had cost so many of her fellow lepers the ability to walk and fend for themselves. If a sharp stone found its way into her shoe she soon knew about it, and her lithe hands curled around the handles of the big cooking pots she used at the ‘block’ as readily as they had ever done. This made her one of the lucky ones, but there was, nevertheless, an extraordinary relief in the sense that, finally, something was being done to combat the disease. Though it had not yet devastated her body, it had already done plenty of damage to her life.
The springtime wind, the Sokoros, blew from the south, finding its way between the mountains to the Gulf of Mirabello, where it whipped the sea into a white frenzy. Meanwhile on land the trees, now full of leaves in bud, began to whisper. How much better a sound than the rattle of dry, barren branches. Now that it was nearly May, the sun came out strongly and reliably each day and drenched the landscape in colour. Monochrome sky and rock had vanished and the world now put on its blue, gold, green, yellow and purple. Throughout early summer, birdsong was noisily exuberant, and then came two months when nature stood still in the breathless air and the scent of roses and hibiscus hung heavily on the air. Leaves and flowers had strained to emerge from dormant winter trees and plants and remained perfect through June and July before curling, scorched and dry, in the heat of the sun.
Dr Kyritsis continued to visit Maria at home once a week. They continued to say nothing of their feelings towards each other and there was an element of magic in their silence. It had the perfect fragility of a soap bubble rising into the sky, so visible, so multicoloured, but best left untouched. Maria one day found herself wondering how much her mother and father had ever spoken about love. She guessed correctly that they rarely had; in their happy marriage, there had seemed no need to mention something so certain, so unequivocal.
Throughout these summer months Maria, and now over half the population of Spinalonga, continued with the dapsone treatment. They knew it did not mean an overnight cure - or, as the more sardonic of them called it, ‘reprieve from the gallows’ - but at least it gave them hope, and even those still waiting for their treatment bathed in reflected optimism. Not everyone thrived, however. In July, having started her course only two weeks earlier, Elpida Kontomaris went into lepra reaction. Whether or not it was a consequence of the drug treatment, the doctors could not be sure, but they stopped giving her the injections straight away and did what they could to relieve the agony she was in. Her temperature raged out of control and for ten days did not drop below 105 degrees. Her body was now covered in ulcerated sores and every nerve felt tender; there seemed to be no position in which she was comfortable. Maria insisted on visiting her and, against all the rules of the hospital, Dr Lapakis allowed her into the small ward where the old lady lay, sobbing and sweating by turns.
Through her half-closed eyes, she recognised Maria.
‘Maria,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘they can’t do anything for me.’
‘Your body is fighting the disease. You mustn’t give up hope,’ Maria urged. ‘Especially now! For the first time ever, they are so confident of a cure.’
‘No, listen to me.’ Through a burning, uncontrollable wall of pain, Elpida pleaded with Maria. ‘I’ve been ill for so long. I just want to go now. I want to be with Petros . . . Please tell them to let me go.’
Sitting on an old wooden chair by her bed, Maria took the woman’s limp hand. Was this, she wondered, the same death that her own mother had suffered? The same violent battle where a weary body found itself under attack with no means of defence? She had not been there to say farewell to her mother, but she would stay with Elpida until the end.
At some point during that hot night, Athina Manakis came to relieve her.
‘Go and get some rest,’ she said. ‘You won’t do yourself any good if you sit here all night without anything to eat or drink. I’ll stay with Elpida for a while.’
By now, Elpida’s breathing was shallow. For the first time, it seemed that she was out of pain. Maria knew she might not have long and did not want to miss the moment of her going.
‘I’ll stay,’ she said firmly. ‘I must.’
Maria’s instincts were right. A short while later, in the quietest hour of the night, between the very last moments of human activity and the first stirring of the birds, Elpida gave a final sigh and was gone. At last she was released from her ravaged body. Maria wept until her body was drained of tears and energy. Her grief was not just for the elderly woman who had given her so much friendship since she had arrived on the island, but for her own mother, whose last days might have been as agonising as Elpida’s.
The funeral was an event which brought everyone on the island pouring down to the little church of St Pantaleimon. The priest conducted the service in the doorway so that the hundred or so who stood outside in the sun-baked street could share it with those who were crammed into the cool interior. When the chanting and prayers were over, the flower-covered coffin was carried at the head of a long procession which made its way slowly up the hill past the hospital and the ‘block’ and round to the unpopulated side of the island, where rocks fell away into the dark Stygian waters. Some of the older people sat on their wooden-saddled donkeys to make this long journey; others took each step carefully and slowly, reaching the cemetery long after the body had been lowered into the ground.
It was the last week of July and the saint’s day for St Pantaleimon was on the twenty-seventh of the month. It seemed both a good and a bad time for such a celebration. On the one hand, with one of the most beloved members of the community so recently buried, the patron saint of healing seemed not to have been doing his job. On the other, many people on Spinalonga who had been receiving the drug treatment were showing early signs of recovery. For some, their lesions no longer seemed to be spreading; for others, as blood returned to tissue, paralysis appeared to be reversed. At least for a few it seemed as though a miracle might be about to take place. St Pantaleimon’s birthday party must go ahead, even if people thought they should be in mourning for a lost friend.
Special breads and pastries were baked the night before, and on the day itself people filed through the church to light their candles and say a prayer. In the evening there was dancing and the singing of mantinades, and the half-heartedness which had characterised some recent festivals was absent. When the wind gusted in their direction, the people of Plaka could hear the occasional strains of lyre and bouzouki as they drifted across the water.
‘People need a future,’ Maria remarked to Kyritsis when he was sitting at her table the following week. ‘Even if they’re unsure about what it’s going to bring.’
‘What do you hear them saying?’ he asked. She was his earpiece in the real world of the leper colony.
‘No one talks about leaving yet,’ she said. ‘I think we all realise it’s still early days. But the mood has changed. The people who haven’t started their treatment are getting restless too. They know it matters.’
‘It does matter. It might seem slow, but I promise you it really is going to make a difference.’
‘How slow will it be?’ she asked. The question of how long i
t was all going to take had never really been broached.
‘Even when the disease has ceased to be active, we would need to continue with treatment for one or two years, depending on the severity of the case,’ he replied.
In the timescale of this ancient disease, the oldest known to mankind, one or two years was the blink of an eye. But as Kyritsis looked at Maria, he realised that it seemed an eternity to him. It did to her too, though neither of them was likely to say so.
As if to balance death with birth, news came at the end of August that Anna’s baby had been born. Giorgis arrived one Friday morning to tell Maria. He had not yet seen the child, a girl, but Antonis had come hotfoot to Plaka the previous day to tell him. It had not been an easy birth. Anna had been ill for some weeks at the end of the pregnancy and the labour had been difficult and protracted. Though she was still weak, the doctor assured her she would make a quick recovery, ready to have another. Nothing was further from her mind. The baby, fortunately, was healthy and now thriving.
The birth of a child in the family had softened Alexandros Vandoulakis towards Giorgis Petrakis and he now felt that it was an appropriate moment for reconciliation. The old man had had sufficient time out in the cold. A few days later an invitation arrived for him to attend the baptism. This would take place the following week and would be followed by feasting and merrymaking, for which Cretans needed little excuse. The arrival of a child in the Vandoulakis family after nearly a decade of waiting was a reason for great thanksgiving and celebration in both the family and the community beyond it. No one welcomed the disruption of the natural order which occurred when the people who owned the land and provided jobs failed to produce children. Now that Anna Vandoulakis had given birth to one child, none doubted that she would produce another and that the next time it would be a boy. That would ensure, once and for all, that the old patterns would continue for the next generation.
The baptism took place in the same church in Elounda where Anna and Andreas had been married nine years earlier. How much had changed since then, reflected Giorgis as he sat on a hard wooden seat at the back of the church waiting, along with dozens of others, for his daughter and her husband to arrive with the baby. He had arrived as late as he could and now sat hunched inside his jacket, keen to avoid conversation with other members of the Vandoulakis family, whom he had not seen for nearly two years now. Alexandros and Eleftheria were already at the front of the church when he arrived, and next to them was Manoli, who was talking animatedly to the people in the row behind him, his hands waving about as he told some anecdote that left his audience helpless with laughter. He was as handsome as ever, his dark hair slightly longer than Giorgis remembered it and his teeth gleaming white against his tanned skin. He must miss Maria, he mused, to have still not found another girl to be his wife. Then the congregation rose. The priest had entered and was processing down the aisle, followed by Andreas and Anna. She carried a tiny bundle of white lace.
Giorgis was immediately struck by the appearance of his daughter. He expected to see the radiance of motherhood, but instead it was an almost gaunt figure who wafted past him. He thought back to how Eleni had looked after the birth of their two children and remembered how she had maintained a healthy fullness that seemed natural to someone who had been carrying a child all those months. Anna, however, was as slim as a young vine and looked as fragile. It was a long time since he had seen her, but her physique was not as he had expected. Andreas looked just the same, thought Giorgis, rather stiff and upright and as aware as ever of his place in the world
The buzz of lively chatter stopped and a hush descended on the congregation, as though no one wanted to wake the baby. Though she was blissfully unaware of anything but the warmth of her mother’s arms around her, it was a significant moment for the child. Until baptised, Sofia, as she was to be named, was exposed to the ‘evil eye’, but once the ritual had taken place her spiritual safety would be guaranteed.
As the rest of the gathering once again took their seats, Manoli stepped forward. Aside from the priest and the baby, he was the key figure at the baptism: the nonos, the godfather. In accordance with Cretan tradition, a child was given one godparent, who was the most important person in his life after his mother and father. As the congregation watched and listened to the priest’s incantations and saw the waters washing away the baby’s nonexistent sins, the spiritual bond between Manoli and Sofia was forged. He was handed the baby and now kissed her forehead. As he did so, the indescribably sweet essence of newborn infant enveloped him. Nothing seemed more natural than to treasure this tiny weightless being.
In the final stage of the ritual, a pure white ribbon was hung round Manoli’s shoulders by the priest and knotted to create a symbolic circle embracing both man and child. Manoli looked down at the baby’s sweet face and smiled. She was awake now, and her dark, innocent eyes gazed unfocused into his. On his face she would have seen a look of pure adoration, and no one doubted for a second that he would forever love and cherish his godchild, his precious filiotsa.
Chapter Twenty-one
AFTER THE BAPTISM, Giorgis hung back as the crowd made their way out of the church’s great double doors and their way out of the church’s great double doors and into the sunshine outside. He wanted to see his granddaughter up close but also he wanted to speak with her mother. Until now Anna had not even been aware that her father was there, but as she turned to leave the church she spotted him and waved enthusiastically across the sea of people who were now making their way past him, resuming the conversations they had started before the service began. It seemed like an age before she reached him.
‘Father,’ she said brightly, ‘I’m so pleased you could come.’
She spoke to him as though he were some old friend or distant relative with whom she had long since lost touch but with whom she was quite pleased to resume an acquaintance.
‘If you really are so pleased I came, why haven’t you been to see me for over a year? I’ve not been anywhere,’ he said, adding pointedly: ‘Except Spinalonga.’
‘I’m sorry, Father, but I wasn’t well at the beginning or end of the pregnancy, and these summer months have been so hot and uncomfortable.’
There was no point in being critical of Anna. There never had been. She had always managed to twist criticism round and make the accuser feel guilty; the disingenuity of her manner was only what he had expected.
‘Can I meet my granddaughter?’
Manoli had lingered at the front of the church while a group gathered around him to admire his god-daughter. She was still bound to him within the white ribbon and he appeared to have no intention of letting her go. It was loving, but also proprietorial, the way in which he held her so close. Finally he made his way up the aisle towards the man who had so nearly become his father-in-law. They greeted each other and Giorgis studied what he could see of his little granddaughter, who was buried deep in many layers of lace and once again fast asleep.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ said Manoli, smiling.
‘From what I can see of her she is,’ replied Giorgis.
‘Just like her mother!’ continued Manoli, glancing up at Anna with laughter in his eyes.
He had not really given Maria a second thought for months but felt he ought to enquire after her.
‘How is Maria?’ he asked, his voice sufficiently full of concern and interest to fool anyone who might overhear into thinking that he still cared for her. It was the question Anna should have asked, and she now stood quietly to hear the answer, wondering after all whether Manoli still carried a flame for her sister. Giorgis was more than happy to talk about his younger daughter.
‘She is quite well and her symptoms haven’t really got worse since she’s been there,’ he said. ‘She spends most of her time helping the lepers who can’t look after themselves. If they need a hand with their shopping and cooking she does it for them, and she still does a lot with her herbal cures as well.’
What he did not
mention was that most of the islanders were now undergoing treatment. There was no point in making too much of it, because even he did not know what it really meant. He understood that the injections they were having could alleviate symptoms, but more than that he did not know. He certainly did not believe in a cure for leprosy. It was pure fantasy to imagine that the oldest disease in the world could be eradicated, and he would not let himself indulge in such a dream.