‘Look, tell me what happened.’
Maria gradually calmed down.
‘Just before Anna was shot, Dr Kyritsis asked me to marry him. But I can’t leave now - and that’s what I would have to do. I would have to leave my father. I couldn’t do that.’
‘So he’s gone away, has he?’ asked Fotini gently.
‘Yes.’
‘And when will you see him again?’
Maria took a very deep breath.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Possibly never.’
She was strong enough to mean it. The fates had been vengeful so far, but with each blow Maria became more resistant to the next.
The two friends sat for a while, and eventually Stephanos came out and persuaded Maria to eat. If she was going to make such a sacrifice for her father, then she might as well be strong enough to be useful. It was all completely pointless if she made herself ill.
As night fell, Maria rose to go. When she reached her house, it was still shrouded in silence. Creeping up to the spare bedroom, which would now be hers again, she lay down on the bed. She did not wake until late the following morning.
Anna’s death left a trail of other disrupted and destroyed lives. Not just her sister’s, her father’s and her husband’s, but her daughter’s too. Sofia was not yet two years old, and it was not long before she noticed the absence of her parents. Her grandparents told her that they had both gone away for a while. She cried at first, and then began the process of forgetting. As for Alexandros and Eleftheria Vandoulakis, in one evening they had lost their son, their hopes for the future and the reputation of the family. Everything that had ever worried them about Andreas marrying beneath his class had been fulfilled to the letter. Eleftheria, who had been so willing to accept Anna Petrakis, had to face the bitterest disappointment. It was only a short time before Manoli’s absence was brought to their attention and they worked out for themselves what had led to the horrifying events of the feast of Agios Titos. That woman had brought the deepest shame on them all, and the thought of their son languishing in his prison cell was a daily torture.
Andreas’s trial in Agios Nikolaos lasted three days. Maria, Fotini and several other villagers were called as witnesses, and Dr Kyritsis came from Iraklion to testify, remaining afterwards only briefly to speak to Maria. Eleftheria and Alexandros sat impassively in the gallery, both of them gaunt with anxiety and shame at being on such public display. The circumstances of the murder were hung out and aired for the whole of Crete to salivate over, and the daily newspaper ran every last sensational detail. Giorgis attended throughout. Though he wanted justice for Anna, he was never in any doubt that it was his daughter’s behaviour that had triggered Andreas’s violent reaction, and for the first time in fourteen years he was glad that Eleni was not there.
Chapter Twenty-four
1958
FOR SEVERAL MONTHS there was no communication between the Vandoulakis and Petrakis families. There was Sofia to consider, however, and for her sake this ice age had to pass. Eleftheria would have come round to a point of reconciliation more speedily than her husband, but even Alexandros, given time to reflect, began to see that it was not only his own family who had suffered. He realised that the damage sustained had been heavy on both sides and, with an almost mathematical precision that was strictly in character, he weighed up their respective losses. On the Vandoulakis side: one imprisoned son, one disgraced nephew, one family name brought to ruins. On the Petrakis side: one dead daughter, a family depleted by murder and before that by leprosy. By his powers of reckoning, the equation balanced. The person who stood in the middle was Sofia, and it was the responsibility of all of them to knit some kind of a life together for the little girl.
Alexandros eventually wrote to Giorgis.
We have had our differences, but it is time to end them. Sofia is growing up without her parents and the best thing we can offer her is the love and companionship of the remaining members of her family. Eleftheria and I would be very happy if you and Maria would join us for lunch next Sunday.
Giorgis did not have a telephone in his home, but he hurried straight to the bar and used the one there. He wanted to let Alexandros know immediately that they accepted the invitation and would both be happy to come, and he left a message with the Vandoulakis housekeeper to say so. Maria, however, had mixed feelings when she read the letter.
‘ “Our differences”!’ she said mockingly. ‘And what does he mean by that? How could he describe the fact that his son killed your daughter as “our differences”?’
Maria was incandescent with rage.
‘Does he accept no responsibility? Where is the remorse? Where is the apology?’ she screamed, waving the letter in the air.
‘Maria, listen. Calm down. He doesn’t accept responsibility because he bears none,’ said Giorgis. ‘A father can’t be responsible for all the actions of his child, can he?’
Maria reflected for a moment. She knew her father was right. If parents did carry the burden of their child’s mistakes, it would be a different world. It would mean that it was Giorgis’s fault that his elder daughter had driven her husband to shoot her through her own reckless and unfaithful behaviour. That was clearly absurd. She had to concede the point, if reluctantly.
‘You’re right, Father,’ she said. ‘You’re right. The only thing that really matters is Sofia.’
Some kind of rapprochement was forged between the families after this, with unspoken acknowledgement that there was fault on both sides for the catastrophe that had damaged them all. Sofia, from the very beginning, was well cushioned. She lived with her grandparents but every week she would go down to Plaka and spend a day with her other grandfather and Maria, who would dedicate themselves to her entertainment. They would go out on boat trips, catch fish and crabs and sea urchins, paddle in the sea and go for short walks along the cliff path. At six o’clock, when they delivered Sofia back to her grandparents’ house near Elounda, they would all be tired out. Sofia had the adoring attention of three grandparents. In some ways, she was lucky.
As spring turned into early summer, Kyritsis counted that two hundred days had passed since Anna’s burial and the day he had driven Maria to Elounda and realised that their future was not going to be spent together after all. Every day he struggled to stop himself thinking of what might have been. He lived the same disciplined existence he had always lived: into the hospital on the dot of seven-thirty in the morning and out again at nearly eight at night, with a solitary evening of reading, studying and letter-writing ahead of him. It occupied him thoroughly, and many envied his dedication and his apparent absorption in what he did.
Within weeks of the patients’ exodus from Spinalonga, news that the island was no longer in use as a leper colony had spread across Crete. It meant that many who had feared to reveal potential leprosy symptoms emerged from their villages and came to seek help. Now that they knew treatment would not mean incarceration in the leper colony, they were unafraid to reveal themselves and came in waves to see the man who was known to have brought the cure for leprosy to Crete. Though modesty prevented Dr Kyritsis from basking in this glory, his reputation spread. Once diagnosis had been confirmed, sufferers would come to him for regular injections of dapsone, and usually, in the space of a few months, as doses were gradually raised, improvements would begin to show.
For many months Kyritsis continued his work as head of department in the bustling main hospital of Iraklion. There should have been nothing more rewarding than seeing his patients walk away from him cured of the disease and discharged for good. All he felt, however, was a terrible emptiness. He felt this in the hospital and he felt it in his home, and each day became more of an effort than the last as he dragged himself from his bed and back to the hospital. He even began to question whether he really had to administer the drugs himself. Could someone else not take his place? Was he really needed?
It was during this time of feeling dispensable inside the hospital and
empty outside it that he received a letter from Dr Lapakis, who, since Spinalonga had closed, was now married and had taken up the post of head of dermatovenereology at the general hospital in Agios Nikolaos.
My dear Nikolaos,
I wonder how you are. Time has gone so quickly since we all left Spinalonga and in all those months I fully intended to get in touch with you. Life is busy back here in Agios Nikolaos and the hospital has greatly expanded since I was here full time. Do come and see us if you would like a break from Iraklion. My wife has heard so much about you and would love to meet you.
Yours,
Christos
It set Kyritsis thinking. If someone he respected as much as Christos Lapakis found fulfilment working in Agios Nikolaos, then perhaps the choice was his. If Maria was not able to come to him, he would have to go to her. Every Tuesday, Crete’s daily newspaper carried advertisements for hospital vacancies and each week he would scan them, hoping to find work closer to the woman he loved. The weeks passed and several suitable jobs were advertised in Hania, but these would take him even further from his desired destination. Disenchantment set in, until one day he received another letter from Lapakis.
Dear Nikolaos,
I hope all is well with you. You’ll think me henpecked I am sure, but I am planning to give up my job here. My wife wants to live closer to her parents in Rethimnon so we shall be moving in the next few months. It just occurred to me that you might be interested in taking over my department. The hospital is expanding rapidly and there could be a bigger opportunity later on. Meanwhile, I thought I should let you know of my plans.
Yours,
Christos
Although nothing had ever been said, Lapakis knew that his colleague had formed a bond with Maria Petrakis, and he had been dismayed to learn that Kyritsis had returned to Iraklion alone. He surmised that Maria had felt obliged to stay with her father and regarded the whole situation as a terrible waste.
Kyritsis read and reread the letter before putting it into the top pocket of his white coat, where he reached for it several times during the day and ran his eyes over the words again and again. Although a job in Agios Nikolaos would close all kinds of doors in his career, there was one door in his life which would open: the opportunity to live closer to Maria. That night he wrote to his old friend and asked him how he should pursue this opportunity. There were formalities to be attended to, other candidates to be interviewed and so on, Lapakis replied, but if Kyritsis could write a formal letter of application within the week, then it was likely that he would be considered for the post. The truth of it, as both of them well knew, was that Kyritsis was overqualified for the job. Moving from the headship of a department in a city hospital to the same position in a smaller hospital meant that no one doubted he could do the job, and the hospital was delighted, if slightly mystified, that someone of his calibre and reputation should have applied. He was summoned for interview and it was only a matter of days before he then received confirmation that they would like to award him the post.
Kyritsis’s plan was to establish himself in his new life before he contacted Maria. He did not want her to raise any objections to the apparent turnaround in his career and planned simply to present the situation as a fait accompli. Less than a month later, now established in a small house not far from the hospital, he set off to Plaka, which was only twenty-five minutes’ drive away. It was a Sunday afternoon in May, and when Maria opened her front door to see Kyritsis standing there, she paled with surprise.
‘Nikolaos!’ she gasped.
A small voice then piped up. It seemed to come from Maria’s skirt, and a face appeared from behind her at not much higher than knee level.
‘Who is it, Aunt Maria?’
‘It’s Dr Kyritsis, Sofia,’ she replied in a scarcely audible voice.
Maria moved aside and Kyritsis stepped over the threshold. She looked at his back as he passed her, the same neat, straight back that she had watched so many times when he had left her home to walk up the main street of Spinalonga to the hospital. Suddenly it seemed only a moment since she had been on the island, day-dreaming of a future.
Maria trembled as she laid out cups and saucers, and they clattered noisily. Soon she and Kyritsis were as comfortably seated as they could be on the hard wooden chairs, sipping their coffee just as they used to on Spinalonga. Maria struggled in vain to think of something to say. Kyritsis, however, came straight to the point.
‘I’ve moved,’ he said.
‘Where to?’ Maria asked politely.
‘Agios Nikolaos.’
‘Agios Nikolaos?’
She almost choked on the words. Astonishment and delight mingled in equal measure as she struggled to imagine the implications of his announcement.
‘Sofia,’ she said to the little girl, who was sitting at the table, drawing, ‘why don’t you go upstairs and find that new doll to show Dr Kyritsis . . .’
The little girl disappeared upstairs to fetch her toy, and now Kyritsis leaned forward. For the third time in her life Maria heard the words: ‘Marry me.’
She knew that Giorgis was able to look after himself now. They had come to terms with Anna’s death and Sofia had brought pleasure and distraction into their lives. The distance to Agios Nikolaos meant that Maria could visit her father several times a week and still see Sofia as well. It took less than a second for all of this to go through her head, and before she took her next breath she had given him her answer.
Giorgis returned soon after. He had not been as happy since the day he learned that Maria was cured. By the next day, news had travelled all around Plaka that Maria Petrakis was to marry the man who had cured her, and preparation for the wedding began immediately. Fotini, who had never lost hope in the prospect of Maria and Kyritsis marrying, threw herself into the plans. She and Stephanos were to host the party before the wedding service and their friends would all crowd into the taverna for a great feast afterwards.
They set a date with the priest for two weeks hence. There was no reason to wait any longer. The couple had a house to move into, they had known each other for some years and Maria already had a trousseau, of sorts. She also had a dress, the one she had bought for her wedding with Manoli. For five years it had lain in the bottom of a chest, wrapped in layers of tissue. A day or two after Kyritsis’s second proposal, she unfolded it, shook out the creases and tried it on.
It still fitted as beautifully as it had done on the day it was purchased. She was physically unchanged.
‘It’s perfect,’ said Fotini.
On the eve of the wedding the two women were together at Fotini’s, planning how Maria should wear her hair.
‘You don’t think it’s bad luck marrying in the same dress I was to have worn for a different wedding? A wedding that never took place?’
‘Bad luck?’ replied Fotini. ‘I think you’ve run out of bad luck now, Maria. I must confess I think Fate did have it in for you, but not any more.’
Maria was holding the dress up to herself in front of the long mirror in Fotini’s bedroom. The frothy tiers of its full, lacy skirt cascaded around her like a fountain and the fabric swished about her ankles. With her head thrown back, she began to twirl around like a child.
‘You’re right . . . you’re right . . . you’re right . . .’ she chanted rhythmically, breathlessly. ‘You’re right . . . you’re right . . . you’re right . . .’
Only when she was dizzy did Maria stop spinning and throw herself backwards on to the bed.
‘I feel,’ she said, ‘like the luckiest woman alive. No one in the whole world could be as happy as I am.’
‘You deserve it, Maria, you really do,’ replied her oldest friend.
There was a knock on the bedroom door and Stephanos put his head into the room.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he said jokingly. ‘We’ve got a wedding happening here tomorrow and I’m trying to prepare the feast. I could really do with a hand.’
The two women laughed, and M
aria jumped off the bed, throwing the dress across a chair. Both of them raced downstairs after Stephanos, giggling like the children they had once been, their excitement at the prospect of Maria’s big day filling the air.
They woke up to a clear May day. Every last inhabitant of the village emerged to follow the bridal procession the short distance from Maria’s home to the church at the other end of the village. They all wanted to be sure that the beautiful dark woman in white was safely conducted to the ceremony and that nothing, this time, would get in the way of her and a happy marriage. The doors of the church were left open during the ceremony and the crowd craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the proceedings at the far end of the aisle. Dr Lapakis was the best man, the koumbaros. He was a familiar figure in Plaka - people remembered his daily comings and goings to Spinalonga - but fewer villagers remembered Kyritsis. His presence had been a fleeting one, though they were all well aware of his significance in the evacuation of the leper colony.