‘I can’t marry you,’ she said suddenly. ‘I have to stay and look after my father.’
The words seemed to Kyritsis to have come out of the clear blue sky. He was shocked. Within minutes, though, he saw it made perfect sense. How could he have expected everything to continue on its former path, given the dramatic events of the past two days? He was a fool. How could this woman, whom he had been drawn to as much by her integrity and selflessness as by her beauty, be expected to leave her bereaved and distressed father? For his whole life rationality had ruled him, and the one moment when he had denied it to let his emotions take their turn, he had stumbled.
One part of him wanted to protest, but instead he held on to Maria’s hands and gently squeezed them. He then spoke with such understanding and forgiveness that it almost broke her heart.
‘You’re right to stay,’ he said. ‘And that’s why I love you, Maria. Because you know what’s right and then you do it.’
It was the truth, but even more so was what he said next.
‘I shall never love anyone else.’
The owner of the
kafenion
kept his distance from their table. He was aware that the woman had broken down in tears and he did not like to intrude on his customers’ privacy. There had not been any raised voices, which was unusual for a row, but it was then that he observed the sombre way in which the couple were dressed. Except for old widows, black was unusual for a summer’s day, and it dawned on him that perhaps they were in mourning.
Maria eased her hands away from Kyritsis’s grasp and sat with her head bowed. Her tears flowed freely now and ran down her arms, her neck and between her breasts. She could not stop them. The restrained grief at the graveside had only temporarily held back the overwhelming sorrow that now burst its dam and would not abate until every last drop of it had poured out and drained away. The fact that Kyritsis was so reasonable made her weep all the more and made her decision all the more lamentable.
Kyritsis sat looking at the top of Maria’s bowed head. When the shaking had subsided, he touched her gently on the shoulder.
‘Maria,’ he whispered. ‘Shall we go?’
They walked away from their table, hand in hand, Maria’s head resting on Kyritsis’s shoulder. As they drove back to Plaka, in silence, the sapphire-blue water still sparkled, but the sky had begun to change. It had started its subtle transition through azure to pink, and the rocks took on the same warm tones. At last this terrible day was beginning to fade.
When they reached the village, the doctor spoke.
‘I can’t say goodbye,’ he said.
He was right. There was too much finality about the word. How could something that had never really begun come to an end?
‘Neither can I,’ said Maria, now perfectly in control.
‘Will you write to me and tell me how you are? Tell me what you’re doing? Tell me how life is for you in the free world?’ asked Kyritsis with forced enthusiasm.
Maria nodded.
It was pointless prolonging the moment. The sooner Kyritsis went, the better it would be for both of them. He parked outside Maria’s house and got out to open the passenger door. Face to face they stood, and then for a few seconds they held each other. They did not so much embrace as cling to each other, like children in a storm. Then, with great strength of will, they simultaneously released each other. Maria immediately turned away and went into her house. Kyritsis climbed back into his car and drove away. He would not stop until he got back to Iraklion.
The unbearable silence inside the house quickly drove Maria back out into the street. She needed the sound of the cicadas, a dog barking, the buzz of a scooter, squeals of children. All of these greeted her as she walked towards the centre of the village where, in spite of herself, she glanced up the street to check whether Kyritsis’s car was still in sight. Even the trail of dust his wheels sent into the air had already settled.
Maria needed Fotini. She walked quickly to the taverna, where her friend was spreading the tables with paper cloths, snapping lengths of elastic around them to keep them from blowing away in the wind.
‘Maria!’ Fotini was pleased to see her friend, but dismayed at the sight of her ashen face. Of course, it was not surprising she looked so pale. In the past forty-eight hours she had returned from exile and seen her sister shot and buried. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said, pulling out a chair and guiding Maria into it. ‘Let me get you something to drink - and I bet you haven’t eaten all day.’
Fotini was right. Maria had not eaten for over twenty-four hours, but she had no appetite now.
‘No, I’m fine. Really I am.’
Fotini was unconvinced. She put the list of things that needed to be done before the first evening customers arrived to the back of her mind. All of that could wait. Drawing up another chair, she sat down close to Maria and put her arm around her.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked tenderly. ‘Anything at all?’
It was the note of kindness in her voice that sent Maria shuddering into sobs, and through them Fotini could make out a few words that gave away the reason for her friend’s ever-deepening misery.
‘He’s gone . . . I couldn’t go . . . couldn’t leave my father.’
‘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.