The summer of secrets, p.4
The Summer of Secrets, page 4
‘Olivia, leave it, I’ll get the caretaker.’
‘It’s OK, I have it. I’ll just pull it to the edge. Gosh, it’s heavy. Come on, Granny Sofía, you’re going back to Castellorizo.’
CHAPTER 6
MARIA
Castellorizo, Greece, 1929
SOFIA’S EARLIEST MEMORY WAS THE day María married Mustafa. ‘Mamá, I think my sister is so beautiful they will make her the queen of everywhere!’ She clapped her hands and twirled in the dress Mamá had made for the occasion. Moments later, too dizzy, she plopped onto her bottom and cried, ‘Wheee!’
The wedding took place on María’s fifteenth birthday, as was the island’s custom. Mamá gazed upon her daughter in her bridal costume and dabbed her eyes. ‘Never have I seen such a wonderful sight,’ she whispered. ‘I want you to know that I have no worries about my daughter marrying a Turk. Mustafa comes from a good family in Kaş. It’s where my own family – your great-grandmother – came from too.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ María said.
Mamá nodded. ‘The carpet belt, where rugs have been woven by talented Greek women for many generations. Oh my, such craftmanship, such colours, such detail. When Megáli Yiayá came over, she brought her loom with her, but she’s too old to work it now.’
‘It seems a shame that it isn’t used, Mamá.’
‘But we’re too busy with the distillery. Perhaps when Sofía is older, I’ll teach her the basics. Turn around now, let me check you over before we lead the procession to the church.’ Mamá’s face sang with pride and love as she studied her precious daughter in the extravagant wedding clothes.
María turned, showing every part of the ornate Castellorizo costume. First, she had slipped into the long cotton shirt, held closed by the flamboyant silver brooches. The size and weight of these five ornate boúkles symbolised the family’s wealth. Over this, she wore a dazzling silk kaftan, open to the waist so that the brooches were on display. Then, knee-length baggy trousers bound low over the hips with a wide silk sash. Over all this, the great coat, made of heavy wine-coloured velvet, richly embroidered, with a lining and wide trim of mink. A pillbox hat, scarf and long-fringed lace shawl finished the outfit.
‘Oh, my child, you look so beautiful!’ Then Mamá cried with alarm. ‘Shoes! Where’re the shoes!’
‘They’re too small, Mamá, I’m afraid I’ll tear them.’
‘Never mind that, we’ll wet them, then they’ll stretch to fit. Hurry, Mimi is at the door with the mule. Babá and his brother must tie the dowry chest to its back. If they’re drunk already I’ll flay them alive!’ She turned to her youngest child. ‘Sofía, go and look outside and see if your father is there.’
Half an hour later, the bridal procession left the distillery house to a boisterous, four-gun salute, arranged by Uncle Kuríllos and executed by the somewhat tipsy local Italian garrison. All the soldiers were, of course, invited to the wedding. In fact, everyone on the island had an invitation. With great merriment, they lined the street from the distillery down to the magnificent church of Saint George on the harbour. Well wishes and applause rang out as the Konstantinidis family passed.
Leading the procession was Uncle Kuríllos playing his baglama, accompanied by Philipo on his Cretan three-stringed lyra and Ilias blowing his tsambouna, the goatskin bagpipe. They made a fine uproarious racket together. Behind the musicians, the best man led the mule decked out in white crocheted shawls and a string of multicoloured tassels over its eyes. Roped to its back was the magnificent dowry chest with the lid flung open and the delicate linens on display for the groom’s mother to inspect.
Behind the mule walked the bride and her parents and Sofía holding her mother’s hand. The two grandmothers, too proud to use a walking stick, followed with Simonos the fisherman. As the old women clung to his muscular arms, they shared a secret smile, remembering his grandfather. The mayor followed and then the townspeople in order of importance, with everyone else tagging on at the end.
They approached the church. Someone threw dynamite into the harbour sending a plume of water up with a frightful bang. Men and boys grinned, while women squealed and crossed themselves.
‘There, there, don’t worry,’ Simonos cried, throwing his arms around the two grandmothers and pulling them against his chest. ‘I’ll look after you. There’s no need to be afraid.’
The two grandmothers, with their faces pressed against his chest, looked as though they might die of pleasure.
Pomegranates were hurled to the floor, splitting open and shedding their seed. This would ensure a fruitful family with lots of children; and older women spat gently at the bride to ward off the devil.
All through this, the musicians kept up their playing and the guests continued to shout well wishes and congratulations. Then the church bells tolled. The mule was handed over to the groom’s mother, who headed the enormous and colourful Turkish family from across the strait. Every man wore a red fez with a long black tassel and the Turkish women wore beautiful silk scarves draped over their hair.
Silence fell as Mustafa’s mother inspected the needlework and, after a tense few seconds, she gave a hardly perceptible nod to Babá. Everyone smiled with relief and Babá, seeming half a metre taller, took his daughter’s hand and led her to Mustafa’s family. There, he placed María’s hand in that of Mustafa’s, giving her away.
The people of Castellorizo went crazy, shaking hands with each other and applauding the wedding party. Mamá spat three times on the church step, to warn the devil to stay away and then the entire island’s population tried to cram itself into the cathedral.
*
Usually, the bride would live with the groom’s family. Because the middle floor of the distillery house was built with María and her future husband in mind, Mustafa was happy to move over to Castellorizo and live with María’s family. Besides, already a competent sailor, the Turk was now learning the rudiments of trading and therefore would be away for months at a time.
Mustafa’s first child, a girl, was born on María’s sixteenth birthday.
‘What a wonderful gift you give me, María,’ Mustafa cried, utterly delighted. ‘I know she will be as beautiful as you.’
María, exhausted after thirteen hours of labour, smiled, grateful that it was over.
‘We shall call her Ayeleen. It’s a Turkish name meaning light around the moon.’
Mustafa loved his first baby and cradled her in his big arms whenever María would allow it. To celebrate her birth and him becoming a father, he asked Kuríllos to photograph him holding his daughter.
CHAPTER 7
OLIVIA
Brighton, England, present day
‘THERE’S SOMETHING VERY CHARMING, VERY HUMAN, about seeing a big man with a newborn in his arms, don’t you think, Uncle? Look at this photograph.’
After easing the picture off the page, I turn it over. ‘The writing’s not quite the same as before. The letters are smaller and I’m not even sure it’s the Greek alphabet.’ I touch the words with the tip of my finger. ‘I wonder if Mustafa himself wrote it. Would the baby be Ayeleen, do you think?’
I hand Uncle the picture of a huge, square-jawed young man with thick, dark hair holding a tiny naked baby. Together, Uncle and I have drawn up the family tree and with the aid of the ancient photo album, we put faces to names.
‘Yes, you are absolutely right. This is Mustafa and Ayeleen – look at the date, 1930,’ he says.
Mustafa wears a mix of east and west clothing: suit trousers with a few pleats to the waistband, a white button-fronted collarless shirt and a flamboyant, embroidered waistcoat. On his head is a fez with a long black tassel.
‘Are there any pictures of my grandfather, Jamie Peters? I never knew him, of course, but Granny Sofía had a wedding photograph in her bedroom. The silver was completely worn away from the sides of the frame, she had picked it up so many times through her long life.’ I smile, remembering how I wasn’t allowed to touch it. ‘Jamie was in his British uniform and Granny was in her traditional Castellorizo outfit. A great crowd stood on a quayside in front of a beautiful wooden galleon. I know he died a few years after the Second World War and dear Granny Sofía died in 2016. That’s the extent of my family history knowledge, Uncle. So, I only know the Granny Sofía I grew up with.’
Uncle holds another photograph and sighs. ‘By all accounts, it really was an unusual start to a relationship,’ he says. ‘Jamie was a British soldier whom your grandmother knocked unconscious when she whacked him over the head with a shovel.’
‘I doubt there’ll be a photo of the event, then?’ I say, intrigued.
He chuckles. ‘No, but luckily, it was a family tradition to write the provenance on the back of each picture, so we shall learn a lot from this album.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Look for yourself.’ He plucks another picture from the album and turns it over. ‘Date, place, people, it’s all written on the back.’
*
I’m confident now that through this ancient album my family history will be revealed. I am bound to discover what split the family, although I can’t imagine the secrets that divided my ancestors. I only know they must have been profound. Odd to think that all through my curious teenage years, the answers to my questions were just above my head in the attic.
Almost every afternoon for a month, I walk along Brighton’s promenade to see Uncle and listen to the stories behind another page of historical photographs. We carefully transfer each picture from the disintegrating album to the new one. Each episode adds to the excitement of our upcoming holiday.
‘Have you noticed that nobody smiles?’ I say. ‘I find them fascinating, Uncle – and look at the beautiful scalloped margins of cream. I’ve never seen photos like these before. They’re so special.’
‘Ah, you know in the early days, they had to keep very still for the exposure time. The later photographs were taken by Uncle Kuríllos on his instamatic. Mustafa bought him the Kodak not long after they came out. The big Turk was the most generous man I ever knew and he seemed to have a knack for knowing what gifts would really please people. The new-fangled camera was all the rage then and Kuríllos was the envy of the island. He loved it.’
Uncle lifts a few pages, then seems to change his mind and goes back to the beginning. ‘I had a little peek, before you came. Simply couldn’t resist, dear girl. This is a marvellous historical record of your ancestry. I’m impatient for you to know everything. As an ex-history teacher, one couldn’t want a more detailed visual account.’
‘Will you translate the writing on the backs, please?’ I study the Greek letters, written with a nibbed pen, that have faded to light brown. It seems so romantic to record the lives of people as they live them. I have a little notebook and number each photo, then record the translation as Uncle provides it. They start in 1925, according to the captions.
‘Look at these bi-winged sea planes and the majestic, tall-masted schooners in the small harbour.’ I blink at the postcard-size picture. ‘So many fishing boats and there’s a battleship to remind us that the photograph was only taken seven years after the end of the Great War. Just fascinating!’
‘They say Castellorizo was a rich and prosperous island in the days between the wars. However, I can’t imagine how they made money before tourism, especially as they say there were 9,000 people living there with no agriculture or industry – apart from the distillery, of course. Thanks to selective memories, facts are distorted, so this album is a superb record of the island.’
‘Look at this photo – is it a baptism?’ A naked baby girl held by a finely regaled priest. ‘It’s dated 1926 but what else does it say, Uncle?’
‘You’re right about the baptism, it’s Sofía’s. Here’s another photo of the same harbour, also 1926. Look at the ruined houses and this one showing a hundred or more white conical tents. They say the Italian soldiers put them up the day after the earthquake. But again, this was before I was born.’
‘So the earthquake occurred on the very day Sofía was born?’
Uncle nods. ‘By all accounts, it destroyed almost every house on the island. The army brought the tents from Rhodes – look . . .’ He points to another photo. ‘María described it to me when I was a child. As a youngster, they say María was one for the drama and I believe she started this album.’
‘María? Your oldest sister?’
‘Exactly, she was only eleven when it happened.’ He snorts, staring at the picture. ‘María had more children than anyone I’ve ever known. Sixteen, all together.’
‘You’re kidding! Sixteen children? How come I don’t know anything about María? What happened to her family?’ He’s silent, staring through me, lost in the past. I let him dream for a minute, wondering what’s going on in his mind, then I bring him back to now. ‘Uncle? Granny Sofía would never talk about her past, or the family history. She kept it all a big secret. I don’t know about María.’
He closes his eyes and makes a slight nod. ‘Ah, now that’s a story and a half. I’ll tell you about it when we’re in Castellorizo, but you must know it’s a tale that spans over ninety years. The point is, it’s all here in the photographs – well, most of it, anyway.’
‘Why wouldn’t Granny Sofía or Mummy tell me?’
He sighs. ‘Love, shame, hurt and heartbreak. That just about covers it.’
After a silent moment, he pulls out a big white handkerchief and blows his nose.
*
When the mood takes Uncle, he speaks about his little Greek island with great urgency, as if a time-bomb fuse hisses and sizzles towards an explosion. I do some research on Google and discover that although 9,000 people once lived on the tiny island, today, most people have never heard of the place. I get the impression that’s how many Castellorizons would like to keep it. A few tourists go there, but once they return home at the end of October, most of the locals leave too.
‘Where do they go for the winter?’ I ask Uncle.
‘The second, third and fourth generation Castellorizons return to Australia for their summer. I believe less than a hundred locals stay on the island all year, these days. Most go to the larger island of Rhodes and enjoy the comforts of a more cosmopolitan existence and a livelier Christmas and New Year. But even Rhodes is only a small place. To put it into perspective, although Rhodes is the fifth largest Greek island, the whole island has less than half the population of Brighton.’
‘Will you tell me why you left?’
‘Castellorizo?’ I nod. ‘Nobody leaves Castellorizo,’ he says. ‘They go away for a while. They take a ferry or plane to somewhere else, sometimes for many years, sometimes to the other side of the world. However, their spirit stays behind, sitting at the edge of the harbour staring at the turquoise water waiting for their return. In those four-in-the-morning moments, when you realise you’re awake but don’t know why, that’s when a person’s mind goes back to Castellorizo, gazes over the iridescent sea and reunites with its soul for a while.’
‘How romantic. But I don’t understand. Do all those who left feel the same? Are they all longing to return to their motherland? And when you talk about Castellorizo, I sense there’s a wound – some terrible secret – but am I mistaken? Am I just being melodramatic?’
He stares at the floor, slides his hand across his mouth and shakes his head. ‘You’re right, but I can’t talk about it, not yet. I don’t know if I will ever be able to say what happened. If only I could . . . purge myself of the whole event, then perhaps I could find my own peace.’
His voice resonates with deep sadness, as if trapped by some terrible event of the past. My heart breaks for him. I wonder if Sofía also had this great sadness inside her. Suddenly, I realise how little I know about other people; even my own mother, or my husband. I miss Andrew now the anger has subsided, but catching him out made me realise I didn’t really know him either.
Uncle sighs deeply again, breaking my thoughts. ‘Anyway, it’s no good me telling you anything until you’ve seen the island for yourself, tasted its food, eaten its cake, smelled its perfume and met its people. If I try to describe the beauty and tragedy of Castellorizo or relate its terrible history or explain why its uniqueness must be saved, you’ll just think I’m a sentimental old fool and say, How could all that happen to an island of less than five square miles? I mean – what’s that in your modern measurements?’
‘Eleven or twelve square kilometres?’
‘Exactly. There are things connected to that lump of rock that even I find hard to believe and, don’t forget, I was there.’
‘Can’t you tell me anything?’ I glance into his eyes and see they are tear-drenched and dangerously close to spilling over. I have to stop questioning him. He lifts a hand, spreads it over his face and stands perfectly still for a moment. I wonder what visions or memories he is trying to block.
‘I found such love there. The kind of love that perhaps only touches one in a million. We were united in everything.’ He flaps his hand, as if to shoo the memories or the subject away.
After a moment, he lowers his hand and smiles, his eyes sparkling, distant, then he comes back to now. ‘All right,’ he says softly. ‘I can see you’re not going to give up. I’ll share a few facts with you.’ He sighs. History is still the love of his life and Uncle is clearly in his element talking about it. ‘Today, it’s estimated that over 50,000 Australians claim some familial link to Castellorizo.’
‘Fifty thousand people, from five square miles – you’re kidding me.’ I laugh at the ludicrous idea, but see his eyes narrow and know he is serious.
‘In its heyday, Castellorizo supported almost 10,000 Greeks.’
