LYDIA’S LETTERS 

CHAPTER ONE

Island of Pringipos, Sea of Marmara

10th October 1909

Darling Dimitri,

Forty days have passed. Forty long days and forty endless nights. Only I know how long each day has been. Today, during your memorial service, I felt numb. I kept pinching the top of my hand for some reaction; but could feel nothing. Anna brought me food and drink – coffee, brandy and kolyva – but I did not want to eat. She hovered over me, looking into my face, studying it for something, anything. I could see the concern in her big violet eyes. She placed her hand on my shoulder. She alone was not frightened of talking to me. Everyone else – our other children, my mother, Magdalini – gave me half-smiles and kept their distance, all trying to act as if nothing had happened.

‘Mama, you must eat,’ Anna kept saying. But I could not eat or drink anything. I could only look at her in silence. I was not present in my body, sitting round a table of black-clad people. My mind went to our beach here on the island, where we’d go before the children were born. Only you were no longer there with me.

I’ve cried so much these last forty days, Dimitri. I am so lonely. And so angry, so very angry with you. It hurts. It only seems like yesterday, or maybe even a week ago, that we lay together on our beach, the sand sticking to our bodies, the cliffs above guarding us. It means nothing knowing that years have passed, whole decades since we went there. I can still feel your hot breath on my skin, your body deep within mine, your hands on my breasts – hurried, burning, hungry – as if you were touching me now.

But we’re not on the beach. And you’re buried deep in the ground.

I can no longer touch you, watch you as you sweep your hair off your face, feel your arms wrap around me like a second layer of skin. How am I to live with your absence? Can you tell me that, Dimitri? How can I bear to get up in the morning, knowing that I can’t talk to you, cannot even see you smile?

All I have is the letter, posted from Constantinople, the day after you left the island. One letter. It’s still sealed. Reading it would mean accepting you will never come back, it would be final. And I haven’t the courage to let you go yet.

I cannot even begin to imagine what was going through your mind when you jumped off that train. Did you think of me? Or did the memory of your brother’s body torment you? I don’t know if your heart pounded, if you really meant to carry this through, or if you just got dizzy, lost your balance and fell. All I know is the huge hole you’ve left behind. And how lonely I feel.

The week-long wait, before I got the telegram informing me of your death, nearly killed me. They couldn’t identify you, didn’t know who to inform. I paced the house. Sleep deserted me. Our children tried putting food into my mouth, but I dismissed everything. I could sense something was wrong. I almost smelt it.

The day after I’d seen your body, your letter arrived. The sight of you, lying on that metallic bed, your face unrecognisable, half of it beaten out of shape and bruised, was indescribable. I cannot get that image out of my mind. How can I go on as if nothing has happened? Everyone tells me that time will heal this nightmare; but I know it won’t. I’m buried with the dead. My heart is by your side. I am travelling with you on that fateful train, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to stop you from jumping off. This sorrow will never end, never heal. All I can do is run through events over and over again. It’s the only thing that keeps me going, keeps me sane.

I should have paid attention to that dream and should not have dismissed it. I should have heeded its warning. Oh, how it scared me! Ay Yorgis did not appear to me for nothing, I know that now, but there’s nothing I can do to change it.

My brother came to your funeral, but I would not look at him. How could I? When I see him, I think of you and Nikos, and all I want to do is send him into the grave with you and your brother. I hurt when I think of him. I still love him, but I cannot forgive him. I cannot forgive what he did to you and Nikos. You would have been given a proper sermon. Your bodies would have rested in the church, the priest giving you your final absolution. But instead, you were both buried without any fuss, no priest to bless your journey to God’s side. And for that I blame Yannis. His insistence on change pushed you and Nikos to make mistakes that could have been avoided. I could forgive him other things, but never this.

It’s all so harrowing, so unfathomable, that I let my mind wander to the past. It’s easier that way, less painful. It helps me forget the anger that’s lodged in my body, burning my throat, my insides, my mind.

I catch myself thinking back to the time when we first met, at the Hatzis’ party. You were the most attractive man there, with your wavy chin-length hair the colour of roasted chestnuts, and such broad shoulders, but I wouldn’t dare look at you for too long lest my mother catch me staring and take me away. I longed for you to notice me so much that my corset dug into my ribs and I could hardly breathe. My body tilted forwards and I kept thinking I’d lose my balance but I didn’t care. That New Year’s Eve party was a wish come true. Twenty-eight years ago, although it doesn’t feel that long now.

Maybe I should tell the children our story, maybe that would help them understand the tragedy that hit us all, maybe it would help me get over the pain. But I do not want to talk. No one can ever understand what we shared.

So, I have made a decision. A month to the day after your body was buried in the ground I have made this promise to myself . . . I will never speak again.

What’s the point of talking if I cannot talk to you?

CHAPTER TWO

Island of Pringipos, August 1912

Anna found her mother in her bedroom, sitting in her usual place, a slim silhouette in front of the window, curtains pulled to the side, writing away. All she had done these last three years had been to sit and write, endless hours of scribbling on loose sheets of paper, crinkly and eaten at the edges by the salty sea air. Her hand had curled into a fixed shape. Even when she was not bent over her desk, her ink-blotched thumb and fingers seemed to be holding a pen, right hand twitching, unable to stop writing on imaginary paper. 

Anna touched her curved back.

‘Good morning, Mama. Did you sleep well?’ She bent down, placed a kiss on Lydia’s forehead. 

Lydia stopped writing, covered the sheet with her arm and stared through the window. Anna followed her gaze, looked out at the calm sea, heard a group of passers-by laughing as they walked along the quay. It was the same quay she had known all her life, but the view was different from here. No longer so close to the town centre, the scene was not as exciting as it had been from her father’s hotel – there she could see the Aleppo pine trees crookedly lined up on the quayside, the never-ending parade of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen passing below its windows. 

From this window she could still see the sea although it was further back from the water, beyond a little square dotted with park benches and a swing. The landscape was unmarred by trees or quayside buildings. But she could no longer hear the waves licking the quay’s support beams when she fell asleep, or the water’s froth, making sucking sounds under the wood. This view was removed from the hustle and noise of the pier, separated from the life that gushed forth from the boats that came to the island daily. It wasn’t that it was a bad view; far from it, it was serene and uncluttered, soothing in its uneventfulness. It was simply different from the scenery she had grown up with, less immediate and familiar. 

Anna picked up a wooden chair from the other side of the room, placed it next to Lydia and sat down. ‘It’s the end of August, this dreadful heat should have eased up by now,’ she said. ‘It makes me sticky and itchy all over, and my feet feel twice their size.’

Shouting from the kitchen penetrated the room. 

‘Oh no,’ Anna said. ‘Yiayia and Magdalini are fighting again. Anyone would think they’re no older than five!’ She got up. ‘I’ll check on them, then I’ll come back.’ 

Her mother nodded.

She had hardly made it to the kitchen when the women’s voices reached an unparalleled pitch. Anna stopped in her tracks. This time the shouting sounded ugly, almost demented. What were the old women arguing about?

‘Yiayia?’ Anna cried, craning her head around the door, alarm in her voice.   

Her grandmother’s arms were in front of her eyes in order to avoid being hit by the ladle that Magdalini was shaking above her head. Anna rushed to the cook’s side.

‘Magdalini? What are you doing? What’s going on here?’

Neither woman spoke.

‘Yiayia?’ Anna asked once more. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, yes, Anna, I’m fine,’ her grandmother said, her voice shaky. ‘I was just telling this old goat that she should throw her cooking out for the hens to eat, that’s all.’

The aged cook, Magdalini, huffed.

‘Well, honestly! You call that cooking? Huh!’ Kyria Antigone continued. ‘You know what you can do with your precious Youvarlakia Avgolemono?’ she yelled at the cook. ‘They’re more like donkey’s testicles than rice meatballs! Ha! And look at the egg-lemon sauce. Curdled. Looks more like vomit! You don’t know how to cook Youvarlakia, Magdalini!’

‘Why? Are yours any better? I spit on your Youvarlakia!’ Magdalini cried, as she swept her right arm dismissively above her head.

‘Aaah! Be quiet, pathetic woman!’

Anna shook her head at her grandmother and moved towards the old cook. She prised the ladle out of her hand, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry with them both. 

‘You two are terrible. Worse than children! I thought I was the only young person here!’ 

‘Tell her, Anna,’ Kyria Antigone pleaded. ‘Go on, tell her that her Youvarlakia look like something only the devil would eat. I mean, look at those meatballs. Just look at them! Would you eat something like that?’

Anna eyed her grandmother, but the old woman averted her gaze. ‘The Youvarlakia look just fine, Yiayia. And I bet they’ll taste better now that the two of you have argued over them.’ 

She walked to her grandmother and kissed her on the cheek. Then she went to the cook and gave her a kiss, too.

‘See?’ the cook said. ‘I told you they’re perfectly fine, you stubborn camel!’

‘Ah, she always takes your side! But I don’t know why. I’m her grandmother, after all!’

‘Come on, tell me,’ Anna said, looking from one woman to the other. ‘What were you really arguing about?’

‘Nothing, nothing, tzieri mou,’ Kyria Antigone said, a little too eagerly, throwing furtive glances at the cook. ‘Isn’t that right, Magdalini?’ 

‘Yes, yes, nothing.’ 

Anna could tell it wasn’t the truth but she knew she wouldn’t get another word out of either of them.

‘I’ll be in Mama’s bedroom if you need me.’ Anna hesitated for a second, then left the kitchen, shaking her head.

‘Would you like me to rub your hands?’ Anna asked her mother when she returned to her room. ‘I’m sure you’ve been writing since dawn. Your fingers must be stiff.’ 

Anna caught a glimpse of what Lydia had been writing: If only I could find out what really happened, make this burning cease. She extended her arm towards Lydia’s, but her mother pulled it away, avoided her touch. A lump gathered in Anna’s throat, and she tensed. 

Sighing, she turned to leave, but just before she reached the door she swung round and faced her mother, her voice trapped in her throat.

‘I wish you’d speak to me, Mama. It’s me. Your daughter. Stop pushing me away! What have I done to you to be treated like this? I haven’t heard your voice in three years, not even a word since I was fifteen! Three years! I need you, Mama, I—’ she didn’t finish her sentence, and ran out of Lydia’s room unable to stop herself from crying. Anna knew she had to be strong, responsible, but she wished it weren’t so. More than keeping the peace or even running the house, she wanted her mother back. Nothing else mattered.