Nicolai's Daughters (10 page)

“You can only see things the right way from train. Believe me, it beautiful. One day you see. Waterfalls, cliffs, everything.”

Christina flipped on the car radio and sang along. The lines on her face softened. She had a nice voice, Alexia thought. Dad liked to sing too, although he never knew I overheard him on those Sundays when I got up early and found him lying on the living room floor, listening to his Greek music.

An hour later they turned off the road and parked at the bottom of a long driveway that led to the Holy Mega Spileo monastery. Like a child leaning against its mother, the building with its many balconies seemed to be cradled within the arms of the mountain.

“This is oldest monastery in Greece. Built in front of special cave.” Christina picked up her jacket out of the back seat and thrust her arms through the sleeves. It was the same jacket she'd worn to the airport the day Alexia arrived. The dark skirt and blouse were also the same. She pulled the strap of her purse over her shoulder and wedged it high under her arm.

They walked up the steep driveway. Kids skipped past them, laughing and joking, school bags swinging from their backs. A lone teacher struggled to herd them.

“They don't understand the hardships others have had.”

“Kids should have fun,” Alexia said. “It's the only time you're not supposed to have worries and responsibilities.” Though when she thought about it, she couldn't remember a time when she was truly carefree, not even when she was in school.

“Yes, it is true. One day they learn that life doesn't stay the same. Look at this monastery. It burned four times and Germans in war killed all monks and others who work here and threw them over the cliffs.”

“What?” Alexia stopped. “Why?”

“We are a country that has been invaded many times. We have no reasons for why. Things happen and we manage.” Christina continued towards the entrance as if she hadn't noticed Alexia was no longer beside her.

Christina was certainly her father's sister, Alexia thought. Cheerful on the outside, defeatist on the inside.

Alexia hurried to catch up to her aunt. “But the monastery is still here.”

“Yes, people build again. We Greeks maybe not smart. But we stubborn.”

They entered the building and walked its empty corridors, looked out the prison-cell windows towards the valley beyond the road below. Puffy, low clouds stretched across the sky. The walls of the hallway were lined with black and white photos of what the monastery used to look like, and alongside these, portraits of former priests. Their solemn stares fixed on Alexia as if blaming her for their fate. She looked out a window. She focused on the bit of horizon she could see beyond the bars.

They walked out another door and stood in front of the cave. Water seeped from the rocks, forming a pool at their feet. Light trickled in from above them, giving the algae on the stone a bright green sheen.

“Look at him.” Christina pointed her head in the direction of an older man just ahead. He touched his companion's cheek and kissed her hand. The woman turned away as if annoyed. Neither took notice of Christina and Alexia.

The man grinned and for a few seconds, Alexia saw why the young woman beside him was attracted to him. The young woman grabbed at his beard so he was now looking only at her and moved them on.

Christina leaned into Alexia. “We call them
yoes.
Playboys, you say in English.”

“Dad was like that.”

“Nicolai is brother, husband, father,” Christina said. “He was not like this.”

“He liked young women and his fun.” Alexia crossed her arms. I like you, Christina, and you've been very good to me, but I can't help it, she thought. I lived with him. I know what he was like, what he really cared about. You have no idea. Wait until you hear about Theodora. Then you'll know.

“He had reason.”

“You mean excuses,” Alexia said.

Christina's jaw tightened. “How can you understand? You are so young.”

The mountains were the first thing Alexia noticed as they drove into Kalavryta. They hovered close around the tiny village, their snow-covered tips reminding her of Vancouver's north-shore mountains. She liked mountains. They made her feel comfortable most of the time even though they sometimes scared her, too. It was gorgeous here and so peaceful. This might be the place she could tell Christina about the package, maybe over lunch. After they'd taken in the sights. It might be the perfect time.

They parked the car near the railroad station. A train with two passenger cars stood in front, its paint chipped and faded, rust creeping up its flank, poppies growing underneath its undercarriage and around its iron wheels. “While they fix the tracks, they leave the train to fall apart,” Christina said. “I never understand.”

Christina and Alexia crossed the quiet main street and walked up a cobblestone path. Train tracks were painted onto the stone. Alexia wondered if the train had once come this way. Christina slipped her arm inside Alexia's. She pointed out the whitewashed houses, with their square wooden bay windows jutting forward. Alexia feigned interest and slid her arm out to take a closer look.

She knew Christina was trying to make this a special day for the two of them, but it just made her think back to the special days she used to have with her mother, “when Daddy isn't allowed to come and we can go anywhere you want. It's our time.” They'd held hands and giggled their way through museums, plays, Granville Island, restaurants, art galleries and the library. Later, Sara told Nicolai he wasn't allowed to ask them what they'd been doing because it was girls' stuff. She'd smiled when she'd said that and winked at Alexia.

After her mother died, her father had tried. She had to give him that. He had set aside some time each week just for the two of them, but they both got busy, him with his work, her with school. She didn't care. Why should she? He didn't.

“Revolution of 1821 started in this province,” Christina said, bringing Alexia out of her daydreams. “Independence from the Ottomans.” Christina puffed, out of breath.

“I'm afraid I don't know much about Greek history.”

“Your father teaches you. No?”

“Maybe he tried. I don't remember.” An image flashed in her mind of sitting beside her father at the kitchen table, books in front of them.

Her neck was stiff, had been since she woke up. Christina's feather pillows were lovely to look at, but not very comfortable.

“In 1943, the Germans burn the village and kill all men and all boys more than thirteen years,” Christina said calmly, as if sharing a bit of family history with a friend. “This building is museum now, it was school before, where Germans tried, but did not succeed to kill women and children too.”

“That's horrible,” Alexia said. “Why didn't someone stop them?”

“You are young,” Christina said. “You still believe you can make things better.”

Alexia touched Christina's forearm. “But you can.”

“I do not know this.”

The building looked more like a government office than a school or museum. Christina said it had been a concentration camp run by the Italians from 1941 to April 1943. “Better the Italians than the Germans.”

They entered the first large room. Laid out under glass was a child's notebook, the letters smeared and fading. Televisions and video equipment sat in various spots around the room, the murmur of voices echoed. They went over to the first television and listened to the testimonials of survivors. Alexia read the subtitles.
There was no escape.

“Your grandfather was here,” Christina said.

Alexia turned to face her. “And survived?”

“His mother refuse to let him go.”

I knew it, Alexia thought. It was possible to change the course of events if you really wanted to.

The next room had a high ceiling and tall bolted doors on one side. On the walls were black and white pictures, the faces of those who died the day of the massacre. A light would illuminate one picture, then switch to another. Christina crossed herself. Alexia closed her eyes. There was too much suffering in the strangers' stares. Too many young faces.

Christina stroked Alexia's arm. “That is your great-grandfather over there in the top corner. He died with the others that day.”

Alexia waited for the light to find her great-grandfather's face. She stared at the shadow of him, her neck aching with the strain of holding her head in one position. Her father had never told her about any of this.

When the light found him at last, Christina bowed her head in prayer. Alexia stared at the photograph in shock. It looked just like her father. It's not him, she told herself. You never even knew this man. Still, she had to look away. She swallowed hard, her hands together behind her back. Squeezed tight. Her neck throbbed.

The light moved on to another photo, another set of features, another pair of staring eyes. Had any of them known what was going to happen? Why couldn't they get away?

Behind the fenced grounds of the museum stood a life-sized sculpture. A life-like scene. Alexia moved closer, knotted her fingers through the mesh. Exposure to the elements had turned the sculpture green, but still the four bronze figures seemed so real. A dead man in a suit lay on a blanket, his eyes open to the sky. A woman tugged at the blanket where his body lay. A young boy no more than six pulled at her sleeve as if to persuade her to let go, leave the dead man behind. Another figure stood apart from the rest. A girl, slightly older than the boy, her arms limp by her sides.
There is no victory in war,
was scratched in various languages on the slab in front of the figures.

Alexia searched the girl's vacant gaze and tightened her grip on the fence. The bronze girl looked to be the same age she had been when her mother died.

Alexia was eight. A bright yellow glow crawled under her closed bedroom door and woke her. Her eyes were dry and itchy as she stood at the top of the stairs outside her room. She rubbed at them and focused. Her mother lay on a grey gurney downstairs, her soft and worry-free face vacant and pasty. Mavis tried to hold onto Alexia when she ran downstairs, but she'd ripped herself out of the embrace, reached for her mother's hand. She'd always had warm hands. This icy skin wasn't hers. Alexia drew back at first, then took Sara's hand and stroked it gently so as not to damage the delicate skin. She rubbed harder and still no warmth returned. Mavis tried to encourage Alexia away. Stuart was standing beside Nicolai, an arm around Nicolai's shoulders. Her father had said, “Leave her. It's okay.” Stuart nodded to Mavis, who stepped back. Alexia knew nothing was going to be okay again. Still she couldn't give up. Her eyes throbbed and her hands ached. Time passed and no one moved. Alexia kissed the cold hand, and let it drop.

Alexia ran past her father, past Stuart and Mavis, and past the two paramedics who stood, one with his head down and hands behind his back, the other with his pinkie in his mouth gnawing like an animal caught in a trap. Locking herself in the bathroom, she turned the lights out and lay on the floor in the dark, her own hands frozen, the smell of her mother's vomit still on the clean tiles and in the air. She shivered out of control, but she couldn't get off the floor.

Alexia couldn't think of this right now. Not now.

Christina put her arm around Alexia. “One day everything okay. The next all is wrong. The hands stop at 2:34 that afternoon, the moment the killing started.” Christina pointed to the clock at the corner of the tiny church in the square, then to the cypress-covered hill. “The big white cross at top of hill is for dead.” Christina crossed herself as all Alexia's relatives did when they passed a church, a cross, a holy place. “We don't like the Germans.”

“Things have changed since then.”

“People no change,” Christina said. “First the Germans tried to kill us all. Then we tried to kill each other because they left us to starve. Even now they try to cut the bread from our mouths. They say they are helping us with our debts. They are only helping themselves to the interest on the loans. And don't forget German companies did work in Greece and were paid for that work. And they sold their products here too. They are not doing this for us. They are doing it for themselves. And if we cannot pay anymore, they will take our land, which is what they want. They have new ways but it comes to the same thing. Our destruction.” She shook her head. “And we Greeks are no better. You saw the burn land before. Some of the farmers do not like the development, the new highway. They do not like that our prices cannot compete with the prices protected by other European countries. They burn their land rather than let the government take it. And they burn the land so not to sell their crops for nothing. Fires do not stay in one place. Other land burns.”

She walked ahead of Alexia into the church. Gold icons covered the dark walls. Even with the heat outside, this small space felt cool and clammy. Beads of moisture trickled down the walls. A few short rows of wooden chairs ran the length of the room. It would be difficult to fit fifty people in here. Candelabras squatted in a base of sand in each corner; the light of flickering candles warmed and lit the church. One old woman swept the floor and a few others knelt with their heads bowed over their clasped hands. Alexia listened to their murmured prayers. Christina prayed in the front row. Alexia sat in the back and watched, removed but curious about their demonstration of blind faith.

Christina walked over to a group of candles in one corner, lit seven and crossed herself after each one.

The sudden ring of a cell phone was amplified in the stone chapel. Alexia snatched her purse. The elderly women turned and stared. Alexia fumbled. The ringing continued. The woman cleaning dropped her broom and put her hands over her ears. Christina placed her index finger over her mouth and made a sign to switch it off. Alexia dumped the contents of her purse onto the chair, groped through the mess, but still couldn't find the phone. She sat on all her junk. The ringing finally stopped. The two old women stared at her, shook their heads and pointed to the crucifix at the front of the church. She mouthed the words,
I'm sorry,
but they turned away. One leaned into the other and whispered, and then glared back at Alexia as if to warn her she was being watched. She got up, stuffed everything back into her purse and made her way quickly out of the church.