2

The church had once been a Protestant prayer house and still retained its old austerity and coldness. As before, and in defiance of orthodox custom, the nave was filled with benches, and they were crowded; the men perspiring in their dark suits and the women fanning themselves discreetly. The iconostasis was placed like a screen, each icon in its narrow arch, in front and on both sides of where the altar used to stand.

Yannis had insisted on marrying in this depressing church, rather than in the cathedral or in one of nearly a dozen other churches which he could have chosen. He would have preferred not to have any service, but then Anna would have regarded herself as living in sin. Elena was providing the maids of honour and Alexis was his sponsor. Maria was pleased because it was Father Spyridon’s church and the nearest to their house.

The two brothers had arrived first. They were sitting outside in Alexis’ car and Alex was passing remarks on the women standing on the porch. Occasionally a man would come over and exchange a few words. Yannis was in a morose mood and full of self-doubt. He had not been inside a church for over three years and he was afraid that he would make a fool of himself. He had got up at five o’clock and chain-smoked ever since; now it was nearly three and his mouth was dry and his gums were hurting. There was still the party to get through. In vain he tried to cheer himself by thinking of the cold beer.

‘Here they come,’ Alexis called out at last. The men alighted and entered the vestibule. As Yannis went in, a woman whose face he only vaguely remembered, whispered: ‘Don’t look so angry. You’ll scare her …’ Yannis scowled but then, taking in her meaning, controlled himself and smiled.

Now Anna was coming up to take her place beside him. Her wedding dress, which Elena had altered, fitted closely and made her figure appear fuller. Yannis drew in his breath. This stranger, this serious-faced girl, was his bride! The fresh blossom in her hair smelled strongly. He could sense her confusion and urgently searched his mind for a reassuring word, but he could not find one. Then his brother took his right hand and put it into Anna’s. ‘Forward,’ Alexis said. ‘Now!’

The priest met them a few steps down the aisle and held up the bible. Yannis, who had braced himself in advance, kissed it and felt the coolness of the silver buckle. A prayer was intoned and, awkwardly leading Anna, he followed Father Spyridon to the catholicon. The talking ceased and there was only the rustling of her dress and the voice of the deacon speaking to someone behind the doorway to the sacristy.

The double crowns were lying on the Table, and although he had bought them himself, Yannis looked at them and their long ribbons as if for the first time. A small flower girl was fidgeting with a candle which had been placed in her hand, while her mother was arranging her sash. He stared at her fixedly from under his bushy brows. Now a candle in a paper holder was placed in his own hand and lit from another which the priest took from the Table. Yannis glanced furtively at the blue and gold icons. He recognised the man with the cross as the Apostle Andreas. The Last Supper was over the middle archway and above it the unblinking, all-seeing eye. The deacon was coming out, carrying a bottle of wine and a cup. Later he and Anna would drink from it. He wondered whether she had gone for absolution the previous night and what sins she could have confessed.

The Reader in his plain cassock, disinterestedly looking at the people in the first few rows, was clearing his throat. He was an untidy young man with a black chin and uncut hair that was shedding dandruff. His eyes came to rest on the familiar figure of old Mrs Joannides. He closed them and, deep from his chest, began to intone the Kyrie Eleison.

Pure and strong, a sigh from the very depths of the soul, his voice filled the church. Involuntarily Yannis felt himself shiver. He stared with amazement at the youth who could produce such an effect, and from him to Anna. She looked deadly pale.

Father Spyridon launched himself into the service, chanting the invocations not as he did at most weddings, in a bored way, but as if he were anxious to impress every word for ever on the memory of the congregation. ‘Eternal God who joineth them that were separate, and hast ordained for them an indissoluble union in love …’ Yannis heard his own name and Anna’s linked with the names of Isaac and Rebecca. ‘Thy servants, Yannis and Anna. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

In times of stress Yannis was in the habit of fastening his mind not on his immediate surroundings but on something far away, unimportant, a remembered conversation or the cover of the exercise book in which he kept his accounts. He tried now. The face of the priest kept intruding, ruddy yet surprisingly smooth. His beard was short and well-trimmed, and streaked with grey. Every few minutes Father Spyridon looked up, but always at Anna, never at him. ‘He’s sorry for her,’ Yannis thought, ‘He pities her. Yes, he is pitying her.’ And the thought made a bond between him and the priest.

The ritual of the rings brought him out of his reverie. The priest took them from the Table, blessed them, and after placing the larger one on Anna’s finger, and the smaller one on the tip of Yannis’, and having declared them betrothed, asked them to make the exchange. To his question whether they freely wished to be man and wife, they answered clearly. But when, almost immediately after, Father Spyridon proclaimed that the Lord had created Eve from Adam’s rib, Yannis who had forgotten this part, felt an all but irresistible urge to make a face at him. ‘This is a great mystery,’ the priest boomed in his ringing bass.

To Anna, the prayers and the priest’s silver-encrusted vestment, the incense, the goblet on the Table and the light before the picture of the Virgin, were in truth mysterious. With the words: ‘And the twain shall be one flesh,’ all the fears and forebodings of the last weeks lifted. As she put her ring on Yannis’ finger she felt the touch of his hand and knew suddenly that she was not too weak for him and that he needed her. The priest picked up her crown and placed it on her head. Elena was stepping forward to adjust it, while his brother did the same with Yannis’ crown. Then the crowns were exchanged, a first and a second and a third time, and the long white ribbons dangling from them over their shoulders were lightly tied together. The responses of the Reader still rose and fell evenly as he turned the pages of the liturgy. Father Spyridon enjoined wives to be obedient, and they drank the wine.

Then they began the circling of the Table. Three times they went round in procession from right to left, while the congregation sang joyfully, ‘Go to dance, Isaiah.’ The two principal maids of honour were holding Anna’s train but she was mindful only of the crown which Elena, walking close behind, kept from slipping to one side. She was not free to help, for her left hand was firmly held by the priest and the candle was in her right. The procession seemed to go on for far too long and each time she rounded the Table to face into the nave she opened her eyes wide and saw a blur of happy, encouraging faces and the tall, erect figure of Yannis’ mother.

Despite the heavy incense, the headache she had got up with and which had lasted through the morning, had gone. She could feel the attention of every man and woman on herself. Not until Yannis kissed her full on the lips for the very first time, and it was her duty to kiss him in return, did she falter. In that second, raising herself towards him, she was fleetingly aware that something was amiss, that something was not as it should be, but whatever it was it had nothing to do with him and could not be his fault. A drop of wax had stained his sleeve; she would have to remember to tell him about it. Just then a flash-bulb seemed to explode right in her face. She blinked, thinking, ‘All this is for me; for me alone.’ Somebody—was it the priest?—had taken the candle from her and the crown had been removed.

‘What’s there to cry about?’ Alexis said into her ear. ‘He’s not going to eat you.’

She did not know that she had been crying ever since the exchange of the rings and now, fumbling for a handkerchief and not finding one until Elena gave her hers, she hoped that Yannis would take no notice, for she did not want him to think that she was not happy. But he was busy shaking hands and accepting congratulations. The priest had stepped aside and was looking on like a satisfied old man who had just done a good day’s work for his favourite grandchildren. The deacon was hovering in the background with hopes for a present later on. The Reader’s round lips were still pursed as if in song. He expected to be at the wedding party and perhaps to sing some secular airs, but he was afraid that the two other weddings which were to take place before the end of the afternoon might make him late.

Spattered with rose petals and confetti, Yannis and his bride were driven away in the hire car in which Anna had arrived. He felt too worn out to contemplate with pleasure what still lay ahead. As they rounded the Eight Hour Day Memorial he roused himself sufficiently to point it out and say that on a clear day, from the roof of the Trades Hall across the road, one could see the class struggle. It was a joke of which he was particularly fond. Anna smiled, but he felt that she did not understand what he was talking about. This plunged him once more into gloom.

At half past one in the morning they brought her to her husband’s house. Elena was with her to prepare her for the night but Yannis had not yet come: Elena said that his friends were still trying to sober him up under the shower.

The shop lay in darkness but the lights were on in the small flat above. Yannis had filled the bedroom with flowers; purple jacaranda blossoms to remind her of her village in spring. After her nights under Alexis’ roof Yannis’ house seemed poor. The wallpaper in the bedroom was faded, the linoleum needed patching and everything was old except the wide double bed and the green silk bedspread. On the long wall was an enlargement of the photograph of herself that had been taken on the ship the day of her arrival.

Elena took the stephana, the wedding crowns, from their plastic box, shaped like two intertwined hearts, and hung them over the bed where they would remain all through their married life. Yannis had driven in the nails before he left for the church. At home in Cyprus the groom’s friends would have taken her in procession to his house, with jests and singing. She was tired and dispirited and longing for the night to be over.

In the bathroom Elena was fussing with the gas heater, grumbling that Yannis had not kept his promise to replace the leaking tin bath. She was annoyed because he had refused to take Anna away for a honeymoon or go to an hotel for the wedding night. The water was running in slowly. She had left the door to the bathroom ajar to let the steam escape, for the window did not open. When she returned Anna had begun to undress. Elena kicked her shoes off and, yawning, sat down at the foot of the bed. The sheets had already been turned back.

‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘No inspection of the sheets. No conclave of old women in the morning to see if there’s blood. We’re improving. For God’s sake, be patient and don’t hope for too much. I expect he’s become frightened and run away, your Yannaki …’

Anna interrupted her with a startled cry. ‘Elena! I’ve lost the cross! I must have dropped it during the party or in the church. Oh, what will happen to me?’

‘Nothing,’ Elena said. ‘Somebody must have found it. Everything will be all right.’

‘We must look for it in the morning,’ Anna said dejectedly.

‘Don’t let him see you’re superstitious, Annoula. Have your bath and don’t worry. I’ve put some rose water in it. And there’s a new dressing-gown for you on the hook behind the door.’

Having scrubbed herself vigorously, Anna lay back in the bath and tried to empty her mind of fears. Her thoughts returned to the party, but it was all a blur; she could hardly remember the faces of any of the guests. Half the community had turned up, invited and uninvited, grown-ups and children. There seemed to have been three kinds of people: Alexis’ cronies and hangers-on who had showered her with gifts and compliments; Yannis’ club friends and their wives—many sportsmen too, for he was a football enthusiast—and a sprinkling of Australians who liked keeping company with Greeks. One couple had been treated with special deference—Professor Barwing, from the University, and his wife, a tall, handsome and reserved woman. Barwing had made a short oration in Katharevousa, the educated Greek of scholars, which she could not understand. Mrs Barwing, who also spoke Greek, had been very considerate. She had once lived a few months in Limassol.

Her brother-in-law had provided everything. Wine had been specially brought from Cyprus. She had danced the Galamantianos with Yannis for half an hour without stopping, and the guests had pinned notes to her wedding dress as she danced; nearly one hundred and eighty pounds when it was counted. Professor Barwing had given ten pounds. Yannis had looked uncomfortable in his dark suit; he was not a good dancer. Even so they had made him dance the Protos and the Defteros until he dropped his handkerchief, and he had managed to hold his own in the improvising of humorous rhymes.

But she had lost her cross. It had come to her from her grandmother, a woman like old Maria. Maria Joannides had sat through the feasting and the speeches surrounded by other old women, who told her all that went on. In the end she had stood by the door, a blind sentinel, to hand to the departing guests their small net bags of sugared almonds.

A provocative honking below announced Yannis’ arrival. Now he was coming up the stairs, alone. He was saying something to Elena and Elena was calling out ‘goodnight’. Then the door fell shut and she was laughing with somebody in the street. A car started up. Anna heard Yannis moving a chair and whistling to himself. Panic seized her: she had left her nightdress in the bedroom. Could one get into bed naked before one’s husband? Did one have to wear a nightdress at all on such a night? But yes, otherwise why should every girl buy a new one? Yannis would tell her what to do.

‘Anna?’ He was calling for her.

When at last she came in he was sitting on the bed in his underpants, rubbing his chest. His fringe of hair was still moist from the shower his friends had made him take, and he had brought with him the odour of wine.

‘Look,’ he said. He had placed two large pears on the small table by the bed.

Anna looked at the pears and from the pears to this stranger. She did not know what to say to him. Holding her dressing-gown close, she waited.

‘Ah,’ he said, and sniffed. ‘You smell nice.’ And after a little: ‘Well … Well, Annoula? A good party?’

She nodded.

He stretched himself and suddenly rose to switch the light off. Anna quickly got into bed. As he stood there by the switch, not moving for a moment, she wondered what he was thinking. He was thinking of what Alexis had told him: on no account to wait, but to take her the first night. He did not want to, but Alex knew. He had said that she expected it of him.

But he could not take her. The wine had made him dull and clumsy, and she did not know how to help him. At last when, tired and upset, she began to shiver uncontrollably, he left her alone. Soon after he dropped off. She cried a little and fell asleep at his side.

Yannis woke early, as was his habit. His first thought was that it was Monday and the day of a big market. Light was just coming into the room. He turned over and looked at Anna. The sheet had fallen back and for the first time he saw her as she really was. Her cheek was resting on her extended arm and her slightly retrousséd lips were parted. She was breathing evenly. She looked very young; her face was flushed and a tiny drop of saliva had formed in the corner of her mouth. As he drew the sheet further down she opened her eyes and he bent over and kissed her tenderly.

‘Moro mou,’ he said. ‘My child. Good morning.’

Her eyes looked into his.

‘Good morning,’ he repeated.

‘Agapimeni mou … my darling.’ She put her arms round him and drew him to her breast. The scent of rose water still clung to her.

‘I’ve lost my little cross,’ she whispered.

‘Your cross? What cross? Do you know that I love you?’

‘And I love you too.’

Gratitude and desire filled his mind and body. With a groan he sought her compassion, and she gave herself to him.