16

The day after her quarrel with Elena, Maria looked on the face of death. It happened in her own room, in that darkness which was most kind to her.

She had woken very early and dressed as usual. She had a prejudice against radiators and preferred to keep herself warm by putting on her coat, even though she knew that Elena disliked her wandering about the house dressed for the street. She made her way to the kitchen and prepared herself some coffee.

Coming upstairs again, she felt so tired that she fell to wondering whether she had not got up too soon and it was still night. There was a way of making sure. In her room she kept a clock without glass. She touched the hands. It was six. The dawn chorus was just beginning.

She was pleased that Yannis had finally asserted himself. She knew him well enough to foresee that he would now show himself even less often than before. That did not matter, as long as nobody came between her and Anna. Anna … there must be some way of sending her a reminder of her love. But even had she not been blind she could not have written, because she was illiterate. To phone she needed the help of the maid, who was Elena’s spy. She could only wait. She went to the icon corner, knelt down to pray and crossed herself.

Then the terrible pain struck. She tried to raise her hands to her breast whence it came, but it shot down her left arm and she dared not move, certain that the slightest motion, the first breath she drew, would kill her. She was suffocating. Incapable of thinking or of praying, she remained stock-still on the floor with half-uplifted arms. At last she inhaled; there was a cutting agony and she sank forward on her face. The attack lasted for ten minutes and she did not lose consciousness for a single second.

Two hours later, when she had not rung her bell, Elena went up and found her lying on the bed, fully dressed and shivering in her coat. The blinds were drawn as they always were, day and night, because Maria was afraid that sooner or later she would forget to pull them down when she was undressing. ‘Don’t alarm yourself,’ Maria said, ‘I was ill in the night but I am better now. It will pass.’

Elena did not tell Alexis what she suspected. He was not willing to send her to a hospital and she did not want a nurse in the house. She nursed her herself for three days, fed her and attended to all her needs. She washed the thin, tough body, brought and removed the pans, fed her and regulated the radio. On the fourth day old Mrs Joannides insisted on leaving her bed. Soon she was again negotiating the stairs, a little more slowly than formerly. Father Spyridon came to the house and remained closeted with her for a long time.

In August, shortly after Yannis’ defeat at his brother’s hands, Maria sent an insistent demand to Anna that she wanted to be taken to church.

When she arrived the old woman embraced her and touched her eyes, cheeks and lips with cold fingers. ‘You are well, I see. Quite blooming. And not angry with me any more?’

‘Never,’ Anna said, hugging her tightly, shocked by the change she saw.

‘Fine. All pain passes, only love remains.’

‘Since from the descent of the presence of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the unwearied and benevolent and mighty Teacher and Physician, I beheld and saw the ineffable and holy and unspotted mystery of the Christians who hold the Hope in holiness, and who have been sealed, and since I have zealously served Him, I have deemed it necessary to give an account of the mysteries which I have heard and seen.’

The old woman nudged her. ‘Listen, child …’

‘… And when it came to pass that they finished teaching in Antioch, on the first day of the week they took counsel together, to set out for the places of the East, and after that to go into Cyprus, and oversee all the churches in which they had spoken the word of God. And Barnabas entreated Peter to go first to Cyprus, and oversee his own in his village, and Lucius entreated him to take the oversight of his city, Cyrene …’

Anna looked at the cherry-moist lips of Father Spyridon, and his small even teeth, white as the keys of a new piano. She could never think of him, as Yannis could, as an ordinary man, fond of fish and politics. He was not like the priests she knew of old, but he was a priest, holy and mysterious. She had confessed her sins to him and he, standing before the doors of the Sanctuary, had covered her with his stole, symbolic of the divine arms. He pronounced his words like poetry, like the actors in the play. It was the same language, so sonorous and caressing. Mixed with the all-pervasive smell of incense was a smell of camphor and floor polish. She felt a faint nausea and would have liked to sit down.

He was reciting from the Acts of Barnabas, her father’s patron saint.

‘And having crossed the mountain called Chionodes—that was Olympus in Troödos where her brother worked—we came to old Paphos and there found Rhodon, a temple servant, who also, having himself believed, accompanied us. And we met a certain Jew, by name Barjesus, coming from Paphos, who also recognised Barnabas as having been formerly with Peter. He did not wish us to go into Paphos, but having turned away we came to Curium. (Poor though she was then, she had been to both places. By Curium were mulberry and lemon groves.) And we found that a certain abominable race was being performed in the road near the city, where a multitude of men and women naked were performing the race. And Barnabas, turning, rebuked it; and the western part fell, so that many were wounded, and many of them also died, and the rest fled to the temple of Apollo, which was close at hand in the city which was called sacred.’

Father Spyridon read the Acts to the end. ‘And the Jews … took Barnabas by night, and bound him with a rope by the neck, and having dragged him to the hippodrome from the synagogue, and having gone out of the city, standing round him, they burned him with fire, so that even his bones become dust.’

Later he preached about the miracle and the martyrdom. She was listening more into herself than to him, until he came back to what befell at Paphos, the place of sin, where the heathens had worshipped Aphrodite, the idol of depravity called love, she whom the pagan artists depicted as rising from the sea. It was she whom the naked multitude had honoured with their abominable celebration, and it was her shrine Barnabas had prayed God to blast.

Father Spyridon was talking about Greek womanhood. Modesty … virtue … the sin of self-indulgence. What was making him so angry? If it was meant for her she did not understand, and it occurred to her only much later that he could have preached especially for her. Rationalism, atheism. Her husband was an atheist, at least he said so. She tried in vain to picture him in the abominable race. Was she supposed to reprove Yannis or think him reproved? Was she reproved? She looked past the preacher to the picture of the Assumption. The Virgin had the face of a nun.

The Holy Gifts were carried in procession and Anna and the old woman exchanged the kiss of peace. ‘Let us love each other!’ cried the deacon, and after the kiss, ‘The doors! the doors!’ ‘The Holy Things for the Holy Ones,’ Father Spyridon intoned. They sang the communion hymn. The deacon brought out the chalice and stood with it before the middle door. ‘With fear of God, faith and love, come!’

They stood in the sunshine outside the church. ‘You should have let Yannis collect us,’ Anna said. ‘If I can’t find a taxi we’ll be late for lunch.’

‘I have a reason.’ Maria produced a slip of paper, with an address in East Melbourne written on it in a man’s hand. ‘Please take me there. I have told Elena we shall be late.’

Anna was puzzled. ‘What is this place, Mama?’

‘You will find out,’ Maria said. ‘I want the loan of your eyes. They’re the only ones I can trust. It’s not very far, I think.’

Ten minutes later their taxi came to a halt outside a large brownstone house with a narrow front garden, splashed with yellow jonquils. They got out.

‘Tell me what it looks like,’ Maria commanded. ‘Is there a gate one has to open?’

‘There is a gate,’ Anna said, still mystified. ‘It is a big house with two storeys, rather old. There’s a covered way leading up to the door. It has a glass roof. Here on the left is a letter box.’

‘Ring the bell, please, and say we want to see Mrs Turner.’

Anna rang and a middle-aged woman in a grey cap opened the door.

‘We want to see Mrs Turner,’ Anna said.

‘I am Mrs Turner. Is this the Cypriot lady?’ She peered hard at the tall figure in black on Anna’s arm.

‘Your Reverend Gentleman said she might call today, but we are having our lunch now. Would she like to wait?’

Anna translated and Maria shook her head. ‘Please tell her we don’t want to wait. Can she ask someone to show us round?’

‘I suppose I’d better take you myself,’ Mrs Turner said when it had been interpreted to her. ‘I hope the old lady doesn’t mind a short flight of stairs.’

She led them down a wood-panelled passage. The sound of voices came through a half-open door. ‘The dining-room,’ Mrs Turner said. ‘If you care to look in …?’

‘Dining-room,’ Anna whispered. ‘Walls are white. Two long tables. There are one, two …’

‘Twenty-one people,’ Mrs Turner interposed, smiling. ‘At the far end is Mr Steiner. He’s our baby. He’s sixty-four. The lady in the blue jacket over there is Mrs Conroy. She’s eighty-six and still reads music without glasses. She used to be a well-known pianist.’

The woman in the blue jacket nodded to the group in the doorway and Mrs Turner nodded back. The others paid no attention.

‘What are they eating?’ old Mrs Joannides enquired in a low tone.

‘Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,’ Mrs Turner informed Anna. ‘Always two kinds of vegetables. For dessert we’ll have baked custard and rice. Wine for those for whom the doctor prescribes it.’ She added: ‘He lives very handy, just round the corner. Shall we go on now?’

To reach the stairs that led to the upper floor they had to cross an open lounge where there was a fire-place but no fire burning in it. A very old man, wrapped in a tartan plaid, was sitting alone in the centre of a half-circle of unoccupied armchairs. He coughed as they walked through.

‘Aren’t we eating today, Georgie?’ Mrs Turner enquired, as of a small boy feigning a stomach-ache. The old one sucked in his lower lip and from under the plaid produced a half-chewed crust.

‘Mr Trotter always likes to keep some bread with him,’ Mrs Turner explained tolerantly as they walked on. ‘He has most of his meals in his room. He’s doing all right.’ She had the quiet cheerfulness of a housewife with a large family. But a fear was coming upon Anna.

‘Mama!’ she said in Greek. ‘What do we want here? This is a home for old people!’

‘It’s a cold room,’ her mother-in-law said. ‘Is there a window open?’

‘No windows here,’ Anna said. ‘Only chairs. A television set and a radiogram. There are some magazines on it.’

‘The garden is behind,’ Mrs Turner pointed out. ‘We can see it from upstairs. Very nice in the summer.’ They mounted slowly to the first floor.

‘We’ve a kind of workroom at the end of the corridor, for ladies who like to keep busy with sewing and things,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘And a workshed in the garden for the old boys so they can make as much noise as they like. I’ll show you later. This is a bedroom for one.’ She held a door open and they entered a small room, full of family pictures and cluttered up with knick-knacks. A patchwork quilt covered the bed and above it hung a plain cross.

‘Cosy?’ Mrs Turner suggested.

‘Bedroom, Mama. With one bed.’

‘Can I feel?’

Maria advanced with right arm outstretched. She came to the bed and ran her hand over mattress and pillows. Then, coming to the window, she stopped and fingered the lace curtains.

‘I forgot to tell you we have another blind lady,’ Mrs Turner said kindly. ‘Unfortunately she’s not here just now. Her grandchildren have taken her out. Please tell your mother. And tell her I’ll show you a room for two ladies next.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said wearily. ‘Mama, are you ready?’

They were shown a double room, lately decorated and more spacious. A bathroom followed. Mrs Joannides spent a long time in it, going round the walls with Anna, examining everything: bath, basin and toilet. ‘She’s quite right to look around,’ Mrs Turner encouraged. ‘I’d do the same in her place. What is your mother’s health like?’

‘We will talk later,’ Anna answered. ‘I will let you know about everything.’

‘Very well. But you must still look at my little hospital. You know, some of our dears spend a good deal of time in bed.’ They retraced their steps down the corridor and entered a long, narrow room with tall windows giving on to the back.

‘A visitor!’ Mrs Turner called out.

Six heads turned on six pillows. Six voices said: ‘Good afternoon, Katie.’

Anna could not face going in. From the door she surveyed the interior. ‘This is where the women are who can’t get up. Six beds and six bedside tables. Each has a lamp. The blankets are white.’

Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘The first lady has a bedjacket on. She’s been knitting. The second one … I think she’s been reading. The third …’ She looked despairingly at Mrs Turner. ‘Does nobody speak Greek?’

‘We’re expecting a gentleman. I think he’s from Greece, but I’m not quite sure. We also have two Russian ladies who’ve come from China. Your Reverend Gentleman knows them well.’

‘I’d like to see the garden,’ old Mrs Joannides put in, and Anna interpreted. Mrs Turner went to a window and opened it wide.

The garden was a square piece of walled-in space, some twenty yards in depth. In consisted of a perfectly smooth lawn and, in the exact centre, a spreading, foreign-looking willow encircled by a rustic bench. Against one wall was a flowerbed, still bare. A bungalow-like shed was at the farther end.

‘We must go now, Mama,’ Anna said urgently. ‘We can come back another time. It’s a little garden, with a big tree. You know,’ she added in the same breath, ‘nobody speaks Greek here. I’m so embarrassed; you should have warned me.’

But the old woman insisted on seeing everything. It was nearly two o’clock before they were through and Maria sat down in the hall while a taxi was being sent for.

In the safety of the car, Anna took her mother-in-law’s hand. ‘Mama,’ she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, ‘you are not thinking of it seriously? I won’t let you, and Yannis won’t. I beg of you—tell me why?’

‘It’s time for me. I am sick and Elena hates me. Where can I go?’

‘We shall have a bigger house soon.’

‘Yes, I know “soon”. It’s better this way.’

Anna began to laugh. ‘No, really, Mama! Quite soon. I did not want to tell you before I told Yannis. I’m going to have a baby. I have only been sure for a few days.’

‘I am so glad, so glad.’ The old woman drew Anna’s fingers to her lips and kissed them. Letting go gently, she said: ‘You have a new watch, child?’

‘Yannaki gave it to me.’

She knew she had conceived the night he had beaten her. She knew something else. ‘Mama, you remember about Paphos, what Father Spyridon said—the goddess the pagans prayed to, the one who came from the sea?’

Maria crossed herself. ‘I remember. What makes you ask?’

‘Nothing,’ Anna said, smiling to herself. ‘I was only wondering.’

She was wondering whether Father Spyridon could be wrong. She could not be angry with this Aphrodite who was herself. Barnabas was too severe. The poor naked heathens did not deserve to have the shrine brought down over their heads.