Surrender: The Greek Affair Series Book One (23 page)

“English, I’m sorry.”

“Hope, don’t make light of the fact that you don’t include me in your decisions. I, on the other hand, am including you in all of my thoughts for the future, because these thoughts include you.”

There is silence for a minute or two and Hope looks away from him while he continues to look at her. He speaks.

“Hope, I want to do everything with you. I will come to Australia, if you want to be with me. Just say the word.”

“Jason, sweetie, I’m not well-off and I won’t be able to help.”

Very quietly, almost like a whisper and with fire in his eyes,

“Shut the fuck up! What do you take me for?”

She can tell that he is struggling to keep composure and she knows she has insulted him.

“Did it ever enter your mind that all I ask of you is for your love? I want to be in a position to take care of you, as soon as possible and I know I can. I need you to believe in me.”

She finds it hard to allow him to love her in the way he wants. She’s scared to be loved but also scared of losing the love. They continue eating, whilst she’s trying to formulate a situation for Jason and herself and she can’t.

“Tell me
agorí mou
, (my man) how do you see us moving on together? Because I’m finding it difficult to formulate it.”

He places his cutlery in his plate and pushes it away, sits back in his chair and looks at her with a grin.

“Well how about it! A little democracy!”

“Yes, ok. I admit it has been all about me.”

He starts clearing the table.

“No baby, you’re just confused and undecided, not to mention you have not been well and that can confuse things even more. And let’s not forget you are a mother. And yes, the circumstances of us being together are difficult.”

He takes her hand and guides her to sit on the couch. They sit together and he swivels around and holds her hands.

“Look at me. I had made applications for work in the UK before we got together. I have had an email from a UK firm that wants me to go for an interview. But this is what is going to happen now. We will go back to Athens together. You will see your gyno, I will contact the UK and set up an interview at a later date, but I would also like your permission to explore possibilities for work in Australia.

Hope understands now that they have moved to another phase of their relationship. Her brain cells are searching for the data to help her to understand how a summer affair on a Greek Island became such a serious relationship.

Sitting around in the hot sultry summer nights on a magical Island, listening to music, watching the moon shimmer onto the sea and the lit fortress on their left, being loved by this mature man who was chronologically not right for her, and yet who has lived his life like a man twice his age, loving her with care and passion in a way that made her balk, as if it were something prohibited.

While at the same time she is thinking if the age difference were reversed, and he was the forty year old man and she was the twenty-five year old woman, she would accept it. With that thought she realises that she’s conservative, and that notion truly upsets her equilibrium. She understands now that if she doesn’t take what this man has to offer, she will never know happiness. And yet she’s terrified to take it.

It’s as if he can read her thoughts.

“How about you stop thinking for now and put on something respectable and let’s go for a walk and a drink of some kind. I rang Pétro earlier and he and Alex will be around. We can catch up with them too.”

He thinks of everything: her, her friends, their outings, his future, their future and her health.

He kisses her tenderly on the mouth and says.

“I will give you some time to think about my offer to look for work in Melbourne, but I want an answer soon, because it is a lot more complicated than getting to the UK.” She says nothing. They both get up to get ready for an outing.

They are at the port once again, sitting at a café, built on a rock under the fortress, at that part of the port where the big ferries come in from Athens and Thessaloniki (many things get transported to the islands in these big ferries, that bring huge trucks from the big cities or from other islands. People bring their cars for the holidays, foreign tourists with their backpacks, people whose original home is here but have settled in other places in Greece for work.)

As they watch all of this, they are reminded once more that this has been going on for several millennium. Humanity moving, transporting, passing through on their way to do the same, but to other parts of the known world.

It is the invasions though, that have marked the history and formulated the identity of this island more than anything else.

And Hope knows that she has also been invaded on this island, her heart, as well as her soul - and she will never be the same again. She is both terrified and grateful for this invasion, and is still not aware how much this invasion will mark her for the rest of her life.

Chapter Nineteen

Jason arrives in Athens alone. Hope, Pétro and Alexander having already flown back are here. He has to endure the long boat ride so he can accompany his car. His parents, even though long gone, were always there both in spirit and in a tangible force. It was via them that he had the financial freedom to be independent from his grandparents, and not be a burden on them. This did not mean that he had endless funds, however, because he now has to work and give back to his grandparents and set up a life for himself with Hope.

He wants to make his grandparents proud of him, as he knows this is all they want from him, to be a man and independent of his past and the pain he had grown up with. Jason never talks about the pain of losing his family. He never dwelled on the past and what would his life have been like had his family unit been intact. This is what he has and he is proud of it. He wants to succeed in life, both financially and personally. The first he was confident in, the latter he knows he has to struggle for.

The boat arrives in Athens in the early hours of the morning. He has got a cabin and has slept somewhat with the rocking of the ship. He steps in his car and waits patiently to disembark. The other cars have started revving up their motors and the large car cabin is filled with exhaust fumes. He closes his windows and wonders once again at the impatience of the other drivers. Jason knows how to wait, how to bide his time in study, in work, and in his personal life - and he is going to do just that with, and for, Hope. He will be patient with her, and show her he can be trusted and most of all, relied upon. He understands her reticence in their relationship, and he is well aware it has moved fast to a place where it surprises both of them. The difference between them was that he is prepared to go along with the feeling and squeeze all he can out of it, and she, on the other hand was scared. He knows very well he loves her. He cannot explain why it’s her and not someone else, but he is sure he has been with enough women to know the difference, that what he feels for Hope is intense and life changing.

He drives out of the ferryboat on the Piraeus port, and maneuvers onto the road, to drive to Athens. The traffic hits him after a year on an island. Athenians often complain about the traffic, but then most of them have not lived in London.

He is still in negotiations with Hope about the future, and she has not replied to him about being together in Australia. They have decided that he would go back to his home on his island to spend time with his grandparents, and allow her the time to get her home in order, and to see to her health issues. He is going to try his hardest not to hassle her with phone calls.

He loves Athens and its vibrancy, and like Hope, he loves its hidden secrets. Athens is a lot more than the Acropolis, even though that is a spectacular site, and a part of the western world’s collective history. He loves the music scene that is diverse and plentiful. Theatre, (especially the outdoor performances in the summer), musicals, plays and dance; Athens is a melting pot of all Greeks and lots of non-Greeks mingling and creating the new Greece. Jason also has the notion that Athens is arguably the best café society in Europe, especially in the summer. It is a city that never sleeps, if one is inclined not to sleep.

He smells the city and often wonders if he is the only one who thinks that cities have their own distinctive smell. The centre of Athens has that old world smell, of rock and soil, covered with the new world smell of exhaust fumes and concrete. Other cities have these elements but this one is an Athenian smell and every time he lands here after being away, he knows this smell is a part of him. He loves this city and he will explore it again with Hope. But first, he has to go and see his grandparents, to grab some of their wisdom and their old world energy. He likes that old world energy, along with the new world energy and horizons, but there are some things that transverse all generation, like dancing for example. After all, his grandparents still like to dance. It is the inner energy he knows well, that he does not like to waste.

Jason’s plane lands on his island on the western coast of Greece in the Ionian Sea. This island is different to the one he had just spent one year of his life on. Different geography, but like the rest of Greece it has a tumultuous and very interesting history. It is a very green island, as it has the highest rainfall in the country. It has rivers and lakes, mountains and plains, all with very fertile land. The greenness of the island is a stark contrast to the island he has just come from. As he watches the landscape from his taxi on his way to his home, he can’t help thinking about the history of this lush island of his birth that is situated so far north of the Ionian Sea.

The name of the island comes from a mythological Nymph, a daughter of the river god
Asopus
. Her name was
Corcyra
, and she was kidnapped by the god of the sea, Poseidon and brought here. He gave her name to the island. It is said that the first residents were here in the 12th Century, BC. The founder is said to have been
Phaeks
, his son
Nafsithoos
was the father of the Homeric king,
Alkinoos
from the Odyssey. Once again legend, myth and history become muddled and we are told that King
Alkinoos’s
daughter
Nafsika
helped Odysseus to return to Ithaca.

But these days it’s the more recent history that is visible on this fertile lush island. The Venetians were here for at least four hundred years and their legacy can be seen in forts and buildings, but also in the language. The Greek spoken here is with a tilting sing-song intonation, unlike anywhere else in Greece, with also a large contingent of Greeks practising their Catholic religion and prior to WWII there was a very large Jewish Community, of which only remnants remain today. The French were here for a short period too, and later the English. More prevalent from all these nations being here, is watching the locals playing cricket in the main square of the capital. This always puts a smile on Jason’s face. He finds it somehow quirky to watch the Greeks in their whites, playing cricket and expressing themselves in a passionate language, instead of the more controlled English. The Venetians left the island with lots of music, western music, (unlike the rest of Greece). The Italians left behind the serenade to women. Jason has music in his heart and soul, and he would like to serenade Hope one day.

He is excited to be here, but he never stops thinking of Hope, and he knows that one day he would bring her here, to see his birthplace, like he had seen hers.

Having lived in so many different places somehow made one feel displaced. One never felt at home, even when one is at home. Jason feels at home in Greece, in his grandparent’s home. But now he feels at home in Hope’s embrace. He wants to tell his grandmother about Hope, as he is sure she would have advice for him, but he also knows that she might not approve, and he has to be prepared for that as well.

His grandparents live on a small farm, the house that was set amongst grape vines and olive trees. They grow their own food and have their own animals. As they had aged, they rented the majority of the land to other farmers, and kept the house and some surrounding land for their own needs. It is a small part of paradise and whenever Jason comes here, he is at peace.

As the taxi pulls up to the house, both his grandparents amble up towards him. Before even paying the taxi or taking out his small suitcase, his grandfather throws his arms around his grandson and hugs him with a very tight embrace, hitting his back with soft palms, filled with love and admiration.

Jason then turns to his grandmother and he can see the tears in her eyes that are ready to fall. He goes to her and she throws herself into his arms and begins to sob softly. Jason has to consciously remember that the only language they understood was Greek, and the beautiful tilting Greek of the island. So he only speaks in Greek to them.

“Nόna, min kles íme kalá
(grandmother don’t cry, I’m well).” He hugs her, pushes her back and kisses her teary cheeks. “Let me pay the taxi and get my bag.”

He pays the taxi, grabs his bag and as the taxi takes off, he turns around and says,