When the Cypress Whispers (10 page)

“I know everything, Daphne,” Yia-yia reassured her. “I may not have telephones and computers, but I learn things even without those modern gadgets. I understand more than you think.” Yia-yia looked past Daphne to the silvery olive trees and the cypresses that dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see.

“Before he left Athens, Yianni’s grandmother made him promise that he would come find me here, in the place that saved us both, even when we were both beyond salvation. His
yia-yia
and I helped each other, Daphne, when the war made things here very difficult, more difficult than you could imagine. By the laws of man, neither of us should have survived. We would sit here night after night asking each other the same question: Why were we chosen? Why had we been saved?” As she spoke, Yia-yia’s red eyes glazed over. But just as she had snatched the
briki
from the brink of boiling over, she controlled her emotions.

“Sometimes the laws of man do not apply, Daphne
mou
. Sometimes there are greater laws and powers at work. Yianni made a promise to come here and honor his grandmother’s memory, her dying wish. He never expected that promise to change his life the way it did. But it did. He learned quickly what a special place we have been blessed with, Daphne, how our island changes us all. And if he is hard on you, I think it’s because he can’t understand why you have chosen to stay away. But I do.” Yia-yia reached out and patted Daphne’s knee.

“
Entaksi, koukla
mou
. Talk to him. You’ll see. You are not so different, you two. You have much in common.” As she finished speaking, Yia-yia glanced up at the morning sun. From its position just over the mountain peak beyond the port, she could tell that it was already past seven—midmorning, by Yia-yia’s standards.

“It’s late already. You must be hungry.” She clapped her hands several times, signaling that their cozy heart-to-heart was about to come to an abrupt end. “Sit, I’ll get us something to eat.” In an instant, Yia-yia was up and hurrying toward the kitchen.

Daphne took her feet down off the chair and placed them on the cool concrete. She reached across the table and grabbed the
briki
, only to find that she had already drained it of its last drop of coffee.

“Ah, this is more like it. How are we expected to get our work done if we have no energy?” Yia-yia returned from the kitchen, carrying a large tray loaded down with the makings of their breakfast.

Daphne leaned in to get a better look as Yia-yia strained to place the heavy tray on the table. There on the platter Yia-yia had assembled all of Daphne’s favorites; olives, cheese, crusty bread, salami, and crumbly sesame halva, dotted with almonds. Unlike other cultures that view breakfast as a time for sweet, sticky breads and jams, Greeks prefer their breakfast simple and salty.

“Yia-yia, I can never find olives as juicy as these back in New York,” Daphne said as she picked up a perfect specimen and tossed it in her mouth. Her teeth pressed down on the protective skin, breaking through to the soft, juicy flesh with an explosion of juice, vinegar, and salt that felt like a Mediterranean sunburst in her mouth. Daphne closed her eyes and swallowed. She could feel the briny bits sliding down her throat. She wished she could develop taste buds down her gullet and into her stomach, just to prolong the multilayered sensory experience of each perfect olive.

“
Ne
, I know. Some things you cannot buy,
koukla mou
. Our old tree and barrel serve us well.” Yia-yia gestured around them to the canopy of olive trees that sheltered the property. It was a yearly ritual for Yia-yia to harvest the olives and brine them in the tremendous barrel that sat in the kitchen.

Daphne devoured several more of Yia-yia’s olives, watching as the old woman sliced several paper-thin pieces of
kasseri
cheese and placed them in a small, shallow baking pan. Yia-yia put the pan directly on top of the smoldering embers and scurried to the other side of the patio, where she plucked a huge, round lemon from the lemon tree. Daphne kept her eyes fixed on the cheese-filled pan, watching as the sturdy edges of the thin sheets gradually wilted and melted together to form a golden mass of melted ambrosia.

Seated once again by the fire with her prized lemon on the table beside her, Yia-yia kept watch until the bubbles turned a deep, golden brown, forming a thin crispy crust that hid the delicious ooze underneath. Gathering the hem of her apron in her hand, Yia-yia removed the pan from the heat. With her sharp paring knife, she sliced through the giant lemon and, using both hands to squeeze, doused the still-bubbling cheese with a spray of lemon juice.

“Mmmm,” Daphne moaned as she ripped off a generous helping of bread and dipped the crust into the melted
kasseri
. “It’s been so long since I’ve had
saganaki
. I almost forgot how much I love this.”

“What do you mean? You love
saganaki
, why don’t you eat it?” Yia-yia asked.

“Remember—it’s white. Well, off-white. I told you about that diet I went on.”

“
Ne
, so silly, these diets. Foods are flavors, Daphne, not colors,” Yia-yia chided.

“Oh, Yia-yia, I almost forgot. I spoke to Stephen this morning.”

“I know,
koukla mou
, he’s coming. I will finally get to meet this man.”

“But how do you know that?” Daphne dredged another piece of bread through the
saganaki
. “I just hung up with him.”

“I told you,
koukla mou
. The island shares her secrets with me.”

Daphne shook her head. It was always this way with Yia-yia; somehow she always seemed to know things before they happened. As a teenager Daphne had begun to wonder if Yia-yia was more than just an intuitive old woman adept at reading coffee cups.

“I’m going to go meet him at the airport in Corfu. It’s just for a day, so Evie can stay here—she’ll be happier here with you.”

“
Entaksi
. Fine.”

“What time does Big Al come? Is it today or tomorrow morning?” Daphne asked as she looked out over the water and put her plate down on the table.

“There is no more Alexandros until Wednesday. It just came last night. It does not run every day.”

Daphne wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I guess I can take the
kaiki
.”

“Stamati went to Athens for his niece’s wedding. There’s no
kaiki.”

Daphne looked out over the sea, as if miraculously her ride might appear on the horizon. “What am I supposed to do?” She turned to Yia-yia once more.

“Yianni.”

Daphne flinched. “Yianni? Isn’t there anyone else?”

“There’s no one else, Daphne. Just Yianni,” Yia-yia repeated. “We’ll ask him to take you. His boat is fixed now. I’m sure he’ll do it.”

Daphne stared out across the horizon once again, but she could see nothing but sea and sky. There was no boat emerging in the distance, no ferry or
kaiki
miraculously appearing to save her from the dreaded thought of being stuck on Yianni’s boat for the two-hour trip to Kerkyra. Daphne knew she had no choice.

“All right.” Daphne inhaled. “Yianni.”

It was like an emotional flashback. For the first time in years, Daphne felt as if she were once again stuck in the back booth of her parents’ diner on a sunny Saturday afternoon or crouched down, hiding and humiliated in the back seat of the Buick, as her parents scoured the off-ramp to the Bronx River Parkway for dandelion greens that they would pluck from the ground and take home to boil for dinner. Even now, as a grown woman so many years later, she once again felt trapped, as if there were nothing she could do to escape.

Fourteen

It was 10:00 a.m. before Evie emerged from her sleep, announcing that she had dreamed of challenging Arachne to a weaving contest. For a five-year-old American child used to waking at 7:00 a.m. for school, Evie had seamlessly adjusted to her new Greek island schedule of sleeping late and staying up past midnight with the adults. After breakfast, the mother and daughter raced down the stone steps to catch Nitsa before she was bogged down with lunchtime orders at the hotel’s restaurant.

“Why are you taking that?” Evie asked as Daphne grabbed the long bamboo stick that was propped against the stone wall at the bottom of the stairs.

As they walked, with each step, Daphne tapped the side of the unpaved road just where the loosely packed dirt met the brush.
Tap tap tap tap
, side to side she wielded the bamboo stick in the oppressive heat as the cicada choir filled the air.

“It’s for the snakes,” Daphne answered as she held Evie’s hand, swinging it back and forth as they walked.

“Snakes?” Evie shrieked. She clutched Daphne’s leg.

“Yes, snakes.”

“Mommy, that’s not funny, and it’s not nice!” Evie shrieked, her giant eyes opening wide.

“Don’t worry, honey, the snakes hear the tapping and get scared away. They won’t come out as long as they hear the noise.”

But Daphne’s assurance wasn’t enough for Evie. The little girl was terrified and didn’t stop moaning and shaking until Daphne reluctantly hoisted Evie up on her back. With Evie clinging to her, Daphne continued tap-tap-tapping her bamboo stick along the dirt road as she walked.

They hadn’t rounded the corner of the Hotel Nitsa sign before Daphne heard her booming voice echo off the freshly washed marble floor. “There she is . . . the beautiful bride.
Ella
, Daphne.
Ella
, give your Thea Nitsa a hug.”

Nitsa waddled right up to them the moment they crossed the threshold of the hotel’s lobby. With her long black skirt, black cotton T-shirt, and plastic
sayonares
, the seventy-eight-year-old moved faster than anyone would have imagined possible for an overweight woman with asthma, diabetes, and arthritic knees—who also happened to suck down two packs of Camel Lights a day.

Daphne always felt there was something special about Thea Nitsa. When her husband suffered a heart attack and there was no hospital or doctor on the island to save him—by the time Nitsa could summon help and their
kaiki
finally made it across the sea to Kerkyra, he was already dead—she had been left a widow at the tender age of twenty-three.

But as with everything else in life, Nitsa had faced her fate head-on, and always on her terms. Yes, she wore black day in and day out, as was the island’s tradition for widows. But unlike the others, Nitsa never covered her hair with a scarf. And although she had never remarried, or even looked at another man, Nitsa didn’t sit home solemnly by the fire, waiting to be reunited with her dead husband in the afterlife. On any given night, when her work in the hotel was done, you could find Nitsa sitting at the hotel bar smoking her Camel Lights and knocking back Metaxa brandy with her clients.

Unlike the other widows, who could always rely on family to provide for them, Nitsa was childless. Too stubborn and proud to ask for handouts, Nitsa had taken her husband’s life savings and bought the hotel at a time when it was unheard of for a woman to run a business on her own. But Nitsa had nurtured and raised the hotel to prosperity just as she would have raised children, if God had blessed her with them. For the longest time she ran the hotel singlehandedly, doing all the cooking, cleaning, and anything else that needed to be done. She had slowed down these past few years, her advancing age and declining health finally making her realize that she could no longer do it all on her own. But despite the addition of a young staff, Nitsa still insisted on doing all the cooking and serving of food herself. The hotel was more than Nitsa’s business, it was her home, and she viewed each and every diner as her personal dinner guest.

“Thea Nitsa. It’s so good to see you.” Daphne leaned in for a kiss, first on Nitsa’s left, then on her right cheek. Her fat, suntanned cheeks were dewy with perspiration, but Daphne resisted the temptation to wipe Nitsa’s sweat off her own skin.

“
Ahooo . . . kita etho
,” Nitsa shouted in Greek as she gazed at Evie, still perched on her mother’s back. Then, noticing Evie’s blank stare and realizing that the little girl could not understand her, Nitsa switched effortlessly to English. “Look who we have here.”

This was yet another way in which she differed from the other women on the island. Most of the other elderly women simply refused to learn English. They knew that by forcing their grandchildren to communicate in Greek, they would keep their language alive, clinging to their most prized and valuable possession—their heritage.

“Ah, Evie . . . little Evie, I have heard much about you, little one.” Nitsa rubbed her hands together as if the friction of her calluses might start a fire. “
Ahooo
, let me see you. Like a Greek goddess, like Aphrodite . . . I tell you . . . ah, but with the nose of the
Amerikanos
.” Nitsa laughed. “This is a good thing,
koukla mou
,” she added with a knowing wink.

“Mommy . . .” Evie’s voice trembled. “Mommy, am I going to be in trouble?” she whispered into Daphne’s ear, wrapping her legs around Daphne’s waist and holding her little arms tighter around her mother’s neck.

“Honey—” Daphne pried Evie’s hands from her throat. “Evie, honey. Why would you be in trouble? You haven’t done anything, have you?”

“No,” Evie whispered as she shook her head. “No, I haven’t.” Evie lifted her trembling finger and pointed it at Nitsa. “But she said I look like Aphrodite. Is that going to make Aphrodite mad? Is she going to turn me into a spider too?”

“No, honey. Not at all.” Daphne did her best to stifle her laugh, thankful that she was somehow able to swallow at least most of it.

But Nitsa was not as adept at these things. Nitsa was used to a life lived out loud, on her terms and with no one to answer to but God himself—the same God whom she worshipped down on her fleshy knees at dawn every single day instead of hauling herself to church and lighting a candle along with the other widows who preferred to pray in public, placing their virtue on display for all to admire. Nitsa deemed Evie’s answer utterly adorable and thereby worthy of a glorious, guttural belly laugh.

“
Ahooo
, you have been listening to your great-grandmother’s stories.” Nitsa’s entire body convulsed with laughter. Every bit of her ample flesh—from her thick ruddy cheeks to her trunklike calves to her droopy braless breasts, which hung down and touched the top of her enormous gut—shook and jiggled as she laughed.

“
Ella, koukla
.” Thea Nitsa reached her dimpled arm out to Evie. “Just to be safe, to make sure that you are protected from Aphrodite and anyone else who may be jealous of your beauty, I have something for you. Ella, Thea Nitsa will protect you. We have enough spiders on the island already; what we need are little girls like you.”

Evie hesitated.

“It’s okay, Evie,” Daphne assured. “Go ahead.”

The little girl placed her delicate hand in Thea Nitsa’s grip. Daphne watched as they walked hand in hand to the bar area. Nitsa hoisted Evie up on a stool and disappeared behind the bar, opening and closing drawer after drawer as she searched for this “very special thing.”

“I know it was in here. Where did I put it?” Nitsa mumbled as she continued to look in every drawer and crevice behind the towering wooden bar. “Ahhh,
nato
, here it is,” she exclaimed, victorious, as she pulled out a long, delicate chain.

Evie squirmed in her seat to get a better look.

“Here, put this on, and you will be safe,” Thea Nitsa said as she clasped the chain around Evie’s neck.

Evie looked down at her chest. There, attached to the delicate chain and lying just against her heart, was a small blue glass eye. She lifted it with her fingers to get a better look.

“
To mati
,” Nitsa said. “The eye. It will protect you from the evil eye.
Ftoo, ftoo, ftoo
.” Nitsa spit at Evie three times.

Evie flinched. She had actually started to grow fond of Thea Nitsa, but that was before she started spitting.

“It’s okay, Evie.” Daphne laughed. “Thea Nitsa is making sure that you’ll be safe. The eye protects you from evil spirits and wishes. I had one of these pinned to your crib when you were a baby.”

Evie looked closer at the eye, a wide smile spreading across her face. “Good. I don’t want to be a spider. I want to stay a little girl.”

“Well, good. Because I want you to stay a little girl, my little girl.” Daphne scooped Evie up and off the bar stool. It felt good to see Evie’s broad smile, to feel her arms tighten around Daphne’s neck.

Reluctantly, Daphne pried the tiny fingers off her. “Now, Mommy and Thea Nitsa have some things to talk about—”

“
Ne
, Evie. My cat, Katerina, has new kittens; they are out on the patio. Do you want to see?” Nitsa motioned toward the patio.

Nitsa had found the magic words. Evie skipped out to the flower-covered patio, anxious to see the new kittens for herself.

“Bravo, Daphne
mou
.” Nitsa clapped her hands together. “Now, what would you like to eat? Maybe some
yemista
—I remember how you love my stuffed peppers. I made them this morning with lots of raisins and mint, just the way you like it . . .
thelis ligo
, do you want some?”

Nitsa didn’t wait for Daphne’s response. She sprang up and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a large plate filled with
yemista
before Daphne even had a chance to answer.

“Thank you, Thea.” Daphne dug her fork into the green pepper. The taste was exquisite; light, fresh, and fragrant—just the way Daphne remembered it.

They spent the better part of the morning planning the menu. The women agreed that sticking with local delicacies and traditional fare would be the perfect way to celebrate the wedding feast. They decided on a variety of freshly caught local grilled fish embellished with nothing more than lemon, olive oil, oregano, and sea salt. Daphne did, however, insist that after displaying the fish whole, Nitsa would debone them tableside. She knew Stephen’s family wouldn’t know the first thing about filleting a fish and were liable to choke on a mouthful of fish bones if they even tried. The rest of the menu was just as superb in its simplicity. Besides the fish, Nitsa would also make endless platters of appetizers, cheeses, and dips. Once their business was done, Nitsa dove into the other business she was equally famous for—gossiping.

“Daphne, I tell you. That Sophia is something else.”

Daphne clearly remembered Sophia, and she could not believe what she was hearing. When they were children Daphne had always felt bad for Sophia, who lived on the island year-round with her family. Sophia was stuck here, knowing she would never see the world, get a proper education, or marry anyone other than a local boy her parents determined to be an acceptable match. And indeed they had, marrying her off to a boy from the other side of the island when she was just sixteen years old.

“You should see her. She’s not sitting home alone, waiting for her husband to return from America. Ha, it is the ones who play the innocent who are the guiltiest.” Nitsa leaned in, legs apart, elbows on her knees, and lit another Camel Light, eager to share her thoughts on Sophia, who according to Nitsa, had turned into the island’s resident
poutana.

Nitsa took another long, deep drag and looked around to make sure no one was nearby to hear them. “And trust me, Sophia has not been lonely while her husband is in America working in the diners to make enough money to send for her. In the old days, when the men went away, it was they who would cheat. Now look how modern we are—the women cheat as well.”

Nitsa slapped her knee and emitted yet another guttural laugh. She lit another Camel Light, the ashtray already overflowing with the cigarettes she had smoked just in the past hour with Daphne.

“Nitsa—” Daphne smiled, realizing that Nitsa might actually be able to shed some light on the mystery of Yianni. Daphne didn’t feel that her prying was actual gossiping—she preferred to think of it as research. After all, she would be placing her life in his hands tomorrow morning on the trip to Kerkyra.

“Thea Nitsa—”

“
Ne
, Daphne.”

“Thea, what about this Yianni . . . the fisherman? What do you know about him?”

“Ah, Yianni. Yes, for a man who did not grow up on the sea, he has become quite a magician with his nets. Daphne, I tell you, his catch is always the best of the day. I have become his best customer.” Nitsa nodded as she scratched the inside of her thigh, cigarette dangling dangerously close to the fabric of her skirt.

“Yes, but what do you know about him? He seems to spend an awful lot of time with Yia-yia. We know he fishes, but what else does he do? He has no family here. He’s not married. Does he have any friends?”

“Never.” Nitsa shook her head. “I never see him with friends, just your
yia-yia
, of course. He is something of a mystery, Daphne
mou
. I remember his
yia-yia
from many years ago, but she was something of a mystery as well. She showed up here during the war with her daughters, but no husband. There were stories about her, you know. At first people said that her arrival was a bad omen; that your
yia-yia
never should have taken in more mouths to feed when our own people were starving. But your
yia-yia
wouldn’t hear of it.” Nitsa leaned in closer to Daphne and raised her right eyebrow. “Some say that a miracle happened here on the island during that time.”

“A miracle?” Daphne asked. She had heard of miracles attributed to Saint Spyridon back on Corfu, but she had never heard of any here, on Erikousa.