When the Cypress Whispers (9 page)

Thirteen

At five a.m., Daphne had enough. She had been staring at the cracks in the ceiling and reliving the fireside conversation with Yia-yia again and again in her mind. How was it possible that a woman who had never been educated, was technically illiterate, had never set foot outside Greece, and rarely even left her home had managed to read Daphne more thoroughly and precisely than the expensive therapist Daphne visited once a week back home?

Daphne thought that she had become a master of reinventing herself—successful entrepreneur, fiancée of a wealthy bank executive. It was what she wanted, what she thought would make her happy again. On paper, she was living the life so many others dreamed of and envied. But now, at one glance from Yia-yia, the cracks in her carefully cultivated foundation were beginning to show.

Daphne swung her legs over the side of the bed, careful not to awaken the irritable old bedsprings or Evie. She slipped her cardigan over her long white nightgown and crept across the room, reaching over to the bureau and grabbing her cell phone from the corner, where it sat blinking with the pulsating red reminder of unheard messages.

As soon as she opened the door, Daphne felt soothed by the island’s early-morning symphony; the clear serenade of crickets, the rustling of the trees in the predawn air, and the distant rhythmic crash of the tide as it continued its predawn call to the fisherman. As she closed the door behind her, Daphne also closed her eyes and listened for a moment, knowing that the first rooster call would soon welcome daybreak.

The air was cooler than she had anticipated, so Daphne snatched Yia-yia’s fringed woolen shawl from the back of the chair where Yia-yia had left it before going to bed. Stepping gingerly in her bare feet to avoid the many cracks and crevices of the pavement, Daphne shuffled across the patio and dialed Stephen’s number on her cell phone. It was 11:00 p.m. in New York. She knew she would likely wake him; he often went to bed early and was up before dawn to get a jump on the overseas markets. But Daphne dialed anyway; she needed to hear his voice.

“Hello,” he answered after five long rings.

“Hi. Did I wake you?” she asked, knowing full well that she had.

“Daphne? No, honey, its okay. I’m glad you called.” Stephen let out a long, loud yawn into the phone. “I’ve been trying to reach you. I left you a message on your cell phone earlier today. We really need to do something about the phone situation there. The phone lines were down all day, and your cell phone service seems spotty at best. Can’t you get the phone company out there to take a look, maybe replace those antiquated lines or something? I hate not being able to get hold of you, especially after you told me there’s no police on this island of yours. Not exactly comforting knowing that, Daphne.”

“We’re fine. We’ve never had police stationed on the island. There’s never been a need. But we finally have a doctor living here. That’s progress.” She laughed, knowing how utterly provincial this must sound to Stephen.

“Very funny, Daphne. Just look into the phone thing, please. For me.”

“Oh, Stephen.” Daphne tried her best to muffle her laugh. “Things don’t work that way here. It would take weeks, months even, to get those guys out here.” She gathered the fabric of her nightgown under her legs and sat on the stone wall. Shortly, with the sunrise’s first light, she would have a perfect view of the beach and the port.

Daphne knew her answer would not sit well with Stephen, a man accustomed to making things happen. But life on this island was regulated by different rules and had a very different rhythm from that on the island of Manhattan. Everything here took longer. This was a place decades behind the rest of the world and even years behind the mainland of Corfu, a mere seven miles away. But to Daphne, that was the beauty of the island.

“Well, see what you can do anyway.”

“Yes, I’ll see what I can do.” Daphne knew full well that for Stephen, “fixing it” meant paying someone to make the problem go away.

“Oh, hey, Stephen. What was the mystery message, anyway?” she asked.

“I wrapped things up at work and managed to book an earlier flight. I get in to Corfu at two p.m. on Tuesday. I can’t wait to see you. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. And that’s great news!” Daphne shouted as she jumped up from the wall, momentarily forgetting that it wasn’t quite six in the morning yet, and that most of the island was still asleep.

“My family is still coming next week, but I wanted to get in as soon as I could. I can’t stand being away from you this long. I want to help you, to make sure everything is just as you dreamed it would be. I want you to be happy.”

“It will be. I know it will.” She took a deep breath, allowing the dawn’s mist to fill her lungs
.
“
I’ll see you at the airport. I love you,” Daphne said as she hung up the phone. She put it down on the wall as she looked out toward the beach below.

Stephen was coming on Tuesday. It really was happening. They really were going to get married. There was still so much left to do, but for some reason, Daphne wasn’t at all stressed out by her massive to-do list the way she had been back at home. Maybe it was the clean sea air, or maybe it was the comfort of having Yia-yia so close by, or maybe it was the fact that perfection was not a requirement here, the way it was back at home. Here, imperfection was expected, celebrated. As much as Daphne wanted everything about the wedding to be just right, she didn’t feel nearly as uptight about everything as she had just a few days before. I’ll stop by and see Thea Nitsa later this morning to work out all the final details, she thought, taking a deep breath and stretching her arms out above her head. A loud yawn escaped her mouth, and she felt her eyelids flutter with the weight of her restless night.

She stretched, looking out to where the sea meets the sky, and watched as the first hint of light poked through the darkness, highlighting the sea’s surface with broad metallic brushstrokes. Where she stood on the patio, just under the largest olive tree on the property, she knew she would have the best view of the awakening port and beach below. That was the thing about Yia-yia’s modest little house. Many of the other homes on the island were larger and far more modern, with their new appliances, perfect terra-cotta roofs, and colorful new exteriors, but none of them could boast a perfect, unobstructed view of the port like the one from Yia-yia’s terrace. Yia-yia had always joked that for a poor woman, she owned a priceless view. As Daphne stood under the olive tree, predawn shadows turning into a colorful sunlit landscape before her eyes, she realized Yia-yia was right.

As the first light began to infiltrate the darkness, Daphne looked down on what seemed like a scene from a Hollywood zombie movie. There below, on every crudely paved road and dirt path that led to the port, the sun revealed the silhouettes of fishermen embarking on their morning ritual. Some were old, their bodies hunched over from years of hard living, hauling their heavy nets morning and night. Others, still young, strong, and upright, virtually sprinted toward the port. A few of the men walked with reams of nets slung over their shoulders, no doubt having spent the better part of their evening crouched over the thick twine, mending them by the fire as they smoked cigarettes and drank licorice-scented ouzo while their wives prepared dinner. Young or old, tired or energized, each of the men made his way toward the port in the dim light, preparing to climb aboard his fishing boat and wondering what that morning’s nets might reveal.

Daphne was so busy watching the fishermen below that she didn’t hear Yia-yia, who had made her way outside to begin the day’s chores.

“
Ella
, Daphne
mou
,” Yia-yia called from the other side of the patio. “
Koukla mou
, I didn’t expect you to be up so early.”

“Neither did I, Yia-yia, but I couldn’t sleep.” Daphne turned her back on the port and walked toward Yia-yia, who was already dressed and bent over the outdoor stove, lighting the first fire of the day.

“Ah, wedding nerves.” Yia-yia chuckled as she piled several slim twigs under a large log. Reaching over to the pile of old yellowed newspapers that she kept in a basket beside the fire, she shoved them into the pile as well, struck a long wooden match along the worn black strip of a matchbox, and leaned in to set the kindling ablaze.

“Yes, I guess it is wedding nerves.” Daphne smiled at Yia-yia as she removed the black shawl from her own shoulders and wrapped it around Yia-yia. The old woman’s lined face exploded into a broad, thankful smile.

“Yia-yia—” Daphne watched her grandmother reach for the small copper
briki
, sugar, coffee, and bottled water.

“
Ne
, Daphne
mou
.” Yia-yia scooped out a spoonful of dark coffee grounds and stirred them into the small, shiny pot.

“Yia-yia, how do you know Yianni? How is it that I don’t remember him at all? I know everyone on this island.”

“
Ne, koukla
. There are not many of us left. Of course you know everyone here. But Yianni, ah, Yianni . . .” Yia-yia sighed as she gazed into the fire. “No, Daphne
mou
. You didn’t know his family. But I did. I knew his
yia-yia
and his mama.” Yia-yia added just a little sugar to the
briki
and stirred before placing it on a metal cooking grate over the open flame.

“But why didn’t I ever meet them?” Daphne asked, bringing her knees to her chest under the gauzelike material of her nightgown, her red toenails dangling over the edge of her chair.

“Ah, Daphne
mou
, Yianni’s family left here a long time ago. Yianni grew up in Athena, not here. That’s why you don’t remember him.” Yia-yia snatched the bubbling coffee from the
briki
just as the boiling foam rose to the top of the pot and threatened to spill over the sides.

“Yianni never set foot on the island until a few years ago. He didn’t spend his childhood here, like you did. But he loves this place as much as you do. As much as any of us.” Yia-yia poured the thick coffee into two demitasse cups and handed one to Daphne.

“He’s an educated man, Daphne, not a fisherman by birth like the other men on the island. He went to the best schools, went to college . . . just like you. But the island called to him.”

Daphne lifted her cup to her lips and watched as Yia-yia held hers, the small cup cradled in her hands, warming her bent fingers.

“He came and found me that very first day. As soon as he set foot on the island, this was the first place he came. His
yia-yia
had told him stories about us, how we were wonderful friends a long, long time ago. He walked in through the gate that first day, and we sat down together and I made him
kafe
and we drank it together, just as we are doing now. When he was finished, I asked him for his cup. I looked inside, and I saw the heavy black sorrow that weighed him down. But then I turned the cup and saw his heart. It was pure and clean—unlike the hearts of so many men whose cups I have gazed into.

“And I saw something else that day, something I never expected,” Yia-yia continued. “I saw his heart and his mind, each pictured clear as day. Each of them at the end of a bold, straight line that met in one place. This place. I looked into his cup, and then I told him that this was where his search ended. That this was where his heart and mind would finally join as one.”

“Do you see him often—Yianni, I mean?” Daphne asked, twirling the coffee in her cup. “Yesterday at lunch, he told me he comes here and spends a lot of time with you, that he brings you fish. Does he?”

“Yes, Daphne. He does. He comes almost every day to see if he can help me, or if there is anything I need. But every day I tell him, just as I tell you, there is nothing I need. So he sits here with me, and we talk. We talk about the old times with his
yia-yia
, his life in Athens, all of the wonderful things he studied at university. And many nights, we talk about you.”

Daphne shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the thought that Yianni sat here, in her own chair no doubt, and spent evenings listening to Yia-yia talk about her. “What do you tell him about me?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Ahh, I tell him all of the incredible things you are doing in New York,” Yia-yia said, her face glowing with pride. “I show him your pictures; I tell him about Koukla and how proud I am that you have managed to turn our simple recipes and traditions into a big business.”

Daphne shifted again in her seat.

“We talk about things that others don’t seem to understand,” Yia-yia continued. “We talk about things others don’t want to know about or believe, but Yianni does. He understands them, Daphne, he believes in them. I have shared with him the story of the cypress whispers, and how the island speaks to me and shares with me her secrets.”

“And what does he say?”

“Even if he can’t hear them, he understands. He knows that ours is a magical island, my love. He knows that he too is connected to this place, that the island never forgets those who love her.”

Daphne was growing impatient. She usually loved hearing Yia-yia’s stories of the magical and mysterious ways of the island, but this time she needed facts, not fantasy. “But I don’t understand. If he is so wonderful, so caring—why has he been so horribly rude to me?”

Yia-yia smiled just a bit, just enough to show a glimmer of her silver eyetooth, a remnant of a trip to a mainland dentist many years ago. “I know,
koukla
. Perhaps he was a little too hard on you,” she admitted, unsuccessfully attempting to stifle a small giggle that escaped like a tiny air bubble into the morning mist.

“A little? Did you hear what he said?”

“Daphne, I know, but you have to understand. I think Yianni misunderstands sometimes. He has become very protective of me. He knows how I have missed you, so he is angry that you have not come sooner.”

“But Yia-yia, that is between you and me, not for some strange man to discuss. And besides, you know he’s wrong, really wrong—” Daphne practically sprang from her seat.