It was during one of Katerina’s visits to one of the camps that she met Aristo. She did not notice any feelings stirring in her then. She was just too exhausted from all the backbreaking work to bother with joy and any thoughts of personal fulfilment had been pushed from her mind.
There was simply too much to do. She caught up on sleep at all times, whether leaning on a wall, sitting in a chair or lying under a tree. The unbearable heat made the work of the volunteers harder. The camps were a miserable place, with ashen, empty faces wherever you looked, the cries of babies, the weeping and screaming of men and women often breaking through an ominous silence, and the dust, that seemingly harmless dust that had become a curse and that had enveloped everything and everyone, draining the life out of them, eating them alive and once finished spitting them out.
Yet there were happy cries of children playing with whatever was at hand, oblivious to the unfolding tragedy around them. Katerina and her mother cried often in their private moments. They could hardly speak to each other when this tear-filled face-melting glory took over.
It was a few months later that Katerina and Aristo started to pay attention to their feelings for each other. Aristo knew he was hooked the moment he first saw her in her dirty overalls sweeping the floor in the camp.
He knew she was special before he had even spoken to her. When a semblance of normality returned to their lives, he asked her out to dinner and surprisingly she accepted straight away.
Katerina had good teachers, a mother and father that set a great example for her and her brother to follow. Katerina’s mother, Anna, was an industrious and indomitable woman. Her cool, inscrutable exterior belied her passion for life, for creativity, for business and for caring and helping others. She gave a lot of herself and was devoted to any one of the many projects she had going at any one time.
In the destruction of Smyrna in 1922 by Kemal’s armies, her family, the Paresterises, had lost everything, one of the most prominent families in Smyrna reduced to poverty. On top of that, loved ones were killed and others disappeared and were still missing, their fate unknown.
It was a tragedy she would never forget, was not allowed to forget by her grandmother who happily regaled her with stories of the charmed life of Smyrna. Even though she had never seen it, through her grandmother’s stories, through her grandmother’s eyes, she felt she knew the city intimately, as if she had lived there. The city or the snapshot of it in 1922 became part of her.
Her mother tried on the one hand to shield her as much as she could from the harsh realities of life, but she also taught her how she could cope outside her privileged environment, so that by being aware of her position she would help those who were less privileged.
Her journey to learn to hug those in need with a vengeance started at home, then the next house, then down the road, then down the slope and into the world and the mixed up humanity of the world below.
Her mother gave her the unique perspective of the value of life. She opened Katerina’s eyes to the real world and its possibilities and the value of being creative in work and outside it; those were, certainly, not bad values to accompany you in life. Not for her the idleness of many of her class who led a spoiled life from mighty fake towers and gilded prisons above the humid crowd.
Her mother felt a slight pinch of guilt at setting such a burden of her family’s history on Katerina’s shoulders, with a little help from her own mother, but that history was important if Katerina’s generation were not to waste the future.
Katerina had the ruthlessness required in business and compassion to remain a member of the human race, a member of the society, and not the charmed circle, she was born into. She only wished the new generation had the guts to rise above the vortex of mediocrity and self-interest that characterised the majority of the political elite in Greece and in Cyprus, which had led to devastating consequences throughout the history of these two countries the fate of which was inextricably linked to each other; this feeling was shared by both mother and daughter.
It was the defeatist attitude that Katerina fiercely hated and wanted to change. Katerina was determined to be a protagonist in doing her bit. She was made of steel, but still wore her big heart on her sleeve and opened it up to others with confidence and strength but with humility.
Katerina felt that the next few months and years would challenge the endurance of her and her loved ones. She had an impending sense of doom, a fear that events would hit them like a maelstrom and, as if in tandem with the mayhem around them, shatter the picture of an otherwise idyllic family life and dispel any illusions of a peaceful life filled with the welcome boredom of routine, and the occasional exhilaration.
CHAPTER 20
Limassol, Cyprus
Present day
Aristo had decided that it was time for his mother and Katerina to meet. Today was the big day that he was to introduce her to his mother. It would be Katerina’s first visit to the famous mansion on the peak and a meeting with the legendary Elli Symitzis. The meeting was arranged three days earlier to slot into Elli’s hectic schedule.
Aristo and Katerina were now standing outside his mother’s home, the house in which Aristo grew up in, the house that was firmly lodged in the deepest regions of his heart. Katerina was rooted to the spot enthralled by the house she had heard so much about. None of what she had heard did the house justice and that was just the outside first impression.
Aristo could see she was deeply moved. He felt invisible fingers clutching at his heart and he involuntarily felt protective of her. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. He was amused but not surprised by her reaction. Katerina turned to him.
‘I’ve always dreamed of coming here and seeing this house. It’s beautiful. I’m really glad I’m here.’
The light was fading fast and the city’s night face was coming alive like little stars switched on by an invisible higher force. They went straight to the veranda. Elli stood up and went to greet them.
‘I’m very glad to meet you at last.’
‘Mrs Symitzis, it’s an honour.’
‘Katerina, please. I’m not the Archbishop. And please call me Elli.’
‘OK, Elli. It’s a pleasure.’
‘That’s better. Come and join me.’ Elli said and, with Katerina and Aristo following close behind, walked back towards the table and chairs set on the best vantage point of the verandah and enjoying an uninterrupted view of the sea and the city below, a veritable West-South-East feast and, so as not to offend any direction of the compass, if you looked to the North you could just about make out in the distance the Troodos mountain range standing tall and proud.
They all sat down and there was a short but comfortable silence as they all admired the view. As if on cue, Mrs Manto appeared with a very respectable spread, fit for a regiment. Aristo looked at his mother and smiled. She smiled back. Katerina noticed and her face joined in.
With Mrs Manto setting the table and chatting away, Aristo turned to Katerina and with a quick look at Mrs Manto could not resist enlightening Katerina on Mrs Manto’s wily and bossy but generous ways.
‘Mrs Manto has been feeding us since we were kids. You’ve seen nothing yet. It’s amazing half the animal and plant kingdoms are not extinct. She believes that everybody’s malnourished and needs fattening up. It’s a miracle we are not able to roll down the hill to the beach by now.’
Mrs Manto paused from her task and reached to pull Aristo’s ear.
‘Aristo, I’m constantly amazed by your talent of finding new ways to show your affection. You know how much I adore you too, you scoundrel.’
Aristo just laughed and the others laughed too. Elli broke the spell.