behaved precisely as Eleni would have anticipated. Anna, the elder, had always been volatile, and there was never any doubt about what she was feeling. Maria, on the other hand, was a quieter, more patient child who was slower to lose her temper. True to form, Anna had been more openly distressed than her sister in the days leading up to her mother’s departure, and her inability to control her emotions had never been more on display than on this day. She had begged her mother not to go, beseeched her to stay, ranted, raved and torn her hair. By contrast, Maria had wept, silently at first and then with huge racking sobs that could be heard out in the street. The final stage for both of them, however, was the same: they both became subdued, exhausted, spent.
Eleni was determined to contain the volcanic eruption of grief that threatened to overwhelm her. She could vent it in full once she was away from Plaka, but the only hope any of them had at this moment was that her self-possession would remain intact. If she caved in, they were all done for. The girls were to stay in the house. They would be spared the vision of their mother’s receding figure, a sight that might burn itself for ever on to their memory.
This was the hardest moment of Eleni’s life and now the least private. She was watched by rows of sad eyes. She knew they were there to wish her farewell but never before had she yearned so much to be alone. Every face in the crowd was familiar to her, each was one she loved. ‘Goodbye,’ she said softly. ‘Goodbye.’ She kept her distance from them. Her old instincts to embrace had died a sudden death ten days ago, that fateful morning when she had noticed the strange patches on the back of her leg. They were unmistakable, especially when she compared them with a picture on the leaflet that had been circulated to warn people of the symptoms. She hardly needed to see a specialist to understand the awful truth. She knew, even before she visited the doctor, that she had somehow contracted that most dreaded of diseases. The words from Leviticus, read out with more frequency than strictly necessary by the local priest, had resounded inside her head:
As the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh, he is a leprous man, he is unclean and the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent and his head bared and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry ‘Unclean, Unclean.’
Many people still believed that the Old Testament’s brutal instructions for the treatment of lepers should be followed. This passage had been heard in church for hundreds of years, and the image of the leper as a man, woman or even child to be cast out of society was deeply ingrained.
As she approached through the crowd Giorgis could just make out the top of Eleni’s head, and he knew the moment he had been dreading was upon him. He had been to Spinalonga a thousand times, for years supplementing his meagre fisherman’s income by making regular deliveries to the leper colony, but he had never imagined making a journey such as this. The boat was ready and he stood watching her as she approached, his arms wrapped tightly across his chest, his head bowed. He thought that if he stood like this, his body tense, rigid, he could subdue his raging emotions and prevent them from spilling out as huge involuntary cries of anguish. His built-in ability to hide his feelings was bolstered by his wife’s exemplary self-control. Inside, though, he was stricken with grief. I must do this, he told himself, as though it is just another ordinary boat journey. To the thousand crossings he had already made would be added this one and a thousand more.
As Eleni approached the jetty, the crowd remained silent. One child cried, but was hushed by its mother. One false emotional move and these grieving people would lose their composure. The control, the
Eleni was determined to contain the volcanic eruption of grief that threatened to overwhelm her. She could vent it in full once she was away from Plaka, but the only hope any of them had at this moment was that her self-possession would remain intact. If she caved in, they were all done for. The girls were to stay in the house. They would be spared the vision of their mother’s receding figure, a sight that might burn itself for ever on to their memory.
This was the hardest moment of Eleni’s life and now the least private. She was watched by rows of sad eyes. She knew they were there to wish her farewell but never before had she yearned so much to be alone. Every face in the crowd was familiar to her, each was one she loved. ‘Goodbye,’ she said softly. ‘Goodbye.’ She kept her distance from them. Her old instincts to embrace had died a sudden death ten days ago, that fateful morning when she had noticed the strange patches on the back of her leg. They were unmistakable, especially when she compared them with a picture on the leaflet that had been circulated to warn people of the symptoms. She hardly needed to see a specialist to understand the awful truth. She knew, even before she visited the doctor, that she had somehow contracted that most dreaded of diseases. The words from Leviticus, read out with more frequency than strictly necessary by the local priest, had resounded inside her head:
As the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh, he is a leprous man, he is unclean and the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent and his head bared and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry ‘Unclean, Unclean.’
Many people still believed that the Old Testament’s brutal instructions for the treatment of lepers should be followed. This passage had been heard in church for hundreds of years, and the image of the leper as a man, woman or even child to be cast out of society was deeply ingrained.
As she approached through the crowd Giorgis could just make out the top of Eleni’s head, and he knew the moment he had been dreading was upon him. He had been to Spinalonga a thousand times, for years supplementing his meagre fisherman’s income by making regular deliveries to the leper colony, but he had never imagined making a journey such as this. The boat was ready and he stood watching her as she approached, his arms wrapped tightly across his chest, his head bowed. He thought that if he stood like this, his body tense, rigid, he could subdue his raging emotions and prevent them from spilling out as huge involuntary cries of anguish. His built-in ability to hide his feelings was bolstered by his wife’s exemplary self-control. Inside, though, he was stricken with grief. I must do this, he told himself, as though it is just another ordinary boat journey. To the thousand crossings he had already made would be added this one and a thousand more.
As Eleni approached the jetty, the crowd remained silent. One child cried, but was hushed by its mother. One false emotional move and these grieving people would lose their composure. The control, the
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