Aphrodite's Isle

When Spartan Helen was carried off by Trojan Paris, legends tell us that they made their way to Kythira, to worship at the shrine of Aphrodite, at the place where she first came ashore, now known as Avlemonas. Then, according to Herodotus, Paris travelled north and east to Troy whilst Helen went south and east to Egypt.

So when I wanted to write a story built around the practise, widespread until very recent times in South-eastern Europe, of marriage by kidnap, I chose to have the abducted bride come ashore in Aphrodite's bay.

I apologise in advance for the many misunderstandings and errors in this short story. Errors multiply exponentially when people venture to set a story in a culture not their own.

Note: Kythirians still used the Italian name for their island, Cerigo, and refer to themselves as Cerigans.

Krysanthe was only too aware of the problem she posed for her family.

She was a short, stocky girl with a blobby nose set in the middle of a plain, rather severe face, with jet-black frizzy hair that could not be made to stay neatly plaited for five minutes on end.

The eldest of three daughters, she knew full well that their father could afford no dowry for her, and that if she had been fortunate enough to find a suitor, she would have taken to the marriage nothing more than the weaving and embroidery she had been amassing in her wedding chest since she was a small girl. Regrettably, though, she was now nineteen - well past marriageable age - and no suitable suitor had appeared.

She was a nikokeira, an excellent housewife, noted for her handicrafts, and a skilled cook. Since she was four years old she had cared for the hens, and a year or two later she could break a chicken's neck in an instant with one practised movement, and begin stripping its feathers before the scrawny body had begun to cool.

Before the sun had risen each morning she was half way through milking the dozen or so ewes in the family flock, and before she broke her fast she had began to make cheese and mageithra with the milk. Her perivole, her orchard/vegetable garden, was always immaculately free of weeds and she proudly grew fine vegetables and fruit for the family.

Krysanthe knew that if she made a fuss, her sisters could be brought to help her in her household tasks, but they were pretty, lively girls who might find suitors, so she was happy that, unlike herself, they would get a couple of years of elementary school. And anyway, she liked to be busy from morn 'til night.

Her father earned the family's income by transporting spring-water to the citadel and town of Monemvasia in a huge tub on a wagon drawn by two mules, and selling it in the streets by the pitcher-full.

Although the citadel had a huge underground cistern as a part of its defences, there was no local supply of fresh water. He never failed, summer or winter, and his labours had made him successful.

Over a long weary lifetime of unremitting work and penury, he had saved enough to buy the cart and the mules out of the few drachmas a day he earned. But now he was old and his health was failing. In a few years he would not have the strength to lift the heavy buckets over his head, time and time again, to full the water butt; the essential first part of each day's work. With no son to take on the family business, he had no option but to continue working until his health broke.

Krysanthe's father was a man of rigid correctness. After she reached

the age of eleven, it was unthinkable to him that she should be allowed out in the streets without the escort of a male member of her family; an uncle or a cousin if her father were not available. But today, on a June evening in 1924, she could hardly believe her ears.

"Krysanthe mou, take this money and run down to the jetty and see if the fishermen have a couple of barbounia or some gavros for supper,

there's a good girl."

"But father, I can't go out without Uncle Kostas or cousin Dimitri to go with me. What will people think?"

"Krysanthe, please just do as you are told. It will be all right this once."

She was a well-brought up girl. She checked carefully that her black dress swept past her ankles, her boots were polished to a shine, her white apron was starched and gleaming white. Her white headscarf was tied to frame her face, with not a tendril of hair showing, and the homespun stockings she had knitted so carefully were clean, straight and wrinkle free. Satisfied that she would not disgrace her family, she went outside and walked down the hill and began the long walk around the peninsula to the harbour.

Tied up at the jetty were four caiques, three she recognised and one a stranger from Crete. Politely she walked along and greeted the

fishermen, asking if they had any fresh fish. The men from the local boats replied that they had soup fish but nothing good enough for grilling. Krysanthe passed along with a smile and a word of thanks and walked over to the strange caique.

The two-man crew were all ashore, smoking pungent cigarettes rolled from coarse yellow paper. As she approached them they jumped to their feet and threw a blue canvas sugar sack over her head. One man, head and shoulders taller than Krysanthe clasped her around the waist from behind and clapped a hand over her mouth. She was thrown into panic and tried to scream, but all she could so was to make a muffled groaning noise as she was lifted off her feet and lowered onto the deck of the caique and down the hatchway. A door was closed behind her and she found herself in darkness.

Krysanthe was no fool, and she knew that the other crews - her townsmen - were in on the plot. She had been abducted, and clearly with her father's consent. As she thought the situation out, she could hear the boat's crew raise the anchor and hoist the sails. The caique was standing out to sea.

Confirmation that she had been traded away by her family came when, growing accustomed to the semi-darkness, she realised that the chest on which she was sitting was her own marriage chest.

Was she to be married? Or was she being sent overseas, perhaps as an indentured servant? She had heard of the shiploads of dowerless unmarried girls who had been sent to America and Canada as mail-order brides. Was this to be her fate?

She began to weep bitterly as she realised that if the news had been good her father would have talked to her. Instead he had sent her out all unawares to be abducted and carried away.

Krysanthe had never before experienced the uneasy motion of a caique at sea and within a few minutes she was nauseous and utterly miserable. Her head was splitting with a piercing headache, she lay on the floor through the night, longing for the oblivion of sleep, and wishing herself dead.

At sunrise, she was brought up on deck by the genial, sympathetic fishermen.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, feeling that complaints and reproaches were futile.

"We are just rounding Cape Malea, one of them replied. The island over on the left is Cerigo. That is where we are heading. Your new husband will be waiting for you there."

As the island drew nearer, she could see a white lighthouse on a headland, and small groups of whitewashed houses with pitched roofs of dull, ochre pantiles. People laboured in the small, enclosed fields. Small flocks of sheep, and herds of dark, long-haired goats grazed the lower slopes of the hills. Not at all unlike her native Lakonia, she felt.

An hour or so later, the caique turned shorewards into a lovely bay, deep and rock-enclosed, lined with a sprinkling of whitewashed tunnel-shaped camarras. There was a narrow, stony shingle beach with sandy areas on the shoreline, where the small boats could be drawn up out of the water.

On the beach stood a tiny black-clad old woman in the black headscarf that proclaimed her widowhood. By her side stood a short, very thickset man wearing a western style suit jacket, black breeches and boots, with a flat cap on his head. He was holding the head of a large black donkey which stood vacantly patient with fatalistic stoicism of its species.

"He's like me, that donkey," she thought. "Life maybe cruel, or kind, but he must accept what he cannot change."

The boat drew in towards the beach, its prow grating on the sandy bottom. The two-man crew raised the huge netted stone that formed the anchor and dropped in over the prow. Krysanthe looked at the old woman and the middle-aged man and wondered.

She knew that many men beat their wives and that for some girls she knew as children, such beatings were a daily occurrence. A mother-in-law could tyrannise over, and terrorise a bride worse then the worst of husbands; and there were bitter, brutal mothers-in-law who delighted at undermining their sons' relationships. Would this, she wondered, be her fate?

The big man, stepped over the rail and got down in-to the waist-deep sea with a wide smile and a chuckle. His mate handed him Krysanthe's marriage chest. He shouldered it and carried it ashore, well out of the reach of the water. He placed it carefully down on the shingle, turned and waded back to the boat. This time he held out his arms to Krysanthe.

"Jump down to me, Despinis. Don't worry I won't let you get wet. Krysanthe felt, for the first time in her life the strong arms of a man around her body, who was not a father or uncle. He held her well out of the water and carried her ashore without stumble or hesitation.

"There you are, Despinis, your new family. I wish you many years of happiness. Kronia polla."

There was no hint of irony in his tone. He had performed the duty asked of him with as much sensitivity and grace as he could muster, and Krysanthe somehow found the courage to thank him.

For the first of many times in the forthcoming weeks, she was grateful for the strong thread of conventional greeting and conventional response that was acculturated into her, and gave her and her new family something uncontentious to say in almost all situations.

The old lady smiled a toothless smile and greeted her.

"Welcome daughter. Here is Giorgos, your new husband. You must call me mother."

For a girl who lost her mother when she was only nine years old, this was both heartwarming and tinged with the sadness of her long concealed mourning for her own mother.

She gave the correct reply,

"Good to have found you mother; Giorgos." Bowing her head a little to each of them in turn.

The old lady kissed her on both cheeks, and Giorgos took his hat off and grinned a wide grin of vacant amiability.

"Oh God, he's a natural; he's simple," she thought. "No wonder they will take me without a dowry."

"Daughter, we have many hours to travel. Do you wish to make yourself comfortable before we depart?"

Gratefully, she said yes, and asked her new husband to take her chest into the small tunnel-like building that was the fisherman's chapel. There, in the comfortable semi-darkness, she could change her badly soiled underclothing and straighten clothing and headscarf for the hundredth time. She changed her stockings and put back on her stout walking shoes.

Her ingrained piety asserted itself and she went to the roodscreen, painted with the icons of saints, and said a brief prayer. Two icons attracted her attention. The Panagia demanded all her focus and concentration, but she could not expect the Virgin to have time for her troubles.

Saint George, on the other hand was worth a direct appeal. She knew that many of the saints had a very low opinion of women, so she would not ask anything for herself, but Saint George was her soon-to-be husband's patron, so she risked a short extempore prayer to him.

"Blessed saint George, you have my new husband in your special keeping. I promise to the best possible wife to him and a good daughter to his mother, if only you will help them to be kind to me."

Reverently she kissed the icon again and made a deep curtsey.

This duty done, she walked around the outside of the chapel until she found a discreet place to squat and relieve herself. Now she was ready.

To her complete surprise, Giorgos took her around the waist and made as if to put her into the donkey saddle. Krysanthe protested indignantly and tried to climb down.

"Giorgos, what are you thinking of? I couldn't possibly ride whilst your mother walks. Please help her into the saddle. I shall lead the donkey and you can carry my box."

Mother protested feebly, but saw that Giorgos was only too willing to do as his bride told him. "Nothing could be better!" she thought. She subsided quietly, feeling that every penny spent on this wild idea was worth while.

They walked steadily, Giorgos carrying the heavy marriage chest with no apparent effort, and Krysanthe walking easily at the pack of the donkey. The road rose continuously from the bay towards what looked like the central spine of the island.

After each hour's walking, the little party halted to allow the donkey to graze a little on the browning grass and wild fennel that grew between the tall olive trees. The trees were hung with tiny green berries. Giorgos gently but firmly nudged the ass's nose away as it attempted to browse on them. Olive trees were the livelihood of the island.

Early in the afternoon they reached Aroniadika where they found a kafeneion open. They bought refreshments and rested a while. The old men playing backgammon and drinking their tzipouro greeted them politely, welcoming Krysanthe to the island and, politely wished her "many years." Obviously they knew what was going on, and took it as a matter of course.

Once again the old lady tried to get Krysanthe to ride on the donkey, and once again she refused adamantly.

"I am a young woman with all my health and strength," she insisted. "What a disgrace for me to allow my mother to walk whilst I rode."

It was evening when, on the crown of a long ridge over the valley, they could see the tiny settlement which was to be Krysanthe's home. At the end of the steep climb they calmed the watchdog, now barking hysterically, and entered the house.

They fed on dry rusks dipped in water, with large lumps of home-made sheep milk cheese. It was very like the cheese Krysanthe made at home. Giorgos preferred the pungent lathotirie, cheese that had been matured for months in olive oil, whilst the women preferred the milder young cheese. The old lady produced a wide-necked earthenware jar and fished up olives in a long-handled mote-spoon. The olives were good; sharp and salty, with a taste of lemon juice and oil, and just a hint of bitterness.

"Whatever else," Krysanthe reflected, "we shall eat well. I saw a wood oven in the courtyard, maybe I can bake barley bread."

The homeliness of the scene reassured her. The old lady was a good housewife, and the furnishings, although old and a bit shabby, were of far better quality than those in her father's house.

Giorgos went out to perform the evening tasks; milk the sheep, tend to the animals and stable the donkey in the underpart of the house. Time for the two women to talk.

"I can see that you are an intelligent girl, as well as a good-hearted one," said the old lady, making the sign to avert the evil eye that must follow a compliment, lest the spirits should be jealous. "Will you accept this marriage, although it was forced upon you? If I know that you will take care of Giorgos, then I can go to my grave happy."

"May you live to be a hundred, mother", she said automatically, but with total sincerity. "Yes, I promise to be a good wife, and a good daughter. If God blesses us with children, I promise to bring them up to be a credit to you."

"The Pappas will come here tonight to make the marriage. I will show you where you will sleep, and you can wash and change."

The long, tunnel-shaped room that people called a camarra, had a curtain dividing it into two. Behind the curtain was a raised area with cupboard space below. The dais or platform was almost filled with a huge straw-filled paliasse covered with blankets and cushions. This

was the marriage bed!

She found a jug and bowl, and some strong, gritty home-made soap. She sniffed it. Good olive oil soap made with finely sieved wood ash.

She removed her outer clothing and washed herself thoroughly. Then she unplaited her hair and brushed it fiercely, before braiding it again, looking at her reflection in a scrap of mirror glass.

"Can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear," she sighed to her reflection.

Krysanthe thought about her husband-to-be. Twice her own age, she guessed, and as strong as an ox. His legs were short and as solid as tree trunks, his body like a barrel with a huge chest and massive shoulders. Neck as wide as his head. Hair greying and looking as if it were cut with sheep shears. Big jug ears and a blobby nose like her own. A strong, slightly pungent odour composed of sweat and cheap Macedonian tobacco. No girl's dream of love, but his foolish face shone with goodwill.

"And he has treated us with care and kindness," she thought, "he was even gentle with the donkey."

Carefully, she unpacked her wedding dress of stiff white hand-woven cotton, embroidered with a border of her own design, purple vetch and brilliant blue speedwell for the Spring, red geraniums for the Summer, pink cyclamen, the flower of Autumn, and purple/black olives and green olive leaves for Winter.

How proud she had been when her Aunt, who was almost impossible to please, showed the flower border to the neighbours, saying simply, "this is my niece, Krysanthe's work." Of course the neighbours dared not express their admiration out loud, but several times afterwards she was asked to draw out the pattern for other girls to work.

As she had been preparing herself, Krysanthe heard the Pappas arrive and call down blessings on the house. She continued quietly, brushing her shoes and putting on the heavy dress. Then she walked out from behind the curtain to face her future.

The Pappas was all prepared to confront rage, hysteria or downright, sullen refusal from the unfortunate bride. He had encountered all these before, and steeled himself to cope. What he saw a young woman, immaculate in her wedding gown, whose mismatched features were made beautiful by her serenity.

The old lady produced her own wedding wreaths of silvered laurel tied with white silk ribbons. The wedding promises were soon made, and the blessing given. All that remained was to toast the bridal couple in fatsouratha, (tzipouro sweetened with honey and flavoured with herbs and spices.)

Soon the priest departed, the old lady retired to her bed in the kitchen and the couple were left.

Giorgos tried to speak to her, but he had few teeth left and his speech was indistinct. Coupled with the strong island dialect, Krysanthe realised that for some time she would be picking out key words from his gabble, and making the best guesses she could.

"Well, husband", she said, taking his hand, "Shall we go to bed. The animals and fowls won't want to wait for us in the morning."

She got up, went behind the curtain, slipped off her dress and corset, and composed herself for bed in her best petticoat. Ten minutes later her husband came in, took off his own outer clothing and lay beside her.

Although she had never mentioned it to a soul, and would never do so to her dying day, Krysanthe had a secret. Years earlier, she cannot have been older than nine because her mother was still alive, she had come across a photograph, a postcard, torn in two, in an alley close to the harbour where there were two or three bars. It was the sort of place that, if her parents found out that she had been anywhere near, would have got her severely beaten.