The Girl Under the Olive Tree (31 page)

What worried the village most was that so many of them were forced to work on the roads and quarries so that there was no time to tend their olives and crops, water their vegetables or feed their animals. It was left to the children to work in the fields as best they could. Many schools had been bombed and closed, teachers forced into labour gangs, but some of the Anzacs risked exposure, dressing as local boys, hoeing and watering, helping with milking goats and making cheese in the shepherds’ stone huts. They scarpered into holes if soldiers appeared on the horizon.

The Cretan’s own secret wireless service, carried over the air by runners and children, was accurate in giving warnings of patrols on the move. Only the previous week, three German officers had called in at Ike’s house for a drink while Bluey’s mates were still in the house. Penny served the officers, staying calm and composed, while Katrina smiled and played the perfect hostess, dressed in her American cotton dress that enhanced her magnificent bosom, neither of them giving any inkling that above their heads, three Aussies were hardly daring to breathe.

In the height of summer, men gathered in groups high up, planning daring raids and ambushes when they had enough arms to make a decent attack. Once autumn came and winter drew in, there would be fewer opportunities for raids. There was no sign of an Allied counter-invasion of the island. They were far too busy trying to hold back Rommel in North Africa. The wireless had brought grim news of the fall of Tobruk.

Bruce had explained how important it was for the Resistance to detail all troop movements and convoys. The enemy was depending on supplies from Crete, and there was great elation at news of an air raid on the oil tanks outside Chania when thousands of gallons of precious fuel for tanks were destroyed. The sky was black with smoke for days. It was a victory for which many hostages lost their lives.

As Penny sat on the bus rattling back eastward on the road to Heraklion, past ruined houses, scattered flocks and burned olive groves where the wrecks of British planes lay rusting, she wondered if she would ever have a normal life again, that well-ordered life she had led in Athens. Her country childhood home at Stokencourt seemed so far away, she could no longer even think of herself as English.

To think, once, all she had to worry about was resisting her mother’s plans to give her a debutante season in London. Now she felt a hundred years old, battered and bruised, but proud to be still battling here. There were so many far worse off than she; destitute, bereaved, homeless. She had a roof over her head, a good billet. She had been fortunate so far. But seeing Captain Brecht had shaken her complacency.

To the onlooker she was just another worn-out peasant woman with coarse hands and sunburned face, but underneath, her heart was racing. From now on she would take no risks of being recognized as a British escapee, especially if found in a village house. There was one German officer in Chania who was suspicious. What if he came searching for her? She would never forgive herself if she put her Greek comrades in danger.

When Yolanda finished her shift, she walked wearily home. She’d been tending to some poor kids who’d set off an unexploded bomb, killing three outright and leaving two almost limbless. Their bodies were mutilated and showing them to weeping mothers had been unbearable. Her heart was heavy with the frustration that there was so little they could do when these undetected bombs were lying around, hidden and lethal where children were playing.

When she came through the door there was a posse of women gathered round the table staring at her with such glares, she wondered what new restrictions had been placed on them now.

‘Sit down,’ Aunt Miriam ordered, pointing to a chair.

‘What’s happened?’ Yolanda asked, flopping down, hot and exhausted. All she wanted to do was close the door of her room and shut her eyes from the horrors of the day.

‘That I should have to tell my own child . . . What’s happened? You were seen,’ Momma said, not looking at her.

‘Seen where? What’s all this about?’

‘Seen in broad daylight sitting in a public place with two men, one a German and both goyim.’

There was silence as the women glared, waiting for her reply.

‘Oh, you mean Dr Androulakis. You’ve met him before; he’s my medical officer,’ she smiled, relieved. ‘We were taking a rest. It’s been a terrible morning. You heard about the bomb in the Kastelli district, three little children—’

‘I don’t want excuses, I want an explanation. You were with a man, sitting alone, and then a German officer came and sat next to you.’

‘I’m sorry, it was an awful morning and I met Penny . . . We had coffee or what passes for it now,’ she tried to joke. This was not going well and she wondered if she could win them over. ‘Dr Androulakis joined us and then one of his patients turned up just as Penny was leaving. I had to be polite.’

‘You were seen laughing together. It will not do, this shaming yourself in public, flaunting yourself when you are about to be betrothed. What will Mordo think?’ said Aunt Miriam.

Yolanda jumped up. ‘Who said anything about marriage? I have no intention of being betrothed to anyone, not while we are occupied and under surveillance.’

‘You spend time alone with this doctor in the clinic. It has to stop.’

‘Andreas is an excellent doctor and a brave man,’ she argued, her arms folded in defiance.

‘You are not the daughter we brought up. He is not one of us.’

‘In these dangerous times, is that so important? And who’s been spying on me?’ she demanded angrily.

‘So you are attached to him? I feared as much,’ Momma sighed. ‘How can you do this to your own family?’

‘I’ve not done anything. Yes, he and I have become close through our work. He’s a good man. Surely you would want me to be happy with a good man?’

‘Only with a good Jewish man – that is what is expected if we are to survive. You carry the seed of your race. There must be no mixing of race or religion. It never works.’

‘In Athens there were friends who married Greeks. You always told me a heart must be free to choose its mate. Penny is a Gentile and she saved Papa’s life, or have you forgotten that?’

‘That was then, this is now,’ Momma said simply.

‘That’s no argument.’

‘Don’t cheek your mother in my house, ungrateful girl,’ said Miriam. ‘Remember the Commandment, thou shalt honour thy mother and father . . .’

‘How can I honour what is bigoted and unfair?’ Yolanda cried.

‘Yolanda, you have said enough. Don’t make it any worse than it is. You must leave the clinic at once and come home and learn obedience to our Law.’ Momma had changed so much since she came here, defending the stricter rules of their religion where once she was happy to ignore them. ‘It will kill your father to hear such disobedience and ingratitude. Spare me the task of telling him all this.’

‘Why are you making me choose? Please don’t ask me to give up my work. If you could only see the injuries of those children and the faces of those poor mothers, it would break your heart. God hears the prayers of both Jews and Gentiles in their distress. He makes no distinctions. How can I sit here cooking and sewing when lives need mending? You can’t ask this of me now,’ she cried, fleeing the room of angry and judgemental women. This horrid day had suddenly got even worse. If she made her choice she would, she knew, break all their hearts.

There comes a time midway in a holiday when you’ve done enough sightseeing, especially at my age. Trips to the beach, people-watching from the shade of a sun lounger, and gadding from one museum, church or taverna to another, were exhausting in the heat. What I needed was a good book and my own company. And no more questions about my wartime experience. This visit was bringing memories flooding back into my dreams, making me feel ancient and weary and more than a little anxious for what might I might discover next.

Lois kept fussing, imagining me falling into the pool or dying of sunstroke while she and Alex went off on a mountain excursion accompanied by Mack, who was becoming her permanent companion.

It would be bliss to hide among the olives and do nothing. I’d found an old tree, gnarled and nobbly with a beer belly of a trunk, hundreds of years old but still standing proud with sculpted branches and its blossoms promising a good yield of olives. It reminded me of one I knew all those years ago with its kindly face. I can never look at an ancient tree without seeing the living creature within. They are so majestic.

Everything here had changed beyond recognition. I could no longer find my way through the hills that I had once scampered over so easily, nor scent the crushed thyme in my fingers, nor hear that screech of cicadas that deafens all conversations. But some things remained: those vibrant colours of Crete; the crimson bougainvillaea arching over the walls, the ripening apricots, the turquoise sea, the sandy ochres of the monastery towers, the cerulean sky. The girl under the olive tree is now a
yiayia
sitting in the shade, trying to recall why she had stayed away from such a beautiful place for so long. You never think old age will come to you but it does . . .

I felt myself dozing off, a good way to escape the memories of what happened next.

On the opposite side of Chania, Rainer took a taxi to the beach at Georgioupoli, a little town halfway between Chania and Rethymno on the north coast. He fancied a break from his pilgrimage, a day by the sea on the golden expanse of coastline he’d once known so well. He found a deserted spot where the river met the shoreline, somewhere to sit in the shade with his book and be a tourist. Time to do nothing, think nothing. He’d bought a German translation of
The Winds of Crete
by David MacNeil Doren and he fancied tracing the steps of the author who had lived here in the 1960s with his Danish wife.

What had once been a quiet fishing village was now a lively resort, popular with German and Scandinavian tourists, famous for its lines of giant eucalyptus trees and its royal connections. It suited his mood and he knew there were good fish tavernas to sample later.

The National Road linking the north coast towns had changed the pace of everything. He recalled a slow trip in the back of a truck to this very spot with friends on embarkation leave, lying naked in the sand, diving into the sea, getting very drunk as they prepared to sail to North Africa. How he’d envied them leaving before him.

He woke from his daydream, putting down his book and making for the sea. It was no good getting steamed up about the past. Time to wash all these maudlin thoughts out of his system.

The early morning chores were over, chickens let out, children fed and watered. It was a bright November day. The sound of whistling suddenly pierced Penny’s ears. It was the warning alert.

‘What’s happening?’ she yelled.

‘Troops, hundreds of them. Just carry on, take no notice. The men know to hide in the hills,’ yelled Katrina through the window.

Suddenly they were overwhelmed, pushed aside as the men rushed into the villa, bashing doors open, their dogs let loose to snarl and bite anyone who moved.

Penny’s first thought was for the men hiding in the burial chamber. Please God they’d heard the noise and pulled down the stone slab. Were they far enough away for the dogs not to scent? Penny picked up her laundry basket and made to move.

‘Kalimera,
’ she smiled to a soldier with her lips but not her eyes.

‘Where are you going with that?’ He eyed her with suspicion.

‘Taking clothes to the old lady.’ She pointed to a stone hovel where the widow Calliope lived. He snatched the basket and threw the clean things onto the ground. ‘Get inside!’ There was nothing to do but retrace her steps back into the villa, hoping Ike had got away from the back, but when she returned they were all there, standing at gunpoint.

‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ Ike stood firm.

‘Papers!’ came the order, and Ike produced a leather wallet full of documents.

‘You are Ilias Papadakis?’

‘I am.’

‘You come.’

Ike shot an anxious glance at his wife. ‘What is this about? Our papers are in order?’

‘No questions. Come. Your wife?’ The soldier was looking at each woman in turn ‘Or have you two?’

‘I am Katrina Papadaki,’

‘And this one?’ The soldier stared at Penny.

‘The servant, Athina.’

He seemed satisfied and shoved Ike at gunpoint out the door. Ike turned to his wife in farewell.

‘Make sure the mules are watered, Katrina. Don’t worry. This is all a mistake. I’ll be home soon.’

He joined a line of village men, who were marched down the hill, sandwiched between a line of armed soldiers, and loaded onto a waiting truck. This was no ordinary raid. Katrina let out a howl of anguish as she saw the dust of the vehicle disappearing out of view. ‘What will become of them? Who has betrayed us?’

Penny shot out of the villa, running down through the field to the olive grove where the three evaders were entombed in the chamber with only a crack of air to breathe. They had heard the echo of the warning and barking dogs, and retreated to their hole. She brought fresh water and food, warning them not to move until they knew more.

It was midnight before a runner crept down the hillside with news of arrests all over the district. The leader of the Resistance group, Andreas Polentas, had been arrested, and the wireless operator working from a house in the village of Vafes was caught trying to escape. ‘Forty good men are arrested and in the hands of the Gestapo by now, but not the wireless,’ said the runner, flushed with anger.

‘How was that possible?’

‘For that we must thank the quick thinking of the operator’s sister, Elpida. She knew the code papers were in his pocket and when he left she made him change into a better jacket, snatching the papers and hiding them. She knew where the radio was hidden and she carried it on her back and is guarding it in a cave with a gun. No one knows where she is now so no one will be able to tell the enemy . . . God protect them from those evil murderers. We were betrayed! Every one of Polentas’s contacts is taken.’ He crossed himself before heading back into the hills.