THE GRANDMOTHER

That spring Marina Petrou received a phone call from Father Basil, the priest in the village of Fanaron, with the news that her grandmother was seriously ill and was not expected to live.

Story by Harry Mark Petrakis

Marina had an almost identical call concerning her grandmother’s failing health from the priest a year earlier and though she planned at that time to go to Fanaron, business at her Travel Agency in Athens delayed her a few days that became weeks. In the end she phoned the priest that she could not make the journey. Her grandmother had lived through that illness and Marina suspected the sturdy and baleful old woman would survive this crisis, as well.

The truth was Marina had little desire to visit her grandmother. The last time she had been to the village was ten years earlier for her mother’s funeral. That was the last time Marina had seen her grandmother’s small, gnarled figure.

She could never remember her grandmother displaying a trace of kindness or affection toward either of her parents. The old woman was the same with the villagers who either feared or despised her. In all her relationships she was obdurate, acid-tongued, mordantly vengeful, bigoted, proud with little reason for pride except for her survival.

Evdoxia Petrou was a small woman, her height an inch or two over five feet. At one time she might have been fine-featured but the years had blunted and hardened her face so it seemed carved in stone. In the cold of winter she grew pale and stooped, her limbs stiff and her energy depleted. When spring arrived, she eagerly carried her spade and pitchfork to the field and began tearing up the clumps of earth. As she worked planting tomatoes, potatoes and corn, the sun seemed a funnel which fed her energy and power. An amazing transformation took place, her face and arms burned a deep brown, her small figure acquiring nimbleness and strength. She even appeared taller, her winter feebleness banished as if by sorcery.

"My mother is a force of nature," Marina remembered her father once telling a neighbor, his face serious and his voice reverent. "Earth, rain and storm are ingrained in her. In the spring when the sun is renewed, she is resurrected."

Marina understood that old age was a time of decline with little reason for joy. But other old men and women in the village occasionally displayed good spirits and sometimes laughed. Her grandmother never revealed either of those traits. The stark truth was that as far back as she could recall, her grandmother had shadowed and tyrannized their house.

Marina vividly remembered her grandmother’s fits of temper if something her son or daughter-in-law said or did displeased her. The old woman launched into a tirade of unbridled anger marked by the clamorous banging of pots against the hearth.

Marina was dismayed at how passively her parents accepted these fits of temper.

"That is the way Evdoxia is and has always been," her mother’s voice was quiet and resigned. "I remember her angry during the time your father courted me. She was also angry when we married. I thought it was because she wished her son had chosen a more attractive or wealthier girl. But I came to understand that it was simply her nature."

"Has she always lived with you?"

"She moved in the day after we married," her mother said. "Since that time I have never lived a day without having her tell me what I should or should not do."

As Marina grew older, her father sought to soften the harsh resentment she felt about her grandmother.

"She has suffered a great deal," her father said. "She lost my father during the war when he was murdered by the Germans who occupied our village. I was a baby then and she was left alone to raise me. She has never spoken much about that occupation but I know the soldiers abused and humiliated the villagers, robbed their houses of food and kindling. People grew ill because of the cold or starved for lack of food. It required incredible strength and courage simply to survive."

Her father died the summer Marina was ten years old. After working all day in the field, he sat down at the table to eat supper. A moment later he slumped forward, his forehead landing upon a plate of greens. For years afterwards Marina remembered the way the greens stained his dead face.
When Marina became seventeen and felt confident enough to leave the village, she pleaded with her mother to go with her.

"You don’t have any kind of life here," Marina said. "Come with me, mama, and we’ll live together in Athens. I’ll get a good job and you can enjoy life a little. We can eat in nice restaurants and we’ll go to theaters. You’ll see marvels you’ve never seen before."

"I was in Athens once," her mother said. "It was like being in the midst of an earthquake. The noise, the traffic and the crowds." She shook her head. "I was born in Fanaron, dearest Marina, and I will die in Fanaron and be buried beside your father. You go now and make a life for yourself."

Within a year after Marina left the village for Athens, her mother died, as well. The midwife who attended her last hours said it appeared to be a malady related to her heart. But Marina knew her mother’s death was precipitated by hopelessness and weariness.

After the funeral Marina prepared to return to Athens the following day.

"I’d stay a little longer, grandmother," she said. "But we’re beginning the busy tourist season at the agency."

"Did I ask you to stay?" her grandmother asked brusquely. "No one is stopping you. Go and do your work."

Ten years had passed since then. Marina wrote her grandmother several times but the old lady never answered. She could not phone her because the grandmother had never allowed a telephone in the house. When Marina phoned a neighbor asking for information, the neighbor told her the old woman was healthy and as prickly and bellicose as always.

"When your grandmother goes near the chicken coops," the neighbor said, "even the hens cringe and are too terrified to lay their eggs."

Marina could not be sure just how old her grandmother was. Records in the village were erratically recorded and poorly maintained. Evdoxia had to be at least eighty and perhaps even a few years older.

Her grandmother’s advanced age suggested that this latest illness might indeed be her last and Marina decided to return to the village. She left Athens in the morning and drove to Fanaron. When she arrived in the village that evening, she found her grandmother recovered. Marina braced herself to endure the old woman’s grim presence for no more than another day.

"You should plan to come and visit me in Athens, grandmother," Marina said, hoping her voice wouldn’t reveal her insincerity. "You’d see what an exciting city Athens is".

"I know all I need to know about your exciting city," her grandmother said. "It is a devil’s haven full of thieves and whores. If you’d had sense enough to remain here you’d be married by now and have borne several children instead of being a spinster. In a few more years you’ll become dried up like a withered prune."

Marina did not tell her grandmother that in the years she’d lived in Athens, she’d had several lovers, and could have been married more than once if she’d chosen to accept the proposals.

On that last evening in the village, Marina ate a dinner of beans and mushrooms with her grandmother. The old woman had lost several of her teeth leaving gaps in her mouth but her gums had hardened and she chewed her food with vigor. They also drank several glasses of wine and her grandmother’s cheeks grew flushed. When the meal was finished and Marina tried to help with the few dishes, her grandmother brusquely waved her away.

"Go and sit by the fire," she said.

After her grandmother had washed and dried their plates, she came to sit across from Marina in the wicker chair beside the fireplace. The flames flickered across the old woman’s dour face.

"I’ll try to visit you again in a month or two," Marina said.

"No need to bother," her grandmother said. "And when someone phones to tell you I have died, you don’t even need to return then. All you’ll miss is that fork-tongued old priest mumbling a few words before a swarm of hypocrites who are only attending the funeral to make sure the old witch is really dead."

The old lady stared into the fire. Perhaps because of the wine she had drunk, Marina saw a softening in her grandmother’s face and, when she spoke, a pensiveness in her voice.

"I have lived longer than God allows most mortals to dwell on this earth," her grandmother said, her voice low and solemn. "You see what a wreck I’ve become and its time for me to die now. Children die of illness or accident every day so the death of an old woman who has lived an eternity means very little."

A wind rose in the night outside the house and rattled the sash of the windows. Realizing this might be the last time she’d see her grandmother alive, Marina felt a surge of remorse at how little she knew of the lifetime the old woman had endured.

"You have never spoken to any of us about the years of the war, grandmother," Marina said. "What was it like for you then?"

"That was a century ago. You weren’t even alive. What do you care about what happened then?"

"I’d like to know."

For a few moments they sat in silence.

"The war years were an evil and terrible time," her grandmother said finally. "Our village suffered more than some and not as much as others. There were towns like Kalavryta where the Germans slaughtered more than a thousand men and boys over fourteen. In Fanaron they didn’t massacre us all but they killed enough. That is how your grandfather died. Some partisan had shot and seriously wounded a German soldier. So the brutes took six of our men, stood them against the wall of the church and shot them. Your grandfather was one of them. I saw him die and felt as if the bullets that killed him had pierced my own heart."

Her grandmother paused, her face stony, concealing any emotion.

"Your father was just a baby then and I was left alone to look after him," her grandmother said. "We rarely left our house except to work in the fields. The German soldiers were swaggering brutes and we were in terror of them. As the war went on those soldiers who first came into our village were sent away and younger soldiers replaced them. I think the new ones were recruits who hadn’t seen any warfare and were being used only to occupy villages and towns."

"Were the younger ones any better than the others?"

"They were still Germans." her grandmother said grimly. "Cruelty and barbarism was in their nature." For a while she fell silent, her black eyes glistening in the flames of the fire. "There was one young soldier who seemed different. I had seen him watching me. He even followed me to the field where I was working but he never came close, just watched from a distance. I worked nervously and kept the baby, your father, strapped to my back."

The wind sweeping down the chimney fanned the flames and the fire flared more brightly.

"One morning I found some tins of food and a bar of chocolate outside my door. I suspected the young soldier who had been watching me put them there. I was in terror thinking he might harm me. Other girls in the village had been assaulted, a few kidnaped and taken up the mountain and raped. For weeks I slept with a knife under my pillow resolved I’d kill him if he tried to break into our house." She paused, her throat grown dry, her voice a little hoarser. "But he never tried to speak to me. Yet, several times a week there were bars of chocolate, a chunk of cheese, a loaf of bread outside my door. In the beginning I swore not to touch them, to throw them away. But food was scarce and my child had to eat...so I used what the soldier left. Yet I never let myself think kindly of him. I knew a vulture does not become a dove."

Her grandmother fell silent again, her head bent slightly, as if remembering were an effort. When she resumed speaking, her voice had become strangely softer.

"There was a morning in the spring," her grandmother said. "I heard someone outside and I opened the door. This German soldier stood there holding a small clutch of flowers. For the first time I saw what he looked like and I was surprised how young he was, no more than nineteen or twenty. He looked as penitent as a boy caught in some mischievous act. I felt fear but felt I also needed to show some gratitude for the food he’d provided us. Still on my guard, resolved to fight like a wolf if he touched me, I let him into the house. I made tea and we sat like you and I are sitting now, by the fire. I confess I was nervous, but he seemed so young. I didn’t think he meant to harm us."

The grandmother seemed suddenly unaware of Marina’s presence, the unleashing of memories from her past obscuring the immediacy of the moment.

"His hair was blonde and silky, his eyes blue," her grandmother said, "He was fairer in a way that was different from the other blonde Germans with their washed-out complexions. I think to make himself look older he wore a mustache, a foolish sprout of hair that drooped over his lower lip. He had learned some Greek and we were able to exchange a few sentences. He came from a city in Germany called Ham-borg," the old woman stumbled over the word. "He had been a student in university when the war began and he was conscripted. He spoke of someday returning home and studying again. He wanted to be an artist."

Her grandmother suddenly seemed to catch herself. She stared in aggravation at Marina.
“The wine and the fire have rattled my senses," she said impatiently. "Listen to me babbling now like a flabby-tongued old woman. That’s enough."

"I’m grateful you’re telling me the story, grandmother," Marina said. "How long did the Germans stay in the village?"

"We heard the English and American armies had landed in France and were advancing across Europe," her grandmother said. "We knew that had to be true when the soldiers who garrisoned our village just left. One Sunday they were here and on Monday they were gone."

"Do you know if that young German soldier ever made it home?"

"How would I know that?" her grandmother snapped. "He might have made it home or he could have been killed in the war. It made no difference to me." The old woman rose stiffly. "It’s time we were in bed," she said. "You have a long drive tomorrow and need your rest."

Less than two months after Marina had returned to Athens, a telephone call from Father Basil informed her that her grandmother Evdoxia had died. Marina drove to the village for a final time and attended a funeral once more as she had when her father and mother died. Father Basil conducted the service while Stephanos, the aged cantor chanted the lament in his hoarse, unsteady voice. Lying stiff and straight in her pine coffin her grandmother looked as stern and unforgiving in death as she had appeared in life.

After the service, the villagers formed a solemn procession behind the cart carrying the casket to the cemetery. As they clustered about the newly opened grave to view the coffin being lowered into the ground, Marina remembered what her grandmother had said about the villagers attending the funeral only to make sure the old virago was dead.

They interred her grandmother beside the graves of her husband and Marina’s parents. In that small plot of earth, her mother, father and grandmother would be reunited for eternity. If the dead could speak perhaps her grandmother would continue the bad temper and abuse she had heaped upon her son and daughter-in-law while they lived.

Knowing she would never return to the village again, Marina made arrangements to sell the small family house and land. She spent the following few days disposing of most of the furniture in the house by giving the pieces to neighbors. She kept a few personal items that belonged to her mother, some embroidery and miniature icons, a gold locket and a necklace.

The last item she opened was a small trunk she remembered belonged to her grandmother. The trunk which was stored in a corner of the fruit cellar appeared not to have been opened in decades and was covered with dust and the webs of spiders. As she struggled and finally opened the lid, the rusty hinges creaked noisily and the trunk’s interior emitted a noxious odor, the way a grave might smell if it were opened after many years.

The trunk contained what must have been her grandmother’s bridal dress, once white but through the years faded to a dreary gray. There was a bible, the binding and pages exuding a stale aroma, There were a pair of faded and withered wedding crowns so old and brittle that the flower petals snapped apart when Marina touched them.

Then, at the very bottom of the trunk, Marina found a parcel wrapped carefully in cotton cloth. She unfolded the fabric and found a series of paintings, a few in watercolor but most of them done in tempera, the dry pigment mixed with water and yoke of egg.

There were paintings of some of the villagers. She recognized Father Basil, Aspasia Pyrhos, Theofilos Verzas. The painting of Theofilos was of the old man sitting on the stoop outside his house, his hands folded in his lap, a sadness in his face. None of them were signed but she suspected they must have been painted by the young German soldier who aspired to be an artist. Marina doubted that any of the subjects had posed so the soldier must have drawn them from memory but they were eerily accurate in capturing the resignation in the countenances of each one.

There was a painting of a village door, a blue door, marred with scratches near the base that a cat might have made. The door was closed but one expected that any moment it might open and the villager who lived in it would walk out. There were depictions of the landscape, as well. In one painting of the mountain looming above the village one could tell it was summer. The wild flowers in full color had been captured so flawlessly she could almost feel the petals fluttering in the winds that swept down the slope from the peaks. The geraniums reflecting a brilliant light from the sun seemed poised to burst from the painting.

There was a painting of a group of German soldiers lounging on the terrace of the taverna, booted feet extending indolently out before them. There were bottles of wine on the table. Two of the soldiers were smoking and one held a wine glass to his lips. The bored, lazy posture of the uniformed men still conveyed a sense of tension and menace the villagers must have experienced through the occupation. There was a grim painting of a villager lying sprawled face down in the street, The grotesque extension of his arms and legs indicated the man had died a violent death. The brush of the artist had caught the tragic desolation of the scene.

What Marina felt in each of the paintings was the sensitivity of the artist, an empathy with both the beauty of the village as well as the suffering of the villagers. In his paintings he seemed to be offering an apology and remorse he could never have openly spoken.

When she came to the last few paintings in the parcel, she was startled to see they were nudes. At first the model appeared an unknown young woman until Marina recognized a piercing glow in the figure’s dark eyes. From a memory of her childhood, there was also something familiar about the braided black hair, the tight strands dangling across the woman’s shoulders. With a shock of recognition Marina realized the nude paintings were of her grandmother as a young woman.

She studied them slowly and intently, struck by their beauty. There was a nude of her grandmother kneeling, arms folded behind her back. Her braids framed her cheeks, garlanding the loveliness of her face. Her lips gleamed red and her black eyes were luminous. Providing a tiny splash of color, a peach blossom glistened in her hair.

One painting above all astonished and fascinated her. It was of her grandmother’s figure reclining in bed, a sheet drawn to her thighs and her body nude from her navel to her head. She seemed to be floating on the bed, her figure radiating a delicacy and grace. One of her arms was extended along the sheet, her hair now loosened from their braids tumbled in luxuriant splendor about her shoulders.

But it was her breasts that filled Marina with awe and admiration because they were the most beautiful she had ever seen, the mounds flawless, the nipples perfectly formed. One could sense the sexual passion in the painting, the languorous contentment and striking sensuality of a woman only an artist who was also her lover could have captured so stunningly and so well.

That night, the last night she would ever spend in the village, Marina could not sleep. The nudes of her grandmother as a young woman painted by the young soldier haunted her.

Nothing in those flawless, sensuous figures provided the slightest hint of the angry, embittered woman Marina had always known. In a stillness burnished by the light from a bright moon glowing at the window, she understood that what had forever perished with her grandmother’s death were the words and events that had transpired from the morning the young soldier first entered her grandmother’s house to drink a cup of tea and the paintings he had drawn so lovingly of her exquisite nakedness.

In that moment Marina couldn’t restrain her tears. Yet, she cried less with sadness than with wonder at the mysteries humans concealed within their hearts and carried with them into death. After a while, she turned away from the moon-bright window, trying to rest for her drive in the morning from the village to Athens.

©2009 NEOCORP MEDIA

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