Page 10 of The Silent Sister

‘It’s so good the way Eléni has settled. No more nightmares, eh? She and Maia have become great friends, haven’t they? When you see them miming and signing now, it doesn’t matter that Eléni doesn’t speak. She will one day, I’m sure of it.’

Cassia smiled at her sister, thinking back over the progress Eléni had made since the day they’d arrived. ‘I hope so. And it’s all down to you letting us stay here.’

‘It’s lovely hearing those two having fun, especially with Calix and Callista.’ Cassia and Eugenia were watching the girls play while they enjoyed a well-earned cup of iced coffee. They’d spent the morning collecting the zucchinis, which had ripened well over the last month.

‘It’s good for Maia. Living here, she had no one of her own age to play with, and now she’s learning to share, too. I’d always hoped she’d have a brother or sister one day, but the siren in Ithaca put paid to that.’ Eugenia became quiet.

What about the awful Georgios? Surely, he was to blame, too . Cassia kept her thoughts to herself and hoped her sister wasn’t still hankering after a reconciliation with her husband. ‘You may meet someone. You’re still young and very attractive.’

Eugenia shook her head. ‘Pah! No, I have finished with men.’

Cassia had declared the same thing when Nikos had died, but for a different reason. She could never love anyone as much as she had her dear husband, whereas Eugenia’s reason was that she had been betrayed by a womaniser. She changed the subject.

‘I’ve been thinking. Does Maia like drawing? The girls are doing so well pointing and miming, but I wondered if it would help if we let them draw what they want to say. It’s what we did back in Argostoli and it seemed to work. I’m convinced Eléni will talk one day.’

While Eugenia was in the house getting paper and pencils, Cassia heard Maia shouting from the other side of the house. When she turned the corner, she witnessed Eléni push Maia to the ground and stamp on her hand. Maia screamed in pain.

‘Eléni, stop! That’s very naughty. What’s going on? Maia, come here.’ She placed her arm around her niece.

Both girls were crying. Eléni got more and more upset. She pointed at Maia and then at her leg, where there was an angry red mark. She picked up a small rock, pointed at Maia again and mimed throwing the rock at her leg.

‘Are you saying Maia threw the rock at your leg?’

Eléni nodded and glared at Maia.

Cassia dropped her arm. Her niece wouldn’t make eye contact.

‘She wouldn’t play. Anyway, she’s not my friend anymore. She can’t talk.’

Eléni ran to Cassia and grabbed her thighs, burying her head in her skirt.

‘You mustn’t shout at her, Maia, and you certainly shouldn’t throw rocks at her. Eléni will talk when she’s ready, won’t you, agápi mou ?’

Sad brown eyes looked at Cassia and Eléni nodded.

Cassia took her hand and they returned to where her sister had set out paper and pencils on the table outside.

Eugenia took one look at Maia’s red-rimmed eyes and hugged her.

‘What on earth’s happened? Did I hear shouting? ’ The little girl remained silent.

‘They’ve had a bit of a falling out. It’s all dealt with now, isn’t it girls?’

Cassia had a bad feeling it wasn’t and this was just the start of Eléni being rejected because she couldn’t speak.

It had all started off with so much promise but of late, she could sense Maia’s frustration that their communication was one sided and had overheard her niece becoming annoyed with Eléni.

If she didn’t do what she wanted, Maia would raise her voice as if Eléni couldn’t hear her.

They were starting to spend more time alone, each playing with their kittens in different areas of the yard.

‘I notice it’s happening more and more,’ said Eugenia. ‘I hope it’s just a phase.’

* * *

The days started getting colder and they all spent more time indoors. Cassia was glad her sister had enough of a woodpile for them to burn logs on the open fire and dry their washing on two wooden clothes horses. It was time to collect the olives.

‘In Greece, they say a man’s worth can be gauged by how many olive trees he owns. I don’t think it can apply to a woman’s wealth. We may have many trees out there in our olive grove, but it doesn’t bring in many drachmae.’

Cassia was conscious that having two extra mouths to feed must be making it even harder for her sister. Although she helped with all the household chores, the cooking and the chickens and the goats, she contributed no actual money.

‘Have you ever thought of going back to nursing, Eugenia? I could look after Maia for you. I like to think I could make money by selling my tablecloths in the market, but when money is short I think that would be something people would cut back on.’

‘I could, I suppose. Georgios didn’t want any wife of his working.

Her place was in the home, he said, so I haven’t worked since we got married.

Over four years ago. I think I would need some training.

But I’ll think about it, thank you. Now there’s such a shortage of imported food, it’s getting harder and harder. ’

The girls played in the olive grove as the two women collected the ripe green fruit from the trees. They filled wicker basket after wicker basket and stored them under the covered slabbed area next to the outbuilding.

‘I’ve asked Savvas, a friend who owns an olive press, to collect them in his truck in the morning,’ Eugenia said. ‘We can all go, and you can see how we make the olive oil. All this lot will merely make enough for our own use. There’s not enough to sell.’

The sole income Eugenia seemed to get was from selling the hens’ eggs and bottles of the goats’ milk.

These were collected each day and left at the top of the olive grove that opened onto the road that Stavros had come down from Fiscardo.

A butcher who lived there travelled out each day and left money in the honesty box.

Eugenia was still well known as Georgios’s girl in the town.

No one would take advantage of her, certainly not the butcher who’d known the family for years.

With such a small amount of money coming in, and the fresh food from the garden and orchard becoming less now that winter approached, Cassia didn’t know how her sister fed them all as well as she did.

In the summer months, Eugenia had a small stall in Fiscardo market where she sold the excess fruit and vegetables.

But she’d only travelled there a handful of times since Cassia and Eléni had arrived.

‘Not worth the fuel it takes to get there,’ she’d said on one occasion as she unpacked the box containing her craftwork.

* * *

Savvas arrived bright and early the next morning. He loaded the baskets of olives onto the back of the truck, then invited Eugenia to sit next to them while Cassia and the two girls sat up front with him.

‘I don’t suppose you remember me from school, do you, Cassia? I was in the year above you. Knew your Nikos. Bad show that. The reason I’m helping your little sister now is because that maláka has left.’

‘What’s a maláka ?’ asked Maia.

‘A bad man, an idiot, agápi mou. ’

Cassia hoped her niece didn’t associate a bad man with her father or repeat the word. She’d been so young when he’d left, so she hoped she would have no memory of him. Eléni had also lost her father. Whether she would ever remember her parents was always niggling at the back of Cassia’s mind.

The journey to the pretty fishing town was a lot quicker by truck than the one they’d taken by horse and cart to get to Eugenia’s.

Cassia hadn’t left her sister’s smallholding in all that time and had relied on her to get provisions for the family.

She often wondered what reaction she’d get if she saw her mother again.

She just wasn’t ready to face her yet. Not ready to be rejected again, even though the cause of the rejection was no longer with her.

Memories of the night when her father had hurled abuse at her would remain with her until her dying days.

Nikos had been an undercover partisan fighting the Germans throughout the war.

When it ended and he returned to her unharmed, she never thought for a moment there would be another war, a civil war, where family members fought each other. Fascists versus communists.

Savvas turned the truck into a yard behind his house just a kilometre out of Fiscardo.

The gleam of the sun caused the sea to form a silver band in the distance.

A large dog that looked like a German shepherd mix to Cassia came bounding over to welcome Savvas.

Both little girls grasped Cassia’s legs, too afraid to go nearer.

‘Carina! Sit.’ The dog did as Savvas told her and he took a leash from his trouser pocket. ‘She won’t hurt you, girls, but she’s a bit excitable so I’ll take her inside.’

‘ Efcharistó, Savvas,’ Eugenia shouted after him as she dismounted from the back of the truck.

Cassia and Eugenia helped Savvas take the baskets of olives into a stone building at the top end of the yard, away from the house. Inside were shelves stacked with bottles of olive oil in different shades, from rich golden yellow to those with a greenish tinge.

‘I’ve never seen so many bottles of olive oil, Savvas. How come they are all different colours?’

He smiled at her and told her about the different varieties of fruit. ‘It also depends on how ripe the olives are.’

Cassia remembered being taken to watch the same process when she was a child and being just as mesmerised as Eléni and Maia were now. Everything was done by hand, from washing and sieving the fruit to grinding the olives between two millstones.

‘It doesn’t look like oil.’ Maia watched the thick green pulp Stavros was spreading onto circular hemp mats, stacking one on top of the other, ready for pressing.

‘You just wait,’ he said. Once the pile was high enough, a press squeezed the oil from the stack.

Vibrant green liquid flowed through to a container, from where it would be syphoned off into bottles.

‘There you are. That’s what you and Eléni will have drizzled over your salads and what Mamá will use to cook your favourite foods. ’

‘Not yet, though. When we get back, we’ll have to put the bottles in the dark in the cellar and wait for about six weeks. Isn’t that right, Savvas?’

Cassia reflected on how all the hours spent raking the olives from the trees to fill five large baskets the previous day had produced just a few bottles of olive oil.

Still, being able to use olives from your own trees must be satisfying.

Eugenia’s face confirmed it as she handled the large bottles glowing with her very own liquid gold , as she called it.

‘ Efcharistó, Savvas. Not just for this, but collecting us too. Like I told you, I’m out of fuel now, so these olives would have gone over too far if I’d had to wait to be able to afford to fill the truck up.’ Eugenia reddened.

Cassia was shocked. Things were worse than she’d thought.